Jeeves and the Wedding Bells (19 page)

‘Who on earth is Bony Fishwick?’

‘He was the school chaplain. “We ’ave left oondoon thowse things which we ought to ’ave doon.”’

‘I’ll have another go. More brandy?’

‘Just a suggestion.’

What with one thing another, we rather entered into the spirit of it, and Georgiana made a much livelier Thisby than had been on offer from Corbett-Burcher.

‘Tell you what,’ I said. ‘If you stand on the sofa there, I’ll stand on the ottoman, and then this standard lamp can represent the Wall.’

‘Good idea. By the way, Bertie, I’ve just had a thought.’

‘Doesn’t surprise me, old thing. Not one bit. Think on.’

‘What I thought was this. You know “The Repudiation of the Scarlet Woman by the Virtuous Lawyer as witnessed by his Innocent Bride”?’

‘I thought we’d ditched that.’

‘We had. But suppose Woody was in on it. That way he could keep a straight face when I gave him the come-on. There’d be no misunderstanding afterwards between the two of us. And it would help me in my part, too.’

I swilled the brandy round the glass – in much the same way that I revolved the matter in the cranium. From where I stood, on the ottoman, it all looked rather promising. Foolproof, you might say.

‘By Jove,’ I said, ‘I think you’ve hit the jackpot.’

‘Thank you. Shall I ask Woody, or will you?’

‘I think it would come better from you. He hasn’t quite forgiven me for making up to Amelia.’

The thought gave me another brief Gonville and Caius wobble, my foothold precarious for a moment on the tapestry-covered lid.

‘I shall fix it for five to three on Monday,’ said Georgiana. ‘It’s when the pro from Blandford Forum comes in to give Ambo a tennis lesson.’

‘Will Woody still be here?’

‘Yes, he’s catching the late train for a case on Tuesday.’

‘Where were we?’

‘“As Shafalus to Procrus, I to you.”’

‘“O! Kiss me through the hole of this vile wall.”’

I leant forward to mime the action, as I had done all those years ago, when the Wall – some new bug whose name I can’t remember now – held up his parted fingers to represent a crack in the masonry.

It’s possible that on that occasion I had dined on little more than the house supper and a glass of lemonade; I had certainly not got outside a half-pint of Sir Henry’s five-star. Or perhaps the lips I could not reach in Melbury Hall induced a greater sense of urgency.

For some reason, anyway, I lost my footing and pitched forward from the ottoman. An instinct made me grab at the standard lamp as I fell. This deflected me for a moment and may have slightly lessened my impact on Georgiana, who ended up, not for the first time in our short acquaintance, sitting on the floor.

Once the racket had subsided, there was the sound of angry footsteps in the hall.

We looked at each other for a second, then, as one, made for the window. I say ‘as one’, though of course it took Georgiana a moment to heave herself up from the Aubusson. Meanwhile,
ahead at the casement: up went the sash, over went the foreleg, smack went the skull into the woodwork … I looked back from the outside world and, as on the previous occasion, felt tempted to bestow a parting peck, when there came a mighty rattling at the locked library door, followed by some hefty thumps on the panelling.

Georgiana called out, ‘Stop, thief!’

I did as instructed, stopped and turned, but saw her waving me away even as she cried again, ‘Stop, thief!’

Being pretty quick on the uptake, I understood her plan and legged it at top speed.

To steady the nerves and clear the brain, I pulled out the cigarette case and, making sure I was well concealed from the house, set fire to one. I pictured Georgiana explaining to an irate Sir Henry that she had surprised a burglar. She would then be attempting to persuade the old boy that since nothing was missing there was no need to call in the police. It was obviously better if I was not to be seen anywhere in the vicinity until things had calmed down a bit and Sir Henry was reassured that no light-fingered bibliophile had made off with his
History of the Crusades
in five vols, calf-bound, with slight foxing to the endpapers.

I found myself wandering on a path through some trees – not really a wood, but what I suppose you’d call a grove. There were cedars, elms and other specimens it was too dark to be sure of: a silver birch or two, perhaps. Spindly chaps, anyway.

In their shade, I paused to take stock. Having missed the servants’ high tea, I’d dined later off a slice of unwanted beef fillet with horseradish and a wedge of cheddar; the cognac had settled the whole thing nicely. Up in the branches above me I could hear what I fancied was a nightjar: a churring noise followed by what sounded like someone licking his lips. A garden is a lovesome thing, God wot; and a Dorset grove on a warm midsummer night is about as close to Eden as one can come without going to Mesopotamia, or wherever Dame Judith Puxley insisted the original had been.

I wasn’t sure why, in the rather awkward circs, I was having these bosky thoughts. Ask anyone in the Drones and they’ll tell you that Wooster, B. is essentially a boulevardier – a man of pavement, café and theatre. I may be possessed of half a dozen decent tweed suitings, even the odd plus-four and deerstalker, but mine is not –
au fond
, as I believe the French say – a rustic soul.

Yet something had got right in amongst me on this balmy night, and if I had an inner bumpkin, he was there with straw in his hair, grinning toothlessly and going ‘ooh-arrr’ along with the best of them. I sat down with my back to a tree trunk. I tried to clear my mind of Hackwoods and Venableses, just to get a good whiff of night air and remember what a deuced lucky fellow I was, dropped catch or no.

Then I felt something with about five hundred feet make a determined effort to get up my trouser leg. That’s the trouble with these countryside moments: they don’t last. Reality tends to stick an oar in.

A glance at the wrist told me it was some minutes past midnight. I knew that Bicknell went round like a gaoler at eleven-thirty on the dot, securing all entrances. My rude billet, as we know, was on the third floor at the back, with a view – if that’s not too big a word – over the yard that led to the stables. The front of Melbury Hall had a fire escape that zigzagged from the third floor to the ground, with a particularly showy landing outside what I took to be Sir Henry and Lady H’s bedroom. There was no such provision on the other side of the house, where the servants were presumably expected to knot the sheets or take a flying jump.

Georgiana’s calming efforts seemed to have worked. I could see the light in the library go off, followed by one or two on the first floor, including that in the biggest bedroom. There appeared to be no imminent sign of the local constabulary or of the sleeping villagers of Kingston St Giles being roused by their feudal lord to a hue and cry. Then I saw a light on the second floor, in a room that must have overlooked the lawns – a pleasant but modest nook, almost certainly where they would have shoved the junior cousin, the Sonya Whatsit of the estate. I could see that the fire escape extended in a more modest form to this, the south front of the house. I imagined Georgiana doing a final bit of blue-pencil work behind the curtains before snuffing out the candle.

The odds on the ravell’d sleeve of care being knitted up to any appreciable extent as far as I was concerned looked pretty slim. In the sober light of day, it would probably have been clear to anyone in my position that the priority was not to
make matters worse. The grounds and messuages of Melbury Hall were sure to contain a hayloft or a stable with some comfortable sacking; it would not have taken much, after all, to try the bones less than the visiting valet’s cell.

Unfortunately, the sober light of day was not where I found myself; rather the opposite. It was beginning to turn cold, as English nights do in June, quite suddenly. The thought of bunking down with the horses failed to appeal. It seemed to me, on the other hand, a quite excellent idea to shimmy up the fire escape, go round the south side to Georgiana’s light, knock on the window, check that all was well and thence make my way up indoors to my own room. As I cut along back towards the house, I could picture Georgiana’s face when she let me in; a hero’s welcome and a goodnight peck were mine for the taking.

At private school in Bramley-on-Sea, I used to have a Tuesday rendezvous at midnight on just such a fire escape with a boy in a different dormitory – a freckled lad called Newcome, who later took holy orders. These moonlit shindigs over shared tuck were brought to an abrupt end by the slipper of the Rev. Aubrey Upjohn, but it was with something of this youthful sense of adventure that I mounted the fire escape at Melbury Hall.

It was a solid piece of work, a credit to the ironmonger. It neither squeaked nor wobbled. I averted my eyes from what I took to be the Hackwood boudoir, climbed another floor and turned to survey the scene of which I was monarch. There in the moonlight I could make out the gazebo in the rose garden, and beyond it the rising ground of the deer park. I crept to the
corner of the house and along the south front to Georgiana’s room, where the light still burned.

Not wishing to startle the dear girl, I knocked softly. I listened hard, but there was no response. I rapped a little louder. Still nothing. I had not thought Georgiana to be so hard of hearing. Then I gave it all I’d got and was rewarded by a muffled shriek, the sound of movement from within, and finally a pulling back of curtains.

I shall never forget the face that met mine through the glass. At first I thought I had seen a ghost, or revenant. The skin was ghastly white; the hairstyle owed plenty to the quills upon a fretful porpentine. The overall expression was that of a Gorgon or Medusa. For what seemed an hour I stood transfixed; but it probably took no more than a second for the Wooster brain, relaxed as it was by the liquid contents of Sir Henry’s ottoman, to register that the apparition was Dame Judith Puxley, readied for the night in thick cold cream and curling papers.

Acting of their own accord, the lower limbs whisked me away without demur and up the fire escape. I heard the window being raised but was already one floor higher, beneath the stone parapet – over which I clambered on to a flattish piece of roof.

‘Who’s there?’ the old vixen called.

I feared more activity in the house and determined to press on across the rooftops to the relative safety of the servants’ side of things. From this great height I could hear nothing of what commotion might be going on beneath, but I was taking no chances. The roofing arrangement of Melbury Hall was complicated. I knew it had been an especially painful drain on Sir Henry’s
resources and the roofers had left ample evidence of their visit: pieces of timber, dust sheets and nails – to say nothing of cigarette ends and empty bottles – lay among the broken slates.

As I made my way through the debris, up one pitch and down another into a flat gulley, I had a sudden brainwave. I was still in full evening dress and was therefore unlikely to be taken for a cat burglar: even a distant sighting would confirm an inside job. I therefore grabbed an abandoned dust sheet and wrapped it round the person, tucking it under my collar so no one could make out the dinner jacket.

Just as I thought I was above my own bedroom, a bright light caught me momentarily from below. I ducked down, crawled to the edge and gave it a minute or two. All was quiet. A cast-iron drainpipe seemed to have my name on it. With an agility bred from years of climbing back into my Oxford college, I swung on to it and slid down to where my window, propped open against the sunny day, allowed me a handhold. I clambered aboard, dropped on to the welcome floor and quickly disrobed. With the dust sheet stowed beneath the bed, I was well pyjama-ed by the time footsteps and voices were heard on the back staircase.

It was an indignant visiting valet who appeared a minute later at his door and demanded to know what the infernal noise was about.

Breakfast the following morning was later than usual, but a good deal more animated. I had told Jeeves about the events
of the night when I took him up his tea, but I need hardly have bothered since he had already come to the conclusion that there was only one candidate for the role of rooftop intruder wrapped in a builder’s dust sheet.

I was not required in the dining room, but Bicknell brought back regular reports to Mrs Padgett, Mrs Tilman and me. It seemed that Georgiana had convinced Sir Henry that she had surprised a burglar in the library when she went in to find a book to take up to bed. To hinder the pursuit, the intruder had locked the door into the hall before making good his escape. All were agreed that it was a relief Georgiana hadn’t tried to tackle the fellow, who was described as large and of repellent aspect. There was no question of telephoning the police since the line was still out of action.

‘Why did Miss Meadowes want to see you earlier, Mr Wilberforce?’ said Bicknell, plonking down an emptied salver.

‘She wanted me to … to ask my advice about something.’

‘Really?’

There was something about Bicknell’s manner that I didn’t much like.

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘About a present for Lord Etringham,’ I improvised.

‘A present?’

‘Yes … Yes, I think she wants to give him a present to say thank you for helping Sir Henry with his racing tips.’

‘How peculiar,’ said Bicknell. ‘I would have thought Sir Henry himself would have—’

‘Oh, do leave off, Mr Bicknell,’ said Mrs Tilman. ‘You sound
like a police inspector, doesn’t he, Mr Wilberforce? Anyway, you were only in there a minute, weren’t you, love?’

‘Oh, rather,’ I said, slightly surprised.

‘I seen you going off to bed only a couple of minutes later.’

‘Oh, rather,’ I said again. Weak, I admit, but I was a bit nonplussed by this unexpected alibi.

‘Do they need more bacon, Mr Bicknell?’ said Mrs Tilman.

‘I’ll look after that,’ said Mrs Padgett, guarding her stove.

Mrs Tilman poured me a fresh cup of tea and – unless I was mistaken – winked at me. I was still trying to work out what was going on when Bicknell returned in search of more coffee.