A thought struck me.
‘It isn’t Nobby?’
‘No. She’s engaged to Boko Fittleworth.’
‘What!’
‘Yes.’
‘I never knew that. He might have told me. Nobby and Boko have hitched up, have they?’
‘Yes.’
‘Well, well, well! The laughing Love God has been properly up on his toes in and around Steeple Bumpleigh of late, what?’
‘Yes.’
‘Never an idle moment. Day and night shifts. Your betrothed, I take it, is a resident?’
‘Yes. Her name’s Craye. Florence Craye.’
‘What!’
The word escaped my lips in a sort of yowl, and he started and gave me the raised eyebrow. I suppose it always perplexes the young Romeo to some extent, when fellows begin yowling on being informed of the loved one’s identity.
‘What’s the matter?’ he asked, a rather strained note in his voice.
Well, of course, that yowl of mine, as you may well imagine, had been one of ecstasy and relief. I mean, if Florence was all tied up with him, the peril I had been envisaging could be considered to have blown a fuse and ceased to impend. Spinoza or no Spinoza, I felt, this let Bertram out. But I couldn’t very well tell him that.
‘Oh, nothing,’ I said.
‘You seem to know her.’
‘Oh, yes, we’ve met.’
‘I’ve never heard her speak of you.’
‘No?’
‘No. Have you known her long?’
‘A certain time.’
‘Do you know her well?’
‘Pretty well.’
‘When you say “Pretty well”, you mean-?’
‘Fairly well. Tolerably well.’
‘How did you come to know her?’
I was conscious of a growing embarrassment. A little more of this, I felt, and he would elicit the fact that his betrothed had once been very near to Bertram – a dashed sight nearer, as we have seen, than Bertram had liked: and no recently engaged bimbo cares to discover that he was not the little woman’s first choice. It sort of rubs the bloom off the thing. What he wants to feel is that she spent her time gazing out of the turret window in a yearning spirit till he came galloping up on the white horse.
I temporized, accordingly. I believe the word is ‘temporized’. I should have to check up with Jeeves.
‘Her ghastly father married my frightful aunt.’
‘Is Lady Worplesdon your aunt?’
‘And how!’
‘You didn’t know her before that?’
‘Well, yes. Slightly.’
‘I see.’
He was still giving me that searching look, like a G-man hobnobbing with a suspect, and I am not ashamed to confess that I wiped a bead of persp. from the brow with the ferrule of my umbrella. That embarrassment, to which I have referred, was still up and doing – in fact, more so than ever.
I could see now what I had failed to spot before, that in thinking of him as a Romeo I had made an incorrect diagnosis. The bird whose name ought to have sprung to my mind was Othello. In this Cheesewright, it was plain, I had run up against one of those touchy lovers who go about the place in a suspicious and red-eyed spirit, eager to hammer the stuffing out of such of the citizenry as they suppose to be or to have been in any sense matey with the adored object. It would, in short, require but a sketchy outline of the facts relating to self and Florence to unleash the cave man within him.
‘When I say “slightly”,’ I hastened to add, ‘I mean, of course, that we were just acquaintances.’
‘Just acquaintances, eh?’
‘Just.’
‘You simply happened to meet her once or twice?’
‘That’s right. You put it in a nutshell.’
‘I see. The reason I ask is that it seemed to me, when I told you she was engaged to me, that your manner was peculiar –’
‘It always is before lunch.’
‘You started –’
‘Touch of cramp.’
‘And uttered an exclamation. As if the news had come as an unpleasant shock to you.’
‘Oh, no.’
‘You’re sure it didn’t?’
‘Not a bit.’
‘In fact, you were mere acquaintances?’
‘Mere to the core.’
‘Still, it’s strange that she has never mentioned you.’
‘Well, pip-pip,’ I said, changing the subject, and withdrew.
4
* * *
IT WAS A grave and thoughtful Bertram Wooster who started to amble back to the old flat. I was feeling a bit weak, too. During the recent scene I had run the gamut of the emotions, as I believe it is called, and that always takes it out of one.
My first reaction to Stilton’s revelation had, as I have indicated, been relief, and of course I was still rolling the eyes up to Heaven in silent thankfulness a goodish bit. But it is seldom that the Woosters think only of self, and I now found the contemplation of the dreadful thing which had come upon this man filling me almost to the brim with pity and terror. It seemed to me that a Save Stilton Cheesewright movement ought to be got under way immediately. For though he wasn’t what you would call absolutely one of my bosom pals, like Boko Fittleworth, one has one’s human feelings. I remembered how the iron had entered into my gizzard when I was faced with the prospect of being led to the altar by Florence Craye.
One could see, of course, how the tragedy had occurred. It was the poor blister’s pathetic desire to do his soul a bit of good that had landed him in this awful predicament. As is so often the case with these stolid, beefy birds, he had always had a yearning for higher things.
This whole business of jacking up the soul is one that varies according to what Jeeves calls the psychology of the individual, some being all for it, others not. You take me, for instance. I don’t say I’ve got much of a soul, but, such as it is, I’m perfectly satisfied with the little chap. I don’t want people fooling about with it. ‘Leave it alone,’ I say. ‘Don’t touch it. I like it the way it is.’
But with Stilton it was different. Buttonhole him and offer to give his soul a shot in the arm, and you found in him a receptive audience and a disciple ready to try anything once. Florence must have seemed to him just what the doctor ordered, and he had probably quite enjoyed thumbing the pages of Types of Ethical Theory, feeling, no doubt, that this was the stuff to give the troops.
But – and this was the reflection that furrowed the brow – how long would this last? I mean to say, he might be liking the set-up, but, as I saw it, the time would come when he would examine his soul, note how it had sprouted and say, ‘Fine. That’s enough to be going on with. Let’s call it a day,’ only to discover that he was inextricably entangled with a girl who had merely started. It was from this fate, which is sometimes called the bitter awakening, that I wanted to rescue him.
How to do it was, of course, a problem, and many chaps in my place would, I suppose, have been nonplussed. But my brain was working like a buzz-saw this morning, and the two snifters at the Bollinger had put a keen edge on it. By the time I was latch-keying my way into the flat I had placed my finger on the solution. The thing to do, I saw, was to write a strong note to Nobby Hopwood, outlining the situation and urging her to draw Stilton aside and make it quite clear to him what he was up against. Nobby, I reasoned, had known Florence since she was so high, and would consequently be in a position to assemble all the talking points.
Still, just in case she might have overlooked any of them, I carefully pointed out in my communication all Florence’s defects, considered not only as a prospective bride but as a human being. I put my whole heart into the thing, and it was with an agreeable feeling of duty done and a kindly act accomplished that I took it round the corner and dropped it in the pillar box.
When I got back, I found Jeeves once more in residence. He had returned from his mission and was fooling about at some domestic task in the dining-room. I gave him a hail,
and he floated in.
‘Jeeves,’ I said, ‘you remember Mr Cheesewright, who called this morning?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘I ran into him just now, buying an engagement ring. He is betrothed.’
‘Indeed, sir?’
‘Yes. And do you know who to? Lady F. Craye.’
‘Indeed, sir?’
We exchanged a meaningful glance. Or, rather, two meaning glances, I giving him one and he giving me the other. There was no need for words. Jeeves is familiar with every detail of the Wooster-Craye imbroglio, having been constantly at my side right through that critical period in my affairs. As a matter of fact, as I have recorded elsewhere in the archives, it was he who got me out of the thing.
‘And what’s so poignant, Jeeves, if that’s the word I want, is that he seems to like it.’
‘Indeed, sir?’
‘Yes. Rather pleased about it all than otherwise, it struck me. It reminded me of those lines in the poem – “See how the little how-does-it-go tum tumty tiddly push”. Perhaps you remember the passage?’
‘“Alas, regardless of their fate, the little victims play”, sir.’
‘Quite. Sad, Jeeves.’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘He must be saved from himself, of course, and fortunately I have the situation well in hand. I have taken all the necessary steps, and anticipate a happy and successful issue. And now,’ I said, turning to the other matter on the agenda paper, ‘tell me about Uncle Percy. You saw him?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Was he in the market for aid and counsel?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘I knew I was right. What was it? Blackmail? Does he want you to pinch damaging correspondence from the peroxided? Has some quick-thinking adventuress got him in her toils?’
‘Oh, no, sir. I am sure his lordship’s private life is above reproach.’
I weighed this in the light of the known facts.
‘I’m not so dashed sure about that. It depends what you call above reproach. He once chased me over a measured mile, showing great accuracy with the hunting crop. At a moment, too, when, being half-way through my first cigar, I was in urgent need of quiet and repose. To my mind, a man capable of that would be capable of anything. Well, if it wasn’t blackmail, what was the trouble?’
‘His lordship finds himself in a somewhat difficult position, sir.’
‘What’s biting him?’
He did not reply for a space. A wooden expression had crept into his features, and his eyes had taken on the look of cautious reserve which you see in those of parrots, when offered half a banana by a stranger of whose bona fides they are not convinced. It meant that he had come over all discreet, as he sometimes does, and I hastened to assure him that he might speak freely.
‘You know me, Jeeves. The silent tomb.’
‘The matter is highly confidential, sir. It should not be allowed to go further.’
‘Wild horses shall not drag it from me. Not that I suppose they’ll try.’
‘Well, then, sir, his lordship informs me that he is in the process of concluding the final details of a business agreement of great delicacy and importance.’
‘And he wanted you to vet the thing for snags?’
‘Not precisely that, sir. But he desired my advice.’
‘They all come to you, Jeeves, don’t they – from the lowest to the highest?’
‘It is kind of you to say so, sir.’
‘Did he mention what the b. a. of great d. and i. was?’
‘No, sir. But, of course, one has read the papers.’
‘I haven’t.’
‘You do not study the financial pages, sir?’
‘Never give them a glance.’
‘They have been devoting considerable space of late to rumours of a merger or combination which is said to be impending between his lordship’s Pink Funnel Line and an equally prominent shipping firm of the United States of America, sir. It is undoubtedly to this that his lordship was guardedly alluding.’
The information did not make me leap about to any extent.
‘Going to team up, are they, these nautical tycoons?’
‘So it is supposed, sir.’
‘Well, God bless them.’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘I mean, why shouldn’t they?’
‘Exactly, sir.’
‘Well, what’s his difficulty?’
‘A somewhat tense situation has arisen, sir. The negotiations would appear to have arrived at a point where it is essential that his lordship shall meet and confer with the gentleman conducting the pourparlers on behalf of the American organization. On the other hand, it is vital that he shall not be seen in the latter’s society, for such a meeting would instantly be accepted in the City as conclusive proof that the fusion of interests was about to take place, with immediate reactions on the respective shares of the two concerns.’
I began to see daylight. There have been mornings after some rout or revel at the Drones, when this sort of thing would merely have caused the head to throb, but today, as I have said, I was feeling exceptionally bright.
‘They would go up, you mean?’
‘A sharp rise would be inevitable, sir.’
‘And Uncle Percy views such a prospect with concern?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘His idea being to collect a parcel cheap before the many-headed can horn in and spoil the market?’
‘Precisely, sir. Rem acu tetigisti.’
‘Rem –?’
‘Acu tetigisti, sir. A Latin expression. Literally, it means “You have touched the matter with a needle”, but a more idiomatic rendering would be –’
‘Put my finger on the nub?’
‘Exactly, sir.’
‘Yes, I get it now. You have clarified the situation. Getting right down to it, these two old buzzards have got to foregather in secret and require a hideout.’
‘Precisely, sir. And, of course, the movements of both gentlemen are being closely watched by representatives of the financial press.’
‘I suppose this mystic sort of stuff goes on all the time in the world of commerce?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘One understands and sympathizes.’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Though one dislikes the idea of Uncle Percy getting any richer. Already he has the stuff in gobs. However bearing in mind the fact that he is an uncle by marriage, I suppose one ought to espouse his cause. Had you anything to suggest?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘I bet you had.’
‘It occurred to me that such a meeting might well take place unobserved, if the two parties were to arrange to come together beneath the roof of some remote country cottage.’
I mused.
‘You mean a cottage in the country somewhere?’
‘You have interpreted me exactly, sir.’
‘I don’t think much of that, Jeeves. You must be losing your grip.’
‘Sir?’
‘Well, to name but one objection, how can you go to the owner of a country cottage, whom you don’t know from Adam, and ask him to let you and your pals plot in the parlour?’
‘It would be necessary, of course, that the proprietor of the establishment should be no stranger to his lordship.’
‘He would have to be somebody who knew Uncle Percy, you mean?’
‘Precisely, sir.’
‘But, Jeeves, my dear old soul, don’t you see that that makes it still worse? Use the bean. In that case, the chap says to himself, “Hullo! Old Worplesdon having secret meetings with mystery men? Come, come, what’s all this? I’ll bet this means that the merger I’ve been reading about so much is going to come off.” And he nips out and phones his broker to start buying those shares and to keep on buying till he’s blue in the face. Thus wrecking all Uncle Percy’s carefully laid plans and rendering him sicker than mud. You follow me, Jeeves?’
‘Completely, sir. I had not overlooked that contingency
. The occupant of the cottage would, of course, have to be some gentleman whom his lordship could trust.’
‘Such as –?’
‘Well, yourself, sir.’
‘But – sorry to have to rub it in like this, but it’s only kind to remove the scales from your eyes – I haven’t got a cottage.’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘I don’t get you, Jeeves.’
‘His lordship is placing one of his own at your disposal, sir. He instructed me to say that he wishes you to proceed tomorrow to Steeple Bumpleigh –’
‘Steeple Bumpleigh!’
‘– where you will find a small but compact residence awaiting you, in perfect condition for immediate occupation. It is delightfully situated not far from the river –’
It needed no more than that word ‘river’ to tell me what had occurred. On his good mornings, I don’t suppose there are more than a handful of men in the W.l postal district of London swifter to spot oompus-boompus than Bertram Wooster, and this was one of my particularly good mornings. I saw the whole hideous plot.
‘Jeeves,’ I said, ‘you have done the dirty on me.’
‘I am sorry, sir. It seemed the only solution of his lordship’s problem. I feel sure, sir, that when you see the residence in question, your prejudice against Steeple Bumpleigh will be overcome. I speak, of course, only from hearsay, but I understand from his lordship that it is replete with every modern convenience. It contains one large master’s bedroom, a well appointed sitting-room, water both hot and cold –’
‘The usual domestic offices?’ I said. And I meant it to sting.
‘Yes, sir. Furthermore, you will be quite adjacent to Mr Fittleworth.’
‘And you will be quite adjacent to your fish.’
‘Why, yes, sir. The point had not occurred to me, but now that you mention it that is certainly so. I should find a little fishing most enjoyable, if you could spare me from time to time while we are at Wee Nooke.’
‘Did you say “Wee Nooke”?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Spelled, I’ll warrant, with an “e”?’
‘Yes, sir.’
I breathed heavily through the nostrils.
‘Well, listen to me, Jeeves. The thing’s off. You understand? Off. Spelled with an o and two f’s. I’m dashed if I’m going to be made a – what’s the word?’
The Jeeves Omnibus Vol. 2: Right Ho, Jeeves / Joy in the Morning / Carry On, Jeeves Page 27
