'I owe you an apology, Mr Wooster.'
'Don't give it a thought.'
'I took it for granted when I found Pauline gone ...'
'Dismiss the whole thing from your mind. Might have happened to anybody. Faults on both sides and so forth. You'll have a certain something before you go?'
It seemed to me that it would be a prudent move to detain him on the premises for as long as possible, so as to give Pauline plenty of time to get back to the old boat. But he wouldn't be tempted. His mind was evidently too occupied for spots.
'It beats me where she can have gone,' he said, and you would have been astounded at the mildness and even chummy pathos with which he spoke. It was as if Bertram had been some wise old friend to whom he was bringing his little troubles. The man seemed positively punctured. A child could have played with him.
I endeavoured to throw out a word of cheer.
'I expect she's gone for a swim.'
'At this time of night?'
'Girls do rummy things.'
'And she's a curious girl. This infatuation of hers for you, for instance.'
This seemed to me lacking in tact, and I would have frowned slightly, had I not remembered that I wished to disabuse him, if disabuse is what I'm driving at, of the idea that any such infatuation existed.
'Correct this notion that Miss Stoker is under my fatal spell,' I urged him. 'She laughs herself sick at the sight of me.'
'I did not get that impression this afternoon.'
'Oh, that? Just brother and sister stuff. It shan't occur again.'
'It had better not,' he said, returning for a moment to what I might call his earlier manner. 'Well, I won't keep you up, Mr Wooster. I apologize again for making a darned fool of myself
I did not quite slap him on the back, but I made a sort of back-slapping gesture.
'Not at all,' I said. 'Not at all. I wish I had a quid for every time I've made a darned fool of myself.'
And on these cordial terms we parted. He went down the garden path, and I, having waited up about ten minutes on the chance that somebody else might come paying a social call, drained my glass and popped up to bed.
Something attempted, something done, had earned a night's repose, or as near as you can get to a night's repose in a place full of Stokers and Paulines and Vouleses and Chuffys and Dobsons. It was not long before the weary eyelids closed and I was off.
It seems almost incredible, considering what the night life of Chuffnell Regis was like, but the next thing that woke me was not a girl leaping out from under the bed, her father bounding in with blood in his eye, or a police sergeant playing ragtime on the knocker, but actually the birds outside my window heralding in a new day.
Well, when I say heralding, it was about ten-thirty of a fine summer morning, and the sunshine streaming in through the window seemed to be calling to me to get up and see what I could do to an egg, a rasher, and the good old pot of coff.
I had a hasty bath and shave and trotted down to the kitchen, full of joie de vivre.
11 SINISTER BEHAVIOUR OF A
YACHT-OWNER
It was not until I had finished breakfast and was playing the banjolele in the front garden that something seemed to whisper reproachfully in my ear that I had no right to be feeling as perky as this on what was so essentially the morning after. Dirty work had been perpetrated overnight. Tragedy had stalked through the home. Scarcely ten hours earlier I had been a witness of a scene which, if I were the man of fine fibre I liked to think myself, should have removed all the sunshine from my life. Two loving hearts, one of which I had been at school and Oxford with, had gone to the mat together in my presence and having chewed holes in one another had parted in anger, never – according to present schedule – to meet again. And here I was, carefree and callous, playing 'I Lift Up My Finger And I Say Tweet-Tweet' on the banjolele.
All wrong. I switched to 'Body and Soul', and a sober sadness came upon me.
Something, I felt, must be done. Steps must be taken and avenues explored.
But I could not conceal from myself that the situation was complex. Usually, in my experience, when one of my pals has broken off diplomatic relations with a girl or vice versa they have been staying in a country house together or at least living in London, where it wasn't so dashed difficult to arrange a meeting and join their hands with a benevolent smile. But in this matter of Chuffy and Pauline Stoker, consider the facts. She was on the yacht, virtually in irons. He was at the Hall, three miles inland. And anybody who wanted to do any hand-joining had got to be a much more mobile force than I was. True, my standing with old Stoker had improved a bit overnight, but there had been no hint on his part of any disposition to give me the run of his yacht. I seemed to have about as much chance of getting in touch with Pauline and endeavouring to reason with her as if she had never come over from America at all.
Quite a prob, I mean to say, and I was still brooding on it when the garden gate clicked and I perceived Jeeves walking up the path.
'Ah, Jeeves,' I said.
My manner probably seemed to him a little distant, and I jolly well meant it to. What Pauline had told me about his loose and unconsidered remarks with reference to my mentality had piqued me considerably. It was not the first time he had said that sort of thing, and one has one's feelings.
But if he sensed the hauteur, he affected to ignore it. His bearing continued placid and unmoved.
'Good morning, sir.'
'Have you come from the yacht?'
'Yes, sir.'
'Was Miss Stoker there?'
'Yes, sir. She appeared at the breakfast table. I was somewhat surprised to see her. I had assumed that it was her intention to remain ashore and establish communication with his lordship.'
I laughed shortly.
'They established communication, all right!'
'Sir?'
I put down the banjolele and looked at him sternly.
'A nice thing you let all and sundry in for last night!' I said.
'Sir?'
'You can't get out of it by saying "Sir?" Why on earth didn't you stop Miss Stoker from swimming ashore yestreen?'
'I could scarcely take the liberty, sir, of thwarting the young lady in an enterprise on which her heart was so plainly set.'
'She says you urged her on with word and gesture.'
'No, sir. I merely expressed sympathy with her stated aims.'
'You said I would be delighted to put her up for the night.'
'She had already decided to seek refuge in your house, sir. I did nothing more than hazard the opinion that you would do all that lay in your power to assist her.'
'Well, do you know what the outcome was – the upshot, if I may use the term? I was pursued by the police.'
'Indeed, sir?'
'Yes. Naturally I couldn't sleep in the house, with every nook and cranny bulging with blighted girls, so I withdrew to the garage. I had hardly been there ten minutes before Sergeant Voules arrived.'
'I have not met Sergeant Voules, sir.'
'With him Constable Dobson.'
'I am acquainted with Constable Dobson. A nice young fellow. He is keeping company with Mary, the parlourmaid at the Hall. A red-haired girl, sir.'
'Resist the urge to talk about the colour of parlourmaids' hair, Jeeves,' I said coldly. 'It is not germane to the issue. Stick to the point. Which is that I spent a sleepless night, chased to and fro by the gendarmerie.'
'I am sorry to hear that, sir.'
'Eventually Chuffy arrived. Forming a totally erroneous diagnosis of the case, he insisted on helping me to my room, removing my boots, and putting me to bed. He was thus occupied when Miss Stoker strolled in, wearing my heliotrope pyjamas.'
'Most disturbing, sir.'
'It was. They had the dickens of a row, Jeeves.'
'Indeed, sir.'
'Eyes flashed, voices were raised. Eventually Chuffy fell downstairs and went moodily out into the night. And the point is – the nub of the thing is ?
?? what is to be done about it?'
'It is a situation that will require careful thought, sir.'
'You mean you have not had any ideas yet?'
'I have only this moment heard what transpired, sir.'
'True. I was forgetting that. Have you had speech with Miss Stoker this morning?'
'No, sir.'
'Well, I can see no point in your going to the Hall and tackling Chuffy. I have given this matter a good deal of thought, Jeeves, and it is plain to me that Miss Stoker is the one who will require the persuasive word, the nicely reasoned argument – in short, the old oil. Last night Chuffy wounded her deepest feelings, and it's going to take a lot of spadework to bring her round. In comparison, the problem of Chuffy is simple. I shouldn't be surprised if even now he was kicking himself soundly for having behaved so like a perfect chump. One day of quiet meditation, at the outside, should be enough to convince him that he wronged the girl. To go and reason with Chuffy is simply a waste of time. Leave him alone, and Nature will effect the cure. You had better go straight back to the yacht and see what you can do at the other end.'
'It was not with the intention of interviewing his lordship that I came ashore, sir. Once more I must reiterate that, until you informed me just now, I was not aware that anything in the nature of a rift had occurred. My motive in coming here was to hand you a note from Mr Stoker.'
I was puzzled.
'A note?'
'Here it is, sir.'
I opened it, still fogged, and read the contents. I can't say I felt much clearer when I had done so.
'Rummy, Jeeves.'
'Sir?'
'This is a letter of invitation.'
'Indeed, sir?'
'Absolutely. Bidding me to the feast. "Dear Mr Wooster," writes Pop Stoker, "I shall be frightfully bucked if you will come and mangle a spot of garbage on the boat to-night. Don't dress." I give you the gist of the thing. Peculiar, Jeeves.'
'Certainly unforeseen, sir.'
'I forgot to tell you that among my visitors last night was this same Stoker. He bounded in, shouting that his daughter was on the premises, and searched the house.'
'Indeed, sir?'
'Well, of course, he didn't find any daughter, because she was already on her way back to the yacht, and he seemed conscious of having made rather an ass of himself. His manner on departing was chastened. He actually spoke to me civilly – a thing I'd have taken eleven to four on that he didn't know how to do. But does that explain this sudden gush of hospitality? I don't think so. Last night he seemed apologetic rather than matey. There was no indication whatever that he wished to start one of those great friendships.'
'I think it is possible that a conversation which I had this morning with the gentleman, sir ...'
'Ah! It was you, was it, who caused this pro-Bertram sentiment?'
'Immediately after breakfast, sir, Mr Stoker sent for me and inquired if I had once been in your employment. He said that he fancied that he recalled having seen me at your apartment in New York. On my replying in the affirmative, he proceeded to question me with regard to certain incidents in the past.'
'The cats in the bedroom?'
'And the hot-water bottle episode.'
'The purloined hat?'
'And also the matter of your sliding down pipes, sir.'
'And you said—?'
'I explained that Sir Roderick Glossop had taken a biased view of these occurrences, sir, and proceeded to relate their inner history.'
'And he—?'
'– seemed pleased, sir. He appeared to think that he had misjudged you. He said that he ought to have known better than to believe information proceeding from Sir Roderick – to whom he alluded as a bald-headed old son of a something which for the moment has escaped my memory. It was, I imagine, shortly after this that he must have written this letter inviting you to dinner, sir.'
I was pleased with the man. When Bertram Wooster finds the old feudal spirit flourishing, he views it with approval and puts that approval into words.
'Thank you, Jeeves.'
'Not at all, sir.'
'You have done well. Regarding the matter from one aspect, of course, it is negligible whether Pop Stoker thinks I'm a loony or not. I mean to say, a fellow closely connected by ties of blood with a man who used to walk about on his hands is scarcely in a position, where the question of sanity is concerned, to put on dog and set himself up as an ...'
'Arbiter elegentiarum, sir?'
'Quite. It matters little to me, therefore, from one point of view, what old Stoker thinks about my upper storey. One shrugs the shoulders. But, setting that aside, I admit that this change of heart is welcome. It has come at the right time. I shall accept his invitation. I regard it as ...'
'The amende honorable, sir?'
'I was going to say olive branch.'
'Or olive branch. The two terms are virtually synonymous. The French phrase I would be inclined to consider perhaps slightly the more exact in the circumstances – carrying with it, as it does, the implication of remorse, of the desire to make restitution. But if you prefer the expression "olive branch", by all means employ it, sir.'
'Thank you, Jeeves.'
'Not at all, sir.'
'I suppose you know that you have made me completely forget what I was saying?'
'I beg your pardon, sir. I should not have interrupted. If I recollect, you were observing that it was your intention to accept Mr Stoker's invitation.'
'Ah, yes. Very well, then. I shall accept his invitation – whether as an olive branch or an amende honorable is wholly immaterial and doesn't matter a single, solitary damn, Jeeves....'
'No, sir.'
'And shall I tell you why I shall accept his invitation? Because it will enable me to get together with Miss Stoker and plead Chuffy's cause.'
'I understand, sir.'
'Not that it's going to be easy. I hardly know what line to take.'
'If I might make the suggestion, sir, I should imagine that the young lady would respond most satisfactorily to the statement that his lordship was in poor health.'
'She knows he's as fit as a fiddle.'
'Poor health induced since her parting from him by distress of mind.'
'Ah! I get you. Distraught?'
'Precisely, sir.'
'Contemplating self-destruction?'
'Exactly, sir.'
'Her gentle heart would be touched by that, you think?'
'Very conceivably, sir.'
'Then that is the vein I shall work. I see this invitation says dinner at seven. A bit on the early side, what?'
'I presume that the arrangements have been made with a view to the convenience of Master Dwight, sir. This would be the birthday party of which I informed you yesterday.'
'Of course, yes. With nigger minstrel entertainment to follow. They are coming all right, I take it?'
'Yes, sir. The Negroes will be present.'
'I wonder if there would be any chance of a word with the one who plays the banjo. There are certain points in his execution I would like to consult him about.'
'No doubt it could be arranged, sir.'
He seemed to speak with a certain reserve, and I could see that he felt that the conversation had taken an embarrassing turn. Probing the old sore, I mean.
Well, the best thing to do on these occasions, I've always found, is to be open and direct.
'I'm making great progress with the banjolele, Jeeves.'
'Indeed, sir?'
'Would you like me to play you "What Is This Thing Called Love"?'
'No, sir.'
'Your views on the instrument are unchanged?'
'Yes, sir.'
'Ah, well! A pity we could not see eye to eye on that matter.'
'Yes, sir.'
'Still, it can't be helped. No hard feelings.'
'No, sir.'
'Unfortunate, though.'
'Most unfortunate, sir.'
'Well, tell old Stoker that I shall be there at s
even prompt with my hair in a braid.'
'Yes, sir.'
'Or should I write a brief, civil note?'
'No, sir. I was instructed to bring back a verbal reply.'
'Right ho, then.'
'Very good, sir.'
At seven on the dot, accordingly, I stepped aboard the yacht and handed the hat and light overcoat to a passing salt. It was with mixed feelings that I did so, for conflicting emotions were warring in the bosom. On the one hand, the keen ozone of Chuffnell Regis had given me a good appetite, and I knew from recollections of his hosp. in New York that J. Washburn Stoker did his guests well. On the other, I had never been what you might call tranquil in his society, and I was not looking forward to it particularly now. You might put it like this if you cared to – The fleshly or corporeal Wooster was anticipating the binge with pleasure, but his spiritual side rather recoiled a bit.
In my experience, there are two kinds of elderly American. One, the stout and horn-rimmed, is matiness itself. He greets you as if you were a favourite son, starts agitating the cocktail shaker before you know where you are, slips a couple into you with a merry laugh, claps you on the back, tells you a dialect story about two Irishmen named Pat and Mike, and, in a word, makes life one grand, sweet song.
The other, which runs a good deal to the cold, grey stare and the square jaw, seems to view the English cousin with concern. It is not Elfin. It broods. It says little. It sucks in its breath in a pained way. And every now and again you catch its eye, and it is like colliding with a raw oyster.
Of this latter class or species J. Washburn Stoker had always been the perpetual vice president.
It was with considerable relief, therefore, that I found that to-night he had eased off a bit. While not precisely affable, he gave a distinct impression of being as nearly affable as he knew how.
'I hope you have no objection to a quiet family dinner, Mr Wooster?' he said, having shaken the hand.
'Rather not. Dashed good of you to ask me,' I replied, not to be outdone in the courtesies.
'Just you and Dwight and myself. My daughter is lying down. She has a headache.'