Service with a Smile by P.G. Wodehouse Read Free Book Online Page A

hostess, and a hostess must
conceal her emotions.
    ‘So
nice to see you again, Lord Ickenham. So glad you were able to come,’ she said,
not actually speaking from between clenched teeth, but far from warmly. ‘Will
you have some tea, or would you rather … Are you looking for something?’
    ‘Nothing
important,’ said Lord Ickenham, whose eyes had been flitting to and fro as if
he felt something to be missing. ‘I had been expecting to see my little friend,
Myra Schoonmaker. Doesn’t she take her dish of tea of an afternoon?’
    ‘Myra
went for a walk. You know her?’
    ‘In her
childhood we were quite intimate. Her father was a great friend of mine.’
    The
rather marked frostiness of Lady Constance’s manner melted somewhat. Nothing
would ever make her forget what this man in a single brief visit had done to
the cloistral peace of Blandings Castle while spreading sweetness and light
there, but to a friend of James Schoonmaker much had to be forgiven. In a
voice that was almost cordial she said:
    ‘Have
you seen him lately?’
    ‘Alas,
not for many years. He has this unfortunate habit so many Americans have of
living in America.’
    Lady
Constance sighed. She, too, had deplored this whim of James Schoonmaker’s.
    ‘And as
my dear wife feels rightly or wrongly that it is safer for me not to be exposed
to the temptations of New York but to live a quiet rural life at Ickenham Hall,
Hants, our paths have parted, much to my regret. I knew him when he was a junior
member of one of those Wall Street firms. I suppose he’s a monarch of finance
now, rolling in the stuff?’
    ‘He has
been very successful, yes.’
    ‘I
always predicted that he would be. I never actually saw him talking into three
telephones at the same time, for he had not yet reached those heights, but it
was obvious that the day would come when he would be able to do it without
difficulty.’
    ‘He was
over here not long ago. He left Myra with me. He wanted her to have a London
season.’
    ‘Just
the kindly sort of thing he would do. Did she enjoy it?’
    Lady
Constance frowned.
    ‘I was
unfortunately obliged to take her away from London after we had been there a
few weeks. I found that she had become involved with a quite impossible young
man.’
    There
was a shocked horror in Lord Ickenham’s ‘Tut-tut!’
    ‘She
insisted that they were engaged. Absurd, of course.’
    ‘Why
absurd?’
    ‘He is
a curate.’
    ‘I have
known some quite respectable curates.’
    ‘Have
you ever known one who had any money?’
    ‘Well,
no. They don’t often have much, do they? I suppose a curate who was quick with
his fingers would make a certain amount out of the Sunday offertory bag, but
nothing more than a small, steady income. Did Myra blow her top?’
    ‘I beg
your pardon?’
    ‘Is she
emotionally disturbed at being parted from the man of her choice?’
    ‘She
seems depressed.’
    ‘What
she needs is young society. How extremely fortunate that I was able to bring my
friend Meriwether with me.’
    Lady
Constance started. She had momentarily forgotten his friend Meriwether.
    ‘Emsworth
took him off to look at the Empress, feeling that it would have a tonic effect
after the long railway journey. You’ll like Meriwether.’
    ‘Indeed?’
said Lady Constance, who considered this point a very moot one. She was
strongly of the opinion that any associate of Frederick, fifth Earl of
Ickenham, would be as unfit for human consumption as that blot on the peerage
himself. The slight flicker of friendliness resulting from the discovery that
he had at one time been on cordial terms with the man who meant so much to her
had died away, and only the memory of his last visit to the castle remained.
She wished she did not remember that visit so clearly. Like quite a number of those
whose paths Lord Ickenham had crossed, she wanted to forget the past. Pongo Twistleton
would have understood how she felt.
    ‘You
have known Mr Meriwether a long time?’ she