The Jeeves Omnibus (48 page)

‘You don’t mean it would be chokey?’

‘I said that I was not prepared to confide in you, but having gone so far I will. The answer to your question, Mr Wooster, is in the affirmative.’

There was a silence. He sat tapping his finger with the pen. I, if memory serves me correctly, straightening my tie. I was deeply concerned. The thought of poor old Stinker being bunged into the Bastille was enough to disturb anyone with a kindly interest in his career and prospects. Nothing retards a curate’s advancement in his chosen profession more surely than a spell in the jug.

He lowered the pen.

‘Well, Mr Wooster, I think that you were about to tell me what brings you here?’

I started a bit. I hadn’t actually forgotten my mission, of course, but all this sinister stuff had caused me to shove it away at the back
of
my mind, and the suddenness with which it now came popping out gave me a bit of a jar.

I saw that there would have to be a few preliminary
pourparlers
before I got down to the nub. When relations between a bloke and another bloke are of a strained nature, the second bloke can’t charge straight into the topic of wanting to marry the first bloke’s niece. Not, that is to say, if he has a nice sense of what is fitting, as the Woosters have.

‘Oh, ah, yes. Thanks for reminding me.’

‘Not at all.’

‘I just thought I’d drop in and have a chat.’

‘I see.’

What the thing wanted, of course, was edging into, and I found I had got the approach. I teed up with a certain access of confidence.

‘Have you ever thought about love, Sir Watkyn?’

‘I beg your pardon?’

‘About love. Have you ever brooded on it to any extent?’

‘You have not come here to discuss love?’

‘Yes, I have. That’s exactly it. I wonder if you have noticed a rather rummy thing about it – viz that it is everywhere. You can’t get away from it. Love, I mean. Wherever you go, there it is, buzzing along in every class of life. Quite remarkable. Take newts, for instance.’

‘Are you quite well, Mr Wooster?’

‘Oh, fine, thanks. Take newts, I was saying. You wouldn’t think it, but Gussie Fink-Nottle tells me they get it right up their noses in the mating season. They stand in line by the hour, waggling their tails at the local belles. Starfish, too. Also undersea worms.’

‘Mr Wooster –’

‘And, according to Gussie, even ribbonlike seaweed. That surprises you, eh? It did me. But he assures me that it is so. Just where a bit of ribbonlike seaweed thinks it is going to get by pressing its suit is more than I can tell you, but at the time of the full moon it hears the voice of Love all right and is up and doing with the best of them. I suppose it builds on the hope that it will look good to other bits of ribbonlike seaweed, which, of course, would also be affected by the full moon. Well, be that as it may, what I’m working round to is that the moon is pretty full now, and if that’s how it affects seaweed you can’t very well blame a chap like me for feeling the impulse, can you?’

‘I am afraid –’

‘Well, can you?’ I repeated, pressing him strongly. And I threw in an ‘Eh, what?’ to clinch the thing.

But there was no answering spark of intelligence in his eye. He had been looking like a man who had missed the finer shades, and he still looked like a man who had missed the finer shades.

‘I am afraid, Mr Wooster, that you will think me dense, but I have not the remotest notion what you are talking about.’

Now that the moment for letting him have it in the eyeball had arrived, I was pleased to find that the all-of-a-twitter feeling which had gripped me at the outset had ceased to function. I don’t say that I had become exactly debonair and capable of flicking specks of dust from the irreproachable Mechlin lace at my wrists, but I felt perfectly calm.

What had soothed the system was the realization that in another half-jiffy I was about to slip a stick of dynamite under this old buster which would teach him that we are not put into the world for pleasure alone. When a magistrate has taken five quid off you for what, properly looked at, was a mere boyish pecadillo which would have been amply punished by a waggle of the forefinger and a brief ‘Tut, tut!’ it is always agreeable to make him jump like a pea on a hot shovel.

‘I’m talking about me and Stiffy.’

‘Stiffy?’

‘Stephanie.’

‘Stephanie? My niece?’

‘That’s right. Your niece. Sir Watkyn,’ I said, remembering a good one, ‘I have the honour to ask you for your niece’s hand.’

‘You – what?’

‘I have the honour to ask you for your niece’s hand.’

‘I don’t understand.’

‘It’s quite simple. I want to marry young Stiffy. She wants to marry me. Surely you’ve got it now? Take a line through that ribbonlike seaweed.’

There was no question as to its being value for money. On the cue ‘niece’s hand’, he had come out of his chair like a rocketing pheasant. He now sank back, fanning himself with the pen. He seemed to have aged quite a lot.

‘She wants to marry you?’

‘That’s the idea.’

‘But I was not aware that you knew my niece.’

‘Oh, rather. We two, if you care to put it that way, have plucked
the
gowans fine. Oh, yes, I know Stiffy, all right. Well, I mean to say, if I didn’t, I shouldn’t want to marry her, should I?’

He seemed to see the justice of this. He became silent, except for a soft, groaning noise. I remembered another good one.

‘You will not be losing a niece. You will be gaining a nephew.’

‘But I don’t want a nephew, damn it!’

Well, there was that, of course.

He rose, and muttering something which sounded like ‘Oh, dear! Oh, dear!’ went to the fireplace and pressed the bell with a weak finger. Returning to his seat, he remained holding his head in his hands until the butler blew in.

‘Butterfield,’ he said in a low, hoarse voice, ‘find Miss Stephanie and tell her that I wish to speak to her.’

A stage wait then occurred, but not such a long one as you might have expected. It was only about a minute before Stiffy appeared. I imagine she had been lurking in the offing, expectant of this summons. She tripped in, all merry and bright.

‘You want to see me, Uncle Watkyn? Oh, hallo, Bertie.’

‘Hallo.’

‘I didn’t know you were here. Have you and Uncle Watkyn been having a nice talk?’

Old Bassett, who had gone into a coma again, came out of it and uttered a sound like the death-rattle of a dying duck.

‘“Nice”,’ he said, ‘is not the adjective I would have selected.’ He moistened his ashen lips. ‘Mr Wooster has just informed me that he wishes to marry you.’

I must say that young Stiffy gave an extremely convincing performance. She stared at him. She stared at me. She clasped her hands. I rather think she blushed.

‘Why Bertie!’

Old Bassett broke the pen. I had been wondering when he would.

‘Oh, Bertie! You have made me very proud.’

‘Proud?’ I detected an incredulous note in old Bassett’s voice. ‘Did you say “proud”?’

‘Well, it’s the greatest compliment a man can pay a woman, you know. All the nibs are agreed on that. I’m tremendously flattered and grateful … and, well, all that sort of thing. But, Bertie dear, I’m terribly sorry. I’m afraid it’s impossible.’

I hadn’t supposed that there was anything in the world capable of jerking a man from the depths so effectively as one of those morning mixtures of Jeeves’s, but these words acted on old Bassett with an
even
greater promptitude and zip. He had been sitting in his chair in a boneless, huddled sort of way, a broken man. He now started up, with gleaming eyes and twitching lips. You could see that hope had dawned.

‘Impossible? Don’t you want to marry him?’

‘No.’

‘He said you did.’

‘He must have been thinking of a couple of other fellows. No, Bertie, darling, it cannot be. You see, I love somebody else.’

Old Bassett started.

‘Eh? Who?’

‘The most wonderful man in the world.’

‘He has a name, I presume?’

‘Harold Pinker.’

‘Harold Pinker? … Pinker … The only Pinker I know is –’

‘The curate. That’s right. He’s the chap.’

‘You love the curate?’

‘Ah!’ said Stiffy, rolling her eyes up and looking like Aunt Dahlia when she had spoken of the merits of blackmail. ‘We’ve been secretly engaged for weeks.’

It was plain from old Bassett’s manner that he was not prepared to classify this under the heading of tidings of great joy. His brows were knitted, like those of some diner in a restaurant who, sailing into his dozen oysters, finds that the first one to pass his lips is a wrong ’un. I saw that Stiffy had shown a shrewd knowledge of human nature, if you could call his that, when she had told me that this man would have to be heavily sweetened before the news could be broken. You could see that he shared the almost universal opinion of parents and uncles that curates were nothing to start strewing roses out of a hat about.

‘You know that vicarage that you have in your gift, Uncle Watkyn? What Harold and I were thinking was that you might give him that, and then we could get married at once. You see, apart from the increased dough, it would start him off on the road to higher things. Up till now, Harold has been working under wraps. As a curate, he has no scope. But slip him a vicarage, and watch him let himself out. There is literally no eminence to which that boy will not rise, once he spits on his hands and starts in.’

She wiggled from base to apex with girlish enthusiasm, but there was no girlish enthusiasm in old Bassett’s demeanour. Well, there wouldn’t be, of course, but what I mean is there wasn’t.

‘Ridiculous!’

‘Why?’

‘I could not dream –’

‘Why not?’

‘In the first place, you are far too young –’

‘What nonsense. Three of the girls I was at school with were married last year. I’m senile compared with some of the infants you see toddling up the aisle nowadays.’

Old Bassett thumped the desk – coming down, I was glad to see, on an upturned paper fastener. The bodily anguish induced by this lent vehemence to his tone.

‘The whole thing is quite absurd and utterly out of the question. I refuse to consider the idea for an instant.’

‘But what have you got against Harold?’

‘I have nothing, as you put it, against him. He seems zealous in his duties and popular in the parish –’

‘He’s a baa-lamb.’

‘No doubt.’

‘He played football for England.’

‘Very possibly.’

‘And he’s marvellous at tennis.’

‘I dare say he is. But that is not a reason why he should marry my niece. What means has he, if any, beyond his stipend?’

‘About five hundred a year.’

‘Tchah!’

‘Well, I don’t call that bad. Five hundred’s pretty good sugar, if you ask me. Besides, money doesn’t matter.’

‘It matters a great deal.’

‘You really feel that, do you?’

‘Certainly. You must be practical.’

‘Right ho, I will. If you’d rather I married for money, I’ll marry for money. Bertie, it’s on. Start getting measured for the wedding trousers.’

Her words created what is known as a genuine sensation. Old Bassett’s ‘What!’ and my ‘Here, I say, dash it!’ popped out neck and neck and collided in mid air, my heart-cry having, perhaps, an even greater horse-power than his. I was frankly appalled. Experience has taught me that you never know with girls, and it might quite possibly happen, I felt, that she would go through with this frightful project as a gesture. Nobody could teach me anything about gestures. Brinkley Court in the preceding summer had crawled with them.

‘Bertie is rolling in the stuff and, as you suggest, one might do worse than take a whack at the Wooster millions. Of course, Bertie dear, I am only marrying you to make you happy. I can never love you as I love Harold. But as Uncle Watkyn has taken this violent prejudice against him –’

Old Bassett hit the paper fastener again, but this time didn’t seem to notice it.

‘My dear child, don’t talk such nonsense. You are quite mistaken. You must have completely misunderstood me. I have no prejudice against this young man Pinker. I like and respect him. If you really think your happiness lies in becoming his wife, I would be the last man to stand in your way. By all means, marry him. The alternative –’

He said no more, but gave me a long, shuddering look. Then, as if the sight of me were more than his frail strength could endure, he removed his gaze, only to bring it back again and give me a short, quick one. He then closed his eyes and leaned back in his chair, breathing stertorously. And as there didn’t seem anything to keep me, I sidled out. The last I saw of him, he was submitting without any great animation to a niece’s embrace.

I suppose that when you have an uncle like Sir Watkyn Bassett on the receiving end, a niece’s embrace is a thing you tend to make pretty snappy. It wasn’t more than about a minute before Stiffy came out and immediately went into her dance.

‘What a man! What a man! What a man! What a man! What a man!’ she said, waving her arms and giving other indications of
bien-être
. ‘Jeeves,’ she explained, as if she supposed that I might imagine her to be alluding to the recent Bassett. ‘Did he say it would work? He did. And was he right? He was. Bertie, could one kiss Jeeves?’

‘Certainly not.’

‘Shall I kiss you?’

‘No, thank you. All I require from you, young Byng, is that notebook.’

‘Well I must kiss someone, and I’m dashed if I’m going to kiss Eustace Oates.’

She broke off. A graver look came into her dial.

‘Eustace Oates!’ she repeated meditatively. ‘That reminds me. In the rush of recent events, I had forgotten him. I exchanged a few words with Eustace Oates just now, Bertie, while I was waiting on the stairs for the balloon to go up, and he was sinister to a degree.’

‘Where’s that notebook?’

‘Never mind about the notebook. The subject under discussion is Eustace Oates and his sinisterness. He’s on my trail about that helmet.’

‘What!’

‘Absolutely. I’m Suspect Number One. He told me that he reads a lot of detective stories, and he says that the first thing a detective makes a bee-line for is motive. After that, opportunity. And finally clues. Well, as he pointed out, with that high-handed behaviour of his about Bartholomew rankling in my bosom, I had a motive all right, and seeing that I was going out and about at the time of the crime I had the opportunity, too. And as for clues, what do you think he had with him, when I saw him? One of my gloves! He had picked it up on the scene of the outrage – while measuring footprints or looking for cigar ash, I suppose. You remember when Harold brought me back my gloves, there was only one of them. The other he apparently dropped while scooping in the helmet.’