He left me, as you may imagine, in something of a twitter. Bertram Wooster, as is well known, is intrepid and it takes a lot to scare the pants off him. But his talk of native bearers who had to be buried before sundown had caused me not a little anxiety. Nor did the first sight of E. Jimpson Murgatroyd do anything to put me at my ease. Tipton had warned me that he was a gloomy old buster, and a gloomy old buster was what he proved to be. He had sad, brooding eyes and long whiskers, and his resemblance to a frog which had been looking on the dark side since it was a slip of a tadpole sent my spirits right down into the basement.
However, as so often happens when you get to know a fellow better, he turned out to be not nearly as pessimistic a Gawd-help-us as he appeared to be at first sight. By the time he had weighed me and tied that rubber thing round my biceps and felt my pulse and tapped me all over like a whiskered woodpecker he had quite brightened up and words of good cheer were pouring out of him like ginger beer from a bottle.
‘I don’t think you have much to worry about,’ he said.
‘You don’t?’ I said, considerably bucked up. ‘Then it isn’t sprue or schistosomiasis?’
‘Of course it is not. What gave you the idea it might be?’
‘Major Plank said it might. The chap who was in here before me.’
‘You shouldn’t listen to people, especially Plank. We were at school together. Barmy Plank we used to call him. No, the spots are of no importance. They will disappear in a few days.’
‘Well, that’s a relief,’ I said, and he said he was glad I was pleased.
‘But,’ he added.
This chipped a bit off my joie de vivre.
‘But what?’
He was looking like a minor prophet about to rebuke the sins of the people – it was the whiskers that did it mostly, though the eyebrows helped. I forgot to mention that he had bushy eyebrows – and I could see that this was where I got the bad news.
‘Mr Wooster,’ he said, ‘you are a typical young man about town.’
‘Oh, thanks,’ I responded, for it sounded like a compliment, and one always likes to say the civil thing.
‘And like all young men of your type you pay no attention to your health. You drink too much.’
‘Only at times of special revelry. Last night, for instance, I was helping a pal to celebrate the happy conclusion of love’s young dream, and it may be that I became a mite polluted, but that rarely happens. One Martini Wooster, some people call me.’
He paid no attention to my frank manly statement, but carried on regardless.
‘You smoke too much. You stay up too late at night. You don’t get enough exercise. At your age you ought to be playing Rugby football for the old boys of your school.’
‘I didn’t go to a Rugger school.’
‘Where did you go?’
‘Eton.’
‘Oh,’ he said, and he said it as if he didn’t think much of Eton. ‘Well, there you are. You do all the things I have said. You abuse your health in a hundred ways. Total collapse may come at any moment.’
‘At any moment?’ I quavered.
‘At any moment. Unless—’
‘Unless?’ Now, I felt, he was talking.
‘Unless you give up this unwholesome London life. Go to the country. Breathe pure air. Go to bed early. And get plenty of exercise. If you do not do this, I cannot answer for the consequences.’
He had shaken me. When a doctor, even if whiskered, tells you he cannot answer for the consequences, that’s strong stuff. But I was not dismayed, because I had spotted a way of following his advice without anguish. Bertram Wooster is like that. He thinks on his feet.
‘Would it be all right,’ I asked, ‘if I went to stay with my aunt in Worcestershire?’
He weighed the question, scratching his nose with his stethoscope. He had been doing this at intervals during our get-together, being evidently one of the scratchers, like Barbara Frietchie. The poet Nash would have taken to him.
‘I see no objection to your staying with your aunt, provided the conditions are right. Whereabouts in Worcestershire does she live?’
‘Near a town called Market Snodsbury.’
‘Is the air pure there?’
‘Excursion trains are run for people to breathe it.’
‘Your life would be quiet?’
‘Practically unconscious.’
‘No late hours?’
‘None. The early dinner, the restful spell with a good book or the crossword puzzle and so to bed.’
‘Then by all means do as you suggest.’
‘Splendid. I’ll ring her up right away.’
The aunt to whom I alluded was my good and deserving Aunt Dahlia, not to be confused with my Aunt Agatha who eats broken bottles and is strongly suspected of turning into a werewolf at the time of the full moon. Aunt Dahlia is as good a sort as ever said ‘Tally Ho’ to a fox, which she frequently did in her younger days when out with the Quorn or Pytchley. If she ever turned into a werewolf, it would be one of those jolly breezy werewolves whom it is a pleasure to know.
It was very satisfactory that he had given me the green light without probing further, for an extended quiz might have revealed that Aunt Dahlia has a French cook who defies competition, and I need scarcely explain that the first thing a doctor does when you tell him you are going to a house where there’s a French cook is to put you on a diet.
‘Then that’s that,’ I said, all buck and joviality. ‘Many thanks for your sympathetic cooperation. Lovely weather we are having, are we not? Good morning, good morning, good morning.’
And I slipped him a purse of gold and went off to phone Aunt Dahlia. I had given up all idea of driving to Brighton for lunch. I had stern work before me – viz. cadging an invitation from this aunt, sometimes a tricky task. In her darker moods, when some domestic upheaval is troubling her, she has been known to ask me if I have a home of my own and, if I have, why the hell I don’t stay in it.
I got her after the delays inseparable from telephoning a remote hamlet like Market Snodsbury, where the operators are recruited exclusively from the Worcestershire branch of the Jukes family.
‘Hullo, aged relative,’ I began, as suavely as I could manage.
‘Hullo to you, you young blot on Western civilization,’ she responded in the ringing tones with which she had once rebuked hounds for taking time off to chase rabbits. ‘What’s on your mind, if any? Talk quick, because I’m packing.’
I didn’t like the sound of this.
‘Packing?’ I said. ‘Are you going somewhere?’
‘Yes, to Somerset, to stay with friends of mine, the Briscoes.’
‘Oh, curses.’
‘Why?’
‘I was hoping I might come to you for a short visit.’
‘Well, sucks to you, young Bertie, you can’t. Unless you’d like to rally round and keep Tom company.’
I h’m-ed at this. I am very fond of Uncle Tom, but the idea of being cooped up alone with him in his cabin didn’t appeal to me. He collects old silver and is apt to hold you with a glittering eye and talk your head off about sconces and foliations and gadroon borders, and my interest in these is what you might call tepid. ‘No,’ I said. ‘Thanks for the kind invitation, but I think I’ll take a cottage somewhere.’
Her next words showed that she had failed to grasp the gist.
‘What is all this?’ she queried. ‘I don’t get it. Why have you got to go anywhere? Are you on the run from the police?’
‘Doctor’s orders.’
‘What are you talking about? You’ve always been as fit as ten fiddles.’
‘Until this morning, when spots appeared on my chest.’
‘Spots?’
‘Pink.’
‘Probably leprosy.’
‘The doc thinks not. His view is that they are caused by my being a typical young man about town who doesn’t go to bed early enough. He says I must leg it to the country and breathe pure air, so I shall need a cottage.’
‘With honeysuckle climbing over the door and old Mister Moon peeping in through the window?’
‘That sort of thing. Any idea how one sets about getting a cottage of that description?’
‘I’ll find you one. Jimmy Briscoe has dozens. And Maiden Eggesford, where he lives, is not far from the popular seaside resort of Bridmouth-on-Sea, notorious for its invigorating air. Corpses at Bridmouth-on-Sea leap from their biers and dance round the maypole.’
‘Sounds good.’
‘I’ll drop you a line when I’ve got the cottage. You’ll like Maiden Eggesford. Jimmy has a racing stable, and there’s a big meeting coming on soon at Bridmouth; so you’ll have not only pure air but entertainment. One of Jimmy’s horses is running, and most of the wise money is on it, though there is a school of thought that maintains that danger is to be expected from a horse belonging to a Mr Cook. And now for heaven’s sake get off the wire. I’m busy.’
So far, I said to myself as I put back the receiver, so g. I would have preferred, of course, to be going to the aged relative’s home, where Anatole her superb chef dished up his mouth-waterers, but we Woosters can rough it, and life in a country cottage with the aged r just around the corner would be a very different thing from a country c without her to come through with conversation calculated to instruct, elevate and amuse.
All that remained now was to break the news to Jeeves, and I rather shrank from the prospect.
You see, we had practically settled on a visit to New York, and I knew he was looking forward to it. I don’t know what he does in New York, but whatever it is it’s something he gets a big kick out of, and disappointment, I feared, would be inevitable.
‘Jeeves,’ I said when I had returned to the Wooster G.H.Q., ‘I’m afraid I have bad news.’
‘Indeed, sir? I am sorry to hear that.’
One of his eyebrows had risen about an eighth of an inch, and I knew he was deeply stirred, because I had rarely seen him raise an eyebrow more than a sixteenth of an inch. He had, of course, leaped to the conclusion that I was about to tell him that the medicine man had given me three months to live, or possibly two. ‘Mr Murgatroyd’s diagnosis was not encouraging?’
I hastened to relieve his apprehensions.
‘Yes, as a matter of fact it was. Most encouraging. He said the spots qua spots … Is it qua?’
‘Perfectly correct, sir.’
‘His verdict was that the spots qua spots didn’t amount to a row of beans and could be disregarded. They will pass by me like the idle wind which I respect not.’
‘Extremely gratifying, sir.’
‘Extremely, as you say. But pause before you go out and dance in the streets, because there’s more to come. It was to this that I was alluding when I said I had bad news. I’ve got to withdraw to the country and lead a quiet life. He says if I don’t, he cannot answer for the consequences. So I’m afraid New York is off.’
It must have been a severe blow, but he bore it with the easy nonchalance of a Red Indian at the stake. Not a cry escaped him, merely an ‘Indeed, sir?’, and I tried to point out the bright side.
‘It’s a disappointment for you, but it’s probably an excellent thing. Everybody in New York is getting mugged these days or shot by youths, and being mugged and shot by youths doesn’t do a fellow any good. We shall avoid all that sort of thing at Maiden Eggesford.’
‘Sir?’
‘Down in Somerset. Aunt Dahlia is visiting friends there and is going to get me a cottage. It’s near Bridmouth-on-Sea. Have you ever been to Bridmouth?’
‘Frequently, sir, in my boyhood, and I know Maiden Eggesford well. An aunt of mine lives there.’
‘And an aunt of mine is going there. What a coincidence.’
I spoke blithely, for this obviously made everything hotsy-totsy. He had probably been looking on beetling off to the country as going into the wilderness, and the ecstasy of finding that the first thing he would set eyes on would be a loved aunt must have been terrific.
So that was that. And having got the bad news broken, I felt at liberty to turn the conversation to other topics, and I thought he would be interested in hearing about my encounter with Plank.
‘I got a shock at the doc’s, Jeeves.’
‘Indeed, sir?’
‘Do you remember Major Plank?’
‘The name seems vaguely familiar, sir, but only vaguely.’
‘Throw the mind back. The explorer bloke who accused me of trying to chisel him out of five quid and was going to call the police, and you came along and said you were Inspector Witherspoon of Scotland Yard and that I was a notorious crook whom you had been after for ages, and I was known as Alpine Joe because I always wore an Alpine hat. And you took me away.’
‘Ah, yes, sir, I remember now.’
‘I ran into him this morning. He remembered my face, but nothing more except that he said he knew my name began with Al.’
‘A most unnerving experience, sir.’
‘Yes, it rattled me more than somewhat. It’s a great relief to think that I shall never see him again.’
‘I can readily understand your feelings, sir.’
In due course Aunt Dahlia rang to say that she had got a cottage for me and to let her know what day I would be arriving.
And so began what I suppose my biographers will refer to as The Maiden Eggesford Horror – or possibly The Curious Case Of The Cat Which Kept Popping Up When Least Expected.
4
* * *
I LEFT FOR Maiden Eggesford a couple of days later in the old two-seater. Jeeves had gone on ahead with the luggage and would be there to greet me on my arrival, no doubt all braced and refreshed from communing with his aunt.
It was in jocund mood that I set forth. There were rather more astigmatic loonies sharing the road with me than I could have wished, but that did nothing to diminish my euphoria, as I have heard it called. The weather couldn’t have been better, blue skies and sunshine all over the place, and to put the frosting on the cake E. Jimpson Murgatroyd had been one hundred per cent right about the spots. They had completely disappeared, leaving not a wrack behind, and the skin on my chest was back to its normal alabaster.
I reached journey’s end at about the hour of the evening cocktail and got my first glimpse of the rural haven which was to be the Wooster home for I didn’t know how long.
Well, I had had a sort of idea that there would be what they call subtle but well-marked differences between Maiden Eggesford and such resorts as Paris and Monte Carlo, and a glance told me I had not erred. It was one of those villages where there isn’t much to do except walk down the main street and look at the Jubilee watering-trough and then walk up the main street and look at the Jubilee watering-trough from the other side. E. Jimpson Murgatroyd would have been all for it. ‘Oh, boy,’ I could hear him saying, ‘this is the stuff to give the typical young man about town.’ The air, as far as I could tell from the first few puffs, seemed about as pure as could be expected, and I looked forward to a healthy and invigorating stay.
The only thing wrong with the place was that it appeared to be haunted, for as I alighted from the car I distinctly saw the phantasm or wraith of Major Plank. It was coming out of the local inn, the Goose and Grasshopper, and as I gazed at it with bulging eyes it vanished round a corner, leaving me, I need scarcely say, in something of a twitter. I am not, as I mentioned earlier, a fussy man, but nobody likes to have spectres horsing around, and for a while my jocund mood became a bit blue about the edges.
I speedily pulled myself together. ’Twas but a momentary illusion, I said to myself. I reasoned the thing out. If Plank had come to a sticky end since I had seen him last and had started on a haunting career, I said to myself, why should he be haunting Maiden Eggesford when the whole of equatorial Africa was open to him? He would be much happier scaring the daylights out of natives whom he had cause to dislike – the widows and surviving relatives of the late chief of the ‘Mgombis, for instance.
Forti
fied by these reflections, I went into the cottage.
A glance told me it was all right. I think it must have been built for an artist or somebody like that, for it had all the modern cons including electric light and the telephone, being in fact more a desirable bijou residence than a cottage.
Jeeves was there, and he brought me a much-needed refresher – in deference to E. Jimpson Murgatroyd a dry ginger ale. Sipping it, I decided to confide in him, for in spite of the clarity with which I had reasoned with myself I was still not altogether convinced that what I had seen had not been a phantom. True, it had looked solid enough, but I believe the best ghosts often do.
‘Most extraordinary thing, Jeeves,’ I said, ‘I could have sworn I saw Major Plank coming out of the pub just now.’
‘No doubt you did, sir. Major Plank would be quite likely to come to the village. He is the guest of Mr Cook of Eggesford Court.’
You could have knocked me down with a cheese straw.
‘You mean he’s here?’
‘Yes, sir.’
I was astounded. When he had told me he was off to the country, I had naturally assumed that he meant he was returning to his home in Gloucestershire. Not, of course, that there’s any reason why someone who lives in Gloucestershire shouldn’t visit Somerset. Aunt Dahlia lives in Worcestershire, and she was visiting Somerset. You have to look at these things from every angle.
Nevertheless, I was perturbed.
‘I’m not sure I like this, Jeeves.’
‘No, sir?’
‘He may remember what our last meeting was all about.’
‘It should not be difficult to avoid him, sir.’
‘Something in that. Still, what you say has given me a shock. Plank is the last person I want in my neighbourhood. I think, as my nervous system has rather taken the knock, we might discard this ginger ale and substitute for it a dry Martini.’
‘Very good, sir.’
‘Murgatroyd will never know.’
‘Precisely, sir.’
And so, having breathed considerable quantities of pure air and taken a couple of refreshing looks at the Jubilee watering-trough, to bed early, as recommended by E. Jimpson Murgatroyd.
The Jeeves Omnibus – Vol 5 Page 19