Free Uncle Dynamite by P.G. Wodehouse Page B

made them feel. I’ll find a way. Don’t
bother your head about the trifling details, leave them to me. You go home and
pack a few necessaries and get a good night’s rest, while I remain and iron out
the one or two points I haven’t got quite straight yet. More coffee? No? Then
off you go. Bless my soul,’ said Lord Ickenham with boyish relish, as he
escorted her to the door, ‘what a providential thing that this should have
happened.
    Something
on these lines was just what I was needing, to stimulate me and bring back the
flush of youth. I feel as I did when Pongo and I started out last spring for Blandings Castle in the roles of Sir Roderick Glossop, the brain specialist, and his
nephew Basil. Did he ever tell you about that?’
    ‘No.’
    ‘Odd. I
should have thought it would have been one of his dearest memories. You shall
have the whole story tomorrow on the journey down. Well, good night, my dear,’
said Lord Ickenham, assisting Sally into her taxi. ‘Sleep well, and don’t
worry. You can trust me to look after everything. This is the sort of situation
that brings out the best in me. And when you get the best in Frederick Altamont
Cornwallis, fifth Earl of good old Ickenham, you’ve got something.’

 
     
     
    5
     
    It was the custom of Lady
Bostock, when the weather was fine, to sit in a garden chair on the terrace of
Ashenden Manor after luncheon, knitting socks for the deserving poor. A
believer, like Lord Ickenham, in spreading sweetness and light, she considered,
possibly correctly, that there is nothing that brings the sunshine into grey
lives like a sock or two.
    On the
day following the events which have just been recorded the weather was
extremely fine. Soft white clouds floated across a sky of the purest blue, the
lake shone like molten silver, and from the adjacent flower-beds came the
murmur of bees and the fragrant scent of lavender and mignonette. It was an
afternoon to raise the spirits, lighten the heart and set a woman counting her
blessings one by one.
    Nor did
Lady Bostock omit to do this. She recognized these blessings as considerable.
It was pleasant to be home again, though she had never really enjoyed life in
the country, preferring Cheltenham with its gay society. Mrs Gooch, the cook, had dished up an
inspired lunch. And ever since the assignment of judging the bonny babies at
the fete had been handed to his nephew William, Sir Aylmer had been in a mood
which could almost be called rollicking, a consummation always devoutly to be
wished by a wife whose life work it was to keep him in a good temper. She could
hear him singing in his study now. Something about his wealth being a burly
spear and brand and a right good shield of hides untanned which on his arm he buckled
— or, to be absolutely accurate, ber-huckled.
    So far,
so good. And yet, despite the fineness of the day, the virtuosity of Mrs Gooch
and the joviality of her husband, Lady Bostock’s heart was heavy. In these days
in which we live, when existence has become a thing of infinite complexity and
fate, if it slips us a bit of goose with one hand, is pretty sure to give us
the sleeve across the windpipe with the other, it is rarely that we find a
human being who is unmixedly happy. Always the bitter will be blended with the
sweet, and in this mélange one can be reasonably certain that it is the
former that will predominate.
    A
severe indictment of our modern civilization, but it can’t say it didn’t ask
for it.
    As Lady
Bostock sat there, doing two plain, two purl, or whatever it is that women do
when knitting socks, a sigh escaped her from time to time. She was thinking of
Sally Painter.
    Budge
Street , Chelsea , brief though her visit had been, had made a deep impression on
this sensitive woman. She had merely driven up in a cab, rung the bell of
Sally’s studio, handed her parcel to the charwoman and driven swiftly off
again, but she had seen enough to recognize Budge
Street for the sort of place she read