Galahad at Blandings (3 page)

He was
soberly dressed now for his visit to London, but even in this decorous costume
he seemed to bring with him a whiff of the paddock and the American bar. He
still gave the impression that he was wearing a checked coat, tight trousers
and a grey bowler hat and that there were race glasses bumping against his left
hip. His bright eyes, one of them adorned with a black-rimmed monocle, seemed
to be watching horses rounding into the straight, his neatly shod foot to be
pawing in search of a brass rail.

He
greeted Beach with the easy cordiality of a friend of long standing. There had
existed between them a perfect
rapport
since they had both been slips of
boys of forty. Each respected and admired the other for his many gifts.

‘Hullo,
Beach. Lovely morning.’

‘Yes,
sir.’

Gally
looked at him sharply.’ The sombreness of his voice had surprised him. Scanning
his face, he could see that it was a dull purple colour and that the lower of
his two chins was quivering.

‘Something
the matter, Beach? You have the air of a man whose soul is not at rest. What’s
wrong?’

From anyone
else the butler would have hidden his secret sorrow, but everybody confided in Gally.
Barmaids poured out their troubles to him, and the humblest racecourse tout
knew that he could rely on him for sympathy and understanding.

‘I have
been grossly insulted, Mr Galahad.’

‘You
have? Who by? Or by whom, as the case may be?’

‘The
young gentleman.’

‘You
don’t mean Wilfred Allsop?’

‘No,
sir. Master Winkworth.’

‘Oh,
Huxley? Unpleasant brat, that. And yet his mother dotes on him, which just
shows there’s no accounting for tastes. What did he say?’

‘He
criticised my personal appearance.

‘He
must be hard to please.’

‘Yes,
sir,’ said Beach, prepared now to withhold nothing. He had been wanting a
friendly shoulder to cry on ever since the affront to his dignity had occurred.
‘He told me that I was fatter than Empress of Blandings.’

No
vestige of a smile appeared on Gally’s face. He was all kindly reassurance.

‘You
mustn’t pay any attention to what a little wart like that says. He only does it
to annoy, because he knows it teases. I hope you treated him with the contempt
he deserved.’

‘I am
afraid I came within an ace of clipping him on the side of the head, Mr
Galahad.’

‘It
would have done him all the good in the world, but I’m glad you didn’t. It
wouldn’t have pleased his mother. But don’t let his critique worry you.
Admittedly you get your money’s worth out of a weighing machine and if your
body were fished out of the Thames it would be described as that of a
well-nourished man of middle age, but what of it? I rather envy you.

I could
do with a few more pounds myself. Odd,’ said Gally thoughtfully, ‘how sensitive
people are about their weight. I am reminded of Chet Tipton. Did I ever tell
you about Chet Tipton?’

‘Not to
my recollection, Mr Galahad.’

‘Uncle
of the chap who’s marrying my niece Veronica. American, but spent a good deal
of his time over here and I used to see a lot of him at the old Pelican Club. Enormously
fat fellow. People used to chaff him about it, so at last he decided to buy one
of those abdominal belts you see advertised. Rubber they’re made of and you
clamp them round your tummy and melt inside them. Well, naturally they have to
be a pretty tight fit and Chet could hardly breathe in his and of course could
take no solid nourishment, but he stuck to it because he knew how slim it was
making him look, and he was having a buttered rum in the Criterion bar one
morning instead of lunch, when a friend of his came in and said “Hullo, Chef’,
and he said “Hullo, George or Jack or Jimmy or whatever the name was”, and they
chatted for a while, and then the chap said “Aren’t you rather stouter than
when I saw you last? I’ll tell you what you ought to do, Chet. You ought to get
one of those abdominal belts”. He gave it up after that. Sort of discouraged
him. Dead now, poor fellow, as so many of the old crowd are. Yes, only a few of
us left now. Well, is the luggage all in?’

‘Yes,
sir.’

‘Then
if I’m going to pick Clarence up for lunch, we ought to be starting. What’s the
time?’

Beach
drew from the pocket of his spreading waistcoat the handsome silver watch
bestowed on him as the prize in the Market Blandings Darts Tournament. It was
his dearest possession and never failed to give him a thrill when he looked at
it.

‘Just
on ten, Mr Galahad.’

‘Well,
dash in and tell that Wedge girl to get a move on. Ah, here she is. No, it’s
only Sandy Callender.’

II

The girl who was coming
down the steps was in many respects a most agreeable sight for the eye to rest
on. Her figure was trim, her nose and mouth above criticism and her hair that
attractive red that Titian used to admire so much. But to a connoisseur of
beauty like Gally the whole effect was spoiled by the tortoiseshell-rimmed
spectacles she was wearing. They seemed to cover most of her face, and he
wondered when she had taken to them. There had been no sign of them at their
last meeting, though of course she may have had them tucked away in her bag.

‘Hullo,
young Sandy,’ he said.

Alexandra
(‘Sandy’) Callender and he were old friends. She had been working for the late
Chet Tipton when he had first known her, and it was he who had obtained for her
the post of secretary to his brother Clarence, a fact which he hoped would
never come to his brother Clarence’s knowledge, for his reproaches would have
been hard to bear. Lord Emsworth was, and always had been, allergic to
secretaries.

‘You
look very dusty, Sandy. Have you been rolling in something?’

‘I’ve
been cleaning out Lord Emsworth’s study.’

‘Poor
devil.’

‘Me?’

‘Clarence.
He hates having his study cleaned.’

‘Does
he like a mess?’

‘He
loves it. It’s his idea of comfort. Well, you seem to have been putting in some
strenuous work. Your appearance brings to mind a headline I saw in a paper once
about Sons Of Toil Buried Beneath Tons Of Soil. Still, if it makes you happy.’

‘Oh,
I’m quite happy. Gally, I wonder if you would mind posting this parcel in
London for me.’

‘Of
course.

‘Thank
you,’ said Sandy, and went back into the house.

Gally
looked after her thoughtfully. There had been a certain something in her manner
that gave him the impression that she was not as happy as she had stated
herself to be, and it disturbed him. It was not the first time he had noticed
this. She had been below par since her arrival. In the Chet Tipton days he had
found her a merry little soul, always good for a couple of laughs, but
Blandings Castle seemed to have depressed her. Brooding on something, unless he
was very much mistaken. He scanned the parcel, noting the address.

‘S. G.
Bagshott, 4 Halsey Chambers, Halsey Court, London W.1. Unusual name. There
can’t be many Bagshotts around. I wonder if he’s any relation to my old friend
Boko. You remember Boko Bagshott, Beach?’

‘I fear
not, Mr Galahad. I do not think he was ever a visitor at the castle.’

‘That’s
right, I don’t believe he ever was. I used to see him in London and at a
whacking big house he had down in Sussex near Petworth. Interesting
personality. He made a practice every year of kidding some insurance company
that he wanted to insure his life for a hundred thousand pounds or so and after
the doctors had examined him telling them he had changed his mind. He thus got
an annual medical check-up for nothing.’

‘Ingenious,
Mr Galahad.’

‘Very. One
of the brightest brains in the old Pelican. This chap might quite easily be his
son. He had a son called Samuel Galahad. I recall that distinctly. He named him
Samuel after Sam Bowles the jockey and Galahad because he was a bit superstitious
and thought it might lead to the boy inheriting what he supposed to be my
ability to spot winners. Not that I ever did spot many winners, but he always
had a great respect for my judgment after I gave him a hundred to eight shot
for the Jubilee Cup. He used to come to me before every important meeting and
seek my advice. I wonder what young Sandy is sending him parcels about. There
is a squashiness about this one that excites the interest. It feels as if—’

He
would have spoken further of the parcel’s squashiness and its possible
contents, but at this moment an interruption occurred. A vision of beauty had
appeared at the head of the steps, a girl of a radiant blonde loveliness that
would have drawn a whistle from the least susceptible of the Armed Forces of
the United States of America. Nature had not given Veronica Wedge more than
about as much brain as would fit comfortably into an aspirin bottle, feeling no
doubt that it was better not to overdo the thing, but apart from that she had
everything and it is scarcely surprising that Tipton Plimsoll, when he spoke of
her, did so with a catch in his throat and a tremolo in his voice.

She was
followed by her mother, Lord Emsworth’s sister Hermione, at whom not even Don
Juan or Casanova would have whistled. Lady Hermione Wedge was the only one of
the female members of the Emsworth family who was not statuesquely handsome.
She was short and dumpy and looked like a cook — in her softer moods a cook
well satisfied with her latest soufflé; when stirred to anger a cook about to
give notice; but always a cook of strong character. Her husband, Colonel Egbert
Wedge, was as wax in her hands, as was her daughter Veronica.

The
parcel attracted her attention.

‘What
have you got there, Galahad?’

‘It’s
something squashy the Callender girl wants me to post for her in London.
Amazing that she has time to pack parcels with all the charlady work she’s
doing in Clarence’s study. She’s certainly a competent secretary. Poor old
Clarence!’

‘What
do you mean, poor old Clarence?’

‘Well,
you know how he dislikes competent secretaries. They bother him and get on his
nerves. They keep him from evading his responsibilities.’

‘What
does evading his responsibilities mean, Mummee?’ said Veronica.

It was
the sort of question she frequently asked, and as a rule her mother was prompt
with patient explanations, sometimes taking as much as ten minutes over them,
but now she found herself ignored. Lady Hermione’s thoughts were not on her offspring.
Gally’s monocle had just flashed in the morning sun and she was thinking how
much she disliked it. In common with all her sisters she considered Gally a
disgrace to a proud family and a blot on the escutcheon, but she sometimes felt
that she could have borne him with more fortitude if he had not worn a monocle.
There were bookmakers and racecourse touts who held a similar view. Widely
differing from Lady Hermione on almost every other point, they became, as she
did, uncomfortable beneath the glare of Gally’s black-rimmed eyeglass.

‘Clarence
must be made to realise that he cannot evade his responsibilities. The one
thing he needs is a good secretary. Left to himself, he would never answer his
letters.’

His
letters! A blinding light flashed upon Gally.

‘Excuse
me a moment,’ he said, and leaped lissomely up the steps and into the house.
Lady Hermione looked after him frowningly, her lips set. She liked him least
when he behaved like a pea on a hot shovel.

III

Sandy was in Lord
Emsworth’s study, more than ever encrusted with dust and deep in documents
which should have been attended to weeks before. She looked up, surprised, as Gally
came trotting in.

‘Haven’t
you gone yet?’

‘The
start of the expedition has been postponed in order that I may have a word with
you. Busy?’

‘Very.’

‘Wait
till Clarence sees your handiwork. He’ll have a fit. For God’s sake don’t ever
let him know that it was I who got you the job. Well, young Sandy, so you’re
sending the boy friend back his letters, are you?’

She started,
dislodging a bill for goods supplied which had managed to get entangled in her
hair.

‘I
don’t know what you mean!’

‘No
good trying to fool me, child. I know what’s in this parcel. Correct me if I’m
wrong, but this is the set-up as I see it. You were engaged to this S. G.
Bagshott. For a time you thought him the only onion in the stew. Then you had a
fight about something and relations deteriorated to the point where you told
him those wedding bells would not ring out. Take back your ring, you said, take
back the bottle of scent you gave me on my birthday, you said, and now you’re
returning his letters. Am I right?’

‘More
or less.’

‘And
you really want me to post this parcel?’

‘Yes.’

‘This
is the end, is it?’