“Sneak back to your room and barricade the door. That is the manly
policy.”
“Suppose that’s where he’s lurking?”
“In that case, move elsewhere.”
But on arrival at the room, it transpired that Tuppy, if anywhere, was
infesting some other portion of the house. Gussie shot in, and I heard
the key turn. And feeling that there was no more that I could do in
that quarter, I returned to the dining-room for further fruit salad and
a quiet think. And I had barely filled my plate when the door opened
and Aunt Dahlia came in. She sank into a chair, looking a bit shopworn.
“Give me a drink, Bertie.”
“What sort?”
“Any sort, so long as it’s strong.”
Approach Bertram Wooster along these lines, and you catch him at his
best. St. Bernard dogs doing the square thing by Alpine travellers
could not have bustled about more assiduously. I filled the order, and
for some moments nothing was to be heard but the sloshing sound of an
aunt restoring her tissues.
“Shove it down, Aunt Dahlia,” I said sympathetically. “These things
take it out of one, don’t they? You’ve had a toughish time, no doubt,
soothing Anatole,” I proceeded, helping myself to anchovy paste on
toast. “Everything pretty smooth now, I trust?”
She gazed at me in a long, lingering sort of way, her brow wrinkled as
if in thought.
“Attila,” she said at length. “That’s the name. Attila, the Hun.”
“Eh?”
“I was trying to think who you reminded me of. Somebody who went about
strewing ruin and desolation and breaking up homes which, until he came
along, had been happy and peaceful. Attila is the man. It’s amazing.”
she said, drinking me in once more. “To look at you, one would think
you were just an ordinary sort of amiable idiot--certifiable, perhaps,
but quite harmless. Yet, in reality, you are worse a scourge than the
Black Death. I tell you, Bertie, when I contemplate you I seem to come
up against all the underlying sorrow and horror of life with such a
thud that I feel as if I had walked into a lamp post.”
Pained and surprised, I would have spoken, but the stuff I had thought
was anchovy paste had turned out to be something far more gooey
and adhesive. It seemed to wrap itself round the tongue and impede
utterance like a gag. And while I was still endeavouring to clear the
vocal cords for action, she went on:
“Do you realize what you started when you sent that Spink-Bottle man
down here? As regards his getting blotto and turning the prize-giving
ceremonies at Market Snodsbury Grammar School into a sort of two-reel
comic film, I will say nothing, for frankly I enjoyed it. But when
he comes leering at Anatole through skylights, just after I had with
infinite pains and tact induced him to withdraw his notice, and
makes him so temperamental that he won’t hear of staying on after
tomorrow----”
The paste stuff gave way. I was able to speak:
“What?”
“Yes, Anatole goes tomorrow, and I suppose poor old Tom will have
indigestion for the rest of his life. And that is not all. I have just
seen Angela, and she tells me she is engaged to this Bottle.”
“Temporarily, yes,” I had to admit.
“Temporarily be blowed. She’s definitely engaged to him and talks with
a sort of hideous coolness of getting married in October. So there it
is. If the prophet Job were to walk into the room at this moment, I
could sit swapping hard-luck stories with him till bedtime. Not that
Job was in my class.”
“He had boils.”
“Well, what are boils?”
“Dashed painful, I understand.”
“Nonsense. I’d take all the boils on the market in exchange for my
troubles. Can’t you realize the position? I’ve lost the best cook to
England. My husband, poor soul, will probably die of dyspepsia. And
my only daughter, for whom I had dreamed such a wonderful future, is
engaged to be married to an inebriated newt fancier. And you talk about
boils!”