I felt that we were wandering from the nub. This was no time for desultory chit-chat about cooking sherry.
‘But, look here, dash it, I can understand Jeeves’s reasons for backing out, but I can’t see why you had to come.’
He raised a couple of eyebrows.
‘You can’t see why I had to come? Didn’t you yourself say with your own lips, when we were discussing the idea of me understudying Gussie, that this was the one place where I ought to be? It’s vital that I should be on the spot, seeing Gertrude constantly, pleading with her, reasoning with her, trying to break down her sales resistance.’ He paused, and gave me a penetrating look. ‘You’ve nothing against my being here, have you?’
‘Well …’
‘So!’ he said, and his voice was cold and hard, like a picnic egg. ‘You have some far-fetched objection to the scheme, have you? You don’t want me to win the girl I love?’
‘Of course I want you to win the bally girl you love.’
‘Well, I can’t do it by mail.’
‘But I don’t see why you’ve got to be at the Hall. Why couldn’t you have stayed at the Vicarage?’
‘You couldn’t expect Uncle Sidney to have Corky and me on the premises. The mixture would be too rich.’
‘At the inn, then.’
‘There isn’t an inn. Only what they call beer-houses.’
‘You could have got a bed at a cottage.’
‘And shared it with the cottager? No, thanks. How many beds do you think these birds have?’
I relapsed into a baffled silence. But it is never any good repining on these occasions. When I next spoke, I doubt if Catsmeat spotted the suspicion of a tremor in the voice. We Woosters are like that. In moments of mental anguish we resemble those Red Indians who, while getting cooked to a crisp at the stake, never failed to be the life and soul of the party.
‘Have you seen her?’ I asked.
‘Gertrude? Yes, just before I came up here. I was in the hall, and she suddenly appeared from the drawing room.’
‘I suppose she was surprised.’
‘Surprised is right. She swayed and tottered. Queenie said “Oh, miss, are you ill?” and rushed off to get sal volatile.’
‘Oh, Queenie was there?’
‘Yes, Queenie was there with her hair in a braid. She had just been telling me how worried she was about her betrothed’s spiritual outlook. He’s an atheist.’
‘So Corky told me.’
‘And every time she tries to make him see the light, he just twirls his moustache and talks Ingersoll at her. This upsets the poor girl.’
‘She’s very pretty.’
‘Extraordinarily pretty. I don’t remember ever having seen a prettier parlourmaid.’
‘Gertrude. Not Queenie.’
‘Oh, Gertrude. Well, dash it, you don’t need to tell me that. She’s the top. She begins where Helen of Troy left off.’
‘Did you get a chance to talk to her?’
‘Unfortunately no. A couple of aunts came out of the drawing room, and I had to leg it. That’s the trouble about being a valet. You can’t mix. By the way, Bertie, I’ve found out something of the utmost importance. That Lovers’ Leap binge is fixed for next Thursday. Queenie told me. She’s cutting the sandwiches. I hope you haven’t weakened? You are still in your splendid, resolute frame of mind of yesterday? I can rely on you to foil and battle that foul blot, Esmond Haddock?’
‘I like Esmond Haddock.’
‘Then you ought to be ashamed of yourself.’
I smiled an indulgent smile.
‘It’s all right, Catsmeat You can simmer down. Gertrude Winkworth means nothing to Esmond Haddock. He’s not really pursuing her with his addresses.’
‘Don’t be an ass. How about the Lovers’ Leap? What price the sandwiches?’
‘All that stuff is just to make Corky jealous.’
‘What!’
‘He thinks it will bring her round. You see, he didn’t give Corky the brush-off. You had your facts twisted. She gave him the brush-off, because they had differed on a point of policy, and she is still the lodestar of his life. I had this from his own lips. We got matey over the port. So you can cease to regard him as a menace.’
He gaped at me. You could see hope beginning to dawn.
‘Is this official?’
‘Absolutely.’
‘You say Corky is the lodestar of his life?’
‘That’s what he told me.’
‘And all this rushing Gertrude is just a ruse?’
‘That’s right.’
Catsmeat expelled a deep breath. It sounded like the final effort of a Dying Rooster.
‘My gosh, you’ve taken a weight off my mind.’
‘I thought you’d be pleased.’
‘You bet I’m pleased. Well, good night.’
‘You’re off?’
‘Yes, I shall leave you now, Bertie, much as I enjoy your society, because I have man’s work to do elsewhere. When I was chatting with Queenie, she happened to mention that she knows where Uncle Charlie keeps the key of the cellar. So long. I shall hope to see more of you later.’
‘Just a second. Will you be seeing Corky shortly?’
‘First thing tomorrow morning. I must let her know I’m here and put her in touch with the general situation, so that she will be warned against making any floaters. Why?’
‘Tell her from me that she has got to find somebody else for Pat.’
‘You’re walking out on the act?’
‘Yes, I am,’ I said, and put him abreast.
He listened intelligently, and said he quite understood.
‘I see. Yes, I think you’re right. I’ll tell her.’
He withdrew, walking on the tips of his toes and conveying in his manner the suggestion that if he had had a hat and that hat had contained roses, he would have started strewing them from it, and for a while the thought that I had been instrumental in re-sunshining a pal’s life bucked me up no little.
But it takes more than that to buck a fellow up permanently who is serving an indeterminate sentence in a place like Deverill Hall, and it was not long before I was in sombre mood again, trying to find the bluebird but missing it by a wide margin.
I have generally found on these occasions when the heart is heavy that the best thing to do is to curl up with a good goose-flesher and try to forget, and fortunately I had packed among my effects one called Murder At Greystone Grange. I started to turn its pages now, and found that I couldn’t have made a sounder move. It was one of those works in which Baronets are constantly being discovered dead in libraries and the heroine can’t turn in for a night without a Thing popping through a panel in the wall of her bedroom and starting to chuck its weight about, and it was not long before I was so soothed that I was able to switch off the light and fall into a refreshing sleep, which lasted, as my refreshing sleeps always do, till the coming of the morning cup of tea.
My last thought, just before the tired eyelids closed, was that I had had an idea that I had heard the front-door bell ring and a murmur of distant voices, seeming to indicate the blowing-in of another guest.
It was Silversmith who brought me my tea ration, and though his manner, on the chilly side, suggested that the overnight activities of Sam Goldwyn still rankled, I had a dash at setting the conversational ball rolling. I always like, if I can, to establish matey relations between tea bringer and tea recipient.
‘Oh, good morning, Silversmith, good morning,’ I said. ‘What sort of a day is it, Silversmith? Fine?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘The lark on the wing and the snail on the thorn and all that?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Splendid. Oh, Silversmith,’ I said, ‘I don’t know if it was but a dream, but latish last night I fancied I heard the front-door bell doing its stuff and a good lot of off-stage talking going on. Was I right? Did someone arrive after closing time?’
‘Yes, sir. Mr Wooster.’
He gave m
e a cold look, as if to remind me that he would prefer not to be drawn into conversation with the man responsible for introducing Sam Goldwyn into his life, and vanished, leaving not a wrack behind.
And it was, as you may well imagine, a pensive Bertram with a puzzled frown on his face who propped himself against the pillows and sipped from the teacup. I could make nothing of this.
‘Mr Wooster’, the man had said, and only two explanations seemed to offer themselves – (a) that, like the fellows in the train at Wembley, I had not heard correctly and (b) that I had recently been in the presence of a butler who had been having a couple.
Neither theory satisfied me. From boyhood up my hearing has always been of the keenest, and as for the possibility of Silversmith having had one over the eight, I dismissed that instanter. It is a very frivolous butler who gets a load before nine in the morning, and I have gone sadly astray in my delineation of character if I have given my public the impression that Jeeves’s Uncle Charlie was frivolous. You could imagine Little Lord Fauntleroy getting a skinful, but not Silversmith.
And yet he had unquestionably said ‘Mr Wooster’.
I was still pondering like billy-o and nowhere near spiking a plausible solution of the mystery, when the door opened and the ghost of Jeeves entered, carrying a breakfast tray.
8
* * *
I SAY ‘THE ghost of Jeeves’ because in that first awful moment that was what I had the apparition docketed as. The words ‘What ho! A spectre!’ trembled on my lips, and I reacted rather like the heroine of Murder At Greystone Grange on discovering that the Thing had come to doss in her room. I don’t know if you have ever seen a ghost, but the general effect is to give you quite a start.
Then the scent of bacon floated to the nostrils, and feeling that it was improbable that a wraith would be horsing about the place with dishes of eggs and b., I calmed down a bit. That is to say, I stopped upsetting the tea and was able to stutter. It is true that all I said was ‘Jeeves!’ but that wasn’t such bad going for one whose tongue had so recently been tangled up with the uvula, besides cleaving to the roof of the mouth.
He dumped the tray on my lap.
‘Good morning, sir,’ he said. ‘I fancied that you would possibly wish to enjoy your breakfast in the privacy of your apartment, rather than make one of the party in the dining room.’
Cognizant as I was of the fact that in that dining room there would be five aunts, one of them deaf, one of them dotty, one of them Dame Daphne Winkworth, and all of them totally unfit for human consumption on an empty stomach, I applauded the kindly gesture; all the more heartily because it had just occurred to me that in a house like this, where things were sure to be run on old-fashioned lines rather than in a manner of keeping with the trend of modern thought, the butler probably waited at the breakfast table.
‘Does he?’ I asked. ‘Does Silversmith minister to the revellers at the morning meal?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘My God!’ I said, paling beneath the tan. ‘What a man, Jeeves!’
‘Sir?’
‘Your Uncle Charlie.’
‘Ah, yes, sir. A forceful personality.’
‘Forceful is correct. What’s that thing of Shakespeare’s about someone having an eye like Mother’s?’
‘An eye like Mars, to threaten and command, is possibly the quotation for which you are groping, sir.’
‘That’s right. Uncle Charlie has an eye like that. You really call him Uncle Charlie?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Amazing. To me, to think of him as Uncle Charlie is like thinking of him as Jimmy or Reggie, or, for the matter of that, Bertie. Used he in your younger days to dandle you on his knee?’
‘Quite frequently, sir.’
‘And you didn’t quail? You must have been a child of blood and iron.’ I addressed myself to the platter once more. ‘Extraordinarily good bacon, this, Jeeves.’
‘Home cured, I understand, sir.’
‘And made, no doubt, from contented pigs. Kippers, too, not to mention toast, marmalade and, unless my senses deceive me, an apple. Say what you will of Deverill Hall, its hospitality is lavish. I don’t know if you have ever noticed it, Jeeves, but a good, spirited kipper first thing in the morning seems to put heart into you.’
‘Very true, sir, though I myself am more partial to a slice of ham.’
For some moments we discussed the relative merits of ham and kippers as buckers-up of the morale, there being much, of course, to be said on both sides, and then I touched on something which I had been meaning to touch on earlier. I can’t think how it came to slip my mind.
‘Oh, Jeeves,’ I said, ‘I knew there was something I wanted to ask you. What in the name of everything bloodsome are you doing here?’
‘I fancied that you might possibly be curious on that point, sir, and I was about to volunteer an explanation. I have come here in attendance on Mr Fink-Nottle. Permit me, sir.’
He retrieved the slab of kipper which a quick jerk of the wrist had caused me to send flying from the fork, and replaced it on the dish. I stared at him wide-eyed as the expression is.
‘Mr Fink-Nottle?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘But Gussie’s not here?’
‘Yes. sir. We arrived at a somewhat late hour last night.’
A sudden blinding light flashed upon me.
‘You mean it was Gussie to whom Uncle Charlie was referring when he said that Mr Wooster had punched the time-clock? I’m here saying I’m Gussie, and now Gussie has blown in, saying he’s me?’
‘Precisely, sir. It is a curious and perhaps somewhat complex situation that has been precipitated –’
‘You’re telling me, Jeeves!’
Only the fact that by doing so I should have upset the tray prevented me turning my face to the wall. When Esmond Haddock in our exchanges over the port had spoken of the times that try men’s souls, he hadn’t had a notion of what the times that try men’s souls can really be, if they spit on their hands and get right down to it. I levered up a forkful of kipper and passed it absently over the larynx, endeavouring to adjust the faculties to a set-up which even the most intrepid would have had to admit was a honey.
‘But how did Gussie get out of stir?’
‘The magistrate decided on second thoughts to substitute a fine for the prison sentence, sir.’
‘What made him do that?’
‘Possibly the reflection that the quality of mercy is not strained, sir.’
‘You mean it droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven?’
‘Precisely, sir. Upon the place beneath. His Worship would no doubt have taken into consideration the fact that it blesseth him that gives and him that takes and becomes the throned monarch better than his crown.’
I mused. Yes, there was something in that.
‘What did he soak him? Five quid?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘And Gussie brassed up and was free?’
‘Yes, sir.’
I put my finger on the nub.
‘Why?’ I said.
I thought I had him there, but I hadn’t. Where a lesser man would have shuffled his feet and twiddled his finger and mumbled ‘Yes, I see what you mean, that is the problem, is it not?’ he had his explanation all ready to serve and dished it up without batting an eyelid.
‘It was the only course to pursue, sir. On the one hand, her ladyship, your aunt, was most emphatic in her desire that you should visit the hall, and on the other Miss Bassett was equally insistent on Mr Fink-Nottle doing so. In the event of either of you failing to arrive, inquiries would have been instituted, with disastrous results. To take but one aspect of the matter, Miss Bassett is expecting to receive daily letters from Mr Fink-Nottle, giving her all the gossip of the hall and describing in detail his life there. These will, of course, have to be written on the hall notepaper and postmarked “King’s Deverill”.’
‘True. You speak sooth, Jeeves. I never thought of that.’
/> I swallowed a sombre chunk of toast and marmalade. I was thinking how easily all this complex stuff could have been avoided, if only the beak had had the sense to fine Gussie in the first place, instead of as an afterthought. I have said it before, and I will say it again, all magistrates are asses. Show me a magistrate and I will show you a fathead.
I started on the apple.
‘So here we are.’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘I’m Gussie and Gussie’s me.’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘And ceaseless vigilance will be required if we are not to gum the game. We shall be walking on eggshells.’
‘A very trenchant figure, sir.’
I finished the apple, and lit a thoughtful cigarette.
‘Well, I suppose it had to be,’ I said. ‘But lay off the Marcus Aurelius stuff, because I don’t think I could stand it if you talk about it all being part of the great web. How’s Gussie taking the thing?’
‘Not blithely, sir. I should describe him as disgruntled. I learn from Mr Pirbright –’
‘Oh, you’ve seen Catsmeat?’
‘Yes, sir, in the servants’ hall. He was helping Queenie, the parlourmaid, with her crossword puzzle. He informed me that he had contrived to obtain an interview with Miss Pirbright and had apprised her of your reluctance to play the part of Pat in the Hibernian entertainment at the concert, and that Miss Pirbright fully appreciated your position and said that now that Mr Fink-Nottle had arrived he would, of course, sustain the role. Mr Pirbright has seen Mr Fink-Nottle and informed him of the arrangement, and it is this that has caused Mr Fink-Nottle to become disgruntled.’
‘He shrinks from the task?’
‘Yes, sir. He is also somewhat exercised in his mind by what he had heard the ladies of the hall saying with regard to –’
‘My doings?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘The dog?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘The port?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘And the hallo, hallo, a-hunting we will go?’
‘Yes, sir.’
I whooshed out a remorseful puff of smoke.
‘Yes,’ I said, ‘I’m afraid I haven’t given Gussie a very good send-off. Quite inadvertently I fear that I have established him in the eyes of mine hostesses as one of those whited sepulchres which try to kid the public that they drink nothing but orange juice and the moment that public’s back is turned, start doing the Lost Week-End stuff with the port. Of course, I could put up a pretty good case for myself. Esmond Haddock thrust the decanter on me, and I was dying of thirst. You wouldn’t blame a snowbound traveller in the Alps for accepting a drop of brandy at the hands of a St Bernard dog. Still, one hopes that they will keep it under their hats and not pass it along to Miss Bassett. One doesn’t want spanners bunged into Gussie’s romance.’
The Jeeves Omnibus - Vol 3: The Mating Season / Ring for Jeeves / Very Good, Jeeves Page 27
