He took the manuscript, brooded over it, and smiled a gentle, approving smile.
‘The sock passage is quite in the proper vein, sir,’ he said.
‘Well expressed, what?’
‘Extremely, sir.’
I watched him narrowly as he read on, and, as I was expecting, what you might call the love-light suddenly died out of his eyes. I braced myself for an unpleasant scene.
‘Come to the bit about soft silk shirts for evening wear?’ I asked carelessly.
‘Yes, sir,’ said Jeeves, in a low, cold voice, as if he had been bitten in the leg by a personal friend. ‘And if I may be pardoned for saying so –’
‘You don’t like it?’
‘No, sir. I do not. Soft silk shirts with evening costume are not worn, sir.’
‘Jeeves,’ I said, looking the blighter diametrically in the centre of the eyeball, ‘they’re dashed well going to be. I may as well tell you now that I have ordered a dozen of those shirtings from Peabody and Simms, and it’s no good looking like that, because I am jolly well adamant.’
‘If I might –’
‘No, Jeeves,’ I said, raising my hand, ‘argument is useless. Nobody has a greater respect than I have for your judgement in socks, ties, and – I will go farther – in spats; but when it comes to evening shirts you nerve seems to fail you. You have no vision. You are prejudiced and reactionary. Hidebound is the word that suggests itself. It may interest you to learn that when I was at Le Touquet the Prince of Wales buzzed into the Casino one night with soft silk shirt complete.’
‘His Royal Highness, sir, may permit himself a certain licence which in your own case –’
‘No, Jeeves,’ I said firmly, ‘it’s no use. When we Woosters are adamant, we are – well, adamant, if you know what I mean.’
‘Very good, sir.’
I could see the man was wounded, and, of course, the whole episode had been extremely jarring and unpleasant; but these things have to be gone through. Is one a serf or isn’t one? That’s what it all boils down to. Having made my point, I changed the subject.
‘Well, that’s that,’ I said. ‘We now approach another topic. Do you know any housemaids, Jeeves?’
‘Housemaids, sir?’
‘Come, come, Jeeves, you know what housemaids are.’
‘Are you requiring a housemaid, sir?’
‘No, but Mr Little is. I met him at the club a couple of days ago, and he told me that Mrs Little is offering rich rewards to anybody who will find her one guaranteed to go light on the china.’
‘Indeed, sir?’
‘Yes. The one now in office apparently runs through the objets d’art like a typhoon, simoom, or sirocco. So if you know any –’
‘I know a great many, sir. Some intimately, others mere acquaintances.’
‘Well, start digging round among the old pals. And now the hat, the stick, and other necessaries. I must be getting along and handing in this article.’
The offices of Milady’s Boudoir were in one of those rummy streets in the Covent Garden neighbourhood; and I had just got to the door, after wading through a deep top-dressing of old cabbages and tomatoes, when who should come out but Mrs Little. She greeted me with the warmth due to the old family friend, in spite of the fact that I hadn’t been round to the house for a goodish while.
‘Whatever are you doing in these parts, Bertie? I thought you never came east of Leicester Square.’
‘I’ve come to deliver an article of sorts which my Aunt Dahlia asked me to write. She edits a species of journal up those stairs. Milady’s Boudoir.’
‘What a coincidence! I have just promised to write an article for her, too.’
‘Don’t you do it,’ I said earnestly. ‘You’ve simply no notion what a ghastly labour – Oh, but, of course, I was forgetting. You’re used to it, what?’
Silly of me to have talked like that. Young Bingo Little, if you remember, had married the famous female novelist, Rosie M. Banks, author of some of the most pronounced and widely-read tripe ever put on the market. Naturally a mere article would be pie for her.
‘No, I don’t think it will give me much trouble,’ she said. ‘Your aunt has suggested a most delightful subject.’
‘That’s good. By the way, I spoke to my man Jeeves about getting you a housemaid. He knows all the hummers.’
‘Thank you so much. Oh, are you doing anything tomorrow night?’
‘Not a thing.’
‘Then do come and dine with us. Your aunt is coming, and hopes to bring your uncle. I am looking forward to meeting him.’
‘Thanks. Delighted.’
I meant it, too. The Little household may be weak on housemaids, but it is right there when it comes to cooks. Somewhere or other some time ago Bingo’s missus managed to dig up a Frenchman of the most extraordinary vim and skill. A most amazing Johnnie who dishes a wicked ragout. Old Bingo has put on at least ten pounds in weight since this fellow Anatole arrived in the home.
‘At eight, then.’
‘Right. Thanks ever so much.’
She popped off, and I went upstairs to hand in my copy, as we boys of the Press call it. I found Aunt Dahlia immersed to the gills in papers of all descriptions.
I am not much of a lad for my relatives as a general thing, but I’ve always been very pally with Aunt Dahlia. She married my Uncle Thomas – between ourselves a bit of a squirt – the year Bluebottle won the Cambridgeshire; and they hadn’t got halfway down the aisle before I was saying to myself, ‘That woman is much too good for the old bird.’ Aunt Dahlia is a large, genial soul, the sort you see in dozens on the hunting field. As a matter of fact, until she married Uncle Thomas, she put in most of her time on horseback; but he won’t live in the country, so nowadays she expends her energy on this paper of hers.
She came to the surface as I entered, and flung a cheery look at my head.
‘Hullo, Bertie! I say, have you really finished that article?’
‘To the last comma.’
‘Good boy! My gosh, I’ll bet it’s rotten.’
‘On the contrary, it is extremely hot stuff, and most of it approved by Jeeves, what’s more. The bit about soft silk shirts got in amongst him a trifle; but you can take it from me, Aunt Dahlia, that they are the latest yodel and will be much seen at first nights and other occasions where Society assembles.’
‘Your man Jeeves,’ said Aunt Dahlia, flinging the article into a basket and skewering a few loose pieces of paper on a sort of meat hook, ‘is a washout, and you can tell him I said so.’
‘Oh, come,’ I said. ‘He may not be sound on shirtings –’
‘I’m not referring to that. As long as a week ago I asked him to get me a cook, and he hasn’t found one yet.’
‘Great Scott! Is Jeeves a domestic employment agency? Mrs Little wants him to find her a housemaid. I met her outside. She tells me she’s doing something for you.’
‘Yes, thank goodness. I’m relying on it to bump the circulation up a bit. I can’t read her stuff myself, but women love it. Her name on the cover will mean a lot. And we need it.’
‘Paper not doing well?’
‘It’s doing all right really, but it’s got to be a slow job building up a circulation.’
‘I suppose so.’
‘I can get Tom to see that in his lucid moments,’ said Aunt Dahlia, skewering a few more papers. ‘But just at present the poor fathead has got one of his pessimistic spells. It’s entirely due to that mechanic who calls herself a cook. A few more of her alleged dinners, and Tom will refuse to go on paying the printer’s bills.’
‘You don’t mean that!’
‘I do mean it. There was what she called a ris de veau à la financière last night which made him talk for three-quarters of an hour about good money going to waste and nothing to show for it.’
I quite understood, and I was dashed sorry for her. My Uncle Thomas is a cove who made a colossal pile of money out in the East, but in doing so put his digestion on the bli
nk. This has made him a tricky proposition to handle. Many a time I’ve lunched with him and found him perfectly chirpy up to the fish, only to have him turn blue on me well before the cheese.
Who was that lad they used to try to make me read at Oxford? Ship – Shop – Schopenhauer. That’s the name. A grouch of the most pronounced description. Well, Uncle Thomas, when his gastric juices have been giving him the elbow, can make Schopenhauer look like Pollyanna. And the worst of it is, from Aunt Dahlia’s point of view, that on these occasions he always seems to think he’s on the brink of ruin and wants to start to economize.
‘Pretty tough,’ I said. ‘Well, anyway, he’ll get one good dinner tomorrow night at the Littles’.’
‘Can you guarantee that, Bertie?’ asked Aunt Dahlia earnestly. ‘I simply daren’t risk unleashing him on anything at all wonky.’
‘They’ve got a marvellous cook. I haven’t been round there for some time, but unless he’s lost his form of two months ago Uncle Thomas is going to have the treat of a lifetime.’
‘It’ll only make it all the worse for him, coming back to our steak-incinerator,’ said Aunt Dahlia, a bit on the Schopenhauer side herself.
*
The little nest where Bingo and his bride had settled themselves was up in St John’s Wood; one of those rather jolly houses with a bit of garden. When I got there on the following night, I found that I was the last to weigh in. Aunt Dahlia was chatting with Rosie in a corner, while Uncle Thomas, standing by the mantelpiece with Bingo, sucked down a cocktail in a frowning, suspicious sort of manner, rather like a chappie having a short snort before dining with the Borgias: as if he were saying to himself that, even if this particular cocktail wasn’t poisoned, he was bound to cop it later on.
Well, I hadn’t expected anything in the nature of beaming joie de vivre from Uncle Thomas, so I didn’t pay much attention to him. What did surprise me was the extraordinary gloom of young Bingo. You may say what you like against Bingo, but nobody has ever found him a depressing host. Why, many a time in the days of his bachelorhood I’ve known him to start throwing bread before the soup course. Yet now he and Uncle Thomas were a pair. He looked haggard and careworn, like a Borgia who has suddenly remembered that he has forgotten to shove cyanide in the consommé, and the dinner gong due any moment.
And the mystery wasn’t helped at all by the one remark he made to me before conversation became general. As he poured out my cocktail, he suddenly bent forward.
‘Bertie,’ he whispered, in a nasty, feverish manner. ‘I want to see you. Life and death matter. Be in tomorrow morning.’
That was all. Immediately after that the starting-gun went and we toddled down to the festive. And from that moment, I’m bound to say, in the superior interests of the proceedings he rather faded out of my mind. For good old Anatole, braced presumably by the fact of there being guests, had absolutely surpassed himself.
I am not a man who speaks hastily on these matters. I weigh my words. And I say again that Anatole had surpassed himself. It was as good a dinner as I have ever absorbed, and it revived Uncle Thomas like a watered flower. As we sat down he was saying some things about the Government which they wouldn’t have cared to hear. With the consommé pâté d’Italie he said but what could you expect nowadays? With the paupiettes de sole à la princesse he admitted rather decently that the Government couldn’t be held responsible for the rotten weather, anyway. And shortly after the caneton Aylesbury à la broche he was practically giving the lads the benefit of his whole-hearted support.
And all the time young Bingo looking like an owl with a secret sorrow. Rummy!
I thought about it a good deal as I walked home, and I was hoping he wouldn’t roll round with his hard-luck story too early in the morning. He had the air of one who intends to charge in at about six-thirty.
Jeeves was waiting up for me when I got back.
‘A pleasant dinner, sir?’ he said.
‘Magnificent, Jeeves.’
‘I am glad to hear that, sir. Mr George Travers rang up on the telephone shortly after you had left. He was extremely desirous that you should join him at Harrogate, sir. He leaves for that town by an early train tomorrow.’
My Uncle George is a festive old bird who has made a habit for years of doing himself a dashed sight too well, with the result that he’s always got Harrogate or Buxton hanging over him like the sword of what’s-his-name. And he hates going there alone.
‘It can’t be done,’ I said. Uncle George is bad enough in London, and I wasn’t going to let myself be cooped up with him in one of these cure-places.
‘He was extremely urgent, sir.’
‘No, Jeeves,’ I said firmly. ‘I am always anxious to oblige, but Uncle George – no, no! I mean to say, what?’
‘Very good, sir,’ said Jeeves.
It was a pleasure to hear the way he said it. Docile the man was becoming, absolutely docile. It just showed that I had been right in putting my foot down about those shirts.
When Bingo showed up next morning I had had breakfast and was all ready for him. Jeeves shot him into the presence, and he sat down on the bed.
‘Good morning, Bertie,’ said young Bingo.
‘Good morning, old thing,’ I replied courteously.
‘Don’t go, Jeeves,’ said young Bingo hollowly. ‘Wait.’
‘Sir?’
‘Remain. Stay. Cluster round. I shall need you.’
‘Very good, sir.’
Bingo lit a cigarette and frowned bleakly at the wallpaper.
‘Bertie,’ he said, ‘the most frightful calamity has occurred. Unless something is done, and done right speedily, my social prestige is doomed, my self-respect will be obliterated, my name will be mud, and I shall not dare to show my face in the West End of London again.’
‘My aunt!’ I cried, deeply impressed.
‘Exactly,’ said young Bingo, with a hollow laugh. ‘You have put it in a nutshell. The whole trouble is due to your blasted aunt.’
‘Which blasted aunt? Specify, old thing. I have so many.’
‘Mrs Travers. The one who runs that infernal paper.’
‘Oh, no, dash it, old man,’ I protested. ‘She’s the only decent aunt I’ve got. Jeeves, you will bear me out in this?’
‘Such has always been my impression, I must confess, sir.’
‘Well, get rid of it, then,’ said young Bingo. ‘The woman is a menace to society, a home-wrecker, and a pest. Do you know what she’s done? She’s got Rosie to write an article for that rag of hers.’
‘I know that.’
‘Yes, but you don’t know what it’s about.’
‘No. She told me Aunt Dahlia had given her a splendid idea for the thing.’
‘It’s about me!’
‘You?’
‘Yes, me! And do you know what it’s called? It is called “How I Keep the Love of My Husband-Baby”.’
‘My what?’
‘Husband-baby!’
‘What’s a husband-baby?’
‘I am, apparently,’ said young Bingo, with much bitterness. ‘I am also, according to this article, a lot of other things which I have too much sense of decency to repeat even to an old friend. This beastly composition, in short, is one of those things they call “human interest stories”; one of those intimate revelations of married life over which the female public loves to gloat; all about Rosie and me and what she does when I come home cross, and so on. I tell you, Bertie, I am still blushing all over at the recollection of something she says in paragraph two.’
‘What?’
‘I decline to tell you. But you can take it from me that it’s the edge. Nobody could be fonder of Rosie than I am, but – dear, sensible girl as she is in ordinary life – the moment she gets in front of a dictating machine she becomes absolutely maudlin. Bertie, that article must not appear!’
‘But –’
‘If it does I shall have to resign from my clubs, grow a beard, and become a hermit. I shall not be able to face t
he world.’
‘Aren’t you pitching it a bit strong, old lad?’ I said. ‘Jeeves, don’t you think he’s pitching it a bit strong?’
‘Well, sir –’
‘I am pitching it feebly,’ said young Bingo earnestly. ‘You haven’t heard the thing. I have. Rosie shoved the cylinder on the dictating machine last night before dinner, and it was grisly to hear the instrument croaking out those awful sentences. If that article appears I shall be kidded to death by every pal I’ve got. Bertie,’ he said, his voice sinking to a hoarse whisper, ‘you have about as much imagination as a warthog, but surely even you can picture to yourself what Jimmy Bowles and Tuppy Rogers, to name only two, will say when they see me referred to in print as “half god, half prattling, mischievous child”?’
I jolly well could.
‘She doesn’t say that?’ I gasped.
‘She certainly does. And when I tell you that I selected that particular quotation because it’s about the only one I can stand hearing spoken, you will realize what I’m up against.’
I picked at the coverlet. I had been a pal of Bingo’s for many years, and we Woosters stand by our pals.
‘Jeeves,’ I said, ‘you have heard?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘The position is serious.’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘We must cluster round.’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Does anything suggest itself to you?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘What! You don’t really mean that?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Bingo,’ I said, ‘the sun is still shining. Something suggests itself to Jeeves.’
‘Jeeves,’ said young Bingo, in a quivering voice, ‘if you see me through this fearful crisis, ask of me what you will even unto half my kingdom.’
‘The matter,’ said Jeeves, ‘fits in very nicely, sir, with another mission which was entrusted to me this morning.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Mrs Travers rang me up on the telephone shortly before I brought you your tea, sir, and was most urgent that I should endeavour to persuade Mr Little’s cook to leave Mr Little’s service and join her staff. It appears that Mr Travers was fascinated by the man’s ability, sir, and talked far into the night of his astonishing gifts.’
The Jeeves Omnibus Vol. 2: Right Ho, Jeeves / Joy in the Morning / Carry On, Jeeves Page 67
