Sunset at Blandings (7 page)

‘Oh,
bitterly.’

‘You
must have been a very disreputable young man.’

‘So I
was often told by my nearest and dearest. I was one of those men my mother
always warned me against.’

‘Well,
it’s lucky you’re such a low character. A saintly uncle wouldn’t have been much
use in the present crisis. I suppose, when you tell the tale, you deviate from
the truth a lot?’

‘Quite
a good deal. I have always found the truth an excellent thing to deviate from.’

‘What
are you going to say to Mr. Duff?’

‘Hullo,
Duff. Nice to see you again. Lovely weather, is it not. I shall then give him
the works.’

‘I can
hardly wait.’

‘You
won’t have to, for here he comes, no doubt to report to Jimmy on the croquet
lawn.’

This
was indeed Claude’s purpose, for in addition to being nervous he was
conscientious and never shirked his duty, even when unpleasant. His employer,
sometimes inclined to be irritable, always gave him the same uneasy feeling as
affected him when meeting strange dogs, but he faced him bravely and hoped for
the best.

It was,
however, without enjoyment that he was going to meet him now, and the sight of
Gally, who at their previous encounter had proved so genial a companion,
cheered him greatly. So when Gally said ‘Hullo, Duff Nice to see you again.
Lovely weather, is it not?’ his response was the cordial response of one
confident of having found a friend.

‘This
is Miss Underwood, my niece,’ said Gally.

‘How do
you do?’ said Claude.

‘How do
you do?’ said Vicky.

There
was a pause. Claude tried to think of a bright remark, but was unable to find
one. He regretted this, for Vicky had made a profound impression on him. He
substituted a not very bright question.

‘Did
you find Jeff all right?’

‘I did
indeed.’

‘Good
old Jeff. I wish I saw more of him.’

‘You
will. And I should like a word with you before you meet him.’

‘Meet
him?’

‘He’s
here.’

‘What,
at the castle?’

‘That
very spot.’

‘That’s
certainly a surprise. Is he here for long?’

‘He won’t
be if the powers of darkness hear you calling him Jeff.
[31]
His true identity must be
wrapped in a veil of secrecy. Smith is the name to which he answers.’

‘I don’t
understand.’

‘I am
about to brief you. This incognito stuff is to avoid him being given the bum’s
rush by my brother Clarence.’

‘I
still don’t …’

‘You
will in a minute. Are you familiar with the facts about Jeff’s father?’

‘No.
What about his father?’

‘I
shall be coming to that in a moment, but first let me get quite clear as to the
relations between you and Jeff. Did I gather correctly from what you were
saying when we met at Eastbourne that you and he had been at school together?’

‘That’s
right. Wrykyn.’

‘A most
respectable establishment.’

‘We
were in the same house. Our last two years we shared a study.’

‘So you
were constantly in happy comradeship, now brewing tea and toasting sausages,
anon out on the football field, rallying the forwards in the big game.’

‘I wasn’t
in the football team. Jeff was.’

‘Or
sitting side by side in the school chapel, listening to the chaplain’s short
manly sermon. What I’m driving at is that, linked by a thousand memories of the
dear old school, you wouldn’t dream of saying or doing anything to give Jeff a
jab in the eye with a burned stick, thus causing him alarm and despondency and
rendering his hopes and dreams null and void.’

Claude
could not quite follow all the ramifications of this, but he grasped the
general import and replied that he could be relied on not to do anything
damaging to Jeff’s hopes and dreams.

‘Good,’
said Gally, ‘then we can proceed. He is after the job of secretary
[32]
to my brother Clarence, and
his position is a bit tricky. I don’t know if you had any difficulty in getting
taken on in a similar capacity by Jimmy Piper?’

‘No,
there wasn’t any trouble. My father worked it. He’s pretty influential, and he’s
a great friend of Sir James.’

‘How
different from Jeff’s father. He’s dead now, but in his lifetime he was a
dishonest financier who ruined hundreds before skipping the country. He did my
brother Clarence down for several thousands of the best and brightest, and
Clarence is very bitter about it. Clarence, I must tell you, is a man of
ungovernable passions, and did he discover that Jeff was the son of the man who
got into his ribs for that substantial sum, there would be no question of
engaging him as his secretary. He would probably bite him in the leg or throw
an ormolu clock or something at him. His fury would be indescribable. That is
why I beg you to remember on no account to call Jeff Jeff in his presence.
Smith is the name. You understand?’

‘Oh,
rather.’

‘Splendid.
What a treat it is dealing with a man of your lightning intelligence. You don’t
know what a relief it is to feel that we can rely on you. Remember. Not Jeff.
Smith. Though as you are such old friends you might call him Smithy.’

‘At
school we always called him Bingo.’

‘That
will be capital. Well, I am glad it’s all straightened out, my dear Duff. You
had now better be getting along and reporting to Jimmy. No doubt he will be
delighted to see you.’

Vicky
had been listening to these exchanges with growing admiration. As Claude
receded in the direction of the croquet lawn, she said:

‘At-a-boy,
Gaily.’

‘Thank
you, my dear.’

‘I see
now what you mean by telling the tale.’

‘I was
not at my best, I fear. One gets a bit rusty as the years go by. Still, it got
over all right.’

‘Triumphantly.’

‘We
shan’t have any more trouble with Claude Duff. So now there’s nothing on our
minds.’

‘Nothing.’

‘We are
carefree. We sing tra la la.’

‘Would
you go as far as that?’

‘Omitting
perhaps the final la!’

‘Though
I shall be too nervous to do much singing.’

‘Nonsense.
Nothing to be nervous about.’

‘You
really feel that?’

‘Certainly.
I don’t say that when Jimmy told us Claude Duff had clocked in I didn’t feel a
momentary twinge of uneasiness. But you saw how soon it passed off. What can
possibly bung a spanner into our hopes and dreams now? It isn’t as if your stepmother
was your Aunt Constance. Connie could detect rannygazoo by a sort of sixth
sense and smell a rat when all other noses were baffled, but she was a woman in
a thousand. Sherlock Holmes could have taken her correspondence course.’

‘What a
comfort you are, Gally.’

‘So I
have been told, though not by any of the female members of my family. What a
lot of exercise Beach is taking this afternoon,’ said Gaily, changing the
subject as the butler came out of the house and made his way towards them. ‘Hullo,
Beach. Did you want to see me, or are you out for a country ramble?’

Neither
of these suggestions, it appeared, fitted the facts. It was duty that had
called Beach to brave the ultra-violet rays of the sun.

‘I am
taking his lordship a telegram that has just come over the telephone. It is
from Mr. Frederick, saying that he is in England again and will be paying a
visit to the castle as soon as his business interests permit.’

Beach
passed on, and Vicky, starting to express her pleasure at the prospect of
seeing her Cousin Frederick again, found herself interrupted by a sharp barking
sound from her Uncle Galahad, who, becoming coherent, added the words ‘Hell’s
bells!’

‘What’s
the matter?’ she asked.

Gally
was in no mood to break things gently.

‘Do you
realize,’ he said, his voice choked and his eyeglass once more adrift, ‘that we
are plunged more deeply in the soup than ever? Freddie is a friend of Jeff’s
and you know what a bubblehead Freddie is. The chances that lie won’t call Jeff
Jeff in front of your stepmother are virtually nil.’

‘Oh,
Gally.’

‘There
is only one thing to do—go to London and intercept him and make him see that he
must not come down here. I’ll pinch the Bentley
[33]
and start right away.’

CHAPTER
NINE

JEFF meanwhile, conducted
by Beach, had come to journey’s end, but he was under no illusion that his
pilgrimage was to terminate in lovers’ meeting. His emotions on finding himself
closeted with Florence somewhat resembled those of a young lion tamer who,
entering the lion’s cage, suddenly realizes that he has forgotten all he was
taught by his correspondence school. A chill seemed to have fallen on the
summer day, and he saw how right Gally had been in comparing his sister to the
late Gorgon.

Forbidding
was the adjective a stylist like Gustave Flaubert would have applied to her
aspect, putting it of course in French, as was his habit. She was an angular
woman, and her bearing was so erect that one wondered why she did not fall over
backwards. She had not actually swallowed some rigid object such as a poker,
but she gave the impression of having done so, and Jeff was conscious of
surprise that she should have succeeded in getting married to one so
notoriously popular with the other sex as J. B. Underwood.
[34]
Perhaps,
he felt, he had proposed to her because somebody betted he wouldn’t.

Beach,
having announced ‘Mr. Smith’ in a voice from which he did his best to keep the
gentle pity he could not but feel for the nice young man he was leaving to face
her ladyship in what was plainly one of her moods, withdrew, and Florence
opened the conversation.

Some
women who at first sight intimidate the beholder set him at his ease with charm
of manner. Florence was not one of these. Her ‘How do you do’, delivered from between
clenched teeth, was in keeping with her appearance, and Jeff’s morale, already
in the low brackets, slipped still lower. No trace remained of the airy confidence
with which he had assured Gally that the Smiths knew what fear was only by
hearsay. A worm confronted by a Plymouth Rock would have been more nonchalant.

Florence
came to the point without preamble.

‘I
understand that you have come to paint a portrait of Lord Emsworth’s pig,’ she
said, speaking as if the words soiled her lips.

‘Yes,’
said Jeff, only just checking himself from adding ‘ma’am’. It was difficult not
to believe himself in the presence of Royalty.

‘It is
a perfectly preposterous idea.’

There
seemed nothing to say in reply to this, so Jeff said nothing. Nobody knew
better than himself that he was getting the loser’s end of these exchanges, but
there seemed nothing he could do about it. He envied Gaily, who, he knew, would
have taken this haughty woman in his stride.

‘Pigs!’
said Florence, making it clear that these animals did not stand high in her
estimation, and while Jeff was continuing to say nothing the door opened and
Lord Emsworth pottered in with his customary air of being a somnambulist
looking for a dropped collar stud.

‘Florence,’
he bleated, ‘I’ve just had a telegram from Frederick. He says he’s in England
again and is coming here.’

There
was no pleasure in his voice. Visits from his younger son seldom pleased him.
Freddie was a vice-president of Donaldson’s Dog Joy of Long Island City, N.Y.
and like all vice-presidents was inclined to talk shop. It is trying for a father
who wants to talk about nothing but pigs to have a son in the home who wants to
talk about nothing but dog-biscuits.

‘Oh?’
said Florence.

‘I
thought you would like to know.’

‘I
haven’t the slightest interest in Frederick’s movements.’

‘Then
you ought to have.’

‘Why?’

‘You’re
his aunt.’

If
Florence had been less carefully brought up, she would no doubt have said ‘So
what?’ As it was, she chose her words more carefully.

‘I am
not aware that there is a law, human or divine, which says that an aunt must
enjoy the society of a nephew who confines his conversation exclusively to the
subject of dog-biscuits.’

‘Noblesse
oblige,’
said Lord Emsworth, remembering a good
one, and Florence asked him what on earth
noblesse
had got to do with
it. As Lord Emsworth was unable to find a reply to this, there was a momentary
silence, during which Jeff decided that if there was going to be an argument
about what was and what was not required behaviour for aunts, it was a good
time to leave. He sidled out, and Lord Emsworth, seeing him for the first time,
gazed after him in bewilderment, almost as if, like his pig man, he had been
suddenly confronted by the White Lady of Blandings, who was supposed to make
her rounds of the castle with her head under her arm, it having been chopped
off by her husband in the Middle Ages.