The Jeeves Omnibus - Vol 2: (Jeeves & Wooster): No. 2 (9 page)

Tuppy was frowning thoughtfully.

‘Push my dinner away, eh?’

‘Yes.’

‘Push away a dinner cooked by Anatole?’

‘Yes.’

‘Push it away untasted?’

‘Yes.’

‘Let us get this straight. Tonight, at dinner, when the butler offers me a
ris de veau à la financiere
, or whatever it may be, hot from Anatole’s hands, you wish me to push it away untasted?’

‘Yes.’

He chewed his lip. One could sense the struggle going on within. And then suddenly a sort of glow came into his face. The old martyrs probably used to look like that.

‘All right.’

‘You’ll do it?’

‘I will.’

‘Fine.’

‘Of course, it will be agony.’

I pointed out the silver lining.

‘Only for the moment. You could slip down tonight, after everyone is in bed, and raid the larder.’

He brightened.

‘That’s right. I could, couldn’t I?’

‘I expect there would be something cold there.’

‘There is something cold there,’ said Tuppy, with growing cheerfulness. ‘A steak-and-kidney pie. We had it for lunch today. One of Anatole’s ripest. The thing I admire about that man,’ said Tuppy reverently, ‘the thing that I admire so enormously about Anatole is that, though a Frenchman, he does not, like so many of these chefs, confine himself exclusively to French dishes, but is always willing
and
ready to weigh in with some good old simple English fare such as this steak-and-kidney pie to which I have alluded. A masterly pie, Bertie, and it wasn’t more than half finished. It will do me nicely.’

‘And at dinner you will push, as arranged?’

‘Absolutely as arranged.’

‘Fine.’

‘It’s an excellent idea. One of Jeeves’s best. You can tell him from me, when you see him, that I’m much obliged.’

The cigarette fell from my fingers. It was as though somebody had slapped Bertram Wooster across the face with a wet dishrag.

‘You aren’t suggesting that you think this scheme I have been sketching out is Jeeves’s?’

‘Of course it is. It’s no good trying to kid me, Bertie. You wouldn’t have thought of a wheeze like that in a million years.’

There was a pause. I drew myself up to my full height; then, seeing that he wasn’t looking at me, lowered myself again.

‘Come, Glossop,’ I said coldly, ‘we had better be going. It is time we were dressing for dinner.’

TUPPY’S FATHEADED WORDS
were still rankling in my bosom as I went up to my room. They continued rankling as I shed the form-fitting, and had not ceased to rankle when, clad in the old dressing-gown, I made my way along the corridor to the
salle de bain
.

It is not too much to say that I was piqued to the tonsils.

I mean to say, one does not court praise. The adulation of the multitude means very little to one. But, all the same, when one has taken the trouble to whack out a highly juicy scheme to benefit an in-the-soup friend in his hour of travail, it’s pretty foul to find him giving the credit to one’s personal attendant, particularly if that personal attendant is a man who goes about the place not packing mess jackets.

But after I had been splashing about in the porcelain for a bit, composure began to return. I have always found that in moments of heart-bowed-downness there is nothing that calms the bruised spirit like a good go at the soap and water. I don’t say I actually sang in the tub, but there were times when it was a mere spin of the coin whether I would do so or not.

The spiritual anguish induced by that tactless speech had become noticeably lessened.

The discovery of a toy duck in the soap dish, presumably the property of some former juvenile visitor, contributed not a little to this new and happier frame of mind. What with one thing and another, I hadn’t played with toy ducks in my bath for years, and I found the novel experience most invigorating. For the benefit of those interested, I may mention that if you shove the thing under the surface with the sponge and then let it go, it shoots out of the water in a manner calculated to divert the most careworn. Ten minutes of this and I was enabled to return to the bed-chamber much more the old merry Bertram.

Jeeves was there, laying out the dinner disguise. He greeted the young master with his customary suavity.

‘Good evening, sir.’

I responded in the same affable key.

‘Good evening, Jeeves.’

‘I trust you had a pleasant drive, sir.’

‘Very pleasant, thank you, Jeeves. Hand me a sock or two, will you?’

He did so, and I commenced to don.

‘Well, Jeeves,’ I said, reaching for the underlinen, ‘here we are again at Brinkley Court in the county of Worcestershire.’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘A nice mess things seem to have gone and got themselves into in this rustic joint.’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘The rift between Tuppy Glossop and my cousin Angela would appear to be serious.’

‘Yes, sir. Opinion in the servants’ hall is inclined to take a grave view of the situation.’

‘And the thought that springs to your mind, no doubt, is that I shall have my work cut out to fix things up?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘You are wrong, Jeeves. I have the thing well in hand.’

‘You surprise me, sir.’

‘I thought I should. Yes, Jeeves, I pondered on the matter most of the way down here, and with the happiest results. I have just been in conference with Mr Glossop, and everything is taped out.’

‘Indeed, sir? Might I inquire –’

‘You know my methods, Jeeves. Apply them. Have you,’ I asked, slipping into the shirt and starting to adjust the cravat, ‘been gnawing on the thing at all?’

‘Oh, yes, sir. I have always been much attached to Miss Angela, and I felt that it would afford me great pleasure were I to be able to be of service to her.’

‘A laudable sentiment. But I suppose you drew blank?’

‘No, sir. I was rewarded with an idea.’

‘What was it?’

‘It occurred to me that a reconciliation might be effected between Mr Glossop and Miss Angela by appealing to that instinct which prompts gentlemen in time of peril to hasten to the rescue of –’

I had to let go of the cravat in order to raise a hand. I was shocked.

‘Don’t tell me you were contemplating descending to that old he-saved-her-from-drowning gag? I am surprised, Jeeves. Surprised and pained. When I was discussing the matter with Aunt Dahlia on
my
arrival, she said in a sniffy sort of way that she supposed I was going to shove my cousin Angela into the lake and push Tuppy in to haul her out, and I let her see pretty clearly that I considered the suggestion an insult to my intelligence. And now, if your words have the meaning I read into them, you are mooting precisely the same drivelling scheme. Really, Jeeves!’

‘No, sir. Not that. But the thought did cross my mind, as I walked in the grounds and passed the building where the fire bell hangs, that a sudden alarm of fire in the night might result in Mr Glossop endeavouring to assist Miss Angela to safety.’

I shivered.

‘Rotten, Jeeves.’

‘Well, sir –’

‘No good. Not a bit like it.’

‘I fancy, sir –’

‘No, Jeeves. No more. Enough has been said. Let us drop the subj.’

I finished tying the tie in silence. My emotions were too deep for speech. I knew, of course, that this man had for the time being lost his grip, but I had never suspected that he had gone absolutely to pieces like this. Remembering some of the swift ones he had pulled in the past, I shrank with horror from the spectacle of his present ineptitude. Or is it ineptness? I mean this frightful disposition of his to stick straws in his hair and talk like a perfect ass. It was the old, old story, I supposed. A man’s brain whizzes along for years exceeding the speed limit, and something suddenly goes wrong with the steering gear and it skids and comes a smeller in the ditch.

‘A bit elaborate,’ I said, trying to put the thing in as kindly a light as possible. ‘Your old failing. You can see that it’s a bit elaborate?’

‘Possibly the plan I suggested might be considered open to that criticism, sir, but
faute de mieux
–’

‘I don’t get you, Jeeves.’

‘A French expression, sir, signifying “for want of anything better”.’

A moment before, I had been feeling for this wreck of a once fine thinker nothing but a gentle pity. These words jarred the Wooster pride, inducing asperity.

‘I understand perfectly well what
faute de mieux
means, Jeeves. I did not recently spend two months among our Gallic neighbours for nothing. Besides, I remember that one from school. What caused my bewilderment was that you should be employing the expression, well knowing that there is no bally
faute de mieux
about it at all. Where do
you
get that
faute-de-mieux
stuff? Didn’t I tell you I had everything taped out?’

‘Yes, sir, but –’

‘What do you mean – but?’

‘Well, sir –’

‘Push on, Jeeves. I am ready, even anxious, to hear your views.’

‘Well, sir, if I may take the liberty of reminding you of it, your plans in the past have not always been uniformly successful.’

There was a silence – rather a throbbing one – during which I put on my waistcoat in a marked manner. Not till I had got the buckle at the back satisfactorily adjusted did I speak.

‘It is true, Jeeves,’ I said formally, ‘that once or twice in the past I may have missed the bus. This, however, I attribute purely to bad luck.’

‘Indeed, sir?’

‘On the present occasion I shall not fail, and I’ll tell you why I shall not fail. Because my scheme is rooted in human nature.’

‘Indeed, sir?’

‘It is simple. Not elaborate. And, furthermore, based on the psychology of the individual.’

‘Indeed, sir?’

‘Jeeves,’ I said, ‘don’t keep saying “Indeed, sir?” No doubt nothing is further from your mind than to convey such a suggestion, but you have a way of stressing the “in” and then coming down with a thud on the “deed” which makes it virtually tantamount to “Oh, yeah?” Correct this, Jeeves.’

‘Very good, sir.’

‘I tell you I have everything nicely lined up. Would you care to hear what steps I have taken?’

‘Very much, sir.’

‘Then listen. Tonight at dinner I have recommended Tuppy to lay off the food.’

‘Sir?’

‘Tut, Jeeves, surely you can follow the idea, even though it is one that would never have occurred to yourself. Have you forgotten that telegram I sent to Gussie Fink-Nottle, steering him away from the sausages and ham? This is the same thing. Pushing the food away untasted is a universally recognized sign of love. It cannot fail to bring home the gravy. You must see that?’

‘Well, sir –’

I frowned.

‘I don’t want to seem always to be criticizing your methods
of
voice production, Jeeves,’ I said, ‘but I must inform you that that “Well, sir” of yours is in many respects fully as unpleasant as your “Indeed, sir?” Like the latter, it seems to be tinged with a definite scepticism. It suggests a lack of faith in my vision. The impression I retain after hearing you shoot it at me a couple of times is that you consider me to be talking through the back of my neck, and that only a feudal sense of what is fitting restrains you from substituting for it the words “Says you!”’

‘Oh, no, sir.’

‘Well, that’s what it sounds like. Why don’t you think this scheme will work?’

‘I fear Miss Angela will merely attribute Mr Glossop’s abstinence to indigestion, sir.’

I hadn’t thought of that, and I must confess it shook me for a moment. Then I recovered myself. I saw what was at the bottom of all this. Mortified by the consciousness of his own ineptness – or ineptitude – the fellow was simply trying to hamper and obstruct. I decided to knock the stuffing out of him without further preamble.

‘Oh?’ I said. ‘You do, do you? Well, be that as it may, it doesn’t alter the fact that you’ve put out the wrong coat. Be so good, Jeeves,’ I said, indicating with a gesture the gent’s ordinary dinner jacket, or
smoking
, as we call it on the Côte d’Azur, which was suspended from the hanger on the knob of the wardrobe, ‘as to shove that bally black thing in the cupboard and bring out my white mess jacket with the brass buttons.’

He looked at me in a meaning manner. And when I say a meaning manner, I mean there was a respectful but at the same time uppish glint in his eye and a sort of muscular spasm flickered across his face which wasn’t quite a quiet smile and yet wasn’t quite not a quiet smile. Also the soft cough.

‘I regret to say, sir, that I inadvertently omitted to pack the garment to which you refer.’

The vision of that parcel in the hall seemed to rise before my eyes, and I exchanged a merry wink with it. I may even have hummed a bar or two. I’m not quite sure.

‘I know you did, Jeeves,’ I said, laughing down from lazy eyelids and flicking a speck of dust from the irreproachable Mechlin lace at my wrists. ‘But I didn’t. You will find it on a chair in the hall in a brown-paper parcel.’

The information that his low manœuvres had been rendered null and void and that the thing was on the strength after all, must have been the nastiest of jars, but there was no play of expression on his
finely
chiselled to indicate it. There very seldom is on Jeeves’s f-c. In moments of discomfort, as I had told Tuppy, he wears a mask, preserving throughout the quiet stolidity of a stuffed moose.

‘You might just slide down and fetch it, will you?’

‘Very good, sir.’

‘Right ho, Jeeves.’

And presently I was sauntering towards the drawing-room with the good old j. nestling snugly abaft the shoulder blades.

Aunt Dahlia was in the drawing-room. She glanced up at my entrance.

‘Hullo, eyesore,’ she said. ‘What do you think you’re made up as?’

I did not get the purport.

‘The jacket, you mean?’ I queried, groping.

‘I do. You look like one of the chorus of male guests at Abernethy Towers in Act 2 of a touring musical comedy.’

‘You do not admire this jacket?’