The Jeeves Omnibus - Vol 3 (54 page)

‘Quite true,’ he replied. ‘And I really cannot have any discussion and argument about it. I acted as I deemed best, and the subject is
closed
. Silence, Aunt Daphne. Less of it, Aunt Emmeline. Quiet, Aunt Charlotte. Desist, Aunt Harriet. Aunty Myrtle, put a sock in it. Really, the way you’re going on, one would scarcely suppose that I was the master of the house and the head of the family and that my word was law. I don’t know if you happen to know it, but in Turkey all this insubordinate stuff, these attempts to dictate to the master of the house and the head of the family, would have led long before this to you being strangled with bowstrings and bunged into the Bosporus. Aunt Daphne, you have been warned. One more yip out of you, Aunt Myrtle, and I stop your pocket-money. Now, then,’ said Esmond Haddock, having obtained silence, ‘let me give you the strength of this. The reason I abetted young Gertrude in her matrimonial plans was that the man she loves is a good egg. I have this on the authority of his sister Corky, who speaks extremely well of him. And, by the way, before I forget, his sister Corky and I are going to be married ourselves. Correct?’

‘In every detail,’ said Corky.

She was gazing at him with shining eyes. One got the feeling that if she had had a table with a photograph on it, she would have been singing ‘My Hero’.

‘Come, come,’ said Esmond kindly, as the yells of the personnel died away, ‘no need to be upset about it. It won’t affect you dear old souls. You will go on living here, if you call it living, just as you have always done. All that’ll happen is that you will be short one Haddock. I propose to accompany my wife to Hollywood. And when she’s through with her contract there, we shall set up a shack in some rural spot and grow pigs and cows and things. I think that covers everything, doesn’t it?’

Corky said she thought it did.

‘Right,’ said Esmond. ‘Then how about a short stroll in the moonlight?’

He led her lovingly through the french windows, kissing her en route and I edged to the door and made my way upstairs to my room. I could have stayed on and chatted with the aunts, if I had wanted to, but I didn’t feel in the mood.

MY FIRST ACT
on reaching the sleeping quarters was to take pencil and paper and sit down and make out a balance sheet. As follows:

It came out exactly square. Not a single loose end left over. With a not unmanly sigh, for if there is one thing that is the dish of the decent-minded man, it is seeing misunderstanding between loving hearts cleared up, especially in the springtime, I laid down the writing materials and was preparing to turn in for the night, when Jeeves came shimmering in.

‘Oh, hallo, Jeeves,’ I said, greeting him cordially. ‘I was rather wondering if you would show up. A big night, what?’

‘Extremely, sir.’

I showed him the balance sheet.

‘No flaws in that, I think?’

‘None, sir.’

‘Gratifying, what?’

‘Most gratifying, sir.’

‘And, as always, due to your unremitting efforts.’

‘It is very kind of you to say so, sir.’

‘Not at all, Jeeves. We chalk up one more of your triumphs on the slate. I will admit that for an instant during the proceedings, when you gave Gussie that alibi, I experienced a momentary doubt
as
to whether you were on the right lines, feeling that you were but landing Catsmeat in the bouillon. But calmer reflection told me what you were up to. You felt that if Catsmeat stood in peril of receiving an exemplary sentence, Gertrude Winkworth would forget all that had passed and would cluster round him, her gentle heart melted by his distress. Am I right?’

‘Quite right, sir. The poet Scott –’

‘Pigeon-hole the poet Scott for a moment, or I shall be losing the thread of my remarks.’

‘Very good, sir.’

‘But I know what you mean. Oh, Woman in our hours of ease, what?’

‘Precisely, sir. Uncertain, coy and hard to please. When –’

‘– pain and anguish wring the brow, a ministering angel thou and so on and so forth. You can’t stump me on the poet Scott. That is one more of the things I used to recite in the old days. First “Charge of Light Brigade” or “Ben Battle”: then, in response to gales of applause, the poet Scott as an encore. But to return to what I was saying … There, as I suspected would be the case, Jeeves, I can’t remember what I was saying. I warned you what would happen if you steered the conversation to the poet Scott.’

‘You were speaking of the reconciliation between Miss Winkworth and Mr Pirbright, sir.’

‘Of course. Well, I was about to say that having studied the psychology of the individual you foresaw what would occur. And you knew that Catsmeat wouldn’t be in any real peril. Esmond Haddock was not going to jug the brother of the woman he loved.’

‘Exactly, sir.’

‘You can’t get engaged to a girl with one hand and send her brother up for thirty days with the other.’

‘No, sir.’

‘And your subtle mind also spotted that this would lead to Esmond Haddock defying his aunts. I thought the intrepid Haddock was splendidly firm, didn’t you?’

‘Unquestionably, sir.’

‘It’s nice to think that he and Corky are now headed for the centre aisle.’ I paused, and looked at him sharply. ‘You sighed, Jeeves.’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Why did you sigh?’

‘I was thinking of Master Thomas, sir. The announcement of Miss Pirbright’s betrothal came as a severe blow to him.’

I refused to allow my spirits to be lowered by any such side issues.

‘Waste no time commiserating with young Thos, Jeeves. His is a resilient nature, and the agony will pass. He may have lost Corky, but there’s always Betty Grable and Dorothy Lamour and Jennifer Jones.’

‘I understand those ladies are married, sir.’

‘That won’t affect Thos. He’ll be getting their autographs, just the same. I see a bright future ahead of him. Or, rather,’ I said, correcting myself, ‘fairly bright. There is that interview with his mother to be got over first.’

‘It has already occurred, sir.’

I goggled at the man.

‘What do you mean?’

‘My primary motive in intruding upon you at this late hour, sir, was to inform you that her ladyship is downstairs.’

I quivered from brilliantine to shoe sole.

‘Aunt Agatha?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Downstairs?’

‘Yes, sir. In the drawing room. Her ladyship arrived some few moments ago. It appears that Master Thomas, unwilling to occasion her anxiety, wrote her a letter informing her that he was safe and well, and unfortunately the postmark “King’s Deverill” on the envelope –’

‘Oh, my gosh! She came racing down?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘And –?’

‘A somewhat painful scene took place between mother and son, in the course of which Master Thomas happened to –’

‘Mention me?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘He blew the gaff?’

‘Yes, sir. And I was wondering whether in these circumstances you might not consider it advisable to take an immediate departure down the waterpipe. I understand there is an excellent milk train at two fifty-four. Her ladyship is expressing a desire to see you, sir.’

It would be deceiving my public to say that for an instant I did not quail. I quailed, as a matter of fact, like billy-o. And then, suddenly, it was as if strength had descended upon me.

‘Jeeves,’ I said, ‘this is grave news, but it comes at a moment when I am well fitted to receive it. I have just witnessed Esmond Haddock pound the stuffing out of five aunts, and I feel that after an exhibition like that it would ill beseem a Wooster to curl up before a single aunt. I
feel
strong and resolute, Jeeves. I shall now go downstairs and pull an Esmond Haddock on Aunt Agatha. And if things look like becoming too sticky, I can always borrow that cosh of yours, what?’

I squared the shoulders and strode to the door, like Childe Roland about to fight the paynim.

To
E. Phillips Oppenheim

(to the original edition of
Very Good, Jeeves,
which appeared in 1930)

THE QUESTION OF
how long an author is to be allowed to go on recording the adventures of any given character or characters is one that has frequently engaged the attention of thinking men. The publication of this book brings it once again into the foreground of national affairs.

It is now some fourteen summers since, an eager lad in my early thirties, I started to write Jeeves stories: and many people think this nuisance should now cease. Carpers say that enough is enough. Cavillers say the same. They look down the vista of the years and see these chronicles multiplying like rabbits, and the prospect appals them. But against this must be set the fact that writing Jeeves stories gives me a great deal of pleasure and keeps me out of the public houses.

At what conclusion, then, do we arrive? The whole thing is undoubtedly very moot.

From the welter of recrimination and argument one fact emerges – that we have here the third volume of a series. And what I do feel very strongly is that, if a thing is worth doing, it is worth doing well and thoroughly. It is perfectly possible, no doubt, to read
Very Good, Jeeves!
as a detached effort – or, indeed, not to read it at all: but I like to think that this country contains men of spirit who will not rest content till they have dug down into the old oak chest and fetched up the sum necessary for the purchase of its two predecessors –
The Inimitable Jeeves
and
Carry On, Jeeves!
Only so can the best results be obtained. Only so will allusions in the present volume to incidents occurring in the previous volumes become intelligible, instead of mystifying and befogging.

We do you these two books at the laughable price of half-a-crown apiece, and the method of acquiring them is simplicity itself.

All you have to do is to go to the nearest bookseller, when the following dialogue will take place:

Or take the case of a French visitor to London, whom, for want of a better name, we will call Jules St Xavier Popinot. In this instance the little scene will run on these lines:

As simple as that.

See that the name ‘Wodehouse’ is on every label.

P.G.W.

IT WAS THE
morning of the day on which I was slated to pop down to my Aunt Agatha’s place at Woollam Chersey in the county of Herts for a visit of three solid weeks; and, as I seated myself at the breakfast table, I don’t mind confessing that the heart was singularly heavy. We Woosters are men of iron, but beneath my intrepid exterior at that moment there lurked a nameless dread.

‘Jeeves,’ I said, ‘I am not the old merry self this morning.’

‘Indeed, sir?’

‘No, Jeeves. Far from the old merry self.’

‘I am sorry to hear that, sir.’

He uncovered the fragrant eggs and b., and I pronged a moody forkful.

‘Why – this is what I keep asking myself, Jeeves – why has my Aunt Agatha invited me to her country seat?’

‘I could not say, sir.’