Uncle Dynamite (28 page)

She
disappeared on to the balcony, and a scrabbling sound told Lord Ickenham that
she was descending the water pipe. He went out, and was in time to see her
vanish into the bushes on the other side of the terrace. For some moments he
stood there staring after her, then with a little sigh, the sigh too often
extorted from Age by the spectacle of Head-strong Youth doing its stuff, passed
thoughtfully from the room. Making his way downstairs, still pensive, he
reached the hall.

Bill
Oakshott was there, balancing a walking stick on the tip of his nose.

That the young squire of Ashenden
in essaying this equilibristic feat had not been animated by a mere spirit of
frivolity, but was endeavouring rather, as men will in times of mental stress,
to divert his thoughts from graver issues, was made clear by a certain touch of
the careworn in his manner. It is not easy to look careworn when you are
balancing a walking stick on the tip of your nose, but Bill Oakshott contrived
to do so.

At the
sight of Lord Ickenham he brightened. Ever since he had escorted Lady Bostock
to Wockley Junction that morning he had been wanting to see and seek counsel
from one on whose judgment he had come to rely, and owing to the fact of having
been obliged to fulfil a long-standing luncheon engagement with friends who
lived on the Wockley road he had had no opportunity of approaching him earlier.

‘Oh,
there you are,’ he said. ‘Fine.’

Lord
Ickenham reluctantly put Sally’s affairs to one side for the time being. The
sight of this massive youth had reminded him that he had a pep talk to deliver.

‘The
word “fine”,’ he replied, ‘is happily chosen, for I, too, have been looking
forward to this encounter. I want to speak to you, Bill Oakshott.’

‘I want
to speak to
you.’

‘I have
much to say.’

‘So
have I much to say.

‘Well,
if it comes to a duet, I’ll bet I can talk louder and quicker than you, and I
am willing to back this opinion with notes, cash or lima beans. However, as I
am your guest, I suppose courtesy demands that I yield the floor. Proceed.’

Bill
marshalled his thoughts.

‘Well,
it’s like this. After breakfast this morning, I drove my aunt to Wockley to
catch the express to
London
. I
was feeling a bit tired after being up so late last night, so I didn’t talk as
we tooled along, just kept an eye on the road and thought of this and that.’
Lord Ickenham interrupted him.

‘Skip
all this part. I shall be able to read it later, no doubt, in your
autobiography, in the chapter headed “Summer Morning Outings With My Aunt”.
Spring to the point.’

‘Well,
what I was going to say was that I was keeping an eye on the road and thinking
of this and that, when she suddenly said “Dipsomaniac”.’

‘Why
did she call you a dipsomaniac?’

‘She
didn’t. It turned out she was talking about Pongo.’

‘Pongo,
egad? Was she, indeed?’

‘Yes.
She said “Dipsomaniac”. And I said “Eh?” And she said “He’s a dipsomaniac.” And
I said “Who’s a dipsomaniac?” And she said “Reginald Twistleton is a
dipsomaniac. Your uncle says he has not been sober since he got here.”‘

Lord
Ickenham drew in his breath with a little hiss of admiration.

‘Masterly!’
he said. ‘Once again, Bill Oakshott, I must pay a marked tribute to your
narrative gifts. I never met a man who could tell a story better. Come clean,
my boy. You
are
Sinclair Lewis, are you not? Well, I’m convinced you’re
someone. So your aunt said “Dipsomaniac”, and you said “Eh?” and she said …
and so on and so forth, concluding with this fearless
exposé
of Pongo.
Very interesting. Did she mention on what she based the charge?’

‘Oh,
rather. Apparently she and Uncle Aylmer found him swigging whisky in the
drawing-room.’

‘I
would not attach too much importance to that. Many of our noblest men swig
whisky in drawing-rooms. I do myself.’

‘But
not all night. Well, you might say all night. What I mean is, I found Pongo in
the drawing-room, swigging away, at about one o’clock this morning, and my aunt
and uncle appear to have found him there, still swigging, at half-past two.
That makes one and a half hours. Give him say half an hour before I came in and
you get two hours of solid swigging. And after my aunt and uncle left he must
have started swigging again. Because he was unquestionably stinko after
breakfast.’

‘I
decline to believe that anyone could get stinko at breakfast.’

‘I
didn’t say he did get stinko at breakfast. You’re missing the point. My theory
is that he swigged all night, got stinko round about
six a.m.
and continued stinko till the
incident occurred.’

‘To
what incident do you allude?’

‘It
happened just after breakfast. My aunt was waiting for me to bring the car
round, and Uncle Aylmer made some unpleasant cracks about the hat she was
wearing. So she went up to her room to get another, and as she reached the door
she heard someone moving about inside. When she went in, there was nobody to be
seen, and then suddenly there came a sneeze from the wardrobe, and there was
Pongo, crouching on the floor.’

‘She
was sure?’

‘Sure?’

‘It
wasn’t a shoe or a bit of fluff?’

‘No, it
was Pongo. She says he smiled weakly and said he had looked in to borrow her
lipstick. He must have been as tight as an owl. Because, apart from anything
else, a glance at Aunt Emily should have told him she hasn’t got a lipstick.
And what I’ve been trying to make up my mind about is, oughtn’t Hermione to be
warned? Isn’t it a bit thick to allow her to breeze gaily into a lifelong union
with a chap who’s going to spend his married life sitting up all night getting
stinko in the drawing-room? I don’t see how a wife could possibly be happy
under such conditions.’

‘She
might feel rather at a loose end, might she not? But you are misjudging Pongo
in considering him a non-stop swigger. As a general thing he is quite an
abstemious young man. Only in exceptional circumstances does he go on anything
which a purist would call a bender. At the moment he is under a severe nervous
strain.’

‘Why?’

‘For
some reason he always is when we visit a house together. My presence — it is
difficult to explain it — seems to do something to him.’

‘Then
you don’t feel that Hermione ought to be told?’

‘I will
have to think it over. But,’ said Lord Ickenham, fixing his young friend with a
penetrating eye, ‘there is something she must be told — without delay, and by
you, Bill Oakshott.’

‘Eh?’

‘And
that is that you love her and would make her yours.’

‘Eh?’

‘Fight
against this tendency to keep saying “Eh.” You do love her, do you not? You
would make her yours, wouldn’t you? I have it from an authoritative source that
you have been thinking along those lines for years and years.’

Bill
had turned a pretty vermilion. He shuffled his feet.

‘Why,
yes,’ he admitted, ‘that’s right, as a matter of fact. I have. But how can I
tell her I would make her mine? She’s engaged to Pongo.’

‘What
of it?’

‘You
can’t go barging in on a girl, telling her you would make her yours, when she’s
engaged to another chap.’

‘Of
course you can. How about Young Lochinvar? He did it, and was extremely highly
thought of in consequence. You are familiar with the case of Young Lochinvar?’

‘Oh,
yes. I used to recite the poem as a kid.’

‘It
must have sounded wonderful,’ said Lord Ickenham courteously. ‘I myself was
best at “It wath the thschooner Hethperuth that thailed the thtormy theas.”
Well, let me tell you something, my dear chap. You need have no morbid scruples
about swinging Hermione Bostock on to your saddle bow, as far as Pongo is
concerned. He’s in love with somebody else. Do you remember me speaking at our
first meeting of a girl I had been hoping he would marry? I don’t think I
mentioned it then, but he was at one time engaged to her, and all the symptoms
point to his wanting to be again. The last time I saw them together, which was
quite recently, I received the distinct impression that he would die for one
little rose from her hair. So you can go ahead without a qualm. Miss Bostock is
in
London
, I understand. Pop up
there and pour your heart out.’

‘M’m.’

‘Why do
you say “M’m”?’

Once
again Bill Oakshott shuffled his feet, producing on the parquet floor a sound
resembling waves breaking on a stern and rockbound coast.

‘It’s
so difficult.’

‘What,
to pour your heart out? Nonsense.’

‘Well,
I’ve been trying to do it for nine years, but not a ripple. I can’t seem to get
started.’

Lord
Ickenham reflected.

‘I
think I see where the trouble lies. You have made the mistake of brooding in
advance too much, with the result that you have pottered about and accomplished
nothing. Swiftness and decision are what is needed. Don’t hesitate. Have at
her. Sweep her off her feet. Take her by storm.’

‘Oh,
yes?’ said Bill flatly, and Lord Ickenham laid a kindly hand on his shoulder.
He knew what was passing in the young man’s mind.

‘I can
understand your feeling a little nervous,’ he said. ‘When I saw Hermione
Bostock’s photograph, I was struck at once by something formidable in her face,
a touch of that majestic inaccessibility which used to cramp the style of
diffident young Greek shepherds in their relations with the more dignified of
the goddesses of Mount Olympus. She is what in my day would have been called a
proud beauty. And that makes it all the more necessary to take a strong line
from the start. Proud beauties have to be dominated.’

‘But,
dash it, Pongo can’t have dominated her.’

‘True.
But Pongo, so I am informed, is a baa-lamb. Baa-lambs get their results by
different methods.’

‘You
don’t think I’m a baa-lamb?’

‘I fear
not. You’re too large, too robust and ruddy of countenance, too obviously a man
who does his daily dozen of a morning and likes roly-poly pudding for lunch.
Where a Pongo can click by looking fragile and stammering words of endearment,
you must be the whirlwind wooer, or nothing. You will have to behave like the
heroes of those novels which were so popular at one time, who went about in
riding breeches and were not above giving the girl of their choice a couple
with a hunting-crop on the spot where it would do most good. Ethel M. Dell.
That’s the name I was trying to think of. You must comport yourself like the
hero of an Ethel M. Dell novel. Buy her works, and study them diligently.’

A firm
look came into Bill’s face.

‘I’m
not going to sock her with a hunting-crop.’

‘It
would help.’

‘No.
Definitely no.’

‘Very
well. Cut business with hunting-crop. Then what you must do is stride up to the
girl and grab her by the wrist.’

‘Oh,
gosh!’

‘Ignoring
her struggles, clasp her to your bosom and shower kisses on her upturned face.
You needn’t say much. Just “My mate!” or something of that sort. Well, think it
over, my dear fellow. But I can assure you that this method will bring home the
bacon. It is known as the Ickenham system, and it never fails. And now I fear I
must be leaving you. I’m looking for Pongo. You don’t happen to know where he
is?’

‘I saw
him half an hour ago walking up and down on the tennis lawn.’

‘With
bowed head?’

‘Yes, I
believe his head was bowed, now you mention it.’

‘I
thought as much. Poor lad, poor lad. Well, I have tidings for him which will
bring it up with a jerk. So goodbye for the moment. Oh, by the way,’ said Lord
Ickenham, reappearing like a benevolent Cheshire cat, ‘in grabbing the subject
by the wrist, don’t behave as if you were handling a delicate piece of china.
Grip firmly and waggle her about a bit.’

He
disappeared again, and Bill could hear him trolling an old love song of the
early nineteen hundreds as he started for the tennis lawn.

On a shy and diffident
young man, accustomed for years just to shuffle his feet and look popeyed when
in the presence of the girl he loves, a pep talk along the lines of that
delivered by Lord Ickenham has much the same effect as a plunge into icy water
on a cold morning. First comes the numbing shock, when everything turns black
and the foundations of the soul seem to start reeling. Only later does there
follow the glowing reaction.

For
some appreciable time after his mentor had taken his departure, Bill stood
congealed with horror as he contemplated the picture which the other had limned
for him. The thought of showering kisses on Hermione Bostock’s upturned face
set his spine crawling like something in the Snake House at the Zoo. The idea
of grabbing her by the wrist and waggling her about a bit made him feel as he
had once felt at his private school after eating six ice-creams in a quarter of
an hour because somebody bet him he wouldn’t.