The Jeeves Omnibus (165 page)

He beamed down at me.

‘This is most fortunate. We were wondering what to do with
Tootles.
You see, we have mumps here. My daughter Bootles has just developed mumps. Tootles must not be exposed to the risk of infection. We could not think what to do with him. It was most fortunate, your finding the dear child. He strayed from his nurse. I would hesitate to trust him to a stranger, but you are different. Any nephew of Mrs Spenser’s has my complete confidence. You must take Tootles into your house. It will be an ideal arrangement. I have written to my brother in London to come and fetch him. He may be here in a few days.’

‘May!’

‘He is a busy man, of course; but he should certainly be here within a week. Till then Tootles can stop with you. It is an excellent plan. Very much obliged to you. Your wife will like Tootles.’

‘I haven’t got a wife!’ I yelled; but the window had closed with a bang, as if the man with the whiskers had found a germ trying to escape and had headed it off just in time.

I breathed a deep breath and wiped the old forehead.

The window flew up again.

‘Hi!’

A package weighing about a ton hit me on the head and burst like a bomb.

‘Did you catch it?’ said the face, reappearing. ‘Dear me, you missed it. Never mind. You can get it at the grocer’s. Ask for Bailey’s Granulated Breakfast Chips. Tootles takes them for breakfast with a little milk. Not cream. Milk. Be sure to get Bailey’s.’

‘Yes, but –’

The face disappeared, and the window was banged down again. I lingered a while, but nothing else happened, so, taking Tootles by the hand, I walked slowly away.

And as we turned up the road we met Freddie’s Elizabeth.

‘Well, baby?’ she said, sighting the kid. ‘So Daddy found you again, did he? Your little son and I made great friends on the beach this morning,’ she said to me.

This was the limit. Coming on top of that interview with the whiskered lunatic, it so utterly unnerved me that she had nodded goodbye and was half-way down the road before I caught up with my breath enough to deny the charge of being the infant’s father.

I hadn’t expected Freddie to sing with joy when he saw me looming up with child complete, but I did think he might have showed a little more manly fortitude, a little more of the old British bulldog spirit. He leaped up when we came in, glared at the kid and clutched his
head.
He didn’t speak for a long time; but, to make up for it, when he began he did not leave off for a long time.

‘Well,’ he said, when he had finished the body of his remarks, ‘say something! Heavens, man, why don’t you say something?’

‘If you give me a chance, I will,’ I said, and shot the bad news.

‘What are you going to do about it?’ he asked. And it would be idle to deny that his manner was peevish.

‘What can we do about it?’

‘We? What do you mean, we? I’m not going to spend my time taking turns as a nursemaid to this excrescence. I’m going back to London.’

‘Freddie!’ I cried. ‘Freddie, old man!’ My voice shook. ‘Would you desert a pal at a time like this?’

‘Yes, I would.’

‘Freddie,’ I said, ‘you’ve got to stand by me. You must. Do you realize that this child has to be undressed, and bathed, and dressed again? You wouldn’t leave me to do all that single-handed?’

‘Jeeves can help you.’

‘No, sir,’ said Jeeves, who had just rolled in with lunch. ‘I must, I fear, disassociate myself completely from the matter.’ He spoke respectfully, but firmly. ‘I have had little or no experience with children.’

‘Now’s the time to start,’ I urged.

‘No, sir; I am sorry to say that I cannot involve myself in any way.’

‘Then you must stand by me, Freddie.’

‘I won’t.’

‘You must. Reflect, old man! We have been pals for years. Your mother likes me.’

‘No, she doesn’t.’

‘Well, anyway, we were at school together and you owe me a tenner.’

‘Oh, well,’ he said in a resigned sort of voice.

‘Besides, old thing,’ I said, ‘I did it all for your sake, you know.’

He looked at me in a curious way, and breathed rather hard for some moments.

‘Bertie,’ he said, ‘one moment. I will stand a good deal, but I will not stand being expected to be grateful.’

Looking back at it, I can see that what saved me from Colney Hatch in this crisis was my bright idea in buying up most of the contents of the local sweet-shop. By serving out sweets to the kid practically
incessantly
we managed to get through the rest of that day pretty satisfactorily. At eight o’clock he fell asleep in a chair; and, having undressed him by unbuttoning every button in sight and, where there were no buttons, pulling till something gave, we carried him up to bed.

Freddie stood looking at the pile of clothes on the floor with a sort of careworn wrinkle between his eyes, and I knew what he was thinking. To get the kid undressed had been simple – a mere matter of muscle. But how were we to get him into his clothes again? I stirred the heap with my foot. There was a long linen arrangement which might have been anything. Also a strip of pink flannel which was like nothing on earth. All most unpleasant.

But in the morning I remembered that there were children in the next bungalow but one, and I went there before breakfast and borrowed their nurse. Women are wonderful, by Jove they are! This nurse had all the spare parts assembled and in the right places in about eight minutes, and there was the kid dressed and looking fit to go to a garden party at Buckingham Palace. I showered wealth upon her, and she promised to come in morning and evening. I sat down to breakfast almost cheerful again. It was the first bit of silver lining that had presented itself to date.

‘And, after all,’ I said, ‘there’s lots to be argued in favour of having a child about the place, if you know what I mean. Kind of cosy and domestic, what?’

Just then the kid upset the milk over Freddie’s trousers, and when he had come back after changing he lacked sparkle.

It was shortly after breakfast that Jeeves asked if he could have a word in my ear.

Now, though in the anguish of recent events I had rather tended to forget what had been the original idea in bringing Freddie down to this place, I hadn’t forgotten it altogether; and I’m bound to say that, as the days went by, I had found myself a little disappointed in Jeeves. The scheme had been, if you recall, that he should refresh himself with sea-air and simple food and, having thus got his brain into prime working order, evolve some means of bringing Freddie and his Elizabeth together again.

And what had happened? The man had eaten well and he had slept well, but not a step did he appear to have taken towards bringing about the happy ending. The only move that had been made in that direction had been made by me, alone and unaided; and, though I freely admit that it had turned out a good deal of a bloomer, still the fact remains
that
I had shown zeal and enterprise. Consequently I received him with a bit of hauteur when he blew in. Slightly cold. A trifle frosty.

‘Yes, Jeeves?’ I said. ‘You wished to speak to me?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Say on, Jeeves,’ I said.

‘Thank you, sir. What I desired to say, sir, was this: I attended a performance at the local cinema last night.’

I raised the eyebrows. I was surprised at the man. With life in the home so frightfully tense and the young master up against it to such a fearful extent, I disapproved of him coming toddling in and prattling about his amusements.

‘I hope you enjoyed yourself,’ I said in rather a nasty manner.

‘Yes sir, thank you. The management was presenting a super-super-film in seven reels, dealing with life in the wilder and more feverish strata of New York Society, featuring Bertha Blevitch, Orlando Murphy and Baby Bobbie. I found it most entertaining, sir.’

‘That’s good,’ I said. ‘And if you have a nice time this morning on the sands with your spade and bucket, you will come and tell me all about it, won’t you? I have so little on my mind just now that it’s a treat to hear all about your happy holiday.’

Satirical, if you see what I mean. Sarcastic. Almost bitter, as a matter of fact, if you come right down to it.

‘The title of the film was
Tiny Hands
, sir. And the father and mother of the character played by Baby Bobbie had unfortunately drifted apart –’

‘Too bad,’ I said.

‘Although at heart they loved each other still, sir.’

‘Did they really? I’m glad you told me that.’

‘And so matters went on, sir, till came a day when –’

‘Jeeves,’ I said, fixing him with a dashed unpleasant eye, ‘what the dickens do you think you’re talking about? Do you suppose that, with this infernal child landed on me and the peace of the home practically shattered into a million bits, I want to hear –’

‘I beg your pardon, sir. I would not have mentioned this cinema performance were it not for the fact that it gave me an idea, sir.’

‘An idea!’

‘An idea that will, I fancy, sir, prove of value in straightening out the matrimonial future of Mr Bullivant. To which end, if you recollect, sir, you desired me to –’

I snorted with remorse.

‘Jeeves,’ I said, ‘I wronged you.’

‘Not at all, sir.’

‘Yes, I did. I wronged you. I had a notion that you had given yourself up entirely to the pleasures of the seaside and had chucked that businesss altogether. I might have known better. Tell me all, Jeeves.’

He bowed in a gratified manner. I beamed. And, while we didn’t actually fall on each other’s necks, we gave each other to understand that all was well once more.

‘In this super-super-film
Tiny Hands
, sir,’ said Jeeves, ‘the parents of the child had, as I say, drifted apart.’

‘Drifted apart,’ I said, nodding. ‘Right! And then?’

‘Came a day, sir, when their little child brought them together again.’

‘How?’

‘If I remember rightly, sir, he said, “Dadda, doesn’t ’oo love Mummie no more?”’

‘And then?’

‘They exhibited a good deal of emotion. There was what I believe is termed a cut-back, showing scenes from their courtship and early married life and some glimpses of Lovers Through the Ages, and the picture concluded with a close-up of the pair in an embrace, with the child looking on with natural gratification and an organ playing “Hearts and Flowers” in the distance.’

‘Proceed, Jeeves,’ I said. ‘You interest me strangely. I begin to grasp the idea. You mean –?’

‘I mean, sir, that, with this young gentleman on the premises, it might be possible to arrange a
dénouement
of a somewhat similar nature in regard to Mr Bullivant and Miss Vickers.’

‘Aren’t you overlooking the fact that this kid is no relation of Mr Bullivant and Miss Vickers?’

‘Even with that handicap, sir, I fancy that good results might ensue. I think that, if it were possible to bring Mr Bullivant and Miss Vickers together for a short space of time in the presence of the child, sir, and if the child were to say something of a touching nature –’

‘I follow you absolutely, Jeeves,’ I cried with enthusiasm. ‘It’s big. This is the way I see it. We lay the scene in this room. Child, centre. Girl, l.c. Freddie up stage, playing the piano. No, that won’t do. He can only play a little of “The Rosary” with one finger, so we’ll have to cut out the soft music. But the rest’s all right. Look here,’ I said, ‘this inkpot is Miss Vickers. This mug with “A Present from Marvis Bay” on it is the child. This penwiper is Mr Bullivant. Start with dialogue leading up to child’s line. Child speaks line, let us say, “Boofer lady, does ’oo love Dadda?” Business of outstretched
hands.
Hold picture for a moment. Freddie crosses 1. takes girl’s hand. Business of swallowing lump in throat. Then big speech: “Ah, Elizabeth, has not this misunderstanding of ours gone on too long? See! A little child rebukes us!” And so on. I’m just giving you the general outline. Freddie must work up his own part. And we must get a good line for the child. “Boofer lady, does ’oo love Dadda?” isn’t definite enough. We want something more –’

‘If I might make a suggestion, sir –?’

‘Yes?’

‘I would advocate the words “Kiss Freddie?” It is short, readily memorized, and has what I believe is technically termed the punch.’

‘Genius, Jeeves!’

‘Thank you very much, sir.’

‘“Kiss Freddie!” it is, then. But, I say, Jeeves, how the deuce are we to get them together in here? Miss Vickers cuts Mr Bullivant. She wouldn’t come within a mile of him.’

‘It is awkward, sir.’

‘It doesn’t matter. We shall have to make it an exterior set instead of an interior. We can easily corner her on the beach somewhere, when we’re ready. Meanwhile, we must get the kid word-perfect.’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Right! First rehearsal for lines and business at eleven sharp tomorrow morning.’

Poor old Freddie was in such a gloomy frame of mind that I decided not to tell him the idea till we had finished coaching the child. He wasn’t in the mood to have a thing like that hanging over him. So we concentrated on Tootles. And pretty early in the proceedings we saw that the only way to get Tootles worked up to the spirit of the thing was to introduce sweets of some sort as a sub-motive, so to speak.

‘The chief difficulty, sir,’ said Jeeves, at the end of the first rehearsal, ‘is, as I envisage it, to establish in the young gentleman’s mind a connexion between the words we desire him to say and the refreshment.’

‘Exactly,’ I said. ‘Once the blighter has grasped the basic fact that these two words, clearly spoken, result automatically in chocolate nougat, we have got a success.’

I’ve often thought how interesting it must be to be one of those animal-trainer blokes – to stimulate the dawning intelligence and all that. Well, this was every bit as exciting. Some days success seemed to be staring us in the eyeball, and the kid got out the line as if he
had
been an old professional. And then he would go all to pieces again. And time was flying.

‘We must hurry up, Jeeves,’ I said. ‘The kid’s uncle may arrive any day now and take him away.’