Service with a Smile (26 page)

Mr Schoonmaker
seemed to be experiencing some difficulty in sharing his joyous enthusiasm.

‘I call
it a disaster. Connie thinks so, too — that’s why she was in floods of tears.
And she says you’re responsible.’

‘Who,
me?’ said Lord Ickenham, amazed, not knowing that the copyright in those words
was held by George Cyril Wellbeloved. ‘What had I got to do with it?’

‘You
brought him here.’

‘Merely
because I thought he looked a little peaked and needed a breath of country air.
Honestly, Jimmy,’ said Lord Ickenham, speaking rather severely, ‘I don’t see
what you’re beefing about. If I hadn’t brought him here, he wouldn’t have
eloped with Myra, thus causing Connie to burst into floods of tears, thus
causing you to lose your diffidence and take her hand gently in yours and say “Connie,
darling.” If it hadn’t been for these outside stimuli, you would still be
calling her Lady Constance and wincing like a salted snail every time you saw
her profile. You ought to be thanking me on bended knee, unless the passage of
time has made you stiff in the joints. What’s your objection to Bill Bailey?’

‘Connie
says he hasn’t a cent to his name.’

‘Well,
you’ve enough for all. Haven’t you ever heard of sharing the wealth?’

‘I don’t
like Myra marrying a curate.’

‘The
very husband you should have wished her. The one thing a financier wants is a
clergyman in the family. What happens next time the Senate Commission has you
on the carpet and starts a probe? You say “As proof of my respectability,
gentlemen, I may mention that my daughter is married to a curate.’ You don’t
find curates marrying into a man’s family if there’s anything fishy about him,”
and they look silly and apologize. And there’s another thing.’

‘Eh?’ said
Mr Schoonmaker, who had been musing.

‘I said
there was another thing you ought to bear in mind.’ Have you considered what
would have happened if Myra had married the Duke of Dunstable’s nephew? You
would never have got Dunstable out of your hair. A Christmas present would have
been expected yearly. You would have had to lunch with him, dine with him, be
constantly in his society. He would have come over to New York to spend long
visits with you. The children, if any, would have had to learn to call him “Uncle
Alaric”. I think you’ve been extraordinarily lucky, Jimmy. Imagine a life with
Dunstable like a sort of Siamese twin.’

It is
possible that Mr Schoonmaker would have had much to say in reply to this, for
Lord Ickenham’s reasoning, though shrewd, had not wholly convinced him that
everything was for the best in the best of all possible worlds, but at this
moment the air was rent by a stentorian ‘Hoy!’ and they perceived that the Duke
of Dunstable was in their midst.

‘Oh,
you’re
here?’ said the Duke, pausing in the doorway and giving Mr Schoonmaker a
nasty look.

Mr Schoonmaker,
returning the nasty look with accrued interest, said he was.

‘I
hoped you’d be alone, Ickenham.’

‘Jimmy
was just going, weren’t you, Jimmy? This is your busy day, isn’t it? A thousand
things to attend to. So what,’ said Lord Ickenham, as the door closed, ‘can I
do for you, Dunstable?’

The
Duke jerked a thumb at the door.’

‘Has he
been trying to touch you?’

‘Oh,
no. We were just talking.”

‘Oh?’

The
Duke transferred his gaze to the room, regarding it with dislike and
disapproval. It had unpleasant memories for him. He took in the desk, the
typewriter, the recording machine and the chairs with a smouldering eye. It
was in this interior set, he could not but remember, that that woman with the
spectacles had so nearly deprived him of five hundred pounds.

‘What
you doing here?’ he asked, as if revolted to find Lord Ickenham in such
surroundings.

‘In
Miss Briggs’ office? I had a letter from her this morning asking me to look in
and attend to a number of things on her behalf. She left, if you recall, in
rather a hurry.’

‘Why
did she write to you?’

‘I
think she felt that I was her only friend at Blandings Castle.”

‘You a
friend of hers?’

‘We
became reasonably matey.’

‘Then I’d
advise you to choose your friends more carefully, that’s what I’d advise you. Matey,
indeed!’

‘You
don’t like the divine Briggs?’

‘Blasted
female.’

‘Ah,
well,’ said Lord Ickenham tolerantly, ‘we all have our faults. Even I have been
criticized at times. But you were going to tell me what you wanted to see me
about.”

The
Duke, who had been scowling at the typewriter, as if daring it to start
something, became more composed. A curious gurgling noise suggested that he had
chuckled.

‘Oh,
that? I just came to say that everything’s all right.’

‘Splendid.
What’s all right?’

‘About
the pipsqueak.’

‘What
pipsqueak would that be?’

‘The Tiddlypush
girl. She took the cheque.”

‘She
did?’

‘In
full settlement.”

‘Well,
that’s wonderful news.’

‘So
there won’t be any breach of promise case. She’s gone to London.”

‘Yes, I
saw her for a moment before she left. You bought her off, did you?’

‘That’s
what I did. “Here you are,” I said, and I dangled the cheque in front of her.
She didn’t hesitate. Grabbed at it like a seal going after a slice of fish. I
knew she would. They can’t resist the cash. I’ve just been telling Archibald
that she has … what’s that expression you used when you told me he’d been
sacked from that job of his?’

‘Handed
him his hat?’

‘That’s
right. I told him she’s handed him his hat.’

‘Was he
very distressed?’

‘Didn’t
seem to be.’

‘Easy
come, easy go, he probably said to himself.”

‘I
shouldn’t wonder. He’s gone to London, too.’

‘On the
same train as Miss Schoonmaker?’

‘No, he
went in that little car of his. Said he was going to take a friend to dinner. Fellow
of the name of Rigby.’

‘Ah,
yes, he has spoken to me of his friend Rigby. I believe they are very fond of
each other.’

‘Chap
must be a silly ass if he’s fond of a poop like Archibald.”

‘Oh, we
all have our likes and dislikes. You’ll be leaving soon yourself, I take it?’

‘Me?
Why?’

‘Well,
it won’t be very comfortable for you here now that Emsworth knows it was you
who engaged Miss Briggs to steal his pig. Creates a strain, that sort of thing.
Tension. Awkward silences.’

The
Duke gaped. The shock had been severe. If a meteorite had entered through the
open window and struck him behind one of his rather prominent ears, he might
have been more taken aback, but not very much so. When he was able to speak,
which was not immediately, he said:

‘What …
what you talking about?’

‘Isn’t
it true?’

‘Of course
it’s not true.”

Lord
Ickenham clicked his tongue reprovingly.’

‘My
dear Dunstable, I am always a great advocate of stout denial, but I’m afraid it
is useless here. Emsworth has had the whole story from George Cyril Wellbeloved.’

The
Duke was still feeling far from at his best, but he rallied sufficiently to say
‘Pooh!’

‘Who’s
going to believe him?’

‘His
testimony is supported by Miss Briggs.’

‘Who’s
going to believe her?’

‘Everybody,
I should say. Certainly Emsworth, for one, after he hears this record.’

‘Eh?’

‘I told
you I had received a letter from the divine Briggs this morning. In it she
asked me to turn on her tape recording machine … this is the tape recording machine
.’ . . because, she said, that would give the old bounder …I fancy she meant you
.’ .’ . something to think about. I will now do so,’ said Lord Ickenham. He
pressed the button, and a voice filled the room.

‘I,
Alaric, Duke of Dunstable, hereby make a solemn promise, to you, Lavender
Briggs ….’

The
Duke sat down abruptly. His jaw had fallen, and he seemed suddenly to have
become as boneless as Lord Emsworth.

‘… that
if you steal Lord Emsworth’s pig, Empress of Blandings, and deliver it to my
home in Wiltshire, I will pay you five hundred pounds.’

‘That,’
said Lord Ickenham, ‘is you in conference with La Briggs. She naturally took
the precaution of having this instrument working at the time. It’s always
safer with these verbal agreements. Well, I don’t know what view you take of
the situation, but it seems to me that you and Emsworth are like two cowboys in
the Malemute Saloon who have got the drop on each other simultaneously. You
have young George’s film, he has this Scotch tape or whatever it’s called. I
suggest a fair exchange. Or would you rather I brought Emsworth in here and
played this recording to him? It’s not a thing I would recommend. One feels
that the consequences would be extremely unpleasant for you.’

The
Duke froze, appalled. The feller was right. Let this get about, and not only
would his name be a hissing and a byword, so that when he invited himself to
houses in the future, his host and hostess would hasten to put their valuables
away in a stout box and sit on the lid, but Emsworth would bring an action
against him for conspiracy or malice aforethought or whatever it was and mulct
him in substantial damages. With only the minimum of hesitation he thrust a
hand in his pocket and produced the spool which had never left his person since
little George had given it to him.

‘Here
you are, blast you!’

‘Oh,
thanks. Now everybody’s happy. Emsworth has his pig, Myra her Bill, Archie his
Millicent Rigby.’

The
Duke started.

‘His
what
Rigby?’

‘Oh
yes, I should have told you that, shouldn’t I? He’s gone to London to marry a
very nice girl called Millicent Rigby. at least he says she’s very nice, and he
probably knows. By the way, that reminds me. There’s one thing I wish you would
clear up for me before you go.’ Why was it that you were so anxious that Archie
shouldn’t marry Myra Schoonmaker? It has puzzled me from the first.’ She’s
charming, and apart from being charming she’s the heiress of one of the richest
men in America. Don’t you like heiresses?’

The
Duke’s moustache had become violently agitated. He was not normally
quick-witted, but he had begun to suspect that fishy things had been going on.
If this Ickenham had not been deliberately misleading him, he was very much
mistaken.

‘You
told me Schoonmaker was broke!’

‘Surely
not?’

‘You
said he touched you for a tenner.’

‘No,
no, I touched
him
for a tenner.’ That may be where you got confused.’
What would a man like James Schoonmaker be doing, borrowing money from people?
He’s a millionaire, so Bradstreet informs us.’

‘Who’s
Bradstreet?’

‘The
leading authority on millionaires. A sort of American Debrett. Bradstreet is
very definite on the subject of James Schoonmaker. Stinking rich is, I believe,
the expression it uses of him.’

The
Duke continued to bend his brain to the problem. He was more convinced than
ever that he had been deceived.

‘Then
why did she take that cheque?’

‘Ah,
that we shall never know.’ Just girlish high spirits, do you think?’

‘I’ll
give her girlish high spirits!’

‘I’ll
tell you a possible solution that has occurred to me. She knew that Archie was
planning to get married and needed money, so being a kind-hearted girl she took
the cheque and endorsed it over to him.’ Sort of a wedding present from you.
Where are you going?’

The
Duke had lumbered to the door. He paused with a hand on the handle, regarded
Lord Ickenham balefully.

‘I’ll
tell you where I’m going. I’m going to get to the telephone and stop that
cheque.’

Lord
Ickenham shook his head.’

‘I
wouldn’t. I still have the tape, remember. I was just about to give it to you,
but if you are going to stop cheques, I shall have to make an agonizing
reappraisal.’

There
was a silence, as far as silence was possible in a small room where the Duke
was puffing at his moustache.

‘You
shall have it tomorrow night after the cheque has gone through. It’s not that I
don’t trust you, Dunstable, ‘it’s simply that I don’t trust you.’

The
Duke breathed stertorously. He did not like many people, but he searched his
mind in vain for somebody he disliked as much as he was disliking his present
companion.

‘Ickenham,’
he said, ‘you are a low cad!’

‘Now
you’re just trying to be nice. I bet you say that to all the boys,’ said Lord
Ickenham, and rising from his chair he went off to tell Lord Emsworth that
though he had lost Lavender Briggs and was losing a sister and the Duke of
Dunstable, he would be gaining a pig which for three years in succession had
won the silver medal in the Fat Pip class at the Shropshire Agricultural Show.