Service With a Smile Page 6

  Lord Ickenham could readily imagine it. They would, he supposed, be laughing when they told the story to their grandchildren.

  ‘I asked them what they were laughing at, and they said it was at something funny which had happened on the previous afternoon. I found it hard to credit their story.’

  ‘I don’t wonder.’

  ‘I feel very indignant about the whole affair.’

  ‘I’m not surprised.’

  ‘Should I complain to Constance?’

  ‘I think I would do something more spirited than that.’

  ‘But what?’

  ‘Ah, that wants thinking over, doesn’t it? I’ll devote earnest thought to the matter, and if anything occurs to me, I’ll let you know. You wouldn’t consider mowing them down with a shotgun?’

  ‘Eh? No, I doubt if that would be advisable.’

  ‘Might cause remark, you feel?’ said Lord Ickenham. ‘Perhaps you’re right. Never mind. I’ll think of something else.’

  2

  When a visitor to a country house learns that his host, as to the stability of whose mental balance he has long entertained the gravest doubts, has suddenly jumped into a lake with all his clothes on, he cannot but feel concern. He shakes his head. He purses his lips and raises his eyebrows. Something has given, he says to himself, and strains have been cracked under. It was thus that the Duke of Dunstable reacted to the news of Lord Emsworth’s exploit.

  It was from the latter’s grandson George that he got the story. George was a small boy with ginger hair and freckles, and between him and the Duke there had sprung up one of those odd friendships which do sometimes spring up between the most unlikely persons. George was probably the only individual in three counties who actually enjoyed conversing with the Duke of Dunstable. If he had been asked wherein lay the other’s fascination, he would have replied that he liked watching the way he blew his moustache about when he talked. It was a spectacle that never wearied him.

  ‘I say,’ he said, coming on to the terrace where the Duke was sitting, ‘have you heard the latest?’

  The Duke, who had been brooding on the seeming impossibility of getting an egg boiled the way he liked it in this blasted house, came out of his thoughts. He spoke irritably. Owing to his tender years George had rather a high voice, and the sudden sound of it had made him bite his tongue.

  ‘Don’t come squeaking in my ear like that, boy. Blow your horn or something. What did you say?’

  ‘I asked if you’d heard the latest?’

  ‘Latest what?’

  ‘Front page news. Big scoop. Grandpapa jumped into the lake.’

  ‘What are you talking about?’

  ‘It’s true. The country’s ringing with it. I had it from one of the gardeners who saw him. Grandpapa was walking along by the lake, and suddenly he stopped and paused for a moment in thought. Then he did a swan dive,’ said George, and eyed the moustache expectantly.

  He was not disappointed. It danced like an autumn leaf before a gale.

  ‘He jumped into the lake?’

  ‘That’s what he did, big boy.’

  ‘Don’t call me big boy.’

  ‘Okay, chief.’

  The Duke puffed awhile.

  ‘You say this gardener saw him jump into the water?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘With his clothes on?’

  ‘That’s right. Accoutred as he was, he plunged in,’ said George, who in the preceding term at his school had had to write out a familiar passage from Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar fifty times for bringing a white mouse into the classroom. ‘Pretty sporting, don’t you think, an old egg like Grandpapa?’

  ‘What do you mean — old egg?’

  ‘Well, he must be getting on for a hundred.’

  ‘He is the same age as myself.’

  ‘Oh?’ said George, who supposed the Duke had long since passed the hundred mark.

  ‘But what the deuce made him do a thing like that?’

  ‘Oh, just thought he would, I suppose. Coo — I wish I’d been there with my camera,’ said George, and went on his way. And a few moments later, having pondered deeply on this sensational development, the Duke rose and stumped off in search of Lady Constance. What he had heard convinced him of the need for a summit meeting.

  He found her in her sitting-room. Lavender Briggs was with her, all spectacles and notebook. It was part of her secretarial duties to look in at this hour for general instructions.

  ‘Hoy!’ he boomed like something breaking the sound barrier.

  ‘Oh, Alaric!’ said Lady Constance, startled and annoyed. ‘I do wish you would knock.’

  ‘Less of the “Oh, Alaric! “‘ said the Duke, who was always firm with this sort of thing, ‘and where’s the sense in knocking? I want to talk to you on a matter of the utmost importance, and it’s private. Pop off, you,’ he said to Lavender Briggs. He was a man who had a short way with underlings. ‘It’s about Emsworth.’

  ‘What about him?’

  ‘I’ll tell you what about him, just as soon as this pie-faced female has removed herself. Don’t want her muscling in with her ears sticking up, hearing every word I say.’

  ‘You had better leave us, Miss Briggs.’

  ‘Quate,’ said Lavender Briggs, withdrawing haughtily.

  ‘Really, Alaric,’ said Lady Constance as the door closed, speaking with the frankness of one who had known him for a lifetime, ‘you have the manners of a pig.’

  The Duke reacted powerfully to the criticism. He banged the desk with a ham-like hand, upsetting, in the order named, an inkpot, two framed photographs and a vase of roses.

  ‘Pig! That’s the operative word. It’s the pig I came to talk about.’

  Lady Constance would have preferred to talk about the ink-pot, the two photographs and the vase of roses, but he gave her no opportunity. He had always been a difficult man to stop.

  ‘It’s at the bottom of the whole thing. It’s a thoroughly bad influence on him. Stop messing about with that ink and listen to me. I say it’s the pig that has made him what he is today.’

  ‘Oh, dear! Made whom what he is today?’

  ‘Emsworth, of course, ass. Who do you think I meant? Constance,’ said the Duke in that loud, carrying voice of his, ‘I’ve told you this before, and I tell it to you again. If Emsworth is to be saved from the loony bin, that pig must be removed from his life.’

  ‘Don’t shout so, Alaric.’

  ‘I will shout. I feel very strongly on the matter. The pig is affecting his brain, not that he ever had much. Remember the time when he told me he wanted to enter it for the Derby?’

  ‘I spoke to him about that. He said he didn’t.’

  ‘Well, I say he did! Heard him distinctly. Anyway, be that as it may, you can’t deny that he’s half way round the bend, and I maintain that the pig is responsible. It’s at the root of his mental unbalance.’

  ‘Clarence is not mentally unbalanced!’

  ‘He isn’t, isn’t he? That’s what you think. How about what happened this morning? You know the lake?’

  ‘Of course I know the lake.’

  ‘He was walking beside it.’

  ‘Why shouldn’t he walk beside the lake?’

  ‘I’m not saying he shouldn’t walk beside the lake. He can walk beside the lake till his eyes bubble, as far as I’m concerned. But when it comes to jumping in with all. his clothes on, it makes one think a bit.’

  ‘What!’

  ‘That’s what he did, so young George informs me.’

  ‘With his clothes on?’

  ‘Accoutred as he was.’

  ‘Well, really!’

  ‘Don’t know why you seem surprised. It didn’t surprise me. I was saddened, yes, but not surprised. Been expecting something like this for a long time. It’s just the sort of thing a man would do whose intellect had been sapped by constant association with a pig. And that’s why I tell you that the pig must go. Eliminate it, and all may still be well. I’m not saying,
that anything could make Emsworth actually sane, one mustn’t expect miracles, but I’m convinced that if he hadn’t this pig to unsettle him all the time, you would see a marked improvement. He’d be an altogether brighter, less potty man. Well, say something, woman. Don’t just sit there. Take steps, take steps.’

  ‘What steps?’

  ‘Slip somebody a couple of quid to smuggle the ghastly animal away somewhere, thus removing Emsworth from its sphere of influence.’

  ‘My dear Alaric!’

  ‘It’s the only course to pursue. He won’t sell the creature, though if I’ve asked him once, I’ve asked him a dozen times. “I’ll give you five hundred pounds cash down for that bulbous mass of lard and snuffle,” I said to him. “Say the word,” I said, “and I’ll have the revolting object shipped off right away to my place in Wiltshire, paying all the expenses of removal.” He refused, and was offensive about it, too. The man’s besotted.’

  ‘But you don’t keep pigs.’

  ‘I know I don’t, not such a silly ass, but I’m prepared to pay five hundred pounds for this one.’

  Lady Constance’s eyes widened.

  ‘Just to do Clarence good?’ she said, amazed. She had not credited her guest with this altruism.

  ‘Certainly not,’ said the Duke, offended that he should be supposed capable of any such motive. ‘I can make a bit of money out of it. I know someone who’ll give me two thousand for the animal.’

  ‘Good gracious! Who … Oh, Clarence!’

  Lord Emsworth had burst into the room, plainly in the grip of some strong emotion. His mild eyes were gleaming through their pince-nez, and he quivered like a tuning-fork.

  ‘Connie,’ he cried, and you could see that he had been pushed just so far. ‘You’ve got to do something about these infernal boys!’

  Lady Constance sighed wearily. This was one of those trying mornings.

  ‘What boys? Do you mean the Church Lads?’

  ‘Eh? Yes, precisely. They should never have been let into the place. What do you think I just found one of them doing? He was leaning over the rail of Empress’s sty, where he had no business to be, and he was dangling a potato on a string in front of her nose and jerking it away when she snapped at it. Might have ruined her digestion for days. You’ve got to do something about it, Constance. The boy must be apprehended and severely punished.’

  ‘Oh, Clarence!’

  ‘I insist. He must be given a sharp lesson.’

  ‘Changing the subject,’ said the Duke, ‘will you sell me that foul pig of yours? I’ll give you six hundred pounds.’

  Lord Emsworth stared at him, revolted. His eyes glowed hotly behind their pince-nez. Not even George Cyril Wellbeloved could have disliked dukes more.

  ‘Of course I won’t. I’ve told you a dozen times. Nothing would induce me to sell the Empress.’

  ‘Six hundred pounds. That’s a firm offer!’

  ‘I don’t want six hundred pounds. I’ve got plenty of money, plenty.’

  ‘Clarence,’ said Lady Constance, also changing the subject, ‘is it true that you jumped into the lake this morning with all your clothes on?’

  ‘Eh? What? Yes, certainly. I couldn’t wait to take them off. Only it was a log.’

  ‘What was a log?’

  ‘The boy.’

  ‘What boy?’

  ‘The log. But I can’t stand here talking,’ said Lord Emsworth impatiently, and hurried out, turning at the door to repeat to Lady Constance that she must do something about it.

  The Duke blew his moustache up a few inches.

  ‘You see? What did I tell you? Definitely barmy. Reached the gibbering stage, and may get dangerous at any moment. But I was speaking about this fellow who’ll give two thousand for the porker. I used to know him years ago when I was a young man in London. Pyke was his name then. Stinker Pyke we used to call him. Then he made a packet by running all those papers and magazines and things and got a peerage. Calls himself Lord Tilbury now. You’ve met him. He says he’s stayed here.’

  ‘Yes, he was here for a short time. My brother Galahad used to know him. Miss Briggs was his secretary before she came to us.’

  ‘I’m not interested in Miss Briggs, blast her spectacles.’

  ‘I merely mentioned it.’

  ‘Well, don’t mention it again. Now you’ve made me forget what I was going to tell you. Oh, yes. I ran into Stinker at the club the other day, and we got talking and I said I was coming to Blandings, and the subject of the pig came up. It appears that he keeps pigs at his place in Buckinghamshire, just the sort of potty thing he would do, and he has coveted this ghastly animal of Emsworth’s ever since he saw it. He specifically told me that he would give me two thousand pounds to add it to his piggery.’

  ‘How extraordinary!’

  ‘Opportunity of a lifetime.’

  ‘Clarence must be made to see reason.’

  ‘Who’s going to make him? I can’t. You heard him just now. And you won’t pinch the creature. The thing’s an impasse. No co-operation, that’s what’s wrong with this damned place. Very doubtful if I’ll ever come here again. You’ll miss me, but that can’t be helped. Only yourself to blame. I’m going for a walk,’ said the Duke, and proceeded to do so.

  3

  Lord Emsworth was a man with little of the aggressor in his spiritual make-up. He believed in living and letting live. Except for his sister Constance, his secretary Lavender Briggs, the Duke of Dunstable and his younger son Frederick, now fortunately residing in America, few things were able to ruffle him. Placid is the word that springs to the lips.

  But the Church Lads had pierced his armour, and he found resentment growing within him like some shrub that has been treated with a patent fertilizer. He brooded bleakly on the injuries he had suffered at the hands of these juvenile delinquents.

  The top-hat incident he could have overlooked, for he knew that when small boys are confronted with a man wearing that type of headgear and there is a crusty roll within reach, they are almost bound to lose their calm judgment. The happy laughter which had greeted him as he emerged from the lake had gashed him like a knife, but with a powerful effort he might have excused it. But in upsetting Empress of Blandings’ delicately attuned digestive system by dangling potatoes before her eyes and jerking them away as she snapped at them they had gone too far. As Hamlet would have put it, their offence was rank and smelled to heaven. And if heaven would not mete out retribution to them — and there was not a sign so far of any activity in the front office — somebody else would have to attend to it. And that somebody, he was convinced, was Ickenham. He had left Ickenham pondering on the situation, and who knew that by this time his fertile mind might not have hit on a suitable method of vengeance.

  On leaving Lady Constance’s boudoir, accordingly, he made his way to the hammock and bleated his story into the other’s ear. Nor was he disappointed in its reception. Where a man of coarser fibre might have laughed, Lord Ickenham was gravity itself. By not so much as a twitch of the lip did he suggest that he found anything amusing in his host’s narrative.

  ‘A potato?’ he said, knitting his brow.

  ‘A large potato.’

  ‘On a string?’

  ‘Yes, on a string.’

  ‘And the boy jerked it away?’

  ‘Repeatedly. It must have distressed the Empress greatly. She is passionately fond of potatoes.’

  ‘And you wish to retaliate? You think that something in the nature of a counter move is required?’

  ‘Eh? Yes, certainly:’

  ‘Then how very fortunate,’ said Lord Ickenham heartily, ‘that I can put you in the way of making it. I throw it out merely as a suggestion, you understand, but I know what I would do in your place.’

  ‘What is that?’

  ‘I’d bide my time and sneak down to the lake in the small hours of the morning and cut the ropes of their tent, as one used to do at the Public Schools Camp at Aldershot in the brave days when I was somewhat younger. T
hat, to my mind, would be the retort courteous.’

  ‘God bless my soul!’ said Lord Emsworth.

  He spoke with sudden animation. Forty-six years had rolled away from him, the forty-six years which had passed since, a junior member of the Eton contingent at the Aldershot camp, he had been mixed up in that sort of thing. Then he had been on the receiving, not the giving, end. Some young desperadoes from a school allergic to Eton had cut the ropes of the guard tent in which he was reposing, and he could recall vividly his emotions on suddenly finding himself entangled in a cocoon of canvas. His whole life — some fifteen years at that time — had passed before him, and in suggesting a similar experience for these Church Lads Ickenham, he realized, had shown his usual practical good sense.

  For a moment his mild face glowed. Then the light died out of it. Would it, he was asking himself, be altogether prudent to embark on an enterprise of which Connie must inevitably disapprove? Connie had an uncanny knack of finding out things, and if she were to trace this righteous act of vengeance to him…

  ‘I’ll turn it over in my mind,’ he said. ‘Thank you very much for the suggestion.’

  ‘Not at all,’ said Lord Ickenham. ‘Ponder on it at your leisure.’

  Chapter Five

  1

  The Duke’s walk took him to the Empress’s sty, and he lit a cigar and stood leaning on the rail, gazing at her as she made a late breakfast.

  Except for a certain fullness of figure, the Duke of Dunstable and Empress of Blandings had little in common. There was no fusion between their souls. The next ten minutes accordingly saw nothing in the nature of an exchange of ideas. The Duke smoked his cigar in silence, the Empress in her single-minded way devoted herself to the consumption of her daily nourishment amounting to fifty-seven thousand five hundred calories.