Right Ho, Jeeves
the time and continuing to chafe for some weeks.
But you know how it is with these things. The wound heals. The agony
abates.
I am not saying, mind you, that had the opportunity presented itself
of dropping a wet sponge on Tuppy from some high spot or of putting
an eel in his bed or finding some other form of self-expression of a
like nature, I would not have embraced it eagerly; but that let me out.
I mean to say, grievously injured though I had been, it gave me no
pleasure to feel that the fellow’s bally life was being ruined by the
loss of a girl whom, despite all that had passed, I was convinced he
still loved like the dickens.
On the contrary, I was heart and soul in favour of healing the breach
and rendering everything hotsy-totsy once more between these two young
sundered blighters. You will have gleaned that from my remarks to Aunt
Dahlia, and if you had been present at this moment and had seen the
kindly commiserating look I gave Tuppy, you would have gleaned it still
more.
It was one of those searching, melting looks, and was accompanied by
the hearty clasp of the right hand and the gentle laying of the left on
the collar-bone.
“Well, Tuppy, old man,” I said. “How are you, old man?”
My commiseration deepened as I spoke the words, for there had been no
lighting up of the eye, no answering pressure of the palm, no sign
whatever, in short, of any disposition on his part to do Spring dances
at the sight of an old friend. The man seemed sandbagged. Melancholy,
as I remember Jeeves saying once about Pongo Twistleton when he was
trying to knock off smoking, had marked him for her own. Not that I was
surprised, of course. In the circs., no doubt, a certain moodiness was
only natural.
I released the hand, ceased to knead the shoulder, and, producing the
old case, offered him a cigarette.
He took it dully.
“Are you here, Bertie?” he asked.
“Yes, I’m here.”
“Just passing through, or come to stay?”
I thought for a moment. I might have told him that I had arrived at
Brinkley Court with the express intention of bringing Angela and
himself together once more, of knitting up the severed threads, and
so on and so forth; and for perhaps half the time required for the
lighting of a gasper I had almost decided to do so. Then, I reflected,
better, on the whole, perhaps not. To broadcast the fact that I
proposed to take him and Angela and play on them as on a couple of
stringed instruments might have been injudicious. Chaps don’t always
like being played on as on a stringed instrument.
“It all depends,” I said. “I may remain. I may push on. My plans are
uncertain.”
He nodded listlessly, rather in the manner of a man who did not give a
damn what I did, and stood gazing out over the sunlit garden. In build
and appearance, Tuppy somewhat resembles a bulldog, and his aspect now
was that of one of these fine animals who has just been refused a slice
of cake. It was not difficult for a man of my discernment to read what
was in his mind, and it occasioned me no surprise, therefore, when his
next words had to do with the subject marked with a cross on the agenda
paper.
“You’ve heard of this business of mine, I suppose? Me and Angela?”
“I have, indeed, Tuppy, old man.”
“We’ve bust up.”
“I know. Some little friction, I gather, _in re_ Angela’s shark.”
“Yes. I said it must have been a flatfish.”
“So my informant told me.”
“Who did you hear it from?”
“Aunt Dahlia.”
“I suppose she cursed me properly?”
“Oh, no.”
“Beyond referring to you in one passage as ‘this blasted Glossop’, she
was, I thought, singularly temperate in her language for a woman who at
one time hunted regularly with the Quorn. All the same, I could see,
if you don’t mind me saying so, old man, that she felt you might have
behaved with a little more tact.”
“Tact!”
“And I must admit I rather agreed with her. Was it nice, Tuppy, was
it quite kind to take the bloom off Angela’s shark like that? You
must remember that Angela’s shark is very dear to her. Could you not
see what a sock on the jaw it would be for the poor child to hear it
described by the man to whom she had given her heart as a flatfish?”
I saw that he was struggling with some powerful emotion.
“And what about my side of the thing?” he demanded, in a voice choked
with feeling.
“Your side?”
“You don’t suppose,” said Tuppy, with rising vehemence, “that I
would have exposed this dashed synthetic shark for the flatfish it
undoubtedly was if there had not been causes that led up to it. What
induced me to speak as I did was the fact that Angela, the little
squirt, had just been most offensive, and I seized the opportunity to
get a bit of my own back.”
“Offensive?”
“Exceedingly offensive. Purely on the strength of my having let fall
some casual remark--simply by way of saying something and keeping the
conversation going--to the effect that I wondered what Anatole was
going to give us for dinner, she said that I was too material and ought
not always to be thinking of food. Material, my elbow! As a matter of
fact, I’m particularly spiritual.”
“Quite.”
“I don’t see any harm in wondering what Anatole was going to give us
for dinner. Do you?”
“Of course not. A mere ordinary tribute of respect to a great artist.”
“Exactly.”
“All the same----”
“Well?”
“I was only going to say that it seems a pity that the frail craft
of love should come a stinker like this when a few manly words of
contrition----”
He stared at me.
“You aren’t suggesting that I should climb down?”
“It would be the fine, big thing, old egg.”
“I wouldn’t dream of climbing down.”
“But, Tuppy----”
“No. I wouldn’t do it.”
“But you love her, don’t you?”
This touched the spot. He quivered noticeably, and his mouth twisted.
Quite the tortured soul.
“I’m not saying I don’t love the little blighter,” he said, obviously
moved. “I love her passionately. But that doesn’t alter the fact that I
consider that what she needs most in this world is a swift kick in the
pants.”
A Wooster could scarcely pass this. “Tuppy, old man!”
“It’s no good saying ‘Tuppy, old man’.”
“Well, I do say ‘Tuppy, old man’. Your tone shocks me. One raises the
eyebrows. Where is the fine, old, chivalrous spirit of the Glossops.”
“That’s all right about the fine, old, chivalrous spirit of the
Glossops. Where is the sweet, gentle, womanly spirit of the Angelas?
Telling a fellow he was getting a double chin!”
“Did she do that?”
“She did.”
“Oh, well, girls will be girls. Forget it, Tuppy. Go to her and make it
up.”
He shook his head.
“No. It is too late. Remarks have been passed about my tummy which it
is impossible to overlook.”
“But, Tummy--Tuppy, I mean--be fair. You once told her her new hat made
her look like a Pekingese.”
“It did make her look like a Pekingese. That was not vulgar abuse.
It was sound, constructive criticism, with no motive behind it but
the kindly desire to keep her from making an exhibition of herself in
public. Wantonly to accuse a man of puffing when he goes up a flight of
stairs is something very different.”
I began to see that the situation would require all my address and
ingenuity. If the wedding bells were ever to ring out in the little
church of Market Snodsbury, Bertram had plainly got to put in some
shrewdish work. I had gathered, during my conversation with Aunt
Dahlia, that there had been a certain amount of frank speech between
the two contracting parties, but I had not realized till now that
matters had gone so far.
The pathos of the thing gave me the pip. Tuppy had admitted in so many
words that love still animated the Glossop bosom, and I was convinced
that, even after all that occurred, Angela had not ceased to love him.
At the moment, no doubt, she might be wishing that she could hit him
with a bottle, but deep down in her I was prepared to bet that there
still lingered all the old affection and tenderness. Only injured pride
was keeping these two apart, and I felt that if Tuppy would make the
first move, all would be well.
I had another whack at it.
“She’s broken-hearted about this rift, Tuppy.”
“How do you know? Have you seen her?”
“No, but I’ll bet she is.”
“She doesn’t look it.”
“Wearing the mask, no doubt. Jeeves does that when I assert my
authority.”
“She wrinkles her nose at me as if I were a drain that had got out of
order.”
“Merely the mask. I feel convinced she loves you still, and that a
kindly word from you is all that is required.”
I could see that this had moved him. He plainly wavered. He did a sort
of twiddly on the turf with his foot. And, when he spoke, one spotted
the tremolo in the voice:
“You really think that?”
“Absolutely.”
“H’m.”
“If you were to go to her----”
He shook his head.
“I can’t do that. It would be fatal. Bing, instantly, would go my
prestige. I know girls. Grovel, and the best of them get uppish.” He
mused. “The only way to work the thing would be by tipping her off in
some indirect way that I am prepared to open negotiations. Should I
sigh a bit when we meet, do you think?”
“She would think you were puffing.”
“That’s true.”
I lit another cigarette and gave my mind to the matter. And first crack
out of the box, as is so often the way with the Woosters, I got an
idea. I remembered the counsel I had given Gussie in the matter of the
sausages and ham.
“I’ve got it, Tuppy. There is one infallible method of indicating to a
girl that you love her, and it works just as well when you’ve had a row
and want to make it up. Don’t eat any dinner tonight. You can see how
impressive that would be. She knows how devoted you are to food.”
He started violently.
“I am not devoted to food!”
“No, no.”
“I am not devoted to food at all.”
“Quite. All I meant----”
“This rot about me being devoted to food,” said Tuppy warmly, “has got
to stop. I am young and healthy and have a good appetite, but that’s
not the same as being devoted to food. I admire Anatole as a master of
his craft, and am always willing to consider anything he may put before
me, but when you say I am devoted to food----”
“Quite, quite. All I meant was that if she sees you push away your
dinner untasted, she will realize that your heart is aching, and will
probably be the first to suggest blowing the all clear.”
Tuppy was frowning thoughtfully.
“Push my dinner away, eh?”
“Yes.”
“Push away a dinner cooked by Anatole?”
“Yes.”
“Push it away untasted?”
“Yes.”
“Let us get this straight. Tonight, at dinner, when the butler offers
me a _ris de veau à la financiere_, or whatever it may be, hot from
Anatole’s hands, you wish me to push it away untasted?”
“Yes.”
He chewed his lip. One could sense the struggle going on within. And
then suddenly a sort of glow came into his face. The old martyrs
probably used to look like that.
“All right.”
“You’ll do it?”
“I will.”
“Fine.”
“Of course, it will be agony.”
I pointed out the silver lining.
“Only for the moment. You could slip down tonight, after everyone is in
bed, and raid the larder.”
He brightened.
“That’s right. I could, couldn’t I?”
“I expect there would be something cold there.”
“There is something cold there,” said Tuppy, with growing cheerfulness.
“A steak-and-kidney pie. We had it for lunch today. One of Anatole’s
ripest. The thing I admire about that man,” said Tuppy reverently,
“the thing that I admire so enormously about Anatole is that, though a
Frenchman, he does not, like so many of these _chefs_, confine himself
exclusively to French dishes, but is always willing and ready to weigh
in with some good old simple English fare such as this steak-and-kidney
pie to which I have alluded. A masterly pie, Bertie, and it wasn’t more