The Jeeves Omnibus (169 page)

‘Ho!’ said the policeman.

‘But, dash it, it was there the night before last.’

‘Ho!’ he said again.

‘Ho! Ho!’ As if he were starting a drinking-chorus in a comic opera, confound him.

Then I got what amounted to the brainwave of a lifetime.

‘Who dusts these things?’ I said, turning on the parlourmaid.

‘I don’t.’

‘I didn’t say you did. I said who did.’

‘Mary. The housemaid, of course.’

‘Exactly. As I suspected. As I foresaw. Mary, officer, is notoriously the worst smasher in London. There have been complaints about her on all sides. You see what has happened? The wretched girl has broken the glass of my photograph and, not being willing to come forward and admit it in an honest, manly way, has taken the thing off and concealed it somewhere.’

‘Ho!’ said the policeman, still working through the drinking-chorus.

‘Well, ask her. Go down and ask her.’

‘You go down and ask her,’ said the policeman to the parlourmaid. ‘If it’s going to make him any happier.’

The parlourmaid left the room, casting a pestilential glance at me over her shoulder as she went. I’m not sure she didn’t say ‘Ho!’ too. And then there was a bit of a lull. The policeman took up a position with a large beefy back against the door, and I wandered to and fro and hither and yonder.

‘What are you playing at?’ demanded the policeman.

‘Just looking round. They may have moved the thing.’

‘Ho!’

And then there was another bit of a lull. And suddenly I found myself by the window, and, by Jove, it was six inches open at the bottom. And the world beyond looked so bright and sunny and – Well, I don’t claim that I am a particularly swift thinker, but once more something seemed to whisper ‘Outside for Bertram!’ I slid my fingers nonchalantly under the sash, gave a hefty heave, and up she came. And the next moment I was in a laurel bush, feeling like the cross which marks the spot where the accident occurred.

A large red face appeared in the window. I got up and skipped lightly to the gate.

‘Hi!’ shouted the policeman.

‘Ho!’ I replied, and went forth, moving well.

‘This,’ I said to myself, as I hailed a passing cab and sank back on the cushions, ‘is the last time I try to do anything for young Bingo!’

These sentiments I expressed in no guarded language to Jeeves when I was back in the old flat with my feet on the mantelpiece, pushing down a soothing whisky-and.

‘Never again, Jeeves!’ I said. ‘Never again!’

‘Well, sir –’

‘No, never again!’

‘Well, sir –’

‘What do you mean, “Well, sir”? What are you driving at?’

‘Well, sir, Mr Little is an extremely persistent young gentleman, and yours, if I may say so, sir, is a yielding and obliging nature –’

‘You don’t think that young Bingo would have the immortal rind to try to get me into some other foul enterprise?’

‘I should say that it was more than probable, sir.’

I removed the dogs swiftly from the mantelpiece, and jumped up, all of a twitter.

‘Jeeves, what would you advise?’

‘Well, sir, I think a little change of scene would be judicious.’

‘Do a bolt?’

‘Precisely, sir. If I might suggest it, sir, why not change your mind and join Mr George Travers at Harrogate?’

‘Oh, I say, Jeeves!’

‘You would be out of what I might describe as the danger zone there, sir.’

‘Perhaps you’re right, Jeeves,’ I said thoughtfully. ‘Yes, possibly you’re right. How far is Harrogate from London?’

‘Two hundred and six miles, sir.’

‘Yes, I think you’re right. Is there a train this afternoon?’

‘Yes, sir. You could catch it quite easily.’

‘All right, then. Bung a few necessaries in a bag.’

‘I have already done so, sir.’

‘Ho!’ I said.

It’s a rummy thing, but when you come down to it Jeeves is always right. He had tried to cheer me up at the station by saying that I would not find Harrogate unpleasant, and, by Jove, he was perfectly correct. What I had overlooked, when examining the project, was the fact that I should be in the middle of a bevy of blokes who were taking the cure
and
I shouldn’t be taking it myself. You’ve no notion what a dashed cosy, satisfying feeling that gives a fellow.

I mean to say, there was old Uncle George, for instance. The medicine-man, having given him the once-over, had ordered him to abstain from all alcoholic liquids, and in addition to tool down the hill to the Royal Pump-Room each morning at eight-thirty and imbibe twelve ounces of warm crescent saline and magnesia. It doesn’t sound much, put that way, but I gather from contemporary accounts that it’s practically equivalent to getting outside a couple of little old last year’s eggs beaten up in sea-water. And the thought of Uncle George, who had oppressed me sorely in my childhood, sucking down that stuff and having to hop out of bed at eight-fifteen to do so was extremely grateful and comforting of a morning.

At four in the afternoon he would toddle down the hill again and repeat the process, and at night we would dine together and I would loll back in my chair, sipping my wine, and listen to him telling me what the stuff had tasted like. In many ways the ideal existence.

I generally managed to fit it in with my engagements to go down and watch him tackle his afternoon dose, for we Woosters are as fond of a laugh as anyone. And it was while I was enjoying the performance in the middle of the second week that I heard my name spoken. And there was Aunt Dahlia.

‘Hallo!’ I said. ‘What are you doing here?’

‘I came down yesterday with Tom.’

‘Is Tom taking the cure?’ asked Uncle George, looking up hopefully from the hell-brew.

‘Yes.’

‘Are you taking the cure?’

‘Yes.’

‘Ah!’ said Uncle George, looking happier than I had seen him for days. He swallowed the last drops, and then, the programme calling for a brisk walk before his massage, left us.

‘I shouldn’t have thought you would have been able to get away from the paper,’ I said. ‘I say,’ I went on, struck by a pleasing idea. ‘It hasn’t bust up, has it?’

‘Bust up? I should say not. A pal of mine is looking after it for me while I’m here. It’s right on its feet now. Tom has given me a couple of thousand and says there’s more if I want it, and I’ve been able to buy serial rights of Lady Bablockhythe’s
Frank Recollections of a Long Life
. The hottest stuff, Bertie. Certain to double the circulation and send half the best-known people in London into hysterics for a year.’

‘Oh!’ I said. ‘Then you’re pretty well fixed, what? I mean, what with the Frank Recollections and that article of Mrs Little’s.’

Aunt Dahlia was drinking something that smelled like a leak in the gas-pipe, and I thought for a moment that it was that that made her twist up her face. But I was wrong.

‘Don’t mention that woman to me, Bertie!’ she said. ‘One of the worst.’

‘But I thought you were rather pally.’

‘No longer. Will you credit it that she positively refuses to let me have that article –’

‘What!’

‘–purely and simply on account of some fancied grievance she thinks she has against me because her cook left her and came to me.’

I couldn’t follow this at all.

‘Anatole left her?’ I said. ‘But what about the parlourmaid?’

‘Pull yourself together, Bertie. You’re babbling. What do you mean?’

‘Why, I understood –’

‘I’ll bet you never understood anything in your life.’ She laid down her empty glass. ‘Well, that’s done!’ she said with relief. ‘Thank goodness, I’ll be able to watch Tom drinking his in a few minutes. It’s the only thing that enables me to bear up. Poor old chap, he does hate it so! But I cheer him by telling him it’s going to put him in shape for Anatole’s cooking. And that, Bertie, is something worth going into training for. A master of his art, that man. Sometimes I’m not altogether surprised that Mrs Little made such a fuss when he went. But, really, you know, she ought not to mix sentiment with business. She has no right to refuse to let me have that article just because of a private difference. Well, she jolly well can’t use it anywhere else, because it was my idea and I have witnesses to prove it. If she tries to sell it to another paper, I’ll sue her. And, talking of sewers, it’s high time Tom was here to drink his sulphur-water.’

‘But look here –’

‘Oh, by the way, Bertie,’ said Aunt Dahlia, ‘I withdraw any harsh expressions I may have used about your man Jeeves. A most capable feller!’

‘Jeeves?’

‘Yes; he attended to the negotiations. And very well he did it, too. And he hasn’t lost by it, you can bet. I saw to that. I’m grateful to him. Why, if Tom gives up a couple of thousand now, practically without a murmur, the imagination reels at what he’ll do with Anatole cooking regularly for him. He’ll be signing cheques in his sleep.’

I got up. Aunt Dahlia pleaded with me to stick around and watch Uncle Tom in action, claiming it to be a sight nobody should miss, but I couldn’t wait. I rushed up the hill, left a farewell note for Uncle George, and caught the next train for London.

‘Jeeves,’ I said, when I had washed off the stains of travel, ‘tell me frankly all about it. Be as frank as Lady Bablockhythe.’

‘Sir?’

‘Never mind, if you’ve not heard of her. Tell me how you worked this binge. The last I heard was that Anatole loved that parlourmaid – goodness knows why! – so much that he refused to leave her. Well, then?’

‘I was somewhat baffled for a while, I must confess, sir. Then I was materially assisted by a fortunate discovery.’

‘What was that?’

‘I chanced to be chatting with Mrs Travers’s housemaid, sir, and, remembering that Mrs Little was anxious to obtain a domestic of that description, I asked her if she would consent to leave Mrs Travers and go at an advanced wage to Mrs Little. To this she assented, and I saw Mrs Little and arranged the matter.’

‘Well? What was the fortunate discovery?’

‘That the girl, in a previous situation some little time back, had been a colleague of Anatole, sir. And Anatole, as is the too frequent practice of these Frenchmen, had made love to her. In fact, they were, so I understand it, sir, formally affianced until Anatole disappeared one morning, leaving no address, and passed out of the poor girl’s life. You will readily appreciate that this discovery simplified matters considerably. The girl no longer had any affection for Anatole, but the prospect of being under the same roof with two young persons, both of whom he had led to assume –’

‘Great Scott! Yes, I see! It was rather like putting in a ferret to start a rabbit.’

‘The principle was much the same, sir. Anatole was out of the house and in Mrs Travers’s service within half an hour of the receipt of the information that the young person was about to arrive. A volatile man, sir. Like so many of these Frenchmen.’

‘Jeeves,’ I said, ‘this is genius of a high order.’

‘It is very good of you to say so, sir.’

‘What did Mr Little say about it?’

‘He appeared gratified, sir.’

‘To go into sordid figures, did he –’

‘Yes, sir. Twenty pounds. Having been fortunate in his selections at Hurst Park on the previous Saturday.’

‘My aunt told me that she –’

‘Yes, sir. Most generous. Twenty-five pounds.’

‘Good Lord, Jeeves! You’ve been coining the stuff!’

‘I have added appreciably to my savings, yes, sir. Mrs Little was good enough to present me with ten pounds from finding her such a satisfactory housemaid. And then there was Mr Travers –’

‘Uncle Thomas?’

‘Yes, sir. He also behaved most handsomely, quite independently of Mrs Travers. Another twenty-five pounds. And Mr George Travers –’

‘Don’t tell me that Uncle George gave you something, too! What on earth for?’

‘Well, really, sir, I do not quite understand myself. But I received a cheque for ten pounds from him. He seemed to be under the impression that I had been in some way responsible for your joining him at Harrogate, sir.’

I gaped at the fellow.

‘Well, everybody seems to be doing it,’ I said, ‘so I suppose I had better make the thing unanimous. Here’s a fiver.’

‘Why, thank you, sir. This is extremely –’

‘It won’t seem much compared with these vast sums you’ve been acquiring.’

‘Oh, I assure you, sir.’

‘And I don’t know why I’m giving it to you.’

‘No, sir.’

‘Still, there it is.’

‘Thank you very much, sir.’

I got up.

‘It’s pretty late,’ I said, ‘but I think I’ll dress and go out and have a bite somewhere. I feel like having a whirl of some kind after two weeks in Harrogate.’

‘Yes, sir. I will unpack your clothes.’

‘Oh, Jeeves,’ I said, ‘did Peabody and Simms send those soft silk shirts?’

‘Yes, sir. I sent them back.’

‘Sent them back?’

‘Yes, sir.’

I eyed him for a moment. But I mean to say. I mean, what’s the use?

‘Oh, all right,’ I said. ‘Then lay out one of the gents’ stiff-bosomed.’

‘Very good, sir,’ said Jeeves.

IT HAS HAPPENED
so frequently in the past few years that young fellows starting in my profession have come to me for a word of advice, that I have found it convenient now to condense my system into a brief formula. ‘Resource and Tact’ – that is my motto. Tact, of course, has always been with me a
sine qua non
; while as for resource, I think I may say that I have usually contrived to show a certain modicum of what I might call
finesse
in handling those little
contretemps
which inevitably arise from time to time in the daily life of a gentleman’s personal gentleman. I am reminded, by way of an instance, of the Episode of the School for Young Ladies near Brighton – an affair which, I think, may be said to have commenced one evening at the moment when I brought Mr Wooster his whisky and siphon and he addressed me with such remarkable petulance.

Not a little moody Mr Wooster had been for some days – far from his usual bright self. This I had attributed to the natural reaction from a slight attack of influenza from which he had been suffering; and, of course, took no notice, merely performing my duties as usual, until on the evening of which I speak he exhibited this remarkable petulance when I brought him his whisky and siphon.