A Pelican at Blandings (8 page)

The parting with Ma Balsam had done nothing to induce
equanimity. When a motherly woman of strong inquisitive
trend sees a young man, to whom she has attached herself as a
guide, philosopher and friend, making preparations for a
journey the day after he has returned from one, she is naturally
curious. And when the Ma Balsams of this world are curious,
they do not hesitate to ask questions. The following dialogue
took place as John packed his suitcase.

'You off somewhere?'

'Yes.'

'You went off yesterday.'

'Yes.'

'Where you going this time?'

'Shropshire.'

'What, again?'

'Yes.'

'What takes you there?'

'I have to see a man.'

'In Shropshire?'

'Yes.'

'Whereabouts in Shropshire?'

'A place called Market Blandings.'

'Never heard of it.'

'Well, it's there.'

'Was that where you went yesterday?'

'Yes.'

'It'd have saved a lot of trouble if you'd stayed the night
there. I suppose that didn't occur to you.'

'I had to be in court this morning.'

'Balsam used to go to court a lot when he was with us. There
was a copper with a cast in one eye who kept pinching him for
street betting. What's that thing in brown paper?'

'A picture.'

'You taking it to this man you're seeing?'

'Yes.'

'Cheaper to send it parcel post.'

'Yes.'

'Then why don't you?'

'Oh, aitch!' said John, and Ma Balsam realized that the bad
influence of Mister Who-is-it had made even more progress
than she had supposed.

The meeting with Gally got off to a bad start. When the last
of the Pelicans arrived at the tryst on the following morning,
he was in no welcoming mood. John's telephone call had come
when he was out taking a stroll in the grounds, and its purport
had been relayed to him by Beach. All he knew, accordingly,
was that his godson, contrary to the most definite instructions,
had returned to the Emsworth Arms, and he was naturally
annoyed. No leader of men likes to hear that his orders have
been ignored by a subordinate. His greeting of John was
brusque.

'I thought I told you to go back to London and leave
everything to me,' he said.

His manner was stern, but John remained unmoved.

'This isn't that.'

'What do you mean, this isn't that?'

'It has nothing to do with Linda.'

'Nothing to do with her?'

'No.'

'Then what's it all about? If,' said Gally, 'you've dragged me
all the way to Market Blandings on a sweltering summer
morning for some trifle . . . What are you giggling about?'

John corrected his choice of verbs.

'I was not giggling. I was laughing hollowly. Your use of the
word "trifle" amused me. It's anything but a trifle that brings
me here. I'm sorry you've had a warm walk—'

'Warm? I feel like Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego in the
burning fiery furnace.'

'—but I had to see you. The most ghastly thing has
happened, and we need your help.'

'We?'

'Joe Bender and I.'

'Who's Joe Bender?'

'I told you that night I came to your place. Don't you
remember? He runs the Bender gallery.'

'Ah yes. You put some money into it, you said.'

'I put practically all the money I had into it. And now I'm
going to lose it, unless you come to the rescue.'

Gally stared, amazed that anyone should think him possessed
of cash. Not that he did not appreciate the compliment.

'My good Johnny, what on earth can I do? Heaven knows
I'd like to help you out of a tight place, but all I've got is a
younger son's pittance, and I'm not allowed to dip into the
capital. I could manage twenty quid, if that's any use. And even
that would mean getting an overdraft at my bank.'

John expressed gratitude for the offer, but said that Gally
was under a misapprehension.

'I don't want money.'

'Then why did you say so?'

'I didn't say so.'

'It sounded like it to me.'

'I'm sorry. No, what I want you to do is switch a couple of
pictures.'

'To . . . what?'

'Yes, I know it sounds odd, but it's really quite simple.'

'Then perhaps you would explain.'

'I will.'

Gally, as has been mentioned, was always a better raconteur
than a listener, but he gave on this occasion no cause for
complaint in the latter role. Nobody could have been more
silently attentive. He sat drinking in every word of John's story,
never interrupting and not even saying at its conclusion that it
reminded him of something that had happened to a friend of
his in the Pelican Club. All he said was that he would be
charmed to perform the absurdly simple task required of him.
To take the forgery to John and return to the castle with the
genuine painting and deposit it in the portrait gallery would,
he assured him, be the ideal way of filling in the time. Time,
he said, always hung a little heavy on one's hands in the
country, and one was grateful for something to occupy one.

'You've brought the genuine goods with you?' he said, all
executive bustle and efficiency. 'Capital, capital, as Clarence
would say. Where is it?'

'Up in my room.'

'I can't take it now, of course.'

'Why not?'

'My dear boy, use your intelligence. What would I say if I
met Connie and she asked me what I thought I was doing,
sneaking about with a whacking great picture under my arm?
I should be at a loss. I wouldn't know which way to look. No,
stealth is essential.'

'Yes, you're right.'

'It's a thing that must be done at dead of night, the deader
the better. We must arrange a rendezvous. Where can we
meet? Not in the ruined chapel, because there isn't a ruined
chapel, and other spots I could name wouldn't convey a thing
to you, you being a stranger in these parts. I think I'll walk
round in a circle for a bit and muse, if you have no objection.'

Permission granted, he walked in a circle for a bit and must
have mused to good purpose, for on completing his eleventh
lap he announced that he had it.

'The sty!'

'The what?'

'The bijou residence of my brother Clarence's prize pig,
Empress of Blandings. The ideal locale, for however dark the
night the old girl's distinctive aroma will lead you to it
unerringly. It's near the kitchen garden. Go there and sniff,
then follow your nose. There was a song popular before you
were born, the refrain of which began with the words "It ain't
all lavender". It might have been written expressly with the
Empress in mind. Her best friends won't tell her, but she
suffers from B.O. How is your sense of smell? Keen? Then you
can't miss. And we must make it tonight, for time is of the
essence. Dunstable bought that picture with the intention of
selling it to an American chap called Trout. Trout got here
yesterday. As soon as they've concluded their deal he will
presumably leave and bang will go our chance of making the
switch. So meet me at the Empress's sty at midnight, and I will
carry on from there.'

A belated spasm of remorse stirred John. For the first time
it occurred to him that however lightly Gally might speak of
his assignment as absurdly simple, he was asking a good deal
of the most accommodating godfather.

'I hate landing you with a job like this, Gally.'

'My dear boy, I shall enjoy it.'

'Midnight's not too late for you?'

'The shank of the evening.'

'Suppose you're caught?'

'I won't be caught. I'm never caught. They call me The
Shadow.'

'Well, I can't tell you how grateful I am. You've taken a load
off my mind.'

'Though there must still be plenty on it.'

'There is.' John choked for a moment as if afflicted by a
sudden catarrh. 'Have you . . . Have you . . . Have you by any
chance had a word with her?'

'Not yet. I'm biding my time. These things can't be hurried.
In dealing with a disgruntled popsy the wise man waits till she
has simmered down a bit.'

'How—er—how is she?'

'Physically in the pink. Spiritually not so bobbish. She will
need careful treatment. You must be patient, telling yourself
that her current inclination to dip you in boiling oil will
eventually pass. Time the great healer, and all that sort of
thing. And as regards tonight you have memorized the drill?
Good. Then I will be leaving you. We shall meet at twelve pip
emma. Lurk concealed till you hear the hoot of the white owl,
and then come running. I think I can manage a white owl all
right, but if not I'll do you a brown one.'

The clock over the stables was chiming the quarter, with
only another quarter to go before twelve p.m., when Gally
came out of the portrait gallery carrying the fictitious reclining
nude. He was wearing rubber-soled shoes and stepped softly as
befitted a man engaged on a perilous mission. Cautiously, for
the oak stairs were slippery, he made his way to the hall and
the front door that lay beyond it, and shooting back the bolts
which Beach had made fast before taking the tray of beverages
into the drawing-room at nine-thirty passed through it into
the night. He was conscious, as he went, of a momentary pang
for the years which the locust had eaten. Just so, he remembered,
when his heart was young and every member of the
female sex looked like a million dollars to him, had he crept
out in the darkness to exchange ideas with a girl named Maud,
now a grandmother.

Arriving at his destination, he had no need to imitate the
hoot of the white owl, for before he could display his virtuosity
in that direction John stepped from the shadows.

'I thought you were never coming,' said John peevishly. He
was unused to this sort of thing, and his nerves were on edge.
He had reached the sty at eleven-fifteen, and it seemed to him
that he had been there, inhaling the Empress's bouquet, since
childhood.

With his usual suavity Gally pointed out that he was not late
but, if reliance could be placed on the clock over the stables,
some ten minutes ahead of time, and John apologized. He said
it was the darkness that got him down, and Gally agreed that
darkness had its trying side.

'But you can't do these things by daylight. I remember
saying that to Bill Bowman, a friend of mine in the old Pelican
days. He was in love with a popsy and her parents were holding
her incommunicado in the family residence somewhere in
Kent. Bill wanted to get a letter to her, telling her to sneak out
and run away with him, and his idea was to hide in the grounds
till a gardener came along and tip him to give it to her. I told
him he was making a great mistake.'

'Do you think we ought to stand here talking?' said John,
but Gally proceeded with his tale. It was never easy, indeed it
was almost impossible, to stop him when in spate.

'"Do it by night," I urged him. "You know which her room
is. Climb up the water pipe to her window, having previously
thrown gravel at it—the window, of course, not the water pipe,
and get her views face to face. Only so can you hope to bring
home the bacon. "Well, he made some fanciful objection, said
climbing water pipes wouldn't do his trousers any good or
something frivolous like that, and persisted in his plan. Next
morning he went and hid. A gardener came along. He tipped
him and gave him the letter. And the gardener, who turned
out of course to be the girl's father, immediately got after him
with the pitchfork he was carrying. Moreover, he stuck to the
tip like glue. Bill has often told me that what really rankled
with him was the thought that he had paid a pound just to be
chased through a thickset hedge with a gardening fork. He was
always a chap who liked to get value for money. So now you
see what I meant when I said it's better to do these things at
night. By the way, talking of letters, has it ever occurred to you
to write one to your popsy?'

John's manner took on a touch of stiffness.

'Must you call her my popsy?'

His tone hurt Gally. He was not conscious of having used a
derogatory term.

'Must call her something.'

'You might try Miss Gilpin.'

'Sounds a bit formal. Anyway, you know who I mean. Why
not drop her a line?'

John shook his head. A wasted gesture, of course, for a man
cloaked in darkness towards another man also cloaked in
darkness.

'It wouldn't do any good. I must see her.'

'Yes, on second thoughts you're right. In my younger days I
always found that when I wanted to melt the heart of a bookie
and persuade him to wait another week for his money, it was
essential to confer with him in person, so as to be able to
massage his upper arm and pick bits of fluff off him, and no
doubt the same principle applies when one is trying to get a girl
thinking along the right lines. At any moment you may want
to reach out and grab her and shower kisses on her upturned
face, and this cannot be done by mail.'

John quivered. Those vivid words had conjured up a picture
which moved him deeply.

'I suppose it really is impossible to get me into the castle?'

The wistful note in his voice, so like that which used to
come into his own in the old days when he was having business
talks with turf accountants, stirred Gally's sympathetic heart.
He would have given much to be able to offer some word of
cheer, but he could not encourage false hopes.

'As a friend of mine absolutely impossible. It wouldn't be
worth your while to bother to pass the front door. "Throw this
man out", Connie would say to the knaves and scullions on the
pay roll, and "I want to see him bounce twice", she would add.
The only way you could remain on the premises for more than
ten minutes would be if you put on false whiskers and said you
had come to inspect the drains. Which reminds me. A fellow
at the Pelican did that once, and—'

But the case history of the fellow at the Pelican who, no
doubt from the best motives, had bearded himself like the pard
and shown an interest in drainage systems was not to be gone
into with the thoroughness customary with Gally when in
reminiscent mood. It has been stressed more than once in the
course of this chronicle that he was a difficult man to stop, but
one of the things that could stop him was the sight at a
moment like this of a torch wobbling through the darkness in
his direction. He broke off on the word 'and' as if some
anecdote-disliking auditor had gripped him by the throat.

John, too, had seen the torch, and a single look at it was
enough to galvanize him into immediate activity. He was gone
with the wind, and Gally lost no time in following his astute
example. Hilarious though he knew the story of the whiskered
fellow at the Pelican to be, he felt no inclination to linger and
tell it to the torch-bearer. Better, he decided, to withdraw
while the withdrawing was good. He and John had long since
exchanged reclining nudes, so there was really nothing to keep
him.

Returning by a circuitous route to the house, he was careful
to shoot the bolts of the front door, for he had no wish to
wound Beach's feelings by leading him to suppose, when he
went his rounds in the morning, that he had omitted so
important a part of his duties; and, this done, he climbed the
stairs to his room.

It was in the same corridor as the portrait gallery, but he did
not go there immediately. Hanging the picture was a thing
that could be done any time in the next six hours, and the
humid night had made him hot and sticky. His first move,
obviously, was to take a bath. He gathered up his great sponge
and trotted off along the corridor.

It was Lord Emsworth who had so abruptly applied the closure
to the story of the fellow at the Pelican. As a rule, he was in
bed and asleep at this hour, but tonight perturbation of soul
had drawn him from between the sheets as if something spiked
had come through the mattress. He was consumed with worry
about the Empress.

Although, as he had told Vanessa, since the sinister affair of
the rejected potato Mr. Banks, the veterinary surgeon, had
several times assured him that the noble animal was in midseason
form and concern on his part quite unnecessary, he was
still as uneasy as ever. Admitted that Mr. Banks was a recognized
expert whose skill in his profession had won golden
opinions from all sorts of men, he might for once have been
mistaken. Alternatively, he might have discerned symptoms of
some wasting sickness, and not wanting to cause him anxiety
had Kept It From Him.

These speculations made him wakeful, and when at length
he did doze off, conditions were in no way improved. Sleep, so
widely publicized as knitting up the ravelled sleeve of care,
merely brought a nightmare of the most disturbing kind. He
dreamed that he had gone to the sty, eagerly anticipating the
usual feast for the eyes, and there before him had stood a lean,
streamlined Empress, her ribs clearly defined and her whole
aspect that of a pig which had been in hard training for weeks,
the sort of pig that climbs Matterhorns and wins the annual
Stock Exchange walk from London to Brighton.

The shock woke him, but he did not follow his normal
practice of blinking once or twice and falling asleep again. He
rose, put on dressing gown and slippers and took a torch from
the drawer where it nestled among his socks and handkerchiefs.
He had to go and reassure himself that the horror he
had beheld had been but a dream.

In a less preoccupied mood he might on arriving at the front
door have been surprised to find it unbolted, but in his anxious
state the phenomenon made no impression on him, and he
went on his way unheeding.

It was more as a sort of concession to the lateness of the
hour than because he needed its light to guide him that he
switched on the torch. When he did so, he instantly became
the centre of attraction to a rowdy mob of those gnats, moths
and beetles which collect in gangs and stay up late in the rural
districts. They appeared to have been waiting for a congenial
comrade to come along and give a fillip to their nocturnal
revels, and nothing could have been more hearty than the
welcome they gave him. He was swallowing his sixth gnat as
he reached the sty and paused, filling his lungs with its familiar
scent.

The night was very still. From somewhere in the distance
came faintly the sound of a belated car as it rounded a corner
on the Shrewsbury road, while nearer at hand he could hear a
sotto voce something which might have been the hoot of the
white or possibly the brown owl. But from the sty not so much
as a grunt, and for a moment this deepened his uneasiness.
Then reason told him that at such an hour grunts were hardly
to be expected. To Galahad, whose formative years had been
passed at the Pelican Club, this might be early evening, but it
was far too late for a well-adjusted pig like the Empress to be
up and about and grunting. She would of course be getting her
eight hours in her covered shed.

An imperious urge swept over him to take one look at her,
and he made no attempt to resist it. To mount the rail was with
him, as the phrase goes, the work of an instant; to slip,
overbalance, catch his foot on the rail and fall face downward
in the mud the work of another instant. Feeling damp but not
discouraged, he rose and came without further misadventure
to journey's end, where a fascinating sight rewarded his
perseverance. Stretched on her bed of straw and breathing
gently through the nose, the Empress was enjoying her usual
health-giving slumber, and a glance was enough to tell him
how wide of the mark his dream had been. For three years in
succession she had been awarded the silver medal in the Fat
Pigs class at the annual Shropshire Agricultural Show, and it
was plain that had she been entered for the contest again at this
moment, the cry 'The winner and still champion' would have
been on every judge's lips. Julius Caesar, who liked to have
men—and presumably pigs—about him that were fat, would
have welcomed her without hesitation to his personal
entourage.

It was with a mind darkened by nameless fears that the
ninth Earl had embarked on this expedition, but it was in
buoyant mood that he returned. That glimpse of the Empress,
brief though it had been, had had the most invigorating effect
on his morale. All, he felt, was for the best in this best of all
possible worlds, and it was only when he reached the house
that he was compelled to modify this view in one respect. All
would have been for the best in this best of all possible worlds
if somebody in his absence had not bolted the front door.

It can never be an agreeable experience for a householder to
find himself locked out late at night from the house he is
holding, and he cannot be censured for allowing it to disconcert
him. Of course, if he is a man of determined character,
there is a simple and easy way of coping with the situation,
always provided that his lungs are in good order. Many years
previously Lord Emsworth's father, faced by a similar dilemma
on his return in the small hours from the annual dinner of the
Loyal Sons of Shropshire, had solved it by shouting at the top
of a voice which even in his calmer moments always resembled
that of a toastmaster at a public banquet. He also banged on
the door with a stout stick, and in almost no time every
occupant of the castle, with the exception of those who were
having hysterics, had flocked to the spot and admitted him,
and with a final brief curse he had thrown the stick at the
butler and proceeded bedwards.

His son and heir, now peering dazedly at the door through
his pince-nez, had not this resource to fall back on. His father,
like so many Victorian fathers, had had the comfortable
knowledge to support him that he was master in his home and
that no reproaches were to be expected next morning from a
wife who jumped six inches vertically if he spoke to her
suddenly. His successor to the earldom was not so fortunately
situated.

The thought of what Connie would have to say if roused
from her slumbers by shouts in the night paralysed Lord
Emsworth. He stood there congealed. The impression
prevailing among the gnats, moths and beetles which had
accompanied him on the home stretch was that he had been
turned into a pillar of salt, and it came as a great surprise to
them when at the end of perhaps five minutes he moved and
stirred and seemed to feel the rush of life along his keel. It had
suddenly occurred to him that on a warm night like this the
Duke was sure to have left the french window of the garden
suite open. And while Lord Emsworth would have been the
last person to claim to be an acrobat and the first person to
confess his inability to do anything so agile as climbing water
pipes to second storey bedrooms, he did consider himself
capable of walking through an open french window. With the
feeling that the happy ending was only moments away he
rounded the house, and there, just as he had anticipated, was
the garden suite with its window as hospitably open as any
window could be.