Jeeves appeared perturbed. He allowed his left eyebrow to flicker upwards in a concerned sort of manner.
‘I have done what I could, sir,’ he said, ‘but I fear Mr Little’s chances do not appear bright. Since our last visit, sir, there has been a decidedly sinister and disquieting development.’
‘Oh, what’s that?’
‘You may remember Mr Steggles, sir – the young gentleman who was studying for an examination with Mr Heppenstall at the Vicarage?’
‘What’s Steggles got to do with it?’ I asked.
‘I gather from Brookfield, sir, who chanced to overhear a conversation, that Mr Steggles is interesting himself in the affair.’
‘Good Lord! What, making a book on it?’
‘I understand that he is accepting wagers from those in his immediate circle, sir. Against Mr Little, whose chances he does not seem to fancy.’
‘I don’t like that, Jeeves.’
‘No, sir. It is sinister.’
‘From what I know of Steggles there will be dirty work.’
‘It has already occurred, sir.’
‘Already?’
‘Yes, sir. It seems that, in pursuance of the policy which he has been good enough to allow me to suggest to him, Mr Little escorted Master Burgess to the church bazaar, and there met Mr Steggles, who was in the company of young Master Heppenstall, the Reverend Mr Heppenstall’s second son, who is home from Rugby just now, having recently recovered from an attack of mumps. The encounter took place in the refreshment-room, where Mr Steggles was at that moment entertaining Master Heppenstall. To cut a long story short, sir, the two gentlemen became extremely interested in the hearty manner in which the lads were fortifying themselves; and Mr Steggles offered to back his nominee in a weight-for-age eating contest against Master Burgess for a pound a side. Mr Little admitted to me that he was conscious of a certain hesitation as to what the upshot might be, should Miss Burgess get to hear of the matter, but his sporting blood was too much for him and he agreed to the contest. This was duly carried out, both lads exhibiting the utmost willingness and enthusiasm, and eventually Master Burgess justified Mr Little’s confidence by winning, but only after a bitter struggle. Next day both contestants were in considerable pain; inquiries were made and confessions extorted, and Mr Little – I learn from Brookfield, who happened to be near the door of the drawing-room at the moment – had an extremely unpleasant interview with the young lady, which ended in her desiring him never to speak to her again.’
There’s no getting away from the fact that, if ever a man required watching, it’s Steggles. Machiavelli could have taken his correspondence course.
‘It was a put-up job, Jeeves!’ I said. ‘I mean, Steggles worked the whole thing on purpose. It’s his old nobbling game.’
‘There would seem to be no doubt about that, sir.’
‘Well, he seems to have dished poor old Bingo all right.’
‘That is the prevalent opinion, sir. Brookfield tells me that down in the village at the Cow and Horses seven to one is being freely offered on Mr Wingham and finding no takers.’
‘Good Lord! Are they betting about it down in the village, too?’
‘Yes, sir. And in adjoining hamlets also. The affair has caused widespread interest. I am told that there is a certain sporting reaction in even so distant a spot as Lower Bingley.’
‘Well, I don’t see what there is to do. If Bingo is such a chump –’
‘One is fighting a losing battle, I fear, sir, but I did venture to indicate to Mr Little a course of action which might prove of advantage. I recommended him to busy himself with good works.’
‘Good works?’
‘About the village, sir. Reading to the bedridden – chatting with the sick – that sort of thing, sir. We can but trust that good results will ensue.’
‘Yes, I suppose so,’ I said doubtfully. ‘But, by gosh, if I was a sick man I’d hate to have a loony like young Bingo coming and gibbering at my bedside.’
‘There is that aspect of the matter, sir,’ said Jeeves.
I didn’t hear a word from Bingo for a couple of weeks, and I took it after while that he had found the going too hard and had chucked in the towel. And then, one night not long before Christmas, I came back to the flat pretty latish, having been out dancing at the Embassy. I was fairly tired, having swung a practically non-stop shoe from shortly after dinner till two AM, and bed seemed to be indicated. Judge of my chagrin and all that sort of thing, therefore, when, tottering to my room and switching on the light, I observed the foul features of young Bingo all over the pillow. The blighter had appeared from nowhere and was in my bed, sleeping like an infant with a sort of happy, dreamy smile on his map.
A bit thick I mean to say! We Woosters are all for the good old medieval hosp. and all that, but when it comes to finding chappies collaring your bed, the thing becomes a trifle too mouldy. I hove a shoe, and Bingo sat up, gurgling.
‘’s matter? ’s matter?’ said young Bingo.
‘What the deuce are you doing in my bed?’ I said.
‘Oh, hallo, Bertie! So there you are!’
‘Yes, here I am. What are you doing in my bed?’
‘I came up to town for the night on business.’
‘Yes, but what are you doing in my bed?’
‘Dash it all, Bertie,’ said young Bingo querulously, ‘don’t keep harping on your beastly bed. There’s another made up in the spare room. I saw Jeeves make it with my own eyes. I believe he meant it for me, but I knew what a perfect host you were, so I just turned in here. I say, Bertie, old man,’ said Bingo, apparently fed up with the discussion about sleeping-quarters, ‘I see daylight.’
‘Well, it’s getting on for three in the morning.’
‘I was speaking figuratively, you ass. I meant that hope has begun to dawn. About Mary Burgess, you know. Sit down and I’ll tell you all about it.’
‘I won’t. I’m going to sleep.’
‘To begin with,’ said young Bingo, settling himself comfortably against the pillows and helping himself to a cigarette from my private box, ‘I must once again pay a marked tribute to good old Jeeves. A modern Solomon. I was badly up against it when I came to him for advice, but he rolled up with a tip which has put me – I use the term advisedly and in a conservative spirit – on velvet. He may have told you that he recommended me to win back the lost ground by busying myself with good works? Bertie, old man,’ said young Bingo earnestly, ‘for the last two weeks I’ve been comforting the sick to such an extent that, if I had a brother and you brought him to me on a sick-bed at this moment, by Jove, old man, I’d heave a brick at him. However, though it took it out of me like the deuce, the scheme worked splendidly. She softened visibly before I’d been at it a week. Started to bow again when we met in the street, and so forth. About a couple of days ago she distinctly smiled – in a sort of faint, saint-like kind of way, you know – when I ran into her outside the Vicarage. And yesterday – I say, you remember that curate chap, Wingham? Fellow with a long nose.’
‘Of course I remember him. Your rival.’
‘Rival?’ Bingo raised his eyebrows. ‘Oh, well, I suppose you could have called him that at one time. Though it sounds a little farfetched.’
‘Does it?’ I said, stung by the sickening complacency of the chump’s manner. ‘Well, let me tell you that the last I heard was that at the Cow and Horses in Twing village and all over the place as far as Lower Bingley they were offering seven to one on the curate and finding no takers.’
Bingo started violently and sprayed cigarette-ash all over my bed.
‘Betting!’ he gargled. ‘Betting! You don’t mean that they’re betting on this holy, sacred … Oh, I say, dash it all! Haven’t people any sense of decency and reverence? Is nothing safe from their beastly, sordid graspingness? I wonder,’ said young Bingo thoughtfully, ‘if there’s a chance of my getting any of that seven-to-one money? Seven to one! What a price! Who’s offering it, do you know? Oh, well, I suppos
e it wouldn’t do. No, I suppose it wouldn’t be quite the thing.’
‘You seem, dashed confident,’ I said. ‘I’d always thought that Wingham –’
‘Oh, I’m not worried about him,’ said Bingo. ‘I was just going to tell you. Wingham’s got the mumps, and won’t be out and about for weeks. And, jolly as that is in itself, it’s not all. You see, he was producing the Village School Christmas Entertainment, and now I’ve taken over the job. I went to old Heppenstall last night and clinched the contract. Well, you see what that means. It means that I shall be absolutely the centre of the village life and thought for three solid weeks, with a terrific triumph to wind up with. Everybody looking up to me and fawning on me, don’t you see, and all that. It’s bound to have a powerful effect on Mary’s mind. It will show her that I am capable of serious effort; that there is a solid foundation of worth in me; that, mere butterfly as she may once have thought me, I am in reality –’
‘Oh, all right, let it go!’
‘It’s a big thing, you know, this Christmas Entertainment. Old Heppenstall is very much wrapped up in it. Nibs from all over the countryside rolling up. The Squire present, with family. A big chance for me, Bertie, my boy, and I mean to make the most of it. Of course, I’m handicapped a bit by not having been in on the thing from the start. Will you credit it that that uninspired doughnut of a curate wanted to give the public some rotten little fairy play out of a book for children published about fifty years ago without one good laugh or the semblance of a gag in it? It’s too late to alter the thing entirely, but at least I can jazz it up. I’m going to write them in something zippy to brighten the thing up a bit.’
‘You can’t write.’
‘Well, when I say write, I mean pinch. That’s why I’ve popped up to town. I’ve been to see that revue, Cuddle Up! at the Palladium, tonight. Full of good stuff. Of course, it’s rather hard to get anything in the nature of a big spectacular effect in the Twing Village Hall, with no scenery to speak of and a chorus of practically imbecile kids of ages ranging from nine to fourteen, but I think I see my way. Have you seen Cuddle Up!?’
‘Yes. Twice.’
‘Well, there’s some good stuff in the first act, and I can lift practically all the numbers. Then there’s that show at the Palace. I can see the matinée of that tomorrow before I leave. There’s sure to be some decent bits in that. Don’t you worry about my not being able to write a hit. Leave it to me, laddie, leave it to me. And now, my dear old chap,’ said young Bingo, snuggling down cosily, ‘you mustn’t keep me up talking all night. It’s all right for you fellows who have nothing to do, but I’m a busy man. Good night, old thing. Close the door quietly after you and switch out the light. Breakfast, about ten tomorrow, I suppose, what? Right-o. Good night.’
For the next three weeks I didn’t see Bingo. He became a sort of Voice Heard Off, developing a habit of ringing me up on long-distance and consulting me on various points arising at rehearsal, until the day when he got me out of bed at eight in the morning to ask whether I thought Merry Christmas! was a good title. I told him then that this nuisance must now cease, and after that he cheesed it, and practically passed out of my life, till one afternoon when I got back to the flat to dress for dinner and found Jeeves inspecting a whacking big poster sort of thing which he had draped over the back of an armchair.
‘Good Lord, Jeeves!’ I said. I was feeling rather weak that day, and the thing shook me. ‘What on earth’s that?’
‘Mr Little sent it to me, sir, and desired me to bring it to your notice.’
‘Well, you’ve certainly done it!’
I took another look at the object. There was no doubt about it, he caught the eye. It was about seven feet long, and most of the lettering in about as bright red ink as I ever struck.
This was how it ran:
Twing Village Hall,
Friday, December 23rd,
Richard Little
presents
A New and Original Revue
Entitled
What Ho, Twing!!
Book by
Richard Little
Lyrics by
Richard Little
Music by
Richard Little
With the Full Twing Juvenile
Company and Chorus.
Scenic Effects by
Richard Little
Produced by
Richard Little
‘What do you make of it, Jeeves?’ I said.
‘I confess I am a little doubtful, sir. I think Mr Little would have done better to follow my advice and confine himself to good works about the village.’
‘You think the thing will be a frost?’
‘I could not hazard a conjecture, sir. But my experience has been that what pleases the London public is not always so acceptable to the rural mind. The metropolitan touch sometimes proves a trifle too exotic for the provinces.’
‘I suppose I ought to go down and see the dashed thing?’
‘I think Mr Little would be wounded were you not present, sir.’
The Village Hall at Twing is a smallish building, smelling of apples. It was full when I turned up on the evening of the twenty-third, for I had purposely timed myself to arrive not long before the kick-off. I had had experience of one or two of these binges, and didn’t want to run any risk of coming early and finding myself shoved into a seat in one of the front rows where I wouldn’t be able to execute a quiet sneak into the open air half-way through the proceedings, if the occasion seemed to demand it. I secured a nice strategic position near the door at the back of the hall.
From where I stood I had a good view of the audience. As always on these occasions, the first few rows were occupied by the Nibs – consisting of the Squire, a fairly mauve old sportsman with white whiskers, his family, a platoon of local parsons and perhaps a couple of dozen of prominent pew-holders. Then came a dense squash of what you might call the lower middle classes. And at the back, where I was, we came down with a jerk in the social scale, this end of the hall being given up almost entirely to a collection of frankly Tough Eggs, who had rolled up not so much for any love of the drama as because there was a free tea after the show. Take it for all in all, a representative gathering of Twing life and thought. The Nibs were whispering in a pleased manner to each other, the Lower Middles were sitting up very straight, as if they’d been bleached, and the Tough Eggs whiled away the time by cracking nuts and exchanging low rustic wheezes. The girl, Mary Burgess, was at the piano playing a waltz. Beside her stood the curate, Wingham, apparently recovered. The temperature, I should think, was about a hundred and twenty-seven.
Somebody jabbed me heartily in the lower ribs, and I perceived the man Steggles.
‘Hallo!’ he said. ‘I didn’t know you were coming down.’
I didn’t like the chap, but we Woosters can wear the mask. I beamed a bit.
‘Oh, yes,’ I said. ‘Bingo wanted me to roll up and see his show.’
‘I hear he’s giving us something pretty ambitious,’ said the man Steggles. ‘Big effects and all that sort of thing.’
‘I believe so.’
‘Of course, it means a lot to him, doesn’t it? He’s told you about the girl, of course?’
‘Yes. And I hear you’re laying seven to one against him,’ I said, eyeing the blighter a trifle austerely.
He didn’t even quiver.
‘Just a little flutter to relieve the monotony of country life,’ he said. ‘But you’ve got the facts a bit wrong. It’s down in the village that they’re laying seven to one. I can do you better than that, if you feel in a speculative mood. How about a tenner at a hundred to eight?’
‘Good Lord! Are you giving that?’
‘Yes. Somehow,’ said Steggles meditatively, ‘I have a sort of feeling, a kind of premonition that something’s going to go wrong tonight. You know what Little is. A bungler, if ever there was one. Something tells me that this show of his is going to be a frost. And if it is, of course, I should thin
k it would prejudice the girl against him pretty badly. His standing always was rather shaky.’
‘Are you going to try and smash up the show?’ I said sternly.
‘Me!’ said Steggles. ‘Why, what could I do? Half a minute, I want to go and speak to a man.’
He buzzed off, leaving me distinctly disturbed. I could see from the fellow’s eye that he was meditating some of his customary rough stuff, and I thought Bingo ought to be warned. But there wasn’t time and I couldn’t get at him. Almost immediately after Steggles had left me the curtain went up.
Except as a prompter, Bingo wasn’t much in evidence in the early part of the performance. The thing at the outset was merely one of those weird dramas which you dig out of books published around Christmas time and entitled Twelve Little Plays for the Tots, or something like that. The kids drooled on in the usual manner, the booming voice of Bingo ringing out from time to time behind the scenes when the fatheads forgot their lines; and the audience was settling down into the sort of torpor usual on these occasions, when the first of Bingo’s interpolated bits occurred. It was that number which What’s-her-name sings in that revue at the Palace – you would recognize the tune if I hummed it, but I can never get hold of the dashed thing. It always got three encores at the Palace, and it went well now, even with a squeaky-voiced child jumping on and off the key like a chamois of the Alps leaping from crag to crag. Even the Tough Eggs liked it. At the end of the second refrain the entire house was shouting for an encore, and the kid with the voice like a slate-pencil took a deep breath and started to let it go once more.
At this point all the lights went out.
I don’t know when I’ve had anything so sudden and devastating happen to me before. They didn’t flicker. They just went out. The hall was in complete darkness.
Well, of course, that sort of broke the spell, as you might put it. People started to shout directions, and the Tough Eggs stamped their feet and settled down for a pleasant time. And, of course, young Bingo had to make an ass of himself. His voice suddenly shot at us out of the darkness.
‘Ladies and gentlemen, something has gone wrong with the lights –’
The Jeeves Omnibus - Vol 1: (Jeeves & Wooster): No.1 Page 62