Right Ho, Jeeves, P. G. Wodehouse [books to read fiction .txt] 📗

get a sniff of country air, I nearly fractured my skull on a sort of iron grille, as worn by the tougher kinds of medieval prison.

“ ‘What sort of noises?’ said your aunt. ‘Funny noises,’ said your uncle. Whereupon Angela⁠—with a nasty, steely tinkle in her voice, the little buzzard⁠—observed, ‘I expect it was Mr. Glossop eating.’ And then she did give me a look. It was the sort of wondering, revolted look a very spiritual woman would give a fat man gulping soup in a restaurant. The kind of look that makes a fellow feel he’s forty-six round the waist and has great rolls of superfluous flesh pouring down over the back of his collar. And, still speaking in the same unpleasant tone, she added, ‘I ought to have told you, father, that Mr. Glossop always likes to have a good meal three or four times during the night. It helps to keep him going till breakfast. He has the most amazing appetite. See, he has practically finished a large steak-and-kidney pie already.’ ”

As he spoke these words, a feverish animation swept over Tuppy. His eyes glittered with a strange light, and he thumped the bed violently with his fist, nearly catching me a juicy one on the leg.

“That was what hurt, Bertie. That was what stung. I hadn’t so much as started on that pie. But that’s a woman all over.”

“The eternal feminine.”

“She continued her remarks. ‘You’ve no idea,’ she said, ‘how Mr. Glossop loves food. He just lives for it. He always eats six or seven meals a day, and then starts in again after bedtime. I think it’s rather wonderful.’ Your aunt seemed interested, and said it reminded her of a boa constrictor. Angela said, didn’t she mean a python? And then they argued as to which of the two it was. Your uncle, meanwhile, poking about with that damned pistol of his till human life wasn’t safe in the vicinity. And the pie lying there on the table, and me unable to touch it. You begin to understand why I said I had been through hell.”

“Quite. Can’t have been at all pleasant.”

“Presently your aunt and Angela settled their discussion, deciding that Angela was right and that it was a python that I reminded them of. And shortly after that we all pushed back to bed, Angela warning me in a motherly voice not to take the stairs too quickly. After seven or eight solid meals, she said, a man of my build ought to be very careful, because of the danger of apoplectic fits. She said it was the same with dogs. When they became very fat and overfed, you had to see that they didn’t hurry upstairs, as it made them puff and pant, and that was bad for their hearts. She asked your aunt if she remembered the late spaniel, Ambrose; and your aunt said, ‘Poor old Ambrose, you couldn’t keep him away from the garbage pail’; and Angela said, ‘Exactly, so do please be careful, Mr. Glossop.’ And you tell me she loves me still!”

I did my best to encourage.

“Girlish banter, what?”

“Girlish banter be dashed. She’s right off me. Once her ideal, I am now less than the dust beneath her chariot wheels. She became infatuated with this chap, whoever he was, at Cannes, and now she can’t stand the sight of me.”

I raised my eyebrows.

“My dear Tuppy, you are not showing your usual good sense in this Angela-chap-at-Cannes matter. If you will forgive me saying so, you have got an idée fixe.”

“A what?”

“An idée fixe. You know. One of those things fellows get. Like Uncle Tom’s delusion that everybody who is known even slightly to the police is lurking in the garden, waiting for a chance to break into the house. You keep talking about this chap at Cannes, and there never was a chap at Cannes, and I’ll tell you why I’m so sure about this. During those two months on the Riviera, it so happens that Angela and I were practically inseparable. If there had been somebody nosing round her, I should have spotted it in a second.”

He started. I could see that this had impressed him.

“Oh, she was with you all the time at Cannes, was she?”

“I don’t suppose she said two words to anybody else, except, of course, idle conv. at the crowded dinner table or a chance remark in a throng at the Casino.”

“I see. You mean that anything in the shape of mixed bathing and moonlight strolls she conducted solely in your company?”

“That’s right. It was quite a joke in the hotel.”

“You must have enjoyed that.”

“Oh, rather. I’ve always been devoted to Angela.”

“Oh, yes?”

“When we were kids, she used to call herself my little sweetheart.”

“She did?”

“Absolutely.”

“I see.”

He sat plunged in thought, while I, glad to have set his mind at rest, proceeded with my tea. And presently there came the banging of a gong from the hall below, and he started like a war horse at the sound of the bugle.

“Breakfast!” he said, and was off to a flying start, leaving me to brood and ponder. And the more I brooded and pondered, the more did it seem to me that everything now looked pretty smooth. Tuppy, I could see, despite that painful scene in the larder, still loved Angela with all the old fervour.

This meant that I could rely on that plan to which I had referred to bring home the bacon. And as I had found the way to straighten out the Gussie-Bassett difficulty, there seemed nothing more to worry about.

It was with an uplifted heart that I addressed Jeeves as he came in to remove the tea tray.

XIII

“Jeeves,” I said.

“Sir?”

“I’ve just been having a chat with young Tuppy, Jeeves. Did you happen to notice that he wasn’t looking very roguish this morning?”

“Yes, sir. It seemed to me that Mr. Glossop’s face was sicklied o’er with the pale cast of thought.”

“Quite. He met my cousin Angela in the larder last night, and a rather