'Well, apparently the syndicate was first founded by young Beste‑Chetwynde's grandpapa, and Mrs Beste-Chetwynde still takes an interest in it, so I was sent down to interview her and see if she agreed to the appointment. It never occurred to me it was the same Mrs Beste-Chetwynde who came down to the sports the day Prendy got so tight. Only shows how small the world is, doesn't it?
'Did Mamma give you the job? asked Peter.
'She did, and fifty pounds advance on my wages, and some jolly sound advice. It's been a good day for Grimes. Heard from the old man lately, by the way?
'Yes, said Paul, 'I got a letter this morning, and he showed it to Grimes:
Llanabba Castle,
North Wales.
My dear Pennyfeather,
Thank you for your letter and the enclosed cheque! I need hardly tell you that it is a real disappointment to me to hear that you are not returning to us next term. I had looked forward to a long and mutually profitable connexion. However my daughters and I join in wishing you every happiness in your married life. I hope you will use your new influence to keep Peter at the school. He is a boy for whom I have great hopes. I look to him as one of my prefects in the future.
The holidays so far have afforded me little rest. My daughters and I have been much worried by the insistence of a young Irish woman of most disagreeable appearance and bearing who claims to be the widow of poor Captain Grimes. She has got hold of some papers which seem to support her claim. The police, too, are continually here asking impertinent questions about the number of suits of clothes my unfortunate son‑in‑law possessed.
Besides this, I have had a letter from Mr Prendergast stating that he too wishes to resign his post. Apparently he has been reading a series of articles by a popular bishop and has discovered that there is a species of person called a 'Modern Churchman' who draws the full salary of a beneficed clergyman and need not commit himself to any religious belief. This seems to be a comfort to him, but it adds to my own inconvenience.
Indeed, I hardly think that I have the heart to keep on at Llanabba. I have had an offer from a cinema company, the managing director of which, oddly enough, is called Sir Solomon Philbrick, who wish to buy the Castle. They say that its combination of medieval and Georgian architecture is a unique advantage. My daughter Diana is anxious to start a nursing‑home or an hotel. So you see that things are not easy.
Yours sincerely,
Augustus Fagan.
There was another surprise in store for Paul that day. Hardly had Grimes left the house when a tall young man with a black hat and thoughtful eyes presented himself at the front door and asked for Mr Pennyfeather. It was Potts.
'My dear fellow, said Paul, 'I am glad to see you.
'I saw your engagement in The Times, said Potts, 'and as I was in the neighbourhood, I wondered if you'd let me see the house.
Paul and Peter led him all over it and explained its intricacies. He admired the luminous ceiling in Mrs Beste‑Chetwynde's study and the indiarubber fungi in the recessed conservatory and the little drawing‑room, of which the floor was a large kaleidoscope, set in motion by an electric button. They took him up in the lift to the top of the great pyramidal tower, from which he could look down on the roofs and domes of glass and aluminium which glittered like Chanel diamonds in the afternoon sun. But it was not this that he had come to see. As soon as he and Paul were alone he said, as though casually: 'Who was that little man I met coming down the drive?
'I think he was something to do with the Society for the Preservation of Ancient Buildings, said Paul. 'Why?
'Are you sure? asked Potts in evident disappointment 'How maddening! I've been on a false scent again.
'Are you doing Divorce Court shadowings, Potts?
'No, no, it's all to do with the League of Nations, said Potts vaguely, and he called attention to the tank of octopuses which was so prominent a feature of the room in which they were standing.
Margot invited Potts to stay to dinner. He tried hard to make a good impression on Professor Silenus, but in this he was not successful. In fact, it was probably Potts' visit which finally drove the Professor from the house. At any rate, he left early the next morning without troubling to pack or remove his luggage. Two days later, when they were all out, he arrived in a car and took away his mathematical instruments, and some time after that again appeared to fetch two clean handkerchiefs and a change of underclothes. That was the last time he was seen at King's Thursday. When Margot and Paul went up to London they had his luggage packed and left downstairs for him, in case he should come again, but there it stayed, none of the male servants finding anything in it that he would care to wear. Long afterwards Margot saw the head gardener's son going to church in a batik tie of Professor Silenus's period. It was the last relic of a great genius, for before that King's Thursday had been again rebuilt.
CHAPTER V The Latin-American Entertainment Co., Ltd
At the end of April Peter returned to Llanabba, Dr Fagan having announccd that the sale of the Castle had not been effected, and Margot and Paul went up to London to make arrangements for the wedding, which, contrary to all reasonable expectation, Margot decided was to take place in church with all the barbaric concomitants of bridesmaids, Mendelssohn, and Mumm. But before the wedding she had a good deal of South American business to see to.
'My first honeymoon was rather a bore, she said, 'so I'm not taking any chances with this one. I must get everything settled before we start, and then we're going to have the three best months of your life.
The work seemed to consist chiefly of interviewing young women for jobs in cabarets and as dancing partners. With some reluctance Margot allowed Paul to be present one morning as she saw a new batch. The room in which she conducted her business was the Sports Room, which had been decorated for her, in her absence, by little Davy Lennox, the society photographer. Two stuffed buffaloes stood one on each side of the door. The carpet was of grass‑green marked out with white lines, and the walls were hung with netting. The lights were in glass footballs, and the furniture was ingeniously designed of bats and polo‑sticks and golf‑clubs. Athletic groups of the early nineties and a painting of a prize ram hung on the walls.
'It's terribly common, said Margot, 'but it rather impresses the young ladies, which is a good thing. Some of them tend to be rather mannery if they aren't kept in order.
Paul sat in the corner ‑ on a chair made in the shape of an inflated Channel swimmer ‑ enraptured at her business ability. All her vagueness had left her, she sat upright at the table, which was covered with Balmoral tartan, her pen poised over an inkpot, which was set in a stuffed grouse, the very embodiment of the Feminist movement. One by one the girls were shown in.