‘I fear it may take more than a cheese soufflé.’
‘Well, at least it’s a start.’
And so it was – a start delivered, what’s more, without mishap. The Pinkers had gone home, since Sunday was Stinker’s big day in Totleigh-in-the-Wold and Esmond Haddock was apparently required on aunt duty back in Hampshire. This was a shame, as I could have done with a couple of allies.
Sir Henry sat slumped at the head of the table, head in hand like one of those grim Dutch self-portraits. Woody seemed somehow to have got wind of the wager; or if not, there must have been some other reason for the reproachful look in his eye.
‘Would you care for some anchovy sauce?’ I asked as I leant in with the jug.
‘Just a drop, please,’ he replied. ‘You’d understand about drops, I suppose.’
Venables père et fils guffawed in merriment – which was a bit rich, I thought, since they had contributed a total of one run between them and old Vishnu’s cafeteria bowling had put the Gents in reach of our total.
‘Did you see the dear little Turton girl at the match?’ said Woody. ‘You never see her without her dolly, do you? Seen a dolly lately, Wilberforce?’
Now old Venables laboured up to the party. ‘When I was Collector of Chanamasala,’ he began, ‘I came up with an excellent scheme for irrigating some of the tea plantations. The trouble is, there turned out to be a catch in it.’
Of this drollery there seemed to be no end, it now apparently being open season on my reputation.
‘I was having a splendid game of Snakes and Ladders the other day,’ said Amelia. ‘I was on the top straight and rolled a four. But what I really needed was a six.’
‘Send for Wilberforce!’ trilled Rupert Venables. ‘He knows how to turn a four into a six.’
I retreated to the kitchen for fear of hearing more. When I returned with the fillet of beef, the conversation, mercifully, seemed to have taken a more serious turn.
Lady Hackwood was explaining her new planting scheme to Dame Judith Puxley and Mrs Venables.
‘Of course I don’t know whether we shall be in a position to implement it. The future rather hangs in the balance.’
I guessed from the way she looked round about her that she was not privy to the fact that Sir Henry had staked his shirt on the outcome of the afternoon’s sport and that the next bit of planting she was likely to oversee would be a handful of geraniums in the window box of a bungalow in Bexhill-on-Sea. I didn’t like to think how much frostier she might have been had she known.
I had completed the last of my clearing duties and was on my way back to my room, having paused only for a tumblerful of Bicknell’s claret in the kitchen, when I heard a discreet cough. I stopped in my tracks and saw that Lord Etringham was holding open the door into the hall. I cantered up.
‘This is a bit of a pickle, Jeeves. An absolute Hickory Hot Boy. And why are they only blaming me? I don’t think old Hackwood emerges with much credit, do you? I thought he was supposed to know the game backwards.’
‘Indeed, sir. A case of capax imperii nisi imperasset, one rather feels.’
‘Come again?’
‘The historian Tacitus, sir. It was his verdict on the Emperor Galba.’
‘What on earth did it mean?’
‘It is difficult to translate exactly. I suppose that “A man one would have thought capable of leadership had not his tenure of office proved the contrary” might cover it.’
‘Be that as it may, Jeeves. The fact is that if Hackwood hadn’t kept old Venables serving up his lobs they wouldn’t have got close to our total.’
Further post-mortems, as Tacitus might have called them, were curtailed by the arrival of Bicknell.
‘Mr Wilberforce, I am asked by Miss Meadowes if you would kindly present yourself in the library.’
‘What? Me? Now?’
‘At your earliest convenience.’
‘Is Sir Henry … Is he?’
‘Sir Henry has retired early. He is suffering from neuralgia.’
‘I’m not surprised after all that … Anyway. Right ho. So she’s …’
‘Miss Meadowes is unaccompanied.’
‘Right ho,’ I said again. And, knowing not a jot what lay in store, I tootled off across that mighty hall.
‘THANK YOU FOR coming, Bertie’ said Georgiana. ‘I hope it wasn’t embarrassing.’
‘Don’t worry. I’m just the local whipping boy.’
‘Would you like some of Uncle Henry’s brandy? The top comes off that ottoman and you’ll find a decanter and glasses inside.’
While I was fishing around for the needful, I heard Georgiana lock the door.