Pelham Wodehouse - Spring Fever

"Good God!"

"The cable apparently arrived the day we left London, and Stanwood has been pondering ever since on what was to be done about it. Last night he got the bright idea that if he came down here, I would be able to sneak him into the place in the early morning and act as his photographer. He has brought a camera."

Lord Shortlands writhed like a wounded snake, and Terry squeaked again.

"The early morning?" moaned Lord Shortlands. "Fatal!"

"The very worst time," agreed Terry. "The place will be seething with housemaids—"

"Who'll take him for a burglar—"

"And scream—"

"Thus bringing Lady Adela to the spot with her foot in her hand and putting us right in the soup," said Mike. "That was the very picture that rose before my eyes when he outlined the scheme. But cheer up. There's nothing to be worried about."

It was a well-intentioned remark, but Terry appeared to take exception to it. Her squeak this time was one of justifiable indignation, and provoked a thoughtful comment from Mike.

"Tell me," he said. "How do you manage to produce that extraordinary sound? It's like a basketful of puppies. I wouldn't have thought the human voice could have done it."

Terry was not to be lured into a discussion on voice production.

"What do you mean by scaring us stiff like that, and then saying there's nothing to be worried about?"

"There isn't. Have I ever let you down?"

"You've never had the chance."

"No, that's true. But I should have thought you would have realized by this time that there is no am-parce so sticky that the Cardinal brain cannot make it play ball. I have the situation well in hand."

"You haven't thought of something?"

"Of course I've thought of something."

"Then I think you might have told us before, instead of giving us heart failure. Shorty has high blood pressure."

"Very high," said Lord Shortlands. "Runs in the family."

Mike saw their point.

"Yes. I suppose you're right. I was to blame. I don't know if you've noticed that I have a rather unpleasant habit of painting a setup in the darkest colours in order to make the joy bells, when they ring, sound louder. It has got me a good deal disliked."

"I don't wonder."

"It's the artist in me. I have to play for Suspense. But you are waiting for the low-down. Here it comes. Is it not a fact that on Saturday afternoons throughout the spring and summer months this historic joint is thrown open to the general public on payment of an entrance fee of a bob a nob?"

"Why, of course!"

"Don't say 'of course' in that light way. You wouldn't have thought of it in a million years."

"Stanwood can come with the crowd—"

"Complete with camera."

"He can get all the photographs he wants."

"Without incurring the least suspicion."

"But how about Spink? He shows them round."

"Disregard Spink. He can't do a thing. We have the Indian, sign on him. Spink is as the dust beneath our chariot wheels."

Terry drew a deep breath.

"You know, you're rather wonderful."

"Why 'rather'?"

"Have you told Stanwood?"

"Not yet. The brain wave came after I had left him. I propose to look in on him tomorrow morning and set his mind at rest. He seemed a little feverish when we parted. That's the trouble with Stanwood. He worries. He lets things prey on his mind. And now ought we not to be making our way to the drawing room? I should imagine that your sister Adela is a woman who throws her weight about a good deal if people are late for dinner."

Lord Shortlands started.

"Has the gong gone?"

"Not yet. But it's past eight."

"Come on, come on, come on!" cried Lord Shortlands, stirred to his depths, and was out of the room in two impressive leaps.

Mike and Terry followed more slowly.

"Did you know," said Mike, "that a flea one twelfth of an inch long, weighing one eighty thousandth of an ounce, can broad-jump thirteen inches?"

"No," said Terry.

"A fact, I believe. Watching your father brought it to my mind. He's very agile."

"Well, you scared him. He's frightened to death of Adela."

"I don't blame him. If the Cardinals knew what fear is, I should be frightened of her myself. As hard an egg as ever stepped out of the saucepan."

"You ought to see her doing her imitation of an angry headmistress."

"Well worth watching, I imagine. Odd how different sisters can be. I can't imagine you scaring anyone. Yours is a beautiful nature: kind, sweet, gentle, dovelike, the very type of nature that one wants to have around the house. Will you marry me?"

"No."

"I think you're wrong. One of these days, when we are walking down the aisle together, with the choir singing 'The Voice That Breathed o'er Eden,' I shall remind you of this. 'Aha!' I shall say. 'Who said she wouldn't marry me?' That'll make you look silly."

They caught Lord Shortlands up at the drawing-room door, and soothed him into something resembling calm. The gong, they pointed out, is the acid test as to whether you are in time for or late for dinner, and the gong had not yet sounded.

So firmly based on reason was their argument that the fifth earl was able to enter the room with almost a swagger. It subsided a little as he saw that they were the last arrivals, but he still maintained a fairly firm front.

"Hullo, hullo," he said. "Dinner's a bit late, isn't it?"

There was no frown on Lady Adela's face. She appeared quite amiable.

"Yes," she said. "I told Spink to put it back ten minutes. We're waiting for Mr. Rossiter."

At the moment of his entry Lord Shortlands had paused at an occasional table and picked up a china ornament, in order to fortify his courage by fiddling with it. At these words, it slipped from his grasp, crashing to ruin on the parquet floor.

"Rossiter!"

"Yes. I wish you wouldn't break things, Father."

At another moment Lord Shortlands would have wilted at the displeasure in his daughter's voice, and would probably have thrown together some hasty story about somebody having joggled his arm. But now he had no thought for such minor matters.

"Rossiter?" he cried. "How do you mean Rossiter?"

"Apparently Mr. Rossiter has been staying at the inn in the village for the fishing. Quite a coincidence that he should have been there just when Spink was trying to find him. Spink happened to go to the inn this evening, and met him. Of course I asked him to come to the castle."

The door opened, and Mervyn Spink appeared. His eye, as it rested upon Lord Shortlands, had in it a lurking gleam.

"Mr. Rossiter," he announced.

Stanwood Cobbold walked into the room, tripping over a rug, as was his habit when he entered rooms.

"It's no good looking to me for guidance, my dear Shorty," said Mike. "I'm sunk."

He spoke in response to a certain wild appeal in the other's eye, which he had just caught. Dinner was over, and a council of three had met in Lord Shortlands' study to discuss the latest development. Its president was pacing the floor with his hands behind his back, occasionally removing them in order to gesticulate in a rather frenzied manner. Mike and Terry, the remaining delegates to the conference, were seated. The dog Whiskers was present, but took no part in the proceedings. He was trying to locate a flea which had been causing him some annoyance.

"Sunk," Mike repeated. "I am stunned, bewildered and at a loss. Bouleverse, if you would like a little French."

Lord Shortlands groaned and flung his arms up like a despairing semaphore. He was thinking of Mervyn Spink's face as he had seen it during the recent meal. For the most part, as befitted a butler performing his official duties, it had been impassive; but once, on Lady Adela asking Mr. Rossiter if he remembered having given her head of staff his stamp album and Mr. Rossiter who seemed a nervous young man, inclined to start violently and try to swallow his uvula when spoken to, upsetting his glass and replying "Oh, sure," it had softened into a quick smile. And hi the gesture with which the fellow had offered him the potatoes there had been something virtually tantamount to a dig in the ribs. It had gone through Lord Shortlands like a knife through butter.