Leave It to Psmith, P. G. Wodehouse [novels to read .txt] 📗

will escort you back to your cell.”

“No, you won’t,” said Eve. “I mean, thank you for your polite offer, but I want to be alone.”

“Alone?” Psmith looked at her, astonished. “When you have the chance of being with me? This is a strange attitude.”

“Goodbye,” said Eve. “Thank you for being so hospitable and lavish. I’ll try to find some cushions and muslin and stuff to brighten up this place.”

“Your presence does that adequately,” said Psmith, accompanying her to the door. “By the way, returning to the subject we were discussing last night, I forgot to mention, when asking you to marry me, that I can do card-tricks.”

“Really?”

“And also a passable imitation of a cat calling to her young. Has this no weight with you? Think! These things come in very handy in the long winter evenings.”

“But I shan’t be there when you are imitating cats in the long winter evenings.”

“I think you are wrong. As I visualise my little home, I can see you there very clearly, sitting before the fire. Your maid has put you into something loose. The light of the flickering flames reflects itself in your lovely eyes. You are pleasantly tired after an afternoon’s shopping, but not so tired as to be unable to select a card⁠—any card⁠—from the pack which I offer⁠ ⁠…”

“Goodbye,” said Eve.

“If it must be so⁠—goodbye. For the present. I shall see you anon?”

“I expect so.”

“Good! I will count the minutes.”

Eve walked rapidly away. As she snuggled the flowerpot under her arm she was feeling like a child about to open its Christmas stocking. Before she had gone far, a shout stopped her and she perceived Psmith galloping gracefully in her wake.

“Can you spare me a moment?” said Psmith.

“Certainly.”

“I should have added that I can also recite ‘Gunga-Din.’ Will you think that over?”

“I will.”

“Thank you,” said Psmith. “Thank you. I have a feeling that it may just turn the scale.”

He raised his hat ambassadorially and galloped away again.

Eve found herself unable to wait any longer. Psmith was out of sight now, and the wood was very still and empty. Birds twittered in the branches, and the sun made little pools of gold upon the ground. She cast a swift glance about her and crouched down in the shelter of a tree.

The birds stopped singing. The sun no longer shone. The wood had become cold and sinister. For Eve, with a heart of lead, was staring blankly at a little pile of mould at her feet; mould which she had sifted again and again in a frenzied, fruitless effort to find a necklace which was not there.

The empty flowerpot seemed to leer up at her in mockery.

XIII Psmith Receives Guests I

Blandings Castle was astir from roof to hall. Lights blazed, voices shouted, bells rang. All over the huge building there prevailed a vast activity like that of a barracks on the eve of the regiment’s departure for abroad. Dinner was over, and the Expeditionary Force was making its final preparations before starting off in many motorcars for the County Ball at Shifley. In the bedrooms on every floor, Reggies, doubtful at the last moment about their white ties, were feverishly arranging new ones; Berties brushed their already glistening hair; and Claudes shouted to Archies along the passages insulting inquiries as to whether they had been sneaking their handkerchiefs. Valets skimmed like swallows up and down corridors, maids fluttered in and out of rooms in aid of Beauty in distress. The noise penetrated into every nook and corner of the house. It vexed the Efficient Baxter, going through his papers in the library preparatory to leaving Blandings on the morrow for ever. It disturbed Lord Emsworth, who stoutly declining to go within ten miles of the County Ball, had retired to his room with a book on Herbaceous Borders. It troubled the peace of Beach the butler, refreshing himself after his activities around the dinner table with a glass of sound port in the housekeeper’s room. The only person in the place who paid no attention to it was Eve Halliday.

Eve was too furious to pay attention to anything but her deleterious thoughts. As she walked on the terrace, to which she had fled in quest of solitude, her teeth were set and her blue eyes glowed belligerently. As Miss Peavey would have put it in one of her colloquial moods, she was mad clear through. For Eve was a girl of spirit, and there is nothing your girl of spirit so keenly resents as being made a fool of, whether it be by Fate or by a fellow human creature. Eve was in the uncomfortable position of having had this indignity put upon her by both. But, while as far as Fate was concerned she merely smouldered rebelliously, her animosity towards Psmith was vivid in the extreme.

A hot wave of humiliation made her writhe as she remembered the infantile guilelessness with which she had accepted the preposterous story he had told her in explanation of his presence at Blandings in another man’s name. He had been playing with her all the time⁠—fooling her⁠—and, most unforgivable crime of all, he had dared to pretend that he was fond of her and⁠—Eve’s face burned again⁠—to make her⁠—almost⁠—fond of him. How he must have laughed⁠ ⁠…

Well, she was not beaten yet. Her chin went up and she began to walk quicker. He was clever, but she would be cleverer. The game was not over⁠ ⁠…

“Hallo!”

A white waistcoat was gleaming at her side. Polished shoes shuffled on the turf. Light hair, brushed and brilliantined to the last possible pitch of perfection, shone in the light of the stars. The Hon. Freddie Threepwood was in her midst.

“Well, Freddie?” said Eve resignedly.

“I say,” said Freddie in a voice in which self-pity fought with commiseration for her. “Beastly shame you aren’t coming to the hop.”

“I don’t mind.”

“But I do, dash it! The thing won’t be anything without you. A bally washout. And I’ve been trying