Right Ho, Jeeves
and a pistol?”
“Never.”
“You haven’t missed much.”
“Tell me, Tuppy,” I asked, for I was anxious to ascertain this, “about
Angela. Was there any momentary softening in her gaze as she fixed it
on you?”
“She didn’t fix it on me. She fixed it on the pie.”
“Did she say anything?”
“Not right away. Your uncle was the first to speak. He said to your
aunt, ‘God bless my soul, Dahlia, what are you doing here?’ To which
she replied, ‘Well, if it comes to that, my merry somnambulist, what
are you?’ Your uncle then said that he thought there must be burglars
in the house, as he had heard noises.”
I nodded again. I could follow the trend. Ever since the scullery
window was found open the year Shining Light was disqualified in the
Cesarewitch for boring, Uncle Tom has had a marked complex about
burglars. I can still recall my emotions when, paying my first visit
after he had bars put on all the windows and attempting to thrust the
head out in order to get a sniff of country air, I nearly fractured
my skull on a sort of iron grille, as worn by the tougher kinds of
mediaeval prison.
“‘What sort of noises?’ said your aunt. ‘Funny noises,’ said your
uncle. Whereupon Angela--with a nasty, steely tinkle in her voice, the
little buzzard--observed, ‘I expect it was Mr. Glossop eating.’ And
then she did give me a look. It was the sort of wondering, revolted
look a very spiritual woman would give a fat man gulping soup in a
restaurant. The kind of look that makes a fellow feel he’s forty-six
round the waist and has great rolls of superfluous flesh pouring down
over the back of his collar. And, still speaking in the same unpleasant
tone, she added, ‘I ought to have told you, father, that Mr. Glossop
always likes to have a good meal three or four times during the night.
It helps to keep him going till breakfast. He has the most amazing
appetite. See, he has practically finished a large steak-and-kidney pie
already’.”
As he spoke these words, a feverish animation swept over Tuppy. His
eyes glittered with a strange light, and he thumped the bed violently
with his fist, nearly catching me a juicy one on the leg.
“That was what hurt, Bertie. That was what stung. I hadn’t so much as
started on that pie. But that’s a woman all over.”
“The eternal feminine.”
“She continued her remarks. ‘You’ve no idea,’ she said, ‘how Mr.
Glossop loves food. He just lives for it. He always eats six or seven
meals a day, and then starts in again after bedtime. I think it’s
rather wonderful.’ Your aunt seemed interested, and said it reminded
her of a boa constrictor. Angela said, didn’t she mean a python? And
then they argued as to which of the two it was. Your uncle, meanwhile,
poking about with that damned pistol of his till human life wasn’t safe
in the vicinity. And the pie lying there on the table, and me unable to
touch it. You begin to understand why I said I had been through hell.”
“Quite. Can’t have been at all pleasant.”
“Presently your aunt and Angela settled their discussion, deciding that
Angela was right and that it was a python that I reminded them of. And
shortly after that we all pushed back to bed, Angela warning me in a
motherly voice not to take the stairs too quickly. After seven or eight
solid meals, she said, a man of my build ought to be very careful,
because of the danger of apoplectic fits. She said it was the same with
dogs. When they became very fat and overfed, you had to see that they
didn’t hurry upstairs, as it made them puff and pant, and that was
bad for their hearts. She asked your aunt if she remembered the late
spaniel, Ambrose; and your aunt said, ‘Poor old Ambrose, you couldn’t
keep him away from the garbage pail’; and Angela said, ‘Exactly, so do
please be careful, Mr. Glossop.’ And you tell me she loves me still!”
I did my best to encourage.
“Girlish banter, what?”
“Girlish banter be dashed. She’s right off me. Once her ideal, I am now
less than the dust beneath her chariot wheels. She became infatuated
with this chap, whoever he was, at Cannes, and now she can’t stand the
sight of me.”
I raised my eyebrows.
“My dear Tuppy, you are not showing your usual good sense in this
Angela-chap-at-Cannes matter. If you will forgive me saying so, you
have got an _idée fixe_.”
“A what?”
“An _idée fixe_. You know. One of those things fellows get. Like Uncle
Tom’s delusion that everybody who is known even slightly to the police
is lurking in the garden, waiting for a chance to break into the house.
You keep talking about this chap at Cannes, and there never was a
chap at Cannes, and I’ll tell you why I’m so sure about this. During
those two months on the Riviera, it so happens that Angela and I were
practically inseparable. If there had been somebody nosing round her, I
should have spotted it in a second.”
He started. I could see that this had impressed him.
“Oh, she was with you all the time at Cannes, was she?”
“I don’t suppose she said two words to anybody else, except, of course,
idle conv. at the crowded dinner table or a chance remark in a throng
at the Casino.”
“I see. You mean that anything in the shape of mixed bathing and
moonlight strolls she conducted solely in your company?”
“That’s right. It was quite a joke in the hotel.”
“You must have enjoyed that.”
“Oh, rather. I’ve always been devoted to Angela.”
“Oh, yes?”
“When we were kids, she used to call herself my little sweetheart.”
“She did?”
“Absolutely.”
“I see.”
He sat plunged in thought, while I, glad to have set his mind at rest,
proceeded with my tea. And presently there came the banging of a gong
from the hall below, and he started like a war horse at the sound of
the bugle.
“Breakfast!” he said, and was off to a flying start, leaving me to
brood and ponder. And the more I brooded and pondered, the more did it
seem to me that everything now looked pretty smooth. Tuppy, I could
see, despite that painful scene in the larder, still loved Angela with
all the old fervour.
This meant that I could rely on that plan to which I had referred to
bring home the bacon. And as I had found the way to straighten out the
Gussie-Bassett difficulty, there seemed nothing more to worry about.
It was with an uplifted heart that I addressed Jeeves as he came in to
remove the tea tray.
-13-
“Jeeves,” I said.
“Sir?”
“I’ve just been having a chat with young Tuppy, Jeeves. Did you happen
to notice that he wasn’t looking very roguish this morning?”
“Yes, sir. It seemed to me that Mr. Glossop’s face was sicklied o’er
with the pale cast of thought.”
“Quite. He met my cousin Angela in the larder last night, and a rather
painful interview ensued.”
“I am sorry, sir.”
“Not half so sorry as he was. She found him closeted with a
steak-and-kidney pie, and appears to have been a bit caustic about fat
men who lived for food alone.”
“Most disturbing, sir.”
“Very. In fact, many people would say that things had gone so far
between these two nothing now could bridge the chasm. A girl who could
make cracks about human pythons who ate nine or ten meals a day and
ought to be careful not to hurry upstairs because of the danger of
apoplectic fits is a girl, many people would say, in whose heart love
is dead. Wouldn’t people say that, Jeeves?”
“Undeniably, sir.”
“They would be wrong.”
“You think so, sir?”
“I am convinced of it. I know these females. You can’t go by what they
say.”
“You feel that Miss Angela’s strictures should not be taken too much
_au pied de la lettre_, sir?”
“Eh?”
“In English, we should say ‘literally’.”
“Literally. That’s exactly what I mean. You know what girls are. A tiff
occurs, and they shoot their heads off. But underneath it all the old
love still remains. Am I correct?”
“Quite correct, sir. The poet Scott----”
“Right ho, Jeeves.”
“Very good, sir.”
“And in order to bring that old love whizzing to the surface once more,
all that is required is the proper treatment.”
“By ‘proper treatment,’ sir, you mean----”
“Clever handling, Jeeves. A spot of the good old snaky work. I see what
must be done to jerk my Cousin Angela back to normalcy. I’ll tell you,
shall I?”
“If you would be so kind, sir.”
I lit a cigarette, and eyed him keenly through the smoke. He waited
respectfully for me to unleash the words of wisdom. I must say for
Jeeves that--till, as he is so apt to do, he starts shoving his oar in
and cavilling and obstructing--he makes a very good audience. I don’t
know if he is actually agog, but he looks agog, and that’s the great
thing.
“Suppose you were strolling through the illimitable jungle, Jeeves, and
happened to meet a tiger cub.”
“The contingency is a remote one, sir.”
“Never mind. Let us suppose it.”
“Very good, sir.”
“Let us now suppose that you sloshed that tiger cub, and let us suppose
further that word reached its mother that it was being put upon. What
would you expect the attitude of that mother to be? In what frame of
mind do you consider that that tigress would approach you?”
“I should anticipate a certain show of annoyance, sir.”
“And rightly. Due to what is known as the maternal instinct, what?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Very good, Jeeves. We will now suppose that there has recently been
some little coolness between this tiger cub and this tigress. For some
days, let us say, they have not been on speaking terms. Do you think
that that would make any difference to the vim with which the latter
would leap to the former’s aid?”
“No, sir.”
“Exactly. Here, then, in brief, is my plan, Jeeves. I am going to draw
my Cousin Angela aside to a secluded spot and roast Tuppy properly.”
“Roast, sir?”
“Knock. Slam. Tick-off. Abuse. Denounce. I shall be very terse about
Tuppy, giving it as my opinion that in all essentials he is more like
a wart hog than an ex-member of a fine old English public school. What
will ensue? Hearing him attacked, my Cousin Angela’s womanly heart will
be as sick as mud. The maternal tigress in her will awake. No matter
what differences they may have had, she will remember only that he
is the man she loves, and will leap to his defence. And from that to
falling into his arms and burying the dead past will be but a step. How
do you react to that?”
“The idea is an ingenious one, sir.”
“We Woosters are ingenious, Jeeves, exceedingly ingenious.”
“Yes, sir.”
“As a matter of fact, I am not speaking without a knowledge of the form
book. I have tested this theory.”
“Indeed, sir?”
“Yes, in person. And it works. I was standing on the Eden rock at
Antibes last month, idly watching the bathers disport themselves in the
water, and a girl I knew slightly pointed at a male diver and asked
me if I didn’t think his legs were about the silliest-looking pair of
props ever issued to human being. I replied that I did, indeed, and
for the space of perhaps two minutes was extraordinarily witty and
satirical about this bird’s underpinning. At the end of that period, I
suddenly felt as if I had been caught up in the tail of a cyclone.
“Beginning with a _critique_ of my own limbs, which she said, justly
enough, were nothing to write home about, this girl went on to dissect
my manners, morals, intellect, general physique, and method of eating
asparagus with such acerbity that by the time she had finished the best
you could say of Bertram was that, so far as was known, he had never
actually committed murder or set fire to an orphan asylum. Subsequent
investigation proved that she was engaged to the fellow with the legs
and had had a slight disagreement with him the evening before on the
subject of whether she should or should not have made an original call
of two spades, having seven, but without the ace. That night I saw them