The Jeeves Omnibus - Vol 3 (77 page)

‘You mean, you want to study the psychology of the individual and what not?’

‘Precisely, sir.’

‘Well, I don’t know how you’re going to do it. After all, I mean you can hardly cluster round the dinner table and drink in the Pyke’s small talk.’

‘There is that difficulty, sir.’

‘Your best chance, it seems to me, will be when we go to the Lakenham races on Thursday. We shall feed out of a luncheon-basket in God’s air, and there’s nothing to stop you hanging about and passing the sandwiches. Prick the ears and be at your most observant then, is my advice.’

‘Very good, sir.’

‘Very good, Jeeves. Be there, then, with the eyes popping. And, meanwhile, dash downstairs and see if you can dig up another instalment of these biscuits. I need them sorely.’

The morning of the Lakenham races dawned bright and juicy. A casual observer would have said that God was in His Heaven and all right with the world. It was one of those days you sometimes get latish in the autumn when the sun beams, the birds toot, and there is a bracing tang in the air that sends the blood beetling briskly through the veins.

Personally, however, I wasn’t any too keen on the bracing tang. It made me feel so exceptionally fit that almost immediately after
breakfast
I found myself beginning to wonder what there would be for lunch. And the thought of what there probably would be for lunch, if the Pyke’s influence made itself felt, lowered my spirits considerably.

‘I fear the worst, Jeeves,’ I said. ‘Last night at dinner Miss Pyke threw out the remark that the carrot was the best of all vegetables, having an astonishing effect on the blood and beautifying the complexion. Now, I am all for anything that bucks up the Wooster blood. Also, I would like to give the natives a treat by letting them take a look at my rosy, glowing cheeks. But not at the expense of lunching on raw carrots. To avoid any rannygazoo, therefore, I think it will be best if you add a bit for the young master to your personal packet of sandwiches. I don’t want to be caught short.’

‘Very good, sir.’

At this point, young Bingo came up. I hadn’t seen him look so jaunty for days.

‘I’ve just been superintending the packing of the lunch-basket, Bertie,’ he said. ‘I stood over the butler and saw that there was no nonsense.’

‘All pretty sound?’ I asked, relieved.

‘All indubitably sound.’

‘No carrots?’

‘No carrots,’ said young Bingo. ‘There’s ham sandwiches,’ he proceeded, a strange, soft light in his eyes, ‘and tongue sandwiches and potted meat sandwiches and game sandwiches and hard-boiled eggs and lobster and a cold chicken and sardines and a cake and a couple of bottles of Bollinger and some old brandy –’

‘It has the right ring,’ I said. ‘And if we want a bite to eat after that, of course we can go to the pub.’

‘What pub?’

‘Isn’t there a pub on the course?’

‘There’s not a pub for miles. That’s why I was so particularly careful that there should be no funny work about the basket. The common where these races are held is a desert without an oasis. Practically a death-trap. I met a fellow the other day who told me he got there last year and unpacked his basket and found that the champagne had burst and, together with the salad dressing, had soaked into the ham, which in its turn had got mixed up with the gorgonzola cheese, forming a sort of paste. He had had rather a bumpy bit of road to travel over.’

‘What did he do?’

‘Oh, he ate the mixture. It was the only course. But he said he could still taste it sometimes, even now.’

In ordinary circs I can’t say I should have been any too braced at the news that we were going to split up for the journey in the following order – Bingo and Mrs Bingo in their car and the Pyke in mine, with Jeeves sitting behind in the dickey. But, things being as they were, the arrangement had its points. It meant that Jeeves would be able to study the back of her head and draw his deductions, while I could engage her in conversation and let him see for himself what manner of female she was.

I started, accordingly, directly we had rolled off and all through the journey until we fetched up at the course she gave of her best. It was with considerable satisfaction that I parked the car beside a tree and hopped out.

‘You were listening, Jeeves?’ I said gravely.

‘Yes, sir.’

‘A tough baby?’

‘Undeniably, sir.’

Bingo and Mrs Bingo came up.

‘The first race won’t be for half an hour,’ said Bingo. ‘We’d better lunch now. Fish the basket out, Jeeves, would you mind?’

‘Sir?’

‘The luncheon-basket,’ said Bingo in a devout sort of voice, licking his lips slightly.

‘The basket is not in Mr Wooster’s car, sir.’

‘What!’

‘I assumed that you were bringing it in your own, sir.’

I have never seen the sunshine fade out of anybody’s face as quickly as it did out of Bingo’s. He uttered a sharp, wailing cry.

‘Rosie!’

‘Yes, sweetie-pie?’

‘The bunch! The lasket!’

‘What, darling?’

‘The luncheon-basket!’

‘What about it, precious?’

‘It’s been left behind!’

‘Oh, has it?’ said Mrs Bingo.

I confess she had never fallen lower in my estimation. I had always known her as a woman with as healthy an appreciation of her meals as any of my acquaintance. A few years previously, when my Aunt Dahlia had stolen her French cook, Anatole, she had called Aunt Dahlia
some
names in my presence which had impressed me profoundly. Yet now, when informed that she was marooned on a bally prairie without bite or sup, all she could find to say was, ‘Oh, has it?’ I had never fully realised before the extent to which she had allowed herself to be dominated by the deleterious influence of the Pyke.

The Pyke, for her part, touched an even lower level.

‘It is just as well,’ she said, and her voice seemed to cut Bingo like a knife. ‘Luncheon is a meal better omitted. If taken, it should consist merely of a few muscatels, bananas and grated carrots. It is a well-known fact –’

And she went on to speak at some length of the gastric juices in a vein far from suited to any gathering at which gentlemen were present.

‘So, you see, darling,’ said Mrs Bingo, ‘you will really feel ever so much better and brighter for not having eaten a lot of indigestible food. It is much the best thing that could have happened.’

Bingo gave her a long, lingering look.

‘I see,’ he said. ‘Well, if you will excuse me, I’ll just go off somewhere where I can cheer a bit without exciting comment.’

I perceived Jeeves withdrawing in a meaning manner, and I followed him, hoping for the best. My trust was not misplaced. He had brought enough sandwiches for two. In fact, enough for three, I whistled to Bingo, and he came slinking up, and we restored the tissues in a makeshift sort of way behind a hedge. Then Bingo went off to interview bookies about the first race, and Jeeves gave a cough.

‘Swallowed a crumb the wrong way?’ I said.

‘No, sir, I thank you. It is merely that I desired to express a hope that I had not been guilty of taking a liberty, sir.’

‘How?’

‘In removing the luncheon-basket from the car before we started, sir.’

I quivered like an aspen. I stared at the man. Aghast. Shocked to the core.

‘You, Jeeves?’ I said, and I should rather think Caesar spoke in the same sort of voice on finding Brutus puncturing him with the sharp instrument. ‘You mean to tell me it was you who deliberately, if that’s the word I want –’

‘Yes, sir. It seemed to me the most judicious course to pursue. It would not have been prudent, in my opinion, to have allowed Mrs Little, in her present frame of mind, to witness Mr Little eating a meal on the scale which he outlined in his remarks this morning.’

I saw his point.

‘True, Jeeves,’ I said thoughtfully. ‘I see what you mean. If young Bingo has a fault, it is that, when in the society of a sandwich, he is apt to get a bit rough. I’ve picnicked with him before, many a time and oft, and his method of approach to the ordinary tongue or ham sandwich rather resembles that of the lion, the king of beasts, tucking into an antelope. Add lobster and cold chicken, and I admit the spectacle might have been something of a jar for the consort … Still … all the same … nevertheless –’

‘And there is anther aspect of the matter, sir.’

‘What’s that?’

‘A day spent without nourishment in the keen autumnal air may induce in Mrs Little a frame of mind not altogether in sympathy with Miss Pyke’s view on diet.’

‘You mean, hunger will gnaw and she’ll be apt to bite at the Pyke when she talks about how jolly it is for the gastric juices to get a day off?’

‘Exactly, sir.’

I shook the head. I hated to damp the man’s pretty enthusiasm, but it had to be done.

‘Abandon the idea, Jeeves,’ I said. ‘I fear you have not studied the sex as I have. Missing her lunch means little or nothing to the female of the species. The feminine attitude towards lunch is notoriously airy and casual. Where you have made your bloomer is in confusing lunch with tea. Hell, it is well known, has no fury like a woman who wants her tea and can’t get it. At such times the most amiable of the sex become mere bombs which a spark may ignite. But lunch, Jeeves, no. I should have thought you would have known that – a bird of your established intelligence.’

‘No doubt you are right, sir.’

‘If you could somehow arrange for Mrs Little to miss her tea … but these are idle dreams, Jeeves. By tea-time she will be back at the old home, in the midst of plenty. It only takes an hour to do the trip. The last race is over shortly after four. By five o’clock Mrs Little will have her feet tucked under the table and will be revelling in buttered toast. I am sorry, Jeeves, but your scheme was a wash-out from the start. No earthly. A dud.’

‘I appreciate the point you have raised, sir. What you say is extremely true.’

‘Unfortunately. Well, there it is. The only thing to do seems to be to get back to the course and try to skin a bookie or two and forget.’

Well, the long day wore on, so to speak. I can’t say I enjoyed myself much. I was distrait, if you know what I mean. Preoccupied. From time to time assorted clusters of spavined local horses clumped down the course with farmers on top of them, but I watched them with a languid eye. To get them into the spirit of one of these rural meetings it is essential that the subject have a good, fat lunch inside him. Subtract the lunch, and what ensues? Ennui. Not once but many times during the afternoon I found myself thinking hard thoughts about Jeeves. The man seemed to me to be losing his grip. A child could have told him that that footling scheme of his would not have got him anywhere.

I mean to say, when you reflect that the average woman considers she has lunched luxuriously if she swallows a couple of macaroons, half a chocolate éclair and a raspberry vinegar, is she going to be peevish because you do her out of a midday sandwich? Of course not. Perfectly ridiculous. Too silly for words. All that Jeeves had accomplished by his bally trying to be clever was to give me a feeling as if foxes were gnawing my vitals and a strong desire for home.

It was a relief, therefore, when, as the shades of evening were beginning to fall, Mrs Bingo announced her intention of calling it a day and shifting.

‘Would you mind very much missing the last race, Mr Wooster?’ she asked.

‘I am all for it,’ I replied cordially. ‘The last race means little or nothing in my life. Besides, I am a shilling and sixpence ahead of the game, and the time to leave off is when you’re winning.’

‘Laura and I thought we would go home. I feel I should like an early cup of tea. Bingo says he will stay on. So I thought you could drive our car, and he would follow later in yours, with Jeeves.’

‘Right ho.’

‘You know the way?’

‘Oh yes. Main road as far as that turning by the pond, and then across country.’

‘I can direct you from there.’

I sent Jeeves to fetch the car, and presently we were bowling off in good shape. The short afternoon had turned into a rather chilly, misty sort of evening, the kind of evening that sends a fellow’s thoughts straying off in the direction of hot Scotch-and-water with a spot of
lemon
in it. I put the foot firmly on the accelerator, and we did the five or six miles of main road in quick time.

Turning eastwards at the pond, I had to go a bit slower, for we had struck a wildish stretch of country where the going wasn’t so good. I don’t know any part of England where you feel so off the map as on the by-roads of Norfolk. Occasionally we would meet a cow or two, but otherwise we had the world pretty much to ourselves.

I began to think about that drink again, and the more I thought the better it looked. It’s rummy how people differ in this matter of selecting the beverage that is to touch the spot. It’s what Jeeves would call the psychology of the individual. Some fellows in my position might have voted for a tankard of ale, and the Pyke’s idea of a refreshing snort was, as I knew from what she had told me on the journey out, a cupful of tepid pip-and-peel water or, failing that, what she called the fruit-liquor. You make this, apparently, by soaking raisins in cold water and adding the juice of a lemon. After which, I suppose, you invite a couple of old friends in and have an orgy, burying the bodies in the morning.

Personally, I had no doubts. I never wavered. Hot Scotch-and-water was the stuff for me – stressing the Scotch, if you know what I mean, and going fairly easy on the H
₂
O. I seemed to see the beaker smiling at me across the misty fields, beckoning me on, as it were, and saying ‘Courage, Bertram! It will not be long now!’ And with renewed energy I bunged the old foot down on the accelerator and tried to send the needle up to sixty.

Instead of which, if you follow my drift, the bally thing flickered for a moment to thirty-five and then gave the business up as a bad job. Quite suddenly and unexpectedly, no one more surprised than myself, the car let out a faint gurgle like a sick moose and stopped in its tracks. And there we were, somewhere in Norfolk, with darkness coming on and a cold wind that smelled of guano and dead mangel-wurzels playing searchingly about the spinal column.