ENTER PSMITH
§ 1
At about the hour when Lord Emsworth’s train, whirling him and his son
Freddie to London, had reached the half-way point in its journey, a
very tall, very thin, very solemn young man, gleaming in a speckless
top hat and a morning-coat of irreproachable fit, mounted the steps
of Number Eighteen, Wallingford Street, West Kensington, and rang the
front-door bell. This done, he removed the hat; and having touched his
forehead lightly with a silk handkerchief, for the afternoon sun was
warm, gazed about him with a grave distaste.
“A scaly neighbourhood!” he murmured.
The young man’s judgment was one at which few people with an eye for
beauty would have cavilled. When the great revolution against London’s
ugliness really starts and yelling hordes of artists and architects,
maddened beyond endurance, finally take the law into their own hands
and rage through the city burning and destroying, Wallingford Street,
West Kensington, will surely not escape the torch. Long since it must
have been marked down for destruction. For, though it possesses certain
merits of a low practical kind, being inexpensive in the matter of
rents and handy for the buses and the Underground, it is a peculiarly
beastly little street. Situated in the middle of one of those
districts where London breaks out into a sort of eczema of red brick,
it consists of two parallel rows of semi-detached villas, all exactly
alike, each guarded by a ragged evergreen hedge, each with coloured
glass of an extremely regrettable nature let into the panels of the
front door; and sensitive young impressionists from the artists’ colony
up Holland Park way may sometimes be seen stumbling through it with
hands over their eyes, muttering between clenched teeth “How long? How
long?”
A small maid-of-all-work appeared in answer to the bell, and stood
transfixed as the visitor, producing a monocle, placed it in his right
eye and inspected her through it.
“A warm afternoon,” he said cordially.
“Yes, sir.”
“But pleasant,” urged the young man. “Tell me, is Mrs. Jackson at home?”
“No, sir.”
“Not at home?”
“No, sir.”
The young man sighed.
“Ah well,” he said, “we must always remember that these disappointments
are sent to us for some good purpose. No doubt they make us more
spiritual. Will you inform her that I called? The name is Psmith.
P-smith.”
“Peasmith, sir?”
“No, no. P-s-m-i-t-h. I should explain to you that I started life
without the initial letter, and my father always clung ruggedly to the
plain Smith. But it seemed to me that there were so many Smiths in the
world that a little variety might well be introduced. Smythe I look on
as a cowardly evasion, nor do I approve of the too prevalent custom of
tacking another name on in front by means of a hyphen. So I decided to
adopt the Psmith. The p, I should add for your guidance, is silent, as
in phthisis, psychic, and ptarmigan. You follow me?”
“Y-yes, sir.”
“You don’t think,” he said anxiously, “that I did wrong in pursuing
this course?”
“N-no, sir.”
“Splendid!” said the young man, flicking a speck of dust from his
coat-sleeve. “Splendid! Splendid!”
And with a courteous bow he descended the steps and made his way down
the street. The little maid, having followed him with bulging eyes till
he was out of sight, closed the door and returned to her kitchen.
Psmith strolled meditatively on. The genial warmth of the afternoon
soothed him. He hummed lightly--only stopping when, as he reached the
end of the street, a young man of his own age, rounding the corner
rapidly, almost ran into him.
“Sorry,” said the young man. “Hallo, Smith.”
Psmith gazed upon him with benevolent affection.
“Comrade Jackson,” he said, “this is well met. The one man of all
others whom I would have wished to encounter. We will pop off
somewhere, Comrade Jackson, should your engagements permit, and restore
our tissues with a cup of tea. I had hoped to touch the Jackson family
for some slight refreshment, but I was informed that your wife was out.”
Mike Jackson laughed.
“Phyllis isn’t out. She . . .”
“Not out? Then,” said Psmith, pained, “there has been dirty work done
this day. For I was turned from the door. It would not be exaggerating
to say that I was given the bird. Is this the boasted Jackson
hospitality?”
“Phyllis is giving a tea to some of her old school pals,” explained
Mike. “She told the maid to say she wasn’t at home to anybody else. I’m
not allowed in myself.”
“Enough, Comrade Jackson!” said Psmith agreeably. “Say no more. If you
yourself have been booted out in spite of all the loving, honouring,
and obeying your wife promised at the altar, who am I to complain? And
possibly, one can console oneself by reflecting, we are well out of
it. These gatherings of old girls’-school chums are not the sort of
function your man of affairs wants to get lugged into. Capital company
as we are, Comrade Jackson, we should doubtless have been extremely
in the way. I suppose the conversation would have dealt exclusively
with reminiscences of the dear old school, of tales of surreptitious
cocoa-drinking in the dormitories and what the deportment mistress said
when Angela was found chewing tobacco in the shrubbery. Yes, I fancy we
have not missed a lot. . . . By the way, I don’t think much of the new
home. True, I only saw it from the outside, but . . . no, I don’t think
much of it.”
“Best we can afford.”
“And who,” said Psmith, “am I to taunt my boyhood friend with his
honest poverty? Especially as I myself am standing on the very brink of
destitution.”
“You?”
“I in person. That low moaning sound you hear is the wolf bivouacked
outside my door.”
“But I thought your uncle gave you rather a good salary.”
“So he did. But my uncle and I are about to part company. From now on
he, so to speak, will take the high road and I’ll take the low road. I
dine with him to-night, and over the nuts and wine I shall hand him
the bad news that I propose to resign my position in the firm. I have
no doubt that he supposed he was doing me a good turn by starting me in
his fish business, but even what little experience I have had of it has
convinced me that it is not my proper sphere. The whisper flies round
the clubs ‘Psmith has not found his niche!’
“I am not,” said Psmith, “an unreasonable man. I realise that humanity
must be supplied with fish. I am not averse from a bit of fish myself.
But to be professionally connected with a firm that handles the
material in the raw is not my idea of a large life-work. Remind me to
tell you some time what it feels like to sling yourself out of bed at
four a.m. and go down to toil in Billingsgate Market. No, there is
money in fish--my uncle has made a pot of it--but what I feel is that
there must be other walks in life for a bright young man. I chuck it
to-night.”
“What are you going to do, then?”
“That, Comrade Jackson, is more or less on the knees of the gods.
To-morrow morning I think I will stroll round to an employment agency
and see how the market for bright young men stands. Do you know a good
one?”
“Phyllis always goes to Miss Clarkson’s in Shaftesbury Avenue.
But . . .”
“Miss Clarkson’s in Shaftesbury Avenue. I will make a note of it . . .
Meanwhile, I wonder if you saw the _Morning Globe_ to-day?”
“No. Why?”
“I had an advertisement in it, in which I expressed myself as
willing--indeed, eager--to tackle any undertaking that had nothing to
do with fish. I am confidently expecting shoals of replies. I look
forward to winnowing the heap and selecting the most desirable.”
“Pretty hard to get a job these days,” said Mike doubtfully.
“Not if you have something superlatively good to offer.”
“What have you got to offer?”
“My services,” said Psmith with faint reproach.
“What as?”
“As anything. I made no restrictions. Would you care to take a look at
my manifesto? I have a copy in my pocket.”
Psmith produced from inside his immaculate waistcoat a folded clipping.
“I should welcome your opinion of it, Comrade Jackson. I have
frequently said that for sturdy common sense you stand alone. Your
judgment should be invaluable.”
The advertisement, which some hours earlier had so electrified the Hon.
Freddie Threepwood in the smoking-room at Blandings Castle, seemed to
affect Mike, whose mind was of the stolid and serious type, somewhat
differently. He finished his perusal and stared speechlessly.
“Neat, don’t you think?” said Psmith. “Covers the ground adequately? I
think so, I think so.”
“Do you mean to say you’re going to put drivel like that in the paper?”
asked Mike.
“I _have_ put it in the paper. As I told you, it appeared this morning.
By this time to-morrow I shall no doubt have finished sorting out the
first batch of replies.”
Mike’s emotion took him back to the phraseology of school days.
“You _are_ an ass!”
Psmith restored the clipping to his waistcoat pocket.
“You wound me, Comrade Jackson,” he said. “I had expected a broader
outlook from you. In fact, I rather supposed that you would have rushed
round instantly to the offices of the journal and shoved in a similar
advertisement yourself. But nothing that you can say can damp my
buoyant spirit. The cry goes round Kensington (and district) ‘Psmith is
off!’ In what direction the cry omits to state: but that information
the future will supply. And now, Comrade Jackson, let us trickle into
yonder tea-shop and drink success to the venture in a cup of the
steaming. I had a particularly hard morning to-day among the whitebait,
and I need refreshment.”
§ 2
After Psmith had withdrawn his spectacular person from it, there was
an interval of perhaps twenty minutes before anything else occurred to
brighten the drabness of Wallingford Street. The lethargy of afternoon
held the thoroughfare in its grip. Occasionally a tradesman’s cart
would rattle round the corner, and from time to time cats appeared,
stalking purposefully among the evergreens. But at ten minutes to five
a girl ran up the steps of Number Eighteen and rang the bell.
She was a girl of medium height, very straight and slim; and her fair
hair, her cheerful smile, and the boyish suppleness of her body all
contributed to a general effect of valiant gaiety, a sort of golden
sunniness--accentuated by the fact that, like all girls who looked to
Paris for inspiration in their dress that season, she was wearing black.
The small maid appeared again.
“Is Mrs. Jackson at home?” said the girl. “I think she’s expecting me.
Miss Halliday.”
“Yes, miss?”
A door at the end of the narrow hall had opened.
“Is that you, Eve?”
“Hallo, Phyl, darling.”
Phyllis Jackson fluttered down the passage like a rose-leaf on the
wind, and hurled herself into Eve’s arms. She was small and fragile,
with great brown eyes under a cloud of dark hair. She had a wistful
look, and most people who knew her wanted to pet her. Eve had always
petted her, from their first days at school together.
“Am I late or early?” asked Eve.
“You’re the first, but we won’t wait. Jane, will you bring tea into the
drawing-room.”
“Yes’m.”
“And, remember, I don’t want to see anyone for the rest of the
afternoon. If anybody calls, tell them I’m not at home. Except Miss
Clarkson and Mrs. McTodd, of course.”
“Yes’m.”
“Who is Mrs. McTodd?” inquired Eve. “Is that Cynthia?”
“Yes. Didn’t you know she had married Ralston McTodd, the Canadian
poet? You knew she went out to Canada?”
“I knew that, yes. But I hadn’t heard that she was married. Funny how
out of touch one gets with girls who were one’s best friends at school.
Do you realise it’s nearly two years since I saw you?”
“I know. Isn’t it awful! I got your address from Elsa Wentworth two or
three days ago, and then Clarkie told me that Cynthia was over here on
a visit with her husband, so I thought how jolly it would be to have a
regular reunion. We three were such friends in the old days. . . . You
remember Clarkie, of course? Miss Clarkson, who used to be English
mistress at Wayland House.”
“Yes, of course. Where did you run into her?”
“Oh, I see a lot of her. She runs a Domestic Employment Agency in
Shaftesbury Avenue now, and I have to go there about once a fortnight
to get a new maid. She supplied Jane.”
“Is Cynthia’s husband coming with her this afternoon?”
“No. I wanted it to be simply us four. Do you know him? But of course
you don’t. This is his first visit to England.”
“I know his poetry. He’s quite a celebrity. Cynthia’s lucky.”
They had made their way into the drawing-room, a gruesome little
apartment full of all those antimacassars, wax flowers, and china dogs
inseparable from the cheaper type of London furnished house. Eve,
though the exterior of Number Eighteen should have prepared her for all
this, was unable to check a slight shudder as she caught the eye of the
least prepossessing of the dogs, goggling at her from the mantelpiece.
“Don’t look at them,” recommended Phyllis, following her gaze. “I try
not to. We’ve only just moved in here, so I haven’t had time to make
the place nice. Here’s tea. All right, Jane, put it down there. Tea,
Eve?”
Eve sat down. She was puzzled and curious. She threw her mind back to
the days at school and remembered the Phyllis of that epoch as almost
indecently opulent. A millionaire stepfather there had been then, she
recollected. What had become of him now, that he should allow Phyllis
to stay in surroundings like this? Eve scented a mystery, and in her
customary straightforward way went to the heart of it.
“Tell me all about yourself,” she said, having achieved as much comfort
as the peculiar structure of her chair would permit. “And remember that
I haven’t seen you for two years, so don’t leave anything out.”
“It’s so difficult to know where to start.”
“Well, you signed your letter ‘Phyllis Jackson.’ Start with the
mysterious Jackson. Where does he come in? The last I heard about
you was an announcement in the _Morning Post_ that you were engaged
to--I’ve forgotten the name, but I’m certain it wasn’t Jackson.”
“Rollo Mountford.”
“Was it? Well, what has become of Rollo? You seem to have mislaid him.
Did you break off the engagement?”
“Well, it--sort of broke itself off. I mean, you see, I went and
married Mike.”
“Eloped with him, do you mean?”
“Yes.”
“Good heavens!”
“I’m awfully ashamed about that, Eve. I suppose I treated Rollo awfully
badly.”
“Never mind. A man with a name like that was made for suffering.”
“I never really cared for him. He had horrid swimmy eyes . . .”
“I understand. So you eloped with your Mike. Tell me about him. Who is
he? What does he do?”
“Well, at present he’s master at a school. But he doesn’t like it. He
wants to get back to the country again. When I met him, he was agent
on a place in the country belonging to some people named Smith. Mike
had been at school and Cambridge with the son. They were very rich
then and had a big estate. It was the next place to the Edgelows. I
had gone to stay with Mary Edgelow--I don’t know if you remember her
at school? I met Mike first at a dance, and then I met him out riding,
and then--well, after that we used to meet every day. And we fell in
love right from the start and we went and got married. Oh, Eve, I wish
you could have seen our darling little house. It was all over ivy and
roses, and we had horses and dogs and . . .”
Phyllis’ narrative broke off with a gulp. Eve looked at her
sympathetically. All her life she herself had been joyously
impecunious, but it had never seemed to matter. She was strong and
adventurous, and revelled in the perpetual excitement of trying to make
both ends meet. But Phyllis was one of those sweet porcelain girls
whom the roughnesses of life bruise instead of stimulating. She needed
comfort and pleasant surroundings. Eve looked morosely at the china
dog, which leered back at her with an insufferable good-fellowship.
“We had hardly got married,” resumed Phyllis, blinking, “when poor
Mr. Smith died and the whole place was broken up. He must have been
speculating or something, I suppose, because he hardly left any money,
and the estate had to be sold. And the people who bought it--they were
coal people from Wolverhampton--had a nephew for whom they wanted the
agent job, so Mike had to go. So here we are.”
Eve put the question which she had been waiting to ask ever since she
had entered the house.
“But what about your stepfather? Surely, when we were at school, you
had a rich stepfather in the background. Has he lost his money, too?”
“No.”
“Well, why doesn’t he help you, then?”
“He would, I know, if he was left to himself. But it’s Aunt Constance.”
“What’s Aunt Constance? And who _is_ Aunt Constance?”
“Well, I call her that, but she’s really my stepmother--sort of. I
suppose she’s really my step-stepmother. My stepfather married again
two years ago. It was Aunt Constance who was so furious when I married
Mike. She wanted me to marry Rollo. She has never forgiven me, and she
won’t let my stepfather do anything to help us.”
“But the man must be a worm!” said Eve indignantly. “Why doesn’t he
insist? You always used to tell me how fond he was of you.”
“He isn’t a worm, Eve. He’s a dear. It’s just that he has let her
boss him. She’s rather a terror, you know. She can be quite nice,
and they’re awfully fond of each other, but she is as hard as nails
sometimes.” Phyllis broke off. The front door had opened, and there
were footsteps in the hall. “Here’s Clarkie. I hope she has brought
Cynthia with her. She was to pick her up on her way. Don’t talk about
what I’ve been telling you in front of her, Eve, there’s an angel.”
“Why not?”
“She’s so motherly about it. It’s sweet of her, but . . .”
Eve understood.
“All right. Later on.”
The door opened to admit Miss Clarkson.
The adjective which Phyllis had applied to her late schoolmistress
was obviously well chosen. Miss Clarkson exuded motherliness. She was
large, wholesome, and soft, and she swooped on Eve like a hen on its
chicken almost before the door had closed.
“Eve! How nice to see you after all this time! My dear, you’re looking
perfectly lovely! And _so_ prosperous. What a beautiful hat!”
“I’ve been envying it ever since you came, Eve,” said Phyllis. “Where
did you get it?”
“Madeleine Sœurs, in Regent Street.”
Miss Clarkson, having acquired and stirred a cup of tea, started to
improve the occasion. Eve had always been a favourite of hers at
school. She beamed affectionately upon her.
“Now doesn’t this show--what I always used to say to you in the dear
old days, Eve--that one must never despair, however black the outlook
may seem? I remember you at school, dear, as poor as a church mouse,
and with no prospects, none whatever. And yet here you are--rich . . .”
Eve laughed. She got up and kissed Miss Clarkson. She regretted that
she was compelled to strike a jarring note, but it had to be done.
“I’m awfully sorry, Clarkie dear,” she said, “but I’m afraid I’ve
misled you. I’m just as broke as I ever was. In fact, when Phyllis
told me you were running an Employment Agency, I made a note to come
and see you and ask if you had some attractive billet to dispose of.
Governess to a thoroughly angelic child would do. Or isn’t there some
nice cosy author or something who wants his letters answered and his
press-clippings pasted in an album?”
“Oh, my dear!” Miss Clarkson was deeply concerned. “I did hope . . .
That hat . . . !”
“The hat’s the whole trouble. Of course I had no business even to think
of it, but I saw it in the shop-window and coveted it for days, and
finally fell. And then, you see, I had to live up to it--buy shoes and
a dress to match. I tell you it was a perfect orgy, and I’m thoroughly
ashamed of myself now. Too late, as usual.”
“Oh, dear! You always were such a wild, impetuous child, even at
school. I remember how often I used to speak to you about it.”
“Well, when it was all over and I was sane again, I found I had only a
few pounds left, not nearly enough to see me through till the relief
expedition arrived. So I thought it over and decided to invest my
little all.”
“I hope you chose something safe?”
“It ought to have been. The _Sporting Express_ called it ‘To-day’s
Safety Bet.’ It was Bounding Willie for the two-thirty race at Sandown
last Wednesday.”
“Oh, dear!”
“That’s what I said when poor old Willie came in sixth. But it’s
no good worrying, is it? What it means is that I simply must find
something to do that will carry me through till I get my next
quarter’s allowance. And that won’t be till September. . . . But don’t
let’s talk business here. I’ll come round to your office, Clarkie,
to-morrow. . . . Where’s Cynthia? Didn’t you bring her?”
“Yes, I thought you were going to pick Cynthia up on your way,
Clarkie,” said Phyllis.
If Eve’s information as to her financial affairs had caused Miss
Clarkson to mourn, the mention of Cynthia plunged her into the very
depths of woe. Her mouth quivered and a tear stole down her cheek. Eve
and Phyllis exchanged bewildered glances.
“I say,” said Eve after a moment’s pause and a silence broken only by
a smothered sob from their late instructress, “we aren’t being very
cheerful, are we, considering that this is supposed to be a joyous
reunion? Is anything wrong with Cynthia?”
So poignant was Miss Clarkson’s anguish that Phyllis, in a flutter of
alarm, rose and left the room swiftly in search of the only remedy that
suggested itself to her--her smelling-salts.
“Poor dear Cynthia!” moaned Miss Clarkson.
“Why, what’s the matter with her?” asked Eve. She was not callous to
Miss Clarkson’s grief, but she could not help the tiniest of smiles. In
a flash she had been transported to her school-days, when the other’s
habit of extracting the utmost tragedy out of the slimmest material had
been a source of ever-fresh amusement to her. Not for an instant did
she expect to hear any worse news of her old friend than that she was
in bed with a cold or had twisted her ankle.
“She’s married, you know,” said Miss Clarkson.
“Well, I see no harm in that, Clarkie. If a few more Safety Bets go
wrong, I shall probably have to rush out and marry someone myself. Some
nice, rich, indulgent man who will spoil me.”
“Oh, Eve, my dear,” pleaded Miss Clarkson, bleating with alarm, “do
please be careful whom you marry. I never hear of one of my girls
marrying without feeling that the worst may happen and that, all
unknowing, she may be stepping over a grim precipice!”
“You don’t _tell_ them that, do you? Because I should think it would
rather cast a damper on the wedding festivities. Has Cynthia gone
stepping over grim precipices? I was just saying to Phyllis that I
envied her, marrying a celebrity like Ralston McTodd.”
Miss Clarkson gulped.
“The man must be a _fiend_!” she said brokenly. “I have just left
poor dear Cynthia in floods of tears at the Cadogan Hotel--she has a
very nice quiet room on the fourth floor, though the carpet does not
harmonise with the wall-paper. . . . She was broken-hearted, poor
child. I did what I could to console her, but it was useless. She
always was so highly strung. I must be getting back to her very soon.
I only came on here because I did not want to disappoint you two dear
girls . . .”
“Why?” said Eve with quiet intensity. She knew from experience that
Miss Clarkson, unless firmly checked, would pirouette round and round
the point for minutes without ever touching it.
“Why?” echoed Miss Clarkson, blinking as if the word was something
solid that had struck her unexpectedly.
“Why was Cynthia in floods of tears?”
“But I’m telling you, my dear. That man has left her!”
“Left her!”
“They had a quarrel, and he walked straight out of the hotel. That
was the day before yesterday, and he has not been back since. This
afternoon the curtest note came from him to say that he never intended
to return. He had secretly and in a most underhand way arranged for his
luggage to be removed from the hotel to a District Messenger office,
and from there he has taken it no one knows where. He has completely
disappeared.”
Eve stared. She had not been prepared for news of this momentous order.
“But what did they quarrel about?”
“Cynthia, poor child, was too overwrought to tell me!”
Eve clenched her teeth.
“The beast! . . . Poor old Cynthia. . . . Shall I come round with you?”
“No, my dear, better let me look after her alone. I will tell her to
write and let you know when she can see you. I must be going, Phyllis
dear,” she said, as her hostess re-entered, bearing a small bottle.
“But you’ve only just come!” said Phyllis, surprised.
“Poor old Cynthia’s husband has left her,” explained Eve briefly. “And
Clarkie’s going back to look after her. She’s in a pretty bad way, it
seems.”
“Oh, no!”
“Yes, indeed. And I really must be going at once,” said Miss Clarkson.
Eve waited in the drawing-room till the front door banged and Phyllis
came back to her. Phyllis was more wistful than ever. She had been
looking forward to this tea-party, and it had not been the happy
occasion she had anticipated. The two girls sat in silence for a moment.
“What brutes some men are!” said Eve at length.
“Mike,” said Phyllis dreamily, “is an angel.”
Eve welcomed the unspoken invitation to return to a more agreeable
topic. She felt very deeply for the stricken Cynthia, but she hated
aimless talk, and nothing could have been more aimless than for her
and Phyllis to sit there exchanging lamentations concerning a tragedy
of which neither knew more than the bare outlines. Phyllis had her
tragedy, too, and it was one where Eve saw the possibility of doing
something practical and helpful. She was a girl of action, and was glad
to be able to attack a living issue.
“Yes, let’s go on talking about you and Mike,” she said. “At present I
can’t understand the position at all. When Clarkie came in, you were
just telling me about your stepfather and why he wouldn’t help you. And
I thought you made out a very poor case for him. Tell me some more.
I’ve forgotten his name, by the way.”
“Keeble.”
“Oh? Well, I think you ought to write and tell him how hard-up you are.
He may be under the impression that you are still living in luxury and
don’t need any help. After all, he can’t know unless you tell him. And
I should ask him straight out to come to the rescue. It isn’t as if it
was your Mike’s fault that you’re broke. He married you on the strength
of a very good position which looked like a permanency, and lost it
through no fault of his own. I should write to him, Phyl. Pitch it
strong.”
“I have. I wrote to-day. Mike’s just been offered a wonderful
opportunity. A sort of farm place in Lincolnshire. You know. Cows and
things. Just what he would like and just what he would do awfully well.
And we only need three thousand pounds to get it. . . . But I’m afraid
nothing will come of it.”
“Because of Aunt Constance, you mean?”
“Yes.”
“You must _make_ something come of it.” Eve’s chin went up. She looked
like a Goddess of Determination. “If I were you, I’d haunt their
doorstep till they had to give you the money to get rid of you. The
idea of anybody doing that absurd driving-into-the-snow business in
these days! Why _shouldn’t_ you marry the man you were in love with? If
I were you, I’d go and chain myself to their railings and howl like a
dog till they rushed out with cheque-books just to get some peace. Do
they live in London?”
“They are down in Shropshire at present at a place called Blandings
Castle.”
Eve started.
“Blandings Castle? Good gracious!”
“Aunt Constance is Lord Emsworth’s sister.”
“But this is the most extraordinary thing. I’m going to Blandings
myself in a few days.”
“No!”
“They’ve engaged me to catalogue the castle library.”
“But, Eve, were you only joking when you asked Clarkie to find you
something to do? She took you quite seriously.”
“No, I wasn’t joking. There’s a drawback to my going to Blandings. I
suppose you know the place pretty well?”
“I’ve often stayed there. It’s beautiful.”
“Then you know Lord Emsworth’s second son, Freddie Threepwood?”
“Of course.”
“Well, he’s the drawback. He wants to marry me, and I certainly don’t
want to marry him. And what I’ve been wondering is whether a nice easy
job like that, which would tide me over beautifully till September, is
attractive enough to make up for the nuisance of having to be always
squelching poor Freddie. I ought to have thought of it right at the
beginning, of course, when he wrote and told me to apply for the
position, but I was so delighted at the idea of regular work that it
didn’t occur to me. Then I began to wonder. He’s such a persevering
young man. He proposes early and often.”
“Where did you meet Freddie?”
“At a theatre party. About two months ago. He was living in London
then, but he suddenly disappeared and I had a heart-broken letter
from him, saying that he had been running up debts and things and his
father had snatched him away to live at Blandings, which apparently is
Freddie’s idea of the Inferno. The world seems full of hard-hearted
relatives.”
“Oh, Lord Emsworth isn’t really hard-hearted. You will love him. He’s
so dreamy and absent-minded. He potters about the garden all the time.
I don’t think you’ll like Aunt Constance much. But I suppose you won’t
see a great deal of her.”
“Whom _shall_ I see much of--except Freddie, of course?”
“Mr. Baxter, Lord Emsworth’s secretary, I expect. I don’t like him at
all. He’s a sort of spectacled cave-man.”
“He doesn’t sound attractive. But you say the place is nice?”
“It’s gorgeous. I should go, if I were you, Eve.”
“Well, I had intended not to. But now you’ve told me about Mr. Keeble
and Aunt Constance, I’ve changed my mind. I’ll have to look in at
Clarkie’s office to-morrow and tell her I’m fixed up and shan’t need
her help. I’m going to take your sad case in hand, darling. I shall go
to Blandings, and I will dog your stepfather’s footsteps. . . . Well, I
must be going. Come and see me to the front door, or I’ll be losing my
way in the miles of stately corridors. . . . I suppose I mayn’t smash
that china dog before I go? Oh, well, I just thought I’d ask.”
Out in the hall the little maid-of-all-work bobbed up and intercepted
them.
“I forgot to tell you, mum, a gentleman called. I told him you was out.”
“Quite right, Jane.”
“Said his name was Smith, ’m.”
Phyllis gave a cry of dismay.
“Oh, no! What a shame! I particularly wanted you to meet him, Eve. I
wish I’d known.”
“Smith?” said Eve. “The name seems familiar. Why were you so anxious
for me to meet him?”
“He’s Mike’s best friend. Mike worships him. He’s the son of the Mr.
Smith I was telling you about--the one Mike was at school and Cambridge
with. He’s a perfect darling, Eve, and you would love him. He’s just
your sort. I do wish we had known. And now you’re going to Blandings
for goodness knows how long, and you won’t be able to see him.”
“What a pity,” said Eve, politely uninterested.
“I’m so sorry for him.”
“Why?”
“He’s in the fish business.”
“Ugh!”
“Well, he hates it, poor dear. But he was left stranded like all the
rest of us after the crash, and he was put into the business by an
uncle who is a sort of fish magnate.”
“Well, why does he stay there, if he dislikes it so much?” said Eve
with indignation. The helpless type of man was her pet aversion. “I
hate a man who’s got no enterprise.”
“I don’t think you could call him unenterprising. He never struck me
like that. . . . You simply must meet him when you come back to London.”
“All right,” said Eve indifferently. “Just as you like. I might put
business in his way. I’m very fond of fish.”