And meanwhile, if we may borrow an expression from a sister act, what
of Hugo Carmody?
It is a defect unfortunately inseparable from any such document as
this faithful record of events in and about Blandings Castle that the
chronicler, in order to give a square deal to each of the individuals
whose fortunes he has undertaken to narrate, is compelled to flit
abruptly from one to the other in the manner popularized by the chamois
of the Alps leaping from crag to crag. The activities of the Efficient
Baxter seeming to him to demand immediate attention, he was reluctantly
compelled some little while back to leave Hugo in the very act of
reeling beneath a crushing blow. The moment has now come to return to
him.
The first effect on a young man of sensibility and gentle upbringing
of the discovery that an unfriendly detective has seen him placing
stolen pigs in caravans is to induce a stunned condition of mind, a
sort of mental coma. The face lengthens. The limbs grow rigid. The tie
slips sideways and the cuffs recede into the coat sleeves. The subject
becomes temporarily, in short, a total loss.
It is perhaps as well, therefore, that we did not waste valuable time
watching Hugo in the process of digesting Percy Pilbeam's sensational
announcement, for it would have been like looking at a statue. If the
reader will endeavour to picture Rodin's Thinker in a dinner jacket and
trousers with braid down the sides, he will have got the general idea.
At the instant when Hugo Carmody makes his reappearance life has just
begun to return to the stiffened frame.
And with life came the dawning of intelligence. This ghastly snag which
had popped up in his path was too big, reflected Hugo, for any man to
tackle. It called for a woman's keener wit. His first act on emerging
from the depths, therefore, was to leave the drawing room and totter
downstairs to the telephone. He got the number of Matchingham Hall and,
establishing communication with Sir Gregory Parsloe-Parsloe's butler,
urged him to summon Miss Millicent Threepwood from the dinner table.
The butler said in rather a reproving way that Miss Threepwood was at
the moment busy drinking soup. Hugo, with the first flash of spirit he
had shown for a quarter of an hour, replied that he didn't care if she
was bathing in it. "Fetch her," said Hugo, and almost added the words,
"You scurvy knave." He then clung weakly to the receiver, waiting, and
in a short while a sweet but agitated voice floated to him across the
wire.
"Hugo?"
"Millicent?"
"Is that you?"
"Yes. Is that you?"
"Yes."
Anything in the nature of misunderstanding was cleared away. It was
both of them.
"What's up?"
"Everything's up."
"How do you mean?"
"I'll tell you," said Hugo, and did so. It was not a difficult story to
tell. Its plot was so clear that a few whispered words sufficed.
"You don't mean that?" said Millicent, the tale concluded.
"I do mean that."
"Oh, golly!" said Millicent.
Silence followed. Hugo waited palpitatingly. The outlook seemed to him
black. He wondered if he had placed too much reliance in woman's wit.
That "Golly!" had not been hopeful.
"Hugo!"
"Hullo?"
"This is a bit thick."
"Yes," agreed Hugo. The thickness had not escaped him.
"Well, there's only one thing to do."
A faint thrill passed through Hugo Carmody. One would be enough.
Woman's wit was going to bring home the bacon after all.
"Listen!"
"Well?"
"The only thing to do is for me to go back to the dining room and tell
Uncle Clarence you've found the Empress."
"Eh?"
"Found her, fathead."
"How do you mean?"
"Found her in the caravan."
"But weren't you listening to what I was saying?" There were tears in
Hugo's voice. "Pilbeam saw us putting her there."
"I know."
"Well, what's our move when he says so?"
"Stout denial."
"Eh?"
"We stoutly deny it," said Millicent.
The thrill passed through Hugo again, stronger than before. It might
work. Yes, properly handled, it would work. He poured broken words of
love and praise into the receiver.
"That's right," he cried. "I see daylight. I will go to Pilbeam and
tell him privily that if he opens his mouth I'll strangle him."
"Well, hold on. I'll go and tell Uncle Clarence. I expect he'll be out
in a moment to have a word with you."
"Half a minute! Millicent!"
"Well?"
"When am I supposed to have found this ghastly pig?"
"Ten minutes ago, when you were taking a stroll before dinner. You
happened to pass the caravan and you heard an odd noise inside and you
looked to see what it was and there was the Empress, and you raced back
to the house to telephone."
"But, Millicent! Half a minute!"
"Well?"
"The old boy will think Baxter stole her."
"So he will! Isn't that splendid? Well, hold on."
Hugo resumed his vigil. It was some moments later that a noise like the
clucking of fowls broke out at the Matchingham Hall end of the wire.
He deduced correctly that this was caused by the ninth Earl of Emsworth
endeavouring to clothe his thoughts in speech.
"Kuk-kuk-kuk...."
"Yes, Lord Emsworth?"
"Kuk-Carmody!"
"Yes, Lord Emsworth?"
"Is this true?"
"Yes, Lord Emsworth."
"You've found the Empress?"
"Yes, Lord Emsworth."
"In that feller Baxter's caravan?"
"Yes, Lord Emsworth."
"Well, I'll be damned!"
"Yes, Lord Emsworth."
So far Hugo Carmody had found his share of the dialogue delightfully
easy. On these lines he would have been prepared to continue it all
night. But there was something else besides "Yes, Lord Emsworth" that
he must now endeavour to say. There is a tide in the affairs of men
which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune: and that tide, he knew,
would never rise higher than at the present moment. He swallowed twice
to unlimber his vocal chords.
"Lord Emsworth," he said, and, though his heart was beating fast,
his voice was steady, "there is something I would like to take this
opportunity of saying. It will come as a surprise to you, but I hope
not as an unpleasant surprise. I love your niece Millicent, and she
loves me, Lord Emsworth. We have loved each other for many weeks, and
it is my hope that you will give your consent to our marriage. I am not
a rich man, Lord Emsworth. In fact, strictly speaking, except for my
salary I haven't a bean in the world. But my Uncle Lester owns Rudge
Hall in Worcestershire--I dare say you have heard of the place? You
turn to the left off the main road to Birmingham and go about a couple
of miles--well, anyway, it's a biggish sort of place in Worcestershire,
and my Uncle Lester owns it, and the property is entailed, and I'm
next in succession.... I won't pretend that my Uncle Lester shows any
indications of passing in his checks--he was extremely fit last time
I saw him--but, after all, he's getting on, and all flesh is as grass
and, as I say, I'm next man in, so I shall eventually succeed to quite
a fairish bit of the stuff and a house and park and rent roll and all
that; so what I mean is, it isn't as if I wasn't in a position to
support Millicent later on, and if you realized, Lord Emsworth, how we
love one another I'm sure you would see that it wouldn't be playing
the game to put any obstacles in the way of our happiness, so what I'm
driving at, if you follow me, is, may we charge ahead?"
There was dead silence at the other end of the wire. It seemed as if
this revelation of a good man's love had struck Lord Emsworth dumb.
It was only some moments later, after he had said "Hullo!" six times
and "I say, are you there?" twice that it was borne in upon Hugo that
he had wasted two hundred and eighty words of the finest eloquence on
empty space.
His natural chagrin at this discovery was sensibly diminished by the
sudden sound of Millicent's voice in his ear.
"Hullo!"
"Hullo!"
"Hullo!"
"Hullo!"
"Hugo!"
"Hullo!"
"I say, Hugo!" She spoke with the joyous excitement of a girl who has
just emerged from the centre of a family dog fight. "I say, Hugo,
things are hotting up here properly. I sprung it on Uncle Clarence just
now that I want to marry you!"
"So did I. Only he wasn't there."
"I said, 'Uncle Clarence, aren't you grateful to Mr. Carmody for
finding the Empress?' and he said, 'Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, to be
sure. Capital boy! Capital boy! Always liked him.' And I said, 'I
suppose you wouldn't by any chance let me marry him?' and he said, 'Eh,
what? Marry him?' 'Yes,' I said. 'Marry him.' And he said, 'Certainly,
certainly, certainly, certainly, by all means.' And then Aunt Constance
had a fit, and Uncle Gally said she was a kill-joy and ought to be
ashamed of herself for throwing the gaff into love's young dream, and
Uncle Clarence kept on saying 'Certainly, certainly.' I don't know what
old Parsloe thinks of it all. He's sitting in his chair looking at the
ceiling and drinking Hock. The butler left at the end of round one. I'm
going back to see how it's all coming out. Hold the line."
A man for whom Happiness and Misery are swaying in the scales three
miles away, and whose only medium of learning the result of the
contest is a telephone wire, is not likely to ring off impatiently.
Hugo sat tense and breathless, like one listening in on the radio to a
championship fight in which he has a financial interest. It was only
when a cheery voice spoke at his elbow that he realized that his
solitude had been invaded, and by Percy Pilbeam at that.
Percy Pilbeam was looking rosy and replete. He swayed slightly, and his
smile was rather wider and more pebble-beached than a total abstainer's
would have been.
"Hullo, Carmody," said Percy Pilbeam. "What ho, Carmody. So here you
are, Carmody."
It came to Hugo that he had something to say to this man.
"Here, you!" he cried.
"Yes, Carmody?"
"Do you want to be battered to a pulp?"
"No, Carmody."
"Then listen. You didn't see me put that pig in the caravan.
Understand?"
"But I did, Carmody."
"You didn't--not if you want to go on living."
Percy Pilbeam appeared to be in a mood not only of keen intelligence
but of the utmost reasonableness and amiability.
"Say no more, Carmody," he said agreeably. "I take your point. You want
me not to tell anybody I saw you put that caravan in the pig. Quite,
Carmody, quite."
"Well, bear it in mind."
"I will, Carmody. Oh, yes, Carmody, I will. I'm going for a stroll
outside, Carmody. Care to join me?"
"Go to hell!"
"Quite," said Percy Pilbeam.
He tacked unsteadily to the door, aimed himself at it and passed
through. And a moment later Millicent's voice spoke.
"Hugo?"
"Hullo?"
"Oh, Hugo, darling, the battle's over. We've won. Uncle Clarence has
said 'Certainly' sixty-five times, and he's just told Aunt Constance
that if she thinks she can bully him she's very much mistaken. It's
a walk-over. They're all coming back right away in the car. Uncle
Clarence is an angel."
"So are you."
"Me?"
"Yes, you."
"Not such an angel as you are."
"Much more of an angel than I am," said Hugo, in the voice of one
trained to the appraising and classifying of angels.
"Well, anyway, you precious old thing, I'm going to give them the slip
and walk home along the road. Get out Ronnie's two-seater and come and
pick me up, and we'll go for a drive together, miles and miles through
the country. It's the most perfect evening."
"You bet it is!" said Hugo fervently. "What I call something like an
evening. Give me two minutes to get the car out and five to make the
trip and I'll be with you."
"'At-a-boy!" said Millicent.
"'At-a-baby!" said Hugo.