Plum Pie, Page 2

  "They aren't tough."

  "Pardon me. I've seen them in action. You will recollect that I was present at the recent school treat."

  "You can't go by that. Naturally they wouldn't have the Christmas spirit at a school treat in the middle of summer. You'll find them as mild as newborn lambs on Christmas Eve."

  I laughed a sharp, barking laugh.

  "I shan't."

  "Are you trying to tell me you won't do it?"

  "I am."

  She snorted emotionally and expressed the opinion that I was a worm.

  "But a prudent, levelheaded worm," I assured her. "A worm who knows enough not to stick its neck out."

  "You really won't do it?"

  "Not for all the rice in China."

  "Not to oblige a loved aunt?"

  "Not to oblige a posse of loved aunts."

  "Now listen, young Bertie, you abysmal young blot…"

  As I closed the front door behind her some twenty minutes later, I had rather the feeling you get when parting company with a tigress of the jungle or one of those fiends with hatchets who are always going about slaying six. Normally the old relative is as genial a soul as ever downed a veal cutlet, but she's apt to get hot under the collar when thwarted, and in the course of the recent meal, as we have seen, I had been compelled to thwart her like a ton of bricks. It was with quite a few beads of persp bedewing the brow that I went back to the dining room, where Jeeves was cleaning up the debris.

  “Jeeves," I said, brushing away the b of p with my cambric handkerchief, "you were off stage towards the end of dinner, but did you happen to drink in any of the conversation that was taking place?"

  “Oh yes, sir."

  “Your hearing, like Dobson's, is acute?"

  “Extremely, sir. And Mrs. Travers has a robust voice. I received the impression that she was incensed."

  “She was as sore as a gumboil. And why? Because I stoutly refused to portray Santa Claus at the Christmas orgy she is giving down at Brinkley for the children of the local yokels."

  “So I gathered from her obiter dicta, sir."

  "I suppose most of the things she called me were picked up on the hunting field in her hunting days."

  "No doubt, sir."

  "Members of the Quorn and Pytchley are not guarded in their speech."

  "Very seldom, sir, I understand."

  "Well, her efforts were ...what's that word I've heard you use?"

  "Bootless, sir?"

  "Or fruitless?"

  "Whichever you prefer, sir."

  "I was not to be moved. I remained firm. I am not a disobliging man, Jeeves. If somebody wanted me to play Hamlet, I would do my best to give satisfaction. But at dressing up in white whiskers and a synthetic stomach I draw the line and draw it sharply. She huffed and puffed, as you heard, but she might have known that argument would be bootless. As the wise old saying has it, you can take a horse to the water, but you can't make it play Santa Claus."

  "Very true, sir."

  "You think I was justified in being adamant?"

  "Fully justified, sir."

  "Thank you, Jeeves."

  I must say I thought it pretty decent of him to give the young master the weight of his support like this, for though I haven't mentioned it before it was only a day or two since I had been compelled to thwart him as inflexibly as I had thwarted the recent aunt. He had been trying to get me to go to Florida after Christmas, handing out a lot of talk about how pleasant it would be for my many American friends, most of whom make a bee line for Hobe Sound in the winter months, to have me with them again, but I recognized this, though specious, as merely the old oil. I knew what was the thought behind his words. He likes the fishing in Florida and yearns some day to catch a tarpon.

  Well, I sympathised with his sporting aspirations and would have pushed them along if I could have managed it, but I particularly wanted to be in London for the Drones Club Darts Tournament, which takes place in February and which I confidently expected to win this year, so I said Florida was out and the said "Very good, sir", and that was that. The point I'm making is that there was no dudgeon or umbrage or anything of that sort on his part, as there would have been if he had been a lesser man, which of course he isn't.

  "And yet, Jeeves," I said, continuing to touch on the affair of the stricken aunt, "though my firmness and resolution enabled me to emerge victorious from the battle of wills, I can't help feeling a pang."

  "Sir?"

  "Of remorse. It's always apt to gnaw you when you've crushed someone beneath the iron heel. You can't help thinking that you ought to do something to bind up the wounds and bring the sunshine back into the poor slob's life. I don't like the thought of Aunt Dahlia biting her pillow tonight and trying to choke back the rising sobs because I couldn't see my way to fulfilling her hopes and dreams. I think I should extend something in the way of an olive branch or amende honorable."

  "It would be a graceful act, sir."

  "So I'll blow a few bob on flowers for her. Would you mind nipping out tomorrow morning and purchasing say two dozen long-stemmed roses?"

  "Certainly, sir."

  "I think they'll make her face light up, don't you?"

  "Unquestionably, sir. I will attend to the matter immediately after breakfast."

  "Thank you, Jeeves."

  I was smiling one of my subtle smiles as he left the room, for in the recent exchanges I had not been altogether frank, and it tickled me to think that he thought that I was merely trying to apply a soothing poultice to my conscience.

  Mark you, what I had said about wanting to do the square thing by the aged relative and heal the breach and all that sort of thing was perfectly true, but there was a lot more than that behind the gesture. It was imperative that I get her off the boil because her co-operation was essential to the success of a scheme or plan or plot which had been fizzing in the Wooster brain ever since the moment after dinner when she had asked me why I was looking like a halfwitted fish. It was a plan designed to bring about the happy ending for Sir R. Glossop, and now that I had had time to give it the once over it seemed to me that couldn't miss.

  Jeeves brought the blooms while I was in my bath, and having dried the frame and donned the upholstery and breakfasted and smoked a cigarette to put heart into me I started o; with them.

  I wasn't expecting a warm welcome from the old flesh and blood, which was lucky, because I didn't get one. She was at her haughtiest, and the look she gave me was the sort of look which in her Quorn and Pytchley days she would have given some fellow-sportsman whom she had observed riding over hounds.

  "Oh, it's you?" she said.

  Well, it was, of course, no argument about that, so I endorsed her view with a civil good morning and a smile—rather a weak smile, probably, for her aspect was formidable. She-was plainly sizzling.

  "I hope you thoroughly understand," she said, "that after your craven exhibition last night I'm not speaking to you."

  "Oh, aren't you?"

  "Certainly not. I'm treating you with silent contempt. What's that you've got there?"

  "Some long-stemmed roses. For you."

  She sneered visibly. "You and your long-stemmed roses! It would take more than long-stemmed roses to change my view that you're a despicable cowardy custard and a disgrace to a proud family. Your ancestors fought in the Crusades and were often mentioned in dispatches, and you cringe like a salted snail at the thought appearing as Santa Claus before an audience of charming children who wouldn't hurt a fly. It's enough to make an aunt turn her face to the wall and give up the struggle. But perhaps," she said, her manner softening for a moment, "you've come to tell me you've changed your mind?"

  "I fear not, aged relative."

  "Then buzz off, and on your way home try if possible to get run over by a motor bus. And may I be there to hear you go pop."

  I saw that I had better come to the res without delay. "Aunt Dahlia," I said, "it is within your power to bring happiness and joy into a human life."


  "If it's yours, I don't want to."

  "Not mine. Roddy Glossop's. Sit in with me in a plan or scheme which I have in mind, and he'll go pirouetting about his clinic like a lamb in Springtime."

  She drew a sharp breath and eyed me keenly.

  "What's the time?" she asked.

  I consulted the wrist-w.

  "A quarter to eleven. Why?"

  "I was only thinking that it's very early for anyone, even you, to get pie-eyed."

  "I'm not pie-eyed."

  "Well, you're talking as if you were. Have you got a piece of chalk?"

  I tut-tutted impatiently.

  "Of course I haven't. Do you think I go about with pieces of chalk on my person? What do you want it for?"

  "I would like to draw a line on the carpet and see if you can walk along it, because it's being borne in upon me more emphatically every moment that you're stewed to the gills. Say 'Truly rural'."

  I did so.

  "And 'She stood at the door of Burgess's fish sauce shop, welcoming him in'."

  Again I passed the test.

  "Well," she said grudgingly, "you seem as sober as you ever are. What do you mean about bringing happiness and joy into old Glossop's life?"

  "The matter is susceptible of a ready explanation. I must begin by saying that Jeeves told me a story yesterday that shocked me to the core. No," I said in answer to her query, "it was not the one about the young man of Calcutta. It had to do with Roddy's love life. It's a long story, but I'll condense it into a short-short, and I would like to stress before embarking on my narrative that you can rely on it being accurate, for when Jeeves tells you anything, it's like getting it straight from the mouth of the stable cat. Furthermore, it's substantiated by Mr. Dobson, Roddy's butler. You know Myrtle, Lady Chuffnell?"

  "I've met her."

  "She and Roddy are betrothed."

  "So I've heard."

  "They love each other fondly."

  "So what's wrong with that?"

  "I'll tell you what's wrong. She stoutly declines to go centre-aisleing with him until his daughter Honoria gets married."

  I had expected this to make her sit up, and it did. For the first time her demeanour conveyed the impression that she wasn't labelling my utterances as just delirious babble from the sick bed. She has always been fond of R. Glossop and it came as a shock to her to learn that he was so firmly established in the soup. I wouldn't say she turned pale, for after years of following the hounds in all weathers she can't, but she snorted and I could see that she was deeply moved.

  "For heaven's sake! Is this true?"

  "Jeeves has all the facts."

  "Does Jeeves know everything?"

  "I believe so. Well, you can understand Ma Chuffnell’s attitude. If you were a bride, would you want to have Honoria a permanent resident of your little nest?"

  "I wouldn't."

  "Exactly. So obviously steps must be taken by Roddy's friends and well-wishers to get her married. And that brings me to the nub. I have a scheme."

  "I'll bet it's rotten."

  "On the contrary, it's a ball of fire. It flashed on me last night, when you were telling me that Blair Eggleston loves Honoria. That is where hope lies."

  "You mean you're thinking that he will marry her and take her off the strength?"

  "Precisely."

  "Not a chance. I told you he was too much of a rabbit to suggest a merger. He'll never have the nerve to propose."

  "Unless helped by a push from behind."

  "And who's going to give him that?"

  "I am. With your co-operation."

  She gave me another of those long keen looks, and I could see that she was again asking herself if her favourite nephew wasn't steeped to the tonsils in the juice of the grape. Fearing more 'tests and further references to pieces of chalk, I hastened to explain.

  "Here's the idea. I start giving Honoria the rush of a lifetime. I lush her up at lunch and dinner. I take her to theatres and night clubs. I haunt her like a family spectre and cling to her closer than a porous plaster."

  I thought I heard her mutter 'Poor girl', but I ignored the slur and continued.

  “You meanwhile ...Will you be seeing something of Eggleston?"

  “I see him daily. He brings me his latest views on the Modern 'Girl."

  “Then the thing's in the bag. You say he has already confided in you about his warmer-and-deeper-than-ordinary-friendship feelings concerning Honoria, so it won't be difficult for you to bring the subject up in the course of conversation. You warn in a motherly way that he's a sap if he goes on not telling his love and letting concealment like a worm in the bud feed in his damask cheek—one of Jeeves's gags. I thought he put it rather well—and stress the fact that he had better heat up his feet and grab the girl while the grabbing's good, because you happen to know that your nephew Bertram is making a heavy play in her direction and may sew up the deal at any moment. Use sufficient eloquence, and I can't see how he can fail to respond. He'll be pouring out his love before you know where you are."

  "And suppose she doesn't feel like getting engaged to him?"

  "Absurd. Why, she was once engaged to me."

  She was silent for a space, plunged in thought, as the expression is.

  "I'm not sure," she said at length, "that you haven't got something."

  "It's a snip."

  "Yes, I think you're right. Jeeves has a great brain."

  "What's Jeeves got to do with it?"

  "Wasn't it his idea?"

  I drew myself up rather haughtily—not an easy thing to do when you're sitting in an arm chair. I resent this universal tendency to take it for granted that whenever I suggest some particularly ripe scheme, it must be Jeeves's.

  "The sequence was entirely mine."

  "Well, it's not at all a bad one. I've often said that you sometimes have lucid intervals."

  "And you'll sit in and do your bit?"

  "It will be a pleasure."

  "Fine. Can I use your phone? I want to ask Honoria Glossop to lunch."

  I should imagine that it has often been said of Bertram Wooster that when he sets his hand to the plough he does not readily sheathe the sword. I had told Aunt Dahlia that I w going to give Honoria the rush of a lifetime, and the rush of lifetime was precisely what I gave her. I lunched, dined and two occasions nightclubbed her. It ran into money, but you can put up with a few punches in the pocketbook when you working in a good cause. Even when wincing at the figures at the foot of the bill I was able to console myself with the thought of what all this was in aid of. Nor did I grudge the hours spent in the society of a girl whom in normal circs I would willingly have run a mile in tight shoes to avoid. Pop Glossop's happiness was at stake, and when a pal's happiness is at stake, the undersigned does not count the cost.

  Nor were my efforts bootless. Aunt Dahlia was always ringing me up to tell me that Blair Egglestone's temperature was rising steadily day by day and it seemed to her only a question of time before the desired object would be achieved. And came a day when I was able to go to her with the gratifying news that the d.o. had indeed been a.

  I found her engrossed in an Erie Stanley Gardner, but she lowered the volume courteously as I entered.

  "Well, ugly," she said, "what brings you here? Why aren't you off somewhere with Honoria Glossop, doing your South American Joe act? What's the idea of playing hooky like this?"

  I smiled one of my quiet smiles.

  "Aged relative," I said, "I have come to inform you that I think we have reached the end of the long long trail," and without further preamble I gave her the low-down. "Have you been out today?"

  "I went for a stroll, yes."

  "The weather probably struck you as extraordinarily mild for the latter part of December. More like spring than winter."

  "You haven't come here to talk about the weather?"

  "You will find it is germane to the issue. Because the afternoon was so balmy---"

  "Like others I could name
."

  "I beg your pardon?"

  "I didn't speak. Go on."

  "Well, as it was such a nice day I thought I would take a walk in the Park. I did so, and blowed if the first thing I saw wasn't Honoria. She was sitting on a chair by the Serpentine. I was about to duck, but it was too late. She had seen me, so I had to heave alongside and chat. And suddenly who should come along but Blair Eggleston."

  I had enchained her interest. She uttered a yip.

  "He saw you?"

  "With the naked eye."

  "Then that was your moment. If you'd had an ounce of sense, you'd have kissed her."

  I smiled another of my quiet ones. "I did."

  "You did?"

  "Yes, sir, I folded her in a close embrace and let her have it."

  "And what did Eggleston say?"

  "I didn't wait to hear. I pushed off."

  "But you're sure he saw you?"

  "He couldn't have missed. He was only a yard or two away, and the visibility was good."

  It isn't often that I get unstinted praise from my late father's sister, she as a rule being my best friend and severest critic, but on this occasion she gave me a rave notice. It was a pleasure to listen to her.

  "That should have done it," she said after handing me some stately compliments on my ingenuity and resource. "I saw Eggleston yesterday, and when I mentioned what fun you and Honoria were having going about together, he looked like a blond Othello. His hands were clenched, his eyes burning, and if he wasn't grinding his teeth, I don't know a ground tooth when I hear one. That kiss was just what he needed to push him over the edge. He probably proposed to her the moment you were out of the way."

  "That's how I had it figured out."

  "Oh, hell," said the old ancestor, for at this moment the telephone rang, interrupting us just when we wanted to go on discussing the thing undisturbed. She reached for it, and a long onesided conversation ensued. I say onesided because her contribution to it consisted merely of Ohs and Whats. Eventually whoever was at the other end appeared to have said his or her say, for she replaced the receiver and turned a grave face in my direction.

  "That was Honoria," she said.

  "Oh, really?"