Summer Lightning by P G Wodehouse

Author:P G Wodehouse
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: 9781409064619
Publisher: Random House

9 ENTER SUE

‘LEAVE THE DOOR open, Beach,’ said Lady Constance.

‘Very good, your ladyship.’

‘I think the smell of the wet earth and the flowers is so refreshing, don’t you?’

The butler did not. He was not one of your fresh-air men. Rightly conjecturing, however, that the question had been addressed not to him but to the girl in the beige suit who had accompanied the speaker up the steps, he forbore to reply. He cast an appraising bulging-eyed look at this girl and decided that she met with his approval. Smaller and slighter than the type of woman he usually admired, he found her, nevertheless, even by his own exacting standards of criticism, noticeably attractive. He liked her face and he liked the way she was dressed. Her frock was right, her shoes were right, her stockings were right, and her hat was right. As far as Beach was concerned, Sue had passed the Censor.

Her demeanour pleased him, too. From the flush on her face and the sparkle in her eyes, she seemed to be taking her first entry into Blandings Castle in quite the proper spirit of reverential excitement. To be at Blandings plainly meant something to her, was an event in her life: and Beach, who after many years of residence within its walls had come to look on the Castle as a piece of personal property, felt flattered and gratified.

‘I don’t think this shower will last long,’ said Lady Constance.

‘No,’ said Sue, smiling brightly.

‘And now you must be wanting some tea after your journey.’

‘Yes,’ said Sue, smiling brightly.

It seemed as if she had been smiling brightly for centuries. The moment she had alighted from the train and found her formidable hostess and this strangely sinister Mr Baxter waiting to meet her on the platform, she had begun to smile brightly and had been doing it ever since.

‘Usually we have tea on the lawn. It is so nice there.’

‘It must be.’

‘When the rain is over, Mr Baxter, you must show Miss Schoonmaker the rose-garden.’

‘I shall be delighted,’ said the Efficient Baxter.

He flashed gleaming spectacles in her direction, and a momentary panic gripped Sue. She feared that already this man had probed her secret. In his glance, it seemed to her, there shone suspicion.

Such, however, was not the case. It was only the combination of large spectacles and heavy eyebrows that had created the illusion. Although Rupert Baxter was a man who generally suspected everybody on principle, it so happened that he had accepted Sue without question. The glance was an admiring, almost a loving glance. It would be too much to say that Baxter had already fallen a victim to Sue’s charms, but the good looks which he saw and the wealth which he had been told about were undeniably beginning to fan the hidden fire.

‘My brother is a great rose-grower.’

‘Yes, isn’t he? I mean, I think roses are so lovely.’ The spectacles were beginning to sap Sue’s morale. They seemed to be eating into her soul like some sort of corrosive acid.

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