‘Let’s get out of this,’ he urged, and it was not until we were some quarter of a mile distant that he regained a certain measure of calm. He removed his glasses, polished them, replaced them on his nose and seemed the better for it. His breathing became more regular.
‘That was Constable Dobbs,’ he said.
‘So I deduced.’
‘From the uniform, no doubt?’
‘That and the helmet.’
‘Quite,’ said Gussie. ‘I see. Quite. I see. Quite. I see.’
It seemed possible that he would go rambling on like this for a goodish while, but after saying ‘Quite’ about another six times and ‘I see’ about another seven he snapped out of it.
‘Bertie,’ he said, ‘you have frequently been in the hands of the police, haven’t you?’
‘Not frequently. Once.’
‘It is a ghastly experience, is it not? Your whole life seems to rise before you. By Jove, I could do with a drink of orange juice!’
I paused for a moment, to allow a dizzy feeling to pass.
‘What was happening?’ I asked, when I felt stronger.
‘Eh?’
‘What had you been doing?’
‘Who, me?’
‘Yes, you.’
‘Oh,’ said Gussie in an offhand way, as if it were only what might have been expected of an English gentleman, ‘I had been strewing frogs.’
I goggled.
‘Doing what?’
‘Strewing frogs. In Constable Dobbs’s boudoir. The Vicar suggested it.’
‘The Vicar?’
‘I mean it was he who gave Corky the idea. She had been brooding a lot, poor girl, on Dobbs’s high-handed behaviour in connection with her dog, and last night the Vicar happened to speak of Pharaoh and all those Plagues he got when he wouldn’t let the Children of Israel go. You probably recall the incident? His words started a train of thought. It occurred to Corky that if Dobbs were visited by a Plague of Frogs, it might quite possibly change his heart and make him let Sam Goldwyn go. So she asked me to look in at his cottage and attend to the matter. She said it would please her and be good for Dobbs and would only take a few minutes of my time. She felt that the Plague of Lice might be even more effective, but she is a practical, clear-thinking girl and realized that lice are hard to come by, whereas you can find frogs in any hedgerow.’
Every mouse in my interior sprang into renewed life. With a strong effort I managed to refrain from howling like a lost soul. It seemed incredible to me that this super-goof should have gone through life all this while without fetching up in some loony bin. You would have thought that some such establishment as Colney Hatch, with its talent scouts out all over the place, would have snapped him up years ago.
‘Tell me exactly what happened. He caught you?’
‘Fortunately, no. He came in about half a minute too late. I had bided my time, and having ascertained that the cottage was empty I went in and distributed my frogs.’
‘And he was somewhere round the corner?’
‘Exactly. In a sort of shed place by the back door, where I think he must have been potting geraniums or something, for his hands were all covered with mould. I suppose he had come in to wash them. It was a most embarrassing moment. One didn’t quite know how to begin the conversation. Eventually I said “Oh, hallo, there you are!” and he stared at the frogs for some time, and then he said, “What’s all this?” They were hopping about a bit. You know how frogs hop.’
‘Hither and thither, you mean?’
‘That’s right. Hither and thither. Well, I kept my presence of mind. I said “What’s all what, officer?” And he said “All these frogs”. And I said “Ah, yes, there do seem to be quite a few frogs in here. You are fond of them?” He then asked if these frogs were my doing. And I said “In what sense do you use the word ‘doing’, officer?” and he said “Did you bring these frogs in here?” Well, then, I’m afraid, I wilfully misled him, for I said No. It went against the grain to tell a deliberate falsehood, of course, but I do think there are times when one is justified in –’
‘Get on!’
‘You bustle me so, Bertie. Where was I? Ah, yes. I said No, I couldn’t account for their presence in any way. I said it was just one of those things we should never be able to understand. Probably, I said, we were not meant to understand. And, of course, he could prove nothing. I mean, anyone could wander innocently into a room where there happened to be some frogs hopping about – the Archbishop of Canterbury or anyone. I think he must have appreciated this, for all he did was mutter something about it being a very serious offence to bring frogs into a police station and I said I supposed it was and what a pity one could never hope to catch the fellow who had done it. And then he asked me what I was doing there, and I said I had come to ask him to release Sam Goldwyn, and he said he wouldn’t because he had now established that the bite Sam had given him was his second bite and that the animal was in a very serious position. So I said “Oh, well, then, I think I’ll be going”, and I went. He came with me, as you saw, growling under his breath. I can’t say I liked the man. His manner is bad. Brusque. Abrupt. Not at all the sort of chap likely to win friends and influence people. Well, I suppose I had better be getting along and reporting to Corky. That stuff about the second bite will worry her, I’m afraid.’
Repeating his remark about being in the vein for a drink of orange juice, he set a course for the Vicarage and pushed off, and I resumed my progress to the Deverilleries, speculating dully as to what would be the next horror to come into my life. It only needed a meeting with Dame Daphne Winkworth, I felt sombrely, to put the tin hat on this dark day.
My aim was to sneak in unobserved, and it seemed at first as though luck were with me. From time to time, as I slunk through the grounds, keeping in the shelter of the bushes and trying not to let a twig snap beneath my feet, I could hear the distant baying of aunts, but I wasn’t spotted. With something approaching a ‘Tra-la’ on my lips I passed through the front door into the hall, and – bing – right in the middle of the fairway, arranging flowers at a table, Dame Daphne Winkworth.
Well, I suppose Napoleon or Attila the Hun or one of those fellows would just have waved a hand and said ‘Aha, there!’ and hurried on, but the feat was beyond me. Her eye, swivelling round, stopped me like a bullet. The Wedding Guest, if you remember, had the same trouble with the Ancient Mariner.
‘Ah, there you are, Augustus.’
It was fruitless to deny it. I stood on one leg and dashed a bead of persp from the brow.
‘I had no time to ask you last night. Have you written to Madeline?’
‘Oh, yes, rather.’
‘I hope you were properly apologetic.’
‘Oh, rather, yes.’
‘And why are you looking as if you had slept in your clothes?’ she asked, giving the upholstery a look of distaste.
The thing about the Woosters is that they know when to speak out and when not to speak out. Something told me that here was where manly frankness might pay dividends.
‘Well, as a matter of fact,’ I said, ‘I did. I ran up to Wimbledon last night on the milk train. To see Madeline, don’t you know. You know how it is. You can’t say all you want to in letters, and I thought … well, the personal touch, if you see what I mean.’
It couldn’t have gone better. I have never actually seen a shepherd welcoming a strayed lamb back into the fold, but I should imagine that his manner on such an occasion would closely parallel that of this female twenty-minute egg as she heard my words. The eyes softened. The face split in a pleased smile. That wrinkling of the nose which had been so noticeable a moment before, as if I had been an escape of gas or a not-quite-up-to-sample egg, disappeared totally. It would not be putting it too strongly to say that she beamed.
‘Augustus!’
‘I think it was a good move.’
‘It was, indeed. It is just the sort of thing that would appeal to Madeline’s romantic nature. Why, you are quite
a Romeo, Augustus. In the milk train? You must have been travelling all night.’
‘Pretty well.’
‘You poor boy! I can see you’re worn out. I will ring for Silversmith to bring you some orange juice.’
She pressed the bell. There was a stage wait. She pressed it again, and there was another stage wait. She was on the point of giving it a third prod, when the hour produced the man. Uncle Charlie entered left, and I was amazed to see that there was an indulgent smile on his face. It is true that he switched it off immediately and resumed his customary aspect of a respectful chunk of dough, but the facial contortion had unquestionably been there.
‘I must apologize for my delay in answering the bell, m’lady,’ he said. ‘When your ladyship rang, I was in the act of making a speech, and it was not until some moments had elapsed that I became aware of the summons.’
Dame Daphne blinked. Me, too.
‘Making a speech?’
‘In honour of the happy event, m’lady. My daughter Queenie has become affianced, m’lady.’
Dame Daphne oh-really-ed, and I very nearly said ‘Indeed, sir?’ for the information had come as a complete surprise. For one thing I hadn’t suspected for an instant that ties of blood linked this bulging butler and that lissom parlourmaid, and for another, it seemed to me that she had got over her spot of Dobbs trouble pretty snappily. So this is what Woman’s constancy amounts to, is it, I remember saying to myself, and I’m not at all sure I didn’t add the word ‘Faugh!’
‘And who is the happy man, Silversmith?’
‘A nice steady young fellow, m’lady. A young fellow called Meadowes.’
I had a feeling I had heard the name before somewhere, but I couldn’t place it. Meadowes? Meadowes? No, it eluded me.
‘Indeed? From the village?’
‘No, m’lady. Meadowes is Mr Fink-Nottle’s personal attendant,’ said Silversmith, now definitely unshipping a smile and directing it at me. He seemed to be trying to indicate that after this he looked on me as one of the boys and practically a relation by marriage and that, on his side at least, no more would be said of my weakness for singing hunting songs over the port and introducing into country houses dogs that bit like serpents.
I suppose the gasp that had escaped my lips sounded to Dame Daphne like the gurgle of a man dying of thirst, for she instantly put in her order for orange juice.
‘Silversmith had better take it to your room. You will be wanting to change your clothes.’
‘He might tell Meadowes to bring it,’ I said faintly.
‘Why, of course. You will want to wish him happiness.’
‘That’s right,’ I said.
It was not immediately that Catsmeat presented himself. No doubt if you have made all your plans for marrying the daughter of the house and then suddenly find yourself engaged to the parlourmaid you need a little time to adjust the faculties. When he finally did appear, it seemed to me from his dazed expression that he had still a longish way to go in that direction. His air was that of a man who has recently been coshed by a small but serviceable rubber bludgeon.
‘Bertie,’ he said, ‘a rather unfortunate thing has happened.’
‘I know.’
‘Oh, you know, do you? Then what do you advise?’
There could be but one answer to this.
‘You’d better place the whole matter before Jeeves.’
‘I will. That great brain may find a formula. I’ll lay the facts before Jeeves and bid him brood on them.’
‘But what are the facts? How did it happen?’
‘I’ll tell you. Do you want this orange juice?’
‘No.’
‘Then I’ll have it. It may help a little.’
He drank deeply, and mopped the forehead.
‘It all comes of letting that Dickens spirit creep over you, Bertie. The advice I give to every young man starting life is Never get Dickensy. You remember I told you that for some days I have been bursting with a sort of yeasty benevolence? This morning it came to a head. I had had Gertrude’s note saying that she would elope with me, and I was just a solid chunk of sweetness and light. In ecstasies myself, I wanted to see happiness all around me. I loved my species and yearned to do it a bit of good. And with these sentiments fizzing about inside me, with the milk of human kindness sloshing up against my back teeth, I wandered into the servants’ hall and found Queenie there in tears.’
‘Your heart bled?’
‘Profusely. I said “There, there”. I took her hand and patted it. And then, as I didn’t seem to be making any headway, almost unconsciously I drew her on to my knee and put my arm around her waist and started kissing her. Like a brother.’
‘H’m.’
‘Don’t say “H’m”, Bertie. It was only what Sir Galahad or someone like that would have done in my place. Dash it, there’s nothing wrong, is there, in acting like a sympathetic elder brother when a girl is in distress? Pretty square behaviour, I should have thought. But don’t run away with the idea that I don’t wish I hadn’t yielded to the kindly impulse. I regret it sincerely, because at that moment Silversmith came in. And what do you think? He’s her father.’
‘I know.’
‘You seem to know everything.’
‘I do.’
‘Well, there’s one thing you don’t know, and that is that he was accompanied by Gertrude.’
‘Gosh!’
‘Yes. Her manner on beholding me was a bit reserved. Silversmith’s, on the other hand, wasn’t. He looked like a minor prophet without a beard suddenly confronted with the sins of the people, and started in immediately to thunder denunciations. There are fathers who know how to set about an erring daughter, and fathers who do not. Silversmith is one of the former. And then, in a sort of dream, I heard Queenie telling him that we were engaged. She has since informed me that it seemed to her the only way out. It did, of course, momentarily ease the strain.’
‘How did Gertrude appear to take it?’
‘Not very blithely. I’ve just had a brief note from her, cancelling our arrangements.’
He groaned the sort of hollow groan I had been groaning so much of late.
‘You see before you, Bertie, a spent egg, a man in whom hope is dead. You don’t happen to have any cyanide on you?’ He groaned another hollow one. ‘And on top of all this,’ he said, ‘I’ve got to put on a green beard and play Mike in a knockabout cross-talk act!’
I was sorry for the unhappy young blister, of course, but it piqued me somewhat that he seemed to consider that he was the only one who had any troubles.
‘Well, I’ve got to recite Christopher Robin poems.’
‘Pah!’ he said. ‘It might have been Winnie the Pooh.’
Well, there was that, of course.
22
* * *
THE VILLAGE HALL stood in the middle of the High Street, just abaft the duck-pond. Erected in the year 1881 by Sir Quintin Deverill, Bart, a man who didn’t know much about architecture but knew what he liked, it was one of those mid-Victorian jobs in glazed red brick which always seem to bob up in these olde-worlde hamlets and do so much to encourage the drift to the towns. Its interior, like those of all the joints of its kind I’ve ever come across, was dingy and fuggy and smelled in about equal proportions of apples, chalk, damp plaster, Boy Scouts and the sturdy English peasantry.
The concert was slated to begin at eight-fifteen, and a few minutes before the kick-off, my own little effort not being billed till after the intermission, I wandered in and took my place among the standees at the back, noting dully that I should be playing to absolute capacity. The populace had rolled up in droves, though I could have warned them that they were asking for it. I had seen the programme, and I knew the worst.
The moment I scanned the bill of fare, I was able to understand why Corky, that afternoon at my flat, had spoken so disgruntedly of the talent at her disposal, like a girl who has been thwarted and frustrated and kept from fulfilling herself and what not. I
knew what had happened. Starting out to arrange this binge with high hopes and burning ideals and all that sort of thing, poor child, she had stubbed her toe on the fatal snag which always lurks in the path of the impresario of this type of entertainment. I allude to the fact that at every village concert there are certain powerful vested interests which have to be considered. There are, that is to say, divers local nibs who, having always done their bit, are going to be pretty cold and sniffy if not invited to do it again this time. What Corky had come up against was the Kegley-Bassington clan.
To a man of my wide experience, such items as ‘Solo: Miss Muriel Kegley-Bassington’ and ‘Duologue (A Pair of Lunatics): Colonel and Mrs R.P. Kegley-Bassington’ told their own story; and the same thing applied to ‘Imitations: Watkyn Kegley-Bassington’; ‘Card Tricks: Percival Kegley-Bassington’ and ‘Rhythmic Dance: Miss Poppy Kegley-Bassington’. Master George Kegley-Bassington, who was down for a recitation, I absolved from blame. I strongly suspected that he, like me, had been thrust into his painful position by force majeure and would have been equally willing to make a cash settlement.
In the intervals of feeling a brotherly sympathy for Master George and wishing I could run across him and stand him a commiserating gingerbeer, I devoted my time to studying the faces of my neighbours, hoping to detect in them some traces of ruth and pity and what is known as kind indulgence. But not a glimmer. Like all rustic standees, these were stern, implacable men, utterly incapable of taking the broad, charitable view and realizing that a fellow who comes on a platform and starts reciting about Christopher Robin going hoppity-hoppity-hop (or, alternatively, saying his prayers) does not do so from sheer wantonness but because he is a helpless victim of circumstances beyond his control.
I was gazing with considerable apprehension at a particularly dangerous specimen on my left, a pleasure-seeker with hair oil on his head and those mobile lips to which the raspberry springs automatically, when a mild splatter of applause from the two-bob seats showed that we were off. The vicar was opening the proceedings with a short address.