Sunset at Blandings (4 page)

‘She is
in wonderful health.’

‘Eating
well?’

‘Magnificently.
It’s too bad that I can’t get anyone to paint her portrait.
[16]
I did think it would be plain
sailing when Connie went to America, but all the prominent artists I have
approached have refused the commission.’

To add
a likeness of the Empress to those of his ancestors in the Blandings Castle
portrait gallery had long been Lord Emsworth’s dream, and with the departure of
his sister Constance, the spearhead of the movement in opposition to the
scheme, his hopes had risen high. The difficulty was to find a suitable artist.
All the leading Royal Academicians to whom he had applied had informed him
rather stiffly that they did not paint pigs. They painted sheep in Scottish
glens, children playing with kittens and puppies, still-life representations of
oranges and bananas on plates, but not pigs.

Gally
had always approved of the idea, arguing that the Empress could not but lend
tone to a gallery filled with the ugliest collection of thugs he had ever had
the misfortune to see, comparable only to the Chamber of Horrors at Madame
Tussaud’s. He made but one exception, the sixth Earl, who he said reminded him
of a charming pea and thimble man with whom he had formed a friendship one
afternoon at Hurst Park race course the year Billy Buttons won the Jubilee Cup.

‘They
were very firm about it,’ said Lord Emsworth. ‘Some of them were quite rude.’

‘Egad!’
said Gally.

‘Eh?’
said Lord Emsworth.

‘Just
egad, Clarence. I’ve had an inspiration.’

At the
word ‘portrait’ a close observer would have noticed a sudden sparkle in the eye
behind Gally’s black-rimmed monocle. This usually happened when he got a
bright idea.

‘Why
waste time on Royal Academicians?’ he said. ‘A lot of stuffed shirts. You don’t
need what you call a prominent artist. You want an eager young fellow all vim
and ginger, and I’ve got the very man for you. He specializes in pigs.’

‘You
don’t say, Galahad! What’s his name?’

‘You
wouldn’t know his name.’

‘Is he
good?’

‘I
believe his morals are excellent.’

‘At
painting, I mean.’

‘Terrific.’

‘Is he
very expensive?’

‘He won’t
charge you a penny. He is very well off, and only paints pigs because he loves
them.’

‘Is he
free at the moment?’

‘That
is what I shall ascertain when I run up to London tomorrow.’

‘My
dear Galahad, you can’t run up to London tomorrow. You only came back today.’

‘What
of that? If a man can’t run up to London because he has just run down from it,
where can he run up to? I want to do you a good turn.’

‘It’s
extremely kind of you, Galahad.’

‘Just
my old boy scout training, Clarence. One never quite loses the urge to do one’s
daily good deed.’

Gally
walked back to Vicky.

‘I
think I’ll run up to London and interview this young man of yours, to see if he’s
worthy of you. What’s his name besides Jeff?’

‘Bennison.
But you’ll have to run further than London. His school’s at Eastbourne.’

‘Odd
how these schools all flock to the east coast.
[17]
It’s like one of those great race movements of the Middle Ages. Were you at
Eastbourne?’

‘Yes,
at Dame Daphne Winkworth’s,
[18]
only she wasn’t a Dame then. That’s where Jeff is.’

‘Oh my
God. I hope I don’t run into her. She was a guest at Blandings not long ago,
and our relations were none too cordial. It would be embarrassing to meet her
again. But I’ll risk it for your sake.’

‘What
an angel you are, Gally. I’ll give you a letter to take to Jeff. My
correspondence is closely watched.’

‘So was
mine. It’s the first move of the prison authorities.’

CHAPTER
FIVE

THANKS to the absence of
his employer Claude Duff had got the day off and was on his way to the
fashionable girls’ school outside Eastbourne to pay his respects to his aunt
Dame Daphne Winkworth, its proprietress. His journey had been uneventful and
would not merit attention but for the fact that he happened to share a
compartment with Gally, who soon established cordial relations with him. Gally
was always a great talker to strangers on trains.

Claude
was tall and as aggressively good looking as a film-star. His clothes were
impeccable, for he was particular about the way he looked. At school, where he
had shared a study with Jeff Bennison, he had always been pained by the
casualness of the latter’s costume. When visiting his aunt, he took especial
pains to have everything just right, and he was flicking a speck of dust off
his left trouser leg when there came out of the front door a stalwart young
man, the sight of whom caused him to stare, to blink, and finally to utter a
glad cry of ‘Bingo!’

It was
an embarrassing moment for Jeff. He recognized his old schoolmate without
difficulty, but he had no recollection of what his nickname was. And when an
old friend has hailed you as ‘Bingo’, you cannot be formal. He compromised by
calling Claude nothing. So when Claude said he was blowed and that Jeff was the
last chap he had expected to see coming out of a girls’ school, he merely
replied that he worked there.

‘You
work here? How do you mean?’

‘I
teach drawing.’

‘Somebody
told me you were an architect.’

‘I had
to give it up. No money.’

‘Oh, I
say! That’s too bad.’

‘Just
one of those things. What are you doing now?’

‘I’m
second secretary to Sir James Piper.’

‘The
name seems familiar.’

‘Chancellor
of the Exchequer.’

‘Golly,
you’re moving in exalted circles. How do you like your job?’

‘Very
much. How do you like teaching drawing?’

‘I don’t
like it. Or didn’t. Recently—in fact this morning—I have been relieved of my
duties.’

‘Eh?’

‘Sacked.
Fired. Given the push. I had a dispute with the boss and lost my temper.’

‘Gosh!
Aunt Daphne wouldn’t like that.’

‘She
didn’t. So she’s your aunt, is she?’

‘Yes.’

‘Sooner
you than me.’

‘What
will you do now?’

‘Look
around, I suppose, till I find something worthy of my talents. But I mustn’t
stand talking to you. I must go and finish my packing. She wants me off the
place at my earliest convenience. Or sooner.’

Left
alone, Claude stood musing. He was a good-hearted young man, and Jeff’s
predicament had saddened him. He himself had never had to worry about money.
His father had pushed him into this secretarial job, thinking it would lead to
all sorts of things — if he wanted to go into Parliament, for instance — but if
Sir James ever decided to part company with him he had several rich relations
ready to give him employment. But Jeff, who had been his hero at school … he
didn’t like the look of Jeff’s position at all.

He was
still brooding and was liking the position less than ever, when the dapper
little man he had met on the train came trotting up.
[19]
Glad of anything which would
divert his gloomy thoughts, he greeted him effusively, and the little man
seemed equally pleased to see him.

‘We
meet again,’ he said. ‘Did I finish that story of mine about my friend Fruity
Biffen and the Assyrian beard? I fancy not. It was one he bought at Clarkson’s
in order to be able to attend the Spring meeting at New-market and at the same
time avoid recognition from the various bookies he owed money to. And he was
just passing the stall of Tim Simms, the Safe Man, when it fell off. Something
wrong with the gum, one supposes.’

‘Was
Simms one of the ones he owed money to?’

‘One of
the many, and there was a painful scene. But Fruity’s life was never what you
would call placid. I remember one morning asking him to come for a walk in the
park with me. It was at the epoch when I was rather addicted to feeding the
ducks on the Serpentine. He was horrified. “Me out of doors on a Monday in the
daytime !” he gasped. “You must be mad. If only Duff and Trotter will trust me
for a couple of raised pies
[20]
and a case of old brandy, I intend hiding in the crypt of St. Paul’s till the
bookies have forgotten all about the City and Suburban.” Did you tell me, by
the way, that your name was Duff?’

‘That’s
right.’

‘Any
relation to Duff and Trotter, the provision people?’

‘My
uncle.’

‘Then
you ought to be all right for raised pies. Galahad Threepwood at this end. Do
you come to this seminary often?’

‘Fairly
often.’

‘Then
perhaps you can help me. How do I find a fellow called Bennison?’

Claude
was all animation.

‘Jeff
Bennison? Old Bingo? I’ve just been talking to him. One of my oldest friends.’

‘Really?’

‘He’s
gone up to his room.’

‘Then I
will follow him.’

Jeff,
his packing finished, had left his room. Dame Daphne’s butler met him at the
foot of the stairs.

‘There
is a gentleman to see you, Mr. Bennison,’ he said. ‘I have shown him to the
morning room.’

Gally
was polishing his eyeglass when Jeff joined him in the morning room, as always
when ill at ease. He was not a man to be readily unnerved, but even he quailed
a little now that he was in such close proximity to Dame Daphne Winkworth.

‘Mr.
Bennison?’ he said. ‘How do you do. My name is Threepwood. You must pardon me
for being agitated.’

‘You
don’t seem agitated to me.’

‘I wear
the mask, do I? I am agitated, though. I am in the position of a native of
India who knows that a tigress is lurking in the undergrowth near at hand and
wonders how soon she will be among those present. I allude to Dame Daphne
Winkworth. No danger of her dropping in, is there?’

‘I
shouldn’t think so.’

‘Good.
Then we can proceed. I come bringing a letter from my niece Victoria. I am her
Uncle Galahad.’

‘Oh,
how do you do?’ said Jeff. ‘I’ve heard her talk of you.’

‘No
doubt she has a fund of good stories. Here’s the letter.’

‘You
don’t mind if I kiss it?’

‘I
shall be offended if you don’t.’

‘And if
I then skim through it for a moment?’

‘Go
ahead.’

It was
some little time before Jeff was able to resume the conversation.

‘Thank
God you brought me this,’ he said at length. ‘I’ve been worrying myself into a
decline. I kept writing to her, but no answer.’

‘I
doubt if she got your letters.’

‘I sent
them to her London address.’

‘Then
they were probably forwarded to Blandings Castle, where she now is, and
intercepted and destroyed. I’d better sketch out for you the position of affairs
concerning you and Vicky and the Blandings Castle circle. Finding out about
your romance, my sister Florence instantly had Vicky arrested and hauled off to
the clink. In other words, she was taken to Blandings. This, I may say, is
always done when girls of my family fall in love with men whom their mothers
consider undesirable. It’s a matter of money, of course. Unless the chap has a
solid balance at the bank, he automatically become undesirable. You, I gather
from Vicky, have nothing but your salary here.’

‘Not
even that. I’ve just been fired.’

‘Really?
Too bad.’

‘A
merciful release I looked on it as. The thought that I shall never have to see
another school-girl trying to draw is like a tonic. Of course, the situation
has its disadvantages. I expect to starve in the gutter at any moment.’

‘No
money?’

‘Very
little.’

‘No
prospects?’

‘Only
hopes. It’s like this. If you’re Vicky’s Uncle Galahad, you must be my friend
Freddie Threepwood’s Uncle Galahad.’

‘Remorselessly
true, but I don’t see where you’re heading.’

‘I mean
you know all about Freddie,
[21]
that he’s out in America selling dog-biscuits and has become a regular tycoon
and knows everybody — editors and people like that.’

‘I
believe he’s doing very well. He took the precaution of starting his career by
marrying the boss’s daughter.’

‘He was
in England not long ago. They sent him over to buck up the English end of the
business.’