Lord Emsworth and Others Page 6

  In the pantry, gazing sadly out on the stable yard, Beach the butler sat sipping a glass of port. In moments of mental stress, port was to Beach what Whiffle was to his employer, or, as we must now ruefully put it, his late employer. He flew to it when Life had got him down, and never before had Life got him down as it had now.

  Sitting there in his pantry, that pantry which so soon would know him no more, Beach-was in the depths. He mourned like some fallen monarch about to say good-bye to all his greatness and pass into exile. The die was cast. The end had come. Eighteen years, eighteen happy years, he had been in service at Blandings Castle, and now he must go forth, never to return. Little wonder that he sipped port. A weaker man would have swigged brandy.

  Something tempestuous burst open the door, and he perceived that his privacy had been invaded by Lord Emsworth. He rose, and stood staring. In all the eighteen years during which he had held office, his employer had never before paid a visit to the pantry.

  But it was not simply the other's presence that caused his gooseberry eyes to dilate to their full width, remarkable though that was. The mystery went deeper than that. For this was a strange, unfamiliar Lord Emsworth, a Lord Emsworth who glared where once he had blinked, who spurned the floor like a mettlesome charger, who banged tables and spilled port.

  'Beach,' thundered this changeling, 'what the dooce is all this dashed nonsense?'

  'M'lord?'

  'You know what I mean. About leaving me. Have you gone off your head?'

  A sigh shook the butler's massive frame.

  ‘I fear that in the circumstances it is inevitable, m'lord.'

  'Why? What are you talking about? Don't be an ass, Beach. Inevitable, indeed! Never heard such nonsense in my life. Why is it inevitable? Look me in the face and answer me that.'

  ‘I feel it is better to tender my resignation than to be dismissed, m'lord.'

  It was Lord Emsworth's turn to stare.

  'Dismissed?'

  ‘Yes, m'lord.'

  'Beach, you're tight.'

  'No, m'lord. Has not Mr Baxter spoken to you, m'lord?’

  'Of course he's spoken to me. He's been gassing away half the afternoon. What's that got to do with it?'

  Another sigh, seeming to start at the soles of his flat feet, set the butler's waistcoat rippling like corn in the wind.

  ‘I see that Mr Baxter has not yet informed you, m'lord. I assumed that he would have done so before this. But it is a mere matter of time, I fear, before he makes his report.'

  'Informed me of what?'

  ‘I regret to say, m'lord, that in a moment of uncontrollable impulse I shot Mr Baxter.'

  Lord Emsworth's pince-nez flew from his nose. Without them he could see only indistinctly, but he continued to stare at the butler, and in his eyes there appeared an expression which was a blend of several emotions. Amazement would have been chief of these, had it not been exceeded by affection. He did not speak, but his eyes said 'My brother!'

  ‘With Master George's airgun, m'lord, which her ladyship left in my custody. I regret to say, m'lord, that upon receipt of the weapon I went out into the grounds and came upon Mr Baxter walking near the shrubbery. I tried to resist the temptation, m'lord, but it was too keen. I was seized with an urge which I have not experienced since I was a small lad, and, in short, I

  ‘Plugged him?'

  ‘Yes, m'lord.'

  Lord Emsworth could put two and two together.

  ‘So that's what he was talking about in the library. That's what made him change his mind and send me that note. . . . How far was he away when you shot him?'

  'A matter of a few feet, m'lord. I endeavoured to conceal myself behind a tree, but he turned very sharply, and I was so convinced that he had detected me that I felt I had no alternative but to resign my situation before he could make his report to you, m'lord.'

  ‘And I thought you were leaving because my sister Connie shot you!'

  ‘Her ladyship did not shoot me, m'lord. It is true that the weapon exploded accidentally in her ladyship's hand, but the bullet passed me harmlessly.’

  Lord Emsworth snorted.

  ‘And she said she was a good shot! Can't even hit a sitting butler at six feet. Listen to me, Beach. I want no more of this nonsense of you resigning. Bless my soul, how do you suppose I could get on without you? How long have you been here?'

  'Eighteen years, m'lord.'

  ‘Eighteen years! And you talk of resigning! Of all the dashed absurd ideas!'

  'But I fear, m'lord, when her ladyship learns -'

  'Her ladyship won't learn. Baxter won't tell her. Baxter's gone.'

  'Gone, m'lord?'

  'Gone for ever.'

  'But I understood, m'lord -'

  'Never mind what you understood. He's gone. A few feet away, did you say?'

  ‘M'lord?'

  ‘Did you say Baxter was only a few feet away when you got him?'

  ‘Yes, m'lord.'

  ‘Ah!' said Lord Emsworth.

  He took the gun absently from the table and absently slipped a slug into the breech. He was feeling pleased and proud, as champions do whose pre-eminence is undisputed. Connie had missed a mark like Beach - practically a haystack - at six feet. Beach had plugged Baxter - true - and so had young George -but only with the muzzle of the gun almost touching the fellow. It had been left for him, Clarence, ninth Earl of Emsworth, to do the real shooting.....

  A damping thought came to diminish his complacency. It was as if a voice had whispered in his ear the word 'Fluke!' His jaw dropped a little, and he stood for a while, brooding. He felt flattened and discouraged.

  Had it been merely a fluke, that superb shot from the library window? Had he been mistaken in supposing that the ancient skill still lingered? Would he - which was what the voice was hinting - under similar conditions miss nine times out of ten?

  A stuttering, sputtering noise broke in upon his reverie. He raised his eyes to the window. Out in the stable yard, Rupert Baxter was starting up his motor-bicycle.

  'Mr Baxter, m'lord.'

  ‘I see him.'

  An overwhelming desire came upon Lord Emsworth to put this thing to the test, to silence for ever that taunting voice. 'How far away would you say he was, Beach?' 'Fully twenty yards, m'lord.' 'Watch!' said Lord Emsworth.

  Into the sputtering of the bicycle there cut a soft pop. It was followed by a sharp howl. Rupert Baxter, who had been leaning on the handle-bars, rose six inches with his hand to his thigh.

  'There!’ said Lord Emsworth.

  Baxter had ceased to rub his thigh. He was a man of intelligence, and he realized that anyone on the premises of Blandings Castle who wasted time hanging about and rubbing thighs was simply asking for it. To one trapped in this inferno of Blandings Castle instant flight was the only way of winning to safety. The sputtering rose to a crescendo, diminished, died away altogether. Rupert Baxter had gone on, touring England.

  Lord Emsworth was still gazing out of the window, raptly, as If looking at the X which marked the spot. For a long moment Beach stood staring reverently at his turned back. Then, as if performing some symbolic rite in keeping with the dignity of the scene, he reached for his glass of port and raised it in a silent toast.

  Peace reigned in the butler's pantry. The sweet air of the summer evening poured in through the open window. It was as if Nature had blown the All Clear.

  Blandings Castle was itself again.

  Chapter Two Buried Treasure

  The situation in Germany had come up for discussion in the bar parlour of the Angler's Rest, and it was generally agreed that Hitler was standing at the crossroads and would soon be compelled to do something definite. His present policy, said a Whisky and Splash, was mere shilly-shallying.

  'He'll have to let it grow or shave it off,' said the Whisky and Splash. 'He can't go on sitting on the fence like this. Either a man has a moustache or he has not. There can be no middle course.'

  The thoughtful pause which followed these words was
broken by a Small Bass.

  'Talking of moustaches,' he said, 'you don't seem to see any nowadays, not what I call moustaches. What's become of them?'

  'I've often asked myself the same question,' said a Gin and Italian Vermouth. 'Where, I've often asked myself, are the great sweeping moustaches of our boyhood? I've got a photograph of my grandfather as a young man in the album at home, and he's just a pair of eyes staring over a sort of quickset hedge.'

  'Special cups they used to have,' said the Small Bass, 'to keep the vegetation out of their coffee. Ah, well, those days are gone for ever.'

  Mr Mulliner shook his head.

  'Not entirely,' he said, stirring his hot Scotch and lemon. T admit that they are rarer than they used to be, but in the remoter rural districts you will still find these curious growths flourishing. What causes them to survive is partly boredom and partly the good, clean spirit of amateur sport which has made us Englishmen what we are.'

  The Small Bass said he did not quite get that.

  ‘What I mean,' said Mr Mulliner, 'is that life has not much to offer in the way of excitement to men who are buried in the country all the year round, so for want of anything better to do they grow moustaches at one another.’

  'Sort of competitively, as it were?'

  'Exactly. One landowner will start to try to surpass his neighbour in luxuriance of moustache, and the neighbour, inflamed, fights back at him. There is often a great deal of very intense feeling about these contests, with not a little wagering on the side. So, at least, my nephew Brancepeth, the artist, tells me. And he should know, for his present affluence and happiness are directly due to one of them.'

  'Did he grow a moustache?'

  ‘No. He was merely caught up in the whirlwind of the struggle for supremacy between Lord Bromborough, of Rumpling Hall, Lower Rumpling, Norfolk, and Sir Preston Potter, Bart., of Wapleigh Towers in the same county. Most of the vintage moustaches nowadays are to be found in Norfolk and Suffolk. I suppose the keen, moist sea air brings them on. Certainly it, or some equally stimulating agency, had brought on those of Lord Bromborough and Sir Preston Potter, for in the whole of England at that time there were probably no two finer specimens than the former's Joyeuse and the latter's Love in Idleness.

  It was Lord Bromborough's daughter Muriel (said Mr Mulliner) who had entitled these two moustaches in this manner. A poetic, imaginative girl, much addicted to reading old sagas and romances, she had adapted to modern conditions the practice of the ancient heroes of bestowing names on their favourite swords. King Arthur, you will remember, had his Excalibur, Charlemagne his Flamberge, Doolin of Mayence the famous Merveilleuse: and Muriel saw no reason why this custom should be allowed to die out. A pretty idea, she thought, and I thought it a pretty idea when my nephew Brancepeth told me of it, and he thought it a pretty idea when told of it by Muriel.

  For Muriel and Brancepeth had made one another's acquaintance some time before this story opens. The girl, unlike her father, who never left the ancestral acres, came often to London, and on one of these visits my nephew was introduced to her.

  With Brancepeth it seems to have been a case of love at first sight, and it was’ not long before Muriel admitted to returning his passion. She had been favourably attracted to him from the moment when she found that their dance steps fitted, and when some little while later he offered to paint her portrait for nothing there was a look in her eyes which it was impossible to mistake. As early as the middle of the first sitting he folded her in his arms, and she nestled against his waistcoat with a low, cooing gurgle. Both knew that in the other they had found a soul-mate.

  Such, then, was the relationship of the young couple, when one summer morning Brancepeth's telephone rang and, removing the receiver, he heard the voice of the girl he loved.

  'Hey, cocky,' she was saying .

  'What ho, reptile,' responded Brancepeth. 'Where are you speaking from?' 'Rumpling. Listen, I've got a job for you.' 'What sort of job?'

  ‘A commission. Father wants his portrait painted.’

  ‘Oh yes?'

  'Yes. His sinister design is to present it to the local Men's Club. I don't know what he's got against them. A nasty jar it'll be for the poor fellows when they learn of it.'

  'Why, is the old dad a bit of a gargoyle?'

  'You never spoke a truer word. All moustache and eyebrows. The former has to be seen to be believed.'

  'Pretty septic?'

  'My dear! Suppurating. Well, are you on? I've told Father

  you're the coming man.’

  'So I am,' said Brancepeth. Tm coming this afternoon.’ He was as good as his word. He caught the 3.15 train from Liverpool Street and at 7.20 alighted at the little station of Lower Rumpling, arriving at the Hall just in time to dress for dinner.

  Always a rapid dresser, tonight Brancepeth excelled himself, for he yearned to see Muriel once more after their extended separation. Racing down to the drawing-room, however, tying his tie as he went, he found that his impetuosity had brought him there too early. The only occupant of the room at the moment of his entrance was a portly man whom, from the evidence submitted, he took to be his host. Except for a few outlying ears and the tip of a nose, the fellow was entirely moustache, and until he set eyes upon it, Brancepeth tells me, he had never really appreciated the full significance of those opening words of Longfellow's Evangeline, 'This is the forest primeval.' He introduced himself courteously.

  'How do you do, Lord Bromborough? My name is Mulliner.'

  The other regarded him - over the zareba - with displeasure, it seemed to Brancepeth.

  'What do you mean - Lord Bromborough?' he snapped curtly.

  Brancepeth said he had meant Lord Bromborough.

  'I'm not Lord Bromborough,' said the man.

  Brancepeth was taken aback. 'Oh, aren't you?' he said. 'I'm sorry.'

  'I'm glad,' said the man. 'Whatever gave you the silly idea that I was old Bromborough?' 'I was told that he had a very fine moustache.' 'Who told you that?' 'His daughter.’ The other snorted.

  'You can't go by what a man's daughter says. She's biased. Prejudiced. Blinded by filial love, and all that sort of thing. If I wanted an opinion on a moustache, I wouldn't go to a man's daughter. I'd go to somebody who knew about moustaches. "Mr Walkinshaw," I'd say, or whatever the name might be . . . Bromborough's moustache a very fine moustache, in deed! Pshaw! Bromborough has a moustache - of a sort He is not clean-shaven - I concede that... but fine? Pooh. Absurd. Ridiculous. Preposterous. Never heard such nonsense in my life.'

  He turned pettishly away, and so hurt and offended was his manner that Brancepeth had no heart to continue the conversation. Muttering something about having forgotten his handkerchief, he sidled from the' room and hung about on the landing outside. And presently Muriel came tripping down the stairs, looking more beautiful than ever. She seemed delighted to see him.

  'Hullo, Brancepeth, you old bounder,' she said cordially. 'So you got here? What are you doing parked on the stairs? Why aren't you in the drawing-room?'

  Brancepeth shot a glance at the closed door and lowered his voice.

  'There's a hairy bird in there who wasn't any too matey. I thought it must be your father and accosted him as such, and he got extraordinarily peevish. He seemed to resent my saying that I had heard your father had a fine moustache.'

  The girl laughed.

  'Golly! You put your foot in it properly. Old Potter's madly jealous of Father's moustache. That was Sir Preston Potter, of Wapleigh Towers, one of our better-known local Barts. He and his son are staying here.' She broke off to address the butler, a kindly, silver-haired old man who at this moment mounted the stairs. 'Hullo, Phipps, are you ambling up to announce the tea and shrimps? You're a bit early. I don't think Father and Mr Potter are down yet. Ah, here's Father,' she said, as a brilliantly moustached man of middle age appeared. 'Father, this is Mr Mulliner.'

  Brancepeth eyed his host keenly as he shook hands, and his heart sank a little. He saw that the t
ask of committing this man to canvas was going to be a difficult one. The recent slurs of Sir Preston Potter had been entirely without justification. Lord Bromborough's moustache was an extraordinarily fine one, fully as lush as that which barred the public from getting a square view of the Baronet. It seemed to Brancepeth, indeed, that the job before him was more one for a landscape artist than a portrait painter.

  Sir Preston Potter, however, who now emerged from the drawing-room, clung stoutly to his opinion. He looked sneeringly at his rival.

  'You been clipping your moustache, Bromborough?'

  ‘Of course I have not been clipping my moustache,' replied Lord Bromborough shortly. It was only too plain that there was bad blood between the two men. 'What the dooce would I clip my moustache for? What makes you think I've been clipping my moustache?'

  'I thought it had shrunk,' said Sir Preston Potter. 'It looks very small to me, very small. Perhaps the moth's been at it'

  Lord Bromborough quivered beneath the coarse insult, but his patrician breeding checked the hot reply which rose to his lips. He was a host. Controlling himself with a strong effort, he turned the conversation to the subject of early mangold-wurzels; and it was while he was speaking of these with eloquence and even fire that a young man with butter-coloured hair came hurrying down the stairs.

  'Buck up, Edwin,' said Muriel impatiently. 'What's the idea of keeping us all waiting like this?'