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our old friendship.'
'Of course not. Damn silly idea.'
'It's such a very old friendship.'
'I don't know when I've met an older.'
'We were boys together.'
'In Eton jackets and pimples.'
'Exactly. And more like brothers than anything. I would share my
last bar of almond rock with you, and you would cut me in fifty-fifty
on your last bag of acid drops. When you had mumps, I caught them from
you, and when I had measles, you caught them from me. Each helping
each. So we must carry on regardless, just as if this had not
happened.'
'Quite.'
'The same old lunches.'
'Oh, rather.'
'And golf on Saturdays and the occasional game of squash. And when
you are married and settled down, I shall frequently look in on you for
a cocktail.'
'Yes, do.'
'I will. Though I shall have to exercise an iron self-restraint to
keep me from beaning that pie-faced little hornswoggler Mrs Bertram
Wooster, nee Wickham, with the shaker.'
'Ought you to call her a pie-faced little hornswoggler?'
'Why, can you think of something worse?' he said, with the air of
one always open to suggestions. 'Do you know Thomas Otway?'
'I don't believe so. Pal of yours?'
'Seventeenth-century dramatist. Wrote The Orphan. In which play
these words occur. "What mighty ills have not been done by Woman? Who
was't betrayed the Capitol? A woman. Who lost Marc Antony the world? A
woman. Who was the cause of a long ten years' war and laid at last old
Troy in ashes? Woman. Deceitful, damnable, destructive Woman." Otway
knew what he was talking about He had the right slant. He couldn't have
put it better if he had known Roberta Wickham personally.'
I smiled another subtle smile. I was finding all this extremely
diverting.
'I don't know if it's my imagination, Kipper,' I said, 'but
something gives me the impression that at moment of going to press you
aren't too sold on Bobbie.'
He shrugged a shoulder.
'Oh, I wouldn't say that. Apart from wishing I could throttle the
young twister with my bare hands and jump on the remains with hobnailed
boots, I don't feel much about her one way or the other. She prefers
you to me, and there's nothing more to be said. The great thing is that
everything is all right between you and me.'
'You came all the way here just to make sure of that?' I said,
moved.
'Well, there may possibly also have been an idea at the back of my
mind that I might get invited to dig in at one of those dinners of
Anatole's before going on to book a room at the "Bull and Bush" in
Market Snodsbury. How is Anatole's cooking these days?'
'Superber than ever.'
'Continues to melt in the mouth, does it? It's two years since I bit
into his products, but the taste still lingers. What an artist!'
'Ah!' I said, and would have bared my head, only I hadn't a hat on.
'Would it run to a dinner invitation, do you think?'
'My dear chap, of course. The needy are never turned from our door.'
'Splendid. And after the meal I shall propose to Phyllis Mills.'
'What!'
'Yes, I know what you're thinking. She is closely related to Aubrey
Upjohn, you are saying to yourself. But surely, Bertie, she can't help
that.'
'More to be pitied than censured, you think?'
'Exactly. We mustn't be narrow-minded. She is a sweet, gentle girl,
unlike certain scarlet-headed Delilahs who shall be nameless, and I am
very fond of her.'
'I thought you scarcely knew her.'
'Oh yes, we saw quite a bit of one another in Switzerland. We're
great buddies.'
It seemed to me that the moment had come to bring the good news from
Aix to Ghent, as the expression is.
'I don't know that I would propose to Phyllis Mills, Kipper. Bobbie
might not like it.'
'But that's the whole idea, to show her she isn't the only onion in
the stew and that if she doesn't want me, there are others who feel
differently. What are you grinning about?'
As a matter of fact, I was smiling subtly, but I let it go.
'Kipper,' I said, 'I have an amazing story to relate.'
I don't know if you happen to take Old Doctor Gordon's Bile
Magnesia, which when the liver is disordered gives instant relief,
acting like magic and imparting an inward glow? I don't myself, my
personal liver being always more or less in mid-season form, but I've
seen the advertisements. They show the sufferer before and after
taking, in the first case with drawn face and hollow eyes and the
general look of one shortly about to hand in his dinner pail, in the
second all beans and buck and what the French call bien etre. Well,
what I'm driving at is that my amazing story had exactly the same
effect on Kipper as the daily dose for adults ... He moved, he stirred,
he seemed to feel the rush of life along his keel, and while I don't
suppose he actually put on several pounds in weight as the tale
proceeded, one got the distinct illusion that he was swelling like one
of those rubber ducks which you fill with air before inserting them in
the bath tub.
'Well, I'll be blowed!' he said, when I had placed the facts before
him. 'Well, I'll be a son of a what not!'
'I thought you would be.'
'Bless her ingenious little heart! Not many girls would have got the
grey matter working like that.'
'Very few.'
'What a helpmeet! Talk about service and co-operation. Have you any
idea how the thing is working out?'
'Rather smoothly, I think. On reading the announcement in The Times,
Wickham senior had hysterics and swooned in her tracks.'
'She doesn't like you?'
'That was the impression I got. It has been confirmed by subsequent
telegrams to Bobbie in which she refers to me as a guffin and a gaby.
She also considers me a nincompoop.'
'Well, that's fine. It looks as though, after you, I shall come to
her like ... it's on the tip of my tongue.'
'Rare and refreshing fruit?'
'Exactly. If you care to have a bet on it, five bob will get you ten
that this scenario will end with a fade-out of Lady Wickham folding me
in her arms and kissing me on the brow and saying she knows I will make
her little girl happy. Gosh, Bertie, when I think that she - Bobbie, I
mean, not Lady Wickham - will soon be mine and that shortly after
yonder sun has set I shall be tucking into one of Anatole's dinners, I
could dance a saraband. By the way, talking of dinner, do you suppose
it would also run to a bed? The "Bull and Bush" is well spoken of in
the Automobile Guide, but I'm always a bit wary of these country pubs.
I'd much rather be at Brinkley Court, of which I have such happy
memories. Could you swing it with your aunt?'
'She isn't here. She left to minister to her son Bonzo, who is down
with German measles at his school. But she rang up this afternoon and
instructed me to wire you to come and make a prolonged stay.'
'You're pulling my leg.'
'No, this is official.'
'But what made her think of me?'
'There's something she wants you to do for her.'
'She can have anything she asks, even unto half my kingdom. What
does she ...' He paused, and a look of alarm came into his face. 'Don't
tell me she wants me to present the prizes at Market Snodsbury Grammer
School, like Gussie?'
He was alluding to a mutual friend of ours of the name of Gussie
Fink-Nottle, who, hounded by the aged relative into undertaking this
task in the previous summer, had got pickled to the gills and made an
outstanding exhibition of himself, setting up a mark at which all
future orators would shoot in vain.
'No, no, nothing like that. The prizes this year will be distributed
by Aubrey Upjohn.'
'That's a relief. How is he, by the way? You've met him, of course?'
'Oh, yes, we got together. I spilled some tea on him.'
'You couldn't have done better.'
'He's grown a moustache.'
'That eases my mind. I wasn't looking forward to seeing that bare
upper lip of his. Remember how it used to make us quail when he
twitched it at us? I wonder how he'll react when confronted with not
only one former pupil but two, and those two the very brace that have
probably haunted him in his dreams for the last fifteen years. Might as
well unleash me on him now.'
'He isn't here.'
'You said he was.'
'Yes, he was and he will be, but he isn't. He's gone up to London.'
'Isn't anybody here?'
'Certainly. There's Phyllis Mills -'
'Nice girl.'
' - and Mrs Homer Cream of New York City, NY, and her son Wilbert.
And that brings me to the something Aunt Dahlia wants you to do for
her.'
I was pleased, as I put him hep on the Wilbert -Phyllis situation
and revealed the part he was expected to play in it, to note that he
showed no signs of being about to issue the presidential veto. He
followed the set-up intelligently and when I had finished said that of
course he would be only too willing to oblige. It wasn't much, he said,
to ask of a fellow who esteemed Aunt Dahlia as highly as he did and who
ever since she had lushed him up so lavishly two summers ago had been
wishing there was something he could do in the way of buying back.
'Rely on me, Bertie,' he said. 'We can't have Phyllis tying herself
up with a man who on the evidence would appear to be as nutty as a
fruit cake. I will be about this Cream's bed and about his board,
spying out all his ways. Every time he lures the poor girl into a leafy
glade, I will be there, nestling behind some wild flower all ready to
pop out and gum the game at the least indication that he is planning to
get mushy. And now if you would show me to my room, I will have a bath
and brush-up so as to be all sweet and fresh for the evening meal. Does
Anatole still do those Timbales de ris de veau toulousaine?'
'And the Sylphides a la creme d'ecrevisses.'
'There is none like him, none,' said Kipper, moistening the lips
with the tip of the tongue and looking like a wolf that has just
spotted its Russian peasant. 'He stands alone.'
As I hadn't the remotest which rooms were available and which
weren't, getting Kipper dug in necessitated ringing for Pop Glossop. I
pressed the button and he appeared, giving me, as he entered, the sort
of conspiratorial glance the acting secretary of a secret society would
have given a friend on the membership roll.
'Oh, Swordfish,' I said, having given him a conspiratorial glance in
return, for one always likes to do the civil thing, 'this is Mr
Herring, who has come to join our little group.'
He bowed from the waist, not that he had much waist.
'Good evening, sir.'
'He will be staying some time. Where do we park him?'
'The Red Room suggests itself, sir.'
'You get the Red Room, Kipper.'
'Right-ho.'
'I had it last year. 'Tis not as deep as a well nor as wide as a
church door, but 'tis enough, 'twill serve,' I said, recalling a gag of
Jeeves's. 'Will you escort Mr Herring thither, Swordfish?'
'Very good, sir.'
'And when you have got him installed, perhaps I could have a word
with you in your pantry,' I said, giving him a conspiratorial glance.
'Certainly, sir,' he responded, giving me a conspiratorial glance.
It was one of those big evenings for conspiratorial glances.
I hadn't been waiting in the pantry long when he navigated over the
threshold, and my first act was to congratulate him on the excellence
of his technique. I had been much impressed by all that 'Very good,
sir,' 'Certainly, sir,' bowing-from-the-waist stuff. I said that Jeeves
himself couldn't have read his lines better, and he simpered modestly
and said that one picked up these little tricks of the trade from one's
own butler.
'Oh, by the way,' I said, 'where did you get the Swordfish?'
He smiled indulgently.
'That was Miss Wickham's suggestion.'
'I thought as much.'
'She informed me that she had always dreamed of one day meeting a
butler called Swordfish. A charming young lady. Full of fun.'
'It may be fun for her,' I said with one of my bitter laughs, 'but
it isn't so diverting for the unfortunate toads beneath the harrow whom
she plunges so ruthlessly in the soup. Let me tell you what occurred
after I left you this afternoon.'
'Yes, I am all eagerness to hear.'
'Then pin your ears back and drink it in.'
If I do say so, I told my story well, omitting no detail however
slight. It had him Bless-my-soul-ing throughout, and when I had
finished he t'ck-t'ck-t'ck-ed and said it must have been most
unpleasant for me, and I said that 'unpleasant' covered the facts like
the skin on a sausage.
'But I think that in your place I should have thought of an
explanation of your presence calculated to carry more immediate
conviction than that you were searching for a mouse.'
'Such as?'
'It is hard to say on the spur of the moment.'
'Well, it was on the spur of the m. that I had to say it,' I
rejoined with some heat. 'You don't get time to polish your dialogue
and iron out the bugs in the plot when a woman who looks like Sherlock
Holmes catches you in her son's room with your rear elevation sticking
out from under the dressing-table.'
'True. Quite true. But I wonder...'
'Wonder what?'
'I do not wish to hurt your feelings.'
'Go ahead. My feelings have been hurt so much already that a little
bit extra won't make any difference.'
'I may speak frankly?'
'Do.'
'Well, then, I am wondering if it was altogether wise to entrust
this very delicate operation to a young fellow like yourself. I am
coming round to the view you put forward when we were discussing the
matter with Miss Wickham. You said, if you recall, that the enterprise
should have been placed in the hands of a mature, experienced man of
the world and not in those of one of less ripe years who as a child had
never been expert at hunt-the-slipper. I am, you will agree, mature,
and in my earlier days I won no little praise for my skill at hunt-the-
slipper. I remember one of the hostesses whose Christmas parties I
attended comparing me to a juvenile bloodhound. An extravagant
encomium, of course, but that is what she said.'
I looked at him with a wild surmise. It seemed to me that there was
but one meaning to be attached to his words.
'You aren't thinking of having a pop at it yourself?'
'That is precisely my intention, Mr Wooster.'
'Lord love a duck!'
'The expression is new to me, but I gather from it that you consider
my conduct eccentric.'
'Oh, I wouldn't say that, but do you realize what you are letting
yourself in for? You won't enjoy meeting Ma Cream. She has an eye like
... what are those things that have eyes? Basilisks, that's the name I
was groping for. She has an eye like a basilisk. Have you considered
the possibility of having that eye go through you like a dose of
salts?'
'Yes, I can envisage the peril. But the fact is, Mr Wooster, I
regard what has happened as a challenge. My blood is up.'
'Mine froze.'
'And you may possibly not believe me, but I find the prospect of
searching Mr Cream's room quite enjoyable.'
'Enjoyable?'
'Yes. In a curious way it restores my youth. It brings back to me my
preparatory school days, when I would often steal down at night to the
headmaster's study to eat his biscuits.'
I started. I looked at him with a kindling eye. Deep had called to
deep, and the cockles of the heart were warmed.
'Biscuits?'
'He kept them in a tin on his desk.'
'You really used to do that at your prep school?'
'Many years ago.'
'So did I,' I said, coming within an ace of saying, 'My brother!'
He raised his bushy eyebrows, and you could see that his heart's
cockles were warmed, too.
'Indeed? Fancy that! I had supposed the idea original with myself,
but no doubt all over England today the rising generation is doing the
same thing. So you too have lived in Arcady? What kind of biscuits were
yours? Mine were mixed.'
'The ones with pink and white sugar on?'
'In many instances, though some were plain.'
'Mine were ginger nuts.'
'Those are very good, too, of course, but I prefer the mixed.'
'So do I. But you had to take what you could get in those days. Were
you ever copped?'
'I am glad to say never.'
'I was once. I can feel the place in frosty weather still.'
'Too bad. But these things will happen. Embarking on the present
venture, I have the sustaining thought that if the worst occurs and I
am apprehended, I can scarcely be given six of the best bending over a
chair, as we used to call it. Yes, you may leave this little matter
entirely to me, Mr Wooster.'
'I wish you'd call me Bertie.'
'Certainly, certainly.'
'And might I call you Roderick?'
'I shall be delighted.'
'Or Roddy? Roderick's rather a mouthful.'
'Whichever you prefer.'
'And you are really going to hunt the slipper?'
'I am resolved to do so. I have the greatest respect and affection
for your uncle and appreciate how deeply wounded he would be, were this
prized object to be permanently missing from his collection. I would
never forgive myself if in the endeavour to recover his property, I
were to leave any -'
'Stone unturned?'
'I was about to say avenue unexplored. I shall strain every -'
'Sinew?'
'I was thinking of the word nerve.'
'Just as juste. You'll have to bide your time, of course.'
'Quite.'
'And await your opportunity.'
'Exactly.'
'Opportunity knocks but once.'
'So I understand.'
'I'll give you one tip. The thing isn't on top of the cupboard or
armoire.'
'Ah, that is helpful.'
'Unless of course he's put it there since. Well, anyway, best of
luck, Roddy.'
'Thank you, Bertie.'
If I had been taking Old Doctor Gordon's Bile Magnesia regularly, I
couldn't have felt more of an inward glow as I left him and headed for
the lawn to get the Ma Cream book and return it to its place on the
shelves of Aunt Dahlia's boudoir. I was lost in admiration of Roddy's
manly spirit. He was well stricken in years, fifty if a day, and it
thrilled me to think that there was so much life in the old dog still.
It just showed ... well, I don't know what, but something. I found
myself musing on the boy Glossop, wondering what he had been like in
his biscuit-snitching days. But except that I knew he wouldn't have
been bald then, I couldn't picture him. It's often this way when one
contemplates one's seniors. I remember how amazed I was to learn that
my Uncle Percy, a tough old egg with apparently not a spark of humanity
in him, had once held the metropolitan record for being chucked out of
Covent Garden Balls.
I got the book, and ascertaining after reaching Aunt Dahlia's lair
that there remained some twenty minutes before it would be necessary to
start getting ready for the evening meal I took a seat and resumed my
reading. I had had to leave off at a point where Ma Cream had just
begun to spit on her hands and start filling the customers with pity
and terror. But I hadn't put more than a couple of clues and a mere
sprinkling of human gore under my belt, when the door flew open and
Kipper appeared. And as the eye rested on him, he too filled me with
pity and terror, for his map was flushed and his manner distraught. He
looked like Jack Dempsey at the conclusion of his first conference with
Gene Tunney, the occasion, if you remember, when he forgot to duck.
He lost no time in bursting into speech.
'Bertie! I've been hunting for you all over the place!'
'I was having a chat with Swordfish in his pantry. Something wrong?'
'Something wrong!'
'Don't you like the Red Room?'
'The Red Room!'
I gathered from his manner that he had not come to beef about his
sleeping accommodation.
'Then what is your little trouble?'
'My little trouble!'
I felt that this sort of thing must be stopped at its source. It was
only ten minutes to dressing-for-dinner time, and we could go on along
these lines for hours.
'Listen, old crumpet,' I said patiently. 'Make up your mind whether
you are my old friend Reginald Herring or an echo in the Swiss
mountains. If you're simply going to repeat every word I say -'
At this moment Pop Glossop entered with the cocktails, and we
cheesed the give-and-take. Kipper drained his glass to the lees and
seemed to become calmer. When the door closed behind Roddy and he was
at liberty to speak, he did so quite coherently. Taking another beaker,
he said:
'Bertie, the most frightful thing has happened.'
I don't mind saying that the heart did a bit of sinking. In an
earlier conversation with Bobbie Wickham it will be recalled that I had
compared Brinkley Court to one of those joints the late Edgar Allan Poe
used to write about. If you are acquainted with his works, you will
remember that in them it was always tough going for those who stayed in
country-houses, the visitor being likely at any moment to encounter a
walking corpse in a winding sheet with blood all over it. Prevailing
conditions at Brinkley were not perhaps quite as testing as that, but
the atmosphere had undeniably become sinister, and here was Kipper more
than hinting that he had a story to relate which would deepen the
general feeling that things were hotting up.
'What's the matter?' I said.
'I'll tell you what's the matter,' he said.
'Yes, do,' I said, and he did.
'Bertie,' he said, taking a third one. 'I think you will understand
that when I read that announcement in The Times I was utterly bowled
over?'
'Oh quite. Perfectly natural.'
'My head swam, and -'
'Yes, you told me. Everything went black.'
'I wish it had stayed black,' he said bitterly, 'but it didn't.
After awhile the mists cleared, and I sat there seething with fury. And
after I had seethed for a bit I rose from my chair, took pen in hand
and wrote Bobbie a stinker.'
'Oh, gosh!'
'I put my whole soul into it.'
'Oh, golly!'
'I accused her in set terms of giving me the heave-ho in order that
she could mercenarily marry a richer man. I called her a carrot-topped
Jezebel whom I was thankful to have got out of my hair. I... Oh, I
can't remember what else I said but, as I say, it was a stinker.'
'But you never mentioned a word about this when I met you.'
'In the ecstasy of learning that that Times thing was just a ruse
and that she loved me still it passed completely from my mind. When it
suddenly came back to me just now, it was like getting hit in the eye
with a wet fish. I reeled.'
'Squealed?'
'Reeled. I felt absolutely boneless. But I had enough strength to
stagger to the telephone. I rang up Skeldings Hall and was informed
that she had just arrived.'
'She must have driven like an inebriated racing motorist.'
'No doubt she did. Girls will be girls. Anyway, she was there. She
told me with a merry lilt in her voice that she had found a letter from
me on the hall table and could hardly wait to open it. In a shaking
voice I told her not to.'
'So you were in time.'
'In time, my foot! Bertie, you're a man of the world. You've known a
good many members of the other sex in your day. What does a girl do
when she is told not to open a letter?'
I got his drift.
'Opens it?'
'Exactly. I heard the envelope rip, and the next moment... No, I'd
rather not think of it.'
'She took umbrage?'
'Yes, and she also took my head off. I don't know if you have ever
been in a typhoon on the Indian Ocean.'
'No, I've never visited those parts.'
'Nor have I, but from what people tell me what ensued must have been
very like being in one. She spoke for perhaps five minutes -'
'By Shrewsbury clock.'
'What?'
'Nothing. What did she say?'
'I can't repeat it all, and wouldn't if I could.'
'And what did you say?'
'I couldn't get a word in edgeways.'
'One can't sometimes.'
'Women talk so damn quick.'
'How well I know it! And what was the final score?'
'She said she was thankful that I was glad to have got her out of my
hair, because she was immensely relieved to have got me out of hers,
and that I had made her very happy because now she was free to marry
you, which had always been her dearest wish.'
In this hair-raiser of Ma Cream's which I had been perusing there
was a chap of the name of Scarface McColl, a gangster of sorts, who,
climbing into the old car one morning and twiddling the starting key,
went up in fragments owing to a business competitor having inserted a
bomb in his engine, and I had speculated for a moment, while reading,
as to how he must have felt. I knew now. Just as he had done, I rose. I
sprang to the door, and Kipper raised an eyebrow.
'Am I boring you?' he said rather stiffly.
'No, no. But I must go and get my car.'
'You going for a ride?'
'Yes.'
'But it's nearly dinner-time.'
'I don't want any dinner.'
'Where are you going?'
'Herne Bay.'
'Why Herne Bay?'
'Because Jeeves is there, and this thing must be placed in his hands
without a moment's delay.'
'What can Jeeves do?'
'That,' I said, 'I cannot say, but he will do something. If he has
been eating plenty of fish, as no doubt he would at a seashore resort,
his brain will be at the top of its form, and when Jeeves's brain is at
the top of its form, all you have to do is press a button and stand out
of the way while he takes charge.'
It's considerably more than a step from Brinkley Court to Herne Bay,
the one being in the middle of Worcestershire and the other on the
coast of Kent, and even under the best of conditions you don't expect
to do the trip in a flash. On the present occasion, held up by the Arab
steed getting taken with a fit of the vapours and having to be towed to
a garage for medical treatment, I didn't fetch up at journey's end till
well past midnight. And when I rolled round to Jeeves's address on the
morrow, I was informed that he had gone out early and they didn't know
when he would be back. Leaving word for him to ring me at the Drones, I
returned to the metropolis and was having the pre-dinner keg of nails
in the smoking-room when his call came through.
'Mr Wooster? Good evening, sir. This is Jeeves.'
'And not a moment too soon,' I said, speaking with the emotion of a
lost lamb which after long separation from the parent sheep finally
manages to spot it across the meadow. 'Where have you been all this
time?'
'I had an appointment to lunch with a friend at Folkestone, sir, and
while there was persuaded to extend my visit in order to judge a
seaside bathing belles contest.'
'No, really? You do live, don't you?'
'Yes, sir.'
'How did it go off?'
'Quite satisfactorily, sir, thank you.'
'Who won?'
'A Miss Marlene Higgins of Brixton, sir, with Miss Lana Brown of
Tulse Hill and Miss Marilyn Bunting of Penge honourably mentioned. All
most attractive young ladies.'
'Shapely?'
'Extremely so.'
'Well, let me tell you, Jeeves, and you can paste this in your hat,
shapeliness isn't everything in this world. In fact, it sometimes seems
to me that the more curved and lissome the members of the opposite sex,
the more likely they are to set Hell's foundations quivering. I'm
sorely beset, Jeeves. Do you recall telling me once about someone who
told somebody he could tell him something which would make him think a
bit? Knitted socks and porcupines entered into it, I remember.'
'I think you may be referring to the ghost of the father of Hamlet,
Prince of Denmark, sir. Addressing his son, he said "I could a tale
unfold whose lightest word would harrow up thy soul, freeze thy young
blood, make thy two eyes, like stars, start from their spheres, thy
knotted and combined locks to part and each particular hair to stand on
end like quills upon the fretful porpentine."'
'That's right. Locks, of course, not socks. Odd that he should have
said porpentine when he meant porcupine. Slip of the tongue, no doubt,
as so often happens with ghosts. Well, he had nothing on me, Jeeves.
It's a tale of that precise nature that I am about to unfold. Are you
listening?'
'Yes, sir.'
'Then hold on to your hat and don't miss a word.'
When I had finished unfolding, he said, 'I can readily appreciate
your concern, sir. The situation, as you say, is one fraught with
anxiety,' which is pitching it strong for Jeeves, he as a rule coming
through with a mere 'Most disturbing, sir.'
'I will come to Brinkley Court immediately, sir.'
'Will you really? I hate to interrupt your holiday.'
'Not at all, sir.'
'You can resume it later.'
'Certainly, sir, if that is convenient to you.'
'But now -'
'Precisely sir. Now, if I may borrow a familiar phrase -'
' - is the time for all good men to come to the aid of the party?'
'The very words I was about to employ, sir. I will call at the
apartment at as early an hour tomorrow as is possible.'
'And we'll drive down together. Right,' I said, and went off to my
simple but wholesome dinner.
It was with ... well, not quite an uplifted heart... call it a heart
lifted about half way ... that I started out for Brinkley on the
following afternoon. The thought that Jeeves was at my side, his fish-
fed brain at my disposal, caused a spot of silver lining to gleam
through the storm clouds, but only a spot, for I was asking myself if
even Jeeves might not fail to find a solution of the problem that had
raised its ugly head. Admittedly expert though he was at joining
sundered hearts, he had rarely been up against a rift within the lute
so complete as that within the lute of Roberta Wickham and Reginald
Herring, and as I remember hearing him say once, 'tis not in mortals to
command success. And at the thought of what would ensue, were he to
fall down on the assignment, I quivered like something in aspic. I
could not forget that Bobbie, while handing Kipper his hat, had
expressed in set terms her intention of lugging me to the altar rails
and signalling to the clergyman to do his stuff. So as I drove along
the heart, as I have indicated, was uplifted only to a medium extent.
When we were out of the London traffic and it was possible to
converse without bumping into buses and pedestrians, I threw the
meeting open for debate.
'You have not forgotten our telephone conversation of yestreen,
Jeeves?'
'No, sir.'
'You have the salient points docketed in your mind?'
'Yes, sir.'
'Have you been brooding on them?'
'Yes, sir.'
'Got a bite of any sort?'
'Not yet, sir.'
'No, I hardly expected you would. These things always take time.'
'Yes, sir.'
'The core of the matter is,' I said, twiddling the wheel to avoid a
passing hen, 'that in Roberta Wickham we are dealing with a girl of
high and haughty spirit.'
'Yes, sir.'
'And girls of high and haughty spirit need kidding along. This
cannot be done by calling them carrot-topped Jezebels.'
'No, sir.'
'I know if anyone called me a carrot-topped Jezebel, umbrage is the
first thing I'd take. Who was Jezebel, by the way? The name seems
familiar, but I can't place her.'
'A character in the Old Testament, sir. A queen of Israel.'
'Of course, yes. Be forgetting my own name next. Eaten by dogs,
wasn't she?'
'Yes, sir.'
'Can't have been pleasant for her.'
'No, sir.'
'Still, that's the way the ball rolls. Talking of being eaten by
dogs, there's a dachshund at Brinkley who when you first meet him will
give you the impression that he plans to convert you into a light snack
between his regular meals. Pay no attention. It's all eyewash. His
belligerent attitude is simply -'
'Sound and fury signifying nothing, sir?'
'That's it. Pure swank. A few civil words, and he will be grappling
you ... what's that expression I've heard you use?'
'Grappling me to his soul with hoops of steel, sir?'
'In the first two minutes. He wouldn't hurt a fly, but he has to put
up a front because his name's Poppet. One can readily appreciate that
when a dog hears himself addressed day in and day out as Poppet, he
feels he must throw his weight about. His self-respect demands it.'
'Precisely, sir.'
'You'll like Poppet. Nice dog. Wears his ears inside out. Why do
dachshunds wear their ears inside out?'
'I could not say, sir.'
'Nor me. I've often wondered. But this won't do, Jeeves. Here we
are, yakking about Jezebels and dachshunds, when we ought to be
concentrating our minds on...'
I broke off abruptly. My eye had been caught by a wayside inn. Well,
not actually so much by the wayside inn as by what was standing outside
it - to wit, a scarlet roadster which I recognized instantly as the
property of Bobbie Wickham. One saw what had happened. Driving back to
Brinkley after a couple of nights with Mother, she had found the going
a bit warm and had stopped off at this hostelry for a quick one. And a
very sensible thing to do, too. Nothing picks one up more than a spot
of sluicing on a hot summer afternoon.
I applied the brakes.
'Mind waiting here a minute, Jeeves?'
'Certainly, sir. You wish to speak to Miss Wickham?'
'Ah, you spotted her car?'
'Yes, sir. It is distinctly individual.'
'Like its owner. I have a feeling that I may be able to accomplish
something in the breach-healing way with a honeyed word or two. Worth
trying, don't you think?'
'Unquestionably, sir.'
'At a time like this one doesn't want to leave any avenue unturned.'
The interior of the wayside inn - the 'Fox and Goose', not that it
matters - was like the interiors of all wayside inns, dark and cool and
smelling of beer, cheese, coffee, pickles and the sturdy English
peasantry. Entering, you found yourself in a cosy nook with tankards on
the walls and chairs and tables dotted hither and thither. On one of
the chairs at one of the tables Bobbie was seated with a glass and a
bottle of ginger ale before her.
'Good Lord, Bertie!' she said as I stepped up and what-ho-ed. 'Where
did you spring from?'
I explained that I was on my way back to Brinkley from London in my
car.
'Be careful someone doesn't pinch it. I'll bet you haven't taken out
the keys.'
'No, but Jeeves is there, keeping watch and ward, as you might say.'
'Oh, you've brought Jeeves with you? I thought he was on his
holiday.'
'He very decently cancelled it.'
'Pretty feudal.'
'Very. When I told him I needed him at my side, he didn't hesitate.'
'What do you need him at your side for?'
The moment had come for the honeyed word. I lowered my voice to a
confidential murmur, but on her inquiring if I had laryngitis raised it
again.
'I had an idea that he might be able to do something.'
'What about?'
'About you and Kipper,' I said, and started to feel my way
cautiously towards the core and centre. It would be necessary, I knew,
to pick my words with c., for with girls of high and haughty spirit you
have to watch your step, especially if they have red hair, like Bobbie.
If they think you're talking out of turn, dudgeon ensues, and dudgeon
might easily lead her to reach for the ginger ale bottle and bean me
with it. I don't say she would, but it was a possibility that had to be
taken into account. So I sort of eased into the agenda.
'I must begin by saying that Kipper has given me a full eyewitness's
- well, earwitness's I suppose you'd say -report of that chat you and
he had over the telephone, and no doubt you are saying to yourself that
it would have been in better taste for him to have kept it under his
hat. But you must remember that we were boys together, and a fellow
naturally confides in a chap he was boys together with. Anyway, be that
as it may, he poured out his soul to me, and he hadn't been pouring
long before I was able to see that he was cut to the quick. His blood
pressure was high, his eye rolled in what they call a fine frenzy, and
he was death-where-is-thy-sting-ing like nobody's business.'
I saw her quiver and kept a wary eye on the ginger ale bottle. But
even if she had raised it and brought it down on the Wooster bean, I
couldn't have been more stunned than I was by the words that left her
lips.
'The poor lamb!'
I had ordered a gin and tonic. I now spilled a portion of this.
'Did you say poor lamb?'
'You bet I said poor lamb, though "Poor sap" would perhaps be a
better description. Just imagine him taking all that stuff I said
seriously. He ought to have known I didn't mean it.'
I groped for the gist.
'You were just making conversation?'
'Well, blowing off steam. For heaven's sake, isn't a girl allowed to
blow off some steam occasionally? I never dreamed it would really upset
him. Reggie always takes everything so literally.'
'Then is the position that the laughing love god is once more
working at the old stand?'
'Like a beaver.'
'In fact, to coin a phrase, you're sweethearts still?'
'Of course. I may have meant what I said at the time, but only for
about five minutes.'
I drew a deep breath, and a moment later wished I hadn't, because I
drew it while drinking the remains of my gin and tonic.
'Does Kipper know of this?' I said, when I had finished coughing.
'Not yet. I'm on my way to tell him.'
I raised a point on which I particularly desired assurance.
'Then what it boils down to is - No wedding bells for me?'
'I'm afraid not.'
'Quite all right. Anything that suits you.'
'I don't want to get jugged for bigamy.'
'No, one sees that. And your selection for the day is Kipper. I
don't blame you. The ideal mate.'
'Just the way I look at it. He's terrific, isn't he?'
'Colossal.'
'I wouldn't marry anyone else if they came to me bringing apes,
ivory and peacocks. Tell me what he was like as a boy.'
'Oh, much the same as the rest of us.'
'Nonsense!'
'Except, of course, for rescuing people from burning buildings and
saving blue-eyed children from getting squashed by runaway horses.'
'He did that a lot?'
'Almost daily.'
'Was he the Pride of the School?'
'Oh, rather.'
'Not that it was much of a school to be the pride of, from what he
tells me. A sort of Dotheboys Hall, wasn't it?'
'Conditions under Aubrey Upjohn were fairly tough. One's mind
reverts particularly to the sausages on Sunday.'
'Reggie was very funny about those. He said they were made not from
contented pigs but from pigs which had expired, regretted by all, of
glanders, the botts and tuberculosis.'
'Yes, that would be quite a fair description of them, I suppose. You
going?' I said, for she had risen.
'I can't wait for another minute. I want to fling myself into
Reggie's arms. If I don't see him soon, I shall pass out.'
'I know how you feel. The chap in the Yeoman's Wedding Song thought
along those same lines, only the way he put it was "Ding dong, ding
dong, ding dong, I hurry along". At one time I often used to render the
number at village concerts, and there was a nasty Becher's Brook to get
over when you got to "For it is my wedding morning," because you had to
stretch out the "mor" for about ten minutes, which tested the lung
power severely. I remember the vicar once telling me -'
Here I was interrupted, as I'm so often interrupted when giving my
views on the Yeoman's Wedding Song, by her saying that she was dying to
hear all about it but would rather wait till she could get it in my
autobiography. We went out together, and I saw her off and returned to
where Jeeves kept his vigil in the car, all smiles. I was all smiles, I
mean, not Jeeves. The best he ever does is to let his mouth twitch
slightly on one side, generally the left. I was in rare fettle, and the
heart had touched a new high. I don't know anything that braces one up
like finding you haven't got to get married after all.
'Sorry to keep you waiting, Jeeves,' I said. 'Hope you weren't
bored?'
'Oh no, sir, thank you. I was quite happy with my Spinoza.'
'Eh?'
'The copy of Spinoza's Ethics which you kindly gave me some time
ago.'
'Oh, ah, yes, I remember. Good stuff?'
'Extremely, sir.'
'I suppose it turns out in the end that the butler did it. Well,
Jeeves, you'll be glad to hear that everything's under control.'
'Indeed, sir?'
'Yes, rift in lute mended and wedding bells liable to ring out at
any moment. She's changed her mind.'
'Varium et mutabile semper femina, sir.'
'I shouldn't wonder. And now,' I said, climbing in and taking the
wheel, 'I'll unfold the tale of Wilbert and the cow-creamer, and if
that doesn't make your knotted locks do a bit of starting from their
spheres, I for one shall be greatly surprised.'
Arriving at Brinkley in the quiet evenfall and putting the old
machine away in the garage, I noticed that Aunt Dahlia's car was there
and gathered from this that the aged relative was around and about once
more. Nor was I in error. I found her in her boudoir getting outside a
dish of tea and a crumpet. She greeted me with one of those piercing
view-halloos which she had picked up on the hunting field in the days
when she had been an energetic chivvier of the British fox. It sounded
like a gas explosion and went through me from stem to stem. I've never
hunted myself, but I understand that half the battle is being able to
make noises like some jungle animal with dyspepsia, and I believe that
Aunt Dahlia in her prime could lift fellow-members of the Quorn and
Pytchley out of their saddles with a single yip, though separated from
them by two ploughed fields and a spinney.
'Hullo, ugly,' she said. 'Turned up again, have you?'
'Just this moment breasted the tape.'
'Been to Herne Bay, young Herring tells me.'
'Yes, to fetch Jeeves. How's Bonzo?'
'Spotty but cheerful. What did you want Jeeves for?'
'Well, as it turns out, his presence isn't needed, but I only
discovered that when I was half-way here. I was bringing him along to
meditate ... no, it isn't meditate ... to mediate, that's the word,
between Bobbie Wickham and Kipper. You knew they were betrothed?'
'Yes, she told me.'
'Did she tell you about shoving that thing in The Times saying she
was engaged to me?'
'I was the first in whom she confided. I got a good laugh out of
that.'
'More than Kipper did, because it hadn't occurred to the cloth-
headed young nitwit to confide in him. When he read the announcement,
he reeled and everything went black. It knocked his faith in woman for
a loop, and after seething for a while he sat down and wrote her a
letter in the Thomas Otway vein.'
'In the who's vein?'
'You are not familiar with Thomas Otway? Seventeenth-century
dramatist, celebrated for making bitter cracks about the other sex.
Wrote a play called The Orphan, which is full of them.'
'So you do read something beside the comics?'
'Well, actually I haven't steeped myself to any great extent in
Thos's output, but Kipper told me about him. He held the view that
women are a mess, and Kipper passed this information on to Bobbie in
this letter of which I speak. It was a snorter.'
'And you never thought of explaining to him, I suppose?'
'Of course I did. But by that time she'd got the letter.'
'Why didn't the idiot tell her not to open it?'
'It was his first move. "I've found a letter from you here,
precious," she said. "On no account open it, angel," he said. So of
course she opened it.'
She pursed the lips, nodded the loaf, and ate a moody piece of
crumpet.
'So that's why he's been going about looking like a dead fish. I
suppose Roberta broke the engagement?'
'In a speech lasting five minutes without a pause for breath.'
'And you brought Jeeves along to mediate?'
'That was the idea.'
'But if things have gone as far as that...'
'You doubt whether even Jeeves can heal the rift?' I patted her on
the top knot. 'Dry the starting tear, old ancestor, it's healed. I met
her at a pub on the way here, and she told me that almost immediately
after she had flipped her lid in the manner described she had a change
of heart. She loves him still with a passion that's more like boiling
oil than anything, and when we parted she was tooling off to tell him
so. By this time they must be like ham and eggs again. It's a great
burden off my mind, because, having parted brass rags with Kipper, she
announced her intention of marrying me.'
'A bit of luck for you, I should have thought.'
'Far from it.'
'Why? You were crazy about the girl once.' 'But no longer. The fever
'Of course not. Damn silly idea.'
'It's such a very old friendship.'
'I don't know when I've met an older.'
'We were boys together.'
'In Eton jackets and pimples.'
'Exactly. And more like brothers than anything. I would share my
last bar of almond rock with you, and you would cut me in fifty-fifty
on your last bag of acid drops. When you had mumps, I caught them from
you, and when I had measles, you caught them from me. Each helping
each. So we must carry on regardless, just as if this had not
happened.'
'Quite.'
'The same old lunches.'
'Oh, rather.'
'And golf on Saturdays and the occasional game of squash. And when
you are married and settled down, I shall frequently look in on you for
a cocktail.'
'Yes, do.'
'I will. Though I shall have to exercise an iron self-restraint to
keep me from beaning that pie-faced little hornswoggler Mrs Bertram
Wooster, nee Wickham, with the shaker.'
'Ought you to call her a pie-faced little hornswoggler?'
'Why, can you think of something worse?' he said, with the air of
one always open to suggestions. 'Do you know Thomas Otway?'
'I don't believe so. Pal of yours?'
'Seventeenth-century dramatist. Wrote The Orphan. In which play
these words occur. "What mighty ills have not been done by Woman? Who
was't betrayed the Capitol? A woman. Who lost Marc Antony the world? A
woman. Who was the cause of a long ten years' war and laid at last old
Troy in ashes? Woman. Deceitful, damnable, destructive Woman." Otway
knew what he was talking about He had the right slant. He couldn't have
put it better if he had known Roberta Wickham personally.'
I smiled another subtle smile. I was finding all this extremely
diverting.
'I don't know if it's my imagination, Kipper,' I said, 'but
something gives me the impression that at moment of going to press you
aren't too sold on Bobbie.'
He shrugged a shoulder.
'Oh, I wouldn't say that. Apart from wishing I could throttle the
young twister with my bare hands and jump on the remains with hobnailed
boots, I don't feel much about her one way or the other. She prefers
you to me, and there's nothing more to be said. The great thing is that
everything is all right between you and me.'
'You came all the way here just to make sure of that?' I said,
moved.
'Well, there may possibly also have been an idea at the back of my
mind that I might get invited to dig in at one of those dinners of
Anatole's before going on to book a room at the "Bull and Bush" in
Market Snodsbury. How is Anatole's cooking these days?'
'Superber than ever.'
'Continues to melt in the mouth, does it? It's two years since I bit
into his products, but the taste still lingers. What an artist!'
'Ah!' I said, and would have bared my head, only I hadn't a hat on.
'Would it run to a dinner invitation, do you think?'
'My dear chap, of course. The needy are never turned from our door.'
'Splendid. And after the meal I shall propose to Phyllis Mills.'
'What!'
'Yes, I know what you're thinking. She is closely related to Aubrey
Upjohn, you are saying to yourself. But surely, Bertie, she can't help
that.'
'More to be pitied than censured, you think?'
'Exactly. We mustn't be narrow-minded. She is a sweet, gentle girl,
unlike certain scarlet-headed Delilahs who shall be nameless, and I am
very fond of her.'
'I thought you scarcely knew her.'
'Oh yes, we saw quite a bit of one another in Switzerland. We're
great buddies.'
It seemed to me that the moment had come to bring the good news from
Aix to Ghent, as the expression is.
'I don't know that I would propose to Phyllis Mills, Kipper. Bobbie
might not like it.'
'But that's the whole idea, to show her she isn't the only onion in
the stew and that if she doesn't want me, there are others who feel
differently. What are you grinning about?'
As a matter of fact, I was smiling subtly, but I let it go.
'Kipper,' I said, 'I have an amazing story to relate.'
I don't know if you happen to take Old Doctor Gordon's Bile
Magnesia, which when the liver is disordered gives instant relief,
acting like magic and imparting an inward glow? I don't myself, my
personal liver being always more or less in mid-season form, but I've
seen the advertisements. They show the sufferer before and after
taking, in the first case with drawn face and hollow eyes and the
general look of one shortly about to hand in his dinner pail, in the
second all beans and buck and what the French call bien etre. Well,
what I'm driving at is that my amazing story had exactly the same
effect on Kipper as the daily dose for adults ... He moved, he stirred,
he seemed to feel the rush of life along his keel, and while I don't
suppose he actually put on several pounds in weight as the tale
proceeded, one got the distinct illusion that he was swelling like one
of those rubber ducks which you fill with air before inserting them in
the bath tub.
'Well, I'll be blowed!' he said, when I had placed the facts before
him. 'Well, I'll be a son of a what not!'
'I thought you would be.'
'Bless her ingenious little heart! Not many girls would have got the
grey matter working like that.'
'Very few.'
'What a helpmeet! Talk about service and co-operation. Have you any
idea how the thing is working out?'
'Rather smoothly, I think. On reading the announcement in The Times,
Wickham senior had hysterics and swooned in her tracks.'
'She doesn't like you?'
'That was the impression I got. It has been confirmed by subsequent
telegrams to Bobbie in which she refers to me as a guffin and a gaby.
She also considers me a nincompoop.'
'Well, that's fine. It looks as though, after you, I shall come to
her like ... it's on the tip of my tongue.'
'Rare and refreshing fruit?'
'Exactly. If you care to have a bet on it, five bob will get you ten
that this scenario will end with a fade-out of Lady Wickham folding me
in her arms and kissing me on the brow and saying she knows I will make
her little girl happy. Gosh, Bertie, when I think that she - Bobbie, I
mean, not Lady Wickham - will soon be mine and that shortly after
yonder sun has set I shall be tucking into one of Anatole's dinners, I
could dance a saraband. By the way, talking of dinner, do you suppose
it would also run to a bed? The "Bull and Bush" is well spoken of in
the Automobile Guide, but I'm always a bit wary of these country pubs.
I'd much rather be at Brinkley Court, of which I have such happy
memories. Could you swing it with your aunt?'
'She isn't here. She left to minister to her son Bonzo, who is down
with German measles at his school. But she rang up this afternoon and
instructed me to wire you to come and make a prolonged stay.'
'You're pulling my leg.'
'No, this is official.'
'But what made her think of me?'
'There's something she wants you to do for her.'
'She can have anything she asks, even unto half my kingdom. What
does she ...' He paused, and a look of alarm came into his face. 'Don't
tell me she wants me to present the prizes at Market Snodsbury Grammer
School, like Gussie?'
He was alluding to a mutual friend of ours of the name of Gussie
Fink-Nottle, who, hounded by the aged relative into undertaking this
task in the previous summer, had got pickled to the gills and made an
outstanding exhibition of himself, setting up a mark at which all
future orators would shoot in vain.
'No, no, nothing like that. The prizes this year will be distributed
by Aubrey Upjohn.'
'That's a relief. How is he, by the way? You've met him, of course?'
'Oh, yes, we got together. I spilled some tea on him.'
'You couldn't have done better.'
'He's grown a moustache.'
'That eases my mind. I wasn't looking forward to seeing that bare
upper lip of his. Remember how it used to make us quail when he
twitched it at us? I wonder how he'll react when confronted with not
only one former pupil but two, and those two the very brace that have
probably haunted him in his dreams for the last fifteen years. Might as
well unleash me on him now.'
'He isn't here.'
'You said he was.'
'Yes, he was and he will be, but he isn't. He's gone up to London.'
'Isn't anybody here?'
'Certainly. There's Phyllis Mills -'
'Nice girl.'
' - and Mrs Homer Cream of New York City, NY, and her son Wilbert.
And that brings me to the something Aunt Dahlia wants you to do for
her.'
I was pleased, as I put him hep on the Wilbert -Phyllis situation
and revealed the part he was expected to play in it, to note that he
showed no signs of being about to issue the presidential veto. He
followed the set-up intelligently and when I had finished said that of
course he would be only too willing to oblige. It wasn't much, he said,
to ask of a fellow who esteemed Aunt Dahlia as highly as he did and who
ever since she had lushed him up so lavishly two summers ago had been
wishing there was something he could do in the way of buying back.
'Rely on me, Bertie,' he said. 'We can't have Phyllis tying herself
up with a man who on the evidence would appear to be as nutty as a
fruit cake. I will be about this Cream's bed and about his board,
spying out all his ways. Every time he lures the poor girl into a leafy
glade, I will be there, nestling behind some wild flower all ready to
pop out and gum the game at the least indication that he is planning to
get mushy. And now if you would show me to my room, I will have a bath
and brush-up so as to be all sweet and fresh for the evening meal. Does
Anatole still do those Timbales de ris de veau toulousaine?'
'And the Sylphides a la creme d'ecrevisses.'
'There is none like him, none,' said Kipper, moistening the lips
with the tip of the tongue and looking like a wolf that has just
spotted its Russian peasant. 'He stands alone.'
As I hadn't the remotest which rooms were available and which
weren't, getting Kipper dug in necessitated ringing for Pop Glossop. I
pressed the button and he appeared, giving me, as he entered, the sort
of conspiratorial glance the acting secretary of a secret society would
have given a friend on the membership roll.
'Oh, Swordfish,' I said, having given him a conspiratorial glance in
return, for one always likes to do the civil thing, 'this is Mr
Herring, who has come to join our little group.'
He bowed from the waist, not that he had much waist.
'Good evening, sir.'
'He will be staying some time. Where do we park him?'
'The Red Room suggests itself, sir.'
'You get the Red Room, Kipper.'
'Right-ho.'
'I had it last year. 'Tis not as deep as a well nor as wide as a
church door, but 'tis enough, 'twill serve,' I said, recalling a gag of
Jeeves's. 'Will you escort Mr Herring thither, Swordfish?'
'Very good, sir.'
'And when you have got him installed, perhaps I could have a word
with you in your pantry,' I said, giving him a conspiratorial glance.
'Certainly, sir,' he responded, giving me a conspiratorial glance.
It was one of those big evenings for conspiratorial glances.
I hadn't been waiting in the pantry long when he navigated over the
threshold, and my first act was to congratulate him on the excellence
of his technique. I had been much impressed by all that 'Very good,
sir,' 'Certainly, sir,' bowing-from-the-waist stuff. I said that Jeeves
himself couldn't have read his lines better, and he simpered modestly
and said that one picked up these little tricks of the trade from one's
own butler.
'Oh, by the way,' I said, 'where did you get the Swordfish?'
He smiled indulgently.
'That was Miss Wickham's suggestion.'
'I thought as much.'
'She informed me that she had always dreamed of one day meeting a
butler called Swordfish. A charming young lady. Full of fun.'
'It may be fun for her,' I said with one of my bitter laughs, 'but
it isn't so diverting for the unfortunate toads beneath the harrow whom
she plunges so ruthlessly in the soup. Let me tell you what occurred
after I left you this afternoon.'
'Yes, I am all eagerness to hear.'
'Then pin your ears back and drink it in.'
If I do say so, I told my story well, omitting no detail however
slight. It had him Bless-my-soul-ing throughout, and when I had
finished he t'ck-t'ck-t'ck-ed and said it must have been most
unpleasant for me, and I said that 'unpleasant' covered the facts like
the skin on a sausage.
'But I think that in your place I should have thought of an
explanation of your presence calculated to carry more immediate
conviction than that you were searching for a mouse.'
'Such as?'
'It is hard to say on the spur of the moment.'
'Well, it was on the spur of the m. that I had to say it,' I
rejoined with some heat. 'You don't get time to polish your dialogue
and iron out the bugs in the plot when a woman who looks like Sherlock
Holmes catches you in her son's room with your rear elevation sticking
out from under the dressing-table.'
'True. Quite true. But I wonder...'
'Wonder what?'
'I do not wish to hurt your feelings.'
'Go ahead. My feelings have been hurt so much already that a little
bit extra won't make any difference.'
'I may speak frankly?'
'Do.'
'Well, then, I am wondering if it was altogether wise to entrust
this very delicate operation to a young fellow like yourself. I am
coming round to the view you put forward when we were discussing the
matter with Miss Wickham. You said, if you recall, that the enterprise
should have been placed in the hands of a mature, experienced man of
the world and not in those of one of less ripe years who as a child had
never been expert at hunt-the-slipper. I am, you will agree, mature,
and in my earlier days I won no little praise for my skill at hunt-the-
slipper. I remember one of the hostesses whose Christmas parties I
attended comparing me to a juvenile bloodhound. An extravagant
encomium, of course, but that is what she said.'
I looked at him with a wild surmise. It seemed to me that there was
but one meaning to be attached to his words.
'You aren't thinking of having a pop at it yourself?'
'That is precisely my intention, Mr Wooster.'
'Lord love a duck!'
'The expression is new to me, but I gather from it that you consider
my conduct eccentric.'
'Oh, I wouldn't say that, but do you realize what you are letting
yourself in for? You won't enjoy meeting Ma Cream. She has an eye like
... what are those things that have eyes? Basilisks, that's the name I
was groping for. She has an eye like a basilisk. Have you considered
the possibility of having that eye go through you like a dose of
salts?'
'Yes, I can envisage the peril. But the fact is, Mr Wooster, I
regard what has happened as a challenge. My blood is up.'
'Mine froze.'
'And you may possibly not believe me, but I find the prospect of
searching Mr Cream's room quite enjoyable.'
'Enjoyable?'
'Yes. In a curious way it restores my youth. It brings back to me my
preparatory school days, when I would often steal down at night to the
headmaster's study to eat his biscuits.'
I started. I looked at him with a kindling eye. Deep had called to
deep, and the cockles of the heart were warmed.
'Biscuits?'
'He kept them in a tin on his desk.'
'You really used to do that at your prep school?'
'Many years ago.'
'So did I,' I said, coming within an ace of saying, 'My brother!'
He raised his bushy eyebrows, and you could see that his heart's
cockles were warmed, too.
'Indeed? Fancy that! I had supposed the idea original with myself,
but no doubt all over England today the rising generation is doing the
same thing. So you too have lived in Arcady? What kind of biscuits were
yours? Mine were mixed.'
'The ones with pink and white sugar on?'
'In many instances, though some were plain.'
'Mine were ginger nuts.'
'Those are very good, too, of course, but I prefer the mixed.'
'So do I. But you had to take what you could get in those days. Were
you ever copped?'
'I am glad to say never.'
'I was once. I can feel the place in frosty weather still.'
'Too bad. But these things will happen. Embarking on the present
venture, I have the sustaining thought that if the worst occurs and I
am apprehended, I can scarcely be given six of the best bending over a
chair, as we used to call it. Yes, you may leave this little matter
entirely to me, Mr Wooster.'
'I wish you'd call me Bertie.'
'Certainly, certainly.'
'And might I call you Roderick?'
'I shall be delighted.'
'Or Roddy? Roderick's rather a mouthful.'
'Whichever you prefer.'
'And you are really going to hunt the slipper?'
'I am resolved to do so. I have the greatest respect and affection
for your uncle and appreciate how deeply wounded he would be, were this
prized object to be permanently missing from his collection. I would
never forgive myself if in the endeavour to recover his property, I
were to leave any -'
'Stone unturned?'
'I was about to say avenue unexplored. I shall strain every -'
'Sinew?'
'I was thinking of the word nerve.'
'Just as juste. You'll have to bide your time, of course.'
'Quite.'
'And await your opportunity.'
'Exactly.'
'Opportunity knocks but once.'
'So I understand.'
'I'll give you one tip. The thing isn't on top of the cupboard or
armoire.'
'Ah, that is helpful.'
'Unless of course he's put it there since. Well, anyway, best of
luck, Roddy.'
'Thank you, Bertie.'
If I had been taking Old Doctor Gordon's Bile Magnesia regularly, I
couldn't have felt more of an inward glow as I left him and headed for
the lawn to get the Ma Cream book and return it to its place on the
shelves of Aunt Dahlia's boudoir. I was lost in admiration of Roddy's
manly spirit. He was well stricken in years, fifty if a day, and it
thrilled me to think that there was so much life in the old dog still.
It just showed ... well, I don't know what, but something. I found
myself musing on the boy Glossop, wondering what he had been like in
his biscuit-snitching days. But except that I knew he wouldn't have
been bald then, I couldn't picture him. It's often this way when one
contemplates one's seniors. I remember how amazed I was to learn that
my Uncle Percy, a tough old egg with apparently not a spark of humanity
in him, had once held the metropolitan record for being chucked out of
Covent Garden Balls.
I got the book, and ascertaining after reaching Aunt Dahlia's lair
that there remained some twenty minutes before it would be necessary to
start getting ready for the evening meal I took a seat and resumed my
reading. I had had to leave off at a point where Ma Cream had just
begun to spit on her hands and start filling the customers with pity
and terror. But I hadn't put more than a couple of clues and a mere
sprinkling of human gore under my belt, when the door flew open and
Kipper appeared. And as the eye rested on him, he too filled me with
pity and terror, for his map was flushed and his manner distraught. He
looked like Jack Dempsey at the conclusion of his first conference with
Gene Tunney, the occasion, if you remember, when he forgot to duck.
He lost no time in bursting into speech.
'Bertie! I've been hunting for you all over the place!'
'I was having a chat with Swordfish in his pantry. Something wrong?'
'Something wrong!'
'Don't you like the Red Room?'
'The Red Room!'
I gathered from his manner that he had not come to beef about his
sleeping accommodation.
'Then what is your little trouble?'
'My little trouble!'
I felt that this sort of thing must be stopped at its source. It was
only ten minutes to dressing-for-dinner time, and we could go on along
these lines for hours.
'Listen, old crumpet,' I said patiently. 'Make up your mind whether
you are my old friend Reginald Herring or an echo in the Swiss
mountains. If you're simply going to repeat every word I say -'
At this moment Pop Glossop entered with the cocktails, and we
cheesed the give-and-take. Kipper drained his glass to the lees and
seemed to become calmer. When the door closed behind Roddy and he was
at liberty to speak, he did so quite coherently. Taking another beaker,
he said:
'Bertie, the most frightful thing has happened.'
I don't mind saying that the heart did a bit of sinking. In an
earlier conversation with Bobbie Wickham it will be recalled that I had
compared Brinkley Court to one of those joints the late Edgar Allan Poe
used to write about. If you are acquainted with his works, you will
remember that in them it was always tough going for those who stayed in
country-houses, the visitor being likely at any moment to encounter a
walking corpse in a winding sheet with blood all over it. Prevailing
conditions at Brinkley were not perhaps quite as testing as that, but
the atmosphere had undeniably become sinister, and here was Kipper more
than hinting that he had a story to relate which would deepen the
general feeling that things were hotting up.
'What's the matter?' I said.
'I'll tell you what's the matter,' he said.
'Yes, do,' I said, and he did.
'Bertie,' he said, taking a third one. 'I think you will understand
that when I read that announcement in The Times I was utterly bowled
over?'
'Oh quite. Perfectly natural.'
'My head swam, and -'
'Yes, you told me. Everything went black.'
'I wish it had stayed black,' he said bitterly, 'but it didn't.
After awhile the mists cleared, and I sat there seething with fury. And
after I had seethed for a bit I rose from my chair, took pen in hand
and wrote Bobbie a stinker.'
'Oh, gosh!'
'I put my whole soul into it.'
'Oh, golly!'
'I accused her in set terms of giving me the heave-ho in order that
she could mercenarily marry a richer man. I called her a carrot-topped
Jezebel whom I was thankful to have got out of my hair. I... Oh, I
can't remember what else I said but, as I say, it was a stinker.'
'But you never mentioned a word about this when I met you.'
'In the ecstasy of learning that that Times thing was just a ruse
and that she loved me still it passed completely from my mind. When it
suddenly came back to me just now, it was like getting hit in the eye
with a wet fish. I reeled.'
'Squealed?'
'Reeled. I felt absolutely boneless. But I had enough strength to
stagger to the telephone. I rang up Skeldings Hall and was informed
that she had just arrived.'
'She must have driven like an inebriated racing motorist.'
'No doubt she did. Girls will be girls. Anyway, she was there. She
told me with a merry lilt in her voice that she had found a letter from
me on the hall table and could hardly wait to open it. In a shaking
voice I told her not to.'
'So you were in time.'
'In time, my foot! Bertie, you're a man of the world. You've known a
good many members of the other sex in your day. What does a girl do
when she is told not to open a letter?'
I got his drift.
'Opens it?'
'Exactly. I heard the envelope rip, and the next moment... No, I'd
rather not think of it.'
'She took umbrage?'
'Yes, and she also took my head off. I don't know if you have ever
been in a typhoon on the Indian Ocean.'
'No, I've never visited those parts.'
'Nor have I, but from what people tell me what ensued must have been
very like being in one. She spoke for perhaps five minutes -'
'By Shrewsbury clock.'
'What?'
'Nothing. What did she say?'
'I can't repeat it all, and wouldn't if I could.'
'And what did you say?'
'I couldn't get a word in edgeways.'
'One can't sometimes.'
'Women talk so damn quick.'
'How well I know it! And what was the final score?'
'She said she was thankful that I was glad to have got her out of my
hair, because she was immensely relieved to have got me out of hers,
and that I had made her very happy because now she was free to marry
you, which had always been her dearest wish.'
In this hair-raiser of Ma Cream's which I had been perusing there
was a chap of the name of Scarface McColl, a gangster of sorts, who,
climbing into the old car one morning and twiddling the starting key,
went up in fragments owing to a business competitor having inserted a
bomb in his engine, and I had speculated for a moment, while reading,
as to how he must have felt. I knew now. Just as he had done, I rose. I
sprang to the door, and Kipper raised an eyebrow.
'Am I boring you?' he said rather stiffly.
'No, no. But I must go and get my car.'
'You going for a ride?'
'Yes.'
'But it's nearly dinner-time.'
'I don't want any dinner.'
'Where are you going?'
'Herne Bay.'
'Why Herne Bay?'
'Because Jeeves is there, and this thing must be placed in his hands
without a moment's delay.'
'What can Jeeves do?'
'That,' I said, 'I cannot say, but he will do something. If he has
been eating plenty of fish, as no doubt he would at a seashore resort,
his brain will be at the top of its form, and when Jeeves's brain is at
the top of its form, all you have to do is press a button and stand out
of the way while he takes charge.'
It's considerably more than a step from Brinkley Court to Herne Bay,
the one being in the middle of Worcestershire and the other on the
coast of Kent, and even under the best of conditions you don't expect
to do the trip in a flash. On the present occasion, held up by the Arab
steed getting taken with a fit of the vapours and having to be towed to
a garage for medical treatment, I didn't fetch up at journey's end till
well past midnight. And when I rolled round to Jeeves's address on the
morrow, I was informed that he had gone out early and they didn't know
when he would be back. Leaving word for him to ring me at the Drones, I
returned to the metropolis and was having the pre-dinner keg of nails
in the smoking-room when his call came through.
'Mr Wooster? Good evening, sir. This is Jeeves.'
'And not a moment too soon,' I said, speaking with the emotion of a
lost lamb which after long separation from the parent sheep finally
manages to spot it across the meadow. 'Where have you been all this
time?'
'I had an appointment to lunch with a friend at Folkestone, sir, and
while there was persuaded to extend my visit in order to judge a
seaside bathing belles contest.'
'No, really? You do live, don't you?'
'Yes, sir.'
'How did it go off?'
'Quite satisfactorily, sir, thank you.'
'Who won?'
'A Miss Marlene Higgins of Brixton, sir, with Miss Lana Brown of
Tulse Hill and Miss Marilyn Bunting of Penge honourably mentioned. All
most attractive young ladies.'
'Shapely?'
'Extremely so.'
'Well, let me tell you, Jeeves, and you can paste this in your hat,
shapeliness isn't everything in this world. In fact, it sometimes seems
to me that the more curved and lissome the members of the opposite sex,
the more likely they are to set Hell's foundations quivering. I'm
sorely beset, Jeeves. Do you recall telling me once about someone who
told somebody he could tell him something which would make him think a
bit? Knitted socks and porcupines entered into it, I remember.'
'I think you may be referring to the ghost of the father of Hamlet,
Prince of Denmark, sir. Addressing his son, he said "I could a tale
unfold whose lightest word would harrow up thy soul, freeze thy young
blood, make thy two eyes, like stars, start from their spheres, thy
knotted and combined locks to part and each particular hair to stand on
end like quills upon the fretful porpentine."'
'That's right. Locks, of course, not socks. Odd that he should have
said porpentine when he meant porcupine. Slip of the tongue, no doubt,
as so often happens with ghosts. Well, he had nothing on me, Jeeves.
It's a tale of that precise nature that I am about to unfold. Are you
listening?'
'Yes, sir.'
'Then hold on to your hat and don't miss a word.'
When I had finished unfolding, he said, 'I can readily appreciate
your concern, sir. The situation, as you say, is one fraught with
anxiety,' which is pitching it strong for Jeeves, he as a rule coming
through with a mere 'Most disturbing, sir.'
'I will come to Brinkley Court immediately, sir.'
'Will you really? I hate to interrupt your holiday.'
'Not at all, sir.'
'You can resume it later.'
'Certainly, sir, if that is convenient to you.'
'But now -'
'Precisely sir. Now, if I may borrow a familiar phrase -'
' - is the time for all good men to come to the aid of the party?'
'The very words I was about to employ, sir. I will call at the
apartment at as early an hour tomorrow as is possible.'
'And we'll drive down together. Right,' I said, and went off to my
simple but wholesome dinner.
It was with ... well, not quite an uplifted heart... call it a heart
lifted about half way ... that I started out for Brinkley on the
following afternoon. The thought that Jeeves was at my side, his fish-
fed brain at my disposal, caused a spot of silver lining to gleam
through the storm clouds, but only a spot, for I was asking myself if
even Jeeves might not fail to find a solution of the problem that had
raised its ugly head. Admittedly expert though he was at joining
sundered hearts, he had rarely been up against a rift within the lute
so complete as that within the lute of Roberta Wickham and Reginald
Herring, and as I remember hearing him say once, 'tis not in mortals to
command success. And at the thought of what would ensue, were he to
fall down on the assignment, I quivered like something in aspic. I
could not forget that Bobbie, while handing Kipper his hat, had
expressed in set terms her intention of lugging me to the altar rails
and signalling to the clergyman to do his stuff. So as I drove along
the heart, as I have indicated, was uplifted only to a medium extent.
When we were out of the London traffic and it was possible to
converse without bumping into buses and pedestrians, I threw the
meeting open for debate.
'You have not forgotten our telephone conversation of yestreen,
Jeeves?'
'No, sir.'
'You have the salient points docketed in your mind?'
'Yes, sir.'
'Have you been brooding on them?'
'Yes, sir.'
'Got a bite of any sort?'
'Not yet, sir.'
'No, I hardly expected you would. These things always take time.'
'Yes, sir.'
'The core of the matter is,' I said, twiddling the wheel to avoid a
passing hen, 'that in Roberta Wickham we are dealing with a girl of
high and haughty spirit.'
'Yes, sir.'
'And girls of high and haughty spirit need kidding along. This
cannot be done by calling them carrot-topped Jezebels.'
'No, sir.'
'I know if anyone called me a carrot-topped Jezebel, umbrage is the
first thing I'd take. Who was Jezebel, by the way? The name seems
familiar, but I can't place her.'
'A character in the Old Testament, sir. A queen of Israel.'
'Of course, yes. Be forgetting my own name next. Eaten by dogs,
wasn't she?'
'Yes, sir.'
'Can't have been pleasant for her.'
'No, sir.'
'Still, that's the way the ball rolls. Talking of being eaten by
dogs, there's a dachshund at Brinkley who when you first meet him will
give you the impression that he plans to convert you into a light snack
between his regular meals. Pay no attention. It's all eyewash. His
belligerent attitude is simply -'
'Sound and fury signifying nothing, sir?'
'That's it. Pure swank. A few civil words, and he will be grappling
you ... what's that expression I've heard you use?'
'Grappling me to his soul with hoops of steel, sir?'
'In the first two minutes. He wouldn't hurt a fly, but he has to put
up a front because his name's Poppet. One can readily appreciate that
when a dog hears himself addressed day in and day out as Poppet, he
feels he must throw his weight about. His self-respect demands it.'
'Precisely, sir.'
'You'll like Poppet. Nice dog. Wears his ears inside out. Why do
dachshunds wear their ears inside out?'
'I could not say, sir.'
'Nor me. I've often wondered. But this won't do, Jeeves. Here we
are, yakking about Jezebels and dachshunds, when we ought to be
concentrating our minds on...'
I broke off abruptly. My eye had been caught by a wayside inn. Well,
not actually so much by the wayside inn as by what was standing outside
it - to wit, a scarlet roadster which I recognized instantly as the
property of Bobbie Wickham. One saw what had happened. Driving back to
Brinkley after a couple of nights with Mother, she had found the going
a bit warm and had stopped off at this hostelry for a quick one. And a
very sensible thing to do, too. Nothing picks one up more than a spot
of sluicing on a hot summer afternoon.
I applied the brakes.
'Mind waiting here a minute, Jeeves?'
'Certainly, sir. You wish to speak to Miss Wickham?'
'Ah, you spotted her car?'
'Yes, sir. It is distinctly individual.'
'Like its owner. I have a feeling that I may be able to accomplish
something in the breach-healing way with a honeyed word or two. Worth
trying, don't you think?'
'Unquestionably, sir.'
'At a time like this one doesn't want to leave any avenue unturned.'
The interior of the wayside inn - the 'Fox and Goose', not that it
matters - was like the interiors of all wayside inns, dark and cool and
smelling of beer, cheese, coffee, pickles and the sturdy English
peasantry. Entering, you found yourself in a cosy nook with tankards on
the walls and chairs and tables dotted hither and thither. On one of
the chairs at one of the tables Bobbie was seated with a glass and a
bottle of ginger ale before her.
'Good Lord, Bertie!' she said as I stepped up and what-ho-ed. 'Where
did you spring from?'
I explained that I was on my way back to Brinkley from London in my
car.
'Be careful someone doesn't pinch it. I'll bet you haven't taken out
the keys.'
'No, but Jeeves is there, keeping watch and ward, as you might say.'
'Oh, you've brought Jeeves with you? I thought he was on his
holiday.'
'He very decently cancelled it.'
'Pretty feudal.'
'Very. When I told him I needed him at my side, he didn't hesitate.'
'What do you need him at your side for?'
The moment had come for the honeyed word. I lowered my voice to a
confidential murmur, but on her inquiring if I had laryngitis raised it
again.
'I had an idea that he might be able to do something.'
'What about?'
'About you and Kipper,' I said, and started to feel my way
cautiously towards the core and centre. It would be necessary, I knew,
to pick my words with c., for with girls of high and haughty spirit you
have to watch your step, especially if they have red hair, like Bobbie.
If they think you're talking out of turn, dudgeon ensues, and dudgeon
might easily lead her to reach for the ginger ale bottle and bean me
with it. I don't say she would, but it was a possibility that had to be
taken into account. So I sort of eased into the agenda.
'I must begin by saying that Kipper has given me a full eyewitness's
- well, earwitness's I suppose you'd say -report of that chat you and
he had over the telephone, and no doubt you are saying to yourself that
it would have been in better taste for him to have kept it under his
hat. But you must remember that we were boys together, and a fellow
naturally confides in a chap he was boys together with. Anyway, be that
as it may, he poured out his soul to me, and he hadn't been pouring
long before I was able to see that he was cut to the quick. His blood
pressure was high, his eye rolled in what they call a fine frenzy, and
he was death-where-is-thy-sting-ing like nobody's business.'
I saw her quiver and kept a wary eye on the ginger ale bottle. But
even if she had raised it and brought it down on the Wooster bean, I
couldn't have been more stunned than I was by the words that left her
lips.
'The poor lamb!'
I had ordered a gin and tonic. I now spilled a portion of this.
'Did you say poor lamb?'
'You bet I said poor lamb, though "Poor sap" would perhaps be a
better description. Just imagine him taking all that stuff I said
seriously. He ought to have known I didn't mean it.'
I groped for the gist.
'You were just making conversation?'
'Well, blowing off steam. For heaven's sake, isn't a girl allowed to
blow off some steam occasionally? I never dreamed it would really upset
him. Reggie always takes everything so literally.'
'Then is the position that the laughing love god is once more
working at the old stand?'
'Like a beaver.'
'In fact, to coin a phrase, you're sweethearts still?'
'Of course. I may have meant what I said at the time, but only for
about five minutes.'
I drew a deep breath, and a moment later wished I hadn't, because I
drew it while drinking the remains of my gin and tonic.
'Does Kipper know of this?' I said, when I had finished coughing.
'Not yet. I'm on my way to tell him.'
I raised a point on which I particularly desired assurance.
'Then what it boils down to is - No wedding bells for me?'
'I'm afraid not.'
'Quite all right. Anything that suits you.'
'I don't want to get jugged for bigamy.'
'No, one sees that. And your selection for the day is Kipper. I
don't blame you. The ideal mate.'
'Just the way I look at it. He's terrific, isn't he?'
'Colossal.'
'I wouldn't marry anyone else if they came to me bringing apes,
ivory and peacocks. Tell me what he was like as a boy.'
'Oh, much the same as the rest of us.'
'Nonsense!'
'Except, of course, for rescuing people from burning buildings and
saving blue-eyed children from getting squashed by runaway horses.'
'He did that a lot?'
'Almost daily.'
'Was he the Pride of the School?'
'Oh, rather.'
'Not that it was much of a school to be the pride of, from what he
tells me. A sort of Dotheboys Hall, wasn't it?'
'Conditions under Aubrey Upjohn were fairly tough. One's mind
reverts particularly to the sausages on Sunday.'
'Reggie was very funny about those. He said they were made not from
contented pigs but from pigs which had expired, regretted by all, of
glanders, the botts and tuberculosis.'
'Yes, that would be quite a fair description of them, I suppose. You
going?' I said, for she had risen.
'I can't wait for another minute. I want to fling myself into
Reggie's arms. If I don't see him soon, I shall pass out.'
'I know how you feel. The chap in the Yeoman's Wedding Song thought
along those same lines, only the way he put it was "Ding dong, ding
dong, ding dong, I hurry along". At one time I often used to render the
number at village concerts, and there was a nasty Becher's Brook to get
over when you got to "For it is my wedding morning," because you had to
stretch out the "mor" for about ten minutes, which tested the lung
power severely. I remember the vicar once telling me -'
Here I was interrupted, as I'm so often interrupted when giving my
views on the Yeoman's Wedding Song, by her saying that she was dying to
hear all about it but would rather wait till she could get it in my
autobiography. We went out together, and I saw her off and returned to
where Jeeves kept his vigil in the car, all smiles. I was all smiles, I
mean, not Jeeves. The best he ever does is to let his mouth twitch
slightly on one side, generally the left. I was in rare fettle, and the
heart had touched a new high. I don't know anything that braces one up
like finding you haven't got to get married after all.
'Sorry to keep you waiting, Jeeves,' I said. 'Hope you weren't
bored?'
'Oh no, sir, thank you. I was quite happy with my Spinoza.'
'Eh?'
'The copy of Spinoza's Ethics which you kindly gave me some time
ago.'
'Oh, ah, yes, I remember. Good stuff?'
'Extremely, sir.'
'I suppose it turns out in the end that the butler did it. Well,
Jeeves, you'll be glad to hear that everything's under control.'
'Indeed, sir?'
'Yes, rift in lute mended and wedding bells liable to ring out at
any moment. She's changed her mind.'
'Varium et mutabile semper femina, sir.'
'I shouldn't wonder. And now,' I said, climbing in and taking the
wheel, 'I'll unfold the tale of Wilbert and the cow-creamer, and if
that doesn't make your knotted locks do a bit of starting from their
spheres, I for one shall be greatly surprised.'
Arriving at Brinkley in the quiet evenfall and putting the old
machine away in the garage, I noticed that Aunt Dahlia's car was there
and gathered from this that the aged relative was around and about once
more. Nor was I in error. I found her in her boudoir getting outside a
dish of tea and a crumpet. She greeted me with one of those piercing
view-halloos which she had picked up on the hunting field in the days
when she had been an energetic chivvier of the British fox. It sounded
like a gas explosion and went through me from stem to stem. I've never
hunted myself, but I understand that half the battle is being able to
make noises like some jungle animal with dyspepsia, and I believe that
Aunt Dahlia in her prime could lift fellow-members of the Quorn and
Pytchley out of their saddles with a single yip, though separated from
them by two ploughed fields and a spinney.
'Hullo, ugly,' she said. 'Turned up again, have you?'
'Just this moment breasted the tape.'
'Been to Herne Bay, young Herring tells me.'
'Yes, to fetch Jeeves. How's Bonzo?'
'Spotty but cheerful. What did you want Jeeves for?'
'Well, as it turns out, his presence isn't needed, but I only
discovered that when I was half-way here. I was bringing him along to
meditate ... no, it isn't meditate ... to mediate, that's the word,
between Bobbie Wickham and Kipper. You knew they were betrothed?'
'Yes, she told me.'
'Did she tell you about shoving that thing in The Times saying she
was engaged to me?'
'I was the first in whom she confided. I got a good laugh out of
that.'
'More than Kipper did, because it hadn't occurred to the cloth-
headed young nitwit to confide in him. When he read the announcement,
he reeled and everything went black. It knocked his faith in woman for
a loop, and after seething for a while he sat down and wrote her a
letter in the Thomas Otway vein.'
'In the who's vein?'
'You are not familiar with Thomas Otway? Seventeenth-century
dramatist, celebrated for making bitter cracks about the other sex.
Wrote a play called The Orphan, which is full of them.'
'So you do read something beside the comics?'
'Well, actually I haven't steeped myself to any great extent in
Thos's output, but Kipper told me about him. He held the view that
women are a mess, and Kipper passed this information on to Bobbie in
this letter of which I speak. It was a snorter.'
'And you never thought of explaining to him, I suppose?'
'Of course I did. But by that time she'd got the letter.'
'Why didn't the idiot tell her not to open it?'
'It was his first move. "I've found a letter from you here,
precious," she said. "On no account open it, angel," he said. So of
course she opened it.'
She pursed the lips, nodded the loaf, and ate a moody piece of
crumpet.
'So that's why he's been going about looking like a dead fish. I
suppose Roberta broke the engagement?'
'In a speech lasting five minutes without a pause for breath.'
'And you brought Jeeves along to mediate?'
'That was the idea.'
'But if things have gone as far as that...'
'You doubt whether even Jeeves can heal the rift?' I patted her on
the top knot. 'Dry the starting tear, old ancestor, it's healed. I met
her at a pub on the way here, and she told me that almost immediately
after she had flipped her lid in the manner described she had a change
of heart. She loves him still with a passion that's more like boiling
oil than anything, and when we parted she was tooling off to tell him
so. By this time they must be like ham and eggs again. It's a great
burden off my mind, because, having parted brass rags with Kipper, she
announced her intention of marrying me.'
'A bit of luck for you, I should have thought.'
'Far from it.'
'Why? You were crazy about the girl once.' 'But no longer. The fever