“That,” I replied, with dignity, “is just what I am going to go away
and boil. At least, I mean, I shall now leave you. I have said my say.”
“Good.”
“But permit me to add----”
“I won’t.”
“Very good,” I said coldly. “In that case, tinkerty tonk.”
And I meant it to sting.
“Moody” and “discouraged” were about the two adjectives you would have
selected to describe me as I left the summer-house. It would be idle to
deny that I had expected better results from this little chat.
I was surprised at Angela. Odd how you never realize that every girl
is at heart a vicious specimen until something goes wrong with her
love affair. This cousin and I had been meeting freely since the
days when I wore sailor suits and she hadn’t any front teeth, yet
only now was I beginning to get on to her hidden depths. A simple,
jolly, kindly young pimple she had always struck me as--the sort you
could more or less rely on not to hurt a fly. But here she was now
laughing heartlessly--at least, I seemed to remember hearing her laugh
heartlessly--like something cold and callous out of a sophisticated
talkie, and fairly spitting on her hands in her determination to bring
Tuppy’s grey hairs in sorrow to the grave.
I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again--girls are rummy. Old Pop
Kipling never said a truer word than when he made that crack about the
f. of the s. being more d. than the m.
It seemed to me in the circs. that there was but one thing to do--that
is head for the dining-room and take a slash at the cold collation of
which Jeeves had spoken. I felt in urgent need of sustenance, for the
recent interview had pulled me down a bit. There is no gainsaying the
fact that this naked-emotion stuff reduces a chap’s vitality and puts
him in the vein for a good whack at the beef and ham.
To the dining-room, accordingly, I repaired, and had barely crossed the
threshold when I perceived Aunt Dahlia at the sideboard, tucking into
salmon mayonnaise.
The spectacle drew from me a quick “Oh, ah,” for I was somewhat
embarrassed. The last time this relative and I had enjoyed a
_tête-à-tête_, it will be remembered, she had sketched out plans for
drowning me in the kitchen-garden pond, and I was not quite sure what
my present standing with her was.
I was relieved to find her in genial mood. Nothing could have exceeded
the cordiality with which she waved her fork.
“Hallo, Bertie, you old ass,” was her very matey greeting. “I thought
I shouldn’t find you far away from the food. Try some of this salmon.
Excellent.”
“Anatole’s?” I queried.
“No. He’s still in bed. But the kitchen maid has struck an inspired
streak. It suddenly seems to have come home to her that she isn’t
catering for a covey of buzzards in the Sahara Desert, and she has put
out something quite fit for human consumption. There is good in the
girl, after all, and I hope she enjoys herself at the dance.”
I ladled out a portion of salmon, and we fell into pleasant
conversation, chatting of this servants’ ball at the Stretchley-Budds
and speculating idly, I recall, as to what Seppings, the butler, would
look like, doing the rumba.
It was not till I had cleaned up the first platter and was embarking
on a second that the subject of Gussie came up. Considering what had
passed at Market Snodsbury that afternoon, it was one which I had been
expecting her to touch on earlier. When she did touch on it, I could
see that she had not yet been informed of Angela’s engagement.
“I say, Bertie,” she said, meditatively chewing fruit salad. “This
Spink-Bottle.”
“Nottle.”
“Bottle,” insisted the aunt firmly. “After that exhibition of his this
afternoon, Bottle, and nothing but Bottle, is how I shall always think
of him. However, what I was going to say was that, if you see him, I
wish you would tell him that he has made an old woman very, very happy.
Except for the time when the curate tripped over a loose shoelace
and fell down the pulpit steps, I don’t think I have ever had a more
wonderful moment than when good old Bottle suddenly started ticking Tom
off from the platform. In fact, I thought his whole performance in the
most perfect taste.”