The Jeeves Omnibus - Vol 5: (Jeeves & Wooster)

by P. G. Wodehouse

  ‘And suppose she doesn’t feel like getting engaged to him?’

  ‘Absurd. Why, she was once engaged to me.’

  She was silent for a space, plunged in thought, as the expression is.

  ‘I’m not sure,’ she said at length, ‘that you haven’t got something.’

  ‘It’s a snip.’

  ‘Yes, I think you’re right. Jeeves has a great brain.’

  ‘What’s Jeeves got to do with it?’

  ‘Wasn’t it his idea?’

  I drew myself up rather haughtily – not an easy thing to do when you’re sitting in an armchair. I resent this universal tendency to take it for granted that whenever I suggest some particularly ripe scheme, it must be Jeeves’s.

  ‘The sequence was entirely mine.’

  ‘Well, it’s not at all a bad one. I’ve often said that you sometimes have lucid intervals.’

  ‘And you’ll sit in and do your bit?’

  ‘It will be a pleasure.’

  ‘Fine. Can I use your phone? I want to ask Honoria Glossop to lunch.’

  I should imagine that it has often been said of Bertram Wooster that when he sets his hand to the plough he does not readily sheathe the sword. I had told Aunt Dahlia that I was going to give Honoria the rush of a lifetime, and the rush of a lifetime was precisely what I gave her. I lunched, dined and on two occasions nightclubbed her. It ran into money, but you can put up with a few punches in the pocketbook when you’re working in a good cause. Even when wincing at the figures at the foot of the bill I was able to console myself with the thought of what all this was in aid of. Nor did I grudge the hours spent in the society of a girl whom in normal circs I would willingly have run a mile in tight shoes to avoid. Pop Glossop’s happiness was at stake, and when a pal’s happiness is at stake, the undersigned does not count the cost.

  Nor were my efforts bootless. Aunt Dahlia was always ringing me up to tell me that Blair Eggleston’s temperature was rising steadily day by day and it seemed to her only a question of time before the desired object would be achieved. And came a day when I was able to go to her with the gratifying news that the d.o. had indeed been a.

  I found her engrossed in an Erle Stanley Gardner, but she lowered the volume courteously as I entered.

  ‘Well, ugly,’ she said, ‘what brings you here? Why aren’t you off somewhere with Honoria Glossop, doing your South American Joe act? What’s the idea of playing hooky like this?’

  I smiled one of my quiet smiles.

  ‘Aged relative,’ I said, ‘I have come to inform you that I think we have reached the end of the long long trail,’ and without further preamble I gave her the low-down. ‘Have you been out today?’

  ‘I went for a stroll, yes.’

  ‘The weather probably struck you as extraordinarily mild for the latter part of December. More like spring than winter.’

  ‘You haven’t come here to talk about the weather?’

  ‘You will find it is germane to the issue. Because the afternoon was so balmy—’

  ‘Like others I could name.’

  ‘I beg your pardon?’

  ‘I didn’t speak. Go on.’

  ‘Well, as it was such a nice day I thought I would take a walk in the Park. I did so, and blowed if the first thing I saw wasn’t Honoria. She was sitting on a chair by the Serpentine. I was about to duck, but it was too late. She had seen me, so I had to heave alongside and chat. And suddenly who should come along but Blair Eggleston.’

  I had enchained her interest. She uttered a yip.

  ‘He saw you?’

  ‘With the naked eye.’

  ‘Then that was your moment. If you’d had an ounce of sense, you’d have kissed her.’

  I smiled another of my quiet ones.

  ‘I did.’

  ‘You did?’

  ‘Yes, sir, I folded her in a close embrace and let her have it.’

  ‘And what did Eggleston say?’

  ‘I didn’t wait to hear. I pushed off.’

  ‘But you’re sure he saw you?’

  ‘He couldn’t have missed. He was only a yard or two away, and the visibility was good.’

  It isn’t often that I get unstinted praise from my late father’s sister, she as a rule being my best friend and severest critic, but on this occasion she gave me a rave notice. It was a pleasure to listen to her.

  ‘That should have done it,’ she said after handing me some stately compliments on my ingenuity and resource. ‘I saw Eggleston yesterday, and when I mentioned what fun you and Honoria were having going about together, he looked like a blond Othello. His hands were clenched, his eyes burning, and if he wasn’t grinding his teeth, I don’t know a ground tooth when I hear one. That kiss was just what he needed to push him over the edge. He probably proposed to her the moment you were out of the way.’

  ‘That’s how I had it figured out.’

  ‘Oh, hell,’ said the old ancestor, for at this moment the telephone rang, interrupting us just when we wanted to go on discussing the thing undisturbed. She reached for it, and a long one-sided conversation ensued. I say one-sided because her contribution to it consisted merely of Ohs and Whats. Eventually whoever was at the other end appeared to have said his or her say, for she replaced the receiver and turned a grave face in my direction.

  ‘That was Honoria,’ she said.

  ‘Oh, really?’

  ‘And what she had to tell me was fraught with interest.’

  ‘Did matters work out according to plan?’

  ‘Not altogether.’

  ‘How do you mean, not altogether?’

  ‘Well, to begin with, it seems that Blair Eggleston, no doubt inflamed by what I told you I had said to him yesterday, proposed to her last night.’

  ‘He did?’

  ‘And was accepted.’

  ‘That’s good.’

  ‘Not so good.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Because when he saw you kiss her, he blew his top and broke the engagement.’

  ‘Oh, my God!’

  ‘Nor is that all. The worst is yet to come. She now says she’s going to marry you. She said she quite realized your many defects but is sure she can correct them and mould you, and even though you aren’t the mate of her dreams, she feels that your patient love should be rewarded. Obviously what happened was that you made yourself too fascinating. There was always that risk, I suppose.’

  Long before she had concluded these remarks I had gone into my aspen act again. I goggled at her, stunned.

  ‘But this is frightful!’

  ‘I told you it wasn’t so good.’

  ‘You aren’t pulling my leg?’

  ‘No, it’s official.’

  ‘Then what shall I do for the best?’

  She shrugged a moody shoulder.

  ‘Don’t ask me,’ she said. ‘Consult Jeeves. He may be able to suggest something.’

  Well, it was all very well to say consult Jeeves, but it wasn’t as simple as she seemed to think. The way I looked at it was that to place him in possession of the facts in what you might call pitiless detail would come under the head of bandying a woman’s name, which, as everybody knows, is the sort of thing that gets you kicked out of clubs and cut by the County. On the other hand, to be in a jam like this and not seek his counsel would be a loony proceeding. It was only after profound thought that I saw how the thing could be worked. I gave him a hail, and he presented himself with a courteous ‘Sir?’

  ‘Oh, Jeeves,’ I said, ‘I hope I’m not interrupting you when you were curled up with your Spinoza’s Ethics or whatever it is, but I wonder if you could spare me a moment of your valuable time?’

  ‘Certainly, sir.’

  ‘A problem has arisen in the life of a friend of mine who shall be nameless, and I want your advice. I must begin by saying that it’s one of those delicate problems where not only my friend must be nameless but all the other members of the personnel. In other words, I can’t mention names. You see what I m
ean?’

  ‘I understand you perfectly, sir. You would prefer to term the protagonists A and B.’

  ‘Or North and South?’

  ‘A and B is more customary, sir.’

  ‘Just as you say. Well, A is male, B female. You follow me so far?’

  ‘You have been lucidity itself, sir.’

  ‘And owing to … what’s that something of circumstances you hear people talking about? Cats enter into it, if I remember rightly.’

  ‘Would concatenation be the word for which you are groping?’

  ‘That’s it. Owing to a concatenation of circumstances B has got it into her nut that A’s in love with her. But he isn’t. Still following?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  I had to pause here for a moment to marshal my thoughts. Having done so, I proceeded.

  ‘Now until quite recently B was engaged to—’

  ‘Shall we call him C, sir?’

  ‘Caesar’s as good a name as any, I suppose. Well, as I was saying, until quite recently B was engaged to Caesar and A hadn’t a worry in the world. But now there has been a rift within the lute, the fixture has been scratched, and B is talking freely of teaming up with A, and what I want you to bend your brain to is the problem of how A can oil out of it. Don’t get the idea that it’s simple, because A is what is known as a preux chevalier, and this hampers him. I mean when B comes to him and says “A, I will be yours”, he can’t just reply “You will, will you? That’s what you think”. He has his code, and the code rules that he must kid her along and accept the situation. And frankly, Jeeves, he would rather be dead in a ditch. So there you are. The facts are before you. Anything stirring?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  I was astounded. Experience has taught me that he generally knows all the answers, but this was certainly quick service.

  ‘Say on, Jeeves. I’m all agog.’

  ‘Obviously, sir, B’s matrimonial plans would be rendered null and void if A were to inform her that his affections were engaged elsewhere.’

  ‘But they aren’t.’

  ‘It would be necessary merely to convey the impression that such was the case.’

  I began to see what he was driving at.

  ‘You mean if I – or, rather, A – were to produce some female and have her assert that she was betrothed to me – or I should say him – the peril would be averted?’

  ‘Precisely, sir.’

  I mused.

  ‘It’s a thought,’ I agreed, ‘but there’s the dickens of a snag – viz. how to get hold of the party of the second part. You can’t rush about London asking girls to pretend they’re engaged to you. At least, I suppose you can, but it would be quite a nervous strain.’

  ‘That, sir, is the difficulty.’

  ‘You haven’t an alternative plan to suggest?’

  ‘I fear not, sir.’

  I confess I was baffled, but it’s pretty generally recognized at the Drones and elsewhere that while you can sometimes baffle Bertram Wooster for the nonce, he rarely stays baffled long. I happened to run into Catsmeat Potter-Pirbright at the Drones that night, and I suddenly saw how the snag to which I had alluded could be got around.

  Catsmeat is on the stage and now in considerable demand for what are called juvenile roles, but in his early days he had been obliged, like all young hams, to go from agent to agent seeking employment – or trying to get a shop, as I believe the technical term is, and he was telling me anecdotes about them after dinner. And it struck me like a blow in the midriff that if you wanted a girl to exhibit as your fiancée, a theatrical agent was the very man to help you out. Such a bloke would be in an admirable position to supply some resting artiste who would be glad to sit in on an innocent deception in return for a moderate fee.

  Catsmeat had told me where these fauna were to be found. The Charing Cross Road is apparently where most of them hang out, and on the following morning I might have been observed entering the premises of Jas Waterbury on the top floor of a building about half-way up that thoroughfare.

  The reason my choice had fallen on Jas was not that I had heard glowing reports of him from every side, it was simply because all the other places I had tried had been full of guys and dolls standing bumper to bumper and it hadn’t seemed worth while waiting. Entering chez Waterbury I found his outer office completely empty. It was as if he had parted company with the human herd.

  It was possible, of course, that he had stepped across the road for a quick one, but it was also possible that he was lurking behind the door labelled ‘Private’, so I rapped on it. I hadn’t expected anything to start into life, but I was wrong. A head popped out.

  I’ve seen heads that were more of a feast for the eye. It was what I would describe as a greasy head. Its summit was moist with hair oil and the face, too, suggested that its proprietor after the morning shave had thought fit to rub his cheeks with butter. But I’m a broad-minded man and I had no objection to him being greasy, if he liked being greasy. Possibly, I felt, if I had had the privilege of meeting Kenneth Molyneux, Malcolm McCullen, Edmund Ogilvy and Horace Furnival, the other theatrical agents I had visited, I would have found them greasy, too. It may be that all theatrical agents are. I made a mental note to ask Catsmeat Potter-Pirbright about this.

  ‘Oh, hullo, cocky,’ said this oleaginous character, speaking thickly, for he was making an early lunch on what looked like a ham sandwich. ‘Something I can do for you?’

  ‘Jas Waterbury?’

  ‘That’s me. You want a shop?’

  ‘I want a girl.’

  ‘Don’t we all? What’s your line? Are you running a touring company?’

  ‘No, it’s more like amateur theatricals.’

  ‘Oh, those? Well, let’s have the inside story.’

  I had told myself that it would be embarrassing confiding one’s intimate private affairs to a theatrical agent, and it was embarrassing, but I stiffened the upper lip and had at it, and as my narrative proceeded it was borne in upon me that I had sized up Jas Waterbury all wrong. Misled by his appearance, I had assumed him to be one of those greasy birds who would be slow on the uptake and unable to get hep to the finer points. He proved to be both quick and intelligent. He punctuated my remarks with understanding nods, and when I had finished said I had come to the right man, for he had a niece called Trixie who would fill the bill to my complete satisfaction. The whole project, he said, was right up Trixie’s street. If I placed myself in her hands, he added, the act must infallibly be a smash hit.

  It sounded good, but I pursed my lips a bit dubiously. I was asking myself if an uncle’s love might not have made him give the above Trixie too enthusiastic a build-up.

  ‘You’re sure,’ I said, ‘that this niece of yours would be equal to this rather testing job? It calls for considerable histrionic skill. Can she make her role convincing?’

  ‘She’ll smother you with burning kisses, if that’s what you’re worrying about.’

  ‘What I had in mind was more the dialogue. We don’t want her blowing up in her lines. Don’t you think we ought to get a seasoned professional?’

  ‘That’s just what Trixie is. Been playing Fairy Queens in panto for years. Never got a shop in London owing to jealousy in high places, but ask them in Leeds and Wigan what they think of her. Ask them in Hull. Ask them in Huddersfield.’

  I said I would, always provided I happened to come across them, and he carried on in a sort of ecstasy.

  ‘“This buxom belle” – Leeds Evening Chronicle. “A talented bit of all right” – Hull Daily News. “Beauty and dignity combined” – Wigan Intelligencer. Don’t you fret yourself, cocky, Trix’ll give you your money’s worth. And talking of that, how much does the part pay?’

  ‘I was thinking of a fiver.’

  ‘Make it ten.’

  ‘Right ho.’

  ‘Or, rather, fifteen. That way you’ll get every ounce of zest and cooperation.’

  I was in no mood to haggle. Aunt Dahlia had rung up while I
was breakfasting to tell me that Honoria Glossop had told her that she would be looking in on me at four o’clock, and it was imperative that the reception committee be on hand to greet her. I dished out the fifteen quid and asked how soon he could get hold of his niece, as time was of the essence. He said her services would be at my disposal well ahead of zero hour, and I said Fine.

  ‘Give me a ring when it’s all set,’ I said. ‘I’ll be lunching at the Drones Club.’

  This seemed to interest him quite a bit.

  ‘Drones Club, eh? You a member there? I’ve got some good friends at the Drones Club. You know a Mr Widgeon?’

  ‘Freddie Widgeon? Yes, very well.’

  ‘And Mr Prosser?’

  ‘Yes, I know Oofy Prosser.’

  ‘Give them my best, if you see them. Nice lads, both. And now you can trot along and feed your face without a care in the world. I’ll have contacted Trixie before you’re half-way through your fish and chips.’

  And I was called to the phone while having the after-luncheon coffee in the smoking-room. It was, as I had anticipated, Jas Waterbury.

  ‘That you, cocky?’

  I said it was, and he said everything was under control. Trixie had been contacted and would be up and doing with a heart for any fate in good time for the rise of the curtain. What, he asked, was the address they were to come to, and I told him and he said they would be there at a quarter to four without fail. So that was all fixed, and I was full of kindly feelings towards Jas Waterbury as I made my way back to the smoking-room. He was a man whom I would have hesitated to invite to come with me on a long walking tour and I still felt that he would have been well advised to go easier on the grease as regarded both his hair and his person, but there was no getting away from it that if circumstances rendered it necessary for you to plot plots, he was the ideal fellow to plot them with.