'What's to be done, Jeeves?'
'We must think, sir.'
'You think. I haven't the machinery.'
'I will most certainly devote my very best attention to the matter,
sir, and will endeavour to give satisfaction.'
Well, that was something. But I was ill at ease. Yes, there is no
getting away from it, Bertram was ill at ease.
* * * * *
Next morning we visited sixty-three more Cambridge colleges, and after
lunch I said I was going to my room to lie down. After staying there
for half an hour to give the coast time to clear, I shoved a book and
smoking materials in my pocket, and climbing out of a window, shinned
down a convenient water-pipe into the garden. My objective was the
summer-house, where it seemed to me that a man might put in a quiet
hour or so without interruption.
It was extremely jolly in the garden. The sun was shining, the crocuses
were all to the mustard and there wasn't a sign of Heloise Pringle
anywhere. The cat was fooling about on the lawn, so I chirruped to it
and it gave a low gargle and came trotting up. I had just got it in my
arms and was scratching it under the ear when there was a loud shriek
from above, and there was Aunt Jane half out of the window. Dashed
disturbing.
'Oh, right-ho,' I said.
I dropped the cat, which galloped off into the bushes, and dismissing
the idea of bunging a brick at the aged relative, went on my way,
heading for the shrubbery. Once safely hidden there, I worked round
till I got to the summer-house. And, believe me, I had hardly got my
first cigarette nicely under way when a shadow fell on my book and
there was young Sticketh-Closer-Than-a-Brother in person.
'So there you are,' she said.
She seated herself by my side, and with a sort of gruesome playfulness
jerked the gasper out of the holder and heaved it through the door.
'You're always smoking,' she said, a lot too much like a lovingly
chiding young bride for my comfort. 'I wish you wouldn't. It's so bad
for you. And you ought not to be sitting out here without your light
overcoat. You want someone to look after you.'
'I've got Jeeves.'
She frowned a bit.
'I don't like him,' she said.
'Eh? Why not?'
'I don't know. I wish you would get rid of him.'
My flesh absolutely crept. And I'll tell you why. One of the first
things Honoria Glossop had done after we had become engaged was to tell
me she didn't like Jeeves and wanted him shot out. The realization that
this girl resembled Honoria not only in body but in blackness of soul
made me go all faint.
'What are you reading?'
She picked up my book and frowned again. The thing was one I had
brought down from the old flat in London, to glance at in the train--a
fairly zippy effort in the detective line called _The Trail of Blood_.
She turned the pages with a nasty sneer.
'I can't understand you liking nonsense of this--' She stopped
suddenly. 'Good gracious!'
'What's the matter?'
'Do you know Bertie Wooster?'
And then I saw that my name was scrawled right across the title page,
and my heart did three back somersaults.
'Oh--er--well--that is to say--well, slightly.'
'He must be a perfect horror. I'm surprised that you can make a friend
of him. Apart from anything else, the man is practically an imbecile.
He was engaged to my Cousin Honoria at one time, and it was broken off
because he was next door to insane. You should hear my Uncle Roderick
talk about him!'