Uncle Fred in the Springtime (24 page)

‘That’s
a lot of money,’ he said.

Ricky
was amazed.

‘A lot
of money? For a going concern right in the heart of London’s
onion-soup-drinking belt? He’s simply giving it away. But he’s homesick for New
York, and would like to sail tomorrow, if he could. Well, that’s the position.
He says I can have this going concern for two hundred and fifty, provided I
give him the money by the end of the week. And let me tell you, Mr Pott, the
potentialities of that bar are stupendous. I’ve stood there night after night
and watched the bottle-party addicts rolling up with their tongues out. It was
like a herd of buffaloes stampeding for a water-hole.’

‘Then
you’d better give him his two hundred and fifty.’

‘I
would, if I had it. That’s exactly the point I was coming to. Can you lend me
the money?’

‘No.’

‘You
can have any interest you like.’

‘No,
sir. Include me out.’

‘But
you can’t say you haven’t got it.’

‘I have
got it, and more. I’ve got it in cash in my pocket now, on account of the
Clothes Stakes I ran at the Drones Club Tuesday.’

‘Then
why —?’

Mr Pott
drained the remains of his tankard, but the noble brew had no mellowing effect.
He might have been full of lemonade.

‘I’ll
tell you why. Because if I give it to you, you’ll go and talk my dear daughter
into marrying you. Polly’s easily led. She’s like her mother. Anything to make
people happy. You’d tell her the tale, and she’d act against her better
judgment. And then,’ said Mr Pott, ‘the bitter awakening.’

‘What
do you mean, the bitter awakening? Polly loves me.’

‘What
makes you think that?’

‘She
told me so.’

‘That
was just being civil. Love you? Coo! What would she want to love you for? If I
were a girl, I wouldn’t give you one little rose from my hair.’

‘You
haven’t got any hair.’

‘There
is no occasion to be personal,’ said Mr Pott stiffly. ‘And hair’s not
everything, let me tell you. There’s been a lot of fellows that found
themselves wishing they’d been more like me in that respect. Absolom, for one.
And you’re wilfully missing the point of my remarks, which is that if I was a
girl and had hair and there was a rose in it and you asked me for that rose, I
wouldn’t give it to you. Because, after all, young G., what are you? Just a
poet. Simply a ruddy ink-slinger, that’s you. Polly can do better.’

‘I’m
sorry you dislike me —’

‘It’s
not disliking. It’s disapproving of in the capacity of a suitor for my dear
daughter’s hand. There’s nothing fundamentally wrong with you, young G. — I’ll
admit you’ve got a sweet left hook — but you aren’t an om seerioo. A French
term,’ explained Mr Pott, ‘meaning a fellow that’s going to get on in the world
and be able to support a sweet girl as a sweet girl ought to be supported. If
you were an om seerioo, you wouldn’t be wasting your time messing about writing
poetry.’

Ricky
was telling himself that he must be calm. But calmness was a thing that did not
come readily to him in trying circumstances.

‘My
dear daughter ought to marry a man of substance. This Horace Davenport, now….

‘Horace!’

‘It’s
all very well to say ‘Horace!’ in that tone of voice. He’s the nephew of a
Duke,’ said Mr Pott reverently.

‘Well,
if we’re being snobs, so am I the nephew of a Duke.’

‘Ala,
but your Ma hadn’t the stuff, and Horace’s Pa had. That’s where the difference
comes in. The way I got the story, your Ma married beneath her. Too late to
regret it now, of course.’

‘The
thing I regret is that you won’t listen to reason.’

‘I
haven’t heard any yet.’

There
was a silence. Mr Pott would have liked another tankard of home-brew, but the
way things seemed to be shaping, it appeared probable that he would have to pay
for it himself.

‘Mr
Pott,’ said Ricky, ‘I saved your life once.’

‘And on
that last awful day when we all have to render account it will be duly chalked
up to you on the credit side. Though, as a matter of fact,’ said Mr Pott
nonchalantly, ‘I’ve no doubt I could have handled those fellows all right
myself.’

The
muscles inherited from his robust father stood out on Ricky’s cheek-bones.

‘I hope
you will have many more opportunities of doing so,’ he said.

Mr Pott
seemed wounded.

‘That’s
a nasty thing to say.’

‘It was
meant to be. Because,’ said Ricky, becoming frank, ‘if ever there was a
pot-bellied human louse who needed to have the stuffing kicked out of him and
his remains jumped on by strong men in hobnailed boots, it is you, Mr Pott. The
next time I see a mob in the street setting on you, I shall offer to hold their
coats and stand by and cheer.’

Mr Pott
rose.

‘Ho! If
that’s the sort of nasty mind you have, I don’t wonder she prefers Horace.’

‘May I
ask where you got the idea that she prefers Horace?’

‘I got
it by seeing her that night he took her to the Ball. There was a look in her
eyes that made me think right away that she was feeling he was her Prince
Charming. And this has since been confirmed by a reliable source.’

Ricky
laughed.

‘Would
it interest you to know,’ he said, ‘that Polly has promised me that she will
never see Horace again?’

‘It
wouldn’t interest me in the slightest degree,’ retorted Mr Pott. ‘Because I
happen to know that she’s seeing him regular.’

Whether
it was excusable in the circumstances for Ricky at this point to tell Mr Pott
that he was lying in his teeth, and that only the fact of his being an
undersized little squirt whom no decent man would bring himself to touch with a
barge pole saved him from having his neck wrung, is open to debate. Mr Pott,
who thought not, drew himself up stiffly.

‘Young
G.,’ he said, ‘I will wish you a very good afternoon. After that crack, I must
decline to hold any association with you. There is such a thing as going too
far, and you have gone it. I will take my refreshment elsewhere.’

He went
off to the Jolly Cricketers to do so, and for some moments Ricky continued to
sit over his tankard. Now that the first spasm of indignation had spent itself,
he was feeling more amused than wrathful. The lie had been so clumsy, so easily
seen through. He blamed himself for ever having allowed it to annoy him.

If
there was one thing certain in an uncertain world, it was that Polly was as
straight as a die. How she came to be so with a father like that constituted
one of the great mysteries, but there it was. The thought of Polly cheating was
inconceivable.

With a
glowing heart, Ricky Gilpin rose and walked down the passage that led to the
back door of the inn. He felt he wanted air. After having had Mr Pott in it,
the bar struck him as a little close.

The
garden of the Emsworth Arms runs down to the river, and is a pleasant, scented
place on a spring evening. Ricky wished that he could linger there, but he was
intending to catch the late afternoon express back to London, and he still had
his packing to do. He turned regretfully, and he had just reached the inn, when
from somewhere in its interior there came a disembodied voice.

‘Hullo,’
it was saying. ‘Hullo.’

Ricky
halted, amazed. There was only one man in the world who said ‘Hullo’ with just
that lilting bleat.

‘Hullo …
Polly?’

Ricky
Gilpin’s heart seemed to leap straight up into the air twiddling its feet, like
a Russian dancer. He had sometimes wondered how fellows in the electric chair
must feel when the authorities turned on the juice. Now he knew.

‘Hullo?
Polly? Polly, old pet, this is Horace. Yes, I know. Never mind all that. I’ve
got to see you immediately. Of course it’s important. Matter of life and death.
So drop everything like the sweet angel you are, and come along. Meet me at the
castle gate, out in the road. I don’t want anybody to see us. Eh? What? Yes.
All right. I’ve got my car. I’ll be there before you are.’

A red-haired bombshell
burst into the lounge of the Emsworth Arms. There, in the corner near the
window, stood the telephone, but the speaker had gone. And from outside in the
street there came the sound of a car.

Ricky
Gilpin leaped to the floor. A rakish Bingley was moving off up the High Street,
a long, thin, familiar figure at its wheel.

For an
instant, he contemplated shouting. Then, perceiving that there was a better
way, he ran, sprang and flung himself on to the Bingley’s stern.

Horace
Davenport, all unconscious that he had taken aboard a stowaway, pressed his
foot on the accelerator and the Bingley gathered speed.

Lord Ickenham, much
refreshed after his bath, had left his room, and begun to search through
Blandings Castle for Polly. Unable to find her, he sought information from
Pongo, whom he discovered in the smoking-room staring silently at nothing. The
burden of life was weighing on Pongo Twistleton a good deal just now.

‘Ah, my
boy. Seen Polly anywhere?’

Pongo
roused himself from his thoughts.

‘Yes, I
saw her ….’

He
broke off. His eyes has started from their sockets. He had just observed what
it was that the other was holding in his hand.

‘My
gosh! Money?’

‘Yes.’

‘How
much?’

‘Two
hundred and fifty pounds.’

‘Oh, my
golly! Where did you get it?’

‘From —
you will scarcely credit this — Mustard Pott.’

‘What!’

‘Yes.
Mustard, it will astound you to hear, has just arrived at the castle in his
professional capacity, sent for by Bosham to watch our movements. I seem to
have dismissed Bosham as a force too lightly. He appears to have seen through
my well-meant attempt to convince him that I was not the man who got away with
his wallet and to have decided to seek assistance. A dashed deep young man. He
took me in completely. What led him to select Mustard from London’s myriad
sleuths is more than I can tell you. I can only suppose that he must have heard
of him from Horace. At any rate, he’s here, and he has not been idle. Within
half an hour of his arrival, he took this nice round sum off Bosham at Persian
Monarchs, and I, after wrestling with him as the angel wrestled with Jacob,
have taken it off him.’

Pongo
was quivering in every limb.

‘But
this is stupendous! This is definitedly the happy ending, with the maker’s name
woven into every yard. I had a feeling all along that you would pull it off
sooner or later. Good old Uncle Fred! You stand alone. There is none like you,
none. Gimme!’

Lord
Ickenham perceived that his nephew was labouring under a misapprehension.
Regretfully he put him straight.

‘Alas,
my boy, this is not for you.’

‘What
do you mean?’

‘It is
earmarked for Polly. It is the purchase price of that onion soup bar, which
will enable her to marry the man she loves. I’m sorry. I can appreciate what a
blow this must be for you. All I can say by way of apology is that her need is
greater than yours.’

There
was the right stuff in Pongo Twistleton. It had seemed to him for an instant
that the world was tumbling about him in rending chaos, but already his finer
self had begun to take command of things. Yes, he felt — yes, it was better
thus. Agony though it was to think that he was not going to get his hooks on
the boodle, it was a not unpleasant agony. His great love demanded some such
sacrifice.

‘I see
what you mean,’ he said. ‘Yes, something in that.’

‘Where
is she?’

‘I
think she’s gone to Market Blandings.’

‘What
would she be going to Market Blandings for?’

‘Ah,
there you have me. But I was on the terrace having a cigarette not long ago and
she came out, hatted and booted, and gave the impression, when questioned, that
that was where she was heading.’

‘Well,
go after her and bring the sunlight into her life.’

The
idea did not seem immediately attractive to Pongo.

‘It’s
four miles there and back, you know.’

‘Well,
you’re young and strong.’

‘Why
don’t you go?’

‘Because
Age has its privileges, my boy. My ramble having left me a little drowsy, I
propose to snatch a few winks of sleep in my room. I often say there is nothing
so pleasant as a nap in front of a crackling fire in the country-house bedroom.
Off you go.’

Pongo
did not set out with enthusiasm, but he set out, and Lord Ickenham made his way
to his room. The fire was bright, the armchair soft, and the thought of his
nephew trudging four miles along the high road curiously soothing. It was not
long before the stillness was broken by a faint, musical noise like a kettle singing
on the hob.