Aunts Aren't Gentlemen (9 page)

'How much do you want?' I said.

'Sir?'

'To de-cat my premises and restore this feline to the
strength.'

A sort of film came over his frank blue eyes, as I suppose it
always did when he talked business, though not when singing
in the choir. Fellows at the Drones have told me they notice
the same thing in Oofy Prosser, the club millionaire, when
they try to float a small loan with him to see them through till
next Wednesday.

'How much do I want, sir?'

'Yes. Give it a name. We won't haggle.'

He pursed his lips.

'I'm afraid,' he said, having unpursed them, 'I couldn't do it
as cheap as I'd like, sir. You see, what with them having
discovered the animal's absence by this time, the hue and cry,
as you might say, will be up and everybody at Mr Cook's
residence on the
qui vive
or alert. I'd be in the position of a spy
in wartime carrying secret dispatches through the enemy's
lines with every eye on the look-out for him. I'd have to make
it twenty pounds.'

I was relieved. I had been expecting something higher. He,
too, seemed to feel that he had erred on the side of
moderation, for he immediately added:

'Or, rather, thirty.'

'Thirty!'

'Thirty, sir.'

'Let's haggle,' I said.

But when I suggested twenty-five, a nicer-looking sort of
number than thirty, he shook his grey head regretfully, so we
went on haggling, and he haggled better than me, so that
eventually we settled on thirty-five.

It wasn't one of my best haggling days.

One of the questions put to me when I won that Scripture
Knowledge prize at my private school was, I recall,
'What do you know of the deaf adder?', and my grip on Holy
Writ enabled me to reply correctly that it stopped its ears and
would not hear the voice of the charmer, charm he never so
wisely, and after my session with Herbert Graham I knew how
that charmer must have felt. If I had been in a position to
compare notes with him, we would have agreed that the less
we saw of adders in the future the better it would be for us.

Nobody could have charmed more wisely than me as I urged
Herbert Graham to lower his price, and nobody could have
stopped his ears more firmly than did that human serpent.
Talk about someone not meeting you half-way; he didn't go an
inch in the direction of coming to a peaceful settlement.
Thirty-five quid, I mean to say. Absolutely monstrous. But
that's what happens when you're up against it and the other
fellow holds all the cards.

Haggling is a thing that takes it out of you, and it was a limp
Bertram Wooster who after Graham and cat had set forth on
their journey sat skimming listlessly through the opening
pages of
By Order Of The Czar.
And I had read enough to make
me wish I had taken out
The Mystery Of A Hansom Cab
instead,
when the telephone rang.

It was, as I had feared, Aunt Dahlia. Sooner or later, I had
of course realized, exchanges with the aged relative were
inevitable, but I could have faced them better if they could
have been postponed for a while. In my enfeebled condition I
was in no shape to cope with aunts. A man who has just
become engaged to a girl whose whole personality gives him a
sinking feeling and who has had to pay thirty-five quid to a
bloodsucker and another twopence to a lending library for a
dud book is seldom in mid-season form.

The old ancestor, on the other hand, little knowing that she
was about to get a sock on the jaw which would shake her to her
foundation garments, was all lightheartedness and joviality.

'Hullo, fathead,' she said. 'What news on the Rialto?'

'What, what, where?' I responded, not getting it.

'The cat. Has he brought it?'

'Yes.'

'Is it in your bosom?'

I saw the time had come. Shrink though I might from
revealing the awful truth, it had to be done. I took a deep
breath. It was some small comfort to feel that she was at the
end of the telephone wire a mile and a half away. You can
never be certain what aunts will do when at close quarters. Far
less provocation in my earlier days had led this one to buffet
me soundly on the side of the head.

'No,' I said, 'it's gone.'

'Gone? Gone where?'

'Billy Graham has taken it back.'

'Taken it
back
?'

'To Eggesford Court. I told him to.'

'You
told
him to?'

'Yes. You see –'

That concluded for a considerable space of time my share in
the duologue, for she got into high with the promptness which
I had anticipated. She spoke as follows:

'Hell's bells! Ye gods! Angels and ministers of grace defend
us! He brought the cat, and you deliberately turned it from
your door, though you knew what it meant to me. Letting the
side down! Failing me in my hour of need! Bringing my grey
hairs in sorrow to the grave! And after all I've done for you, you
miserable ungrateful worm. Do you remember me telling you
that when you were a babe and suckling and looking, I may
add in passing, like a badly poached egg, you nearly swallowed
your rubber comforter, and if I hadn't jerked it out in time, you
would have choked to death? It would go hard for you if you
swallowed your rubber comforter now. I wouldn't stir a finger.
Do you remember when you had measles and I gave up hours
of my valuable time to playing tiddlywinks with you and
letting you beat me without a murmur?'

I could have disputed that. My victories had been due
entirely to skill. I haven't played much tiddlywinks lately, but
in those boyhood days I was pretty hot stuff at the pastime. I
did not mention this, however, because she was proceeding
and I didn't like to interrupt the flow.

'Do you remember when you were at that private school of
yours I used to send you parcels of food at enormous expense
because you said you were about to expire from starvation? Do
you remember when you were at Oxford –'

'Stop, aged r.,' I cried, for she had touched me deeply with
these reminiscences of the young Wooster. 'You're breaking
my heart.'

'You haven't got a heart. If you had, you wouldn't have
driven that poor defenceless cat out into the snow. All I asked
of you was to give it a bed in the spare room for a few days and
so place my financial affairs on a sound basis, but you wouldn't
do a trifling service for me which would have cost you nothing
except a bob or two for milk and fish. What, I ask myself, has
become of the old-fashioned nephew to whom his aunt's
wishes were law? They don't seem to be making them
nowadays.'

At this point Nature took its toll. She had to pause to take
in breath, and I was enabled to speak.

'Old blood relation,' I said, 'you are under a what-is-it.'

'What is what?'

'The thing people get under. It's on the tip of my tongue.
Begins with mis. Ah, I've got it, misapprehension. I've heard
Jeeves use the word. Your view of my behaviour with the above
cat is all cockeyed. I disapproved of your pinching it, because I
felt that such an action stained the escutcheon of the
Woosters, but I would have given it bed and board, however
reluctantly, had it not been for Plank.'

'Plank?'

'Major Plank the explorer.'

'What's he got to do with it?'

'Everything. You've probably heard of Major Plank.'

'I haven't.'

'Well, he's one of those chaps who have native bearers and
things and go exploring. Who was it out in Africa somewhere
who met the other fellow and presumed he was Doctor
something? Plank is, or was, in the same line of business.'

A snort came over the wire, nearly fusing it.

'Bertie,' said the blood relation, now having taken aboard an
adequate supply of air, 'I am hampered by being at the other
end of the telephone, but were I within reach of you I would
give you one on the side of the head which you wouldn't forget
in a hurry. Tell me in a few simple words what you think you're
talking about.'

'I'm talking about Plank. And what I'm trying to establish
is that Plank, though an explorer, is not exploring now. He is
staying with Cook at Eggesford Court.'

'So what?'

'So jolly well this. He dropped in on me shortly after Billy
Graham had clocked in and left the cat. It was with Jeeves in
the kitchen, having one for the tonsils. And while Plank was
there it yowled, and Plank of course heard it. You don't need
to be told the upshot. Plank goes back to Cook, tells him he
thought he heard a cat at Wooster's address, and Cook, already
suspicious of me after our unfortunate encounter, comes down
here like a wolf on the fold, his cohorts all gleaming with
purple and gold. I ought to add that I told Plank that the cat
he heard was not a cat but Jeeves imitating cats, and he
believed it all right because explorers are simple-minded bozos
who believe everything they're told, but will the story get over
with Cook? Not a hope. There was nothing for me to do but
tell Billy Graham to return the cat.'

I suppose one of the top-notch barristers could have put it
more clearly, but not much more. She was silent for a space.
Musing, no doubt, and weighing this against that. Finally she
spoke.

'I see.'

'Good.'

'You appear not to have been such a non-co-operative
hellhound as I thought you were.'

'Excellent.'

'Sorry I ticked you off with such vigour.'

'Quite all right, aged relative.
Tout comprendre c'est tout
pardonner
.'

'Yes, I suppose it was the only thing you could do. But don't
expect any hallelujahs from me. My whole plan of campaign
has gone phut.'

'Oh, I don't know. Perhaps everything will be all right.
Simla may win anyway.'

'Yes, but one did like to feel that one was betting on a
certainty. It's no good trying to cheer me up. I feel awful.'

'Me, too.'

'What's wrong with you?'

'I'm engaged to be married to a girl I can't stand the sight
of.'

'What, another? Who is it this time?'

'Vanessa Cook.'

'Any relation to old Cook?'

'His daughter.'

'How did it happen?'

'I proposed to her a year ago, and she turned me down, and
just now she blew in and said she had changed her mind and
would marry me. Came as a nasty shock.'

'You should have told her to go and boil her head.'

'I couldn't.'

'Why couldn't you?'

'Not
preux
.'

'Not what?'

'Preux.
P for potted meat, r for rissole, e for egg nog, and so
on. You've heard of a
preux chevalier
? It is my aim to be one.'

'Oh, well, if you go about being
Preux,
you must expect to
get into trouble. But I wouldn't worry. You're bound to
wriggle out of it somehow. You told me once that you had
faith in your star. The girls you've been engaged to and have
escaped from would reach, if placed end to end, from
Piccadilly to Hyde Park Corner. I won't believe you're married
till I see the bishop and assistant clergy mopping their
foreheads and saying, "Well, that's that. We've really got the
young blighter off at last."'

And with these words of cheer she rang off.

You would rather have expected that it would have been
with a light heart that I returned to
By Order Of The Czar.
Such, however, was not the case. I had squared myself with the
old flesh-and-blood and so had put a stopper on her wrath, a
continuance of which might have resulted in her barring me
from her table for an indefinite period, thus depriving me of
the masterpieces of her French chef Anatole, God's gift to the
gastric juices, but, as I say, the h. was not l. I could not but
mourn for the collapse of the aged relative's hopes and dreams,
a collapse for which I, though a mere toy in the hands of Fate,
was bound to consider myself responsible.

I said as much to Jeeves when he came in with the materials
for the pre-dinner cocktail.

'My heart is heavy, Jeeves,' I said, after expressing
gratification at the sight of the fixings.

'Indeed, sir? Why is that?'

'I have just been having a painful scene with Aunt Dahlia.
Well, when I say scene that's not quite the right word, the
conversation having been conducted over the telephone. Did
Graham get off all right?'

'Yes, sir.'

'Accompanied by cat?'

'Yes, sir.'

'That's what I was telling her, and she became a bit
emotional. You never hunted with the Quorn or the Pytchley,
did you, Jeeves? It seems to do something to the vocabulary.
Lends a speaker eloquence. The old flesh-and-blood didn't
have to pause to pick her words, they came out like bullets
from a machine-gun. I was thankful we weren't talking face to
face. Goodness knows what might have happened if we had
been.'

'You should have told Mrs Travers the facts relating to
Major Plank, sir.'

'I did, the moment I could get a word in edgeways, and it
was that that acted like . . . like what?'

'Balm in Gilead, sir?'

'Exactly. I was going to say manna in the wilderness, but
balm in Gilead hits it off better. She calmed down and
admitted that I couldn't have done anything else but return the
cat.'

'Most satisfactory, sir.'

'Yes, that part of it is all pretty smooth, but there's one other
thing that's weighing on me a bit. I'm engaged to be married.'

As always when I tell him I'm engaged to be married, he
betrayed no emotion, continuing to look as if he had been
stuffed by a good taxidermist. It is not his place, he would say
if you asked him, to go beyond the basic formalities on these
occasions.

'Indeed, sir?' he said.

Usually this about covers it, and I don't discuss my
predicament with him. I feel it wouldn't be seemly, if that's the
word, and I know he would feel it wouldn't be seemly, so with
both of us feeling it wouldn't be seemly we talk of other
matters.

But this was a special occasion. Never before had I become
betrothed to someone who would make me cut out smoking
and cocktails, and in my opinion this made the subject a
legitimate one for debate. When you're up against it as I was,
it is essential to exchange views with a mastermind, if you can
get hold of one, however unseemly it may be.

So when he added, 'May I offer my congratulations, sir,' I
replied with lines which were not on the routine.

'No, Jeeves, you may not, not by a jugful. You see before you
a man who is as near to being what is known as a toad at
Harrow as a man can be who was educated at Eton. I'm in sore
straits, Jeeves.'

'I am sorry to hear that, sir.'

'You'll be sorrier when I explain further. Have you ever seen
a garrison besieged by howling savages, with their ammunition
down to the last box of cartridges, the water supply giving out
and the United States Marines nowhere in sight?'

'Not to my recollection, sir.'

'Well, my position is roughly that of such a garrison, except
that compared with me they're sitting pretty. Compared with
me they haven't a thing to worry about.'

'You fill me with alarm, sir.'

'I bet I do, and I haven't even started yet. I will begin by
saying that Miss Cook, to whom I'm engaged, is a lady for
whom I have the utmost esteem and respect, but on certain
matters we do not . . . what's the expression?'

'See eye to eye, sir?'

'That's right. And unfortunately those matters are the
what-d'you-call-it of my whole policy. What is it that policies
have?'

'I think the word for which you are groping, sir, may
possibly be cornerstone.'

'Thank you, Jeeves. She disapproves of a variety of things
which are the cornerstone of my policy. Marriage with her
must inevitably mean that I shall have to cast them from my
life, for she has a will of iron and will have no difficulty in
making her husband jump through hoops and snap sugar off
his nose. You get what I mean?'

'I do, sir. A very colourful image.'

'Cocktails, for instance, will be barred. She says they are bad
for the liver. Have you noticed, by the way, how frightfully lax
everything's getting now? In Queen Victoria's day a girl would
never have dreamed of mentioning livers in mixed company.'

'Very true, sir.
Tempora mutantur, nos et mutamur in illis
.'

'That, however, is not the worst.'

'You horrify me, sir.'

'At a pinch I could do without cocktails. It would be agony,
but we Woosters can rough it. But she says I must give up
smoking.'

'This was indeed the most unkindest cut of all, sir.'

'Give up smoking, Jeeves!'

'Yes, sir. You will notice that I am shuddering.'

'The trouble is that she is greatly under the influence of a
pal of hers called Tolstoy. I've never met him, but he seems to
have the most extraordinary ideas. You won't believe this,
Jeeves, but he says that no one needs to smoke, as equal
pleasure can be obtained by twirling the fingers. The man
must be an ass. Imagine a posh public dinner – one of those
"decorations will be worn" things. The royal toast has been
drunk, strong men are licking their lips at the thought of
cigars, and the toastmaster bellows "Gentlemen, you may
twirl your fingers." Don't tell me there wouldn't be a flat
feeling, a sense of disappointment. Do you know anything
about this fellow Tolstoy? You ever heard of him?'

'Oh, yes, sir. He was a very famous Russian novelist.'

'Russian, eh? Well, there you are. And a novelist? He didn't
write
By Order Of The Czar,
did he?'

'I believe not, sir.'

'I thought he might have under another name. You say
"was". Is he no longer with us?'

'No, sir. He died some years ago.'

'Good for him. Twirl your fingers! Too absurd. I'd laugh only
she says I mustn't laugh because another pal of hers, called Chesterfield,
didn't. Well, she needn't worry. The way things are shaping I haven't anything
to laugh about. For I've not mentioned the principal objection to the marriage.
Don't jump to the hasty conclusion that I mean because a father-in-law like
Cook is included in the package deal. I grant you that that's enough by itself
to darken the horizon, but what's on my mind is the thought of Orlo Porter.'

'Ah, yes, sir.'

I gave him an austere look.

'If you can't say anything better than "Ah, yes", Jeeves, say
nothing.'

'Very good, sir.'

'The thought, as I was saying, of Orlo Porter. We have already
touched on his testy disposition, the iron-band like muscles of his brawny
arms, and his jealousy. The mere suspicion that I was inflicting my beastly
society, as he put it, on Miss Cook was enough to make him tell me that he
would tear out my insides with his bare hands. What'll he do when he finds
I'm engaged to her?'

'Surely, sir, the lady having so unequivocably rejected him,
he can scarcely blame you –'

'For filling the vacant spot? Don't you believe it. He'll take
it for granted that I persuaded her to give him the pink slip.
Nothing will drive it out of his nut. The belief that I'ma Grade
A snake in the grass, and we all know what to expect from
snakes in the g. No, we have got to be frightfully subtle and
think of some plan for drawing his fangs. Otherwise my
insides won't be worth a moment's purchase.'

I was about to go on to ask him if he still had the cosh – or
blackjack, to use the American term – which he had taken
away from Aunt Dahlia's son Bonzo some months previously.
Bonzo had bought it to use on a schoolmate he disliked, and
we all thought he would be better without it. It was, of course,
precisely what I needed to ease the tenseness of the O. Porter
situation. Armed with this weapon, I could defy O. Porter
without a qualm. But before I could speak the telephone
tootled in the hall. I waved a hand in its direction.

'Answer that, would you mind, Jeeves, and say I've gone for
a brisk walk, as recommended by my medical adviser. It'll be
Aunt Dahlia, and though she was in a reasonable frame of
mind at the conclusion of our recent talk, there's no telling
how long these reasonable frames of mind will last.'

'Very good, sir.'

'You know what women are.'

'I do, indeed, sir.'

'Especially aunts.'

'Yes, sir. My aunt –'

'Tell me all about her later.'

'Any time you wish, sir.'

I remember Jeeves once saying of my friend Catsmeat
Potter-Pirbright – it was when a long shot he had backed had
come in first by a head, only to be disqualified owing to some
infringement of the rules by its jockey – that melancholy had
marked him for her own, and it was the same with me now as
I sat totting up the score and realizing how extraordinarily
deeply I had been plunged in the soup.

Compared with other items on the list of my troubles it was
perhaps a minor cause for melancholy that the old ancestor
should be trying to get me on the telephone. Nevertheless, it
added one more thing to worry about. It could only mean, I
felt, that she had come out of the amiable mood she had been
in when last heard from and had thought of a lot more nasty
cracks to make on the subject of my failure to reach the
standard which she considered adequate in a nephew. And I
was in no shape to listen to destructive criticism when we next
met, especially when delivered by a voice trained by years of
shouting 'Gone away' at foxes to reduce the hearer's nervous
system to pulp.

When, therefore, Jeeves returned, my first observation was:

'What did she say?'

'It was not Mrs Travers, sir, it was Mr Porter.'

I was more thankful than ever that I had got him to answer
the phone.

'Well, what did
he
say?' I asked, though I could have made
a rough guess.

'I regret that I am not able to report the entire conversation
verbatim, sir. I found the gentleman incoherent at the outset.
I gathered that he was under the impression that he was
addressing you, and emotion interfered with the clarity of his
diction. I informed him of my identity, and he moderated his
verbal speed. I was thus enabled to follow him. He gave me
several messages to give to you.'

'Messages?'

'Yes, sir, embodying what he proposed to do to you when
next you met. His remarks were in the main of a crudely
surgical nature, and many of the plans he outlined would be
extremely difficult to put into practice. His threat, for instance,
to pull off your head and make you swallow it.'

'He said that?'

'Among other things more or less on the same trend. But
you need have no apprehension, sir.'

It shows the state to which the slings and arrows of
outrageous fortune, as somebody called them, had reduced me
that I didn't laugh a hacking laugh at this. I didn't even utter a
sardonic 'Oh, yeah' or 'Says you'. I merely buried the face in
the hands, and he continued:

'Before I left the room you were speaking of the necessity of
drawing Mr Porter's fangs, as you very aptly put it. It gives me
great pleasure to say that I have succeeded in doing this.'

I thought I couldn't have heard him correctly, and asked
him to repeat his amazing statement. He did so, and I looked
at him astounded. You might suppose that I would have been
used by this time to seeing him pull rabbits out of a hat with a
flick of the wrist and solve in a flash problems which had
defied the best efforts of the finest minds, but it always comes
fresh to me, depriving me of breath and causing the eyeballs to
rotate in the parent sockets.

Then I saw what must be behind the easy confidence with
which he had spoken.

'So you remembered the cosh?' I said.

'Sir?'

'And you have it in your possession.'

'I do not quite understand you, sir.'

'I thought you meant that you still had that cosh which you
took away from Aunt Dahlia's Bonzo and were going to give
it to me so that I would be armed when Porter made his
spring.'

'Oh, no, sir. The instrument to which you refer is among my
effects at our London residence.'

'Then how did you draw his fangs?'

'By reminding him that you have taken out an accident
policy with him and drawing his attention to the inevitable
displeasure of his employers if through him they were mulcted
in a substantial sum of money. I had little difficulty in
persuading the gentleman that anything in the nature of
aggressive action on his part would be a mistake.'

I repeated the stare. His resource and ingenuity had stunned
me.

'Jeeves,' I said, 'your resource and ingenuity have stunned
me. Porter is baffled.'

'Yes, sir.'

'Unless you would prefer "thwarted".'

'Baffled I think is stronger.'

'Talk of drawing his fangs. His dentist will have to fit him
with a completely new set.'

'Yes, sir, but we must not forget that the removal of Mr
Porter as a menace is only half a battle. I hesitate to touch on
a delicate subject . . .'

'Touch on, Jeeves.'

'But I gathered, partly from what you were saying and partly
from the tone of your voice as you said it when you were
speaking of her plans for your future, that the idea of marriage
with Miss Cook is not wholly agreeable to you, and it occurred
to me that much unpleasantness would be avoided, were the
lady and Mr Porter to be reconciled.'

'It would indeed. But –'

'You were about to say, sir, that in your opinion the rift is
too serious for that?'

'Well, isn't it?'

'I think not.'

'Your blow by blow description of the hostilities certainly
gave me the impression that they had parted brass rags pretty
finally. How about that lily-livered poltroon?'

'You have placed your finger on the real trouble, sir. Miss
Cook applied that term to Mr Porter because of his refusal to
approach her father and demand the money which the latter is
holding in trust for him.'

'Well, according to you he said he wouldn't approach her
father in a million years.'

'The situation has been changed by your becoming
affianced to the woman he loves. To restore himself to Miss
Cook's esteem he would face perils from which formerly he
shrank.'

I got what he meant, but I didn't buy the idea. I still saw
Orlo shrinking.

'Furthermore, sir, if you were to go to Mr Porter and point
out to him that success might crown his efforts if he were to
choose a moment shortly after dinner to approach Mr Cook,
he would take the risk. A gentleman mellowed by a good
dinner is always more amenable to overtures of any kind than
one who is waiting for his food, as I understood from his
conversation that Mr Cook was when Mr Porter discussed
business with him on a former occasion.'

I started visibly. He had electrified me.

'Jeeves,' I said, 'I believe you've got something.'

'I think so, sir.'

'I'll go and see Porter at once. He's probably at the Goose
and Grasshopper drowning his sorrows in gin and ginger ale.
And let me say once more that you stand alone. You have
made my day. I wish there was something I could do for you
by way of return.'

'There is, sir.'

'It's yours, even unto half my kingdom. Give me a name.'

'I should be extremely grateful if you would allow me to
spend the night at my aunt's.'