So, all in all, life at this juncture seemed pretty well all to the mustard, and I decided to tell Jeeves exactly how matters stood.
‘Jeeves,’ I said, as he appeared with the steaming.
‘Sir?’
‘Touching on this business of our being here, I would like to say a few words of explanation. I consider that you have a right to the facts.’
‘Sir?’
‘I’m afraid scratching that Monte Carlo trip has been a bit of a jar for you, Jeeves.’
‘Not at all, sir.’
‘Oh, yes, it has. The heart was set on wintering in the world’s good old Plague Spot, I know. I saw your eye light up when I said we were due for a visit there. You snorted a bit and your fingers twitched. I know, I know. And now that there has been a change of programme the iron has entered into your soul.’
‘Not at all, sir.’
‘Oh, yes, it has. I’ve seen it. Very well, then, what I wish to impress upon you, Jeeves, is that I have not been actuated in this matter by any mere idle whim. It was through no light and airy caprice that I accepted this invitation to Lady Wickham’s. I have been angling for it for weeks, prompted by many considerations. In the first place, does one get the Yule-tide spirit at a spot like Monte Carlo?’
‘Does one desire the Yule-tide spirit, sir?’
‘Certainly one does. I am all for it. Well, that’s one thing. Now here’s another. It was imperative that I should come to Skeldings for Christmas, Jeeves, because I knew that young Tuppy Glossop was going to be here.’
‘Sir Roderick Glossop, sir?’
‘His nephew. You may have observed hanging about the place a fellow with light hair and a Cheshire-cat grin. That is Tuppy, and I have been anxious for some time to get to grips with him. I have it in for that man of wrath. Listen to the facts, Jeeves, and tell me if I am not justified in planning a hideous vengeance.’ I took a sip of tea, for the mere memory of my wrongs had shaken me. ‘In spite of the fact that young Tuppy is the nephew of Sir Roderick Glossop, at whose hands, Jeeves, as you are aware, I have suffered much, I fraternized with him freely, both at the Drones Club and elsewhere. I said to myself that a man is not to be blamed for his relations, and that I would hate to have my pals hold my Aunt Agatha, for instance, against me. Broad-minded, Jeeves, I think?’
‘Extremely, sir.’
‘Well, then, as I say, I sought this Tuppy out, Jeeves, and hobnobbed, and what do you think he did?’
‘I could not say, sir.’
‘I will tell you. One night after dinner at the Drones he betted me I wouldn’t swing myself across the swimming-bath by the ropes and rings. I took him on and was buzzing along in great style until I came to the last ring. And then I found that this fiend in human shape had looped it back against the rail, thus leaving me hanging in the void with no means of getting ashore to my home and loved ones. There was nothing for it but to drop into the water. He told me that he had often caught fellows that way: and what I maintain, Jeeves, is that, if I can’t get back at him somehow at Skeldings – with all the vast resources which a country-house affords at my disposal – I am not the man I was.’
‘I see, sir.’
There was still something in his manner which told me that even now he lacked complete sympathy and understanding, so, delicate though the subject was, I decided to put all my cards on the table.
‘And now, Jeeves, we come to the most important reason why I had to spend Christmas at Skeldings. Jeeves,’ I said, diving into the old cup once more for a moment and bringing myself out wreathed in blushes, ‘the fact of the matter is, I’m in love.’
‘Indeed, sir?’
‘You’ve seen Miss Roberta Wickham?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Very well, then.’
There was a pause, while I let it sink in.
‘During your stay here, Jeeves,’ I said, ‘you will, no doubt, be thrown a good deal together with Miss Wickham’s maid. On such occasions, pitch it strong.’
‘Sir?’
‘You know what I mean. Tell her I’m rather a good chap. Mention my hidden depths. These things get round. Dwell on the fact that I have a kind heart and was runner-up in the Squash Handicap at the Drones this year. A boost is never wasted, Jeeves.’
‘Very good, sir. But—’
‘But what?’
‘Well, sir—’
‘I wish you wouldn’t say “Well, sir” in that soupy tone of voice. I have had to speak of this before. The habit is one that is growing upon you. Check it. What’s on your mind?’
‘I hardly like to take the liberty—’
‘Carry on, Jeeves. We are always glad to hear from you, always.’
‘What I was about to remark, if you will excuse me, sir, was that I would scarcely have thought Miss Wickham a suitable—’
‘Jeeves,’ I said coldly, ‘if you have anything to say against that lady, it had better not be said in my presence.’
‘Very good, sir.’
‘Or anywhere else, for that matter. What is your kick against Miss Wickham?’
‘Oh, really, sir!’
‘Jeeves, I insist. This is a time for plain speaking. You have beefed about Miss Wickham. I wish to know why.’
‘It merely crossed my mind, sir, that for a gentleman of your description Miss Wickham is not a suitable mate.’
‘What do you mean by a gentleman of my description?’
‘Well, sir—’
‘Jeeves!’
‘I beg your pardon, sir. The expression escaped me inadvertently. I was about to observe that I can only asseverate—’
‘Only what?’
‘I can only say that, as you have invited my opinion—’
‘But I didn’t.’
‘I was under the impression that you desired to canvass my views on the matter, sir.’
‘Oh? Well, let’s have them, anyway.’
‘Very good, sir. Then briefly, if I may say so, sir, though Miss Wickham is a charming young lady—’
‘There, Jeeves, you spoke an imperial quart. What eyes!’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘What hair!’
‘Very true, sir.’
‘And what espièglerie, if that’s the word I want.’
‘The exact word, sir.’
‘All right, then. Carry on.’
‘I grant Miss Wickham the possession of all these desirable qualities, sir. Nevertheless, considered as a matrimonial prospect for a gentleman of your description, I cannot look upon her as suitable. In my opinion Miss Wickham lacks seriousness, sir. She is too volatile and frivolous. To qualify as Miss Wickham’s husband, a gentleman would need to possess a commanding personality and considerable strength of character.’
‘Exactly!’
‘I would always hesitate to recommend as a life’s companion a young lady with quite such a vivid shade of red hair. Red hair, sir, in my opinion, is dangerous.’
I eyed the blighter squarely.
‘Jeeves,’ I said, ‘you’re talking rot.’
‘Very good, sir.’
‘Absolute drivel.’
‘Very good, sir.’
‘Pure mashed potatoes.’
‘Very good, sir.’
‘Very good, sir – I mean very good Jeeves, that will be all,’ I said.
And I drank a modicum of tea, with a good deal of hauteur.
* * *
It isn’t often that I find myself able to prove Jeeves in the wrong, but by dinner-time that night I was in a position to do so, and I did it without delay.
‘Touching on that matter we were touching on, Jeeves,’ I said, coming in from the bath and tackling him as he studied the shirt, ‘I should be glad if you would give me your careful attention for a moment. I warn you that what I am about to say is going to make you look pretty silly.’
‘Indeed, sir?’
‘Yes, Jeeves. Pretty dashed silly it’s going to make you look. It may lead you to be rather more careful in future about broad
casting these estimates of yours of people’s characters. This morning, if I remember rightly, you stated that Miss Wickham was volatile, frivolous and lacking in seriousness. Am I correct?’
‘Quite correct, sir.’
‘Then what I have to tell you may cause you to alter that opinion. I went for a walk with Miss Wickham this afternoon: and, as we walked, I told her about what young Tuppy Glossop did to me in the swimming-bath at the Drones. She hung upon my words, Jeeves, and was full of sympathy.’
‘Indeed, sir?’
‘Dripping with it. And that’s not all. Almost before I had finished, she was suggesting the ripest, fruitiest, brainiest scheme for bringing young Tuppy’s grey hairs in sorrow to the grave that anyone could possibly imagine.’
‘That is very gratifying, sir.’
‘Gratifying is the word. It appears that at the girls’ school where Miss Wickham was educated, Jeeves, it used to become necessary from time to time for the right-thinking element of the community to slip it across certain of the baser sort. Do you know what they did, Jeeves?’
‘No, sir.’
‘They took a long stick, Jeeves, and – follow me closely here – they tied a darning-needle to the end of it. Then at dead of night, it appears, they sneaked privily into the party of the second part’s cubicle and shoved the needle through the bedclothes and punctured her hot-water bottle. Girls are much subtler in these matters than boys, Jeeves. At my old school one would occasionally heave a jug of water over another bloke during the night-watches, but we never thought of effecting the same result in this particularly neat and scientific manner. Well, Jeeves, that was the scheme which Miss Wickham suggested I should work on young Tuppy, and that is the girl you call frivolous and lacking in seriousness. Any girl who can think up a wheeze like that is my idea of a helpmeet. I shall be glad, Jeeves, if by the time I come to bed to-night you have waiting for me in this room a stout stick with a good sharp darning needle attached.’
‘Well, sir—’
I raised my hand.
‘Jeeves,’ I said. ‘Not another word. Stick, one, and needle, darning, good, sharp, one, without fail in this room at eleven-thirty to-night.’
‘Very good, sir.’
‘Have you any idea where young Tuppy sleeps?’
‘I could ascertain, sir.’
‘Do so, Jeeves.’
In a few minutes he was back with the necessary informash.
‘Mr Glossop is established in the Moat Room, sir.’
‘Where’s that?’
‘The second door on the floor below this, sir.’
‘Right ho, Jeeves. Are the studs in my shirt?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘And the links also?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Then push me into it.’
The more I thought about this enterprise which a sense of duty and good citizenship had thrust upon me, the better it seemed to me. I am not a vindictive man, but I felt, as anybody would have felt in my place, that if fellows like young Tuppy are allowed to get away with it the whole fabric of Society and Civilization must inevitably crumble. The task to which I had set myself was one that involved hardship and discomfort, for it meant sitting up till well into the small hours and then padding down a cold corridor, but I did not shrink from it. After all, there is a lot to be said for family tradition. We Woosters did our bit in the Crusades.
It being Christmas Eve, there was, as I had foreseen, a good deal of revelry and what not. First, the village choir surged round and sang carols outside the front door, and then somebody suggested a dance, and after that we hung around chatting of this and that, so that it wasn’t till past one that I got to my room. Allowing for everything, it didn’t seem that it was going to be safe to start my little expedition till half-past two at the earliest: and I’m bound to say that it was only the utmost resolution that kept me from snuggling into the sheets and calling it a day. I’m not much of a lad now for late hours.
However, by half-past two everything appeared to be quiet. I shook off the mists of sleep, grabbed the good old stick-and-needle and toddled off along the corridor. And presently, pausing outside the Moat Room, I turned the handle, found the door wasn’t locked, and went in.
I suppose a burglar – I mean a real professional who works at the job six nights a week all the year round – gets so that finding himself standing in the dark in somebody else’s bedroom means absolutely nothing to him. But for a bird like me, who has had no previous experience, there’s a lot to be said in favour of washing the whole thing out and closing the door gently and popping back to bed again. It was only by summoning up all the old bull-dog courage of the Woosters, and reminding myself that, if I let this opportunity slip another might never occur, that I managed to stick out what you might call the initial minute of the binge. Then the weakness passed, and Bertram was himself again.
At first when I beetled in, the room had seemed as black as a coal-cellar: but after a bit things began to lighten. The curtains weren’t quite drawn over the window and I could see a trifle of the scenery here and there. The bed was opposite the window, with the head against the wall and the end where the feet were jutting out towards where I stood, thus rendering it possible after one had sown the seed, so to speak, to make a quick getaway. There only remained now the rather tricky problem of locating the old hot-water bottle. I mean to say, the one thing you can’t do if you want to carry a job like this through with secrecy and dispatch is to stand at the end of a fellow’s bed, jabbing the blankets at random with a darning-needle. Before proceeding to anything in the nature of definite steps, it is imperative that you locate the bot.
I was a good deal cheered at this juncture to hear a fruity snore from the direction of the pillows. Reason told me that a bloke who could snore like that wasn’t going to be awakened by a trifle. I edged forward and ran a hand in a gingerly sort of way over the coverlet. A moment later I had found the bulge. I steered the good old darning-needle on to it, gripped the stick, and shoved. Then, pulling out the weapon, I sidled towards the door, and in another moment would have been outside, buzzing for home and the good night’s rest, when suddenly there was a crash that sent my spine shooting up through the top of my head and the contents of the bed sat up like a jack-in-the-box and said:
‘Who’s that?’
It just shows how your most careful strategic moves can be the very ones that dish your campaign. In order to facilitate the orderly retreat according to plan I had left the door open, and the beastly thing had slammed like a bomb.
But I wasn’t giving much thought to the causes of the explosion, having other things to occupy my mind. What was disturbing me was the discovery that, whoever else the bloke in the bed might be, he was not young Tuppy. Tuppy has one of those high, squeaky voices that sound like the tenor of the village choir failing to hit a high note. This one was something in between the last Trump and a tiger calling for breakfast after being on a diet for a day or two. It was the sort of nasty, rasping voice you hear shouting ‘Fore!’ when you’re one of a slow foursome on the links and are holding up a couple of retired colonels. Among the qualities it lacked were kindliness, suavity and that sort of dove-like cooing note which makes a fellow feel he has found a friend.
I did not linger. Getting swiftly off the mark, I dived for the door-handle and was off and away, banging the door behind me. I may be a chump in many ways, as my Aunt Agatha will freely attest, but I know when and when not to be among those present.
And I was just about to do the stretch of corridor leading to the stairs in a split second under the record time for the course, when something brought me up with a sudden jerk. One moment, I was all dash and fire and speed; the next, an irresistible force had checked me in my stride and was holding me straining at the leash, as it were.
You know, sometimes it seems to me as if Fate were going out of its way to such an extent to snooter you that you wonder if it’s worth while continuing to struggle. The night being a trifle
chillier than the dickens, I had donned for this expedition a dressing-gown. It was the tail of this infernal garment that had caught in the door and pipped me at the eleventh hour.
The next moment the door had opened, light was streaming through it, and the bloke with the voice had grabbed me by the arm.
It was Sir Roderick Glossop.
The next thing that happened was a bit of a lull in the proceedings. For about three and a quarter seconds or possibly more we just stood there, drinking each other in, so to speak, the old boy still attached with a limpet-like grip to my elbow. If I hadn’t been in a dressing-gown and he in pink pyjamas with a blue stripe, and if he hadn’t been glaring quite so much as if he were shortly going to commit a murder, the tableau would have looked rather like one of those advertisements you see in the magazines, where the experienced elder is patting the young man’s arm, and saying to him, ‘My boy, if you subscribe to the Mutt-Jeff Correspondence School of Oswego, Kan., as I did, you may some day, like me, become Third Assistant Vice-President of the Schenectady Consolidated Nail-File and Eyebrow Tweezer Corporation.’
‘You!’ said Sir Roderick finally. And in this connection I want to state that it’s all rot to say you can’t hiss a word that hasn’t an ‘s’ in it. The way he pushed out that ‘You!’ sounded like an angry cobra, and I am betraying no secrets when I mention that it did me no good whatsoever.
By rights, I suppose, at this point I ought to have said something. The best I could manage, however, was a faint, soft bleating sound. Even on ordinary social occasions, when meeting this bloke as man to man and with a clear conscience, I could never be completely at my ease: and now those eyebrows seemed to pierce me like a knife.
‘Come in here,’ he said, lugging me into the room. ‘We don’t want to wake the whole house. Now,’ he said, depositing me on the carpet and closing the door and doing a bit of eyebrow work, ‘kindly inform me what is this latest manifestation of insanity?’