Full Moon (9 page)

'That's odd,' he said, frowning thoughtfully.

'Worse than odd,' corrected Freddie. 'I don't wonder the guv'nor was stirred to his depths.'

'I think where I must have gone wrong,' said Bill, stepping back and closing one eye, 'was in trying to get some animation into her face. You've no notion, Freddie, how disheartening it is for an artist to come up against a sitter like that. She just lay on her side with her eyes shut and bits of potato dribbling out of the corner of her mouth. Velazquez would have been baffled. It seemed to me that I had somehow got to create a bit of sparkle, so I prodded her with a stick and shoved the result down like lightning before she could go to sleep again. But I see what you mean. The expression isn't right.'

'Nor the shape. You've made her oblong.'

'Oh, that's nothing. I should probably have altered that. I have been experimenting in the cubist form lately, and I just tried it as an idea. Purely tentative.'

Freddie looked at his watch, and was shocked at the position of the hands. Already the wretched Fanshawe-Chadwicks must be suffering agonies, which would inevitably become more and more severe. But he could not leave matters as they stood. He sighed and forced the picture of the Fanshawe-Chadwicks from his mind.

'Tell me exactly what took place, Blister. Up to a certain point, of course, I can visualize the scene. You at your easel, plying the brush; the guv'nor toddling up, adjusting his pince-nez. He
stands behind you. He peers over your shoulder. He starts back with a hoarse cry. What then? Was what he proceeded to dish out undisguisedly the raspberry?'

'Yes.'

'No avenue was left open that might have led to a peaceful settlement?'

'No.'

'It would be no use your offering to rub it out and try again?'

'No. You see, I'm afraid I lost my temper a bit. I forget what I said exactly, but it was to the effect that if I had known he wanted the pretty-pretty, chocolate-box sort of thing, I would never have accepted the commission. That and something about stifling the freedom of expression of the artist. Oh yes, and I told him to go and boil his head.'

'You did? H'm,' said Freddie. 'Ha. 'Myes. Um. This isn't too good, Blister.'

'No.'

'Prue may be upset.'

Bill shuddered.

'She is.'

'You've seen her, then?'

Bill shuddered again.

'Yes,' he said, in a low voice. 'I've seen her. She was with your father, and she stayed on after he left.'

'What was her attitude?'

'She was furious, and broke off the engagement.'

'You astound me, Blister. You couldn't have understood her.'

'I don't think so. She said she never wanted to see me again, and was going to devote herself to good works.'

'To which you replied—?'

'I hadn't time to reply. She streaked off like an electric hare, laughing hysterically.'

'She did, did she? Laughed hysterically, eh? The unbridled little cheese mite. I sometimes think that child is
non compos.
'

A look of menace came into Bill's strained face.

'Do you want your head bashed in?' he asked.

'No,' said Freddie, having considered the question. 'No, I don't think so. Why?'

'Then don't call Prue a cheese mite.'

'Don't you like me calling her a cheese mite?'

'No.'

'This would almost seem as if love still lingered.'

'Of course it lingers.'

'I should have thought you would have considered yourself well rid of a girl who hands you the mitten just because you failed to make a solid success of painting the portrait of a pig – an enterprise fraught, as you yourself have shown, with many difficulties.'

Bill quivered irritably.

'It wasn't that at all.'

'Then your story has misled me.'

'The real trouble was that she asked me to give up painting, and I wouldn't.'

'Oh, I see. You mean that pub business.'

'You know about that?'

'She told me that morning I met her in Grosvenor Square. She said you had inherited the Mulberry Tree, and she wanted you to run it as a going concern.'

'That's right. We've been arguing about it for weeks.'

'I must say I agree with her that you ought to have a pop at it. There's gold in them thar hills, Blister. You might clean up big
as a jolly innkeeper. And as for giving up your art – well, why not? It's obviously lousy.'

'I feel that, now that I've had time to think it over. Seeing her leg it like that sort of opened my eyes. Have you ever seen the girl you love sprinting away from you, having hysterics?'

'No, now you mention it, I can't say I have. I've known Aggie to throw her weight about on occasion, but always in a fairly static manner. Unpleasant, I should imagine.'

'It does something to you, Freddie. It makes you realize that you've been a brute and a cad and a swine.'

'I see what you mean. Remorse.'

'I'm ready now to do anything she wants. If she feels that I ought to give up painting, I'll never touch a brush again.'

'Well, that's fine.'

'I'm going to write and tell her so.'

'And have Aunt Hermione intercept the letter?'

'I never thought of that. Would she?'

'Unquestionably. When the younger female members of the family are sent up the river to Blandings, their correspondence is always closely watched.'

'You could slip her a note.'

'No, I couldn't. I told you I was merely passing through. I'll tell you what I will do, though. I'll nip up to the penitentiary now, and if Prue's got back, I'll place the facts before her. Wait here. I shan't be long. At least, I hope I shan't,' said Freddie, his mind sliding back to that painful vision of the Worcestershire Fanshawe-Chadwicks with their noses pressed against the windowpane and their haggard eyes staring yearningly out at an empty drive.

It was not so very long before Freddie once again presented himself in Bill's room, the latter's estimate of his absence at an hour and a half being erroneous and due to strained nerves. In response to his friend's passionate complaint that there had been no need for him to stop by the roadside and make daisy chains, he waved a soothing hand.

'I've been as quick as was humanly possible, Blister,' he assured him. 'If I am late, it is merely because I was working in your interests. There were one or two little tasks I had to perform before I could return.'

'Is everything all right?'

'If you mean did I see Prue and square you with her, the answer is no. She hadn't got back from calling on some people she was calling on. The Brimbles, if you want to keep the record straight. They live out Shrewsbury way. Extraordinary, this rural practice of driving miles on a hot day to pay calls. You spend hours dressing in your most uncomfortable clothes, you tool across the countryside under a blazing sun, you eventually win through to Shrewsbury, and when you do, what have you got? The Brimbles. However,' proceeded Freddie, observing in his audience signs of impatience, 'you will want to know what steps I have taken, Prue being unavoidably absent. But before I slip you the lowdown, let me first get this thing straight. You really desire this reconciliation? I mean, in order to achieve it, you are prepared to creep, to crawl, to yield on every point?'

'Yes.'

'Realizing – I merely mention it in passing – that this will be a hell of a start for your married life, if and when reducing your chances of ever being the dominant partner practically to zero?'

'Yes.'

'I wouldn't be too hasty about it, Blister. I know young Prue better than you do. She's like all these cheese – these small girls – bossy. Give her a thingummy, and she'll take a what's-its-name. The reason I've always found her civil and respectful is that I've never relaxed the iron hand. Small girls are like female Pekinese. Have you ever seen a man in the thrall of a female Pekinese? Can't call his soul his own. He—'

'Get on,' said Bill. 'Get on, get on, get on, get on!'

'Right,' said Freddie. 'Well, if that's the way you feel, we can proceed to the agenda. The first thing I did on reaching the hoosegow and discovering that Prue was not in her cell was to put in a trunk call to Uncle Gally.'

'To Gally?'

'None other. I knew that if anyone could spear an idea out of the void, it would be he. Nor was I mistaken. Within two minutes of hearing the facts, assisted only by a single whisky and soda while I held the line, he came across with a pippin.'

'God bless him!'

'And so say all of us. Did he ever tell you that he got my cousin, Ronnie Fish, married to a chorus girl in the teeth of the united opposition of a bristling phalanx of aunts?'

'No, did he?'

'He did indeed. There are practically no limits to the powers of this wonder man. You're lucky to have him in your corner.'

'I know I am. What was his idea?'

'It was a pippin,' repeated Freddie, rolling the word round his tongue. 'I wonder if you have ever reflected, Blister, than an employer of labour on an extensive scale, like my guv'nor, never really knows how many human souls he's got on the pay roll. Take gardeners, for example. He is aware that the honest fellows
abound on his property, but he doesn't know half of them from Adam. If he's strolling around of a morning and sees one leaning on a spade, he doesn't say to himself, "Ah, there's good old George sweating himself to the bone," or old Joe or old Percy, or Peter or Thomas or Cyril, as the case may be. He just says, "Oh, what ho, a gardener," and passes by with a wave of the hand and a careless, "Okay, gardener, carry on." And so—'

For some moments Bill had been clenching and unclenching his hands in a rather febrile manner. He now spoke.

'Get on, get on, can't you? Get on, get on, get on. What's all this drivel about gardeners?'

'Not drivel, Blister,' said Freddie, pained.

'I'm waiting to hear what Gally suggested.'

'Well, I'm telling you as quick as I can, dash it. The point Uncle Gally made, when consulted over the long-distance telephone, was that anyone who liked could come and garden at the old homestead, and no questions asked. You get his trend? Of course you do. A child couldn't miss it. If you want to oil into the premises, you can do so by affecting to be a gardener. And if you're going to say you don't know anything about gardening, I reply that you don't have to. All you've got to do is just wander around with a rake or hoe, looking zealous. Rakes and hoes may be purchased at Smithson's in the High Street.'

The immensity of the idea, coming suddenly home to Bill, held him speechless for a moment. Then obstacles began to present themselves.

'But isn't there a head gardener, or someone of that sort, who keeps an eye on the gardeners?'

'There is. One McAllister. It was in order to square him that I had to dally awhile. It's all fixed now. A fiver changed hands. You can settle up at your leisure. So if an elderly Scotsman who
looks like a minor prophet comes up and gives you the eye, don't be alarmed. Just nod and say the gardens are a credit to him. If you see the guv'nor, touch your hat a good deal.'

Bill had now no hesitation in endorsing his companion's description of the scheme as a pippin. The word, indeed, seemed to him rather a weak one.

'It's terrific, Freddie.'

'I told you it was.'

'I can hang about—'

'—till Prue comes along—'

'—and have a talk with her—'

'—thus healing the rift and arriving at a perfect understanding. And if she doesn't come along, some scullion or what not is sure to, and you can slip him a couple of bob and a carefully-written note to give to Prue, which of course you will have in readiness on your person. What's the matter, Blister?'

Bill's face had suddenly darkened. Anguish and despair were once more limned upon it.

'Oh, my God!'

'Something wrong?'

'It won't work. Your father has seen me.'

Freddie raised his eyebrows. His manner was amused and indulgent.

'You don't suppose Uncle Gally overlooked a point like that? My dear chap! He's sending it down by the next post.'

'It?'

'It.'

A hideous suspicion smote Bill. He paled.

'Not –
it?
' he quavered.

'He was starting off to see Fruity Biffen immediately and get it back. Honestly, Blister, I can't see why you have this
extraordinary prejudice against the thing. I haven't seen it myself, of course, but if it made old Biffen look like an Assyrian monarch, it must be dignified and striking. Well, anyway, you've got to have some rude disguise or you can't be a gardener, so stick it like a man is my advice. And now, old bird,' said Freddie, 'I must fly. Good-bye, good luck, and God bless you.'

'Tchah!' said Colonel Wedge.

He spoke the word as it should be spoken, if it is to have its proper value, crisply and explosively from between clenched teeth. He had been sitting at the foot of his wife's bed, conversing with her while she breakfasted, as was his companionable habit of a morning. He now rose, and walking to the window stood staring out, jingling his keys irritably in his pocket.

'Good God! I never saw such a chap!'

Had there been some sympathetic friend standing at his side and following the direction of his moody gaze, such a one might have supposed the object of his remark to have been the gardener who was toying with a rake on the lawn below, and he would probably have felt the criticism to be fully justified. Nature has framed strange fellows in her time, and this was one of them, a gardener of vast physique and rendered more than ordinarily noticeable by the mustard-coloured beard of Assyrian cut which partially obscured his features.

It was not, however, to this fungus-covered son of the soil that the colonel alluded. He had seen him hanging about the place this last couple of days but had never given him more than a passing thought. When the heart is bowed down with weight of woe, we have little leisure for brooding on gardeners, however
profusely bearded. The chap to whom he referred was Tipton Plimsoll.

There are fathers, not a few of them, who tend to regard suitors for their daughter's hand with a jaundiced and unfriendly eye, like shepherds about to be deprived of a ewe lamb. Colonel Wedge did not belong to this class. Nor was he one of those parents who, when their child has made an evidently deep impression upon a young millionaire, are content to sit back with folded hands and wait patiently for the situation to develop in a slow, orderly manner. He wanted action. He had observed the love light in Tipton Plimsoll's eyes, and what he wished to see in the fellow now was a spot of the Young Lochinvar spirit.

'What's he waiting for?' he demanded querulously, turning back to the bed. 'Anyone can see he's head over ears in love with the girl. Then why not tell her so?'

Lady Hermione nodded mournfully. She, too, was all in favour of dash and impetuosity. Looking like a cook who smells something burning, she agreed that the Plimsoll self-control was odd.

'Odd? It's maddening.'

'Yes,' agreed Lady Hermione, accepting the emendation. 'I don't know when I have been so upset. Everything seemed to be going so well. I'm sure it is affecting Veronica's spirits. She has not seemed at all herself these last few days.'

'You've noticed that? So have I. Goes into long silences.'

'As if she were brooding.'

'The exact word. She reminds me of that girl in Shakespeare who ... How does it go? I know there's something about worms, and it ends up with something cheek. Of course, yes. "She never said a word about her love, but let concealment, like a worm i' the bud, feed on her damned cheek." Of course she's brooding.
What girl wouldn't? Bowled over by a fellow at first sight; feels pretty sure he's bowled over too; everything pointing to the happy ending; and then suddenly, without any reason, fellow starts hemming and hawing and taking no further steps. It's a tragedy. Did I tell you what Freddie told me that day he arrived?' said Colonel Wedge, lowering his voice with the awe that befitted the revelation he was about to make. 'He told me that this young Plimsoll holds the controlling interest in one of the largest systems of chain stores in America. Well, you know what that means.'

Lady Hermione nodded, even more sadly than before – the cook who has discovered what it was that was burning, and too late now to do anything about it.

'And such a nice boy too,' she said. 'So different from what you led me to expect. Nothing could have been quieter and more correct than his behaviour. I noticed particularly that he had drunk nothing but barley water since he came here. What is it, Egbert?'

The solicitous query had been provoked by the sudden, sharp cry which had proceeded from her husband's lips. Colonel Wedge, except for the fact that he was fully clothed, was looking like Archimedes when he discovered his famous Principle and sprang from his bath, shouting 'Eureka!'

'Good God, old girl, you've hit it. You've put your finger on the whole dashed seat of the trouble. Barley water. Of course! That's what's at the root of the chap's extraordinary behaviour. How the deuce can a young fellow be expected to perform one of the most testing, exacting tasks in life on barley water? Why, before I could work up my nerve to propose to you, I remember, I had to knock back nearly a quart of mixed champagne and stout. Well, this settles it,' said Colonel Wedge. 'I go straight to
this young Plimsoll, put my hand on his shoulder in a fatherly way, and tell him to take a quick snort and charge ahead.'

'Egbert! You can't!'

'Eh? Why not?'

'Of course you can't.'

Colonel Wedge seemed discouraged. The fine, fresh enthusiasm died out of his face.

'No, I suppose it would hardly do,' he admitted. 'But somebody ought to give the boy a hint. Happiness of two young people at stake, I mean, and all that sort of thing. It isn't fair to Vee to let this shilly-shallying continue.'

Lady Hermione sat up suddenly, spilling her tea. She, too, looked like Archimedes – a female Archimedes.

'Prudence!'

'Prudence?'

'She could do it.'

'Oh, you mean young Prue? Couldn't think what you were talking about.'

'She could do it quite easily. It would not seem odd, coming from her.'

'Something in that. Prudence, eh?' Colonel Wedge mused. 'I see what you mean. Warmhearted, impulsive girl.... Devoted to her cousin. ... Can't bear to see her unhappy. ... "I wonder if you would be offended if I said something to you, Mr Plimsoll." ... Yes, there's a thought there. But would she do it?'

'I'm sure she would. I don't know if you have noticed it, but Prudence has changed very much for the better since she came to Blandings. She seems quieter, more thoughtful and considerate, as if she were going out of her way to do good to people. You heard what she was saying yesterday about helping the vicar with his jumble sale. I thought that very significant.'

'Most. Girls don't help vicars with jumble sales unless their hearts are in the right place.'

'You might go and talk to her now.'

'I will.'

'You will probably find her in Clarence's study,' said Lady Hermione, refilling her cup and stirring its contents with a new animation. 'She told me last night that she was going to give it a thorough tidying this morning.'

'The stately homes of England,' sang the poetess Hemans, who liked them, 'how beautiful they stand'; and about the ancient seat of the ninth Earl of Emsworth there was nothing, as far as its exterior was concerned, which would have caused her to modify this view. Huge and grey and majestic, flanked by rolling parkland and bright gardens, with the lake glittering in the foreground and his lordship's personal flag fluttering gaily from the topmost battlement, it unquestionably caught the eye. Even Tipton Plimsoll, though not as a rule given to poetic rhapsodies, had become lyrical on first beholding the impressive pile, making a noise with his tongue like the popping of a cork and saying: 'Some joint!'

But, as is so often the case with England's stately homes, it was when you got inside and met the folks that you saw where the catch lay. This morning, as he mooned morosely on the terrace, Tipton Plimsoll, though still admiring the place as a place, found himself not in complete sympathy with its residents. What a crew, he felt, what a gosh-awful aggregation of prunes. Tick them off on your fingers, he meant to say.

Here he was obliged to pause in his cataloguing. Even in this bitter mood of his, when he was feeling like some prophet of Israel judging the sins of the people, he could not bring himself to chalk up against the name of that lovely girl the sort of opprobrious epithet which in the case of the others had sprung so nimbly to his lips. She, and she alone, must be spared.

Not, mind you, but what he was letting her off a darned sight more easily than she deserved, for if a girl who could bring herself to stoop to a Frederick Threepwood did not merit something notably scorching in the way of opprobrious epithets, it was difficult to see what she did merit. And that she had fallen a victim to Freddie's insidious charms was clearly proved by her dejected aspect since his departure. You had only to look at her to see that she was pining for the fellow.

But the trouble was, and he did not attempt to conceal it from himself, he loved her in spite of all. King Arthur, it will be remembered, had the same experience with Guinevere.

With a muffled curse on his fatal weakness, Tipton made for the french windows of the drawing-room. It had occurred to him that the vultures which were gnawing at his bosom might be staved off, if only temporarily, by a look at the Racing Prospects in the morning paper. And as he approached them somebody came out, and he saw that it was the squirt Prudence.

'Oh, hullo, Mr Plimsoll,' said the squirt.

'Hello,' said Tipton.

He spoke with about the minimum of pleasure in his voice which was compatible with politeness. Never, even at the best of times, fond of squirts, he found the prospect of this girl's society at such a moment intolerable. And it is probable that he would have passed hurriedly on with some remark about fetching something from his room had she not fixed her mournful eyes upon him and said that she had been looking for him and wondered if she could speak to him for a minute.

A man of gentle upbringing cannot straight-arm members of the opposite sex and flit by when they address him thus. Tipton's 'Oh, sure,' could have been more blithely spoken, but he said it, and they moved to the low stone wall of the terrace and sat there, Prudence gazing at Tipton, Tipton staring at a cow in the park.

Prudence was the first to break a rather strained silence.

'Mr Plimsoll,' she said, in a low, saintlike voice.

'Hello?'

'There is something I want to say to you.'

'Oh, yes?'

'I hope you won't be very angry.'

'Eh?'

'And tell me to mind my own business. Because it's about Vee.'

Tipton removed his gaze from the cow. As a matter of fact, he had seen about as much of it as he wanted to see. A fine animal, but, as is so often the case with cows, not much happening. He found this conversational opening unexpectedly promising. His first impression, when this girl accosted him, had been that she wanted to touch him for something for the vicar's jumble sale, an enterprise in which he knew her to be interested.

'Ur?' he said enquiringly.

Prudence was silent for a moment. The rupture of her
relations with the man she loved had left her feeling like some nun for whom nothing remains in this life but the doing of good to others, but she was wondering if she had acted quite wisely in so readily accepting the assignment which her uncle Egbert had given her just now. She had become conscious of a feeling that she was laying herself open to the snub of a lifetime.

But she did not lack courage. Shutting her eyes to assist speech, she had at it.

'You're in love with Vee, aren't you, Mr Plimsoll?'

A noise beside her made her open her eyes. Sudden emotion had caused Tipton to fall off the wall.

'I know you are,' she resumed, having helped to put him right end up again with a civil 'Upsy-daisy.' 'Anyone could see it.'

'Is that so?' said Tipton, in rather a nasty voice. He was stung. Like most young men whose thoughts are an open book to the populace, he supposed that if there was one thing more than another for which he was remarkable, it was his iron inscrutability.

'Of course. It sticks out like a sore thumb. The way you look at her. And what beats me is why you don't tell her so. She hasn't actually said anything to me, but I know you're making her very unhappy.'

Tipton's resentment faded. This was no time for wounded dignity. He gaped at her like a goldfish.

'You mean you think I've got a chance?'

'A chance? It's a snip.'

Tipton gulped, goggled, and nearly fell off the wall again.

'A snip?' he repeated dazedly.

'Definitely. To-day's Safety Bet.'

'But how about Freddie?'

'Freddie?'

'Isn't she in love with Freddie?'

'What an extraordinary idea! What makes you think so?'

'That first night, at dinner, she slapped his wrist.'

'I expect there was a mosquito on it.'

Tipton started. He had never thought of that, and the theory, when you came to examine it, was extraordinarily plausible. In the dining-room that night there had unquestionably been mosquitoes among those present. He had squashed a couple himself. A great weight seemed to roll off his mind. His eye rested for a moment on the cow, and he thought what a jolly, lovable-looking cow it was, the sort of cow you would like to go on a walking tour with.

Then the weight rolled back again. He shook his head.

'No,' he said, 'it was something he whispered to her. She told him not to be so silly.'

'Oh, that time, you mean? I heard what he said. It was about those dog biscuits of his being so wholesome that human beings could eat them.'

'Gosh!'

'There's nothing between Vee and Freddie.'

'She used to be engaged to him.'

'Yes, but he's married now.'

'Sure,' said Tipton, and smiled darkly. 'Married, yes. Married, ha!'

'And they were only engaged about a couple of weeks. I was at Blandings when it happened. It was raining all the time, and I suppose it was a way of passing the day. You get sick of backgammon. Honestly, I wouldn't worry about Vee being in love with other people, Mr Plimsoll. I'm sure she's in love with you. You should have heard her raving about that balancing trick you did at dinner with the fork and the wineglass.'