'Egad, Jeeves!'
'Yes, sir. I thought I would mention it, sir. Good night, sir.'
He oozed off.
CHAPTER 15
We Woosters are never very early risers, and the sun was highish in the heavens next morning when I woke to greet a new day And I had just finished tucking away a refreshing scrambled eggs and coffee, when the door opened as if a hurricane had hit it and Aunt Dahlia came pirouetting in.
I use the word 'pirouetting' advisedly, for there was an elasticity in her bearing which impressed itself immediately upon the eye. Of the drooping mourner of last night there remained no trace. The woman was plainly right above herself.
'Bertie,' she said, after a brief opening speech in the course of which she described me as a lazy young hound who ought to be ashamed to be wallowing in bed on what, if you asked her, was the maddest merriest day of all the glad new year, 'I've just been talking to Jeeves, and if ever a life-saving friend in need drew breath, it is he. Hats off to Jeeves is the way I look at it.'
Pausing for a moment to voice the view that my moustache was an offence against God and man but that she saw in it nothing that a good weed-killer couldn't cure, she resumed.
'He tells me this Lord Sidcup who's coming here today is none other than our old pal Roderick Spode.'
I nodded. I had divined from her exuberance that he must have been spilling the big news.
'Correct,' I said. Apparently, all unknown to us, Spode was right from the start the secret nephew of the holder of the title, and since that sojourn of ours at Totleigh Towers the latter has gone to reside with the morning stars, giving him a step up. Jeeves has also, I take it, told you about Eulalie Sœurs?'
The whole thing. Why didn't you ever let me in on that? You know how I enjoy a good laugh.'
I spread the hands in a dignified gesture, upsetting the coffeepot, which was fortunately empty.
'My lips were sealed.'
'You and your lips!'
'All right, me and my lips. But I repeat. The information was imparted to me in confidence.'
'You could have told Auntie.'
I shook my head. Women do not understand these things. Noblesse oblige means nothing to the gentler sex.
'One does not impart confidential confidences even to Auntie, not if one is a confidant of the right sort.'
'Well, anyway, I know the facts, and I hold Spode, alias Sidcup, in the hollow of my hand. Bless my soul,' she went on, a far-off ecstatic look on her face, 'how well I remember that day at Totleigh Towers. There he was, advancing on you with glittering eyes and foam-flecked lips, and you drew yourself up as cool as some cucumbers, as Anatole would say, and said "One minute, Spode, just one minute. It may interest you to learn that I know all about Eulalie." Gosh, how I admired you!'
'I don't wonder.'
'You were like one of those lion tamers in circuses who defy murderous man-eating monarchs of the jungle.'
'There was a resemblance, no doubt.'
And how he wilted! I've never seen anything like it. Before my eyes he wilted like a wet sock. And he's going to do it again when he gets here this evening.'
'You propose to draw him aside and tell him you know his guilty secret?'
'Exactly. Strongly recommending him, when Tom shows him the necklace, to say it's a lovely bit of work and worth every penny he paid for it. It can't fail. Fancy him owning Eulalie Sœurs! He must make a packet out of it. I was in there last month, buying some cami-knickers, and the place was doing a roaring trade. Money pouring in like a tidal wave. By the way, laddie, talking of cami-knickers, Florence was showing me hers just now. Not the ones she had on, I don't mean; her reserve supply. She wanted my opinion of them. And I'm sorry to tell you, my poor lamb,' she said, eyeing me with auntly pity, 'that things look pretty serious in that quarter.'
'They do?'
'Extremely serious. She's all set to start those wedding bells ringing out. Somewhere around next November, she seems to think, at St George's, Hanover Square. Already she is speaking freely of bridesmaids and caterers.' She paused, and looked at me in a surprised sort of way. 'You don't seem very upset,' she said. Are you one of these men of chilled steel one reads about?'
I spread the hands again, this time without disaster to the breakfast tray.
'Well, I'll tell you, old ancestor. When a fellow has been engaged as often as I have and each time saved from the scaffold at the eleventh hour, he comes to have faith in his star. He feels that all is not lost till they have actually got him at the altar rails with the organ playing "Oh, Perfect Love" and the clergyman saying "Wilt thou?" At the moment, admittedly, I am in a soup, but it may well be that in God's good time it will be granted to me to emerge unscathed from the tureen.'
'You don't despair?'
'Not at all. I have high hopes that, after they have thought things over, these two proud spirits who have parted brass rags will come together and be reconciled, thus letting me out. The rift was due–'
'I know. She told me.'
'– to the fact that Stilton learned that I had taken Florence to The Mottled Oyster one night about a week ago, and he refused to believe that I had done so merely in order to enable her to accumulate atmosphere for her new book. When he has cooled off and reason has returned to its throne, he may realize how mistaken he was and beg her to forgive him for his low suspicions. I think so, I hope so.'
She agreed that there was something in this and commended me for my spirit, which in her opinion was the right one. My intrepidity reminded her, she said, of the Spartans at Thermopylae, wherever that may be.
'But he's a long way from being in that frame of mind at the moment, according to Florence. She says he is convinced that you two were on an unbridled toot together. And, of course, his finding you in the cupboard in her bedroom at one in the morning was unfortunate.'
'Most. One would have gladly avoided the occurrence.'
'Must have given the man quite a start. What beats me is why he didn't hammer the stuffing out of you. I should have thought that would have been his first move.'
I smiled quietly.
'He has drawn me in the Drones Club Darts sweep.'
'What's that got to do with it?'
'My dear soul, does a fellow hammer the stuffing out of a chap on whose virtuosity at the Darts board he stands to win fifty-six pounds, ten shillings?'
'Oh, I see.'
'So did Stilton. I made the position thoroughly clear to him, and he has ceased to be a menace. However much his thoughts may drift in the direction of stuffing-hammering, he will have to continue to maintain the non-belligerent status of a mild cat in an adage. I have bottled him up good and proper. There was nothing further you wished to discuss?'
'Not that I know of
'Then if you will withdraw, I will be getting up and dressing.'
I rose from the hay as the door closed, and having bathed, shaved and clad the outer man, took my cigarette out for a stroll in the grounds and messuages.
The sun was now a good bit higher in the heavens than when last observed, and its genial warmth increased the optimism of my mood. Thinking of Stilton and the dead stymie I had laid him, I found myself feeling that it was not such a bad little old world, after all. I don't know anything that braces you more thoroughly than outgeneralling one of the baser sort who has been chucking his weight about and planning to start something. It was with much the same quiet satisfaction which I had experienced when bending Roderick Spode to my will at Totleigh Towers that I contemplated Stilton in his bottled-up state. As Aunt Dahlia had said, quite the lion tamer.
True, as against this, there was Florence – already, it appeared, speaking freely of bridesmaids, caterers and St George's, Hanover Square – and a lesser man might have allowed her dark shadow to cloud his feeling of bien-être. But it is always the policy of the Woosters to count their blessings one by one, and I concentrated my attention exclusively on the bright side of the picture, telling myself that even if an eleventh-hour re
prieve failed to materialize and I was compelled to drain the bitter cup, I wouldn't have to do it with two black eyes and a fractured spine, wedding presents from G. D'Arcy Cheese-wright. Come what might, I was that much ahead of the game.
I was, in short, in buoyant mood and practically saying 'Tra la', when I observed Jeeves shimmering up in the manner of one desiring audience.
Ah, Jeeves,' I said. 'Nice morning.'
'Extremely agreeable, sir.'
'Did you want to see me about something?'
'If you could spare me a moment, sir. I was anxious to ascertain if it would be possible for you to dispense with my services today in order that I may go to London. The Junior Ganymede luncheon, sir.'
'I thought that was next week.'
'The date has been put forward to accommodate Sir Everard Everett's butler, who leaves with his employer tomorrow for the United States of America. Sir Everard is assuming his duties as Britannic ambassador at Washington.'
'Is that so? Good luck to the old blister.'
'Yes, sir.'
'One likes to see these public servants bustling about and earning their salaries.'
'Yes, sir.'
'If one is a taxpayer, I mean, contributing one's whack to those salaries.'
'Precisely, sir. I should be glad if you could see your way to allowing me to attend the function, sir. As I informed you, I am taking the chair.'
Well, of course, when he put it like that, I had no option but to right-ho.
'Certainly, Jeeves. Push along and revel till your ribs squeak. It may be your last chance,' I added significantly.
'Sir?'
'Well, you've often stressed how fussy the brass hats at the Ganymede are about members not revealing the secrets of the club book, and Aunt Dahlia tells me you've just been spilling the whole inner story of Spode and Eulalie Sœurs to her. Won't they drum you out if this becomes known?'
'The contingency is a remote one, sir, and I gladly took the risk, knowing that Mrs Travers's happiness was at stake.'
'Pretty white, Jeeves.'
'Thank you, sir. I endeavour to give satisfaction. And now I think perhaps, if you will excuse me, sir, I should be starting for the station. The train for London leaves very shortly.'
'Why not drive up in the two-seater?'
'If you could spare it, sir?'
'Of course.'
'Thank you very much, sir. It will be a great convenience.'
He pushed off in the direction of the house, no doubt to go and get the bowler hat which is his inseparable companion when in the metropolis, and scarcely had he left me when I heard my name called in a bleating voice and turned to perceive Percy Gorringe approaching, his tortoiseshell-rimmed spectacles glistening in the sunshine.
My first emotion on beholding him was one of surprise, a feeling that of all the in-and-out performers I had ever met he was the most unpredictable. I mean, you couldn't tell from one minute to another what aspect he was going to present to the world, for he switched from Stormy to Set Fair and from Set Fair to Stormy like a barometer with something wrong with its works. At dinner on the previous night he had been all gaiety and effervescence, and here he was now, only a few hours later, once more giving that impersonation of a dead codfish which had caused Aunt Dahlia to take so strong a line with him. Fixing me with lack-lustre eyes, if lack-lustre is the word I want, and wasting no time on preliminary pip-pippings pourparlers, he started straight off cleansing his bosom of the perilous stuff that weighs upon the heart.
'Wooster,' he said, 'Florence has just told me a story that shocked me!'
Well, difficult to know what to say to that, of course. One's impulse was to ask what story, adding that if it was the one about the bishop and the lady snake-charmer, one had heard it. And one could, no doubt, have shoved in a thoughtful word or two deploring the growing laxity of speech of the modern girl. I merely said 'Oh, ah?' and waited for further details.
His eye, as Florence's had done on the previous night, rolled in a fine frenzy and glanced from heaven to earth, from earth to heaven. You could see the thing had upset him.
'Shortly after breakfast,' he continued, retrieving the eye and fixing it on me once more, 'finding her alone in the herbaceous border, cutting flowers, I hastened up and asked if I might be allowed to hold the basket.'
'Very civil.'
'She thanked me and said she would be glad if I would do so, and for awhile we talked of neutral subjects. One topic led to another, and eventually I asked her to be my wife.'
''At-a-boy!'
'I beg your pardon?'
'I only said "'At-a-boy!'"
'Why did you say " 'At-a-boy!"?'
'Sort of cheering you on, as it were.'
'I see. Cheering me on. The expression is a corruption, one assumes, of the phrase "That is the boy" and signifies friendly encouragement?'
'That's right.'
'Then I am surprised in the circumstances – and may I say more than a little disgusted – to hear it from your lips, Wooster. It would have been in better taste to have refrained from cheap taunts and jeers.'
'Eh?'
'If you have triumphed, that is no reason why you should mock those who have been less fortunate.'
'I'm sorry. If you could give me a few footnotes
He tchah-ed impatiently.
'I told you that I asked Florence to be my wife, and I also told you that she said something which shocked me profoundly. It was that she was engaged to you.'
I got it now. I saw what he was driving at.
'Oh, ah, yes, of course. Quite. Yes, we would appear to be betrothed.'
'When did this happen, Wooster?'
'Fairly recently.'
He snorted.
'Very recently, I should imagine, seeing that it was only yesterday that she was engaged to Cheesewright. It's all most confusing,' said Percy peevishly. 'It makes one's head swim. One doesn't know where one is.'
I could see his point.
'Bit of a mix-up,' I agreed.
'It's bewildering. I cannot think what she can possibly see in you.'
'No. Very odd, the whole thing.'
He brooded darkly for a while.
'Her recent infatuation for Cheesewright,' he said, teeing off again, 'one could dimly understand. Whatever his mental defects, he is a vigorous young animal, and it is not uncommon to find girls of intellect attracted by vigorous young animals. Bernard Shaw made this the basis of his early novel, Cashel Byron's Profession. But you! It's inexplicable. A mere weedy butterfly.'
'Would you call me a weedy butterfly?'
'If you can think of a better description, I shall be happy to hear it. I am unable to discern in you the slightest vestige of charm, the smallest trace of any quality that could reasonably be expected to appeal to a girl like Florence. It amazes one that she should wish to have you permanently about the house.'
I don't know if you would call me a touchy man. As a rule, I should say not. But it is not pleasant to find yourself chalked up on the slate as a weedy butterfly, and I confess that I spoke a little shortly.
'Well, there it is,' I said, and went into the silence. And as he, too, seemed disinclined for chit-chat, we stood for some moments like a couple of Trappist monks who have run into each other by chance at the dog races. And I think I would pretty soon have nodded curtly and removed myself, had he not arrested me with an exclamation similar in tone and volume to the one which Stilton had uttered on finding me festooned with hat-boxes in Florence's cupboard. He was looking at me through the wind-shields with what appeared to be concern, if not horror. It puzzled me. It couldn't have taken him all this time, I felt, to notice the moustache.
'Wooster! Good gracious! You are not wearing a hat!'
'I don't much in the country.'
'But in this hot sun! You might get sunstroke. You ought not to take such risks.'
I must say I was touched by this solicitude. Much of the pique I had been feeling left me. It isn't many fellows, I mean to sa
y, who get all worked up about the well-being of birds who are virtually strangers. It just showed, I thought, that a man may talk a lot of rot about weedy butterflies and still have a tender heart beneath what I should imagine was pretty generally recognized as a fairly repulsive exterior.
'Don't worry' I said, soothing his alarm.
'But I do worry,' he responded sharply. 'I feel very strongly that you ought either to get a hat or else stay in the shade. I don't want to appear fussy, but your health is naturally a matter of the greatest concern to me. You see, I have drawn you in the Drones Club Darts sweep.'
This got right past me. I could make nothing of it. It sounded to me like straight delirium.
'You've what? How do you mean you've drawn me in the Drones Club Darts sweep?'
'I put it badly. I was agitated. What I should have said was that I have bought you from Cheesewright. He has sold me the ticket bearing your name. So can you wonder that it makes me nervous when I see you going about in this hot sun without a hat?'
In a career liberally spotted with nasty shocks I have had occasion to do quite a bit of reeling and tottering from time to time, but I have seldom reeled and tottered more heartily than I did on hearing these frightful words. I had addressed Aunt Dahlia on the previous night, if you remember, as a fluttering aspen. The description would have fitted me at this moment like the paper on the wall.
This surge of emotion will, I think, be readily understood. My whole foreign policy, as I have made clear, had been built on the fact that I had bottled Stilton up good and proper, and it now appeared, dash it, that I hadn't bottled him up at all. He was once more in the position of an Assyrian fully licensed to come down like a wolf on the fold with his cohorts all gleaming with purple and gold, and the realization that his thirst for vengeance was so pronounced that, rather than forgo his war aims, he was prepared to sacrifice fifty-six quid and a bender was one that froze the marrow.
There must be a lot of hidden good in Cheesewright,' proceeded Percy. 'I confess frankly that I misjudged him, and, if I had not already returned the galley proofs, I would withdraw that "Caliban At Sunset" thing of mine from Parnassus. He tells me that you are a certain winner of this Darts contest, and yet he voluntarily offered to sell me for quite a trivial sum the ticket bearing your name, because, he said, he had taken a great fancy to me and would like to do me a good turn. A big, generous, warm-hearted gesture, and one that restores one's faith in human nature. By the way, Cheesewright is looking for you. He wants to see you about something.'