The Jeeves Omnibus - Vol 3 (75 page)

True, his manner as he shook hands was guarded. Only a keen observer could have detected that he was stirred to his depths. But I had seen, and I summoned Jeeves forthwith.

‘Jeeves,’ I said, ‘if I appeared to think poorly of that scheme of yours, I now withdraw my remarks. I believe you have found the way. I was noticing Thos at the moment of impact. His eyes had a strange gleam.’

‘Indeed, sir?’

‘He shifted uneasily on his feet and his ears wiggled. He had, in short, the appearance of a boy who was holding himself in with an effort almost too great for his frail body.’

‘Yes, sir?’

‘Yes, Jeeves. I received a distinct impression of something being on
the
point of exploding. Tomorrow I shall ask Aunt Dahlia to take the two warts for a country ramble, to lose them in some sequestered spot, and to leave the rest to Nature.’

‘It is a good idea, sir.’

‘It is more than a good idea, Jeeves,’ I said. ‘It is a pip.’

You know, the older I get the more firmly do I become convinced that there is no such thing as a pip in existence. Again and again have I seen the apparently sure thing go phut, and now it is rarely indeed that I can be lured from my aloof scepticism. Fellows come sidling up to me at the Drones and elsewhere, urging me to invest on some horse that can’t lose even if it gets struck by lightning at the starting-post, but Bertram Wooster shakes his head. He has seen too much of life to be certain of anything.

If anyone had told me that my Cousin Thos, left alone for an extended period of time with a kid of the superlative foulness of Sebastian Moon, would not only refrain from cutting off his curls with a pocket-knife and chasing him across country into a muddy pond but would actually return home carrying the gruesome kid on his back because he had got a blister on his foot, I would have laughed scornfully. I knew Thos. I knew his work. I had seen him in action. And I was convinced that not even the prospect of collecting five pounds would be enough to give him pause.

And yet what happened? In the quiet evenfall, when the little birds were singing their sweetest and all Nature seemed to whisper of hope and happiness, the blow fell. I was chatting with old Mr Anstruther on the terrace when suddenly round a bend in the drive the two kids hove in view. Sebastian, seated on Thos’s back, his hat off and his golden curls floating on the breeze, was singing as much as he could remember of a comic song, and Thos, bowed down by the burden but carrying on gamely, was trudging along, smiling that bally saintlike smile of his. He parked the kid on the front steps and came across to us.

‘Sebastian got a nail in his shoe,’ he said in a low, virtuous voice. ‘It hurt him to walk, so I gave him a piggy-back.’

I heard old Mr Anstruther draw in his breath sharply.

‘All the way home?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘In this hot sunshine?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘But was he not very heavy?’

‘He was a little, sir,’ said Thos, uncorking the saintlike once more. ‘But it would have hurt him awfully to walk.’

I pushed off. I had had enough. If ever a septuagenarian looked on the point of handing out another bonus, that septuagenarian was old Mr Anstruther. He had the unmistakable bonus glitter in his eye. I withdrew, and found Jeeves in my bedroom messing about with ties and things.

He pursed the lips a bit on hearing the news.

‘Serious, sir.’

‘Very serious, Jeeves.’

‘I had feared this, sir.’

‘Had you? I hadn’t. I was convinced Thos would have massacred young Sebastian. I banked on it. It just shows what the greed for money will do. This is a commercial age, Jeeves. When I was a boy, I would cheerfully have forfeited five quid in order to deal faithfully with a kid like Sebastian. I would have considered it money well spent.’

‘You are mistaken, sir, in your estimate of the motives actuating Master Thomas. It was not a mere desire to win five pounds that caused him to curb his natural impulses.’

‘Eh?’

‘I have ascertained the true reason for his change of heart, sir.’

I felt fogged.

‘Religion, Jeeves?’

‘No, sir. Love.’

‘Love?’

‘Yes, sir. The young gentleman confided in me during a brief conversation in the hall shortly after luncheon. We had been speaking for a while on neutral subjects, when he suddenly turned a deeper shade of pink and after some slight hesitation inquired of me if I did not think Miss Greta Garbo the most beautiful woman at present in existence.’

I clutched the brow.

‘Jeeves! Don’t tell me Thos is in love with Greta Garbo?’

‘Yes, sir. Unfortunately such is the case. He gave me to understand that it had been coming on for some time, and her last picture settled the issue. His voice shook with an emotion which it was impossible to misread. I gathered from his observations, sir, that he proposes to spend the remainder of his life trying to make himself worthy of her.’

It was a knock-out. This was the end.

‘This is the end, Jeeves,’ I said. ‘Bonzo must be a good forty marks behind by now. Only some sensational and spectacular outrage upon the public weal on the part of young Thos could have enabled
him
to wipe out the lead. And of that there is now, apparently, no chance.’

‘The eventuality does appear remote, sir.’

I brooded.

‘Uncle Thomas will have a fit when he comes back and finds Anatole gone.’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Aunt Dahlia will drain the bitter cup to the dregs.’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘And speaking from a purely selfish point of view, the finest cooking I have ever bitten will pass out of my life for ever, unless the Snettishams invite me in some night to take pot luck. And that eventuality is also remote.’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Then the only thing I can do is square the shoulders and face the inevitable.’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Like some aristocrat of the French Revolution popping into the tumbril, what? The brave smile. The stiff upper lip.’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Right ho, then. Is the shirt studded?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘The tie chosen?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘The collar and evening underwear all in order?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Then I’ll have a bath and be with you in two ticks.’

It is all very well to talk about the brave smile and the stiff upper lip, but my experience – and I daresay others have found the same – is that they are a dashed sight easier to talk about than actually to fix on the face. For the next few days, I’m bound to admit, I found myself, in spite of every effort, registering gloom pretty consistently. For, as if to make things tougher than they might have been, Anatole at this juncture suddenly developed a cooking streak which put all his previous efforts in the shade.

Night after night we sat at the dinner table, the food melting in our mouths, and Aunt Dahlia would look at me and I would look at Aunt Dahlia, and the male Snettisham would ask the female Snettisham in a ghastly, gloating sort of way if she had ever tasted such cooking and the female Snettisham would smirk at the male Snettisham and say she never had in all her puff, and I would look at Aunt Dahlia and
Aunt
Dahlia would look at me and our eyes would be full of unshed tears, if you know what I mean.

And all the time old Mr Anstruther’s visit drawing to a close.

The sands running out, so to speak.

And then, on the very last afternoon of his stay, the thing happened.

It was one of those warm, drowsy, peaceful afternoons. I was up in my bedroom, getting off a spot of correspondence which I had neglected of late, and from where I sat I looked down on the shady lawn, fringed with its gay flower-beds. There was a bird or two hopping about, a butterfly or so fluttering to and fro, and an assortment of bees buzzing hither and thither. In a garden chair sat old Mr Anstruther, getting his eight hours. It was a sight which, had I had less on my mind, would no doubt have soothed the old soul a bit. The only blot on the landscape was Lady Snettisham, walking among the flower-beds and probably sketching out future menus, curse her.

And so for a time everything carried on. The birds hopped, the butterflies fluttered, the bees buzzed, and old Mr Anstruther snored – all in accordance with the programme. And I worked through a letter to my tailor to the point where I proposed to say something pretty strong about the way the right sleeve of my last coat bagged.

There was a tap on the door, and Jeeves entered, bringing the second post. I laid the letters listlessly on the table beside me.

‘Well, Jeeves,’ I said sombrely.

‘Sir?’

‘Mr Anstruther leaves tomorrow.’

‘Yes, sir.’

I gazed down at the sleeping septuagenarian.

‘In my young days, Jeeves,’ I said, ‘however much I might have been in love, I could never have resisted the spectacle of an old gentleman asleep like that in a deck-chair. I would have done
something
to him, no matter what the cost.’

‘Indeed, sir?’

‘Yes. Probably with a pea-shooter. But the modern boy is degenerate. He has lost his vim. I suppose Thos is indoors on this lovely afternoon, showing Sebastian his stamp-album or something. Ha!’ I said, and I said it rather nastily.

‘I fancy Master Thomas and Master Sebastian are playing in the stable-yard, sir. I encountered Master Sebastian not long back and he informed me he was on his way thither.’

‘The motion pictures, Jeeves,’ I said, ‘are the curse of the age. But
for
them, if Thos had found himself alone in a stable-yard with a kid like Sebastian –’

I broke off. From some point to the south-west, out of my line of vision, there had proceeded a piercing squeal.

It cut through the air like a knife, and old Mr Anstruther leaped up as if it had run into the fleshy part of his leg. And the next moment little Sebastian appeared, going well and followed at a short interval by Thos, who was going even better. In spite of the fact that he was hampered in his movements by a large stable-bucket which he bore in his right hand, Thos was running a great race. He had almost come up with Sebastian, when the latter, with great presence of mind, dodged behind Mr Anstruther, and there for a moment the matter rested.

But only for a moment. Thos, for some reason plainly stirred to the depths of his being, moved adroitly to one side and, poising the bucket for an instant, discharged its contents. And Mr Anstruther, who had just moved to the same side, received, as far as I could gather from a distance, the entire consignment. In one second, without any previous training or upbringing, he had become the wettest man in Worcestershire.

‘Jeeves!’ I cried.

‘Yes, indeed, sir,’ said Jeeves, and seemed to me to put the whole thing in a nutshell.

Down below, things were hotting up nicely. Old Mr Anstruther may have been frail, but he undoubtedly had his moments. I have rarely seen a man of his years conduct himself with such a lissom abandon. There was a stick lying beside the chair, and with this in hand he went into action like a two-year-old. A moment later, he and Thos had passed out of the picture round the side of the house, Thos cutting out a rare pace but, judging from the sounds of anguish, not quite good enough to distance the field.

The tumult and the shouting died; and, after gazing for a while with considerable satisfaction at the Snettisham, who was standing there with a sand-bagged look watching her nominee pass right out of the betting, I turned to Jeeves. I felt quietly triumphant. It is not often that I score off him, but now I had scored in no uncertain manner.

‘You see, Jeeves,’ I said, ‘I was right and you were wrong. Blood will tell. Once a Thos, always a Thos. Can the leopard change his spots or the Ethiopian his what-not? What was that thing they used to teach us at school about expelling Nature?’

‘You may expel Nature with a pitchfork, sir, but she will always return? In the original Latin –’

‘Never mind about the original Latin. The point is that I told you Thos could not resist those curls, and he couldn’t. You would have it that he could.’

‘I do not fancy it was the curls that caused the upheaval, sir.’

‘Must have been.’

‘No, sir. I think Master Sebastian had been speaking disparagingly of Miss Garbo.’

‘Eh? Why would he do that?’

‘I suggested that he should do so, sir, not long ago when I encountered him on his way to the stable-yard. It was a move which he was very willing to take, as he informed me that in his opinion Miss Garbo was definitely inferior both in beauty and talent to Miss Clara Bow, for whom he has long nourished a deep regard. From what we have just witnessed, sir, I imagine that Master Sebastian must have introduced the topic into the conversation at an early point.’

I sank into a chair. The Wooster system can stand just so much.

‘Jeeves!’

‘Sir?’

‘You tell me that Sebastian Moon, a stripling of such tender years that he can go about the place with long curls without causing mob violence, is in love with Clara Bow?’

‘And has been for some little time, he gave me to understand, sir.’

‘Jeeves, this Younger Generation is hot stuff.’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Were you like that in your day?’

‘No, sir.’

‘Nor I, Jeeves. At the age of fourteen I once wrote to Marie Lloyd for her autograph, but apart from that my private life could bear the strictest investigation. However, that is not the point. The point is, Jeeves, that once more I must pay you a marked tribute.’

‘Thank you very much, sir.’

‘Once more you have stepped forward like the great man you are and spread sweetness and light in no uncertain measure.’

‘I am glad to have given satisfaction, sir. Would you be requiring my services any further?’

‘You mean you wish to return to Bognor and its shrimps? Do so, Jeeves, and stay there another fortnight, if you wish. And may success attend your net.’

‘Thank you very much, sir.’

I eyed the man fixedly. His head stuck out at the back, and his eyes sparkled with the light of pure intelligence.

‘I am sorry for the shrimp that tries to pit its feeble cunning against you, Jeeves,’ I said.