I saw that to reveal the full story would be to complicate an already fairly well complicated situation. I touched, accordingly, on only one aspect of it.
‘Stiffy had just told him she wanted to marry the curate.’
‘Stephanie? The curate? Mr Pinker?’
‘That’s right. Old Stinker Pinker. And it churned him up a good deal. He appears to be a bit allergic to curates.’
She was breathing emotionally, like the dog Bartholomew just after he had finished eating the candle.
‘But … But …’
‘Yes?’
‘But does Stephanie love Mr Pinker?’
‘Oh, rather. No question about that.’
‘But then –’
I saw what was in her mind, and nipped in promptly.
‘Then there can’t be anything between her and Gussie, you were going to say? Exactly. This proves it, doesn’t it? That’s the very point I’ve been trying to work the conversation round to from the start.’
‘But he –’
‘Yes, I know he did. But his motives in doing so were as pure as the driven snow. Purer, if anything. I’ll tell you all about it, and I am prepared to give you a hundred to eight that when I have finished you will admit that he was more to be pitied than censured.’
Give Bertram Wooster a good, clear story to unfold, and he can narrate it well. Starting at the beginning with Gussie’s aghastness at the prospect of having to make a speech at the wedding breakfast, I took her step by step through the subsequent developments, and I may say that I was as limpid as dammit. By the time I had reached the final chapter, I had her a bit squiggle-eyed but definitely wavering on the edge of conviction.
‘And you say Stephanie has hidden this notebook in Daddy’s cow-creamer?’
‘Plumb spang in the cow-creamer.’
‘But I never heard such an extraordinary story in my life.’
‘Bizarre, yes, but quite capable of being swallowed, don’t you think? What you have got to take into consideration is the psychology of the individual. You may say that you wouldn’t have a psychology like Stiffy’s if you were paid for it, but it’s hers all right.’
‘Are you sure you are not making all this up, Bertie?’
‘Why on earth?’
‘I know your altruistic nature so well.’
‘Oh, I see what you mean. No, rather not. This is the straight official stuff. Don’t you believe it?’
‘I shall, if I find the notebook where you say Stephanie put it. I think I had better go and look.’
‘I would.’
‘I will.’
‘Fine.’
She hurried out, and I sat down at the piano and began to play ‘Happy Days are Here Again’ with one finger. It was the only method of self-expression that seemed to present itself. I would have preferred to get outside a curried egg or two, for the strain had left me weak, but, as I have said, there were no curried eggs present.
I was profoundly braced. I felt like some Marathon runner who, after sweating himself to the bone for hours, at length breasts the tape. The only thing that kept my bracedness from being absolutely unmixed was the lurking thought that in this ill-omened house there was always the chance of something unforeseen suddenly popping up to mar the happy ending. I somehow couldn’t see Totleigh Towers throwing in the towel quite so readily as it appeared to be doing. It must, I felt, have something up its sleeve.
Nor was I wrong. When Madeline Bassett returned a few minutes later, there was no notebook in her hand. She reported total inability to discover so much as a trace of a notebook in the spot indicated. And, I gathered from her remarks, she had ceased entirely to be a believer in that notebook’s existence.
I don’t know if you have ever had a bucket of cold water right in the mazzard. I received one once in my boyhood through the agency of a groom with whom I had had some difference of opinion. That same feeling of being knocked endways came over me now.
I was at a loss and nonplussed. As Constable Oates had said, the first move the knowledgeable bloke makes when rummy goings-on are in progress is to try to spot the motive, and what Stiffy’s motive could be for saying the notebook was in the cow-creamer, when it wasn’t, I was unable to fathom. With a firm hand this girl had pulled my leg, but why – that was the point that baffled – why had she pulled my leg?
I did my best.
‘Are you sure you really looked?’
‘Perfectly sure.’
‘I mean, carefully.’
‘Very carefully.’
‘Stiffy certainly swore it was there.’
‘Indeed?’
‘How do you mean, indeed?’
‘If you want to know what I mean, I do not believe there ever was a notebook.’
‘You don’t credit my story?’
‘No, I do not.’
Well, after that, of course, there didn’t seem much to say. I may have said ‘Oh?’ or something along those lines – I’m not sure – but if I did, that let me out. I edged to the door, and pushed off in a sort of daze, pondering.
You know how it is when you ponder. You become absorbed, concentrated. Outside phenomena do not register on the what-is-it. I suppose I was fully half-way along the passage leading to my bedroom before the beastly row that was going on there penetrated to my consciousness, causing me to stop, look and listen.
This row to which I refer was a kind of banging row, as if somebody were banging on something. And I had scarcely said to myself ‘What ho, a banger!’ when I saw who this banger was. It was Roderick Spode, and what he was banging on was the door of Gussie’s bedroom. As I came up, he was in the act of delivering another buffet on the woodwork.
The spectacle had an immediate tranquillizing effect on my jangled nervous system. I felt a new man. And I’ll tell you why.
Everyone, I suppose, has experienced the sensation of comfort and relief which comes when you are being given the run-around by forces beyond your control and suddenly discover someone on whom you can work off the pent-up feelings. The merchant prince, when things are going wrong, takes it out of the junior clerk. The junior clerk goes and ticks off the office boy. The office boy kicks the cat. The cat steps down the street to find a smaller cat, which in its turn, the interview concluded, starts scouring the countryside for a mouse.
It was so with me now. Snootered to bursting point by Pop Bassetts and Madeline Bassetts and Stiffy Byngs and what not, and hounded like the dickens by a remorseless Fate, I found solace in the thought that I could still slip it across Roderick Spode.
‘Spode!’ I cried sharply.
He paused with lifted fist and turned an inflamed face in my direction. Then, as he saw who had spoken, the red light died out of his eyes. He wilted obsequiously.
‘Well, Spode, what is all this?’
‘Oh, hallo, Wooster. Nice evening.’
I proceeded to work off the pent-up f.
‘Never mind what sort of an evening it is,’ I said. ‘Upon my word, Spode, this is too much. This is just that little bit above the odds which compels a man to take drastic steps.’
‘But, Wooster –’
‘What do you mean by disturbing the house with this abominable uproar? Have you forgotten already what I told you about checking this disposition of yours to run amok like a raging hippopotamus? I should have thought that after what I said you would have spent the remainder of the evening curled up with a good book. But no. I find you renewing your efforts to assault and batter my friends. I must warn you, Spode, that my patience is not inexhaustible.’
‘But, Wooster, you don’t understand.’
‘What don’t I understand?’
‘You don’t know the provocation I have received from this pop-eyed Fink-Nottle.’ A wistful look came into his face. ‘I must break his neck.’
‘You are not going to break his neck.’
‘Well, shake him like a rat.’
‘Nor shake him like a rat.’
‘But he says I’m a pom
pous ass.’
‘When did Gussie say that to you?’
‘He didn’t exactly say it. He wrote it. Here it is.’
Before my bulging eyes he produced from his pocket a small, brown, leather-covered notebook.
Harking back to Archimedes just once more, Jeeves’s description of him discovering the principle of displacement, though brief, had made a deep impression on me, bringing before my eyes a very vivid picture of what must have happened on that occasion. I had been able to see the man testing the bath water with his toe … stepping in … immersing the frame. I had accompanied him in spirit through all the subsequent formalities – the soaping of the loofah, the shampooing of the head, the burst of song …
And then, abruptly, as he climbs towards the high note, there is a silence. His voice has died away. Through the streaming suds you can see that his eyes are glowing with a strange light. The loofah falls from his grasp, disregarded. He utters a triumphant cry. ‘Got it! What ho! The principle of displacement!’ And he leaps, feeling like a million dollars.
In precisely the same manner did the miraculous appearance of this notebook affect me. There was that identical moment of stunned silence, followed by the triumphant cry. And I have no doubt that, as I stretched out a compelling hand, my eyes were glowing with a strange light.
‘Give me that book, Spode!’
‘Yes, I would like you to look at it, Wooster. Then you will see what I mean. I came upon this,’ he said, ‘in rather a remarkable way. The thought crossed my mind that Sir Watkyn might feel happier if I were to take charge of that cow-creamer of his. There have been a lot of burglaries in the neighbourhood,’ he added hastily, ‘a lot of burglaries, and those french windows are never really safe. So I – er – went to the collection-room, and took it out of its case. I was surprised to hear something bumping about inside it. I opened it, and found this book. Look,’ he said, pointing a banana-like finger over my shoulder. ‘There is what he says about the way I eat asparagus.’
I think Roderick Spode’s idea was that we were going to pore over the pages together. When he saw me slip the volume into my pocket, I sensed the feeling of bereavement.
‘Are you going to keep the book, Wooster?’
‘I am.’
‘But I wanted to show it to Sir Watkyn. There’s a lot about him in it, too.’
‘We will not cause Sir Watkyn needless pain, Spode.’
‘Perhaps you’re right. Then I’ll be getting on with breaking this door down?’
‘Certainly not,’ I said sternly. ‘All you do is pop off.’
‘Pop off?’
‘Pop off. Leave me, Spode. I would be alone.’
I watched him disappear round the bend, then rapped vigorously on the door.
‘Gussie.’
No reply.
‘Gussie, come out.’
‘I’m dashed if I do.’
‘Come out, you ass. Wooster speaking.’
But even this did not produce immediate results. He explained later that he was under the impression that it was Spode giving a cunning imitation of my voice. But eventually I convinced him that this was indeed the boyhood friend and no other, and there came the sound of furniture being dragged away, and presently the door opened and his head emerged cautiously, like that of a snail taking a look round after a thunderstorm.
Into the emotional scene which followed I need not go in detail. You will have witnessed much the same sort of thing in the pictures, when the United States Marines arrive in the nick of time to relieve the beleaguered garrison. I may sum it up by saying that he fawned upon me. He seemed to be under the impression that I had worsted Roderick Spode in personal combat and it wasn’t worthwhile to correct it. Pressing the notebook into his hand, I sent him off to show it to Madeline Bassett, and proceeded to my room.
Jeeves was there, messing about at some professional task.
It had been my intention, on seeing this man again, to put him through it in no uncertain fashion for having subjected me to the tense nervous strain of my recent interview with Pop Bassett. But now I greeted him with the cordial smile rather than the acid glare. After all, I told myself, his scheme had dragged home the gravy, and in any case this was no moment for recriminations. Wellington didn’t go about ticking people off after the battle of Waterloo. He slapped their backs and stood them drinks.
‘Aha, Jeeves! You’re there, are you?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Well, Jeeves, you may start packing the effects.’
‘Sir?’
‘For the homeward trip. We leave tomorrow.’
‘You are not proposing, then, sir, to extend your stay at Totleigh Towers?’
I laughed one of my gay, jolly ones.
‘Don’t ask foolish questions, Jeeves. Is Totleigh Towers a place where people extend their stays, if they haven’t got to? And there is now no longer any necessity for me to linger on the premises. My work is done. We leave first thing tomorrow morning. Start packing, therefore, so that we shall be in a position to get off the mark without an instant’s delay. It won’t take you long?’
‘No, sir. There are merely two suitcases.’
He hauled them from beneath the bed, and opening the larger of the brace began to sling coats and things into it, while I, seating myself in the armchair, proceeded to put him abreast of recent events.
‘Well, Jeeves, that plan of yours worked all right.’
‘I am most gratified to hear it, sir.’
‘I don’t say that the scene won’t haunt me in my dreams for some little time to come. I make no comment on your having let me in for such a thing. I merely state that it proved a winner. An uncle’s blessing came popping out like a cork out of a champagne bottle, and Stiffy and Stinker are headed for the altar rails with no more fences ahead.’
‘Extremely satisfactory, sir. Then Sir Watkyn’s reactions were as we had anticipated?’
‘If anything, more so. I don’t know if you have ever seen a stout bark buffeted by the waves?’
‘No, sir. My visits to the seaside have always been made in clement weather.’
‘Well, that was what he resembled on being informed by me that I wanted to become his nephew by marriage. He looked and behaved like the Wreck of the Hesperus. You remember? It sailed the wintry sea, and the skipper had taken his little daughter to bear him company.’
‘Yes, sir. Blue were her eyes as the fairy-flax, her cheeks like the dawn of day, and her bosom was white as the hawthorn buds that open in the month of May.’
‘Quite. Well, as I was saying, he reeled beneath the blow and let water in at every seam. And when Stiffy appeared, and told him that it was all a mistake and that the promesso sposo was in reality old Stinker Pinker, his relief knew no bounds. He instantly gave his sanction to their union. Could hardly get the words out quick enough. But why am I wasting time telling you all this, Jeeves? A mere side issue. Here’s the real front-page stuff. Here’s the news that will shock the chancelleries. I’ve got that notebook.’
‘Indeed, sir?’
‘Yes, absolutely got it. I found Spode with it and took it away from him, and Gussie is even now showing it to Miss Bassett and clearing his name of the stigma that rested upon it. I shouldn’t be surprised if at this very moment they were locked in a close embrace.’
‘A consummation devoutly to be wished, sir.’
‘You said it, Jeeves.’
‘Then you have nothing to cause you further concern, sir.’
‘Nothing. The relief is stupendous. I feel as if a great weight had been rolled from my shoulders. I could dance and sing. I think there can be no question that exhibiting that notebook will do the trick.’
‘None, I should imagine, sir.’
‘I say, Bertie,’ said Gussie, trickling in at this juncture with the air of one who has been passed through a wringer, ‘a most frightful thing has happened. The wedding’s off.’
11
* * *
I STARED AT the man,
clutching the brow and rocking on my base.
‘Off?’
‘Yes.’
‘Your wedding?’
‘Yes.’
‘It’s off?’
‘Yes.’
‘What – off?’
‘Yes.’
I don’t know what the Mona Lisa would have done in my place. Probably just what I did.
‘Jeeves,’ I said. ‘Brandy.’
‘Very good, sir.’
He rolled away on his errand of mercy, and I turned to Gussie, who was tacking about the room in a dazed manner, as if filling in the time before starting to pluck straws from his hair.
‘I can’t bear it!’ I heard him mutter. ‘Life without Madeline won’t be worth living.’
It was an astounding attitude, of course, but you can’t argue about fellows’ tastes. One man’s peach is another man’s poison, and vice versa. Even my Aunt Agatha, I remembered, had roused the red-hot spark of pash in the late Spenser Gregson.
His wandering had taken him to the bed, and I saw that he was looking at the knotted sheet which lay there.
‘I suppose,’ he said, in an absent, soliloquizing voice, ‘a chap could hang himself with that.’
I resolved to put a stopper on this trend of thought promptly. I had got more or less used by now to my bedroom being treated as a sort of meeting-place of the nations, but I was dashed if I was going to have it turned into the spot marked with an X. It was a point on which I felt strongly.
‘You aren’t going to hang yourself here.’
‘I shall have to hang myself somewhere.’
‘Well, you don’t hang yourself in my bedroom.’
He raised his eyebrows.
‘Have you any objection to my sitting in your armchair?’
The Jeeves Omnibus - Vol 1: Page 40