The Jeeves Omnibus (98 page)

‘All right,’ he said. ‘This is what happened. You know my views about that steak-and-kidney pie.’

‘Quite.’

‘Well, round about one a.m. I thought the time was ripe. I stole from my room and went downstairs. The pie seemed to beckon me.’

I nodded. I knew how pies do.

‘I got to the larder. I fished it out. I set it on the table. I found
knife
and fork. I collected salt, mustard, and pepper. There were some cold potatoes. I added those. And I was about to pitch in when I heard a sound behind me, and there was your aunt at the door. In a blue-and-yellow dressing gown.’

‘Embarrassing.’

‘Most.’

‘I suppose you didn’t know where to look.’

‘I looked at Angela.’

‘She came in with my aunt?’

‘No. With your uncle, a minute or two later. He was wearing mauve pyjamas and carried a pistol. Have you ever seen your uncle in pyjamas and a pistol?’

‘Never.’

‘You haven’t missed much.’

‘Tell me, Tuppy,’ I asked, for I was anxious to ascertain this, ‘about Angela. Was there any momentary softening in her gaze as she fixed it on you?’

‘She didn’t fix it on me. She fixed it on the pie.’

‘Did she say anything?’

‘Not right away. Your uncle was the first to speak. He said to your aunt, “God bless my soul, Dahlia, what are you doing here?” To which she replied, “Well, if it comes to that, my merry somnambulist, what are you?” Your uncle then said that he thought there must be burglars in the house, as he had heard noises.’

I nodded again. I could follow the trend. Ever since the scullery window was found open the year Shining Light was disqualified in the Cesarewitch for boring, Uncle Tom has had a marked complex about burglars. I can still recall my emotions when, paying my first visit after he had bars put on all windows and attempting to thrust the head out in order to get a sniff of country air, I nearly fractured my skull on a sort of iron grille, as worn by the tougher kinds of mediaeval prison.

‘“What sort of noises?” said your aunt. “Funny noises,” said your uncle. Whereupon Angela – with a nasty, steely tinkle in her voice, the little buzzard – observed, “I expect it was Mr Glossop eating.” And then she did give me a look. It was the sort of wondering, revolted look a very spiritual woman would give a fat man gulping soup in a restaurant. The kind of look that makes a fellow feel he’s forty-six round the waist and has great rolls of superfluous flesh pouring down over the back of his collar. And, still speaking in the same unpleasant tone, she added, “I ought to have told you, Father, that Mr Glossop always likes to have a good meal three or four times
during
the night. It helps to keep him going till breakfast. He has the most amazing appetite. See, he has practically finished a large steak-and-kidney pie already”.’

As he spoke these words, a feverish animation swept over Tuppy. His eyes glittered with a strange light, and he thumped the bed violently with his fist, nearly catching me a juicy one on the leg.

‘That was what hurt, Bertie. That was what stung. I hadn’t so much as started on that pie. But that’s a woman all over.’

‘The eternal feminine.’

‘She continued her remarks. “You’ve no idea,” she said, “how Mr Glossop loves food. He just lives for it. He always eats six or seven meals a day, and then starts in again after bedtime. I think it’s rather wonderful.” Your aunt seemed interested, and said it reminded her of a boa constrictor. Angela said, didn’t she mean a python? And then they argued as to which of the two it was. Your uncle, meanwhile, poking about with that damned pistol of his till human life wasn’t safe in the vicinity. And the pie lying there on the table, and me unable to touch it. You begin to understand why I said I had been through hell.’

‘Quite. Can’t have been at all pleasant.’

‘Presently your aunt and Angela settled their discussion, deciding that Angela was right and that it was a python that I reminded them of. And shortly after that we all pushed back to bed, Angela warning me in a motherly voice not to take the stairs too quickly. After seven or eight solid meals, she said, a man of my build ought to be very careful, because of the danger of apoplectic fits. She said it was the same with dogs. When they became very fat and overfed, you had to see that they didn’t hurry upstairs, as it made them puff and pant, and that was bad for their hearts. She asked your aunt if she remembered the late spaniel, Ambrose; and your aunt said, “Poor old Ambrose, you couldn’t keep him away from the garbage pail”; and Angela said, “Exactly, so do please be careful, Mr Glossop.” And you tell me she loves me still!’

I did my best to encourage.

‘Girlish banter, what?’

‘Girlish banter be dashed. She’s right off me. Once her ideal, I am now less than the dust beneath her chariot wheels. She became infatuated with this chap, whoever he was, at Cannes, and now she can’t stand the sight of me.’

I raised my eyebrows.

‘My dear Tuppy, you are not showing your usual good sense in
this
Angela-chap-at-Cannes matter. If you will forgive me saying so, you have got an
idée fixe
.’

‘A what?’

‘An
idée fixe
. You know. One of those things fellows get. Like Uncle Tom’s delusion that everybody who is known even slightly to the police is lurking in the garden, waiting for a chance to break into the house. You keep talking about this chap at Cannes, and there never was a chap at Cannes, and I’ll tell you why I’m so sure about this. During those two months on the Riviera, it so happens that Angela and I were practically inseparable. If there had been somebody nosing round her, I should have spotted it in a second.’

He started. I could see that this had impressed him.

‘Oh, she was with you all the time at Cannes, was she?’

‘I don’t suppose she said two words to anybody else, except, of course, idle conv. at the crowded dinner table or a chance remark in a throng at the Casino.’

‘I see. You mean that anything in the shape of mixed bathing and moonlight strolls she conducted solely in your company?’

‘That’s right. It was quite a joke in the hotel.’

‘You must have enjoyed that.’

‘Oh, rather. I’ve always been devoted to Angela.’

‘Oh, yes?’

‘When we were kids, she used to call herself my little sweetheart.’

‘She did?’

‘Absolutely.’

‘I see.’

He sat plunged in thought, while I, glad to have set his mind at rest, proceeded with my tea. And presently there came the banging of a gong from the hall below, and he started like a war horse at the sound of the bugle.

‘Breakfast!’ he said, and was off to a flying start, leaving me to brood and ponder. And the more I brooded and pondered, the more did it seem to me that everything now looked pretty smooth. Tuppy, I could see, despite that painful scene in the larder, still loved Angela with all the old fervour.

This meant that I could rely on that plan to which I had referred to bring home the bacon. And as I had found the way to straighten out the Gussie-Bassett difficulty, there seemed nothing more to worry about.

It was with an uplifted heart that I addressed Jeeves as he came in to remove the tea tray.

‘JEEVES,’ I SAID.

‘Sir?’

‘I’ve just been having a chat with young Tuppy, Jeeves. Did you happen to notice that he wasn’t looking very roguish this morning?’

‘Yes, sir. It seemed to me that Mr Glossop’s face was sicklied o’er with the pale cast of thought.’

‘Quite. He met my cousin Angela in the larder last night, and a rather painful interview ensued.’

‘I am sorry, sir.’

‘Not half so sorry as he was. She found him closeted with a steak-and-kidney pie, and appears to have been a bit caustic about fat men who lived for food alone.’

‘Most disturbing, sir.’

‘Very. In fact, many people would say that things had gone so far between these two nothing now could bridge the chasm. A girl who could make cracks about human pythons who ate nine or ten meals a day and ought to be careful not to hurry upstairs because of the danger of apoplectic fits is a girl, many people would say, in whose heart love is dead. Wouldn’t people say that, Jeeves?’

‘Undeniably, sir.’

‘They would be wrong.’

‘You think so, sir?’

‘I am convinced of it. I know these females. You can’t go by what they say.’

‘You feel that Miss Angela’s strictures should not be taken too much
au pied de la lettre
, sir?’

‘Eh?’

‘In English, we should say “literally”.’

‘Literally. That’s exactly what I mean. You know what girls are. A tiff occurs, and they shoot their heads off. But underneath it all the old love still remains. Am I correct?’

‘Quite correct, sir. The poet Scott –’

‘Right ho, Jeeves.’

‘Very good, sir.’

‘And in order to bring that old love whizzing to the surface once more, all that is required is the proper treatment.’

‘By “proper treatment”, sir, you mean–’

‘Clever handling, Jeeves. A spot of the good old snaky work. I see what must be done to jerk my cousin Angela back to normalcy. I’ll tell you, shall I?’

‘If you would be so kind, sir.’

I lit a cigarette, and eyed him keenly through the smoke. He waited respectfully for me to unleash the words of wisdom. I must say for Jeeves that – till, as he is so apt to do, he starts shoving his oar in and cavilling and obstructing – he makes a very good audience. I don’t know if he is actually agog, but he looks agog, and that’s the great thing.

‘Suppose you were strolling through the illimitable jungle, Jeeves, and happened to meet a tiger cub.’

‘The contingency is a remote one, sir.’

‘Never mind. Let us suppose it.’

‘Very good, sir.’

‘Let us now suppose that you sloshed that tiger cub, and let us suppose further that word reached its mother that it was being put upon. What would you expect the attitude of that mother to be? In what frame of mind do you consider that that tigress would approach you?’

‘I should anticipate a certain show of annoyance, sir.’

‘And rightly. Due to what is known as the maternal instinct, what?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Very good, Jeeves. We will now suppose that there has recently been some little coolness between this tiger cub and this tigress. For some days, let us say, they have not been on speaking terms. Do you think that that would make any difference to the vim with which the latter would leap to the former’s aid?’

‘No, sir.’

‘Exactly. Here, then, in brief, is my plan, Jeeves. I am going to draw my cousin Angela aside to a secluded spot and roast Tuppy properly.’

‘Roast, sir?’

‘Knock. Slam. Tick off. Abuse. Denounce. I shall be very terse about Tuppy, giving it as my opinion that in all essentials he is more like a wart hog than an ex-member of a fine old English public school.
What
will ensue? Hearing him attacked, my cousin Angela’s womanly heart will be as sick as mud. The maternal tigress in her will awake. No matter what differences they may have had, she will remember only that he is the man she loves, and will leap to his defence. And from that to falling into his arms and burying the dead past will be but a step. How do you react to that?’

‘The idea is an ingenious one, sir.’

‘We Woosters are ingenious, Jeeves, exceedingly ingenious.’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘As a matter of fact, I am not speaking without a knowledge of the form book. I have tested this theory.’

‘Indeed, sir?’

‘Yes, in person. And it works. I was standing on the Eden rock at Antibes last month, idly watching the bathers disport themselves in the water, and a girl I knew slightly pointed at a male diver and asked me if I didn’t think his legs were about the silliest-looking pair of props ever issued to human being. I replied that I did, indeed, and for the space of perhaps two minutes was extraordinarily witty and satirical about this bird’s underpinning. At the end of that period, I suddenly felt as if I had been caught up in the tail of a cyclone.

‘Beginning with a
critique
of my own limbs, which she said, justly enough, were nothing to write home about, this girl went on to dissect my manners, morals, intellect, general physique, and method of eating asparagus with such acerbity that by the time she had finished the best you could say of Bertram was that, so far as was known, he had never actually committed murder or set fire to an orphan asylum. Subsequent investigation proved that she was engaged to the fellow with the legs and had had a slight disagreement with him the evening before on the subject of whether she should or should not have made an original call of two spades, having seven, but without the ace. That night I saw them dining together with every indication of relish, their differences made up and the love-light once more in their eyes. That shows you, Jeeves.’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘I expect precisely similar results from my cousin Angela when I start roasting Tuppy. By lunchtime, I should imagine, the engagement will be on again and the diamond-and-platinum ring glittering as of yore on her third finger. Or is it the fourth?’

‘Scarcely by luncheon time, sir. Miss Angela’s maid informs me that Miss Angela drove off in her car early this morning with the intention of spending the day with friends in the vicinity.’

‘Well, within half an hour of whatever time she comes back, then. These are mere straws, Jeeves. Do not let us chop them.’

‘No, sir.’

‘The point is that, as far as Tuppy and Angela are concerned, we may say with confidence that everything will shortly be hotsy-totsy once more. And what an agreeable thought that is, Jeeves.’

‘Very true, sir.’

‘If there is one thing that gives me the pip, it is two loving hearts being estranged.’

‘I can readily appreciate the fact, sir.’

I placed the stub of my gasper in the ash tray and lit another, to indicate that that completed Chap. I.

‘Right ho, then. So much for the western front. We now turn to the eastern.’

‘Sir?’

‘I speak in parables, Jeeves. What I mean is, we now approach the matter of Gussie and Miss Bassett.’