‘Yes, I did.’
‘Well, why don’t you?’
‘Because you won’t let me get a word in edgeways.’
‘Oh, have I been talking? I’m sorry. What’s on your mind, my king?’
‘Gussie.’
‘Fink-Nottle?’
‘Fink-Nottle is correct.’
‘The whitest man I know.’
‘The fatheadest man you know. Listen, Corky, I’ve just been talking to Catsmeat –’
‘Did he tell you that he expects shortly to persuade Gertrude Winkworth to elope with him?’
‘Yes.’
She smiled in a steely sort of way, like one of those women in the Old Testament who used to go about driving spikes into people’s heads.
‘I’m just waiting for that to happen,’ she said, ‘so that I can get a good laugh out of seeing Esmond’s face when he finds out that his Gertrude has gone off with another. Most amusing it will be. Ha, ha,’ she added.
That ‘Ha, ha’, so like the expiring quack of a duck dying of a broken heart, told me all I wanted to know. I saw that Catsmeat had not erred in his diagnosis of his young shrimp’s motives in giving Gussie the old treatment, and I had no option but to slip her the lowdown without further delay. I tapped her on the shoulder, and bunged in the word in season.
‘Corky,’ I said, ‘you’re a chump. You’ve got a completely wrong angle on this Haddock. So far from being enamoured of Gertrude Winkworth, I don’t suppose he would care, except in a distant, cousinly way, if she choked on a fish-bone. You are the lodestar of his life.’
‘What!’
‘I had it from his own lips. He was a bit pickled at the time, which makes it all the more impressive, because in vino what’s-the-word.’
Her eyes had lighted up. She gave a quick gulp.
‘He said I was the lodestar of his life?’
‘With a “still” in front of the “lodestar”. “Mark this,” he said, helping himself to port, of which he was already nearly full. “Though she has given me the brusheroo, she is still the lodestar of my life.”’
‘Bertie, if you’re kidding –’
‘Of course I’m not.’
‘I hope you’re not, because if you are I shall put the curse of the Pirbrights on you, and it’s not at all the sort of curse you will enjoy. Tell me more.’
I told her more. In fact I told her all. When I had finished, she laughed like a hyaena and also, for girls never make sense, let fall a pearly tear or two.
‘Isn’t that just the sort of thing he would think up, bless him!’ she said, alluding to the hot idea Esmond Haddock had brought back with him from the Basingstoke cinema. ‘What a woolly lambkin that man is!’
I was not sure if ‘woolly lambkin’ was quite the phrase I would have used myself to describe Esmond Haddock, but I let it go, it being no affair of mine. If she elected to regard a fellow with a forty-six-inch chest and muscles like writhing snakes as a woolly lambkin, that was up to her. My task, having started a good thing, was to push it along.
‘In these circs,’ I said, ‘you will probably be glad of a word of advice from a knowledgeable man of the world. Catsmeat appears to have obtained excellent results on the Gertrude front from pouring out his soul in the form of notes, and if you take my tip, you will do the same. Drop Esmond Haddock a civil line telling him you are aching for his presence, and he will lower the world’s record racing round to the Vicarage to fold you in his arms. He’s only waiting for the green light.’
She shook her head.
‘No,’ she said.
‘Why no?’
‘We should simply be where we were before.’
I saw what she was driving at, of course.
‘I know what’s in your mind,’ I said. ‘You are alluding to his civil disobedience in re defying his aunts. Well, let me assure you that that little difficulty will very shortly yield to treatment. Listen. Esmond Haddock is singing a hunting song at the concert, words by his Aunt Charlotte, music by his Aunt Myrtle. You don’t dispute that.’
‘All correct so far.’
‘Well, suppose that hunting song is a smackerino.’
And in a few well-chosen words I informed her of Jeeves’s tenable theory.
‘You get the idea?’ I concluded. ‘The cheers of the multitude frequently act like a powerful drug on these birds with inferiority complexes. Rouse such birds, as, for instance, by whistling through your fingers and yelling “Bis! Bis!” when they sing hunting songs, and they become changed men. Their morale stiffens. Their tails shoot up like rockets. They find themselves regarding the tough eggs before whom they have always been accustomed to crawl as less than the dust beneath their chariot wheels. If Esmond Haddock goes with the bang I anticipate, it won’t be long before those aunts of his will be climbing trees and pulling them up after them whenever he looks squiggle-eyed at them.’
My eloquence had not been wasted. She started considerably, and said something about ‘Out of the mouths of babes and sucklings’, going on to explain that the gag was not her own but one of her Uncle Sidney’s. And in return I told her that the tenable theory I had been outlining was not mine, but Jeeves’s. Each giving credit where credit was due.
‘I believe he’s right, Bertie.’
‘Of course he’s right. Jeeves is always right. It’s happened before. Do you know Bingo Little?’
‘Just to say Hallo to. He married some sort of female novelist, didn’t he?’
‘Rosie M. Banks, author of Mervyn Keene, Clubman, and Only A Factory Girl. And their union was blessed. In due season a bouncing baby was added to the strength. Keep your eye on that baby, for the plot centres round it. Well, since you last saw Bingo, Mrs Bingo, by using her substantial pull, secured for him the post of editor of Wee Tots, a journal for the nursery and the home, a very good job in most respects but with this flaw, that the salary attached to it was not all it might have been. His proprietor, P.P. Purkiss, being one of those parsimonious birds in whose pocket-books moths nest and raise large families. It was Bingo’s constant endeavour, accordingly, to try to stick old Gaspard the Miser for a raise. All clear so far?’
‘I’ve got it.’
‘Week after week he would creep into P.P. Purkiss’s presence and falter out apologetic sentences beginning “Oh, Mr Purkiss, I wonder if …” and “Oh, Mr Purkiss, do you think you could possibly …” only to have the blighter gaze at him with fishy eyes and talk about the tightness of money and the growing cost of pulp paper. And Bingo would say “Oh, quite, Mr Purkiss,” and “I see, Mr Purkiss, yes I see,” and creep out again. That’s Act One.’
‘But mark the sequel?’
‘You’re right, mark the sequel. Came a day when Bingo’s bouncing baby, entered in a baby contest against some of the warmest competition in South Kensington, scooped in the first prize, a handsome all-day sucker, getting kissed in the process by the wife of a Cabinet Minister and generally fawned upon by all and sundry. And next morning Bingo, with a strange light on his face, strode into P.P. Purkiss’s private office without knocking, banged the desk with his fist and said he wished to see an additional ten fish in his pay envelope from now on, and to suit everybody’s convenience the new arrangement would come into effect on the following Saturday. And when P.P. Purkiss started to go into his act, he banged the desk again and said he hadn’t come there to argue. “Yes or no, Purkiss!” he said, and P.P. Purkiss, sagging like a wet sock, said “Why, yes, yes, of course, most certainly, Mr Little”, adding that he had been on the point of suggesting some such idea himself. Well, I mean, that shows you.’
It impressed her. No mistaking that. She uttered a meditative ‘Golly!’ and stood on one leg, looking like ‘The Soul’s Awakening’.
‘And so,’ I proceeded, ‘we are going to strain every nerve to see that Esmond Haddock’s hunting song is the high-spot of the evening. Jeeves is to go about the village, scattering beers, so as to assemble what is known as a claque and ensure the thunderous applause. You
will be able to help in that direction, too.’
‘Of course I will. My standing in the village is terrific. I have the place in my pocket. I must get after this right away. I can’t wait. You don’t mind me leaving you?’
‘Not at all, not at all, or, rather, yes, I jolly well do. Before you go, we’ve got to get this Gussie thing straight.’
‘What Gussie thing?’
I clicked my tongue.
‘You know perfectly well what Gussie thing. For reasons into which we need not go, you have recently been making Augustus Fink-Nottle the plaything of an idle hour, and it has got to stop. I don’t have to tell you again what will happen if you continue carrying on as of even date. In our conference at the flat I made the facts clear to the meanest intelligence. You are fully aware that should the evil spread, should sand be shoved into the gears of the Fink-Nottle-Bassett romance to such an extent that it ceases to tick over, Bertram Wooster will be faced with the fate that is worse than death – viz. marriage. I feel sure that, now that you have been reminded of the hideous peril that looms, your good heart will not allow you to go on encouraging the above Fink-Nottle as, according to the evidence of five aunts, you are doing now. Appalled by the thought of poor old Wooster pressing the wedding trousers and packing the trunks for a honeymoon with that ghastly Bassett, you will obey the dictates of your better self and cool him off.’
She saw my point.
‘You want me to restore Gussie to circulation?’
‘Exactly.’
‘Switch off the fascination? Release him from my clutches?’
‘That’s right.’
‘Why, of course. I’ll attend to it immediately.’
And on these very satisfactory terms we parted. A great weight had been lifted from my mind.
Well, I don’t know what your experience has been, but mine is that there is very little percentage in having a weight lifted off your mind, because the first thing you know another, probably a dashed sight heavier, is immediately shoved on. It would appear to be a game you can’t beat.
I had scarcely got back to my room, all soothed and relaxed, when in blew Catsmeat, and there was that in his mere appearance that chilled my merry mood like a slap in the eye with a wet towel. His face was grave, and his deportment not at all the sprightly deportment of a man who has recently been playing gin rummy with parlourmaids.
‘Bertie,’ he said, ‘hold on tight to something. A very serious situation has arisen.’
The floor seemed to heave beneath me like a stage sea. The mice, which since that latter sequence and the subsequent chat with Corky had been taking a breather, sprang into renewed activity, as if starting training for some athletic sports.
‘Oh, my sainted aunt!’ I moaned, and Catsmeat said I might well say ‘My sainted aunt’, because she was the spearhead of the trouble.
‘Here comes the bruise,’ he said. ‘When I was in the servants’ hall a moment ago, Silversmith rolled in. And do you know what he had just been told by the girls higher up? He had been told that your Aunt Agatha is coming here. I don’t know when, but in the next day or so. Dame Daphne Winkworth had a letter from her by the afternoon post, and in it she announced her intention of shortly being a pleasant visitor at this ruddy hencoop. So now what?’
13
* * *
IT WAS A Bertram Wooster with a pale, careworn face and a marked disposition to start at sudden noises who sat in his bedroom on the following afternoon, rising occasionally to pace the floor. Few, seeing him, would have recognized in this limp and shivering chunk of human flotsam the suave, dapper boulevardier of happier years. I was waiting for Catsmeat to return from the metropolis and make his report.
Threshing the thing out on the previous evening, we had not taken long in reaching the conclusion that it would be madness to attempt to cope with this major crisis ourselves, and that the whole conduct of the affair must at the earliest moment be handed over to Jeeves. And as Jeeves was in London and it might have looked odd for me to dash away from the Big House for the night, Catsmeat had gone up to confer with him. He had tooled off secretly in my two-seater, expecting to be back around lunch-time.
But lunch had come and gone, the duck and green peas turning to ashes in my mouth, and still no sign of him. It was past three when he finally showed up.
At the sight of him, my heart, throwing off its burden of care, did a quick soft-shoe dance. No fellow, I reasoned, unless he was bringing good news, could look so like the United States Marines. When last seen, driving off on his mission, his air had been sober and downcast, as if he feared that even Jeeves would have to confess himself snookered by this one. He was now gay, bobbish and boomps-a-daisy.
‘Sorry I’m late,’ he said. ‘I had to wait for Jeeves’s brain to gather momentum. He was a little slower off the mark than usual.’
I clutched his arm.
‘Did he click?’ I cried, quivering in every limb.
‘Oh, yes, he clicked. Jeeves always clicks. But this time only after brooding for what seemed an eternity. I found him in the kitchen at your flat, sipping a cup of tea and reading Spinoza, and put our problem before him, bidding him set the little grey cells in operation without delay and think of some way of preventing your blasted aunt from fulfilling her evil purpose of coming to infest Deverill Hall. He said he would, and I went back to the sitting room, where I took a seat, put my feet on the mantelpiece and thought of Gertrude. From time to time I would rise and look in at the kitchen and ask him how it was coming, but he motioned me away with a silent wave of the hand and let the brain out another notch. Finally he emerged and announced that he had got it. He had been musing, as always, on the psychology of the individual.’
‘What individual? My Aunt Agatha?’
‘Naturally, your Aunt Agatha. What other individual’s psychology would you have expected him to muse on? Sir Stafford Cripps’s? He then proceeded to outline a scheme which I think you will agree was a ball of fire. Tell me, Bertie, have you ever stolen a cub from a tigress?’
I said no, for one reason and another I never had, and he asked me what, if I ever did, I supposed the reactions of the tigress would be, always assuming that she was a good wife and mother. And I said that, while I didn’t set myself up as an authority on tigresses, I imagined that she would be as sick as mud.
‘Exactly. And you would expect the animal, the loss of its child having been drawn to its attention, to drop everything and start looking for it, would you not? It would completely revise its social plans, don’t you think? If, for instance, it had arranged to visit other tigresses in a nearby cave, it would cancel the date and begin hunting around for clues. You agree?’
I said Yes, I thought this probable.
‘Well, that is what Jeeves feels will happen in the case of your Aunt Agatha when she learns that her son Thomas has vanished from his school at Bramley-on-Sea.’
I can’t tell you offhand what I had been expecting, but it certainly wasn’t this. Having recovered sufficient breath to enable me to put the question, I asked what it was that he had said, and he repeated his words at dictation speed, and I said, ‘But dash it!’ and he said ‘Well?’
‘You aren’t telling me that Jeeves is going to kidnap young Thos?’
He t’chk-t’chked impatiently.
‘You don’t have to kidnap dyed-in-the-wool fans like your cousin Thomas, if you inform them that their favourite film star is hoping that they will be able to get away and come and spend a few days at the Vicarage where she is staying. That is the message which Jeeves has gone to Bramley-on-Sea to deliver, and I confidently expect it to work like a charm.’
‘You mean he’ll run away from school?’
‘Of course he’ll run away from school. Like lightning. However, to clinch the thing, I empowered Jeeves in your name to offer a fee of five quid in the event of any hesitation. I gather from Jeeves, in whom he confided, that young Thomas is more than ordinarily out for the stuff just now. He’s saving up to buy
a camera.’
I applauded the shrewd thought, but I didn’t think that this introduction of the sordid note would really be necessary. Thos is a boy of volcanic passions, the sort of boy who, if he had but threepence in the world, would spend it on a stamp, writing to Dorothy Lamour for her autograph, and the message which Catsmeat had outlined would, I felt, be in itself amply sufficient to get him on the move.
‘Yes,’ Catsmeat agreed, ‘I think we should shortly have the young fellow with us. But not your Aunt Agatha, who will be occupied elsewhere. It’s a pity she has to be temporarily deprived of her cub, of course, and one sympathizes with a mother’s anxiety. It would have been nice if the thing could have been arranged some other way, but that’s how it goes. One has simply got to say to oneself that into each life some rain must fall.’
My own view was that Aunt Agatha wouldn’t be anxious so much as hopping mad.
‘Thos,’ I said, ‘makes rather a speciality of running away from school. He’s done it twice before this, once to attend a cup final and once to go hunting for buried treasure in the Caribbees, and I don’t remember Aunt Agatha on either occasion as the stricken mother. Thos was the one who got stricken. Six of the best on the old spot, he tells me. This, I should imagine, will probably occur again, and I think that even if he takes the assignment on for love alone, I will slip him that fiver as added money.’