Young Men in Spats (20 page)

It began to seem to Pongo that with any luck he might be able to keep the old blister pottering harmlessly about here till nightfall, when he could shoot a bit of dinner into him and put him to bed. And as Lord Ickenham had specifically stated that his wife, Pongo's Aunt Jane, had expressed her intention of scalping him with a blunt knife if he wasn't back at the Hall by lunchtime on the morrow, it really looked as if he might get through this visit without perpetrating a single major outrage on the public weal. It is rather interesting to note that as he thought this Pongo smiled, because it was the last time he smiled that day.

All this while, I should mention, Lord Ickenham had been stopping at intervals like a pointing dog and saying that it must have been just about here that he plugged the gardener in the trousers seat with his bow and arrow and that over there he had been sick after his first cigar, and he now paused in front of a villa which for some unknown reason called itself The Cedars. His face was tender and wistful.

‘On this very spot, if I am not mistaken,' he said, heaving a bit of a sigh, ‘on this very spot, fifty years ago come Lammas Eve, I . . . Oh, blast it!'

The concluding remark had been caused by the fact that the rain, which had held off until now, suddenly began to buzz down like a shower-bath. With no further words, they leaped into the porch of the villa and there took shelter, exchanging glances with a grey parrot which hung in a cage in the window.

Not that you could really call it shelter. They were protected from above all right, but the moisture was now falling with a sort of swivel action, whipping in through the sides of the porch and tickling them up properly. And it was just after Pongo had turned up his collar and was huddling against the door that the door gave way. From the fact that a female of general-servant aspect was standing there he gathered that his uncle must have rung the bell.

This female wore a long mackintosh, and Lord Ickenham beamed upon her with a fairish spot of suavity.

‘Good afternoon,' he said.

The female said good afternoon.

‘The Cedars?'

The female said yes, it was The Cedars.

‘Are the old folks at home?'

The female said there was nobody at home.

‘Ah? Well, never mind. I have come,' said Lord Ickenham, edging in, ‘to clip the parrot's claws. My assistant, Mr Walkinshaw, who applies the anaesthetic,' he added, indicating Pongo with a gesture.

‘Are you from the bird shop?'

‘A very happy guess.'

‘Nobody told me you were coming.'

‘They keep things from you, do they?' said Lord Ickenham, sympathetically. ‘Too bad.'

Continuing to edge, he had got into the parlour by now, Pongo following in a sort of dream and the female following Pongo.

‘Well, I suppose it's all right,' she said. ‘I was just going out. It's my afternoon.'

‘Go out,' said Lord Ickenham cordially. ‘By all means go out. We will leave everything in order.'

And presently the female, though still a bit on the dubious side, pushed off, and Lord Ickenham lit the gas-fire and drew a chair up.

‘So here we are, my boy,' he said. ‘A little tact, a little address, and here we are, snug and cosy and not catching our deaths of cold. You'll never go far wrong if you leave things to me.'

‘But, dash it, we can't stop here,' said Pongo.

Lord Ickenham raised his eyebrows.

‘Not stop here? Are you suggesting that we go out into that rain? My dear lad, you are not aware of the grave issues involved. This morning, as I was leaving home, I had a rather painful disagreement with your aunt. She said the weather was treacherous and wished me to take my woolly muffler. I replied that the weather was not treacherous and that I would be dashed if I took my woolly muffler. Eventually, by the exercise of an iron will, I had my way, and I ask you, my dear boy, to envisage what will happen if I return with a cold in the head. I shall sink to the level of a fifth-class power. Next time I came to London, it would be with a liver pad and a respirator. No! I shall remain here, toasting my toes at this really excellent fire. I had no idea that a gas-fire radiated such warmth. I feel all in a glow.'

So did Pongo. His brow was wet with honest sweat. He is reading for the Bar, and while he would be the first to admit that he hasn't yet got a complete toe-hold on the Law of Great
Britain he had a sort of notion that oiling into a perfect stranger's semi-detached villa on the pretext of pruning the parrot was a tort or misdemeanour, if not actual barratry or soccage in fief or something like that. And apart from the legal aspect of the matter there was the embarrassment of the thing. Nobody is more of a whale on correctness and not doing what's not done than Pongo, and the situation in which he now found himself caused him to chew the lower lip and, as I say, perspire a goodish deal.

‘But suppose the blighter who owns this ghastly house comes back?' he asked. ‘Talking of envisaging things, try that one over on your pianola.'

And, sure enough, as he spoke, the front door bell rang.

‘There!' said Pongo.

‘Don't say “There!” my boy,' said Lord Ickenham reprovingly. ‘It's the sort of thing your aunt says. I see no reason for alarm. Obviously this is some casual caller. A ratepayer would have used his latchkey. Glance cautiously out of the window and see if you can see anybody.'

‘It's a pink chap,' said Pongo, having done so.

‘How pink?'

‘Pretty pink.'

‘Well, there you are, then. I told you so. It can't be the big chief. The sort of fellows who own houses like this are pale and sallow, owing to working in offices all day. Go and see what he wants.'

‘You go and see what he wants.'

‘We'll both go and see what he wants,' said Lord Ickenham.

So they went and opened the front door, and there, as Pongo had said, was a pink chap. A small young pink chap, a bit moist about the shoulder-blades.

‘Pardon me,' said this pink chap, ‘is Mr Roddis in?'

‘No,' said Pongo.

‘Yes,' said Lord Ickenham. ‘Don't be silly, Douglas – of course I'm in. I am Mr Roddis,' he said to the pink chap. ‘This, such as he is, is my son Douglas. And you?'

‘Name of Robinson.'

‘What about it?'

‘My name's Robinson.'

‘Oh,
your
name's Robinson? Now we've got it straight. Delighted to see you, Mr Robinson. Come right in and take your boots off.'

They all trickled back to the parlour, Lord Ickenham pointing out objects of interest by the wayside to the chap, Pongo gulping for air a bit and trying to get himself abreast of this new twist in the scenario. His heart was becoming more and more bowed down with weight of woe. He hadn't liked being Mr Walkinshaw, the anaesthetist, and he didn't like it any better being Roddis Junior. In brief, he feared the worst. It was only too plain to him by now that his uncle had got it thoroughly up his nose and had settled down to one of his big afternoons, and he was asking himself, as he had so often asked himself before, what would the harvest be?

Arrived in the parlour, the pink chap proceeded to stand on one leg and look coy.

‘Is Julia here?' he asked, simpering a bit, Pongo says.

‘Is she?' said Lord Ickenham to Pongo.

‘No,' said Pongo.

‘No,' said Lord Ickenham.

‘She wired me she was coming here today.'

‘Ah, then we shall have a bridge four.'

The pink chap stood on the other leg.

‘I don't suppose you've ever met Julia. Bit of trouble in the family, she gave me to understand.'

‘It is often the way.'

‘The Julia I mean is your niece Julia Parker. Or, rather, your wife's niece Julia Parker.'

‘Any niece of my wife is a niece of mine,' said Lord Ickenham heartily. ‘We share and share alike.'

‘Julia and I want to get married.'

‘Well, go ahead.'

‘But they won't let us.'

‘Who won't?'

‘Her mother and father. And Uncle Charlie Parker and Uncle Henry Parker and the rest of them. They don't think I'm good enough.'

‘The morality of the modern young man is notoriously lax.'

‘Class enough, I mean. They're a haughty lot.'

‘What makes them haughty? Are they earls?'

‘No, they aren't earls.'

‘Then why the devil,' said Lord Ickenham warmly, ‘are they haughty? Only earls have a right to be haughty. Earls are hot stuff. When you get an earl, you've got something.'

‘Besides, we've had words. Me and her father. One thing led to another, and in the end I called him a perishing old— Coo!' said the pink chap, breaking off suddenly.

He had been standing by the window, and he now leaped lissomely into the middle of the room, causing Pongo, whose nervous system was by this time definitely down among the wines and spirits and who hadn't been expecting this
adagio
stuff, to bite his tongue with some severity.

‘They're on the doorstep! Julia and her mother and father. I didn't know they were all coming.'

‘You do not wish to meet them?'

‘No, I don't!'

‘Then duck behind the settee, Mr Robinson,' said Lord Ickenham, and the pink chap, weighing the advice and finding it good, did so. And as he disappeared the door bell rang.

Once more, Lord Ickenham led Pongo out into the hall.

‘I say!' said Pongo, and a close observer might have noted that he was quivering like an aspen.

‘Say on, my dear boy.'

‘I mean to say, what?'

‘What?'

‘You aren't going to let these bounders in, are you?'

‘Certainly,' said Lord Ickenham. ‘We Roddises keep open house. And as they are presumably aware that Mr Roddis has no son, I think we had better return to the old layout. You are the local vet, my boy, come to minister to my parrot. When I return, I should like to find you by the cage, staring at the bird in a scientific manner. Tap your teeth from time to time with a pencil and try to smell of iodoform. It will help to add conviction.'

So Pongo shifted back to the parrot's cage and stared so earnestly that it was only when a voice said ‘Well!' that he became aware that there was anybody in the room. Turning, he perceived that Hampshire's leading curse had come back, bringing the gang.

It consisted of a stern, thin, middle-aged woman, a middle-aged man and a girl.

You can generally accept Pongo's estimate of girls, and when he says that this one was a pippin one knows that he uses the term in its most exact sense. She was about nineteen, he thinks, and she wore a black beret, a dark-green leather coat, a shortish
tweed skirt, silk stockings and high-heeled shoes. Her eyes were large and lustrous and her face like a dewy rosebud at daybreak on a June morning. So Pongo tells me. Not that I suppose he has ever seen a rosebud at daybreak on a June morning, because it's generally as much as you can do to lug him out of bed in time for nine-thirty breakfast. Still, one gets the idea.

‘Well,' said the woman, ‘you don't know who I am, I'll be bound. I'm Laura's sister Connie. This is Claude, my husband. And this is my daughter Julia. Is Laura in?'

‘I regret to say, no,' said Lord Ickenham.

The woman was looking at him as if he didn't come up to her specifications.

‘I thought you were younger,' she said.

‘Younger than what?' said Lord Ickenham.

‘Younger than you are.'

‘You can't be younger than you are, worse luck,' said Lord Ickenham. ‘Still, one does one's best, and I am bound to say that of recent years I have made a pretty good go of it.'

The woman caught sight of Pongo, and he didn't seem to please her, either.

‘Who's that?'

‘The local vet, clustering round my parrot.'

‘I can't talk in front of him.'

‘It is quite all right,' Lord Ickenham assured her. ‘The poor fellow is stone deaf.'

And with an imperious gesture at Pongo, as much as to bid him stare less at girls and more at parrots, he got the company seated.

‘Now, then,' he said.

There was silence for a moment, then a sort of muffled sob, which Pongo thinks proceeded from the girl. He couldn't see, of
course, because his back was turned and he was looking at the parrot, which looked back at him – most offensively, he says, as parrots will, using one eye only for the purpose. It also asked him to have a nut.

The woman came into action again.

‘Although,' she said, ‘Laura never did me the honour to invite me to her wedding, for which reason I have not communicated with her for five years, necessity compels me to cross her threshold today. There comes a time when differences must be forgotten and relatives must stand shoulder to shoulder.'

‘I see what you mean,' said Lord Ickenham. ‘Like the boys of the old brigade.'

‘What I say is, let bygones be bygones. I would not have intruded on you, but needs must. I disregard the past and appeal to your sense of pity.'

The thing began to look to Pongo like a touch, and he is convinced that the parrot thought so, too, for it winked and cleared its throat. But they were both wrong. The woman went on.

‘I want you and Laura to take Julia into your home for a week or so, until I can make other arrangements for her. Julia is studying the piano, and she sits for her examination in two weeks' time, so until then she must remain in London. The trouble is, she has fallen in love. Or thinks she has.'

‘I know I have,' said Julia.

Her voice was so attractive that Pongo was compelled to slew round and take another look at her. Her eyes, he says, were shining like twin stars and there was a sort of Soul's Awakening expression on her face, and what the dickens there was in a pink chap like the pink chap, who even as pink chaps go wasn't much of a pink chap, to make her look like that, was frankly, Pongo
says, more than he could understand. The thing baffled him. He sought in vain for a solution.