Leading from the Middle

Caption: Gladys by Microsoft Copilot, November 17, 2024
While visiting great grandchildren (Ruby and Sylvan) in Redding, California, something happened that reminded me of an essay I published in November of 2010.
As we jaywalked across a downtown street one night, Ruby put her hand in mine. Since she has seen me only infrequently, it was a sweet and trusting gesture.
Her hand remined me of one of the most poignant moments in all of Wodehouse's writings, a scene in his short story, Lord Emsworth and the Girl Friend.*
I often ask students to read that story.
While some students can't quite figure out why they should, most catch on.
Lord Emsworth, the dreamy earl - a man who regularly flees from conflict - finally gets the courage to stand up to his overbearing gardener and his sister's hen-pecking.
While Lord Emsworth is the boss of the Castle, sister Connie - when in residence - beleaguers the chumpish Lord into wearing top hats and tails, and celluloid collars.
He'd rather be in his patched shooting jacket and baggy corduroy pants pottering about the castle's glorious beds of flowers and chirruping to his cherished Pig of pigs, the Empress.
My students read about the earl just ahead of our class on conflict. The students take a conflict self-test and discover their preferred conflict behavior.
Almost always the class - similar to most other groups - scores highest at avoiding, accommodating, and compromising. The low-end scores are in competing (win-lose) and (the most desirable) collaborating (win-win).
Most students come away from this lesson vowing to be more balanced in how they deal with conflict.
All of us know how difficult it can be to be assertive - there are times when we should and we do; other times we choose the easy way out, slipping out the back door. Privately, we know we should have roared like a lion, instead we squeeked.
We flee to fight another day. Or do we?
Gladys, is the charmingly drawn heroine in Wodehouse?s story.
She, one of the urban school children visitors to an open house and fete at the castle, has serendipitously gotten to know the earl. He is bemused and charmed by her street-urchin, Cockney ways.
In the treat tent, when she takes two of everything, Sister Connie intervenes and puts her into a dark garden shed for what she grande-damishly deems inappropriate behavior.
Had only Connie asked, she would have learned that Gladys was not "pinching" but gathering the extra treats for her little brother, Ern, whom Connie had banished from the castle for "biting 'er in the leg".
Lord Emsworth, while avoiding the human hordes on the castle grounds, stumbles across and frees Gladys.
He empathizes, calls for the butler, and makes sure he packs a basket of food and other treats, including a bottle of port, for Gladys and her brother.
Later, when Gladys is pursued by the castle's gardener, McAllister, for picking "flarze" (flowers) - the earl had given her permission - Lord Emsworth finds himself in the line of fire.
Gladys hides behind him.
Lord Emsworth has had his moments with the gardener - a taciturn and formidable Glaswegian.
Today, facing the infuriated McAllister - with shaking knees and quivering soul - something different happens: "It was, in itself, quite a trivial thing, but it had an astoundingly stimulating effect on Lord Emsworth's morale. What happened was that Gladys, seeking further protection, slipped at this moment a small, hot hand into his"*
The worm turns.
Emboldened by Gladys's gesture, the earl tells off his gardener (and not long after; his sister).
It is, as one Wodehouse biographer wrote, a lyrical, rare and unfettered expression of emotion not just for the earl, but for all of us.
Gladys's portrait (above), amidst the flarze, just might capture some of her je ne sais quoi.

*P. G. Wodehouse, Lord Emsworth and the Girl Friend; a selection from his Blandings Castle, NY: The Overlook Press (original copyright, 1935) 2002, pp.136-160.

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John's books can be ordered via these links:
Fables for Leaders
&
Leading from the Middle

Copyright all text by John Lubans 2024

 

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