STIFF UPPER LIP, JEEVES

by Keep A Stiff Upper Lip Jeeves

  There was a cab standing outside, laden with luggage. From its window Gussie Fink-Nottle's head was poking out, and I remember thinking once again how mistaken Emerald Stoker had been about his appearance. Seeing him steadily, if not whole, I could detect in his aspect no trace of the lamb, but he was looking so like a halibut that if he hadn't been wearing horn-rimmed spectacles, a thing halibuts seldom do, I might have supposed myself to be gazing on something a.w.o.l. from a fishmonger's slab.

  I gave him a friendly yodel, and he turned the spectacles in my direction.

  'Oh, hullo, Bertie,' he said, 'I've just been calling on you. I left a message with Jeeves. Your aunt told me to tell you she's coming to London the day after tomorrow and she wants you to give her lunch.'

  'Yes, she was on the phone to that effect this morning. I suppose she thought you'd forget to notify me. Come in and have some orange juice,' I said, for it is to that muck that he confines himself whilst making whoopee.

  He looked at his watch, and his eyes lost the gleam that always comes into them when orange juice is mentioned.

  'I wish I could, but I can't,' he sighed. 'I should miss my train. I'm off to Totleigh on the four o'clock at Paddington.'

  'Oh, really? Well, look out for a friend of yours, who'll be on it. Emerald Stoker.'

  'Stoker? Stoker? Emerald Stoker?'

  'Girl with freckles. American. Looks like a Pekinese of the better sort. She tells me she met you at a studio party the other day, and you talked about newts.'

  His face cleared.

  'Of course, yes. Now I've placed her. I didn't get her name that day. Yes, we had a long talk about newts. She used to keep them herself as a child, only she called them guppies. A most delightful girl. I shall enjoy seeing her again. I don't know when I've met a girl who attracted me more.'

  'Except, of course, Madeline '

  His face darkened. He looked like a halibut that's taken offense at a rude remark from another halibut.

  'Madeline! Don't talk to me about Madeline! Madeline makes me sick! he hissed. 'Paddington!' he shouted to the charioteer and was gone with the wind, leaving me gaping after him, all of a twitter.

  4

  And I'll tell you why I was all of a t. My critique of her when chatting with Emerald Stoker will have shown how allergic I was to this Bassett beazel. She was scarcely less of a pain in the neck to me than I was to her father or Roderick Spode. Nevertheless, there was a grave danger that I might have to take her for better or for worse, as the book of rules puts it.

  The facts may be readily related. Gussie, enamoured of the Bassett, would have liked to let her in on the way he felt, but every time he tried to do so his nerve deserted him and he found himself babbling about newts. At a loss to know how to swing the deal, he got the idea of asking me to plead his cause, and when I pleaded it, the Bassett, as pronounced a fathead as ever broke biscuit, thought I was pleading mine. She said she was so sorry to cause me pain, but her heart belonged to Gussie. Which would have been fine, had she not gone on to say that if anything should ever happen to make her revise her conviction that he was a king among men and she was compelled to give him the heave-ho, I was the next in line, and while she could never love me with the same fervour she felt for Gussie, she would do her best to make me happy. I was, in a word, in the position of a Vice-President of the United States of America who, while feeling that he is all right so far, knows that he will be for it at a moment's notice if anything goes wrong with the man up top.

  Little wonder, then, that Gussie's statement that Madeline made him sick smote me like a ton of bricks and had me indoors and bellowing for Jeeves before you could say What ho. As had so often happened before, I felt that my only course was to place myself in the hands of a higher power.

  'Sir?' he said, manifesting himself.

  'A ghastly thing has happened, Jeeves! Disaster looms.'

  'Indeed, sir? I am sorry to hear that.'

  There's one thing you have to give Jeeves credit for. He lets the dead past bury its d. He and the young master may have had differences about Alpine hats with pink feathers in them, but when he sees the y.m. on the receiving end of the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, he sinks his dudgeon and comes through with the feudal spirit at its best. So now, instead of being cold and distant and aloof, as a lesser man would have been, he showed the utmost agitation and concern. That is to say, he allowed one eyebrow to rise perhaps an eighth of an inch, which is as far as he ever goes in the way of expressing emotion.

  'What would appear to be the trouble, sir?'

  I sank into a chair and mopped the frontal bone. Not for many a long day had I been in such a doodah. 'I've just seen Gussie Fink-Nottle.'

  'Yes, sir. Mr. Fink-Nottle was here a moment ago.'

  'I met him outside. He was in a cab. And do you know what?'

  'No, sir.'

  'I happened to mention Miss Bassett's name, and he said - follow this closely, Jeeves - he said - I quote - "Don't talk to me about Madeline. Madeline makes me sick." Close quotes.'

  'Indeed, sir?'

  'Those are not the words of love.'

  'No, sir.'

  'They are the words of a man who for some reason not disclosed is fed to the front teeth with the adored object. I hadn't time to go into the matter, because a moment later he was off like a scalded cat to Paddington, but it's pretty clear there must have been a rift in the what-d'you-call-it. Begins with an l.'

  'Would lute be the word for which you are groping, sir?'

  'Possibly. I don't know that I'd care to bet on it.'

  'The poet Tennyson speaks of the little rift within the lute, that by and by will make the music mute and ever widening slowly silence all.'

  'Then lute it is. And we know what's going to happen if this particular lute goes phut.'

  We exchanged significant glances. At least, I gave him a significant glance, and he looked like a stuffed frog, his habit when being discreet. He knows just how I'm situated as regards M. Bassett, but naturally we don't discuss it except by going into the sig-glance-stuffed-frog routine. I mean, you can't talk about a thing like that. I don't know if it would actually come under the head of speaking lightly of a woman's name, but it wouldn't be seemly, and the Woosters are sticklers for seemliness. So, for that matter, are the Jeeveses.

  'What ought I to do, do you think?'

  'Sir?'

  'Don't stand there saying "Sir?" You know as well as I do that a situation has arisen which calls for the immediate coming of all good men to the aid of the party. It is of the essence that Gussie's engagement does not spring a leak. Steps must be taken.'

  'It would certainly seem advisable, sir.'

  'But what steps? I ought, of course, to hasten to the seat of war and try to start the dove of peace going into its act - have a bash, in other words, at seeing what a calm, kindly man of the world can do to bring the young folks together, if you get what I mean.'

  'I apprehend you perfectly, sir. Your role, as I see it, would be that of what the French call the raisonneur?

  'You're probably right. But mark this. Apart from the fact that the mere thought of being under the roof of Totleigh Towers again is one that freezes the gizzard, there's another snag. I was talking to Stinker Pinker just now, and he says that Stiffy Byng has something she wants me to do for her. Well, you know the sort of thing Stiffy generally wants people to do. You recall the episode of Constable Oates's helmet?'

  'Very vividly, sir.'

  'Oates had incurred her displeasure by reporting to her Uncle Watkyn that her dog Bartholomew had spilled him off his bicycle, causing him to fall into a ditch and sustain bruises and contusions, and she persuaded Harold Pinker, a man in holy orders who buttons his collar at the back, to pinch his helmet for her. And that was comparatively mild for Stiffy. There are no limits, literally none, to what she can think of when she gives her mind to it. The imagination boggles at the thought of what she may be cooking up for me.'

  'Certainly you may be
pardoned for feeling apprehensive, sir.'

  'So there you are. I'm on the horns of... what are those things you get on the horns of?'

  'Dilemmas, sir.'

  'That's right. I'm on the horns of a dilemma. Shall I, I ask myself, go and see what I can accomplish in the way of running repairs on the lute, or would it be more prudent to stay put and let nature take its course, trusting to Time, the great healer, to do its stuff?'

  'If I might make a suggestion, sir?'

  'Press on, Jeeves.'

  'Would it not be possible for you to go to Totleigh Towers, but to decline to carry out Miss Byng's wishes?'

  I weighed this. It was, I could see, a thought.

  'Issue a nolle prosequi, you mean? Tell her to go and boil her head?'

  'Precisely, sir.'

  I eyed him reverently.

  'Jeeves,' I said, 'as always, you have found the way. I'll wire Miss Bassett asking if I can come, and I'll wire Aunt Dahlia that I can't give her lunch, as I'm leaving town. And I'll tell Stiffy that whatever she has in mind, she gets no service and co-operation from me Yes Jeeves, you've hit it. I'll go to Totleigh, though the flesh creeps at the prospect. Pop Bassett will be there. Spode will be there. Stiffy will be there. The dog Bartholomew will be there. It makes one wonder why so much fuss has been made about those half-a-league half-a-league half-a-league-onward bimbos who rode into the Valley of Death They weren't going to find Pop Bassett at the other end. Ah well let us hope for the best.''

  'The only course to pursue, sir.'

  'Stiff upper lip, Jeeves, what?'

  'Indubitably, sir. That, if I may say so, is the spirit.'

  5

  As Stinker had predicted, Madeline Bassett placed no obstacle in the way of my visiting Totleigh Towers. In response to my invitation-cadging missive she gave me the green light, and an hour or so after her telegram had arrived Aunt Dahlia rang up from Brinkley, full of eagerness to ascertain what the hell, she having just received my wire saying that owing to absence from the metropolis I would be unable to give her the lunch for which she had been budgeting.

  Her call came as no surprise. I had anticipated that there might be a certain liveliness on the Brinkley front. The old flesh-and-blood is a genial soul who loves her Bertram dearly, but she is a woman of imperious spirit. She dislikes having her wishes thwarted, and her voice came booming at me like a pack of hounds in full cry.

  'Bertie, you foul young blot on the landscape!'

  'Speaking.'

  'I got your telegram.'

  'I thought you would. Very efficient, the gramming service.'

  'What do you mean, you're leaving town? You never leave town except to come down here and wallow in Anatole's cooking.'

  Her allusion was to her peerless French chef, at the mention of whose name the mouth starts watering automatically. God's gift to the gastric juices I have sometimes called him.

  'Where are you going?'

  My mouth having stopped watering, I said I was going to Totleigh Towers, and she uttered an impatient snort.

  'There's something wrong with this blasted wire. It sounded as if you were saying you were going to Totleigh Towers.'

  'I am.'

  'To Totleigh Towers?

  'I leave this afternoon.'

  'What in the world made them invite you?'

  'They didn't. I invited myself.'

  'You mean you're deliberately seeking the society of Sir Watkyn Bassett? You must be more of an ass than even I have ever thought you. And I speak as a woman who has just had the old bounder in her hair for more than a week.'

  I saw her point, and hastened to explain.

  'I admit Pop Bassett is a bit above the odds,' I said, 'and unless one is compelled by circumstances it is always wisest not to stir him, but a sharp crisis has been precipitated in my affairs. All is not well between Gussie Fink-Nottle and Madeline Bassett. Their engagement is tottering toward the melting pot, and you know what that engagement means to me. I'm going down there to try to heal the rift.'

  'What can you do?'

  'My role, as I see it, will be that of what the French call the raisonneur?

  'And what does that mean?'

  'Ah, there you have me, but that's what Jeeves says I'll be.'

  'Are you taking Jeeves with you?'

  'Of course. Do I ever stir foot without him?'

  'Well, watch out, that's all I say to you, watch out. I happen to know that Bassett is making overtures to him.'

  'How do you mean, overtures?'

  'He's trying to steal him from you.'

  I reeled, and might have fallen, had I not been sitting at the time.

  'Incredulous!'

  'If you mean incredible, you're wrong. I told you how he had fallen under Jeeves's spell when he was here. He used to follow him with his eyes as he buttled, like a cat watching a duck, as Anatole would say. And one morning I heard him making him a definite proposition. Well? What's the matter with you? Have you fainted?'

  I told her that my momentary silence had been due to the fact that her words had stunned me, and she said she didn't see why, knowing Bassett, I should be so surprised.

  'You can't have forgotten how he tried to steal Anatole. There isn't anything to which that man won't stoop. He has no conscience whatsoever. When you get to Totleigh, go and see someone called Plank and ask him what he thinks of Sir Watkyn ruddy Bassett. He chiselled this poor devil Plank out of a ... Oh, hell!' said the aged relative as a voice intoned 'Thur-ree minutes', and she hung up, having made my flesh creep as nimbly as if she had been my guardian angel, on whose talent in that direction I have already touched.

  It was still creeping with undiminished gusto as I steered the sports model along the road to Totleigh-in-the-Wold that afternoon. I was convinced, of course, that Jeeves would never dream of severing

  relations with the old firm, and when urged to do so by this blighted Bassett would stop his ears like the deaf adder, which, as you probably know, made a point of refusing to hear the voice of the charmer, charm he never so wisely. But the catch is that you can be convinced about a thing and nevertheless get pretty jumpy when you muse on it, and it was in no tranquil mood that I eased the Arab steed through the gates of Totleigh Towers and fetched up at the front door.

  I don't know if you happen to have come across a hymn, the chorus of which goes:

  Turn tumty tumty tumty Tum tiddly om pom isle, Where every prospect pleases And only man is vile or words to that effect, but the description would have fitted Totleigh Towers like the paper on the wall. Its fa9ade, its spreading grounds, rolling parkland, smoothly shaven lawns and what not were all just like Mother makes, but what percentage was there in that, when you knew what was waiting for you inside? It's never a damn bit of use a prospect pleasing, if the gang that goes with it lets it down.

  This lair of old Bassett's was one of the fairly stately homes of England - not a show place like the joints you read about with three hundred and sixty-five rooms, fifty-two staircases and twelve courtyards, but definitely not a bungalow. He had bought it furnished some time previously from a Lord somebody who needed cash, as so many do these days.

  Not Pop Bassett, though. In the evening of his life he had more than a sufficiency. It would not be going too far, indeed, to describe him as stinking rich. For a great part of his adult life he had been a metropolitan police magistrate, and in that capacity once fined me five quid for a mere light-hearted peccadillo on Boat Race Night, when a mild reprimand would more than have met the case. It was shortly after this that a relative died and left him a vast fortune. That, at least, was the story given out. What really happened, of course, was that all through his years as a magistrate he had been trousering the fines, amassing the stuff in sackfuls. Five quid here, five quid there, it soon mounts up.

  We had made goodish going on the road, and it wasn't more than about four-forty when I rang the front-door bell. Jeeves took the car to the stables, and the butler - Butterfield was his name, I remembered
- led me to the drawing-room.

  'Mr. Wooster,' he said, loosing me in.

  I was not surprised to find tea in progress, for I had heard the clinking of cups. Madeline Bassett was at the controls, and she extended a drooping hand to me. 'Bertie! How nice to see you.'

  I can well imagine that a casual observer, if I had confided to him my qualms at the idea of being married to this girl, would have raised his eyebrows and been at a loss to understand, for she was undeniably an eyeful, being slim, svelte and bountifully equipped with golden hair and all the fixings. But where the casual observer would have been making his bloomer was in overlooking that squashy soupiness of hers, that subtle air she had of being on the point of talking babytalk. She was the sort of girl who puts her hands over a husband's eyes, as he is crawling in to breakfast with a morning head, and says 'Guess who?' I once stayed at the residence of a newly-married pal of mine, and his bride had had carved in large letters over the fireplace in the drawing-room, where it was impossible to miss it, the legend 'Two Lovers Built This Nest', and I can still recall the look of dumb anguish in the other half of the sketch's eyes every time he came in and saw it. Whether Madeline Bassett, on entering the marital state, would go to such an awful extreme, one could not say, but it seemed most probable, and I resolved that when I started trying to reconcile her and Gussie, I would not scamp my work but would give it everything I had.

  'You know Mr. Pinker,' she said, and I perceived that Stinker was present. He was safely wedged in a chair and hadn't, as far as I could see, upset anything yet, but he gave me the impression of a man who was crouching for the spring and would begin to operate shortly. There was a gate-leg table laden with muffins and cucumber sandwiches which I foresaw would attract him like a magnet.

  On seeing me, he had started visibly, dropping a plate with half a muffin on it, and his eyes had widened. I knew what he was thinking, of course. He supposed that my presence must be due to a change of heart. Rejoice with me, for I have found the sheep which was lost, he was no doubt murmuring to himself. I mourned in spirit a bit for the poor fish, knowing what a nasty knock he had coming to him when he got on to it that nothing was going to induce me to undertake whatever the foul commission might be that Stiffy had earmarked for me. On that point I was resolved to be firm, no matter what spiritual agonies he and she suffered in the process. I had long since learned that the secret of a happy and successful life was to steer clear of any project masterminded by that young scourge of the species.