It wasn’t likely I’d forget. The ghastly thing was absolutely seared into my memory.
‘That is the line of attack,’ said Bingo. ‘That is the scheme. Rosie M. Banks forward once more.’
‘It can’t be done, old thing. Sorry, but it’s out of the question. I couldn’t go through all that again.’
‘Not for me?’
‘Not for a dozen more like you.’
‘I never thought,’ said Bingo sorrowfully, ‘to hear those words from Bertie Wooster!’
‘Well, you’ve heard them now,’ I said. ‘Paste them in your hat.’
‘Bertie, we were at school together.’
‘It wasn’t my fault.’
‘We’ve been pals for fifteen years.’
‘I know. It’s going to take me the rest of my life to live it down.’
‘Bertie, old man,’ said Bingo, drawing up his chair closer and starting to knead my shoulder-blade, ‘listen! Be reasonable!’
And of course, dash it, at the end of ten minutes I’d allowed the blighter to talk me round. It’s always the way. Anyone can talk me round. If I were in a Trappist monastery, the first thing that would happen would be that some smooth performer would lure me into some frightful idiocy against my better judgement by means of the deaf-and-dumb language.
‘Well, what do you want me to do?’ I said, realizing that it was hopeless to struggle.
‘Start off by sending the old boy an autographed copy of your latest effort with a flattering inscription. That will tickle him to death. Then you pop round and put it across.’
‘What is my latest?’
‘The Woman who Braved All,’ said young Bingo. ‘I’ve seen it all over the place. The shop windows and bookstalls are full of nothing but it. It looks to me from the picture on the jacket the sort of book any chappie would be proud to have written. Of course, he will want to discuss it with you.’
‘Ah!’ I said, cheering up. ‘That dishes the scheme, doesn’t it? I don’t know what the bally thing is about.’
‘You will have to read it, naturally.’
‘Read it! No, I say –’
‘Bertie, we were at school together.’
‘Oh, right-o! Right-o!’ I said.
‘I knew I could rely on you. You have a heart of gold. Jeeves,’ said young Bingo, as the faithful servitor rolled in, ‘Mr Wooster has a heart of gold.’
‘Very good, sir,’ said Jeeves.
Bar a weekly wrestle with the Pink ’Un and an occasional dip into the form-book I’m not much of a lad for reading, and my sufferings as I tackled The Woman (curse her!) who Braved All were pretty fearful. But I managed to get through it, and only just in time, as it happened, for I’d hardly reached the bit where their lips met in one long, slow kiss and everything was still but for the gentle sighing of the breeze in the laburnum, when a messenger-boy brought a note from old Bittlesham asking me to trickle round to lunch.
I found the old boy in a mood you could only describe as melting. He had a copy of the book on the table beside him and kept turning the pages in the intervals of dealing with things in aspic and what not.
‘Mr Wooster,’ he said, swallowing a chunk of trout, ‘I wish to congratulate you. I wish to thank you. You go from strength to strength. I have read All for Love; and I have read Only a Factory Girl; I know Madcap Myrtle by heart. But this – this is your bravest and best. It tears the heartstrings.’
‘Yes?’
‘Indeed yes! I have read it three times since you most kindly sent me the volume – I wish to thank you once more for the charming inscription – and I think I may say that I am a better, sweeter, deeper man. I am full of human charity and kindliness towards my species.’
‘No, really?’
‘Indeed, indeed I am.’
‘Towards the whole species?’
‘Towards the whole species.’
‘Even young Bingo?’ I said, trying him pretty high.
‘My nephew? Richard?’ He looked a bit thoughtful, but stuck it like a man and refused to hedge. ‘Yes, even towards Richard. Well … that is to say … perhaps … yes, even towards Richard.’
‘That’s good, because I wanted to talk about him. He’s pretty hard up, you know.’
‘In straitened circumstances?’
‘Stony. And he could use a bit of the right stuff paid every quarter, if you felt like unbelting.’
He mused a while and got through a slab of cold guinea hen before replying. He toyed with the book, and it fell open at page two hundred and fifteen. I couldn’t remember what was on page two hundred and fifteen, but it must have been something tolerably zippy, for his expression changed and he gazed up at me with misty eyes, as if he’d taken a shade too much mustard with his last bite of ham.
‘Very well, Mr Wooster,’ he said. ‘Fresh from a perusal of this noble work of yours, I cannot harden my heart. Richard shall have his allowance.’
‘Stout fellow!’ I said. Then it occurred to me that the expression might strike a chappie who weighed seventeen stone as a bit personal. ‘Good egg, I mean. That’ll take a weight off his mind. He wants to get married, you know.’
‘I did not know. And I am not sure that I altogether approve. Who is the lady?’
‘Well, as matter of fact, she’s a waitress.’
He leaped in his seat.
‘You don’t say so, Mr Wooster! This is remarkable. This is most cheering. I had not given the boy credit for such tenacity of purpose. An excellent trait in him which I had not hitherto suspected. I recollect clearly that, on the occasion when I first had the pleasure of making your acquaintance, nearly eighteen months ago, Richard was desirous of marrying this same waitress.’
I had to break it to him.
‘Well, not absolutely this same waitress. In fact, quite a different waitress. Still, a waitress, you know.’
The light of avuncular affection died out of the old boy’s eyes.
‘H’m!’ he said a bit dubiously. ‘I had supposed that Richard was displaying the quality of constancy which is so rare in the modern young man. I – I must think it over.’
So we left it at that, and I came away and told Bingo the position of affairs.
‘Allowance OK,’ I said. ‘Uncle’s blessing a trifle wobbly.’
‘Doesn’t he seem to want the wedding bells to ring out?’
‘I left him thinking it over. If I were a bookie, I should feel justified in offering a hundred to eight against.’
‘You can’t have approached him properly. I might have known you would muck it up,’ said young Bingo. Which, considering what I had been through for his sake, struck me as a good bit sharper than a serpent’s tooth.
‘It’s awkward,’ said young Bingo. ‘It’s infernally awkward. I can’t tell you all the details at the moment, but … yes, it’s awkward.’
He helped himself absently to a handful of my cigars and pushed off.
I didn’t see him again for three days. Early in the afternoon of the third day he blew in with a flower in his buttonhole and a look on his face as if someone had hit him behind the ear with a stuffed eel skin.
‘Hallo, Bertie.’
‘Hallo, old turnip. Where have you been all this while?’
‘Oh, here and there! Ripping weather we’re having, Bertie.’
‘Not bad.’
‘I see the Bank Rate is down again.’
‘No, really?’
‘Disturbing news from Lower Silesia, what?’
‘Oh, dashed!’
He pottered about the room for a bit, babbling at intervals. The boy seemed cuckoo.
‘Oh, I say, Bertie!’ he said suddenly, dropping a vase which he had picked off the mantelpiece and was fiddling with. ‘I know what it was I wanted to tell you. I’m married.’
18
* * *
All’s Well
I STARED AT him. That flower in his buttonhole … That dazed look … Yes, he had all the symptoms: and yet the thing seemed incredible. The fa
ct is, I suppose, I’d seen so many of young Bingo’s love-affairs start off with a whoop and a rattle and poof themselves out half-way down the straight that I couldn’t believe he had actually brought it off at last.
‘Married!’
‘Yes. This morning at a registrar’s in Holborn. I’ve just come from the wedding breakfast.’
I sat up in my chair. Alert. The man of affairs. It seemed to me that this thing wanted threshing out in all its aspects.
‘Let’s get this straight,’ I said. ‘You’re really married?’
‘Yes.’
‘The same girl you were in love with the day before yesterday?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Well, you know what you’re like. Tell me, what made you commit this rash act?’
‘I wish the deuce you wouldn’t talk like that. I married her because I love her, dash it. The best little woman,’ said young Bingo, ‘in the world.’
‘That’s all right, and deuced creditable, I’m sure. But have you reflected what your uncle’s going to say? The last I saw of him, he was by no means in a confetti-scattering mood.’
‘Bertie,’ said Bingo, ‘I’ll be frank with you. The little woman rather put it up to me, if you know what I mean. I told her how my uncle felt about it, and she said that we must part unless I loved her enough to brave the old boy’s wrath and marry her right away. So I had no alternative. I bought a buttonhole and went to it.’
‘And what do you propose to do now?’
‘Oh, I’ve got it all planned out! After you’ve seen my uncle and broken the news –’
‘What!’
‘After you’ve –’
‘You don’t mean to say you think you’re going to lug me into it?’
He looked at me like Lillian Gish coming out of a swoon.
‘Is this Bertie Wooster talking?’ he said, pained.
‘Yes, it jolly well is.’
‘Bertie, old man,’ said Bingo, patting me gently here and there, ‘reflect! We were at school –’
‘Oh, all right!’
‘Good man! I knew I could rely on you. She’s waiting down below in the hall. We’ll pick her up and dash round to Pounceby Gardens right away.’
I had only seen the bride before in her waitress kit, and I was rather expecting that on her wedding day she would have launched out into something fairly zippy in the way of upholstery. The first gleam of hope I had felt since the start of this black business came to me when I saw that, instead of being all velvet and scent and flowery hat, she was dressed in dashed good taste. Quiet. Nothing loud. So far as looks went, she might have stepped straight out of Berkeley Square.
‘This is my old pal, Bertie Wooster, darling,’ said Bingo. ‘We were at school together, weren’t we, Bertie?’
‘We were!’ I said. ‘How do you do? I think we – er – met at lunch the other day, didn’t we?’
‘Oh yes! How do you do?’
‘My uncle eats out of Bertie’s hand,’ explained Bingo. ‘So he’s coming round with us to start things off and kind of pave the way. Hi, taxi!’
We didn’t talk much on the journey. Kind of tense feeling. I was glad when the cab stopped at old Bittlesham’s wigwam and we all hopped out. I left Bingo and wife in the hall while I went upstairs to the drawing-room, and the butler toddled off to dig out the big chief.
While I was prowling about the room waiting for him to show up, I suddenly caught sight of the bally Woman who Braved All lying on one of the tables. It was open at page two hundred and fifteen, and a passage heavily marked in pencil caught my eye. And directly I read it I saw that it was all to the mustard and was going to help me in my business.
This was the passage:
‘What can prevail’ – Millicent’s eyes flashed as she faced the stern old man – ‘What can prevail against a pure and all-consuming love? Neither principalities nor powers, my lord, nor all the puny prohibitions of guardians and parents. I love your son, Lord Mindermere, and nothing can keep us apart. Since time first began this love of ours was fated, and who are you to put yourself against the decrees of Fate?’
The earl looked at her keenly from beneath his bushy eyebrows.
‘Humph!’ he said.
Before I had time to refresh my memory as to what Millicent’s come-back had been to that remark, the door opened and old Bittlesham rolled in. All over me, as usual.
‘My dear Mr Wooster, this is an unexpected pleasure. Pray take a seat. What can I do for you?’
‘Well, the fact is, I’m more or less in the capacity of a jolly old ambassador at the moment. Representing young Bingo, you know.’
His geniality sagged a trifle, I thought, but he didn’t heave me out, so I pushed on.
‘The way I always look at it,’ I said, ‘is that it’s dashed difficult for anything to prevail against what you might call a pure and all-consuming love. I mean, can it be done? I doubt it.’
My eyes didn’t exactly flash as I faced the stern old man, but I sort of waggled my eyebrows. He puffed a bit and looked doubtful.
‘We discussed this matter at our last meeting, Mr Wooster. And on that occasion –’
‘Yes. But there have been developments, as it were, since then. The fact of the matter is,’ I said, coming to the point, ‘this morning young Bingo went and jumped off the dock.’
‘Good heavens!’ He jerked himself to his feet with his mouth open. ‘Why? Where? Which dock?’
I saw that he wasn’t quite on.
‘I was speaking metaphorically,’ I explained, ‘if that’s the word I want. I mean he got married.’
‘Married!’
‘Absolutely hitched up. I hope you aren’t ratty about it, what? Young blood, you know. Two loving hearts, and all that.’
He panted in a rather overwrought way.
‘I am greatly disturbed by your news. I – I consider that I have been – er – defied. Yes, defied.’
‘But who are you to pit yourself against the decrees of Fate?’ I said, taking a look at the prompt book out of the corner of my eye.
‘Eh?’
‘You see, this love of theirs was fated. Since time began, you know.’
I’m bound to admit that if he’d said ‘Humph!’ at this juncture, he would have had me stymied. Luckily it didn’t occur to him. There was a silence, during which he appeared to brood a bit. Then his eye fell on the book and he gave a sort of start.
‘Why, bless my soul, Mr Wooster, you have been quoting!’
‘More or less.’
‘I thought your words sounded familiar.’ His whole appearance changed and he gave a sort of gurgling chuckle. ‘Dear me, dear me, you know my weak spot!’ He picked up the book and buried himself in it for quite a while. I began to think he had forgotten I was there. After a bit, however, he put it down again, and wiped his eyes. ‘Ah, well!’ he said.
I shuffled my feet and hoped for the best.
‘Ah, well,’ he said again. ‘I must not be like Lord Windermere, must I, Mr Wooster? Tell me, did you draw that haughty old man from a living model?’
‘Oh, no! Just thought of him and bunged him down, you know.’
‘Genius!’ murmured old Bittlesham. ‘Genius! Well, Mr Wooster, you have won me over. Who, as you say, am I to put myself against the decrees of Fate? I will write to Richard tonight and inform him of my consent to his marriage.’
‘You can slip him the glad news in person,’ I said. ‘He’s waiting downstairs, with wife complete. I’ll pop down and send them up. Cheerio, and thanks very much. Bingo will be most awfully bucked.’
I shot out and went downstairs. Bingo and Mrs were sitting on a couple of chairs like patients in a dentist’s waiting-room.
‘Well?’ said Bingo eagerly.
‘All over except the hand-clasping,’ I replied, slapping the old crumpet on the back. ‘Charge up and get matey. Toodle-oo, old things. You know where to find me, if wanted. A thousand congratulations, and all that sort of rot.’
A
nd I pipped, not wishing to be fawned upon.
You never can tell in this world. If ever I felt that something attempted, something done had earned a night’s repose, it was when I got back to the flat and shoved my feet up on the mantelpiece and started to absorb the cup of tea which Jeeves had brought in. Used as I am to seeing Life’s sitters blow up in the home stretch and finish nowhere, I couldn’t see any cause for alarm in this affair of young Bingo’s. All he had to do when I left him in Pounceby Gardens was to walk upstairs with the little missus and collect the blessing. I was so convinced of this that when, about half an hour later, he came galloping into my sitting-room, all I thought was that he wanted to thank me in broken accents and tell me what a good chap I had been. I merely beamed benevolently on the old creature as he entered, and was just going to offer him a cigarette when I observed that he seemed to have something on his mind. In fact, he looked as if something solid had hit him in the solar plexus.
‘My dear old soul,’ I said, ‘what’s up?’
Bingo plunged about the room.
‘I will be calm!’ he said, knocking over an occasional table. ‘Calm, dammit!’ He upset a chair.
‘Surely nothing has gone wrong?’
Bingo uttered one of those hollow, mirthless yelps.
‘Only every bally thing that could go wrong. What do you think happened after you left us? You know that beastly book you insisted on sending my uncle?’
It wasn’t the way I should have put it myself, but I saw the poor old bean was upset for some reason or other, so I didn’t correct him.
‘The Woman who Braved All?’ I said. ‘It came in dashed useful. It was by quoting bits out of it that I managed to talk him round.’
‘Well, it didn’t come in useful when we got into the room. It was lying on the table, and after we had started to chat a bit and everything was going along nicely the little woman spotted it. “Oh, have you read this, Lord Bittlesham?” she said. “Three times already,” said my uncle. “I’m so glad,” said the little woman. “Why, are you also an admirer of Rosie M. Banks?” asked the old boy, beaming. “I am Rosie M. Banks!” said the little woman.’