“What?”
“Given notice. As the result of that drivelling scheme of yours. What
did you expect a sensitive, temperamental French cook to do, if you
went about urging everybody to refuse all food? I hear that when the
first two courses came back to the kitchen practically untouched, his
feelings were so hurt that he cried like a child. And when the rest of
the dinner followed, he came to the conclusion that the whole thing was
a studied and calculated insult, and decided to hand in his portfolio.”
“Golly!”
“You may well say ‘Golly!’ Anatole, God’s gift to the gastric juices,
gone like the dew off the petal of a rose, all through your idiocy.
Perhaps you understand now why I want you to go and jump in that pond.
I might have known that some hideous disaster would strike this house
like a thunderbolt if once you wriggled your way into it and started
trying to be clever.”
Harsh words, of course, as from aunt to nephew, but I bore her no
resentment. No doubt, if you looked at it from a certain angle, Bertram
might be considered to have made something of a floater.
“I am sorry.”
“What’s the good of being sorry?”
“I acted for what I deemed the best.”
“Another time try acting for the worst. Then we may possibly escape
with a mere flesh wound.”
“Uncle Tom’s not feeling too bucked about it all, you say?”
“He’s groaning like a lost soul. And any chance I ever had of getting
that money out of him has gone.”
I stroked the chin thoughtfully. There was, I had to admit, reason in
what she said. None knew better than I how terrible a blow the passing
of Anatole would be to Uncle Tom.
I have stated earlier in this chronicle that this curious object of
the seashore with whom Aunt Dahlia has linked her lot is a bloke who
habitually looks like a pterodactyl that has suffered, and the reason
he does so is that all those years he spent in making millions in the
Far East put his digestion on the blink, and the only cook that has
ever been discovered capable of pushing food into him without starting
something like Old Home Week in Moscow under the third waistcoat button
is this uniquely gifted Anatole. Deprived of Anatole’s services,
all he was likely to give the wife of his b. was a dirty look. Yes,
unquestionably, things seemed to have struck a somewhat rocky patch,
and I must admit that I found myself, at moment of going to press, a
little destitute of constructive ideas.
Confident, however, that these would come ere long, I kept the stiff
upper lip.
“Bad,” I conceded. “Quite bad, beyond a doubt. Certainly a nasty jar
for one and all. But have no fear, Aunt Dahlia, I will fix everything.”
I have alluded earlier to the difficulty of staggering when you’re
sitting down, showing that it is a feat of which I, personally, am not
capable. Aunt Dahlia, to my amazement, now did it apparently without an
effort. She was well wedged into a deep arm-chair, but, nevertheless,
she staggered like billy-o. A sort of spasm of horror and apprehension
contorted her face.
“If you dare to try any more of your lunatic schemes----”
I saw that it would be fruitless to try to reason with her. Quite
plainly, she was not in the vein. Contenting myself, accordingly, with
a gesture of loving sympathy, I left the room. Whether she did or
did not throw a handsomely bound volume of the Works of Alfred, Lord
Tennyson, at me, I am not in a position to say. I had seen it lying on
the table beside her, and as I closed the door I remember receiving the
impression that some blunt instrument had crashed against the woodwork,
but I was feeling too pre-occupied to note and observe.
I blame myself for not having taken into consideration the possible
effects of a sudden abstinence on the part of virtually the whole
strength of the company on one of Anatole’s impulsive Provençal
temperament. These Gauls, I should have remembered, can’t take it.
Their tendency to fly off the handle at the slightest provocation
is well known. No doubt the man had put his whole soul into those
_nonnettes de poulet_, and to see them come homing back to him must
have gashed him like a knife.
However, spilt milk blows nobody any good, and it is useless to dwell
upon it. The task now confronting Bertram was to put matters right, and
I was pacing the lawn, pondering to this end, when I suddenly heard a
groan so lost-soulish that I thought it must have proceeded from Uncle
Tom, escaped from captivity and come to groan in the garden.
Looking about me, however, I could discern no uncles. Puzzled, I was
about to resume my meditations, when the sound came again. And peering
into the shadows I observed a dim form seated on one of the rustic
benches which so liberally dotted this pleasance and another dim form
standing beside same. A second and more penetrating glance and I had
assembled the facts.
These dim forms were, in the order named, Gussie Fink-Nottle and
Jeeves. And what Gussie was doing, groaning all over the place like
this, was more than I could understand.
Because, I mean to say, there was no possibility of error. He wasn’t
singing. As I approached, he gave an encore, and it was beyond question
a groan. Moreover, I could now see him clearly, and his whole aspect
was definitely sand-bagged.
“Good evening, sir,” said Jeeves. “Mr. Fink-Nottle is not feeling well.”
Nor was I. Gussie had begun to make a low, bubbling noise, and I
could no longer disguise it from myself that something must have gone
seriously wrong with the works. I mean, I know marriage is a pretty
solemn business and the realization that he is in for it frequently
churns a chap up a bit, but I had never come across a case of a
newly-engaged man taking it on the chin so completely as this.
Gussie looked up. His eye was dull. He clutched the thatch.
“Goodbye, Bertie,” he said, rising.