The Jeeves Omnibus (226 page)

To
E. Phillips Oppenheim

(to the original edition of
Very Good, Jeeves,
which appeared in 1930)

THE QUESTION OF
how long an author is to be allowed to go on recording the adventures of any given character or characters is one that has frequently engaged the attention of thinking men. The publication of this book brings it once again into the foreground of national affairs.

It is now some fourteen summers since, an eager lad in my early thirties, I started to write Jeeves stories: and many people think this nuisance should now cease. Carpers say that enough is enough. Cavillers say the same. They look down the vista of the years and see these chronicles multiplying like rabbits, and the prospect appals them. But against this must be set the fact that writing Jeeves stories gives me a great deal of pleasure and keeps me out of the public houses.

At what conclusion, then, do we arrive? The whole thing is undoubtedly very moot.

From the welter of recrimination and argument one fact emerges – that we have here the third volume of a series. And what I do feel very strongly is that, if a thing is worth doing, it is worth doing well and thoroughly. It is perfectly possible, no doubt, to read
Very Good, Jeeves!
as a detached effort – or, indeed, not to read it at all: but I like to think that this country contains men of spirit who will not rest content till they have dug down into the old oak chest and fetched up the sum necessary for the purchase of its two predecessors –
The Inimitable Jeeves
and
Carry On, Jeeves!
Only so can the best results be obtained. Only so will allusions in the present volume to incidents occurring in the previous volumes become intelligible, instead of mystifying and befogging.

We do you these two books at the laughable price of half-a-crown apiece, and the method of acquiring them is simplicity itself.

All you have to do is to go to the nearest bookseller, when the following dialogue will take place:

Or take the case of a French visitor to London, whom, for want of a better name, we will call Jules St Xavier Popinot. In this instance the little scene will run on these lines:

As simple as that.

See that the name ‘Wodehouse’ is on every label.

P.G.W.

IT WAS THE
morning of the day on which I was slated to pop down to my Aunt Agatha’s place at Woollam Chersey in the county of Herts for a visit of three solid weeks; and, as I seated myself at the breakfast table, I don’t mind confessing that the heart was singularly heavy. We Woosters are men of iron, but beneath my intrepid exterior at that moment there lurked a nameless dread.

‘Jeeves,’ I said, ‘I am not the old merry self this morning.’

‘Indeed, sir?’

‘No, Jeeves. Far from the old merry self.’

‘I am sorry to hear that, sir.’

He uncovered the fragrant eggs and b., and I pronged a moody forkful.

‘Why – this is what I keep asking myself, Jeeves – why has my Aunt Agatha invited me to her country seat?’

‘I could not say, sir.’

‘Not because she is fond of me.’

‘No, sir.’

‘It is a well-established fact that I give her a pain in the neck. How it happens I cannot say, but every time our paths cross, so to speak, it seems to be a mere matter of time before I perpetrate some ghastly floater and have her hopping after me with her hatchet. The result being that she regards me as a worm and an outcast. Am I right or wrong, Jeeves?’

‘Perfectly correct, sir.’

‘And yet now she has absolutely insisted on my scratching all previous engagements and buzzing down to Woollam Chersey. She must have some sinister reason of which we know nothing. Can you blame me, Jeeves, if the heart is heavy?’

‘No, sir. Excuse me, sir, I fancy I heard the front-door bell.’

He shimmered out, and I took another listless stab at the e. and bacon.

‘A telegram, sir,’ said Jeeves, re-entering the presence.

‘Open it, Jeeves, and read contents. Who is it from?’

‘It is unsigned, sir.’

‘You mean there’s no name at the end of it?’

‘That is precisely what I was endeavouring to convey, sir.’

‘Let’s have a look.’

I scanned the thing. It was a rummy communication. Rummy. No other word.

As follows:

Remember when you come here absolutely vital meet perfect strangers
.

We Woosters are not very strong in the head, particularly at breakfast-time; and I was conscious of a dull ache between the eyebrows.

‘What does it mean, Jeeves?’

‘I could not say, sir.’

‘It says “come here”. Where’s here?’

‘You will notice the message was handed in at Woollam Chersey, sir.’

‘You’re absolutely right. At Woollam, as you very cleverly spotted, Chersey. This tells us something, Jeeves.’

‘What, sir?’

‘I don’t know. It couldn’t be from my Aunt Agatha, do you think?’

‘Hardly, sir.’

‘No; you’re right again. Then all we can say is that some person unknown, resident at Woollam Chersey, considers it absolutely vital for me to meet perfect strangers. But why should I meet perfect strangers, Jeeves?’

‘I could not say, sir.’

‘And yet, looking at it from another angle, why shouldn’t I?’

‘Precisely, sir.’

‘Then what it comes to is that the thing is a mystery which time alone can solve. We must wait and see, Jeeves.’

‘The very expression I was about to employ, sir.’

I hit Woollam Chersey at about four o’clock, and found Aunt Agatha in her lair, writing letters. And, from what I know of her, probably offensive letters, with nasty postscripts. She regarded me with not a fearful lot of joy.

‘Oh, there you are, Bertie.’

‘Yes, here I am.’

‘There’s a smut on your nose.’

I plied the handkerchief.

‘I am glad you have arrived so early. I want to have a word with you before you meet Mr Filmer.’

‘Who?’

‘Mr Filmer, the Cabinet Minister. He is staying in the house. Surely even you must have heard of Mr Filmer?’

‘Oh, rather,’ I said, though as a matter of fact the bird was completely unknown to me. What with one thing and another, I’m not frightfully up in the personnel of the political world.

‘I particularly wish you to make a good impression on Mr Filmer.’

‘Right-ho.’

‘Don’t speak in that casual way, as if you supposed that it was perfectly natural that you would make a good impression upon him. Mr Filmer is a serious-minded man of high character and purpose, and you are just the type of vapid and frivolous wastrel against which he is most likely to be prejudiced.’

Hard words, of course, from one’s own flesh and blood, but well in keeping with past form.

‘You will endeavour, therefore, while you are here not to display yourself in the
rôle
of a vapid and frivolous wastrel. In the first place, you will give up smoking during your visit.’

‘Oh, I say!’

‘Mr Filmer is president of the Anti-Tobacco League. Nor will you drink alcoholic stimulants.’

‘Oh, dash it!’

‘And you will kindly exclude from your conversation all that is suggestive of the bar, the billiardroom, and the stage door. Mr Filmer will judge you largely by your conversation.’

I rose to a point of order.

‘Yes, but why have I got to make an impression on this – on Mr Filmer?’

‘Because,’ said the old relative, giving me the eye, ‘I particularly wish it.’

Not, perhaps, a notably snappy come-back as come-backs go; but it was enough to show me that that was more or less that; and I beetled out with an aching heart.

I headed for the garden, and I’m dashed if the first person I saw wasn’t young Bingo Little.

Bingo Little and I have been pals practically from birth. Born in the same village within a couple of days of one another, we went through
kindergarten
, Eton, and Oxford together; and, grown to riper years we have enjoyed in the old metrop. full many a first-class binge in each other’s society. If there was one fellow in the world, I felt, who could alleviate the horrors of this blighted visit of mine, that bloke was young Bingo Little.

But how he came to be there was more than I could understand. Some time before, you see, he had married the celebrated authoress, Rosie M. Banks; and the last I had seen of him he had been on the point of accompanying her to America on a lecture tour. I distinctly remembered him cursing rather freely because the trip would mean his missing Ascot.

Still, rummy as it might seem, here he was. And aching for the sight of a friendly face, I gave tongue like a bloodhound.

‘Bingo!’

He spun round; and, by Jove, his face wasn’t friendly after all. It was what they call contorted. He waved his arms at me like a semaphore.

‘Sh!’ he hissed. ‘Would you ruin me?’

‘Eh?’

‘Didn’t you get my telegram?’

‘Was that
your
telegram?’

‘Of course it was my telegram.’

‘Then why didn’t you sign it?’

‘I did sign it.’

‘No, you didn’t. I couldn’t make out what it was all about.’

‘Well, you got my letter.’

‘What letter?’

‘My letter.’

‘I didn’t get any letter.’

‘Then I must have forgotten to post it. It was to tell you that I was down here tutoring your Cousin Thomas, and that it was essential that, when we met, you should treat me as a perfect stranger.’

‘But why?’

‘Because, if your aunt supposed that I was a pal of yours, she would naturally sack me on the spot.’

‘Why?’

Bingo raised his eyebrows.

‘Why? Be reasonable, Bertie. If you were your aunt, and you knew the sort of chap you were, would you let a fellow you knew to be your best pal tutor your son?’

This made the old head swim a bit, but I got his meaning after awhile, and I had to admit that there was much rugged good sense
in
what he said. Still, he hadn’t explained what you might call the nub or gist of the mystery.

‘I thought you were in America,’ I said.

‘Well, I’m not.’

‘Why not?’

‘Never mind why not. I’m not.’

‘But why have you taken a tutoring job?’

‘Never mind why, I have my reasons. And I want you to get it into your head, Bertie – to get it right through the concrete – that you and I must not be seen hobnobbing. Your foul cousin was caught smoking in the shrubbery the day before yesterday, and that has made my position pretty tottery, because your aunt said that, if I had exercised an adequate surveillance over him, it couldn’t have happened. If, after that, she finds out I’m a friend of yours, nothing can save me from being shot out. And it is vital that I am not shot out.’

‘Why?’

‘Never mind why.’

At this point he seemed to think he heard somebody coming, for he suddenly leaped with incredible agility into a laurel bush. And I toddled along to consult Jeeves about these rummy happenings.

‘Jeeves,’ I said, repairing to the bedroom, where he was unpacking my things, ‘you remember that telegram?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘It was from Mr Little. He’s here, tutoring my young Cousin Thomas.’

‘Indeed, sir?’

‘I can’t understand it. He appears to be a free agent, if you know what I mean; and yet would any man who was a free agent wantonly came to a house which contained my Aunt Agatha?’

‘It seems peculiar, sir.’

‘Moreover, would anybody of his own free will and as a mere pleasure-seeker tutor my Cousin Thomas, who is notoriously a tough egg and a fiend in human shape?’

‘Most improbable, sir.’

‘These are deep waters, Jeeves.’

‘Precisely, sir.’

‘And the ghastly part of it all is that he seems to consider it necessary, in order to keep his job, to treat me like a long-lost leper. Thus killing my only chance of having anything approaching a decent time in this abode of desolation. For do you realize, Jeeves, that my aunt says I mustn’t smoke while I’m here?’