Aunts Aren't Gentlemen (4 page)

But I didn't give up. We Woosters don't. I tried another
tack altogether.

'It was awfully kind of you to ask me to lunch,' I said.

I don't say he actually frothed at the mouth. There was no
question, however, that my words had displeased him:

'Ask you to lunch? Ask you to
lunch
? I wouldn't ask you to
lunch –'

I think he was about to add 'with a ten-foot pole', but at
this moment from off-stage there came the sound of a robust tenor voice singing
what sounded like the song hit from some equatorial African musical comedy,
and the next moment Major Plank appeared, and the scales fell from my eyes.
Plank being on the premises meant that this wasn't the Briscoe residence by
a damn sight. By losing faith in Jeeves and turning to the right on reaching
the high road, instead of to the left as he had told me to, I had come to
the wrong house. For an instant I felt like blaming the centenarian, but we
Woosters are fair minded and I remembered that I had asked him the way to
Eggesford Court, which this joint presumably was, and if you say Court when
you mean Hall, there's bound to be confusion.

'Good Lord,' I said, suffused with embarrassment, 'aren't
you Colonel Briscoe?'

He didn't deign to answer that one, and Plank started
talking.

'Why, hullo, Wooster,' he said. 'Who would ever have
thought of seeing you here? I didn't know you knew Cook.'

'Do
you
know him?' said the purple chap, evidently stunned
by the idea that I could have a respectable acquaintance.

'Of course I know him. Met him at my place in
Gloucestershire, though under what circumstances I've forgotten.
It'll come back, but at the moment all I know is that he
has changed his name. It used to be something beginning with
Al, and now it's Wooster. I suppose the original name was
something ghastly which he couldn't stand any longer. I knew
a man at the United Explorers who changed his name from
Buggins to Westmacote-Trevelyan. I thought it very sensible
of him, but it didn't do him much good, poor chap, because he
had scarcely got used to signing his IOUs Gilbert
Westmacote-Trevelyan when he was torn asunder by a lion.
Still, that's the way it goes. How did you come out with the
doctor, Wooster? Was it bubonic plague?'

I said No, not bubonic plague, and he said he was glad to
hear it, because bubonic plague was no joke, ask anyone.

'You staying in these parts?'

'No, I have a cottage in the village.'

'Pity. You could have come here. Been company for
Vanessa. But you'll join us at lunch?' said Plank, who seemed
to think that a guest is entitled to issue invitations to his host's
house, which any good etiquette book would have told him is
not the case.

'I'm sorry,' I said. 'I'm lunching at Eggesford Hall with the
Briscoes.'

This caused Cook, who had been silent for some time,
probably having trouble with his vocal cords, to snort visibly.

'I knew it! I was right! I knew you were Briscoe's hireling!'

'What are you talking about, Cook?' asked Plank, not
abreast.

'Never mind what I'm talking about. I know what I'm
talking about. This man is in the pay of Briscoe, and he came
here to steal my cat.'

'Why would he steal your cat?'

'You know why he would steal my cat. You know as well as
I do that Briscoe stops at nothing. Look at this man. Look at
his face. Guilt written all over it. I caught him with the cat in
his arms. Hold him there, Plank, while I go and telephone the
police.'

And so saying he legged it.

I confess to being a little uneasy when I heard him tell Plank
to hold me, because I had had experience of Plank's methods
of holding people. I believe I mentioned earlier that at our
previous meeting he had proposed to detain me with the
assistance of his Zulu knob-kerrie, and he had in his grasp now
a stout stick, which, if it wasn't a Zulu knob-kerrie, was
unquestionably the next best thing.

Fortunately he was in a friendly mood.

'You mustn't mind Cook, Wooster. He's upset. He's been
having a spot of domestic trouble. That's why he asked me to
come and stay. He thought I might have advice to offer. He
allowed his daughter Vanessa to go to London to study Art at
the Slade, if that's the name of the place, and she got in with
the wrong crowd, got pinched by the police and so on and so
forth, upon which Cook did the heavy father and jerked her
home and told her she had got to stay there till she learned a
bit of sense. She doesn't like it, poor girl, but I tell her she's
lucky not to be in equatorial Africa, because there if a daughter
blots her copybook, her father chops her head off and buries
her in the back garden. Well, I hate to see you go, Wooster,
but I think you had better be off. I don't say Cook will be back
with a shotgun, but you never know. I'd leave, if I were you.'
His advice struck me as good. I took it.

I headed for the cottage, where I had left the car. By the time
I got there I should have done three miles of foot-slogging
and I proposed to give the leg muscles a bit of time off, and if
E. Jimpson Murgatroyd didn't like it, let him eat cake.

I was particularly anxious to get together with Jeeves and
hear what he had to say about the strange experience through
which I had just passed, as strange an e. as had come my way
in what you might call a month of Sundays.

I could make nothing of the attitude Cook had taken up.
Plank's theory that his asperity had been due to the fact that
Vanessa had got into the wrong crowd in London seemed to
me pure apple sauce. I mean, if your daughter picks her social
circle unwisely and starts clobbering the police, you don't
necessarily accuse the first person you meet of stealing cats.
The two things don't go together.

'Jeeves,' I said, reaching the finish line and sinking into an
armchair, 'answer what I am about to ask you frankly. You
have known me a good time.'

'Yes, sir.'

'You have had every opportunity of studying my psychology.'

'Yes, sir.'

'Well, would you say I was a fellow who stole cats?'

'No, sir.'

His ready response pleased me not a little. No hesitation, no
humming and hawing, just 'No, sir'.

'Exactly what I expected you to say. Just what anyone at the
Drones or elsewhere would say. And yet cat-stealing is what I
have been accused of.'

'Indeed, sir?'

'By a scarlet-faced blighter named Cook.'

And forthwith, if that's the expression, I told him about my
strange e., passing lightly over my not having trusted his
directions on reaching the high road. He listened attentively,
and when I had finished came as near to smiling as he ever
does. That is to say, a muscle at the corner of his mouth
twitched slightly as if some flying object such as a mosquito
had settled there momentarily.

'I think I can explain, sir.'

It seemed incredible. I felt like Doctor Watson hearing
Sherlock Holmes talking about the one hundred and forty-seven
varieties of tobacco ash and the time it takes parsley to
settle in the butter dish.

'This is astounding, Jeeves,' I said. 'Professor Moriarty
wouldn't have lasted a minute with you. You really mean the
pieces of the jig-saw puzzle have come together and fallen into
their place?'

'Yes, sir.'

'You know all?'

'Yes, sir.'

'Amazing!'

'Elementary, sir. I found the habitues of the Goose and
Grasshopper a ready source of information.'

'Oh, you asked the boys in the back room?'

'Yes, sir.'

'And what did they tell you?'

'It appears that bad blood exists between Mr Cook and
Colonel Briscoe.'

'They don't like each other, you mean?'

'Precisely, sir.'

'I suppose it's often that way in the country. Not much to do
except think what a tick your neighbour is.'

'It may be as you say, sir, but in the present case there is
more solid ground for hostility, at least on Mr Cook's part.
Colonel Briscoe is chairman of the board of magistrates and in
that capacity recently imposed a substantial fine on Mr Cook
for moving pigs without a permit.'

I nodded intelligently. I could see how this must have
rankled. I do not keep pigs myself, but if I did I should strongly
resent not being allowed to give them a change of air and
scenery without getting permission from a board of magistrates.
Are we in Russia?

'Furthermore –'

'Oh, that wasn't all?'

'No, sir. Furthermore, they are rival owners of racehorses,
and that provides another source of friction.'

'Why?'

'Sir?'

'I don't see why. Most of the big owners are very chummy.
They love one another like brothers.'

'The big owners, yes, sir. It is different with those whose
activities are confined to small local meetings. There the
rivalry is more personal and acute. In the forthcoming contest
at Bridmouth-on-Sea the race, in the opinion of my
informants at the Goose and Grasshopper, will be a duel
between Colonel Briscoe's Simla and Mr Cook's Potato Chip.
All the other entries are negligible. There is consequently no
little friction between the two gentlemen as the date of the
contest approaches, and it is of vital importance to both of
them that nothing shall go wrong with the training of their
respective horses. Rigid attention to training is essential.'

Well, he didn't need to tell me that. An old hand like myself
knows how vital rigid training is for success on the turf. I have
not forgotten the time at Aunt Dahlia's place in
Worcestershire when I had a heavy bet on Marlene Cooper,
the gardener's niece, in the Girls' Under Fifteen Egg and
Spoon race on Village Sports Day, and on the eve of the
meeting she broke training, ate pounds of unripe gooseberries,
and got abdominal pains which prevented her showing up at
the starting post.

'But, Jeeves,' I said, 'while all this is of absorbing interest,
what I want to know is why Cook got into such a frenzy about
this cat. You ought to have seen his blood pressure. It shot up
like a rocket. He couldn't have been more emotional if he had
been a big shot in the Foreign Office and I a heavily veiled
woman diffusing a strange exotic scent whom he had caught
getting away with the Naval Treaty.'

'Fortunately I am in a position to elucidate the mystery, sir.
One of the habitués with whom I fraternized at the Goose and
Grasshopper chances to be an employee of Mr Cook, and he
furnished me with the facts in the case. The cat was a stray
which appeared one morning in the stable yard, and Potato
Chip took an instant fancy to it. This, I understand, is not
unusual with highly bred horses, though more often it is a goat
or a sheep which engages their affection.'

This was quite new stuff to me. First I'd ever heard of it.

'Goat?' I said.

'Yes, sir.'

'Or a sheep?'

'Yes, sir.'

'You mean love at first sight?'

'One might so describe it, sir.'

'What asses horses are, Jeeves.'

'Certainly their mentality is open to criticism, sir.'

'Though I suppose if for weeks you've seen nothing but
Cook and stable boys, a cat comes as a nice change. I take it
that the friendship ripened?'

'Yes, sir. The cat now sleeps nightly in the horse's stall and
is there to meet him when he returns from his daily exercise.'

'The welcome guest?'

'Extremely welcome, sir.'

'They've put down the red carpet for it, you might say.
Strange. I'd have thought a human vampire bat like Cook
would have had a stray cat off the premises with a single kick.'

'Something of that nature did occur, my informant tells me,
and the result was disastrous. Potato Chip became listless and
refused his food. Then one day the cat returned, and the horse
immediately recovered both vivacity and appetite.'

'Golly!'

'Yes, sir, the story surprised me when I heard it.'

I rose. Time was getting on, and I had a vision of the
Briscoes with their noses pressed to the drawing-room
window, looking out and telling each other that surely their
Wooster ought to have shown up by now.

'Well, many thanks, Jeeves,' I said. 'With your customary
what-d'you-call-it you have cast light on what might have
remained a permanent brain-teaser. But for you I should have
passed sleepless nights wondering what on earth Cook thought
he was playing at. I now feel kindlier towards him. I still
wouldn't care to have to go on a long walking tour with the son
of a what-not, and if he ever gets himself put up for the Drones,
I shall certainly blackball him, but I can see his point of view. He
finds me clutching his cat, learns that I am on pally terms with
his deadly rival the Colonel, and naturally assumes that there is
dirty work afoot. No wonder he yelled like a soul in torment and
brandished his hunting crop. He deserves considerable credit for
not having given me six of the best with it.'

'Your broadminded view is to be applauded, sir.'

'One must always strive to put oneself in the other fellow's
place and remember . . . remember what?'

'Tout comprendre c'est tout pardonner.'

'Thank you, Jeeves.'

'Not at all, sir.'

'And now Ho for Eggesford Hall.'

If you ask about me in circles which I frequent, you will be told
that I am a good mixer who is always glad to shake hands with
new faces, and it ought to have been in merry mood that I
braked the car at the front door of Eggesford Hall. But it
wasn't. Not that there was anything about the new faces on the
other side to give me the pip. Colonel Briscoe proved to be a
genial host, Mrs B. a genial hostess. There were also present,
besides Aunt Dahlia, the Rev. Ambrose Briscoe, the Colonel's
brother, and the latter's daughter Angelica, a very personable
wench with whom, had I not been so preoccupied, I should
probably have fallen in love. In short, as pleasant a bunch as
you could wish to meet.

But that was the trouble. I
was
preoccupied. It wasn't so
much finding myself practically next door to Vanessa Cook
that worried me. It would be pretty difficult for me to go
anywhere in England where there wasn't somebody who had
turned me down at one time or another. I have run across them
in spots as widely separated as Bude, Cornwall, and Sedbergh,
Yorks. No, what was occupying the Wooster mind was the
thought of Pop Cook and his hunting crop. It was not
agreeable to feel that one was on bad terms with a man who
might run amok at any moment and who, if he did, would
probably make a beeline for Bertram.

The result was that I did not shine at the festive b. The
lunch was excellent and the port with which it concluded
definitely super, and I tucked in with a zest which would have
made E. Jimpson Murgatroyd draw in a sharp breath, but as
far as sprightly conversation went I was a total loss, and the
suspicion must have crossed the minds of my host and hostess
fairly soon in the proceedings that they were entertaining a
Trappist monk with a good appetite.

That this had not failed to cross the mind of Aunt Dahlia
was made abundantly clear to me when the meal was over and
she took me for a tour of what Jeeves had called the extensive
grounds. She ticked me off with her habitual non-mincing of
words. All through my life she has been my best friend and
severest critic, and when she rebukes a nephew she rebukes
him good.

She spoke as follows, her manner and diction similar to
those of a sergeant-major addressing recruits.

'What's the matter with you, you poor reptile? I told Jimmy
and Elsa that my nephew might look like a half-witted halibut,
but wait till he starts talking, I said, he'll have you in stitches.
And what occurs? Quips? Sallies? Diverting anecdotes? No,
sir. You sit there stupefying yourself with food, and scarcely a
sound out of you except the steady champing of your jaws. I
felt like an impresario of performing fleas who has given his
star artist a big build-up, only to have him forget his lines on
the opening night.'

I bowed my head in shame, knowing how justified was the
rebuke. My contribution to what I have heard called the feast
of reason and flow of soul had been, as I have indicated, about
what you might have expected from a strong silent Englishman
with tonsillitis.

'And the way you waded into that port. Like a camel arriving
at an oasis after a long journey through desert sands. It was as
if you had received private word from Jimmy that he wanted his
cellar emptied quick so that he could turn it into a games room.
If that's the way you carry on in London, no wonder you come
out all over in spots. I'm surprised you can walk.'

She was right. I had to admit it.

'Did you ever see a play called
Ten Nights in a Bar Room?'

I could bear no more. Weakly I tried to plead my case.

'I am sorry, aged relative. What you say is true. But I am not
myself today.'

'Well, that's a bit of luck for everybody.'

'I'm what you could call distraught.'

'You're what I could call a mess.'

'I passed through a strange experience this morning.'

And with no further ado – or is it to-do? I never can
remember – I told her my cat-Cook story.

I told it well, and there was no mistaking her interest when
I came to the part where Jeeves elucidated the mystery of the
cat's importance in the scheme of things.

'Do you mean to say,' she yipped, 'that if you had got away
with that cat –'

I had to pull her up here with a touch of austerity. In spite
of the clearness with which I had been at pains to tell the story
just right she seemed to have got the wrong angle on the thing.

'There was no question, old ancestor, of my getting away
with the cat. I was merely doing the civil thing by tickling its
stomach.'

'But do you really mean that if someone were to get away
with it, it would be all up with Potato Chip's training?'

'So Jeeves informs me, and he had it from a reliable source
at the Goose and Grasshopper.'

'H'm.'

'Why do you say H'm?'

'Ha.'

'Why do you say Ha?'

'Never mind.'

But I did mind. When an aunt says 'H'm' and 'Ha', it means
something, and I was filled with a nameless fear.

However, I had no time to go into it, for at this moment we
were joined by the Rev. Briscoe and his daughter. And shortly
afterwards I left.