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Jeeves and the Wedding Bells(40)

By:Sebastian Faulks


‘Oh, rather. Amelia and I are in charge of tea. I shall be driving it down through the village in Uncle Henry’s car.’

‘And then in through the gate in the lane?’

‘Exactly.’

‘These Dorset Gents are probably a hungry lot.’

‘Yes, I expect so.’ She breathed in deeply. ‘Bertie …’

‘Yes?’

‘You know yesterday, when I … I bumped into you by the tennis court with Amelia.’

‘Yes, I can explain. You must have thought me an awful cad when I’m Woody’s best pal, but—’

‘It’s all right. Woody told me this morning. I understand.’

‘Thank goodness. I wouldn’t want you to think that I was the sort of chap who—’

‘Bertie?’

‘Yes?’

‘Do you remember that week in France?’

‘Rather. Absolutely topping. I never had a sister, but I imagine that’s the sort of fun we would have had.’

There was a longish pause. I decided to end it. ‘I didn’t quite finish the pie,’ I said. ‘I could easily cut you a slice.’

Georgiana sat down on the bench and raised a polite hand. ‘I’ve rather lost my appetite for some reason.’

‘I noticed that at dinner last night.’

I perched at the other end of the wrought-iron seat. Georgiana fixed the big brown eyes on me and began to smile.

‘Bertie,’ she said, ‘how much longer are you going to keep up this act?’

‘Just until Sunday. Then Jeeves and I are going back to London. By which time I trust that Amelia and Woody will have buried the hatchet and you and Venables will have named the day. Our work here will be done.’

There was another pause.

‘I do hope you don’t get found out, Bertie. I know you’re clever, but it’s quite—’

‘Clever! No one’s ever called me that before. Bottom of the class, dunce’s hat, that was me.’

‘Well, we’re not at school any more. And there are lots of ways of being clever. I remember at Saint-Raphaël you told me you ran the book on the darts competition at your club.’

‘The Drones? Yes, I do. Why?’

‘Tell me how you do it.’

‘Well, first of all you think who’s most likely to win and put the runners in order. You put a price on each one. But you leave a margin for the book. So whoever wins, unless it’s a short-priced favourite everyone’s piled into, the book should always make a profit of about five per cent of the total stakes. Then you buy everyone a drink with it.’

‘And what if someone puts a huge bet on?’

‘Well, then you lay it off by changing the odds on other runners. So if Boko Fittleworth has a fiver on Bingo Little and I stand to lose fifty, then I’ll lengthen the odds on Oofy Prosser and make Bingo odds-on.’

‘You’ve lost me, Bertie. But has it always worked out?’

‘So far. Honest Sid Wooster. But I bet you were top of the class in everything, weren’t you?’

‘Not at all.’ She let out a rich, tinkling one. ‘The only prize I won was for baking!’

I couldn’t think of anything to say and I felt another silence coming down. It was a jolly odd thing with Georgiana: you were either at it hammer and tongs like a Pat and Mike crosstalk act, or you were pushing through a treacly sort of pause, like the ones actors bung into Hamlet when they want to give you time to ponder.

‘About Woody and Amelia,’ I said. ‘Do you think it would help if she could see him resisting the advances of some girl? Then she’d know for sure that he doesn’t have a roving eye and is entirely devoted to her.’

‘I suppose it might. She’s a funny girl, Amelia. I love her like a sister, but she’s headstrong. And sometimes she’s just plain stubborn.’

‘But if she could see some gorgeous girl running her hands up and down his sleeve and telling him what a splendid chap he is, and then him giving her the brush-off, then—’

‘Are you suggesting we get those two girls from the village back for tea?’

Georgiana did a bit of the arranging-a-fold-of-cotton-dress-over-endless-limb routine that I’d seen before at Seaview Cottage. Meanwhile I sprang from the bench like the fellow in his bath when inspiration suddenly struck him.

‘Bazooka!’ I cried.

‘What?’

‘It’s what that Greek chap said when—’

‘You mean “Eureka!”’

‘Do I? Anyway. I’ve had a brainwave. You do the canoodling, Georgie. You sidle up to old Woody. Don’t do anything too extreme. Just a gentle hand on the sleeve, a few sweet nothings … And Woody says, “Listen, Georgie, old thing, I’m fond of you, but my heart is taken.” At that moment, Amelia comes on to the scene and sees Woody giving you the old elbow and she thinks, “He’s not a flirt at all. He’s the one for me. If he can resist Georgiana, he can resist anyone.” And then the wedding bells are on again and we all live happily ever after.’