The Jeeves Omnibus - Vol 4: (Jeeves & Wooster): No.4 (22 page)

I didn’t want to cast a damper over the proceedings, but I had to put in a word here.

‘Frightfully sorry to have to dash the cup of joy from your lips, old tortured spirit,’ I said, ‘but I fear that all this comes under the head of wishful thinking. Pull yourself together, Jeeves. You speak … is it airily?’

‘Airily or glibly, sir.’

‘Thank you, Jeeves. You speak airily or glibly of inducing L.G. Trotter to throw off the yoke and defy his considerably better half, but are you not too … dash it, I’ve forgotten the word.’

‘Sanguine, sir?’

‘That’s it. Sanguine. Brief though my acquaintance with these twain has been, I have got L.G. Trotter’s number, all right. His attitude towards Ma Trotter is that of an exceptionally diffident worm towards a sinewy Plymouth Rock or Orpington. A word from her, and he curls up into a ball. So where do you get off with that simple-matter-to-override-wishes stuff?’

I thought I had him there, but no.

‘If I might explain. I gather from Mr. Seppings, who has had opportunities of overhearing the lady’s conversation, that Mrs. Trotter, being socially ambitious, is extremely anxious to see Mr. Trotter knighted, madam.’

Aunt Dahlia nodded.

‘Yes, that’s right. She’s always talking about it. She thinks it would be one in the eye for Mrs. Alderman Blenkinsop.’

‘Precisely, madam.’

I was rather surprised.

‘Do they knight birds like him?’

‘Oh, yes, sir. A gentleman of Mr. Trotter’s prominence in the world of publishing is always in imminent danger of receiving the accolade.’

‘Danger? Don’t these bozos like being knighted?’

‘Not when they are of Mr. Trotter’s retiring disposition, sir. He would find it a very testing ordeal. It involves wearing satin knee-breeches
and
walking backwards with a sword between the legs, not at all the sort of thing a sensitive gentleman of regular habits would enjoy. And he shrinks, no doubt, from the prospect of being addressed for the remainder of his life as Sir Lemuel.’

‘His name’s not Lemuel?’

‘I fear so, sir.’

‘Couldn’t he use his second name?’

‘His second name is Gengulphus.’

‘Golly, Jeeves,’ I said, thinking of old Uncle Tom Portarlington, ‘there’s some raw work pulled at the font from time to time, is there not?’

‘There is, indeed, sir.’

Aunt Dahlia seemed perplexed, like one who strives in vain to put her finger on the nub.

‘Is this all leading up to something, Jeeves?’

‘Yes, madam. I was about to hazard the suggestion that were Mr. Trotter to become aware that the alternative to buying
Milady’s Boudoir
was the discovery by Mrs. Trotter that he had been offered a knighthood and had declined it, you might find the gentleman more easily moulded than in the past, madam.’

It took Aunt Dahlia right between the eyes like a sock full of wet sand. She tottered, and grabbed for support at the upper part of my right arm, giving it the dickens of a pinch. The anguish caused her next remark to escape me, though as it was no doubt merely ‘Gosh!’ or ‘Lord love a duck!’ or something of that sort, I suppose I didn’t miss much. When the mists had cleared from my eyes and I was myself again, Jeeves was speaking.

‘It appears that Mrs. Trotter some months ago insisted on Mr. Trotter engaging the services of a gentleman’s personal gentleman, a young fellow named Worple, and Worple contrived to secure the rough draft of Mr. Trotter’s letter of refusal from the wastepaper basket. He had recently become a member of the Junior Ganymede, and in accordance with Rule Eleven he forwarded the document to the secretary for inclusion in the club archives. Through the courtesy of the secretary I was enabled to peruse it after luncheon, and a photo-static copy is to be dispatched to me through the medium of the post. I think that if you were to mention this to Mr. Trotter, madam –’

Aunt Dahlia uttered a whoop similar in timbre to those which she had been accustomed to emit in the old Quorn and Pytchley days when encouraging a bevy of hounds to get on the scent and give it both nostrils.

‘We’ve got him cold!’

‘So one is disposed to imagine, madam.’

‘I’ll tackle him right away.’

‘You can’t,’ I pointed out. ‘He’s gone to bed. Touch of dyspepsia.’

‘Then tomorrow directly after breakfast,’ said Aunt Dahlia. ‘Oh, Jeeves!’

Emotion overcame her, and she grabbed at my arm again. It was like being bitten by an alligator.

AT ABOUT THE
hour of nine next morning a singular spectacle might have been observed on the main staircase of Brinkley Court. It was Bertram Wooster coming down to breakfast.

It is a fact well known to my circle that only on very rare occasions do I squash in at the communal morning meal, preferring to chew the kipper or whatever it may be in the seclusion of my bedchamber. But a determined man can nerve himself to almost anything, if necessary, and I was resolved at all cost not to miss the dramatic moment when Aunt Dahlia tore off her whiskers and told a cowering L.G. Trotter that she knew all. It would, I felt, be value for money.

Though slightly on the somnambulistic side, I don’t know when I have felt more strongly that the lark was on the wing and the snail on the thorn and God in His Heaven and all right with the world. Thanks to Jeeves’s outstanding acumen, Aunt Dahlia’s problem was solved, and I was in a position – if I cared to be rude enough – to laugh in the faces of any inspectors and sergeants who might blow in. Furthermore, before retiring to rest on the previous night I had taken the precaution to recover the cosh from the old relative and it was securely on my person once more. Little wonder that, as I entered the dining-room, I was within an ace of bursting into song and piping as the linnets do, as I have heard Jeeves put it.

The first thing I saw on crossing the threshold was Stilton wolfing ham, the next Daphne Dolores Morehead finishing off her repast with toast and marmalade.

‘Ah, Bertie, old man,’ cried the former, waving a fork in the friendliest manner. ‘So there you are, Bertie, old fellow. Come in, Bertie, old chap, come in. Splendid to see you looking so rosy.’

His cordiality would have surprised me more, if I hadn’t seen in it a ruse or stratagem designed to put me off my guard and lull me into a false sense of security. Keenly alert, I went to the sideboard and helped myself with my left hand to sausages and bacon, keeping the right hand on the cosh in my side pocket. This jungle warfare teaches a man to take no chances.

‘Nice morning,’ I said, having taken my seat and dipped the lips into a cup of coffee.

‘Lovely,’ agreed the Morehead, who was looking more than ever like a dewy flower at daybreak. ‘D’Arcy is going to take me for a row on the river.’

‘Yes,’ said Stilton, giving her a burning glance. ‘One feels that Daphne ought to see the river. You might tell your aunt we shall not be back for lunch. Sandwiches and hard-boiled eggs are being provided.’

‘By that nice butler.’

‘By, as you say, that nice butler, who also thought it might run to a bottle of the best from the oldest bin. We shall be starting almost immediately.’

‘I’ll be going and getting ready,’ said the Morehead.

She rose with a bright smile, and Stilton, full though he was of ham, bounded gallantly to open the door for her. When he returned to the table, he found me rather ostentatiously brandishing the cosh. It seemed to surprise him.

‘Hullo!’ he said. ‘What are you doing with that thing?’

‘Oh, nothing,’ I replied nonchalantly, resting it by my plate. ‘I just thought I would like to have it handy.’

He swallowed a chunk of ham in a puzzled way. Then his face cleared.

‘Good Lord! You didn’t think I was going to set about you?’

I said that some such idea had crossed my mind, and he uttered an amused laugh.

‘Good heavens, no! Why, I look on you as my dearest pal, old man.’

It seemed to me that if yesterday’s session was a specimen of the way he comported himself towards his dearest pals, the ones who weren’t quite so dear must have a pretty thin time of it. I said as much, and he laughed again as heartily as if he had been standing in the dock at Vinton Street police court with His Worship getting off those nifties of his which convulsed all and sundry.

‘Oh, that?’ he said, dismissing the incident with an airy wave of the hand. ‘Forget all that, dear old chap. Put it right out of your mind, old fellow. Perhaps I was a little cross on the occasion to which you refer, but no longer.’

‘No?’ I said guardedly.

‘Definitely not. I see now that I owe you a deep debt of gratitude. But for you, I might still be engaged to that pill Florence. Thank you, Bertie, old man.’

Well, I said ‘Not at all’ or ‘Don’t mention it’ or something of that sort, but my head was swimming. What with getting up for breakfast
and
hearing this Cheesewright allude to Florence as a pill, I felt in a sort of dream.

‘I thought you loved her,’ I said, digging a bewildered fork into my sausage.

He laughed again. Only a beefy mass of heartiness like G. D’Arcy Cheesewright could have been capable of so much merriment at such an hour.

‘Who, me? Good heavens, no! I may have imagined I did once … one of those boyish fancies … but when she said I had a head like a pumpkin, the scales fell from my eyes and I came out of the ether. Pumpkin, forsooth! I don’t mind telling you, Bertie, old chap, that there are others – I mention no names – who have described my head as majestic. Yes, I have it from a reliable source that it makes me look a king among men. That will give you a rough idea of what a silly young geezer that blighted Florence Craye is. It is a profound relief to me that you have enabled me to get her out of my hair.’

He thanked me again, and I said ‘Don’t mention it’, or it may have been ‘Not at all’. I was feeling dizzier than ever.

‘Then you don’t think,’ I said with a quaver in the v., ‘that later on, when the hot blood has cooled, there might be a reconciliation?’

‘Not a hope.’

‘It happened before.’

‘It won’t happen again. I know now what love really is, Bertie. I tell you, when somebody – who shall be nameless – gazes into my eyes and says that the first time she saw me – in spite of the fact that I was wearing a moustache fully as foul as that one of yours – something went over her like an electric shock, I feel as if I had just won the Diamond Sculls at Henley. It’s all washed up between Florence and me. She’s yours, old man. Take her, old chap, take her.’

Well, I said something civil like ‘Oh, thanks’, but he wasn’t listening. A silvery voice had called his name, and pausing but an instant to swallow the last of his ham he shot from the room, his face aglow and his eyes a-sparkle.

He left me with the heart like lead within the bosom and the sausage and bacon turning to ashes in my mouth. This, I could see, was the end. It was plain to the least observant eye that G. D’Arcy Cheesewright had got it properly up his nose. Morehead Preferred were booming, and Craye Ordinaries down in the cellar with no takers.

And I had been so certain that in due season wiser counsels would prevail, causing these two sundered hearts to regret the rift in the lute and decide to have another pop at it, thus saving me from the scaffold
once
more. But it was not to be. Bertram was for it. He would have to drain the bitter cup, after all.

I was starting on a second instalment of coffee – it tasted like the bitter cup – when L.G. Trotter came in.

The one thing I didn’t want in my enfeebled state was to have to swap ideas with Trotters, but when you’re alone in a dining-room with a fellow, something in the nature of conversation is inevitable, so, as he poured himself out a cup of tea, I said it was a beautiful morning and recommended the sausages and bacon.

He reacted strongly, shuddering from head to foot.

‘Sausages?’ he said. ‘Bacon?’ he said. ‘Don’t talk to me about sausages and bacon,’ he said. ‘My dyspepsia’s worse than ever.’

Well, if he wanted to thresh out the subject of his aching tum, I was prepared to lend a ready ear, but he skipped on to another topic.

‘You married?’ he asked.

I winced a trifle and said I wasn’t actually married yet.

‘And you won’t ever be, if you’ve got a morsel of sense,’ he proceeded, and brooded darkly over his tea for a moment. ‘You know what happens when you get married? You’re bossed. You can’t call your soul your own. You become just a cipher in the home.’

I must say I was a bit surprised to find him so confidential to one who was, after all, a fairly mere stranger, but I put it down to the dyspepsia. No doubt the shooting pains had robbed him of his cool judgment.

‘Have an egg,’ I said, by way of showing him that my heart was in the right place.

He turned green and tied himself into a lovers’ knot.

‘I won’t have an egg! Don’t keep telling me to have things. Do you think I could look at eggs, feeling the way I do? It’s all this infernal French cooking. No digestion can stand up against it. Marriage!’ he said, getting back to the old subject. ‘Don’t talk to me about marriages. You get married, and first thing you know, you have stepsons rung in on you who grow whiskers and don’t do a stroke of honest work. All they do is write poems about sunsets. Pah!’

I’m pretty shrewd, and it flashed upon me at this point that it might quite possibly be his stepson Percy to whom he was guardedly alluding. But before I could verify this suspicion the room had begun to fill up. Round about nine-twenty, which it was now, you generally find the personnel of a country house lining up for the eats. Aunt Dahlia came in and took a fried egg. Mrs. Trotter came in and took a sausage. Percy and Florence came in and took respectively a slice of ham and a portion of haddock. As there were no signs of Uncle Tom, I
presumed
that he was breakfasting in bed. He generally does when he has guests, rarely feeling equal to facing them till he has fortified himself a bit for the stern ordeal.

Those present had got their heads down and their elbows squared and were busily employed getting theirs, when Seppings appeared with the morning papers, and conversation, not that there had ever been much of it, flagged. It was to a silent gathering that there now entered a newcomer, a man about seven feet in height with a square, powerful face, slightly moustached towards the centre. It was some time since I had set eyes on Roderick Spode, but I had no difficulty in recognizing him. He was one of those distinctive-looking blisters who, once seen, are never forgotten.