A man who has been lying under a bed for a matter of some thirty
minutes and, while there, has been compelled to listen to the sort of
dialogue which accompanies a lovers' reconciliation seldom appears at
his best or feels his brightest. There was fluff in Baxter's hair, dust
on his clothes, and on Baxter's face a scowl of concentrated hatred
of all humanity. Lord Emsworth, prepared for something pretty wild
looking, found his expectations exceeded. He tightened his grasp on the
gun and, to insure a more accurate aim, raised the butt of it to his
shoulder, closing one eye and allowing the other to gleam along the
barrel.
"I have you covered, my dear fellow," he said mildly.
Rupert Baxter had not yet begun to stick straws in his hair, but he
seemed on the verge of that final piece of self-expression.
"Don't point that damned thing at me!"
"I shall point it at you," replied Lord Emsworth with spirit. He was
not a man to be dictated to in his own house. "And at the slightest
sign of violence----"
"Clarence!" It was Lady Constance who spoke. "Put that gun down."
"Certainly not."
"Clarence!"
"Oh, all right."
"And now, Mr. Baxter," said Lady Constance, proceeding to dominate the
scene in her masterly way, "I am sure you can explain."
Her agitation had passed. It was not in this strong woman to remain
agitated long. She had been badly shaken, but her faith in her idol
still held good. Remarkable as his behaviour might appear, she was sure
that he could account for it in a perfectly satisfactory manner.
Baxter did not speak. His silence gave Lord Emsworth the opportunity of
advancing his own views.
"Explain?" he spoke petulantly, for he resented the way in which his
sister had thrust him from the centre of the stage. "What on earth is
there to explain? The thing's obvious."
"Can't say I've quite got to the bottom of it," murmured the Hon.
Galahad. "Fellow under bed. Why? Why under bed? Why here at all?"
Lord Emsworth hesitated. He was a kind-hearted man, and he felt that
what he had to say would be better said in Baxter's absence. However,
there seemed no way out of it, so he proceeded.
"My dear Galahad, think!"
"Eh!"
"That flower-pot affair. You remember?"
"Oh!" Understanding shone in the Hon. Galahad's monocle. "You mean...?"
"Exactly."
"Yes, yes. Of course. Subject to these attacks, you mean?"
"Precisely."
This was not the first time Lady Constance Keeble had had the
opportunity of hearing a theory ventilated by her brothers which she
found detestable. She flushed brightly.
"Clarence!"
"My dear?"
"Kindly stop talking in that offensive way."
"God bless my soul!" Lord Emsworth was stung. "I like that. What have I
said that is offensive?"
"You know perfectly well."
"If you mean that I was reminding Galahad in the most delicate way that
poor Baxter here is not quite----"
"Clarence!"
"All very well to say 'Clarence!' like that. You know yourself he isn't
right in the head. Didn't he throw flower pots at me? Didn't he leap
out of a window this very afternoon? Didn't he try to make me think
that Beach----"
Baxter interrupted. There were certain matters on which he considered
silence best, but this was one on which he could speak freely.
"Lord Emsworth!"
"Eh!"
"It has now come to my knowledge that Beach was not the prime mover in
the theft of your pig. But I have ascertained that he was an accessory."
"A what?"
"He helped," said Baxter, grinding his teeth a little. "The man who
committed the actual theft was your nephew, Ronald."
Lord Emsworth turned to his sister with a triumphant gesture, like one
who has been vindicated.
"There! Now perhaps you'll say he's not potty? It won't do, Baxter,
my dear fellow," he went on, waggling a reproachful gun at his late
employee. "You really mustn't excite yourself by making up these
stories."
"Bad for the blood pressure," agreed the Hon. Galahad.
"The Empress was found this evening in your caravan," said Lord
Emsworth.
"What!"
"In your caravan. Where you put her when you stole her. And, bless my
soul," said Lord Emsworth, with a start, "I must be going and seeing
that she is put back in her sty. I must find Pirbright. I must----"
"In my caravan?" Baxter passed a feverish hand across his dust-stained
forehead. Illumination came to him. "Then that's what that fellow
Carmody did with the animal!"
Lord Emsworth had had enough of this. Empress of Blandings was waiting
for him. Counting the minutes to that holy reunion, he chafed at having
to stand here listening to these wild ravings.
"First Beach, then Ronald, then Carmody! You'll be saying I stole her
next, or Galahad here, or my sister Constance. Baxter, my dear fellow,
we aren't blaming you. Please don't think that. We quite see how it is.
You will overwork yourself, and of course nature demands the penalty. I
wish you would go quietly to your room, my dear fellow, and lie down.
All this must be very bad for you."
Lady Constance intervened. Her eye was aflame, and she spoke like
Cleopatra telling an Ethiopian slave where he got off.
"Clarence, will you kindly use whatever slight intelligence you
may possess? The theft of your pig is one of the most trivial and
unimportant things that have ever happened in this world, and I
consider the fuss that has been made about it quite revolting. But
whoever stole the wretched animal----"
Lord Emsworth blenched. He stared as if wondering if he had heard
aright.
"--and wherever it has been found, it was certainly not Mr. Baxter who
stole it. It is, as Mr. Baxter says, much more likely to have been a
young man like Mr. Carmody. There is a certain type of young man, I
believe, to which Mr. Carmody belongs, which considers practical joking
amusing. Do ask yourself, Clarence, and try to answer the question
as reasonably as is possible for a man of your mental calibre: what
earthly motive would Mr. Baxter have for coming to Blandings Castle and
stealing pigs?"
It may have been the feel of the gun in his hand which awoke in Lord
Emsworth old memories of dashing days with the Shropshire Yeomanry and
lent him some of the hot spirit of his vanished youth. The fact remains
that he did not wilt beneath his sister's dominating eye. He met it
boldly, and boldly answered back.
"And ask yourself, Constance," he said, "what earthly motive Mr. Baxter
has for anything he does?"
"Yes," said the Hon. Galahad loyally. "What motive has our friend
Baxter for coming to Blandings Castle and scaring girls stiff by hiding
under beds?"
Lady Constance gulped. They had found the weak spot in her defences.
She turned to the man who she still hoped could deal efficiently with
this attack.
"Mr. Baxter!" she said, as if she were calling on him for an
after-dinner speech.
But Rupert Baxter had had no dinner. And it was perhaps this that
turned the scale. Quite suddenly there descended on him a frenzied
desire to be out of this, cost what it might. An hour before, half an
hour before, even five minutes before, his tongue had been tied by a
still lingering hope that he might yet find his way back to Blandings
Castle in the capacity of private secretary to the Earl of Emsworth.
Now he felt that he would not accept that post were it offered to him
on bended knee.
A sudden overpowering hatred of Blandings Castle and all it contained
gripped the Efficient Baxter. He marvelled that he had ever wanted to
come back. He held at the present moment the well-paid and responsible
position of secretary and adviser to J. Horace Jevons, the American
millionaire, a man who not only treated him with an obsequiousness
and respect which were balm to his soul, but also gave him such sound
advice on the investment of money that already he had trebled his
savings. And it was this golden-hearted Chicagoan whom he had been
thinking of deserting, purely to satisfy some obscure sentiment which
urged him to return to a house which, he saw now, he loathed as few
houses have been loathed since human beings left off living in caves.
His eyes flashed through their lenses. His mouth tightened.
"I will explain!"
"I knew you would have an explanation," cried Lady Constance.
"I have. A very simple one."
"And short, I hope?" asked Lord Emsworth restlessly. He was aching to
have done with all this talk and discussion and to be with his pig once
more. To think of the Empress languishing in a beastly caravan was
agony to him.
"Quite short," said Rupert Baxter.
The only person in the room who so far had remained entirely outside
this rather painful scene was Sue. She had looked on from her place by
the window, an innocent bystander. She now found herself drawn abruptly
into the maelstrom of the debate. Baxter's spectacles were raking
her from head to foot, and he had pointed at her with an accusing
forefinger.
"I came to this room," he said, "to try to recover a letter which I had
written to this lady who calls herself Miss Schoonmaker."
"Of course she calls herself Miss Schoonmaker," said Lord Emsworth,
reluctantly dragging his thoughts from the Empress. "It's her name, my
dear fellow. That," he explained gently, "is why she calls herself Miss
Schoonmaker. God bless my soul!" he said, unable to restrain a sudden
spurt of irritability. "If a girl's name is Schoonmaker naturally she
calls herself Miss Schoonmaker."
"Yes, if it is. But hers is not. It is Brown."
"Listen, my dear fellow," said Lord Emsworth soothingly. "You are only
exciting yourself by going on like this. Probably doing yourself a
great deal of harm. Now, what I suggest is that you go to your room and
put a cool compress on your forehead and lie down and take a good rest.
I will send Beach up to you with some nice bread-and-milk."
"Rum and milk," amended the Hon. Galahad. "It's the only thing. I knew
a fellow in the year '97 who was subject to these spells--you probably
remember him, Clarence--Bellamy--Barmy Bellamy we used to call him--and
whenever----"
"Her name is Brown!" repeated Baxter, his voice soaring in a hysterical
crescendo. "Sue Brown. She is a chorus girl at the Regal Theatre in
London. And she is apparently engaged to be married to your nephew
Ronald."
Lady Constance uttered a cry. Lord Emsworth expressed his feelings with
a couple of tuts. The Hon. Galahad alone was silent. He caught Sue's
eye, and there was concern in his gaze.
"I overheard Beach saying so in this very room. He said he had had the
information from Mr. Pilbeam. I imagine it to be accurate. But, in any
case, I can tell you this much. Whoever she is, she is an impostor
who has come here under a false name. While I was in the smoking room
some time back a telegram came through on the telephone from Market
Blandings. It was signed Myra Schoonmaker, and it had been handed in in
Paris this afternoon. That is all I have to say," concluded Baxter. "I
will now leave you, and I sincerely hope I shall never set eyes on any
of you again. Good-evening!"
His spectacles glinting coldly, he strode from the room and in the
doorway collided with Ronnie, who was entering.
"Can't you look where you're going?" he asked.
"Eh?" said Ronnie.
"Clumsy idiot!" said the Efficient Baxter, and was gone.
In the room he had left, Lady Constance Keeble had become a stone
figure of menace. She was not at ordinary times a particularly tall
woman, but she seemed now to tower like something vast and awful, and
Sue quailed before her.
"Ronnie!" cried Sue weakly.
It was the cry of the female in distress calling to her mate. Just so
in prehistoric days must Sue's cave woman ancestress have cried to the
man behind the club when suddenly cornered by the sabre-toothed tiger
which Lady Constance Keeble so closely resembled.
"Ronnie!"
"What's all this?" asked the last of the Fishes.
He was breathing rather quickly, for the going had been fast. Pilbeam,
once out in the open, had shown astonishing form at the short sprint.
He had shaken off Ronnie's challenge twenty yards down the drive and
plunged into a convenient shrubbery, and Ronnie, giving up the pursuit,
had come back to Sue's room to report. It occasioned him some surprise
to find that in his absence it had become the scene of some sort of
public meeting.
"What's all this?" he said, addressing that meeting.
Lady Constance wheeled round upon him.
"Ronald, who is this girl?"
"Eh?" Ronnie was conscious of a certain uneasiness, but he did his
best. He did not like his aunt's looks, but then he never had.
Something was evidently up, but it might be that airy nonchalance would
save the day. "You know her, don't you? Miss Schoonmaker? Met her with
me in London."
"Is her name Brown? And is she a chorus girl?"
"Why, yes," admitted Ronnie. It was a bombshell, but Eton and Cambridge
stood it well. "Why, yes," he said, "as a matter of fact, that's right."
Words seemed to fail Lady Constance. Judging from the expression on her
face this was just as well.
"I'd been meaning to tell you about that," said Ronnie. "We're engaged."
Lady Constance recovered herself sufficiently to find one word.
"Clarence!"
"Eh?" said Lord Emsworth. His thoughts had been wandering.
"You heard?"
"Heard what?"
Beyond the stage of turbulent emotion Lady Constance had become
suddenly calm and icy.
"If you have not been sufficiently interested to listen," she said, "I
may inform you that Ronald has just announced his intention of marrying
a chorus girl."
"Oh, ah?" said Lord Emsworth. Would a man of Baxter's outstanding
unbalanced intellect, he was wondering, have remembered to feed the
Empress regularly? The thought was like a spear quivering in his heart.
He edged in agitation toward the door and had reached it when he
perceived that his sister had not yet finished talking to him.
"So that is all the comment you have to make, is it?"
"Eh? What about?"
"The point I have been endeavouring to make you understand," went on
Lady Constance, with laborious politeness, "is that your nephew Ronald
has announced his intention of marrying into the Regal Theatre chorus."
"Who?"
"Ronald. This is Ronald. He is anxious to marry Miss Brown, a chorus
girl. This is Miss Brown."
"How do you do?" said Lord Emsworth. He might be vague but he had the
manners of the old school.
Ronnie interposed. The time had come to play the ace of trumps.
"She isn't an ordinary chorus girl."
"From the fact of her coming to Blandings Castle under a false name,"
said Lady Constance, "I imagine not. It shows unusual enterprise."
"What I mean," continued Ronnie, "is, I know what a bally snob you are,
Aunt Constance--no offence, but you know what I mean--keen on birth
and family and all that sort of rot. Well, what I'm driving at is that
Sue's father was in the Guards."
"A private? Or a corporal?"
"Captain. A fellow named----"
"Cotterleigh," said Sue in a small voice.
"Cotterleigh," said Ronnie.
"Cotterleigh!"
It was the Hon. Galahad who had spoken. He was staring at Sue open
mouthed.
"Cotterleigh? Not Jack Cotterleigh?"
"I don't know whether it was Jack Cotterleigh," said Ronnie. "The point
I'm making is that it was Cotterleigh and that he was in the Irish
Guards."
The Hon. Galahad was still staring at Sue.
"My dear," he cried, and there was an odd sharpness in his voice, "was
your mother Dolly Henderson, who used to be a serio at the old Oxford
and the Tivoli?"
Not for the first time Ronald Fish was conscious of a feeling that
his Uncle Galahad ought to be in some kind of a home. He would drag in
Dolly Henderson! He would stress the Dolly Henderson note at just this
point in the proceedings! He would spoil the whole thing by calling
attention to the Dolly Henderson aspect of the matter, just when it was
vital to stick to the Cotterleigh, the whole Cotterleigh, and nothing
but the Cotterleigh. Ronnie sighed wearily. Padded cells, he felt, had
been invented specially for the Uncle Galahads of this world, and the
Uncle Galahads, he considered, ought never to be permitted to roam
about outside them.
"Yes," said Sue, "she was."
The Hon. Galahad was advancing on her with outstretched hands. He
looked like some father in melodrama welcoming the prodigal daughter.
"Well, I'm dashed!" he said. He repeated three times that he was in
this condition. He seized Sue's limp paws and squeezed them fondly.
"I've been trying to think all this while who it was that you reminded
me of, my dear girl. Do you know that in the years '96, '97, and '98
I was madly in love with your mother myself? Do you know that if my
infernal family hadn't shipped me off to South Africa I would certainly
have married her? Fact, I assure you. But they got behind me and shoved
me onto the boat, and when I came back I found that young Cotterleigh
had cut me out. Well!"
It was a scene that some people would have considered touching. Lady
Constance Keeble was not one of them.
"Never mind about that now, Galahad," she said. "The point is----"
"The point is," retorted the Hon. Galahad warmly, "that that young
Fish there wants to marry Dolly Henderson's daughter, and I'm for it.
And I hope, Clarence, that you'll have some sense for once in your life
and back them up like a sportsman."
"Eh?" said the ninth earl. His thoughts had once more been wandering.
Even assuming that Baxter had fed the Empress, would he have given her
the right sort of food and enough of it?
"You see for yourself what a splendid girl she is."
"Who?"
"This girl."
"Charming," agreed Lord Emsworth courteously, and returned to his
meditations.
"Clarence!" cried Lady Constance, jerking him out of them.
"Eh?"
"You are not to consent to this marriage!"
"Who says so?"
"I say so. And think what Julia will say."
She could not have advanced a more impressive argument. In this
chronicle the Lady Julia Fish, relict of the late Major General Sir
Miles Fish, C.B.O., of the Brigade of Guards, has made no appearance.
We, therefore, know nothing of her compelling eye, her dominant chin,
her determined mouth, and her voice, which at certain times--as,
for example, when rebuking a brother--could raise blisters on a
sensitive skin. Lord Emsworth was aware of all these things. He had
had experience of them from boyhood. His idea of happiness was to be
where Lady Julia Fish was not. And the thought of her coming down to
Blandings Castle and tackling him in his library about this business
froze him to the marrow. It had been his amiable intention until this
moment to do whatever the majority of those present wanted him to do.
But now he hesitated.
"You think Julia wouldn't like it?"
"Of course Julia would not like it."
"Julia's an ass," said the Hon. Galahad.
Lord Emsworth considered this statement and was inclined to agree with
it. But it did not alter the main point.
"You think she would make herself unpleasant about it?"
"I do."
"In that case----" Lord Emsworth paused. Then a strange, soft light
came into his eyes. "Well, see you all later," he said. "I'm going down
to look at my pig."
His departure was so abrupt that it took Lady Constance momentarily by
surprise, and he was out of the room and well down the corridor before
she could recover herself sufficiently to act. Then she too hurried
out. They could hear her voice diminishing down the stairs. It was
calling, "Clarence!"
The Hon. Galahad turned to Sue. His manner was brisk yet soothing.
"A shame to inflict these fine old English family rows on a visitor,"
he said, patting her shoulder as one who, if things had broken right
and there had not been a regular service of boats to South Africa in
the 'nineties, might have been her father. "What you need, my dear, is
a little rest and quiet. Come along, Ronald, we'll leave you. The place
to continue this discussion is somewhere outside this room. Cheer up,
my dear. Everything may come out all right yet."
Sue shook her head.
"It's no good," she said hopelessly.
"Don't you be too sure," said the Hon. Galahad.
"I'll jolly well tell you one thing," said Ronnie. "I'm going to marry
you whatever happens. And that's that. Good heavens! I can work, can't
I?"
"What at?" asked the Hon. Galahad.
"What at? Why--er--why, at anything."
"The market value of any member of this family," said the Hon. Galahad,
who harboured no illusions about his nearest and dearest, "is about
threepence-ha'penny per annum. No! What we've got to do is get round
old Clarence somehow, and that means talk and argument, which had
better take place elsewhere. Come along, my boy. You never know your
luck. I've seen stickier things than this come out right in my time."