Service with a Smile (5 page)

Pongo
quivered like an aspen. He always quivered like an aspen when reminded of the
afternoon when he had attended the dog races in Lord Ickenham’s company. Though
on that occasion, as his uncle had often pointed out, a wiser policeman would
have been content with a mere reprimand.

2

The canny peer of the
realm, when duty calls him to lend his presence to the ceremony of the Opening
of Parliament, hires his robes and coronet from. that indispensable clothing
firm, the Brothers Moss of Covent Garden, whose boast is that they can at any
time fit anyone out as anything and have him ready to go anywhere. Only they
can prevent him being caught short. It was to their emporium that, after
leaving his nephew, Lord Ickenham repaired, carrying a suitcase. And he had
returned the suitcase’s contents and paid his modest bill, when there entered,
also carrying a suitcase, a tall, limp, drooping figure, at the sight of which
he uttered a glad cry.

‘Emsworth!
My dear fellow, how nice to run into you again. So you too are bringing back
your sheaves?’

‘Eh?’
said Lord Emsworth, who always said ‘Eh?’ when anyone addressed him suddenly. ‘Oh,
hullo, Ickenham. Are you in London?’

Lord
Ickenham assured him that he was, and Lord Emsworth said so was he. This
having been straightened out,

‘Were
you at that thing this morning? ‘he said.

‘I was
indeed,’ said Lord Ickenham, ‘and looking magnificent. I don’t suppose there is
a peer in England who presents a posher appearance when wearing the
reach-me-downs and comic hat than I do. Just before the procession got under
way, I heard Rouge Croix whisper to Bluemantle “Don’t look now, but who’s that
chap over there? “, and Bluemantle whispered back, “I haven’t the foggiest, but
evidently some terrific swell.” But it’s nice to get out of the fancy dress,
isn’t it, and it’s wonderful seeing you, Emsworth. How’s the Empress?’

‘Eh?
Oh, capital, capital, capital. I left her in the care of my pigman Wellbeloved,
in whom I have every confidence.’

‘Splendid.
Well, let’s go and have a couple for the tonsils and a pleasant chat. I know a
little bar round the corner,’ said Lord Ickenham, who, wherever he was, always
knew a little bar round the corner. ‘You have rather a fatigued air, as if
putting on all that dog this morning had exhausted you. A whisky with a splash
of soda will soon bring back the sparkle to your eyes.’

Seated
in the little bar round the corner, Lord Ickenham regarded his companion with
some concern.

‘Yes,’
he said. ‘I was right. You don’t look your usual bonny self. Very testing,
these Openings of Parliament. Usually I give them a miss, as no doubt you do.
What brought you up today?’

‘Connie
insisted.’

‘I
understand. There are, I should imagine, few finer right-and-left-hand
insisters than Lady Constance. Charming woman, of course.’

‘Connie?’
said Lord Emsworth, surprised.

‘Though
perhaps not everybody’s cup of tea,’ said Lord Ickenham, sensing the
incredulity in his companion’s voice. ‘But tell me, how is everything at Blandings
Castle? Jogging along nicely, I hope. I always look on that little shack of
yours as an earthly Paradise.’

It was
not within Lord Emsworth’s power to laugh bitterly, but he uttered a bleating
sound which was as near as he could get to a bitter laugh. The description of Blandings
Castle as an earthly Paradise, with his sister Constance, the Duke, Lavender
Briggs, and the Church Lads’ Brigade running around loose there, struck him as
ironical. He mused for a space in silence.

‘I don’t
know what to do, Ickenham,’ he said, his sombre train of thought coming to its
terminus.

‘You
mean now? Have another.’

‘No,
no, thank you, really. It is very unusual for me to indulge in alcoholic
stimulant so early in the day. I was referring to conditions at Blandings
Castle.’

‘Not so
good?’

‘They
are appalling. I have a new secretary, the worst I have ever had. Worse than
Baxter.’

‘That
seems scarcely credible.’

‘I
assure you. A girl of the name of Briggs. She persecutes me.’

‘Get
rid of her.’

‘How
can I? Connie engaged her. And the Duke of Dun-stable is staying at the castle.’

‘What,
again?’

‘And
the Church Lads’ Brigade are camping in the park, yelling and squealing all the
time, and I am convinced that it was one of them who threw a roll at my top
hat.’

‘Your
top hat? When did you ever wear a top hat?’

‘It was
at the school treat. Connie always makes me wear a top hat at the school treat.
I went into the tent at teatime to see that everything was going along all
right, and as I was passing down the aisle between the tables, a boy threw a
crusty roll at my hat and knocked it off. Nothing will persuade me, Ickenham,
that the culprit was not one of the Church Lads.’

‘But
you have no evidence that would stand up in a court of law?’

‘Eh? No,
none.’

‘Too
bad. Well, the whole set-up sounds extraordinarily like Devil’s Island, and I
am not surprised that you find it difficult to keep the upper lip as stiff as
one likes to see upper lips.’ A strange light had come into Lord Ickenham’s
eyes. His nephew Pongo would have recognized it. It was the light which had so
often come into them when the other was suggesting that they embark on one of
their pleasant and instructive afternoons. ‘What you need, it seems to me,’ he
said, ‘is some rugged ally at your side, someone who will quell the secretary,
look Connie in the eye and make her wilt, take the Duke off your hands and
generally spread sweetness and light.’

‘Ah!’ said
Lord Emsworth with a sigh, as he allowed his mind to dwell on this utopian
picture.

‘Would
you like me to come to Blandings?’

Lord Emsworth
started. His pince-nez, which always dropped off his nose when he was deeply
stirred, did an adagio dance at the end of their string.

‘Would
you?’

‘Nothing
would please me more. When do you return there?’

‘Tomorrow.
This is very good of you, Ickenham.’

‘Not at
all. We earls must stick together. There is just one thing. You won’t mind if I
bring a friend with me? I would not ask you, but he’s just back from Brazil and
would be rather lost in London without me.’

‘Brazil?
Do people live in Brazil!’

‘Frequently,
I believe. This chap has been there some years. He is connected with the Brazil
nut industry. I am a little sketchy as to what his actual job is, but I think
he’s the fellow who squeezes the nuts in the squeezer, to give them that
peculiar shape. I may be wrong, of course. Then I bring him with me?’

‘Certainly,
certainly, certainly. Delighted, delighted.’

‘A wise
decision on your part. Who knows that he may not help the general composition?
He might fall in love with the secretary and marry her and take her to Brazil.’

‘True.’

‘Or
murder the Duke with some little-known Asiatic poison. Or be of assistance in a
number of other ways. I’m sure you’ll be glad to have him about the place. He
is house-broken and eats whatever you’re having yourself. What train are you
taking tomorrow?’

‘The
11.45
from Paddington.’

‘Expect
us there, my dear Emsworth,’ said Lord Ickenham. ‘And not only there, but with
our hair in a braid and, speaking for myself, prepared to be up and doing with
a heart for any fate. I’ll go and ring my friend up now and tell him to start
packing.’

3

It was some hours later
that Pongo Twistleton, having a tissue-restorer before dinner in the Drones
Club smoking-room, was informed by the smoking-room waiter that a gentleman was
in the hall, asking to see him, and a shadow fell on his tranquil mood. Too
often when gentlemen called asking to see members of the Drones Club, their
visits had to do with accounts rendered for goods supplied, with the subject
of remittances which would oblige cropping up, and he knew that his own affairs
were in a state of some disorder.

‘Is he
short and stout?’ he asked nervously, remembering that the representative of
the Messrs Hicks and Adrian, to whom he owed a princely sum for shirting, socks
and under-linen could be so described.

‘Far
from it. Tall and beautifully slender,’ said a hearty voice behind him. ‘Svelte
may be the word I am groping for.’

‘Oh,
hullo, Uncle Fred,’ said Pongo, relieved. ‘I thought you were someone else.’

‘Rest
assured that I am not. First, last and all the time yours to command Ickenham!
I took the liberty of walking in, my dear Pongo, confident that I would receive
a nephew’s welcome. We Ickenhams dislike to wait in halls. It offends our
pride. What’s that you’re having? Order me one of the same. I suppose it will
harden my arteries but I like them hard. Bill not with you tonight?’

‘No. He
had to go to Bottleton East to pick up some things.’

‘You
have not seen him recently?’

‘No, I
haven’t been back to the flat. Do you want me to give you dinner?’

‘Just
what I was about to suggest. It will be your last opportunity for some little
time. I’m off to Blandings Castle tomorrow.’

‘You’re…
what?’

‘Yes,
after I left you I ran into Emsworth and he asked me to drop down there for a
few days or possibly longer. He’s having trouble, poor chap.’

‘What’s
wrong with him?’

‘Practically
everything. He has a new secretary who harries him. The Duke of Dunstable seems
to be a fixture on the premises. Lady Constance has pinched his favourite hat. and
given it to the deserving poor, and he lives in constant fear of her getting
away with his shooting jacket with the holes in the elbows. In addition to
which, he is much beset by Church Lads.’

‘Eh?’

‘You
see how full my hands will be, if I am to help him. I shall have to devise some
means of ridding him of this turbulent secretary —’

‘Church
Lads?’

‘—
shipping the Duke back to Wiltshire, where he belongs, curbing Connie and
putting the fear of God into these Church Lads. An impressive programme, and
one that would be beyond the scope of a lesser man. Most fortunately I am not
a lesser man.’

‘How do
you mean, Church Lads?’

‘Weren’t
you ever a Church Lad?’

‘No.’

‘Well,
many of the younger generation are: They assemble in gangs in most rural
parishes. The Church Lads’ Brigade they call themselves. Connie has allowed
them to camp out by the lake.’

‘And Emsworth
doesn’t like them?’

‘Nobody
could, except their mothers. No, he eyes them askance. They ruin the scenery,
poison the air with their uncouth cries, and at the recent school treat, so he
tells me, knocked off his top hat with a crusty roll.’

Pongo
shook his head censoriously.

‘He
shouldn’t have worn a topper at a school treat,’ he said. He was remembering
functions of this kind into which he had been lured at one time and another by
clergymen’s daughters for whose charms he had fallen. The one at Maiden Eggesford
in Somerset, when his great love for Angelica Briscoe, daughter of the Rev P.
P. Briscoe, who vetted the souls of the peasantry in that hamlet, had led him
to put his head in a sack and allow himself to be prodded with sticks by the
younger set, had never been erased from his memory. ‘A topper! Good Lord! Just
asking for it!’

‘He
acted under duress. He would have preferred to wear a cloth cap, but Connie
insisted. You know how persuasive she can be.’

‘She’s
a tough baby.’

‘Very
tough. Let us hope she takes to Bill Bailey.’.

‘Does
what?’

‘Oh, I
didn’t tell you, did I? Bill is accompanying me to Blandings.’

‘What!’

‘Yes, Emsworth
very kindly included him in his invitation. We’re off tomorrow on the 11.45,
singing a gypsy song.’

Horror
leaped into Pongo’s eyes. He started violently, and came within an ace of
spilling his martini with a spot of lemon peel in it. Fond though he was of his
Uncle Fred, he had never wavered in his view that in the interests of young
English manhood he ought to be kept on a chain and seldom allowed at large.

‘But my
gosh!’

‘Something
troubling you?’

‘You
can’t … what’s the word … you can’t subject poor old Bill to this frightful
ordeal.’

Lord
Ickenham’s eyebrows rose.

‘Well,
really, Pongo, if you consider it an ordeal for a young man to be in the same
house with the girl he loves, you must have less sentiment in you than I had
supposed.’

‘Yes,
that’s all very well. His ball of fluff will be there, I agree. But what good’s
that going to do him when two minutes after his arrival Lady Constance grabs
him by the seat of the trousers and heaves him out?’