From: Jeeves and The Feudal Spirit |||||||||||||||||||||||| He pranced off like a mustang, leaving me to face the changed conditions alone. It was with a brooding sense of peril that I did so. And if you are saying But why, Wooster? Surely everything is pretty smooth? What matter if the girls nuptials with Cheesewright have been cancelled, when here is Percy Gorringe all ready and eager to take up the white mans burden? I reply Ah, but youve not seen Percy Gorringe. I mean to say, I couldnt picture Florence, however much on the rebound, accepting the addresses of a man who voluntarily wore side-whiskers and wrote poems about sunsets. Far more likely, it seemed to me, that having a vacant date on her hands she would once again reach out for the old and tried -- viz. poor old Bertram. It was what she had done before, and these things tend to become a habit. I was completely at a loss to imagine what could have caused this in-and-out running on Stiltons part. The thing didnt make sense. When last seen, it will be remembered, he had had all the earmarks of one about whom Love had twined its silken fetters. His every word at that parting chat of ours had indicated this beyond peradventure and doubt. Dash it, I mean, you dont go telling people you will break their spines in four places if they come oiling round the adored object unless you have more than a passing fancy for the bally girl. So what had occurred to dim the lamp of love and all that sort of thing? Could it be, I asked myself, that the strain of growing that moustache had proved too much for him? Had he caught sight of himself in the mirror about the third day -- the third day is always the danger spot -- and felt that nothing in the way of wedded bliss could make the venture worth while? Called upon to choose between the woman he loved and a hairless upper lip, had he cracked, with the result that the lip had had it by a landslide? With a view to getting the inside stuff straight from the horses mouth, I hurried to the kitchen garden, where, if Percy was to be relied on, Florence would now be, probably pacing up and down with lowered head. She was there with lowered head, though not actually pacing up and down. She was bending over a gooseberry bush, eating gooseberries in an overwrought sort of way. Seeing me, she straightened up, and I snapped into the res without preamble. Whats all this I hear from Percy Gorringe? I said. She swallowed a gooseberry with a passionate gulp that spoke eloquently of the churned-up soul, and I saw, as Percys words had led me to expect, that she was madder than a wet hen. Her whole aspect was that of a girl who would have given her years dress allowance for the privilege of beating G. DArcy Cheesewright over the head with a parasol. I continued. He says there has been a rift within the lute. I beg your pardon? You and Stilton. According to Percy, the lute is not the lute it was. Stilton has broken the engagement, he tells me. He has. Im delighted, of course. Delighted? You like the set-up? Of course I do. What girl would not be delighted who finds herself unexpectedly free from a man with a pink face and a head that looks as if it had been blown up with a bicycle pump? I clutched the brow. I am a pretty astute chap, and I could see that this was not the language of love. I mean, if you had heard Juliet saying a thing like that about Romeo, you would have raised the eyebrows in quick concern, wondering if all was well with the young couple. But when I saw him last, everything seemed perfectly okey-doke. I could have sworn that, however reluctantly, he had reconciled himself to growing that moustache. She stooped and took another gooseberry. It has nothing to do with moustaches, she said, reappearing on the surface. The whole thing is due to the fact that DArcy Cheesewright is a low, mean, creeping, crawling, slinking, spying, despicable worm, she proceeded, dishing out the words from between clenched teeth. Do you know what he did? I havent a notion. She refreshed herself with a further gooseberry and returned to the upper air, breathing a few puffs of flame through the nostrils. He sneaked round to that night club yesterday and made inquiries. Oh, my gosh! Yes. You wouldnt think a man could stoop so low, but he bribed people and was allowed to look at the head waiters book and found that a table had been reserved that night in your name. This confirmed his degraded suspicions. He knew that I had been there with you. I suppose, said Florence, diving at the gooseberry bush once more and starting to strip it of its contents, a man gets a rotten, spying mind like that from being a policeman. To say that I was appalled would not be putting it any too strongly. I was, moreover, astounded. It was a revelation to me that a puff-faced poop like Stilton could have been capable of detective work on this uncanny scale. I had always respected his physique, of course, but had supposed that the ability to fell an ox with a single blow more or less let him out. Not for an instant had I credited him with reasoning powers which might well have made Hercule Poirot himself draw the breath in with a startled What ho. It just showed how one ought never to underestimate a man simply because he devotes his life to shoving oars into rivers and pulling them out again, this being about as silly a way of passing the time as could be hit upon. No doubt, as Florence had said, this totally unforeseen snakiness was the result of his having been, if only briefly, a member of the police force. One presumes that when the neophyte has been issued his uniform and regulation boots, the men up top take him aside and teach him a few things likely to be of use to him in his chosen profession. Stilton, it was plain, had learned his lesson well and, if one did but know, was probably capable of measuring blood stains and collecting cigar ash. However, it was only a fleeting attention that I gave to this facet of the situation. My thoughts were concentrated on something of far greater pith and moment, as Jeeves would say. I allude to the position -- now that the man knew all -- of B. Wooster, which seemed to me sticky to a degree. Florence, having sated herself with gooseberries, was starting to move off, and I arrested her with a sharp Hoy! |||||||||||||||||||||||||
Posted on: Wed, 22 Oct 2014 18:39:34 +0000
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