Joy in the Morning

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Published by Arrow Books 2008

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First published in the United Kingdom in 1947 by Herbert Jenkins Ltd

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The Inimitable Jeeves

Carry On, Jeeves

Very Good, Jeeves

Thank You, Jeeves

Right Ho, Jeeves

The Code of the Woosters

Joy in the Morning

The Mating Season

Ring for Jeeves

Jeeves and the Feudal Spirit

Jeeves in the Offing

Stiff Upper Lip, Jeeves

Much Obliged, Jeeves

Aunts Aren’t Gentlemen

Something Fresh

Leave it to Psmith

Summer Lightning

Blandings Castle

Uncle Fred in the Springtime

Full Moon

Pigs Have Wings

Service with a Smile

A Pelican at Blandings

Meet Mr Mulliner

Mulliner Nights

Mr Mulliner Speaking

Cocktail Time

Uncle Dynamite

The Clicking of Cuthbert

The Heart of a Goof

Piccadilly Jim

Ukridge

The Luck of the Bodkins

Laughing Gas

A Damsel in Distress

The Small Bachelor

Hot Water

Summer Moonshine

The Adventures of Sally

Money for Nothing

The Girl in Blue

Big Money

Part 1

CHAPTER 1

A
fter the thing was all over, when peril had ceased to loom and happy endings had been distributed in heaping handfuls and we were driving home with our hats on the side of our heads, having shaken the dust of Steeple Bumpleigh from our tyres, I confessed to Jeeves that there had been moments during the recent proceedings when Bertram Wooster, though no weakling, had come very near to despair.

‘Within a toucher, Jeeves.’

‘Unquestionably affairs had developed a certain menacing trend, sir.’

‘I saw no ray of hope. It looked to me as if the blue bird had thrown in the towel and formally ceased to function. And yet here we are, all boomps-a-daisy. Makes one think a bit, that.’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘There’s an expression on the tip of my tongue which seems to me to sum the whole thing up. Or, rather, when I say an expression, I mean a saying. A wheeze. A gag. What, I believe, is called a saw. Something about Joy doing something.’

‘Joy cometh in the morning, sir?’

‘That’s the baby. Not one of your things, is it?’

‘No, sir.’

‘Well, it’s dashed good,’ I said.

And I still think that there can be no neater way of putting in a nutshell the outcome of the super-sticky affair of Nobby Hopwood, Stilton Cheesewright, Florence Craye, my Uncle Percy, J. Chichester Clam, Edwin the Boy Scout and old Boko Fittleworth – or, as my biographers will probably call it, the Steeple Bumpleigh Horror.

Even before the events occurred which I am about to relate, the above hamlet had come high up on my list of places to be steered sedulously clear of. I don’t know if you have ever seen one of those old maps where they mark a spot with a cross and put ‘Here be dragons’ or ‘Keep ye eye skinned for hippogriffs’, but I had always felt that some such kindly warning might well have been given to pedestrians and traffic with regard to this Steeple Bumpleigh.

A picturesque settlement, yes. None more so in all Hampshire. It lay embowered, as I believe the expression is, in the midst of smiling fields and leafy woods, hard by a willow-fringed river, and you couldn’t have thrown a brick in it without hitting a honeysuckle-covered cottage or beaning an apple-cheeked villager. But you remember what the fellow said – it’s not a bally bit of use every prospect pleasing if man is vile, and the catch about Steeple Bumpleigh was that it contained Bumpleigh Hall, which in its turn contained my Aunt Agatha and her second husband.

And when I tell you that this second h. was none other than Percival, Lord Worplesdon, and that he had with him his daughter Florence and his son Edwin, the latter as pestilential a stripling as ever wore khaki shorts and went spooring or whatever it is that these Boy Scouts do, you will understand why I had always declined my old pal Boko Fittleworth’s invitations to visit him at the bijou residence he maintained in those parts.

I had also had to be similarly firm with Jeeves, who had repeatedly hinted his wish that I should take a cottage there for the summer months. There was, it appeared, admirable fishing in the river, and he is a man who dearly loves to flick the baited hook. ‘No, Jeeves,’ I had been compelled to say, ‘much though it pains me to put a stopper on your simple pleasures, I cannot take the risk of running into that gang of pluguglies. Safety first.’ And he had replied, ‘Very good, sir,’ and there the matter had rested.

But all the while, unsuspected by Bertram, the shadow of Steeple Bumpleigh was creeping nearer and nearer, and came a day when it tore off its whiskers and pounced.

Oddly enough, the morning on which this major disaster occurred was one that found me completely, even exuberantly, in the pink. No inkling of the soup into which I was to be plunged came to mar my perfect
bien être.
I had slept well, shaved well and shower-bathed well, and it was with a merry cry that I greeted Jeeves as he brought in the coffee and kippers.

‘Odd’s boddikins, Jeeves,’ I said, ‘I am in rare fettle this a.m. Talk about exulting in my youth! I feel up and doing, with a heart for any fate, as Tennyson says.’

‘Longfellow, sir.’

‘Or, if you prefer it, Longfellow. I am in no mood to split hairs. Well, what’s the news?’

‘Miss Hopwood called while you were still asleep, sir.’

‘No, really? I wish I’d seen her.’

‘The young lady was desirous of entering your room and rousing you with a wet sponge, but I dissuaded her. I considered it best that your repose should not be disturbed.’

I applauded this watch-dog spirit, showing as it did both the kindly heart and the feudal outlook, but continued to tut-tut a bit at having missed the young pipsqueak, with whom my relations had always been of the matiest. This Zenobia (‘Nobby’) Hopwood was old Worplesdon’s ward, as I believe it is called. A pal of his, just before he stopped ticking over some years previously, had left him in charge of his daughter. I don’t know how these things are arranged – no doubt documents have to be drawn up and dotted lines signed on – but, whatever the procedure, the upshot was as I have stated. When all the smoke had cleared away, my Uncle Percy was Nobby’s guardian.

‘Young Nobby, eh? When did she blow into the great city?’ I asked. For, on becoming Uncle Percy’s ward, she had of course joined the strength at his Steeple Bumpleigh lair, and it was only rarely nowadays that she came to London.