I was aware for a moment of Stinker’s face peering down at me; then he turned away.
‘There’s nothing behind the sofa,’ he said, very decently imperilling his immortal soul by falsifying the facts on behalf of a pal.
‘Thought it might be a dog being sick,’ said Plank.
And I suppose it had sounded rather like that. The revelation of Jeeves’s black treachery had shaken me to my foundations, causing me to forget that in the existing circs silence was golden. A silly thing to do, of course, to gasp like that, but, dash it, if for years you have nursed a gentleman’s personal gentleman in your bosom and out of a blue sky you find that he has deliberately sicked Brazilian explorers on to you, I maintain that you’re fully entitled to behave like a dog in the throes of nausea. I could make nothing of his scurvy conduct, and was so stunned that for a minute or two I lost the thread of the conversation. When the mists cleared, Plank was speaking, and the subject had been changed.
‘I wonder how Bassett is getting on with that daughter of his. Do you know anything of this chap Wooster?’
‘He’s one of my best friends.’
‘Bassett doesn’t seem too fond of him.’
‘No.’
‘Ah well, we all have our likes and dislikes. Which of the two girls is this Madeline he was speaking of? I’ve never met them, but I’ve seen them around. Is she the little squirt with the large blue eyes?’
I should imagine Stinker didn’t care overmuch for hearing his loved one described as a little squirt, though reason must have told him that that was precisely what she was, but he replied without heat.
‘No, that’s Sir Watkyn’s niece, Stephanie Byng.’
‘Byng? Now why does that name seem to ring a bell? Oh yes, of course. Old Johnny Byng, who was with me on one of my expeditions. Red-haired fellow, haven’t seen him for years. He was bitten by a puma, poor chap, and they tell me he still hesitates in a rather noticeable manner before sitting down. Stephanie Byng, eh? You know her, of course?’
‘Very well.’
‘Nice girl?’
‘That’s how she seems to me, and if you don’t mind, I’ll be going and telling her the good news.’
‘What good news?’
‘About the vicarage.’
‘Oh, ah, yes. You think she’ll be interested?’
‘I’m sure she will. We’re going to be married.’
‘Good God! No chance of getting out of it?’
‘I don’t want to get out of it.’
‘Amazing! I once hitch-hiked all the way from Johannesburg to Cape Town to avoid getting married, and here you are seeming quite pleased at the prospect. Oh well, no accounting for tastes. All right, you run along. And I suppose I’d better have a word with Bassett before I leave. Fellow bores me stiff, but one has to be civil.’
The door closed and silence fell, and after waiting a few minutes, just in case, I felt it was safe to surface. And I had just done so and was limbering up the limbs, which had become somewhat cramped, when the door opened and Jeeves came in carrying a tray.
21
* * *
‘GOOD EVENING, SIR’, he said. ‘Would you care for an appetizer? I was obliging Mr. Butterfield by bringing them. He is engaged at the moment in listening at the door of the room where Sir Watkyn is in conference with Miss Bassett. He tells me he is compiling his Memoirs, never misses an opportunity of gathering suitable material.’
I gave the man one of my looks. My face was cold and hard, like a School Treat egg. I can’t remember a time when I’ve been fuller of righteous indignation.
‘What I want, Jeeves, is not a slab of wet bread with a dead sardine on it –’
‘Anchovy, sir.’
‘Or anchovy. I am in no mood to split straws. I require an explanation, and a categorical one, at that.’
‘Sir?’
‘You can’t evade the issue by saying “Sir?”. Answer me this, Jeeves, with a simple Yes or No. Why did you tell Plank to come to Totleigh Towers?’
I thought the query would crumple him up like a damp sock, but he didn’t so much as shuffle a foot.
‘My heart was melted by Miss Byng’s tale of her misfortunes, sir. I chanced to encounter the young lady and found her in a state of considerable despondency as the result of Sir Watkyn’s refusal to bestow a vicarage on Mr. Pinker. I perceived immediately that it was within my power to alleviate her distress. I had learned at the post office at Hockley-cum-Meston that the incumbent there was retiring shortly, and being cognizant of Major Plank’s desire to strengthen the Hockley-cum-Meston forward line, I felt that it would be an excellent idea to place him in communication with Mr. Pinker. In order to be in a position to marry Miss Byng, Mr. Pinker requires a vicarage, and in order to compete successfully with rival villages in the football arena Major Plank is in need of a vicar with Mr. Pinker’s wide experience as a prop forward. Their interests appeared to me to be identical.’
‘Well, it worked all right. Stinker has clicked.’
‘He is to succeed Mr. Bellamy as incumbent at Hockley-cum-Meston?’
‘As soon as Bellamy calls it a day.’
‘I am very happy to hear it, sir.’
I didn’t reply for a while, being obliged to attend to a sudden touch of cramp.
This ironed out, I said, still icy:
‘You may be happy, but I haven’t been for the last quarter of an hour or so, nestling behind the sofa and expecting Plank at any moment to unmask me. It didn’t occur to you to envisage what would happen if he met me?’
‘I was sure that your keen intelligence would enable you to find a means of avoiding him, sir, as indeed it did. You concealed yourself behind the sofa?’
‘On all fours.’
‘A very shrewd manoeuvre on your part, if I may say so, sir. It showed a resource and swiftness of thought which it would be difficult to overpraise.’
My iciness melted. It is not too much to say that I was mollified. It’s not often that I’m given the old oil in this fashion, most of my circle, notably my Aunt Agatha, being more prone to the slam than the rave. And it was only after I had been savouring that ‘keen intelligence’ gag, if savouring is the word I want, for some moments that I suddenly remembered that marriage with Madeline Bassett loomed ahead, and I gave a start so visible that he asked me if I was feeling unwell.
I shook the loaf.
‘Physically, no, Jeeves. Spiritually, yes.’
‘I do not quite understand you, sir.’
‘Well, here is the news, and this is Bertram Wooster reading it. I’m going to be married.’
‘Indeed, sir?’
‘Yes, Jeeves, married. The banns are as good as up.’
‘Would it be taking a liberty if I were to ask –’
‘Who to? You don’t need to ask. Gussie Fink-Nottle has eloped with Emerald Stoker, thus creating a … what is it?’
‘Would vacuum be the word you are seeking, sir?’
‘That’s right. A vacuum which I shall have to fill. Unless you can think of some way of getting me out of it.’
‘I will devote considerable thought to the matter, sir.’
‘Thank you, Jeeves,’ I said, and would have spoken further, but at this moment I saw the door opening and speechlessness supervened. But it wasn’t, as I had feared, Plank, it was only Stiffy.
‘Hullo, you two,’ she said. ‘I’m looking for Harold.’
I could see at a g. that Jeeves had been right in describing her demeanour as despondent. The brow was clouded and the general appearance that of an overwrought soul. I was glad to be in a position to inject a little sunshine into her life. Pigeon-holing my own troubles for future reference, I said:
‘He’s looking for you. He has a strange story to relate. You know about Plank?’
‘What about him?’
‘I’ll tell you what about him. Plank to you hitherto has been merely a shadowy figure who hangs out at Hockley-cum-Meston and sells black amber statuettes to people, but he
has another side to him.’
She betrayed a certain impatience.
‘If you think I’m interested in Plank –’
‘Aren’t you?’
‘No, I’m not.’
‘You will be. He has, as I was saying, another side to him. He is a landed proprietor with vicarages in his gift, and to cut a long story down to a short-short, as one always likes to do when possible, he has just given one to Stinker.’
I had been right in supposing that the information would have a marked effect on her dark mood. I have never actually seen a corpse spring from its bier and start being the life and soul of the party, but I should imagine that its deportment would closely resemble that of this young Byng as the impact of my words came home to her. A sudden light shot into her eyes, which, as Plank had correctly said, were large and blue, and an ecstatic ‘Well, Lord love a duck!’ escaped her. Then doubts seemed to creep in, for the eyes clouded over again.
‘Is this true?’
‘Absolutely official.’
‘You aren’t pulling my leg?’
I drew myself up rather haughtily.
‘I wouldn’t dream of pulling your leg. Do you think Bertram Wooster is the sort of chap who thinks it funny to raise people’s hopes, only to … what, Jeeves?’
‘Dash them to the ground, sir.’
‘Thank you, Jeeves.’
‘Not at all, sir.’
‘You may take this information as coming straight from the mouth of the stable cat. I was present when the deal went through. Behind the sofa, but present.’
She still seemed at a loss.
‘But I don’t understand. Plank has never met Harold.’
‘Jeeves brought them together.’
‘Did you, Jeeves?’
‘Yes, miss.’
‘’At-a-boy!’
‘Thank you, miss.’
‘And he’s really given Harold a vicarage?’
‘The vicarage of Hockley-cum-Meston. He’s embodying it in the form of a letter tonight. At the moment there’s a vicar still vicking, but he’s infirm and old and wants to turn it up as soon as they can put on an understudy. The way things look, I should imagine that we shall be able to unleash Stinker on the Hockley-cum-Meston souls in the course of the next few days.’
My simple words and earnest manner had resolved the last of her doubts. The misgivings she may have had as to whether this was the real ginger vanished. Her eyes shone more like twin stars than anything, and she uttered animal cries and danced a few dance steps. Presently she paused, and put a question.
‘What’s Plank like?’
‘How do you mean, what’s he like?’
‘He hasn’t a beard, has he?’
‘No, no beard.’
‘That’s good, because I want to kiss him, and if he had a beard, it would give me pause.’
‘Dismiss the notion,’ I urged, for Plank’s psychology was an open book to me. The whole trend of that confirmed bachelor’s conversation had left me with the impression that he would find it infinitely preferable to be spiked in the leg with a native dagger than to have popsies covering his upturned face with kisses. ‘He’d have a fit.’
‘Well, I must kiss somebody. Shall I kiss you, Jeeves?’
‘No, thank you, miss.’
‘You, Bertie?’
‘I’d rather you didn’t.’
‘Then I’ve a good mind to go and kiss Uncle Watkyn, louse of the first water though he has recently shown himself.’
‘How do you mean, recently?’
‘And having kissed him I shall tell him the news and taunt him vigorously with having let a good thing get away from him. I shall tell him that when he declined to avail himself of Harold’s services he was like the Indian.’
I did not get her drift.
‘What Indian?’
‘The base one my governesses used to make me read about, the poor simp whose hand … How does it go, Jeeves?’
‘Threw a pearl away richer than all his tribe, miss.’
‘That’s right. And I shall tell him I hope the vicar he does get will be a weed of a man who has a chronic cold in the head and bleats. Oh, by the way, talking of Uncle Watkyn reminds me. I shan’t have any use for this now.’
And so speaking she produced the black amber eyesore from the recesses of her costume like a conjuror taking a rabbit out of a hat.
22
* * *
IT WAS AS if she had suddenly exhibited a snake of the lowest order. I gazed at the thing, appalled. It needed but this to put the frosting on the cake.
‘Where did you get that?’ I asked in a voice that was low and trembled.
‘I pinched it.’
‘What on earth did you do that for?’
‘Perfectly simple. The idea was to go to Uncle Watkyn and tell him he wouldn’t get it back unless he did the square thing by Harold. Power politics, don’t they call it, Jeeves?’
‘Or blackmail, miss.’
‘Yes, or blackmail, I suppose. But you can’t be too nice in your methods when you’re dealing with the Uncle Watkyns of this world. But now that Plank has eased the situation and made our paths straight, of course I shan’t need it, and I suppose the shrewd thing is to return it to store before its absence is noted. Go and put it in the collection room, Bertie. Here’s the key.’
I recoiled as if she had offered me the dog Bartholomew. Priding myself as I do on being a preux chevalier, I like to oblige the delicately nurtured when it’s feasible, but there are moments when only a nolle prosequi will serve, and I recognized this as one of them. The thought of making the perilous passage she was suggesting gave me goose pimples.
‘I’m not going near the ruddy collection room. With my luck, I’d find your Uncle Watkyn there, arm in arm with Spode, and it wouldn’t be too easy to explain what I was doing there and how I’d got in. Besides, I can’t go roaming about the place with Plank on the premises.’
She laughed one of those silvery ones, a practice to which, as I have indicated, she was far too much addicted.
‘Jeeves told me about you and Plank. Very funny.’
‘I’m glad you think so. We personally were not amused.’
Jeeves, as always, found the way.
‘If you will give the object to me, miss, I will see that it is restored to its place.’
‘Thank you, Jeeves. Well, good-bye all. I’m off to find Harold,’ said Stiffy, and she withdrew, dancing on the tips of her toes.
I shrugged a shoulder.
‘Women, Jeeves!’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘What a sex!’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Do you remember something I said to you about Stiffy on our previous visit to Totleigh Towers?’
‘Not at the moment, no, sir.’
‘It was on the occasion when she landed me with Police Constable Oates’s helmet just as my room was about to be searched by Pop Bassett and his minions. Dipping into the future, I pointed out that Stiffy, who is pure padded cell from the foundations up, was planning to marry the Rev. H.P. Pinker, himself as pronounced a goop as ever preached about the Hivites and Hittites, and I speculated, if you recall, as to what their offspring, if any, would be like.’
‘Ah yes, sir, I recollect now.’
‘Would they, I asked myself, inherit the combined loopiness of two such parents?’
‘Yes, sir, you were particularly concerned, I recall, for the well-being of the nurses, governesses, private schoolmasters and public schoolmasters who would assume the charge of them.’
‘Little knowing that they were coming up against something hotter than mustard. Exactly. The thought still weighs heavy upon me. However, we haven’t leisure to go into the subject now. You’d better take that ghastly object back where it belongs without delay.’
‘Yes, sir. If it were done when ’twere done, then ’twere well it were done quickly,’ he said, making for the door, and I thought, as I had so often thought before, how neatly he put thes
e things.
It seemed to me that the time had now come to adopt the strategy which I had had in mind right at the beginning – viz. to make my getaway via the window. With Plank at large in the house and likely at any moment to come winging back to where the drinks were, safety could be obtained only by making for some distant yew alley or rhododendron walk and remaining ensconced there till he had blown over. I hastened to the window, accordingly, and picture my chagrin and dismay on finding that Bartholomew, instead of continuing his stroll, had decided to take a siesta on the grass immediately below. I had actually got one leg over the sill before he was drawn to my attention. In another half jiffy I should have dropped on him as the gentle rain from heaven upon the spot beneath.
I had no difficulty in recognizing the situation as what the French call an impasse, and as I stood pondering what to do for the best, footsteps sounded without, and feeling that ’twere well it were done quickly I made for the sofa once more, lowering my previous record by perhaps a split second.
I was surprised, as I lay nestling in my little nook, by the complete absence of dialogue that ensued. Hitherto, all my visitors had started chatting from the moment of their entry, and it struck me as odd that I should now be entertaining a couple of deaf mutes. Peeping cautiously out, however, I found that I had been mistaken in supposing that I had with me a brace of guests. It was Madeline alone who had blown in. She was heading for the piano, and something told me that it was her intention to sing old folk songs, a pastime to which, as I have indicated, she devoted not a little of her leisure. She was particularly given to indulgence in this nuisance when her soul had been undergoing an upheaval and required soothing, as of course it probably did at this juncture.
My fears were realized. She sang two in rapid succession, and the thought that this sort of thing would be a permanent feature of our married life chilled me to the core. I’ve always been what you might call allergic to old folk songs, and the older they are, the more I dislike them.
Fortunately, before she could start on a third she was interrupted. Clumping footsteps sounded, the door handle turned, heavy breathing made itself heard, and a voice said ‘Madeline!’ Spode’s voice, husky with emotion.
The Jeeves Omnibus - Vol 4: (Jeeves & Wooster): No.4 Page 51