Jeeves and the Feudal Spirit (12 page)

You
see, what I had failed till now to spot was the fact that Stilton hadn’t a
notion that I was at Brinkley. Thinking me to be in the metropolis, it was
there that he would be spreading his drag—net. He would call at the flat, ring
bells, get no answer and withdraw, baffled. He would haunt the Drones,
expecting me to drop in, and eventually, when I didn’t so drop, would slink
away, baffled again. .‘He cometh not’, he would say, no doubt grinding his
teeth, and a fat lot of good that would do him.

And of
course, after what had occurred, there was no chance of him visiting Brinkley.
A man who has broken off his engagement doesn’t go to the country house where
he knows the girl to be. Well, I mean, I ask you. Naturally he doesn’t. If
there was one spot on earth which could be counted on as of even date to be
wholly free from Cheesewrights, it was Brinkley Court,
Brinkley-cum-Snodsfield-in-the-Marsh, Worcestershire.

Profoundly
relieved, I picked up the feet and hastened to my room with a song on my lips.
Jeeves was there, not actually holding a stop-watch but obviously shaking his
head a bit over the young master’s tardiness. His left eyebrow quivered
perceptibly as I entered.

‘Yes, I
know I’m late, Jeeves,’ I said, starting to shed the upholstery. ‘I went for a
stroll.’

He
accepted the explanation indulgently.

‘I
quite understand, sir. It had occurred to me that, the evening being so fine,
you were probably enjoying a saunter in the grounds. I told Mr. Cheesewright
that this was no doubt the reason for your absence.’

11

Half in and half out of
the shirt, I froze like one of those fellows in the old fairy stories who used
to talk out of turn to magicians and have spells cast upon them. My ears were
sticking up like a wirehaired terrier’s, and I could scarcely believe that they
had heard aright.

‘Mr.
Chuch?’ I quavered. ‘What’s that, Jeeves?’

‘Sir?’

‘I
don’t understand you. Are you saying … are you telling me … are you
actually asserting that Stilton Cheesewright is on the premises?’

‘Yes,
sir. He arrived not long ago in his car. I found him waiting here. He expressed
a desire to see you and appeared chagrined at your continued absence.
Eventually, the dinner-hour becoming imminent, he took his departure. He is
hoping, I gathered from his remarks, to establish contact with you at the
conclusion of the meal.’

I slid
dumbly into the shirt and started to tie the tie. I was quivering, partly with
apprehension, but even more with justifiable indignation. To say that I felt
that this was a bit thick would not be straining the facts unduly. I mean, I
know D’Arcy Cheesewright to be of coarse fibre, the sort of bozo who, as Percy
had said, would look at a sunset and see in it only a resemblance to a slice of
under-done roast beef, but surely one is entitled to expect even bozos of
coarse fibre to have a certain amount of delicacy and decent feeling and what
not. This breaking off his engagement to Florence with one hand and coming
thrusting his society on her with the other struck me, as it would have struck
any fine-minded man, as about as near the outside rim as it was possible to go.

‘It’s
monstrous, Jeeves!’ I cried. ‘Has this pumpkin-headed oaf no sense of what is
fitting? Has he no tact, no discretion? Are you aware that this very evening,
through the medium of a telegram which I have every reason to believe was a
stinker, he severed his relations with Lady Florence?’

‘No,
sir, I had not been apprised. Mr. Cheesewright did not confide in me.’

‘He
must have stopped off
en route
to compose the communication, for it
arrived not so very long before he did. Fancy doing the thing by telegram, thus
giving some post—office clerk the laugh of a lifetime. And then actually having
the crust to come barging in here! That, Jeeves, is serving it up with cream
sauce. I don’t want to be harsh, but there is only one word for D’Arcy
Cheesewright — the word “uncouth”. What are you goggling at?’ I asked, noticing
that his gaze was fixed upon me in a meaning manner.

He
spoke with quiet severity.

‘Your
tie, sir. It will not, I fear, pass muster.’

‘Is
this a time to talk of ties?’

‘Yes,
sir. One aims at the perfect butterfly shape, and this you have not achieved.
With your permission, I will adjust it.’

He did
so, and I must say made a very fine job of it, but I continued to chafe.

‘Do you
realize, Jeeves, that my life is in peril?’

‘Indeed,
sir?’

‘I
assure you. That hunk of boloney … I allude to G. D’Arcy Cheesewright … has
formally stated his intention of breaking my spine in five places.’

‘Indeed,
sir? Why is that?’

I gave
him the facts, and he expressed the opinion that the position of affairs was
disturbing.

I shot
one of my looks at him.

‘You
would go so far as that, Jeeves?’

‘Yes,
sir. Most disturbing.’

‘Ho!’ I
said, borrowing a bit of Stilton’s stuff, and was about to tell him that if he
couldn’t think of a better word than that to describe what was probably the
ghastliest imbroglio that had ever broken loose in the history of the human
race, I would be glad to provide him with a Roget’s
Thesaurus
at my
personal expense, when the gong went and I had to leg it for the trough.

I do not look back to that
first dinner at Brinkley Court as among the pleasantest functions which I have
attended. Ironically, considering the circumstances, Anatole, that wizard of
the pots and pans, had come through with one of his supremest efforts. He had
provided the company with, if memory serves me correctly,

Le Caviar Frais

Le Consommé aux Pommes d’Amour

Les Sylphides à la crème d’Écrevisses

Les Fried Smelts

Le Bird of some kind with chipped potatoes

Le Ice Cream

and, of course, les fruits
and le café, but for all its effect on the Wooster soul it might have been
corned beef hash. I don’t say I pushed it away untasted, as Aunt Dahlia had
described Percy doing with his daily ration, but the successive courses turned
to ashes in my mouth. The sight of Stilton across the table blunted appetite.

I
suppose it was just imagination, but he seemed to have grown quite a good deal
both upwards and sideways since I had last seen him, and the play of expression
on his salmon-coloured face showed only too clearly the thoughts that were
occupying his mind, if you could call it that. He gave me from eight to ten
dirty looks in the course of the meal, but except for a remark at the outset to
the effect that he was hoping to have a word with me later, did not address me.

Nor,
for the matter of that, did he address anyone. His demeanour throughout was
that of a homicidal deaf mute. The Trotter female, who sat on his right,
endeavoured to entertain him with a saga about Mrs. Alderman Blenkinsop’s
questionable behaviour at a recent church bazaar, but he confined his response
to gaping at her like some dull, half-witted animal, as Percy would have said,
and digging silently into the foodstuffs.

Sitting
next to Florence, who spoke little, merely looking cold and proud and making
bread pills, I had ample leisure for thought during the festivities, and by the
time the coffee came round I had formed my plans and perfected my strategy.
When eventually Aunt Dahlia blew the whistle for the gentler sex to buzz off
and leave the men to their port, I took advantage of their departure to execute
a quiet sneak through the french windows into the garden, being well in the
open before the first of the procession had crossed the threshold. Whether or
not this clever move brought a hoarse cry to Stilton’s lips, I cannot say for
certain, but I fancied I heard something that sounded like the howl of a timber
wolf that has stubbed its toe on a passing rock. Not bothering to go back and
ask if he had spoken, I made my way into the spacious grounds.

Had
circumstances been different from what they were — not, of course, that they
ever are — I might have derived no little enjoyment from this after—dinner
saunter, for the air was full of murmurous scents and a brave breeze sang like
a bugle from a sky liberally studded with stars. But to appreciate a starlit
garden one has to have a fairly tranquil mind, and mine was about as far from
being tranquil as it could jolly well stick.

What to
do? I was asking myself. It seemed to me that the prudent course, if I wished
to preserve a valued spine intact, would be to climb aboard the two-seater
first thing in the morning and ho for the open spaces. To remain
in statu
quo
would, it was clear, involve a distasteful nippiness on my part, for
only by the most unremitting activity could I hope to elude Stilton and foil
his sinister aims. I would be compelled, I saw, to spend a substantial portion
of my time flying like a youthful hart or roe over the hills where spices grow,
as I remembered having heard Jeeves once put it, and the Woosters resent having
to sink to the level of harts and roes, whether juvenile or getting on in
years. We have our pride.

I had
just reached the decision that on the morrow I would melt away like snow on the
mountain-tops and go to America or Australia or the Fiji Islands or somewhere
for awhile, when the murmurous summer scents were augmented by the aroma of a
powerful cigar and I observed a dim figure approaching. After a tense moment
when I supposed it to be Stilton and braced myself for a spot of that
youthful-hart-or-roe stuff, I got it placed. It was only Uncle Tom, taking his
nightly prowl.

Uncle
Tom is a great lad for prowling in the garden. A man with greyish hair and a
face like a walnut — not that that has anything to do with it, of course — I
just mention it in passing — he likes to be among the shrubs and flowers early
and late, particularly late, for he suffers a bit from insomnia and the tribal
medicine man told him that a breath of fresh air before hitting the hay would
bring relief.

Seeing
me, he paused for station identification.

‘Is
that you, Bertie, me boy?’

I
conceded this, and he hove alongside, puffing smoke.

‘Why
did you leave us?’ he asked, alluding to that quick duck of mine from the
dining-room.

‘Oh, I
thought I would.’

‘Well,
you didn’t miss much. What a set! That man Trotter makes me sick.’

‘Oh,
yes?’

‘His
stepson Percy makes me sick.’

‘Oh,
yes?’

‘And
that fellow Cheesewright makes me sick. They all make me sick,’ said Uncle Tom.
He is not one of your jolly-innkeeper-with-entrance-number-in-act-one hosts. He
looks with ill-concealed aversion on at least ninety-four per cent of the
guests within his gates and spends most of his time dodging them. ‘Who invited
Cheesewright here? Dahlia, I suppose, though why we shall never know. A
deleterious young slab of damnation, if ever I saw one. But she will do these
things. I’ve even known her to invite her sister Agatha. Talking of Dahlia,
Bertie, me boy, I’m worried about her.’

‘Worried?’

‘Exceedingly
worried. I believe she’s sickening for something. Has her manner struck you as
strange since you got here?’

I
mused.

‘No, I
don’t think so,’ I said. ‘She seemed to be about the same as usual. How do you
mean, strange?’

He
waved a concerned cigar. He and the old relative are a fond and united couple.

‘It was
just now, when I looked in on her in her room to ask if she would care to come
for a stroll. She said No, she didn’t think she would, because if she went out
at night she always swallowed moths and midges and things and she didn’t
believe it was good for her on top of a heavy dinner. And we were talking idly
of this and that, when she suddenly seemed to come over all faint.’

‘Swooned,
do you mean?’

‘No, I
wouldn’t say she actually swooned. She continued perpendicular. But she
tottered, pressing her hand to the top of her head. Pale as a ghost she
looked.’

‘Odd.’

‘Very.
It worried me. I’m not at all easy in my mind about her.’

I pondered.

‘It
couldn’t have been something you said that upset her?’

‘Impossible.
I was talking about this fellow Sidcup who’s coming tomorrow to look at my
silver collection. You’ve never met him, have you?’

‘No.’

‘Rather
a fatheaded ass,’ said Uncle Tom, who thinks most of his circle fatheaded
asses, ‘but apparently knows quite a bit about old silver and jewellery and all
that sort of thing, and anyway he’ll only be here for dinner, thank God,’ he
added in his hospitable way. ‘But I was telling you about your aunt. As I was
saying, she tottered and looked as pale as a ghost. The fact of the matter is,
she’s been overdoing it. This paper of hers, this Madame’s Nightshirt or
whatever it’s called. It’s wearing her to a shadow. Silly nonsense. What does
she want with a weekly paper? I’ll be thankful if she sells it to this man
Trotter and gets rid of the damned thing, because apart from wearing her to a
shadow it’s costing me a fortune. Money, money, money, there’s no end to it.’