6

The Hero’s Reward

I don’t know if you’ve noticed it, but nothing in this world ever seems to be absolutely perfect. The fact that Jeeves wouldn’t be on the spot to watch me in action distressed me. The beauty of the plan was, you see, that nothing could possibly go wrong. Oswald and Bingo were on the spot all day long, so all I had to worry about was getting Honoria there in due time. And I managed that very easily, by asking her if she would come for a stroll in the park with me, as I had something particular to say to her.

She had arrived shortly after lunch in the car with the Braythwayt girl. I was introduced to the latter, a tall girl with blue eyes and fair hair. I liked her—she was so unlike Honoria—and, I would rather talk to her for a bit. But business was business—I had fixed it up with Bingo to be behind the bushes at three o’clock, so I took Honoria through the park in the direction of the lake.

“You’re very quiet, Mr Wooster,” she said.

Yes, I was concentrating. We had just come in sight of the lake, and I looked around to see that everything was in order. Everything appeared to be as arranged. The kid Oswald was sitting on the bridge; and Bingo wasn’t visible. Surely, he had got into position. It was two minutes past three.

“Eh?” I said. “Oh, ah, yes. I was just thinking.”

“You said you had something important to say to me.”

“Absolutely!” I had decided to help young Bingo. I mean to say, without actually mentioning his name, I wanted to prepare the girl’s mind for the fact that there was someone who had long loved her and all that sort of things.

“It’s like this,” I said. “It may sound funny and all that, but there’s somebody who’s in love with you and so forth—a friend of mine, you know.”

“Oh, a friend of yours?”

“Yes.”

She gave a kind of a laugh.

“Well, why doesn’t he tell me so?”

“Well, you see, that’s the sort of chap he is. Very shy. Hasn’t got the nerve. Looks on you as a sort of goddess. Worships the ground you tread on.”

“This is very interesting.”

“Yes. He’s not a bad chap, you know. Rather an ass, perhaps, but kind enough. Well, that’s the point. You might just bear it in mind, eh?”

“How funny you are!”

She chucked back her head and laughed. She had a terrifying sort of laugh. Rather like a train going into a tunnel. It didn’t sound musical to me, and to the kid Oswald not a little as well. He gazed at us with dislike.

“Listen,” he said. “You are scaring all the fish away.”

Honoria changed the subject.

“I wish Oswald wouldn’t sit on the bridge like that,” she said. “I’m sure it isn’t safe. He might easily fall in.”

“I’ll go and tell him,” I said.

I suppose the distance between the kid and me at this juncture was about five yards, but I got the impression that it was nearer a hundred. The more I walked the farther away the kid seemed to get, till suddenly I found myself standing just behind him without quite knowing how I’d got there.

“Hallo!” I said, with a grin.

The kid didn’t bother to turn round and look at me. He merely wiggled his left ear in a rather peevish manner. I don’t know when I’ve met anybody in whose life I appeared to mean so little.

“Hallo!” I said. “Fishing?”

I laid my hand on his shoulder.

“Here, look out!” said the kid.

It was one of those things that want doing quickly or not at all. I shut my eyes and pushed. There was a scrambling sound, a yelp, and a splash.

I opened my eyes. The kid was just coming to the surface.

“Help!” I shouted, looking at the bush from which young Bingo was scheduled to emerge.

Nothing happened. Young Bingo didn’t emerge.

“Help! Help!” I shouted again.

Meanwhile, the kid Oswald was drowning, and I thought that some sort of steps ought to be taken about it. Of course, I didn’t like him, but it was not enough to let him die. I put off my coat and jumped into the water.

The water seems wetter when you go into it with your clothes on than when you’re just bathing. I was only under about three seconds, but I felt clammy and bloated.

At this point the scenario changed. I had assumed that I should get hold of the kid and steer him courageously to shore. But he hadn’t waited to be steered. I saw him about ten yards away. He started to swim himself. By the time I had landed, the kid was half-way to the house. Look at it from whatever angle you like, my plan was ruined.

I was interrupted in my meditations by a noise like the train going under a bridge. It was Honoria Glossop laughing. She was standing at my elbow, looking at me.

“Oh, Bertie, you are funny!” she said. And even in that moment there seemed to me something sinister in the words. She had never called me anything except “Mr Wooster” before. “How wet you are!”

“Yes, I am wet.”

“You had better hurry into the house and change your clothes.”

“Yes.”

I wrung a gallon or two of water out of my clothes.

“You are so funny!” she said again. “First proposing in that extraordinary roundabout way, and then pushing poor little Oswald into the lake so as to impress me by saving him.”

I managed to correct this fearful impression.

“No, no!”

“He said you pushed him in, and I saw you do it. Oh, I’m not angry, Bertie. I think it was too funny of you. But I’m quite sure it’s time that I took you in hand. You certainly want someone to look after you. You’ve been seeing too many moving-pictures. I suppose the next thing you would have done would have been to set the house on fire so as to rescue me. I think I shall be able to make something of you, Bertie. It is true your life has been wasted up to the present, but you are still young, and there is a lot of good in you.”

“No, really there isn’t.”

“Oh, yes, there is. And I shall help you. Now you run straight up to the house and change your wet clothes, or you will catch cold.”

And, if you know what I mean, there was a sort of motherly note in her voice.

As I was coming downstairs after changing, I saw young Bingo.

“Bertie!” he said. “Just the man I wanted to see. Bertie, a wonderful thing has happened.”

“You blighter!” I cried. “What became of you? Do you know—”

“Oh, you mean about being in those bushes? I hadn’t time to tell you about that. It’s all off.”

“All off?”

“Bertie, I was actually going to hide in those bushes when the most extraordinary thing happened. Walking across the lawn I saw the most radiant, the most beautiful girl in the world. There is none like her, none. Bertie, do you believe in love at first sight? You do believe in love at first sight, don’t you, Bertie, old man? Directly I saw her she seemed to draw me like a magnet. I seemed to forget everything. We two were alone in a world of music and sunshine. I joined her. I got into conversation. She is a Miss Braythwayt, Bertie—Daphne Braythwayt. Directly our eyes met, I realized that what I had imagined to be love for Honoria Glossop had been a mere passing whim. Bertie, you do believe in love at first sight, don’t you? She is so wonderful, so sympathetic. Like a tender goddess—” At this point I left the blighter.

Two days later I got a letter from Jeeves.

“—The weather,” it ended, “is fine. I have had one exceedingly enjoyable bathe.”

I gave a rather hollow laugh, and went downstairs to join Honoria. I had an appointment with her in the drawing-room. She was going to read Ruskin to me.

7

Introducing Claude and Eustace

The blow fell precisely at one-forty-five (summer time). Spenser, Aunt Agatha’s butler, was offering me the fried potatoes at the moment.

I had been engaged to Honoria Glossop nearly two weeks, and during all that time not a day had passed without her “moulding” me. I had read solid literature till my eyes bubbled; we had legged it together through miles of picture-galleries; and I had visited classical concerts to an extent you would hardly believe. Therefore, I was not prepared to receive shocks, especially shocks like this. Honoria had brought me to lunch at Aunt Agatha’s, and I had just been saying to myself, “Death, where is thy sting?” when she hove the bomb.

“Bertie,” she said, suddenly, as if she had just remembered it, “what is the name of that man of yours—your valet?”

“Eh? Oh, Jeeves.”

“I think he’s a bad influence for you,” said Honoria. “When we are married, you must get rid of Jeeves.”

“Get rid of Jeeves!” I gasped.

“Yes. I don’t like him.”

“I don’t like him,” said Aunt Agatha.

“But I can’t. I mean—why, I couldn’t carry on for a day without Jeeves.”

“You will have to,” said Honoria. “I don’t like him at all.”

“I don’t like him at all,” said Aunt Agatha. “I never did.”

Ghastly, what? I’d always had an idea that marriage was a terrible thing, but I’d never dreamed that it demanded such frightful sacrifices from a fellow.

When Honoria got up and started collecting me and the rest of her things, Aunt Agatha stopped her.

“You run along, dear,” she said. “I want to say a few words to Bertie.”

So Honoria went away, and Aunt Agatha drew up her chair and began.

“Bertie,” she said, “dear Honoria does not know it, but a little difficulty has arisen about your marriage.”

“Really?” I said, hoping.

“Oh, it’s nothing at all, of course. The fact is, Sir Roderick is rather troublesome.”

“He thinks I’m not a good husband? Well, perhaps he’s right.”

“Pray do not be so absurd, Bertie. It is nothing as serious as that. But the nature of Sir Roderick’s profession unfortunately makes him over-cautious.”

I didn’t get it.

“Over-cautious?”

“Yes. I suppose it is inevitable. A nerve specialist with his extensive practice has a rather special view of humanity.”

I understood. Sir Roderick Glossop, Honoria’s father, is always called a nerve specialist, because it sounds better, but everybody knows that he’s really a janitor to the loony-bin. I mean to say, when your uncle begins to stick straws in his hair, old Glossop is the first person you send for. He arrives, examines the patient, talks about overexcited nervous systems, and recommends complete rest and seclusion and all that sort of thing. Practically every posh family in the country has called him in at one time or another, and I suppose that he has begun to suspect everybody

“You mean he thinks I may be crazy and he doesn’t want a crazy son-in-law?” I said.

Aunt Agatha seemed rather peeved at my intelligence.

“Of course, he does not think anything so ridiculous. I told you he was simply exceedingly cautious. He wants to satisfy himself that you are perfectly normal.”

Here she paused, for Spenser had come in with the coffee. When he had gone, she went on:

“He heard an extraordinary story about your having pushed his son Oswald into the lake at Ditteredge Hall. Incredible, of course. Even you would hardly do a thing like that.”

“Well, I leaned over to him, you know, and he fell into the water.”

“Oswald definitely accuses you of having pushed him into the water. That has disturbed Sir Roderick, and unfortunately he has heard about your poor Uncle Henry.”

She looked at me, and I took a sip of coffee. Our family has a good old skeleton in the cupboard. My late Uncle Henry, you see, was the blot on the Wooster escutcheon. An extremely good fellow personally, he did at times strange things. For example, he was keeping eleven pet rabbits in his bedroom. In fact, to be perfectly frank, he ended his career in some clinic.

“Is is very absurd, of course,” continued Aunt Agatha. “If any of the family had inherited poor Henry’s eccentricity—and it was nothing more—it would have been Claude and Eustace, and there could not be two brighter boys.”

Claude and Eustace were twins. It seemed to me that “bright” described them well. They were real daredevils.

“Look how well they are doing at Oxford. Your Aunt Emily had a letter from Claude only the other day saying that they hoped to be elected shortly to a very important college club, called “The Seekers’.”

“Seekers?” I couldn’t recall any club of the name in my time at Oxford. “What do they seek?”

“Claude did not say. Truth or knowledge, I should imagine. It is evidently a very desirable club to belong to, for Claude added that Lord Rainsby, the Earl of Datchet’s son, was one of his fellow candidates. However, we are wandering from the point, which is that Sir Roderick wants to have a quiet talk with you quite alone. Now I rely on you, Bertie, to be—I won’t say intelligent, but at least sensible. Don’t giggle nervously; try to keep that horrible expression out of your eyes; don’t yawn or fidget; and remember that Sir Roderick is the president of the West London branch of the anti-gambling league, so please do not talk about horse-racing. He will lunch with you at your flat tomorrow at one-thirty. Please remember that he drinks no wine, strongly disapproves of smoking, and can only eat the simplest food. Do not offer him coffee, for he considers it the root of half the nervetrouble in the world.”

“I should think a dog-biscuit and a glass of water would about meet the case.”

“Bertie!”

“Oh, all right. Merely persiflage.”

“Now it is precisely that idiotic remarks will arouse Sir Roderick’s worst suspicions. Do please try to refrain from any flippancy when you are with him. He is a very serious-minded man … Are you going? Well, please remember all I have said. I rely on you, and, if anything goes wrong, I shall never forgive you.”

“Right!” I said.

And I went home.

I breakfasted pretty late next morning and went for a stroll afterwards. I had taken a stroll in the park, and got back as far as Hyde Park Corner, when some blighter sloshed me between the shoulder-blades. It was young Eustace, my cousin. He was with two other fellows, the one was my cousin Claude and the one in the middle a pink-faced fellow with light hair.

“Bertie, old man!” said young Eustace affably.

“Hallo!” I said.

“Nice to meet you here! By the way, you’ve never met the old Dog-Face, have you? Dog-Face, this is my cousin Bertie. Lord Rainsby—Mr Wooster. We’ve just been round to your flat, Bertie. Bitterly disappointed that you were out, but were hospitably entertained by old Jeeves. That man is a real treasure.”

“What are you doing in London?” I asked.

“Oh, we’re just up for the day. We go back on the three-ten. And now, let’s talk about lunch you invite us to. Where will it be? Ritz? Savoy? Carlton?.”

“I can’t give you lunch. I’ve got an engagement myself. And,” I said, taking a look at my watch, “I’m late.” I hailed a taxi. “Sorry.”

“In this case,” said Eustace, “lend us a fiver.”

I hadn’t time to stop and argue. I gave them the fiver and hopped into the cab. It was twenty to two when I got to the flat. I bounded into the sittingroom, but it was empty.

Jeeves shimmied in.

“Sir Roderick has not yet arrived, sir.”

“Good Lord!” I said. “I thought I should find him smashing up the furniture.”

My experience is that the less you want a fellow, the more punctual he’s bound to be.

“I suppose you will find the arrangements quite satisfactory, sir.”

“What are you giving us?”

“Cold consommé, a cutlet, and a savoury, sir. With lemon-squash, iced.”

“Well, I don’t see how that can hurt him. But don’t bring coffee.”

“No, sir.”

“And don’t look mad, because, if you do, you’ll find yourself in an asylum before you know where you are.”

“Very good, sir.”

There was a ring at the bell.

“Let’s go, Jeeves!” I said.