‘Well, Percy had been with him for several weeks. And then you on top of Percy. Enough to blot the sunshine from any man’s life. How is Percy, by the way?’
‘Quite himself again. A thing I wouldn’t care to be, but no doubt it pleases him.’
‘Little men no longer following him around?’
‘If they are, they’ve shaved. He hasn’t seen a black beard for quite a while, he tells me.’
‘That’s good. Percy’ll be all right if he rids himself of the idea that alcohol is a food. Well, we’ll soon buck Glossop up when he comes to Brinkley for Christmas.’
‘Will he be there?’
‘He certainly will, and joy will be unconfined. We’re going to have a real old-fashioned Christmas with all the trimmings.’
‘Holly? Mistletoe?’
‘Yards of both. And a children’s party complete with Santa Claus.’
‘With the vicar in the stellar role?’
‘No, he’s down with flu.’
‘The curate?’
‘Sprained his ankle.’
‘Then who are you going to get?’
‘Oh, I’ll find someone. Was anyone else at Glossop’s?’
‘Only a fellow of the name of Eggleston.’
‘Blair Eggleston, the writer?’
‘Yes, Jeeves tells me he writes books.’
‘And articles. He’s doing a series for me on the Modern Girl.’
For some years, helped out by doles from old Tom Travers, her husband, Aunt Dahlia had been running a weekly paper for women called Milady’s Boudoir, to which I once contributed a ‘piece’, as we journalists call it, on What The Well-Dressed Man Is Wearing. The little sheet has since been sold, but at that time it was still limping along and losing its bit of money each week, a source of considerable spiritual agony to Uncle Tom, who had to foot the bills. He has the stuff in sackfuls, but he hates to part.
‘I’m sorry for that boy,’ said Aunt Dahlia.
‘For Blair Eggleston? Why?’
‘He’s in love with Honoria Glossop.’
‘What!’ I cried. She amazed me. I wouldn’t have thought it could be done.
‘And is too timid to tell her so. It’s often that way with these frank, fearless young novelists. They’re devils on paper, but put them up against a girl who doesn’t come out of their fountain pen and their feet get as cold as a dachshund’s nose. You’d think, when you read his novels, that Blair Eggleston was a menace to the sex and ought to be kept on a chain in the interests of pure womanhood, but is he? No, sir. He’s just a rabbit. I don’t know if he has ever actually found himself in an incense-scented boudoir alone with a girl with sensual lips and dark smouldering eyes, but if he did, I’ll bet he would take a chair as far away from her as possible and ask her if she had read any good books lately. Why are you looking like a half-witted fish?’
‘I was thinking of something.’
‘What?’
‘Oh, just something,’ I said warily. Her character sketch of Blair Eggleston had given me one of those ideas I do so often get quick as a flash, but I didn’t want to spill it till I’d had time to think it over and ponder on it. It never does to expose these brainwaves to the public eye before you’ve examined them from every angle. ‘How do you know all this?’ I said.
‘He told me in a burst of confidence the other day when we were discussing his Modern Girl Series. I suppose I must have one of those sympathetic personalities which invite confidences. You will recall that you have always told me about your various love affairs.’
‘That’s different.’
‘In what way?’
‘Use the loaf, old flesh and blood. You’re my aunt. A nephew naturally bares his soul to a loved aunt.’
‘I see what you mean. Yes, that makes sense. You do love me dearly, don’t you?’
‘Like billy-o. Always have.’
‘Well, I’m certainly glad to hear you say that—’
‘Well deserved tribute.’
‘—because there’s something I want you to do for me.’
‘Consider it done.’
‘I want you to play Santa Claus at my children’s Christmas party.’
Should I have seen it coming? Possibly. But I hadn’t, and I tottered where I sat. I was trembling like an aspen. I don’t know if you’ve ever seen an aspen – I haven’t myself as far as I can remember – but I knew they were noted for trembling like the dickens. I uttered a sharp cry, and she said if I was going to sing, would I kindly do it elsewhere, as her ear drum was sensitive.
‘Don’t say such things even in fun,’ I begged her.
‘I’m not joking.’
I gazed at her incredulously.
‘You seriously expect me to put on white whiskers and a padded stomach and go about saying “Ho, ho, ho” to a bunch of kids as tough as those residing near your rural seat?’
‘They aren’t tough.’
‘Pardon me. I’ve seen them in action. You will recollect that I was present at the recent school treat.’
‘You can’t go by that. Naturally they wouldn’t have the Christmas spirit at a school treat in the middle of summer. You’ll find them as mild as newborn lambs on Christmas Eve.’
I laughed a sharp, barking laugh.
‘I shan’t.’
‘Are you trying to tell me you won’t do it?’
‘I am.’
She snorted emotionally and expressed the opinion that I was a worm.
‘But a prudent, levelheaded worm,’ I assured her. ‘A worm who knows enough not to stick its neck out.’
‘You really won’t do it?’
‘Not for all the rice in China.’
‘Not to oblige a loved aunt?’
‘Not to oblige a posse of loved aunts.’
‘Now listen, young Bertie, you abysmal young blot …’
As I closed the front door behind her some twenty minutes later, I had rather the feeling you get when parting company with a tigress of the jungle or one of those fiends with hatchets who are always going about slaying six. Normally the old relative is as genial a soul as ever downed a veal cutlet, but she’s apt to get hot under the collar when thwarted, and in the course of the recent meal, as we have seen, I had been compelled to thwart her like a ton of bricks. It was with quite a few beads of persp. bedewing the brow that I went back to the dining room, where Jeeves was cleaning up the debris.
‘Jeeves,’ I said, brushing away the b. of p. with my cambric handkerchief, ‘you were off stage towards the end of dinner, but did you happen to drink in any of the conversation that was taking place?’
‘Oh yes, sir.’
‘Your hearing, like Dobson’s, is acute?’
‘Extremely, sir. And Mrs Travers has a robust voice. I received the impression that she was incensed.’
‘She was as sore as a gumboil. And why? Because I stoutly refused to portray Santa Claus at the Christmas orgy she is giving down at Brinkley for the children of the local yokels.’
‘So I gathered from her obiter dicta, sir.’
‘I suppose most of the things she called me were picked up on the hunting field in her hunting days.’
‘No doubt, sir.’
‘Members of the Quorn and Pytchley are not guarded in their speech.’
‘Very seldom, sir, I understand.’
‘Well, her efforts were … what’s that word I’ve heard you use?’
‘Bootless, sir?’
‘Or fruitless?’
‘Whichever you prefer, sir.’
‘I was not to be moved. I remained firm. I am not a disobliging man, Jeeves. If somebody wanted me to play Hamlet, I would do my best to give satisfaction. But at dressing up in white whiskers and a synthetic stomach I draw the line and draw it sharply. She huffed and puffed, as you heard, but she might have known that argument would be bootless. As the wise old saying has it, you can take a horse to the water, but you can’t make it play Santa Claus.’
‘Very true, sir.’
/> ‘You think I was justified in being adamant?’
‘Fully justified, sir.’
‘Thank you, Jeeves.’
I must say I thought it pretty decent of him to give the young master the weight of his support like this, for though I haven’t mentioned it before it was only a day or two since I had been compelled to thwart him as inflexibly as I had thwarted the recent aunt. He had been trying to get me to go to Florida after Christmas, handing out a lot of talk about how pleasant it would be for my many American friends, most of whom make a bee line for Hobe Sound in the winter months, to have me with them again, but I recognized this, though specious, as merely the old oil. I knew what was the thought behind his words. He likes the fishing in Florida and yearns some day to catch a tarpon.
Well, I sympathized with his sporting aspirations and would have pushed them along if I could have managed it, but I particularly wanted to be in London for the Drones Club Darts Tournament, which takes place in February and which I confidently expected to win this year, so I said Florida was out and he said ‘Very good, sir’, and that was that. The point I’m making is that there was no dudgeon or umbrage or anything of that sort on his part, as there would have been if he had been a lesser man, which of course he isn’t.
‘And yet, Jeeves,’ I said, continuing to touch on the affair of the stricken aunt, ‘though my firmness and resolution enabled me to emerge victorious from the battle of wills, I can’t help feeling a pang.’
‘Sir?’
‘Of remorse. It’s always apt to gnaw you when you’ve crushed someone beneath the iron heel. You can’t help thinking that you ought to do something to bind up the wounds and bring the sunshine back into the poor slob’s life. I don’t like the thought of Aunt Dahlia biting her pillow tonight and trying to choke back the rising sobs because I couldn’t see my way to fulfilling her hopes and dreams. I think I should extend something in the way of an olive branch or amende honorable.’
‘It would be a graceful act, sir.’
‘So I’ll blow a few bob on flowers for her. Would you mind nipping out tomorrow morning and purchasing say two dozen long-stemmed roses?’
‘Certainly, sir.’
‘I think they’ll make her face light up, don’t you?’
‘Unquestionably, sir. I will attend to the matter immediately after breakfast.’
‘Thank you, Jeeves.’
I was smiling one of my subtle smiles as he left the room, for in the recent exchanges I had not been altogether frank, and it tickled me to think that he thought that I was merely trying to apply a soothing poultice to my conscience.
Mark you, what I had said about wanting to do the square thing by the aged relative and heal the breach and all that sort of thing was perfectly true, but there was a lot more than that behind the gesture. It was imperative that I get her off the boil, because her cooperation was essential to the success of a scheme or plan or plot which had been fizzing in the Wooster brain ever since the moment after dinner when she had asked me why I was looking like a halfwitted fish. It was a plan designed to bring about the happy ending for Sir R. Glossop, and now that I had had time to give it the once over it seemed to me that it couldn’t miss.
Jeeves brought the blooms while I was in my bath, and having dried the frame and donned the upholstery and breakfasted and smoked a cigarette to put heart into me I started out with them.
I wasn’t expecting a warm welcome from the old flesh and blood, which was lucky, because I didn’t get one. She was at her haughtiest, and the look she gave me was the sort of look which in her Quorn and Pytchley days she would have given some fellow-sportsman whom she had observed riding over hounds.
‘Oh, it’s you,’ she said.
Well, it was, of course, no argument about that, so I endorsed her view with a civil good morning and a smile – rather a weak smile, probably, for her aspect was formidable. She was plainly sizzling.
‘I hope you thoroughly understand,’ she said, ‘that after your craven exhibition last night I’m not speaking to you.’
‘Oh, aren’t you?’
‘Certainly not. I’m treating you with silent contempt. What’s that you’ve got there?’
‘Some long-stemmed roses. For you.’
She sneered visibly.
‘You and your long-stemmed roses! It would take more than long-stemmed roses to change my view that you’re a despicable cowardy custard and a disgrace to a proud family. Your ancestors fought in the Crusades and were often mentioned in despatches, and you cringe like a salted snail at the thought of appearing as Santa Claus before an audience of charming children who wouldn’t hurt a fly. It’s enough to make an aunt turn her face to the wall and give up the struggle. But perhaps,’ she said, her manner softening for a moment, ‘you’ve come to tell me you’ve changed your mind?’
‘I fear not, aged relative.’
‘Then buzz off, and on your way home try if possible to get run over by a motor bus. And may I be there to hear you go pop.’
I saw that I had better come to the res without delay.
‘Aunt Dahlia,’ I said, ‘it is within your power to bring happiness and joy into a human life.’
‘If it’s yours, I don’t want to.’
‘Not mine. Roddy Glossop’s. Sit in with me in a plan or scheme which I have in mind, and he’ll go pirouetting about his clinic like a lamb in Springtime.’
She drew a sharp breath and eyed me keenly.
‘What’s the time?’ she asked.
I consulted the wrist-w.
‘A quarter to eleven. Why?’
‘I was only thinking that it’s very early for anyone, even you, to get pie-eyed.’
‘I’m not pie-eyed.’
‘Well, you’re talking as if you were. Have you got a piece of chalk?’
I tut-tutted impatiently.
‘Of course I haven’t. Do you think I go about with pieces of chalk on my person? What do you want it for?’
‘I would like to draw a line on the carpet and see if you can walk along it, because it’s being borne in upon me more emphatically every moment that you’re stewed to the gills. Say “Truly rural”.’
I did so.
‘And “She stood at the door of Burgess’s fish sauce shop, welcoming him in”.’
Again I passed the test.
‘Well,’ she said grudgingly, ‘you seem as sober as you ever are. What do you mean about bringing happiness and joy into old Glossop’s life?’
‘The matter is susceptible of a ready explanation. I must begin by saying that Jeeves told me a story yesterday that shocked me to the core. No,’ I said in answer to her query, ‘it was not the one about the young man of Calcutta. It had to do with Roddy’s love life. It’s a long story, but I’ll condense it into a short-short, and I would like to stress before embarking on my narrative that you can rely on it being accurate, for when Jeeves tells you anything, it’s like getting it straight from the mouth of the stable cat. Furthermore, it’s substantiated by Mr Dobson, Roddy’s butler. You know Myrtle, Lady Chuffnell?’
‘I’ve met her.’
‘She and Roddy are betrothed.’
‘So I’ve heard.’
‘They love each other fondly.’
‘So what’s wrong with that?’
‘I’ll tell you what’s wrong. She stoutly declines to go centre-aisleing with him until his daughter Honoria gets married.’
I had expected this to make her sit up, and it did. For the first time her demeanour conveyed the impression that she wasn’t labelling my utterances as just delirious babble from the sick bed. She has always been fond of R. Glossop and it came as a shock to her to learn that he was so firmly established in the soup. I wouldn’t say she turned pale, for after years of following the hounds in all weathers she can’t, but she snorted and I could see that she was deeply moved.
‘For heaven’s sake! Is this true?’
‘Jeeves has all the facts.’
‘Does Jeeves know everythin
g?’
‘I believe so. Well, you can understand Ma Chuffnell’s attitude. If you were a bride, would you want to have Honoria a permanent resident of your little nest?’
‘I wouldn’t.’
‘Exactly. So obviously steps must be taken by Roddy’s friends and well-wishers to get her married. And that brings me to the nub. I have a scheme.’
‘I’ll bet it’s rotten.’
‘On the contrary, it’s a ball of fire. It flashed on me last night, when you were telling me that Blair Eggleston loves Honoria. That is where hope lies.’
‘You mean you’re thinking that he will marry her and take her off the strength?’
‘Precisely.’
‘Not a chance. I told you he was too much of a rabbit to suggest a merger. He’ll never have the nerve to propose.’
‘Unless helped by a push from behind.’
‘And who’s going to give him that?’
‘I am. With your cooperation.’
She gave me another of those long keen looks, and I could see that she was again asking herself if her favourite nephew wasn’t steeped to the tonsils in the juice of the grape. Fearing more tests and further references to pieces of chalk, I hastened to explain.
‘Here’s the idea. I start giving Honoria the rush of a lifetime. I lush her up at lunch and dinner. I take her to theatres and night clubs. I haunt her like a family spectre and cling to her closer than a porous plaster.’
I thought I heard her mutter ‘Poor girl’, but I ignored the slur and continued.
‘You meanwhile … Will you be seeing something of Eggleston?’
‘I see him daily. He brings me his latest views on the Modern Girl.’
‘Then the thing’s in the bag. You say he has already confided in you about his warmer-and-deeper-than-ordinary-friendship feelings concerning Honoria, so it won’t be difficult for you to bring the subject up in the course of conversation. You warn him in a motherly way that he’s a sap if he goes on not telling his love and letting concealment like a worm in the bud feed on his damask cheek – one of Jeeves’s gags. I thought he put it rather well – and stress the fact that he had better heat up his feet and grab the girl while the grabbing’s good, because you happen to know that your nephew Bertram is making a heavy play in her direction and may sew up the deal at any moment. Use sufficient eloquence, and I can’t see how he can fail to respond. He’ll be pouring out his love before you know where you are.’