Heavy Weather (9 page)

In the doorway Lady Constance paused. She looked from one to the other with speculation in her eyes. She was a veteran of too many fine old crusted family rows not to be able to detect a strained atmosphere when she saw one. Her sister Julia was clenching and unclenching her hands. Her nephew Ronald was staring straight before him, red-eyed. A thrill ran through Lady Constance, such as causes the war-horse to start at the sound of the bugle. It was possible, of course, that this was a private fight, but her battling instinct urged her to get into it.

But there was in Lady Constance Keeble an instinct even stronger than that of battle, and that was the one which impelled her to act as critic of the sartorial deficiencies of her nearest and dearest. Years of association with her brother Clarence, who, if you took your eye off him for a second, was apt to come down to dinner in flannel trousers and an old shooting-jacket, had made this action almost automatic with the chatelaine of Blandings.

So now, eager for the fray, it was as the critic rather than as the warrior queen that she spoke. ' My dear Ronald! That tie!'

Ronnie Fish gazed at her lingeringly. It needed, he felt, but this. Poison was running through his veins, his world was rocking, green-eyed devils were shrieking mockery in his ears, and along came blasted aunts babbling of ties. It was as if somebody had touched Othello on the arm as he poised the pillow and criticized the cut of his doublet.

'Don't you know we have a dinner-party tonight? Go and put on a white tie at once.'

Even in his misery the injustice of the thing cut Ronnie to the quick. Did his aunt suppose him ignorant of the merest decencies of life? Naturally, if he had known before he started dressing that there was a big binge on, he would have assumed the correct costume of the English gentleman for formal occasions. But considering that he had been told only about two minutes ago. ..

'And a tail-coat.'

It was the end. If this woman's words had any meaning at all, it was that she considered him capable of wearing a white tie with a dinner-jacket. Until this moment he had been intending to speak. The thing had now passed beyond speech. Directing at Lady Constance a look which no young man ought to have directed at an aunt, he strode silently from the room.

Lady Constance stood listening to the echoes of a well-slammed door.

'Ronald seems upset,' she observed. 'It runs in the family,' said Lady Julia. 'What was the trouble?'

' I have just been telling him that he is off his head.' 'I quite agree with you.'

'And I should like now,' said Lady Julia, 'to apply the same remark to you.'

She was breathing quickly. The china-blue of her eyes had an enamelled look. It was thirty-five years since she had scratched Lady Constance's face, but she seemed so much in the vein for some such demonstration that the latter involuntarily drew back.

'Really, Julia!'

'What do you mean, Constance, by inviting that girl to Blandings?'

'I did nothing of the sort.' 'You didn't invite her?' 'Certainly not.'

'She popped up out of a trap, eh?'

Lady Constance emitted that sniff of hers which came so near to being a snort.

'She wormed her way into the place under false pretences, which amounts to the same thing
. You remember that Miss Schoon
maker, the American girl you met at Biarritz and wrote to me about? You gave me the impression that you hoped there might eventually be something between her and Ronald.'

'I really can't understand what you are talking about. Why need we discuss Myra Schoonmaker ?'

'I am trying to explain to you how this Brown girl comes to be at the Castle. About ten days ago I was in London, and I met Ronald in his car with a girl, and he introduced her to me as Miss Schoonmaker. I had no means of checking his statement. It never occurred to me to doubt it. I assumed that she really was Miss Schoonmaker, and naturally invited her to the Castle. She arrived, and she had not been here twenty-four hours when we discovered that she was not Miss Schoonmaker at all, but this chorus-girl of Ronald's. Presumably they had planned the thing between them in order to get her here.'

'And when you found out she was an impostor you asked her to stay on? I see.'

Lady Constance flushed brightly.

‘I
was compelled to allow her to stay on.'

'Why?'

'Because ... Oh, Clarence!' said Lady Constance, with the exasperation which the sudden spectacle of the head of the family so often aroused in her. The ninth Earl had selected this tense moment to potter into the room.

'Eh?' he said.

'Go away!'

'Yes,' said Lord Emsworth, 'lovely.' As so frequently happened with him, he was in a gentle trance. He wandered to the piano, extended a long, lean finger, and stabbed absently at one of the treble notes.

The sharp, tinny sound seemed to affect his sister Constance like a pin in the leg. 'Clarence!' 'Eh?'

'Don't
do
that!'

'God bless my
soul!' said Lord Emsw
orth querulously.

He turned from the piano, and Lady Constance was enabled to see him steadily and see him whole. The sight caused her to utter a stricken cry.

'Clarence!'

'Eh?'

'What -
what
is that thing in your shirt-front?' The ninth Earl squinted down.

'It's a paper-fastener. One of those brass things you fasten papers with. I lost my stud.'

'You must have more than one stud.' 'Here's another, up here.' 'Have you only two studs ?'

'Three,' said Lord Emsworth, a little proudly. 'For the front of the shirt, three. Dashed inconvenient things. The heads come off. You screw them off and then you put them in and then you screw them on.'

'Well, go straight up to your room and screw on the spare one.'

It was not often that Lord Emsworth found himself in the position of being able to score a debating point against his sister Constance. The fact that he was about to do so now filled him with justifiable complacency. It seemed to lend to his manner a strange, quiet dignity.

'I can't,' he said. 'I swallowed it.'

Lady Constance was not the woman to despair for long. A short, sharp spasm of agony and she had seen the way.

'Wait here,' she said.' Mr Bodkin is sure to have dozens of spare studs. If you dare to move till I come back. ..'

She hurried from the room.

'Connie fusses so,' said Lord Emsworth equably.

He pottered back to the piano.

'Clarence,' said Lady Julia.

'Eh?'

'Leave that piano alone. Pull yourself together. Try to concentrate. And tell me about this Miss Brown.' 'Miss who?' 'Miss Brown.'

'Never heard of her,' said Lord Emsworth
brightly, striking a D flat.

'Don't gibber, Clarence. Miss Brown.'

'Oh, Miss Brown? Yes. Yes, of course. Yes. Miss Brown, to be sure. Yes. Nice girl. She's going to marry Ronald.' 'Is she? That's a debatable point.'

'Oh, yes, it's all settled. I'm giving the boy his money and he's going into the motor business, and they're going to get married.'

'I want to know how all this has happened. How is it that this chorus-girl . ..'

'You're quite right,' said Lord Emsworth cordially. 'I told Connie she was wrong, but she wouldn't believe me. A chorus-girl is quite different from a ballet-girl. Galahad assures me of this.'

'If you will kindly let me finish . ..'

'By all means, by all means. You were saying - ?'

'I was asking you how it has come about that everyone in this mad-house appears to have accepted it as quite natural and satisfactory that Ronnie should be marrying a girl like that. She seems to be an honoured guest at the Castle, and yet, apart from anything else, she came here under a false name...'

'Odd, that,' said Lord Emsworth. 'She told us her name was Schoolbred, and it turned out she was quite wrong. It wasn't Schoolbred at all. Silly mistake to make.'

'And when that turned out, may I ask why you didn't turn
her
out?'

'Why, we couldn't, of course.' 'Why not?'

'Well, naturally we couldn't. Galahad wouldn't have liked it.' 'Galahad?'

'That's right. Galahad.'

Lady Julia threw up her arms in a passionate gesture.

'Is everybody crazy?' she cried.

Lady Constance came hurrying back into the room.

'Clarence!'

'You all keep saying "Clarence!"' said Lord Emsworth peevishly. '"Clarence . .. Clarence" .. . One would think I was a Pekingese or something. Well, what is it now?'

'Listen, Clarence,' said Lady Constance, speaking in a clear, even voice, 'and follow me carefully. Mr Bodkin is in the North Room. You know where the North Room is? On the first floor, down the passage to the right of the landing. You know which your right hand is ? Very well. Then go immediately to the North Room, and there you will find Mr Bodkin. He has studs and will fit them into your shirt.'

'I'm dashed if I'm going to have my secretary dressing me like a nursemaid!'

'If you think that with sixteen people coming to dinner I am going to trust you to put in studs for yourself...'

'Oh, all right,' said Lord Emsworth. 'All right, all right, all right. Lots of fuss for nothing.'

The door closed. Lady Julia came out of the frozen coma into which her brother's words had thrown her.

'Constance!'

'Well?'

'Just before you came in, Clarence told me that the reason why this Brown girl was allowed to stay on at the Castle was that Galahad wished it.'

'Yes.'

'And we must all respect Galahad's wishes, must we not ? I don't suppose,' said Lady Julia, mastering her complex emotions with a strong effort, 'that there are forty million people in England who think more highly of Galahad than I do. Tell me,' she went on with strained politeness, 'If it is not troubling you too much, how exactly does he come into the thing at all ? Why Galahad ? Why not Beach? Or Voules? Or the boy who cleans the knives and boots? What earthly business is it of Galahad's ?'

Lady Constance was not by nature a patient woman, but she could make allowances for a mother's grief.

‘I
know how you must be feeling, Julia, and you can't be more upset about it than I am. Galahad, unfortunately, is in a position to dictate.'

'I cannot conceive of any possible position Galahad could be in which would permit him to dictate to me, but no doubt you will explain what you mean later. What I would like to know first is why he wants to dictate. What is this girl to him that he should apparently have constituted himself a sort of guardian angel to her?'

'To explain that, I must ask you to throw your mind back.' 'Better not start me throwing things.'

'Do you remember, years ago, Galahad getting entangled with a woman named Henderson, a music-hall singer?'

'Certainly. Well?'

'This girl is her daughter.'

Lady Julia was silent for a moment.

‘I
see. Galahad's daughter, too?'

'I believe not. But that explains his interest in her.'

'Possibly. Yes, no doubt it does. Sentiment is the last thing of which I would have suspected Galahad, but if the old love has lingered down the years I suppose we must accept it. All right. Very touching, no doubt. But it still leaves unexplained the mystery of why everybody here seems to be treating Galahad as if his word was law. You said he was in a position to dictate. Why?'

' I was coming to that. The whole thing, you see, turns on whether Clarence lets Ronald have his money or not. If he does, Ronald can defy us all. Without it he is helpless. And in ordinary circumstances you and I know that we could easily reason with Clarence and make him do the sensible thing and refuse to release the money...'

'Well?'

'Well, Galahad was clever enough to see that, too. So he made a bargain. You know those abominable Reminiscences he has been writing. He said that if Ronald was given his money he would suppress them.'

'What!'

'Suppress them. Not publish them.'

'Is
that
what you meant when you said that he was in a position to dictate?'

'Yes. It is sheer blackmail, of course, but there is nothing to be done.'

Lady Julia was staring, bewildered. She flung her hands up to her carefully coiffured head, seemed to realize at the last moment that a touch would ruin it, and lowered them again.

'Am I mad?' she cried. 'Or is everybody else? You seriously mean that I am supposed to acquiesce in my son ruining his life simply in order to keep Galahad from publishing his Reminiscences?'

'But, Julia, you don't know what they're like. Think of the life Galahad led as a young man. He seems to have known everybody in England who is looked up to and respected today and to have shared the most disgraceful escapades with them. One case alone, for example - Sir Gregory Parsloe. I have not read the thing, of course, but he tells me that there is a story in Galahad's book about himself when he was a young man in London. .. something about some prawns -1 don't know what. . . which would make him the laughing-stock of the county. The book is full of that kind of story, and every story about somebody who is looked on today as a model of propriety. If it is published, it will ruin the reputations of half the best people in England.' Lady Julia laughed shortly.

'I'm afraid I don't share your reverence for the feelings of the British aristocracy, Connie. I agree that Galahad probably knows the shady
secrets of two-thirds
of the peerage,
but I don't
feel your shrinking horror at the thought of the public reading them in print. I haven't the slightest objection in the world to Galahad throwing bombshells. At any rate, whatever the effect of his literary efforts on the peace of mind of the governing classes, I certainly do not intend to buy him off at the price of having Ronnie marrying any Miss Browns.'

' You don't mean that you are going to try to stop this marriage ?' 'I most certainly am.'

'But, Julia! This book of Galahad's. It will alienate every friend we've got. They will say we ought to have stopped him. You don't know ...'

'I know this, that Galahad can publish Reminiscences till he is blue in the face, but I am not going to have my son making a fool of himself and doing something he'll regret for the rest of his life. And now, if you will excuse me, Connie, I propose to take a short stroll on the terrace in the faint hope of cooling off. I feel so incandescent that I'm apt to burst into spontaneous flame at any moment, like dry tinder.'

With which words Lady Julia Fish took her departure through the french windows. And Lady Constance, having remained for some few moments in anguished thought, moved to the fireplace and rang the bell.

Beach appeared.

'Beach,' said Lady Constance, 'please telephone at once to Sir Gregory Parsloe at Matchingham. Tell him I must see him immediately. Say it is of the utmost importance. Ask him to hurry over so as to get here before people begin to arrive. And when he comes show him into the library.' 'Very good, m'lady.'

The butler spoke with his official calm, but inwardly he was profoundly stirred. He was not a nimble-minded man, but he could put two and two together, and it seemed to him that in some mysterious way, beyond the power of his intellect to grasp, all these alarms and excursions must be connected with the love-story of his old friend, Mr Ronald, and his new - but very highly esteemed - friend, Sue Brown.

He had left Mr Ronald with his mother. Then Lady Constance had gone in. A short while later, Mr Ronald had come out and gone rushing upstairs with all the appearance of an overwrought soul. And now here was Lady Constance, after a conversation with Lady Julia, ringing bells and sending urgent telephone messages.

It must mean something. If Beach had been Monty Bodkin, he would have said that there were wheels within wheels. Heaving gently like a seaweed-covered sea, he withdrew to carry out his instructions.

The butler's telephone message found Sir Gregory Parsloe enjoying a restful cigarette in his bedroom. He had completed his toilet some little time before; but, being an experienced diner-out and knowing how sticky that anteprandial vigil in somebody else's drawing-room can be, he had not intended to set out for Blandings Castle for another twenty minutes or so. Like so many elderly, self-indulgent bachelors, he was inclined to shirk life's grimmer side.

But the information that Lady Constance Keeble wished to have urgent speech with him had him galloping down the stairs and lumbering into his car in what for a man of his build was practically tantamount to a trice. It must, he felt, be those infernal Reminiscences that she wanted to see him about: and, feeling nervous and apprehensive, he told the chauffeur to drive like the devil.

In the past two weeks, Sir Gr
egory Parsloe-Parsloe, of Match
ingham Hall, seventh Baronet of his line, had run the gamut of the emotions. He had plumbed the depths of horror on learning that his old companion, the Hon. Galahad Threepwood, was planning to publish the story of his life. He had soared to dizzy heights of relief on learning that he had decided not to do so. But from that relief there had been a reaction. What, he had asked himself, was to prevent the old pest changing his mind again? And this telephone call seemed to suggest that he might have done so.