Free A Pelican at Blandings by Sir P G Wodehouse

Emsworth gave at this suggestion was so
violent that it detached his pince-nez from the parent nose.
Hauling them in on their string, he gazed at her reverentially.
On his visit to New York to attend the wedding of Connie and
James Schoonmaker he had become a great admirer of the
American girl, but he had never supposed that even an
American girl could be as noble as this.
    'Would you? Would you really?'
    'Sure. A privilege and pleasure.'
    'There would be no need to tell Connie.'
    'None whatever.'
    'Well, it is extremely kind of you. I don't know how to thank
you.'
    'Don't give it a thought.'
    'You see, it's the Empress. I mean—'
    'I know what you mean. Your place is at her side.'
    'Exactly. I ought not to leave her for a moment. They keep
assuring me that there is no reason for concern, Banks said so
in so many words, but the fact remains that she refused to eat
a potato which I had offered her.'
    'Bad.'
    'No, that is what is so sinister about it. It was a perfectly
good potato, but she merely sniffed at it and—'
    'Turned on her heel?'
    'Precisely. She sniffed at it and walked away. Naturally I am
anxious.'
    'Anyone would be.'
    'If only I could consult Wolff-Lehman.'
    'Why can't you?'
    'He's dead.'
    'I see what you mean. That does rather rule him out as an
adviser. Though you might get him on the ouija board.'
    'So if you will really go to the station—'
    'I'm on my way. Market Blandings, here I come.'
    'I'm afraid it is asking a great deal of you. You will find it
boring having to talk to Mr. Trout as you drive back. It is
always a strain finding anything to say to a stranger.'
    'That's all right. Willie Trout's not a stranger. I knew him
on the other side.'
    'Where?'
    'In America.'
    'Oh, ah, yes, of course, yes. The other side of the Atlantic,
you mean.'
    'We'll have all sorts of things to talk about. Not a dull
moment.'
    'Capital,' said Lord Emsworth. 'Capital, capital, capital.'
    The train was just coming in as the car reached the station,
and as Wilbur Trout stepped from it Vanessa started picking
up the threads with a genial 'Hi!', and he responded with the
same cordial monosyllable. There was no embarrassment on
his side at this unexpected meeting with a woman he had loved
and lost. If meeting women he had loved and lost could have
embarrassed Wilbur Trout, he would have had to spend most
of his time turning pink and twiddling his fingers. Vanessa was
an old friend whom he was delighted to see. If he was a little
vague as to who she was, he distinctly recalled having met her
before. And when she told him, after he had called her
Pauline, that her name was Vanessa, he had her placed. It
helped, of course, that she was the only one on his long list to
whom he had been engaged and not married.
    She explained the circumstances which had led to her being
at Blandings Castle, and they spoke for awhile of the old days,
of parties he had given at Great Neck and Westhampton
Beach, of guys and dolls who had been her fellow guests at
those parties, and of the night when he had dived into the
Plaza fountain in correct evening dress. But the frivolous
memories did not detain him long. His mind was on deeper
things.
    'Say, is there anywhere around here where you can get a
drink?' he asked, and she replied that beverages of all kinds
were to be obtained at the Emsworth Arms not a stone's throw
distant. There were other hostelries in Market Blandings . . .
one does not forget the Goose and Gander, the Jolly
Cricketers, the Wheatsheaf, the Waggoner's Rest, the Blue
Cow and the Stitch In Time . . . but these catered for the
proletariat rather than for millionaire visitors from New York.
This she explained to Wilbur, and soon, having brightened
Voules's afternoon by telling him to go and refresh himself at
the bar, they were seated at one of the tables in the Emsworth
Arms' charming garden with gin and tonics within easy reach
and Vanessa was clothing in speech a thought which had been
in her mind from the first moment of their