‘Ah, Beach,’ he said affably, as the green-baize door swung open, ‘I must apologise once more for troubling you. I keep ringing, don’t I?’
‘No trouble at all, sir,’ responded the butler paternally. ‘But if you were ringing to summon your personal attendant, I fear he is not immediately available. He left me somewhat abruptly a few moments ago. I was not aware that you would be requiring his services until the dressing-gong sounded, or I would have detained him.’
‘Never mind. It was you I wished to see. Beach,’ said Psmith, ‘I am concerned about you. I learn from my man that the lining of your stomach is not all it should be.’
‘That is true, sir,’ replied Beach, an excited gleam coming into his dull eyes. He shivered slightly, as might a war-horse at the sound of the bugle. ‘I do have trouble with the lining of my stomach.’
‘Every stomach has a silver lining.’
‘Sir?’
‘I said, tell me all about it.’
‘Well, really, sir . . .’ said Beach wistfully.
‘To please me,’ urged Psmith.
‘Well, sir, it is extremely kind of you to take an interest. It generally starts with a dull shooting pain on the right side of the abdomen from twenty minutes to half an hour after the conclusion of a meal. The symptoms . . .’
There was nothing but courteous sympathy in Psmith’s gaze as he listened to what sounded like an eyewitness’s account of the San Francisco earthquake, but inwardly he was wishing that his companion could see his way to making it a bit briefer and snappier. However, all things come to an end. Even the weariest river winds somewhere to the sea. With a moving period, the butler finally concluded his narrative.
‘Parks’ Pepsinine,’ said Psmith promptly.
‘Sir?’
‘That’s what you want. Parks’ Pepsinine. It would set you right in no time.’
‘I will make a note of the name, sir. The specific has not come to my notice until now. And, if I may say so,’ added Beach, with a glassy but adoring look at his benefactor, ‘I should like to express my gratitude for your kindness.’
‘Not at all, Beach, not at all. Oh, Beach,’ he said, as the other started to manoeuvre towards the door, ‘I’ve just remembered. There was something else I wanted to talk to you about.’
‘Yes, sir?’
‘I thought it might be as well to speak to you about it before approaching Lady Constance. The fact is, Beach, I am feeling cramped.’
‘Indeed, sir? I forgot to mention that one of the symptoms from which I suffer is a sharp cramp.’
‘Too bad. But let us, if you do not mind, shelve for the moment the subject of your interior organism and its ailments. When I say I am feeling cramped, I mean spiritually. Have you ever written poetry, Beach?’
‘No, sir.’
‘Ah! Then it may be a little difficult for you to understand my feelings. My trouble is this. Out in Canada, Beach, I grew accustomed to doing my work in the most solitary surroundings. You remember that passage in my Songs of Squalor which begins “Across the pale parabola of Joy . . . ”?’
‘I fear, sir . . .’
‘You missed it? Tough luck. Try to get hold of it some time. It’s a bird. Well, that passage was written in a lonely hut on the banks of the Saskatchewan, miles away from human habitation. I am like that, Beach. I need the stimulus of the great open spaces. When I am surrounded by my fellows, inspiration slackens and dies. You know how it is when there are people about. Just as you are starting in to write a nifty, someone comes and sits down on the desk and begins talking about himself. Every time you get going nicely, in barges some alien influence and the Muse goes blooey. You see what I mean?’
‘Yes, sir,’ said Beach, gaping slightly.
‘Well, that is why for a man like me existence in Blandings Castle has its drawbacks. I have got to get a place where I can be alone, Beach – alone with my dreams and visions. Some little eyrie perched on the cliffs of Time. . . . In other words, do you know of an empty cottage somewhere on the estate where I could betake myself when in the mood and swing a nib without any possibility of being interrupted?’
‘A little cottage, sir?’
‘A little cottage. With honeysuckle over the door, and Old Mister Moon climbing up above the trees. A cottage, Beach, where I can meditate, where I can turn the key in the door and bid the world go by. Now that the castle is going to be full of all these people who are coming for the County Ball, it is imperative that I wangle such a haven. Otherwise, a considerable slab of priceless poetry will be lost to humanity for ever.’
‘You desire,’ said Beach, feeling his way cautiously, ‘a small cottage where you can write poetry, sir?’
‘You follow me like a leopard. Do you know of such a one?’
‘There is an unoccupied gamekeeper’s cottage in the west wood, sir, but it is an extremely humble place.’
‘Be it never so humble, it will do for me. Do you think Lady Constance would be offended if I were to ask for the loan of it for a few days?’
‘I fancy that her ladyship would receive the request with equanimity, sir. She is used to . . . She is not unaccustomed . . . Well, I can only say, sir, that there was a literary gentleman visiting the castle last summer who expressed a desire to take sun-baths in the garden each morning before breakfast. In the nood, sir. And, beyond instructing me to warn the maids, her ladyship placed no obstacle in the way of the fulfilment of his wishes. So . . .’
‘So a modest request like mine isn’t likely to cause a heart-attack? Admirable! You don’t know what it means to me to feel that I shall soon have a little refuge of my own, to which I can retreat and be in solitude.’
‘I can imagine that it must be extremely gratifying, sir.’
‘Then I will put the motion before the Board directly Lady Constance returns.’
‘Very good, sir.’
‘I should like to splash it on the record once more, Beach, that I am much obliged to you for your sympathy and advice in this matter. I knew you would not fail me.’
‘Not at all, sir. I am only too glad to have been able to be of assistance.’
‘Oh, and, Beach . . .’
‘Sir?’
‘Just one other thing. Will you be seeing Cootes, my valet, again shortly?’
‘Quite shortly, sir, I should imagine.’
‘Then would you mind just prodding him smartly in the lower ribs . . .’
‘Sir?’ cried Beach, startled out of his butlerian calm. He swallowed a little convulsively. For eighteen months and more, ever since Lady Constance Keeble had first begun to cast her fly and hook over the murky water of the artistic world and jerk its denizens on to the pile carpets of Blandings Castle, Beach had had his fill of eccentricity. But until this moment he had hoped that Psmith was going to prove an agreeable change from the stream of literary lunatics which had been coming and going all that weary time. And lo! Psmith’s name led all the rest. Even the man who had come for a week in April and had wanted to eat jam with his fish paled in comparison.
‘Prod him in the ribs, sir?’ he quavered.
‘Prod him in the ribs,’ said Psmith firmly. And at the same time whisper in his ear the word “Aha!”’
Beach licked his dry lips.
Aha, sir?’
Aha! And say it came from me.’
‘Very good, sir. The matter shall be attended to,’ said Beach. And with a muffled sound that was half a sigh, half a death-rattle, he tottered through the green-baize door.
10 SENSATIONAL OCCURRENCE AT A POETRY READING
§ 1
BREAKFAST was over, and the guests of Blandings had scattered to their morning occupations. Some were writing letters, some were in the billiard-room: some had gone to the stables, some to the links: Lady Constance was interviewing the housekeeper, Lord Emsworth harrying head-gardener McAllister among the flower-beds: and in the Yew Alley, the dappled sunlight falling upon her graceful head, Miss Peavey walked pensively up and down.
She was alone. It is a sad but indisputable fact that in this imperfect world Genius is too often condemned to walk alone – if the earthier members of the community see it coming and have time to duck. Not one of the horde of visitors who had arrived overnight for the County Ball had shown any disposition whatever to court Miss Peavey’s society.
One regrets this. Except for that slight bias towards dishonesty which led her to steal everything she could lay her hands on that was not nailed down, Aileen Peavey’s was an admirable character; and, oddly enough, it was the noble side of her nature to which these coarse-fibred critics objected. Of Miss Peavey, the purloiner of other people’s goods, they knew nothing; the woman they were dodging was Miss Peavey, the poetess. And it may be mentioned that, however much she might unbend in the presence of a congenial friend like Mr Edward Cootes, she was a perfectly genuine poetess. Those six volumes under her name in the British Museum catalogue were her own genuine and unaided work: and, though she had been compelled to pay for the production of the first of the series, the other five had been brought out at her publisher’s own risk, and had even made a little money.
Miss Peavey, however, was not sorry to be alone: for she had that on her mind which called for solitary thinking. The matter engaging her attention was the problem of what on earth had happened to Mr Edward Cootes. Two days had passed since he had left her to go and force Psmith at the pistol’s point to introduce him into the castle: and since that moment he had vanished completely. Miss Peavey could not understand it.
His non-appearance was all the more galling in that her superb brain had just completed in every detail a scheme for the seizure of Lady Constance Keeble’s diamond necklace; and to the success of this plot his aid was an indispensable adjunct. She was in the position of a general who comes from his tent with a plan of battle all mapped out, and finds that his army has strolled off somewhere and left him. Little wonder that, as she paced the Yew Alley, there was a frown on Miss Peavey’s fair forehead.
The Yew Alley, as Lord Emsworth had indicated in his extremely interesting lecture to Mr Ralston McTodd at the Senior Conservative Club, contained among other noteworthy features certain yews which rose in solid blocks with rounded roof and stemless mushroom finials, the majority possessing arched recesses, forming arbors. As Miss Peavey was passing one of these, a voice suddenly addressed her.
‘Hey!’
Miss Peavey started violently.
‘Anyone about?’
A damp face with twigs sticking to it was protruding from a near-by yew. It rolled its eyes in an ineffectual effort to see round the corner.
Miss Peavey drew nearer, breathing heavily. The question as to the whereabouts of her wandering boy was solved; but the abruptness of his return had caused her to bite her tongue; and joy, as she confronted him, was blended with other emotions.
‘You dish-faced gazooni!’ she exclaimed heatedly, her voice trembling with a sense of ill-usage, ‘where do you get that stuff, hiding in trees, and barking a girl’s head off?’
‘Sorry, Liz. I . . .’
And where,’ proceeded Miss Peavey, ventilating another grievance, ‘have you been all this darned time? Gosh-dingit, you leave me a coupla days back saying you’re going to stick up this bozo that calls himself McTodd with a gat and make him get you into the house, and that’s the last I see of you. What’s the big idea?’
‘It’s all right, Liz. He did get me into the house. I’m his valet. That’s why I couldn’t get at you before. The way the help has to keep itself to itself in this joint, we might as well have been in different counties. If I hadn’t happened to see you snooping off by yourself this morning . . .’
Miss Peavey’s keen mind grasped the position of affairs.
‘All right, all right,’ she interrupted, ever impatient of long speeches from others. ‘I understand. Well, this is good, Ed. It couldn’t have worked out better. I’ve got a scheme all doped out, and now you’re here we can get busy.’
‘A scheme?’
‘A pippin,’ assented Miss Peavey.
‘It’ll need to be,’ said Mr Cootes, on whom the events of the last few days had caused pessimism to set its seal. ‘I tell you that McTodd gook is smooth. He somehow,’ said Mr Cootes prudently, for he feared harsh criticism from his lady-love should he reveal the whole truth, ‘he somehow got wise to the notion that, as I was his valet, I could go and snoop round in his room, where he’d be wanting to hide the stuff if he ever got it, and now he’s gone and got them to let him have a kind of shack in the woods.’
‘H’m!’ said Miss Peavey. ‘Well,’ she resumed after a thoughtful pause, ‘I’m not worrying about him. Let him go and roost in the woods all he wants to. I’ve got a scheme all ready, and it’s gilt-edged. And, unless you ball up your end of it, Ed, it can’t fail to drag home the gravy.’
Am I in it?’
‘You bet you’re in it. I can’t work it without you. That’s what’s been making me so darned mad when you didn’t show up all this time.’
‘Spill it, Liz,’ said Mr Cootes humbly. As always in the presence of this dynamic woman, he was suffering from an inferiority complex. From the very start of their combined activities she had been the brains of the firm, he merely the instrument to carry into effect the plans she dictated.
Miss Peavey glanced swiftly up and down the Yew Alley. It was still the same peaceful, lonely spot. She turned to Mr Cootes again, and spoke with brisk decision.
‘Now, listen, Ed, and get this straight, because maybe I shan’t have another chance of talking to you.’
‘I’m listening,’ said Mr Cootes obsequiously.
‘Well, to begin with, now that the house is full, Her Nibs is wearing that necklace every night. And you can take it from me, Ed, that you want to put on your smoked glasses before you look at it. It’s a lalapaloosa.’
‘As good as that?’
Ask me! You don’t know the half of it.’
‘Where does she keep it, Liz? Have you found that out?’ asked Mr Cootes, a gleam of optimism playing across his sad face for an instant.
‘No, I haven’t. And I don’t want to. I’ve not got time to waste monkeying about with safes and maybe having the whole bunch pile on the back of my neck. I believe in getting things easy. Well, to-night this bimbo that calls himself McTodd is going to give a reading of his poems in the big drawing-room. You know where that is?’
‘I can find out.’
And you better had find out,’ said Miss Peavey vehemently. And before to-night at that. Well, there you are. Do you begin to get wise?’
Mr Cootes, his head protruding unhappily from the yew tree, would have given much to have been able to make the demanded claim to wisdom, for he knew of old the store his alert partner set upon quickness of intellect. He was compelled, however, to disturb the branches by shaking his head.
‘You always were pretty dumb,’ said Miss Peavey with scorn. ‘I’ll say that you’ve got good solid qualities, Ed – from the neck up. Why, I’m going to sit behind Lady Constance while that goof is shooting his fool head off, and I’m going to reach out and grab that necklace off of her. See?’
‘But, Liz’ – Mr Cootes diffidently summoned up courage to point out what appeared to him to be a flaw in the scheme – ‘if you start any strong-arm work in front of everybody like the way you say, won’t they . . . ?’
‘No, they won’t. And I’ll tell you why they won’t. They aren’t going to see me do it, because when I do it it’s going to be good and dark in that room. And it’s going to be dark because you’ll be somewheres out at the back of the house, wherever they keep the main electric-light works, turning the switch as hard as you can go. See? That’s your end of it, and pretty soft for you at that. All you have to do is to find out where the thing is and what you have to do to it to put out all the lights in the joint. I guess I can trust you not to bungle that?’
‘Liz,’ said Mr Cootes, and there was reverence in his voice, ‘you can do just that little t
hing. But what . . . ?’
‘All right, I know what you’re going to say. What happens after that, and how do I get away with the stuff? Well, the window’ll be open, and I’ll just get to it and fling the necklace out. See? There’ll be a big fuss going on in the room on account of the darkness and all that, and while everybody’s cutting up and what-the-helling, you’ll pick up your dogs and run round as quick as you can make it and pouch the thing. I guess it won’t be hard for you to locate it. The window’s just over the terrace, all smooth turf, and it isn’t real dark nights now, and you ought to have plenty of time to hunt around before they can get the lights going again. . . . Well, what do you think of it?’
There was a brief silence.
‘Liz,’ said Mr Cootes at length.
‘Is it or is it not,’ demanded Miss Peavey, ‘a ball of fire?’
‘Liz,’ said Mr Cootes, and his voice was husky with such awe as some young officer of Napoleon’s staff might have felt on hearing the details of the latest plan of campaign, ‘Liz, I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again. When it comes to the smooth stuff, old girl, you’re the oyster’s eye-tooth!’
And, reaching out an arm from the recesses of the yew, he took Miss Peavey’s hand in his and gave it a tender squeeze. A dreamy look came into the poetess’s fine eyes, and she giggled a little. Dumb-bell though he was, she loved this man.
§ 2
‘Mr Baxter!’
‘Yes, Miss Halliday?’
The Brains of Blandings looked abstractedly up from his desk. It was only some half-hour since luncheon had finished, but already he was in the library surrounded by large books like a sea-beast among rocks. Most of his time was spent in the library when the castle was full of guests, for his lofty mind was ill-attuned to the frivolous babblings of Society butterflies.
‘I wonder if you could spare me this afternoon?’ said Eve.
Baxter directed the glare of his spectacles upon her inquisi-torially.
‘The whole afternoon?’