'Of course, I suppose all this seems tolerably rummy to you, Jeeves?'
'Not at all, sir. I chanced to overhear you and Lady Florence speaking
of the matter the other evening, sir.'
'Did you, by Jove?'
'Yes, sir.'
'Well--er--Jeeves, I think that, on the whole, if you were to--as it
were--freeze on to that parcel until we get back to London--'
'Exactly, sir.'
'And then we might--er--so to speak--chuck it away somewhere--what?'
'Precisely, sir.'
'I'll leave it in your hands.'
'Entirely, sir.'
'You know, Jeeves, you're by way of being rather a topper.'
'I endeavour to give satisfaction, sir.'
'One in a million, by Jove!'
'It is very kind of you to say so, sir.'
'Well, that's about all, then, I think.'
'Very good, sir.'
* * * * *
Florence came back on Monday. I didn't see her till we were all having
tea in the hall. It wasn't till the crowd had cleared away a bit that
we got a chance of having a word together.
'Well, Bertie?' she said.
'It's all right.'
'You have destroyed the manuscript?'
'Not exactly; but--'
'What do you mean?'
'I mean I haven't absolutely--'
'Bertie, your manner is furtive!'
'It's all right. It's this way--'
And I was just going to explain how things stood when out of the
library came leaping Uncle Willoughby, looking as braced as a
two-year-old. The old boy was a changed man.
'A most remarkable thing, Bertie! I have just been speaking with Mr
Riggs on the telephone, and he tells me he received my manuscript by
the first post this morning. I cannot imagine what can have caused the
delay. Our postal facilities are extremely inadequate in the rural
districts. I shall write to headquarters about it. It is insufferable
if valuable parcels are to be delayed in this fashion.'
I happened to be looking at Florence's profile at the moment, and
at this juncture she swung round and gave me a look that went right
through me like a knife. Uncle Willoughby meandered back to the
library, and there was a silence that you could have dug bits out of
with a spoon.
'I can't understand it,' I said at last. 'I can't understand it, by
Jove!'
'I can. I can understand it perfectly, Bertie. Your heart failed you.
Rather than risk offending your uncle you--'
'No, no! Absolutely!'
'You preferred to lose me rather than risk losing the money. Perhaps
you did not think I meant what I said. I meant every word. Our
engagement is ended.'
'But--I say!'
'Not another word!'
'But, Florence, old thing!'
'I do not wish to hear any more. I see now that your Aunt Agatha was
perfectly right. I consider that I have had a very lucky escape. There
was a time when I thought that, with patience, you might be moulded
into something worth while. I see now that you are impossible!'
And she popped off, leaving me to pick up the pieces. When I had
collected the debris to some extent I went to my room and rang for
Jeeves. He came in looking as if nothing had happened or was ever going
to happen. He was the calmest thing in captivity.
'Jeeves!' I yelled. 'Jeeves, that parcel has arrived in London!'
'Yes, sir?'
'Did you send it?'
'Yes, sir. I acted for the best, sir. I think that both you and Lady
Florence overestimated the danger of people being offended at being
mentioned in Sir Willoughby's Recollections. It has been my experience,
sir, that the normal person enjoys seeing his or her name in print,
irrespective of what is said about them. I have an aunt, sir, who a
few years ago was a martyr to swollen limbs. She tried Walkinshaw's
Supreme Ointment and obtained considerable relief--so much so that
she sent them an unsolicited testimonial. Her pride at seeing her
photograph in the daily papers in connexion with descriptions of her
lower limbs before taking, which were nothing less than revolting, was
so intense that it led me to believe that publicity, of whatever sort,
is what nearly everybody desires. Moreover, if you have ever studied
psychology, sir, you will know that respectable old gentlemen are by no
means averse to having it advertised that they were extremely wild in
their youth. I have an uncle--'
I cursed his aunts and his uncles and him and all the rest of the
family.
'Do you know that Lady Florence has broken off her engagement with me?'
'Indeed, sir?'
Not a bit of sympathy! I might have been telling him it was a fine day.
'You're sacked!'
'Very good, sir.'
He coughed gently.
'As I am no longer in your employment, sir, I can speak freely without
appearing to take a liberty. In my opinion you and Lady Florence were
quite unsuitably matched. Her ladyship is of a highly determined
and arbitrary temperament, quite opposed to your own. I was in Lord
Worplesdon's service for nearly a year, during which time I had
ample opportunities of studying her ladyship. The opinion of the
servants' hall was far from favourable to her. Her ladyship's temper
caused a good deal of adverse comment among us. It was at times quite
impossible. You would not have been happy, sir!'
'Get out!'
'I think you would also have found her educational methods a little
trying, sir. I have glanced at the book her ladyship gave you--it has
been lying on your table since our arrival--and it is, in my opinion,
quite unsuitable. You would not have enjoyed it. And I have it from her
ladyship's own maid, who happened to overhear a conversation between
her ladyship and one of the gentlemen staying here--Mr Maxwell, who is
employed in an editorial capacity by one of the reviews--that it was
her intention to start you almost immediately upon Nietzsche. You would
not enjoy Nietzsche, sir. He is fundamentally unsound.'
'Get out!'
'Very good, sir.'
* * * * *
It's rummy how sleeping on a thing often makes you feel quite different
about it. It's happened to me over and over again. Somehow or other,
when I woke next morning the old heart didn't feel half so broken as
it had done. It was a perfectly topping day, and there was something
about the way the sun came in at the window and the row the birds were
kicking up in the ivy that made me half wonder whether Jeeves wasn't
right. After all, though she had a wonderful profile, was it such a
catch being engaged to Florence Craye as the casual observer might
imagine? Wasn't there something in what Jeeves had said about her
character? I began to realize that my ideal wife was something quite
different, something a lot more clinging and drooping and prattling,
and what-not.
I had got as far as this in thinking the thing out when that _Types of
Ethical Theory_ caught my eye. I opened it, and I give you my honest
word this was what hit me:
Of the two antithetic terms in the Greek philosophy one only was
real and self-subsisting; and that one was Ideal Thought as opposed
to that which it has to penetrate and mould. The other,
corresponding to our Nature, was in itself phenomenal, unreal,
without any permanent footing, having no predicates that held true
for two moments together; in short, redeemed from negation only by
including indwelling realities appearing through.
Well--I mean to say--what? And Nietzsche, from all accounts, a lot
worse than that!
'Jeeves,' I said, when he came in with my morning tea, 'I've been
thinking it over. You're engaged again.'
'Thank you, sir.'
I sucked down a cheerful mouthful. A great respect for this bloke's
judgement began to soak through me.
'Oh, Jeeves,' I said; 'about that check suit.'
'Yes, sir?'
'Is it really a frost?'
'A trifle too bizarre, sir, in my opinion.'
'But lots of fellows have asked me who my tailor is.'
'Doubtless in order to avoid him, sir.'
'He's supposed to be one of the best men in London.'
'I am saying nothing against his moral character, sir.'
I hesitated a bit. I had a feeling that I was passing into this
chappie's clutches, and that if I gave in now I should become just like
poor old Aubrey Fothergill, unable to call my soul my own. On the other
hand, this was obviously a cove of rare intelligence, and it would be a
comfort in a lot of ways to have him doing the thinking for me. I made
up my mind.
'All right, Jeeves,' I said. 'You know! Give the bally thing away to
somebody!'
He looked down at me like a father gazing tenderly at the wayward child.
'Thank you, sir. I gave it to the under-gardener last night. A little
more tea, sir?'