‘Plank?’
‘Major Plank the explorer.’
‘What’s he got to do with it?’
‘Everything. You’ve probably heard of Major Plank.’
‘I haven’t.’
‘Well, he’s one of those chaps who have native bearers and things and go exploring. Who was it out in Africa somewhere who met the other fellow and presumed he was Doctor something? Plank is, or was, in the same line of business.’
A snort came over the wire, nearly fusing it.
‘Bertie,’ said the blood relation, now having taken aboard an adequate supply of air, ‘I am hampered by being at the other end of the telephone, but were I within reach of you I would give you one on the side of the head which you wouldn’t forget in a hurry. Tell me in a few simple words what you think you’re talking about.’
‘I’m talking about Plank. And what I’m trying to establish is that Plank, though an explorer, is not exploring now. He is staying with Cook at Eggesford Court.’
‘So what?’
‘So jolly well this. He dropped in on me shortly after Billy Graham had clocked in and left the cat. It was with Jeeves in the kitchen, having one for the tonsils. And while Plank was there it yowled, and Plank of course heard it. You don’t need to be told the upshot. Plank goes back to Cook, tells him he thought he heard a cat at Wooster’s address, and Cook, already suspicious of me after our unfortunate encounter, comes down here like a wolf on the fold, his cohorts all gleaming with purple and gold. I ought to add that I told Plank that the cat he heard was not a cat but Jeeves imitating cats, and he believed it all right because explorers are simple-minded bozos who believe everything they’re told, but will the story get over with Cook? Not a hope. There was nothing for me to do but tell Billy Graham to return the cat.’
I suppose one of the top-notch barristers could have put it more clearly, but not much more. She was silent for a space. Musing, no doubt, and weighing this against that. Finally she spoke.
‘I see.’
‘Good.’
‘You appear not to have been such a non-cooperative hellhound as I thought you were.’
‘Excellent.’
‘Sorry I ticked you off with such vigour.’
‘Quite all right, aged relative. Tout comprendre c’est tout pardonner.’
‘Yes, I suppose it was the only thing you could do. But don’t expect any hallelujahs from me. My whole plan of campaign has gone phut.’
‘Oh, I don’t know. Perhaps everything will be all right. Simla may win anyway.’
‘Yes, but one did like to feel that one was betting on a certainty. It’s no good trying to cheer me up. I feel awful.’
‘Me, too.’
‘What’s wrong with you?’
‘I’m engaged to be married to a girl I can’t stand the sight of.’
‘What, another? Who is it this time?’
‘Vanessa Cook.’
‘Any relation to old Cook?’
‘His daughter.’
‘How did it happen?’
‘I proposed to her a year ago, and she turned me down, and just now she blew in and said she had changed her mind and would marry me. Came as a nasty shock.’
‘You should have told her to go and boil her head.’
‘I couldn’t.’
‘Why couldn’t you?’
‘Not preux.’
‘Not what?’
‘Preux. P for potted meat, r for rissole, e for egg nog, and so on. You’ve heard of a preux chevalier? It is my aim to be one.’
‘Oh, well, if you go about being preux, you must expect to get into trouble. But I wouldn’t worry. You’re bound to wriggle out of it somehow. You told me once that you had faith in your star. The girls you’ve been engaged to and have escaped from would reach, if placed end to end, from Piccadilly to Hyde Park Corner. I won’t believe you’re married till I see the bishop and assistant clergy mopping their foreheads and saying, “Well, that’s that. We’ve really got the young blighter off at last.”’
And with these words of cheer she rang off.
You would rather have expected that it would have been with a light heart that I returned to By Order Of The Czar. Such, however, was not the case. I had squared myself with the old flesh and blood and so had put a stopper on her wrath, a continuance of which might have resulted in her barring me from her table for an indefinite period, thus depriving me of the masterpieces of her French chef Anatole, God’s gift to the gastric juices, but, as I say, the h. was not 1. I could not but mourn for the collapse of the aged relative’s hopes and dreams, a collapse for which I, though a mere toy in the hands of Fate, was bound to consider myself responsible.
I said as much to Jeeves when he came in with the materials for the pre-dinner cocktail.
‘My heart is heavy, Jeeves,’ I said, after expressing gratification at the sight of the fixings.
‘Indeed, sir? Why is that?’
‘I have just been having a painful scene with Aunt Dahlia. Well, when I say scene that’s not quite the right word, the conversation having been conducted over the telephone. Did Graham get off all right?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Accompanied by cat?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘That’s what I was telling her, and she became a bit emotional. You never hunted with the Quorn or the Pytchley, did you, Jeeves? It seems to do something to the vocabulary. Lends a speaker eloquence. The old flesh and blood didn’t have to pause to pick her words, they came out like bullets from a machine-gun. I was thankful we weren’t talking face to face. Goodness knows what might have happened if we had been.’
‘You should have told Mrs Travers the facts relating to Major Plank, sir.’
‘I did, the moment I could get a word in edgeways, and it was that that acted like … like what?’
‘Balm in Gilead, sir?’
‘Exactly. I was going to say manna in the wilderness, but balm in Gilead hits it off better. She calmed down and admitted that I couldn’t have done anything else but return the cat.’
‘Most satisfactory, sir.’
‘Yes, that part of it is all pretty smooth, but there’s one other thing that’s weighing on me a bit. I’m engaged to be married.’
14
* * *
AS ALWAYS WHEN I tell him I’m engaged to be married, he betrayed no emotion, continuing to look as if he had been stuffed by a good taxidermist. It is not his place, he would say if you asked him, to go beyond the basic formalities on these occasions.
‘Indeed, sir?’ he said.
Usually this about covers it, and I don’t discuss my predicament with him. I feel it wouldn’t be seemly, if that’s the word, and I know he would feel it wouldn’t be seemly, so with both of us feeling it wouldn’t be seemly we talk of other matters.
But this was a special occasion. Never before had I become betrothed to someone who would make me cut out smoking and cocktails, and in my opinion this made the subject a legitimate one for debate. When you’re up against it as I was, it is essential to exchange views with a mastermind, if you can get hold of one, however unseemly it may be.
So when he added, ‘May I offer my congratulations, sir,’ I replied with lines which were not on the routine.
‘No, Jeeves, you may not, not by a jugful. You see before you a man who is as near to being what is known as a toad at Harrow as a man can be who was educated at Eton. I’m in sore straits, Jeeves.’
‘I am sorry to hear that, sir.’
‘You’ll be sorrier when I explain further. Have you ever seen a garrison besieged by howling savages, with their ammunition down to the last box of cartridges, the water supply giving out and the United States Marines nowhere in sight?’
‘Not to my recollection, sir.’
‘Well, my position is roughly that of such a garrison, except that compared with me they’re sitting pretty. Compared with me they haven’t a thing to worry about.’
‘You fill me with alarm, sir.’<
br />
‘I bet I do, and I haven’t even started yet. I will begin by saying that Miss Cook, to whom I’m engaged, is a lady for whom I have the utmost esteem and respect, but on certain matters we do not … what’s the expression?’
‘See eye to eye, sir?’
‘That’s right. And unfortunately those matters are the what-d’you-call-it of my whole policy. What is it that policies have?’
‘I think the word for which you are groping, sir, may possibly be cornerstone.’
‘Thank you, Jeeves. She disapproves of a variety of things which are the cornerstone of my policy. Marriage with her must inevitably mean that I shall have to cast them from my life, for she has a will of iron and will have no difficulty in making her husband jump through hoops and snap sugar off his nose. You get what I mean?’
‘I do, sir. A very colourful image.’
‘Cocktails, for instance, will be barred. She says they are bad for the liver. Have you noticed, by the way, how frightfully lax everything’s getting now? In Queen Victoria’s day a girl would never have dreamed of mentioning livers in mixed company.’
‘Very true, sir. Tempora mutanter, nos et mutamar in illis.’
‘That, however, is not the worst.’
‘You horrify me, sir.’
‘At a pinch I could do without cocktails. It would be agony, but we Woosters can rough it. But she says I must give up smoking.’
‘This was indeed the most unkindest cut of all, sir.’
‘Give up smoking, Jeeves!’
‘Yes, sir. You will notice that I am shuddering.’
‘The trouble is that she is greatly under the influence of a pal of hers called Tolstoy. I’ve never met him, but he seems to have the most extraordinary ideas. You won’t believe this, Jeeves, but he says that no one needs to smoke, as equal pleasure can be obtained by twirling the fingers. The man must be an ass. Imagine a posh public dinner – one of those “decorations will be worn” things. The royal toast has been drunk, strong men are licking their lips at the thought of cigars, and the toastmaster bellows “Gentlemen, you may twirl your fingers.” Don’t tell me there wouldn’t be a flat feeling, a sense of disappointment. Do you know anything about this fellow Tolstoy? You ever heard of him?’
‘Oh, yes, sir. He was a very famous Russian novelist.’
‘Russian, eh? Well, there you are. And a novelist? He didn’t write By Order Of The Czar, did he?’
‘I believe not, sir.’
‘I thought he might have under another name. You say “was”. Is he no longer with us?’
‘No, sir. He died some years ago.’
‘Good for him. Twirl your fingers! Too absurd. I’d laugh only she says I mustn’t laugh because another pal of hers, called Chesterfield, didn’t. Well, she needn’t worry. The way things are shaping I haven’t anything to laugh about. For I’ve not mentioned the principal objection to the marriage. Don’t jump to the hasty conclusion that I mean because a father-in-law like Cook is included in the package deal. I grant you that that’s enough by itself to darken the horizon, but what’s on my mind is the thought of Orlo Porter.’
‘Ah, yes, sir.’
I gave him an austere look.
‘If you can’t say anything better than “Ah, yes”, Jeeves, say nothing.’
‘Very good, sir.’
‘The thought, as I was saying, of Orlo Porter. We have already touched on his testy disposition, the iron-bandlike muscles of his brawny arms, and his jealousy. The mere suspicion that I was inflicting my beastly society, as he put it, on Miss Cook was enough to make him tell me that he would tear out my insides with his bare hands. What’ll he do when he finds I’m engaged to her?’
‘Surely, sir, the lady having so unequivocably rejected him, he can scarcely blame you—’
‘For filling the vacant spot? Don’t you believe it. He’ll take it for granted that I persuaded her to give him the pink slip. Nothing will drive it out of his nut. The belief that I’m a Grade A snake in the grass, and we all know what to expect from snakes in the g. No, we have got to be frightfully subtle and think of some plan for drawing his fangs. Otherwise my insides won’t be worth a moment’s purchase.’
I was about to go on to ask him if he still had the cosh – or blackjack, to use the American term – which he had taken away from Aunt Dahlia’s son Bonzo some months previously. Bonzo had bought it to use on a schoolmate he disliked, and we all thought he would be better without it. It was, of course, precisely what I needed to ease the tenseness of the O. Porter situation. Armed with this weapon, I could defy O. Porter without a qualm. But before I could speak the telephone tootled in the hall. I waved a hand in its direction.
‘Answer that, would you mind, Jeeves, and say I’ve gone for a brisk walk, as recommended by my medical adviser. It’ll be Aunt Dahlia, and though she was in a reasonable frame of mind at the conclusion of our recent talk, there’s no telling how long these reasonable frames of mind will last.’
‘Very good, sir.’
‘You know what women are.’
‘I do, indeed, sir.’
‘Especially aunts.’
‘Yes, sir. My aunt—’
‘Tell me all about her later.’
‘Any time you wish, sir.’
I remember Jeeves once saying of my friend Catsmeat Potter-Pirbright – it was when a long shot he had backed had come in first by a head, only to be disqualified owing to some infringement of the rules by its jockey – that melancholy had marked him for her own, and it was the same with me now as I sat totting up the score and realizing how extraordinarily deeply I had been plunged in the soup.
Compared with other items on the list of my troubles it was perhaps a minor cause for melancholy that the old ancestor should be trying to get me on the telephone. Nevertheless, it added one more thing to worry about. It could only mean, I felt, that she had come out of the amiable mood she had been in when last heard from and had thought of a lot more nasty cracks to make on the subject of my failure to reach the standard which she considered adequate in a nephew. And I was in no shape to listen to destructive criticism when we next met, especially when delivered by a voice trained by years of shouting ‘Gone away’ at foxes to reduce the hearer’s nervous system to pulp.
When, therefore, Jeeves returned, my first observation was:
‘What did she say?’
‘It was not Mrs Travers, sir, it was Mr Porter.’
I was more thankful than ever that I had got him to answer the phone.
‘Well, what did he say?’ I asked, though I could have made a rough guess.
‘I regret that I am not able to report the entire conversation verbatim, sir. I found the gentleman incoherent at the outset. I gathered that he was under the impression that he was addressing you, and emotion interfered with the clarity of his diction. I informed him of my identity, and he moderated his verbal speed. I was thus enabled to follow him. He gave me several messages to give to you.’
‘Messages?’
‘Yes, sir, embodying what he proposed to do to you when next you met. His remarks were in the main of a crudely surgical nature, and many of the plans he outlined would be extremely difficult to put into practice. His threat, for instance, to pull off your head and make you swallow it.’
‘He said that?’
‘Among other things more or less on the same trend. But you need have no apprehension, sir.’
It shows the state to which the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, as somebody called them, had reduced me that I didn’t laugh a hacking laugh at this. I didn’t even utter a sardonic ‘Oh, yeah’ or ‘Says you’. I merely buried the face in the hands, and he continued:
‘Before I left the room you were speaking of the necessity of drawing Mr Porter’s fangs, as you very aptly put it. It gives me great pleasure to say that I have succeeded in doing this.’
I thought I couldn’t have heard him correctly, and asked him to repeat his amazing statement. He did so, and I looked
at him astounded. You might suppose that I would have been used by this time to seeing him pull rabbits out of a hat with a flick of the wrist and solve in a flash problems which had defied the best efforts of the finest minds, but it always comes fresh to me, depriving me of breath and causing the eyeballs to rotate in the parent sockets.
Then I saw what must be behind the easy confidence with which he had spoken.
‘So you remembered the cosh?’ I said.
‘Sir?’
‘And you have it in your possession.’
‘I do not quite understand you, sir.’
‘I thought you meant that you still had that cosh which you took away from Aunt Dahlia’s Bonzo and were going to give it to me so that I would be armed when Porter made his spring.’
‘Oh, no, sir. The instrument to which you refer is among my effects at our London residence.’
‘Then how did you draw his fangs?’
‘By reminding him that you have taken out an accident policy with him and drawing his attention to the inevitable displeasure of his employers if through him they were mulcted in a substantial sum of money. I had little difficulty in persuading the gentleman that anything in the nature of aggressive action on his part would be a mistake.’
I repeated the stare. His resource and ingenuity had stunned me.
‘Jeeves,’ I said, ‘your resource and ingenuity have stunned me. Porter is baffled.’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Unless you would prefer “thwarted”.’
‘Baffled I think is stronger.’
‘Talk of drawing his fangs. His dentist will have to fit him with a completely new set.’
‘Yes, sir, but we must not forget that the removal of Mr Porter as a menace is only half a battle. I hesitate to touch on a delicate subject …’
‘Touch on, Jeeves.’
‘But I gathered, partly from what you were saying and partly from the tone of your voice as you said it when you were speaking of her plans for your future, that the idea of marriage with Miss Cook is not wholly agreeable to you, and it occurred to me that much unpleasantness would be avoided, were the lady and Mr Porter to be reconciled.’
The Jeeves Omnibus - Vol 5: (Jeeves & Wooster) Page 26