Uncle Fred in the Springtime (32 page)

Lady
Constance intervened.

‘We
came to let Lord Ickenham out.’

‘Let
who out?’

‘Lord
Ickenham.’

‘How do
you mean, Lord Ickenham?’

‘This
is Lord Ickenham.’

‘Yes,’
said Lord Ickenham, ‘I am Lord Ickenham. And this,’ he went on, bestowing a
kindly glance on the glacial Valerie, ‘is my favourite niece.

‘I’m
your only niece.’

‘Perhaps
that’s the reason,’ said Lord Ickenham.

The
Duke had now reached an almost Bosham-like condition of mental fog.

‘I don’t
understand all this. If you’re Ickenham, why didn’t you say you were Ickenham?
Why did you tell us you were Glossop?’

‘Precisely,’
said Lady Constance. ‘I am waiting for Lord Ickenham to explain —’Me too,’ said
Lord Bosham.

‘— his
extraordinary behaviour.’

‘Extraordinary
is the word,’ assented Lord Bosham. ‘As a matter of fact, his behaviour has
been extraordinary all along. Most extraordinary. By way of a start, he played
the confidence trick on me in London.’

‘Just
to see whether it could be done, my dear fellow,’ explained Lord Ickenham.

‘Merely
an experiment in the interests of science. I sent your wallet to your home, by
the way. You will find it waiting there for you.’

‘Oh,
really?’ said Lord Bosham, somewhat mollified. ‘I’m glad to hear that. I value
that wallet.’

‘A very
nice wallet.’

‘It is
rather, isn’t it? My wife gave it me for a birthday present.’

‘Indeed?
How is your wife?’

‘Oh,
fine, thanks.’

‘Whoso
findeth a wife findeth a good thing.’

‘I’ll
tell her that. Rather neat. Your own?’

‘Proverbs
of Solomon.’

‘Oh?
Well, I’ll pass it along, anyway. It should go well.’

Lady
Constance was finding a difficulty in maintaining her patrician calm. This
difficulty her nephew’s conversation did nothing to diminish.

‘Never
mind about your wife, George. We are all very fond of Cicely, but we do not
want to talk about her now.’

‘No,
no, of course not. Don’t quite know how we got on to the subject. Still. before
leaving same, I should just like to mention that she’s the best little woman in
the world. Right ho, Aunt Connie, carry on. You have the floor.’

There
was a frigidity in Lady Constance’s manner.

‘You
have really finished?’

‘Oh,
rather.’

‘You
are quite sure?’

‘Oh,
quite.

‘Then I
will ask Lord Ickenham to explain why he came to Blandings Castle pretending to
be Sir Roderick Glossop.’

‘Yes,
let’s have a diagram of that.’

‘Be
quiet, George.’

‘Right
ho, Aunt Connie.’

Lord
Ickenham looked thoughtful.

‘Well,’
he said, ‘it’s a long story.’

Valerie
Twistleton’s eye, as it met her uncle’s, was hard and unfriendly.

‘Your
stories can never be too long,’ she said, speaking with a metallic note in her
voice. ‘And we have the night before us.’

‘And
why,’ asked Lord Bosham, ‘did he lay out Baxter and our detective with
knock-out drops?’

‘Please,
George!’

‘Yes,’
said Lord Ickenham rebukingly, ‘we shall never get anywhere, if you go
wandering off into side issues. It is, as I say, a long story, but if you are
sure it won’t bore you —’

‘Not at
all,’ said Valerie. ‘We shall all be most interested. So will Aunt Jane, when I
tell her.’

Lord
Ickenham looked concerned.

‘My
dear child, you mustn’t breath a word to your aunt about meeting me here.’

‘Oh,
no?’

‘Emphatically
not. Lady Constance will agree with me, I know, when she has heard what I have
to say.’

‘Then
please say it.’

‘Very
well. The explanation of the whole thing is absurdly simple. I came here on
Emsworth’s behalf.’

‘I do
not understand you.’

‘I will
make myself plain.’

‘I
still don’t see,’ said Lord Bosham, who had been brooding with bent brows, ‘why
he should have slipped kayo drops in —’

‘George!’

‘Oh,
all right.’

Lord
Ickenham regarded the young man for a moment with a reproving eye.

‘Emsworth,’
he resumed, ‘came to me and told me a strange and romantic story —’

‘And
now,’ said Valerie, ‘you’re telling us one.’

‘My
dear! It seemed that he had become sentimentally attached to a certain young
woman … or person … or party … however you may choose to describe her —’

‘What!’

Lord Bosham
appeared stunned.

‘Why,
dash it, he was a hundred last birthday!’ ‘Your father is a man of about my own
age.’

‘And
mine,’ said the Duke.

‘I
should describe him as being in the prime of life.’ ‘Exactly,’ said the Duke.

‘I
often say that life begins at sixty.’

‘So do
I,’ said the Duke. ‘Frequently.’

‘That,
at any rate,’ proceeded Lord Ickenham, ‘was how Emsworth felt. The fever of
spring was coursing through his veins, and he told himself that there was life
in the old dog yet. I use the expression “old dog” in no derogatory sense. He
conceived a deep attachment for this girl, and persuaded me to bring her here
as my daughter.’

Lady
Constance had now abandoned altogether any attempt at preserving a patrician
calm. She uttered a cry which, if it had proceeded from a less aristocratic
source, might almost have been called a squeal..

‘What!
You mean that my brother is infatuated with that child?’

‘Where
did he meet her?’ asked Lord Bosham.

‘It was
his dearest wish,’ said Lord Ickenham, ‘to make her his bride.’

‘Where
did he meet her?’ asked Lord Bosham.

‘It not
infrequently happens that men in the prime of life pass through what might be
described as an Indian summer of the affections, and when this occurs the
object of their devotion is generally pretty juvenile.’

‘What
beats me,’ said Lord Bosham, ‘is where on earth he could have met. I didn’t
know the guv’nor ever stirred from the old home.’

It
seemed to Lord Ickenham that this was a line of enquiry which it would be well
to check at its source.

‘I wish
you wouldn’t interrupt,’ he said, brusquely.

‘Yes,
dash it, you oaf,’ said the Duke, ‘stop interrupting.’

‘Can’t
you see, George,’ cried Lady Constance despairingly, ‘that we are all almost off
our heads with worry and anxiety, and you keep interrupting.’

‘Very
trying,’ said Lord Ickenham.

Lord
Bosham appeared wounded. He was not an abnormally sensitive young man, but this
consensus of hostile feeling seemed to hurt him.

‘Well,
if a chap can’t say a word,’ he said, ‘perhaps you would prefer that I
withdrew.’

‘Yes,
do.’

‘Right
ho,’ said Lord Bosham. ‘Then I will. Anybody who wants me will find me having a
hundred up in the billiard-room. Not that I suppose my movements are of the
slightest interest.’

He
strode away, plainly piqued, and his passing seemed to Lord Ickenham to cause a
marked improvement in the atmosphere. He had seldom met a young man with such a
gift for asking inconvenient questions. Freed of this heckler, he addressed
himself to his explanation with renewed confidence.

‘Well,
as I say, Emsworth had conceived this infatuation for a girl who, in the prime
of life though he was, might have been his granddaughter. And he asked me as an
old friend to help him. He anticipated that there would be opposition to the
match, and his rather ingenious scheme was that I should come to Blandings
Castle posing as the Sir Roderick Glossop who was expected, and should bring
the girl with me as my daughter. He was good enough to say that my impressive
deportment would make an excellent background for her. His idea — shrewd,
however one may deplore it — was that you, Lady Constance, would find yourself
so attracted by the girl’s personality that the task of revealing the truth to
you would become a simple one. He relied on her — I quote his expression — to
fascinate you.’

Lady
Constance drew a deep, shuddering breath.

‘Oh,
did he?’

The
Duke put a question.

‘Who is
this frightful girl? An absolute outsider, of course?’

‘Yes,
her origin is humble. She is the daughter of a retired Silver Ring bookie.’

‘My
God!’

‘Yes.
Well, Emsworth came to me and proposed this scheme, and you can picture my
dismay as I listened. Argument, I could see, would have been useless. The man
was obsessed.’

‘You
use such lovely language,’ said Valerie, who had sniffed.

‘Thank
you, my dear.’

‘Have
you ever thought of writing fairy stories?’

‘No, I
can’t say I have.’

‘You
should.’

The
look the Duke cast at the sardonic girl could scarcely have been sourer if she
had been Lord Bosham.

‘Never
mind all that, dash it. First Bosham, now you. Interruptions all the time. Get
on, get on, get on. Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes?’

‘So,’
said Lord Ickenham, ‘I did not attempt argument. I agreed to his proposal. The impression
I tried to convey — and, I think, succeeded in conveying — was that I approved.
I consented to the monstrous suggestion that I should come here under a false
name and bring the girl as my daughter. And shall I tell you why?’

‘Yes,
do,’ said Valerie.

‘Because
a sudden thought had struck me. Was it not possible, I asked myself, that if
Emsworth were to see this girl at B landings Castle — in the surroundings of
his own home — with the portraits of his ancestors gazing down at her —’

‘Dashed
ugly set of mugs,’ said the Duke. ‘Why they ever wanted to have themselves painted….
However, never mind that. I see what you’re getting at. You thought it might
cause him to take another look at the frightful little squirt and realize he
was making an ass of himself?’

‘Exactly.
And that is just what happened. The scales fell from his eyes. His infatuation
ceased as suddenly as it had begun. This evening he told her it could never be,
and she has left for London.’

‘Then,
dash it, everything’s all right.’

‘Thank
Heaven!’ cried Lady Constance.

Lord
Ickenham shook his head gravely.

‘I am
afraid you are both overlooking something. There are such things as breach of
promise cases.

‘What!’

‘I fear
so. He tells me the girl took the thing badly. She went off muttering threats.’

‘Then
what is to be done?’

‘There
is only one thing to be done, Lady Constance. You must make a financial
settlement with her.’

‘Buy
her off,’ explained the Duke. ‘That’s the way to handle it. You can always buy
these females off. I recollect, when I was at Oxford…. However, that is
neither here nor there. The point is, how much?’

Lord
Ickenham considered.

‘A girl
of that class,’ he said, at length, ‘would have very limited ideas about money.
Three hundred pounds would seem a fortune to her. In fact, I think I might be
able to settle with her for two hundred and fifty.’

‘Odd,’
said the Duke, struck by the coincidence. ‘That was the sum my potty nephew was
asking me for this afternoon.’

‘Curious,’
said Lord Ickenham.

‘Had
some dashed silly story about wanting it so that he could get married.’

‘Fancy!
Well, then, Lady Constance, if you will give me three hundred pounds — to be on
the safe side — I will run up to London tomorrow morning and see what I can do.’

‘I will
write you a cheque.’

‘No,
don’t do that,’ said the Duke. ‘What you want on these occasions is to roll the
money about in front of them in solid cash. That time at Oxford…. And I
happen, strangely enough, to have that exact sum in this very room.’

‘Why,
so you have,’ said Lord Ickenham. ‘We were talking about it not long ago, weren’t
we?’

The
Duke unlocked a drawer in the writing-table.

‘Here you
are,’ he said. ‘Take it, and see what you can do. Remember, it is imperative to
roll it about.’

‘And if
more is required —’ said Lady Constance.

‘I
doubt if it will be necessary to sweeten the kitty any further. This should be
ample. But there is one other thing,’ said Lord Ickenham. ‘This unfortunate
infatuation of Emsworth’s must never be allowed to come out.’