RIGHT
HO JEEVES
PART
15
In Tuppy's
statement that, when at the University of Oxford, I had been known to ride a
bicycle in the nude about the quadrangle of our mutual college, there had been,
I cannot deny, a certain amount of substance. Correct, however, though his
facts were, so far as they went, he had not told all. What he had omitted to
mention was that I had invariably been well oiled at the time, and when in that
condition a chap is capable of feats at which in cooler moments his reason
would rebel.
Stimulated
by the juice, I believe, men have even been known to ride alligators.
As I
started now to pedal out into the great world, I was icily sober, and the old
skill, in consequence, had deserted me entirely. I found myself wobbling badly,
and all the stories I had ever heard of nasty bicycle accidents came back to me
with a rush, headed by Jeeves's Uncle Cyril's cheery little anecdote about
Nicholls and Jackson.
Pounding
wearily through the darkness, I found myself at a loss to fathom the mentality
of men like Jeeves's Uncle Cyril. What on earth he could see funny in a
disaster which had apparently involved the complete extinction of a human
creature—or, at any rate, of half a human creature and half another human
creature—was more than I could understand. To me, the thing was one of the most
poignant tragedies that had ever been brought to my attention, and I have no
doubt that I should have continued to brood over it for quite a time, had my
thoughts not been diverted by the sudden necessity of zigzagging sharply in
order to avoid a pig in the fairway.
For a
moment it looked like being real Nicholls-and-Jackson stuff, but, fortunately,
a quick zig on my part, coinciding with an adroit zag on the part of the pig,
enabled me to win through, and I continued my ride safe, but with the heart
fluttering like a captive bird.
The effect
of this narrow squeak upon me was to shake the nerve to the utmost. The fact
that pigs were abroad in the night seemed to bring home to me the perilous
nature of my enterprise. It set me thinking of all the other things that could
happen to a man out and about on a velocipede without a lamp after lighting-up
time. In particular, I recalled the statement of a pal of mine that in certain
sections of the rural districts goats were accustomed to stray across the road
to the extent of their chains, thereby forming about as sound a booby trap as
one could well wish.
He
mentioned, I remember, the case of a friend of his whose machine got entangled
with a goat chain and who was dragged seven miles—like skijoring in Switzerland—so
that he was never the same man again. And there was one chap who ran into an
elephant, left over from a travelling circus.
Indeed,
taking it for all in all, it seemed to me that, with the possible exception of
being bitten by sharks, there was virtually no front-page disaster that could
not happen to a fellow, once he had allowed his dear ones to override his
better judgment and shove him out into the great unknown on a push-bike, and I
am not ashamed to confess that, taking it by and large, the amount of quailing
I did from this point on was pretty considerable.
However,
in respect to goats and elephants, I must say things panned out unexpectedly
well.
Oddly
enough, I encountered neither. But when you have said that you have said
everything, for in every other way the conditions could scarcely have been
fouler.
Apart from
the ceaseless anxiety of having to keep an eye skinned for elephants, I found
myself much depressed by barking dogs, and once I received a most unpleasant
shock when, alighting to consult a signpost, I saw sitting on top of it an owl
that looked exactly like my Aunt Agatha. So agitated, indeed, had my frame of
mind become by this time that I thought at first it was Aunt Agatha, and only
when reason and reflection told me how alien to her habits it would be to climb
signposts and sit on them, could I pull myself together and overcome the
weakness.
In short,
what with all this mental disturbance added to the more purely physical anguish
in the billowy portions and the calves and ankles, the Bertram Wooster who
eventually toppled off at the door of Kingham Manor was a very different
Bertram from the gay and insouciant boulevardier of Bond Street and
Piccadilly.
Even to
one unaware of the inside facts, it would have been evident that Kingham Manor
was throwing its weight about a bit tonight. Lights shone in the windows, music
was in the air, and as I drew nearer my ear detected the sibilant shuffling of
the feet of butlers, footmen, chauffeurs, parlourmaids, housemaids, tweenies
and, I have no doubt, cooks, who were busily treading the measure. I suppose
you couldn't sum it up much better than by saying that there was a sound of
revelry by night.
The orgy
was taking place in one of the ground-floor rooms which had French windows
opening on to the drive, and it was to these French windows that I now made my
way. An orchestra was playing something with a good deal of zip to it, and
under happier conditions I dare say my feet would have started twitching in
time to the melody. But I had sterner work before me than to stand hoofing it
by myself on gravel drives.
I wanted
that back-door key, and I wanted it instanter.
Scanning
the throng within, I found it difficult for a while to spot Seppings.
Presently, however, he hove in view, doing fearfully lissom things in
mid-floor. I "Hi-Seppings!"-ed a couple of times, but his mind was
too much on his job to be diverted, and it was only when the swirl of the dance
had brought him within prodding distance of my forefinger that a quick one to
the lower ribs enabled me to claim his attention.
The
unexpected buffet caused him to trip over his partner's feet, and it was with
marked austerity that he turned. As he recognized Bertram, however, coldness
melted, to be replaced by astonishment.
"Mr.
Wooster!"
I was in
no mood for bandying words.
"Less
of the 'Mr. Wooster' and more back-door keys," I said curtly. "Give
me the key of the back door, Seppings."
He did not
seem to grasp the gist.
"The
key of the back door, sir?"
"Precisely.
The Brinkley Court back-door key."
"But
it is at the Court, sir."
I clicked
the tongue, annoyed.
"Don't
be frivolous, my dear old butler," I said. "I haven't ridden nine
miles on a push-bike to listen to you trying to be funny. You've got it in your
trousers pocket."
"No,
sir. I left it with Mr. Jeeves."
"You
did—what?"
"Yes,
sir. Before I came away. Mr. Jeeves said that he wished to walk in the garden
before retiring for the night. He was to place the key on the kitchen
window-sill."
I stared
at the man dumbly. His eye was clear, his hand steady. He had none of the
appearance of a butler who has had a couple.
"You
mean that all this while the key has been in Jeeves's possession?"??
"Yes,
sir."
I could
speak no more. Emotion had overmastered my voice. I was at a loss and not
abreast; but of one thing, it seemed to me, there could be no doubt. For some
reason, not to be fathomed now, but most certainly to be gone well into as soon
as I had pushed this infernal sewing-machine of mine over those nine miles of
lonely, country road and got within striking distance of him, Jeeves had been
doing the dirty. Knowing that at any given moment he could have solved the
whole situation, he had kept Aunt Dahlia and others roosting out on the front
lawn en déshabille and, worse still, had stood calmly by and watched his
young employer set out on a wholly unnecessary eighteen-mile bicycle ride.
I could
scarcely believe such a thing of him. Of his Uncle Cyril, yes. With that
distorted sense of humour of his, Uncle Cyril might quite conceivably have been
capable of such conduct. But that it should be Jeeves—
I leaped
into the saddle and, stifling the cry of agony which rose to the lips as the
bruised person touched the hard leather, set out on the homeward journey.
-23-
I remember
Jeeves saying on one occasion—I forgot how the subject had arisen—he may simply
have thrown the observation out, as he does sometimes, for me to take or
leave—that hell hath no fury like a woman scorned. And until tonight I had
always felt that there was a lot in it. I had never scorned a woman myself, but
Pongo Twistleton once scorned an aunt of his, flatly refusing to meet her son
Gerald at Paddington and give him lunch and see him off to school at Waterloo,
and he never heard the end of it. Letters were written, he tells me, which had
to be seen to be believed. Also two very strong telegrams and a bitter picture
post card with a view of the Little Chilbury War Memorial on it.
Until
tonight, therefore, as I say, I had never questioned the accuracy of the
statement. Scorned women first and the rest nowhere, was how it had always
seemed to me.
But
tonight I revised my views. If you want to know what hell can really do in the
way of furies, look for the chap who has been hornswoggled into taking a long
and unnecessary bicycle ride in the dark without a lamp.
Mark that
word "unnecessary". That was the part of it that really jabbed the
iron into the soul. I mean, if it was a case of riding to the doctor's to save
the child with croup, or going off to the local pub to fetch supplies in the
event of the cellar having run dry, no one would leap to the handlebars more
readily than I. Young Lochinvar, absolutely. But this business of being put
through it merely to gratify one's personal attendant's diseased sense of the
amusing was a bit too thick, and I chafed from start to finish.
So, what I
mean to say, although the providence which watches over good men saw to it that
I was enabled to complete the homeward journey unscathed except in the billowy
portions, removing from my path all goats, elephants, and even owls that looked
like my Aunt Agatha, it was a frowning and jaundiced Bertram who finally came
to anchor at the Brinkley Court front door. And when I saw a dark figure
emerging from the porch to meet me, I prepared to let myself go and uncork all
that was fizzing in the mind.
"Jeeves!"
I said.
"It
is I, Bertie."
The voice
which spoke sounded like warm treacle, and even if I had not recognized it
immediately as that of the Bassett, I should have known that it did not proceed
from the man I was yearning to confront. For this figure before me was wearing
a simple tweed dress and had employed my first name in its remarks. And Jeeves,
whatever his moral defects, would never go about in skirts calling me Bertie.
The last
person, of course, whom I would have wished to meet after a long evening in the
saddle, but I vouchsafed a courteous "What ho!"
There was
a pause, during which I massaged the calves. Mine, of course, I mean.
"You
got in, then?" I said, in allusion to the change of costume.
"Oh,
yes. About a quarter of an hour after you left Jeeves went searching about and
found the back-door key on the kitchen window-sill."
"Ha!"
"What?"
"Nothing."
"I
thought you said something."
"No,
nothing."
And I
continued to do so. For at this juncture, as had so often happened when this
girl and I were closeted, the conversation once more went blue on us. The night
breeze whispered, but not the Bassett. A bird twittered, but not so much as a
chirp escaped Bertram. It was perfectly amazing, the way her mere presence
seemed to wipe speech from my lips—and mine, for that matter, from hers. It
began to look as if our married life together would be rather like twenty years
among the Trappist monks.
"Seen
Jeeves anywhere?" I asked, eventually coming through.
"Yes,
in the dining-room."
"The
dining-room?"
"Waiting
on everybody. They are having eggs and bacon and champagne.... What did you
say?"
I had said
nothing—merely snorted. There was something about the thought of these people
carelessly revelling at a time when, for all they knew, I was probably being
dragged about the countryside by goats or chewed by elephants, that struck home
at me like a poisoned dart. It was the sort of thing you read about as having happened
just before the French Revolution—the haughty nobles in their castles callously
digging in and quaffing while the unfortunate blighters outside were suffering
frightful privations.
The voice
of the Bassett cut in on these mordant reflections:
"Bertie."
"Hullo!"
Silence.
"Hullo!"
I said again.
No
response. Whole thing rather like one of those telephone conversations where
you sit at your end of the wire saying: "Hullo! Hullo!" unaware that
the party of the second part has gone off to tea.
Eventually,
however, she came to the surface again:
"Bertie,
I have something to say to you."
"What?"
"I
have something to say to you."
"I
know. I said 'What?'"
"Oh,
I thought you didn't hear what I said."
"Yes,
I heard what you said, all right, but not what you were going to say."
"Oh,
I see."
"Right-ho."
So that
was straightened out. Nevertheless, instead of proceeding she took time off
once more. She stood twisting the fingers and scratching the gravel with her
foot. When finally she spoke, it was to deliver an impressive boost:
"Bertie,
do you read Tennyson?"
"Not
if I can help."
"You
remind me so much of those Knights of the Round Table in the 'Idylls of the
King'."
Of course
I had heard of them—Lancelot, Galahad and all that lot, but I didn't see where
the resemblance came in. It seemed to me that she must be thinking of a couple
of other fellows.
"How
do you mean?"
"You
have such a great heart, such a fine soul. You are so generous, so unselfish,
so chivalrous. I have always felt that about you—that you are one of the few
really chivalrous men I have ever met."
Well,
dashed difficult, of course, to know what to say when someone is giving you the
old oil on a scale like that. I muttered an "Oh, yes?" or something
on those lines, and rubbed the billowy portions in some embarrassment. And
there was another silence, broken only by a sharp howl as I rubbed a bit too
hard.
"Bertie."
"Hullo?"
I heard
her give a sort of gulp.
"Bertie,
will you be chivalrous now?"
"Rather.
Only too pleased. How do you mean?"
"I am
going to try you to the utmost. I am going to test you as few men have ever
been tested. I am going——"
I didn't
like the sound of this.
"Well,"
I said doubtfully, "always glad to oblige, you know, but I've just had the
dickens of a bicycle ride, and I'm a bit stiff and sore, especially in the—as I
say, a bit stiff and sore. If it's anything to be fetched from upstairs——"
"No,
no, you don't understand."
"I
don't, quite, no."
"Oh,
it's so difficult.... How can I say it?... Can't you guess?"
"No.
I'm dashed if I can."
"Bertie—let
me go!"
"But
I haven't got hold of you."
"Release
me!"
"Re——"
And then I
suddenly got it. I suppose it was fatigue that had made me so slow to apprehend
the nub.
"What?"
I
staggered, and the left pedal came up and caught me on the shin. But such was
the ecstasy in the soul that I didn't utter a cry.
"Release
you?"
"Yes."
I didn't
want any confusion on the point.
"You
mean you want to call it all off? You're going to hitch up with Gussie, after
all?"
"Only
if you are fine and big enough to consent."
"Oh,
I am."
"I
gave you my promise."
"Dash
promises."
"Then
you really——"
"Absolutely."
"Oh,
Bertie!"
She seemed
to sway like a sapling. It is saplings that sway, I believe.
"A
very parfait knight!" I heard her murmur, and there not being much to say
after that, I excused myself on the ground that I had got about two pecks of
dust down my back and would like to go and get my maid to put me into something
loose.
"You
go back to Gussie," I said, "and tell him that all is well."
She gave a
sort of hiccup and, darting forward, kissed me on the forehead. Unpleasant, of
course, but, as Anatole would say, I can take a few smooths with a rough. The
next moment she was legging it for the dining-room, while I, having bunged the
bicycle into a bush, made for the stairs.
I need not
dwell upon my buckedness. It can be readily imagined. Talk about chaps with the
noose round their necks and the hangman about to let her go and somebody
galloping up on a foaming horse, waving the reprieve—not in it. Absolutely not
in it at all. I don't know that I can give you a better idea of the state of my
feelings than by saying that as I started to cross the hall I was conscious of so
profound a benevolence toward all created things that I found myself thinking
kindly thoughts even of Jeeves.
I was
about to mount the stairs when a sudden "What ho!" from my rear
caused me to turn. Tuppy was standing in the hall. He had apparently been down
to the cellar for reinforcements, for there were a couple of bottles under his
arm.
"Hullo,
Bertie," he said. "You back?" He laughed amusedly. "You
look like the Wreck of the Hesperus. Get run over by a steam-roller or
something?"
At any
other time I might have found his coarse badinage hard to bear. But such was my
uplifted mood that I waved it aside and slipped him the good news.
"Tuppy,
old man, the Bassett's going to marry Gussie Fink-Nottle."
"Tough
luck on both of them, what?"
"But
don't you understand? Don't you see what this means? It means that Angela is
once more out of pawn, and you have only to play your cards properly——"
He
bellowed rollickingly. I saw now that he was in the pink. As a matter of fact,
I had noticed something of the sort directly I met him, but had attributed it
to alcoholic stimulant.
"Good
Lord! You're right behind the times, Bertie. Only to be expected, of course, if
you will go riding bicycles half the night. Angela and I made it up hours
ago."
"What?"
"Certainly.
Nothing but a passing tiff. All you need in these matters is a little give and
take, a bit of reasonableness on both sides. We got together and talked things
over. She withdrew my double chin. I conceded her shark. Perfectly simple. All
done in a couple of minutes."
"But——"
"Sorry,
Bertie. Can't stop chatting with you all night. There is a rather impressive
beano in progress in the dining-room, and they are waiting for supplies."
Endorsement
was given to this statement by a sudden shout from the apartment named. I
recognized—as who would not—Aunt Dahlia's voice:
"Glossop!"
"Hullo?"
"Hurry
up with that stuff."
"Coming,
coming."
"Well,
come, then. Yoicks! Hard for-rard!"
"Tallyho,
not to mention tantivy. Your aunt," said Tuppy, "is a bit above herself.
I don't know all the facts of the case, but it appears that Anatole gave notice
and has now consented to stay on, and also your uncle has given her a cheque
for that paper of hers. I didn't get the details, but she is much braced. See
you later. I must rush."
To say
that Bertram was now definitely nonplussed would be but to state the simple
truth. I could make nothing of this. I had left Brinkley Court a stricken home,
with hearts bleeding wherever you looked, and I had returned to find it a sort
of earthly paradise. It baffled me.
I bathed
bewilderedly. The toy duck was still in the soap-dish, but I was too
preoccupied to give it a thought. Still at a loss, I returned to my room, and
there was Jeeves. And it is proof of my fogged condish that my first words to
him were words not of reproach and stern recrimination but of inquiry:
"I
say, Jeeves!"
"Good
evening, sir. I was informed that you had returned. I trust you had an
enjoyable ride."
At any
other moment, a crack like that would have woken the fiend in Bertram Wooster.
I barely noticed it. I was intent on getting to the bottom of this mystery.
"But
I say, Jeeves, what?"
"Sir?"
"What
does all this mean?"
"You
refer, sir——"
"Of
course I refer. You know what I'm talking about. What has been happening here
since I left? The place is positively stiff with happy endings."
"Yes,
sir. I am glad to say that my efforts have been rewarded."
"What
do you mean, your efforts? You aren't going to try to make out that that rotten
fire bell scheme of yours had anything to do with it?"
"Yes,
sir."
"Don't
be an ass, Jeeves. It flopped."
"Not
altogether, sir. I fear, sir, that I was not entirely frank with regard to my
suggestion of ringing the fire bell. I had not really anticipated that it would
in itself produce the desired results. I had intended it merely as a
preliminary to what I might describe as the real business of the evening."
"You
gibber, Jeeves."
"No,
sir. It was essential that the ladies and gentlemen should be brought from the
house, in order that, once out of doors, I could ensure that they remained
there for the necessary period of time."
"How
do you mean?"
"My
plan was based on psychology, sir."
"How?"
"It
is a recognized fact, sir, that there is nothing that so satisfactorily unites
individuals who have been so unfortunate as to quarrel amongst themselves as a
strong mutual dislike for some definite person. In my own family, if I may give
a homely illustration, it was a generally accepted axiom that in times of
domestic disagreement it was necessary only to invite my Aunt Annie for a visit
to heal all breaches between the other members of the household. In the mutual
animosity excited by Aunt Annie, those who had become estranged were reconciled
almost immediately. Remembering this, it occurred to me that were you, sir, to
be established as the person responsible for the ladies and gentlemen being
forced to spend the night in the garden, everybody would take so strong a
dislike to you that in this common sympathy they would sooner or later come
together."
I would
have spoken, but he continued:
"And
such proved to be the case. All, as you see, sir, is now well. After your
departure on the bicycle, the various estranged parties agreed so heartily in
their abuse of you that the ice, if I may use the expression, was broken, and
it was not long before Mr. Glossop was walking beneath the trees with Miss
Angela, telling her anecdotes of your career at the university in exchange for
hers regarding your childhood; while Mr. Fink-Nottle, leaning against the
sundial, held Miss Bassett enthralled with stories of your schooldays. Mrs.
Travers, meanwhile, was telling Monsieur Anatole——"
I found
speech.
"Oh?"
I said. "I see. And now, I suppose, as the result of this dashed
psychology of yours, Aunt Dahlia is so sore with me that it will be years
before I can dare to show my face here again—years, Jeeves, during which, night
after night, Anatole will be cooking those dinners of his——"
"No,
sir. It was to prevent any such contingency that I suggested that you should
bicycle to Kingham Manor. When I informed the ladies and gentlemen that I had
found the key, and it was borne in upon them that you were having that long
ride for nothing, their animosity vanished immediately, to be replaced by cordial
amusement. There was much laughter."
"There
was, eh?"
"Yes,
sir. I fear you may possibly have to submit to a certain amount of good-natured
chaff, but nothing more. All, if I may say so, is forgiven, sir."
"Oh?"
"Yes,
sir."
I mused
awhile.
"You certainly
seem to have fixed things."
"Yes,
sir."
"Tuppy
and Angela are once more betrothed. Also Gussie and the Bassett; Uncle Tom
appears to have coughed up that money for Milady's Boudoir. And Anatole
is staying on."
"Yes,
sir."
"I
suppose you might say that all's well that ends well."
"Very
apt, sir."
I mused
again.
"All
the same, your methods are a bit rough, Jeeves."
"One
cannot make an omelette without breaking eggs, sir."
I started.
"Omelette!
Do you think you could get me one?"
"Certainly,
sir."
"Together
with half a bot. of something?"
"Undoubtedly,
sir."
"Do
so, Jeeves, and with all speed."
I climbed
into bed and sank back against the pillows. I must say that my generous wrath
had ebbed a bit. I was aching the whole length of my body, particularly toward
the middle, but against this you had to set the fact that I was no longer
engaged to Madeline Bassett. In a good cause one is prepared to suffer. Yes,
looking at the thing from every angle, I saw that Jeeves had done well, and it
was with an approving beam that I welcomed him as he returned with the needful.
He did not
check up with this beam. A bit grave, he seemed to me to be looking, and I
probed the matter with a kindly query:
"Something
on your mind, Jeeves?"
"Yes,
sir. I should have mentioned it earlier, but in the evening's disturbance it
escaped my memory, I fear I have been remiss, sir."
"Yes,
Jeeves?" I said, champing contentedly.
"In
the matter of your mess-jacket, sir."
A nameless
fear shot through me, causing me to swallow a mouthful of omelette the wrong
way.
"I am
sorry to say, sir, that while I was ironing it this afternoon I was careless
enough to leave the hot instrument upon it. I very much fear that it will be
impossible for you to wear it again, sir."
One of
those old pregnant silences filled the room.
"I am
extremely sorry, sir."
For a
moment, I confess, that generous wrath of mine came bounding back, hitching up
its muscles and snorting a bit through the nose, but, as we say on the Riviera,
à quoi sert-il? There was nothing to be gained by g.w. now.
We
Woosters can bite the bullet. I nodded moodily and speared another slab of
omelette.
"Right
ho, Jeeves."
"Very
good, sir."
The End (of the jacket)
