Uncle Fred in the Springtime (12 page)

He
moved forward with elastic step and folded the girl in a warm embrace. It
seemed to Pongo, not for the first time, that this man went out of his way to
kiss girls. On the present occasion, a fatherly nod would amply have met the
case.

‘Well,
my dear, so here you are. Did you have any trouble getting away?’

‘Trouble?’

‘I
should have supposed that your father would have been curious as to where you
were off to. But no doubt you told him some frank, straightforward story about
visiting a school friend.’

‘I told
him I was going to stay with you for a few days. Of course, he may have thought
I meant that I was going to Ickenham.’

‘True.
He may. But it wouldn’t have done to have revealed the actual facts to him. He
might have disapproved. There is an odd, Puritan streak in old Mustard. Well,
everything seems to be working out capitally. You’re looking wonderful, Polly.
If this Duke has a spark of human feeling in him, he cannot fail to fall for
you like a ton of bricks. You remind me of some radiant spirit of the spring.
Pongo, on the other hand, does not. There is something worrying Pongo, and I
can’t make out what it is.’

‘Ha!’

‘Don’t
say “Ha!” my boy. You ought to be jumping with joy at the thought of going to a
delightful place like Blandings Castle.’

‘I
ought, ought I? How about Lady Constance?’

‘What
about her?’

‘She’s
waiting for us at the other end, isn’t she? And what a pal! Ronnie Fish says
she has to be seen to be believed. Hugo Carmody paled beneath his tan as he
spoke of her. Monty Bodkin strongly suspects that she conducts human sacrifices
at the time of the full moon.’

‘Nonsense.
These boys exaggerate so. Probably a gentle, sweet-faced lady of the old
school, with mittens. You must fight against this tendency of yours to take the
sombre view. Where you get your streak of pessimism from, I can’t imagine. Not
from my side of the family. Nothing will go wrong. I feel it in my bones. I am
convinced that this is going to be one of my major triumphs.’

‘Like
that day at the Dog Races.’

‘I wish
you would not keep harping on that day at the Dog Races. I have always
maintained that the constable acted far too precipitately on that occasion.
They are letting a rather neurotic type of man into the Force nowadays. Well,
if we are going to Blandings Castle for a restful little holiday, I suppose we
ought to be taking our seats. I notice an official down the platform fidgeting
with a green flag.’

They
entered their compartment. The young man in spectacles was still leaning out of
the window. As they passed him, he eyed them keenly — so keenly, indeed, that
one might have supposed that he had found in these three fellow-travellers
something to view with suspicion. This, however, was not the case. Rupert
Baxter, formerly secretary to Lord Emsworth and now secretary to the Duke of
Dunstable, always eyed people keenly. It was pure routine.

All
that he was actually feeling at the moment was that the elder of the two men
looked a pleasant old buffer, that the younger seemed to have something on his
mind, and that the girl was a pretty girl. He also had a nebulous idea that he
had seen her before somewhere. But he did not follow up this train of thought.
Substituting a travelling-cap for the rather forbidding black hat which he was
wearing, he took his seat and leaned back with closed eyes. And presently
Rupert Baxter slept.

In the
next compartment, Lord Ickenham was attending to some minor details.

‘A
thing we have got to get settled before our arrival,’ he said, ‘is the question
of names. Nothing is more difficult than to think of a good name on the spur of
the moment. That day at the Dog Races, I remember, we were well on our way to
the police station before I was able to select “George Robinson” for myself and
to lean over to Pongo and whisper that he was Edwin Smith. And I felt all the
while that, as names, they were poor stuff. They did not satisfy the artist in
me. This time we must do much better. I, of course, automatically become Sir
Roderick Glossop. You, Polly, had better be Gwendoline. “Polly” seems to me not
quite dignified enough for one in your position. But what of Pongo?’

Pongo
bared his teeth in a bitter smile.

‘I
wouldn’t worry about me. What I am going to be called is “this man”. “Ptarmigan,”
Lady Constance will say, addressing the butler —’

‘Ptarmigan
isn’t a bad name.’

‘“Ptarmigan,
send for Charles and Herbert and throw this man out. And see that he lands on
something sharp.”‘

‘That
pessimistic streak again! Think of some movie stars, Polly.’

‘Fred
Astaire?’

‘No.’

‘Warner
Baxter?’

‘Baxter
would be excellent, but we can’t use it. It is the name of the Duke’s
secretary. Emsworth was telling me about him. It would be confusing to have two
Baxters about the place. Why, of course. I’ve got it. Glossop. Sir Roderick
Glossop, as I see it, was one of two brothers and, as so often happens, the
younger brother did not equal the elder’s success in life. He became a curate,
dreaming away the years in a country parish, and when he died, leaving only a
copy of Hymns Ancient and Modern and a son called Basil, Sir Roderick found
himself stuck with the latter. So with the idea of saving something out of the
wreck he made him his secretary. That’s what I call a nice, well-rounded story.
Telling it will give you something to talk about to Lady Constance over the
pipes and whisky in her boudoir. If you get to her boudoir, that is to say. I
am not quite clear as to the social standing of secretaries. Do they mingle
with the nobs or squash in with the domestic staff?’

A
flicker of animation lit up Pongo’s sombre eyes.

‘I’ll
be dashed if I squash in with any domestic staff.’

‘Well,
we’ll try you on the nobs,’ said Lord Ickenham doubtfully. ‘But don’t blame me
if it turns out that that’s the wrong thing and Lady Constance takes her
lorgnette to you. God bless my soul, though, you can’t compare the lorgnettes
of today with the ones I used to know as a boy. I remember walking one day in
Grosvenor Square with my aunt Brenda and her pug dog Jabberwocky, and a
policeman came up and said that the latter ought to be wearing a muzzle. My
aunt made no verbal reply. She merely whipped her lorgnette from its holster
and looked at the man, who gave one choking gasp and fell back against the
railings, without a mark on him but with an awful look of horror in his staring
eyes, as if he had seen some dreadful sight. A doctor was sent for, and they
managed to bring him round, but he was never the same again. He had to leave
the Force, and eventually drifted into the grocery business. And that is how
Sir Thomas Lipton got his start.’

He
broke off. During his remarks, a face had been peering in through the glass
door of the compartment, and now entered a portly man of imposing aspect with a
large, round head like the dome of St Paul’s. He stood framed in the doorway,
his manner majestic but benevolent.

‘Ah,’
he said. ‘So it was you, Ickenham. I thought I recognized you on the platform
just now. You remember me?’

Now
that he was seeing him without his hat, Lord Ickenham did, and seemed delighted
at the happy chance that had brought them together again.

‘Of
course.’

‘May I
come in, or am I interrupting a private conversation?’

‘Of
course come in, my dear fellow. We were only talking about lorgnettes. I was
saying that in the deepest and fullest sense of the word there are none
nowadays. Where are you off to?’

‘My
immediate objective is an obscure station in Shropshire of the name of Market
Blandings. One alights there, I understand, for Blandings Castle.’

‘Blandings
Castle?’

‘The
residence of Lord Emsworth. That is my ultimate destination. You know the
place?’

‘I have
heard of it. By the way, you have not met my daughter and nephew. My daughter
Gwendoline and my nephew Basil — Sir Roderick Glossop.’

Sir
Roderick Glossop seated himself, shooting a keen glance at Polly and Pongo as
he did so. Their demeanour had aroused his professional interest. From the
young man, as Lord Ickenham performed the ceremony of introduction, there had
proceeded a bubbling grunt like that of some strong swimmer in his agony, while
the girl’s eyes had become like saucers. She was now breathing in an odd,
gasping sort of way. It was not Sir Roderick’s place to drum up trade by
suggesting it, but he found himself strongly of the opinion that these young
folks would do well to place themselves in the care of a good nerve specialist.

Lord
Ickenham, apparently oblivious to the seismic upheaval which had left this
nephew a mere pile of ruins, had begun to prattle genially.

‘Well,
Glossop, it’s extraordinary nice, seeing you again. We haven’t met since that
dinner of the Loyal Sons of Hampshire, where you got so tight. How are all the
loonies? It must be amazingly interesting work, sitting on people’s heads and
yelling to somebody to hurry up with the strait waistcoat.’

Sir Roderick
Glossop, who had stiffened, relaxed. The monstrous suggestion that he had been
intemperate at the annual banquet of the Loyal Sons of Hampshire had offended
him deeply, nor had he liked that reference to sitting on people’s heads. But
he was a man who pined without conversation, and in order to carry on this
particular conversation it appeared to be necessary to accept his companion’s
peculiar way of expressing himself.

‘Yes,’
he said, ‘the work, though sometimes distressing, is as you say, full of
interest.’

‘And
you’re always at it, I suppose? You are going to Blandings Castle now, no
doubt, to inspect some well-connected screwball?’

Sir
Roderick pursed his lips.

‘You
are asking me to betray confidences, I fear, my dear Ickenham. However, I may
perhaps gratify your curiosity to the extent of saying that my visit is a
professional one. A friend of the family has been giving evidence of an
over-excited nervous condition.’

‘There
is no need to be coy with me, Glossop. You are going to Blandings to put ice on
the head of the chap with the egg-throwing urge.’

Sir
Roderick started.

‘You
appear singularly well informed.’

‘I had
that one straight from the stable. Emsworth told me.’

‘Oh,
you know Emsworth?’

‘Intimately.
I was lunching with him yesterday, and he went off to see you. But when I ran
into him later in the day, he rather hinted that things had not gone too well
between you, with the result that you had refused to interest yourself in this
unbalanced egg-jerker.’

Sir
Roderick flushed.

‘You
are perfectly correct. Emsworth’s manner left me no alternative but to decline
the commission. But this morning I received a letter from his sister, Lady
Constance Keeble, so charming in its tone that I was constrained to change my
mind. You know Lady Constance?’

‘What,
dear old Connie? I should say so! A lifelong friend. My nephew Basil there
looks on her as a second mother.’

‘Indeed?
I have not yet met her myself.’

‘You
haven’t? Capital!’

‘I beg
your pardon?’

‘You
still have that treat in store,’ explained Lord Ickenham.

‘Lady
Constance expressed so strong a desire that I should go to Blandings that I
decided to overlook Emsworth’s discourtesy. The summons comes at a singularly
inopportune time, unfortunately, for I have an important conference in London
tomorrow afternoon. However, I have been looking up the trains, and I see that
there is one that leaves Market Blandings at eight-twenty in the morning,
arriving at Paddington shortly before noon, so I shall be able to make my
examination and return in time.’

‘Surely
a single examination won’t work the trick?’

‘Oh, I
think so.’

‘I wish
I had a brain like yours,’ said Lord Ickenham. ‘What an amazing thing. I
suppose you could walk down a line of people, giving each of them a quick
glance, and separate the sheep from the goats like shelling peas…. “Loony …
not loony…. This one wants watching…. This one’s all right…. Keep an eye
on this chap. Don’t let him get near the bread-knife….” Extraordinary. What
do you do exactly? Ask questions? Start topics and observe reactions?’

‘Yes, I
suppose you might say — broadly — that that is the method I employ.’

‘I see.
You bring the conversation round to the subject of birds, for instance, and if
the fellow says he’s a canary and hops on to the mantelpiece and starts singing,
you sense that there is something wrong. Yes, I understand. Well, it seems to
me that, if it’s as simple as that, you could save yourself a lot of trouble by
making your examination now.’

‘I do
not understand you.’

‘You’re
in luck, Glossop. The man Emsworth wants you to run the rule over is on the
train. You’ll find him in the compartment next door. A dark chap with
spectacles. Emsworth asked me to keep an eye on him during the journey, but if
you want my opinion — there’s nothing wrong with the fellow at all. Connie was
always such a nervous little soul, bless her. I suppose some chance remark of
his about eggs gave her the idea that he had said he wanted to throw them, and
she went all of a twitter. Why don’t you go in and engage him in conversation and
note the results? If there’s anything wrong with him, that sixth sense of yours
will enable you to spot it in a second. If he’s all right, on the other hand,
you could leave the train at Oxford and return to London in comfort.’