Jeeves and the Feudal Spirit (18 page)

‘Would
he be the gentleman of whom you were speaking, who is to examine Mrs. Travers’s
necklace?’

‘That’s
the chap.’

‘Then I
fancy that all is well, sir.’

I
started. It seemed to me that I must have misunderstood him. Either that, or he
was talking through his hat.

‘All is
well,
did you say, Jeeves?’

‘Yes,
sir. You are not aware who Lord Sidcup is, sir?’

‘I
never heard of him in my life.’

‘You
will possibly remember him, sir, as Mr. Roderick Spode.’

I
stared at him. You could have knocked me down with a toothpick.

‘Roderick
Spode?’

‘Yes,
sir.’

‘You
mean the Roderick Spode of Totleigh Towers?’

‘Precisely,
sir. He recently succeeded to the title on the demise of the late Lord Sidcup,
his uncle.’

‘Great
Scot, Jeeves!’

‘Yes,
sir. I think you will agree with me, sir, that in these circumstances the
problem confronting Mrs. Travers is susceptible of a ready solution. A word to
his lordship, reminding him of the fact that he sells ladies’ underclothing
under the trade name of Eulalie Sœurs, should go far towards inducing him to
preserve a tactful silence with regard to the spurious nature of the necklace.
At the time of our visit to Totleigh Towers you will recollect that Mr. Spode,
as he then was, showed unmistakably his reluctance to let the matter become
generally known.’

‘Egad,
Jeeves!’

‘Yes,
sir. I thought I would mention it, sir. Good night, sir.’

He
oozed off.

15

We Woosters are never very
early risers, and the sun was highish in the heavens next morning when I woke
to greet a new day. And I had just finished tucking away a refreshing scrambled
eggs and coffee, when the door opened as if a hurricane had hit it and Aunt
Dahlia came pirouetting in.

I use
the word ‘pirouetting’ advisedly, for there was an elasticity in her bearing
which impressed itself immediately upon the eye. Of the drooping mourner of
last night there remained no trace. The woman was plainly right above herself.

‘Bertie,’
she said, after a brief opening speech in the course of which she described me
as a lazy young hound who ought to be ashamed to be wallowing in bed on what,
if you asked her, was the maddest merriest day of all the glad new year, ‘I’ve
just been talking to Jeeves, and if ever a life-saving friend in need drew
breath, it is he. Hats off to Jeeves is the way I look at it.’

Pausing
for a moment to voice the view that my moustache was an offence against God and
man but that she saw in it nothing that a good weed-killer couldn’t cure, she
resumed.

‘He
tells me this Lord Sidcup who’s coming here today is none other than our old
pal Roderick Spode.’

I nodded.
I had divined from her exuberance that he must have been spilling the big news.

‘Correct,’
I said. ‘Apparently, all unknown to us, Spode was right from the start the
secret nephew of the holder of the title, and since that sojourn of ours at
Totleigh Towers the latter has gone to reside with the morning stars, giving
him a step up. Jeeves has also, I take it, told you about Eulalie Sœurs?’

‘The
whole thing. Why didn’t you ever let me in on that? You know how I enjoy a good
laugh.’

I
spread the hands in a dignified gesture, upsetting the coffee-pot, which was
fortunately empty.

‘My
lips were sealed.’

‘You
and your lips!’

‘All
right, me and my lips. But I repeat. The information was imparted to me in
confidence.’

‘You
could have told Auntie.’

I shook
my head. Women do not understand these things.
Noblesse oblige
means
nothing to the gentler sex.

‘One
does not impart confidential confidences even to Auntie, not if one is a
confidant of the right sort.’

‘Well,
anyway, I know the facts, and I hold Spode, alias Sidcup, in the hollow of my
hand. Bless my soul,’ she went on, a far-off ecstatic look on her face, ‘how
well I remember that day at Totleigh Towers. There he was, advancing on you
with glittering eyes and foam-flecked lips, and you drew yourself up as cool as
some cucumbers, as Anatole would say, and said “One minute, Spode, just one
minute. It may interest you to learn that I know all about Eulalie.” Gosh, how
I admired you!’

‘I
don’t wonder.’

‘You
were like one of those lion tamers in circuses who defy murderous man-eating
monarchs of the jungle.’

‘There
was a resemblance, no doubt.’

‘And
how he wilted! I’ve never seen anything like it. Before my eyes he wilted like
a wet sock. And he’s going to do it again when he gets here this evening.’

‘You
propose to draw him aside and tell him you know his guilty secret?’

‘Exactly.
Strongly recommending him, when Tom shows him the necklace, to say it’s a
lovely bit of work and worth every penny he paid for it. It can’t fail. Fancy
him owning Eulalie Sœurs! He must make a packet out of it. I was in there last
month, buying some cami-knickers, and the place was doing a roaring trade.
Money pouring in like a tidal wave. By the way, laddie, talking of
cami-knickers, Florence was showing me hers just now. Not the ones she had on,
I don’t mean; her reserve supply. She wanted my opinion of them. And I’m sorry
to tell you, my poor lamb,’ she said, eyeing me with auntly pity, ‘that things
look pretty serious in that quarter.’

‘They
do?’

‘Extremely
serious. She’s all set to start those wedding bells ringing out. Somewhere
around next November, she seems to think, at St. George’s, Hanover Square.
Already she is speaking freely of bridesmaids and caterers.’ She paused, and
looked at me in a surprised sort of way. ‘You don’t seem very upset,’ she said.
‘Are you one of these men of chilled steel one reads about?’

I
spread the hands again, this time without disaster to the breakfast tray.

‘Well,
I’ll tell you, old ancestor. When a fellow has been engaged as often as I have
and each time saved from the scaffold at the eleventh hour, he comes to have
faith in his star. He feels that all is not lost till they have actually got
him at the altar rails with the organ playing “Oh, perfect love” and the
clergyman saying “Wilt thou?” At the moment, admittedly, I am in the soup, but
it may well be that in God’s good time it will be granted to me to emerge
unscathed from the tureen.’

‘You
don’t despair?’

‘Not at
all. I have high hopes that, after they have thought things over, these two
proud spirits who have parted brass rags will come together and be reconciled,
thus letting me out. The rift was due —‘

‘I
know. She told me.’

‘— to
the fact that Stilton learned that I had taken Florence to The Mottled Oyster
one night about a week ago, and he refused to believe that I had done so merely
in order to enable her to accumulate atmosphere for her new book. When he has
cooled off and reason has returned to its throne, he may realize how mistaken
he was and beg her to forgive him for his low suspicions. I think so, I hope
so.’

She
agreed that there was something in this and commended me for my spirit, which
in her opinion was the right one. My intrepidity reminded her, she said, of the
Spartans at Thermopylae, wherever that may be.

‘But
he’s a long way from being in that frame of mind at the moment, according to
Florence. She says he is convinced that you two were on an unbridled toot
together. And, of course, his finding you in the cupboard in her bedroom at one
in the morning was unfortunate.’

‘Most.
One would gladly have avoided the occurrence.’

‘Must
have given the man quite a start. What beats me is why he didn’t hammer the
stuffing out of you. I should have thought that would have been his first move.’

I
smiled quietly.

‘He has
drawn me in the Drones Club Darts sweep.’

‘What’s
that got to do with it?’

‘My
dear soul, does a fellow hammer the stuffing out of a chap on whose virtuosity
at the Darts board he stands to win fifty-six pounds, ten shillings?’

‘Oh, I
see.’

‘So did
Stilton. I made the position thoroughly clear to him, and he has ceased to be a
menace. However much his thoughts may drift in the direction of
stuffing-hammering, he will have to continue to maintain the non-belligerent
status of a mild cat in an adage. I have bottled him up good and proper. There
was nothing further you wished to discuss?’

‘Not
that I know of.’

‘Then
if you will withdraw, I will be getting up and dressing.’ I rose from the hay
as the door closed, and having bathed, shaved and clad the outer man, took my
cigarette out for a stroll in the grounds and messuages.

The sun
was now a good bit higher in the heavens than when last observed, and its
genial warmth increased the optimism of my mood. Thinking of Stilton and the
dead stymie I had laid him, I found myself feeling that it was not such a bad
little old world, after all. I don’t know anything that braces you more
thoroughly than outgeneralling one of the baser sort who has been chucking his
weight about and planning to start something. It was with much the same quiet
satisfaction which I had experienced when bending Roderick Spode to my will at
Totleigh Towers that I contemplated Stilton in his bottled-up state. As Aunt
Dahlia had said, quite the lion tamer.

True,
as against this, there was Florence — already, it appeared, speaking freely of
bridesmaids, caterers and St. George’s, Hanover Square — and a lesser man might
have allowed her dark shadow to cloud his feeling of
bien-être.
But it
is always the policy of the Woosters to count their blessings one by one, and I
concentrated my attention exclusively on the bright side of the picture,
telling myself that even if an eleventh—hour reprieve failed to materialize and
I was compelled to drain the bitter cup, I wouldn’t have to do it with two
black eyes and a fractured spine, wedding presents from G. D’Arcy Cheesewright.
Come what might, I was that much ahead of the game.

I was,
in short, in buoyant mood and practically saying ‘Tra la’, when I observed
Jeeves shimmering up in the manner of one desiring audience.

‘Ah,
Jeeves,’ I said. ‘Nice morning.’

‘Extremely
agreeable, sir.’

‘Did
you want to see me about something?’

‘If you
could spare me a moment, sir. I was anxious to ascertain if it would be
possible for you to dispense with my services today in order that I may go to
London. The Junior Ganymede luncheon, sir.’

‘I
thought that was next week.’

‘The
date has been put forward to accommodate Sir Everard Everett’s butler, who
leaves with his employer tomorrow for the United States of America. Sir Everard
is assuming his duties as Britannic ambassador at Washington.’

‘Is
that so? Good luck to the old blister.’

‘Yes,
sir.’

‘One
likes to see these public servants bustling about and earning their salaries.’

‘Yes,
sir.’

‘If one
is a taxpayer, I mean, contributing one’s whack to those salaries.’

‘Precisely,
sir. I should be glad if you could see your way to allowing me to attend the
function, sir. As I informed you, I am taking the chair.’

Well,
of course, when he put it like that, I had no option but to right-ho.

‘Certainly,
Jeeves. Push along and revel till your ribs squeak. It may be your last
chance,’ I added significantly.

‘Sir?’

‘Well,
you’ve often stressed how fussy the brass hats at the Ganymede are about
members not revealing the secrets of the club book, and Aunt Dahlia tells me
you’ve just been spilling the whole inner history of Spode and Eulalie Sœurs to
her. Won’t they drum you out if this becomes known?’

‘The
contingency is a remote one, sir, and I gladly took the risk, knowing that Mrs.
Travers’s happiness was at stake.’

‘Pretty
white, Jeeves.’

‘Thank
you, sir. I endeavour to give satisfaction. And now I think perhaps, if you
will excuse me, sir, I should be starting for the station. The train for London
leaves very shortly.’

‘Why
not drive up in the two-seater?’

‘If you
could spare it, sir?’

‘Of
course.’

‘Thank
you very much, sir. It will be a great convenience.’

He
pushed off in the direction of the house, no doubt to go and get the bowler hat
which is his inseparable companion when in the metropolis, and scarcely had he
left me when I heard my name called in a bleating voice and turned to perceive
Percy Gorringe approaching, his tortoiseshell-rimmed spectacles glistening in
the sunshine.