Jeeves and the Wedding Bells(25)

From the centre of the terrace there ran a path with crazy paving, going in a southerly direction for a hundred yards between lines of small, clipped yew trees. At its end were two solid gateposts crowned with stone pineapples. The gates were set into a hedge at right angles to the path, and beyond them, tucked away to the right and thus out of sight of the house, was the lawn-tennis court.

Dressed now in sports coat and flannels, I drew on the old Red Indian tracking skills to make a loop through the convenient cedars and positioned myself on the court-side of the Pineapple Gates at ten to three.

I am no stranger to the butterfly belly. A man who has had to pass himself off as Gussie Fink-Nottle to four aunts in a chilly Hampshire dining room with only orange juice in the carburettor knows the meaning of fear. I remembered, too, as a sixteen-year-old thespian, waiting for Helena to finish her interminable complaint before the lads who played the rude mechanicals could come on stage and liven things up a bit. Bottom’s palms were too damp for any useful weaving at that point. This tennis court moment, though, was certainly in the top ten, and quite possibly up there in the unholy trinity.

Through a gap in the yew hedge I saw my prey approaching, bang on the appointed hour. Remember, Wooster, I said to myself, this is all for good old Beeching, P., the friend of your youth. Remember Beeching …

Amelia Hackwood was wearing a tennis dress to just above the ankle, and a dashed well-turned a. it was, clad in whiteish hosiery. Her hair was held with a bandana and she swished the wooden racket back and forth with a distracted air. In any household that did not contain G. Meadowes, she would have passed for hot stuff; and even so, I could see how Woody must have fallen like a sack of coals going down a hole in the pavement.

For all the schoolgirl complexion and lissomeness of form, however, there was something missing: a light, a spark. Her face was, as I’ve heard Jeeves describe it, sicklied o’er with the pale cast of thought.

‘What ho!’ I said, springing out, as she came through the gates.

She leapt back and pressed a hand to the bosom. ‘You gave me a fright.’

‘Expecting the professional from Blandford Forum, were you?’

‘What? No, I’m—’

‘Just out for a quick knock-up, what? Shall I act as ballboy?’

‘What are you talking about?’

‘Awfully nice dress, you know. Very becoming. Flattering to the old figure and all that.’

‘Are you feeling all right?’

‘Absolutely topping, thanks. Never felt better. But not half as good as you look. An absolute picture.’

‘I really must be—’

With every sally, Amelia took a step further away from me. I tried to remember exactly what it was that she had complained of with Woody and the village girls. Sleeve-stroking, I seemed to recall.

When matters come to a head, we Woosters act decisively. I took a step closer. I reached out … I stroked.

‘Lovely material, this. Now, can I give you a tip on the forehand I had from an Oxford blue?’

So saying, I moved in behind and laid my hand over hers on the racket handle, swung it back and followed through with plenty of elan. Even Big Bill Tilden might have had to grant that this was one forehand drive that wasn’t coming back.

Amelia extracted herself from my embrace, somewhat red in the face. I hoped this was the first sign of the flush of forgiveness she was determined to extend to poor old Woody. I wasn’t putting a lot of money on it, though.

Straightening her sleeve, she said, ‘Who are you?’

I felt a slackening in the jaw muscles. I hadn’t quite prepared for that one, and I wobbled a bit between Wooster and Wilberforce. Unable to plump for one or the other, I decided to take speech out of the equation altogether. I leaned in and kissed her on the cheek. I clung on for a moment, long enough to hear her say, ‘Georgiana!’

Releasing my grip like a Boys’ Brigade lightweight at the sound of the bell, I sprang back to see the above-named, also kitted out for tennis, standing a few feet away.

It was as though Amelia ceased to exist. The limbs that a moment ago had seemed the acme of elegance now reminded me of a chap Jeeves knows called something like Ozzy Manders, whose vast and trunkless legs of stone stand in the desert. Not that Amelia’s were trunkless, obviously, but you get the gist.

As the gaze travelled northwards up Georgiana’s outline, it came to rest on the face, which was pale, with the eye clouded. To say she looked disappointed would be undercooking it a bit; she looked like a child on Boxing Day who has just been told that Father Christmas is only Uncle Arthur in a cotton-wool beard.

Then a little colour returned, and her face took on the look it had had when she referred to herself as that character in Tolstoy. Sonya Something. Her jaw set bravely.