The Jeeves Omnibus (244 page)

The breath-taking exhibit before me was in person a bit on the short side. I mean to say, she didn’t tower above one, or anything like that. But, to compensate for this lack of inches, she possessed to a remarkable degree that sort of quiet air of being unwilling to stand any rannygazoo which females who run schools always have. I had noticed the same thing when
in statu pupillari
, in my old headmaster, one glance from whose eye had invariably been sufficient to make me confess all. Sergeant-majors are like that, too. Also traffic-cops and some post office girls. It’s something in the way they purse up their lips and look through you.

In short, through years of disciplining the young – ticking off Isabel and speaking with quiet severity to Gertrude and that sort of thing – Miss Mapleton had acquired in the process of time rather the air of a female lion-tamer; and it was this air which had caused me after the first swift look to shut my eyes and utter a short prayer. But now, though she still resembled a lion-tamer, her bearing had most surprisingly become that of a chummy lion-tamer – a tamer who, after tucking the lions in for the night, relaxes in the society of the boys.

‘So you did not find them, Mr Wooster?’ she said. ‘I am sorry. But I am none the less grateful for the trouble you have taken, nor lacking in appreciation of your courage. I consider that you have behaved splendidly.’

I felt the mouth opening feebly and the vocal chords twitching but I couldn’t manage to say anything. I was simply unable to follow her
train
of thought. I was astonished. Amazed. In fact, dumbfounded about sums it up.

The hell-hound of the Law gave a sort of yelp, rather like a wolf that sees its Russian peasant getting away.

‘You identify this man, ma’am?’

‘Identify him? In what way identify him?’

Jeeves joined the symposium.

‘I fancy the officer is under the impression, madam, that Mr Wooster was in your garden for some unlawful purpose. I informed him that Mr Wooster was the nephew of your friend, Mrs Spenser Gregson, but he refused to credit me.’

There was a pause. Miss Mapleton eyed the constable for an instant as if she had caught him sucking acid-drops during the Scripture lesson.

‘Do you mean to tell me, officer,’ she said, in a voice that hit him just under the third button of the tunic and went straight through to the spinal column, ‘that you have had the imbecility to bungle this whole affair by mistaking Mr Wooster for a burglar?’

‘He was up a tree, ma’am.’

‘And why should he not be up a tree? No doubt you had climbed the tree in order to watch the better, Mr Wooster?’

I could answer that. The first shock over, the old sang-froid was beginning to return.

‘Yes. Rather. That’s it. Of course. Certainly. Absolutely,’ I said. ‘Watch the better. That’s it in a nutshell.’

‘I took the liberty of suggesting that to the officer, madam, but he declined to accept the theory as tenable.’

‘The officer is a fool,’ said Miss Mapleton. It seemed a close thing for a moment whether or not she would rap him on the knuckles with a ruler. ‘By this time, no doubt, owing to this idiocy, the miscreants have made good their escape. And it is for this,’ said Miss Mapleton, ‘that we pay rates and taxes!’

‘Awful!’ I said.

‘Iniquitous.’

‘A bally shame.’

‘A crying scandal,’ said Miss Mapleton.

‘A grim show,’ I agreed.

In fact, we were just becoming more like a couple of love-birds than anything, when through the open window there suddenly breezed a noise.

I’m never at my best at describing things. At school, when we used to do essays and English composition, my report generally read ‘Has
little
or no ability, but does his best,’ or words to that effect. True, in the course of years I have picked up a vocabulary of sorts from Jeeves, but even so I’m not nearly hot enough to draw a word-picture that would do justice to that extraordinarily hefty crash. Try to imagine the Albert Hall falling on the Crystal Palace, and you will have got the rough idea.

All four of us, even Jeeves, sprang several inches from the floor. The policeman uttered a startled ‘Ho!’

Miss Mapleton was her calm masterful self again in a second.

‘One of the men appears to have fallen through the conservatory roof,’ she said. ‘Perhaps you will endeavour at the eleventh hour to justify your existence, officer, by proceeding there and making investigations.’

‘Yes, ma’am.’

‘And try not to bungle matters this time.’

‘No, ma’am.’

‘Please hurry, then. Do you intend to stand there gaping all night?’

‘Yes, ma’am. No, ma’am. Yes, ma’am.’

It was pretty to hear him.

‘It is an odd coincidence, Mr Wooster,’ said Miss Mapleton, becoming instantly matey once more as the outcast removed himself. ‘I had just finished writing a letter to your aunt when you arrived. I shall certainly reopen it to tell her how gallantly you have behaved tonight. I have not in the past entertained a very high opinion of the modern young man, but you have caused me to alter it. To track these men unarmed through a dark garden argues courage of a high order. And it was most courteous of you to think of calling upon me. I appreciate it. Are you making a long stay in Bingley?’

This was another one I could answer.

‘No,’ I said. ‘Afraid not. Must be in London tomorrow.’

‘Perhaps you could lunch before your departure?’

‘Afraid not. Thanks most awfully. Very important engagement that I can’t get out of. Eh, Jeeves?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Have to catch the ten-thirty train, what?’

‘Without fail, sir.’

‘I am sorry,’ said Miss Mapleton. ‘I had hoped that you would be able to say a few words to my girls. Some other time perhaps?’

‘Absolutely.’

‘You must let me know when you are coming to Bingley again.’

‘When I come to Bingley again,’ I said, ‘I will certainly let you know.’

‘If I remember your plans correctly, sir, you are not likely to be in Bingley for some little time, sir.’

‘Not for some considerable time, Jeeves,’ I said.

The front door closed. I passed a hand across the brow.

‘Tell me all, Jeeves,’ I said.

‘Sir?’

‘I say, tell me all. I am fogged.’

‘It is quite simple, sir. I ventured to take the liberty, on my own responsibility, of putting into operation the alternative scheme which, if you remember, I wished to outline to you.’

‘What was it?’

‘It occurred to me, sir, that it would be most judicious for me to call at the back door and desire an interview with Miss Mapleton. This, I fancied, would enable me, while the maid had gone to convey my request to Miss Mapleton, to introduce the young lady into the house unobserved.’

‘And did you?’

‘Yes, sir. She proceeded up the back stairs and is now safely in bed.’

I frowned. The thought of the kid Clementina jarred upon me.

‘She is, is she?’ I said. ‘A murrain on her, Jeeves, and may she be stood in the corner next Sunday for not knowing her Collect. And then you saw Miss Mapleton?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘And told her that I was out in the garden, chivvying burglars with my bare hands?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘And had been on my way to call upon her?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘And now she’s busy adding a postscript to her letter to Aunt Agatha, speaking of me in terms of unstinted praise.’

‘Yes, sir.’

I drew in a deep breath. It was too dark for me to see the super-human intelligence which must have been sloshing about all over the surface of the man’s features. I tried to, but couldn’t make it.

‘Jeeves,’ I said, ‘I should have been guided by you from the first.’

‘It might have spared you some temporary unpleasantness, sir.’

‘Unpleasantness is right. When that lantern shone up at me in the
silent
night, Jeeves, just as I had finished poising the pot, I thought I had unshipped a rib. Jeeves!’

‘Sir?’

‘That Antibes expedition is off.’

‘I am glad to hear it, sir.’

‘If young Bobbie Wickham can get me into a mess like this in a quiet spot like Bingley-on-Sea, what might she not be able to accomplish at a really lively resort like Antibes?’

‘Precisely, sir. Miss Wickham, as I have sometimes said, though a charming –’

‘Yes, yes, Jeeves. There is no necessity to stress the point. The Wooster eyes are definitely opened.’

I hesitated.

‘Jeeves.’

‘Sir?’

‘Those plus-fours.’

‘Yes, sir?’

‘You may give them to the poor.’

‘Thank you very much, sir.’

I sighed.

‘It is my heart’s blood, Jeeves.’

‘I appreciate the sacrifice, sir. But, once the first pang of separation is over, you will feel much easier without them.’

‘You think so?’

‘I am convinced of it, sir.’

‘So be it, then, Jeeves,’ I said, ‘so be it.’

THERE IS A
ghastly moment in the year, generally about the beginning of August, when Jeeves insists on taking a holiday, the slacker, and legs it off to some seaside resort for a couple of weeks, leaving me stranded. This moment had now arrived, and we were discussing what was to be done with the young master.

‘I had gathered the impression, sir,’ said Jeeves, ‘that you were proposing to accept Mr Sipperley’s invitation to join him at his Hampshire residence.’

I laughed. One of those bitter, rasping ones.

‘Correct, Jeeves. I was. But mercifully I was enabled to discover young Sippy’s foul plot in time. Do you know what?’

‘No, sir.’

‘My spies informed me that Sippy’s fiancée, Miss Moon, was to be there. Also his fiancée’s mother, Mrs Moon, and his fiancée’s small brother, Master Moon. You see the hideous treachery lurking behind the invitation? You see the man’s loathsome design? Obviously my job was to be the task of keeping Mrs Moon and little Sebastian Moon interested and amused while Sippy and his blighted girl went off for the day, roaming the pleasant woodlands and talking of this and that. I doubt if anyone has ever had a narrower escape. You remember little Sebastian?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘His goggle eyes? His golden curls?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘I don’t know why it is, but I’ve never been able to bear with fortitude anything in the shape of a kid with golden curls. Confronted with one, I feel the urge to step on him or drop things on him from a height.’

‘Many strong natures are affected in the same way, sir.’

‘So no
chez
Sippy for me. Was that the front-door bell ringing?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Somebody stands without.’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Better go and see who it is.’

‘Yes, sir.’

He oozed off, to return a moment later bearing a telegram. I opened it, and a soft smile played about the lips.

‘Amazing how often things happen as if on a cue, Jeeves. This is from my Aunt Dahlia, inviting me down to her place in Worcestershire.’

‘Most satisfactory, sir.’

‘Yes. How I came to overlook her when searching for a haven, I can’t think. The ideal home from home. Picturesque surroundings. Company’s own water, and the best cook in England. You have not forgotten Anatole?’

‘No, sir.’

‘And above all, Jeeves, at Aunt Dahlia’s there should be an almost total shortage of blasted kids. True, there is her son Bonzo, who, I take it, will be home for the holidays, but I don’t mind Bonzo. Buzz off and send a wire, accepting.’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘And then shove a few necessaries together, including golf clubs and tennis racquet.’

‘Very good, sir. I am glad that matters have been so happily adjusted.’

I think I have mentioned before that my Aunt Dahlia stands alone in the grim regiment of my aunts as a real good sort and a chirpy sportsman. She is the one, if you remember, who married old Tom Travers and, with the assistance of Jeeves, lured Mrs Bingo Little’s French cook, Anatole, away from Mrs BL and into her own employment. To visit her is always a pleasure. She generally has some cheery birds staying with her, and there is none of that rot about getting up for breakfast which one is sadly apt to find at country-houses.

It was, accordingly, with unalloyed lightness of heart that I edged the two-seater into the garage at Brinkley Court, Worc., and strolled round to the house by way of the shrubbery and the tennis-lawn, to report arrival. I had just got across the lawn when a head poked itself out of the smoking room window and beamed at me in an amiable sort of way.

‘Ah, Mr Wooster,’ it said. ‘Ha, ha!’

‘Ho, ho!’ I replied, not to be outdone in the courtesies.

It had taken me a couple of seconds to place this head. I now perceived that it belonged to a rather moth-eaten septuagenarian of
the
name of Anstruther, an old friend of Aunt Dahlia’s late father. I had met him at her house in London once or twice. An agreeable cove but somewhat given to nervous breakdowns.

‘Just arrived?’ he asked, beaming as before.

‘This minute,’ I said, also beaming.

‘I fancy you will find our good hostess in the drawing room.’

‘Right,’ I said, and after a bit more beaming to and fro I pushed on.

Aunt Dahlia was in the drawing room, and welcomed me with gratifying enthusiasm. She beamed, too. It was one of those big days for beamers.

‘Hullo, ugly,’ she said. ‘So here you are. Thank heaven you were able to come.’

It was the right tone, and one I should be glad to hear in others of the family circle, notably my Aunt Agatha.

‘Always a pleasure to enjoy your hosp, Aunt Dahlia,’ I said cordially. ‘I anticipate a delightful and restful visit. I see you’ve got Mr Anstruther staying here. Anybody else?’

‘Do you know Lord Snettisham?’

‘I’ve met him, racing.’

‘He’s here, and Lady Snettisham.’

‘And Bonzo, of course?’

‘Yes. And Thomas?’

‘Uncle Thomas?’

‘No, he’s in Scotland. Your cousin Thomas.’

‘You don’t mean Aunt Agatha’s loathly son?’

‘Of course I do. How many cousin Thomases do you think you’ve got, fathead? Agatha has gone to Homburg and planted the child on me.’