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The makings were neatly laid out on a side-table, and to pour into aglass an inch or so of the raw spirit and shoosh some soda-water on topof it was with me the work of a moment. This done, I retired to anarm-chair and put my feet up, sipping the mixture with carefree enjoyment,rather like Caesar having one in his tent the day he overcame the Nervii.
As I let the mind dwell on what must even now be taking place in thatpeaceful garden, I felt bucked and uplifted. Though never for an instantfaltering in my opinion that Augustus Fink-Nottle was Nature's final wordin cloth-headed guffins, I liked the man, wished him well, and could nothave felt more deeply involved in the success of his wooing if I, and nothe, had been under the ether.
The thought that by this time he might quite easily have completed thepreliminary _pourparlers_ and be deep in an informal discussion ofhoneymoon plans was very pleasant to me.
Of course, considering the sort of girl Madeline Bassett was--stars andrabbits and all that, I mean--you might say that a sober sadness wouldhave been more fitting. But in these matters you have got to realize thattastes differ. The impulse of right-thinking men might be to run a milewhen they saw the Bassett, but for some reason she appealed to the deepsin Gussie, so that was that.
I had reached this point in my meditations, when I was aroused by thesound of the door opening. Somebody came in and started moving like aleopard toward the side-table and, lowering the feet, I perceived that itwas Tuppy Glossop.
The sight of him gave me a momentary twinge of remorse, reminding me, asit did, that in the excitement of getting Gussie fixed up I had ratherforgotten about this other client. It is often that way when you'retrying to run two cases at once.
However, Gussie now being off my mind, I was prepared to devote my wholeattention to the Glossop problem.
I had been much pleased by the way he had carried out the task assignedhim at the dinner-table. No easy one, I can assure you, for the browsingand sluicing had been of the highest quality, and there had been one dishin particular--I allude to the _nonnettes de poulet Agnes Sorel_--whichmight well have broken down the most iron resolution. But he had passedit up like a professional fasting man, and I was proud of him.
"Oh, hullo, Tuppy," I said, "I wanted to see you."
He turned, snifter in hand, and it was easy to see that his privationshad tried him sorely. He was looking like a wolf on the steppes of Russiawhich has seen its peasant shin up a high tree.
"Yes?" he said, rather unpleasantly. "Well, here I am."
"Well?"
"How do you mean----well?"
"Make your report."
"What report?"
"Have you nothing to tell me about Angela?"
"Only that she's a blister."
I was concerned.
"Hasn't she come clustering round you yet?"
"She has not."
"Very odd."
"Why odd?"
"She must have noted your lack of appetite."
He barked raspingly, as if he were having trouble with the tonsils of thesoul.
"Lack of appetite! I'm as hollow as the Grand Canyon."
"Courage, Tuppy! Think of Gandhi."
"What about Gandhi?"
"He hasn't had a square meal for years."
"Nor have I. Or I could swear I hadn't. Gandhi, my left foot."
I saw that it might be best to let the Gandhi _motif_ slide. I went backto where we had started.
"She's probably looking for you now."
"Who is? Angela?"
"Yes. She must have noticed your supreme sacrifice."
"I don't suppose she noticed it at all, the little fathead. I'll bet itdidn't register in any way whatsoever."
"Come, Tuppy," I urged, "this is morbid. Don't take this gloomy view. Shemust at least have spotted that you refused those _nonnettes de pouletAgnes Sorel_. It was a sensational renunciation and stuck out like a sorethumb. And the _cepes a la Rossini_----"
A hoarse cry broke from his twisted lips:
"Will you stop it, Bertie! Do you think I am made of marble? Isn't it badenough to have sat watching one of Anatole's supremest dinners flit by,course after course, without having you making a song about it? Don'tremind me of those _nonnettes_. I can't stand it."
I endeavoured to hearten and console.
"Be brave, Tuppy. Fix your thoughts on that cold steak-and-kidney pie inthe larder. As the Good Book says, it cometh in the morning."
"Yes, in the morning. And it's now about half-past nine at night. Youwould bring that pie up, wouldn't you? Just when I was trying to keep mymind off it."
I saw what he meant. Hours must pass before he could dig into that pie.I dropped the subject, and we sat for a pretty good time in silence. Thenhe rose and began to pace the room in an overwrought sort of way, like azoo lion who has heard the dinner-gong go and is hoping the keeper won'tforget him in the general distribution. I averted my gaze tactfully, butI could hear him kicking chairs and things. It was plain that the man'ssoul was in travail and his blood pressure high.
Presently he returned to his seat, and I saw that he was looking at meintently. There was that about his demeanour that led me to think that hehad something to communicate.
Nor was I wrong. He tapped me significantly on the knee and spoke:
"Bertie."
"Hullo?"
"Shall I tell you something?"
"Certainly, old bird," I said cordially. "I was just beginning to feelthat the scene could do with a bit more dialogue."
"This business of Angela and me."
"Yes?"
"I've been putting in a lot of solid thinking about it."
"Oh, yes?"
"I have analysed the situation pitilessly, and one thing stands out asclear as dammit. There has been dirty work afoot."
"I don't get you."
"All right. Let me review the facts. Up to the time she went to CannesAngela loved me. She was all over me. I was the blue-eyed boy in everysense of the term. You'll admit that?"
"Indisputably."
"And directly she came back we had this bust-up."
"Quite."
"About nothing."
"Oh, dash it, old man, nothing? You were a bit tactless, what, about hershark."
"I was frank and candid about her shark. And that's my point. Do youseriously believe that a trifling disagreement about sharks would make agirl hand a man his hat, if her heart were really his?"
"Certainly."
It beats me why he couldn't see it. But then poor old Tuppy has neverbeen very hot on the finer shades. He's one of those large, tough,football-playing blokes who lack the more delicate sensibilities, as I'veheard Jeeves call them. Excellent at blocking a punt or walking across anopponent's face in cleated boots, but not so good when it comes tounderstanding the highly-strung female temperament. It simply wouldn'toccur to him that a girl might be prepared to give up her life'shappiness rather than waive her shark.
"Rot! It was just a pretext."
"What was?"
"This shark business. She wanted to get rid of me, and grabbed at thefirst excuse."
"No, no."
"I tell you she did."
"But what on earth would she want to get rid of you for?"
"Exactly. That's the very question I asked myself. And here's the answer:Because she has fallen in love with somebody else. It sticks out a mile.There's no other possible solution. She goes to Cannes all for me, shecomes back all off me. Obviously during those two months, she must havetransferred her affections to some foul blister she met out there."
"No, no."
"Don't keep saying 'No, no'. She must have done. Well, I'll tell you onething, and you can take this as official. If ever I find this slimy,slithery snake in the grass, he had better make all the necessaryarrangements at his favourite nursing-home without delay, because I amgoing to be very rough with him. I propose, if and when found, to takehim by his beastly neck, shake him till he froths, and pull him insideout and make him swall
ow himself."
With which words he biffed off; and I, having given him a minute or twoto get out of the way, rose and made for the drawing-room. The tendencyof females to roost in drawing-rooms after dinner being well marked, Iexpected to find Angela there. It was my intention to have a word withAngela.
To Tuppy's theory that some insinuating bird had stolen the girl's heartfrom him at Cannes I had given, as I have indicated, little credence,considering it the mere unbalanced apple sauce of a bereaved man. It was,of course, the shark, and nothing but the shark, that had caused love'syoung dream to go temporarily off the boil, and I was convinced that aword or two with the cousin at this juncture would set everything right.
For, frankly, I thought it incredible that a girl of her naturalsweetness and tender-heartedness should not have been moved to herfoundations by what she had seen at dinner that night. Even Seppings,Aunt Dahlia's butler, a cold, unemotional man, had gasped and practicallyreeled when Tuppy waved aside those _nonnettes de poulet Agnes Sorel_,while the footman, standing by with the potatoes, had stared like oneseeing a vision. I simply refused to consider the possibility of thesignificance of the thing having been lost on a nice girl like Angela. Ifully expected to find her in the drawing-room with her heart bleedingfreely, all ripe for an immediate reconciliation.
In the drawing-room, however, when I entered, only Aunt Dahlia met theeye. It seemed to me that she gave me rather a jaundiced look as I hovein sight, but this, having so recently beheld Tuppy in his agony, Iattributed to the fact that she, like him, had been going light on themenu. You can't expect an empty aunt to beam like a full aunt.
"Oh, it's you, is it?" she said.
Well, it was, of course.
"Where's Angela?" I asked.
"Gone to bed."
"Already?"
"She said she had a headache."
"H'm."
I wasn't so sure that I liked the sound of that so much. A girl who hasobserved the sundered lover sensationally off his feed does not go to bedwith headaches if love has been reborn in her heart. She sticks aroundand gives him the swift, remorseful glance from beneath the droopingeyelashes and generally endeavours to convey to him that, if he wants toget together across a round table and try to find a formula, she is allfor it too. Yes, I am bound to say I found that going-to-bed stuff a bitdisquieting.
"Gone to bed, eh?" I murmured musingly.
"What did you want her for?"
"I thought she might like a stroll and a chat."
"Are you going for a stroll?" said Aunt Dahlia, with a sudden show ofinterest. "Where?"
"Oh, hither and thither."
"Then I wonder if you would mind doing something for me."
"Give it a name."
"It won't take you long. You know that path that runs past thegreenhouses into the kitchen garden. If you go along it, you come to apond."
"That's right."
"Well, will you get a good, stout piece of rope or cord and go down thatpath till you come to the pond----"
"To the pond. Right."
"--and look about you till you find a nice, heavy stone. Or a fairlylarge brick would do."
"I see," I said, though I didn't, being still fogged. "Stone or brick.Yes. And then?"
"Then," said the relative, "I want you, like a good boy, to fasten therope to the brick and tie it around your damned neck and jump into thepond and drown yourself. In a few days I will send and have you fished upand buried because I shall need to dance on your grave."
I was more fogged than ever. And not only fogged--wounded and resentful.I remember reading a book where a girl "suddenly fled from the room,afraid to stay for fear dreadful things would come tumbling from herlips; determined that she would not remain another day in this house tobe insulted and misunderstood." I felt much about the same.
Then I reminded myself that one has got to make allowances for a womanwith only about half a spoonful of soup inside her, and I checked thered-hot crack that rose to the lips.
"What," I said gently, "is this all about? You seem pipped with Bertram."
"Pipped!"
"Noticeably pipped. Why this ill-concealed animus?"
A sudden flame shot from her eyes, singeing my hair.
"Who was the ass, who was the chump, who was the dithering idiot whotalked me, against my better judgment, into going without my dinner? Imight have guessed----"
I saw that I had divined correctly the cause of her strange mood.
"It's all right. Aunt Dahlia. I know just how you're feeling. A bit onthe hollow side, what? But the agony will pass. If I were you, I'd sneakdown and raid the larder after the household have gone to bed. I am toldthere's a pretty good steak-and-kidney pie there which will repayinspection. Have faith, Aunt Dahlia," I urged. "Pretty soon Uncle Tomwill be along, full of sympathy and anxious inquiries."
"Will he? Do you know where he is now?"
"I haven't seen him."
"He is in the study with his face buried in his hands, muttering aboutcivilization and melting pots."
"Eh? Why?"
"Because it has just been my painful duty to inform him that Anatole hasgiven notice."
I own that I reeled.
"What?"
"Given notice. As the result of that drivelling scheme of yours. What didyou expect a sensitive, temperamental French cook to do, if you wentabout urging everybody to refuse all food? I hear that when the first twocourses came back to the kitchen practically untouched, his feelings wereso hurt that he cried like a child. And when the rest of the dinnerfollowed, he came to the conclusion that the whole thing was a studiedand calculated insult, and decided to hand in his portfolio."
"Golly!"
"You may well say 'Golly!' Anatole, God's gift to the gastric juices,gone like the dew off the petal of a rose, all through your idiocy.Perhaps you understand now why I want you to go and jump in that pond. Imight have known that some hideous disaster would strike this house likea thunderbolt if once you wriggled your way into it and started trying tobe clever."
Harsh words, of course, as from aunt to nephew, but I bore her noresentment. No doubt, if you looked at it from a certain angle, Bertrammight be considered to have made something of a floater.
"I am sorry."
"What's the good of being sorry?"
"I acted for what I deemed the best."
"Another time try acting for the worst. Then we may possibly escape witha mere flesh wound."
"Uncle Tom's not feeling too bucked about it all, you say?"
"He's groaning like a lost soul. And any chance I ever had of gettingthat money out of him has gone."
I stroked the chin thoughtfully. There was, I had to admit, reason inwhat she said. None knew better than I how terrible a blow the passing ofAnatole would be to Uncle Tom.
I have stated earlier in this chronicle that this curious object of theseashore with whom Aunt Dahlia has linked her lot is a bloke whohabitually looks like a pterodactyl that has suffered, and the reason hedoes so is that all those years he spent in making millions in the FarEast put his digestion on the blink, and the only cook that has ever beendiscovered capable of pushing food into him without starting somethinglike Old Home Week in Moscow under the third waistcoat button is thisuniquely gifted Anatole. Deprived of Anatole's services, all he waslikely to give the wife of his b. was a dirty look. Yes, unquestionably,things seemed to have struck a somewhat rocky patch, and I must admitthat I found myself, at moment of going to press, a little destitute ofconstructive ideas.
Confident, however, that these would come ere long, I kept the stiffupper lip.
"Bad," I conceded. "Quite bad, beyond a doubt. Certainly a nasty jar forone and all. But have no fear, Aunt Dahlia, I will fix everything."
I have alluded earlier to the difficulty of staggering when you'resitting down, showing that it is a feat of which I, personally, am notcapable. Aunt Dahlia, to my amazement, now did it apparently without aneffort. She was well wedged into a deep arm-chair, but, nevertheless
, shestaggered like billy-o. A sort of spasm of horror and apprehensioncontorted her face.
"If you dare to try any more of your lunatic schemes----"
I saw that it would be fruitless to try to reason with her. Quiteplainly, she was not in the vein. Contenting myself, accordingly, with agesture of loving sympathy, I left the room. Whether she did or did notthrow a handsomely bound volume of the Works of Alfred, Lord Tennyson, atme, I am not in a position to say. I had seen it lying on the tablebeside her, and as I closed the door I remember receiving the impressionthat some blunt instrument had crashed against the woodwork, but I wasfeeling too pre-occupied to note and observe.
I blame myself for not having taken into consideration the possibleeffects of a sudden abstinence on the part of virtually the wholestrength of the company on one of Anatole's impulsive Provencaltemperament. These Gauls, I should have remembered, can't take it. Theirtendency to fly off the handle at the slightest provocation is wellknown. No doubt the man had put his whole soul into those _nonnettes depoulet_, and to see them come homing back to him must have gashed himlike a knife.
However, spilt milk blows nobody any good, and it is useless to dwellupon it. The task now confronting Bertram was to put matters right, and Iwas pacing the lawn, pondering to this end, when I suddenly heard a groanso lost-soulish that I thought it must have proceeded from Uncle Tom,escaped from captivity and come to groan in the garden.
Looking about me, however, I could discern no uncles. Puzzled, I wasabout to resume my meditations, when the sound came again. And peeringinto the shadows I observed a dim form seated on one of the rusticbenches which so liberally dotted this pleasance and another dim formstanding beside same. A second and more penetrating glance and I hadassembled the facts.
These dim forms were, in the order named, Gussie Fink-Nottle and Jeeves.And what Gussie was doing, groaning all over the place like this, wasmore than I could understand.
Because, I mean to say, there was no possibility of error. He wasn'tsinging. As I approached, he gave an encore, and it was beyond question agroan. Moreover, I could now see him clearly, and his whole aspect wasdefinitely sand-bagged.
"Good evening, sir," said Jeeves. "Mr. Fink-Nottle is not feeling well."
Nor was I. Gussie had begun to make a low, bubbling noise, and I could nolonger disguise it from myself that something must have gone seriouslywrong with the works. I mean, I know marriage is a pretty solemn businessand the realization that he is in for it frequently churns a chap up abit, but I had never come across a case of a newly-engaged man taking iton the chin so completely as this.
Gussie looked up. His eye was dull. He clutched the thatch.
"Goodbye, Bertie," he said, rising.
I seemed to spot an error.
"You mean 'Hullo,' don't you?"
"No, I don't. I mean goodbye. I'm off."
"Off where?"
"To the kitchen garden. To drown myself."
"Don't be an ass."
"I'm not an ass.... Am I an ass, Jeeves?"
"Possibly a little injudicious, sir."
"Drowning myself, you mean?"
"Yes, sir."
"You think, on the whole, not drown myself?"
"I should not advocate it, sir."
"Very well, Jeeves. I accept your ruling. After all, it would beunpleasant for Mrs. Travers to find a swollen body floating in her pond."
"Yes, sir."
"And she has been very kind to me."
"Yes, sir."
"And you have been very kind to me, Jeeves."
"Thank you, sir."
"So have you, Bertie. Very kind. Everybody has been very kind to me.Very, very kind. Very kind indeed. I have no complaints to make. Allright, I'll go for a walk instead."
I followed him with bulging eyes as he tottered off into the dark.
"Jeeves," I said, and I am free to admit that in my emotion I bleatedlike a lamb drawing itself to the attention of the parent sheep, "whatthe dickens is all this?"
"Mr. Fink-Nottle is not quite himself, sir. He has passed through atrying experience."
I endeavoured to put together a brief synopsis of previous events.
"I left him out here with Miss Bassett."
"Yes, sir."
"I had softened her up."
"Yes, sir."
"He knew exactly what he had to do. I had coached him thoroughly in linesand business."
"Yes, sir. So Mr. Fink-Nottle informed me."
"Well, then----"
"I regret to say, sir, that there was a slight hitch."
"You mean, something went wrong?"
"Yes, sir."
I could not fathom. The brain seemed to be tottering on its throne.
"But how could anything go wrong? She loves him, Jeeves."
"Indeed, sir?"
"She definitely told me so. All he had to do was propose."
"Yes sir."
"Well, didn't he?"
"No, sir."
"Then what the dickens did he talk about?"
"Newts, sir."
"Newts?"
"Yes, sir."
"Newts?"
"Yes, sir."
"But why did he want to talk about newts?"
"He did not want to talk about newts, sir. As I gather from Mr.Fink-Nottle, nothing could have been more alien to his plans."
I simply couldn't grasp the trend.
"But you can't force a man to talk about newts."
"Mr. Fink-Nottle was the victim of a sudden unfortunate spasm ofnervousness, sir. Upon finding himself alone with the young lady, headmits to having lost his morale. In such circumstances, gentlemenfrequently talk at random, saying the first thing that chances to entertheir heads. This, in Mr. Fink-Nottle's case, would seem to have been thenewt, its treatment in sickness and in health."
The scales fell from my eyes. I understood. I had had the same sort ofthing happen to me in moments of crisis. I remember once detaining adentist with the drill at one of my lower bicuspids and holding him upfor nearly ten minutes with a story about a Scotchman, an Irishman, and aJew. Purely automatic. The more he tried to jab, the more I said "Hoots,mon," "Begorrah," and "Oy, oy". When one loses one's nerve, one simplybabbles.
I could put myself in Gussie's place. I could envisage the scene. Therehe and the Bassett were, alone together in the evening stillness. Nodoubt, as I had advised, he had shot the works about sunsets and fairyprincesses, and so forth, and then had arrived at the point where he hadto say that bit about having something to say to her. At this, I take it,she lowered her eyes and said, "Oh, yes?"
He then, I should imagine, said it was something very important; to whichher response would, one assumes, have been something on the lines of"Really?" or "Indeed?" or possibly just the sharp intake of the breath.And then their eyes met, just as mine met the dentist's, and somethingsuddenly seemed to catch him in the pit of the stomach and everythingwent black and he heard his voice starting to drool about newts. Yes, Icould follow the psychology.
Nevertheless, I found myself blaming Gussie. On discovering that he wasstressing the newt note in this manner, he ought, of course, to havetuned out, even if it had meant sitting there saying nothing. No matterhow much of a twitter he was in, he should have had sense enough to seethat he was throwing a spanner into the works. No girl, when she has beenled to expect that a man is about to pour forth his soul in a fervour ofpassion, likes to find him suddenly shelving the whole topic in favour ofan address on aquatic Salamandridae.
"Bad, Jeeves."
"Yes, sir."
"And how long did this nuisance continue?"
"For some not inconsiderable time, I gather, sir. According to Mr.Fink-Nottle, he supplied Miss Bassett with very full and completeinformation not only with respect to the common newt, but also thecrested and palmated varieties. He described to her how newts, duringthe breeding season, live in the water, subsisting upon tadpoles, insectlarvae, and crustaceans; how, later, they make their way to the land andeat slugs and worms
; and how the newly born newt has three pairs of long,plumlike, external gills. And he was just observing that newts differfrom salamanders in the shape of the tail, which is compressed, and thata marked sexual dimorphism prevails in most species, when the young ladyrose and said that she thought she would go back to the house."
"And then----"
"She went, sir."
I stood musing. More and more, it was beginning to be borne in upon mewhat a particularly difficult chap Gussie was to help. He seemed to somarked an extent to lack snap and finish. With infinite toil, youmanoeuvred him into a position where all he had to do was charge ahead,and he didn't charge ahead, but went off sideways, missing the objectivecompletely.
"Difficult, Jeeves."
"Yes, sir."
In happier circs., of course, I would have canvassed his views on thematter. But after what had occurred in connection with that mess-jacket,my lips were sealed.
"Well, I must think it over."
"Yes, sir."
"Burnish the brain a bit and endeavour to find the way out."
"Yes, sir."
"Well, good night, Jeeves."
"Good night, sir."
He shimmered off, leaving a pensive Bertram Wooster standing motionlessin the shadows. It seemed to me that it was hard to know what to do forthe best.