‘Where?’
‘Steeple Bumpleigh.’
‘Oh? No, not very long.’
‘Like it?’
‘Very much.’
‘What do you do there?’
‘Do?’
‘Come, come, you know what I mean by “do”. Boko Fittleworth, for instance, writes wholesome fiction for the masses there. My Uncle Percy relaxes there after the day’s shipping magnateing. What is your racket?’
A rather odd look came into his map, and he fixed me with a cold and challenging eye, as if daring me to start something. I remembered having seen the same defiant glitter behind the spectacles of a man I met in a country hotel once, just before he told me his name was Snodgrass. It was as if this old companion of mine were on the brink of some shameful confession.
Then he seemed to think better of it.
‘Oh, I mess about.’
‘Mess about?’
‘Yes. Just mess about. Doing this and that, you know.’
There seemed nothing to be gained by pursuing this line of inquiry. It was obvious that he did not intend to loosen up. I passed on, accordingly, to the point which had been puzzling me so much.
‘Well, flitting lightly over that,’ I said, ‘why were you hovering?’
‘Hovering?’
‘Yes.’
‘When?’
‘Just now. Outside the shop.’
‘I wasn’t hovering.’
‘You were distinctly hovering. You reminded me of a girl Jeeves was speaking about the other day, who stood with reluctant feet where the brook and river meet. And when I follow you in, I find you buzz-buzzing into the ear of the assistant, plainly making some furtive purchase. What are you buying, Stilton?’
Fixed by my penetrating eye, he came clean. I suppose he saw that further concealment was useless.
‘A ring,’ he said, in a low, hoarse voice.
‘What sort of a ring?’ I asked, pressing him.
An engagement ring,’ he muttered, twisting his fingers and in other ways showing that he was fully conscious of his position.
Are you engaged?’
‘Yes.’
‘Well, well, well!’
I laughed heartily, as is my custom on these occasions, but on his inquiring in a throaty growl rather like the snarl of the Rocky Mountains timber wolf what the devil I was cackling about, cheesed the mirth. I had always found Stilton intimidating, when stirred. In a weak moment at Oxford, misled by my advisers, I once tried to do a bit of rowing, and Stilton was the bird who coached us from the towing path. I could still recall some of the things he had said about my stomach, which – rightly or wrongly – he considered that I was sticking out. It would seem that when you are a Volga boatman, you aren’t supposed to stick your stomach out.
‘I always laugh when people tell me they are engaged,’ I explained, more soberly.
It did not seem to mollify him – if’mollify’ is the word I want. He continued to glower.
‘You have no objection to my being engaged?’
‘No, no.’
‘Why shouldn’t I be engaged?’
‘Oh, quite.’
‘What do you mean by “Oh, quite”?’
I didn’t quite know what I had meant by ‘Oh, quite,’ unless possibly ‘Oh, quite.’ I explained this, trying to infuse into my manner a soothing what-is-it, for he appeared to be hotting up.
‘I hope you will be very, very happy,’ I said.
He thanked me, though not effusively.
‘Nice girl, I expect?’
‘Yes.’
The response was not what you would call lyrical, but we Woosters can read between the lines. His eyes were rolling in their sockets, and his face had taken on the colour and expression of a devout tomato. I could see that he loved like a thousand of bricks.
A thought struck me.
‘It isn’t Nobby?’
‘No. She’s engaged to Boko Fittleworth.’
‘What!’
‘Yes.’
‘I never knew that. He might have told me. Nobby and Boko have hitched up, have they?’
‘Yes.’
‘Well, well, well! The laughing Love God has been properly up on his toes in and around Steeple Bumpleigh of late, what?’
‘Yes.’
‘Never an idle moment. Day and night shifts. Your betrothed, I take it, is a resident?’
‘Yes. Her name’s Craye. Florence Craye.’
‘What!’
The word escaped my lips in a sort of yowl, and he started and gave me the raised eyebrow. I suppose it always perplexes the young Romeo to some extent, when fellows begin yowling on being informed of the loved one’s identity.
‘What’s the matter?’ he asked, a rather strained note in his voice.
Well, of course, that yowl of mine, as you may well imagine, had been one of ecstasy and relief. I mean, if Florence was all tied up with him, the peril I had been envisaging could be considered to have blown a fuse and ceased to impend. Spinoza or no Spinoza, I felt, this let Bertram out. But I couldn’t very well tell him that.
‘Oh, nothing,’ I said.
‘You seem to know her.’
‘Oh, yes, we’ve met.’
‘I’ve never heard her speak of you.’
‘No?’
‘No. Have you known her long?’
‘A certain time.’
‘Do you know her well?’
‘Pretty well.’
‘When you say “Pretty well,” you mean—?’
‘Fairly well. Tolerably well.’
‘How did you come to know her?’
I was conscious of a growing embarrassment. A little more of this, I felt, and he would elicit the fact that his betrothed had once been very near to Bertram – a dashed sight nearer, as we have seen, than Bertram had liked: and no recently engaged bimbo cares to discover that he was not the little woman’s first choice. It sort of rubs the bloom off the thing. What he wants to feel is that she spent her time gazing out of the turret window in a yearning spirit till he came galloping up on the white horse.
I temporized, accordingly. I believe the word is ‘temporized’. I should have to check up with Jeeves.
‘Her ghastly father married my frightful aunt.’
‘Is Lady Worplesdon your aunt?’
‘And how!’
‘You didn’t know her before that?’
‘Well, yes. Slightly.’
‘I see.’
He was still giving me that searching look, like a G-man hobnobbing with a suspect, and I am not ashamed to confess that I wiped a bead of persp. from the brow with the ferule of my umbrella. That embarrassment, to which I have referred, was still up and doing – in fact, more so than ever.
I could see now what I had failed to spot before, that in thinking of him as a Romeo I had made an incorrect diagnosis. The bird whose name ought to have sprung to my mind was Othello. In this Cheesewright, it was plain, I had run up against one of those touchy lovers who go about the place in a suspicious and red-eyed spirit, eager to hammer the stuffing out of such of the citizenry as they suppose to be or to have been in any sense matey with the adored object. It would, in short, require but a sketchy outline of the facts relating to self and Florence to unleash the cave man within him.
‘When I say “slightly”,’ I hastened to add, ‘I mean, of course, that we were just acquaintances.’
‘Just acquaintances, eh?’
‘Just.’
‘You simply happened to meet her once or twice?’
‘That’s right. You put it in a nutshell.’
‘I see. The reason I ask is that it seemed to me, when I told you she was engaged to me, that your manner was peculiar—’
‘It always is before lunch.’
‘You started—’
‘Touch of cramp.’
‘And uttered an exclamation. As if the news had come as an unpleasant shock to you.’
‘Oh, no.’
‘You’re sure it didn’
t?’
‘Not a bit.’
‘In fact, you were mere acquaintances?’
‘Mere to the core.’
‘Still, it’s strange that she has never mentioned you.’
‘Well, pip-pip,’ I said, changing the subject, and withdrew.
CHAPTER 4
It was a grave and thoughtful Bertram Wooster who started to amble back to the old flat. I was feeling a bit weak, too. During the recent scene I had run the gamut of the emotions, as I believe it is called, and that always takes it out of one.
My first reaction to Stilton’s revelation had, as I have indicated, been relief, and of course I was still rolling the eyes up to Heaven in silent thankfulness a goodish bit. But it is seldom that the Woosters think only of self, and I now found the contemplation of the dreadful thing which had come upon this man filling me almost to the brim with pity and terror. It seemed to me that a Save Stilton Cheese-wright movement ought to be got under way immediately. For though he wasn’t what you would call absolutely one of my bosom pals, like Boko Fittleworth, one has one’s human feelings. I remembered how the iron had entered into my gizzard when I was faced with the prospect of being led to the altar by Florence Craye.
One could see, of course, how the tragedy had occurred. It was the poor blister’s pathetic desire to do his soul a bit of good that had landed him in this awful predicament. As is so often the case with these stolid, beefy birds, he had always had a yearning for higher things.
This whole business of jacking up the soul is one that varies according to what Jeeves calls the psychology of the individual, some being all for it, others not. You take me, for instance. I don’t say I’ve got much of a soul, but, such as it is, I’m perfectly satisfied with the little chap. I don’t want people fooling about with it. ‘Leave it alone,’ I say. ‘Don’t touch it. I like it the way it is.’
But with Stilton it was different. Buttonhole him and offer to give his soul a shot in the arm, and you found in him a receptive audience and a disciple ready to try anything once. Florence must have seemed to him just what the doctor ordered, and he had probably quite enjoyed thumbing the pages of ‘Types of Ethical Theory’, feeling, no doubt, that this was the stuff to give the troops.
But – and this was the reflection that furrowed the brow – how long would this last? I mean to say, he might be liking the set-up, but, as I saw it, the time would come when he would examine his soul, note how it had sprouted and say, ‘Fine. That’s enough to be going on with. Let’s call it a day,’ only to discover that he was inextricably entangled with a girl who had merely started. It was from this fate, which is sometimes called the bitter awakening, that I wanted to rescue him.
How to do it was, of course, a problem, and many chaps in my place would, I suppose, have been nonplussed. But my brain was working like a buzz saw this morning, and the two snifters at the Bollinger had put a keen edge on it. By the time I was latch-keying my way into the flat I had placed my finger on the solution. The thing to do, I saw, was to write a strong note to Nobby Hopwood, outlining the situation and urging her to draw Stilton aside and make it quite clear to him what he was up against. Nobby, I reasoned, had known Florence since she was so high, and would consequently be in a position to assemble all the talking points.
Still, just in case she might have overlooked any of them, I carefully pointed out in my communication all Florence’s defects, considered not only as a prospective bride but as a human being. I put my whole heart into the thing, and it was with an agreeable feeling of duty done and a kindly act accomplished that I took it round the corner and dropped it in the pillar box.
When I got back, I found Jeeves once more in residence. He had returned from his mission and was fooling about at some domestic task in the dining-room. I gave him a hail, and he floated in.
‘Jeeves,’ I said, ‘you remember Mr Cheesewright, who called this morning?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘I ran into him just now, buying an engagement ring. He is betrothed.’
‘Indeed, sir?’
‘Yes. And do you know who to? Lady F. Craye.’
‘Indeed, sir?’
We exchanged a meaning glance. Or, rather, two meaning glances, I giving him one and he giving me the other. There was no need for words. Jeeves is familiar with every detail of the Wooster-Craye imbroglio, having been constantly at my side right through that critical period in my affairs. As a matter of fact, as I have recorded elsewhere in the archives, it was he who got me out of the thing.
And what’s so poignant, Jeeves, if that’s the word I want, is that he seems to like it.’
‘Indeed, sir?’
‘Yes. Rather pleased about it all than otherwise, it struck me. It reminded me of those lines in the poem – “See how the little how-does-it-go turn tumty tiddly push.” Perhaps you remember the passage?’
‘“Alas, regardless of their fate, the little victims play,” sir.’
‘Quite. Sad, Jeeves.’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘He must be saved from himself, of course, and fortunately I have the situation well in hand. I have taken all the necessary steps, and anticipate a happy and successful issue. And now,’ I said, turning to the other matter on the agenda paper, ‘tell me about Uncle Percy. You saw him?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Was he in the market for aid and counsel?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘I knew I was right. What was it? Blackmail? Does he want you to pinch damaging correspondence from the peroxided? Has some quick-thinking adventuress got him in her toils?’
‘Oh, no, sir. I am sure his lordship’s private life is above reproach.’
I weighed this in the light of the known facts.
‘I’m not so dashed sure about that. It depends what you call above reproach. He once chased me over a measured mile, showing great accuracy with the hunting crop. At a moment, too, when, being half-way through my first cigar, I was in urgent need of quiet and repose. To my mind, a man capable of that would be capable of anything. Well, if it wasn’t blackmail, what was the trouble?’
‘His lordship finds himself in a somewhat difficult position, sir.’
‘What’s biting him?’
He did not reply for a space. A wooden expression had crept into his features, and his eyes had taken on the look of cautious reserve which you see in those of parrots, when offered half a banana by a stranger of whose bona fides they are not convinced. It meant that he had come over all discreet, as he sometimes does, and I hastened to assure him that he might speak freely.
‘You know me, Jeeves. The silent tomb.’
‘The matter is highly confidential, sir. It should not be allowed to go further.’
‘Wild horses shall not drag it from me. Not that I suppose they’ll try.’
‘Well, then, sir, his lordship informs me that he is in the process of concluding the final details of a business agreement of great delicacy and importance.’
‘And he wanted you to vet the thing for snags?’
‘Not precisely that, sir. But he desired my advice.’
‘They all come to you, Jeeves, don’t they – from the lowest to the highest?’
‘It is kind of you to say so, sir.’
‘Did he mention what the b. a. of great d. and i. was?’
‘No, sir. But, of course, one has read the papers.’
‘I haven’t.’
‘You do not study the financial pages, sir?’
‘Never give them a glance.’
‘They have been devoting considerable space of late to rumours of a merger or combination which is said to be impending between his lordship’s Pink Funnel Line and an equally prominent shipping firm of the United States of America, sir. It is undoubtedly to this that his lordship was guardedly alluding.’
The information did not make me leap about to any extent.
‘Going to team up, are they, these nautical tycoons?’
‘So it is supposed, sir.??
?
‘Well, God bless them.’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘I mean, why shouldn’t they?’
‘Exactly, sir.’
‘Well, what’s his difficulty?’
‘A somewhat tense situation has arisen, sir. The negotiations would appear to have arrived at a point where it is essential that his lordship shall meet and confer with the gentleman conducting the pourparlers on behalf of the American organization. On the other hand, it is vital that he shall not be seen in the latter’s society, for such a meeting would instantly be accepted in the City as conclusive proof that the fusion of interests was about to take place, with immediate reactions on the respective shares of the two concerns.’
I began to see daylight. There have been mornings, after some rout or revel at the Drones, when this sort of thing would merely have caused the head to throb, but to-day, as I have said, I was feeling exceptionally bright.
‘They would go up, you mean?’
A sharp rise would be inevitable, sir.’
And Uncle Percy views such a prospect with concern?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘His idea being to collect a parcel cheap before the many-headed can horn in and spoil the market?’
‘Precisely, sir. Rem acu tetigisti.’
‘Rem—?’
Acu tetigisti, sir. A Latin expression. Literally, it means “You have touched the matter with a needle,” but a more idiomatic rendering would be—’
‘Put my finger on the nub?’
‘Exactly, sir.’
‘Yes, I get it now. You have clarified the situation. Getting right down to it, these two old buzzards have got to foregather in secret and require a hideout.’
‘Precisely, sir. And, of course, the movements of both gentlemen are being closely watched by representatives of the financial press.’
‘I suppose this mystic sort of stuff goes on all the time in the world of commerce?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘One understands and sympathizes.’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Though one dislikes the idea of Uncle Percy getting any richer. Already, he has the stuff in gobs. However, bearing in mind the fact that he is an uncle by marriage, I suppose one ought to espouse his cause. Had you anything to suggest?’
‘Yes, sir.’