Catsmeat’s manner became a bit tense. He looked like a village standee hearing the ‘Yeoman’s Wedding Song’.
‘Listen, Bertie,’ he said, ‘suppose we don’t talk about Basingstoke or about your nurse either. To hell with Basingstoke and to hell with your ruddy nurse, too. Where was I?’
‘We broke off at the point where Dame Daphne Winkworth was letting out a yell.’
‘That’s right. Her sisters, when informed that Gertrude was proposing to marry the brother of the Miss Pirbright down at the Vicarage and that this brother was an actor by profession, also let out yells.’
I toyed with the idea of asking if these, too, could have been heard at Basingstoke, but wiser counsels prevailed.
‘They don’t like Corky, and they don’t like actors. In their young days, in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, actors were looked on as rogues and vagabonds, and they can’t get it into their nuts that the modern actor is a substantial citizen who makes his sixty quid a week and salts most of it away in sound Government securities. Why, dash it, if I could think of some way of doing down the income-tax people, I should be a rich man. You don’t know of a way of doing down the income-tax people do you, Bertie?’
‘Sorry, no. I doubt if even Jeeves does. So you got the bird?’
‘Yes. I had a sad letter from Gertrude saying no dice. You may ask why don’t we elope?’
‘I was just going to.’
‘I couldn’t swing it. She fears her mother’s wrath.’
‘A tough character, this mother?’
‘Of the toughest. She used to be headmistress of a big girls’ school. Gertrude was a member of the chain gang and has never got over it. No, elopements seem to be out. And here’s the snag, Bertie. Corky has wangled a contract for me with her studio in Hollywood, and I may have to sail at any moment. It’s a frightful situation.’
I was silent for a moment. I was trying to remember something I had read somewhere about something not quenching something, but I couldn’t get at it. However, the general idea was that if a girl loves you and you are compelled to leave her in storage for a while, she will wait for you, so I put this point, and he said that was all very well but I didn’t know all. The plot, he assured me, was about to thicken.
‘We now come,’ he said, ‘to the hellhound Haddock. And this is where I want you to rally round, Bertie.’
I said I didn’t get the gist, and he said of course I didn’t get the damned gist, but couldn’t I wait half a second, blast me, and give him a chance to explain, and I said Oh, rather, certainly.
‘Haddock!’ said Catsmeat, speaking between clenched teeth and exhibiting other signs of emotion. ‘Haddock the Home Wrecker! Do you know anything about this Grade A louse, Bertie?’
‘Only that his late father was the proprietor of those Headache Hokies.’
‘And left him enough money to sink a ship. I’m not suggesting, of course, that Gertrude would marry him for his money. She would scorn such raw work. But in addition to having more cash than you could shake a stick at, he’s a sort of Greek god in appearance and extremely magnetic. So Gertrude says. And, what is more, I gather from her letters that pressure is being brought to bear on her by the family. And you can imagine what the pressure of a mother and four aunts is like.’
I began to grasp the trend.
‘You mean Haddock is trying to move in?’
‘Gertrude writes that he is giving her the rush of a lifetime. And this will show you the sort of flitting and sipping butterfly the hound is. It’s only a short while ago that he was giving Corky a similar rush. Ask her when you see her, but tactfully, because she’s as sore as a gum-boil about it. I tell you, the man is a public menace. He ought to be kept on a chain in the interests of pure womanhood. But we’ll fix him, won’t we?’
‘Will we?’
‘You bet we will. Here’s what I want you to do. You’ll agree that even a fellow like Esmond Haddock, who appears to be the nearest thing yet discovered to South American Joe, couldn’t press his foul suit in front of you?’
‘You mean he would need privacy?’
‘Exactly. So the moment you are inside Deverill Hall, start busting up his sinister game. Be always at Gertrude’s side. Stick to her like glue. See that he doesn’t get her alone in the rose garden. If a visit to the rose garden is mooted, include yourself in. You follow me, Bertie?’
‘I follow you, yes,’ I said, a little dubiously. ‘What you have in mind is something on the lines of Mary’s lamb. I don’t know if you happen to know the poem – I used to recite it as a child – but, broadly, the nub was that Mary had a little lamb with fleece as white as snow, and everywhere that Mary went the lamb was sure to go. You want me to model my technique on that of Mary’s lamb?’
‘That’s it. Be on the alert every second, for the peril is frightful. Well, to give you some idea, his most recent suggestion is that Gertrude and he shall take sandwiches one of these mornings and ride out to a place about fifteen miles away, where there are cliffs and things. And do you know what he plans to do when they get there? Show her the Lovers’ Leap.’
‘Oh, yes?’
‘Don’t say “Oh, yes?” in that casual way. Think, man. Fifteen miles there, then the Lovers’ Leap, then fifteen miles back. The imagination reels at the thought of what excesses a fellow like Esmond Haddock may commit on a thirty-mile ride with a Lovers’ Leap thrown in half-way. I don’t know what day the expedition is planned for, but whenever it is, you must be with it from start to finish. If possible riding between them. And for God’s sake don’t take your eye off him for an instant at the Lovers’ Leap. That will be the danger spot. If you notice the slightest disposition on his part, when at the Lovers’ Leap, to lean towards her and whisper in her ear, break up the act like lightning. I’m relying on you, Bertie. My life’s happiness depends on you.’
Well, of course, if a man you’ve been at private school, public school and Oxford with says he’s relying on you, you have no option but to let yourself be relied on. To say that the assignment was one I liked would be over-stating the facts, but I right-hoed, and he grasped my hand and said that if there were more fellows like me in it the world would be a better place – a view which differed sharply from that of my Aunt Agatha, and one which I had a hunch was going to differ sharply from that of Esmond Haddock. There might be those at Deverill Hall who would come to love Bertram, but my bet was that E. Haddock’s name would not be on the roster.
‘Well, you’ve certainly eased my mind,’ said Catsmeat, having released the hand and then re-grabbed and re-squeezed it. ‘Knowing that you are on the spot, working like a beaver in my interests, will mean everything. I have been off my feed for some little time now, but I’m going to enjoy my dinner tonight. I only wish there was something I could do for you in return.’
‘There is,’ I said.
A thought had struck me, prompted no doubt by his mention of the word ‘dinner’. Ever since Jeeves had told me about the coolness which existed between Gussie Fink-Nottle and Madeline Bassett I had been more than a bit worried at the thought of Gussie dining by himself that night.
I mean, you know how it is when you’ve had one of these lovers’ tiffs and then go off to a solitary dinner. You start brooding over the girl with the soup and wonder if it wasn’t a mug’s game hitching up with her. With the fish this feeling deepens, and by the time you’re through with the poulet oti au cresson and are ordering the coffee you’ve probably come definitely to the conclusion that she’s a rag and a bone and a hank of hair and that it would be madness to sign her on as a life partner.
What you need on these occasions is entertaining company, so that your dark thoughts may be diverted, and it seemed to me that here was the chance to provide Gussie with some.
‘There is,’ I said. ‘You know Gussie Fink-Nottle? He’s low-spirited, and there are reasons why I would prefer that he isn’t alone tonight, brooding. Could you give him a spot of dinner?’
Catsmeat chewed his lip. I
knew what was passing in his mind. He was thinking, as others have thought, that the first essential for an enjoyable dinner-party is for Gussie not to be at it.
‘Give Gussie Fink-Nottle dinner?’
‘That’s right.’
‘Why don’t you?’
‘My Aunt Agatha wants me to take her son Thomas to the Old Vic.’
‘Give it a miss.’
‘I can’t. I should never hear the last of it.’
‘Well, all right.’
‘Heaven bless you, Catsmeat,’ I said.
So Gussie was off my mind. It was with a light heart that I retired to rest that night. I little knew, as the expression is, what the morrow was to bring forth.
3
* * *
THOUGH, AS A matter of fact, in its early stages the morrow brought forth some pretty good stuff. As generally happens on these occasions when you are going to cop it in the quiet evenfall, the day started extremely well. Knowing that at 2.53 I was to shoot young Thos off to his seaside Borstal, I breakfasted with a song on my lips, and at lunch, I recall, I was in equally excellent fettle.
I took Thos to Victoria, bunged him into his train, slipped him a quid and stood waving a cousinly hand till he was out of sight. Then, after looking in at Queen’s Club for a game or two of rackets, I went back to the flat, still chirpy.
Up till then everything had been fine. As I put hat on hat-peg and umbrella in umbrella-stand, I was thinking that if God wasn’t in His heaven and all right with the world, these conditions prevailed as near as made no matter. Not the suspicion of an inkling, if you see what I mean, that round the corner lurked the bitter awakening, stuffed eelskin in hand, waiting to sock me on the occiput.
The first thing to which my attention was drawn on crossing the threshold was that there seemed to be a lot more noise going on than was suitable in a gentleman’s home. Through the closed door of the sitting room the ear detected the sound of a female voice raised in what appeared to be cries of encouragement and, mingled with this female voice, a loud barking, as of hounds on the trail. It was as though my boudoir had been selected by the management of the Quorn or the Pytchley as the site for their most recent meet, and my first instinct, as that of any householder would have been, was to look into this. Nobody can call Bertram Wooster a fussy man, but there are moments when he feels he has to take a firm stand.
I opened the door, accordingly, and was immediately knocked base over apex by some solid body with a tongue like an anteater’s. This tongue it proceeded to pass enthusiastically over my upper slopes and, the mists clearing away, I perceived that what I was tangled up with was a shaggy dog of mixed parentage. And standing beside us, looking down like a mother watching the gambols of her first-born, was Catsmeat’s sister Corky.
‘Isn’t he a lamb?’ she said. ‘Isn’t he an absolute seraph?’
I was not able wholly to subscribe to this view. The animal appeared to have an agreeable disposition and to have taken an immediate fancy to me, but physically it was no beauty-prize winner. It looked like Boris Karloff made up for something.
Corky, on the other hand, as always, distinctly took the eye. Two years in Hollywood had left her even easier to look at than when last seen around these parts.
This young prune is one of those lissom girls of medium height, constructed on the lines of Gertrude Lawrence, and her map had always been worth more than a passing glance. In repose, it has a sort of meditative expression, as if she were a pure white soul thinking beautiful thoughts, and, when animated, so dashed animated that it boosts the morale just to look at her. Her eyes are a kind of browny-hazel and her hair rather along the same lines. The general effect is of an angel who eats lots of yeast. In fine, if you were called upon to pick something to be cast on a desert island with, Hedy Lamarr might be your first choice, but Corky Pirbright would inevitably come high up in the list of Hon. Mentions.
‘His name’s Sam Goldwyn,’ she proceeded, hauling the animal off the prostrate form. ‘I bought him at the Battersea Home.’
I rose and dried the face.
‘Yes, so Catsmeat told me.’
‘Oh, you’ve seen Catsmeat? Good.’
At this point she seemed to become aware that we had skipped the customary pip-pippings, for she took time out to say how nice it was to see me again after all this time. I said how nice it was to see her again after all this time, and she asked me how I was, and I said I was fine. I asked her how she was, and she said she was fine. She enquired if I was still as big a chump as ever, and I satisfied her curiosity at this point.
‘I looked in yesterday, hoping to see you,’ she said, ‘but you were out.’
‘Yes, Jeeves told me.’
‘A small boy with red hair entertained me. He said he was your cousin.’
‘My Aunt Agatha’s son and, oddly enough, the apple of her eye.’
‘Why oddly enough?’
‘He’s the King of the Underworld. They call him The Shadow.’
‘I liked him. I gave him fifty of my autographs. He’s going to sell them to the boys at his school and expects to get sixpence apiece. He has long admired me on the screen, and we hit it off together like a couple of Yes-men. Catsmeat didn’t seem to take to him so much.’
‘He once put a drawing-pin on Catsmeat’s chair.’
‘Ah, that would account for the imperfect sympathy. Talking of Catsmeat, did he give you the Pat and Mike script?’
‘Yes, I’ve got it. I was studying it in bed last night.’
‘Good. It was sporting of you to rally round.’
I didn’t tell her that my rallying round had been primarily due to force majeure on the part of an aunt who brooks, if that’s the word, no back-chat. Instead, I asked who was to be my partner in the merry mélange of fun and topicality, sustaining the minor but exacting role of Mike, and she said an artiste of the name of Dobbs.
‘Police Constable Dobbs, the local rozzer. And in this connection, Bertie, there is one thing I want to impress upon you with all the emphasis at my disposal. When socking Constable Dobbs with your umbrella at the points where the script calls for it, don’t pull your punches. Let the blighter have it with every ounce of wrist and muscle. I want to see him come off that stage a mass of contusions.’
It seemed to me, for I am pretty quick, that she had it in for this Dobbs. I said so, and she concurred, a quick frown marring the alabaster purity of her brow.
‘I have. I’m devoted to my poor old Uncle Sidney, and this uncouth bluebottle is a thorn in his flesh. He’s the village atheist.’
‘Oh, really? An atheist, is he? I never went in for that sort of thing much myself. In fact, at my private school I once won a prize for Scripture Knowledge.’
‘He annoys Uncle Sidney by popping out at him from side streets and making offensive cracks about Jonah and the Whale. This cross-talk act has been sent from heaven. In ordinary life, I mean, you get so few opportunities of socking cops with umbrellas, and if ever a cop needed the treatment, it is Ernest Dobbs. When he isn’t smirching Jonah and the Whale with his low sneers, he’s asking Uncle Sidney where Cain got his wife. You can’t say that sort of thing is pleasant for a sensitive vicar, so hew to the line, my poppet, and let the chips fall where they may.’
She had stirred the Wooster blood and aroused the Wooster chivalry. I assured her that by the time they struck up ‘God Save The King’ in the old village hall Constable Dobbs would know he had been in a fight, and she thanked me prettily.
‘I can see you’re going to be good, Bertie. And I don’t mind telling you your public is expecting big things. For days the whole village has been talking of nothing else but the coming visit of Bertram Wooster, the great London comic. You will be the high spot of the programme. And goodness knows it can do with a high spot or two.’
‘Who are the performers?’
‘Just the scourings of the neighbourhood … and Esmond Haddock. He’s singing a song.’
The way she spoke that name, with a
sort of frigid distaste as if it soiled her lips, told me that Catsmeat had not erred in saying that she was as sore as a gum-boil about E. Haddock’s in-and-out running. Remembering that he had warned me to approach the subject tactfully, I picked my words with care.
‘Ah, yes. Esmond Haddock. Catsmeat was telling me about Esmond Haddock.’
‘What did he tell you?’
‘Oh, this and that.’
‘Featuring me?’
‘Yes, to a certain extent featuring you.’
‘What did he say?’
‘Well, he seemed to hint, unless I misunderstood him, that the above Haddock hadn’t, as it were, done right by our Nell. According to Catsmeat, you and this modern Casanova were at one time holding hands, but after flitting and sipping for a while he cast you aside like a worn-out glove and attached himself to Gertrude Winkworth. Quite incorrect, probably. I expect he got the whole story muddled up.’
She came clean. I suppose a girl who has been going about for some weeks as sore as a gum-boil, and with the heart cracked in two places gets to feel that maidenly pride is all very well but that what eases the soul is confession. And, of course, making me her confidant was not like spilling the inside stuff to a stranger. No doubt the thought crossed her mind that we had attended the same dancing class, and it may be that a vision of the child Wooster in a Little Lord Fauntleroy suit and pimples rose before her eyes.
‘No, he didn’t get the story muddled up. We were holding hands. But Esmond didn’t cast me aside like a worn-out glove, I cast him aside like a worn-out glove. I told him I wouldn’t have any more to do with him unless he asserted himself and stopped crawling to those aunts of his.’
‘He crawls to his aunts, does he?’
‘Yes, the worm.’
I could not pass this. Better men than Esmond Haddock have crawled to their aunts, and I said so, but she didn’t seem to be listening. Girls seldom do listen to me, I’ve noticed. Her face was drawn and her eyes had a misty look. The lips, I observed, were a-quiver.