The Jeeves Omnibus (364 page)

Aunt Julia didn’t speak till we were in our seats. Then she gave a sort of sigh.

‘It’s twenty-five years since I was in a music-hall!’

She didn’t say any more, but sat there with her eyes glued on the stage.

After about half an hour the johnnies who work the card-index system at the side of the stage put up the name of Ray Denison, and there was a good deal of applause.

‘Watch this act, Aunt Julia,’ I said.

She didn’t seem to hear me.

‘Twenty-five years! What did you say, Bertie?’

‘Watch this act and tell me what you think of it.’

‘Who is it? Ray. Oh!’

‘Exhibit A,’ I said. ‘The girl Gussie’s engaged to.’

The girl did her act, and the house rose at her. They didn’t want to let her go. She had to come back again and again. When she had finally disappeared I turned to Aunt Julia.

‘Well?’ I said.

‘I like her work. She’s an artist.’

‘We will now, if you don’t mind, step a goodish way uptown.’

And we took the subway to where Gussie, the human film, was earning his thirty-five per. As luck would have it, we hadn’t been in the place ten minutes when out he came.

‘Exhibit B,’ I said. ‘Gussie.’

I don’t quite know what I had expected her to do, but I certainly didn’t expect her to sit there without a word. She did not move a muscle, but just stared at Gussie as he drooled on about the moon. I was sorry for the woman, for it must have been a shock to her to see her only son in a mauve frock-coat and a brown top-hat, but I thought it best to let her get a strangle-hold on the intricacies of the situation as quickly as possible. If I had tried to explain the affair without the aid of illustrations I should have talked all day and left her muddled up as to who was going to marry whom, and why.

I was astonished at the improvement in dear old Gussie. He had got back his voice and was putting the stuff over well. It reminded me of the night at Oxford when, then but a lad of eighteen, he sang ‘Let’s All Go Down The Strand’ after a bump supper, standing the while up to his knees in the college fountain. He was putting just the same zip into things now.

When he had gone off Aunt Julia sat perfectly still for a long time, and then she turned to me. Her eyes shone queerly.

‘What does this mean, Bertie?’

She spoke quite quietly, but her voice shook a bit.

‘Gussie went into the business,’ I said, ‘because the girl’s father wouldn’t let him marry her unless he did. If you feel up to it perhaps you wouldn’t mind tottering round to One Hundred and Thirty-third Street and having a chat with him. He’s an old boy with eyebrows, and he’s Exhibit C on my list. When I’ve put you in touch with him I rather fancy my share of the business is concluded, and it’s up to you.’

The Danbys lived in one of those big apartments uptown which look as if they cost the earth and really cost about half as much as a hall-room down in the forties. We were shown into the sitting-room, and presently old Danby came in.

‘Good afternoon, Mr Danby,’ I began.

I had got as far as that when there was a kind of gasping cry at my elbow.

‘Joe!’ cried Aunt Julia, and staggered against the sofa.

For a moment old Danby stared at her, and then his mouth fell open and his eyebrows shot up like rockets.

‘Julie!’

And then they had got hold of each other’s hands and were shaking them till I wondered their arms didn’t come unscrewed.

I’m not equal to this sort of thing at such short notice. The change in Aunt Julia made me feel quite dizzy. She had shed her
grande-dame
manner completely, and was blushing and smiling. I don’t like to say such things of any aunt of mine, or I would go further and put it on record that she was giggling. And old Danby, who usually looked like a cross between a Roman emperor and Napoleon Bonaparte in a bad temper, was behaving like a small boy.

‘Joe!’

‘Julie!’

‘Dear old Joe! Fancy meeting you again!’

‘Wherever have you come from, Julie?’

Well, I didn’t know what it was all about, but I felt a bit out of it. I butted in:

‘Aunt Julia wants to have a talk with you, Mr Danby.’

‘I knew you in a second, Joe!’

‘It’s twenty-five years since I saw you, kid, and you don’t look a day older.’

‘Oh, Joe! I’m an old woman!’

‘What are you doing over here? I suppose’ – old Danby’s cheerfulness waned a trifle – ‘I suppose your husband is with you?’

‘My husband died a long, long while ago, Joe.’

Old Danby shook his head.

‘You never ought to have married out of the profession, Julie. I’m not saying a word against the late – I can’t remember his name; never could – but you shouldn’t have done it, an artist like you. Shall I ever forget the way you used to knock them with “Rumpty-tiddley-umpty-ay”?’

‘Ah! how wonderful you were in that act, Joe.’ Aunt Julia sighed. ‘Do you remember the back-fall you used to do down the steps? I always have said that you did the best back-fall in the profession.’

‘I couldn’t do it now!’

‘Do you remember how we put it across at the Canterbury, Joe? Think of it! The Canterbury’s a moving-picture house now, and the old Mogul runs French revues.’

‘I’m glad I’m not there to see them.’

‘Joe, tell me, why did you leave England?’

‘Well, I … I wanted a change. No, I’ll tell you the truth, kid. I wanted you, Julie. You went off and married that – whatever that stage-door johnny’s name was – and it broke me all up.’

Aunt Julia was staring at him. She is what they call a well-preserved woman. It’s easy to see that, twenty-five years ago, she must have been something quite extraordinary to look at. Even now she’s almost beautiful. She has very large brown eyes, a mass of soft grey hair, and the complexion of a girl of seventeen.

‘Joe, you aren’t going to tell me you were fond of me yourself!’

‘Of course I was fond of you. Why did I let you have all the fat in “Fun in a Tea-Shop”? Why did I hang about up-stage while you sang “Rumpty-tiddley-umpty-ay”? Do you remember my giving you a bag of buns when we were on the road at Bristol?’

‘Yes, but—’

‘Do you remember my giving you the ham sandwiches at Portsmouth?’

‘Joe!’

‘Do you remember my giving you a seed-cake at Birmingham? What did you think all that meant, if not that I loved you? Why, I was working up by degrees to telling you straight out when you suddenly went off and married that cane-sucking dude. That’s why I wouldn’t let my daughter marry this young chap, Wilson, unless he went into the profession. She’s an artist—’

‘She certainly is, Joe.’

‘You’ve seen her? Where?’

‘At the Auditorium just now. But, Joe, you mustn’t stand in the way of her marrying the man she’s in love with. He’s an artist, too.’

‘In the small time.’

‘You were in the small time once, Joe. You musn’t look down on him because he’s a beginner. I know you feel that your daughter is marrying beneath her, but—’

‘How on earth do you know anything about young Wilson?’

‘He’s my son.’

‘Your son?’

‘Yes, Joe. And I’ve just been watching him work. Oh, Joe, you can’t think how proud I was of him! He’s got it in him. It’s fate. He’s my son and he’s in the profession! Joe, don’t you
know
what I’ve been through for his sake. They made a lady of me. I never worked so hard in my life as I did to become a real lady. They kept telling me I had got to put it across, no matter what it cost, so that he wouldn’t be ashamed of me. The study was something terrible. I had to watch myself every minute for years, and I never knew when I might fluff in my lines or fall down on some bit of business. But I did it, because I didn’t want him to be ashamed of me, though all this time I was just aching to be back where I belonged.’

Old Danby made a jump at her, and took her by the shoulders.

‘Come back where you belong, Julie!’ he cried. ‘Your husband’s dead, your son’s a pro. Come back! It’s twenty-five years ago, but I haven’t changed. I want you still. I’ve always wanted you. You’ve got to come back, kid, where you belong.’

Aunt Julia gave a sort of gulp and looked at him.

‘Joe!’ she said in a kind of whisper.

‘You’re here, kid,’ said Old Danby, huskily. ‘You’ve come back. … Twenty-five years! … You’ve come back and you’re going to stay!’

She pitched forward into his arms, and he caught her.

‘Oh, Joe! Joe! Joe!’ she said. ‘Hold me. Don’t let me go. Take care of me.’

And I edged for the door and slipped from the room. I felt weak. The old bean will stand a certain amount, but this was too much. I groped my way out into the street and waited for a taxi.

Gussie called on me at the hotel that night. He curveted into the room as if he had bought it and the rest of the city.

‘Bertie,’ he said, ‘I feel as if I were dreaming.’

‘I wish I could feel like that, old top,’ I said, and I took another glance at a cable that had arrived half an hour ago from Aunt Agatha. I had been looking at it at intervals ever since.

‘Ray and I got back to her flat this evening. Who do you think was there? The mater! She was sitting hand in hand with old Danby.’

‘Yes?’

‘He was sitting hand in hand with her.’

‘Really?’

‘They are going to be married.’

‘Exactly.’

‘Ray and I are going to be married.’

‘I suppose so.’

‘Bertie, old man, I feel immense. I look round me, and everything seems to be absolutely corking. The change in the mater is marvellous. She is twenty-five years younger. She and old Danby are talking of reviving “Fun in a Tea-Shop”, and going out on the road with it.’

I got up.

‘Gussie, old top,’ I said, ‘leave me for awhile. I would be alone. I think I’ve got brain fever or something.’

‘Sorry, old man; perhaps New York doesn’t agree with you. When do you expect to go back to England?’

I looked again at Aunt Agatha’s cable.

‘With luck,’ I said, ‘in about ten years.’

When he was gone I took up the cable and read it again.

‘What is happening?’ it read. ‘Shall I come over?’

I sucked a pencil for a while, and then I wrote the reply.

It was not an easy cable to word, but I managed it.

‘No,’ I wrote, ‘stay where you are. Profession overcrowded.’

IN THESE DISTURBED
days in which we live, it has probably occurred to all thinking men that something drastic ought to be done about aunts. Speaking for myself, I have long felt that stones should be turned and avenues explored with a view to putting a stopper on the relatives in question. If someone were to come to me and say, ‘Wooster, would you be interested in joining a society I am starting whose aim will be the suppression of aunts or at least will see to it that they are kept on a short chain and not permitted to roam hither and thither at will, scattering desolation on all sides?’, I would reply, ‘Wilbraham,’ if his name was Wilbraham, ‘I am with you heart and soul. Put me down as a foundation member.’ And my mind would flit to the sinister episode of my Aunt Dahlia and the Fothergill Venus, from which I am making only a slow recovery. Whisper the words ‘Marsham Manor’ in my ear, and I still quiver like a humming-bird.

At the time of its inception, if inception is the word I want, I was, I recall, feeling at the top of my form and without a care in the world. Pleasantly relaxed after thirty-six holes of golf and dinner at the Drones, I was lying on the
chez Wooster
sofa doing the
Telegraph
crossword puzzle, when the telephone rang. I could hear Jeeves out in the hall dealing with it, and presently he trickled in.

‘Mrs Travers, sir.’

‘Aunt Dahlia? What does she want?’

‘She did not confide in me, sir. But she appears anxious to establish communication with you.’

‘To talk to me, do you mean?’

‘Precisely, sir.’

A bit oddish it seems to me, looking back on it, that as I went to the instrument I should have had no premonition of an impending doom. Not psychic, that’s my trouble. Having no inkling of the soup into which I was so shortly to be plunged,
I
welcomed the opportunity of exchanging ideas with this sister of my late father who, as is widely known, is my good and deserving aunt, not to be confused with Aunt Agatha, the werewolf. What with one thing and another, it was some little time since we had chewed the fat together.

‘What ho, old blood relation,’ I said.

‘Hullo, Bertie, you revolting young blot,’ she responded in her hearty way. ‘Are you sober?’

‘As a judge.’

‘Then listen attentively. I’m speaking from an undersized hamlet in Hampshire called Marsham-in-the-Vale. I’m staying at Marsham Manor with Cornelia Fothergill, the novelist. Ever heard of her?’

‘Vaguely, as it were. She is not on my library list.’

‘She would be, if you were a woman. She specializes in rich goo for the female trade.’

‘Ah, yes, like Mrs Bingo Little. Rosie M. Banks to you.’

‘That sort of thing, yes, but even goo-ier. Where Rosie M. Banks merely touches the heart strings, Cornelia Fothergill grabs them in both hands and ties them into knots. I’m trying to talk her into letting me have her new novel as a serial for the
Boudoir
.’

I got the gist. She has since sold it, but at the time of which I speak this aunt was the proprietor or proprietress of a weekly paper for the half-witted woman called
Milady’s Boudoir
, to which I once contributed an article – a ‘piece’ we old hands call it – on What The Well-Dressed Man Is Wearing. Like all weekly papers, it was in the process of turning the corner, as the expression is, and I could well understand that a serial by a specialist in rich goo would give it a much-needed shot in the arm.

‘How’s it coming?’ I asked. ‘Any luck?’

‘Not so far. She demurs.’

‘Dewhat’s?’

‘Murs, you silly ass.’

‘You mean she meets your pleas with what Jeeves would call a
nolle prosequi
?’

‘Not quite that. She has not closed the door to a peaceful settlement, but, as I say, she de—’

‘Murs?’

‘Murs is right. She doesn’t say No, but she won’t say Yes. The trouble is that Tom is doing his Gaspard-the-Miser stuff again.’

Her allusion was to my uncle, Thomas Portarlington Travers, who foots the bills for what he always calls
Madame’s Nightshirt
. He is as rich as creosote, as I believe the phrase is, but like so many of our wealthier citizens he hates to give up. Until you have heard Uncle Tom on the subject of income tax and supertax, you haven’t heard anything.

‘He won’t let me go above five hundred pounds, and she wants eight.’

‘Looks like an impasse.’

‘It did till this morning.’

‘What happened this morning?’

‘Oh, just a sort of break in the clouds. She said something which gave me the impression that she was weakening and that one more shove would do the trick. Are you still sober?’

‘I am.’

‘Then keep so over this next week-end, because you’re coming down here.’

‘Who, me?’

‘You, in person.’

‘But, why?’

‘To help me sway her. You will exercise all your charm—’

‘I haven’t much.’

‘Well, exercise what you’ve got. Give her the old oil. Play on her as on a stringed instrument.’

I chewed the lip somewhat. I’m not keen on these blind dates. And if life has taught me one thing, it is that the prudent man keeps away from female novelists. But it might be, of course, that a gay house-party was contemplated. I probed her on this point.

‘Will anyone else be there? Is there any bright young society, I mean?’

‘I wouldn’t call the society young, but it’s very bright. There’s Cornelia’s husband, Everard Fothergill the artist, and his father Edward Fothergill. He’s an artist, too, of a sort. You won’t have a dull moment. So tell Jeeves to pack your effects, and we shall expect you on Friday. You will continue to haunt the house till Monday.’

‘Cooped up with a couple of artists and a writer of rich goo? I don’t like it.’

‘You don’t have to like it,’ the aged relative assured me. ‘You just do it. Oh, and by the way, when you get here, I’ve a little something I want you to do for me.’

‘What sort of a little something?’

‘I’ll tell you about it when I see you. Just a simple little thing to help Auntie. You’ll enjoy it,’ she said, and with a cordial ‘Toodle-oo’ rang off.

It surprises many people, I believe, that Bertram Wooster, as a general rule a man of iron, is as wax in the hands of his Aunt Dahlia, jumping to obey her lightest behest like a performing seal going after a slice of fish. They do not know that this woman possesses a secret weapon by means of which she can always bend me to her will – viz. the threat that if I give her any of my lip, she will bar me from her dinner table and deprive me of the roasts and boileds of her French chef Anatole, God’s gift to the gastric juices. When she says Go, accordingly, I do not demur, I goeth, as the Bible puts it, and so it came about that toward the quiet evenfall of Friday the 22nd inst. I was at the wheel of the old sports model, tooling through Hants with Jeeves at my side and weighed down with a nameless foreboding.

‘Jeeves,’ I said, ‘I am weighed down with a nameless foreboding.’

‘Indeed, sir?’

‘Yes. What, I ask myself, is cooking?’

‘I do not think I quite follow you, sir.’

‘Then you jolly well ought to. I reported my conversation with Aunt Dahlia to you verbatim, and you should have every word of it tucked away beneath your bowler hat. To refresh your memory, after a certain amount of kidding back and forth she said “I’ve a little something I want you to do for me,” and when I enquired what, she fobbed me off … is it fobbed?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘She fobbed me off with a careless “Oh, just a simple little thing to help Auntie.” What construction do you place on those words?’

‘One gathers that there is something Mrs Travers wishes you to do for her, sir.’

‘One does, but the point is – what? You recall what has happened in the past when the gentler sex have asked me to do things for them. Especially Aunt Dahlia. You have not forgotten the affair of Sir Watkyn Bassett and the silver cow-creamer?’

‘No, sir.’

‘On that occasion, but for you, Bertram Wooster would have done a stretch in the local hoosegow. Who knows that this little
something
to which she referred will not land me in a similar peril? I wish I could slide out of this binge, Jeeves.’

‘I can readily imagine it, sir.’

‘But I can’t, I’m like those Light Brigade fellows. You remember how matters stood with them?’

‘Very vividly, sir. Theirs not to reason why, theirs but to do and die.’

‘Exactly. Cannons to right of them, cannons to left of them volleyed and thundered, but they had to keep snapping into it regardless. I know just how they felt,’ I said, moodily stepping on the accelerator. The brow was furrowed and the spirits low.

Arrival at Marsham Manor did little to smooth the former and raise the latter. Shown into the hall, I found myself in as cosy an interior as one could wish – large log fire, comfortable chairs and a tea-table that gave out an invigorating aroma of buttered toast and muffins, all very pleasant to encounter after a long drive on a chilly winter afternoon – but a single glance at the personnel was enough to tell me that I had struck one of those joints where every prospect pleases and only man is vile.

Three human souls were present when I made my entry, each plainly as outstanding a piece of cheese as Hampshire could provide. One was a small, thin citizen with a beard of the type that causes so much distress – my host, I presumed – and seated near him was another bloke of much the same construction but an earlier model, whom I took to be the father. He, too, was bearded to the gills. The third was a large spreading woman wearing the horn-rimmed spectacles which are always an occupational risk for penpushers of the other sex. They gave her a rather remarkable resemblance to my Aunt Agatha, and I would be deceiving my public were I to say that the heart did not sink to some extent. To play on such a woman as on a stringed instrument wasn’t going to be the simple task Aunt Dahlia appeared to think it.

After a brief pause for station identification, she introduced me to the gang, and I was on the point of doing the civil thing by asking Everard Fothergill if he had been painting anything lately, when he stiffened.

‘Hark!’ he said. ‘Can you hear a mewing cat?’

‘Eh?’ I said.

‘A mewing cat. I feel sure I hear a mewing cat. Listen!’

While we were listening the door opened and Aunt Dahlia
came
in. Everard put the 64,000-doliar question squarely up to her.

‘Mrs Travers, did you meet a mewing cat outside?’

‘No,’ said the aged relative. ‘No mewing cat. Why, did you order one?’

‘I can’t bear mewing cats,’ said Everard. ‘A mewing cat gets on my nerves.’

That was all about mewing cats for the moment. Tea was dished out, and I had a couple of bits of buttered toast, and so the long day wore on till it was time to dress for dinner. The Fothergill contingent pushed off, and I was heading in the same direction, when Aunt Dahlia arrested my progress.

‘Just a second, Bertie, before you put on your clean dickey,’ she said. ‘I would like to show you something.’

‘And I,’ I riposted, ‘would like to know what this job is you say you want me to do for you.’

‘I’ll be coming to that later. This thing I’m going to show you is tied in with it. But first a word from our sponsor. Did you notice anything about Everard Fothergill just now?’

I reviewed the recent past.

‘Would you describe him as perhaps a bit jumpy? He seemed to me to be stressing the mewing cat motif rather more strongly than might have been expected.’

‘Exactly. He’s a nervous wreck. Cornelia tells me he used to be very fond of cats.’

‘He still appears interested in them.’

‘It’s this blasted picture that has sapped his morale.’

‘Which blasted picture would that be?’

‘I’ll show you. Step this way.’

She led me into the dining-room and switched on the light.

‘Look,’ she said.

What she was drawing to my attention was a large oil painting. A classical picture, I suppose you would have called it. Stout female in the minimum of clothing in conference with a dove.

‘Venus?’ I said. It’s usually a safe bet.

‘Yes. Old Fothergill painted it. He’s just the sort of man who would paint a picture of Ladies’ Night In A Turkish Bath and call it Venus. He gave it to Everard as a wedding present.’

‘Thus saving money on the customary fish-slice. Shrewd, very shrewd. And I gather from what you were saying that the latter does not like it.’

‘Of course he doesn’t. It’s a mess. The old boy’s just an
incompetent
amateur. But being devoted to his father and not wanting to hurt his feelings Everard can’t have it taken down and put in the cellar. He’s stuck with it, and has to sit looking at it every time he puts on the nose-bag. With what result?’

‘The food turns to ashes in his mouth?’

‘Exactly. It’s driving him potty. Everard’s a real artist. His stuff’s good. Some of it’s in the Tate. Look at this,’ she said, indicating another canvas. ‘That’s one of his things.’

I gave it a quick once-over. It, too, was a classical picture, and seemed to my untutored mind very like the other one, but presuming that some sort of art criticism was expected of me I said:

‘I like the patina.’

That, too, is generally a safe bet, but it appeared that I had said the wrong thing, for the relative snorted audibly.

‘No, you don’t, you miserable blighter. You don’t even know what a patina is.’

She had me there, of course. I didn’t.

‘You and your ruddy patinas! Well, anyway, you see why Everard has got the jitters. If a man can paint as well as he can, it naturally cuts him to the quick to have to glue his eyes on a daub like the Venus every time he sits down to break bread. Suppose you were a great musician. Would you like to have to listen to a cheap, vulgar tune – the same tune – day after day? Or suppose that every time you went to lunch at the Drones you had to sit opposite someone who looked like the Hunchback of Notre Dame? Would you enjoy that? Of course you wouldn’t. You’d be as sick as mud.’

I saw her point. Many a time at the Drones I have had to sit opposite Oofy Prosser, and it had always taken the edge off a usually keen appetite.