The Jeeves Omnibus - Vol 3 (81 page)

‘Rather well put, that Jeeves. Your own?’

‘No, sir. The Swan of Avon, sir.’

An unseen hand without tootled on the bell, and I braced myself to play the host. The binge was on.

‘Mrs Wilberforce, sir,’ announced Jeeves.

‘And how I’m to keep a straight face with you standing behind and saying “Madam, can I tempt you with a potato?” is more than I know,’ said the aunt, sailing in, looking larger and pinker and matier than ever. ‘I know him, you know,’ she said, jerking
a
thumb after Jeeves. ‘He’s been round and taken tea with us.’

‘So he told me.’

She gave the sitting room the once-over.

‘You’ve got a nice place here,’ she said. ‘Though I like more pink about. It’s so cheerful. What’s that you’ve got there? Cocktails?’

‘Martini with a spot of absinthe,’ I said, beginning to pour.

She gave a girlish squeal.

‘Don’t you try to make me drink that stuff! Do you know what would happen if I touched one of those things? I’d be racked with pain. What they do to the lining of your stomach!’

‘Oh, I don’t know.’

‘I do. If you had been a barmaid as long as I was, you’d know, too.’

‘Oh – er – were you a barmaid?’

‘For years, when I was younger than I am. At the Criterion.’

I dropped the shaker.

‘There!’ she said, pointing the moral. ‘That’s through drinking that stuff. Makes your hand wobble. What I always used to say to the boys was, “Port, if you like. Port’s wholesome. I appreciate a drop of port myself. But these new-fangled messes from America, no.” But they would never listen to me.’

I was eyeing her warily. Of course, there must have been thousands of barmaids at the Criterion in its time, but still it gave one a bit of a start. It was years ago that Uncle George’s dash at a
mésalliance
had occurred – long before he came into the title – but the Wooster clan still quivered at the name of the Criterion.

‘Er – when you were at the Cri,’ I said, ‘did you ever happen to run into a fellow of my name?’

‘I’ve forgotten what it is. I’m always silly about names.’

‘Wooster.’

‘Wooster! When you were there yesterday I thought you said Foster. Wooster! Did I run into a fellow named Wooster? Well! Why, George Wooster and me – Piggy, I used to call him – were going off to the registrar’s, only his family heard of it and interfered. They offered me a lot of money to give him up, and, like a silly girl, I let them persuade me. If I’ve wondered once what became of him, I’ve wondered a thousand times. Is he a relation of yours?’

‘Excuse me,’ I said. ‘I just want a word with Jeeves.’

I legged it for the pantry.

‘Jeeves!’

‘Sir?’

‘Do you know what’s happened?’

‘No, sir.’

‘This female –’

‘Sir?’

‘She’s Uncle George’s barmaid!’

‘Sir?’

‘Oh, dash it, you must have heard of Uncle George’s barmaid. You know all the family history. The barmaid he wanted to marry years ago.’

‘Ah, yes, sir.’

‘She’s the only woman he ever loved. He’s told me so a million times. Every time he gets to the fourth whisky-and-potash, he always becomes maudlin about this female. What a dashed bit of bad luck! The first thing we know, the call of the past will be echoing in his heart. I can feel it, Jeeves. She’s just his sort. The first thing she did when she came in was to start talking about the lining of her stomach. You see the hideous significance of that, Jeeves? The lining of his stomach is Uncle George’s favourite topic of conversation. It means that he and she are kindred souls. This woman and he will be like –’

‘Deep calling to deep, sir?’

‘Exactly.’

‘Most disturbing, sir.’

‘What’s to be done?’

‘I could not say, sir.’

‘I’ll tell you what I’m going to do – ‘phone him and say the lunch is off.’

‘Scarcely feasible, sir. I fancy that is his lordship at the door now.’

And so it was. Jeeves let him in, and I followed him as he navigated down the passage to the sitting room. There was a stunned silence as he went in, and then a couple of the startled yelps you hear when old buddies get together after long separation.

‘Piggy!’

‘Maudie!’

‘Well, I never!’

‘Well, I’m dashed!’

‘Did you ever!’

‘Well, bless my soul!’

‘Fancy you being Lord Yaxley!’

‘Came into the title soon after we parted.’

‘Just to think!’

‘You could have knocked me down with a feather!’

I hung about in the offing, now on this leg, now on that. For all the notice they took of me, I might just as well have been the late Bertram Wooster, disembodied.

‘Maudie, you don’t look a day older, dash it!’

‘Nor do you, Piggy.’

‘How have you been all these years?’

‘Pretty well. The lining of my stomach isn’t all it should be.’

‘Good Gad! You don’t say so? I have trouble with the lining of
my
stomach.’

‘It’s a sort of heavy feeling after meals.’

‘
I
get a sort of heavy feeling after meals. What are you trying for it?’

‘I’ve been taking Perkins’ Digestine.’

‘My dear girl, no use! No use at all. Tried it myself for years and got no relief. Now, if you really want something that is some good –’

I slid away. The last I saw of them, Uncle George was down beside her on the Chesterfield, buzzing hard.

‘Jeeves,’ I said, tottering into the pantry.

‘Sir?’

‘There will only be two for lunch. Count me out. If they notice I’m not there, tell them I was called away by an urgent ’phone message. The situation has got beyond Bertram, Jeeves. You will find me at the Drones.’

‘Very good, sir.’

It was latish in the evening when one of the waiters came to me as I played a distrait game of snooker pool and informed me that Aunt Agatha was on the ’phone.

‘Bertie!’

‘Hullo?’

I was amazed to note that her voice was that of an aunt who feels that things are breaking right. It had the birdlike trill.

‘Bertie, have you that cheque I gave you?’

‘Yes.’

‘Then tear it up. It will not be needed.’

‘Eh?’

‘I say it will not be needed. Your uncle has been speaking to me on the telephone. He is not going to marry that girl.’

‘Not?’

‘No. Apparently he has been thinking it over and sees how
unsuitable
it would have been. But what is astonishing is that he
is
going to be married!’

‘He is?’

‘Yes, to an old friend of his, a Mrs Wilberforce. A woman of a sensible age, he gave me to understand. I wonder which Wilberforces that would be. There are two main branches of the family – the Essex Wilberforces and the Cumberland Wilberforces. I believe there is also a cadet branch somewhere in Shropshire.’

‘And one in East Dulwich.’

‘What did you say?’

‘Nothing,’ I said. ‘Nothing.’

I hung up. Then back to the old flat, feeling a trifle sandbagged.

‘Well, Jeeves,’ I said, and there was censure in the eyes. ‘So I gather everything is nicely settled?’

‘Yes, sir. His lordship formally announced the engagement between the sweet and cheese courses, sir.’

‘He did, did he?’

‘Yes, sir.’

I eyed the man sternly.

‘You do not appear to be aware of it, Jeeves,’ I said, in a cold, level voice, ‘but this binge has depreciated your stock very considerably. I have always been accustomed to look upon you as a counsellor without equal. I have, so to speak, hung upon your lips. And now see what you have done. All this is the direct consequence of your scheme, based on the psychology of the individual. I should have thought, Jeeves, that, knowing the woman – meeting her socially, as you might say, over the afternoon cup of tea – you might have ascertained that she was Uncle George’s barmaid.’

‘I did, sir.’

‘What!’

‘I was aware of the fact, sir.’

‘Then you must have known what would happen if she came to lunch and met him.’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Well, I’m dashed!’

‘If I might explain, sir. The young man Smethurst, who is greatly attached to the young person, is an intimate friend of mine. He applied to me some little while back in the hope that I might be able to do something to ensure that the young person followed the dictates of her heart and refrained from permitting herself to be lured by gold and the glamour of his lordship’s position. There will now be no obstacle to their union.’

‘I see. “Little acts of unremembered kindness,” what?’

‘Precisely, sir.’

‘And how about Uncle George? You’ve landed him pretty nicely in the cart.’

‘No, sir, if I may take the liberty of opposing your view. I fancy that Mrs Wilberforce should make an ideal mate for his lordship. If there was a defect in his lordship’s mode of life, it was that he was a little unduly attached to the pleasures of the table –’

‘Ate like a pig, you mean?’

‘I would not have ventured to put it in quite that way, sir, but the expression does meet the facts of the case. He was also inclined to drink rather more than his medical adviser would have approved of. Elderly bachelors who are wealthy and without occupation tend somewhat frequently to fall into this error, sir. The future Lady Yaxley will check this. Indeed, I overheard her ladyship saying as much as I brought in the fish. She was commenting on a certain puffiness of the face which had been absent in his lordship’s appearance in the earlier days of their acquaintanceship, and she observed that his lordship needed looking after. I fancy, sir, that you will find the union will turn out an extremely satisfactory one.’

It was – what’s the word I want? – it was plausible, of course, but still I shook the onion.

‘But, Jeeves!’

‘Sir?’

‘She
is
, as you remarked not long ago, definitely of the people.’

He looked at me in a reproachful sort of way.

‘Sturdy lower-middle-class stock, sir.’

‘H’m!’

‘Sir?’

‘I said “H’m!” Jeeves.’

‘Besides, sir, remembering what the poet Tennyson said: “Kind hearts are more than coronets”.’

‘And which of us is going to tell Aunt Agatha that?’

‘If I might make the suggestion, sir, I would advise that we omitted to communicate with Mrs Spenser Gregson in any way. I have your suitcase practically packed. It would be a matter of but a few minutes to bring the car round from the garage –’

‘And off over the horizon to where men are men?’

‘Precisely, sir.’

‘Jeeves,’ I said. ‘I’m not sure that even now I can altogether see eye to eye with you regarding your recent activities. You think you have scattered light and sweetness on every side. I am not so sure.
However
, with this latest suggestion you have rung the bell. I examine it narrowly and I find no flaw in it. It is the goods. I’ll get the car at once.’

‘Very good, sir.

‘Remember what the poet Shakespeare said, Jeeves.’

‘What was that, sir?’

‘“Exit hurriedly, pursued by a bear.” You’ll find it in one of his plays. I remember drawing a picture of it on the side of the page, when I was at school.’

‘WHAT-HO, JEEVES!’ I
said, entering the room where he waded knee-deep in suitcases and shirts and winter suitings, like a sea-beast among rocks. ‘Packing?’

‘Yes, sir,’ replied the honest fellow, for there are no secrets between us.

‘Pack on!’ I said approvingly. ‘Pack, Jeeves, pack with care. Pack in the presence of the passenjare.’ And I rather fancy I added the words ‘Tra-la!’ for I was in merry mood.

Every year, starting about the middle of November, there is a good deal of anxiety and apprehension among owners of the better-class of country-house throughout England as to who will get Bertram Wooster’s patronage for Christmas holidays. It may be one or it may be another. As my Aunt Dahlia says, you never know where the blow will fall.

This year, however, I had decided early. It couldn’t have been later than Nov. 10 when a sigh of relief went up from a dozen stately homes as it became known that the short straw had been drawn by Sir Reginald Witherspoon, Bart, of Bleaching Court, Upper Bleaching, Hants.

In coming to the decision to give this Witherspoon my custom, I had been actuated by several reasons, not counting the fact that, having married Aunt Dahlia’s husband’s younger sister Katherine, he is by way of being a sort of uncle of mine. In the first place, the Bart does one extraordinarily well, both browsing and sluicing being above criticism. Then, again, his stables always contain something worth riding, which is a consideration. And, thirdly, there is no danger of getting lugged into a party of amateur Waits and having to tramp the countryside in the rain, singing, ‘When Shepherds Watched Their Flocks By Night.’ Or for the matter of that, ‘Noel! Noel!’

All these things counted with me, but what really drew me to
Bleaching
Court like a magnet was the knowledge that young Tuppy Glossop would be among those present.

I feel sure I have told you before about this black-hearted bird, but I will give you the strength of it once again, just to keep the records straight. He was the fellow, if you remember, who, ignoring a lifelong friendship in the course of which he had frequently eaten my bread and salt, betted me one night at the Drones that I wouldn’t swing myself across the swimming-bath by the ropes and rings and then, with almost inconceivable treachery, went and looped back the last ring, causing me to drop into the fluid and ruin one of the nattiest suits of dress-clothes in London.

To execute a fitting vengeance on this bloke had been the ruling passion of my life ever since.

‘You are bearing in mind, Jeeves,’ I said, ‘the fact that Mr Glossop will be at Bleaching?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘And, consequently, are not forgetting to put in the Giant Squirt?’

‘No, sir.’

‘Nor the Luminous Rabbit?’

‘No, sir.’

‘Good! I am rather pinning my faith on the Luminous Rabbit, Jeeves. I hear excellent reports of it on all sides. You wind it up and put it in somebody’s room in the night watches, and it shines in the dark and jumps about, making odd, squeaking noises the while. The whole performance being, I should imagine, well calculated to scare young Tuppy into a decline.’