"You did--what?"
"Yes, sir. Before I came away. Mr. Jeeves said that he wished to walk in the garden before retiring for the night. He was to place the key on the kitchen window-sill."
I stared at the man dumbly. His eye was clear, his hand steady. He had none of the appearance of a butler who has had a couple.
"You mean that all this while the key has been in Jeeves"s possession?"
"Yes, sir."
I could speak no more. Emotion had overmastered my voice. I was at a loss and not abreast; but of one thing, it seemed to me, there could be no doubt. For some reason, not to be fathomed now, but most certainly to be gone well into as soon as I had pushed this infernal sewing-machine of mine over those nine miles of lonely, country road and got within striking distance of him, Jeeves had been doing the dirty. Knowing that at any given moment he could have solved the whole situation, he had kept Aunt Dahlia and others roosting out on the front lawn en deshabille and, worse still, had stood calmly by and watched his young employer set out on a wholly unnecessary eighteen-mile bicycle ride.
I could scarcely believe such a thing of him. Of his Uncle Cyril, yes. With that distorted sense of humour of his, Uncle Cyril might quite conceivably have been capable of such conduct. But that it should be Jeeves-- I leaped into the saddle and, stifling the cry of agony which rose to the lips as the bruised person touched the hard leather, set out on the homeward journey.
-23.
I remember Jeeves saying on one occasion--I forgot how the subject had arisen--he may simply have thrown the observation out, as he does sometimes, for me to take or leave--that h.e.l.l hath no fury like a woman scorned. And until tonight I had always felt that there was a lot in it. I had never scorned a woman myself, but Pongo Twistleton once scorned an aunt of his, flatly refusing to meet her son Gerald at Paddington and give him lunch and see him off to school at Waterloo, and he never heard the end of it. Letters were written, he tells me, which had to be seen to be believed. Also two very strong telegrams and a bitter picture post card with a view of the Little Chilbury War Memorial on it.
Until tonight, therefore, as I say, I had never questioned the accuracy of the statement. Scorned women first and the rest nowhere, was how it had always seemed to me.
But tonight I revised my views. If you want to know what h.e.l.l can really do in the way of furies, look for the chap who has been hornswoggled into taking a long and unnecessary bicycle ride in the dark without a lamp.
Mark that word "unnecessary". That was the part of it that really jabbed the iron into the soul. I mean, if it was a case of riding to the doctor"s to save the child with croup, or going off to the local pub to fetch supplies in the event of the cellar having run dry, no one would leap to the handlebars more readily than I. Young Lochinvar, absolutely. But this business of being put through it merely to gratify one"s personal attendant"s diseased sense of the amusing was a bit too thick, and I chafed from start to finish.
So, what I mean to say, although the providence which watches over good men saw to it that I was enabled to complete the homeward journey unscathed except in the billowy portions, removing from my path all goats, elephants, and even owls that looked like my Aunt Agatha, it was a frowning and jaundiced Bertram who finally came to anchor at the Brinkley Court front door. And when I saw a dark figure emerging from the porch to meet me, I prepared to let myself go and uncork all that was fizzing in the mind.
"Jeeves!" I said.
"It is I, Bertie."
The voice which spoke sounded like warm treacle, and even if I had not recognized it immediately as that of the Ba.s.sett, I should have known that it did not proceed from the man I was yearning to confront. For this figure before me was wearing a simple tweed dress and had employed my first name in its remarks. And Jeeves, whatever his moral defects, would never go about in skirts calling me Bertie.
The last person, of course, whom I would have wished to meet after a long evening in the saddle, but I vouchsafed a courteous "What ho!"
There was a pause, during which I ma.s.saged the calves. Mine, of course, I mean.
"You got in, then?" I said, in allusion to the change of costume.
"Oh, yes. About a quarter of an hour after you left Jeeves went searching about and found the back-door key on the kitchen window-sill."
"Ha!"
"What?"
"Nothing."
"I thought you said something."
"No, nothing."
And I continued to do so. For at this juncture, as had so often happened when this girl and I were closeted, the conversation once more went blue on us. The night breeze whispered, but not the Ba.s.sett. A bird twittered, but not so much as a chirp escaped Bertram. It was perfectly amazing, the way her mere presence seemed to wipe speech from my lips--and mine, for that matter, from hers. It began to look as if our married life together would be rather like twenty years among the Trappist monks.
"Seen Jeeves anywhere?" I asked, eventually coming through.
"Yes, in the dining-room."
"The dining-room?"
"Waiting on everybody. They are having eggs and bacon and champagne.... What did you say?"
I had said nothing--merely snorted. There was something about the thought of these people carelessly revelling at a time when, for all they knew, I was probably being dragged about the countryside by goats or chewed by elephants, that struck home at me like a poisoned dart. It was the sort of thing you read about as having happened just before the French Revolution--the haughty n.o.bles in their castles callously digging in and quaffing while the unfortunate blighters outside were suffering frightful privations.
The voice of the Ba.s.sett cut in on these mordant reflections: "Bertie."
"Hullo!"
Silence.
"Hullo!" I said again.
No response. Whole thing rather like one of those telephone conversations where you sit at your end of the wire saying: "Hullo! Hullo!" unaware that the party of the second part has gone off to tea.
Eventually, however, she came to the surface again: "Bertie, I have something to say to you."
"What?"
"I have something to say to you."
"I know. I said "What?""
"Oh, I thought you didn"t hear what I said."
"Yes, I heard what you said, all right, but not what you were going to say."
"Oh, I see."
"Right-ho."
So that was straightened out. Nevertheless, instead of proceeding she took time off once more. She stood twisting the fingers and scratching the gravel with her foot. When finally she spoke, it was to deliver an impressive boost: "Bertie, do you read Tennyson?"
"Not if I can help."
"You remind me so much of those Knights of the Round Table in the "Idylls of the King"."
Of course I had heard of them--Lancelot, Galahad and all that lot, but I didn"t see where the resemblance came in. It seemed to me that she must be thinking of a couple of other fellows.
"How do you mean?"
"You have such a great heart, such a fine soul. You are so generous, so unselfish, so chivalrous. I have always felt that about you--that you are one of the few really chivalrous men I have ever met."
Well, dashed difficult, of course, to know what to say when someone is giving you the old oil on a scale like that. I muttered an "Oh, yes?" or something on those lines, and rubbed the billowy portions in some embarra.s.sment. And there was another silence, broken only by a sharp howl as I rubbed a bit too hard.
"Bertie."
"Hullo?"
I heard her give a sort of gulp.
"Bertie, will you be chivalrous now?"
"Rather. Only too pleased. How do you mean?"
"I am going to try you to the utmost. I am going to test you as few men have ever been tested. I am going----"
I didn"t like the sound of this.
"Well," I said doubtfully, "always glad to oblige, you know, but I"ve just had the d.i.c.kens of a bicycle ride, and I"m a bit stiff and sore, especially in the--as I say, a bit stiff and sore. If it"s anything to be fetched from upstairs----"
"No, no, you don"t understand."
"I don"t, quite, no."
"Oh, it"s so difficult.... How can I say it?... Can"t you guess?"
"No. I"m dashed if I can."
"Bertie--let me go!"
"But I haven"t got hold of you."
"Release me!"
"Re----"
And then I suddenly got it. I suppose it was fatigue that had made me so slow to apprehend the nub.
"What?"
I staggered, and the left pedal came up and caught me on the shin. But such was the ecstasy in the soul that I didn"t utter a cry.
"Release you?"
"Yes."
I didn"t want any confusion on the point.
"You mean you want to call it all off? You"re going to hitch up with Gussie, after all?"
"Only if you are fine and big enough to consent."
"Oh, I am."
"I gave you my promise."
"Dash promises."
"Then you really----"
"Absolutely."
"Oh, Bertie!"
She seemed to sway like a sapling. It is saplings that sway, I believe.
"A very parfait knight!" I heard her murmur, and there not being much to say after that, I excused myself on the ground that I had got about two pecks of dust down my back and would like to go and get my maid to put me into something loose.
"You go back to Gussie," I said, "and tell him that all is well."
She gave a sort of hiccup and, darting forward, kissed me on the forehead. Unpleasant, of course, but, as Anatole would say, I can take a few smooths with a rough. The next moment she was legging it for the dining-room, while I, having bunged the bicycle into a bush, made for the stairs.
I need not dwell upon my buckedness. It can be readily imagined. Talk about chaps with the noose round their necks and the hangman about to let her go and somebody galloping up on a foaming horse, waving the reprieve--not in it. Absolutely not in it at all. I don"t know that I can give you a better idea of the state of my feelings than by saying that as I started to cross the hall I was conscious of so profound a benevolence toward all created things that I found myself thinking kindly thoughts even of Jeeves.
I was about to mount the stairs when a sudden "What ho!" from my rear caused me to turn. Tuppy was standing in the hall. He had apparently been down to the cellar for reinforcements, for there were a couple of bottles under his arm.
"Hullo, Bertie," he said. "You back?" He laughed amusedly. "You look like the Wreck of the Hesperus. Get run over by a steam-roller or something?"
At any other time I might have found his coa.r.s.e badinage hard to bear. But such was my uplifted mood that I waved it aside and slipped him the good news.
"Tuppy, old man, the Ba.s.sett"s going to marry Gussie Fink-Nottle."
"Tough luck on both of them, what?"
"But don"t you understand? Don"t you see what this means? It means that Angela is once more out of p.a.w.n, and you have only to play your cards properly----"
He bellowed rollickingly. I saw now that he was in the pink. As a matter of fact, I had noticed something of the sort directly I met him, but had attributed it to alcoholic stimulant.
"Good Lord! You"re right behind the times, Bertie. Only to be expected, of course, if you will go riding bicycles half the night. Angela and I made it up hours ago."
"What?"
"Certainly. Nothing but a pa.s.sing tiff. All you need in these matters is a little give and take, a bit of reasonableness on both sides. We got together and talked things over. She withdrew my double chin. I conceded her shark. Perfectly simple. All done in a couple of minutes."