The Mortdecai Trilogy (Charlie Mortdecai #1-3)(68)

‘No, Charlie, not until we are married. What would you think of me?’ I gaped in a disappointed way but I must admit to having felt a bit reprieved, if you take my meaning. You see, this gave me time to put myself into the hands of a capable trainer: a canter round the paddock every morning and a diet of beefsteak, oysters and Guinness would soon lift me out of the selling-plate class and put me into good, mid-season form.

‘Charlie, dear, you are going to marry me, aren’t you, hunh? Your lovely doctor said marriage would be very therapeutic for you.’

‘Farbstein said that, did he?’ I asked nastily.

‘No, darling, who’s Farbstein? I mean the cute American doctor who’s here looking after you – Dr Blücher?’ She pronounced it beautifully, in the accents of old Vienna.

‘Ah, yes, Blücher. Doctor Blücher, yes, of course. “Cute” is the very word for him. But I think he’d not much like you to pronounce it that way, he’d think it sounded kind of Kraut: he likes to say it “Bloocher”. To rhyme with “butcher”,’ I added thoughtfully.

‘Thank you, dear. But you didn’t answer my question,’ she said, pouting prettily. (Pouting is one of those dying arts; Mrs Spon can do it, so can the boy who creates my shirts, but it’s almost as rare nowadays as tittering and sniggering. There are, I believe, a few portly old gentlemen who can still chuckle.)

‘Dearest Johanna, of course I mean to marry you and as soon as possible. Let us say next month. People will talk, of course …’

‘Charlie, dear, I was thinking more of tomorrow, really. I have this crazy British Special Licence for it. No, it was easy; I just got the Chancellor from the US Embassy to take me to see one of your Archbishops, such a sweet, silly old guy. I said I guessed your religion was “atheist” and he said, well, so were most of his bishops so he wrote “Church of England” on the form. Was that all right, Charlie?’

‘Fine.’ I kept my face straight.

‘And Charlie, I have a surprise for you, I hope you’ll be pleased; I called up the Vicar in your own village – well, it’s only maybe forty miles from here – and he was, well sort of hesitant at first about your church-attendance record, he said he couldn’t recollect seeing you there since he confirmed you thirty years ago, but I told him how the Archbishop had officially written you down as a Church of Englander and anyway he finally came around and said, Okay, he’d stick his neck out.’

‘He said that?’

‘Well, no, what he said was something kind of sad and resigned in Latin or maybe Greek but you could tell that was what he meant.’

‘Quite so.’ I’d have given a lot to have heard that bit of Latin or maybe Greek, for our Vicar has a pretty wit.

‘Oh, yes, and he said how about a best man and I said “Oh Golly” and he said he’d round up your brother Lord Mortdecai to do it. Isn’t that lovely?’

‘Quite lovely,’ I said heavily.

‘You’re not cross, are you, Charlie? Are you? Oh, and he can’t get the choir together on a weekday morning, he’s real sorry about that; do you mind terribly?’

‘I can bear it with fortitude.’

‘Ah, but his wife has a gang of ladies who sing Bach and I told him yes, great.’

‘Splendid,’ I said, sincere at last.

‘And the organist is going to play “Sheep May Safely Graze” before the ceremony and “Amanti Costanti” from Le Nozze de Figaro as we go out: how about that?’

‘Johanna, you are brilliant, I love you excessively, I should have married you years ago.’ I almost meant it.

Then she came and sat on my knee and we nuzzled and chewed each other’s faces a goodish bit and murmured sweet nothings and so forth. Pleasant for a while but it becomes a trifle painful for the male half of the sketch, doesn’t it?

Johanna said she wanted an early night and would have sandwiches sent up to her room, and as soon as I could stand up I escorted her thither.

‘Not before time,’ said the look on the face of a passing chambermaid.

Back in my room I sank wearily into a chair and lifted the telephone.

‘Room service?’ I said. ‘How many oysters have you in the hotel?’





6 Mortdecai reaps his reward and reaped a bit himself





You must wake and call me early, call me early, mother dear;

… It seemed so hard at first, mother …

But still I think it can’t be long before I find release;

And that good man, the clergyman, has told me words of peace.





The May Queen





The marriage which had been arranged, as the newspapers say, took place, as the newspapers say, the next day at noon. The Vicar preached ripely and briefly, the ladies’ Bach Group sang like little cock-angels, the organist made his organ peal like Kraft-Ebbing’s onion (sorry) and, of course, my brother almost made me puke. The fact that his morning clothes were clearly the work of that genius in Cork Street, whereas mine had been hired in Kendal from a firm which had once made a pair of spats for the Duke of Cambridge, had nothing to do with my disgust. It was his unction.

After the ceremony, to make quite sure that he had spoiled my day, he drew me aside and asked me, infinitely tactfully, whether I was quite sure that I could really afford to support a wife who dressed so well, and could he help. While asking this he flicked compassionate glances at the set of my alleged coat around the shoulders.