Aunts Aren't Gentlemen (15 page)

But he was looking very thoughtful, and I knew what was
passing in his mind. He was wondering how he was going to
explain to Cook, whom by tying people to sofas he had
rendered liable for heavy damages for assault and battery and
all sorts of things.

These African explorers think quick. It took him about
five seconds flat to decide not to stay and explain to Cook.
Then he was out of the room in a flash, his destination
presumably Bongo on the Congo or somewhere similar
where the arm of the law couldn't touch him. I don't suppose
he had shown a brisker turn of speed since the last time he
had thought the natives seemed friendly and had decided to
stay the night, only to have them come after him with assegais.

My first move after he had left us was, of course, to pay a
marked tribute to Jeeves for his services and co-operation. This
done, we struck the more social note.

'Did you have a good time last night, Jeeves?'

'Extremely enjoyable, thank you, sir.'

'How was your aunt?'

'At first somewhat dispirited.'

'Why was that?'

'She had lost her cat, sir. On leaving for her holiday she
placed it in the charge of a friend, and it had strayed.'

I gasped. A sudden idea had struck me. We Woosters are
like that. We are always getting struck by sudden ideas.

'Jeeves! Could it be . . . Do you think it's possible . . . ?'

'Yes, sir. She described the animal to me in minute detail,
and there can be no doubt that it is the one now in residence
at Eggesford Court.'

I danced a carefree dance step. I know a happy ending when
I see one.

'Then we've got Cook cold!'

'So it would seem, sir.'

'We go to him and tell him he can carry on plus cat till the
race is over, paying, of course, a suitable sum to your aunt.
Lend-lease, isn't it called?'

'Yes, sir.'

'And in addition we make it a proviso . . . It is proviso?'

'Yes, sir.'

'That he gives Orlo Porter his money. I'd like to see Orlo
fixed up. He can't refuse, because he must have the cat, and if
he tries any
nolle prosequi
as regards Orlo we slap an assault and
battery suit on him. Am I right, Jeeves?'

'Indubitably, sir.'

'And another thing. I have thought for some time that the
hectic rush and swirl of life in Maiden Eggesford can scarcely
be what E. Jimpson Murgatroyd had in mind when he sent me
to the country to get a complete rest. What I need is
something quieter, more peaceful, as it might be in New York.
And if I am mugged, what of it? It is probably all right getting
mugged, when you are used to it. Do you agree, Jeeves?'

'Yes, sir.'

'And you are in favour of bearding Pop Cook?'

'Yes, sir.'

'Then let's go. My car is outside. Next stop, Eggesford
Court.'

It was about a week after we had fetched up in New York that
coming to the breakfast table one morning, rejoicing in my
youth if I remember rightly, I found a letter with an English
stamp lying by my plate. Not recognizing the writing, I pushed
it aside, intending to get at it later after I had fortified myself
with a square meal. I generally do this with the letters I get at
breakfast time, because if they're stinkers and you read them
on an empty stomach, you start your day all wrong. And in
these disturbed times you don't often find people writing
anything but stinkers.

Some half-hour later, refreshed and strengthened, I opened
the envelope, and no wonder the writing had seemed
unfamiliar, for it was from Uncle Tom, and he hadn't written
to me since I was at my private school, when, to do him credit,
he had always enclosed a postal order for five or ten bob.

He hauled up his slacks thus:

Dear Bertie.

You will doubtless be surprised at hearing from me.
I am writing for your aunt, who has met with an unfortunate accident and is
compelled to wear her arm in a sling. This occurred during the concluding
days of her visit to some friends of hers in Somerset named Briscoe. If I
understand her rightly, a party was in progress to celebrate the victory of
Colonel Briscoe's horse Simla in an important race, and a cork, extracted
from a bottle of champagne, struck her so sharply on the tip of the nose that
she lost her balance and fell, injuring her wrist.

Then came three pages about the weather, the income tax
(which he dislikes) and the recent purchases he had made for
his collection of old silver, and finally a postscript:

PS Your aunt asks me to enclose this newspaper clipping.

I couldn't find any newspaper clipping, and I supposed he
must have forgotten to enclose it. Then I saw it lying on the
floor.

I picked it up. It was from the
Bridmouth Argus,
with which
is incorporated the
Somerset Farmer
and the
South Country
Intelligencer,
the organ, if you remember, whose dramatic critic
gave the old ancestor such a rave notice when she sang 'Every
Nice Girl Loves A Sailor' in her sailor suit at the Maiden
Eggesford village concert.

It ran as follows:

JUBILEE STAKES SENSATION

JUDGES' DECISION

Yesterday the Judges, Major Welsh, Admiral Sharpe and
Sir Everard Boot, after prolonged consideration, gave
their decision in the Jubilee Stakes incident which has led
to so much controversy in Bridmouth-on-Sea sporting
circles. The race was awarded to Colonel Briscoe's Simla.
Bets will accordingly be settled in accordance with this
fiat.
Rumour whispers that large sums will change hands.

Here I paused, for letter and clipping had given me much food
for thought.

Naturally it was with the deepest concern that I pictured the
tragic scene of Aunt Dahlia and the champagne cork. Something
similar happened to me once during some rout or revelry
at the Drones, and I can testify that it calls for all that one has
of fortitude. But against this must be set the fact that she had
won a substantial chunk of money and would not be faced with
the awful necessity of getting into Uncle Tom's ribs in order to
keep the budget balanced.

But this aspect of the matter ceased to enchain my interest.
What I wanted was to probe to the heart of the mystery that
had presented itself. Apparently Cook's Potato Chip had
finished first but had been disqualified. Why? Bumping?
That's usually what you get disqualified for.

I read on.

The facts will of course be fresh in the minds of our
readers. Rounding into the straight, Simla and his rival
were neck and neck, far ahead of the field, and it was
plain that one of the two must be the ultimate winner.
Nearing the finish, Simla took the lead and was a full
length ahead, when a cat with black and white markings
suddenly ran on to the course, causing him to shy and
unseat his jockey.

It was then discovered that the cat was the property of
Mr Cook and had actually been brought to the course in
his horse's horse box. It was this that decided the judges,
who, as we say, yesterday awarded the race to Colonel
Briscoe's entrant. Sympathy has been expressed for Mr
Cook.

Not by me, I hasten to say. I felt it served the old blighter jolly
well right. He ought to have known that you can't go about the
place for years making a hellhound of yourself without
eventually paying the price. Remember what the fellow said
about the mills of the gods.

I was in philosophical mood as I smoked the after-breakfast
cigarette. Jeeves came in to clear away the debris, and I told
him the news.

'Simla won, Jeeves.'

'Indeed, sir? That is most gratifying.'

'And Aunt Dahlia got hit on the tip of the nose with a
champagne cork.'

'Sir?'

'At the subsequent celebrations at the Briscoe home.'

'Ah, yes, sir. A painful experience, but no doubt satisfaction
at her financial gains would enable Mrs Travers to bear it with
fortitude. Was the tone of her communication cheerful?'

'The letter wasn't from her, it was from Uncle Tom. He
enclosed this.'

I handed him the clipping, and I could see how deeply it
interested him. One of his eyebrows rose at least a sixteenth of
an inch.

'Dramatic, Jeeves.'

'Exceedingly, sir. But I am not sure that I altogether agree
with the verdict of the judges.'

'You don't?'

'I should have been inclined to regard the episode as an Act
of God.'

'Well, thank goodness the decision wasn't up to you. The
imagination boggles at the thought of how Aunt Dahlia would
have reacted if it had gone the other way. One pictures her
putting hedgehogs in Major Welsh's bed and getting fourteen
days without the option for pouring buckets of water out of
windows on the heads of Admiral Sharpe and Sir Everard
Boot. I should have got nervous prostration in the first couple
of days. And it was difficult enough to avoid nervous
prostration in Maiden Eggesford as it was, Jeeves,' I said, my
philosophical mood now buzzing along on all twelve cylinders.
'Do you ever brood on life?'

'Occasionally, sir, when at leisure.'

'What do you make of it? Pretty odd in spots, don't you
think?'

'It might be so described, sir.'

'This business of such-and-such seeming to be so-and-so,
when it really isn't so-and-so at all. You follow me?'

'Not entirely, sir.'

'Well, take a simple instance. At first sight Maiden
Eggesford had all the indications of being a haven of peace.
You agreed with me?'

'Yes, sir.'

'As calm and quiet as you could wish, with honeysuckle-covered
cottages and apple-cheeked villagers wherever you
looked. Then it tore off its whiskers and revealed itself as an
inferno. To obtain calm and quiet we had to come to New
York, and there we got it in full measure. Life saunters along
on an even keel. Nothing happens. Have we been mugged?'

'No, sir.'

'Or shot by youths?'

'No, sir.'

'No, sir, is right. We are tranquil. And I'll tell you why.
There are no aunts here. And in particular we are three
thousand miles away from Mrs Dahlia Travers of Brinkley
Manor, Market Snodsbury, Worcestershire. Don't get me
wrong, Jeeves, I love the old flesh-and-blood. In fact I revere
her. Nobody can say she isn't good company. But her moral
code is lax. She cannot distinguish between what is according
to Hoyle and what is not according to Hoyle. If she wants to
do anything, she doesn't ask herself "Would Emily Post
approve of this?", she goes ahead and does it, as she did in this
matter of the cat. Do you know what is the trouble with aunts
as a class?'

'No, sir.'

'They are not gentlemen,' I said gravely.

P. G. Wodehouse

IN ARROW BOOKS

If you have enjoyed Jeeves and Wooster, you'll love Blandings

FROM
Service with a Smile

I

The morning sun shone down on Blandings Castle, and the
various inmates of the ancestral home of Clarence, ninth
Earl of Emsworth, their breakfasts digested, were occupying
themselves in their various ways. One may as well run through
the roster just to keep the record straight.

Beach, the butler, was in his pantry reading an Agatha
Christie; Voules, the chauffeur, chewing gum in the car
outside the front door. The Duke of Dunstable, who had come
uninvited for a long visit and showed no signs of ever leaving,
sat spelling through
The Times
on the terrace outside the
amber drawing-room, while George, Lord Emsworth's grandson,
roamed the grounds with the camera which he had been
given on his twelfth birthday. He was photographing – not
that the fact is of more than mild general interest – a family of
rabbits down by the west wood.

Lord Emsworth's sister, Lady Constance, was in her boudoir
writing a letter to her American friend James Schoonmaker.
Lord Emsworth's secretary, Lavender Briggs, was out looking
for Lord Emsworth. And Lord Emsworth himself, accompanied
by Mr Schoonmaker's daughter Myra, was on his way to
the headquarters of Empress of Blandings, his pre-eminent sow,
three times silver medallist in the Fat Pigs class at the
Shropshire Agricultural Show. He had taken the girl with him
because it seemed to him that she was a trifle on the low-spirited
side these days, and he knew from his own experience that there
was nothing like an after-breakfast look at the Empress for
bracing one up and bringing the roses back to the cheeks.

'There is her sty,' he said, pointing a reverent finger as they
crossed the little meadow dappled with buttercups and daisies.
'And that is my pigman Wellbeloved standing by it.'

Myra Schoonmaker, who had been walking with bowed
head, as if pacing behind the coffin of a dear and valued friend,
glanced listlessly in the direction indicated. She was a pretty
girl of the small, slim, slender type, who would have been
prettier if she had been more cheerful. Her brow was furrowed,
her lips drawn, and the large brown eyes which rested on
George Cyril Wellbeloved had in them something of the
sadness one sees in those of a dachshund which, coming to the
dinner table to get its ten per cent, is refused a cut off the joint.

'Looks kind of a plug ugly,' she said, having weighed George
Cyril in the balance.

'Eh? What? What?' said Lord Emsworth, for the word was
new to him.

'I wouldn't trust a guy like that an inch.'

Enlightenment came to Lord Emsworth.

'Ah, you have heard, then, how he left me some time ago
and went to my neighbour, Sir Gregory Parsloe. Outrageous
and disloyal, of course, but these fellows will do these things.
You don't find the old feudal spirit nowadays. But all that is in
the past, and I consider myself very fortunate to have got him
back. A most capable man.'

'Well, I still say I wouldn't trust him as far as I can throw an
elephant.'

At any other moment it would have interested Lord
Emsworth to ascertain how far she could throw an elephant,
and he would have been all eager questioning. But with the
Empress awaiting him at journey's end he was too preoccupied
to go into the matter. As far as he was capable of hastening, he
hastened on, his mild eyes gleaming in anticipation of the treat
in store.

Propping his back against the rail of the sty, George Cyril
Wellbeloved watched him approach, a silent whistle of
surprise on his lips.

'Well, strike me pink!' he said to his immortal soul. 'Cor
chase my aunt Fanny up a gum tree!'

What had occasioned this astonishment was the fact that
his social superior, usually the sloppiest of dressers and
generally regarded as one of Shropshire's more prominent
eyesores, was now pure Savile Row from head to foot. Not
even the
Tailor and Cutter's
most acid critic could have found
a thing to cavil at in the quiet splendour of his appearance.
Enough to startle any beholder accustomed to seeing him in
baggy flannel trousers, an old shooting coat with holes in the
elbows, and a hat which would have been rejected disdainfully
by the least fastidious of tramps.

It was no sudden outbreak of foppishness that had wrought
this change in the ninth earl's outer crust, turning him into a
prismatic sight at which pigmen blinked amazed. As he had
explained to Myra Schoonmaker on encountering her
mooning about in the hall, he was wearing the beastly things
because he was going to London on the ??.?? train, because his
sister Connie had ordered him to attend the opening of
Parliament. Though why Parliament could not get itself
opened without his assistance he was at a loss to understand.

A backwoods peer to end all backwoods peers, Lord
Emsworth had a strong dislike for London. He could never see
what pleasure his friend Ickenham found in visiting that
frightful city. The latter's statement that London brought out
all the best in him and was the only place where his soul could
expand like a blossoming flower and his generous nature find
full expression bewildered him. Himself he wanted nothing
but Blandings Castle, even though his sister Constance, his
secretary Lavender Briggs and the Duke of Dunstable were
there and Connie, overriding his veto, had allowed the Church
Lads' Brigade to camp out by the lake. Many people are fond
of church lads, but he was not of their number, and he chafed
at Connie's highhandedness in letting loose on his grounds
and messuages what sometimes seemed to him about five
hundred of them, all squealing simultaneously.

But this morning there was no room in his mind for morbid
thoughts about these juvenile plug-uglies. He strongly suspected that it was
one of them who had knocked his top hat off with a crusty roll at the recent
school treat, but with a visit to the Empress in view he had no leisure to
brood of past wrongs. One did not think of mundane things when about to fraternize
with that wonder-pig.

Arriving at her G.H.Q., he beamed on George Cyril
Wellbeloved as if on some spectacle in glorious technicolor.
And this was odd, for the O.C. Pigs, as Myra Schoonmaker
had hinted, was no feast for the eye, having a sinister squint, a
broken nose acquired during a political discussion at the
Goose and Gander in Market Blandings, and a good deal of
mud all over him. He also smelt rather strongly. But what
enchanted Lord Emsworth, gazing on this son of the soil, was
not his looks or the bouquet he diffused but his mere presence.
It thrilled him to feel that this prince of pigmen was back
again, tending the Empress once more. George Cyril might
rather closely resemble someone for whom the police were
spreading a drag-net in the expectation of making an arrest
shortly, but nobody could deny his great gifts. He knew his
pigs.

So Lord Emsworth beamed, and when he spoke did so with
what, when statesmen meet for conferences, is known as the
utmost cordiality.

'Morning, Wellbeloved.'

'Morning, m'lord.'

'Empress all right?'

'In the pink, m'lord.'

'Eating well?'

'Like a streak, m'lord.'

'Splendid. It is so important,' Lord Emsworth explained to
Myra Schoonmaker, who was regarding the noble animal with
a dull eye, 'that her appetite should remain good. You have of
course read your Wolff-Lehmann and will remember that,
according to the Wolff-Lehmann feeding standards, a pig, to
enjoy health, must consume daily nourishment amounting to
fifty-seven thousand eight hundred calories, these to consist of
proteids four pounds five ounces, carbohydrates twenty-five
pounds.'

'Oh?' said Myra.

'Linseed meal is the secret. That and potato peelings.'

'Oh?' said Myra.

'I knew you would be interested,' said Lord Emsworth.
'And of course skimmed milk. I've got to go to London for a
couple of nights, Wellbeloved. I leave the Empress in your
charge.'

'Her welfare shall be my constant concern, m'lord.'

'Capital, capital, capital,' said Lord Emsworth, and would
probably have gone on doing so for some little time, for he was
a man who, when he started saying 'Capital', found it hard to
stop, but at this moment a new arrival joined their little group,
a tall, haughty young woman who gazed on the world through
harlequin glasses of a peculiarly intimidating kind. She
regarded the ninth earl with the cold eye of a governess of strict
views who has found her young charge playing hooky.

'Pahdon me,' she said.

Her voice was as cold as her eye. Lavender Briggs
disapproved of Lord Emsworth, as she did of all those who
employed her, particularly Lord Tilbury of the Mammoth
Publishing Company, who had been Lord Emsworth's
predecessor. When holding a secretarial post, she performed
her duties faithfully, but it irked her to be a wage slave. What
she wanted was to go into business for herself as the
proprietress of a typewriting bureau. It was the seeming
impossibility of ever obtaining the capital for this venture that
interfered with her sleep at night and in the daytime made her
manner more than a little forbidding. Like George Cyril
Wellbeloved, whose views were strongly communistic, which
was how he got that broken nose, she eyed the more wealthy
of her circle askance. Idle rich, she sometimes called them.

Lord Emsworth, who had been scratching the Empress's
back with the ferrule of his stick, an attention greatly
appreciated by the silver medallist, turned with a start, much
as the Lady of Shalott must have turned when the curse came
upon her. There was always something about his secretary's
voice, when it addressed him unexpectedly, that gave him the
feeling that he was a small boy again and had been caught by
the authorities stealing jam.

'Eh, what? Oh, hullo, Miss Briggs. Lovely morning.'

'Quate. Lady Constance desiah-ed me to tell you that you
should be getting ready to start, Lord Emsworth.'

'What? What? I've plenty of time.'

'Lady Constance thinks othahwise.'

'I'm all packed, aren't I?'

'Quate.'

'Well, then.'

'The car is at the door, and Lady Constance desiah-ed me
to tell you –'

'Oh, all right, all right,' said Lord Emsworth peevishly,
adding a third 'All right' for good measure. 'Always something,
always something,' he muttered, and told himself once
again that, of all the secretarial assistants he had had, none, not
even the Efficient Baxter of evil memory, could compare in the
art of taking the joy out of life with this repellent female whom
Connie in her arbitrary way had insisted on engaging against
his strongly expressed wishes. Always after him, always
harrying him, always popping up out of a trap and wanting
him to
do
things. What with Lavender Briggs, Connie, the
Duke and those beastly boys screaming and yelling beside the
lake, life at Blandings Castle was becoming insupportable.

Gloomily he took one last, lingering look at the Empress
and pottered off, thinking, as so many others had thought before him, that
the ideal way of opening Parliament would be to put a bomb under it and press
the button.