Expecting Jeeves (20 page)

“
I can't move a step without tripping over one or both of them,” she said. “Generally both. They've taken to calling together, and they just settle down grimly and try to sit each other out. It's wearing me to a shadow.”

“I know,” I said sympathetically. “I know.”

“Well, what's to be done?”

“It beats me. Couldn't you tell your maid to say you are not at home?”

She shuddered slightly.

“I tried that once. They camped on the stairs, and I couldn't get out all the afternoon. And I had a lot of particularly important engagements. I wish you would persuade them to go to South Africa, where they seem to be wanted.”

“You must have made the dickens of an impression on them.”

“I should say I have. They've started giving me presents now. At least, Claude has. He insisted on my accepting this cigarette-case last night. Came round to the theatre and wouldn't go away till I took it. It's not a bad one, I must say.”

It wasn't. It was a distinctly fruity concern in gold with a diamond stuck in the middle. And the rummy thing was that I had a notion I'd seen something very like it before somewhere. How the deuce Claude had been able to dig up the cash to buy a thing like that was more than I could imagine.

Next day was a Wednesday, and as the object of their devotion had a
matinée,
the twins were, so to speak, off duty. Claude had gone with his whiskers on to Hurst Park, and Eustace and I were in the flat, talking. At least, he was talking and I was wishing he would go.

“The love of a good woman, Bertie,” he was saying, “must be a wonderful thing. Sometimes — Good Lord! what's that?”

The front door had opened, and from out in the hall there came the sound of Aunt Agatha's voice asking if I was in. Aunt Agatha has one of those high, penetrating voices, but this was the first time I'd ever been thankful for it. There was just about two seconds to clear the way for her, but it was long enough for Eustace to dive under the sofa. His last shoe had just disappeared when she came in.

She had a worried look. It seemed to me about this time that everybody had.

“
Bertie,” she said, “what are your immediate plans?”

“How do you mean? I'm dining to-night with —”

“No, no, I don't mean to-night. Are you busy for the next few days? But, of course you are not,” she went on, not waiting for me to answer. “You never have anything to do. Your whole life is spent in idle — but we can go into that later. What I came for this afternoon was to tell you that I wish you to go with your poor Uncle George to Harrogate for a few weeks. The sooner you can start, the better.”

This appeared to me to approximate so closely to the frozen limit that I uttered a yelp of protest. Uncle George is all right, but he won't do. I was trying to say as much when she waved me down.

“If you are not entirely heartless, Bertie, you will do as I ask you. Your poor Uncle George has had a severe shock.”

“What, another!”

“He feels that only complete rest and careful medical attendance can restore his nervous system to its normal poise. It seems that in the past he has derived benefit from taking the waters at Harrogate, and he wishes to go there now. We do not think he ought to be alone, so I wish you to accompany him.”

“But, I say!”

“Bertie!”

There was a lull in the conversation.

“What shock has he had?” I asked.

“Between ourselves,” said Aunt Agatha, lowering her voice in an impressive manner, “I incline to think that the whole affair was the outcome of an over-excited imagination. You are one of the family, Bertie, and I can speak freely to you. You know as well as I do that your poor Uncle George has for many years
not
been a — he has — er — developed a habit of — how shall I put it?”

“Shifting it a bit?”

“I beg your pardon?”

“Mopping up the stuff to some extent?”

“I dislike your way of putting it exceedingly, but I must confess that he has not been, perhaps, as temperate as he should. He is highly-strung, and — Well, the fact is, that he has had a shock.”

“
Yes, but what?”

“That is what it is so hard to induce him to explain with any precision. With all his good points, your poor Uncle George is apt to become incoherent when strongly moved. As far as I could gather, he appears to have been the victim of a burglary.”

“Burglary!”

“He says that a strange man with whiskers and a peculiar nose entered his rooms in Jermyn Street during his absence and stole some of his property. He says that he came back and found the man in his sitting-room. He immediately rushed out of the room and disappeared.”

“Uncle George?”

“No, the man. And, according to your Uncle George, he had stolen a valuable cigarette-case. But, as I say, I am inclined to think that the whole thing was imagination. He has not been himself since the day when he fancied that he saw Eustace in the street. So I should like you, Bertie, to be prepared to start for Harrogate with him not later than Saturday.”

She popped off, and Eustace crawled out from under the sofa. The blighter was strongly moved. So was I, for the matter of that. The idea of several weeks with Uncle George at Harrogate seemed to make everything go black.

“So that's where he got that cigarette-case, dash him!” said Eustace bitterly. “Of all the dirty tricks! Robbing his own flesh and blood! The fellow ought to be in chokey.”

“He ought to be in South Africa,” I said. “And so ought you.”

And with an eloquence which rather surprised me, I hauled up my slacks for perhaps ten minutes on the subject of his duty to his family and what not. I appealed to his sense of decency. I boosted South Africa with vim. I said everything I could think of, much of it twice over. But all the blighter did was to babble about his dashed brother's baseness in putting one over on him in the matter of the cigarette-case. He seemed to think that Claude, by slinging in the handsome gift, had got right ahead of him; and there was a painful scene when the latter came back from Hurst Park. I could hear them talking half the night, long after I had tottered off to bed. I don't know when I've met fellows who could do with less sleep than those two.

∗

After this, things became a bit strained at the flat owing to Claude and Eustace not being on speaking terms. I'm all for a certain chumminess in the home, and it was wearing to have to live with two fellows who wouldn't admit that the other one was on the map at all.

One felt the thing couldn't go on like that for long, and, by Jove, it didn't. But, if anyone had come to me the day before and told me what was going to happen, I should simply have smiled wanly. I mean, I'd got so accustomed to thinking that nothing short of a dynamite explosion could ever dislodge those two nestlers from my midst that, when Claude sidled up to me on the Friday morning and told me his bit of news, I could hardly believe I was hearing right.

“Bertie,” he said, “I've been thinking it over.”

“What over?” I said.

“The whole thing. This business of staying in London when I ought to be in South Africa. It isn't fair,” said Claude warmly. “It isn't right. And the long and the short of it is, Bertie, old man, I'm leaving to-morrow.”

I reeled in my tracks.

“You are?” I gasped.

“Yes. If,” said Claude, “you won't mind sending old Jeeves out to buy a ticket for me. I'm afraid I'll have to stick you for the passage money, old man. You don't mind?”

“Mind!” I said, clutching his hand fervently.

“That's all right, then. Oh, I say, you won't say a word to Eustace about this, will you?”

“But isn't he going, too?”

Claude shuddered.

“No, thank heaven! The idea of being cooped up on board a ship with that blighter gives me the pip just to think of it. No, not a word to Eustace. I say, I suppose you can get me a berth all right at such short notice?”

“Rather!” I said. Sooner than let this opportunity slip, I would have bought the bally boat.

“Jeeves,” I said, breezing into the kitchen. “Go out on first speed to the Union-Castle offices and book a berth on tomorrow's boat for Mr. Claude. He is leaving us, Jeeves.”

“
Yes, sir.”

“Mr. Claude does not wish any mention of this to be made to Mr. Eustace.”

“No, sir. Mr. Eustace made the same proviso when he desired me to obtain a berth on to-morrow's boat for himself.”

I gaped at the man.

“Is he going, too?”

“Yes, sir.”

“This is rummy.”

“Yes, sir.”

Had circumstances been other than they were, I would at this juncture have unbent considerably towards Jeeves. Frisked round him a bit and whooped to a certain extent, and what not. But those spats still formed a barrier, and I regret to say that I took the opportunity of rather rubbing it in a bit on the man. I mean, he'd been so dashed aloof and unsympathetic, though perfectly aware that the young master was in the soup and that it was up to him to rally round, that I couldn't help pointing out how the happy ending had been snaffled without any help from him.

“So that's that, Jeeves,” I said. “The episode is concluded. I knew things would sort themselves out if one gave them time and didn't get rattled. Many chaps in my place would have got rattled, Jeeves.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Gone rushing about, I mean, asking people for help and advice and so forth.”

“Very possibly, sir.”

“But not me, Jeeves.”

“No, sir.”

I left him to brood on it.

∗

Even the thought that I'd got to go to Harrogate with Uncle George couldn't depress me that Saturday when I gazed about the old flat and realized that Claude and Eustace weren't in it. They had slunk off stealthily and separately immediately after breakfast, Eustace to catch the boat-train at Waterloo, Claude
to
go round to the garage where I kept my car. I didn't want any chance of the two meeting at Waterloo and changing their minds, so I had suggested to Claude that he might find it pleasanter to drive down to Southampton.

I was lying back on the old settee, gazing peacefully up at the flies on the ceiling and feeling what a wonderful world this was, when Jeeves came in with a letter.

“A messenger-boy has brought this, sir.”

I opened the envelope, and the first thing that fell out was a five-pound note.

“Great Scott!” I said. “What's all this?”

The letter was scribbled in pencil, and was quite brief:

Dear Bertie,
—
Will you give enclosed to your man, and tell him I wish I could make it more. He has saved my life. This is the first happy day I've had for a week.

Yours,

M. W.

Jeeves was standing holding out the fiver, which had fluttered to the floor.

“You'd better stick to it,” I said. “It seems to be for you.”

“Sir?”

“I say that fiver is for you, apparently. Miss Wardour sent it.”

“That was extremely kind of her, sir.”

“What the dickens is she sending you fivers for? She says you saved her life.”

Jeeves smiled gently.

“She over-estimates my services, sir.”

“But what
were
your services, dash it?”

“It was in the matter of Mr. Claude and Mr. Eustace, sir. I was hoping that she would not refer to the matter, as I did not wish you to think that I had been taking a liberty.”

“What do you mean?”

“I chanced to be in the room while Miss Wardour was complaining with some warmth of the manner in which Mr. Claude and Mr. Eustace were thrusting their society upon her. I felt
that
in the circumstances it might be excusable if I suggested a slight ruse to enable her to dispense with their attentions.”

“Good Lord! You don't mean to say you were at the bottom of their popping off, after all!”

Silly ass it made me feel. I mean, after rubbing it in to him like that about having clicked without his assistance.

“It occurred to me that, were Miss Wardour to inform Mr. Claude and Mr. Eustace independently that she proposed sailing for South Africa to take up a theatrical engagement, the desired effect might be produced. It appears that my anticipations were correct, sir. The young gentlemen ate it, if I may use the expression.”

“Jeeves,” I said — we Woosters may make bloomers, but we are never too proud to admit it — “you stand alone!”

“Thank you very much, sir.”

“Oh, but I say!” A ghastly thought had struck me. “When they get on the boat and find she isn't there, won't they come buzzing back?”

“I anticipated that possibility, sir. At my suggestion, Miss Wardour informed the young gentlemen that she proposed to travel overland to Madeira and join the vessel there.”

“And where do they touch after Madeira?”

“Nowhere, sir.”

For a moment I just lay back, letting the idea of the thing soak in. There seemed to me to be only one flaw.

“The only pity is,” I said, “that on a large boat like that they will be able to avoid each other. I mean, I should have liked to feel that Claude was having a good deal of Eustace's society and
vice versa.”

“I fancy that that will be so, sir. I secured a two-berth stateroom. Mr. Claude will occupy one berth, Mr. Eustace the other.”

I sighed with pure ecstasy. It seemed a dashed shame that on this joyful occasion I should have to go off to Harrogate with my Uncle George.

“Have you started packing yet, Jeeves?” I asked.

“Packing, sir?”

“For Harrogate. I've got to go there to-day with Sir George.”

“
Of course, yes, sir. I forgot to mention it. Sir George rang up on the telephone this morning while you were still asleep, and said that he had changed his plans. He does not intend to go to Harrogate.”