‘Your stepdaughter Phyllis.’
‘Do you know her?’
‘She was my best friend at school. I had tea with her just before I came to the castle.’
‘Extraordinary!’ said Mr Keeble.
A customer in quest of a shave thrust himself between them and went into the shop. They moved away a few paces.
‘Of course if you say it is none of my business . . .’
‘My dear young lady . . .’
‘Well, it is my business, because she’s my friend,’ said Eve firmly. ‘Mr Keeble, Phyllis told me she had written to you about buying that farm. Why don’t you help her?’
The afternoon was warm, but not warm enough to account for the moistness of Mr Keeble’s brow. He drew out a large handkerchief and mopped his forehead. A hunted look was in his eyes. The hand which was not occupied with the handkerchief had sought his pocket and was busy rattling keys.
‘I want to help her. I would do anything in the world to help her.’
‘Then why don’t you?’
‘I – I am curiously situated.’
‘Yes, Phyllis told me something about that. I can see that it is a difficult position for you. But, Mr Keeble, surely, surely if you can manage to give Freddie Threepwood two thousand pounds to start a bookmaker’s business . . .’
Her words were cut short by a strangled cry from her companion. Sheer panic was in his eyes now, and in his heart an overwhelming regret that he had ever been fool enough to dabble in crime in the company of a mere animated talking-machine like his nephew Freddie. This girl knew! And if she knew, how many others knew? The young imbecile had probably babbled his hideous secret into the ears of every human being in the place who would listen to him.
‘He told you!’ he stammered. ‘He t-told you!’
‘Yes. Just now.’
‘Goosh!’ muttered Mr Keeble brokenly.
Eve stared at him in surprise. She could not understand this emotion. The handkerchief, after a busy session, was lowered now, and he was looking at her imploringly.
‘You haven’t told anyone?’ he croaked hoarsely.
‘Of course not. I said I had only heard of it just now.’
‘You wouldn’t tell anyone?’
‘Why should I?’
Mr Keeble’s breath, which had seemed to him for a moment gone for ever, began to return timidly. Relief for a space held him dumb. What nonsense, he reflected, these newspapers and people talked about the modern girl. It was this very broad-mindedness of hers, to which they objected so absurdly, that made her a creature of such charm. She might behave in certain ways in a fashion that would have shocked her grandmother, but how comforting it was to find her calm and unmoved in the contemplation of another’s crime. His heart warmed to Eve.
‘You’re wonderful!’ he said.
‘What do you mean?’
‘Of course,’ argued Mr Keeble, ‘it isn’t really stealing.’
‘What!’
‘I shall buy my wife another necklace.’
‘You will – what?’
‘So everything will be all right. Constance will be perfectly happy, and Phyllis will have her money, and . . .’
Something in Eve’s astonished gaze seemed to smite Mr Keeble.
‘Don’t you know?’ he broke off.
‘Know? Know what?’
Mr Keeble perceived that he had wronged Freddie. The young ass had been a fool even to mention the money to this girl, but he had at least, it seemed, stopped short of disclosing the entire plot. An oyster-like reserve came upon him.
‘Nothing, nothing,’ he said hastily. ‘Forget what I was going to say. Well, I must be going, I must be going.’
Eve clutched wildly at his retreating sleeve. Unintelligible though his words had been, one sentence had come home to her, the one about Phyllis having her money. It was no time for half-measures. She grabbed him.
‘Mr Keeble,’ she cried urgently. ‘I don’t know what you mean, but you were just going to say something which sounded . . . Mr Keeble, do trust me. I’m Phyllis’s best friend, and if you’ve thought out any way of helping her I wish you would tell me. . . . You must tell me. I might be able to help . . .’
Mr Keeble, as she began her broken speech, had been endeavouring with deprecatory tugs to disengage his coat from her grasp. But now he ceased to struggle. Those doubts of Freddie’s efficiency, which had troubled him in Jno. Banks’s chair, still lingered. His opinion that Freddie was but a broken reed had not changed. Indeed, it had grown. He looked at Eve. He looked at her searchingly. Into her pleading eyes he directed a stare that sought to probe her soul, and saw there honesty, sympathy, and – better still – intelligence. He might have stood and gazed into Freddie’s fishy eyes for weeks without discovering a tithe of such intelligence. His mind was made up. This girl was an ally. A girl of dash and vigour. A girl worth a thousand Freddies – not, however, reflected Mr Keeble, that that was saying much. He hesitated no longer.
‘It’s like this,’ said Mr Keeble.
§ 4
The information, authoritatively conveyed to him during breakfast by Lady Constance, that he was scheduled that night to read select passages from Ralston McTodd’s Songs of Squalor to the entire house-party assembled in the big drawing-room, had come as a complete surprise to Psmith, and to his fellow-guests – such of them as were young and of the soulless sex – as a shock from which they found it hard to rally. True, they had before now gathered in a vague sort of way that he was one of those literary fellows, but so normal and engaging had they found his whole manner and appearance that it had never occurred to them that he concealed anything up his sleeve as lethal as Songs of Squalor. Among these members of the younger set the consensus of opinion was that it was a bit thick, and that at such a price even the lavish hospitality of Blandings was scarcely worth having. Only those who had visited the castle before during the era of her ladyship’s flirtation with Art could have been described as resigned. These stout hearts argued that while this latest blister was probably going to be pretty bad, he could hardly be worse than the chappie who had lectured on Theosophy last November, and must almost of necessity be better than the bird who during the Shiffley race-week had attempted in a two-hour discourse to convert them to vegetarianism.
Psmith himself regarded the coming ordeal with equanimity. He was not one of those whom the prospect of speaking in public afflicts with nervous horror. He liked the sound of his own voice, and night, when it came, found him calmly cheerful. He listened contentedly to the murmur of the drawing-room filling up as he strolled on the star-lit terrace, smoking a last cigarette before duty called him elsewhere. And when, some few yards away, seated on the terrace wall gazing out into the velvet darkness, he perceived Eve Halliday, his sense of well-being became acute.
All day he had been conscious of a growing desire for another of those cosy chats with Eve which had done so much to make life agreeable for him during his stay at Blandings. Her prejudice – which he deplored – in favour of doing a certain amount of work to justify her salary, had kept him during the morning away from the little room off the library where she was wont to sit cataloguing books; and when he had gone there after lunch he had found it empty. As he approached her now, he was thinking pleasantly of all those delightful walks, those excellent driftings on the lake, and those cheery conversations which had gone to cement his conviction that of all possible girls she was the only possible one. It seemed to him that in addition to being beautiful she brought out all that was best in him of intellect and soul. That is to say, she let him talk oftener and longer than any girl he had ever known.
It struck him as a little curious that she made no move to greet him. She remained apparently unaware of his approach. And yet the summer night was not of such density as to hide him from view – and, even if she could not see him, she must undoubtedly have heard him; for only a moment before he had tripped with some violence over a large flower-pot, one of a row of sixteen which Ang
us McAllister, doubtless for some good purpose, had placed in the fairway that afternoon.
‘A pleasant night,’ he said, seating himself gracefully beside her on the wall.
She turned her head for a brief instant, and, having turned it, looked away again.
‘Yes,’ she said.
Her manner was not effusive, but Psmith persevered.
‘The stars,’ he proceeded, indicating them with a kindly yet not patronising wave of the hand. ‘Bright, twinkling, and – if I may say so – rather neatly arranged. When I was a mere lad, someone whose name I cannot recollect taught me which was Orion. Also Mars, Venus, and Jupiter. This thoroughly useless chunk of knowledge has, I am happy to say, long since passed from my mind. However, I am in a position to state that that wiggly thing up there a little to the right is King Charles’s Wain.’
‘Yes?’
‘Yes, indeed, I assure you.’ It struck Psmith that Astronomy was not gripping his audience, so he tried Travel. ‘I hear,’ he said, ‘you went to Market Blandings this afternoon.’
‘Yes.’
‘An attractive settlement.’
‘Yes.’
There was a pause. Psmith removed his monocle and polished it thoughtfully. The summer night seemed to him to have taken on a touch of chill.
‘What I like about the English rural districts,’ he went on, ‘is that when the authorities have finished building a place they stop. Somewhere about the reign of Henry the Eighth, I imagine that the master-mason gave the final house a pat with his trowel and said, “Well, boys, that’s Market Blandings.” To which his assistants no doubt assented with many a hearty “Grammercy!” and “I’fackins!” these being expletives to which they were much addicted. And they went away and left it, and nobody has touched it since. And I, for one, thoroughly approve. I think it makes the place soothing. Don’t you?’
‘Yes.’
As far as the darkness would permit, Psmith subjected Eve to an inquiring glance through his monocle. This was a strange new mood in which he had found her. Hitherto, though she had always endeared herself to him by permitting him the major portion of the dialogue, they had usually split conversations on at least a seventy-five-twenty-five basis. And though it gratified Psmith to be allowed to deliver a monologue when talking with most people, he found Eve more companionable when in a slightly chattier vein.
‘Are you coming in to hear me read?’ he asked.
‘No.’
It was a change from ‘Yes,’ but that was the best that could be said of it. A good deal of discouragement was always required to damp Psmith, but he could not help feeling a slight diminution of buoyancy. However, he kept on trying.
‘You show your usual sterling good sense,’ he said approvingly. A scalier method of passing the scented summer night could hardly be hit upon.’ He abandoned the topic of the reading. It did not grip. That was manifest. It lacked appeal. ‘I went to Market Blandings this afternoon, too,’ he said. ‘Comrade Baxter informed me that you had gone thither, so I went after you. Not being able to find you, I turned in for half an hour at the local moving-picture palace. They were showing Episode Eleven of a serial. It concluded with the heroine, kidnapped by Indians, stretched on the sacrificial altar with the high-priest making passes at her with a knife. The hero meanwhile had started to climb a rather nasty precipice on his way to the rescue. The final picture was a close-up of his fingers slipping slowly off a rock. Episode Twelve next week.’
Eve looked out into the night without speaking.
‘I’m afraid it won’t end happily,’ said Psmith with a sigh. ‘I think he’ll save her.’
Eve turned on him with a menacing abruptness.
‘Shall I tell you why I went to Market Blandings this afternoon?’ she said.
‘Do,’ said Psmith cordially. ‘It is not for me to criticise, but as a matter of fact I was rather wondering when you were going to begin telling me all about your adventures. I have been monopolising the conversation.’
‘I went to meet Cynthia.’
Psmith’s monocle fell out of his eye and swung jerkily on its cord. He was not easily disconcerted, but this unexpected piece of information, coming on top of her peculiar manner, undoubtedly jarred him. He foresaw difficulties, and once again found himself thinking hard thoughts of this confounded female who kept bobbing up when least expected. How simple life would have been, he mused wistfully, had Ralston McTodd only had the good sense to remain a bachelor.
‘Oh, Cynthia?’ he said.
‘Yes, Cynthia,’ said Eve. The inconvenient Mrs McTodd possessed a Christian name admirably adapted for being hissed between clenched teeth, and Eve hissed it in this fashion now. It became evident to Psmith that the dear girl was in a condition of hardly suppressed fury and that trouble was coming his way. He braced himself to meet it.
‘Directly after we had that talk on the lake, the day I arrived,’ continued Eve tersely, ‘I wrote to Cynthia, telling her to come here at once and meet me at the “Emsworth Arms”
‘In the High Street,’ said Psmith. ‘I know it. Good beer.’
‘What!’
‘I said they sell good beer . . .’
‘Never mind about the beer,’ cried Eve.
‘No, no. I merely mentioned it in passing.’
‘At lunch to-day I got a letter from her saying that she would be there this afternoon. So I hurried off. I wanted—’ Eve laughed a hollow, mirthless laugh of a calibre which even the Hon. Freddie Threepwood would have found beyond his powers, and he was a specialist – ‘I wanted to try to bring you two together. I thought that if I could see her and have a talk with her that you might become reconciled.’
Psmith, though obsessed with a disquieting feeling that he was fighting in the last ditch, pulled himself together sufficiently to pat her hand as it lay beside him on the wall like some white and fragile flower.
‘That was like you,’ he murmured. ‘That was an act worthy of your great heart. But I fear that the rift between Cynthia and myself has reached such dimensions . . .’
Eve drew her hand away. She swung round, and the battery of her indignant gaze raked him furiously.
‘I saw Cynthia,’ she said, ‘and she told me that her husband was in Paris.’
‘Now, how in the world,’ said Psmith, struggling bravely but with a growing sense that they were coming over the plate a bit too fast for him, ‘how in the world did she get an idea like that?’
‘Do you really want to know?’
‘I do, indeed.’
‘Then I’ll tell you. She got the idea because she had had a letter from him, begging her to join him there. She had just finished telling me this, when I caught sight of you from the inn window, walking along the High Street. I pointed you out to Cynthia, and she said she had never seen you before in her life.’
‘Women soon forget,’ sighed Psmith.
‘The only excuse I can find for you,’ stormed Eve in a vibrant undertone necessitated by the fact that somebody had just emerged from the castle door and they no longer had the terrace to themselves, ‘is that you’re mad. When I think of all you said to me about poor Cynthia on the lake that afternoon, when I think of all the sympathy I wasted on you . . .’
‘Not wasted,’ corrected Psmith firmly. ‘It was by no means wasted. It made me love you – if possible – even more.’
Eve had supposed that she had embarked on a tirade which would last until she had worked off her indignation and felt composed again, but this extraordinary remark scattered the thread of her harangue so hopelessly that all she could do was to stare at him in amazed silence.
‘Womanly intuition,’ proceeded Psmith gravely, ‘will have told you long ere this that I love you with a fervour which with my poor vocabulary I cannot hope to express. True, as you are about to say, we have known each other but a short time, as time is measured. But what of that?’
Eve raised her eyebrows. Her voice was cold and hostile.
‘After what has happened,
’ she said, ‘I suppose I ought not to be surprised at finding you capable of anything, but – are you really choosing this moment to – to propose to me?’
‘To employ a favourite word of your own – yes.’
‘And you expect me to take you seriously?’
Assuredly not. I look upon the present disclosure purely as a sighting shot. You may regard it, if you will, as a kind of formal proclamation. I wish simply to go on record as an aspirant to your hand. I want you, if you will be so good, to make a note of my words and give them a thought from time to time. As Comrade Cootes – a young friend of mine whom you have not yet met – would say, “Chew on them.”’
‘I . . .’
‘It is possible,’ continued Psmith, ‘that black moments will come to you – for they come to all of us, even the sunniest – when you will find yourself saying, “Nobody loves me!” On such occasions I should like you to add, “No, I am wrong. There is somebody who loves me.” At first, it may be, that reflection will bring but scant balm. Gradually, however, as the days go by and we are constantly together and my nature unfolds itself before you like the petals of some timid flower beneath the rays of the sun . . .’
Eve’s eyes opened wider. She had supposed herself incapable of further astonishment, but she saw that she had been mistaken.
‘You surely aren’t dreaming of staying on here now? she gasped.
‘Most decidedly. Why not?’
‘But – but what is to prevent me telling everybody that you are not Mr McTodd?’
‘Your sweet, generous nature,’ said Psmith. Your big heart. Your angelic forbearance.’
‘Oh!’
‘Considering that I only came here as McTodd – and if you had seen him you would realise that he is not a person for whom the man of sensibility and refinement would lightly allow himself to be mistaken – 1 say considering that I only took on the job of understudy so as to get to the castle and be near you, I hardly think that you will be able to bring yourself to get me slung out. You must try to understand what happened. When Lord Emsworth started chatting with me under the impression that I was Comrade McTodd, I encouraged the mistake purely with the kindly intention of putting him at his ease. Even when he informed me that he was expecting me to come down to Blandings with him on the five o’clock train, it never occurred to me to do so. It was only when I saw you talking to him in the street and he revealed the fact that you were about to enjoy his hospitality that I decided that there was no other course open to the man of spirit. Consider! Twice that day you had passed out of my life – may I say taking the sunshine with you? – and I began to fear you might pass out of it for ever. So, loath though I was to commit the solecism of planting myself in this happy home under false pretences, I could see no other way. And here I am!’