Aunts Aren't Gentlemen (3 page)

It must have been a severe blow, but he bore it with the easy
nonchalance of a Red Indian at the stake. Not a cry escaped him,
merely an 'Indeed, sir?', and I tried to point out the bright side.

'It's a disappointment for you, but it's probably an excellent
thing. Everybody in New York is getting mugged these days or
shot by youths, and being mugged and shot by youths doesn't
do a fellow any good. We shall avoid all that sort of thing at
Maiden Eggesford.'

'Sir?'

'Down in Somerset. Aunt Dahlia is visiting friends there
and is going to get me a cottage. It's near Bridmouth-on-Sea.
Have you ever been to Bridmouth?'

'Frequently, sir, in my boyhood, and I know Maiden
Eggesford well. An aunt of mine lives there.'

'And an aunt of mine is going there. What a coincidence.'

I spoke blithely, for this obviously made everything hotsytotsy.
He had probably been looking on beetling off to the
country as going into the wilderness, and the ecstasy of finding
that the first thing he would set eyes on would be a loved aunt
must have been terrific.

So that was that. And having got the bad news broken, I felt
at liberty to turn the conversation to other topics, and I
thought he would be interested in hearing about my encounter
with Plank.

'I got a shock at the doc's, Jeeves.'

'Indeed, sir?'

'Do you remember Major Plank?'

'The name seems vaguely familiar, sir, but only vaguely.'

'Throw the mind back. The explorer bloke who accused me
of trying to chisel him out of five quid and was going to call the
police, and you came along and said you were Inspector
Witherspoon of Scotland Yard and that I was a notorious
crook whom you had been after for ages, and I was known as
Alpine foe because I always wore an Alpine hat. And you took
me away.'

'Ah, yes, sir, I remember now.'

'I ran into him this morning. He remembered my face, but
nothing more except that he said he knew my name began
with Al.'

'A most unnerving experience, sir.'

'Yes, it rattled me more than somewhat. It's a great relief to
think that I shall never see him again.'

'I can readily understand your feelings, sir.'

In due course Aunt Dahlia rang to say that she had got a
cottage for me and to let her know what day I would be
arriving.

And so began what I suppose my biographers will refer to
as The Maiden Eggesford Horror – or possibly The Curious
Case Of The Cat Which Kept Popping Up When Least
Expected.

I left for Maiden Eggesford a couple of days later in the old
two-seater. Jeeves had gone on ahead with the luggage and
would be there to greet me on my arrival, no doubt all braced
and refreshed from communing with his aunt.

It was in jocund mood that I set forth. There were rather
more astigmatic loonies sharing the road with me than I could
have wished, but that did nothing to diminish my euphoria, as
I have heard it called. The weather couldn't have been better,
blue skies and sunshine all over the place, and to put the
frosting on the cake E. Jimpson Murgatroyd had been one
hundred per cent right about the spots. They had completely
disappeared, leaving not a wrack behind, and the skin on my
chest was back to its normal alabaster.

I reached journey's end at about the hour of the evening
cocktail and got my first glimpse of the rural haven which was
to be the Wooster home for I didn't know how long.

Well, I had had a sort of idea that there would be what they
call subtle but well-marked differences between Maiden
Eggesford and such resorts as Paris and Monte Carlo, and a
glance told me I had not erred. It was one of those villages
where there isn't much to do except walk down the main street
and look at the Jubilee watering-trough and then walk up the
main street and look at the Jubilee watering-trough from the
other side. E. Jimpson Murgatroyd would have been all for it.
'Oh, boy,' I could hear him saying, 'this is the stuff to give the
typical young man about town.' The air, as far as I could tell
from the first few puffs, seemed about as pure as could be
expected, and I looked forward to a healthy and invigorating
stay.

The only thing wrong with the place was that it appeared to
be haunted, for as I alighted from the car I distinctly saw the
phantasm or wraith of Major Plank. It was coming out of the
local inn, the Goose and Grasshopper, and as I gazed at it with
bulging eyes it vanished round a corner, leaving me, I need
scarcely say, in something of a twitter. I am not, as I
mentioned earlier, a fussy man, but nobody likes to have
spectres horsing around, and for a while my jocund mood
became a bit blue about the edges.

I speedily pulled myself together. 'Twas but a momentary
illusion, I said to myself. I reasoned the thing out. If Plank had
come to a sticky end since I had seen him last and had started
on a haunting career, I said to myself, why should he be
haunting Maiden Eggesford when the whole of equatorial
Africa was open to him? He would be much happier scaring
the daylights out of natives whom he had cause to dislike – the
widows and surviving relatives of the late chief of the
'Mgombis, for instance.

Fortified by these reflections, I went into the cottage.

A glance told me it was all right. I think it must have been
built for an artist or somebody like that, for it had all the
modern cons including electric light and the telephone, being
in fact more a desirable bijou residence than a cottage.

Jeeves was there, and he brought me a much-needed
refresher – in deference to E. Jimpson Murgatroyd a dry
ginger ale. Sipping it, I decided to confide in him, for in spite
of the clarity with which I had reasoned with myself I was still
not altogether convinced that what I had seen had not been a
phantom. True, it had looked solid enough, but I believe the
best ghosts often do.

'Most extraordinary thing, Jeeves,' I said, 'I could have
sworn I saw Major Plank coming out of the pub just now.'

'No doubt you did, sir. Major Plank would be quite likely to
come to the village. He is the guest of Mr Cook of Eggesford
Court.'

You could have knocked me down with a cheese straw.

'You mean he's
here
?'

'Yes, sir.'

I was astounded. When he had told me he was off to the
country, I had naturally assumed that he meant he was
returning to his home in Gloucestershire. Not, of course, that
there's any reason why someone who lives in Gloucestershire
shouldn't visit Somerset. Aunt Dahlia lives in Worcestershire,
and she was visiting Somerset. You have to look at these things
from every angle.

Nevertheless, I was perturbed.

'I'm not sure I like this, Jeeves.'

'No, sir?'

'He may remember what our last meeting was all about.'

'It should not be difficult to avoid him, sir.'

'Something in that. Still, what you say has given me a shock.

Plank is the last person I want in my neighbourhood. I think,
as my nervous system has rather taken the knock, we might
discard this ginger ale and substitute for it a dry martini.'

'Very good, sir.'

'Murgatroyd will never know.'

'Precisely, sir.'

And so, having breathed considerable quantities of pure air
and taken a couple of refreshing looks at the Jubilee watering-trough,
to bed early, as recommended by E. Jimpson
Murgatroyd.

The result of this following of doctor's orders was
sensational. Say what you might about his whiskers and his
habit of looking as if he had been attending the funeral of a
dear friend, E. Jimpson knew his job. After about ten hours of
restful sleep I sprang from between the sheets, leaped to the
bathroom, dressed with a song on my lips and headed for the
breakfast table like a two-year-old. I had cleaned up the eggs
and b., and got the toast and marmalade down the hatch to the
last crumb with all the enthusiasm of a tiger of the jungle
tucking into its ration of coolie, and was smoking a soothing
cigarette, when the telephone rang and Aunt Dahlia's voice
came booming over the wire.

'Hullo, old ancestor,' I said, and it was a treat to hear me,
so full of ginger and loving kindness was my diction. 'A very hearty good
morning to you, aged relative.'

'You've got here, have you?'

'In person.'

'So you're still alive. The spots didn't turn out to be fatal.'

'They've entirely disappeared,' I assured her. 'Gone with the
wind.'

'That's good. I wouldn't have liked introducing a piebald
nephew to the Briscoes, and they want you to come to lunch
today.'

'Vastly civil of them.'

'Have you a clean collar?'

'Several, with immaculate shirts attached.'

'Don't wear that Drones Club tie.'

'Certainly not,' I agreed. If the Drones Club tie has a fault,
it is a little on the loud side and should not be sprung suddenly
on nervous people and invalids, and I had no means of
knowing if Mrs Briscoe was one of these. 'What time is the
binge?'

'One-thirty.'

'Expect me then with my hair in a braid.'

The invitation showed a neighbourly spirit which I
applauded, and I said as much to Jeeves.

'They sound good eggs, these Briscoes.'

'I believe they give uniform satisfaction, sir.'

'Aunt Dahlia didn't say where they lived.'

'At Eggesford Hall, sir.'

'How does one get there?'

'One proceeds up the main street of the village to the high
road, where one turns to the left. You cannot miss the house.
It is large and stands in extensive grounds. It is a walk of about
a mile and a half, if you were intending to walk.'

'I think I'd better. Murgatroyd would advise it. You, I take
it, in my absence will go and hobnob with your aunt. Have you
seen her yet?'

'No, sir. I learn from the lady behind the bar of the Goose
and Grasshopper, where I looked in on the night of my arrival,
that she has gone to Liverpool for her annual holiday.'

Liverpool, egad! Sometimes one feels that aunts live for
pleasure alone.

I made an early start. If these Briscoes were courting my
society, I wanted to give them as much of it as possible.

Reaching the high road, where Jeeves had told me to turn to
the left, I thought I had better make sure. He had spoken
confidently, but it is always well to get a second opinion. And
by jove I found that he had goofed. I accosted a passing
centenarian – everybody in Maiden Eggesford seemed to be
about a hundred and fifty, no doubt owing to the pure air – and
asked which way I turned for Eggesford Court, and he said to
the right. It just showed how even Jeeves can be mistaken.

On one point, however, he had been correct. A large house,
he had said, standing in extensive grounds, and I had been
walking what must have been a mile and a half when I came
in sight of just such a residence, standing in grounds such as
he had described. There were gates opening on a long drive,
and I was starting to walk up this, when it occurred to me that
I could save time by cutting across country, because the house
I could see through the trees was a good deal to the nor'-nor'-
east. They make these drives winding so as to impress
visitors. Bless my soul, the visitor says, this drive must be
three-quarters of a mile long; shows how rich the chap is.

Whether I was singing or not I can't remember – more
probably whistling – but be that as it may I made good
progress, and I had just come abreast of what looked like
stables when there appeared from nowhere a cat.

It was a cat of rather individual appearance, being black in
its general colour scheme but with splashes of white about the
ribs and also on the tip of its nose. I chirruped and twiddled
my fingers, as is my custom on these occasions, and it
advanced with its tail up and rubbed its nose against my leg in
a manner that indicated clearly that in Bertram Wooster it was
convinced that it had found a kindred soul and one of the boys.

Nor had its intuition led it astray. One of the first poems
I ever learned – I don't know who wrote it, probably
Shakespeare – ran:

I love little pussy; her coat is so warm;

And if I don't hurt her, she'll do me no harm;

and that is how I have been all my life. Ask any cat with whom
I have had dealings what sort of a chap I am cat-wise, and it
will tell you that I am a thoroughly good egg in whom
complete confidence can safely be placed.

Cats who know me well, like Aunt Dahlia's Augustus, will
probably allude to my skill at scratching them behind the ear.

I scratched this one behind the ear, and it received the
attention with obvious gratification, purring like the rumble of
distant thunder. Cordial relations having now been established,
I was proceeding to what you might call Phase Two
– viz. picking it up in my arms in order to tickle its stomach –
when the welkin was split by a stentorian 'Hi'.

There are many ways of saying 'Hi'. In America it is a
pleasant form of greeting, often employed as a substitute for
'Good morning'. Two friends meet. One of them says 'Hi,
Bill.' The other replies 'Hi, George.' Then Bill says 'Is this hot
enough for you?', and George says that what he minds is not
the heat but the humidity, and they go on their way.

But this 'Hi' was something very different. I believe the sort
of untamed savages Major Plank mixes with do not go into
battle shouting 'Hi', but if they did the sound would be just like
the uncouth roar which had nearly shattered my eardrums.
Turning, I perceived a red-faced little half-portion brandishing
a hunting crop I didn't much like the look of. I have never
been fond of hunting crops since at an early age I was chased
for a mile across difficult country by an uncle armed with one,
who had found me smoking one of his cigars. In frosty weather
I can still feel the old wounds.

But now I wasn't really perturbed. This, I took it, was the
Colonel Briscoe who had asked me to lunch, and though at the
moment he had the air of one who would be glad to dissect me
with a blunt knife, better conditions would be bound to prevail
as soon as I mentioned my name. I mean, you don't ask a
fellow to lunch and start assaulting and battering him as soon
as he clocks in.

I mentioned it, accordingly, rather surprised by his size, for
I had thought they made colonels somewhat larger. Still, I
suppose they come in all sizes, like potatoes or, for the matter
of that, girls. Vanessa Cook, for instance, was definitely on the
substantial side, whereas others who had turned me down
from time to time were practically midgets.

'Wooster, Bertram,' I said, tapping my chest.

I had anticipated an instant cooling of the baser passions,
possibly a joyful cry and a 'How are you, my dear fellow, how
are you?' accompanied by a sunny smile of welcome, but
nothing of the sort occurred. He continued to effervesce, his
face now a rather pretty purple.

'What are you doing with that cat?' he demanded hoarsely.

I preserved a dignified calm. I didn't like his tone, but then
one often doesn't like people's tones.

'Merely passing the time of day,' I replied with a suavity that
became me well.

'You were making away with it.'

'Making a what?'

'Stealing it.'

I drew myself up to my full height, and I shouldn't be surprised
if my eyes didn't flash. I have been accused of a good many things in my time,
notably by my Aunt Agatha, but never of stealing cats, and the charge gave
deep offence to the Wooster pride. Heated words were on the tip of my tongue,
but I kept the min status quo, as the expression is. After all, the man was
my host.

With an effort to soothe, I said:

'You wrong me, Colonel. I wouldn't dream such a thing.'

'Yes you would, yes you would, yes you would. And don't
call me Colonel.'

It was hardly an encouraging start, but I tried again.

'Nice day.'

'Damn the day.'

'Crops coming on nicely?'

'Curse the crops.'

'How's my aunt?'

'How the devil should I know how your aunt is?'

I thought this odd. When you've got an aunt staying with
you, you ought to be able to supply enquirers with a bulletin, if
only a sketchy one, of her state of health. I began to wonder if
the little shrimp I was chatting with wasn't a bit fuzzy in the
upper storey. Certainly, as far as the conversation had gone at
present, he would have aroused the professional interest of any
qualified brain specialist.