Blotto, Twinks and the Bootlegger's Moll Read online

  ‘And,’ the Dowager Duchess continued imperially, ‘it has put the family in something of a fix.’

  ‘In what way, Mater?’ asked her son, who frequently liked to have things spelled out for him. ‘I mean, yes, it’s a stye in the eye having hot and cold running water on the walls, but there are boddos around who sort out that kind of rombooley . . . you know, plumbers and so on. I think there are even pineapples out there who’ll do you a patchwork and paint job on the family portraits. So as of this mo the situation’s a bit of a candle-snuffer, but in no time it can be brought back to zing-zing condition. All that’s required is that Mr McEnemy gets on the old ringbox to call up a couple of these boddos and the whole thing’s creamy éclair.’

  ‘Unfortunately, Blotto,’ his mother rumbled, ‘that is not all that’s required. The stye in the eye is rather bigger than you have envisaged.’

  ‘In what way, Mater?’

  ‘There certainly are among the peasant classes artisans with the skills you enumerate, but there is one thing you do not seem to be taking into account.’

  ‘And what’s that?’

  ‘All such people require payment.’

  ‘Well, Mater, that’s not such a tough rusk to chew. We simply pay them.’

  ‘There is nothing simple about it, Blotto. Payment requires money.’

  ‘Then that’s the stuff to use,’ advised Blotto wisely.

  For a moment wordless, the Dowager Duchess growled, like a volcano having decided to give up being extinct, so Twinks interposed to explain the situation.

  ‘The fact is, Blotto, that the mater always brought us up to know that talking about money was vulgar . . .’

  ‘Good ticket,’ he agreed.

  ‘. . . so, as a result, we never have talked about money . . .’

  ‘I’m still on the same page, Twinks.’

  ‘. . . but if you don’t talk about money . . .’

  ‘Which we don’t, because it’s vulgar.’

  ‘Agreed. But if you don’t talk about it . . .’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘. . . then it’s very difficult to know whether you’ve got any or not . . .’

  ‘Ah.’

  ‘. . . and the fact is that now . . . we haven’t got any.’

  The full impact of this finally got through to Blotto. ‘Broken biscuits . . .’ he murmured. Then, recovering, he said, ‘But surely, when these boddos are dealing with people like us – you know, members of the aristocracy – surely they’d be snuffled up to do the job just for the honour of doing it?’

  ‘Sadly not,’ boomed the Dowager Duchess, her power of speech returned. ‘There has been a great decline in standards in this country recently. Beating the Boche in the recent dust-up was not an unmitigated bonus. Apart from making it difficult to maintain cordial relations with family members who are German, it has also had a shocking effect on the morals of the British common man. The filthy doctrines of Socialism are discussed openly in the nation’s high streets. As a result, tradespeople have become insolent, unwilling to extend credit even to the highest in the land.’ A cloud crossed her craggy features. ‘I was never entirely convinced,’ she pronounced, ‘that the ending of the feudal system was a step forward.’

  The three of them shared a thoughtful silence, which was broken by a very excited Blotto. ‘I’ve just had a real buzzbanger of an idea!’

  ‘Oh?’ There was a wealth of scepticism in the Dowager Duchess’s monosyllable. Past experience had taught her not to get disproportionately excited about her younger son’s ‘buzzbangers’.

  ‘I met a boddo once,’ Blotto went on enthusiastically, ‘whose castle burnt down. Some tweenie had dropped a fag-end in the kitchen, something like that. Whole place went up like a spoffing Roman candle. And, do you know, he got money to build the whole thing up again. Didn’t use it for that, of course. Moved to the Riviera and spent the lot on tight spongers and loose women. Nice story, though – pure strawberry jam with dollops of cream.’

  ‘But how did he get the money?’ asked Twinks patiently.

  ‘Ah. Right. With you.’ Blotto grinned before unleashing his bombshell. ‘From the insurance!’

  He turned towards his mother, hopeful of commendation. The Dowager Duchess focused on her son a look that could have made a housemaid spontaneously combust at a hundred and fifty yards. ‘Insurance?’ she echoed, shrivelling the word to ashes with contempt. ‘Insurance is the last refuge of the vulgarian!’

  ‘But, Mater—’

  ‘Why don’t you ever listen to me, Blotto? I have already told you my views on the subject of insurance.’

  ‘Oh, I’m sorry, Mater. When was—?’

  ‘When the Gainsborough and the Reynolds were stolen from the Long Gallery! At the time you asked fatuously whether the paintings were insured, and I thought I made it clear to you then that insurance is a system devised by small-minded shopkeepers for small-minded shopkeepers. Besides, taking out insurance would involve letting members of the hoi polloi to invade here to . . .’ she shuddered at the awfulness of the notion ‘. . . to value the contents, as if Tawcester Towers were some kind of common pawnshop.’

  Blotto deduced from his mother’s words that she wasn’t very keen on the idea of insurance.

  ‘Oh, for the love of strawberries!’ said his sister. ‘There must be some way we can make money to pay for the repairs. ‘Have you had a pow-wow with your man of business, Mater? Surely he can organize a mortgage for us?’

  ‘I have spoken to my man of business,’ the Dowager Duchess replied solemnly, ‘and he informs me that Tawcester Towers is already mortgaged to the hilt. If not rather deeper.’

  ‘Oh, that rather takes the icing off the Swiss bun, doesn’t it?’ said Twinks.

  There was another gloomy silence. Then Blotto’s face was suddenly suffused with red, his eyes sparkled and his hands curled into triumphant fists. His mother and sister both recognized the symptoms. Blotto was about to announce another buzzbanger of an idea.

  And so indeed it proved. ‘I’ve got it!’ he cried. ‘Got it as tight as a rabbit in a snare! I think you’ll find I’ve come up with the silverware this time, Mater.’

  ‘So what is your latest idea, Blotto?’ asked his mother without optimism. ‘Are you prepared to share it with us?’

  ‘I certainly am. And when you hear it, you’ll be as chuffed as a cheetah who’s just downed his first gazelle.’ He paused for dramatic effect. Which was quite a brave thing to do. The Dowager Duchess wasn’t very keen on pauses that she hadn’t initiated. ‘There’s a thing I’ve heard of . . . and I think it’s quite popular . . . and people get paid money to do it. So if I went out and got one of these things . . . then I’d get paid for doing it . . . and our troubles would be at an end.’

  ‘Blotto,’ demanded his mother. ‘Are you suggesting that you should get a job?’

  ‘You’ve hit it bong on the nose there, Mater!’

  The way the Dowager Duchess’s face empurpled to the colour of long-hung venison gave Blotto an inkling that she was less than enthusiastic about his idea.

  And this impression was reinforced by her next speech. ‘Blotto, did you not take in anything that you were taught during your upbringing?’

  ‘Well, not much, no. I was never a whale on school work, you know that, and—’

  ‘I am not referring to your lack of academic prowess. That couldn’t matter less to a person of your breeding. I am referring to the values that I would have hoped growing up here at Tawcester Towers, under my tutelage and that of your late father the Duke, would have inculcated in you, values that should be second nature to people of our class.’

  Blotto was having a bit of difficulty following her drift, but he didn’t say anything as the Dowager Duchess stormed on, ‘And yet now I hear you brazenly suggesting, to my face, that you should work for a living! I am in a state of shock at the very idea! That a member of the Tawcester family should go out to work . . . well, it’s an appalling notion! I can hardly believe that
I heard the words coming from your lips. If you were not supposedly now an adult, I would send you instantly from the room to wash your mouth out with soap and water. As it is, all I can say, Blotto, is that I am deeply disappointed in you.’

  He recoiled as if struck in the face, but her words were far more hurtful than any physical blow could have been. ‘I get the impression, M-mater,’ he stuttered, ‘that you don’t think it’s a good idea for me to go out and get a job.’

  ‘I am glad,’ the Dowager Duchess rumbled, ‘that you have taken that point on board. Anyway, the reason I called you both here to the Blue Morning Room is that I have devised a solution to our current impecunity. It’s not an attractive one – indeed, it’s downright distasteful – but desperate times call for desperate measures.’

  She launched her own dramatic pause, which was ended by Twinks asking, ‘What is it, Mater?’

  The Dowager Duchess drew herself up in her Chippendale throne, in the manner of a judge donning his black cap prior to passing a death sentence, before announcing, ‘I am going to marry Blotto off to an American!’

  3

  Blotto’s Fate Is Sealed

  Blotto was appalled to discover how far his mother had already advanced with her salvage plan. She hadn’t just come up with the general concept of marrying him off to an American, she had selected the actual American to whom he was to be married off.

  The lucky girl’s name, the Dowager Duchess informed her son, was Mary Chapstick. ‘She is the daughter of Luther P. Chapstick III.’

  ‘And who’s he when he’s got his spats on?’ asked Blotto disconsolately.

  ‘He is a meat-packing magnate.’

  Her son looked confused. ‘What, you mean he’s got special powers to lift up cans of meat and—?’

  ‘Not that kind of magnet.’

  ‘I didn’t know there was any other kind.’

  ‘A magnate,’ said the Dowager Duchess, shuddering with contempt at the very thought, ‘is a commercially successful businessman in the manufacturing line.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Blotto.

  ‘And while it would be unbelievably bad form for us to mix with that kind of person this side of the Atlantic, apparently such connections would not be frowned on at all in America. So when you’re safely ensconced over there, there will be no question of our family honour being sullied.’

  Blotto didn’t like the direction that the conversation was taking. ‘What exactly do you mean, Mater, by the expression “safely ensconced”?’

  ‘I mean when you are married to Mary Chapstick.’

  He was appalled. ‘Are you suggesting that, when we’re married, we won’t live here?’

  ‘Of course you won’t, Blotto. It’s the chit’s money we’re after, not her company.’

  ‘But I’ll be stuck with her company. And stuck with it in America of all places,’ said Blotto pathetically. ‘Won’t you miss me?’

  The Dowager Duchess gave a curious look to her son before replying, ‘No. Of course not.’ She didn’t subscribe to any of this new-fangled nonsense about loving one’s children. Or touching them . . . yeugh.

  Suddenly she snorted like a water buffalo being teased by a horse-fly. ‘Anyway, Blotto, living in America will be a small sacrifice for you to make in the cause of preserving the family honour . . . and of getting the Tawcester Towers plumbing replaced.’

  ‘Well, it’s a pretty big stye in the eye, let me tell you,’ said Blotto miserably when, the audience with their mother over, the two siblings had retired to Twinks’s boudoir. There she was busying herself making them restorative cups of cocoa. Using her own electric kettle, mixing the stuff herself, not ringing for a housemaid to do any of it! She really is a dashed modern girl, my sister, thought Blotto fondly.

  But his love for Twinks was for once insufficient to lift his mood. He had always had an allergy to the idea of matrimony. The institution seemed to offer nothing except the guarantee that a boddo’s freedom would be curtailed. Still, Blotto was sufficient of a realist to recognize that at some point inevitably a bachelor in his position would be traded in the matrimonial market. Thus far he had managed to thwart his mother’s plans to marry him off, but he knew he’d be living in a fool’s paradise to imagine that the state of affairs could continue for ever.

  So it wasn’t the thought of marriage that was clouding his sunny disposition as much as the idea of having to live away from his beloved Tawcester Towers. His demands in life were simple – adequate feeding and watering and, during the relevant seasons, unlimited amounts of hunting and cricket. The idyllic family estate offered, in Blotto’s estimation, unrivalled facilities to meet these modest needs.

  But the idea of living in America . . . a country where, according to rumours he had heard, most hunting involved the use of firearms and where they didn’t even play cricket, and where their national sport was that girls’ game, rounders . . . well, it really took the jam off the biscuit.

  It never occurred to him to argue with his mother’s diktat. The Dowager Duchess’s knowledge of protocol was impeccable, and if she said that it would be too shaming for him to appear in English society with an American wife, then she must be right. So he would have to become reconciled to giving up the things he loved most, hunting and cricket. Oh, and Twinks of course, whom he loved dearly . . . though obviously not as much as hunting and cricket.

  When she had handed him his cocoa and sat down opposite, warming her delicate hands on the mug, Blotto looked hopefully into his sister’s azure eyes. If anyone could come up with an escape route from his current swamphole, it had to be Twinks and her brilliant brainbox. Blotto sat in front of his sister, pathetically eager, panting with anticipation like a Labrador puppy.

  But her opening words offered little comfort. ‘We really are both feet in the quagmire this time, aren’t we?’

  ‘Surely though, Twinks, you know a way we can squirm out?’

  The shake of her silken blonde hair dashed his hopes. ‘You know when the mater’s got her fangs into a notion, she hangs on like a crocodile with a fisherman’s leg. If she’s decided you’re going to be grafted on to this Mary Chapstick, then you’d better get Tweedling ironing your morning dress straight away.’

  The downcast expression that greeted this was more than she could bear. ‘But don’t don your worry-boots, Blotto. We’ll find a way out as quick as a lizard’s lick.’

  ‘Oh, will we?’ said Blotto, at once re-energized. There was a silence, then he asked, ‘What is it?’

  ‘Sorry, me old trombone? What’s what?’

  ‘The way out of it that you’ve found.’

  ‘Ah.’ The rosiness heightened on her delicate cheeks. ‘I haven’t exactly found it yet.’

  ‘Oh.’ The thermometer of Blotto’s feelings once again sank to the bottom of the tube. He wasn’t used to his sister being nonplussed. Normally he would present her with a problem and she’d be instantly plussed, coming up with an immediate solution.

  ‘But I will!’ Twinks announced triumphantly. ‘And then everything will all be larksissimo again!’

  ‘Hoopee-doopee,’ cried Blotto, suitably cheered.

  ‘I’ll just give the problemette a little cogitette, and then we’ll be once again rolling in camomile lawns. In fact . . .’ she removed one hand from her cocoa mug and raised a jubilant finger ‘. . . I’ve already found the solution!’

  ‘Toad-in-the-hole!’ exclaimed Blotto. ‘You’ve got a brain as big as the entire night sky. Twinks, you really are the nun’s nightie. So what is the solution?’

  ‘The mater only wants you to marry this Yankee-doodledandy because we have no other means of paying for the new plumbing and the restoration of the paintings . . .’

  ‘On the same hymn-sheet as you on that, Twinks me old kipper.’

  ‘. . . so all we have to do is to find another way of getting the necessary jingle-jangle and the threat of transatlantic matrimony will suddenly waft off the horizon.’

  ‘Good ticket! I don’t know
how you manage to come up with stuff like that, Twinks. Why can’t I do it?’

  From the nursery onwards his sister had always been too kind to answer that question.

  ‘So . . .’ asked Blotto, ‘what is the other way of getting the necessary jingle-jangle?’

  ‘Ah,’ said Twinks. ‘That’s the bit I haven’t quite worked out yet.’

  Blotto was . . . not on the scale that the Dowager Duchess might have been, nor as destructively, but still rather disappointed in his sister.

  It was Blotto’s view that life in England was pretty damn well organized. Though being Church of England his belief in a God was a little ill-defined, he really would have liked to congratulate the someone or something who’d sorted everything out so well. The cricket season started in April and ran through to September. The foxhunting season started in November and ran through to April. And for people like Blotto who saw no purpose in taking a break in the sporting calendar, there was always cubhunting available in October.

  The flood at Tawcester Towers had happened at the beginning of April, a time of year that Blotto had always found particularly juicy. Foxhunting nearly over and with his splendid horse Mephistopheles looking forward to his summer hols, before Blotto stretched an endless vista of days at the wicket, as back-to-back games of cricket followed their snail tracks through the balmy laziness of summer.

  But suddenly that blissful prospect was threatened. The appalling thought came to him that this might be his last summer of cricket, that he might be fated to spend the rest of his life in a country for whose denizens the pinnacle of sporting activity was rounders.

  More awful even than that was the possibility that, given the urgency of the Tawcester Towers financial situation, the Dowager Duchess might decree that his marriage should take place before the end of the cricket season. Blotto had been taught from boyhood that it wasn’t ‘on’ for boddos to blub, but that thought did bring to his eye an unrestrainable tear.

  And just when he thought that there were no depths lower to which his spirits could plummet, the Dowager Duchess announced that Luther P. Chapstick III and his daughter Mary would be joining the party at Tawcester Towers the following weekend.