Right Ho, Jeeves
thing I remember is finding Jeeves at my side.
I sat up. “My tea, Jeeves?”
“No, sir. It is nearly dinner-time.”
The mists cleared away.
“I must have been asleep.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Nature taking its toll of the exhausted frame.”
“Yes, sir.”
“And enough to make it.”
“Yes, sir.”
“And now it’s nearly dinner-time, you say? All right. I am in no mood
for dinner, but I suppose you had better lay out the clothes.”
“It will not be necessary, sir. The company will not be dressing
tonight. A cold collation has been set out in the dining-room.”
“Why’s that?”
“It was Mrs. Travers’s wish that this should be done in order to
minimize the work for the staff, who are attending a dance at Sir
Percival Stretchley-Budd’s residence tonight.”
“Of course, yes. I remember. My Cousin Angela told me. Tonight’s the
night, what? You going, Jeeves?”
“No, sir. I am not very fond of this form of entertainment in the rural
districts, sir.”
“I know what you mean. These country binges are all the same. A piano,
one fiddle, and a floor like sandpaper. Is Anatole going? Angela hinted
not.”
“Miss Angela was correct, sir. Monsieur Anatole is in bed.”
“Temperamental blighters, these Frenchmen.”
“Yes, sir.”
There was a pause.
“Well, Jeeves,” I said, “it was certainly one of those afternoons,
what?”
“Yes, sir.”
“I cannot recall one more packed with incident. And I left before the
finish.”
“Yes, sir. I observed your departure.”
“You couldn’t blame me for withdrawing.”
“No, sir. Mr. Fink-Nottle had undoubtedly become embarrassingly
personal.”
“Was there much more of it after I went?”
“No, sir. The proceedings terminated very shortly. Mr. Fink-Nottle’s
remarks with reference to Master G.G. Simmons brought about an early
closure.”
“But he had finished his remarks about G.G. Simmons.”
“Only temporarily, sir. He resumed them immediately after your
departure. If you recollect, sir, he had already proclaimed himself
suspicious of Master Simmons’s bona fides, and he now proceeded to
deliver a violent verbal attack upon the young gentleman, asserting
that it was impossible for him to have won the Scripture-knowledge
prize without systematic cheating on an impressive scale. He went so
far as to suggest that Master Simmons was well known to the police.”
“Golly, Jeeves!”
“Yes, sir. The words did create a considerable sensation. The reaction
of those present to this accusation I should describe as mixed. The
young students appeared pleased and applauded vigorously, but Master
Simmons’s mother rose from her seat and addressed Mr. Fink-Nottle in
terms of strong protest.”
“Did Gussie seem taken aback? Did he recede from his position?”
“No, sir. He said that he could see it all now, and hinted at a guilty
liaison between Master Simmons’s mother and the head master, accusing
the latter of having cooked the marks, as his expression was, in order
to gain favour with the former.”
“You don’t mean that?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Egad, Jeeves! And then----”
“They sang the national anthem, sir.”
“Surely not?”
“Yes, sir.”
“At a moment like that?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Well, you were there and you know, of course, but I should have
thought the last thing Gussie and this woman would have done in the
circs. would have been to start singing duets.”
“You misunderstand me, sir. It was the entire company who sang. The
head master turned to the organist and said something to him in a low
tone. Upon which the latter began to play the national anthem, and the
proceedings terminated.”
“I see. About time, too.”
“Yes, sir. Mrs. Simmons’s attitude had become unquestionably menacing.”
I pondered. What I had heard was, of course, of a nature to excite
pity and terror, not to mention alarm and despondency, and it would
be paltering with the truth to say that I was pleased about it. On
the other hand, it was all over now, and it seemed to me that the
thing to do was not to mourn over the past but to fix the mind on the
bright future. I mean to say, Gussie might have lowered the existing
Worcestershire record for goofiness and definitely forfeited all chance
of becoming Market Snodsbury’s favourite son, but you couldn’t get away
from the fact that he had proposed to Madeline Bassett, and you had to
admit that she had accepted him.
I put this to Jeeves.
“A frightful exhibition,” I said, “and one which will very possibly
ring down history’s pages. But we must not forget, Jeeves, that Gussie,
though now doubtless looked upon in the neighbourhood as the world’s
worst freak, is all right otherwise.”
“No, sir.”
I did not get quite this.
“When you say ‘No, sir,’ do you mean ‘Yes, sir’?”
“No, sir. I mean ‘No, sir.’”
“He is not all right otherwise?”
“No, sir.”
“But he’s betrothed.”
“No longer, sir. Miss Bassett has severed the engagement.”
“You don’t mean that?”
“Yes, sir.”
I wonder if you have noticed a rather peculiar thing about this
chronicle. I allude to the fact that at one time or another practically
everybody playing a part in it has had occasion to bury his or her
face in his or her hands. I have participated in some pretty glutinous
affairs in my time, but I think that never before or since have I been
mixed up with such a solid body of brow clutchers.
Uncle Tom did it, if you remember. So did Gussie. So did Tuppy. So,
probably, though I have no data, did Anatole, and I wouldn’t put it
past the Bassett. And Aunt Dahlia, I have no doubt, would have done it,
too, but for the risk of disarranging the carefully fixed coiffure.
Well, what I am trying to say is that at this juncture I did it myself.
Up went the hands and down went the head, and in another jiffy I was
clutching as energetically as the best of them.
And it was while I was still massaging the coconut and wondering what
the next move was that something barged up against the door like the
delivery of a ton of coals.
“I think this may very possibly be Mr. Fink-Nottle himself, sir,” said
Jeeves.
His intuition, however, had led him astray. It was not Gussie but
Tuppy. He came in and stood breathing asthmatically. It was plain that
he was deeply stirred.
-18-
I eyed him narrowly. I didn’t like his looks. Mark you, I don’t say I
ever had, much, because Nature, when planning this sterling fellow,
shoved in a lot more lower jaw than was absolutely necessary and
made the eyes a bit too keen and piercing for one who was neither an
Empire builder nor a traffic policeman. But on the present occasion,
in addition to offending the aesthetic sense, this Glossop seemed to
me to be wearing a distinct air of menace, and I found myself wishing
that Jeeves wasn’t always so dashed tactful. I mean, it’s all very
well to remove yourself like an eel sliding into mud when the employer
has a visitor, but there are moments--and it looked to me as if this
was going to be one of them--when the truer tact is to stick round and
stand ready to lend a hand in the free-for-all.
For Jeeves was no longer with us. I hadn’t seen him go, and I hadn’t
heard him go, but he had gone. As far as the eye could reach, one
noted nobody but Tuppy. And in Tuppy’s demeanour, as I say, there was
a certain something that tended to disquiet. He looked to me very much
like a man who had come to reopen that matter of my tickling Angela’s
ankles.
However, his opening remark told me that I had been alarming myself
unduly. It was of a pacific nature, and came as a great relief.
“Bertie,” he said, “I owe you an apology. I have come to make it.”
My relief on hearing these words, containing as they did no reference
of any sort to tickled ankles, was, as I say, great. But I don’t
think it was any greater than my surprise. Months had passed since
that painful episode at the Drones, and until now he hadn’t given a
sign of remorse and contrition. Indeed, word had reached me through
private sources that he frequently told the story at dinners and other
gatherings and, when doing so, laughed his silly head off.
I found it hard to understand, accordingly, what could have caused him
to abase himself at this later date. Presumably he had been given the
elbow by his better self, but why?
Still, there it was.
“My dear chap,” I said, gentlemanly to the gills, “don’t mention it.”
“What’s the sense of saying, ‘Don’t mention it’? I have mentioned it.”
“I mean, don’t mention it any more. Don’t give the matter another
thought. We all of us forget ourselves sometimes and do things which,
in our calmer moments, we regret. No doubt you were a bit tight at the
time.”
“What the devil do you think you’re talking about?”
I didn’t like his tone. Brusque.
“Correct me if I am wrong,” I said, with a certain stiffness, “but I
assumed that you were apologizing for your foul conduct in looping back
the last ring that night in the Drones, causing me to plunge into the
swimming b. in the full soup and fish.”
“Ass! Not that, at all.”
“Then what?”
“This Bassett business.”
“What Bassett business?”
“Bertie,” said Tuppy, “when you told me last night that you were in
love with Madeline Bassett, I gave you the impression that I believed
you, but I didn’t. The thing seemed too incredible. However, since
then I have made inquiries, and the facts appear to square with your
statement. I have now come to apologize for doubting you.”
“Made inquiries?”
“I asked her if you had proposed to her, and she said, yes, you had.”
“Tuppy! You didn’t?”
“I did.”
“Have you no delicacy, no proper feeling?”
“No.”
“Oh? Well, right-ho, of course, but I think you ought to have.”
“Delicacy be dashed. I wanted to be certain that it was not you who
stole Angela from me. I now know it wasn’t.”
So long as he knew that, I didn’t so much mind him having no delicacy.
“Ah,” I said. “Well, that’s fine. Hold that thought.”
“I have found out who it was.”
“What?”
He stood brooding for a moment. His eyes were smouldering with a dull
fire. His jaw stuck out like the back of Jeeves’s head.
“Bertie,” he said, “do you remember what I swore I would do to the chap
who stole Angela from me?”
“As nearly as I recall, you planned to pull him inside out----”
“--and make him swallow himself. Correct. The programme still holds
good.”
“But, Tuppy, I keep assuring you, as a competent eyewitness, that
nobody snitched Angela from you during that Cannes trip.”
“No. But they did after she got back.”
“What?”
“Don’t keep saying, ‘What?’ You heard.”
“But she hasn’t seen anybody since she got back.”
“Oh, no? How about that newt bloke?”
“Gussie?”
“Precisely. The serpent Fink-Nottle.”
This seemed to me absolute gibbering.
“But Gussie loves the Bassett.”
“You can’t all love this blighted Bassett. What astonishes me is that
anyone can do it. He loves Angela, I tell you. And she loves him.”
“But Angela handed you your hat before Gussie ever got here.”
“No, she didn’t. Couple of hours after.”
“He couldn’t have fallen in love with her in a couple of hours.”
“Why not? I fell in love with her in a couple of minutes. I worshipped
her immediately we met, the popeyed little excrescence.”
“But, dash it----”
“Don’t argue, Bertie. The facts are all docketed. She loves this
newt-nuzzling blister.”
“Quite absurd, laddie--quite absurd.”
“Oh?” He ground a heel into the carpet--a thing I’ve often read about,
but had never seen done before. “Then perhaps you will explain how it
is that she happens to come to be engaged to him?”
You could have knocked me down with a f.
“Engaged to him?”
“She told me herself.”
“She was kidding you.”
“She was not kidding me. Shortly after the conclusion of this
afternoon’s binge at Market Snodsbury Grammar School he asked her to
marry him, and she appears to have right-hoed without a murmur.”