The Jeeves Omnibus (141 page)

As it happened, he was past the sardines phase. He was lolling in his chair in quiet enjoyment of the after-breakfast pipe, while Nobby, at his side, did the crossword puzzle in the morning paper. At the sight of Bertram, both expressed surprise.

‘Why, hullo!’ said Nobby.

‘Haven’t you gone yet?’ said Boko.

‘No, I haven’t,’ I replied, and laughed a hard, mirthless one.

It caused Boko to frown disapprovingly.

‘What’s the idea of coming here and trilling with laughter?’ he asked austerely. ‘You must try to get it into your head, my lad, that this is not the time for that sort of thing. Don’t you realize your position? Unless you’re across the Channel by nightfall, you haven’t a hope. Where’s your car?’

‘In the garage.’

‘Then get it out of the garage.’

‘I can’t,’ I said, letting him have it right in the gizzard. ‘Uncle Percy’s there.’

And in a few crisp words I slipped him the lowdown.

I had anticipated that my statement would get in amongst him a bit, and this expectation was fulfilled. Man and boy, I have seen a good many lower jaws fall, but never one that shot down with such a sudden swoop as his. It was surprising that the thing didn’t come off its hinges.

‘But how was he in my car? He can’t have been in my car. Why didn’t I notice him?’

This, of course, was susceptible of a ready explanation.

‘Because you’re a fathead.’

Nobby, who since the initial spilling of the beans had been sitting bolt upright in her chair with gleaming eyes, making little gulping noises and chewing the lower lip with pearly teeth, endorsed this.

‘Fathead,’ she concurred, speaking in a strange, strangled voice, ‘is right. Of all –’

Preoccupied though Boko was, there must have penetrated to his consciousness some inkling of what the harvest would be, were she permitted to get going and really start hauling up her slacks. He strove to head her off with a tortured gesture.

‘Just a minute, darling.’

‘Of all the –’

‘Yes, yes.’

‘Of all the gibbering –’

‘Quite, quite. But half a second, angel. Bertie and I are threshing out an important point. Let me just try to envisage what happened after you left last night. Bertie. Here is the sequence, as I recall it. I had my talk with old Worplesdon, and, as I told you, secured a guardian’s blessing: and then – yes, then I went back to the ballroom to tread the measure for a while.’

‘Of all the gibbering, half-witted –’

‘Exactly, exactly. But don’t interrupt the flow of my thoughts, precious. I’m trying to get this thing straight. I danced, a saraband or two, and then looked in at the bar for a moment. I wanted to get a snootful and muse over my happiness. And I was doing this, when it suddenly occurred to me that Nobby was probably tossing sleeplessly on her pillow, dying to hear how everything had come out, and I felt that I must get home immediately and go and bung gravel at her window. I raced back to the car, accordingly, sprang to the wheel and drove off. I see now why I didn’t notice old Worplesdon. Obviously, the man by that time had passed out and was lying on the floor. Well, dash it, a chap in my frame of mind, all joy and ecstasy and excitement, with his soul full to the brim of tender thoughts of the girl he loved, couldn’t be expected to go over the floor of his car with a magnifying-glass, on the chance that there might be Worplesdons there. Naturally, not observing him, I assumed that he had gone off on his push bike. Would you have had me borrow a couple of bloodhounds and search the
tonneau
from end to end? I’m sure you understand everything now, darling, and will be the first to withdraw the adjective “gibbering”. Oh, I am not angry,’ said Boko, ‘in fact, not even surprised that in the heat of the moment you should have spoken as you did. Just so long as you realize that I am innocent, blameless …’

At this juncture there was a confused noise without, and Uncle Percy crossed the threshold, moving well. A moment later, Jeeves shimmered in his wake.

Having become so accustomed during our hobnobbings of the previous day to seeing this uncle by marriage in genial and comradely mood, I had almost forgotten how like the Assyrian swooping down on the fold he could look, when deeply stirred. And that he was so now rather leaped to the eye. The ginger whiskers which go with the costume of Sindbad the Sailor obscured his countenance to a great extent, rendering it difficult to note the full play of expression on the features, but one was able to observe his eyes, and that was enough to be going on with. Fixed on Boko with an unwinking glare,
they
had the effect of causing that unhappy purveyor of wholesome literature for the masses to recoil at least a dozen feet. And he would undoubtedly have gone farther, had he not fetched up against the wall.

Jeeves had spoke of his intention of trying to smooth the ruffled Worplesdon feelings with honeyed words. Whether he hadn’t been allowed to get one in edgeways, or whether he had tried a few and they hadn’t been honeyed enough, I was not in a position to say. But the fact was patent that the above feelings were still as ruffled as dammit, and that Hampshire contained at this moment no hotter-under-the-collar shipping magnate.

Proof of this was given by his opening speech, which consisted of the word ‘What’, repeated over and over again as if fired from a machine-gun. It was always this uncle’s practice, as I have mentioned, to what-what-what rather freely in moments of emotion, and he did not deviate from it on this occasion.

‘What?’ he said, in part, continuing to focus the eye on Boko. ‘What-what-what-what-what-what-what-what?’

Here he paused, as if for a reply, and I think Boko did the wrong thing by asking him if he would like a sardine. The question, seeming to touch an exposed nerve, caused a sheet of flame to shoot from his eyes.

‘Sardine?’ he said, with a bitter intonation. ‘Sardine? Sardine? Sardine?’

‘You’ll feel better, when you’ve had some breakfast,’ said Nobby, pulling a quick ministering-angel-thou.

Uncle Percy opposed this view.

‘I shall not. The only thing that can make me feel better is to thrash that pie-faced young wart-hog Fittleworth within an inch of his life. Bertie, get me a horsewhip.’

I pursed the lips dubiously.

‘I don’t believe we have one,’ I said. ‘Are there any horsewhips on the premises, Boko?’

‘No, no horsewhips,’ the latter responded, now trying to get through the wall.

Uncle Percy snorted.

‘What a house! Jeeves.’

‘M’lord?’

‘Go over to the Hall and bring me my horsewhip with the ivory handle.’

‘Yes, m’lord.’

‘I think it’s in my study. If not, hunt about for it.’

‘Very good, m’lord. No doubt her ladyship will be able to inform me of the instrument’s whereabouts.’

He spoke so casually that it was perhaps three seconds by the stop-watch before Uncle Percy got the gist. When he did, he started, like one jabbed in the fleshy parts with a sudden bradawl.

‘Her … what?’

‘Her ladyship, m’lord.’

‘Her ladyship?’

‘Yes, m’lord.’

Uncle Percy had crumpled like a wet sock. He sank into a chair, and clutched the marmalade jar, as if for support. His eyes popped out of his head, and waved about on their stalks.

‘But her ladyship –’

‘– returned unexpectedly late last night, m’lord.’

I DON’T KNOW
if the name of Lot’s wife is familiar to you, and if you were told about her rather remarkable finish. I may not have got the facts right, but the story, as I heard it, was that she was advised not to look round at something or other or she would turn into a pillar of salt, so, naturally imagining that they were simply pulling her leg, she looked round, and –
bing
– a pillar of salt. And the reason I mention this now is that the very same thing seemed to have happened to Uncle Percy. Crouching there with his fingers riveted to the marmalade jar, he appeared to have turned into a pillar of salt. If it hadn’t been that the ginger whiskers were quivering gently, you would have said that life had ceased to animate the rigid limbs.

‘It appears that Master Thomas is now out of danger, m’lord, and no longer has need of her ladyship’s ministrations.’

The whiskers continued to quiver, and I didn’t blame them. I knew just how the old relative must be feeling, for, as I have already indicated, he had made no secret when chatting with me of his apprehensions concerning the shape of things to come, should Aunt Agatha ever learn that he had been attending fancy dress dances in her absence.

The poignant drama of it all had not escaped Nobby, either.

‘Golly, Uncle Percy,’ she said, a womanly pity in her voice that became her well, ‘this is a bit awkward, is it not? You’ll have to devote a minute or two, when you see her, to explaining why you were out all night, won’t you?’

Her words had the effect of bringing the unhappy man out of his trance or coma as if she had touched off a stick of dynamite under him. He moved, he stirred, he seemed to feel the rush of life along his keel.

‘Jeeves,’ he said hoarsely.

‘M’lord?’

‘Jeeves.’

‘M’lord?’

Uncle Percy shoved out his tongue about an inch, moistening the
lips
with the tip of it. It was plain that he was finding it no easy matter to get speech over the larynx.

‘Her ladyship, Jeeves … Tell me … Is she … Has she … Is she by any chance aware of my absence?’

‘Yes, m’lord. She was apprised of it by the head housemaid. I left them in conference. “You tell me his lordship’s bed
has not been slept in
?” her ladyship was saying. Her agitation was most pronounced.’

I caught Uncle Percy’s eye. It had swivelled round at me with a dumb, pleading look in it, as if saying that suggestions would be welcomed.

‘How would it be,’ I said – well, one had to say something, ‘if you told her the truth?’

‘The truth?’ he repeated dazedly, and you could see he thought the idea a novel one.

‘That you went to the ball to confer with Clam.’

He shook his head.

‘I could never convince your aunt that I had gone to a fancy dress ball from purely business motives. Women are so prone to think the worst.’

‘Something in that.’

‘And it’s no good trying to make them see reason, because they talk so damn’ quick. No,’ said Uncle Percy, ‘this is the end. I can only set my teeth and take my medicine like an English gentleman.’

‘Unless, of course, Jeeves has something to suggest.’

This perked him up for an instant. Then the drawn, haggard look came back into his face, and he shook the lemon again, slowly and despondently.

‘Impossible. The situation is beyond Jeeves.’

‘No situation is beyond Jeeves,’ I said, with quiet rebuke. ‘In fact,’ I went on, scrutinizing the man closely, ‘I believe something is fermenting now inside that spacious bean. Am I wrong, Jeeves, in supposing that I can see the light of inspiration in your eye?’

‘No, sir. You are quite correct. I think that I may perhaps be able to offer a satisfactory solution of his lordship’s difficulty.’

Uncle Percy inhaled sharply. An awed look came into the unoccupied areas of his face. I heard him murmur something under his breath about fish.

‘You mean that, Jeeves?’

‘Yes, m’lord.’

‘Then let us have it,’ I said, feeling rather like some impresario of performing fleas who watches the star member of his troupe advance to the footlights. ‘What is this solution of which you speak?’

‘Well, sir, it occurred to me that as his lordship has, as I understand, given his consent to the union of Mr Fittleworth and Miss Hopwood –’

Uncle Percy uttered an animal cry.

‘I haven’t! Or, if I did, I’ve withdrawn it.’

‘Very good, m’lord. In that case, I have nothing to suggest.’

There was a silence. One could sense the struggle proceeding in Uncle Percy’s bosom. I saw him look at Boko, and quiver. Then a strong shudder passed through the frame, and I knew he was recalling what Jeeves had said about Aunt Agatha’s agitation being most pronounced. When Aunt Agatha’s agitation is pronounced, she has a way of drawing her eyebrows together and making her nose look like an eagle’s beak. Strong men have quailed at the spectacle, repeatedly.

‘May as well hear what you’ve got to say, I suppose,’ he said, at length.

‘Quite,’ I agreed. ‘No harm in having a – what, Jeeves?’

‘Academic discussion, sir.’

‘Thank you, Jeeves.’

‘Not at all, sir.’

‘Carry on, then.’

‘Very good, sir. It merely occurred to me that, had his lordship consented to the union, nothing would have been more natural than that he should have visited Mr Fittleworth at his house for the purpose of talking the matter over and making arrangements for the wedding. Immersed in this absorbing subject, his lordship would quite understandably have lost count of time –’

I yipped intelligently. I had got the set-up.

‘And when he looked at his watch and found how late it was –’

‘Precisely, sir. When his lordship looked at his watch and found how late it was, Mr Fittleworth hospitably suggested that he should pass the remainder of the night beneath his roof. His lordship agreed that this would be the most convenient course, and so it was arranged.’

I looked at Uncle Percy, confidently expecting the salvo of applause, and was amazed to find him shaking the bean once more.

‘It wouldn’t work,’ he said.

‘Why on earth not? It’s a pip.’

He kept on oscillating the lozenge.

‘No, Bertie, the scheme is not practical. Your aunt, my dear boy, is a suspicious woman. She probes beneath the surface and asks questions. And the first one she would ask on this occasion would
be,
why, merely in order to discuss wedding arrangements with my ward’s future husband, did I dress up as Sindbad the Sailor? You can see for yourself how awkward that question would be, and how difficult to answer.’

The point was well taken.

‘A snag, Jeeves. Can you get round it?’

‘Quite easily, sir. Before returning to the Hall, his lordship could borrow a suit of clothes from you, sir.’