Pigs Have Wings (5 page)

‘Why, Sir Gregory, you are eating nothing. Don’t you like muffins?’

This time the sound that emerged from the Baronet, seeming to come up from the very soles of his feet, was nothing so mild as a sigh. It was unmistakably a groan, the sort of groan that might have been wrung from the reluctant lips of a Red Indian at the stake.

‘I love ’em,’ he said in a low voice that shook with feeling. ‘But Gloria says I’ve got to cut them out.’

‘Gloria? I don’t understand.’

Until this moment, like the Spartan boy who allowed the fox to gnaw his vitals without mentioning it to a soul, Sir Gregory had kept his tragedy a secret from the world. Rightly or wrongly, he thought it made a fellow look such an ass. Chaps, he felt, chaps being what they were, would, if informed that he was mortifying the flesh at the whim of a woman, be inclined to laugh their silly heads off at a chap. But now the urge to confide in this sympathetic friend was too strong for him.

‘She says I’m too fat, and if I don’t reduce a bit the engagement’s off. She says she positively refuses to stand at the altar rails with someone who looks like … well, she was definitely outspoken about it. You know what girls are, especially these athletic girls who dash about tennis courts shouting “Forty love” and all that. They’re all for the lean, keen, trained-to-the-last-ounce stuff. Dam’ silly, of course, the whole thing. I put it to her straight. I said: “Dash it, old girl, what’s all this about? I’m not proposing to enter for the six-day bicycle race or something,” but nothing would move her. She said unless I ceased to resemble a captive balloon poised for its flight into the clouds, those wedding bells would not ring out. She said she was as fond of a laugh as the next girl, but that there were limits. I quote her verbatim.’

‘Good gracious!’

Now that he had started to pour out his soul, Sir Gregory found it coming easier. His hostess was gazing at him wide-eyed, as if swearing, in faith, ’twas strange, ’twas passing strange, ’twas pitiful, ’twas wondrous pitiful, and there came upon him something of the easy fluency which had enabled Othello on a similar occasion to make such a good story of his misfortunes.

‘So, the upshot is no butter, no sugar, no bread, no alcohol, no soups, no sauces, and I’m not allowed to swallow so much as a single potato. And that’s not all. She’s mapped out a whole chart of bally exercises for me. Up in the morning. Breathe deeply. Touch the toes. Light breakfast. Brisk walk. Chop down a tree or two. Light lunch. Another brisk walk. That’s the one I’m taking now, and how I’m to get home under my own steam with this blister … Ah well,’ said Sir Gregory, summoning all his manhood to his aid, ‘I mustn’t bore you with all this stuff. Merely observing that I am going through hell, I will now withdraw. No, no more tea, thanks. She specifies a single cup.’

He rose heavily and made his way across the terrace. As he walked, he was thinking of that new pig of his. Pretty dashed ironical, he was feeling, that whereas he was under these strict orders to get thinner and thinner, Queen of Matchingham was encouraged – egged on with word and gesture, by gad – to get fatter and fatter. Why should there be one law for pigs and another for Baronets?

Musing thus, he had reached the top of the drive and was congratulating himself on the fact that from there onwards for the next three-quarters of a mile it would be all downhill, when he heard his name called in a sharp, imperious voice and, turning, perceived the Hon. Galahad Threepwood.

Gally was looking cold and stern.

‘A word with you, young Parsloe,’ he said.

Sir Gregory’s full height was six foot one. He drew himself to it. Even in the days when they had been lads about town together, he had never like Gally Threepwood, and more recent association with him had done nothing to inaugurate a beautiful friendship.

‘I have no desire to speak to you, my good man,’ he said.

Gally’s monocle flashed fire.

‘Oh, you haven’t? Well, I’m dashed well going to speak to
you
. Parsloe, it was the raw work of slippery customers of your kidney that led to the destruction of the cities of the plain and the decline and fall of the Roman Empire. What’s all this about your new pig?’

‘What about it?’

‘Clarence says you imported it from Kent.’

‘Well?’

‘A low trick.’

‘Perfectly legitimate. Show me the rule that says I mustn’t.’

‘There are higher things than rules, young Parsloe. There is an ethical code.’

‘A what?’

‘Yes, I thought you wouldn’t know what that meant. Let it pass. You are really proposing to enter this porker of yours in the Fat Pigs class at the Agricultural Show?’

‘I have already done so.’

‘I see. And now, no doubt, your subtle brain is weaving plots and schemes. You’re getting ready to start the funny business, just as you used to do in the old days.’

‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’

Gally gave a short, hard, unpleasant laugh.

‘He doesn’t know what I’m talking about! I will ask you, Parsloe, to throw your mind back a number of years to a certain evening at the Black Footman public-house in Gossiter Street. You and I were young then, and in the exuberance of youth I had matched my dog Towser against your dog Banjo for a substantial sum in a rat contest. And when the rats were brought on and all should have been bustle and activity on Towser’s part, where was he? Dozing in a corner with his stomach bulging like an alderman’s. I whistled him … called him … Towser, Towser … No good. Fast asleep. And why? Because you had drawn him aside just before the starting bell was due to go and filled him up past the Plimsoll mark with steak and onions, thus rendering his interest in rats negligible and enabling your Banjo to win by default.’

‘I deny it!’

‘It’s no good standing there saying “I deny it”. I am perfectly aware that I am not able to prove it, but you and I know that that is what happened. Somebody had inserted steak and onions in that dog – I sniffed his breath, and it was like opening the door of a Soho chop-house on a summer night – and the verdict of History will be that it was you. You were the world’s worst twister in the old days, a man who would stick at nothing to gain his evil ends. And … now I approach the nub … you still are. Even as we stand here, you are asking yourself “How can I nobble the Empress and leave the field clear for my entry?” Oh, yes, you are. I remember saying to Clarence once, “Clarence,” I said, “I have known young Parsloe for thirty years and I solemnly state that if his grandmother was entered in a competition for fat pigs and his commitments made it desirable for him to get her out of the way, he would dope her bran mash and acorns without a moment’s hesitation.” Well, let me tell you that that is a game two can play at. Your every move will be met with ruthless reprisals. You try to nobble our pig, and we’ll nobble yours. One poisoned potato in the Empress’s dinner pail, and there will be six poisoned potatoes in Queen of Matchingham’s. That is all I wanted to say. A very hearty good afternoon to you, Parsloe,’ said Gally, turning on his heel.

Sir Gregory, who had been gulping, recovered speech.

‘Hey!’

‘Well?’

‘Come back!’

‘Who, me? Certainly not. I have no desire to speak to you, my good man,’ said Gally, and continued his progress in the direction of the terrace.

Lady Constance was dipping her aristocratic nose in her tea cup as he approached the table. At the sound of his footsteps, she looked up.

‘Oh, it’s you?’ she said, and her tone made it abundantly clear that no sudden gush of affection had caused her to alter the opinion she had so long held that this brother of hers was a blot on the Blandings scene. ‘I thought it was Sir Gregory. Have you seen Sir Gregory?’

‘The man Parsloe? Yes. He has just slunk off.’

‘What do you mean, slunk off?’

‘I mean slunk off.’

‘If you are referring to the fact that Sir Gregory was limping, he has a blister on his foot. There was something I was going to tell him. I must wait and telephone when he gets home. Do you want tea?’

‘Never touch the muck.’

‘Then what do you want?’

Gally screwed his monocle more firmly into his eye.

‘To talk to you, Constance,’ he said. ‘To talk to you very seriously about this Simmons disaster, this incompetent ex-Roedean hockey-knocker whom you have foisted upon Clarence in the capacity of pig girl. Clarence and I have been discussing it, and we are in complete agreement that Simmons must be given the old heave-ho. The time has come to take her by the seat of her breeches and cast her into outer darkness where there is wailing and gnashing of teeth. Good God, are you prepared to stand before the bar of world opinion as the woman who, by putting up with your bally Simmonses, jeopardized the Empress’s chance of performing the unheard of feat of winning the Fat Pigs medal for the third year in succession? A pig man, and the finest pig man money can procure, must place his hand upon the tiller in her stead. No argument, Constance. This is final.’

It is always a disturbing thing to be threatened. In an unpublished story by Gerald Vail there is a scene where a character with a criminal face sidles up to the hero as he pauses on Broadway to light a cigarette and hisses in his ear ‘Say, listen, youse! Youse’ll get out of this town if youse knows what’s good for youse!’, and the hero realizing from this that Louis The Lip’s Black Moustache gang have become aware of the investigations he has been making into the bumping off of the man in the green fedora, draws in his breath sharply and, though a most intrepid young man, is conscious of a distinct chill down the spine.

Precisely the same sort of chill was cooling off the spine of Sir Gregory Parsloe as he limped back to Matchingham Hall. His encounter with Gally had shaken him. He was not an imaginative man, but a man did not have to be very imaginative to read into Gally’s words the threat of unilateral action against Queen of Matchingham. True, the fellow had spoken of ‘reprisals’, as though to imply that hostilities would not be initiated by the Blandings Castle gang, but Sir Gregory’s mental retort to this was ‘Reprisals my left eyeball’. The Galahad Threepwood type of man does not wait politely for the enemy to make the first move. It acts, and acts swiftly and without warning, and the only thing to do is to mobilize your defences and be prepared.

His first act, accordingly, on arriving at Matchingham Hall, sinking into an arm chair and taking off his shoes, was to ring the bell and desire his butler to inform George Cyril Wellbeloved, his pig man, that his presence was desired for a conference. And in due season a rich smell of pig came floating in, closely followed by George Cyril in person.

George Cyril Wellbeloved was a long, lean, red-haired man with strabismus in the left eye. This rendered his left eye rather unpleasant to look at, and as even the right eye was nothing to cause lovers of the beautiful to turn handsprings, one can readily understand why Sir Gregory, during the chat which followed, preferred to avert his gaze as much as possible.

But, after all, what is beauty? Skin deep, you might say. His O. C. Pigs had a mouth like a halibut’s, a broken nose acquired during a political discussion at the Emsworth Arms and lots of mud all over him, but when you are engaging a pig man, Sir Gregory felt, you don’t want a sort of male Miss America, you want someone who knows about pigs. And what George Cyril Wellbeloved did not know about pigs could have been written on one of Maudie Montrose’s picture postcards.

In terse, nervous English Sir Gregory related the substance of his interview with Gally, stressing that bit about the poisoned potatoes, and George Cyril listened with a gravity which became him well.

‘So there you are,’ said Sir Gregory, having completed his tale. ‘What do you make of it?’

George Cyril Wellbeloved was a man who went in for a certain verbal polish in his conversation.

‘To speak expleasantly, sir,’ he said, ‘I think the old — means to do the dirty on us.’

It would perhaps have been more fitting had Sir Gregory at this point said ‘Come, come, my man, be more careful with your language,’ but the noun — expressed so exactly what he himself was thinking of the Hon. Galahad Threepwood that he could not bring himself to chide and rebuke. As a matter of fact, though — is admittedly strong stuff, he had gone even farther than his companion, labelling Gally in his mind as a****** and a!!!!!!.

‘Precisely what I think myself,’ he agreed. ‘From now on, Wellbeloved, ceaseless vigilance.’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘We cannot afford to relax for an instant.’

‘No, sir. The Hun is at the gate.’

‘The what’s where?’

‘The Hun, sir. At the gate, sir. Or putting it another way,’ said George Cyril Wellbeloved, who had attended Sunday School in Market Blandings as a boy and still retained a smattering of what he had learned in the days when he was trailing clouds of glory, ‘See the troops of Midian prowl and prowl around.’

Sir Gregory thought this over.

‘Yes. Yes, I see what you mean. Troops of Midian, yes. Nasty fellers. You did say Midian?’

‘Yes, sir. Midian, troops of. Christian, dost thou hear them on the holy ground? Christian, up and smite them!’

‘Quite. Yes. Precisely. Just what I was about to suggest myself. You will need a shot-gun. Have you a shot-gun?’

‘No, sir.’

‘I will give you one. Keep it beside you, never let it out of your hands, and if the occasion arises, use it. Mind you, I am not saying commit a murder and render yourself liable to the extreme penalty of the law, but if one of these nights some bally bounder – I name no names – comes sneaking around Queen of Matchingham’s sty, there’s nothing to prevent you giving him a dashed good peppering in the seat of the pants.’

‘Nothing whatever, sir,’ assented George Cyril Wellbeloved cordially.

‘If he asks for it, let him have it.’

‘I will, sir. With both barrels.’

The conference had gone with such a swing up to this point, overlord and vassal being so patently two minds with but a single thought, that it was a pity that Sir Gregory should now have struck a jarring note. A sudden idea had occurred to him, and he gave it utterance with all the relish of a man whose betrothed has put him on a strict teetotal regimen. Misery loves company.