Вудхауз Пэлем Грэнвил. Дживс в отпуске (engl)

(more PGW titles to come, http://rojer.bdo.ru/PGW/)
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1


Jeeves placed the sizzling eggs and b. on the breakfast table, and
Reginald ('Kipper') Herring and I, licking the lips, squared our elbows
and got down to it. A lifelong buddy of mine, this Herring, linked to
me by what are called imperishable memories. Years ago, when
striplings, he and I had done a stretch together at Malvern House,
Bramley-on-Sea, the preparatory school conducted by that prince of
stinkers, Aubrey Upjohn MA, and had frequently stood side by side in
the Upjohn study awaiting the receipt of six of the juiciest from a
cane of the type that biteth like a serpent and stingeth like an adder,
as the fellow said. So we were, you might say, rather like a couple of
old sweats who had fought shoulder to shoulder on Crispin's Day, if
I've got the name right.
The plat du jour having gone down the hatch, accompanied by some
fluid ounces of strengthening coffee, I was about to reach for the
marmalade, when I heard the telephone tootling out in the hall and rose
to attend to it.
'Bertram Wooster's residence, 'I said, having connected with the
instrument. 'Wooster in person at this end. Oh hullo, ' I added, for
the voice that boomed over the wire was that of Mrs Thomas
Portarlington Travers of Brinkley Court, Market Snodsbury, near
Droitwich - or, putting it another way, my good and deserving Aunt
Dahlia. 'A very hearty pip-pip to you, old ancestor, ' I said, well
pleased, for she is a woman with whom it is always a privilege to chew
the fat.
'And a rousing toodle-oo to you, you young blot on the landscape,'
she replied cordially. 'I'm surprised to find you up as early as this.
Or have you just got in from a night on the tiles?'
I hastened to rebut this slur.
'Certainly not. Nothing of that description whatsoever. I've been
upping with the lark this last week, to keep Kipper Herring company.
He's staying with me till he can get into his new flat. You remember
old Kipper? I brought him down to Brinkley one summer. Chap with a
cauliflower ear.'
'I know who you mean. Looks like Jack Dempsey.'
'That's right. Far more, indeed, than Jack Dempsey does. He's on the
staff of the Thursday Review, a periodical of which you may or may not
be a reader, and has to clock in at the office at daybreak. No doubt,
when I apprise him of your call, he will send you his love, for I know
he holds you in high esteem. The perfect hostess, he often describes
you as. Well, it's nice to hear your voice again, old flesh-and-blood.
How's everything down Market Snodsbury way?'
'Oh, we're jogging along. But I'm not speaking from Brinkley. I'm in
London.'
'Till when?'
'Driving back this afternoon.'
'I'll give you lunch.'
'Sorry, can't manage it. I'm putting on the nosebag with Sir
Roderick Glossop.'
This surprised me. The eminent brain specialist to whom she alluded
was a man I would not have cared to lunch with myself, our relations
having been on the stiff side since the night at Lady Wickham's place
in Hertfordshire when, acting on the advice of my hostess's daughter
Roberta, I had punctured his hot-water bottle with a darning needle in
the small hours of the morning. Quite unintentional, of course. I had
planned to puncture the h-w-b of his nephew Tuppy Glossop, with whom I
had a feud on, and unknown to me they had changed rooms, fust one of
those unfortunate misunderstandings.
'What on earth are you doing that for?'
'Why shouldn't I? He's paying.'
I saw her point - a penny saved is a penny earned and all that sort
of thing - but I continued surprised. It amazed me that Aunt Dahlia,
presumably a free agent, should have selected this very formidable
loony-doctor to chew the mid-day chop with. However, one of the first
lessons life teaches us is that aunts will be aunts, so I merely
shrugged a couple of shoulders.
'Well, it's up to you, of course, but it seems a rash act. Did you
come to London just to revel with Glossop?'
'No, I'm here to collect my new butler and take him home with me.'
'New butler? What's become of Seppings?'
'He's gone.'
I clicked the tongue. I was very fond of the major-domo in question,
having enjoyed many a port in his pantry, and this news saddened me.
'No, really?' I said. 'Too bad. I thought he looked a little frail
when I last saw him. Well, that's how it goes. All flesh is grass, I
often say.'
'To Bognor Regis, for his holiday.'
I unclicked the tongue.
'Oh, I see. That puts a different complexion on the matter. Odd how
all these pillars of the home seem to be dashing away on toots these
days. It's like what Jeeves was telling me about the great race
movements of the Middle Ages. Jeeves starts his holiday this morning.
He's off to Herne Bay for the shrimping, and I'm feeling like that bird
in the poem who lost his pet gazelle or whatever the animal was. I
don't know what I'm going to do without him.'
'I'll tell you what you're going to do. Have you a clean shirt?'
'Several.'
'And a toothbrush?'
'Two, both of the finest quality.'
'Then pack them. You're coming to Brinkley tomorrow.'
The gloom which always envelops Bertram Wooster like a fog when
Jeeves is about to take his annual vacation lightened perceptibly.
There are few things I find more agreeable than a sojourn at Aunt
Dahlia's rural lair. Picturesque scenery, gravel soil, main drainage,
company's own water and, above all, the superb French cheffing of her
French chef Anatole, God's gift to the gastric juices. A full hand, as
you might put it.
'What an admirable suggestion,' I said. 'You solve all my problems
and bring the blue bird out of a hat. Rely on me. You will observe me
bowling up in the Wooster sports model tomorrow afternoon with my hair
in a braid and a song on my lips. My presence will, I feel sure,
stimulate Anatole to new heights of endeavour. Got anybody else staying
at the old snake pit?'
'Five inmates in all.'
'Five?' I resumed my tongue-clicking. 'Golly! Uncle Tom must be
frothing at the mouth a bit,' I said, for I knew the old buster's
distaste for guests in the home. Even a single weekender is sometimes
enough to make him drain the bitter cup.
'Tom's not there. He's gone to Harrogate with Cream.'
'You mean lumbago.'
'I don't mean lumbago. I mean Cream. Homer Cream. Big American
tycoon, who is visiting these shores. He suffers from ulcers, and his
medicine man has ordered him to take the waters at Harrogate. Tom has
gone with him to hold his hand and listen to him of an evening while he
tells him how filthy the stuff tastes.'
'Antagonistic.'
'What?'
'I mean altruistic. You are probably not familiar with the word, but
it's one I've heard Jeeves use. It's what you say of a fellow who gives
selfless service, not counting the cost.'
'Selfless service, my foot! Tom's in the middle of a very important
business deal with Cream. If it goes through, he'll make a packet free
of income tax. So he's sucking up to him like a Hollywood Yes-man.'
I gave an intelligent nod, though this of course was wasted on her
because she couldn't see me. I could readily understand my uncle-by-
marriage's mental processes. T. Portarlington Travers is a man who has
accumulated the pieces of eight in sackfuls, but he is always more than
willing to shove a bit extra away behind the brick in the fireplace,
feeling - and rightly -that every little bit added to what you've got
makes just a little bit more. And if there's one thing that's right up
his street, it is not paying income tax. He grudges every penny the
Government nicks him for.
'That is why, when kissing me goodbye, he urged me with tears in his
eyes to lush Mrs Cream and her son Willie up and treat them like
royalty. So they're at Brinkley, dug into the woodwork.'
'Willie, did you say?'
'Short for Wilbert.'
I mused. Willie Cream. The name seemed familiar somehow. I seemed to
have heard it or seen it in the papers somewhere. But it eluded me.
'Adela Cream writes mystery stories. Are you a fan of hers? No?
Well, start boning up on them, directly you arrive, because every
little helps. I've bought a complete set. They're very good.'
'I shall be delighted to run an eye over her material,' I said, for
I am what they call an a-something of novels of suspense. Aficionado,
would that be it? 'I can always do with another corpse or two. We have
established, then, that among the inmates are this Mrs Cream and her
son Wilbert. Who are the other three?'
'Well, there's Lady Wickham's daughter Roberta.'
I started violently, as if some unseen hand had goosed me.
'What! Bobbie Wickham? Oh, my gosh!'
'Why the agitation? Do you know her?'
'You bet I know her.'
'I begin to see Is she one of the gaggle of girls you've been
engaged to?'
'Not actually, no. We were never engaged. But that was merely
because she wouldn't meet me half-way.'
'Turned you down, did she?'
'Yes, thank goodness '
'Why thank goodness? She's a one-girl beauty chorus '
'She doesn't try the eyes, I agree.'
'A pippin, if ever there was one.'
'Very true, but is being a pippin everything? What price the soul?'
'Isn't her soul like mother makes?'
'Far from it. Much below par. What I could tell you ... But no, let
it go Painful subj.'
I had been about to mention fifty-seven or so of the reasons why the
prudent operator, if he valued his peace of mind, deemed it best to
stay well away from the red-headed menace under advisement, but
realized that at a moment when I was wanting to get back to the
marmalade it would occupy too much time. It will be enough to say that
I had long since come out of the ether and was fully cognizant of the
fact that in declining to fall in with my suggestion that we should
start rounding up clergymen and bridesmaids, the beasel had rendered me
a signal service, and I'll tell you why.
Aunt Dahlia, describing this young blister as a one-girl beauty
chorus, had called her shots perfectly correctly. Her outer crust was
indeed of a nature to cause those beholding it to rock back on their
heels with a startled whistle But while equipped with eyes like twin
stars, hair ruddier than the cherry, oomph, espieglene and all the
fixings, B. Wickham had also the disposition and general outlook on
life of a ticking bomb In her society you always had the uneasy feeling
that something was likely to go off at any moment with a pop. You never
knew what she was going to do next or into what murky depths of soup
she would carelessly plunge you.
'Miss Wickham, sir,' Jeeves had once said to me warningly at the
time when the fever was at its height, 'lacks seriousness She is
volatile and frivolous. I would always hesitate to recommend as a life
partner a young lady with quite such a vivid shade of red hair.'
His judgment was sound I have already mentioned how with her subtle
wiles this girl had induced me to sneak into Sir Roderick Glossop's
sleeping apartment and apply the darning needle to his hot-water
bottle, and that was comparatively mild going for her. In a word,
Roberta, daughter of the late Sir Cuthbert and Lady Wickham of
Skeldings Hall, Herts, was pure dynamite and better kept at a distance
by all those who aimed at leading the peaceful life The prospect of
being immured with her in the same house, with all the facilities a
country-house affords an enterprising girl for landing her nearest and
dearest in the mulligatawny, made me singularly dubious about the shape
of things to come.
And I was tottering under this blow when the old relative
administered another, and it was a haymaker.
'And there's Aubrey Upjohn and his stepdaughter Phyllis Mills,' she
said That's the lot What's the matter with you? Got asthma?'
I took her to be alluding to the sharp gasp which had escaped my
lips, and I must confess that it had come out not unlike the last words
of a dying duck. But I felt perfectly justified in gasping A weaker man
would have howled like a banshee. There floated into my mind something
Kipper Herring had once said to me. 'You know, Bertie,' he had said, in
philosophical mood, 'we have much to be thankful for in this life of
ours, you and I However rough the going, there is one sustaining
thought to which we can hold. The storm clouds may lower and the
horizon grow dark, we may get a nail in our shoe and be caught in the
rain without an umbrella, we may come down to breakfast and find that
someone else has taken the brown egg, but at least we have the
consolation of knowing that we shall never see Aubrey Gawd-help-us
Upjohn again. Always remember this in times of despondency,' he said,
and I always had. And now here the bounder was, bobbing up right in my
midst. Enough to make the stoutest-hearted go into his dying-duck
routine.
'Aubrey Upjohn?' I quavered. 'You mean my Aubrey Upjohn?'
'That's the one. Soon after you made your escape from his chain gang
he married Jane Mills, a friend of mine with a colossal amount of
money. She died, leaving a daughter. I'm the daughter's godmother.
Upjohn's retired now and going in for politics. The hot tip is that the
boys in the back room are going to run him as the Conservative
candidate in the Market Snodsbury division at the next by-election.
What a thrill it'll be for you, meeting him again. Or does the prospect
scare you?'
'Certainly not. We Woosters are intrepid. But what on earth did you
invite him to Brinkley for?'
'I didn't. I only wanted Phyllis, but he came along, too.'
'You should have bunged him out.'
'I hadn't the heart to.'
'Weak, very weak.'
'Besides, I needed him in my business. He's going to present the
prizes at Market Snodsbury Grammar School. We've been caught short as
usual, and somebody has got to make a speech on ideals and the great
world outside to those blasted boys, so he fits in nicely. I believe
he's a very fine speaker. His only trouble is that he's stymied unless
he has his speech with him and can read it. Calls it referring to his
notes. Phyllis told me that. She types the stuff for him.'
'A thoroughly low trick,' I said severely. 'Even I, who have never
soared above the Yeoman's Wedding Song at a village concert, wouldn't
have the crust to face my public unless I'd taken the trouble to
memorize the words, though actually with the Yeoman's Wedding Song it
is possible to get by quite comfortably by keeping singing "Ding dong,
ding dong, ding dong, I hurry along". In short...'
I would have spoken further, but at this point, after urging me to
put a sock in it, and giving me a kindly word of warning not to step on
any banana skins, she rang off.





2


I came away from the telephone on what practically amounted to
leaden feet. Here, I was feeling, was a nice bit of box fruit. Bobbie
Wickham, with her tendency to stir things up and with each new day to
discover some new way of staggering civilization, would by herself have
been bad enough. Add Aubrey Upjohn, and the mixture became too rich. I
don't know if Kipper, when I rejoined him, noticed that my brow was
sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought, as I have heard Jeeves put
it. Probably not, for he was tucking into toast and marmalade at the
moment, but it was. As had happened so often in the past, I was
conscious of an impending doom. Exactly what form this would take I was
of course unable to say - it might be one thing or it might be another
- but a voice seemed to whisper to me that somehow at some not distant
date Bertram was slated to get it in the gizzard.
'That was Aunt Dahlia, Kipper,' I said.
'Bless her jolly old heart,' he responded. 'One of the very best,
and you can quote me as saying so. I shall never forget those happy
days at Brinkley, and shall be glad at any time that suits her to cadge
another invitation. Is she up in London?'
'Till this afternoon.'
'We fill her to the brim with rich foods, of course?'
'No, she's got a lunch date. She's browsing with Sir Roderick
Glossop, the loony-doctor. You don't know him, do you?'
'Only from hearing you speak of him. A tough egg, I gather.'
'One of the toughest.'
'He was the chap, wasn't he, who found the twenty-four cats in your
bedroom?'
'Twenty-three,' I corrected. I like to get things right. 'They were
not my cats. They had been deposited there by my Cousins Claude and
Eustace. But I found them difficult to explain. He's a rather bad
listener. I hope I shan't find him at Brinkley, too.'
'Are you going to Brinkley?'
'Tomorrow afternoon.'
'You'll enjoy that.'
'Well, shall I? The point is a very moot one.'
'You're crazy. Think of Anatole. Those dinners of his! Is the name
of the Peri who stood disconsolate at the gate of Eden familiar to
you?'
'I've heard Jeeves mention her.'
'Well, that's how I feel when I remember Anatole's dinners. When I
reflect that every night he's dishing them up and I'm not there, I come
within a very little of breaking down. What gives you the idea that you
won't enjoy yourself? Brinkley Court's an earthly Paradise.'
'In many respects, yes, but life there at the moment has its
drawbacks. There's far too much of that where-every-prospect-pleases-
and-only-man-is-vile stuff buzzing around for my taste. Who do you
think is staying at the old dosshouse? Aubrey Upjohn.'
It was plain that I had shaken him. His eyes widened, and an
astonished piece of toast fell from his grasp.
'Old Upjohn? You're kidding.'
'No, he's there. Himself, not a picture. And it seems only yesterday
that you were buoying me up by telling me I'd never have to see him
again. The storm clouds may lower, you said, if you recollect...'
'But how does he come to be at Brinkley?'
'Precisely what I asked the aged relative, and she had an
explanation that seems to cover the facts. Apparently after we took our
eye off him he married a friend of hers, one Jane Mills, and acquired a
stepdaughter, Phyllis Mills, whose godmother Aunt Dahlia is. The
ancestor invited the Mills girl to Brinkley, and Upjohn came along for
the ride.'
'I see. I don't wonder you're trembling like a leaf.'
'Not like a leaf, exactly, but... yes, I think you might describe me
as trembling. One remembers that fishy eye of his.'
'And the wide, bare upper lip. It won't be pleasant having to gaze
at those across the dinner table. Still, you'll like Phyllis.'
'Do you know her?'
'We met out in Switzerland last Christmas. Slap her on the back,
will you, and give her my regards. Nice girl, though goofy. She never
told me she was related to Upjohn.'
'She would naturally keep a thing like that dark.'
'Yes, one sees that. Just as one would have tried to keep it dark if
one had been mixed up in any way with Palmer the poisoner. What ghastly
garbage that was he used to fling at us when we were serving our
sentence at Malvern House. Remember the sausages on Sunday? And the
boiled mutton with caper sauce?'
'And the margarine. Recalling this last, it's going to be a strain
having to sit and watch him getting outside pounds of best country
butter. Oh, Jeeves,' I said, as he shimmered in to clear the table,
'you never went to a preparatory school on the south coast of England,
did you?'
'No, sir, I was privately educated.'
'Ah, then you wouldn't understand. Mr Herring and I were discussing
our former prep-school beak, Aubrey Upjohn, MA. By the way, Kipper,
Aunt Dahlia was telling me something about him which I never knew
before and which ought to expose him to the odium of all thinking men.
You remember those powerful end-of-term addresses he used to make to
us? Well, he couldn't have made them if he hadn't had the stuff all
typed out in his grasp, so that he could read it. Without his notes, as
he calls them, he's a spent force. Revolting, that, Jeeves, don't you
think?'
'Many orators are, I believe, similarly handicapped, sir.'
'Too tolerant, Jeeves, far too tolerant. You must guard against this
lax outlook. However, the reason I mention Upjohn to you is that he has
come back into my life, or will be so coming in about two ticks. He's
staying at Brinkley, and I shall be going there tomorrow. That was Aunt
Dahlia on the phone just now, and she demands my presence. Will you
pack a few necessaries in a suitcase or so?'
'Very good, sir.'
'When are you leaving on your Herne Bay jaunt?'
'I was thinking of taking a train this morning, sir, but if you
would prefer that I remained till tomorrow -'
'No, no, perfectly all right. Start as soon as you like. What's the
joke?' I asked, as the door closed behind him, for I observed that
Kipper was chuckling softly. Not an easy thing to do, of course, when
your mouth's full of toast and marmalade, but he was doing it.
'I was thinking of Upjohn,' he said.
I was amazed. It seemed incredible to me that anyone who had done
time at Malvern House, Bramley-on-Sea, could chuckle, softly or
otherwise, when letting the mind dwell on that outstanding menace. It
was like laughing lightly while contemplating one of those horrors from
outer space which are so much with us at the moment on the motion-
picture screen.
'I envy you, Bertie,' he went on, continuing to chuckle. 'You have a
wonderful treat in store. You are going to be present at the breakfast
table when Upjohn opens his copy of this week's Thursday Review and
starts to skim through the pages devoted to comments on current
literature. I should explain that among the books that recently arrived
at the office was a slim volume from his pen dealing with the
Preparatory School and giving it an enthusiastic build-up. The
formative years which we spent there, he said, were the happiest of our
life.'
'Gadzooks!'
'He little knew that his brain child would be given to one of the
old lags of Malvern House to review. I'll tell you something, Bertie,
that every young man ought to know. Never be a stinker, because if you
are, though you may flourish for a time like a green bay tree, sooner
or later retribution will overtake you. I need scarcely tell you that I
ripped the stuffing out of the beastly little brochure. The thought of
those sausages on Sunday filled me with the righteous fury of a
Juvenal.'
'Of a who?'
'Nobody you know. Before your time. I seemed inspired. Normally, I
suppose, a book like that would get me a line and a half in the Other
Recent Publications column, but I gave it six hundred words of
impassioned prose. How extraordinarily fortunate you are to be in a
position to watch his face as he reads them.'
'How do you know he'll read them?'
'He's a subscriber. There was a letter from him on the
correspondence page a week or two ago, in which he specifically stated
that he had been one for years.'
'Did you sign the thing?'
'No. Ye Ed is not keen on underlings advertising their names.'
'And it was really hot stuff?'
'Red hot. So eye him closely at the breakfast table. Mark his
reaction. I confidently expect the blush of shame and remorse to mantle
his cheek.'
'The only catch is that 1 don't come down to breakfast when I'm at
Brinkley. Still, I suppose I could make a special effort.'
'Do so. You will find it well worth while,' said Kipper and shortly
afterwards popped off to resume the earning of the weekly envelope.
He had been gone about twenty minutes when Jeeves came in, bowler
hat in hand, to say goodbye. A solemn moment, taxing our self-control
to the utmost. However, we both kept the upper lip stiff, and after we
had kidded back and forth for a while he started to withdraw. He had
reached the door when it suddenly occurred to me that he might have
inside information about this Wilbert Cream of whom Aunt Dahlia had
spoken. I have generally found that he knows everything about everyone.
'Oh, Jeeves,' I said. 'Half a jiffy.'
'Sir?'
'Something I want to ask you. It seems that among my fellow-guests
at Brinkley will be a Mrs Homer Cream, wife of an American big butter
and egg man, and her son Wilbert, commonly known as Willie, and the
name Willie Cream seemed somehow to touch a chord. Rightly or wrongly I
associate it with trips we have taken to New York, but in what
connection I haven't the vaguest. Does it ring a bell with you?'
'Why yes, sir. References to the gentleman are frequent in the
tabloid newspapers of New York, notably in the column conducted by Mr
Walter Winchell. He is generally alluded to under the sobriquet of
Broadway Willie.'
'Of course! It all comes back to me. He's what they call a playboy.'
'Precisely, sir. Notorious for his escapades.'
'Yes, I've got him placed now. He's the fellow who likes to let off
stink bombs in night clubs, which rather falls under the head of
carrying coals to Newcastle and seldom cashes a cheque at his bank
without producing a gat and saying, "This is a stick-up."'
'And... No, sir, I regret that it has for the moment escaped my
memory.'
'What has?'
'Some other little something, sir, that I was told regarding Mr
Cream. Should I recall it, I will communicate with you.'
'Yes, do. One wants the complete picture. Oh, gosh!'
'Sir?'
'Nothing, Jeeves. Just a thought has floated into my mind. All
right, push off, or you'll miss your train. Good luck to your shrimping
net.'
I'll tell you what the thought was that had floated. I have already
indicated my qualms at the prospect of being cooped up in the same
house with Bobbie Wickham and Aubrey Upjohn, for who could tell what
the harvest might be? If in addition to these two heavies I was also to
be cheek by jowl with a New York playboy apparently afflicted with bats
in the belfry, it began to look as if this visit would prove too much
for Bertram's frail strength, and for an instant I toyed with the idea
of sending a telegram of regret and oiling out.
Then I remembered Anatole's cooking and was strong again. Nobody who
has once tasted them would wantonly deprive himself of that wizard's
smoked offerings. Whatever spiritual agonies I might be about to
undergo at Brinkley Court, Market Snodsbury, near Droitwich, residence
there would at least put me several Supremes de fois gras au champagne
and Mignonettes de Poulet Petit Duc ahead of the game. Nevertheless, it
would be paltering with the truth to say that I was at my ease as I
thought of what lay before me in darkest Worcestershire, and the hand
that lit the after-breakfast gasper shook quite a bit.
At this moment of nervous tension the telephone suddenly gave tongue
again, causing me to skip like the high hills, as if the Last Trump had
sounded. I went to the instrument all of a twitter.
Some species of butler appeared to be at the other end.
'Mr Wooster?'
'On the spot.'
'Good morning, sir. Her ladyship wishes to speak to you. Lady
Wickham, sir. Here is Mr Wooster, m'lady.'
And Bobbie's mother came on the air.
I should have mentioned, by the way, that during the above exchange
of ideas with the butler I had been aware of a distant sound of
sobbing, like background music, and it now became apparent that it was
from the larynx of the relict of the late Sir Cuthbert that it was
proceeding. There was a short intermission before she got the vocal
cords working, and while I was waiting for her to start the dialogue I
found myself wrestling with two problems that presented themselves -
the first, What on earth is this woman ringing me up for?, the second,
Having got the number, why does she sob?
It was Problem A that puzzled me particularly, for ever since that
hot-water-bottle episode my relations with this parent of Bobbie's had
been on the strained side. It was, indeed, an open secret that my
standing with her was practically that of a rat of the underworld. I
had had this from Bobbie, whose impersonation of her mother discussing
me with sympathetic cronies had been exceptionally vivid, and I must
confess that I wasn't altogether surprised. No hostess, I mean to say,
extending her hospitality to a friend of her daughter's, likes to have
the young visitor going about the place puncturing people's water-
bottles and leaving at three in the morning without stopping to say
good-bye. Yes, I could see her side of the thing all right, and I found
it extraordinary that she should be seeking me out on the telephone in
this fashion. Feeling as she did so allergic to Bertram, I wouldn't
have thought she'd have phoned me with a ten-foot pole.
However, there beyond a question she was.
'Mr Wooster?'
'Oh, hullo, Lady Wickham.'
'Are you there?'
I put her straight on this point, and she took time out to sob
again. She then spoke in a hoarse, throaty voice, like Tallulah
Bankhead after swallowing a fish bone the wrong way.
'Is this awful news true?'
'Eh?'
'Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear!'
'I don't quite follow.'
'In this morning's Times.'
I'm pretty shrewd, and it seemed to me, reading between the lines,
that there must have been something in the issue of The Times published
that morning that for some reason had upset her, though why she should
have chosen me to tell her troubles to was a mystery not easy to
fathom. I was about to institute inquiries in the hope of spearing a
solution, when in addition to sobbing she started laughing in a hyaena-
esque manner, making it clear to my trained ear that she was having
hysterics. And before I could speak there was a dull thud suggestive of
some solid body falling to earth, I knew not where, and when the
dialogue was resumed, I found that the butler had put himself on as an
understudy.
'Mr Wooster?'
'Still here.'
'I regret to say that her ladyship has fainted.'
'It was she I heard going bump?'
'Precisely, sir. Thank you very much, sir. Good-bye.'
He replaced the receiver and went about his domestic duties, these
no doubt including the loosening of the stricken woman's corsets and
burning feathers under her nose, leaving me to chew on the situation
without further bulletins from the front.
It seemed to me that the thing to do here was to get hold of The
Times and see what it had to offer in the way of enlightenment. It's a
paper I don't often look at, preferring for breakfast reading the
Mirror and the Mail, but Jeeves takes it in and I have occasionally
borrowed his copy with a view to having a shot at the crossword puzzle.
It struck me as a possibility that he might have left today's issue in
the kitchen, and so it proved. I came back with it, lowered myself into
a chair, lit another cigarette and proceeded to cast an eye on its
contents.
At a cursory glance what might be called swoon material appeared to
be totally absent from its columns. The Duchess of something had been
opening a bazaar at Wimbledon in aid of a deserving charity, there was
an article on salmon fishing on the Wye, and a Cabinet Minister had
made a speech about conditions in the cotton industry, but I could see
nothing in these items to induce a loss of consciousness. Nor did it
seem probable that a woman would have passed out cold on reading that
Herbert Robinson (26) of Grove Road, Ponder's End, had been jugged for
stealing a pair of green and yellow checked trousers. I turned to the
cricket news. Had some friend of hers failed to score in one of
yesterday's county matches owing to a doubtful l.b.w. decision?
It was just after I had run the eye down the Births and Marriages
that I happened to look at the Engagements, and a moment later I was
shooting out of my chair as if a spike had come through its cushioned
seat and penetrated the fleshy parts.
'Jeeves!' I yelled, and then remembered that he had long since gone
with the wind. A bitter thought, for if ever there was an occasion when
his advice and counsel were of the essence, this occ. was that occ. The
best I could do, tackling it solo, was to utter a hollow g. and bury
the face in the hands. And though I seem to hear my public tut-tutting
in disapproval of such neurotic behaviour, I think the verdict of
history will be that the paragraph on which my gaze had rested was more
than enough to excuse a spot of face-burying.
It ran as follows:


FORTHCOMING MARRIAGES


The engagement is announced between Bertram Wilberforce Wooster of
Berkeley Mansions, W.1, and Roberta, daughter of the late Sir Cuthbert
Wickham and Lady Wickham of Skeldings Hall, Herts.




3


Well, as I was saying, I had several times when under the influence
of her oomph taken up with Roberta Wickham the idea of such a merger,
but - and here is the point I would stress - I could have sworn that on
each occasion she had declined to co-operate, and that in a manner
which left no room for doubt regarding her views. I mean to say, when a
girl, offered a good man's heart, laughs like a bursting paper bag and
tells him not to be a silly ass, the good man is entitled, I think, to
assume that the whole thing is off. In the light of this announcement
in The Times I could only suppose that on one of these occasions,
unnoticed by me possibly because my attention had wandered, she must
have drooped her eyes and come through with a murmured 'Right-ho.'
Though when this could have happened, I hadn't the foggiest.
It was, accordingly, as you will readily imagine, a Bertram Wooster
with dark circles under his eyes and a brain threatening to come apart
at the seams who braked the sports model on the following afternoon at
the front door of Brinkley Court - a Bertram, in a word, who was asking
himself what the dickens all this was about. Non-plussed more or less
sums it up. It seemed to me that my first move must be to get hold of
my fiancee and see if she had anything to contribute in the way of
clarifying the situation.
As is generally the case at country-houses on a fine day, there
seemed to be nobody around. In due season the gang would assemble for
tea on the lawn, but at the moment I could spot no friendly native to
tell me where I might find Bobbie. I proceeded, therefore, to roam
hither and thither about the grounds and messuages in the hope of
locating her, wishing that I had a couple of bloodhounds to aid me in
my task, for the Travers demesne is a spacious one and there was a
considerable amount of sunshine above, though none, I need scarcely
mention, in my heart.
And I was tooling along a mossy path with the brow a bit wet with
honest sweat, when there came to my ears the unmistakable sound of
somebody reading poetry to someone, and the next moment I found myself
confronting a mixed twosome who had dropped anchor beneath a shady tree
in what is known as a leafy glade.
They had scarcely swum into my ken when the welkin started ringing
like billy-o. This was due to the barking of a small dachshund, who now
advanced on me with the apparent intention of seeing the colour of my
insides. Milder counsels, however, prevailed, and on arriving at
journey's end he merely rose like a rocket and licked me on the chin,
seeming to convey the impression that in Bertram Wooster he had found
just what the doctor ordered. I have noticed before in dogs this
tendency to form a beautiful friendship immediately on getting within
sniffing distance of me. Something to do, no doubt, with the
characteristic Wooster smell, which for some reason seems to speak to
their deeps. I tickled him behind the right ear and scratched the base
of his spine for a moment or two: then, these civilities concluded,
switched my attention to the poetry group.
It was the male half of the sketch who had been doing the reading, a
willowy bird of about the tonnage and general aspect of David Niven
with ginger hair and a small moustache. As he was unquestionably not
Aubrey Upjohn, I assumed that this must be Willie Cream, and it
surprised me a bit to find him dishing out verse. One would have
expected a New York playboy, widely publicized as one of the lads, to
confine himself to prose, and dirty prose, at that. But no doubt these
playboys have their softer moments.
His companion was a well-stacked young featherweight, who could be
none other than the Phyllis Mills of whom Kipper had spoken. Nice but
goofy, Kipper had said, and a glance told me that he was right. One
learns, as one goes through life, to spot goofiness in the other sex
with an unerring eye, and this exhibit had a sort of mild, Soul's
Awakening kind of expression which made it abundantly clear that, while
not a super-goof like some of the female goofs I'd met, she was quite
goofy enough to be going on with. Her whole aspect was that of a girl
who at the drop of a hat would start talking baby talk.
This she now proceeded to do, asking me if I didn't think that
Poppet, the dachshund, was a sweet little doggie. I assented rather
austerely, for I prefer the shorter form more generally used, and she
said she supposed I was Mrs Travers's nephew Bertie Wooster, which, as
we knew, was substantially the case.
'I heard you were expected today. I'm Phyllis Mills,' she said, and
I said I had divined as much and that Kipper had told me to slap her on
the back and give her his best, and she said, 'Oh, Reggie Herring? He's
a sweetie-pie, isn't he?' and I agreed that Kipper was one of the
sweetie-pies and not the worst of them, and she said, 'Yes, he's a
lambkin.'
This duologue had, of course, left Wilbert Cream a bit out of it,
just painted on the backdrop as you might say, and for some moments,
knitting his brow, plucking at his moustache, shuffling the feet and
allowing the limbs to twitch, he had been giving abundant evidence that
in his opinion three was a crowd and that what the leafy glade needed
to make it all that a leafy glade should be was a complete absence of
Woosters. Taking advantage of a lull in the conversation, he said:
'Are you looking for someone?'
I replied that I was looking for Bobbie Wickham.
'I'd go on looking, if I were you. Bound to find her somewhere.'
'Bobbie?' said Phyllis Mills. 'She's down at the lake, fishing.'
'Then what you do,' said Wilbert Cream, brightening, 'is follow this
path, bend right, sharp left, bend right again and there you are. You
can't miss. Start at once, is my advice.'
I must say I felt that, related as I was by ties of blood, in a
manner of speaking, to this leafy glade, it was a bit thick being
practically bounced from it by a mere visitor, but Aunt Dahlia had made
it clear that the Cream family must not be thwarted or put upon in any
way, so I did as he suggested, picking up the feet without anything in
the nature of back chat. As I receded, I could hear in my rear the
poetry breaking out again.
The lake at Brinkley calls itself a lake, but when all the returns
are in it's really more a sort of young pond. Big enough to mess about
on in a punt, though, and for the use of those wishing to punt a boat-
house has been provided with a small pier or landing stage attached to
it. On this, rod in hand, Bobbie was seated, and it was with me the
work of an instant to race up and breathe down the back of her neck.
'Hey!' I said.
'Hey to you with knobs on,' she replied. 'Oh, hullo, Bertie. You
here?'
'You never spoke a truer word. If you can spare me a moment of your
valuable time, young Roberta -'
'Half a second, I think I've got a bite. No, false alarm. What were
you saying?'
'I was saying -'
'Oh, by the way, I heard from Mother this morning.'
'I heard from her yesterday morning.'
'I was kind of expecting you would. You saw that thing in The
Times?'
'With the naked eye.'
'Puzzled you for a moment, perhaps?'
'For several moments.'
'Well, I'll tell you all about that. The idea came to me in a
flash.'
'You mean it was you who shoved that communique in the journal?'
'Of course.'
'Why?' I said, getting right down to it in my direct way.
I thought I had her there, but no.
'I was paving the way for Reggie.'
I passed a hand over my fevered brow.
'Something seems to have gone wrong with my usually keen hearing,' I
said. 'It sounds just as if you were saying "I was paving the way for
Reggie."'
'I was. I was making his path straight. Softening up Mother on his
behalf.'
I passed another hand over my f.b.
'Now you seem to be saying "Softening up Mother on his behalf."'
'That's what I am saying. It's perfectly simple. I'll put it in
words of one syllable for you. I love Reggie. Reggie loves me.'
'Reggie,' of course, is two syllables, but I let it go.
'Reggie who?'
'Reggie Herring.'
I was amazed.
'You mean old Kipper?'
'I wish you wouldn't call him Kipper.'
'I always have. Dash it,' I said with some warmth, 'if a fellow
shows up at a private school on the south coast of England with a name
like Herring, what else do you expect his playmates to call him? But
how do you mean you love him and he loves you? You've never met him.'
'Of course I've met him. We were in the same hotel in Switzerland
last Christmas. I taught him to ski,' she said, a dreamy look coming
into her twin starlikes. 'I shall never forget the day I helped him
unscramble himself after he had taken a toss on the beginners' slope.
He had both legs wrapped round his neck. I think that is when love
dawned. My heart melted as I sorted him out.'
'You didn't laugh?'
'Of course I didn't laugh. I was all sympathy and understanding.'
For the first time the thing began to seem plausible to me. Bobbie
is a fun-loving girl, and the memory of her reaction when in the garden
at Skeldings I had once stepped on the teeth of a rake and had the
handle jump up and hit me on the tip of the nose was still laid away
among my souvenirs. She had been convulsed with mirth. If, then, she
had refrained from guffawing when confronted with the spectacle of
Reginald Herring with both legs wrapped round his neck, her emotions
must have been very deeply involved.
'Well, all right,' I said. 'I accept your statement that you and
Kipper are that way. But why, that being so, did you blazon it forth to
the world, if blazoning forth is the expression I want, that you were
engaged to me?'
'I told you. It was to soften Mother up.'
'Which sounded to me like delirium straight from the sick bed.'
'You don't get the subtle strategy?'
'Not by several parasangs.'
'Well, you know how you stand with Mother.'
'Our relations are a bit distant.'
'She shudders at the mention of your name. So I thought if she
thought I was going to marry you and then found I wasn't, she'd be so
thankful for the merciful escape I'd had that she'd be ready to accept
anyone as a son-in-law, even someone like Reggie, who, though a wonder
man, hasn't got his name in Debrett and isn't any too hot financially.
Mother's idea of a mate for me has always been a well-to-do millionaire
or a Duke with a large private income. Now do you follow?'
'Oh yes, I follow all right. You've been doing what Jeeves does,
studying the psychology of the individual. But do you think it'll
work?'
'Bound to. Let's take a parallel case. Suppose your Aunt Dahlia read
in the paper one morning that you were going to be shot at sunrise.'
'I couldn't be. I'm never up so early.'
'But suppose she did? She'd be pretty worked up about it, wouldn't
she?'
'Extremely, one imagines, for she loves me dearly. I'm not saying
her manner toward me doesn't verge at times on the brusque. In
childhood days she would occasionally clump me on the side of the head,
and since I have grown to riper years she has more than once begged me
to tie a brick around my neck and go and drown myself in the pond in
the kitchen garden. Nevertheless, she loves her Bertram, and if she
heard I was to be shot at sunrise, she would, as you say, be as sore as
a gum-boil. But why? What's that got to do with it?'
'Well, suppose she then found out it was all a mistake and it wasn't
you but somebody else who was to face the firing squad. That would make