Pigs Have Wings (13 page)

It is possible that there are in the world women of meek and angelic disposition who, deserted by gentlemen friends at the church door, are capable of accepting the betrayal tranquilly, saying to themselves that boys will be boys, but Maudie was not one of them. Hers was a high and mettlesome spirit, and a sense of grievance still burned within her. For years she had been storing up a number of good things which she proposed to say to her faithful lover, should they meet, and it was bitter to think that now, with only three miles separating them, this meeting seemed as far away as ever. Situated as she was, she could hardly ask for the car to drive her over to Matchingham Hall, and she shrank from the thought of walking there in this sultry summer weather, her views on pedestrianism being much the same as those of Sir Gregory Parsloe.

On the premises of Blandings Castle, as of even date, there were to be found stricken souls in large numbers – it would, indeed, have been almost impossible to have thrown a brick without hitting one – and that of Maudie Stubbs, alias Bunbury, came high up on the list.

Gally’s moodiness is equally easily explained. With the man Parsloe’s cousin closeted daily with the Empress, the man Parsloe’s fiancée established in the house and the man Parsloe himself rubbing his hand and singing ‘Yo ho ho and a bottle of Slimmo’, a consistent cheerfulness on his part was hardly to be expected. Add to this the tragedy which had darkened the lives of Penny Donaldson and this excellent young fellow Vail, and add to that the telephone conversation he had had with Sir Gregory shortly before dinner, and it cannot be wondered at that he was not his usual effervescent self.

How long the silence might have lasted, it is impossible to say. But at this point the spell was broken by the arrival of Lord Emsworth, who came pottering out of the drawing-room with the air of a man looking for somebody. Having observed Maudie making for the terrace, it had seemed to him that here was a capital opportunity of having a quick word with her outside the orbit of his sister Connie’s watchful eye. Conditions for such a
tête-à-tête
could scarcely have been more suitable. The moon was riding serenely in the sky, the air was fragrant with the scent of night-blooming flowers, Lord Vosper, who in addition to playing a red-hot game of tennis had a nice tenor voice, was at the piano singing a song with lots of sentimental stomp in it, and what Lord Emsworth felt was that ten minutes of roaming in the gloaming with Maudie, would just about top it off.

Ever since his brother Galahad had introduced him to the relict of the late Cedric Stubbs on this same terrace, strange and novel emotions had been stirring in Lord Emsworth’s bosom. He was a man who since the death of his wife twenty years ago had made something of a lifework of avoiding women. He could not, of course, hope to avoid them altogether, for women have a nasty way of popping up at unexpected moments, but he was quick on his feet and his policy of suddenly disappearing like a diving duck had had excellent results. It was now pretty generally accepted by his little circle that the ninth Earl of Emsworth was not a ladies’ man and that any woman who tried to get a civil word out of him did so at her own risk.

To Maudie, however, he had felt from the start strangely drawn. He admired her looks. Her personality appealed to him. ‘Alluring’ was the word that suggested itself. When he caught Maudie’s eye, it was as though he had caught the eye of a woman who was silently saying ‘Come up and see me some time’, and this – oddly enough – struck him as an admirable idea. So now he had pottered out on to the terrace in the hope of a pleasant exchange of views with her.

But these things never work out perfectly. Here was the terrace, bathed in moonlight, and here was she, bathed in moonlight, too, but here in addition, he now saw, was his brother Galahad, also bathed in moonlight, and the sight brought a quick ‘Oh, ah’ to his lips. The presence of a third party chilled his romantic mood.

‘Hullo, Clarence,’ said Gally. ‘How’s the boy?’

‘Quite, quite,’ said Lord Emsworth, and drifted back into the drawing-room like a family spectre disappointed with the room it had been told off to haunt.

Maudie came out of her thoughts.

‘Was that Lord Emsworth?’ she said, for from the corner of her eye she seemed to have seen something flickering.

‘Yes, there he spouted,’ said Gally. ‘But he buzzed off, mumbling incoherently. Walking in his sleep, probably.’

‘He’s absent-minded, isn’t he?’

‘Yes, I think one could fairly call him that. If he has a mind, it is very seldom there. Did I ever tell you the story of Clarence and the Arkwright wedding?’

‘I don’t think so.’

‘Odd. It happened about the time when I was a regular client of yours at the Criterion and I told it to everybody else. I wonder why I discriminated against you. The Arkwrights lived out Bridgnorth way, and their daughter Amelia was getting married, so Clarence tied a knot in his handkerchief to remind him to send the bride’s mother a telegram on the happy day.’

‘And he forgot?’

‘Oh, no, he sent it. “My heartfelt congratulations to you on this joyous occasion,” he said.’

‘Well, wasn’t that all right?’

‘It was fine. Couldn’t have been improved on. Only the trouble was that in one of his distrait moments he sent it, not to Mrs Arkwright but to another friend of his, a Mrs Cart-wright, and her husband had happened to die that morning. Diabetes. Very sad. We were all very sorry about it, but no doubt the telegram cheered her up. Did I ever tell you about Clarence and the salad?’

‘No.’

‘I don’t seem to have told you any of my best stories. It was in the days when he was younger and used to let me take him about London a bit. Well, of course, even then it wasn’t easy to get him absolutely shining and glittering in lively society and being the belle of the ball, but he did have one unique gift. He could mix a superb salad. As his public relations man, I played this up on all occasions. When men came to me and said “Tell me, Gally, am I correct in supposing that this brother of yours you’re lugging around town is about as outstanding a dumb brick and fathead as ever broke biscuit?” I would reply “To a certain extent, my dear Smith or Jones, or whatever the name might be, the facts are as you state. Clarence has his limitations as a social ball of fire – except when it comes to mixing salads. You just get him to mix you a salad one of these days.” So his fame grew. People would point him out in the streets and say “That’s Emsworth, the chap who mixes salads.” And came a day when I took him to the Pelican Club, feeling like the impresario of a performing flea on an opening night, and they handed him the lettuce and the tomatoes and the oil and the vinegar and the chives and all the rest of it, and he started in.’

‘And made a mess of it?’

‘Not at all. He was a sensational success. He had cut his finger that morning and was wearing a finger-stall, and I feared that this might cramp his style, but no, it didn’t seem to hamper him a bit. He chopped and mixed and mixed and chopped, with here a drop of oil and there a drop of vinegar, and in due season the salad was prepared in a lordly bowl and those present flung themselves on it like starving wolves.’

And they liked it?’

‘They loved it. They devoured it to the last morsel. There wasn’t so much as a shred of lettuce or a solitary chive left in the bowl. And then, when everyone was fawning on Clarence and slapping his back, it was noticed that he was looking disturbed and unhappy. “What’s the matter, old man?” I asked. “Is something wrong?” “Oh, no,” he said. “Everything is capital, capital … only I seem to have lost my finger-stall.” That’s Clarence. A sterling fellow whom I love as if he were my own brother, which he is, of course, but a little on the dreamy side. I remember my nephew Freddie saying once that if you sent him out to buy apples, he would come back with an elephant, and there was considerable justice in the remark. He dodders. He goes off into trances. And you’re seeing him at his worst these days, for he has much on his mind. He has a speech to make tomorrow which involves a stiff collar and a top hat, and he’s naturally worried about his pig and the machinations of the man Parsloe. The shadow of Parsloe broods over him like a London fog. You’ve seen that dark girl with the serpentine figure who’s just blown in here?’

‘Miss Salt?’

‘That’s the one. Parsloe’s fiancée. Makes you think a bit, eh? They’re closing in on us, old girl, closing in on us. The iron ring is narrowing. It won’t be long now … Oh, dash it, here comes someone else,’ said Gally, clicking his tongue. ‘The curse of Blandings Castle, no privacy. Oh, no, it’s all right. I think it’s Penny.’

It was Penny. In the amber drawing-room Lord Vosper, having finished his torch song, had started another with even more heartbreak to the cubic inch, and it had been too much for the poor girl. Rising with a stifled sob, she had made a dive for the French windows and was now coming towards them, looking like Ophelia.

‘Hullo, there,’ said Gally. ‘Come and join the party. Nice night.’

Penny sank into a chair.

‘Is it?’ she said listlessly.

‘Come, come,’ said Gally. ‘Tails up, my child. You mustn’t let yourself get downhearted. There’s too much defeatism in this joint. I’ve been meaning to speak to you about that, Maudie. I’ve noticed in you, too, a dropping of the spirits. When I told you that story of Clarence and the salad, which should have had you rolling in the aisle, gasping with merriment, you were gazing at me mournfully all the time. What’s the matter? Don’t you like it here?’

Maudie sighed. Blandings Castle had been a place of enchantment to her.

‘It’s wonderful. But I feel I’m not doing anything to help. I’m about as much use as a cold in the head.’

‘Come, come.’

‘It’s true. Uncle Sebastian –’

‘Not so loud. Castles have ears.’

‘Uncle Sebastian,’ Maudie went on, lowering her voice, ‘was all wrong when he told you about me. He seems to have given you the idea that I was a sort of Sherlock Holmes or something. All I’ve done since Cedric passed on has been to kind of look after the agency – answer letters and send out the bills and sort of keep an eye on things. I don’t do any of the detective work. I wouldn’t know how to begin. That’s all done by Mr North and Mr Connor and Mr Fauntleroy. I mean, suppose you wanted divorce evidence or something, you would come and see me, and I’d say Okay, we’ll attend to it and it’ll be so much as a retainer and so much per week and all that, but then I would hand everything over to Mr Fauntleroy and Mr Connor and Mr North. I don’t see any point in my staying on here.’

Gally patted her hand.

‘Of course you must stay, my dear child. Your moral support is invaluable. And one of these days you’re sure to come up with some terrific idea which will solve all our difficulties. A brainy girl like you? Don’t tell me. I shouldn’t be surprised if there wasn’t one fermenting inside you at this very moment.’

‘Well, as a matter of fact –’

‘I told you so.’

‘I was just going to suggest something when Miss Donaldson came along.’

‘You may speak freely before Miss Donaldson, who has been associated with me in a number of my cases.’

Maudie looked about her cautiously. They were alone and unobserved. In the drawing-room Lord Vosper was now singing something so full – judging by the sound – of anguish that they were fortunate in not being able to distinguish the words. Even the melody was affecting Penny unpleasantly.

‘What I thought was this. Why don’t you steal Tubby’s old Pig?’

‘What!’

A momentary fear that she had said something unladylike flitted through Maudie’s mind, but she dismissed it. She had known Gally too long to suppose that he was capable of being shocked.

‘Well, he seems to be doing everything he can to queer your old pig, so why shouldn’t you start? Attack … what’s that thing you hear people say?’

‘Attack is the best form of defence?’

‘That’s right. If I were you, I’d sneak over to his house and wait till there was nobody around –’

Gally patted her hand again.

‘What you propose, my dear Maudie,’ he said, ‘would, of course, be the ideal solution, and the suggestion strengthens the high opinion I had already formed of your resource and intelligence. But there are obstacles in the way. The catch is that there would be somebody around.’

‘How do you know that?’

‘I have it from an authoritative source. Just before dinner I was called to the telephone. It was young Parsloe. He had rung me up, he said, to warn me that if I was contemplating any off-colour work, I would do well to think twice, because he had provided his pig man, Wellbeloved, with a stout shot-gun and Wellbeloved had a roving commission to blaze away with it at all intruders. So there the matter rests. I don’t know how accurate a marksman the blighter is, but I certainly don’t propose to ascertain by personal inquiry. It would be foreign to my policy to have to take all my meals standing up for the next few weeks because George Cyril Wellbeloved had planted a charge of small shot in my … well, that is neither here nor there. As I was saying, with the broad, general idea of pinching Parsloe’s pig I am wholly in sympathy. We could put it in that gamekeeper’s shack in the west wood and keep it incommunicado there indefinitely. But things being as they are –’

Maudie nodded.

‘I see. Then there’s nothing to be done?’

‘Nothing, I’m afraid, so long as George Cyril Wellbeloved –’

He broke off. The voice of Sebastian Beach had spoken at his elbow, causing him to leap like a lamb in springtime. Absorbed in his remarks, he had had no inkling that there were butlers present.

‘You made me bite my tongue, Beach,’ he said reproachfully.

‘I am sorry, Mr Galahad. I should have coughed.’

‘Or tooted your horn. What is it?’

‘A person has called, asking to see you, sir. The man Wellbeloved, Mr Galahad.’

‘Wellbeloved?’ Gally stiffened formidably. ‘You mean that this renegade pig man, this latter-day Benedict Arnold, this degraded specimen of pond life, is
here
?’

‘I left him in my pantry, sir. He expressed himself as very desirous of having a word with you. The matter, he said, was one of urgency.’