A Pelican at Blandings (18 page)

'Yes, I'll marry you, Willie, but I think it's only fair that you
should know what you're letting yourself in for.'

'What do you mean?'

'Just this, that if I marry, it'll be for keeps. When I take you
for my wedded husband, you'll stay taken. You're going to
have me around for an awful long time, Willie.'

'Suits me.'

'You're sure?'

'Sure I'm sure.'

'Then I see no objection to you folding me in your arms
again. It felt kind of good the first time. And now,' said
Vanessa, 'we might be going off and seeing if we can get some
sleep. And tomorrow we'll say goodbye to Blandings Castle
and drive to London and hunt up a registrar. You don't get
married by Justices of the Peace over here, you go to a registry
office.'

The following morning found Gally in his hammock as usual,
but without his eyeglass. He had removed it and closed his eyes
in order to assist thought, for he had much intensive thinking
to do. Once more the cat from the stables, who knew a kindred
soul when she met one, jumped on his stomach and purred
invitingly, but this time he was too preoccupied to tickle it
behind the ear. He was friendly, but aloof.

The Pelican Club trains its sons well, teaching them, no
matter what their troubles and anxieties, always to preserve
outwardly the poker-faced nonchalance of a red Indian at the
stake. Nobody seeing him as he lay there could have guessed
at the pangs he was suffering as he mused on the tangled
matrimonial affairs of a loved godson. To Vanessa, coming
to the hammock's side, he seemed his customary unruffled
self.

'Hullo there,' she said. 'You look very comfortable. Don't
get up. The etiquette books say that a gentleman should always
rise in the presence of a lady, but that doesn't apply when the
gentleman is reclining in a hammock with a cat on top of him.
I've only come to say goodbye.'

It meant adjusting the cat, but Gally was obliged to sit up.
He replaced his eyeglass and gazed at her with incredulity not
unmixed with reproach.

'You're leaving?'

'In a minute or two.'

'You said you weren't going to.'

'I've altered my plans. Don't look so reproachful. It isn't that
I don't trust you not to give me away. I know the word of the
Threepwoods is their bond. But something's happened since
our chat on the roof. Can I speak freely before the cat? I ask
because it's a secret for the moment and I wouldn't want it to
be noised abroad. I'm going to be married.'

'What!'

'Yessir, it's all fixed.'

A horrible suspicion caused a shudder to pass through
Gally's dapper frame. His voice shook.

'Not Dunstable?'

'Good heavens, no. What made you pick on him?'

'A girl as rich as he thinks you are is always bound to exert
a spell on a man as fond of money as he is. He's been courting
you for days. Ask Connie if you don't believe me.'

'So that's what he's been doing! It puzzled me.'

'That's what. But if it isn't Dunstable—'

'—it must be Wilbur Trout. It is. Now say it.'

'Say what?'

'H'm.'

'I wasn't dreaming of saying H'm.'

'I thought you would. Disapprovingly.'

'I don't disapprove. Why shouldn't you marry Trout?
Everybody else does.'

'I nearly did some years ago. We were engaged.'

'All I was asking myself was Is he good enough for you? Any
girl who can make a fool of Connie as you've done deserves the
best of husbands. And while Trout is admittedly the most
frequent of husbands, is he the best?'

'He's going to be. I have all sorts of plans for Willie. I'm
going to make him get a job and cut down on cocktails and
generally realize that life is stern and life is earnest. He'll be
fine.'

'And you feel that you can correct that tendency of his to
become over-cordial when he meets a blonde?'

'Sure. It's just a nervous habit.'

'Then accept my congratulations.'

'Thank you.'

'You won't mind if while giving you them I heave a sigh?'

'Go right ahead, if you want to. But why?'

'I'm thinking of my godson Johnny Halliday.'

'What's wrong with him?'

'Everything. It's a tragedy. He loves the Gilpin wench, and
she loves him, but they can't get married because Dunstable
won't give his consent.'

'For heaven's sake. I thought that consent stuff went out
with Queen Victoria.'

'It did as a general rule, but Linda Gilpin's a ward of court,
and that means that the court won't allow her to marry what
they call the intending party unless her guardian gives them
the green light. Her guardian is Dunstable.'

'So that's why you were asking me at dinner about wards of
court. And the Duke won't give the green light?'

'Not unless I can find some way of making him. And so far
I've not been able to think of one. What I want is to get some
hold over him. You don't know of any guilty secrets he might
have?'

'I'm afraid I don't.'

'Nor do I. I see now that it was a shortsighted policy turning
him down when he came up for election at the Pelican Club.
If he had been let in, one would have been able to keep a
constant eye on him and assemble any amount of material for
blackmail, but as it is, I'm helpless.'

'It's difficult.'

'Very difficult.'

'It's the sort of situation where you want the United States
Marines to arrive. Oh, that's Willie,' said Vanessa, alluding to
the rhythmic tooting of a horn that was proceeding from an
ornate car outside the front door. 'I must rush. Will you be in
London soon?'

'I shouldn't wonder. Not much use staying on and reasoning
with Dunstable unless I have definite information as to where
the body's buried.'

'Give me a ring. I'll be at Barribault's. Goodbye. And keep
an eye skinned for those United States Marines. I'm sure
they'll be along.'

She ran off, leaving Gally sufficiently restored to be able to
tickle the cat behind the ear. He could not share her optimism,
but she had cheered him up a little.

The car rolled off down the drive, and Lady Constance, as she
turned from speeding it on its way, erased from her lips the
bright smile they had worn while she was making her farewells.
She was conscious of a growing uneasiness. Wilbur's
attitude while settling himself at the steering wheel had
disturbed her.

Having seen in her time so many romances run their course
at Blandings Castle, she had become expert at recognizing the
symptoms, and she was oppressed by the conviction that she
had been present at the early stages of another. She was telling
herself that if what she had detected in the eyes of Wilbur
Trout had not been the love light, she did not know a love light
when she saw one.

And the solicitous way he had fussed over the girl in the seat
beside him. Did she want a rug? Was she sure she didn't want a
rug? Wouldn't she be cold without a rug? Well, all right if she
was really sure she didn't want a rug, but would it be okay if he
lit a cigarette? The smoke might blow in her eyes. Would she
mind the smoke blowing in her eyes? Oh, she would have a
cigarette, too? Fine. Swell. Capital. Splendid. And she needn't
worry about him driving too fast. No risks for him, no,
sir.

The whole of his dialogue could have been written into
Romeo And Juliet
without changing a word. Taken in conjunction
with the love light in his eyes, to which reference has
already been made, it sent her hurrying to the garden suite to
warn the Duke that he had a rival to his wooing and that he
would do well to accelerate that wooing in no uncertain
manner. It would, she would tell him, though not in those
words, be necessary for him to pull up his socks and get a move
on.

She found him in the frame of mind which causes strong
men to pace to and fro with knitted brows. His injured ankle,
of course, prohibited anything in the nature of pacing to and
fro, but his brow was definitely knitted. A recently received
piece of information had stirred him to his depths.

'Hoy!' he boomed as she entered. 'What's all this Beach tells
me about Trout leaving?'

'Yes, he has just gone.'

'Where?'

'London.'

'And not coming back?'

'No.'

The Duke could put two and two together. He scorched her
with a burning eye.

'You've been coming the
grande dame
over him!'

'I have not.'

'But he's gone?'

'Yes.'

'And no chance now of selling him that picture. It required
constant personal supervision. Another week and I'd have got
him where I wanted him. Are you sure you've not been looking
down your nose at him?'

Lady Constance lowered herself into a chair. A woman of
lesser breeding and self-control would have slumped into it
like a sack of coals.

'Quite sure. And I am not worrying about the picture,
Alaric. It is much more serious than that.'

'How do you mean it's more serious? How can anything be
more serious? Now I'll have to sell it at Sotheby's or
somewhere for about half what I'd have got from Trout. What
makes you say it's more serious? What's more serious?'

'Vanessa went with him.'

'What! She's left, too?'

'Yes.'

'Why?'

'Trout must have persuaded her to go with him. He's in love
with her.'

'Don't be an ass.'

'I tell you he is. I could see by looking at him.'

'Well, she can't be in love with him. He's got ginger hair
and a broken nose.'

'I don't suppose she is. But that is not to say that she won't
marry him if he is persistent. You must act at once, Alaric.'

'Act? Act how?'

'Write to her immediately. She will be at Barribault's.'

'I've lunched there. They charge you the earth.'

'And ask her to be your wife. Say you will get a special
licence. It will show how eager you are. You get it from the
Archbishop of Canterbury.'

'I know you do, and he soaks you worse than Barribault's.'

'What does that matter?'

'It matters to me. You're like all women, you seem to think
a man is made of money.'

'Good heavens, Alaric, is this a time to economize? Have
you forgotten that Vanessa will be one of the richest women in
America? She's J. B. Polk's daughter, J. B. Polk's
daughter.
She'll inherit millions.'

She had found the talking point. The Duke's eyes gleamed
with a new light. It differed in quality from the love light
which Wilbur Trout had recently been spraying over Vanessa,
but it was fully as noticeable. His voice rang out like a clarion.

'I'll write that letter!'

'It's the only thing to do. And Beach can take it to Market
Blandings and have it registered.'

'But I don't know what to say.'

'I'll tell you what to say. You could begin by telling her that
the reason you hesitated to speak before was that you felt you
might be a little old for her.'

'Old?' The Duke started. He was—by about thirty years—
past his first youth, but like all men so situated he regarded
himself as just approaching the prime of life. 'What do you
mean, old?'

'And then . . . No, you'll never be able to write the sort of
letter this has to be. It wants the most careful phrasing. I'll do
it, and you can copy it out.'

As Lady Constance seated herself at the desk and took pen
in hand, the Duke's emotions were mixed. A proud man, he
resented having his love letters written for him, but on the
other hand he could not but feel that in the present crisis a
ghost writer would come in uncommonly handy, for he had to
admit that, left to his own devices, he would not even know
how to start the thing, let alone fill the four sheets which could
be looked on as the irreducible minimum. He was a great
writer of letters to the
Times,
the Government could not move
a step without hearing from him, but this one called for gifts
of which he knew himself to be deficient. It was, accordingly,
with approval that he watched his collaborator's pen racing
over the paper, and when she had finished, he took the
manuscript from her with pleasurable anticipation of a treat in
store.

It was a pity, therefore, that perusal of it should have
brought out all the destructive critic in him. He scanned the
document with dismay, and delivered his verdict with asperity.
He might have been one of those Scotch reviewers Byron
disliked so much.

'This,' he said, his eyes popping as they had rarely popped
before, 'is the most god-awful slush I ever read!'

If Lady Constance was piqued, she did not show it. She may
have raised an eyebrow, but scarcely so that it could be noticed.
Like all authors, she knew her output was above criticism.

'Indeed?' she said. 'Perhaps you will tell me what jars on
your sensitive taste.'

'Well, this for a start—"I can't go on living without you".'

'You think it should be changed to "without your money"?'

'It's too damned grovelling. Puts her above herself right
from the start. But that's not so bad as this poppycock about
the church steeple. "I love you as the church steeple loves the
cloud that settles above it". Is that a way to talk? She'll think
I'm potty.'

'Not at all. A charming thought. Do you remember Bertie
Weaver? No, you wouldn't, he was only at the castle for a short
time. He was my father's secretary, and he said those very
words to me one evening when we were walking by the lake.
I've often wondered where he got them, because he was not
the poetic type, he had been a Rugby football Blue at
Cambridge. From some play he had seen, I suppose. It's the
kind of thing they say in plays. It impressed me enormously,
and I'm sure it will impress Vanessa. Any more complaints?'

'I don't like any of it.'

'Well, it's all you're going to get. I take it that even though
you have a sprained ankle you can manage to go to the desk.
Do so, and copy out what I have written word for word, for I
certainly do not intend to compose a revised version.'

And with this ultimatum Lady Constance withdrew
haughtily, leaving the Duke, as so many men have been left by
women in their time, with the loser's end of the debate.

For some minutes after she had gone he huffed and
puffed, as his niece Linda would have said, but not surprisingly
it got him nowhere. No matter how often he blew
at his moustache and muttered 'Women!' he could not evade
the inevitable.

Half an hour later, when his task was done and he had
sealed and directed the envelope, there was a deprecating
knock on the door and Lord Emsworth came in.