The Jeeves Omnibus (64 page)

At this point the scenario struck another snag. I had assumed that directly I came to the surface I should get hold of the kid and steer him courageously to shore. But he hadn’t waited to be steered. When I had finished getting the water out of my eyes and had time to look round, I saw him about ten yards away, going strongly and using, I think, the Australian crawl. The spectacle took all the heart out of me. I mean to say, the whole essence of a rescue, if you know what I mean, is that the party of the second part shall keep fairly still and on one spot. If he starts swimming off on his own account and can obviously give you at least forty yards in the hundred, where are you? The whole thing falls through. It didn’t seem to me that there was much to be done except get ashore, so I got ashore. By the time I had landed, the kid was half-way to the house. Look at it from whatever angle you like, the thing was a wash-out.

I was interrupted in my meditations by a noise like the Scotch express going under a bridge. It was Honoria Glossop laughing. She was standing at my elbow, looking at me in a rummy manner.

‘Oh, Bertie, you are funny!’ she said. And even in that moment there seemed to me something sinister in the words. She had never called me anything except ‘Mr Wooster’ before. ‘How wet you are!’

‘Yes, I am wet.’

‘You had better hurry into the house and change.’

‘Yes.’

I wrung a gallon or two of water out of my clothes.

‘You
are
funny!’ she said again. ‘First proposing in that extraordinary roundabout way, and then pushing poor little Oswald into the lake so as to impress me by saving him.’

I managed to get the water out of my throat sufficiently to try to correct this fearful impression.

‘No, no!’

‘He said you pushed him in, and I saw you do it. Oh, I’m not angry, Bertie. I think it was too sweet of you. But I’m quite sure it’s time that I took you in hand. You certainly want someone to look after you. You’ve been seeing too many moving-pictures. I suppose the next thing you would have done would have been to set the house on fire so as to rescue me.’ She looked at me in a proprietary sort of way. ‘I think,’ she said, ‘I shall be able to make something of you, Bertie. It is true yours has been a wasted life up to the present, but you are still young, and there is a lot of good in you.’

‘No, really there isn’t.’

‘Oh, yes, there is. It simply wants bringing out. Now you run straight up to the house and change your wet clothes, or you will catch cold.’

And, if you know what I mean, there was a sort of motherly note in her voice which seemed to tell me, even more than her actual words, that I was for it.

As I was coming downstairs after changing, I ran into young Bingo, looking festive to a degree.

‘Bertie!’ he said. ‘Just the man I wanted to see. Bertie, a wonderful thing has happened.’

‘You blighter!’ I cried. ‘What became of you? Do you know –’

‘Oh, you mean about being in those bushes? I hadn’t time to tell you about that. It’s all off.’

‘All off?’

‘Bertie, I was actually starting to hide in those bushes when the most extraordinary thing happened. Walking across the lawn I saw the most radiant, the most beautiful girl in the world. There is none like her, none. Bertie, do you believe in love at first sight? You do believe in love at first sight, don’t you, Bertie, old man? Directly I saw her she seemed to draw me like a magnet. I seemed to forget everything. We two were alone in a world of music and sunshine. I joined her. I got into conversation. She is a Miss Braythwayt, Bertie – Daphne Braythwayt. Directly our eyes met, I realized that what I
had
imagined to be love for Honoria Glossop had been a mere passing whim. Bertie, you do believe in love at first sight, don’t you? She is so wonderful, so sympathetic. Like a tender goddess –’

At this point I left the blighter.

Two days later I got a letter from Jeeves.

‘– The weather,’ it ended, ‘continues fine. I have had one exceedingly enjoyable bathe.’

I gave one of those hollow, mirthless laughs, and went downstairs to join Honoria. I had an appointment with her in the drawing-room. She was going to read Ruskin to me.

THE BLOW FELL
precisely at one-forty-five (summer time). Spenser, Aunt Agatha’s butler, was offering me the fried potatoes at the moment, and such was my emotion that I lofted six of them on to the sideboard with the spoon. Shaken to the core, if you know what I mean.

Mark you, I was in a pretty enfeebled condition already. I had been engaged to Honoria Glossop nearly two weeks, and during all that time not a day had passed without her putting in some heavy work in the direction of what Aunt Agatha had called ‘moulding’ me. I had read solid literature till my eyes bubbled; we had legged it together through miles of picture-galleries; and I had been compelled to undergo classical concerts to an extent you would hardly believe. All in all, therefore, I was in no fit state to receive shocks, especially shocks like this. Honoria had lugged me round to lunch at Aunt Agatha’s, and I had just been saying to myself, ‘Death, where is thy jolly old sting?’ when she hove the bomb.

‘Bertie,’ she said, suddenly, as if she had just remembered it, ‘what is the name of that man of yours – your valet?’

‘Eh? Oh, Jeeves.’

‘I think he’s a bad influence for you,’ said Honoria. ‘When we are married, you must get rid of Jeeves.’

It was at this point that I jerked the spoon and sent six of the best and crispest sailing on to the sideboard, with Spenser gambolling after them like a dignified old retriever.

‘Get rid of Jeeves!’ I gasped.

‘Yes. I don’t like him.’

‘
I
don’t like him,’ said Aunt Agatha.

‘But I can’t. I mean – why, I couldn’t carry on for a day without Jeeves.’

‘You will have to,’ said Honoria. ‘I don’t like him at all.’

‘
I
don’t like him at all,’ said Aunt Agatha. ‘I never did.’

Ghastly, what? I’d always had an idea that marriage was a bit of
a
wash-out, but I’d never dreamed that it demanded such frightful sacrifices from a fellow. I passed the rest of the meal in a sort of stupor.

The scheme had been, if I remember, that after lunch I should go off and caddy for Honoria on a shopping tour down Regent Street; but when she got up and started collecting me and the rest of her things, Aunt Agatha stopped her.

‘You run along, dear,’ she said. ‘I want to say a few words to Bertie.’

So Honoria legged it, and Aunt Agatha drew up her chair and started in.

‘Bertie,’ she said, ‘dear Honoria does not know it, but a little difficulty has arisen about your marriage.’

‘By Jove! Not really?’ I said, hope starting to dawn.

‘Oh, it’s nothing at all, of course. It is only a little exasperating. The fact is, Sir Roderick is being rather troublesome.’

‘Thinks I’m not a good bet? Wants to scratch the fixture? Well, perhaps he’s right.’

‘Pray do not be so absurd, Bertie. It is nothing so serious as that. But the nature of Sir Roderick’s profession unfortunately makes him – over-cautious.’

I didn’t get it.

‘Over-cautious?’

‘Yes. I suppose it is inevitable. A nerve specialist with his extensive practice can hardly help taking a rather warped view of humanity.’

I got what she was driving at now. Sir Roderick Glossop, Honoria’s father, is always called a nerve specialist, because it sounds better, but everybody knows that he’s really a sort of janitor to the loony-bin. I mean to say, when your uncle the Duke begins to feel the strain a bit and you find him in the blue drawing-room sticking straws in his hair, old Glossop is the first person you send for. He toddles round, gives the patient the once-over, talks about over-excited nervous systems, and recommends complete rest and seclusion and all that sort of thing. Practically every posh family in the country has called him in at one time or another, and I suppose that, being in that position – I mean constantly having to sit on people’s heads while their nearest and dearest phone to the asylum to send round the wagon – does tend to make a chappie take what you might call a warped view of humanity.

‘You mean he thinks I may be a loony, and he doesn’t want a loony son-in-law?’ I said.

Aunt Agatha seemed rather peeved than otherwise at my deadly intelligence.

‘Of course, he does not think anything so ridiculous. I told you he was simply exceedingly cautious. He wants to satisfy himself that you are perfectly normal.’ Here she paused, for Spenser had come in with the coffee. When he had gone, she went on: ‘He appears to have got hold of some extraordinary story about your having pushed his son Oswald into the lake at Ditteredge Hall. Incredible, of course. Even you would hardly do a thing like that.’

‘Well, I did sort of lean against him, you know, and he shot off the bridge.’

‘Oswald definitely accuses you of having pushed him into the water. That has disturbed Sir Roderick, and unfortunately it has caused him to make inquiries, and he has heard about your poor Uncle Henry.’

She eyed me with a good deal of solemnity, and I took a grave sip of coffee. We were peeping into the family cupboard and having a look at the good old skeleton. My late Uncle Henry, you see, was by way of being the blot on the Wooster escutcheon. An extremely decent chappie personally, and one who had always endeared himself to me by tipping me with considerable lavishness when I was at school; but there’s no doubt he did at times do rather rummy things, notably keeping eleven pet rabbits in his bedroom; and I suppose a purist might have considered him more or less off his onion. In fact, to be perfectly frank, he wound up his career, happy to the last and completely surrounded by rabbits, in some sort of a home.

‘Is is very absurd, of course,’ continued Aunt Agatha. ‘If any of the family had inherited poor Henry’s eccentricity – and it was nothing more – it would have been Claude and Eustace, and there could not be two brighter boys.’

Claude and Eustace were twins, and had been kids at school with me in my last summer term. Casting my mind back, it seemed to me that ‘bright’ just about described them. The whole of that term, as I remembered, had been spent in getting them out of a series of frightful rows.

‘Look how well they are doing at Oxford. Your Aunt Emily had a letter from Claude only the other day saying that they hoped to be elected shortly to a very important college club, called The Seekers.’

‘Seekers?’ I couldn’t recall any club of the name in my time at Oxford. ‘What do they seek?’

‘Claude did not say. Truth or knowledge, I should imagine. It is evidently a very desirable club to belong to, for Claude added that Lord Rainsby, the Earl of Datchet’s son, was one of his fellow candidates. However, we are wandering from the point, which is that Sir Roderick wants to have a quiet talk with you quite alone. Now I rely on you, Bertie, to be – I won’t say intelligent, but at least sensible. Don’t giggle nervously; try to keep that horrible glassy expression out of your eyes; don’t yawn or fidget; and remember that Sir Roderick is the president of the West London branch of the anti-gambling league, so please do not talk about horse-racing. He will lunch with you at your flat tomorrow at one-thirty. Please remember that he drinks no wine, strongly disapproves of smoking, and can only eat the simplest food, owing to an impaired digestion. Do not offer him coffee, for he considers it the root of half the nerve-trouble in the world.’

‘I should think a dog-biscuit and a glass of water would about meet the case, what?’

‘Bertie!’

‘Oh, all right. Merely persiflage.’

‘Now it is precisely that sort of idiotic remark that would be calculated to arouse Sir Roderick’s worst suspicions. Do please try to refrain from any misguided flippancy when you are with him. He is a very serious-minded man … Are you going? Well, please remember all I have said. I rely on you, and, if anything goes wrong, I shall never forgive you.’

‘Right-o!’ I said.

And so home, with a jolly day to look forward to.

I breakfasted pretty late next morning and went for a stroll afterwards. It seemed to me that anything I could do to clear the old lemon ought to be done, and a bit of fresh air generally relieves that rather foggy feeling that comes over a fellow early in the day. I had taken a stroll in the park, and got back as far as Hyde Park Corner, when some blighter sloshed me between the shoulder-blades. It was young Eustace, my cousin. He was arm-in-arm with two other fellows, the one on the outside, being my cousin Claude and the one in the middle a pink-faced chappie with light hair and an apologetic sort of look.

‘Bertie, old egg!’ said young Eustace affably.

‘Hallo!’ I said, not frightfully chirpily.

‘Fancy running into you, the one man in London who can support
us
in the style we are accustomed to! By the way, you’ve never met the old Dog-Face, have you? Dog-Face, this is my cousin Bertie. Lord Rainsby – Mr Wooster. We’ve just been round to your flat, Bertie. Bitterly disappointed that you were out, but were hospitably entertained by old Jeeves. That man’s a corker, Bertie. Stick to him.’

‘What are you doing in London?’ I asked.

‘Oh, buzzing round. We’re just up for the day. Flying visit, strictly unofficial. We oil back on the three-ten. And now, touching that lunch you very decently volunteered to stand us, which shall it be? Ritz? Savoy? Carlton? Or, if you’re a member of Ciro’s or the Embassy, that would do just as well.’

‘I can’t give you lunch. I’ve got an engagement myself. And, by Jove,’ I said, taking a look at my watch, ‘I’m late.’ I hailed a taxi. ‘Sorry.’

‘As man to man, then,’ said Eustace, ‘lend us a fiver.’

I hadn’t time to stop and argue. I unbelted the fiver and hopped into the cab. It was twenty to two when I got to the flat. I bounded into the sitting-room, but it was empty.

Jeeves shimmied in.

‘Sir Roderick has not yet arrived, sir.’

‘Good egg!’ I said. ‘I thought I should find him smashing up the furniture.’ My experience is that the less you want a fellow, the more punctual he’s bound to be, and I had had a vision of the old lad pacing the rug in my sitting-room, saying ‘He cometh not!’ and generally hotting up. ‘Is everything in order?’