RIGHT
HO JEEVES
PART
13
-20-
There was
one of those long silences. Pregnant, I believe, is what they're generally
called. Aunt looked at butler. Butler looked at aunt. I looked at both of them.
An eerie stillness seemed to envelop the room like a linseed poultice. I
happened to be biting on a slice of apple in my fruit salad at the moment, and
it sounded as if Carnera had jumped off the top of the Eiffel Tower on to a
cucumber frame.
Aunt
Dahlia steadied herself against the sideboard, and spoke in a low, husky voice:
"Faces?"
"Yes,
madam."
"Through
the skylight?"
"Yes,
madam."
"You
mean he's sitting on the roof?"
"Yes,
madam. It has upset Monsieur Anatole very much."
I suppose
it was that word "upset" that touched Aunt Dahlia off. Experience had
taught her what happened when Anatole got upset. I had always known her as a
woman who was quite active on her pins, but I had never suspected her of being
capable of the magnificent burst of speed which she now showed. Pausing merely
to get a rich hunting-field expletive off her chest, she was out of the room
and making for the stairs before I could swallow a sliver of—I think—banana.
And feeling, as I had felt when I got that telegram of hers about Angela and
Tuppy, that my place was by her side, I put down my plate and hastened after
her, Seppings following at a loping gallop.
I say that
my place was by her side, but it was not so dashed easy to get there, for she
was setting a cracking pace. At the top of the first flight she must have led
by a matter of half a dozen lengths, and was still shaking off my challenge
when she rounded into the second. At the next landing, however, the gruelling
going appeared to tell on her, for she slackened off a trifle and showed
symptoms of roaring, and by the time we were in the straight we were running
practically neck and neck. Our entry into Anatole's room was as close a finish
as you could have wished to see.
Result:
1. Aunt
Dahlia.
2. Bertram.
3. Seppings.
Won by
a short head. Half a staircase separated second and third.
The first
thing that met the eye on entering was Anatole. This wizard of the
cooking-stove is a tubby little man with a moustache of the outsize or
soup-strainer type, and you can generally take a line through it as to the
state of his emotions. When all is well, it turns up at the ends like a
sergeant-major's. When the soul is bruised, it droops.
It was
drooping now, striking a sinister note. And if any shadow of doubt had remained
as to how he was feeling, the way he was carrying on would have dispelled it.
He was standing by the bed in pink pyjamas, waving his fists at the skylight.
Through the glass, Gussie was staring down. His eyes were bulging and his mouth
was open, giving him so striking a resemblance to some rare fish in an aquarium
that one's primary impulse was to offer him an ant's egg.
Watching
this fist-waving cook and this goggling guest, I must say that my sympathies
were completely with the former. I considered him thoroughly justified in waving
all the fists he wanted to.
Review the
facts, I mean to say. There he had been, lying in bed, thinking idly of
whatever French cooks do think about when in bed, and he had suddenly become
aware of that frightful face at the window. A thing to jar the most phlegmatic.
I know I should hate to be lying in bed and have Gussie popping up like that. A
chap's bedroom—you can't get away from it—is his castle, and he has every right
to look askance if gargoyles come glaring in at him.
While I
stood musing thus, Aunt Dahlia, in her practical way, was coming straight to
the point:
"What's
all this?"
Anatole
did a sort of Swedish exercise, starting at the base of the spine, carrying on
through the shoulder-blades and finishing up among the back hair.
Then he
told her.
In the
chats I have had with this wonder man, I have always found his English fluent,
but a bit on the mixed side. If you remember, he was with Mrs. Bingo Little for
a time before coming to Brinkley, and no doubt he picked up a good deal from
Bingo. Before that, he had been a couple of years with an American family at
Nice and had studied under their chauffeur, one of the Maloneys of Brooklyn.
So, what with Bingo and what with Maloney, he is, as I say, fluent but a bit
mixed.
He spoke,
in part, as follows:
"Hot
dog! You ask me what is it? Listen. Make some attention a little. Me, I have
hit the hay, but I do not sleep so good, and presently I wake and up I look,
and there is one who make faces against me through the dashed window. Is that a
pretty affair? Is that convenient? If you think I like it, you jolly well
mistake yourself. I am so mad as a wet hen. And why not? I am somebody, isn't
it? This is a bedroom, what-what, not a house for some apes? Then for what do
blighters sit on my window so cool as a few cucumbers, making some faces?"
"Quite,"
I said. Dashed reasonable, was my verdict.
He threw
another look up at Gussie, and did Exercise 2—the one where you clutch the
moustache, give it a tug and then start catching flies.
"Wait
yet a little. I am not finish. I say I see this type on my window, making a few
faces. But what then? Does he buzz off when I shout a cry, and leave me
peaceable? Not on your life. He remain planted there, not giving any damns, and
sit regarding me like a cat watching a duck. He make faces against me and again
he make faces against me, and the more I command that he should get to hell out
of here, the more he do not get to hell out of here. He cry something towards
me, and I demand what is his desire, but he do not explain. Oh, no, that
arrives never. He does but shrug his head. What damn silliness! Is this amusing
for me? You think I like it? I am not content with such folly. I think the poor
mutt's loony. Je me fiche de ce type infect. C'est idiot de faire comme ça
l'oiseau.... Allez-vous-en, louffier.... Tell the boob to go away. He is
mad as some March hatters."
I must say
I thought he was making out a jolly good case, and evidently Aunt Dahlia felt
the same. She laid a quivering hand on his shoulder.
"I
will, Monsieur Anatole, I will," she said, and I couldn't have believed
that robust voice capable of sinking to such an absolute coo. More like a
turtle dove calling to its mate than anything else. "It's quite all
right."
She had
said the wrong thing. He did Exercise 3.
"All
right? Nom d'un nom d'un nom! The hell you say it's all right! Of what
use to pull stuff like that? Wait one half-moment. Not yet quite so quick, my
old sport. It is by no means all right. See yet again a little. It is some very
different dishes of fish. I can take a few smooths with a rough, it is true,
but I do not find it agreeable when one play larks against me on my windows.
That cannot do. A nice thing, no. I am a serious man. I do not wish a few larks
on my windows. I enjoy larks on my windows worse as any. It is very little all
right. If such rannygazoo is to arrive, I do not remain any longer in this
house no more. I buzz off and do not stay planted."
Sinister
words, I had to admit, and I was not surprised that Aunt Dahlia, hearing them,
should have uttered a cry like the wail of a master of hounds seeing a fox
shot. Anatole had begun to wave his fists again at Gussie, and she now joined
him. Seppings, who was puffing respectfully in the background, didn't actually
wave his fists, but he gave Gussie a pretty austere look. It was plain to the
thoughtful observer that this Fink-Nottle, in getting on to that skylight, had
done a mistaken thing. He couldn't have been more unpopular in the home of G.G.
Simmons.
"Go
away, you crazy loon!" cried Aunt Dahlia, in that ringing voice of hers
which had once caused nervous members of the Quorn to lose stirrups and take
tosses from the saddle.
Gussie's
reply was to waggle his eyebrows. I could read the message he was trying to
convey.
"I
think he means," I said—reasonable old Bertram, always trying to throw oil
on the troubled w's——"that if he does he will fall down the side of the
house and break his neck."
"Well,
why not?" said Aunt Dahlia.
I could
see her point, of course, but it seemed to me that there might be a nearer
solution. This skylight happened to be the only window in the house which Uncle
Tom had not festooned with his bally bars. I suppose he felt that if a burglar
had the nerve to climb up as far as this, he deserved what was coming to him.
"If
you opened the skylight, he could jump in."
The idea
got across.
"Seppings,
how does this skylight open?"
"With
a pole, madam."
"Then
get a pole. Get two poles. Ten."
And
presently Gussie was mixing with the company, Like one of those chaps you read
about in the papers, the wretched man seemed deeply conscious of his position.
I must say
Aunt Dahlia's bearing and demeanour did nothing to assist toward a restored
composure. Of the amiability which she had exhibited when discussing this unhappy
chump's activities with me over the fruit salad, no trace remained, and I was
not surprised that speech more or less froze on the Fink-Nottle lips. It isn't
often that Aunt Dahlia, normally as genial a bird as ever encouraged a gaggle
of hounds to get their noses down to it, lets her angry passions rise, but when
she does, strong men climb trees and pull them up after them.
"Well?"
she said.
In answer
to this, all that Gussie could produce was a sort of strangled hiccough.
"Well?"
Aunt
Dahlia's face grew darker. Hunting, if indulged in regularly over a period of
years, is a pastime that seldom fails to lend a fairly deepish tinge to the
patient's complexion, and her best friends could not have denied that even at
normal times the relative's map tended a little toward the crushed strawberry.
But never had I seen it take on so pronounced a richness as now. She looked
like a tomato struggling for self-expression.
"Well?"
Gussie
tried hard. And for a moment it seemed as if something was going to come through.
But in the end it turned out nothing more than a sort of death-rattle.
"Oh,
take him away, Bertie, and put ice on his head," said Aunt Dahlia, giving
the thing up. And she turned to tackle what looked like the rather man's size
job of soothing Anatole, who was now carrying on a muttered conversation with
himself in a rapid sort of way.
Seeming to
feel that the situation was one to which he could not do justice in
Bingo-cum-Maloney Anglo-American, he had fallen back on his native tongue.
Words like "marmiton de Domange," "pignouf,"
"hurluberlu" and "roustisseur" were fluttering
from him like bats out of a barn. Lost on me, of course, because, though I
sweated a bit at the Gallic language during that Cannes visit, I'm still more
or less in the Esker-vous-avez stage. I regretted this, for they sounded good.
I assisted
Gussie down the stairs. A cooler thinker than Aunt Dahlia, I had already
guessed the hidden springs and motives which had led him to the roof. Where she
had seen only a cockeyed reveller indulging himself in a drunken prank or
whimsy, I had spotted the hunted fawn.
"Was
Tuppy after you?" I asked sympathetically.
What I
believe is called a frisson shook him.
"He
nearly got me on the top landing. I shinned out through a passage window and
scrambled along a sort of ledge."
"That
baffled him, what?"
"Yes.
But then I found I had stuck. The roof sloped down in all directions. I
couldn't go back. I had to go on, crawling along this ledge. And then I found
myself looking down the skylight. Who was that chap?"
"That
was Anatole, Aunt Dahlia's chef."
"French?"
"To
the core."
"That
explains why I couldn't make him understand. What asses these Frenchmen are.
They don't seem able to grasp the simplest thing. You'd have thought if a chap
saw a chap on a skylight, the chap would realize the chap wanted to be let in.
But no, he just stood there."
"Waving
a few fists."
"Yes.
Silly idiot. Still, here I am."
"Here
you are, yes—for the moment."
"Eh?"
"I
was thinking that Tuppy is probably lurking somewhere."
He leaped
like a lamb in springtime.
"What
shall I do?"
I
considered this.
"Sneak
back to your room and barricade the door. That is the manly policy."
"Suppose
that's where he's lurking?"
"In
that case, move elsewhere."
But on arrival
at the room, it transpired that Tuppy, if anywhere, was infesting some other
portion of the house. Gussie shot in, and I heard the key turn. And feeling
that there was no more that I could do in that quarter, I returned to the
dining-room for further fruit salad and a quiet think. And I had barely filled
my plate when the door opened and Aunt Dahlia came in. She sank into a chair,
looking a bit shopworn.
"Give
me a drink, Bertie."
"What
sort?"
"Any
sort, so long as it's strong."
Approach
Bertram Wooster along these lines, and you catch him at his best. St. Bernard
dogs doing the square thing by Alpine travellers could not have bustled about
more assiduously. I filled the order, and for some moments nothing was to be
heard but the sloshing sound of an aunt restoring her tissues.
"Shove
it down, Aunt Dahlia," I said sympathetically. "These things take it
out of one, don't they? You've had a toughish time, no doubt, soothing
Anatole," I proceeded, helping myself to anchovy paste on toast.
"Everything pretty smooth now, I trust?"
She gazed
at me in a long, lingering sort of way, her brow wrinkled as if in thought.
"Attila,"
she said at length. "That's the name. Attila, the Hun."
"Eh?"
"I
was trying to think who you reminded me of. Somebody who went about strewing
ruin and desolation and breaking up homes which, until he came along, had been
happy and peaceful. Attila is the man. It's amazing." she said, drinking
me in once more. "To look at you, one would think you were just an
ordinary sort of amiable idiot—certifiable, perhaps, but quite harmless. Yet,
in reality, you are worse a scourge than the Black Death. I tell you, Bertie,
when I contemplate you I seem to come up against all the underlying sorrow and
horror of life with such a thud that I feel as if I had walked into a lamp
post."
Pained and
surprised, I would have spoken, but the stuff I had thought was anchovy paste
had turned out to be something far more gooey and adhesive. It seemed to wrap
itself round the tongue and impede utterance like a gag. And while I was still
endeavouring to clear the vocal cords for action, she went on:
"Do
you realize what you started when you sent that Spink-Bottle man down here? As
regards his getting blotto and turning the prize-giving ceremonies at Market Snodsbury
Grammar School into a sort of two-reel comic film, I will say nothing, for
frankly I enjoyed it. But when he comes leering at Anatole through skylights,
just after I had with infinite pains and tact induced him to withdraw his
notice, and makes him so temperamental that he won't hear of staying on after
tomorrow——"
The paste
stuff gave way. I was able to speak:
"What?"
"Yes,
Anatole goes tomorrow, and I suppose poor old Tom will have indigestion for the
rest of his life. And that is not all. I have just seen Angela, and she tells
me she is engaged to this Bottle."
"Temporarily,
yes," I had to admit.
"Temporarily
be blowed. She's definitely engaged to him and talks with a sort of hideous
coolness of getting married in October. So there it is. If the prophet Job were
to walk into the room at this moment, I could sit swapping hard-luck stories
with him till bedtime. Not that Job was in my class."
"He
had boils."
"Well,
what are boils?"
"Dashed
painful, I understand."
"Nonsense.
I'd take all the boils on the market in exchange for my troubles. Can't you
realize the position? I've lost the best cook to England. My husband, poor
soul, will probably die of dyspepsia. And my only daughter, for whom I had
dreamed such a wonderful future, is engaged to be married to an inebriated newt
fancier. And you talk about boils!"
I
corrected her on a small point:
"I
don't absolutely talk about boils. I merely mentioned that Job had them. Yes, I
agree with you, Aunt Dahlia, that things are not looking too oojah-cum-spiff at
the moment, but be of good cheer. A Wooster is seldom baffled for more than the
nonce."
"You
rather expect to be coming along shortly with another of your schemes?"
"At
any minute."
She sighed
resignedly.
"I
thought as much. Well, it needed but this. I don't see how things could
possibly be worse than they are, but no doubt you will succeed in making them
so. Your genius and insight will find the way. Carry on, Bertie. Yes, carry on.
I am past caring now. I shall even find a faint interest in seeing into what
darker and profounder abysses of hell you can plunge this home. Go to it,
lad.... What's that stuff you're eating?"
"I
find it a little difficult to classify. Some sort of paste on toast. Rather
like glue flavoured with beef extract."
"Gimme,"
said Aunt Dahlia listlessly.
"Be
careful how you chew," I advised. "It sticketh closer than a
brother.... Yes, Jeeves?"
The man
had materialized on the carpet. Absolutely noiseless, as usual.
"A
note for you, sir."
"A
note for me, Jeeves?"
"A
note for you, sir."
"From
whom, Jeeves?"
"From
Miss Bassett, sir."
"From
whom, Jeeves?"
"From
Miss Bassett, sir."
"From
Miss Bassett, Jeeves?"
"From
Miss Bassett, sir."
At this
point, Aunt Dahlia, who had taken one nibble at her whatever-it-was-on-toast
and laid it down, begged us—a little fretfully, I thought—for heaven's sake to
cut out the cross-talk vaudeville stuff, as she had enough to bear already
without having to listen to us doing our imitation of the Two Macs. Always willing
to oblige, I dismissed Jeeves with a nod, and he flickered for a moment and was
gone. Many a spectre would have been less slippy.
"But
what," I mused, toying with the envelope, "can this female be writing
to me about?"
"Why
not open the damn thing and see?"
"A
very excellent idea," I said, and did so.
"And
if you are interested in my movements," proceeded Aunt Dahlia, heading for
the door, "I propose to go to my room, do some Yogi deep breathing, and
try to forget."
"Quite,"
I said absently, skimming p. l. And then, as I turned over, a sharp howl broke
from my lips, causing Aunt Dahlia to shy like a startled mustang.
"Don't
do it!" she exclaimed, quivering in every limb.
"Yes,
but dash it——"
"What
a pest you are, you miserable object," she sighed. "I remember years
ago, when you were in your cradle, being left alone with you one day and you
nearly swallowed your rubber comforter and started turning purple. And I, ass
that I was, took it out and saved your life. Let me tell you, young Bertie, it
will go very hard with you if you ever swallow a rubber comforter again when
only I am by to aid."
"But,
dash it!" I cried. "Do you know what's happened? Madeline Bassett
says she's going to marry me!"
"I
hope it keeps fine for you," said the relative, and passed from the room
looking like something out of an Edgar Allan Poe story.
-21-
I don't
suppose I was looking so dashed unlike something out of an Edgar Allan Poe
story myself, for, as you can readily imagine, the news item which I have just
recorded had got in amongst me properly. If the Bassett, in the belief that the
Wooster heart had long been hers and was waiting ready to be scooped in on
demand, had decided to take up her option, I should, as a man of honour and
sensibility, have no choice but to come across and kick in. The matter was
obviously not one that could be straightened out with a curt nolle prosequi.
All the evidence, therefore, seemed to point to the fact that the doom had come
upon me and, what was more, had come to stay.
And yet,
though it would be idle to pretend that my grip on the situation was quite the
grip I would have liked it to be, I did not despair of arriving at a solution.
A lesser man, caught in this awful snare, would no doubt have thrown in the
towel at once and ceased to struggle; but the whole point about the Woosters is
that they are not lesser men.
By way of
a start, I read the note again. Not that I had any hope that a second perusal
would enable me to place a different construction on its contents, but it
helped to fill in while the brain was limbering up. I then, to assist thought,
had another go at the fruit salad, and in addition ate a slice of sponge cake.
And it was as I passed on to the cheese that the machinery started working. I
saw what had to be done.
To the
question which had been exercising the mind—viz., can Bertram cope?—I was now able
to reply with a confident "Absolutely."
The great
wheeze on these occasions of dirty work at the crossroads is not to lose your
head but to keep cool and try to find the ringleaders. Once find the
ringleaders, and you know where you are.
The
ringleader here was plainly the Bassett. It was she who had started the whole
imbroglio by chucking Gussie, and it was clear that before anything could be
done to solve and clarify, she must be induced to revise her views and take him
on again. This would put Angela back into circulation, and that would cause
Tuppy to simmer down a bit, and then we could begin to get somewhere.
I decided
that as soon as I had had another morsel of cheese I would seek this Bassett
out and be pretty eloquent.
And at
this moment in she came. I might have foreseen that she would be turning up
shortly. I mean to say, hearts may ache, but if they know that there is a cold
collation set out in the dining-room, they are pretty sure to come popping in
sooner or later.
Her eyes,
as she entered the room, were fixed on the salmon mayonnaise, and she would no
doubt have made a bee-line for it and started getting hers, had I not, in the
emotion of seeing her, dropped a glass of the best with which I was
endeavouring to bring about a calmer frame of mind. The noise caused her to
turn, and for an instant embarrassment supervened. A slight flush mantled the
cheek, and the eyes popped a bit.
"Oh!"
she said.
I have
always found that there is nothing that helps to ease you over one of these
awkward moments like a spot of stage business. Find something to do with your
hands, and it's half the battle. I grabbed a plate and hastened forward.
"A
touch of salmon?"
"Thank
you."
"With
a suspicion of salad?"
"If
you please."
"And
to drink? Name the poison."
"I
think I would like a little orange juice."
She gave a
gulp. Not at the orange juice, I don't mean, because she hadn't got it yet, but
at all the tender associations those two words provoked. It was as if someone
had mentioned spaghetti to the relict of an Italian organ-grinder. Her face
flushed a deeper shade, she registered anguish, and I saw that it was no longer
within the sphere of practical politics to try to confine the conversation to
neutral topics like cold boiled salmon.
So did
she, I imagine, for when I, as a preliminary to getting down to brass tacks,
said "Er," she said "Er," too, simultaneously, the brace of
"Ers" clashing in mid-air.
"I'm
sorry."
"I
beg your pardon."
"You
were saying——"
"You
were saying——"
"No,
please go on."
"Oh,
right-ho."
I
straightened the tie, my habit when in this girl's society, and had at it:
"With
reference to yours of even date——"
She
flushed again, and took a rather strained forkful of salmon.
"You
got my note?"
"Yes,
I got your note."
"I
gave it to Jeeves to give it to you."
"Yes,
he gave it to me. That's how I got it."
There was
another silence. And as she was plainly shrinking from talking turkey, I was
reluctantly compelled to do so. I mean, somebody had got to. Too dashed silly,
a male and female in our position simply standing eating salmon and cheese at
one another without a word.
"Yes,
I got it all right."
"I
see. You got it."
"Yes,
I got it. I've just been reading it. And what I was rather wanting to ask you,
if we happened to run into each other, was—well, what about it?"
"What
about it?"
"That's
what I say: What about it?"
"But
it was quite clear."
"Oh,
quite. Perfectly clear. Very well expressed and all that. But—I mean—Well, I
mean, deeply sensible of the honour, and so forth—but—— Well, dash it!"
She had
polished off her salmon, and now put the plate down.
"Fruit
salad?"
"No,
thank you."
"Spot
of pie?"
"No,
thanks."
"One
of those glue things on toast?"
"No,
thank you."
She took a
cheese straw. I found a cold egg which I had overlooked. Then I said "I
mean to say" just as she said "I think I know", and there was
another collision.
"I
beg your pardon."
"I'm
sorry."
"Do
go on."
"No,
you go on."
I waved my
cold egg courteously, to indicate that she had the floor, and she started
again:
"I
think I know what you are trying to say. You are surprised."
"Yes."
"You
are thinking of——"
"Exactly."
"—Mr.
Fink-Nottle."
"The
very man."
"You
find what I have done hard to understand."
"Absolutely."
"I
don't wonder."
"I do."
"And
yet it is quite simple."
She took
another cheese straw. She seemed to like cheese straws.
"Quite
simple, really. I want to make you happy."
"Dashed
decent of you."
"I am
going to devote the rest of my life to making you happy."
"A
very matey scheme."
"I
can at least do that. But—may I be quite frank with you, Bertie?"
"Oh,
rather."
"Then
I must tell you this. I am fond of you. I will marry you. I will do my best to
make you a good wife. But my affection for you can never be the flamelike passion
I felt for Augustus."
"Just
the very point I was working round to. There, as you say, is the snag. Why not
chuck the whole idea of hitching up with me? Wash it out altogether. I mean, if
you love old Gussie——"
"No
longer."
"Oh,
come."
"No.
What happened this afternoon has killed my love. A smear of ugliness has been
drawn across a thing of beauty, and I can never feel towards him as I
did."
I saw what
she meant, of course. Gussie had bunged his heart at her feet; she had picked
it up, and, almost immediately after doing so, had discovered that he had been
stewed to the eyebrows all the time. The shock must have been severe. No girl
likes to feel that a chap has got to be thoroughly plastered before he can ask
her to marry him. It wounds the pride.
Nevertheless,
I persevered.
"But
have you considered," I said, "that you may have got a wrong line on
Gussie's performance this afternoon? Admitted that all the evidence points to a
more sinister theory, what price him simply having got a touch of the sun?
Chaps do get touches of the sun, you know, especially when the weather's
hot."
She looked
at me, and I saw that she was putting in a bit of the old drenched-irises
stuff.
"It
was like you to say that, Bertie. I respect you for it."
"Oh,
no."
"Yes.
You have a splendid, chivalrous soul."
"Not
a bit."
"Yes,
you have. You remind me of Cyrano."
"Who?"
"Cyrano
de Bergerac."
"The
chap with the nose?"
"Yes."
I can't
say I was any too pleased. I felt the old beak furtively. It was a bit on the
prominent side, perhaps, but, dash it, not in the Cyrano class. It began to
look as if the next thing this girl would do would be to compare me to
Schnozzle Durante.
"He
loved, but pleaded another's cause."
"Oh,
I see what you mean now."
"I
like you for that, Bertie. It was fine of you—fine and big. But it is no use.
There are things which kill love. I can never forget Augustus, but my love for
him is dead. I will be your wife."
Well, one
has to be civil.
"Right
ho," I said. "Thanks awfully."
Then the
dialogue sort of poofed out once more, and we stood eating cheese straws and
cold eggs respectively in silence. There seemed to exist some little
uncertainty as to what the next move was.
Fortunately,
before embarrassment could do much more supervening, Angela came in, and this
broke up the meeting. Then Bassett announced our engagement, and Angela kissed
her and said she hoped she would be very, very happy, and the Bassett kissed
her and said she hoped she would be very, very happy with Gussie, and Angela said
she was sure she would, because Augustus was such a dear, and the Bassett
kissed her again, and Angela kissed her again and, in a word, the whole thing
got so bally feminine that I was glad to edge away.
I would
have been glad to do so, of course, in any case, for if ever there was a moment
when it was up to Bertram to think, and think hard, this moment was that
moment.
It was, it
seemed to me, the end. Not even on the occasion, some years earlier, when I had
inadvertently become betrothed to Tuppy's frightful Cousin Honoria, had I
experienced a deeper sense of being waist high in the gumbo and about to sink
without trace. I wandered out into the garden, smoking a tortured gasper, with
the iron well embedded in the soul. And I had fallen into a sort of trance,
trying to picture what it would be like having the Bassett on the premises for
the rest of my life and at the same time, if you follow me, trying not to
picture what it would be like, when I charged into something which might have
been a tree, but was not—being, in point of fact, Jeeves.
"I
beg your pardon, sir," he said. "I should have moved to one
side."
I did not
reply. I stood looking at him in silence. For the sight of him had opened up a
new line of thought.
This
Jeeves, now, I reflected. I had formed the opinion that he had lost his grip
and was no longer the force he had been, but was it not possible, I asked
myself, that I might be mistaken? Start him off exploring avenues and might he
not discover one through which I would be enabled to sneak off to safety,
leaving no hard feelings behind? I found myself answering that it was quite on
the cards that he might.
After all,
his head still bulged out at the back as of old. One noted in the eyes the same
intelligent glitter.
Mind you,
after what had passed between us in the matter of that white mess-jacket with
the brass buttons, I was not prepared absolutely to hand over to the man. I
would, of course, merely take him into consultation. But, recalling some of his
earlier triumphs—the Sipperley Case, the Episode of My Aunt Agatha and the Dog
McIntosh, and the smoothly handled Affair of Uncle George and The Barmaid's
Niece were a few that sprang to my mind—I felt justified at least in offering
him the opportunity of coming to the aid of the young master in his hour of
peril.
But before
proceeding further, there was one thing that had got to be understood between
us, and understood clearly.
"Jeeves,"
I said, "a word with you."
"Sir?"
"I am
up against it a bit, Jeeves."
"I am
sorry to hear that, sir. Can I be of any assistance?"
"Quite
possibly you can, if you have not lost your grip. Tell me frankly, Jeeves, are
you in pretty good shape mentally?"
"Yes,
sir."
"Still
eating plenty of fish?"
"Yes,
sir."
"Then
it may be all right. But there is just one point before I begin. In the past,
when you have contrived to extricate self or some pal from some little
difficulty, you have frequently shown a disposition to take advantage of my
gratitude to gain some private end. Those purple socks, for instance. Also the
plus fours and the Old Etonian spats. Choosing your moment with subtle cunning,
you came to me when I was weakened by relief and got me to get rid of them. And
what I am saying now is that if you are successful on the present occasion there
must be no rot of that description about that mess-jacket of mine."
"Very
good, sir."
"You
will not come to me when all is over and ask me to jettison the jacket?"
"Certainly
not, sir."
"On
that understanding then, I will carry on. Jeeves, I'm engaged."
"I
hope you will be very happy, sir."
"Don't
be an ass. I'm engaged to Miss Bassett."
"Indeed,
sir? I was not aware——"
"Nor
was I. It came as a complete surprise. However, there it is. The official
intimation was in that note you brought me."
"Odd,
sir."
"What
is?"
"Odd,
sir, that the contents of that note should have been as you describe. It seemed
to me that Miss Bassett, when she handed me the communication, was far from
being in a happy frame of mind."
"She
is far from being in a happy frame of mind. You don't suppose she really wants
to marry me, do you? Pshaw, Jeeves! Can't you see that this is simply another
of those bally gestures which are rapidly rendering Brinkley Court a hell for
man and beast? Dash all gestures, is my view."
"Yes,
sir."
"Well,
what's to be done?"
"You
feel that Miss Bassett, despite what has occurred, still retains a fondness for
Mr. Fink-Nottle, sir?"
"She's
pining for him."
"In
that case, sir, surely the best plan would be to bring about a reconciliation
between them."
"How?
You see. You stand silent and twiddle the fingers. You are stumped."
"No,
sir. If I twiddled my fingers, it was merely to assist thought."
"Then
continue twiddling."
"It
will not be necessary, sir."
"You
don't mean you've got a bite already?"
"Yes,
sir."
"You
astound me, Jeeves. Let's have it."
"The
device which I have in mind is one that I have already mentioned to you,
sir."
"When
did you ever mention any device to me?"
"If
you will throw your mind back to the evening of our arrival, sir. You were good
enough to inquire of me if I had any plan to put forward with a view to
bringing Miss Angela and Mr. Glossop together, and I ventured to
suggest——"
"Good
Lord! Not the old fire-alarm thing?"
"Precisely,
sir."
"You're
still sticking to that?"
"Yes,
sir."
It shows
how much the ghastly blow I had received had shaken me when I say that, instead
of dismissing the proposal with a curt "Tchah!" or anything like
that, I found myself speculating as to whether there might not be something in
it, after all.
When he
had first mooted this fire-alarm scheme of his, I had sat upon it, if you
remember, with the maximum of promptitude and vigour. "Rotten" was
the adjective I had employed to describe it, and you may recall that I mused a
bit sadly, considering the idea conclusive proof of the general breakdown of a
once fine mind. But now it somehow began to look as if it might have
possibilities. The fact of the matter was that I had about reached the stage
where I was prepared to try anything once, however goofy.
"Just
run through that wheeze again, Jeeves," I said thoughtfully. "I
remember thinking it cuckoo, but it may be that I missed some of the finer
shades."
"Your
criticism of it at the time, sir, was that it was too elaborate, but I do not
think it is so in reality. As I see it, sir, the occupants of the house,
hearing the fire bell ring, will suppose that a conflagration has broken
out."
I nodded.
One could follow the train of thought.
"Yes,
that seems reasonable."
"Whereupon
Mr. Glossop will hasten to save Miss Angela, while Mr. Fink-Nottle performs the
same office for Miss Bassett."
"Is
that based on psychology?"
"Yes,
sir. Possibly you may recollect that it was an axiom of the late Sir Arthur
Conan Doyle's fictional detective, Sherlock Holmes, that the instinct of
everyone, upon an alarm of fire, is to save the object dearest to them."
"It
seems to me that there is a grave danger of seeing Tuppy come out carrying a
steak-and-kidney pie, but resume, Jeeves, resume. You think that this would
clean everything up?"
"The
relations of the two young couples could scarcely continue distant after such
an occurrence, sir."
"Perhaps
you're right. But, dash it, if we go ringing fire bells in the night watches,
shan't we scare half the domestic staff into fits? There is one of the
housemaids—Jane, I believe—who already skips like the high hills if I so much
as come on her unexpectedly round a corner."
"A
neurotic girl, sir, I agree. I have noticed her. But by acting promptly we
should avoid such a contingency. The entire staff, with the exception of
Monsieur Anatole, will be at the ball at Kingham Manor tonight."
"Of
course. That just shows the condition this thing has reduced me to. Forget my
own name next. Well, then, let's just try to envisage. Bong goes the bell.
Gussie rushes and grabs the Bassett.... Wait. Why shouldn't she simply walk
downstairs?"
"You
are overlooking the effect of sudden alarm on the feminine temperament,
sir."
"That's
true."
"Miss
Bassett's impulse, I would imagine, sir, would be to leap from her
window."
"Well,
that's worse. We don't want her spread out in a sort of purée on the
lawn. It seems to me that the flaw in this scheme of yours, Jeeves, is that
it's going to litter the garden with mangled corpses."
"No,
sir. You will recall that Mr. Travers's fear of burglars has caused him to have
stout bars fixed to all the windows."
"Of
course, yes. Well, it sounds all right," I said, though still a bit
doubtfully. "Quite possibly it may come off. But I have a feeling that it
will slip up somewhere. However, I am in no position to cavil at even a 100 to
1 shot. I will adopt this policy of yours, Jeeves, though, as I say, with
misgivings. At what hour would you suggest bonging the bell?"
"Not
before midnight, sir."
"That
is to say, some time after midnight."
"Yes,
sir."
"Right-ho,
then. At 12.30 on the dot, I will bong."
"Very
good, sir."
To be continued
