Aunts Aren't Gentlemen: Page 5

  There had been no diminution of this drowsiness since last heard of, and as I bowled along the high road I was practically in dreamland, and it occurred to me that if I didn't pause somewhere and sleep it off, I should shortly become a menace to pedestrians and traffic. The last thing I wanted was to come before my late host in his magisterial capacity, charged with having struck some citizen amidships while under the influence of his port. Colonel Briscoe's port, I mean, not the citizen's. Embarrassing for both of us, though in a way a compliment to the excellence of his cellar.

  The high road, like most high roads, was flanked on either side by fields, some with cows, some without, so, the day being as warm as it was, just dropping anchor over here or over there meant getting as cooked to a crisp as Major Plank would have been, had the widows and surviving relatives of the late chief of the 'Mgombis established connection with him. What I wanted was shade, and by great good fortune I came on a little turning leading to wooded country, just what I needed. I drove into this wooded country, stopped the machinery, and it wasn't long before sleep poured over me in a healing wave, as the expression is.

  It started off by being one of those dreamless sleeps, but after a while a nightmare took over. It seemed to me that I was out fishing with E. Jimpson Murgatroyd in what appeared to be tropical waters, and he caught a shark and I was having a look at it, when it suddenly got hold of my arm. This of course gave me a start, and I woke. And as I opened my eyes I saw that there was something attached to my port-side biceps, but it wasn't a shark, it was Orlo Porter.

  'I beg your pardon, sir,' he was saying, 'for interrupting your doze, but I am a bird-watcher. I was watching a Clarkson's warbler in that thicket over there, and I was afraid your snoring might frighten it away, so might I beg you to go easy on the sound effects. Clarkson's warblers are very sensitive to loud noises, and you were making yourself audible a mile off.'

  Or words to that general import.

  I would have replied 'Oh, hullo', or something like that, but I was too astonished to speak, partly because I had never suspected that Orlo Porter could be so polite, but principally because he was there at all. I had looked on Maiden Eggesford as somewhere where I would be free from all human society, a haven where I would have peace perfect peace with loved ones far away, as the hymnbook says, and it was turning out to be a sort of meeting place of the nations. First Plank, then Vanessa Cook, and now Orlo Porter. If this sort of thing was going to go on, I told myself, I wouldn't be surprised to see my Aunt Agatha come round the corner arm in arm with E. J. Murgatroyd.

  Orlo Porter seemed now to recognize me, for he started like a native of India who sees a scorpion in his path, and went on to say:

  'Wooster, you blasted slimy creeping crawling serpent, I might have expected this!'

  It was plain that he was not glad to see me, for there was nothing affectionate in what he said or the way he said it, but apart from that I was unable to follow him. He had me at a loss.

  'Expected what?' I asked, hoping for footnotes.

  'That you would have followed Vanessa here, your object to steal her from me.'

  This struck me as so absurd that I laughed a light laugh, and he asked me to stop cackling like a hen whose union had been blest – or laying a blasted egg, as he preferred to put it.

  'I haven't followed anyone anywhere,' I said, trying to pour oil on the troubled w.'s. I debated with myself whether to add 'old man', and decided not. I doubt if it would have had much effect, anyway.

  'Then why are you here?' he demanded in a voice so fortissimo that it was obvious that he didn't give a damn if Clarkson's warbler heard him and legged it in a panic.

  I continued suave.

  'The matter is susceptible of a ready explanation,' I said. 'You remember those spots of mine.'

  'Don't change the subject.'

  'I wasn't. Having inspected the spots, the doc advised me to retire to the country.'

  'There are plenty of other places in the country to retire to.'

  'Ah,' I said, 'but my Aunt Dahlia is staying with some people here, and I knew it would make all the difference if I had her to exchange ideas with. Very entertaining woman, my Aunt Dahlia. Never a dull moment when she's around.'

  This, as I had foreseen, had him stymied. Something of his belligerence left him, and I could see that he was saying to himself, 'Can it be that I have wronged Bertram?' Then he clouded over again.

  'All this is very plausible,' he said, 'but it does not explain why you were slinking round Eggesford Court this morning.'

  I was amazed. When I was a child, my nurse told me that there was One who was always beside me, spying out all my ways, and that if I refused to eat my spinach I would hear about it on Judgment Day, but it never occurred to me that she was referring to Orlo Porter.

  'How on earth do you know that?' I said – or perhaps 'gasped' would be a better word, or even 'gurgled'.

  'I was watching the place through my bird-watching binoculars, hoping to get a glimpse of the woman I love.'

  This gave me the opportunity to steer the conversation into less controversial topics.

  'I had forgotten you were a bird-watcher till you reminded me just now. You went in for it at Oxford, I remember. It isn't a thing I would care to do myself. Not,' I hastened to add, 'that I've anything against bird-watching. Must be most interesting, besides keeping you' – I was about to say 'out of the public houses' but thought it better to change it to 'out in the open air'. 'What's the procedure?' I said. 'I suppose you lurk in a bush till a bird comes along, and then you out with the glasses and watch it.'

  I had more to say, notably a question as to who Clarkson was and how he came to have a warbler, but he interrupted me.

  'I will tell you why you were sneaking round Eggesford Court this morning. It was in the hope of seeing Vanessa.'

  I no-noed, but he paid no attention.

  'And I would like to say for your guidance, Wooster, that if I catch you trying to inflict your beastly society on her again, I shall have no hesitation in tearing your insides out.'

  He started to walk away, paused, added over his shoulder the words 'With my bare hands' and was gone, whether or not to resume watching Clarkson's warbler, I had no means of knowing. My own feeling was that any level-headed bird with sensitive ears would have removed itself almost immediately after he had begun to speak.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  These parting remarks of O. Porter gave me, as may readily be imagined, considerable food for thought. There happened at the moment to be no passers-by, but if any passers had been by, they would have noticed that my brow was knitted and the eyes a bit glazed. This always happens when you are turning things over in your mind and not liking the look of them. You see the same thing in Cabinet ministers when they are asked awkward questions in Parliament.

  It was not, of course, the first time an acquaintance had expressed a desire to delve into my interior and remove its contents. Roderick Spode, now going about under the alias of Lord Sidcup, had done so frequently when in the grip of the illusion that I was trying to steal Madeline Bassett from him, little knowing that she gave me a pain in the gizzard and that I would willingly have run a mile in tight shoes to avoid her.

  But I had never before had such a sense of imminent peril as now. Spode might talk airily – or is it glibly? – of buttering me over the lawn and jumping on the remains with hobnailed boots, but it was always possible to buoy oneself up with the thought that his bark was worse than his b. I mean to say, a fellow like Spode has a position to keep up. He can't afford to indulge every passing whim. If he goes buttering people over lawns, he's in for trouble. Debrett's Peerage tut-tuts, Burke's Landed Gentry raises its eyebrows, and as likely as not he gets cut by the County and has to emigrate.

  But Orlo Porter was under no such restraint. Being a Communist, he was probably on palsy-walsy terms with half the big shots at the Kremlin, and the more of the bourgeoisie he disembowelled, the better they would be pleased. 'A young ma
n with the right stuff in him, this Comrade Porter. Got nice ideas,' they would say when reading about the late Wooster. 'We must keep an eye on him with a view to further advancement.'

  Obviously, then, the above Porter having expressed himself as he had done about Vanessa Cook, the shrewd thing for me to do was to keep away from her. I put this up to Jeeves when I returned, and he saw eye to eye with me.

  'What are those things circumstances have, Jeeves?' I said.

  'Sir?'

  'You know what I mean. You talk of a something of circumstances which leads to something. Cats enter into it, if I'm not wrong.'

  'Would concatenation be the word you are seeking?'

  'That's right. It was on the tip of my tongue. Do concatenations of circumstances arise?'

  'Yes, sir.'

  'Well, one has arisen now. The facts are these. When we were in London, I formed a slight acquaintance with a Miss Cook who turns out to be the daughter of the chap who owns the horse which thinks so highly of that cat. She had a spot of trouble with the police, and her father summoned her home to see that she didn't get into more. So she is now at Eggesford Court. Got the scenario so far?'

  'Yes, sir.'

  'This caused her betrothed, a man named Porter, to follow her here in order to give her aid and comfort. Got that?'

  'Yes, sir. This frequently happens when two young hearts are sundered.'

  'Well, I met him this today, and my presence in Maiden Eggesford came as a surprise to him.'

  'One can readily imagine it, sir.'

  'He took it for granted that I had come in pursuit of Miss Cook.'

  'Like young Lochinvar, when he came out of the West.'

  The name was new to me, but I didn't ask for further details. I saw that he was following the plot, and it never does, when you're telling a story, to wander off into side issues.

  'And he said if I didn't desist, he would tear my insides out with his bare hands.'

  'Indeed, sir?'

  'You don't know Porter, do you?'

  'No, sir.'

  'Well, you know Spode. Porter is Spode plus. Hasty temper. Quick to take offence. And the muscles of his brawny arms are strong as iron bands, as the fellow said. The last chap you'd want to annoy. So what do you suggest?'

  'I think it would be advisable to avoid the society of Miss Cook.'

  'Exactly the idea which occurred to me. And it ought not to be difficult. The chances of Pop Cook asking me to drop in are very slim. So if I take the high road and she takes the low road . . . Answer that, will you, Jeeves,' I said as the telephone rang in the hall. 'It's probably Aunt Dahlia, but it may be Porter, and I do not wish to have speech with him.'

  He went out, to return a few moments later.

  'It was Miss Cook, sir, speaking from the post office. She desired me to inform you that she would be calling on you immediately.'

  A sharp 'Lord-love-a-duck' escaped me, and I eyed him with reproach.

  'You didn't think to say I was out?'

  'The lady gave me no opportunity of doing so, sir. She delivered her message and rang off without waiting for me to speak.'

  My brow got all knitted again.

  'This isn't too good, Jeeves.'

  'No, sir.'

  'Calling at my home address like this.'

  'Yes, sir.'

  'Who's to say that Orlo Porter is not lurking outside with his bird-watching binoculars?' I said.

  But before I could go into the matter in depth, the door bell had rung, and Vanessa Cook was in my midst. Jeeves, I need scarcely say, had vanished like a family spectre at the crack of dawn. He always does when company arrives. I hadn't seen him go, and I doubted if Vanessa had, but he had gone.

  As I stood gazing at Vanessa, I was conscious of the uneasiness you feel when you run up against something particularly hot and are wondering when it is going to explode. It was more than a year since I had seen her, except in the distance when about to be scooped in by the police, and the change in her appearance was calculated to curdle the blood a bit. Her outer aspect was still that of a girl who would have drawn whistles from susceptible members of America's armed forces, but there was something sort of formidable about her which had not been there before, something kind of imperious and defiant, if you know what I mean. Due no doubt to the life she had been leading. You can't go heading protest marches and socking the constabulary without it showing.

  Hard, that's the word I was trying for. She had always been what they call a proud beauty, but now she was a hard one. Her lips were tightly glued together, her chin protruding, her whole lay-out that of a girl who intended to stand no rannygazoo. Except that the latter was way down in Class D as a looker, while she, as I have indicated, was the pin-up girl to end all pin-up girls, she reminded me of my childhood dancing mistress. The thought occurred to me that in another thirty years or so she would look just like my Aunt Agatha, before whose glare, as is well known, strong men curl up like rabbits.

  Nor was there anything in her greeting to put me at my ease. Having given me a nasty look as if I ranked in her esteem in one of the lowest brackets, she said:

  'I am very angry with you, Bertie.'

  I didn't like the sound of this at all. It is never agreeable to incur the displeasure of a girl with a punch like hers. I said I was sorry to hear that, and asked what seemed to be the trouble.

  'Following me here!'

  There is nothing that braces one up like being accused of something to which you can find a ready answer. I laughed merrily, and her reaction to my mirth was much the same as Orlo Porter's had been, though where he had spoken of hens laying eggs she preferred the simile of a hyena with a bone stuck in its throat. I said I hadn't had a notion that she was in these parts, and this time she laughed, one of those metallic ones that are no good to man or beast.

  'Oh, come!' she said. 'Oddly enough,' she added, 'although I am furious, I can't help admiring you in a way. I am surprised to find that you have so much initiative. It is abominable, but it does show spirit. It makes me feel that if I had married you, I could have made something of you.'

  I shuddered from hair-do to shoe-sole. I was even more thankful than before that she had given me the bum's rush. I know what making something of me meant. Ten minutes after the bishop and colleague had done their stuff she would have been starting to mould me and jack up my soul, and I like my soul the way it is. It may not be the sort of soul that gets crowds cheering in the streets, but it suits me and I don't want people fooling about with it.

  'But it is quite impossible, Bertie. I love Orlo and can love no one else.'

  'That's all right. Entirely up to you. I must put you straight on one thing, though. I really didn't know you were here.'

  'Are you trying to make me believe that it was a pure coincidence –'

  'No, not that. More what I would call a concatenation of circumstances. My doctor ordered me a quiet life in the country, and I chose Maiden Eggesford because my aunt is staying with some people here and I thought it would be nice being near her. A quiet life in the country can be a bit too quiet if you don't know anybody. She got me this cottage.'

  You might have thought that that would have cleaned everything up and made life one grand sweet song, as the fellow said, but no, she went on looking puff-faced. No pleasing some girls.

  'So I was wrong in thinking that you had initiative,' she said, and if her lip didn't curl scornfully, I don't know a scornfully curling lip when I see one. 'You are just an ordinary footling member of the bourgeoisie that Orlo dislikes so much.'

  'A typical young man about town, some authorities say.'

  'I don't suppose you have ever done anything worthwhile in your life.'

  I could have made her look pretty silly at this juncture by revealing that I had won a Scripture Knowledge prize at my private school, a handsomely bound copy of a devotional work whose name has escaped me, and that when Aunt Dahlia was running that Milady's Boudoir paper of hers I contributed to it an article, or piece
as we writers call it, on What The Well- Dressed Man Is Wearing, but I let it go, principally because she had gone on speaking and it is practically impossible to cut in on a woman who has gone on speaking. They get the stuff out so damn quick that the slower male hasn't a hope.

  'But the matter of your wasted life is beside the point. God made you, and presumably he knew what he was doing, so we need not go into that. What you will want to hear is my reason for coming to see you.'

  'Any time you're passing,' I said in my polished way, but she took no notice and continued.

  'Father's friend, Major Plank, who is staying with us, was talking at lunch about someone named Wooster who had called this morning, and when Father turned purple and choked on his lamb cutlet I knew it must be you. You are the sort of young man he dislikes most.'

  'Do young men dislike him?'

  'Invariably. Father is and always has been a cross between Attila the Hun and a snapping-turtle. Well, having found that you were in Maiden Eggesford I came to ask you to do something for me.'

  'Anything I can.'

  'It's quite simple. I shall of course be writing to Orlo, but I don't want him to send his letters to the Court because Father, in addition to resembling a snapping-turtle, is a man of low cunning who wouldn't hesitate to intercept and destroy them, and he always gets down to breakfast before I do, which gives him a strategical advantage. By the time I got to the table the cream of my correspondence would be in his trouser pocket. So I am going to tell Orlo to address his letters care of you, and I will call for them every afternoon.'

  I never heard a proposition I liked the sound of less. The idea of her calling at the cottage daily, with Orlo Porter, already heated to boiling point, watching its every move, froze my young blood and made my two eyes, like stars, start from their spheres, as I have heard Jeeves put it. It was with infinite relief that I realized a moment later that my fears were groundless, there being no need for correspondence between the parties of the first and second part.