Jeeves and the Wedding Bells (11 page)

‘Schopenhauer, sir.’

‘… and furthermore looks like an angel in human form on a quite exceptional day for angels would care for a complete ass like me – an ass, what’s more, she’s just seen manhandling her cousin?’

Jeeves passed a hand across his mouth. ‘Miss Meadowes is undoubtedly a well-educated young woman, sir, but there is nothing of the intellectual snob about her. She told me that her time at Somerville was spent mostly at the Oxford University Dramatic Society. I believe her Rosalind in
As You Like It
was especially admired.’

‘She mentioned something about Rosalind one night in France. I thought she was referring to a girl I knew in St Hilda’s.’

‘When not treading the boards, Miss Meadowes spent a good deal of time organising picnics or entertaining friends to dinner on a flat roof reached by way of the Principal’s fire escape.’

‘But she got a degree, didn’t she?’

‘Of the second class, I believe, sir.’

‘That’s a bit showy, isn’t it? Anyway, the point is there’s no reason in the world why she should have any of the feelings you’re suggesting.’

‘You spent a good deal of time together in France, sir.’

‘Brother and sister stuff, Jeeves. Catsmeat and Corky dine together at every opportunity. And one doesn’t want to put on the bib and tucker alone every night.’

‘I believe you hold the young lady in high esteem, sir.’

‘I do. The highest possible, in fact. But that’s a completely different matter. That doesn’t mean that I’m any more than the dust beneath her thingummy.’

‘At dinner last night, sir, I observed a look in her eye when Mr Venables brought up the subject of the south of France.’

‘A look in her eye! Egad, Jeeves, these are slim pickings.’

‘A wistful look, sir. Accompanied by a degree of moisture.’

‘Enough of this childish nonsense, Jeeves.’

‘As you wish, sir.’

‘And in any event, I feel we may well have been bandying, don’t you?’

‘It was difficult to convey my meaning without identifying the individual, sir. I might, perhaps, have chosen the form of a parable, as did the prophet Nathan when seeking to enlighten King David, but—’

‘Yes, I remember. But I suppose you thought if you’d done the parable routine there was the risk that I wouldn’t have known what you were on about.’

‘The more direct approach seemed on balance—’

‘Do you mind if we just stop there, Jeeves?’

The waters had started roiling again and the cardiac muscle was giving the inside shirt-front a bit of a pasting.

‘As you wish, sir. Might I just add that it is still conceivable that Mr Beeching might hear of this afternoon’s misunderstanding from a different source.’

‘From Amelia, you mean?’

‘The young lady is so out of sorts that I feel she cannot be relied on.’

‘She’s cornered, you mean. Desperate. She might lash out.’

‘The situation is fraught, sir. Miss Hackwood may feel she no longer has an interest in preserving the fiction of Lord Etringham and his gentleman’s personal gentleman, Mr Wilberforce.’

‘That’s pretty serious, Jeeves.’

‘I fear so, sir. It would mean an early end to our visit.’

‘And Lady Hackwood would be straight on the blower to Aunt Agatha.’

‘It is as well that the instrument is temporarily disabled, sir.’

‘I tell you what else it would mean if Amelia tells Woody.’

I think I may have mentioned that in addition to everything else, Woody secured a half-blue at boxing in his final year at Oxford. Those of us who made the journey down to the Savoy hotel for the match against Cambridge will never forget the one minute and twelve seconds that made up the full extent of the middleweight bout, the amount of claret splashed about the ring nor the look on the face of the opposing undergraduate
as he was helped back to his corner before resuming – with all speed, one imagined – his restful studies at Gonville and Caius.

I was not at all keen to find myself in the shoes of that young man, especially since in the intervening years Woody had almost certainly moved up a division.

‘Golly, Jeeves. How on earth are we going to keep Amelia sweet until Sunday night?’

‘I have been reflecting on the matter, sir and I have—’

But what exactly he had, I did not at once find out, as there was a knock at the door.

‘Come in,’ we said in unison.

The door opened and the space filled. When I say ‘filled’, I mean that there was nothing between lintel, jamb and floor that was not solid butler.

‘I beg your, pardon, my lord,’ said Bicknell. ‘I was looking for Mr Wilberforce.’

‘You came to the right place, Mr Bicknell,’ I said.

‘With Lord Etringham’s permission, I wondered if I might ask your assistance, Mr Wilberforce.’

‘Of course,’ said Jeeves.

‘Anything you like, Mr Bicknell,’ I said. ‘As I told you this morning, we Woo … Wilberforces like to make ourselves useful. No General Striking for us.’

‘Hoad, the temporary footman, finds himself indisposed. We sit down ten to dinner this evening and I need you to wait at table.’

‘Love to help,’ I said, thinking rapidly on my feet, ‘but I
haven’t yet had a chance to get down to the village and make that call about the telephone line, so—’

‘There’s no hurry for that, Mr Wilberforce. I can go tomorrow.’

‘It’s just that I can’t …’

I looked across to Jeeves for salvation, but his face was expressionless and his lips remained sealed.

‘I am most grateful,’ said Bicknell. ‘I shall be serving cocktails in the drawing room from seven o’clock and Sir Henry likes to sit down no later than eight. Perhaps you could report to Mrs Padgett at seven-thirty.’

The doorway emptied.

I may have got out a weak ‘Right ho’, or I may not. It is immaterial.

‘JEEVES,’ I SAID
, when I had finally regained the power of speech. ‘This is the bally end.’

‘It would appear that confusion now hath made his masterpiece, sir.’

‘Well, I jolly well wish his masterpiece didn’t involve me in a starring role.’

‘It is a most vexed state of affairs, sir, though perhaps not beyond hope.’

Then I noticed that Jeeves had a glint in his eye. There had been times over the last forty-eight hours when I had doubted the fellow. I had thought he was perhaps partaking in the workshy public mood; I wondered if as well as Spinoza he had been dipping into a bit of Karl Marx. Not for the first time, I had underestimated him.

‘It is a fact of life, sir,’ he said, ‘that in the course of a large dinner party those at table barely notice those who wait on them.’

‘Unless they make an ass of themselves.’

‘Indeed, sir. Otherwise, the company tends to take the service for granted and to be absorbed in its own conversation.’

‘That sounds a bit ungrateful.’

‘It is the way of the world, sir, and not ours to question. Might I for instance ask you who waited on you last time you stayed at Brinkley Court?’

‘Seppings?’

‘No, sir. Mr Seppings was indisposed. It was Mr Easton, a young man from the village.’

‘I didn’t notice.’

‘Exactly, sir.’

I pondered this for a moment. ‘It’s still a blood-curdling prospect.’

‘I understand your trepidation, sir. Remember, however, that your disguise has been unremarked thus far. Then, to make assurance doubly sure, as it were, it might be advisable to alter your appearance in a small way.’

‘A false beard?’

‘No, sir. The footman you are replacing–’

‘Hoad? The gargoyle?’

‘Mr Hoad also has a pair of side-whiskers.’

‘Are you saying the whiskers naturally go with the corkscrew and the folded white napkin?’

‘They are more frequently worn by the serving classes, sir.’

There are times to take offence, but this was not one of them. I left my high horse unmounted – though tethered pretty close. ‘What else?’

‘If you were to part your hair centrally, sir … It is surprising how much difference such a small alteration can make.’

‘Anything further? An eyepatch? A kilt and sporran?’

‘Nothing so drastic, sir. I think that if you were to wear my reading glasses for the evening the disguise would be complete without being histrionic.’

I went over to the window and did a bit of the fashionable deer-gazing.

The diners, I thought, could be divided into three camps. There were those who had never clapped eyes on me: three Venableses and a brace of Hackwoods. There were those who were in on the plot and could be relied on: Lord Etringham and Georgiana. Then there was the problematic trio of Woody, Amelia and Dame Judith Puxley.

The episode of J. Caesar and the Shropshire roof had taken place some years earlier, and I was the last person Dame Judith would expect to see shovelling round the
petits pois
. Even if she deigned to look my way, the disguise should suffice. The danger lurked with Woody and Amelia. Woody, for all I knew, was even as we spoke planning to flatten my nose, while Amelia … Well, who could say what Amelia planned – or thought, or felt?

I outlined the above to Jeeves, who did not disagree.

‘Might I suggest a division of labour, sir? If you take it on yourself to find Mr Beeching, explain your behaviour of this afternoon and beg his indulgence, I shall draw Miss Hackwood aside before dinner and endeavour to explain that her best interests could be served by allowing the subterfuge to continue.’

‘But won’t the other servants think it odd that I’ve changed my parting and taken to wearing gig lamps?’

‘I doubt it, sir. They hardly know you, and would think it only a mild eccentricity at worst.’

‘Right ho, Jeeves. Give me the specs. There’s no time to be lost. Where can I find Woody?’

‘I suspect he may be in his bedroom, sir. He has not been made to feel welcome downstairs.’

Woody had been moved from the corner room to a modest bolt-hole on the second floor. Following Jeeves’s instructions, I made it up there in no time, but there was something a fraction tentative in my knock at the door.

‘Come in,’ said a voice. And if a voice can be described as listless, this was that v.

Woody was sitting in an armchair with his feet up on the windowsill, looking down the crazy paving towards the yew hedge. He was smoking a cigarette and his eye seemed fixed. It was as though he was trying somehow to see through the hedge to what lay beyond.

‘Sit down,’ he said, the v. still l.

The only place to sit was the end of the bed and it struck me I was conducting a pretty extensive trial of Melbury Hall mattresses. This one gave a bit, but nothing like the model in the Etringham corner room.

‘I was wondering when you’d pluck up courage,’ said Woody, still not looking at me.

‘Did Amelia mention that we’d … Had a slight misunderstanding?’

‘No.’

‘Oh.’

Woody ground out his cigarette in a not altogether friendly way. ‘Amelia,’ he said, ‘told me she had been set upon by a lunatic who started stroking her arm and then had the impudence to kiss her. I don’t think there is any “misunderstanding” there, do you?’

‘Well, no … I mean, yes.’

‘You’re babbling.’

‘Listen, Woody old man, let’s not fall out over this. I was making eyes at Amelia in order to help you.’

‘To help me? Have you lost your last brain cell? Shall I finally place that telephone call to Colney Hatch?’

I didn’t think this sort of language would have gone down well in the Court of Appeal; there was also the matter of the telephone being out of action, but I let that pass.

‘Let me explain, Woody. Look at me, please.’

Woody finally unhooked his ankles from the windowsill and swung round to face me. I had half a mind to ask him to turn back again, as the new vista did little for the Wooster morale. The look on his face was one I had not seen since that evening in the Savoy hotel, when, at seven-thirty on the dot, he stepped into the ring.

After a standing count of ten, I launched into an explanation of Plan A. I saw the old pal’s features register curiosity, disbelief, anger and then something I couldn’t put my finger on.

I finished and waited.

Finally, he spoke. ‘I’d like you to understand something, Bertie. Once and for all. Amelia is out of bounds. No touching, pawing, kissing, slobbering or anything else. Do you understand?’

‘Couldn’t be clearer, Woody, old man. Daylight itself is murky when compared to—’

‘I haven’t finished. Amelia is a very clever young woman, well educated and—’

‘I should say so! Brainy as anything.’

‘Will you please put a sock in it, Wooster. I’ll tell you when I want to hear from you next.’

Woody was now standing up, a couple of feet away, and I had that old Gonville and Caius feeling in the knees. ‘Right ho, Woody. Speak on.’

‘As well as being an exceptionally bright girl and a very beautiful one, she is also an innocent. She’s lived a sheltered life. I see in her great qualities which have yet to come to full maturity. They are there to be nurtured carefully over the years. What that girl doesn’t know about butterflies is not worth knowing. She has the finest collection in the west of England. Amelia is the girl I am going to marry and I don’t want any bunglers getting in the way. I’m going to marry her even if old Hackwood doesn’t give his blessing. We’ll elope if necessary. For old times’ sake I’m prepared to believe your ridiculous story. I wouldn’t credit such a hare-brained tale from anyone else. And you can take that whichever way you like. I’m not a jealous type and I don’t want to become one.
Let’s not mention the incident again. But I warn you, Bertie, I shall be watching you. Like a hawk.’