bright, but he ought to be able to handle a thing like that, if you make it perfectly clear to him what he's got to do.'
She drew a deep breath.
'You're wonderful,
Gally
darling.'
'Experienced,' corrected the Hon. Galahad modestly.
'But can I do it ? I mean, the trains.'
'On your head. Eight-fifty from Market Blandings gets you to London about noon. Interview Monty between then and two-thirty. Catch the two forty-five back, and you get to Market Blandings somewhere around a quarter to seven. Take the station taxi, stop it half-way up the drive, gel out and walk the rest, and you'll be in your room with an hour to dress for dinner, and not a soul knowing a thing about it. No, even better than that, because I remember Connie telling me there's a dinner-party on tomorrow night, so I suppose you won't have to show up till nearly nine.'
' But lunch ? Won't they wonder where I am if I'm not at lunch.'
'Connie's lunching out. You don't suppose Clarence will notice whether you're there or not. No, the only point we haven't covered is, can you find Monty? Do you know his address?'
' He's sure to be at the Drones.'
'Then all is well. Why on earth you worry about these things, when you know you've got an expert like me behind you, I can't imagine. It's a pity about young Ronnie, though. That disposition of his to make heavy weather. Silly to be jealous. He ought to realize by this time that you love him - goodness knows why.'
'I know why.'
'I don't. Fellow's a perfect ass.' 'He's not!'
'My dear child,' said the Hon. Galahad firmly, 'if a man who doesn't know that he can trust you isn't a perfect ass, what sort of ass is he?'
Chapter Five
In supposing that she would b
e able to find her former fiancé
at the Drones, Sue had not erred. Telephoning there from Paddington station shortly after twelve next morning, she was rewarded almost immediately by a series of sharp, hyena-like cries at the other end of the wire. To judge from his remarks, this voice from the past was music in Monty Bodkin's ears. Nothing, he gave her to understand, could have given him more pleasure than to get in touch after two years of separation with one whom he esteemed so highly. At his suggestion, Sue had got into a taxi, and now, across a table in the restaurant of the Berkeley Hotel, she was looking at him and congratulating herself on her wisdom in having arranged this meeting. A Monty unprepared for the part he had to play at Blandings Castle would, she felt, beyond a question have crashed into poor darling Ronnie's sensibilities like a high-powered shell. Over the preliminary cocktails and right through the smoked salmon he had been a sheer foaming torrent of 'Do you remembers' and 'That reminds mes'.
It seemed to Sue that she had a difficult task before her in trying to make clear to this exuberant old friend that on his arrival at the Castle he must regard the dear old days as a sealed book and herself as a complete stranger. Yet when a toothsome
truite bleue
had induced in him a sudden reverential silence and she was able at length to give a brief exposition of the state of affairs, she was surprised and pleased to gather from a series of understanding nods that he appeared to be following her remarks intelligently.
He finished the
truite bleue
and gave a final nod. It indicated a perfect grasp of the situation.
'My dear old soul,' he said reassuringly, 'say no more. I understand everything, understand it fully. As a matter of fact, Hugo Carmody had already tipped me off.'
'Oh have you seen Hugo ?'
'I met him at the club, and he warned me about Ronnie. I had the situation well in hand. On arriving at Blandings I was planning to treat you with distant civility.'
'Then I needn't have come up at all!'
'I wouldn't say that. If Ronnie's so apt to go off the deep end at the slightest provocation, we can't be too much on the safe side. Even distant civility might have hotted him up.'
Sue considered this.
'That's true,' she agreed.
'Better to be perfect strangers.'
'Yes.' Sue gave a little frown. 'How beastly it's all going to be, though.'
'That's all right. I shan't mind.'
'I wasn't thinking about you. It seems so rotten, deceiving Ronnie.'
'You've got to get used to that. Secret of a happy and successful married life. I thought you meant that it would be rather agony you and me just giving each other a distant bow when they introduced us and then shunning one another coldly. And it does seem darned silly, what? I mean, we were very close to each other once. Can one altogether forget those happy days ?'
'I can. And so must you. For goodness sake, Monty, don't let's have any of what
Gally
calls that touch of Auld Lang Syne.'
'No, no. Quite.'
'I don't want Ronnie driven off his head.' 'Far from it.'
'Well, do remember to be careful.' 'Oh, I will. Rely on me.'
'Thanks, Monty darling
..
. What's the matter?' asked Sue, as her host gave a sudden start.
A waiter had brought up a silver dish and uncovered it with the air of one doing a conjuring trick. Monty inspected it with the proper seriousness.
'Oh, nothing,' he said as the waiter retired. 'Just that "Monty darling." It brought back the old days.'
' For goodness sake forget the old days!'
' Oh, quite. I will. Oh, rather. Most certainly. But it made me feel how rum life was. Life
is
rummy, you know. You can't get away from that.'
'I suppose it is.'
'Take a simple instance. Here are you and I, face to face across this table, lunching together like the dickens, precisely as in the dear old days, and all the time you are contemplating getting hitched up to R. Fish, while I am heart and soul in favour of an early union with Gertrude Butterwick.'
"What!'
'Butt
erwick. B for blister, U for uke
lele . ..' 'Yes, I heard. But do you mean you're engaged, too, Monty?' 'Well, yes and no. Not absolutely. And yet not absolutely not. I am, as it were, on appro.' 'Can't she make up her mind?'
'Oh, her mind's made up all right. Oh, yes, yes, yes, indeed there's no doubt about good old Gertrude's mind, bless her. She loves me like billy-o. But there are wheels within wheels.'
' What do you mean ?'
'It's an expression. It signifies
...
well, by Jove, now you bring up the point,' said Monty frankly, 'I'm dashed if I know just what it does signify. Wheels within wheels. Why wheels? What wheels? Still, there it is. I suppose the idea is to suggest that everything's pretty averagely complicated.'
'I understand what it means, of course. But why do you say it about yourself?'
'Because there's a snag sticking up in the course of true love. A very sizeable, jagged snag. Her blighted father, to wit, J. G. Butterwick, of Butterwick, Price, and Mandelbaum, export and import merchants.'
He swallowed a roast potato emotionally. Sue was touched. She had never ceased to congratulate herself on her sagacity in breaking off her engagement to this young man, but she was very fond of him.
'Oh, Monty, I'm so sorry. Poor darling. Doesn't he like you ?' Monty weighed this.
'Well, I wouldn't say that exactly. On two separate occasions he has said good morning to me, and once, round about Christmas time, I received a distinct impression that he was within an ace of offering me a cigar. But he's a queer bird. Years of exporting and importing have warped his mind a bit, with the result that for some reason I can't pretend to understand he appears to look on me as a sort of waster. The first thing he did when I ankled in and told him that subject to his approval 1 was about to marry his daughter was to ask me how I earned my living.' 'That must have been rather a shock.'
'It was. And a still worse one was when he went on to add that unless I got a job of some kind and held it down for a solid year, to show him that I wasn't a sort of waster, those wedding bells would never ring out.'
' You poor lamb. How perfectly awful!'
'Ghastly. I reeled. I stared. I couldn't believe the fellow was serious. When I found he was, I raced off to Gertrude and told her to jam her hat on and come round to the nearest registrar's. Only to discover, Sue, that she was one of those old-fashioned girls who won't dream of doing the dirty on Father. Solid middle-class stock, you understand. Backbone of England, and all that. So, elopements being off, I had no alternative but to fall in with the man's extraordinary scheme. I got my Uncle Gregory to place me with the Mammoth Publishing Company in the capacity of assistant editor of
Tiny
Tots.
And if only I could have contrived to remain an assistant editor, I should be there now. But my boss went off on a holiday, silly ass, leaving me in charge of the sheet and in a well-meant attempt to ginger the bally thing up a bit I made rather a bloomer in the Uncle Woggly department. The result being that a couple of days ago they formed a hollow square and drummed me out. And now I'm starting all over again at Blandings.'
'I see. I couldn't understand why you wanted to be Lord Emsworth's secretary. I was afraid you must have lost all your money.'
'Oh, no. I've got my money all right. And what,' demanded Monty, swinging an arm in a passionate gesture and hitting a waiter on the chest and saying 'Oh, sorry!' 'does money amount to? What
is
money? Fairy gold. That's what it is. Dead Sea fruit. Because it doesn't help me a damn towards scooping in Gertrude.'
'Is she an awfully nice girl?'
'An angel, Sue. No question about that. Quite the angel, absolutely.'
'Well, I do hope you will come out all right, Monty dear.' 'Thanks, old thing.'
'And I'm glad you didn't pine for me. I've felt guilty at times.'
'Oh, I pined. Oh, yes, certainly I
pined
.
But you know how it is. One perks up and sees fresh faces. Tell me, Sue,' said Monty anxiously. 'I ought to be able to hold down that secretary job for a year, oughtn't I? I mean, people don't fire secretaries much, do they?'
'If Hugo could keep the place, I should think you ought to be able to. How are you on pigs ?' 'Pigs?'
'Lord Emsworth
...'
' Of course, yes, I remember now, Hugo told me. The old boy has gone porcine, has he not ? You mean you would advise me to suck up to his pig, this what's-its-name of Blandings, to omit no word or act to conciliate it? Thanks for the tip. I'll bear it in mind.' He beamed affectionately at her across the table, and went so far as to take her hand in his. 'You've cheered me up, young Sue. You always did, I remember. You've got one of those sunny temperaments which look on the bright side and never fail to spot the blue bird. As you say, if a chap like Hugo could hold the job, it ought to be a snip for a man of my gifts, especially if I show myself pig-conscious. I anticipate a pleasant and successful year, with a wedding at the end of it. By which time, I take it, you will be an old married woman. When do you and Ronnie plan to leap off the dock?'
'As soon as ever Lord Emsworth lets him have his money. He wants to buy a partnership in a motor business.' 'Any opposish from the family?'
'Well, I don't think Lady Constance is frightfully pleased about it all.'
'Possibly it slipped out by some chance that you had been in the chorus?' 'It was mentioned.'
'Ah, that would account for it. But she's biting the bullet all right?'
'She seems resigned.' 'Then all is well.'
‘I
suppose so. And yet
..
. Monty, do you ever get a feeling that something unpleasant is going to happen ?'
‘I
got it two days ago, when my Lord Tilbury reached for the slack of my trousers and started to heave me out.'
'I've got it. I was saying so to Ronnie, and he told me not to be morbid.'
'Ronnie knows words like "morbid", does he? Two syllables and everything.' 'Monty, what is Ronnie's mother really like?' Monty rubbed his chin. 'Haven't you met her yet?' 'No. She's been over in Biarritz.' 'But is returning?' 'I suppose so.'
"Myes. Post-haste, I should imagine. 'Myes!' 'For goodness sake, don't say '"Myes". You're making my flesh creep. Is she such a terror ?'
Monty scratched his right cheekbone.
'Well, I'll tell you. Many people would say she was a genial soul.'