Galahad at Blandings (14 page)

‘But—’
he began, and paused, uncertain how to put it. You cannot ask your daughter’s
fiancé straight out how he is fixed as regards money in the bank. At least you
can, but if you do, you risk the raised eyebrow and the frosty stare. ‘But can
you afford it, my dear fellow?’ he asked, feeling that was a delicate way of
approaching the subject.

Tipton
was puzzled. He had been rich long enough for people to take his extravagances
for granted.

‘Why,
sure,’ he said. ‘It only cost eight thousand pounds. They knocked off a bit for
cash.’

It was
established earlier in this narrative that Blandings Castle was a solidly
constructed building, a massive pile with no tendency as a rule to wobble on
its foundations, but to Colonel Wedge as he heard these words it seemed to be
behaving like one of those Ouled Nail dancers he remembered having seen when a
subaltern in Cairo. The same uninhibited twists and twiggles. Though not an
unusually intelligent man, he was bright enough to gather that the Wedge family
had done a remarkably foolish thing, in their haste depriving themselves of a
son-in-law who drove around in five-thousand-guinea cars and thought nothing of
paying eight thousand pounds for necklaces. They had, in short, goofed to
precisely the same extent as the celebrated Indian who threw a pearl away
richer than all his tribe. Veronica’s letter breaking the engagement must even
now be on its way to the castle, and the thought of what would happen when
Tipton opened it and read the contents made Colonel Wedge look and feel as if
he had received a crushing blow on the solar plexus.

‘Not
feeling well, Colonel?’ asked Tipton, concerned.

A touch
of my old malaria,’ the colonel managed to say.

‘You
get it often?’

‘Fairly
often. It comes on suddenly.’

‘Too
bad. Nasty thing to have.’

‘Quite,’
said Colonel Wedge, unaware that he was infringing Lord Emsworth’s copyright
material.

There
remained one faint hope, that the letter, if written, had not yet been
dispatched, and he was examining this hope and not thinking very highly of it,
when Wilfred Allsop appeared at the head of the steps.

‘Phone,
Uncle Egbert,’ he said. Aunt Hermione on the phone for you,’ and few shots out
of guns had ever travelled more briskly than did Colonel Wedge
en route
for
the instrument.

‘Hullo,
old girl,’ he panted, having reached and clutched the receiver.

‘I am
coming home the day after tomorrow, Egbert. You will have left for
Worcestershire by then, I suppose.’

‘I’m
leaving this afternoon.

‘Don’t
stay there longer than you can help.’

‘I
won’t. How about that letter?’

‘Letter?’

‘The
one you were going to get Vee to write.’

‘Oh,
that? Have you been worrying about it? There was no need. You know what a
sensible girl Veronica is. She quite saw that it was the only thing to do.’

‘You
mean she’s written it?’

‘Of
course. I posted it just now. What did you say, Egbert?’ Colonel Wedge had not
spoken. The sound to which she referred had been merely his hollow groan at the
death bed of that hope. It had always been a sickly little thing, plainly not
long for this world, and at these five words it had coughed quietly and
expired.

‘Nothing,’
he said. ‘Nothing. I am just clearing my throat.’ He debated within himself
whether or not to break the bad news, and decided against it. Time enough for
the old girl to learn the awful truth when she returned to the castle. Let her
have one more day of happiness. ‘Well, I suppose I’d better be getting along,’
he said. ‘Voules is waiting to take me to the train. When do you think that
letter will get here?’

‘Tomorrow
morning, I imagine. Why?’

‘I was
just wondering.’

‘Tipton
will find it when he arrives.

‘He has
arrived.’

‘Oh,
has he? Does he seem terribly depressed, poor fellow?’

A
vision of Tipton gloating over that necklace, his face split by an outsize in
grins, rose before Colonel Wedge.

‘No,’
he said. ‘No, not terribly.’

‘How
brave of him. I hope the letter will not upset him too much.’

‘So do I,’
said Colonel Wedge. ‘So do I.’

A
passer-by, seeing him as he came away from the telephone, would probably have
supposed that the conversation just concluded had been one of no great
importance, for there was nothing in his bearing to hint at the blow he had
received. His backbone was rigid, his upper lip had not ceased to be stiff, nor
did his moustache droop. Where Othello, with much less on his mind, had allowed
his subdu’d eyes to drop tears as fast as the Arabian tree their med-cinable
gum, he contrived to preserve an outward serenity. The British Army trains its
sons well.

Nevertheless,
his mind was in a whirl, the only thought in it that could possibly be called
coherent being a wild regret that he had ever been misguided enough to believe
in any statement made by his brother-in-law Clarence. Rashly he had forgotten
the lesson that everyone who came in contact with the ninth Earl of Emsworth
had to learn, that nothing he said was ever to be taken as making the remotest
sense. The rule to live by was to ignore his every utterance.

He was
still thinking bitterly about his relative by marriage as he came out of the
front door. Tipton had disappeared, but his place had been taken by Gally. He
was talking to Voules and seemed to be telling him a humorous story, for while
the chauffeur was not actually smiling, chauffeurs not being permitted by
their guild to do that, one noted a distinct twitching of the muscles around
the lips.

‘Ah,
Egbert,’ said Gally. ‘You just off?’

At the
sight of him something had seemed to explode inside Colonel Wedge’s head like a
firecracker. It was an inspiration.

‘Could
I have a word with you, Galahad?’ he said.

‘Say
on,’ said Gally.

Colonel
Wedge had no intention of saying on in the hearing of Voules, though he could
see by the way the latter’s ears were sticking up that he was perfectly willing
to act as a confidant. He drew Gally aside to a spot where even the most
clairaudient chauffeur, all eagerness to gather material for his memoirs, would
be left out of the conversation. Privacy thus secured, he embarked on his
narrative.

He told
it well. At first perhaps there was a disposition on his part to diverge from
the straight story line in order to insert acid criticism of Lord Emsworth, but
he quickly overcame this tendency and placed the facts so clearly before Gally
that the latter had no difficulty in grasping them and realising the full
gravity of the situation.

He felt
that he did not need to look into a crystal ball to foresee what would happen
when Tipton read that letter. His first move, one presumed, would be to ask
Veronica for an explanation, and one could readily guess what explanation
Veronica, the dumbest blonde in Shropshire and its adjoining counties, would
give. ‘But I thought you had lost all your money, Tip-pee,’ she would say,
rolling her lovely eyes, and it would be all over except for returning the
presents, countermanding the bridesmaids, telling the caterer his services
would not be required and breaking it to the bishop and assistant clergy that
they would have to look for employment elsewhere. Those wedding bells, in
short, would not ring out and Sam’s sweepstake ticket would become a mere
worthless scrap of paper, no good to man or beast. It would not be too much to
say that Gally was appalled. In his consternation he even removed his monocle
and started to polish it, a thing he never did except when greatly stirred.

‘Egbert,’
he said, ‘that letter must not be allowed to reach Tipton.’

‘Exactly
the idea that occurred to me,’ said Colonel Wedge. ‘And what I was going to
suggest was that you should intercept it. You see,’ he hastened to explain, ‘I
can’t do it myself, because I shan’t be here. I’ve got to go to my
godmother’s.’

‘You
can’t give her a miss?’

‘She
would never forgive me.’

‘Then,
of course, my dear fellow, I shall be delighted to place my services at your
disposal.’

In the
twenty-five years in which Colonel Egbert Wedge had been married to Lord
Emsworth’s sister Hermione quite a good deal of his wife’s conversation had
dealt with the moral and spiritual defects of her brother Galahad, but though
he had prudently kept his opinion to himself, she had never been able to shake
him in his view that Gally was the salt of the earth. He had always been
devoted to him and never more so than at this moment.

‘Good
heavens, what a relief! You’re sure you can manage it?’ he said, though he
hardly knew why he had bothered to ask the question. If good old Gally said he
would intercept a letter, that letter was as good as intercepted. ‘It’ll mean
getting up at some unearthly hour.’

Gally
waved his apologies aside.

‘That’s
all right. If larks can do it, I can do it. So you can go off and suck up to
your godmother with a light heart. And you ought to be starting, or you’ll miss
your train.’

‘I’m
just waiting for that girl.’

‘What
girl?’

‘That
secretary of Clarence’s. Her father has been suddenly taken ill and she has to go
away for a few days. Ah, here she is,’ said Colonel Wedge as Sandy came down
the steps. Her face was grave, as any girl’s might be who was on her way to a
parent’s sick bed.

‘I hope
I have not kept you waiting, Colonel.’

‘Not at
all, not at all. Plenty of time.’

‘I’m
afraid I shall miss Visitors’ Day, Gally.’

‘Yes, I
gathered that. I’m sorry to hear about your father.’

‘Thank
you, Gally. I knew you would be.’

‘What’s
the matter with him?’

‘The
doctors are baffled. Hadn’t we better be starting, Colonel?’

‘Yes,
carry on, Voules.’

The car
drove off. Gally, a thoughtful frown on his face, continued to polish his
monocle.

CHAPTER 8

I

There is nothing that keys
up the system like an eloquent pep talk, and Wilfred Allsop awoke next morning
full of optimism and the will to win. ‘My woman’ he was murmuring as he shaved,
‘My woman’ he was saying to himself over the coffee and eggs at breakfast, and
the words were still on his lips as he approached the Empress’s sty some hour
or two later with Tipton’s flask in his pocket. Only when he reached his
destination did there come to him the discouraging thought that things might
not be going to go so neatly in accordance with plan as he had anticipated. The
sty was there, the Empress was there, but of Monica Simmons there was no sign.
He did not know what were the duties of a pig girl, but whatever they might be
they had taken her elsewhere. To keep the record straight, one may mention that
she was down at the pump in the kitchen garden, washing her face. A girl who is
expecting an emotional scene with the man she loves naturally wishes to be at
her best.

If
there is one thing that damps a lover’s spirit, it is the absence from the
scene of action of the party of the second part who is so essential to a
proposal of marriage, and this unforeseen stage wait had the worst effect on
Wilfred’s morale. The effervescent mood in which he had started out suffered a
severe setback. He could feel his courage ebbing with every moment that passed.
For the first time that day ‘My woman’ seemed to him a silly thing to say to
anyone.

It was
a moment for prompt action. He had taken one draught from the Tipton flask and
had supposed that that would be sufficient but now he saw that the prudent
course would be to take another. The old saying about spoiling ships for
ha’porths of tar crossed his mind, together with the one that says that if a
thing is worth doing, it is worth doing well. Convinced that he was on the
right lines, he raised the flask to his lips, and he was leaning against the
rail of the sty, his head tilted, when out of the corner of his eye he became
conscious of a moving object not a dozen yards away and recognised it as Dame
Daphne Winkworth’s son Huxley, who, though Wilfred was not aware of it, had
come to ascertain how chances were for letting the Empress out of her sty. He
was a child with a one-track mind, and the desire to do this and see what
happened had become something of an obsession with him.

To say
that Wilfred was appalled would in no way be overstating the case. Huxley, he
knew instinctively, was one of those boys who tell their mother everything. To
be found fortifying himself from a flask by Huxley was precisely the same thing
as being found by Dame Daphne in person. Quick thought was called for, and he thought
quickly. Reaching behind him, he dropped the flask in the sty. It fell into the
Empress’s bran mash, which, he was relieved to see from a rapid glance,
completely covered it. Feeling slightly restored, though still far from
nonchalant, he turned to face the child, prepared to meet his charges, if any,
with stout denial. All his life he had put great trust in stout denial, and it
had always served him well.