‘Your glass is empty, Mr. Wooster,’ he cried buoyantly, ‘may I refill it?’
I said he might. I had had two, which is generally my limit, but with my aplomb shattered as it was I felt that a third wouldn’t hurt. Indeed, I would have been willing to go even more deeply into the thing. I once read about a man who used to drink twenty-six martinis before dinner, and the conviction was beginning to steal over me that he had had the right idea.
‘Roderick tells me,’ he proceeded, as sunny as if a crack of his had been greeted with laughter in court, ‘that the reason you were unable to be with us at the school treat this afternoon was that urgent family business called you to Brinkley Court. I trust everything turned out satisfactorily?’
‘Oh yes, thanks.’
‘We all missed you, but business before pleasure, of course. How was your uncle? You found him well, I hope?’
‘Yes, he was fine.’
‘And your aunt?’
‘She had gone to London.’
‘Indeed? You must have been sorry not to have seen her. I know few women I admire more. So hospitable. So breezy. I have seldom enjoyed anything more than my recent visit to her house.’
I think his exuberance would have led him to continue in the same strain indefinitely, but at this point Stiffy came out of the thoughtful silence into which she had fallen. She had been standing there regarding him with a speculative eye, as if debating within herself whether or not to start something, and now she gave the impression that her mind was made up.
‘I’m glad to see you so cheerful, Uncle Watkyn. I was afraid my news might have upset you.’
‘Upset me!’ said Pop Bassett incredulously. ‘Whatever put that idea in your head?’
‘Well, you’re short one son-in-law.’
‘It is precisely that that has made this the happiest day of my life.’
‘Then you can make it the happiest of mine,’ said Stiffy, striking while the iron was h. ‘By giving Harold that vicarage.’
Most of my attention, as you may well imagine, being concentrated on contemplating the soup in which I was immersed, I cannot say whether or not Pop Bassett hesitated, but if he did, it was only for an instant. No doubt for a second or two the vision of that hard-boiled egg rose before him and he was conscious again of the resentment he had been feeling at Stinker’s failure to keep a firm hand on the junior members of his flock, but the thought that Augustus Fink-Nottle was not to be his son-in-law drove the young cleric’s shortcomings from his mind. Filled with the milk of human kindness so nearly to the brim that you could almost hear it sloshing about inside him, he was in no shape to deny anyone anything. I really believe that if at this point in the proceedings I had tried to touch him for a fiver, he would have parted without a cry.
‘Of course, of course, of course, of course,’ he said, carolling like one of Jeeves’s larks on the wing. ‘I am sure that Pinker will make an excellent vicar.’
‘The best,’ said Stiffy. ‘He’s wasted as a curate. No scope. Running under wraps. Unleash him as a vicar, and he’ll be the talk of the Established Church. He’s as hot as a pistol.’
‘I have always had the highest opinion of Harold Pinker.’
‘I’m not surprised. All the nibs feel the same. They know he’s got what it takes. Very sound on doctrine, and can preach like a streak.’
‘Yes, I enjoy his sermons. Manly and straightforward.’
‘That’s because he’s one of these healthy outdoor open air men. Muscular Christianity, that’s his dish. He used to play football for England.’
‘Indeed?’
‘He was what’s called a prop forward.’
‘Really?’
At the words ‘prop forward’ I had, of course, started visibly. I hadn’t known that that’s what Stinker was, and I was thinking how ironical life could be. I mean to say, there was Plank searching high and low for a forward of this nature, saying to himself that he would pretty soon have to give up the hopeless quest, and here was I in a position to fill the bill for him, but owing to the strained condition of our relations unable to put him on to this good thing. Very sad, I felt, and the thought occurred to me, as it had often done before, that one ought to be kind even to the very humblest, because you never know when they may not come in useful.
‘Then may I tell Harold that the balloon’s going up?’ said Stiffy.
‘I beg your pardon?’
‘I mean it’s official about this vicarage?’
‘Certainly, certainly, certainly.’
‘Oh, Uncle Watkyn! How can I thank you?’
‘Quite all right, my dear,’ said Pop Bassett, more Dickensy than ever. ‘And now,’ he went on, parting from his moorings and making for the door, ‘you will excuse me, Stephanie, and you, Mr. Wooster. I must go to Madeline and –’
‘Congratulate her?’
‘I was about to say dry her tears.’
‘If any.’
‘You think she will not be in a state of dejection?’
‘Would any girl be, who’s been saved by a miracle from having to marry Gussie Fink-Nottle?’
‘True. Very true,’ said Pop Bassett, and he was out of the room like one of those wing threequarters who, even if they can’t learn to give the reverse pass, are fast.
If there had been any uncertainty as to whether Sir Watkyn Bassett had done a buck-and-wing dance, there was none about Stiffy doing one now. She pirouetted freely, and the dullest eye could discern that it was only the fact that she hadn’t one on that kept her from strewing roses from her hat. I had seldom seen a young shrimp so above herself. And I, having Stinker’s best interests at heart, packed all my troubles in the old kitbag for the time being and rejoiced with her. If there’s one thing Bertram Wooster is and always has been nippy at, it’s forgetting his personal worries when a pal is celebrating some stroke of good fortune.
For some time Stiffy monopolized the conversation, not letting me get a word in edgeways. Women are singularly gifted in this respect. The frailest of them has the lung power of a gramophone record and the flow of speech of a Regimental Sergeant Major. I have known my Aunt Agatha to go on calling me names long after you would have supposed that both breath and inventiveness would have given out.
Her theme was the stupendous bit of good luck which was about to befall Stinker’s new parishioners, for they would be getting not only the perfect vicar, a saintly character who would do the square thing by their souls, but in addition the sort of vicar’s wife you dream about. It was only when she paused after drawing a picture of herself doling out soup to the deserving poor and asking in a gentle voice after their rheumatism that I was able to rise to a point of order. In the midst of all the joyfulness and back-slapping a sobering thought had occurred to me.
‘I agree with you,’ I said, ‘that this would appear to be the happy ending, and I can quite see how you have arrived at the conclusion that it’s the maddest merriest day of all the glad new year, but there’s something you ought to give a thought to, and it seems to me you’re overlooking it.’
‘What’s that? I didn’t think I’d missed anything.’
‘This promise of Pop Bassett’s to give you the vicarage.’
‘All in order, surely? What’s your kick?’
‘I was only thinking that, if I were you, I’d get it in writing.’
This stopped her as if she had bumped into a prop forward. The ecstatic animation faded from her face, to be replaced by the anxious look and the quick chewing of the lower lip. It was plain that I had given her food for thought.
‘You don’t think Uncle Watkyn would double-cross us?’
‘There are no limits to what your foul Uncle Watkyn can do, if the mood takes him,’ I responded gravely. ‘I wouldn’t trust him an inch. Where’s Stinker?’
‘Out on the lawn, I think.’
‘Then get hold of him and bring him here and have Pop Bassett embody the thing in the form of a letter.’
‘I suppose you know you�
��re making my flesh creep?’
‘Merely pointing out the road to safety.’
She mused awhile, and the lower lip got a bit more chewing done to it.
‘All right,’ she said at length. ‘I’ll fetch Harold.’
‘And it wouldn’t hurt to bring a couple of lawyers, too,’ I said as she whizzed past me.
It was about five minutes later, as I was falling into a reverie and brooding once more on the extreme stickiness of my affairs, that Jeeves came in and told me I was wanted on the telephone.
17
* * *
I PALED BENEATH my tan.
‘Who is it, Jeeves?’
‘Mrs. Travers, sir.’
Precisely what I had feared. It was, as I have indicated, an easy drive from Totleigh Towers to Brinkley Court and in his exhilarated state Gussie would no doubt have kept a firm foot on the accelerator and given the machine all the gas at his disposal. I presumed that he and girl friend must have just arrived, and that this telephone call was Aunt Dahlia what-the-helling. Knowing how keenly the old bean resented being the recipient of anything in the nature of funny business, into which category Gussie’s butting in uninvited with his Em in attendance would unquestionably fall, I braced myself for the coming storm with as much fortitude as I could muster.
You might say, of course, that his rash act was no fault of mine and had nothing to do with me, but it’s practically routine for aunts to blame nephews for everything that happens. It seems to be what nephews are for. It was only by an oversight, I have always felt, that my Aunt Agatha omitted to hold me responsible a year or two ago when her son, young Thos, nearly got sacked from the scholastic institution which he attends for breaking out at night in order to go and shy for coconuts at the local amusement park.
‘How did she seem, Jeeves?’
‘Sir?’
‘Did she give you the impression that she was splitting a gusset?’
‘Not particularly, sir. Mrs. Travers’s voice is always robust. Would there be any reason why she should be splitting the gusset to which you refer?’
‘You bet there would. No time to tell you now, but the skies are darkening and the air is full of V-shaped depressions off the coast of Iceland.’
‘I am sorry, sir.’
‘Nor are you the only one. Who was the fellow – or fellows, for I believe there was more than one – who went into the burning fiery furnace?’
‘Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego, sir.’
‘That’s right. The names were on the tip of my tongue. I read about them when I won my Scripture Knowledge prize at school. Well, I know just how they must have felt. Aunt Dahlia?’ I said, for I had now reached the instrument.
I had been expecting to have my ear scorched with well-chosen words, but to my surprise she seemed in merry mood. There was no suggestion of recrimination in her voice.
‘Hullo there, you young menace to western civilization,’ she boomed. ‘How are you? Still ticking over?’
‘To a certain extent. And you?’
‘I’m fine. Did I interrupt you in the middle of your tenth cocktail?’
‘My third,’ I corrected. ‘I usually stay steady at two, but Pop Bassett insisted on replenishing my glass. He’s a bit above himself at the moment and very much the master of the revels. I wouldn’t put it past him to have an ox roasted whole in the market place, if he can find an ox.’
‘Stinko, is he?’
‘Not perhaps stinko, but certainly effervescent.’
‘Well, if you can suspend your drunken orgy for a minute or two, I’ll tell you the news from home. I got back from London a quarter of an hour ago, and what do you think I found waiting on the mat? That newt-collecting freak Spink-Bottle, accompanied by a girl who looks like a Pekinese with freckles.’
I drew a deep breath and embarked on my speech for the defence. If Bertram was to be put in the right light, now was the moment. True, her manner so far had been affable and she had given no sign of being about to go off with a bang, but one couldn’t be sure that that wasn’t because she was just biding her time. It’s never safe to dismiss aunts lightly at times like this.
‘Yes,’ I said, ‘I heard he was on his way, complete with freckled human Pekinese. I am sorry, Aunt Dahlia, that you should have been subjected to this unwarrantable intrusion, and I would like to make it abundantly clear that it was not the outcome of any advice or encouragement from me. I was in total ignorance of his intentions. Had he confided in me his purpose of inflicting his presence on you, I should have –’
Here I paused, for she had asked me rather brusquely to put a sock in it.
‘Stop babbling, you ghastly young gas-bag. What’s all this silver-tongued-orator stuff about?’
‘I was merely expressing my regret that you should have been subjected –’
‘Well, don’t. There’s no need to apologize. I couldn’t be more pleased. I admit that I’m always happier when I don’t have Spink-Bottle breathing down the back of my neck and taking up space in the house which I require for other purposes, but the girl was as welcome as manna in the wilderness.’
Having won that prize for Scripture Knowledge I was speaking of, I had no difficulty in grasping her allusion. She was referring to an incident which occurred when the children of Israel were crossing some desert or other and were sorely in need of refreshment, rations being on the slender side. And they were just saying to one another how well a spot of manna would go down and regretting that there was none in the quartermaster’s stores, when blowed if a whole wad of the stuff didn’t descend from the skies, just making their day.
Her words had of course surprised me somewhat, and I asked her why Emerald Stoker had been as welcome as manna in the w.
‘Because her arrival brought sunshine into a stricken home. There couldn’t have been a smoother piece of timing. You didn’t see Anatole when you were over here this afternoon, did you?’
‘No. Why?’
‘I was wondering if you had noticed anything wrong with him. Shortly after you left he developed a mal au foie or whatever he called it and took to his bed.’
‘I’m sorry.’
‘So was Tom. He was looking forward gloomily to a dinner cooked by the kitchen maid, who, though a girl of many sterling merits, always adopts the scorched earth policy when preparing a meal, and you know what his digestion’s like. Conditions looked dark, and then Spink-Bottle suddenly revealed that this Pekinese of his was an experienced chef, and she’s taken over. Who is she? Do you know anything about her?’
I was, of course, able to supply the desired information.
‘She’s the daughter of a well-to-do American millionaire called Stoker, who, I imagine, will be full of strange oaths when he hears she’s married Gussie, the latter being, as you will concede, not everybody’s cup of tea.’
‘So he isn’t going to marry Madeline Bassett?’
‘No, the fixture has been scratched.’
‘That’s definite, is it?’
‘Yes.’
‘You can’t have been much success as a raisonneur.’
‘No.’
‘Well, I think she’ll make Spink-Bottle a good wife. Seems a very nice girl.’
‘Few better.’
‘But this leaves you in rather a spot, doesn’t it? If Madeline Bassett is now at large, won’t she expect you to fill in?’
‘That, aged relative, is the fear that haunts me.’
‘Has Jeeves nothing to suggest?’
‘He says he hasn’t. But I’ve known him on previous occasions to be temporarily baffled and then suddenly to wave his magic wand and fix everything up. So I haven’t entirely lost hope.’
‘No, I expect you’ll wriggle out of it somehow, as you always do. I wish I had a fiver for every time you’ve been within a step of the altar rails and have managed to escape unscathed. I remember you telling me once that you had faith in your star.’
‘Quite. Still, it’s no good trying to pretend that peril doe
sn’t loom. It looms like the dickens. The corner in which I find myself is tight.’
‘And you would like to get that way, too, I suppose? All right, you can get back to your orgy when I’ve told you why I rang you up.’
‘Haven’t you?’ I said, surprised.
‘Certainly not. You don’t catch me wasting time and money chatting with you about your amours. Here is the nub. You know that black amber thing of Bassett’s?’
‘The statuette? Of course.’
‘I want to buy it for Tom. I’ve come into a bit of money. The reason I went to London today was to see my lawyer about a legacy someone’s left me. Old school friend, if that’s of any interest to you. It works out at about a couple of thousand quid, and I want you to get that statuette for me.’
‘It’s going to be pretty hard to get away with it.’
‘Oh, you’ll manage. Go as high as fifteen hundred pounds, if you have to. I suppose you couldn’t just slip it in your pocket? It would save a lot of overhead. But probably that’s asking too much of you, so tackle Bassett and get him to sell it.’
‘Well, I’ll do my best. I know how much Uncle Tom covets that statuette. Rely on me, Aunt Dahlia.’
‘That’s my boy.’
I returned to the drawing-room in somewhat pensive mood, for my relations with Pop Bassett were such that it was going to be embarrassing trying to do business with him, but I was relieved that the aged relative had dismissed the idea of purloining the thing. Surprised, too, as well as relieved, because the stern lesson association with her over the years has taught me is that when she wants to do a loved husband a good turn, she is seldom fussy about the methods employed to that end. It was she who had initiated, if that’s the word I want, the theft of the cow-creamer, and you would have thought she would have wanted to save money on the current deal. Her view has always been that if a collector pinches something from another collector, it doesn’t count as stealing, and of course there may be something in it. Pop Bassett, when at Brinkley, would unquestionably have looted Uncle Tom’s collection, had he not been closely watched. These collectors have about as much conscience as the smash-and-grab fellows for whom the police are always spreading dragnets.
The Jeeves Omnibus - Vol 4: (Jeeves & Wooster): No.4 Page 48