Aunts Aren't Gentlemen: Read online

  'Spot of trouble?' I said.

  'Yes.'

  'Often the way during these protest marches. What happened?'

  'I socked a cop.'

  I could see why he was a bit emotional. Socking cops is a thing that should be done sparingly, if at all. I resumed the quiz.

  'Any particular reason? Or did it just seem a good idea at the time?'

  He gnashed a tooth or two. He was a red-headed chap, and my experience of the red-headed is that you can always expect high blood pressure from them in times of stress. The first Queen Elizabeth had red hair, and look what she did to Mary Queen of Scots.

  'He was arresting the woman I love.'

  I could understand how this might well have annoyed him. I have loved a fair number of women in my time, though it always seems to wear off after a while, and I should probably have drained the bitter cup a bit if I had seen any of them pinched by the police.

  'What had she done?'

  'She was heading the procession with me and shouting a good deal as always happens on these occasions when the emotions of a generous girl are stirred. He told her to stop shouting. She said this was a free country and she was entitled to shout as much as she pleased. He said not if she was shouting the sort of things she was shouting, and she called him a Cossack and socked him. Then he arrested her, and I socked him.'

  A pang of pity for the stricken officer passed through me. Orlo, as I have said, was well nourished, and Vanessa was one of those large girls who pack a hefty punch. A cop socked by both of them would have entertained no doubt as to his having been in a fight.

  But this was not what was occupying my thoughts. At the words 'she was heading the procession with me' I had started visibly. It seemed to me that, coupled with that 'woman I love' stuff, they could mean only one thing.

  'Good Lord,' I said. 'Is Vanessa Cook the woman you love?'

  'She is.'

  'Nice girl,' I said, for there is never any harm in giving the old salve. 'And, of course, radiant-beauty-wise in the top ten.'

  A moment later I was regretting that I had pitched it so strong, for the effect on Orlo was most unpleasant. His eyes bulged, at the same time flashing, as if he were on the verge of making a fiery far-to-the-left speech.

  'You know her?' he said, and his voice was low and guttural, like that of a bulldog which has attempted to swallow a chump chop and only got it down half-way.

  I saw that I would do well to watch my step, for it was evident that what I have heard Jeeves call the green-eyed monster that doth mock the meat it feeds on was beginning to feel the rush of life beneath its keel. You never know what may happen when the g.-e. m. takes over.

  'Slightly,' I said. 'Very slightly. We just met for a moment at some cocktail party or other.'

  'That was all?'

  'That was all.'

  'You were not – how shall I put it? – in any sense intimate?'

  'No, no. Simply on Good-morning-good-morning-lovely-morning- is-it-not terms if I happened to run into her in the street.'

  'Nothing more?'

  'Nothing more.'

  I had said the right thing. He went off the boil, and when he next spoke, it was without bulldog and chump chop effects.

  'You call her a nice girl. That puts in a nutshell my own opinion of her.'

  'And she, I imagine, thinks highly of you?'

  'Correct.'

  'You're engaged, possibly?'

  'Yes.'

  'Many happy returns.'

  'But we can't get married because of her father.'

  'He objects?'

  'Strongly.'

  'But surely you don't have to have Father's consent in these enlightened days?'

  A look of pain came into his face and he writhed like an electric fan. It was plain that my words had touched a sore s.

  'You do if he is trustee for your money and you don't make enough at your job to marry on. My Uncle Joe left me enough to get married to twenty girls. He was Vanessa's father's partner in one of those big provision businesses. But I can't touch it because he made old Cook my trustee, and Cook refuses to part.'

  'Why?'

  'He disapproves of my political views. He says he has no intention of encouraging any damned Communists.'

  I think at this juncture I may have looked askance at him a bit. I hadn't realized that that was what he was, and it rather shocked me, because I'm not any too keen on Communists. However, he was my guest, so to speak, so I merely said that that must have been unpleasant, and he said Yes, very unpleasant, adding that only Cook's grey hairs had saved him from getting plugged in the eye, which shows that it's not such a bad thing to let your hair go grey.

  'And in addition to disliking my political views he considers that I have led Vanessa astray. He has heard about her going on these protest marches, and he considers me responsible. But for me, he says, she would never have done such a thing, and that if she ever made herself conspicuous and got her name in the papers, she would come straight home and stay there. He has a big house in the country with a stable of racehorses, as he can well afford to after his years of grinding the faces of the widow and the orphan.'

  I could have corrected him here, pointing out that you don't grind people's faces by selling them pressed beef and potato chips at a lower price than they would be charged elsewhere, but, as I say, he was my guest, so I refrained. I was conscious of a passing thought that Vanessa Cook would not be remaining long in London now that she had developed this habit of socking policemen, but I did not share this with Orlo Porter, not wishing to rub salt into the wound.

  'But let's not talk about it any more,' he said, closing the subject with a bang. 'You can drop me anywhere round here. Thanks for the ride.'

  'Don't mention it.'

  'Where are you going?'

  'Harley Street, to see a doctor. I've got spots on my chest.'

  The effect of this disclosure was rather remarkable. A keen go-getter look came into his face, and I could seem that Orlo Porter the lover had been put in storage for the time being, his place taken by Orlo Porter the zealous employee of the London and Home Counties Insurance Company.

  'Spots?' he said.

  'Pink,' I said.

  'Pink spots,' he said. 'That's serious. You'd better take out a policy with me.'

  I reminded him that I had already done so. He shook his head.

  'Yes, yes, yes, but that was only for accidents. What you must have now is a life policy, and most fortunately,' he said, drawing papers from his pocket like a conjuror taking rabbits from a hat, 'I happen to have one on me. Sign here, Wooster,' he said, this time producing a fountain pen.

  And such was his magnetism that I signed there. He registered approval.

  'You have done the wise thing, Wooster. Whatever the doctor may tell you when you see him, however brief your span of life, it will be a comfort to you to know that your widow and the little ones are provided for. Drop me here, Wooster.'

  I dropped him, and drove on to Harley Street.

  CHAPTER THREE

  In spite of being held up by the protest march I was a bit early for my appointment, and was informed on arrival that the medicine man was tied up for the moment with another gentleman. I took a seat and was flitting idly through the pages of an Illustrated London News of the previous December when the door of E. Jimpson Murgatroyd's private lair opened and there emerged an elderly character with one of those square, empire-building faces, much tanned as if he was accustomed to sitting out in the sun without his parasol. Seeing me, he drank me in for a while and then said 'Hullo', and conceive my emotion when I recognized him as Major Plank the explorer and Rugby football aficionado, whom I had last seen at his house in Gloucestershire when he was accusing me of trying to get five quid out of him under false pretences. A groundless charge, I need scarcely say, self being as pure as the driven snow, if not purer, but things had got a bit difficult and the betting was that they would become difficult now. I sat waiting for him to denounce me and wa
s wondering what the harvest would be, when he spoke, to my astonishment, in the most bonhomous way, as if we were old buddies.

  'We've met before. I never forget a face. Isn't your name Allen or Allenby or Alexander or something?'

  'Wooster,' I said, relieved to the core. I had been anticipating a painful scene. He clicked his tongue. 'I could have sworn it was something beginning with Al. It's this malaria of mine. Picked it up in Equatorial Africa, and it affects my memory. So you've changed your name, have you? Secret enemies after you?'

  'No, no secret enemies.'

  'That's generally why one changes one's name. I had to change mine that time I shot the chief of the 'Mgombis. In self-defence, of course, but that made no difference to his widows and surviving relatives who were looking for me. If they had caught me, they would have roasted me alive over a slow fire, which is a thing one always wants to avoid. But I baffled them. Plank was the man they were trying to contact, and it never occurred to them that somebody called George Bernard Shaw could be the chap they were after. They are not very bright in those parts. Well, Wooster, how have you been since we last met? Pretty bobbish?'

  'Oh, fine, thanks, except that I've got spots on my chest.'

  'Spots? That's bad. How many?'

  I said I had not actually taken a census, but there were quite a few, and he shook his head gravely.

  'Might be bubonic plague or possibly sprue or schistosomiasis. One of my native bearers got spots on his chest, and we buried him before sundown. Had to. Delicate fellows, these native bearers, though you wouldn't think so to look at them. Catch everything that's going around – sprue, bubonic plague, schistosomiasis, jungle fever, colds in the head – the lot. Well, Wooster, it's been nice seeing you again. I would ask you to lunch, but I have a train to catch. I'm off to the country.'

  He left me, as you may imagine, in something of a twitter. Bertram Wooster, as is well known, is intrepid and it takes a lot to scare the pants off him. But his talk of native bearers who had to be buried before sundown had caused me not a little anxiety. Nor did the first sight of E. Jimpson Murgatroyd do anything to put me at my ease. Tipton had warned me that he was a gloomy old buster, and a gloomy old buster was what he proved to be. He had sad, brooding eyes and long whiskers, and his resemblance to a frog which had been looking on the dark side since it was a slip of a tadpole sent my spirits right down into the basement.

  However, as so often happens when you get to know a fellow better, he turned out to be not nearly as pessimistic a Gawd-help-us as he appeared to be at first sight. By the time he had weighed me and tied that rubber thing round my biceps and felt my pulse and tapped me all over like a whiskered woodpecker he had quite brightened up and words of good cheer were pouring out of him like ginger beer from a bottle.

  'I don't think you have much to worry about,' he said.

  'You don't?' I said, considerably bucked up. 'Then it isn't sprue or schistosomiasis?'

  'Of course it is not. What gave you the idea it might be?'

  'Major Plank said it might. The chap who was in here before me.'

  'You shouldn't listen to people, especially Plank. We were at school together. Barmy Plank we used to call him. No, the spots are of no importance. They will disappear in a few days.'

  'Well, that's a relief,' I said, and he said he was glad I was pleased.

  'But,' he added.

  This chipped a bit off my joie de vivre.

  'But what?'

  He was looking like a minor prophet about to rebuke the sins of the people – it was the whiskers that did it mostly, though the eyebrows helped. I forgot to mention that he had bushy eyebrows – and I could see that this was where I got the bad news.

  'Mr Wooster,' he said, 'you are a typical young man about town.'

  'Oh, thanks,' I responded, for it sounded like a compliment, and one always likes to say the civil thing.

  'And like all young men of your type you pay no attention to your health. You drink too much.'

  'Only at times of special revelry. Last night, for instance, I was helping a pal to celebrate the happy conclusion of love's young dream, and it may be that I became a mite polluted, but that rarely happens. One Martini Wooster, some people call me.'

  He paid no attention to my frank manly statement, but carried on regardless.

  'You smoke too much. You stay up too late at night. You don't get enough exercise. At your age you ought to be playing Rugby football for the old boys of your school.'

  'I didn't go to a Rugger school.'

  'Where did you go?'

  'Eton.'

  'Oh,' he said, and he said it as if he didn't think much of Eton. 'Well, there you are. You do all the things I have said.

  You abuse your health in a hundred ways. Total collapse may come at any moment.'

  'At any moment?' I quavered.

  'At any moment. Unless –'

  'Unless?' Now, I felt, he was talking.

  'Unless you give up this unwholesome London life. Go to the country. Breathe pure air. Go to bed early. And get plenty of exercise. If you do not do this, I cannot answer for the consequences.'

  He had shaken me. When a doctor, even if whiskered, tells you he cannot answer for the consequences, that's strong stuff. But I was not dismayed, because I had spotted a way of following his advice without anguish. Bertram Wooster is like that. He thinks on his feet.

  'Would it be all right,' I asked, 'if I went to stay with my aunt in Worcestershire?'

  He weighed the question, scratching his nose with his stethoscope. He had been doing this at intervals during our get-together, being evidently one of the scratchers, like Barbara Frietchie. The poet Nash would have taken to him.

  'I see no objection to your staying with your aunt, provided the conditions are right. Whereabouts in Worcestershire does she live?'

  'Near a town called Market Snodsbury.'

  'Is the air pure there?'

  'Excursion trains are run for people to breathe it.'

  'Your life would be quiet?'

  'Practically unconscious.'

  'No late hours?'

  'None. The early dinner, the restful spell with a good book or the crossword puzzle and so to bed.'

  'Then by all means do as you suggest.'

  'Splendid. I'll ring her up right away.'

  The aunt to whom I alluded was my good and deserving Aunt Dahlia, not to be confused with my Aunt Agatha who eats broken bottles and is strongly suspected of turning into a werewolf at the time of the full moon. Aunt Dahlia is as good a sort as ever said 'Tally Ho' to a fox, which she frequently did in her younger days when out with the Quorn or Pytchley. If she ever turned into a werewolf, it would be one of those jolly breezy werewolves whom it is a pleasure to know.

  It was very satisfactory that he had given me the green light without probing further, for an extended quiz might have revealed that Aunt Dahlia has a French cook who defies competition, and I need scarcely explain that the first thing a doctor does when you tell him you are going to a house where there's a French cook is to put you on a diet.

  'Then that's that,' I said, all buck and joviality. 'Many thanks for your sympathetic co-operation. Lovely weather we are having, are we not? Good morning, good morning, good morning.'

  And I slipped him a purse of gold and went off to phone Aunt Dahlia. I had given up all idea of driving to Brighton for lunch. I had stern work before me – viz. cadging an invitation from this aunt, sometimes a tricky task. In her darker moods, when some domestic upheaval is troubling her, she has been known to ask me if I have a home of my own and, if I have, why the hell I don't stay in it.

  I got her after the delays inseparable from telephoning a remote hamlet like Market Snodsbury, where the operators are recruited exclusively from the Worcestershire branch of the Jukes family.

  'Hullo, aged relative,' I began, as suavely as I could manage.

  'Hullo to you, you young blot on Western civilization,' she responded in the ringing tones with which she h
ad once rebuked hounds for taking time off to chase rabbits. 'What's on your mind, if any? Talk quick, because I'm packing.'

  I didn't like the sound of this.

  'Packing?' I said. 'Are you going somewhere?'

  'Yes, to Somerset, to stay with friends of mine, the Briscoes.'

  'Oh, curses.'

  'Why?'

  'I was hoping I might come to you for a short visit.'

  'Well, sucks to you, young Bertie, you can't. Unless you'd like to rally round and keep Tom company.'

  I h'm-ed at this. I am very fond of Uncle Tom, but the idea of being cooped up alone with him in his cabin didn't appeal to me. He collects old silver and is apt to hold you with a glittering eye and talk your head off about sconces and foliations and gadroon borders, and my interest in these is what you might call tepid. 'No,' I said. 'Thanks for the kind invitation, but I think I'll take a cottage somewhere.'

  Her next words showed that she had failed to grasp the gist.

  'What is all this?' she queried. 'I don't get it. Why have you got to go anywhere? Are you on the run from the police?'

  'Doctor's orders.'

  'What are you talking about? You've always been as fit as ten fiddles.'

  'Until this morning, when spots appeared on my chest.'

  'Spots?'

  'Pink.'

  'Probably leprosy.'

  'The doc thinks not. His view is that they are caused by my being a typical young man about town who doesn't go to bed early enough. He says I must leg it to the country and breathe pure air, so I shall need a cottage.'

  'With honeysuckle climbing over the door and old Mister Moon peeping in through the window?'

  'That sort of thing. Any idea how one sets about getting a cottage of that description?'

  'I'll find you one. Jimmy Briscoe has dozens. And Maiden Eggesford, where he lives, is not far from the popular seaside resort of Bridmouth-on-Sea, notorious for its invigorating air. Corpses at Bridmouth-on-Sea leap from their biers and dance round the maypole.'

  'Sounds good.'

  'I'll drop you a line when I've got the cottage. You'll like Maiden Eggesford. Jimmy has a racing stable, and there's a big meeting coming on soon at Bridmouth; so you'll have not only pure air but entertainment. One of Jimmy's horses is running, and most of the wise money is on it, though there is a school of thought that maintains that danger is to be expected from a horse belonging to a Mr Cook. And now for heaven's sake get off the wire. I'm busy.'