Full Moon (13 page)

'You've heard about that too?'

'I've just been talking to her father. He seems baffled. You're a friend of this young Plimsoll. I am hoping that he may have confided in you or at least let fall something which may afford a clue to the reason for this strange despondency of his. I saw
him for the first time just now, and was much struck by his resemblance to a rainy Sunday at a South Coast seaside resort. He is in love with Veronica, I presume?'

'All the nibs seem to think so.'

'And yet he takes no steps to push the thing along. Indeed, he actually gives her the miss in baulk when she goes and waits for him in the rhododendrons. This must mean something.'

'Cold feet?'

Gally shook his head.

'I doubt it. This young man is the nephew of my old friend Chet Tipton, and blood must surely tell. Chet never got cold feet in his life when there were girls around. The reverse, in fact. You had to hold him back with ropes. On the other hand, he did experience strange fits of despondency, when he would sit with his feet on the mantelpiece examining his soul. Another old friend of mine, Plug Basham, was the same. Very moody chap. However, I managed to snap Plug out of it, and I am inclined to think that the same method would be successful with this young Plimsoll. By great good luck we have the animal all ready to hand.'

'Animal?'

'Your father's pig. The worst attack of despondency from which I ever remember Plug suffering occurred when a few of us were at a house in Norfolk for the pheasants. We talked it over and came to the decision that what he wanted was a shock. Nothing serious, you understand, just something that would arrest his attention and take his mind off his liver. So we borrowed a pig from a neighbouring farm, smeared it with a liberal coating of phosphorus, and put it in his bedroom. It worked like magic.'

A certain concern had manifested itself in Freddie's aspect. His eyes bulged and his jaw dropped a little.

'You aren't going to put the guv'nor's pig in Tippy's bedroom?'

'I think it would be rash not to. They've given me the Garden Suite this time, with french windows opening on the lawn, so there will be no difficulty in introducing the animal. It almost seems as though it were meant.'

'But, Uncle Gally—'

'Something on your mind, my boy?'

'Would you really recommend this course?'

'It proved extraordinarily efficacious in Plug's case. He went into his room in the dark, and the thing caught him right in the eyeball. We heard a cry, obviously coming straight from the heart, and then he was pelting downstairs three stairs at a time, wanting to know what the procedure was when a fellow had made up his mind to sign the pledge – how much it cost, where you had to go to put in your application, did you need a proposer and seconder, and so forth.'

'But it might have worked the other way round.'

'I don't follow you.'

'What I mean is, if he'd been on the wagon already, it might have prompted him to take the snifter of a lifetime.'

'Plug wasn't on the wagon.'

'No, but Tippy is.'

Gally started. He was surprised and shocked.

'What? Chet Tipton's nephew a teetotaller?'

'Only in the past few days,' explained Freddie, who was the last man to wish to put a friend in a dubious light. 'Before that he was one of our leading quaffers. But after being on a solid toot for two months he has now signed off for some reason which he has not revealed to me, and at moment of going to press absorbs little except milk and barley water. It's a thing his best friends would have advised, and honestly, Uncle Gally,
I doubt if you ought to do anything that might turn his thoughts back in the direction of the decanter.'

The Hon. Galahad's was a quick, alert mind. He could appreciate sound reasoning as readily as the next man.

'I see what you mean,' he said. 'Yes, I take your point. I'm glad you told me. This calls for a radical alteration in our plans. Let me think.'

He took a turn about the stable yard, his head bowed, his hands behind his back. Presently Freddie, watching from afar, saw him remove his monocle and polish it with the satisfied air of one who has thought his way through a perplexing problem.

'I've got it,' he said, returning. 'The solution came to me in a flash. We will put the pig in Veronica's room.'

A rather anxious expression stole into Freddie's face. Of the broad general principle of putting pigs in girls' rooms he of course approved, but he did not like that word 'we'.

'Here, I say!' he exclaimed. 'You're not going to lug me into this?'

The Hon. Galahad stared.

'Lug?' he said. 'What do you mean lug? The word "lug" appears to me singularly ill-chosen. I should have supposed that as a friend of this young Plimsoll and a cousin of Veronica you would have been all eagerness to do your share.'

'Well, yes, of course, definitely, but I mean to say—'

'Especially as that share is so trivial. All I want you to do is go ahead and see that the coast is clear. I will attend to the rough work.'

His words left Freddie easier in his mind. But that mind, what there was of it, was still fogged.

'But where's the percentage?'

'I beg your pardon?'

'What's the good of putting pigs in Vee's room?'

'My dear fellow, have you no imagination? What happens when a girl finds a pig in her room?'

'I should think she'd yell her head off.'

'Precisely. I confidently expect Veronica to raise the roof. Whereupon, up dashes young Plimsoll to her rescue. If you can think of a better way of bringing two young people together, I should be interested to hear it.'

'But how do you know Tippy will be in the vicinity?'

'Because I shall see to it that he is. Immediately after lunch I shall seek him out and engage him in conversation. You, meanwhile, will attach yourself to Veronica. You will find some pretext for sending her to her room. What pretext? Let me think.'

'She was threatening the other day to show me her album of school snapshots. I could ask her to fetch it.'

'Admirable. And the moment the starter's flag has dropped, give the gong in the hall a good hard bang. That will serve as my cue for unleashing young Plimsoll. I think we have synchronized everything?'

Freddie said he thought so.

'And the guv'nor being in London,' he pointed out with some relief, 'you will be able to restore the animal to its sty without him knowing to what uses it has been put in his absence.'

'True.'

'A rather important point, that. Any funny business involving the ancestral porker is apt to wake the sleeping tiger in him.'

'Quite. That shall be attended to. One does not wish to cause Clarence pain. I suppose the best time to inject this pig would be after the gang have settled in at lunch. You won't mind being ten minutes late for lunch?'

'Try to make it five,' said Freddie, who liked his meals.

'And now,' said Gally, 'to find Prudence. I have a note to give her from Bill which, unless I am greatly mistaken, will send her singing about the premises like a skylark in summer. Where would she be, I wonder? I've been looking for her everywhere.'

Freddie was able to assist him.

'I met her in the village as I was driving through. She said she was going to see the vicar about his jumble sale.'

'Then I will stroll down and meet her,' said Gally.

With a parting instruction to his nephew to be on his toes the moment he heard the luncheon gong go, he sauntered off. His mood was one of quiet happiness. If there was one thing this good man liked, it was scattering light and sweetness, and to-day, it seemed to him, he was about to scatter light and. sweetness with no uncertain hand.

Tipton Plimsoll stood on the terrace, moodily regarding the rolling parkland that spread itself before his lack-lustre eyes. As usual in this smiling expanse of green turf and noble trees, a certain number of cows, some brown, some piebald, were stoking up and getting their vitamins, and he glowered at them like a man who had got something against cows. And when a bee buzzed past his nose, his gesture of annoyance showed that he was not any too sold on bees either. The hour was half-past two, and lunch had come to an end some few minutes earlier.

It had proved a melancholy meal for Tipton. A light break-faster, he generally made up leeway at the midday repast, but on this occasion he had more or less pushed his food away untasted. Nothing in the company or the conversation at the board had
tended to dispel the dark mood in which he had started the morning. He had been glad when the ritual of coffee-drinking was over and he was at liberty to take himself elsewhere.

His initial move, as we say, had been to the terrace, for he needed air and solitude. He got the air all right but missed out on the solitude. He had been looking at the cows for scarcely a minute and a quarter with growing disfavour, when a monocle gleamed in the sunshine and the Hon. Galahad was at his side.

Most people found Gally Threepwood a stimulating and entertaining companion and were glad of his society, but Tipton goggled at him with concealed loathing. And when one says 'concealed', that is perhaps the wrong word. All through lunch this man had insisted on forcing upon him a genial flow of talk about his late Uncle Chet, and as far as Tipton was concerned Uncle Chet had reached saturation point. He felt that he had heard all that any nephew could possibly wish to hear about an uncle.

So now, starting away like some wild creature frightened by human approach, he was off the terrace and into the house before his companion could so much as be reminded of a story. The gloom of the small smoking-room drew him like a magnet, and he had fled there and was reaching out a limp hand for the weekly illustrated paper containing the camera study when the door opened.

'Aha!' said Gally. 'So here you are, eh?'

There is this to be said for the English country-house party, whatever its drawbacks, which are very numerous – when you have had as much of the gay whirl as you can endure, you can always do a sneak to your bedroom. Two minutes later Tipton was in his. And two minutes after that he found that he had been mistaken in supposing that he was alone at last. There was
a knock on the door, the robust and confident knock of one who is sure of his welcome, and a dapper, grey-flannelled form sauntered in.

Anybody who wishes to be clear on Tipton Plimsoll's feelings at this juncture has only to skim through the pages of Masefield's
Reynard the Fox.
The sense of being a hunted thing was strong upon him. And mingled with it was resentment at the monstrous injustice of this persecution. If a country-house visitor is not safe in his bedroom, one might just as well admit that civilization has failed and that the whole fabric of society is tottering.

Agony of spirit made him abrupt.

'Say, you chasing something?' he demanded dangerously.

It would have required a dull man to be unconscious of the hostility of his attitude, and it did not escape Gally's notice that his young friend was rapidly coming to the boil. But he ignored the sullen fire behind the horn-rimmed spectacles.

'We do keep meeting, don't we?' he replied with the suave geniality which had so often disarmed belligerent bookmakers. 'The fact is, my boy, I want a long talk with you.'

'You just had one.'

'A long, intimate talk on a matter closely affecting your happiness and well-being. You are the nephew of my old friend Chet Tipton—'

'You already told me that.'

'—and I decline, I positively refuse to see Chet Tipton's nephew ruining his future and bunging golden prospects of roseate bliss where the soldier bunged the pudding, when I can put the whole thing right in half a minute with a few simple words. Come now, my dear fellow, we needn't beat about the bush. You love my niece Veronica.'

A convulsive start shook Tipton Plimsoll. His impulse was to deny the statement hotly. But even as he opened his mouth to do so, he found himself gazing at the lovely features of the camera study. Actually, the camera study was still in the small smoking-room, but he seemed to see it now, the rose dangling from its lips, and he had not the heart to speak. Instead, he gave a quick, low gulp like a bulldog choking on a piece of gristle, causing Gally to pat his shoulder five or six times in a fatherly manner.

'Of course you do,' said Gally. 'No argument about that. You love her like a ton of bricks. The whole neighbourhood is ringing with the story of your passion. Then why on earth, my dear chap, are you behaving in this extraordinary way?'

'What do you mean, extraordinary way?' said Tipton, weakly defensive.

'You know what I mean,' said Gally, impatient of evasion. 'Many people would say you were playing fast and loose with the girl.'

'Fast and loose?' said Tipton, shocked.

'Fast
and
loose,' repeated Gally firmly. 'And you know what the verdict of men of honour is on chaps who play fast and loose with girls. I have often heard your Uncle Chet express himself particularly strongly on the subject.'

The words 'To hell with my Uncle Chet' trembled on Tipton's lips, but he forced them back in favour of others more germane to the subject under discussion.

'Well, what price her playing fast and loose with me?' he cried. 'Leading me on and then starting the old army game, the two-timing Jezebel.'

'Don't you mean Delilah?'

'Do I?' said Tipton, dubious.

'I think so,' said Gally, none too sure himself. 'Jezebel was the one who got eaten by dogs.'

'What a beastly idea.'

'Not pleasant,' agreed Gally. 'Must have hurt like the dickens. However, the point is,' he said, a stern look coming into his face, 'that you are speaking of my niece and bringing a very serious accusation against her. What, exactly, do you imply by the expression "the old army game"?'

'I mean she's giving me the run-around.'

'I fail to understand you.'

'Well, what would you call it if a girl let it be generally known that you were the blue-eyed boy and then you found her necking on benches with that heel Freddie?'

This shook Gally.

'Necking on benches? With Freddie?'