Jeeves and the Wedding Bells(29)

‘Yes, I remember. But I suppose you thought if you’d done the parable routine there was the risk that I wouldn’t have known what you were on about.’

‘The more direct approach seemed on balance—’

‘Do you mind if we just stop there, Jeeves?’

The waters had started roiling again and the cardiac muscle was giving the inside shirt-front a bit of a pasting.

‘As you wish, sir. Might I just add that it is still conceivable that Mr Beeching might hear of this afternoon’s misunderstanding from a different source.’

‘From Amelia, you mean?’

‘The young lady is so out of sorts that I feel she cannot be relied on.’

‘She’s cornered, you mean. Desperate. She might lash out.’

‘The situation is fraught, sir. Miss Hackwood may feel she no longer has an interest in preserving the fiction of Lord Etringham and his gentleman’s personal gentleman, Mr Wilberforce.’

‘That’s pretty serious, Jeeves.’

‘I fear so, sir. It would mean an early end to our visit.’

‘And Lady Hackwood would be straight on the blower to Aunt Agatha.’

‘It is as well that the instrument is temporarily disabled, sir.’

‘I tell you what else it would mean if Amelia tells Woody.’

I think I may have mentioned that in addition to everything else, Woody secured a half-blue at boxing in his final year at Oxford. Those of us who made the journey down to the Savoy hotel for the match against Cambridge will never forget the one minute and twelve seconds that made up the full extent of the middleweight bout, the amount of claret splashed about the ring nor the look on the face of the opposing undergraduate as he was helped back to his corner before resuming – with all speed, one imagined – his restful studies at Gonville and Caius.

I was not at all keen to find myself in the shoes of that young man, especially since in the intervening years Woody had almost certainly moved up a division.

‘Golly, Jeeves. How on earth are we going to keep Amelia sweet until Sunday night?’

‘I have been reflecting on the matter, sir and I have—’

But what exactly he had, I did not at once find out, as there was a knock at the door.

‘Come in,’ we said in unison.

The door opened and the space filled. When I say ‘filled’, I mean that there was nothing between lintel, jamb and floor that was not solid butler.

‘I beg your, pardon, my lord,’ said Bicknell. ‘I was looking for Mr Wilberforce.’

‘You came to the right place, Mr Bicknell,’ I said.

‘With Lord Etringham’s permission, I wondered if I might ask your assistance, Mr Wilberforce.’

‘Of course,’ said Jeeves.

‘Anything you like, Mr Bicknell,’ I said. ‘As I told you this morning, we Woo … Wilberforces like to make ourselves useful. No General Striking for us.’

‘Hoad, the temporary footman, finds himself indisposed. We sit down ten to dinner this evening and I need you to wait at table.’

‘Love to help,’ I said, thinking rapidly on my feet, ‘but I haven’t yet had a chance to get down to the village and make that call about the telephone line, so—’

‘There’s no hurry for that, Mr Wilberforce. I can go tomorrow.’

‘It’s just that I can’t …’

I looked across to Jeeves for salvation, but his face was expressionless and his lips remained sealed.

‘I am most grateful,’ said Bicknell. ‘I shall be serving cocktails in the drawing room from seven o’clock and Sir Henry likes to sit down no later than eight. Perhaps you could report to Mrs Padgett at seven-thirty.’

The doorway emptied.

I may have got out a weak ‘Right ho’, or I may not. It is immaterial.





‘JEEVES,’ I SAID, when I had finally regained the power of speech. ‘This is the bally end.’

‘It would appear that confusion now hath made his masterpiece, sir.’

‘Well, I jolly well wish his masterpiece didn’t involve me in a starring role.’

‘It is a most vexed state of affairs, sir, though perhaps not beyond hope.’

Then I noticed that Jeeves had a glint in his eye. There had been times over the last forty-eight hours when I had doubted the fellow. I had thought he was perhaps partaking in the workshy public mood; I wondered if as well as Spinoza he had been dipping into a bit of Karl Marx. Not for the first time, I had underestimated him.

‘It is a fact of life, sir,’ he said, ‘that in the course of a large dinner party those at table barely notice those who wait on them.’

‘Unless they make an ass of themselves.’