Uncle Dynamite (29 page)

And
then suddenly, with considerable astonishment, he found that horror had given
way to a strange exhilaration. He could now appreciate the solid merits of this
Ickenham system, chief among which was the fact that it placed the wooing of
Hermione Bostock on the plane of physical action. Physical action was his dish.
Give him something to do with his hands, and he knew where he was.

So
simple, too. Nothing intricate or elaborate about it. Run over it once more,
just to make sure one hadn’t forgotten anything.

Stride
up and grab?

Easy.

Waggle
about?

Pie.

Clasp
to bosom and s.k. on upturned f.?

No
difficulty there.

Say ‘My
mate’?

About
that he was not so sure. It seemed to him that Lord Ickenham, brilliant as an
arranger of stage business, had gone astray as regarded dialogue. Wouldn’t a
fellow be apt to feel a bit of a chump, saying ‘My mate’? Better, surely, just
to pant a good deal? Yes, that was the stuff. Stride, grab, waggle, clasp,
kiss, pant. Right.

Under
the stress of intense thought he had started to walk up and down the hall, his
head bent over the fingers on which he was ticking off the various items on the
list, and it was as he unconsciously accelerated his pace on getting that
inspiration about panting that a bumping sensation and a loud roar of anguish
told him that there had been a traffic accident.

Narrowing
his gaze, he saw that he had rammed something substantial and white moustached,
and narrowing it still further identified this as his uncle. Sir Aylmer
Bostock. And he was about to offer suitable apologies, when all thought of
injured uncles was wiped from his mind and his heart leaped within him like an
adagio dancer trying out a new step. Behind Sir Aylmer, looking more
unbelievably beautiful even than he had remembered her, stood Hermione.

Hermione
smiled upon him dazzlingly. She was in the sunniest of moods. After dropping
Otis at the Bull’s Head in the High Street, she had arrived at the front door
just in time to see her father driving up, and such was the force of her
personality that she had settled that little matter of the proposed legal
action of Bostock
v.
Painter in something under two minutes and a
quarter. The future of the publishing firm of Meriday House, in so far as
concerned civil actions on the part of the late Governor of Lower Barnatoland,
was secure.

So she
smiled dazzlingly. In an amused, sisterly way she had always been devoted to
dear old Bill, and she was glad to see him again.

‘Hullo,
Bill,’ she said.

Bill
found speech.

‘Oh,
hullo, Hermione.’

Sir
Aylmer also found speech.

‘What
the devil are you doing, you great clumsy oaf,’ he said, standing on one leg
and submitting the other to a system of massage, for the impact had been
severe. ‘Charging about the place like a damned rhinoceros. Why can’t you look
where you’re going?’

Bill
was staring at Hermione. In a dim way he was aware that words were proceeding
from this old blighter, but he was unable to concentrate on their import.

‘Oh,
rather,’ he said.

‘What
do you mean, oh, rather?’

‘Yes,
isn’t it?’ said Bill.

To a
man who was good at snorting and to whom snorts came easily there was only one
answer to this sort of thing. Sir Aylmer snorted, and stumped into the
collection room, telling himself that he would go into the matter later on when
his nephew seemed more in the mood. Useless to waste good stuff on one who,
always deficient in intellect, seemed now to be suffering from some form of
mental paralysis.

Hermione
continued cordial.

‘So
you’re back, Bill. It’s jolly seeing you again. How was
Brazil
?’

‘Oh,
fine.’

‘Have a
good time?’

‘Oh,
yes, fine, thanks.’

‘You’re
very sunburned. I suppose you had lots of adventures?’

‘Oh,
rather.’

‘Snakes
and so on?’

‘Oh,
yes.’

‘Well,
you must tell me all about it later. I’ve got to hurry off now. I have to see a
friend of mine at the inn.

Bill
cleared his throat.

‘Er —
just a second,’ he said.

This,
he was telling himself, was the moment. Now, if ever, was his opportunity of
putting the Ickenham system into practice. Here they were, alone together. A
single stride would place him in a position to grab. And he was already
panting. More ideal conditions could scarcely have been asked for.

But he
found himself unable to move. All through those weary months in Brazil the
image of this girl had been constantly before his mental eye, but now that he
was seeing her face to face her beauty numbed him, causing trembling of the
limbs and that general feeling of debility and run-down-ness which afflicts so
many people nowadays and can be corrected only by the use of such specifics as
Buck-u-Uppo or Doctor Smythe’s Tonic Swamp Juice.

Had he
had a bottle — nay, even a tablespoonful — of the tonic swamp juice handy, all
might have been well. Lacking it, he merely shuffled his feet and looked
popeyed, just as he had been doing for the last nine years.

‘Well?’
said Hermione.

(‘Stride,
grab, waggle, clasp, kiss, pant,’ urged Bill’s better self. But his limbs
refused to move.)

‘Well?’

‘Hermione.’

‘Yes?’

‘Hermione.’

‘Well?’

‘Oh,
nothing,’ said Bill.

He
found himself alone. From outside came the sound of a car getting into gear and
moving off. She had gone.

Nor
could he blame her. Reviewing the late scene, recalling that horrible, bleating
voice with its hideous resemblance to that of a BBC announcer, he shuddered,
marvelling that any being erect upon two legs and bearing the outward
semblance of a man could have shown himself so wormlike a poltroon.

Writhing
in anguish, he thought for a moment of bumping his head against the wall, but
on reflection decided against this. No sense in dinting a good wall. Better to
go to his room, fling himself on the bed and bury his face in the pillow. He
did so.

Anxious to get to the
Bull’s Head and inform Otis as soon as possible of the happy outcome of her
interview with her father, Hermione had started up her car and driven off with
the minimum of delay. Had she postponed her departure for as long as a minute,
she would have observed a wild-eyed young man without a hat making for the
house from the direction of the tennis lawn at a feverish canter, his aspect
that of a young man who has taken something big. Once before in the course of
this chronicle we have heard Reginald Twistleton compared to a cat on hot
bricks. It was of a cat on hot bricks that he would have reminded an onlooker
now.

Skimming
across the terrace, he reached the house and plunged over the threshold.
Skimming across the hail, he flew up the stairs. Skimming along the first-floor
corridor, he burst into what had formerly been his bedroom, and Sally, who was
reclining on the chaise-longue like an Amazon resting after an important
battle, rose as he entered. Indeed, she shot up as if a gimlet had suddenly
penetrated the cushions and embedded itself in her person. She was a girl of
poise, who did not easily lose command of herself, but after pushing policemen
into ponds even girls of poise experience a certain tautness of the nerves, and
the abrupt opening of the door had given her a momentary impression that here
came Constable Potter.

Recognizing
her visitor, she became calmer, though still inclined to gasp.

‘Oh,
Pongo!’ she said.

‘Oh,
Sally!’ said Pongo.

To say
that the story which Lord Ickenham had related to him on the tennis lawn,
before going off to the Bull’s Head for a drop of beer and a chat with the boys
about
Brazil
, had stirred
Reginald Twistleton would be to indicate but feebly the turmoil which it had
created in his bosom. It had caused him to run what is known as the gamut of
the emotions, prominent among them gratitude to a girl who could thus risk all
on his behalf, shame that his own pusillanimity had rendered her stupendous act
of heroism necessary and, above all, a surge of love such as he had never felt
before — and he had been falling in love with fair regularity ever since his
last summer but one at Eton.

His
honourable obligations to Hermione Bostock had passed completely from his mind.
He had no other thought than to find Sally and notify her of the trend of his
views. Precisely as Bill Oakshott had done, he contemplated a future in which
he would stride, grab and waggle, clasp, kiss and pant. With this difference,
that whereas Bill, as we have seen, had planned to behave like an osteopath
handling a refractory patient, he, Pongo, saw the set-up more in the light of abasing
himself at a shrine. The word ‘grab’ is wrong. So is the word ‘waggle’. But
‘clasp’, ‘kiss’ and ‘pant’ may stand.

He was
panting now, and he lost no time in proceeding to the other items on the
programme which he had sketched out. Bill Oakshott, had he been present, would
have received a valuable object lesson on how this sort of thing should be
done.

‘Oh,
Sally!’ he said.

‘Oh,
Pongo!’ said Sally.

Time
stood still. In the world outside people were going about their various occupations.
Constable Potter was in his cottage, changing into a dry uniform. Lord
Ickenham, humming a gay stave, was striding along the road to the village.
Hermione, half a mile ahead of him, was driving along the same road. Sir Aylmer
was messing about with his African curios. Bill Oakshott was burying his face
in his pillow. And up in London Lady Bostock, in her daughter’s flat, had
finished the illustrated papers and fallen into a light doze.

But
Pongo and Sally were alone together in a world of their own, enjoying the scent
of the violets and roses which sprouted through the bedroom floor and listening
to the soft music which an orchestra of exceptional ability, consisting chiefly
of harps and violins, was playing near at hand. Of Constable Potter, of Lord
Ickenham, of Sir Aylmer Bostock, of Lady Bostock, of Bill Oakshott and of
Hermione they recked nothing; though the time was to come when they,
particularly Pongo, would be obliged to reck of the last named quite a good
deal.

Presently
Pongo, adjusting his arm more comfortably about Sally’s waist, for they were
now sitting side by side on the chaise-longue, began to speak remorsefully of
the past, featuring in his observations the criminal idiocy of the oaf
Twistleton, that abysmal sap who had allowed himself to be parted from the only
girl on earth whom a discriminating man could possibly wish to marry. He
contemplated with unconcealed aversion this mutton-headed Twistleton.

‘Gosh,
what a chump I was!’

‘Not
such a chump as me.’

‘Much
more of a chump than you. No comparison.’

‘It was
all my fault.’

‘No, it
wasn’t.’

‘Yes,
it was.’

‘It
wasn’t.’

‘It
was.’

The
dispute threatened to become heated, but just as Pongo was about to say ‘It
wasn’t’ again he suddenly paused, and into his sensitive features there crept
that look of horror and apprehension which they had worn fourteen hours
earlier, on the occasion when Bill Oakshott’s knocking had sounded in the
silent night.

‘What’s
the matter, precious?’ asked Sally solicitously.

Pongo
gulped.

‘Oh,
nothing. At least, nothing much, I just happened to think of Hermione.’

There
was a pause. A quick twinge of anxiety and alarm shot through Sally. Much —indeed,
her life’s happiness — depended on the exact extent to which the Twistletons
regarded their word as their bond.

‘Oh,
Hermione?’ she said. ‘You don’t mean you’re too honourable to break off the
engagement?’

Pongo
gulped again.

‘Not
too honourable exactly, but…. You’ve never met Hermione, have you? Well, it’s
difficult to explain, but she isn’t a frightfully easy girl to break off
engagements with. It’s a little hard to know how to start.’

‘I
should just go to her and tell her frankly that you find you have made a
mistake.’

‘Yes,
that’s one way.’

‘Or you
could write her a letter.’

Pongo
gave a start, like some strong swimmer in his agony who hears a splash and
observes that somebody has thrown him a lifebelt.

‘A
letter?’

‘You
might find it less embarrassing.’

‘I
might,’ said Pongo, and, quivering with gratitude to his helpmeet for her
timely suggestion, he clasped her to his bosom and showered kisses on her
upturned face.

This
would probably have gone on for some time, had not Elsie Bean at this moment
entered softly with a tray in her hands containing a tea-pot, a cup, some
slices of buttered toast and a piece of cake.