Этот неподражаемый Дживс! / The Inimitable Jeeves

3
Aunt Agatha Speaks her Mind^[43]

To be honest, I can’t say I was sorry for Bingo. Less than a week after he had had the bad news I saw him dancing with some girl at Giro’s^[44].

Bingo is unsinkable. He never went down. When his little love-affairs are actually on, nobody could be more earnest; but once the girl has handed him his hat and begged him never to let her see him again, he is as merry as ever. I’ve seen it happen a dozen times.

So I didn’t worry about Bingo. Or about anything else, as a matter of fact. Life was wonderful. Everything seemed to be going right. Even three horses on which I’d invested a sizeable amount won instead of sitting down to rest in the middle of the race, as horses usually do when I’ve got money on them.

Added to this, the weather was excellent; Jeeves liked my new socks; and my Aunt Agatha had gone to France for at least six weeks. And, if you knew my Aunt Agatha, you’d agree that that alone was happiness enough for anyone.

One morning while I was having my bath, I began to sing like a bally nightingale. It seemed to me that everything was absolutely for the best in the best of all possible worlds.

But have you ever noticed a strange thing about life? When I dried myself and came into the sittingroom, I saw a letter from Aunt Agatha on the mantelpiece.

“Oh God!” I said when I’d read it.

“Sir?” said Jeeves.

“It’s from my Aunt Agatha, Jeeves. Mrs Gregson^[45], you know.”

“Yes, sir?”

“Ah, you wouldn’t speak in that careless tone if you knew what was in it,” I said with a hollow laugh. “The curse has come upon us, Jeeves. She wants me to go and join her at—what’s the name of the dashed place?—at Roville-sur-mer^[46]. Oh, damn it!”

“Packing, sir?”

“I suppose so.”

To people who don’t know my Aunt Agatha I find it extraordinarily difficult to explain why it I am afraid of her. I mean, I’m not dependent on her financially or anything like that. It’s simply personality. You see, all through my childhood and when I was a kid at school she was always able to turn me inside out^[47] with a single glance. If she said I had go to Roville, it was all decided. I must buy the tickets.

“What’s the idea, Jeeves? I wonder why she wants me.”

“I could not say, sir.”

Well, it was no good talking about it. I must go to Roville. At last I will able to wear my cummerbund I had bought six months ago. One of those silk contrivances, you know, which you tie round your waist instead of a waistcoat. To be honest, I did not wear it because I knew that there would be trouble with Jeeves. Still, at a place like Roville—with the gaiety and joie de vivre^[48] of France—it will be all right.

Roville, which I reached early in the morning is a nice health resort^[49] where a fellow without his aunts might spend a wonderful week. It is like all these French places, mainly sands and hotels and casinos. The hotel which had had the bad luck to draw Aunt Agatha was the Splendide^[50]. I’ve had experience of Aunt Agatha at hotels before. She knows how to deal with them. Of course, the real rough work was all over when I arrived, but I understood that she had started by having her first room changed because it hadn’t a southern exposure and her next because it had a creaking wardrobe and that she had said what she had thought about the cooking, the waiting, the chambermaiding and everything else. She was satisfied with this triumph, and she was almost motherly when we met.

“I am so glad you were able to come, Bertie,” she said. “The air will do you so much good. It’s better for you than to spend your time in stuffy London night clubs.”

“Oh, ah,” I said.

“You will meet some pleasant people, too. I want to introduce you to a miss Hemmingway^[51] and her brother, who have become great friends of mine. I am sure you will like Miss Hemmingway. A nice, quiet girl, so different from so many of the bold girls^[52] one meets in London nowadays. Her brother is curate at Chipley-in-the-Glen in Dorsetshire^[53]. A very good family. She is a charming girl.”

All these words were so unlike Aunt Agatha. I felt a suspicion. And I was right.

“Aline^[54] Hemmingway,” said Aunt Agatha, “is just the girl I should like to see you marry, Bertie. You ought to be thinking of getting married. Marriage might make something of you. And I could not wish you a better wife than dear Aline. She would be such a good influence in your life.”

“But, I say—” I began.

“Bertie!” said Aunt Agatha, dropping the motherly manner for a bit and giving me the cold eye.

“Yes, but I say—”

“It is young men like you, Bertie, who spoil the society. Cursed with too much money, you lead an idle selfishness life which might have been made useful, helpful and profitable. You do nothing but waste your time on frivolous pleasures. You are simply an anti-social animal, a drone. Bertie, it is imperative that you marry.”

“But—”

“Yes! You should have children to—”

“No, really, I say, please!” I said, blushing richly. Aunt Agatha belongs to two or three of these women’s clubs, and she often forgets she isn’t in the smoking-room^[55].

“Bertie,” she resumed. “Ah, here they are!” she said. “Aline, dear!”

And I perceived a girl and a fellow. They were smiling in a pleased sort of manner.

“I want you to meet my nephew, Bertie Wooster,” said Aunt Agatha. “He has just arrived. Such a surprise! I did not expect to meet him in Roville.”

I was feeling like a cat in the middle of a lot of hounds. An inner voice was whispering that Bertram^[56] was in trouble.

The brother was a small round man with a face rather like a sheep. He wore pince-nez^[57], his expression was benevolent, and he had on one of those collars which button at the back.

“Welcome to Roville, Mr Wooster,” he said.

“Oh, Sidney^[58]!” said the girl. “Doesn’t Mr Wooster remind you of Canon Blenkinsop^[59], who came to Chipley to preach last Easter?”

“My dear! The resemblance is most striking!”

They peered at me for a while as if I were something in a glass case, and I had a look at the girl. There’s no doubt about it, she was different from what Aunt Agatha had called the bold girls one meets in London nowadays. No bobbed hair^[60], no cigarette. I don’t know when I’ve met anybody who looked so respectable. She had on a kind of plain dress, and her hair was plain, and her face was sort of saintlike. I don’t pretend to be a Sherlock Holmes^[61] or anything of that order, but the moment I looked at her I said to myself, “The girl plays the organ in a village church!”

Well, we gazed at one another for a bit, and there was a certain amount of chit-chat^[62], and then I went away. But before I went I had been told to take brother and girl for a drive that afternoon. And the thought of it depressed me to such an extent that I felt there was only one thing to be done. I went straight back to my room, took out the cummerbund, and draped it round myself. I turned round and saw Jeeves.

“I beg your pardon, sir,” he said. “You are surely not proposing to appear in public in that thing?”

“The cummerbund?” I said in a careless way. “Oh, yes!”

“I should not advise it, sir, really I shouldn’t.”

“Why not?”

“The effect, sir, is unpredictable.”

I looked at him. I mean to say, nobody knows better than I do that Jeeves is a master mind and all that, but, damn it, a fellow must call his soul his own. You can’t be a slave to your valet. Besides, I was feeling pretty low and the cummerbund was the only thing which could cheer me up.

“You know, the trouble with you, Jeeves,” I said, “is that you’re too—what’s the word I want?—too isolated. You can’t realize that you aren’t in Piccadilly^[63] all the time. In a place like this something colourful and poetic is expected of you. Why, I’ve just seen a fellow downstairs in a suit of yellow velvet.”

“Nevertheless, sir—”

“Jeeves,” I said firmly, “my mind is made up. I am feeling a little low-spirited^[64] and need cheering. Besides, what’s wrong with it? This cummerbund seems to me to be quite right. I consider that it has rather a Spanish effect. The old hidalgo and the bull fight.”

“Very good, sir^[65],” said Jeeves coldly.

If there’s one thing that upsets me, it’s unpleasantness in the home. Aunt Agatha, the Hemmingway girl … I felt though nobody loved me.

The drive that afternoon was boring as I had expected. The curate fellow prattled on of this and that; the girl admired the view; and I got a headache. I went back to my room to dress for dinner, feeling like a toad under the harrow. I tried to talk to Jeeves.

“I say, Jeeves,” I said.

“Sir?”

“Mix me some brandy and soda.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Jeeves, not too much soda.”

“Very good, sir.”

After it, I felt better.

“Jeeves,” I said.

“Sir?”

“I think I’m in a big trouble, Jeeves.”

“Indeed, sir?”

I looked at him. He still remembers the cummerbund.

“Yes,” I said, suppressing the pride of the Woosters. “Have you seen a girl here with a parson brother?”

“Miss Hemmingway, sir? Yes, sir.”

“Aunt Agatha wants me to marry her.”

“Indeed, sir?”

“Well, what about it?”

“Sir?”

“I mean, have you anything to suggest?”

“No, sir.”

His manner was very cold.

“Oh, well, tra-la-la!” I said.

“Precisely sir,” said Jeeves.

And that was all.

4
Pearls Mean Tears

I remember—it must have been when I was at school—reading a poem or something about something or other in which there was a line which went, “Shades of the prison house begin to close upon the growing boy.” During the next two weeks that’s exactly how it was with me. I mean to say, I could hear the wedding bells chiming faintly in the distance and getting louder and louder every day, and I could not imagine how to slide out of it. Jeeves, no doubt, was offended, and I couldn’t ask him directly. He could see easily enough that the young master was in a bad way and, if that wasn’t enough, well, it meant that the old feudal spirit was dead in his bosom and there was nothing to be done about it.

It was really funny how the Hemmingway family had taken to me^[66]. I wouldn’t have said that there was anything particularly fascinating about me—in fact, most people look on me as rather an ass; but this girl and her brother didn’t seem happy if they were away from me. In fact, I’d got into the habit now of retiring to my room when I wanted to rest a little. I got a rather decent suite on the third floor, looking down on to the promenade.

I had gone in my suite one evening and for the first time that day was feeling that life wasn’t so bad after all. Right through the day from lunch-time I’d had the Hemmingway girl nearby. The result was, as I looked down on the lighted promenade and saw all the people walking happily to dinner and the Casino, a kind of wistful feeling came over me. I thought how happy I could have been in this place if only Aunt Agatha and her friends had been elsewhere.

I heaved a sigh, and at that moment there was a knock at the door.

“Someone at the door, Jeeves,” I said.

“Yes, sir.”

He opened the door, and in came Aline Hemmingway and her brother. The last persons I had expected. I really had thought that I could be alone for a minute in my own room.

“Oh, hallo!” I said.

“Oh, Mr Wooster!” said the girl. “I don’t know how to begin.”

Then I noticed that she appeared shocked, and as for the brother, he looked like a sheep with a secret sorrow.

This made me sit up and take notice. I supposed that they had arrived to chat a little, but apparently something serious had happened.

“What’s the matter?” I asked.

“Poor Sidney—it was my fault—I ought never to have let him go there alone,” said the girl, she was agitated.

At this point her brother gave a little cough^[67], like a sheep caught in the mist on a mountain top.

“The fact is, Mr Wooster,” he said, “a sad, a most deplorable thing has occurred. This afternoon, while you were so kindly escorting my sister, I found the time … I was tempted to—ah—gamble at the Casino.”

I looked at the man with respect. If only I’d known earlier that he went in for that sort of thing, I felt that we might have had a better time together.

“Oh!” I said. “Did you win?”

He sighed heavily.

“If you mean was I successful, I must answer in the negative. I thought that the colour red, having appeared no fewer than seven times in succession, must inevitably give place the colour black. I was in error. I lost everything, Mr Wooster.”

“Bad luck,” I said.

“I left the Casino,” proceeded the fellow, “and returned to the hotel. There I encountered one of my parishioners, Colonel Musgrave^[68]. I—er—asked him to cash me a cheque for one hundred pounds on my little account in my London bank.”

“Well, that was all to the good, eh?” I said. “I mean, you were lucky to find someone who gave you some money.”

“On the contrary, Mr Wooster, it made matters worse. I burn with shame, but I immediately went back to the Casino and lost the entire sum—this time under the mistaken supposition that the colour black would appear.”

“I say!” I said. “You are having a good time!”

“And,” concluded the fellow, “the most lamentable part of the whole affair is that I have no funds in the bank to meet the cheque when presented^[69].”

Though I realized by this time that all this was leading up to draw money from me, my heart warmed to the poor guy. Indeed, I gazed at him with interest and admiration. Never before had I encountered such a curate. He certainly appeared to be a real daredevil; and I wished he had shown me this side of his character before.

“That Colonel Musgrave,” he went on, “is not a man who would be likely to overlook the matter. He is a hard man. He will expose me to the priest. The priest is a hard man, too. In short, Mr Wooster, if Colonel Musgrave presents that cheque, I shall be ruined. And he leaves for England tonight.”

The girl, who had been standing by biting her handkerchief, now wept.

“Mr Wooster,” she cried, “won’t you, won’t you help us? Oh, do say you will! We must have the money to get back the cheque from Colonel Musgrave before nine o’clock—he leaves on the nine-twenty. I remembered how kind you had always been. Mr Wooster, will you lend Sidney the money and take these as security?”

And before I knew what she was doing she had dived into her bag, taken a case, and opened it.

“My pearls,” she said. “I don’t know what they are worth—they were a present from my poor father—”

“Now, alas, no more—” said her the brother.

“But I know they must be worth ever so much more than the amount we want.”

It was embarrassing. It made me feel like a pawnbroker.

“No, I say, really,” I protested. “There’s no need of any security, you know. Only too glad to let you have the money. I’ve got it on me, as a matter of fact. Rather luckily drew some this morning.”

And I took the money out of my pocket and laid it on the table. The brother shook his head.

“Mr Wooster,” he said, “we appreciate your generosity, your confidence in us, but we cannot permit this.”

“What Sidney means,” said the girl, “is that you really don’t know anything about us. You mustn’t risk lending all this money without any security at all to two people who, after all, are almost strangers. If I hadn’t thought that you would treat it like some business I would never have dared to come to you.”

“The idea of—er—pledging the pearls at the local pawnbroker shop was, you will readily understand, repugnant to us,” said the brother.

“If you will just give me a receipt, as a matter of form^[70]—”

“All right!”

I wrote out the receipt and handed it over.

“Here you are,” I said.

The girl took the piece of paper, put it in her bag, grabbed the money and slipped it to brother Sidney, and then, before I knew what was happening, she had darted at me, kissed me, and legged it from the room.

I’m bound to say this surprised me a lot. So sudden and unexpected. I mean, a girl like that. Always been quiet and demure. Through a sort of mist I could see that Jeeves had appeared and was helping the brother on with his coat. His coat was more like a sack than anything else. Then the brother came up to me and grasped my hand.

“I cannot thank you sufficiently, Mr Wooster!”

“Oh, not at all.”

“You have saved my good name. Good name in man or woman,” he said, “is the immediate jewel of their souls. Who steals my purse steals trash. It was mine, it was his, and has been slave to thousands. But he that steals my good name robs me and makes me poor indeed. I thank you from the bottom of my heart. Good night, Mr Wooster.”

“Good night, old man,” I said.

I blinked at Jeeves as the door shut.

“Rather a sad affair, Jeeves,” I said.

“Yes, sir.”

“Luckily I happened to have all that money.”

“Well—er—yes, sir.”

“You speak as though you didn’t think much of it.”

“I can’t criticize your actions, sir, but I can say that I think you behaved a little rashly.”

“What, lending that money?”

“Yes, sir. These fashionable French watering places^[71] are famous for dishonest characters.”

This was incredible.

“Now look here, Jeeves,” I said. “I can stand a lot but now you are going to slander that holy man!”

“Perhaps I am over-suspicious, sir. But I have seen a great deal of these resorts. When I was in the employment of Lord Frederick Ranelagh^[72], shortly before I entered your service, his lordship was swindled by a criminal known as Soapy Sid^[73], who was acting us in Monte Carlo with his helper. His helper was a nice girl. I have never forgotten the circumstances.”

“I don’t want to argue with you, Jeeves,” I said, coldly, “but you’re talking nonsense. How could I be cheated? They’ve left me the pearls, haven’t they? Very well, then, think before you speak. You had better have these things hidden in the hotel safe.” I picked up the case and opened it.

“Oh, Lord!”

The case was empty!

“Oh, Jesus!” I said, staring. “So, I’ve been cheated?”

“Precisely, sir. It was in exactly the same manner that Lord Frederick was swindled. While the girl was gratefully embracing his lordship, Soapy Sid substituted a duplicate case for the one containing the pearls and went off with the jewels, the money and the receipt. Later he subsequently demanded from his lordship the return of the pearls, and his lordship was obliged to pay a heavy sum^[74] in compensation. It is a simple but effective ruse.”

I felt as if the floor was moving.

“Soapy Sid? Sid! Sidney! Brother Sidney! Why, Jeeves, do you think that parson was Soapy Sid?”

“Yes, sir.”

“But it seems extraordinary. Why, his collar buttoned at the back—I mean, he would have deceived a bishop. Do you really think he was Soapy Sid?”

“Yes, sir. I recognized him directly he came into the room.”

I stared at him.

“You recognized him?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Then, dash it all^[75],” I said. “I think you might have told me.”

“I thought it would be enough if I merely extracted the case from the man’s pocket as I assisted him with his coat, sir. Here it is.”

He laid another case on the table beside the first one, and they were alike. I opened it, and there were the good old pearls, smiling up at me. I gazed feebly at Jeeves.

“Jeeves,” I said. “You’re an absolute genius!”

“Yes, sir.”

Thanks to Jeeves I did not lose several thousand pounds.

“It looks to me as though you have saved me. I mean, even that old Sid is hardly likely to have the nerve to come back and retrieve these pearls.”

“I should imagine not, sir.”

“Well, then—Oh, I say, you don’t think they are false?”

“No, sir. These are genuine pearls and extremely valuable.”

“Well, then, dash it, I’ve lost nothing. All right, Jeeves. I’ve paid a hundred pounds but I’ve got a good string of pearls. Am I right or wrong?”

“Hardly that, sir. I think that you will have to restore the pearls.”

“What! To Sid?”

“No, sir. To their rightful owner.”

“But who is their rightful owner?”

“Mrs Gregson, sir.”

“What! How do you know?”

“It was all over the hotel an hour ago that Mrs Gregson’s pearls had disappeared. I was speaking to Mrs Gregson’s maid shortly before you came in and she informed me that the manager of the hotel is now in Mrs Gregson’s suite.”

“And having a bad time, right?”

“I can imagine, sir.”

The situation was beginning to be clear.

“I’ll go and give them back to her, eh?”

“Precisely, sir. And, if I may make the suggestion, I think it might be judicious to stress the fact that they were stolen by—”

“Lord! By the dashed girl she was forcing me to marry!”

“Exactly, sir.”

“Jeeves,” I said, “this is going to be my biggest victory that has ever occurred in the world’s history.”

“It is not unlikely, sir.”

“It will keep her quiet^[76] for a bit!”

“It should have that effect, sir.”

Long before I reached Aunt Agatha’s lair I could tell that the hunt was up^[77]. Divers in hotel uniform and many chambermaids were hanging about in the corridor, and through the panels I could hear the Aunt Agatha’s voice. I knocked but no one took any notice, so I went in. I noticed a chambermaid in hysterics, Aunt Agatha and the hotel manager who looked like a bandit.

“Oh, hallo!” I said. “Hallo-allo-allo!”

Aunt Agatha looked at me. No welcoming smile for Bertram.

“Don’t bother me now, Bertie,” she snapped, looking at me as if I were the bandit myself.

“Something wrong?”

“Yes, yes, yes! I’ve lost my pearls.”

“Pearls? Pearls? Pearls?” I said. “No, really? Where did you see them last?”

“What does it matter where I saw them last? They have been stolen.”

Here the hotel manger stepped into the ring and began to talk rapidly in French. The chambermaid whooped in the corner.

“Are you sure you’ve looked everywhere?” I asked.

“Of course I’ve looked everywhere.”

“Well, you know, I’ve often lost my collars and—”

“Don’t drive me mad, Bertie! I have enough to bear without your imbecilities. Oh, be quiet! Be quiet!” she shouted in the sort of voice used by sergeant-majors. And such was the magnetism of her personality that the manager became silent as if he had run into a wall. The chambermaid continued weep.

“I say,” I said, “I think there’s something with this girl. Isn’t she crying or something?”

“She stole my pearls! I am convinced of it.”

Aunt Agatha turned to the manager.

“I tell you, my good man, for the hundredth time—”

“I say,” I said, “I don’t want to interrupt you and all that sort of thing, but aren’t these the pearls you are looking for?”

I pulled the pearls out of my pocket.

“These look like pearls, eh?”

I don’t know when I’ve been happier. It was one of those occasions about which I shall tell my grandchildren—if I ever have any. Aunt Agatha simply deflated before my eyes. It reminded me of when I once saw some fellows letting the gas out of a balloon.

“Where—where—where—” she gurgled.

“I got them from your friend, Miss Hemmingway.”

Even now she didn’t get it.

“From Miss Hemmingway. Miss Hemmingway. But—but how did they come into her possession?”

“How?” I said. “Because she stole them. Because that’s how she makes her living. I don’t know what her alias is, but her brother, the chap whose collar buttons at the back, is known in criminal circles as Soapy Sid.”

She blinked.

“Miss Hemmingway a thief! I— I—” She stopped and looked feebly at me. “But how did you manage to recover the pearls, Bertie dear?”

“Never mind,” I said severely. “I have my methods. I must say, Aunt Agatha, I think you have been infernally careless. There’s a printed notice in every bedroom in this place saying that there’s a safe in the manager’s office, where jewellery and valuables ought to be placed, and you absolutely disregarded it. And what’s the result? The first thief who came along simply walked into your room and took your pearls. And instead of admitting that it was all your fault, you began to bite this poor man. You have been very, very unjust to this poor man.”

“Yes, yes,” moaned the poor man.

“And this unfortunate girl, what about her? You’ve accused her of stealing the things on absolutely no evidence.”

“Mais oui, mais ouis, c’est trop fort^[78]!” shouted the Bandit Chief. And the chambermaid looked up inquiringly, as if the sun was breaking through the clouds.

“I shall recompense her,” said Aunt Agatha feebly.

“If you take my tip you will do it speedily. If I were her I wouldn’t take a penny under twenty pounds. But what surprised me is the way you’ve unjustly abused this poor man here and tried to give his hotel a bad name!”

“Yes, by damn! It’s too bad!” cried the whiskered marvel. “You careless old woman! You give my hotel a bad name! Tomorrow you will leave my hotel!”

And presently having said this, he withdrew, taking the chambermaid with him, the latter with a ten pound note. The manager got his ten as well.

I turned to Aunt Agatha.

“I don’t want continue the conversation, Aunt Agatha,” I said coldly, “but I should just like to point out before I go that the girl who stole your pearls is the girl you’ve been forcing me to marry ever since I got here. Good heavens! A good wife, eh? Do you realize that if I had children they would steal my watch while they were sitting on my knees? I’m not complaining, but I must say that another time you might be more careful choosing the girls for me to marry.”

I gave her one look, turned on my heel and left the room.

“Ten o’clock, a clear night, and all’s well, Jeeves,’ I said, coming back into the good old suite.

“I am gratified to hear it, sir.’

“If twenty pounds would be any use to you, Jeeves—”

“I am much obliged, sir.’

There was a pause. And then—well, I did it. I took the cummerbund and handed it over.

“Do you wish me to press this, sir?”

I looked at the cummerbund. It had been very dear to me.

“No,” I said, “take it away; give it to the poor—I shall never wear it again.”

“Thank you very much, sir,” said Jeeves.