‘Do you ever have nightmares, Jeeves?’ I asked, having got through with my bit of wincing.
‘Not frequently, sir.’
‘Nor me. But when I do, the set-up is always the same. I am back at Totleigh Towers with Sir W. Bassett, his daughter Madeline, Roderick Spode, Stiffy Byng, Gussie Fink-Nottle and the dog Bartholomew, all doing their stuff, and I wake, if you will pardon the expression so soon after breakfast, sweating at every pore. Those were the times that … what, Jeeves?’
‘Tried men’s souls, sir.’
‘They certainly did – in spades. Sir Watkyn Bassett, eh?’ I said thoughtfully. ‘No wonder Uncle Tom mourned and would not be comforted. In his position I’d have been low-spirited myself. Who else were among those present?’
‘Miss Bassett, sir, Miss Byng, Miss Byng’s dog and Mr. Fink-Nottle.’
‘Gosh! Practically the whole Totleigh Towers gang. Not Spode?’
‘No, sir. Apparently no invitation had been extended to his lordship.’
‘His what?’
‘Mr. Spode, if you recall, recently succeeded to the title of Lord Sidcup.’
‘So he did. I’d forgotten. But Sidcup or no Sidcup, to me he will always be Spode. There’s a bad guy, Jeeves.’
‘Certainly a somewhat forceful personality, sir.’
‘I wouldn’t want him in my orbit again.’
‘I can readily understand it, sir.’
‘Nor would I willingly foregather with Sir Watkyn Bassett, Madeline Bassett, Stiffy Byng and Bartholomew. I don’t mind Gussie. He looks like a fish and keeps newts in a glass tank in his bedroom, but one condones that sort of thing in an old schoolfellow, just as one condones in an old Oxford friend such as the Rev. H.P. Pinker the habit of tripping over his feet and upsetting things. How was Gussie? Pretty bobbish?’
‘No, sir. Mr. Fink-Nottle, too, seemed to me low-spirited.’
‘Perhaps one of his newts had got tonsilitis or something.’
‘It is conceivable, sir.’
‘You’ve never kept newts, have you?’
‘No, sir.’
‘Nor have I. Nor, to the best of my knowledge, have Einstein, Jack Dempsey and the Archbishop of Canterbury, to name but three others. Yet Gussie revels in their society and is never happier than when curled up with them. It takes all sorts to make a world, Jeeves.’
‘It does, indeed, sir. Will you be lunching in?’
‘No, I’ve a date at the Ritz,’ I said, and went off to climb into the outer crust of the English gentleman.
As I dressed, my thoughts returned to the Bassetts, and I was still wondering why on earth Aunt Dahlia had allowed the pure air of Brinkley Court to be polluted by Sir Watkyn and associates, when the telephone rang and I went into the hall to answer it.
‘Bertie?’
‘Oh, hullo, Aunt Dahlia.’
There had been no mistaking that loved voice. As always when we converse on the telephone, it had nearly fractured my ear-drum. This aunt was at one time a prominent figure in hunting circles, and when in the saddle, so I’m told, could make herself heard not only in the field or meadow where she happened to be, but in several adjoining counties. Retired now from active fox-chivvying, she still tends to address a nephew in the tone of voice previously reserved for rebuking hounds for taking time off to chase rabbits.
‘So you’re up and about, are you?’ she boomed. ‘I thought you’d be in bed, snoring your head off.’
‘It is a little unusual for me to be in circulation at this hour,’ I agreed, ‘but I rose today with the lark and, I think, the snail. Jeeves!’
‘Sir?’
‘Didn’t you tell me once that snails were early risers?’
‘Yes, sir. The poet Browning in his Pippa Passes, having established that the hour is seven a.m., goes on to say, “The lark’s on the wing, the snail’s on the thorn.”’
‘Thank you, Jeeves. I was right, Aunt Dahlia. When I slid from between the sheets, the lark was on the wing, the snail on the thorn.’
‘What the devil are you babbling about?’
‘Don’t ask me, ask the poet Browning. I was merely apprising you that I was up betimes. I thought it was the least I could do to celebrate Jeeves’s return.’
‘He got back all right, did he?’
‘Looking bronzed and fit.’
‘He was in rare form here. Bassett was terrifically impressed.’
I was glad to have this opportunity of solving the puzzle which had been perplexing me.
‘Now there,’ I said, ‘you have touched on something I’d very much like to have information re. What on earth made you invite Pop Bassett to Brinkley?’
‘I did it for the wife and kiddies.’
I eh-what-ed. ‘You wouldn’t care to amplify that?’ I said. ‘It got past me to some extent.’
‘For Tom’s sake, I mean,’ she replied with a hearty laugh that rocked me to my foundations. ‘Tom’s been feeling rather low of late because of what he calls iniquitous taxation. You know how he hates to give up.’
I did, indeed. If Uncle Tom had his way, the Revenue authorities wouldn’t get so much as a glimpse of his money.
‘Well, I thought having to fraternize with Bassett would take his mind off it – show him that there are worse things in this world than income tax. Our doctor here gave me the idea. He was telling me about a thing called Hodgkin’s Disease that you cure by giving the patient arsenic. The principle’s the same. That Bassett really is the limit. When I see you, I’ll tell you the story of the black amber statuette. It’s a thing he’s just bought for his collection. He was showing it to Tom when he was here, gloating over it. Tom suffered agonies, poor old buzzard.’
‘Jeeves told me he was low-spirited.’
‘So would you be, if you were a collector and another collector you particularly disliked had got hold of a thing you’d have given your eyeteeth to have in your own collection.’
‘I see what you mean,’ I said, marvelling, as I had often done before, that Uncle Tom could attach so much value to objects which I personally would have preferred not to be found dead in a ditch with. The cow-creamer I mentioned earlier was one of them, being a milk jug shaped like a cow, of all ghastly ideas. I have always maintained fearlessly that the spiritual home of all these fellows who collect things is a padded cell in a loony bin.
‘It gave Tom the worst attack of indigestion he’s had since he was last lured into eating lobster. And talking of indigestion, I’m coming up to London for the day the day after tomorrow and shall require you to give me lunch.’
I assured her that that should be attended to, and after the exchange of a few more civilities she rang off.
‘That was Aunt Dahlia, Jeeves,’ I said, coming away from the machine.
‘Yes, sir, I fancied I recognized Mrs. Travers’s voice.’
‘She wants me to give her lunch the day after tomorrow. I think we’d better have it here. She’s not keen on restaurant cooking.’
‘Very good, sir.’
‘What’s this black amber statuette thing she was talking about?’
‘It is a somewhat long story, sir.’
‘Then don’t tell me now. If I don’t rush, I shall be late for my date.’
I reached for the umbrella and hat, and was heading for the open spaces, when I heard Jeeves give that soft cough of his and, turning, saw that a shadow was about to fall on what had been a day of joyous reunion. In the eye which he was fixing on me I detected the aunt-like gleam which always means that he disapproves of something, and when he said in a soupy tone of voice ‘Pardon me, sir, but are you proposing to enter the Ritz Hotel in that hat?’ I knew that the time had come when Bertram must show that iron resolution of his which has been so widely publicized.
In the matter of head-joy Jeeves is not in tune with modern progressive thought, his attitude being best described, perhaps, as hidebound, and right from the start I had been asking myself what his reaction would be to the blue Alpine hat with the pin
k feather in it which I had purchased in his absence. Now I knew. I could see at a g. that he wanted no piece of it.
I, on the other hand, was all for this Alpine lid. I was prepared to concede that it would have been more suitable for rural wear, but against this had to be set the fact that it unquestionably lent a diablerie to my appearance, and mine is an appearance that needs all the diablerie it can get. In my voice, therefore, as I replied, there was a touch of steel.
‘Yes, Jeeves, that, in a nutshell, is what I am proposing to do. Don’t you like this hat?’
‘No, sir.’
‘Well, I do,’ I replied rather cleverly, and went out with it tilted just that merest shade over the left eye which makes all the difference.
2
* * *
MY DATE AT the Ritz was with Emerald Stoker, younger offspring of that pirate of the Spanish Main, old Pop Stoker, the character who once kidnapped me on board his yacht with a view to making me marry his elder daughter Pauline. Long story, I won’t go into it now, merely saying that the old fathead had got entirely the wrong angle on the relations between his ewe lamb and myself, we being just good friends, as the expression is. Fortunately it all ended happily, with the popsy linked in matrimony with Marmaduke, Lord Chuffnell, an ancient buddy of mine, and we’re still good friends. I put in an occasional week-end with her and Chuffy, and when she comes to London on a shopping binge or whatever it may be, I see to it that she gets her calories. Quite natural, then, that when her sister Emerald came over from America to study painting at the Slade, she should have asked me to keep an eye on her and give her lunch from time to time. Kindly old Bertram, the family friend.
I was a bit late, as I had foreshadowed, in getting to the tryst, and she was already there when I arrived. It struck me, as it did every time I saw her, how strange it is that members of a family can be so unlike each other – how different in appearance, I mean, Member A. so often is from Member B., and for the matter of that Member B. from Member C., if you follow what I’m driving at. Take the Stoker troupe, for instance. To look at them, you’d never have guessed they were united by ties of blood. Old Stoker resembled one of those fellows who play bit parts in gangster pictures: Pauline was of a beauty so radiant that strong men whistled after her in the street; while Emerald, in sharp contra-distinction, was just ordinary, no different from a million other nice girls except perhaps for a touch of the Pekinese about the nose and eyes and more freckles than you usually see.
I always enjoyed putting on the nosebag with her, for there was a sort of motherliness about her which I found restful. She was one of those soothing, sympathetic girls you can take your troubles to, confident of having your hand held and your head patted. I was still a bit ruffled about Jeeves and the Alpine hat and of course told her all about it, and nothing could have been in better taste than her attitude. She said it sounded as if Jeeves must be something like her father – she had never met him – Jeeves, I mean, not her father, whom of course she had met frequently – and she told me I had been quite right in displaying the velvet hand in the iron glove, or rather the other way around, isn’t it, because it never did to let oneself be bossed. Her father, she said, always tried to boss everybody, and in her opinion one of these days some haughty spirit was going to haul off and poke him in the nose – which, she said, and I agreed with her, would do him all the good in the world.
I was so grateful for these kind words that I asked her if she would care to come to the theatre on the following night, I knowing where I could get hold of a couple of tickets for a well-spoken-of musical, but she said she couldn’t make it.
‘I’m going down to the country this afternoon to stay with some people. I’m taking the four o’clock train at Paddington.’
‘Going to be there long?’
‘About a month.’
‘At the same place all the time?’
‘Of course.’
She spoke lightly, but I found myself eyeing her with a certain respect. Myself, I’ve never found a host and hostess who could stick my presence for more than about a week. Indeed, long before that as a general rule the conversation at the dinner table is apt to turn on the subject of how good the train service to London is, those present obviously hoping wistfully that Bertram will avail himself of it. Not to mention the time-tables left in your room with a large cross against the 2.35 and the legend ‘Excellent train. Highly recommended.’
‘Their name’s Bassett.’ I started visibly. ‘They live in Gloucestershire.’ I started visibly. ‘Their house is called –’
‘Totleigh Towers?’
She started visibly, making three visible starts in all.
‘Oh, do you know them? Well, that’s fine. You can tell me about them.’
This surprised me somewhat.
‘Why, don’t you know them?’
‘I’ve only met Miss Bassett. What are the rest of them like?’
It was a subject on which I was a well-informed source, but I hesitated for a moment, asking myself if I ought to reveal to this frail girl what she was letting herself in for. Then I decided that the truth must be told and nothing held back. Cruel to hide the facts from her and allow her to go off to Totleigh Towers unprepared.
‘The inmates of the leper colony under advisement,’ I said, ‘consist of Sir Watkyn Bassett, his daughter Madeline, his niece Stephanie Byng, a chap named Spode who recently took to calling himself Lord Sidcup, and Stiffy Byng’s Aberdeen terrier Bartholomew, the last of whom you would do well to watch closely if he gets anywhere near your ankles, for he biteth like a serpent and stingeth like an adder. So you’ve met Madeline Bassett? What did you think of her?’
She seemed to weigh this. A moment or two passed before she surfaced again. When she spoke, it was with a spot of wariness in her voice.
‘Is she a great friend of yours?’
‘Far from it.’
‘Well, she struck me as a drip.’
‘She is a drip.’
‘Of course, she’s very pretty. You have to hand her that.’
I shook the loaf.
‘Looks are not everything. I admit that any redblooded Sultan or Pasha, if offered the opportunity of adding M. Bassett to the personnel of his harem, would jump to it without hesitation, but he would regret his impulsiveness before the end of the first week. She’s one of those soppy girls, riddled from head to foot with whimsy. She holds the view that the stars are God’s daisy chain, that rabbits are gnomes in attendance on the Fairy Queen, and that every time a fairy blows its wee nose a baby is born, which, as we know, is not the case. She’s a drooper.’
‘Yes, that’s how she seemed to me. Rather like one of the lovesick maidens in Patience.’
‘Eh?’
‘Patience. Gilbert and Sullivan. Haven’t you ever seen it?’
‘Oh yes, now I recollect. My Aunt Agatha made me take her son Thos to it once. Not at all a bad little show, I thought, though a bit highbrow. We now come to Sir Watkyn Bassett, Madeline’s father.’
‘Yes, she mentioned her father.’
‘And well she might.’
‘What’s he like?’
‘One of those horrors from outer space. It may seem a hard thing to say of any man, but I would rank Sir Watkyn Bassett as an even bigger stinker than your father.’
‘Would you call Father a stinker?’
‘Not to his face, perhaps.’
‘He thinks you’re crazy.’
‘Bless his old heart.’
‘And you can’t say he’s wrong. Anyway, he’s not so bad, if you rub him the right way.’
‘Very possibly, but if you think a busy man like myself has time to go rubbing your father, either with or against the grain, you are greatly mistaken. The word “stinker”, by the way, reminds me that there is one redeeming aspect of life at Totleigh Towers, the presence in the neighbouring village of the Rev. H.P. (“Stinker”) Pinker, the local curate. You’ll like him. He used to play football for England. But watch out for Spo
de. He’s about eight feet high and has the sort of eye that can open an oyster at sixty paces. Take a line through gorillas you have met, and you will get the idea.’
‘You do seem to have some nice friends.’
‘No friends of mine. Though I’m fond of young Stiffy and am always prepared to clasp her to my bosom, provided she doesn’t start something. But then she always does start something. I think that completes the roster. Oh no, Gussie. I was forgetting Gussie.’
‘Who’s he?’
‘Fellow I’ve known for years and years. He’s engaged to Madeline Bassett. Chap named Gussie Fink-Nottle.’
She uttered a sharp squeak.
‘Does he wear horn-rimmed glasses?’
‘Yes.’
‘And keep newts?’
‘In great profusion. Why, do you know him?’
‘I’ve met him. We met at a studio party.’
‘I didn’t know he ever went to studio parties.’
‘He went to this one, and we talked most of the evening. I thought he was a lamb.’
‘You mean a fish.’
‘I don’t mean a fish.’
‘He looks like a fish.’
‘He does not look like a fish.’
‘Well, have it your own way,’ I said tolerantly, knowing it was futile to attempt to reason with a girl who had spent an evening vis-à-vis Gussie Fink-Nottle and didn’t think he looked like a fish. ‘So there you are, that’s Totleigh Towers. Wild horses wouldn’t drag me there, not that I suppose they would ever try, but you’ll probably have a good enough time,’ I said, for I didn’t wish to depress her unduly. ‘It’s a beautiful place, and it isn’t as if you were going there to pinch a cow-creamer.’
The Jeeves Omnibus - Vol 4: (Jeeves & Wooster): No.4 Page 37