The Jeeves Omnibus (12 page)

‘Really?’

‘Yes, really. I hate you. I wish I’d never met you. I think you’re a worse pig than any you’ve got up at that beastly house of yours.’

This interested me.

‘I didn’t know you kept pigs, Chuffy.’

‘Black Berkshires,’ he said absently. ‘Well, if that’s how you …’

‘There’s money in pigs.’

‘Well, all right,’ said Chuffy. ‘If that’s how you feel, well, all right.’

‘You bet it’s all right.’

‘That’s what I said, it’s all right.’

‘My Uncle Henry …’

‘Bertie,’ said Chuffy.

‘Hallo?’

‘I don’t want to hear about your Uncle Henry. I am not interested in your Uncle Henry. It will be all right with me if your damned Uncle Henry trips over his feet and breaks his blasted neck.’

‘Too late, old man. He passed away three years ago. Pneumonia. I was only saying he kept pigs. Made a good thing out of them, too.’

‘Will you stop …’

‘Yes, and will you,’ said Pauline. ‘Are you going to spend the night here? I wish you would leave off talking and go.’

‘I will,’ said Chuffy.

‘Do,’ said Pauline.

‘Good night,’ said Chuffy.

He strode to the head of the stairs.

‘But one last word …’ he said with a wide, passionate gesture.

Well, I could have told the poor old chap that you can’t do that sort of thing in these old-world country cottages. His knuckles hit a projecting beam, he danced in agony, over-balanced, and the next moment was on his way to the ground floor like a sack of coals.

Pauline Stoker ran to the banisters and looked over.

‘Are you hurt?’ she cried.

‘Yes,’ yelled Chuffy.

‘Good,’ cried Pauline.

She came back into the room and the front door slammed like the bursting of an overwrought heart.

I DREW A
deepish breath. With the departure of the male half of the sketch a certain strain seemed to have gone out of the atmosphere. Excellent companion though I had always found him in the past, Chuffy had not shown himself at his chummiest during the recent scene, with the result that for some little time I had been feeling rather like Daniel in the lions’ den.

Pauline was panting somewhat. Not exactly snorting, but coming very near to what you might call the borderland of the snort. Her eyes were hard and bright. Deeply moved. She picked up her bathing suit.

‘Push off, Bertie,’ she said.

I had been hoping for a quiet chat, in the course of which we would review the situation, touching on this point and on that, and strive to ascertain what to do for the best.

‘But listen …’

‘I want to change.’

‘Change what?’

‘Put on my swimming suit.’

I could not follow her.

‘Why?’

‘Because I am going to swim.’

‘Swim?’

‘Swim.’

I stared.

‘You aren’t going back to the yacht?’

‘I am going back to the yacht.’

‘But I wanted to talk about Chuffy.’

‘I never wish to hear his name mentioned again.’

It seemed time to be the wise old mediator.

‘Oh, come!’

‘Well?’

‘When I say “Oh, come!”’ I explained, ‘I mean surely you don’t
intend
to give the poor blighter the permanent air on account of a trifling lovers’ tiff?’

She looked at me in rather a peculiar manner.

‘Would you mind repeating that? Just the last three words.’

‘Trifling lovers’ tiff?’

She breathed heavily, and for a moment I experienced a return of that lions’ den sensation.

‘I wasn’t sure I had caught them correctly,’ she said.

‘I mean to say you get (
a
) a girl and (
b
) a bloke and stir up their generous natures, and the result is that each says lots of things she or he doesn’t mean.’

‘Oh? Well, let me tell you I meant every word I said. I told him I never wanted to speak to him again. I don’t. I told him I hated him. I do. I called him a pig. He is.’

‘Now, that’s rummy about Chuffy’s pigs. I had no notion he kept them.’

‘Why not? Birds of a feather.’

There seemed nothing much more to say about pigs.

‘Aren’t you a bit hard?’

‘Am I?’

‘And rather rough on Chuffy?’

‘Am I?’

‘You wouldn’t say his attitude was excusable?’

‘I would not.’

‘Must have been a shock for the poor old chap, I mean, barging in and finding you here.’

‘Bertie.’

‘Hallo?’

‘Ever been hit over the head with a chair?’

‘No.’

‘Well, you soon may be.’

I began to see she was in difficult mood.

‘Oh, well!’

‘Does that mean the same as “Oh, come!”?’

‘No. All I was driving at was that it seems a pity. Two loving hearts sundered for ever –
bingo
!’

‘Yes?’

‘Still, if that’s the way you feel, well, that’s the way you feel, what?’

‘Yes.’

‘We now come to this idea of swimming home. Potty, it strikes me as.’

‘There’s nothing to keep me here now, is there?’

‘No. But the midnight swim … You’re going to find it pretty cold.’

‘And wet. I don’t care.’

‘And how are you going to get aboard?’

‘I’ll get aboard. I can climb up by the thing they hang the anchor from. I’ve done it before. So will you remove yourself and let me change.’

I went out on to the landing. And presently she emerged in the bathing suit.

‘You needn’t see me out.’

‘Of course I will, if you’re really going.’

‘I’m going, all right.’

‘Well, if you must.’

Outside the front door the air seemed nippier than ever. The mere thought of plunging into the harbour gave me the shivers. But it had no effect on her. She slipped off into the darkness without a word, and I went upstairs to bed.

You might have thought that after garages and potting sheds the fact that I was in a bed would have resulted in instant slumber. But no. I couldn’t get off. The more I tried, the more I found the mind turning to what you might call the tragedy in which I had so recently participated. I don’t mind admitting that my heart ached for Chuffy. It also ached for Pauline. It ached for both of them.

I mean to say, consider the facts. Two thoroughly sound eggs, destined for each other, you might almost say, through all eternity, giving each other the bird like this for no reason whatever, really. Pitiful. Rotten. No good to man or beast. The more I thought of it, the sillier it seemed.

And yet there it was. Words had passed. Relations had been severed. The whole binge was irrevocably off.

There is only one thing for the sympathetic bystander to do on these occasions, and I realized now that it was madness not to have done it before going to bed and attempting sleep. I slid out from between the sheets and went downstairs.

The whisky bottle was in the cupboard. So was the siphon. So was the glass. I mixed myself a healing beaker and sat down. And, as I did so, I observed on the table a sheet of paper.

It was a note from Pauline Stoker.

Dear Bertie
,

You were right about it being cold. I couldn’t face the swim. But there’s a boat down by the landing stage. I shall row to the yacht and set it adrift. I’ve come back to borrow your overcoat. I didn’t want to disturb you, so I climbed in through the window. I’m afraid you will have to sacrifice the coat, as of course I shall have to throw it overboard when I get to the yacht. Sorry
.

P.S
.

You notice the style? Curt. Staccato. Evidence of the wounded heart and the heavy mind. I felt sorrier for her than ever, but glad she probably wasn’t going to get a cold in the head. As for the coat, a careless shrug of the shoulders covered that. I did not grudge it her, though new and silk-lined. Only too pleased, about summed up my attitude in the matter.

I tore up the note and returned to my spot.

There is nothing like a strong w-and-s for calming the system. In about another quarter of an hour I was feeling so soothed that I could contemplate bed once more, this time confident that the betting was at least eight to three that a refreshing slumber would be my portion.

I rose accordingly, and was just about to ankle upstairs, when for the second time that night there was the dickens of a knocking on the front door.

I don’t know that you would call me an irascible man. I rather think not. Ask them about me at the Drones, and they will probably tell you that Bertram Wooster, wind and weather permitting, is as a general rule suavity itself. But, as I had been compelled to show Jeeves in the matter of the banjolele, I can be pushed too far. It was with drawn brow and cold eye that I now undid the chain. I was just about ready to give Sergeant Voules – for I assumed that it was he – the ticking-off of a lifetime.

‘Voules,’ I was preparing to say, ‘enough is enough. This police persecution must stop. It is monstrous and uncalled for. We are not in Russia, Voules. There are such things, I would have your remember, Voules, as strong letters to
The Times
.’

That, or something like it, is what I would have said to Sergeant Voules: and what caused me to refrain was not weakness or pity, but the fact that the man attached to the knocker wasn’t Voules at all. It was J. Washburn Stoker, and he was regarding me with a sort
of
hard-boiled fury which, but for the fact that I had just finished a life-giving snort and knew that his daughter Pauline was safely off the premises, would undoubtedly have tickled me up not a little.

As it was, I remained tranquil.

‘Yes?’ I said.

I had packed so much cold surprise and hauteur into the word that a lesser man might well have keeled over backwards as if hit by a bullet. J. W. Stoker took it without blinking. He pushed past me into the house, then turned and grabbed me by the shoulder.

‘Now, then!’ he said.

I disengaged myself coldly. I had to wriggle out of my pyjama jacket to do so, but I managed it.

‘I beg your pardon?’

‘Where’s my daughter?’

‘Your daughter Pauline?’

‘I have only one daughter.’

‘And you ask me where this one daughter is?’

‘I know where she is.’

‘Then why did you ask?’

‘She’s here.’

‘Then give me my pyjama jacket and tell her to come in,’ I said.

I’ve never actually seen a man grind his teeth, so I wouldn’t care to state definitely that this is what J. Washburn Stoker did at this juncture. He may have done. He may not have done. All I can say authoritatively is that the muscles stood out on his cheeks and his jaws began to work as if he were chewing gum. It was not a pleasant spectacle, but thanks to the fact that I had mixed that whisky and splash particularly strong so as to facilitate sleep I was enabled to endure it with fortitude and phlegm.

‘She’s in this house!’ he said, continuing to grind, if he was grinding.

‘What makes you think that?’

‘I’ll tell you what makes me think that. I went to her state-room half an hour ago, and it was empty.’

‘But why on earth should you suppose she’s come here?’

‘Because I know she’s infatuated with you.’

‘Not at all. She regards me as a sister.’

‘I am going to search this house.’

‘Charge right ahead.’

He dashed upstairs and I returned to my spot. Not the same spot. Another one. I felt that in the circumstances a repeat was justified.
And
presently my visitor, who had gone up like a lion, came down like a lamb. I suppose a parent who has barged into a comparative stranger’s cottage in the small hours in search of a missing daughter, feels more or less of a silly ass. I know I should, and apparently this Stoker did, for he shuffled a bit and I could see that a lot of the steam or motive force had gone out of him.

‘I owe you an apology, Mr Wooster.’

‘Don’t give it a thought.’

‘I took it for granted when I found Pauline gone –’

‘Dismiss the whole thing from your mind. Might have happened to anybody. Faults on both sides and so forth. You’ll have a certain something before you go?’

It seemed to me that it would be a prudent move to detain him on the premises for as long as possible, so as to give Pauline plenty of time to get back to the old boat. But he wouldn’t be tempted. His mind was evidently too occupied for spots.

‘It beats me where she can have gone,’ he said, and you would have been astounded at the mildness and even chummy pathos with which he spoke. It was as if Bertram had been some wise old friend to whom he was bringing his little troubles. The man seemed positively punctured. A child could have played with him.

I endeavoured to throw out a word of cheer.

‘I expect she’s gone for a swim.’

‘At this time of night?’

‘Girls do rummy things.’

‘And she’s a curious girl. This infatuation of hers for you, for instance.’

This seemed to me lacking in tact, and I would have frowned slightly, had I not remembered that I wished to disabuse him, if disabuse is what I’m driving at, of the idea that any such infatuation existed.

‘Correct this notion that Miss Stoker is under my fatal spell,’ I urged him. ‘She laughs herself sick at the sight of me.’

‘I did not get that impression this afternoon.’

‘Oh, that? Just brother and sister stuff. It shan’t occur again.’

‘It had better not,’ he said, returning for a moment to what I might call his earlier manner. ‘Well, I won’t keep you up, Mr Wooster. I apologize again for making a darned fool of myself.’

I did not quite slap him on the back, but I made a sort of backslapping gesture.

‘Not at all,’ I said. ‘Not at all. I wish I had a quid for every time I’ve made a darned fool of
my
self.’

And on these cordial terms we parted. He went down the garden path, and I, having waited up about ten minutes on the chance that somebody else might come paying a social call, drained my glass and popped up to bed.

Something attempted, something done, had earned a night’s repose, or as near as you can get to a night’s repose in a place full of Stokers and Paulines and Vouleses and Chuffys and Dobsons. It was not long before the weary eyelids closed and I was off.