The Mating Season Page 11

  ‘I’d go ahead and tell her. Bung in the word in season. I’m all for reuniting sundered hearts.’

  ‘Me, too. But I think we’ve left it too late. Already the Bassett is burning up the wires with telegrams asking what it’s all about. A hot one just arrived. I found it on the hall table when I came in. It was the telegram of a girl on the verge of becoming fed to the eye teeth. I tell you, Catsmeat, I see no ray of light. I’m sunk.’

  ‘No, you’re not.’

  ‘I am. When I told Gussie about this telegram, urging upon him that now was the time for all good men to come to the aid of the party, he merely, as I say, stuck his ears back and said he was teaching the girl a lesson and not a smell of a letter should she get from him till that lesson had been learned. The man’s non compos, and I repeat that I see no ray of light.’

  ‘It seems to me it’s all quite simple.’

  ‘You mean you have something to suggest?’

  ‘Of course I’ve something to suggest. I always have something to suggest. The thing’s obvious. If Gussie won’t write to this girl, you must write to her yourself.’

  ‘But she doesn’t want to hear from me. She wants to hear from Gussie.’

  ‘And so she will, bless her heart. Gussie has sprained his wrist, so had to dictate the letter to you.’

  ‘Gussie hasn’t sprained his wrist.’

  ‘Pardon me. He gave it a nasty wrench while stopping a runaway horse and at great personal risk saving a little child from a hideous death. A golden-haired child, if you will allow yourself to be guided by me, with blue eyes, pink cheeks and a lisp. I think a lisp is good box-office?’

  I gasped. I had got his drift.

  ‘Catsmeat, this is terrific! You’ll write the thing?’

  ‘Of course. It’ll be pie. I’ve been writing Gertrude that sort of letter since I was so high.’

  He seated himself at the table, took pen and paper and immediately became immersed in composition, as the expression is. I could see that it had been no idle boast on his part that the thing would be pie. He didn’t even seem to have to stop and think. In almost no time he was handing me the finished script and bidding me get a jerk on and copy it out.

  ‘It ought to go off at once, every moment being vital. Trot down to the post office with it yourself. Then she’ll get it first thing in the morning. And now, Bertie, I must leave you. I promised to play gin rummy with Queenie, and I am already late. She wants cheering up, poor child. You’ve heard about her tragedy? The severing of her engagement to the flatty Dobbs?’

  ‘No, really? Is her engagement off? Then that’s why she was looking like that, I suppose. I ran into her after lunch,’ I explained, ‘and I got the impression that the heart was heavy. What went wrong?’

  ‘She didn’t like him being an atheist, and he wouldn’t stop being an atheist, and finally he said something about Jonah and the Whale which it was impossible for her to overlook. This morning, she returned the ring, his letters and a china ornament with “A Present From Blackpool” on it, which he bought her last summer while visiting relatives in the north. It’s hit her pretty hard, I’m afraid. She’s passing through the furnace. She loves him madly and yearns to be his, but she can’t take that stuff about Jonah and the Whale. One can only hope that gin rummy will do something to ease the pain. Right ho, Bertie, get on with that letter. It’s not actually one of my best, perhaps, because I was working against time and couldn’t prune and polish, but I think you’ll like it.’

  He was correct. I studied the communication carefully, and was enchanted with its virtuosity. If it wasn’t one of his best, his best must have been pretty good, and I was not surprised that upon receipt of a series Gertrude Winkworth was weakening. There are letters which sow doubts as to whether this bit here couldn’t have been rather more neatly phrased and that bit there gingered up a trifle, and other letters of which you say to yourself ‘This is the goods. Don’t alter a word’. This was one of the latter letters. He had got just the right modest touch into the passage about the runaway horse, and the lisping child was terrific. She stuck out like a sore thumb and hogged the show. As for the warmer portions about missing Madeline every minute and wishing she were here so that he could fold her in his arms and what not, they simply couldn’t have been improved upon.

  I copied the thing out, stuffed it in an envelope and took it down to the post office. And scarcely had it plopped into the box, when I was hailed from behind by a musical soprano and, turning, saw Corky heaving alongside.

  CHAPTER 12

  I felt profoundly bucked. The very girl I wanted to see. I grabbed her by the arm, so that she couldn’t do another of her sudden sneaks.

  ‘Corky,’ I said, ‘I want a long, heart to heart talk with you.’

  ‘Not about Hollywood?’

  ‘No, not about Hollywood.’

  ‘Thank God. I don’t think I could have stood any more Hollywood chatter this afternoon. I wouldn’t have believed,’ she said, proceeding, as always, to collar the conversation, ‘that anybody except Louella Parsons and Hedda Hopper could be such an authority on the film world as is Mrs Clara Wellbeloved. She knows much more about it than I do, and I’ll have been moving in celluloid circles two years come Lammas Eve. She knows exactly how many times everybody’s been divorced and why, how much every picture for the last twenty years has grossed, and how many Warner brothers there are. She even knows how many times Artie Shaw has been married, which I’ll bet he couldn’t tell you himself. She asked if I had ever married Artie Shaw, and when I said No, seemed to think I was pulling her leg or must have done it without noticing. I tried to explain that when a girl goes to Hollywood she doesn’t have to marry Artie Shaw, it’s optional, but I don’t thinkl convinced her. A very remarkable old lady, but a bit exhausting after the first hour or two. Did you say you wanted to speak to me about something.’

  ‘Yes, I did.’

  ‘Well, why don’t you?’

  ‘Because you won’t let me get a word in edgeways.’

  ‘Oh, have I been talking? I’m sorry. What’s on your mind, my king?’

  ‘Gussie.’

  ‘Fink-Nottle?’

  ‘Fink-Nottle is correct.’

  ‘The whitest man I know.’

  ‘The fatheadedest man you know. Listen, Corky, I’ve just been talking to Catsmeat –’

  ‘Did he tell you that he expects shortly to persuade Gertrude Winkworth to elope with him?’

  ‘Yes.’

  She smiled in a steely sort of way, like one of those women in the Old Testament who used to go about driving spikes into people’s heads.

  ‘I’m just waiting for that to happen,’ she said, ‘so that I can get a good laugh out of seeing Esmond’s face when he finds out that his Gertrude has gone off with another. Most amusing it will be. Ha, ha,’ she added.

  That ‘Ha, ha’, so like the expiring quack of a duck dying of a broken heart, told me all I wanted to know. I saw that Catsmeat had not erred in his diagnosis of this young shrimp’s motives in giving Gussie the old treatment, and I had no option but to slip her the lowdown without further delay. I tapped her on the shoulder, and bunged in the word in season.

  ‘Corky,’ I said, ‘you’re a chump. You’ve got a completely wrong angle on this Haddock. So far from being enamoured of Gertrude Winkworth, I don’t suppose he would care, except in a distant, cousinly way, if she choked on a fish-bone. You are the lodestar of his life.’

  ‘What!’

  ‘I had it from his own lips. He was a bit pickled at the time, which makes it all the more impressive, because in vino what’s-the-word.’

  Her eyes had lighted up. She gave a quick gulp.

  ‘He said I was the lodestar of his life?’

  ‘With a “still” in front of the “lodestar”. “Mark this,” he said, helping himself to port, of which he was already nearly full. “Though she has given me the brusheroo, she is still the lodestar of my life.”’

  ‘Bertie, if you’re kidding
–’

  ‘Of course I’m not.’

  ‘I hope you’re not, because if you are I shall put the curse of the Pirbrights on you, and it’s not at all the sort of curse you will enjoy. Tell me more.’

  I told her more. In fact I told her all. When I had finished, she laughed like a hyena and also, for girls never make sense, let fall a pearly tear or two.

  ‘Isn’t that just the sort of thing he would think up, bless him!’ she said, alluding to the hot idea Esmond Haddock had brought back with him from the Basingstoke cinema. ‘What a woolly lambkin that man is!’

  I was not sure if ‘woolly lambkin’ was quite the phrase I would have used myself to describe Esmond Haddock, but I let it go, it being no affair of mine. If she elected to regard a fellow with a forty-six-inch chest and muscles like writhing snakes as a woolly lambkin, that was up to her. My task, having started a good thing, was to push it along.

  ‘In these circs,’ I said, ‘you will probably be glad of a word of advice from a knowledgeable man of the world. Catsmeat appears to have obtained excellent results on the Gertrude front from pouring out his soul in the form of notes, and if you take my tip, you will do the same. Drop Esmond Haddock a civil line telling him you are aching for his presence, and he will lower the world’s record racing round to the Vicarage to fold you in his arms. He’s only waiting for the green light.’

  She shook her head.

  ‘No,’ she said.

  ‘Why no?’

  ‘We should simply be where we were before.’

  I saw what she was driving at, of course.

  ‘I know what’s in your mind,’ I said. ‘You are alluding to his civil disobedience in re defying his aunts. Well, let me assure you that that little difficulty will very shortly yield to treatment. Listen. Esmond Haddock is singing a hunting song at the concert, words by his Aunt Charlotte, music by his Aunt Myrtle. You don’t dispute that.’

  All correct so far.’

  ‘Well, suppose that hunting song is a smackerino.’

  And in a few well-chosen words I informed her of Jeeves’s tenable theory.

  ‘You get the idea?’ I concluded. ‘The cheers of the multitude frequently act like a powerful drug on these birds with inferiority complexes. Rouse such birds, as, for instance, by whistling through your fingers and yelling “Bis! Bis!” when they sing hunting songs, and they become changed men. Their morale stiffens. Their tails shoot up like rockets. They find themselves regarding the tough eggs before whom they have always been accustomed to crawl as less than the dust beneath their chariot wheels. If Esmond Haddock goes with the bang I anticipate, it won’t be long before those aunts of his will be climbing trees and pulling them up after them whenever he looks squiggle-eyed at them.’

  My eloquence had not been wasted. She started considerably, and said something about ‘Out of the mouths of babes and sucklings’, going on to explain that the gag was not her own but one of her Uncle Sidney’s. And in return I told her that the tenable theory I had been outlining was not mine, but Jeeves’s. Each giving credit where credit was due.

  ‘I believe he’s right, Bertie.’

  ‘Of course he’s right. Jeeves is always right. It’s happened before. Do you know Bingo Little?’

  ‘Just to say Hallo to. He married some sort of female novelist, didn’t he?’

  ‘Rosie M. Banks, author of Mervyn Keene, Clubman, and Only A Factory Girl. And their union was blessed. In due season a bouncing baby was added to the strength. Keep your eye on that baby, for the plot centres round it. Well, since you last saw Bingo, Mrs Bingo, by using her substantial pull, secured for him the post of editor of Wee Tots, a journal for the nursery and the home, a very good job in most respects but with this flaw, that the salary attached to it was not all it might have been. His proprietor, P. P. Purkiss, being one of those parsimonious birds in whose pocket-books moths nest and raise large families. It was Bingo’s constant endeavour, accordingly, to try to stick old Gaspard the Miser for a raise. All clear so far?’

  ‘I’ve got it.’

  ‘Week after week he would creep into P. P. Purkiss’s presence and falter out apologetic sentences beginning “Oh, Mr Purkiss, I wonder if . . .” and “Oh, Mr Purkiss, do you think you could possibly . . .” only to have the blighter gaze at him with fishy eyes and talk about the tightness of money and the growing cost of pulp paper. And Bingo would say “Oh, quite, Mr Purkiss,” and “I see, Mr Purkiss, yes I see,” and creep out again. That’s Act One.’

  ‘But mark the sequel?’

  ‘You’re right, mark the sequel. Came a day when Bingo’s bouncing baby, entered in a baby contest against some of the warmest competition in South Kensington, scooped in the first prize, a handsome all-day sucker, getting kissed in the process by the wife of a Cabinet Minister and generally fawned upon by all and sundry. And next morning Bingo, with a strange light on his face, strode into P. P. Purkiss’s private office without knocking, banged the desk with his fist and said he wished to see an additional ten fish in his pay envelope from now on, and to suit everybody’s convenience the new arrangement would come into effect on the following Saturday. And when P. P. Purkiss started to go into his act, he banged the desk again and said he hadn’t come there to argue. “Yes or no, Purkiss!” he said, and P. P. Purkiss, sagging like a wet sock, said “Why, yes, yes, of course, most certainly, Mr Little”, adding that he had been on the point of suggesting some such idea himself. Well, I mean, that shows you.’

  It impressed her. No mistaking that. She uttered a meditative ‘Golly!’ and stood on one leg, looking like ‘The Soul’s Awakening’.

  And so,’ I proceeded, ‘we are going to strain every nerve to see that Esmond Haddock’s hunting song is the high-spot of the evening. Jeeves is to go about the village, scattering beers, so as to assemble what is known as a claque and ensure the thunderous applause. You will be able to help in that direction, too.’

  ‘Of course I will. My standing in the village is terrific. I have the place in my pocket. I must get after this right away. I can’t wait. You don’t mind me leaving you?’

  ‘Not at all, not at all, or, rather, yes, I jolly well do. Before you go, we’ve got to get this Gussie thing straight.’

  ‘What Gussie thing?’

  I clicked my tongue.

  ‘You know perfectly well what Gussie thing. For reasons into which we need not go, you have recently been making Augustus Fink-Nottle the plaything of an idle hour, and it has got to stop. I don’t have to tell you again what will happen if you continue carrying on as of even date. In our conference at the flat I made the facts clear to the meanest intelligence. You are fully aware that should the evil spread, should sand be shoved into the gears of the Fink-Nottle-Bassett romance to such an extent that it ceases to tick over, Bertram Wooster will be faced with the fate that is worse than death – viz. marriage. I feel sure that, now that you have been reminded of the hideous peril that looms, your good heart will not allow you to go on encouraging the above Fink-Nottle as, according to the evidence of five aunts, you are doing now. Appalled by the thought of poor old Wooster pressing the wedding trousers and packing the trunks for a honeymoon with that ghastly Bassett, you will obey the dictates of your better self and cool him off.’

  She saw my point.

  ‘You want me to restore Gussie to circulation?’

  ‘Exactly’

  ‘Switch off the fascination? Release him from my clutches?’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘Why, of course. I’ll attend to it immediately’

  And on these very satisfactory terms we parted. A great weight had been lifted from my mind.

  Well, I don’t know what your experience has been, but mine is that there is very little percentage in having a weight lifted off your mind, because the first thing you know another, probably a dashed sight heavier, is immediately shoved on. It would appear to be a game you can’t beat.

  I had scarcely got back to my room, all soothed and relaxed, whe
n in blew Catsmeat, and there was that in his mere appearance that chilled my merry mood like a slap in the eye with a wet towel. His face was grave, and his deportment not at all the sprightly deportment of a man who has recently been playing gin rummy with parlourmaids.

  ‘Bertie,’ he said, ‘hold on tight to something. A very serious situation has arisen.’

  The floor seemed to heave beneath me like a stage sea. The mice, which since that latter sequence and the subsequent chat with Corky had been taking a breather, sprang into renewed activity, as if starting training for some athletic sports.

  ‘Oh, my sainted aunt!’ I moaned, and Catsmeat said I might well say ‘My sainted aunt’, because she was the spearhead of the trouble.

  ‘Here comes the bruise,’ he said. ‘When I was in the servants’ hall a moment ago, Silversmith rolled in. And do you know what he had just been told by the girls higher up? He had been told that your Aunt Agatha is coming here. I don’t know when, but in the next day or so. Dame Daphne Winkworth had a letter from her by the afternoon post, and in it she announced her intention of shortly being a pleasant visitor at this ruddy hencoop. So now what?’

  CHAPTER 13

  It was a Bertram Wooster with a pale, careworn face and a marked disposition to start at sudden noises who sat in his bedroom on the following afternoon, rising occasionally to pace the floor. Few, seeing him, would have recognized in this limp and shivering chunk of human flotsam the suave, dapper boulevardier of happier years. I was waiting for Catsmeat to return from the metropolis and make his report.

  Threshing the thing out on the previous evening, we had not taken long in reaching the conclusion that it would be madness to attempt to cope with this major crisis ourselves, and that the whole conduct of the affair must at the earliest moment be handed over to Jeeves. And as Jeeves was in London and it might have looked odd for me to dash away from the Big House for the night, Catsmeat had gone up to confer with him. He had tooled off secretly in my two-seater, expecting to be back around lunch-time.