Sunset at Blandings (5 page)

Gally,
who, like all confirmed
raconteurs,
was not good at listening patiently
to other people’s stories, heaved a sigh.

‘I’m sure
this narrative is getting somewhere,’ he said, ‘but I wish you would tell me
where.’

‘I’m
coming to the nub. The last time he was in England I gave him a comic strip I’d
done to try to sell to some paper over there. You know those comic strips —Mutt
and Jeff, Blondie, all that. They go on for ever, and it means big money. I’ll
be on velvet if he sells it.’

‘He’s
bound to. There are no limits to the powers of a man capable of selling
dog-biscuits. But meanwhile you will probably be glad of a job to keep you from
starving in that gutter you spoke of.’

‘I
certainly would.’

‘Then
listen carefully and I’ll tell you how this can be arranged.’

Whatever
Gally’s defects — and someone like his sister Hermione
[22]
could speak of these by the
hour, scarcely pausing to take in breath — he could tell a story well, and long
before the conclusion of his résumé of recent events at Blandings Castle, Jeff
had gathered that he was to become the latest of the long line of impostors who
had sneaked into that stately home of England.

‘You
have no objection to becoming an impostor?’
[23]

‘I
shall enjoy it.’

‘I felt
sure you would say so. One can see at a glance that you have the same spirit of
adventure that animated Drake, Stanley, and Doctor Livingstone and is the
motive power of practically all cats. You’ll like Blandings. Gravel soil,
company’s own water, extensive views over charming old-world parkland. You
will, moreover, be constantly in the society of my brother Clarence and his
monumental pig, which alone is worth the price of admission. And now think of
a name.’

‘For
me?’

‘It
would hardly be within the sphere of practical politics to use your own,
considering that my sister Florence writhes like an electric eel at the very
sound of it. David Lloyd-George? Good, but still not quite what we want.
Messmore Breamworthy?’

‘Could
there be a name like that?’

‘It is
the name of one of Freddie’s co-workers at Donaldson’s Dog Joy, Long Island
City, U.S.A. But I don’t really like it. Too ornate, and the same objection
holds in the case of Aubrey Trefusis, Alexander Strongin-th’-Arm and Augustus
Cave-Brown-Cave. We need something simple, easily remembered. Wibberley-Smith?
I like the Smith. We’ll settle on that. Bless my soul,’ said Gally with
fervour, ‘how it brings back old triumphs, this sketching out plans for adding
another impostor to the Blandings roll of honour. But the thing has rather lost
its tang since Connie went to America. The man who could introduce an impostor
into the castle under Connie’s X-ray eye and keep him there undetected had done
something he could be proud of. “This,” he could say to himself, “was my finest
hour !”‘

CHAPTER
SIX

THE JOURNEY from
Eastbourne to Market Blandings is a long and tiring one, but Gally’s wiry
frame was more than equal to it, and he alighted at his destination in good
shape. He was, however, afflicted by a thirst which could not wait to be slaked
by Beach’s port, and he made his way to the Emsworth Arms
[24]
for a beaker of the celebrated
beer brewed by G. Ovens, its proprietor. Arriving at the bar, he found his old
friend James Piper there, and was saddened to see that he looked as gloomy as
ever.

Sir
James had been a disappointment to Gally ever since the latter’s return to
Blandings Castle. He had not expected to find the sprightly young Jimmy Piper
of the old Pelican days, for he knew that long years in Parliament, always
having to associate with the sort of freaks who get into Parliament nowadays,
take their toll; but he had anticipated a reasonable cheerfulness, and such was
Jimmy’s moroseness that it could not be explained merely by the circumstance of
his having perpetually on the back of his neck a sister like Brenda. After all,
Gally felt, he himself had ten sisters, four of them just as bad as Brenda, but
you never heard unmanly complaints from him.

Gally
was not a man to beat about bushes. He welcomed this opportunity of solving a
mystery which had been annoying him, and embarked on his probe without
preamble.

‘What
on earth’s the matter with you, Jimmy? Arid don’t say “Nothing” or talk a lot
of guff about the cares of office weighing on you. A man doesn’t necessarily go
about looking like a dead fish because he’s Home Secretary, or whatever you
are. I’ve known Home Secretaries who were as cheerful as stand-up comics. No,
something is biting you, and I want to know what it is. Confide in me, Jimmy,
bearing in mind that there was a time when our minds were open books to each
other. You’ve given me enough material to write your biography, only I suppose
it wouldn’t do now that you are such a big pot. Still, let’s have the latest
instalments.’

It was
only for a moment that Sir James hesitated. Then, for G. Ovens’s home-brew has
above all other beverages the power to break down reticences, he said:

‘Can I
confide in you, Gally?’

‘Of
course.’

‘I
badly need advice.’

‘I have
it on tap.’

‘You
remember in the old days how crazy I was about your sister Diana?’

‘I
remember.’

‘I
still am. You’d think I would have got over it, but no. The moment I saw her
again, it was just as bad as ever.’

His statement
was one which might have seemed sensational to some auditors, but Gally took it
calmly. He had the advantage of having given up many hours of his valuable time
to listening to a younger James Piper expressing himself on the subject of the
woman he loved; and if he was surprised, it was only because he found it
remarkable that the fire of those days should still be ablaze after all those
years.

That
his sister Diana should be the object of this passion occasioned him no
astonishment. He had always placed her in the top ten for looks, charm and
general
espièglerie
and had shared in the universal consternation when
she had thrown herself away on an ass like Rollo Phipps.

‘Good
for you, Jimmy,’ he said. ‘If you are trying to find out if I approve, have no
anxiety. When the wedding ceremony takes place, you can count on me to be in
the ringside pew lending a fairly musical baritone to The Voice That Breathed o’er
Eden or whatever hymn you may have selected. Now that Diana has been so satisfactorily
de-Phippsed I could wish her no better husband.’

Sir
James had imbibed a full tankard of G. Ovens’s home-brew and was halfway
through his second, and that amount of the elixir is generally calculated to
raise the spirits of the saddest into the upper brackets, but the cloud
remained on his brow, darker than ever.

‘The
wedding ceremony isn’t going to take place,’ he said bitterly.

Gally
leaped to the obvious conclusion, and his eye glass, as if in sympathy, leaped
to the end of its string.

‘Don’t
tell me you’ve changed your mind.’

‘Of
course not.’

‘Then
why this pessimistic outlook? Did she turn you down?’

‘I
haven’t proposed.’

‘Why
not?’

‘I didn’t
get the chance.’

‘I
thought you were going to say you discovered you had some incurable disease and
had been given two weeks to live, which would of course have spoiled the honeymoon.
The trouble with you politicians,’ said Gaily, ‘is that you wrap up your
statements to such an extent with double-talk that the lay mind needs an
electric drill to get at the meaning. Tell me in a few simple words what the
hell you’re talking about.’

‘I can
tell you in one. Murchison.’

‘Who’s
Murchison?’

‘My
bodyguard.’

‘Have
you a bodyguard?’

‘Sergeant
E. B. Murchison. A Chancellor of the Exchequer has to have a bodyguard,
assigned to him by Scotland Yard.’

Gally
shook his head.

‘You
ought never to have let them make you Chancellor of the Exchequer, Jimmy. If I
had known, I would have warned you against it. What does this fellow Murchison
do? Follow you around?’

‘Wherever
I go.’

‘You
must feel like Mary with her lamb, though I doubt if anyone attached to
Scotland Yard has fleece as white as snow. I begin to see now. Your style is
necessarily cramped. If you pressed your suit and Diana proved cooperative,
your immediate impulse would be to fold her in a close embrace, and you wouldn’t
want a goggling detective looking on.’

‘Exactly.
I’m a shy man.’

‘Are
you?’

‘Very
shy.’

‘That
makes it worse. I’ve never been shy myself, but I can understand how you feel.
No chance of you stiffening the sinews, summoning up the blood and having a pop
at it regardless of Murchison?’

‘None.’

‘Then
we must think of something else.’

‘I have
thought of something else. I’m going to write her a letter.’

‘Outlining
your sentiments?’

‘Yes.’

Gally
was not encouraging.

‘Dismiss
the idea. A letter is never any good, especially if it’s from someone like you,
most of whose adult life has been spent in politics. You’ve got so accustomed
to exercising caution and not committing yourself that you simply aren’t
capable of the sort of communication which hits a woman like a sock in the
solar plexus and makes her say to herself, “Lord love a duck, this boy’s got
what it takes. I must weigh this proposal of his carefully or I’ll be passing
up the snip of a lifetime”.’

James
Piper finished his home-brew and heaved a sigh. ‘You make it all seem very
hopeless, Gaily.’

‘Nothing
is hopeless, if you have a Galahad Threepwood working for you,’ said Gally. ‘I
have solved problems worse than yours in my time, so buck up and let us see
that merry smile of yours that goes with such a bang in the House of Commons.’

CHAPTER
SEVEN

THERE were times, it
seemed to Gally some days after his heart to heart talk with James Piper at the
Emsworth Arms, when the grounds and messuages of Blandings Castle came as near
to resembling an enchanted fairyland as dammit. Strong hands had mowed the lawn
till it gleamed in the sunlight, birds sang in the tree tops, bees buzzed in
the flower beds. You would not be far wrong, he thought, if you said that all
Nature smiled, as he himself was doing. His mood was mellow, its mellowness
increased by the fact that, slipping adroitly from the table at the conclusion
of lunch, he had secured the hammock under the cedar before the slower Florence
could get at it. She came out of the house just after he had moved in, and it
set the seal on his euphoria to note her thwarted look, comparable to that of
baffled baronets in melodramas he had seen at the Lyceum and other theatres in
his younger days. It was the keystone of his policy always, if possible, to
show his sisters, with the exception, of course, of Diana, that they weren’t
everybody.

His
strategy was effective. Florence took her book elsewhere. But he knew it was
too much to expect that his siesta would remain undisturbed indefinitely. Nor
did it. Scarcely had his eyes closed and his breathing become deeper, when a
respectful finger poked him in the ribs and he woke to see Beach at his side.

‘Mr.
Galahad,’ said Beach.

‘Ah,
Beach, Beach,’ he replied, ‘I was having a lovely dream about backing a long
shot for the Grand National and seeing it come in by a length and a half. Are
you here just to have a chat?’

‘No,
sir,’ said Beach, shocked. He would chat freely with Mr. Galahad in the
seclusion of his pantry, but not on the front lawn. ‘A Mr. Smith has called,
asking to see you.’

For an
instant the name conveyed nothing to Gally. Then memory stirred, and he sat up
with enthusiasm.

‘Bring
him along, Beach,’ he said. ‘Nobody you know, but he’s just the fellow I hoped
would be calling,’ and he was on his feet and prepared to welcome Jeff when
Beach produced him, which he did some moments later with what amounted to a
flourish. Any friend of Mr. Galahad got the V.I.P. treatment from Beach. He
then melted away as softly and gracefully as was within the power of a butler
who would never see fourteen stone again, and Gally and Jeff were, as the
former would have put it, alone and unobserved.

‘My
dear boy,’ said Gally, ‘this is splendid. I was half afraid you would lose your
nerve and not come.’

‘Nothing
would have kept me away.’

‘You
Smiths do not know what fear is?’

‘Only
by hearsay. Nice place you have here.’

‘We
like it. But there is a catch. I don’t know if you are familiar with the hymn
about spicy breezes blowing o’er Ceylon’s isle?’