Pelham Wodehouse - Spring Fever

"You won't return alone. I shall be at your side. I ought to have mentioned that earlier."

"You?"

"It seems the logical solution. I want to go to Beevor, Stanwood wants to remain in London, you want a guest who can be relied on not to introduce the cook motif into the conversation. The simple ruse which I have suggested would appear to make things all right for everybody."

Lord Shortlands was a slow thinker.

"But Adela doesn't want you. She wants him."

"Naturally, in embarking on such an enterprise, I should assume an incognito. The name Stanwood Cobbold suggests itself."

Stanwood uttered a piercing cry of ecstasy. It made his head start aching again, but one cannot always be thinking of heads.

"Gosh, Mike, could we swing it?"

"It's in the bag."

"This is genius."

"You must expect that when you string along with me."

"Gee, and it's only about half an hour since I was calling Eileen up and telling her I'd got to leave her. I must rush around and see her at once."

"How about our lunch?"

"To hell with lunch."

"And how about Augustus Robb?"

"To hell with Augustus Robb."

"His heart was set on this visit."

"To hell with Augustus Robb's heart and his lungs and his liver, too. If he starts acting up, I'll poke him in the eye," said Stanwood, and departed like one walking on air.

Lord Shortlands, who could work things out if you gave him time, was beginning to get it now.

"You mean you'll come to Beevor instead of him?"

"Exactly."

"Pretending to be him, and so forth?"

"That's right. It's a treat to see the way you're taking hold."

"But, dash it."

"Something on your mind?"

"How can you? Terry knows you. And, by Jove, now I remember, she knows him, too. Used to lunch with him and all that."

"I had not overlooked the point you raise. I am taking it for granted that a daughter's love will ensure her silence."

"That's true. Yes, I suppose it will."

"It might, however, be as well to call her up and prepare her."

"But she's here. Is it half-past one?"

"Just on."

"Then she'll be out in the lobby. 1 told her to be there at half-past one."

"This is glorious news. A chat with Terry is just what I wanted, to make my day. I have a bone to pick with that young half-wit. She and her 'She says she won't's. Hello, what's this?"

A small boy in buttons had entered the bar. All the employees of Barnbault's Hotel have sweet, refined voices. This lad's sweet, refined voice was chanting "Lord Shortlands. Lord Shortlands."

Lord Shortlands cocked an enquiring eye at Mike.

"He wants me."

"Who wouldn't?"

"Here, boy."

"Lord Shortlands, m'lord? Wanted on the telephone, m'lord."

"Now, who the deuce can that be?" mused Lord Shortlands.

"Go and see," suggested Mike. "I, meanwhile, will be having the necessary word with Terry. Do you mind if I rub her turned-up little nose in the carpet?"

"Eh?"

"'She says she won't,' indeed!" said Mike austerely.

Barribault's hotel being a favourite haunt of the wealthy, and the wealthy being almost uniformly repulsive, its lobby around the hour of one-thirty is always full of human eyesores. Terry in her new hat raised the tone quite a good deal. Or so it seemed to Mike Cardinal. She was sitting at a table near two financiers with four chins, and he made his way there and announced his presence with a genial "Boo!" in her left ear. Having risen some six inches in a vertical direction, she stared at him incredulously.

"You!"

"You should have put your hand to your throat and rolled your eyeballs," said Mike. "It is the only way when you're saying 'You!' Still, I know what you mean. I do keep bobbing up, don't I? One realizes dimly how Mary must have felt."

"Yes, I think you must have lamb blood hi you. Delighted to see you, of course."

"Naturally."

"But how did you know I was here?"

"Your father told me."

"You've met him?"

"Just now."

"It's a small world, isn't it?"

"Not in the least. Why do you speak of it in that patronizing way? Because I met your father? We could hardly have helped meeting. He was in the bar, and I came in, and there we were, face to face."

"Was he enjoying himself? Till then, I mean."

"He seemed happy."

"Not too happy?"

"Oh no."

"You see, today is his birthday, and he rather hinted that he intended to celebrate. I don't quite like this lounging hi bars."

"He has ceased to lounge. He was called to the telephone."

"Called to the telephone?"

"Called to the telephone, Mister Bones. Why not?"

"But who could have been calling him?"

"I'm afraid I couldn't tell you. I'm a stranger in these parts myself."

"Nobody knows he's here, I mean. Except the family at home, of course."

"Then perhaps it was the family at home. Look, do you mind if we change the subject? I think we've about exhausted it. Let us speak of that letter I wrote you. Well-expressed, didn't you think? Full of good stuff? The phrases neatly turned?"

"Very."

"So a friend of mine named Augustus Robb considered. I came in and found him reading it. A winner, he said cordially, and Augustus Robb is not a man who praises lightly. Personally, I thought it a composition calculated to melt a heart of stone. That's going to drag home the gravy,' I said to myself as

I licked the stamp. But I was wrong, it seems. Or did your father report you incorrectly when he said 'She says she won't'?"

"No. That was what I told him to say."

"Your idea being to break it gently?"

"You wouldn't have had me be abrupt?"

"Of course not. So you won't marry me?"

"No."

"Somebody's got to."

"Not me."

"That's what you say now, but I don't despair."

"Don't you?"

"Not by a jugful. Much may be done by persistence and perseverance. I shall follow you around a good deal and keep gazing at you with the lovelight in my eyes, and one of these days my hypnotic stare will do the trick. It's like a dog at mealtime. You say to yourself 'I will not feed this dog. It is not good for him,' but he keeps his pleading eye glued on you, and you weaken. Talking of marrying, your father tells me he wants to marry the cook. I said he might."

"Oh, Shorty! I knew something would happen if I let him run around loose in London with all that money in his pocket. Did he really get as confidential as that? You won't go spreading it about, will you?"

"My lips are sealed."

"If my sister Adela ever heard about it, his life would not be worth a moment's purchase."

"She shall never learn his secret from me. Clams take my correspondence course."

"That's good. And now tell me how you come to be here. Lunching with some girl, I suppose?"

"Not at all. Stanwood Cobbold."

"Really? Dear old Stanwood. Bless his heart."

"Amen. He brought us together. Do you remember that day? You were sitting there in the grillroom', listening to him telling you about La Stoker, and I came along. 'Good Lord,' I said to myself. 'I believe it's Terry!'"

"And was it?"

"Yes."

"I don't call that much of a story."

"It's a peach of a story. I don't know what more you want."

"Has Stanwood told you that he's coming to Beevor?"

"He isn't."

"Yes, he is. We're taking him back with us this afternoon. His father cabled Shorty, asking him to put Stanwood up."

"I know all that. The old man wants to get him out of the orbit of the Stoker, who has just arrived in London. But you haven't got the scenario absolutely correct. To give you a complete grasp of it I shall have to go back to the beginning. I came here to meet Stanwood, and ran into your father. All straight so far?"

"Quite."