“What! Here?” I gurgled.
“Certainly! Where else should I go?”
The full horror of the situation rolled over me like a wave. I couldn’t
see what on earth I was to do. I couldn’t explain that this wasn’t
Rocky’s flat without giving the poor old chap away hopelessly, because
she would then ask me where he did live, and then he would be right in
the soup. I was trying to induce the old bean to recover from the shock
and produce some results when she spoke again.
“Will you kindly tell my nephew’s man-servant to prepare my room? I
wish to lie down.”
“Your nephew’s man-servant?”
“The man you call Jeeves. If Rockmetteller has gone for an automobile
ride, there is no need for you to wait for him. He will naturally wish
to be alone with me when he returns.”
I found myself tottering out of the room. The thing was too much for
me. I crept into Jeeves’s den.
“Jeeves!” I whispered.
“Sir?”
“Mix me a b.-and-s., Jeeves. I feel weak.”
“Very good, sir.”
“This is getting thicker every minute, Jeeves.”
“Sir?”
“She thinks you’re Mr. Todd’s man. She thinks the whole place is his,
and everything in it. I don’t see what you’re to do, except stay on and
keep it up. We can’t say anything or she’ll get on to the whole thing,
and I don’t want to let Mr. Todd down. By the way, Jeeves, she wants
you to prepare her bed.”
He looked wounded.
“It is hardly my place, sir——”
“I know—I know. But do it as a personal favour to me. If you come to
that, it’s hardly my place to be flung out of the flat like this and
have to go to an hotel, what?”
“Is it your intention to go to an hotel, sir? What will you do for
clothes?”
“Good Lord! I hadn’t thought of that. Can you put a few things in a bag
when she isn’t looking, and sneak them down to me at the St. Aurea?”
“I will endeavour to do so, sir.”
“Well, I don’t think there’s anything more, is there? Tell Mr. Todd
where I am when he gets here.”
“Very good, sir.”
I looked round the place. The moment of parting had come. I felt sad.
The whole thing reminded me of one of those melodramas where they drive
chappies out of the old homestead into the snow.
“Good-bye, Jeeves,” I said.
“Good-bye, sir.”
And I staggered out.
You know, I rather think I agree with those poet-and-philosopher
Johnnies who insist that a fellow ought to be devilish pleased if he
has a bit of trouble. All that stuff about being refined by suffering,
you know. Suffering does give a chap a sort of broader and more
sympathetic outlook. It helps you to understand other people’s
misfortunes if you’ve been through the same thing yourself.
As I stood in my lonely bedroom at the hotel, trying to tie my white
tie myself, it struck me for the first time that there must be whole
squads of chappies in the world who had to get along without a man to
look after them. I’d always thought of Jeeves as a kind of natural
phenomenon; but, by Jove! of course, when you come to think of it,
there must be quite a lot of fellows who have to press their own
clothes themselves and haven’t got anybody to bring them tea in the
morning, and so on. It was rather a solemn thought, don’t you know. I
mean to say, ever since then I’ve been able to appreciate the frightful
privations the poor have to stick.
I got dressed somehow. Jeeves hadn’t forgotten a thing in his packing.
Everything was there, down to the final stud. I’m not sure this didn’t
make me feel worse. It kind of deepened the pathos. It was like what
somebody or other wrote about the touch of a vanished hand.
I had a bit of dinner somewhere and went to a show of some kind; but
nothing seemed to make any difference. I simply hadn’t the heart to go
on to supper anywhere. I just sucked down a whisky-and-soda in the
hotel smoking-room and went straight up to bed. I don’t know when I’ve
felt so rotten. Somehow I found myself moving about the room softly, as
if there had been a death in the family. If I had anybody to talk to I
should have talked in a whisper; in fact, when the telephone-bell rang
I answered in such a sad, hushed voice that the fellow at the other end
of the wire said “Halloa!” five times, thinking he hadn’t got me.
It was Rocky. The poor old scout was deeply agitated.
“Bertie! Is that you, Bertie! Oh, gosh? I’m having a time!”
“Where are you speaking from?”
“The Midnight Revels. We’ve been here an hour, and I think we’re a
fixture for the night. I’ve told Aunt Isabel I’ve gone out to call up a
friend to join us. She’s glued to a chair, with this-is-the-life
written all over her, taking it in through the pores. She loves it, and
I’m nearly crazy.”
“Tell me all, old top,” I said.
“A little more of this,” he said, “and I shall sneak quietly off to the
river and end it all. Do you mean to say you go through this sort of
thing every night, Bertie, and enjoy it? It’s simply infernal! I was
just snatching a wink of sleep behind the bill of fare just now when
about a million yelling girls swooped down, with toy balloons. There
are two orchestras here, each trying to see if it can’t play louder
than the other. I’m a mental and physical wreck. When your telegram
arrived I was just lying down for a quiet pipe, with a sense of
absolute peace stealing over me. I had to get dressed and sprint two
miles to catch the train. It nearly gave me heart-failure; and on top
of that I almost got brain fever inventing lies to tell Aunt Isabel.
And then I had to cram myself into these confounded evening clothes of
yours.”
I gave a sharp wail of agony. It hadn’t struck me till then that Rocky
was depending on my wardrobe to see him through.
“You’ll ruin them!”
“I hope so,” said Rocky, in the most unpleasant way. His troubles
seemed to have had the worst effect on his character. “I should like to
get back at them somehow; they’ve given me a bad enough time. They’re
about three sizes too small, and something’s apt to give at any moment.
I wish to goodness it would, and give me a chance to breathe. I haven’t
breathed since half-past seven. Thank Heaven, Jeeves managed to get out
and buy me a collar that fitted, or I should be a strangled corpse by
now! It was touch and go till the stud broke. Bertie, this is pure
Hades! Aunt Isabel keeps on urging me to dance. How on earth can I
dance when I don’t know a soul to dance with? And how the deuce could
I, even if I knew every girl in the place? It’s taking big chances even
to move in these trousers. I had to tell her I’ve hurt my ankle. She
keeps asking me when Cohan and Stone are going to turn up; and it’s
simply a question of time before she discovers that Stone is sitting
two tables away. Something’s got to be done, Bertie! You’ve got to
think up some way of getting me out of this mess. It was you who got me
into it.”
“Me! What do you mean?”
“Well, Jeeves, then. It’s all the same. It was you who suggested
leaving it to Jeeves. It was those letters I wrote from his notes that
did the mischief. I made them too good! My aunt’s just been telling me
about it. She says she had resigned herself to ending her life where
she was, and then my letters began to arrive, describing the joys of
New York; and they stimulated her to such an extent that she pulled
herself together and made the trip. She seems to think she’s had some
miraculous kind of faith cure. I tell you I can’t stand it, Bertie!
It’s got to end!”
“Can’t Jeeves think of anything?”
“No. He just hangs round saying: ‘Most disturbing, sir!’ A fat lot of
help that is!”
“Well, old lad,” I said, “after all, it’s far worse for me than it is
for you. You’ve got a comfortable home and Jeeves. And you’re saving a
lot of money.”
“Saving money? What do you mean—saving money?”
“Why, the allowance your aunt was giving you. I suppose she’s paying
all the expenses now, isn’t she?”
“Certainly she is; but she’s stopped the allowance. She wrote the
lawyers to-night. She says that, now she’s in New York, there is no
necessity for it to go on, as we shall always be together, and it’s
simpler for her to look after that end of it. I tell you, Bertie, I’ve
examined the darned cloud with a microscope, and if it’s got a silver
lining it’s some little dissembler!”
“But, Rocky, old top, it’s too bally awful! You’ve no notion of what
I’m going through in this beastly hotel, without Jeeves. I must get
back to the flat.”
“Don’t come near the flat!”
“But it’s my own flat.”
“I can’t help that. Aunt Isabel doesn’t like you. She asked me what you
did for a living. And when I told her you didn’t do anything she said
she thought as much, and that you were a typical specimen of a useless
and decaying aristocracy. So if you think you have made a hit, forget
it. Now I must be going back, or she’ll be coming out here after me.
Good-bye.”
Next morning Jeeves came round. It was all so home-like when he floated
noiselessly into the room that I nearly broke down.
“Good morning, sir,” he said. “I have brought a few more of your
personal belongings.”
He began to unstrap the suit-case he was carrying.
“Did you have any trouble sneaking them away?”
“It was not easy, sir. I had to watch my chance. Miss Rockmetteller is
a remarkably alert lady.”
“You know, Jeeves, say what you like—this is a bit thick, isn’t it?”
“The situation is certainly one that has never before come under my
notice, sir. I have brought the heather-mixture suit, as the climatic
conditions are congenial. To-morrow, if not prevented, I will endeavour
to add the brown lounge with the faint green twill.”
“It can’t go on—this sort of thing—Jeeves.”
“We must hope for the best, sir.”
“Can’t you think of anything to do?”
“I have been giving the matter considerable thought, sir, but so far
without success. I am placing three silk shirts—the dove-coloured, the
light blue, and the mauve—in the first long drawer, sir.”
“You don’t mean to say you can’t think of anything, Jeeves?”
“For the moment, sir, no. You will find a dozen handkerchiefs and the
tan socks in the upper drawer on the left.” He strapped the suit-case
and put it on a chair. “A curious lady, Miss Rockmetteller, sir.”
“You understate it, Jeeves.”
He gazed meditatively out of the window.
“In many ways, sir, Miss Rockmetteller reminds me of an aunt of mine
who resides in the south-east portion of London. Their temperaments are
much alike. My aunt has the same taste for the pleasures of the great
city. It is a passion with her to ride in hansom cabs, sir. Whenever
the family take their eyes off her she escapes from the house and
spends the day riding about in cabs. On several occasions she has
broken into the children’s savings bank to secure the means to enable
her to gratify this desire.”
“I love to have these little chats with you about your female
relatives, Jeeves,” I said coldly, for I felt that the man had let me
down, and I was fed up with him. “But I don’t see what all this has got
to do with my trouble.”
“I beg your pardon, sir. I am leaving a small assortment of neckties on
the mantelpiece, sir, for you to select according to your preference. I
should recommend the blue with the red domino pattern, sir.”
Then he streamed imperceptibly toward the door and flowed silently out.
I’ve often heard that chappies, after some great shock or loss, have a
habit, after they’ve been on the floor for a while wondering what hit
them, of picking themselves up and piecing themselves together, and
sort of taking a whirl at beginning a new life. Time, the great healer,
and Nature, adjusting itself, and so on and so forth. There’s a lot in
it. I know, because in my own case, after a day or two of what you
might call prostration, I began to recover. The frightful loss of
Jeeves made any thought of pleasure more or less a mockery, but at
least I found that I was able to have a dash at enjoying life again.
What I mean is, I was braced up to the extent of going round the
cabarets once more, so as to try to forget, if only for the moment.
New York’s a small place when it comes to the part of it that wakes up
just as the rest is going to bed, and it wasn’t long before my tracks
began to cross old Rocky’s. I saw him once at Peale’s, and again at
Frolics on the Roof. There wasn’t anybody with him either time except
the aunt, and, though he was trying to look as if he had struck the
ideal life, it wasn’t difficult for me, knowing the circumstances, to
see that beneath the mask the poor chap was suffering. My heart bled
for the fellow. At least, what there was of it that wasn’t bleeding for
myself bled for him. He had the air of one who was about to crack under
the strain.
It seemed to me that the aunt was looking slightly upset also. I took
it that she was beginning to wonder when the celebrities were going to
surge round, and what had suddenly become of all those wild, careless
spirits Rocky used to mix with in his letters. I didn’t blame her. I
had only read a couple of his letters, but they certainly gave the
impression that poor old Rocky was by way of being the hub of New York
night life, and that, if by any chance he failed to show up at a
cabaret, the management said: “What’s the use?” and put up the
shutters.
The next two nights I didn’t come across them, but the night after that
I was sitting by myself at the Maison Pierre when somebody tapped me on
the shoulder-blade, and I found Rocky standing beside me, with a sort
of mixed expression of wistfulness and apoplexy on his face. How the
chappie had contrived to wear my evening clothes so many times without
disaster was a mystery to me. He confided later that early in the
proceedings he had slit the waistcoat up the back and that that had
helped a bit.
For a moment I had the idea that he had managed to get away from his
aunt for the evening; but, looking past him, I saw that she was in
again. She was at a table over by the wall, looking at me as if I were
something the management ought to be complained to about.
“Bertie, old scout,” said Rocky, in a quiet, sort of crushed voice,
“we’ve always been pals, haven’t we? I mean, you know I’d do you a good
turn if you asked me?”
“My dear old lad,” I said. The man had moved me.
“Then, for Heaven’s sake, come over and sit at our table for the rest
of the evening.”
Well, you know, there are limits to the sacred claims of friendship.
“My dear chap,” I said, “you know I’d do anything in reason; but——”
“You must come, Bertie. You’ve got to. Something’s got to be done to
divert her mind. She’s brooding about something. She’s been like that
for the last two days. I think she’s beginning to suspect. She can’t
understand why we never seem to meet anyone I know at these joints. A
few nights ago I happened to run into two newspaper men I used to know
fairly well. That kept me going for a while. I introduced them to Aunt
Isabel as David Belasco and Jim Corbett, and it went well. But the
effect has worn off now, and she’s beginning to wonder again.
Something’s got to be done, or she will find out everything, and if she
does I’d take a nickel for my chance of getting a cent from her later
on. So, for the love of Mike, come across to our table and help things
along.”
I went along. One has to rally round a pal in distress. Aunt Isabel was
sitting bolt upright, as usual. It certainly did seem as if she had
lost a bit of the zest with which she had started out to explore
Broadway. She looked as if she had been thinking a good deal about
rather unpleasant things.
“You’ve met Bertie Wooster, Aunt Isabel?” said Rocky.
“I have.”
There was something in her eye that seemed to say:
“Out of a city of six million people, why did you pick on me?”
“Take a seat, Bertie. What’ll you have?” said Rocky.
And so the merry party began. It was one of those jolly, happy,
bread-crumbling parties where you cough twice before you speak, and
then decide not to say it after all. After we had had an hour of this
wild dissipation, Aunt Isabel said she wanted to go home. In the light
of what Rocky had been telling me, this struck me as sinister. I had
gathered that at the beginning of her visit she had had to be dragged
home with ropes.
It must have hit Rocky the same way, for he gave me a pleading look.
“You’ll come along, won’t you, Bertie, and have a drink at the flat?”
I had a feeling that this wasn’t in the contract, but there wasn’t
anything to be done. It seemed brutal to leave the poor chap alone with
the woman, so I went along.
Right from the start, from the moment we stepped into the taxi, the
feeling began to grow that something was about to break loose. A
massive silence prevailed in the corner where the aunt sat, and, though
Rocky, balancing himself on the little seat in front, did his best to
supply dialogue, we weren’t a chatty party.
I had a glimpse of Jeeves as we went into the flat, sitting in his
lair, and I wished I could have called to him to rally round. Something
told me that I was about to need him.
The stuff was on the table in the sitting-room. Rocky took up the
decanter.
“Say when, Bertie.”
“Stop!” barked the aunt, and he dropped it.
I caught Rocky’s eye as he stooped to pick up the ruins. It was the eye
of one who sees it coming.
“Leave it there, Rockmetteller!” said Aunt Isabel; and Rocky left it
there.
“The time has come to speak,” she said. “I cannot stand idly by and see
a young man going to perdition!”
Poor old Rocky gave a sort of gurgle, a kind of sound rather like the
whisky had made running out of the decanter on to my carpet.
“Eh?” he said, blinking.
The aunt proceeded.
“The fault,” she said, “was mine. I had not then seen the light. But
now my eyes are open. I see the hideous mistake I have made. I shudder
at the thought of the wrong I did you, Rockmetteller, by urging you
into contact with this wicked city.”
I saw Rocky grope feebly for the table. His fingers touched it, and a
look of relief came into the poor chappie’s face. I understood his
feelings.
“But when I wrote you that letter, Rockmetteller, instructing you to go
to the city and live its life, I had not had the privilege of hearing
Mr. Mundy speak on the subject of New York.”
“Jimmy Mundy!” I cried.
You know how it is sometimes when everything seems all mixed up and you
suddenly get a clue. When she mentioned Jimmy Mundy I began to
understand more or less what had happened. I’d seen it happen before. I
remember, back in England, the man I had before Jeeves sneaked off to a
meeting on his evening out and came back and denounced me in front of a
crowd of chappies I was giving a bit of supper to as a moral leper.
The aunt gave me a withering up and down.
“Yes; Jimmy Mundy!” she said. “I am surprised at a man of your stamp
having heard of him. There is no music, there are no drunken, dancing
men, no shameless, flaunting women at his meetings; so for you they
would have no attraction. But for others, less dead in sin, he has his
message. He has come to save New York from itself; to force it—in his
picturesque phrase—to hit the trail. It was three days ago,
Rockmetteller, that I first heard him. It was an accident that took me
to his meeting. How often in this life a mere accident may shape our
whole future!
“You had been called away by that telephone message from Mr. Belasco;
so you could not take me to the Hippodrome, as we had arranged. I asked
your man-servant, Jeeves, to take me there. The man has very little
intelligence. He seems to have misunderstood me. I am thankful that he
did. He took me to what I subsequently learned was Madison Square
Garden, where Mr. Mundy is holding his meetings. He escorted me to a
seat and then left me. And it was not till the meeting had begun that I
discovered the mistake which had been made. My seat was in the middle
of a row. I could not leave without inconveniencing a great many
people, so I remained.”
She gulped.
“Rockmetteller, I have never been so thankful for anything else. Mr.
Mundy was wonderful! He was like some prophet of old, scourging the
sins of the people. He leaped about in a frenzy of inspiration till I
feared he would do himself an injury. Sometimes he expressed himself in
a somewhat odd manner, but every word carried conviction. He showed me
New York in its true colours. He showed me the vanity and wickedness of
sitting in gilded haunts of vice, eating lobster when decent people
should be in bed.
“He said that the tango and the fox-trot were devices of the devil to
drag people down into the Bottomless Pit. He said that there was more
sin in ten minutes with a negro banjo orchestra than in all the ancient
revels of Nineveh and Babylon. And when he stood on one leg and pointed
right at where I was sitting and shouted, ‘This means you!’ I could
have sunk through the floor. I came away a changed woman. Surely you
must have noticed the change in me, Rockmetteller? You must have seen
that I was no longer the careless, thoughtless person who had urged you
to dance in those places of wickedness?”
Rocky was holding on to the table as if it was his only friend.
“Y-yes,” he stammered; “I—I thought something was wrong.”
“Wrong? Something was right! Everything was right! Rockmetteller, it is
not too late for you to be saved. You have only sipped of the evil cup.
You have not drained it. It will be hard at first, but you will find
that you can do it if you fight with a stout heart against the glamour
and fascination of this dreadful city. Won’t you, for my sake, try,
Rockmetteller? Won’t you go back to the country to-morrow and begin the
struggle? Little by little, if you use your will——”
I can’t help thinking it must have been that word “will” that roused
dear old Rocky like a trumpet call. It must have brought home to him
the realisation that a miracle had come off and saved him from being
cut out of Aunt Isabel’s. At any rate, as she said it he perked up, let
go of the table, and faced her with gleaming eyes.
“Do you want me to go back to the country, Aunt Isabel?”
“Yes.”
“Not to live in the country?”
“Yes, Rockmetteller.”
“Stay in the country all the time, do you mean? Never come to New
York?”
“Yes, Rockmetteller; I mean just that. It is the only way. Only there
can you be safe from temptation. Will you do it, Rockmetteller? Will
you—for my sake?”
Rocky grabbed the table again. He seemed to draw a lot of encouragement
from that table.
“I will!” he said.
“Jeeves,” I said. It was next day, and I was back in the old flat,
lying in the old arm-chair, with my feet upon the good old table. I had
just come from seeing dear old Rocky off to his country cottage, and an
hour before he had seen his aunt off to whatever hamlet it was that she
was the curse of; so we were alone at last. “Jeeves, there’s no place
like home—what?”
“Very true, sir.”
“The jolly old roof-tree, and all that sort of thing—what?”
“Precisely, sir.”