The Jeeves Omnibus (255 page)

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Very good, Jeeves.’

‘Very good, sir.’

You can always rely on Jeeves. Two-thirty I had said, and two-thirty it was. The telegram arrived almost on the minute. I was going to my room to change into something warmer at the moment and I took it up with me. Then into the heavy tweeds and off in the car to the field of play. I got there just as the two teams were lining up, and half a minute later the whistle blew and the war was on.

What with one thing and another – having been at a school where they didn’t play it and so forth – Rugby football is a game I can’t claim absolutely to understand in all its niceties, if you know what I mean. I can follow the broad, general principles, of course. I mean to say, I know that the main scheme is to work the ball down the field somehow and deposit it over the line at the other end, and that, in order to squelch this programme, each side is allowed to put in a certain amount of assault and battery and do things to its fellow-man which, if done elsewhere, would result in fourteen days without the option, coupled with some strong remarks from the Bench. But there I stop. What you might call the science of the thing is to Bertram Wooster a sealed book. However, I am informed by experts that on this occasion there was not enough science for anyone to notice.

There had been a great deal of rain in the last few days, and the going appeared to be a bit sticky. In fact, I have seen swamps that were drier than this particular bit of ground. The red-haired bloke whom I had encountered in the pub paddled up and kicked off amidst cheers from the populace, and the ball went straight to where Tuppy was standing, a pretty colour-scheme in light blue and orange. Tuppy caught it neatly, and hoofed it back, and it was at this point that I understood that an Upper Bleaching versus Hockley-cum-Meston game had certain features not usually seen on the football-field.

For Tuppy, having done his bit, was just standing there, looking modest, when there was a thunder of large feet and the red-haired bird, galloping up, seized him by the neck, hurled him to earth, and fell on him. I had a glimpse of Tuppy’s face, as it registered horror, dismay, and a general suggestion of stunned dissatisfaction with the scheme of things, and then he disappeared. By the time he had come to the surface, a sort of mob-warfare was going on at the other side of the field. Two assortments of sons of the soil had got their heads down and were shoving earnestly against each other, with the ball somewhere in the middle.

Tuppy wiped a fair portion of Hampshire out of his eye, peered round him in a dazed kind of way, saw the mass-meeting and ran towards it, arriving just in time for a couple of heavyweights to
gather
him in and give him the mud-treatment again. This placed him in an admirable position for a third heavyweight to kick him in the ribs with a boot like a violin-case. The red-haired man then fell on him. It was all good, brisk play, and looked fine from my side of the ropes.

I saw now where Tuppy had made his mistake. He was too dressy. On occasions such as this it is safest not to be conspicuous, and that blue and orange shirt rather caught the eye. A sober beige, blending with the colour of the ground, was what his best friends would have recommended. And, in addition to the fact that his costume attracted attention, I rather think that the men of Hockley-cum-Meston resented his being on the field at all. They felt that, as a non-local, he had butted in on a private fight and had no business there.

At any rate, it certainly appeared to me that they were giving him preferential treatment. After each of those shoving-bees to which I have alluded, when the edifice caved in and tons of humanity wallowed in a tangled mess in the juice, the last soul to be excavated always seemed to be Tuppy. And on the rare occasions when he actually managed to stand upright for a moment, somebody – generally the red-haired man – invariably sprang to the congenial task of spilling him again.

In fact, it was beginning to look as though that telegram would come too late to save a human life, when an interruption occurred. Play had worked round close to where I was standing, and there had been the customary collapse of all concerned, with Tuppy at the bottom of the basket, as usual; but this time when they got up and started to count the survivors, a sizeable cove in what had once been a white shirt remained on the ground. And a hearty cheer went up from a hundred patriotic throats as the news spread that Upper Bleaching had drawn first blood.

The victim was carried off by a couple of his old chums, and the rest of the players sat down and pulled their stocking up and thought of life for a bit. The moment had come, it seemed to me, to remove Tuppy from the
abattoir
, and I hopped over the ropes and toddled to where he sat scraping mud from his wishbone. His air was that of a man who has been passed through a wringer, and his eyes, what you could see of them, had a strange, smouldering gleam. He was so crusted with alluvial deposits that one realized how little a mere bath would ever be able to effect. To fit him to take his place once more in polite society, he would certainly have to be sent to the cleaner’s. Indeed, it was a moot point whether it wouldn’t be simpler just to throw him away.

‘Tuppy, old man,’ I said.

‘Eh?’ said Tuppy.

‘A telegram for you.’

‘Eh?’

‘I’ve got a wire here that came after you left the house.’

‘Eh?’ said Tuppy.

I stirred him up a trifle with the ferrule of my stick, and he seemed to come to life.

‘Be careful what you’re doing, you silly ass,’ he said, in part. ‘I’m one solid bruise. What are you gibbering about?’

‘A telegram has come for you. I think it may be important.’

He snorted in a bitter sort of way.

‘Do you suppose I’ve time to read telegrams now?’

‘But this one may be frightfully urgent,’ I said. ‘Here it is.’

But, if you understand me, it wasn’t. How I had happened to do it, I don’t know, but apparently, in changing the upholstery, I had left it in my other coat.

‘Oh, my gosh,’ I said. ‘I’ve left it behind.’

‘It doesn’t matter.’

‘But it does. It’s probably something you ought to read at once. Immediately, if you know what I mean. If I were you, I’d just say a few words of farewell to the murder-squad and come back to the house right away.’

He raised his eyebrows. At least, I think he must have done, because the mud on his forehead stirred a little, as if something was going on underneath it.

‘Do you imagine,’ he said, ‘that I would slink away under Her very eyes? Good God! Besides,’ he went on, in a quiet, meditative voice, ‘there is no power on earth that could get me off this field until I’ve thoroughly disembowelled that red-haired bounder. Have you noticed how he keeps tackling me when I haven’t got the ball?’

‘Isn’t that right?’

‘Of course it’s not right. Never mind! A bitter retribution awaits that bird. I’ve had enough of it. From now on I assert my personality.’

‘I’m a bit foggy as to the rules of this pastime.’ I said. ‘Are you allowed to bite him.’

‘I’ll try, and see what happens,’ said Tuppy, struck with the idea and brightening a little.

At this point, the pall-bearers returned, and fighting became general again all along the Front.

There’s nothing like a bit of rest and what you might call folding of the hands for freshening up the shop-soiled athlete. The dirty work,
resumed
after this brief breather, started off with an added vim which it did one good to see. And the life and soul of the party was young Tuppy.

You know, only meeting a fellow at lunch or at the races or loafing round country-houses and so forth, you don’t get on to his hidden depths, if you know what I mean. Until this moment, if asked, I would have said Tuppy Glossop was, on the whole, essentially a pacific sort of bloke, with little or nothing of the tiger of the jungle in him. Yet there he was, running to and fro with fire streaming from his nostrils, a positive danger to traffic.

Yes, absolutely. Encouraged by the fact that the referee was either filled with the spirit of Live and Let Live or else had got his whistle choked up with mud, the result being that he appeared to regard the game with a sort of calm detachment, Tuppy was putting in some very impressive work. Even to me, knowing nothing of the finesse of the thing, it was plain that if Hockley-cum-Meston wanted the happy ending they must eliminate young Tuppy at the earliest possible moment. And I will say for them that they did their best, the red-haired man being particularly assiduous. But Tuppy was made of durable material. Every time the opposition talent ground him into the mire and sat on his head, he rose on stepping-stones of his dead self, if you follow me. And in the end it was the red-haired bloke who did the dust-biting.

I couldn’t tell you exactly how it happened, for by this time the shades of night were drawing in a bit and there was a dollop of mist rising, but one moment the fellow was hareing along, apparently without a care in the world, and then suddenly Tuppy had appeared from nowhere and was sailing through the air at his neck. They connected with a crash and a slither, and a little later the red-haired bird was hopping off, supported by a brace of friends, something having gone wrong with his left ankle.

After that, there was nothing to it. Upper Bleaching, thoroughly bucked, became busier than ever. There was a lot of earnest work in a sort of inland sea down at the Hockley end of the field, and then a kind of tidal wave poured over the line, and when the bodies had been removed and the tumult and the shouting had died, there was young Tuppy lying on the ball. And that, with the exception of a few spots of mayhem in the last five minutes, concluded the proceedings.

I drove back to the court in rather what you might term a pensive frame of mind. Things having happened as they had happened, there seemed to me a goodish bit of hard thinking to be done. There was a servitor of sorts in the hall, when I arrived, and I asked him to send
up
a whisky-and-soda, strongish, to my room. The old brain, I felt, needed stimulating. And about ten minutes later there was a knock at the door, and in came Jeeves, bearing tray and materials.

‘Hullo, Jeeves,’ I said, surprised. ‘Are you back?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘When did you get here?’

‘Some little while ago, sir. Was it an enjoyable game, sir?’

‘In a sense, Jeeves,’ I said, ‘yes. Replete with human interest and all that, if you know what I mean. But I fear that, owing to a touch of carelessness on my part, the worst has happened. I left the telegram in my other coat, so young Tuppy remained in action throughout.’

‘Was he injured, sir?’

‘Worse than that, Jeeves. He was the star of the game. Toasts, I should imagine, are now being drunk to him at every pub in the village. So spectacularly did he play – in fact, so heartily did he joust – that I can’t see the girl not being all over him. Unless I am greatly mistaken, the moment they meet, she will exclaim “My hero!” and fall into his bally arms.’

‘Indeed, sir?’

I didn’t like the man’s manner. Too calm. Unimpressed. A little leaping about with fallen jaw was what I had expected my words to produce, and I was on the point of saying as much when the door opened again and Tuppy limped in.

He was wearing an ulster over his football things, and I wondered why he had come to pay a social call on me instead of proceeding straight to the bathroom. He eyed my glass in a wolfish sort of way.

‘Whisky?’ he said, in a hushed voice.

‘And soda.’

‘Bring me one, Jeeves,’ said young Tuppy. ‘A large one.’

‘Very good, sir.’

Tuppy wandered to the window and looked out into the gathering darkness, and for the first time I perceived that he had got a grouch of some description. You can generally tell by a fellow’s back. Humped. Bent. Bowed down with weight of woe, if you follow me.

‘What’s the matter?’ I asked.

Tuppy emitted a mirthless.

‘Oh, nothing much,’ he said. ‘My faith in woman is dead, that’s all.’

‘It is?’

‘You jolly well bet it is. Women are a wash-out. I see no future for the sex, Bertie. Blisters, all of them.’

‘Er – even the Dogsbody girl?’

‘Her name,’ said Tuppy, a little stiffly, ‘is Dalgleish, if it happens to interest you. And, if you want to know something else, she’s the worst of the lot.’

‘My dear chap!’

Tuppy turned. Beneath the mud, I could see that his face was drawn and, to put it in a nutshell, wan.

‘Do you know what happened, Bertie?’

‘What?’

‘She wasn’t there.’

‘Where?’

‘At the match, you silly ass.’

‘Not at the match?’

‘No.’

‘You mean, not among the throng of eager spectators?’

‘Of course I mean not among the spectators. Did you think I expected her to be playing?’

‘But I thought the whole scheme of the thing –’

‘So did I. My gosh!’ said Tuppy, laughing another of those hollow ones. ‘I sweat myself to the bone for her sake. I allow a mob of homicidal maniacs to kick me in the ribs and stroll about on my face. And then, when I have braved a fate worse than death, so to speak, all to please her, I find that she didn’t bother to come and watch the game. She got a ’phone-call from London from somebody who said he had located an Irish water-spaniel, and up she popped in her car, leaving me flat. I met her just now outside her house, and she told me. And all she could think of was that she was as sore as a sunburnt neck because she had had her trip for nothing. Apparently it wasn’t an Irish water-spaniel at all. Just an ordinary English water-spaniel. And to think I fancied I loved a girl like that. A nice life-partner she would make! “When pain and anguish wring the brow, a ministering angel thou” – I don’t think! Why, if a man married a girl like that and happened to get stricken by some dangerous illness, would she smooth his pillow and press cooling drinks on him? Not a chance? She’d be off somewhere trying to buy Siberian eel-hounds. I’m through with women.’

I saw that the moment had come to put in a word for the old firm.

‘My cousin Angela’s not a bad sort, Tuppy,’ I said, in a grave elder-brotherly kind of way. ‘Not altogether a bad egg, Angela, if you look at her squarely. I had always been hoping that she and you … and I know my Aunt Dahlia felt the same.’