Galahad at Blandings (13 page)

‘Well,
I’ve met him.’

‘Why
have you never told me?’

‘I
suppose the subject didn’t come up. It was when I was thinking of writing my
memoirs. I wanted some first-hand facts about an uncle of his who grew a second
set of teeth in his eightieth year and used to crack Brazil nuts with them. Not
at all a bad fellow. Whipple, I mean, not the uncle, who perished of a surfeit
of Brazil nuts at the age of eighty-two. Are you going to have him to stay at
the castle?’

‘Of
course. It will be a pleasure and a privilege.’

‘The
old shack’s certainly filling up.

‘I have
written a telegram explaining that I have only just seen his letter and
inviting him to come here for as long as he wishes. I shall give it to Voules
to send off He is going to Market Blandings to take Egbert to his train.’

‘Why
don’t you phone it?’

‘I
never seem able to make myself understood when I telephone the post office.
There is an idiotic girl there who keeps saying “Pardon? Woodger mind repeating
that?” No, I’ll give it to Voules.’

‘Give
it to me. I’m going to the great city. There’s a man there I want to see.

‘Why,
thank you, Galahad. That will be capital.’

It was
in mellow mood that Gally some minutes later set off down the drive, his hat
jauntily on one side and his little legs twinkling. He was not actually singing
a gipsy song as he trudged along, but it would have been unwise to have betted
against his starting to do so at any moment, for this Whipple business had, he
perceived, solved all the problems confronting him in his capacity of Sam’s guardian
angel. Reviewing the position of affairs, he summed it up as looking pretty
smooth. He was well pleased with the way everything seemed to be turning out
for the best.

The
afternoon had now cooled off to some extent, but it was still warm enough to bring
visions of the Emsworth Arms beer rising before the mental retina, and they
rose before his. At the Emsworth Arms there was a large shady garden running
down to the river, where you could sit and quaff beneath a spreading tree, your
thirst agreeably stimulated by the spectacle of perspiring oarsmen toiling
under the sun in boats often laden with a wife, two of her relations, three
children, a dog and a picnic basket: and he was just thinking how
extraordinarily well a foaming tankard would go down in these delightful
surroundings, when he was aware of a voice saying ‘Hoy!’ and perceived a small
boy at his side. The landlord of the Blue Boar’s son Gary had proved faithful
to his trust.

‘Got a
letter for you, Mr Threepwood,’ he said. He had never met Gally socially, but
like everyone else for miles around he knew him by sight.

Gally
took the letter, mystified. The sepia maelstrom of the child’s thumb had soiled
it a good deal outwardly, but its contents were legible, and he found them
disturbing. Sam had written briefly, confining himself to broad outlines rather
than going into details, but he had made the main facts clear. He was not, it
appeared, at the Emsworth Arms in Market Blandings but at the Blue Boar in
Blandings Parva and for some reason he was in sore straits and would be glad of
a word of advice from the addressee as to what to do for the best. Now, he
implied though not actually saying so, was the time for all good men to come to
the aid of the party.

No one
had ever made a plea of this kind to Galahad Threepwood and found him
unresponsive. The beer at the Blue Boar would, he knew, be vastly inferior to
that of the Emsworth Arms, but he had always been a man able to take the rough
with the smooth and he did not hesitate. A bare five minutes had elapsed before
he crossed the Blue Boar’s threshold.

III

In Sam’s greeting of him
there was a touch of the shipwrecked mariner sighting a sail, for the interval
between dispatching the note and seeing this friendly face had given him time
for a further review of his situation. It had left him even more apprehensive
than he had been at the beginning, and he had been distinctly apprehensive
then. The day was warm, but his feet were cold. A bird twittering in the bushes
outside sounded to his sensitive ear exactly like a police whistle.

Gally
listened attentively as he poured out his tale. His manner, as it proceeded,
gave no suggestion that he was shocked and horrified, nor was he. Of the broad
general principle of hitting the police force in the eye he had always
thoroughly approved. You could not, in his opinion, do it too much and too
often. He could, however, see that his young friend had placed himself in a
somewhat equivocal position. Steps would have to be taken through the proper
channels if he was to be extricated from it and fortunately he was able to take
such steps.

‘Tell
me that bit about Sandy again,’ he said. ‘You say you saw her. Did she see
you?’

‘Yes.’

‘And
instantly, after one glance, streaked over the horizon?’

‘Yes.’

‘I
don’t like that.’

‘I
don’t like it myself.’

‘Not
too promising, her attitude. It gives the impression that she didn’t want to
speak to you.’

‘I
thought of that, too.’

‘This
will have to be corrected. You then bared after her?’

‘Yes.’

‘With
the watch in your pocket?’

‘Yes.’

‘The
cop followed you and seemed anxious to effect a pinch?’

‘Yes.’

And you
slugged him?’

‘Yes.’

‘Now I
have it all straight. Your position, as I see it, is more or less that of the
hart that pants for cooling streams when heated in the chase. You’re a marked
man. You can’t go back to the Emsworth Arms.’

‘I
suppose not.’

‘It
isn’t a question of supposing. Show your face there for a single instant and
you haven’t hope of escaping arrest. The arm of the law will grab you before
you can say What-ho. You need a hide-out, and you will be glad to hear that I
can provide one.

Sam
shook visibly.

‘You
can?’

‘Most
fortunately I am able to. For the next few days, till the hue and cry has died
down, you must come and stay at the castle.’

‘What!’

‘You
heard.’

‘But
didn’t you tell me you weren’t allowed to invite people to the castle?’

‘I did.
But it will be my brother Clarence who invites you, not I. He is at this very
moment ordering the vassals and serfs to get busy bringing the red carpet up
from the cellar and dusting it off in preparation for your arrival. But I was
forgetting that you are not abreast of the latest developments. Let me briefly
bring you up to date. I happened to run into Clarence just now and found him
wreathed in smiles. His favourite reading, I must mention, is a book on pigs by
a fellow named Whipple. He pores over it incessantly, savouring its golden
words like artichoke leaves. He is never happier than when curled up with it.
He must know it by heart, I should think. All straight so far?’

‘If you
mean Do I follow you, yes. But I don’t see—”

‘Whither
all this is tending? It won’t be long before it dawns on you. Shall I proceed?’

‘Do.’

‘Questioned,
he revealed that young Sandy Callender had found a letter from this Whipple
asking if he can drop in some time and have a look at Empress of Blandings. You
can readily imagine how it affected Clarence. He started strewing roses from
his hat and dancing the Can-Can all over the premises. My cup runneth over, he
said, and he handed me a telegram to send to Whipple urging him to pack a
toothbrush and come running. He gave him to understand that Blandings Castle
was his for as long as he cared to stay. Now do you begin to get it?’

‘No.’

‘You
don’t see how this solves all your little difficulties and makes your path
straight?’

‘No.’

‘Not
very quick at the uptake, are you? Your father would have grasped it in a
second. All you have to do is present yourself at the front door and say
“Yoo-hoo, I’m Whipple” and you’re in like Flynn, as the expression is. After
which, getting hold of young Sandy and making her see the light will be a
simple task. Extraordinarily fortunate, Whipple having taken it into his head
to write to Clarence at just this time. Providential, I call it. One feels that
one is somehow being
protected.’

He had
chosen a bad moment for placing his proposition before Sam, for the latter was
in the very act of refreshing himself from his mug of beer. It was not until he
had choked and gasped for a considerable space and been slapped a number of
times on the back that he was able to speak. When he did, there was incredulity
in his voice.

‘You’re
crazy! What happens when Whipple turns up?’

‘He
won’t.’

‘Not
when he gets that telegram?’

‘He
won’t get it. What will reach him will be a regretful bob’s-worth saying it’s
impossible to have him at the castle at the moment, as Clarence is in bed with
German measles. I sent it off before I left.’

‘Well,
suppose there’s somebody at the castle who knows me?’

‘There
isn’t. You surely don’t imagine I didn’t think of that. You’ve never met my
sister Hermione or her husband or Dame Daphne Winkworth, and you told me Tipton
Plimsoll didn’t know you by sight. Nothing to cause anxiety there.’

‘How
about Sandy?’

Gally
was shocked.

A nice
girl like Sandy wouldn’t dream of giving you away. I’m not saying she won’t
split a gusset when she finds how we have outmanoeuvred her, but her lips will
be sealed. No, I can see no possible objection to what I suggest.’

‘I can.
I wouldn’t do it for a thousand pounds. The mere thought of it makes my toes
curl. I shall spend the night at this pub and after I’ve seen Sandy tomorrow I
shall go back to London.’

Gally
sighed.

‘There’s
something wrong with the younger generation,’ he said with a sad shake of the
head. ‘One notices it on all sides. No dash, no enterprise, none of the
up-and-doing spirit. Any member of the old brigade would have leaped to the
task with his hair in a braid. You won’t reconsider?’

‘No.’

‘You
would be under the same roof as the girl you love.’

‘For
perhaps five minutes. At the end of that period I can see the Lady somebody you
spoke of, the one who grabs people by their trouser seats, attaching herself to
mine and starting heaving. No, I am always willing to oblige when feasible, but
there are limits.’

‘What
if that copper finds you here and pinches you?’

‘It
would be unpleasant, I admit.’

‘Well,
then.’

‘But
I’d prefer it to going to Lord Emsworth and saying “Yoo-hoo, I’m Whipple”.’

Gally
shrugged his shoulders resignedly, as Napoleon might have done if he had asked
his army to advance and been told by them that they were not in the mood.

‘Oh
well,’ he said, ‘if you won’t, you won’t. But I still consider your objections
finicky. Then we’ll just have to carry on with the Visitors’ Day programme.

IV

The car which was to take Colonel
Wedge to Market Blandings station and start him off on the first leg of his
journey into Worcestershire stood at the front door of the castle with chauffeur
Voules at the wheel. It was a good car as cars went, but it paled into
insignificance beside the superlative Rolls which had been parked a little
farther along the drive. Colonel Wedge, coming out of the house, eyed this
ornate vehicle with respectful admiration.

‘Whose
car is that, Voules?’ he asked.

‘Belongs
to Mr Plimsoll, sir.’

Colonel
Wedge could make nothing of this. ‘To Mr
Plimsoll?’

‘Yes,
sir. The gentleman arrived in it just now.

The
colonel continued bewildered. After what he had heard of the state of Tipton’s
finances, he would have expected him to arrive on roller skates. And it was as
he stood blinking and trying to digest this piece of information that Tipton
appeared in person, coming out of the house with an oblong object in his hand
that seemed to be, as indeed it was, one of those cases in which jewellers put
jewels.

‘Oh,
there you are, Colonel,’ he said. ‘I’ve been looking for you all over. Wanted
to show you a necklace I picked up in London for Vee. I was hoping to give it
to her directly I hit the joint, but darn it, they tell me she’s not here. Great
disappointment.’ He opened the case. ‘I think she’ll like it, don’t you?’ he
said, for he knew his loved one’s fondness for bijouterie. Veronica Wedge was
one of those girls who if they have not plenty of precious stones on their
persons, feel nude. Her aim in life was to look as like a chandelier as
possible.

Colonel
Wedge did not reply at once. A strange breathlessness had gripped him as he saw
the contents of the case. He was no expert on jewellery, but if this necklace
had not set its purchaser back what is technically known as a packet, he would
be dashed.