Blandings Castle and Elsewhere Page 7

  Whispering the magic syllables, he sped to the cloak-room and retrieved his hat. Murmuring them over and over again, he sprang into a cab. He was still repeating them as the train moved out of the station; and he would doubtless have gone on repeating them all the way to Market Blandings, had he not, as was his invariable practice when travelling by rail, fallen asleep after the first ten minutes of the journey.

  The stopping of the train at Swindon Junction woke him with a start. He sat up, wondering, after his usual fashion on these occasions, who and where he was. Memory returned to him, but a memory that was, alas, incomplete. He remembered his name. He remembered that he was on his way home from a visit to London. But what it was that you said to a pig when inviting it to drop in for a bite of dinner he had completely forgotten.

  It was the opinion of Lady Constance Keeble, expressed verbally during dinner in the brief intervals when they were alone, and by means of silent telepathy when Beach, the butler, was adding his dignified presence to the proceedings, that her brother Clarence, in his expedition to London to put matters plainly to James Belford, had made an outstanding idiot of himself.

  There had been no need whatever to invite the man Belford to lunch; but, having invited him to lunch, to leave him sitting, without having clearly stated that Angela would have no money for four years, was the act of a congenital imbecile. Lady Constance had been aware ever since their childhood days that her brother had about as much sense as a—

  Here Beach entered, superintending the bringing-in of the savoury, and she had been obliged to suspend her remarks.

  This sort of conversation is never agreeable to a sensitive man, and his lordship had removed himself from the danger zone as soon as he could manage it. He was now seated in the library, sipping port and straining a brain which Nature had never intended for hard exercise in an effort to bring back that word of magic of which his unfortunate habit of sleeping in trains had robbed him.

  'Pig–'

  He could remember as far as that; but of what avail was a single syllable? Besides, weak as his memory was, he could recall that the whole gist or nub of the thing lay in the syllable that followed. The 'pig' was a mere preliminary.

  Lord Emsworth finished his port and got up. He felt restless, stifled. The summer night seemed to call to him like some silvervoiced swineherd calling to his pig. Possibly, he thought, a breath of fresh air might stimulate his brain-cells. He wandered downstairs; and, having dug a shocking old slouch hat out of the cupboard where he hid it to keep his sister Constance from impounding and burning it, he strode heavily out into the garden.

  He was pottering aimlessly to and fro in the parts adjacent to the rear of the castle when there appeared in his path a slender female form. He recognized it without pleasure. Any unbiased judge would have said that his niece Angela, standing there in the soft, pale light, looked like some dainty spirit of the Moon. Lord Emsworth was not an unbiased judge. To him Angela merely looked like Trouble. The march of civilization has given the modern girl a vocabulary and an ability to use it which her grandmother never had. Lord Emsworth would not have minded meeting Angela's grandmother a bit.

  'Is that you, my dear?' he said nervously.

  'Yes.'

  'I didn't see you at dinner.'

  'I didn't want any dinner. The food would have choked me. I can't eat.'

  'It's precisely the same with my pig,' said his lordship. 'Young Belford tells me—'

  Into Angela's queenly disdain there flashed a sudden animation.

  'Have you seen Jimmy? What did he say?'

  'That's just what I can't remember. It began with the word

  "Pig" —'

  'But after he had finished talking about you, I mean. Didn't he say anything about coming down here?'

  'Not that I remember.'

  'I expect you weren't listening. You've got a very annoying habit, Uncle Clarence,' said Angela maternally, 'of switching your mind off and just going blah when people are talking to you. It gets you very much disliked on all sides. Didn't Jimmy say anything about me?'

  'I fancy so. Yes, I am nearly sure he did.'

  'Well, what?'

  'I cannot remember.'

  There was a sharp clicking noise in the darkness. It was caused by Angela's upper front teeth meeting her lower front teeth; and was followed by a sort of wordless exclamation. It seemed only too plain that the love and respect which a niece should have for an uncle were in the present instance at a very low ebb.

  'I wish you wouldn't do that,' said Lord Emsworth plaintively.

  'Do what?'

  'Make clicking noises at me.'

  'I will make clicking noises at you. You know perfectly well, Uncle Clarence, that you are behaving like a bohunkus.'

  A what?'

  A bonhunkus,' explained his niece coldly, 'is a very inferior sort of worm. Not the kind of worm that you see on lawns, which you can respect, but a really degraded species.'

  'I wish you would go in, my dear,' said Lord Emsworth. 'The night air may give you a chill.'

  'I won't go in. I came out here to look at the moon and think of Jimmy. What are you doing out here, if it comes to that?'

  'I came here to think. I am greatly exercised about my pig, Empress of Blandings. For two days she has refused her food, and young Belford says she will not eat until she hears the proper call or cry. He very kindly taught it to me, but unfortunately I have forgotten it.'

  'I wonder you had the nerve to ask Jimmy to teach you pig calls, considering the way you're treating him.'

  'But—'

  'Like a leper, or something. And all I can say is that, if you remember this call of his, and it makes the Empress eat, you ought to be ashamed of yourself if you still refuse to let me marry him.'

  'My dear,' said Lord Emsworth earnestly, 'if through young Belford's instrumentality Empress of Blandings is induced to take nourishment once more, there is nothing I will refuse him – nothing.'

  'Honour bright?'

  'I give you my solemn word.'

  'You won't let Aunt Constance bully you out of it?'

  Lord Emsworth drew himself up.

  'Certainly not,' he said proudly. 'I am always ready to listen to your Aunt Constance's views, but there are certain matters where I claim the right to act according to my own judgment.' He paused and stood musing. 'It began with the word "Pig—"'

  From somewhere near at hand music made itself heard. The servants' hall, its day's labours ended, was refreshing itself with the housekeeper's gramophone. To Lord Emsworth the strains were merely an additional annoyance. He was not fond of music. It reminded him of his younger son Frederick, a flat but persevering songster both in and out of the bath.

  'Yes, I can distinctly recall as much as that. Pig – Pig—'

  'WHO—'

  Lord Emsworth leaped in the air. It was as if an electric shock had been applied to his person.

  'WHO stole my heart away?' howled the gramophone. 'WHO—?'

  The peace of the summer night was shattered by a triumphant shout.

  'Pig-HOO-o-o-o-ey!'

  A window opened. A large, bald head appeared. A dignified voice spoke.

  'Who is there? Who is making that noise?'

  'Beach!' cried Lord Emsworth. 'Come out here at once.'

  'Very good, your lordship.'

  And presently the beautiful night was made still more lovely by the added attraction of the butler's presence.

  'Beach, listen to this.'

  'Very good, your lordship.'

  'Pig-hoo-o-o-o-ey!'

  'Very good, your lordship.'

  'Now you do it.'

  'I, your lordship?'

  'Yes. It's a way you call pigs.'

  'I do not call pigs, your lordship,' said the butler coldly.

  'What do you want Beach to do it for?' asked Angela.

  'Two heads are better than one. If we both learn it, it will not matter should I forget it again.'

  'By Jove, yes! Come on, Beach
. Push it over the thorax,' urged the girl eagerly. 'You don't know it, but this is a matter of life and death. At-a-boy, Beach! Inflate the lungs and go to it.'

  It had been the butler's intention, prefacing his remarks with the statement that he had been in service at the castle for eighteen years, to explain frigidly to Lord Emsworth that it was not his place to stand in the moonlight practising pig-calls. If, he would have gone on to add, his lordship saw the matter from a different angle, then it was his, Beach's, painful duty to tender his resignation, to become effective one month from that day.

  But the intervention of Angela made this impossible to a man of chivalry and heart. A paternal fondness for the girl, dating from the days when he had stooped to enacting – and very convincingly, too, for his was a figure that lent itself to the impersonation – the rôle of a hippopotamus for her childish amusement, checked the words he would have uttered. She was looking at him with bright eyes, and even the rendering of pig-noises seemed a small sacrifice to make for her sake.

  'Very good, your lordship,' he said in a low voice, his face pale and set in the moonlight. 'I shall endeavour to give satisfaction. I would merely advance the suggestion, your lordship, that we move a few steps farther away from the vicinity of the servants' hall. If I were to be overheard by any of the lower domestics, it would weaken my position as a disciplinary force.'

  'What chumps we are!' cried Angela, inspired. 'The place to do it is outside the Empress's sty. Then, if it works, we'll see it working.'

  Lord Emsworth found this a little abstruse, but after a moment he got it.

  'Angela,' he said, 'you are a very intelligent girl. Where you get your brains from, I don't know. Not from my side of the family.'

  The bijou residence of the Empress of Blandings looked very snug and attractive in the moonlight. But beneath even the beautiful things of life there is always an underlying sadness. This was supplied in the present instance by a long, low trough, only too plainly full to the brim of succulent mash and acorns. The fast, obviously, was still in progress.

  The sty stood some considerable distance from the castle walls, so that there had been ample opportunity for Lord Emsworth to rehearse his little company during the journey. By the time they had ranged themselves against the rails, his two assistants were letter-perfect.

  'Now,' said his lordship.

  There floated out upon the summer night a strange composite sound that sent the birds roosting in the trees above shooting off their perches like rockets. Angela's clear soprano rang out like the voice of the village blacksmith's daughter. Lord Emsworth contributed a reedy tenor. And the bass notes of Beach probably did more to startle the birds than any other one item in the programme.

  They paused and listened. Inside the Empress's boudoir there sounded the movement of a heavy body. There was an inquiring grunt. The next moment the sacking that covered the doorway was pushed aside, and the noble animal emerged.

  'Now!' said Lord Emsworth again.

  Once more that musical cry shattered the silence of the night. But it brought no responsive movement from Empress of Blandings. She stood there motionless, her nose elevated, her ears hanging down, her eyes everywhere but on the trough where, by rights, she should now have been digging in and getting hers. A chill disappointment crept over Lord Emsworth, to be succeeded by a gust of petulant anger.

  'I might have known it,' he said bitterly. 'That young scoundrel was deceiving me. He was playing a joke on me.'

  'He wasn't,' cried Angela indignantly. 'Was he, Beach?'

  'Not knowing the circumstances, miss, I cannot venture an opinion.'

  'Well, why has it no effect, then?' demanded Lord Emsworth.

  'You can't expect it to work right away. We've got her stirred up, haven't we? She's thinking it over, isn't she? Once more will do the trick. Ready, Beach?'

  'Quite ready, miss.'

  'Then when I say three. And this time, Uncle Clarence, do please for goodness' sake not yowl like you did before. It was enough to put any pig off. Let it come out quite easily and gracefully. Now, then. One, two – three!'

  The echoes died away. And as they did so a voice spoke.

  'Community singing?'

  'Jimmy!' cried Angela, whisking round.

  'Hullo, Angela. Hullo, Lord Emsworth. Hullo, Beach.'

  'Good evening, sir. Happy to see you once more.'

  'Thanks. I'm spending a few days at the Vicarage with my father. I got down here by the five-five.'

  Lord Emsworth cut peevishly in upon these civilities.

  'Young man,' he said, 'what do you mean by telling me that my pig would respond to that cry? It does nothing of the kind.'

  'You can't have done it right.'

  'I did it precisely as you instructed me. I have had, moreover, the assistance of Beach here and my niece Angela—'

  'Let's hear a sample.'

  Lord Emsworth cleared his throat.

  'Pig-hoo-o-o-o-ey!'

  James Belford shook his head.

  'Nothing like it,' he said. 'You want to begin the "Hoo" in a low minor of two quarter notes in four-four time. From this build gradually to a higher note, until at last the voice is soaring in full crescendo, reaching F sharp on the natural scale and dwelling for two retarded half-notes, then breaking into a shower of accidental grace-notes.'

  'God bless my soul!' said Lord Emsworth, appalled. 'I shall never be able to do it.'

  'Jimmy will do it for you,' said Angela. 'Now that he's engaged to me, he'll be one of the family and always popping about here. He can do it every day till the show is over.'

  James Belford nodded.

  'I think that would be the wisest plan. It is doubtful if an amateur could ever produce real results. You need a voice that has been trained on the open prairie and that has gathered richness and strength from competing with tornadoes. You need a manly, sunburned, wind-scorched voice with a suggestion in it of the crackling of corn husks and the whisper of evening breezes in the fodder. Like this!'

  Resting his hands on the rail before him, James Belford swelled before their eyes like a young balloon. The muscles on his cheekbones stood out, his forehead became corrugated, his ears seemed to shimmer. Then, at the very height of the tension, he let it go like, as the poet beautifully puts it, the sound of a great Amen.

  'Pig-HOOOOO-OOO-OOO-O-O-ey!'

  They looked at him, awed. Slowly, fading off across hill and dale, the vast bellow died away. And suddenly, as it died, another, softer sound succeeded it. A sort of gulpy, gurgly, plobby, squishy, wofflesome sound, like a thousand eager men drinking soup in a foreign restaurant. And, as he heard it, Lord Emsworth uttered a cry of rapture.

  The Empress was feeding.

  4 COMPANY FOR GERTRUDE

  THE Hon. Freddie Threepwood, married to the charming daughter of Donaldson's Dog-Biscuits of Long Island City, N.Y., and sent home by his father-in-law to stimulate the sale of the firm's products in England, naturally thought right away of his aunt Georgiana. There, he reasoned, was a woman who positively ate dog-biscuits. She had owned, when he was last in the country, a matter of four Pekes, two Poms, a Yorkshire terrier, five Sealyhams, a Borzoi and an Airedale: and if that didn't constitute a promising market for Donaldson's Dog-Joy ('Get your dog thinking the Donaldson way'), he would like to know what did. The Alcester connection ought, he considered, to be good for at least ten of the half-crown cellophane-sealed packets a week.

  A day or so after his arrival, accordingly, he hastened round to Upper Brook Street to make a sales-talk: and it was as he was coming rather pensively out of the house at the conclusion of the interview that he ran into Beefy Bingham, who had been up at Oxford with him. Several years had passed since the other, then a third year Blood and Trial Eights man, had bicycled along tow-paths saying rude things through a megaphone about Freddie's stomach, but he recognized him instantly. And this in spite of the fact that the passage of time appeared to have turned old Beefers into a clergyman. For the colossal frame of this
Bingham was now clad in sober black, and he was wearing one of those collars which are kept in position without studs, purely by the exercise of will-power.

  'Beefers!' cried Freddie, his slight gloom vanishing in the pleasure of this happy reunion.

  The Rev. Rupert Bingham, though he returned his greeting with cordiality, was far from exuberant. He seemed subdued, gloomy, as if he had discovered schism among his flock. His voice, when he spoke, was the voice of a man with a secret sorrow.

  'Oh, hullo, Freddie. I haven't seen you for years. Keeping pretty fit?'

  'As a fiddle, Beefers, old man, as a fiddle. And you?'

  'Oh, I'm all right,' said the Rev. Rupert, still with that same strange gloom. 'What were you doing in that house?'

  'Trying to sell dog-biscuits.'

  'Do you sell dog-biscuits?'

  'I do when people have sense enough to see that Donaldson's Dog-Joy stands alone. But could I make my fatheaded aunt see that? No, Beefers, not though I talked for an hour and sprayed her with printed matter like a—'

  'Your aunt? I didn't know Lady Alcester was your aunt.'

  'Didn't you, Beefers? I thought it was all over London.'

  'Did she tell you about me?'

  'What about you? Great Scott! Are you the impoverished bloke who wants to marry Gertrude?'

  'Yes.'

  'Well, I'm dashed.'

  'I love her, Freddie,' said the Rev. Rupert Bingham. 'I love her as no man ...'

  'Rather. Quite. Absolutely. I know. All the usual stuff. And she loves you, what?'

  'Yes. And now they've gone and sent her off to Blandings, to be out of my way'

  'Low. Very low. But why are you impoverished? What about tithes? I always understood you birds made a pot out of tithes.'

  'There aren't any tithes where I am.'

  'No tithes?'

  'None.'

  'H'm. Not so hot. Well, what are you going to do about it, Beefers?'

  'I thought of calling on your aunt and trying to reason with her.'

  Freddie took his old friend's arm sympathetically and drew him away.