Jeeves and the Wedding Bells(62)

‘I gather not, though it was believed that she set an all-comers’ record for the time from Twickenham to Kew. An expectant mother went into labour on the upper deck at Richmond. A schoolboy tumbled down the stairs but only grazed his knee.’

‘Was that it?’

‘Yes. She was replaced at Turnham Green.’

The next morning, when Jeeves shimmied in with the tea tray, there was a letter with a London postmark and the handwriting that had alerted me to the presence of a picnic basket with my name on it in the sunken garden.

‘What’s it like outside?’ I asked. ‘The weather continues to be exceptionally clement, sir.’

‘Jolly good,’ I said, slipping the paperknife through the envelope. ‘I’m going to Curzon Street for a trim at the barber’s.’

I thought I saw a small lift of Jeeves’s eyebrow. I raised a hand to the side-whiskers. ‘Just a trim,’ I said. ‘Nothing more.’

‘Very well, sir. Shall I telephone for an appointment?’

I didn’t answer at once, since I was scanning the letter – an elegant scrawl in black ink. ‘Dear Bertie,’ it said, ‘I know Uncle Henry has invited Lord E back this weekend and it would be lovely if you would come too. Your employer will surely need your help! There is also the question of the entertainment at Melbury village hall. Uncle Henry’s plan is that it should include the enactment of a scene from A Midsummer Night’s Dream. We are short of rude mechanicals. Your experience – and expertise – could save the day. It might also be fun. With love from Georgiana.’

‘Jeeves,’ I said, ‘have you had any further thoughts about the weekend?’

‘No, sir. I don’t feel it is my place to accept or refuse Sir Henry’s invitation. I am awaiting your instruction.’

I finished the refreshing cupful. As usual, it seemed to fill me with a sense of pleasant possibilities.

‘Telephone the barber, please, and make an appointment for noon. Then send a telegram to old Hackwood. Did he specify a time?’

‘No, sir. There is a summer fete in the grounds of the house on Saturday afternoon before the evening festivities at the church hall. I had the impression that as far as Sir Henry was concerned, the revels would begin on Friday evening.’

‘Then so be it, Jeeves,’ I said. ‘On with the motley.’

Thus was the die cast, this exchange taking place, I am pretty certain, on the Thursday morning.

An odd thing I’ve noticed over the years, chronicling these adventures of mine, is that even in the middle of an absolute corker – the Steeple Bumpleigh Horror, for example – there are days when not much happens. This is ticklish for the author. I dare say that at such a point in one of those novels beloved of Jeeves and Georgiana, old Tolstoy took advantage of a lull in the action to bung in a bit of family history – how the Rostropovs had known the Ilyanovs, for instance, since the first bear was sighted on the Russian Steppe. The author of The Mystery of the Gabled House, if in doubt, generally throws in another corpse. Not having any stiffs at my disposal, I can only say that little of note took place in Berkeley Mansions for the next twenty-four hours. Nothing really got going until Friday afternoon, after which things got pretty fruity. End of lull. Now read on.

Though dressed as a valet, I took the wheel of the two-seater as we left the Great Wen once more and headed for the sunlit hills. There is something about this particular road with its signs to Micheldever and Over Wallop that always seems to lift the spirits. The first bright green of May had given way to something lusher, so everything in the countryside looked just the way the Almighty must have roughed it out on his sketchpad; the cow parsley could not have been more rampant, the oaks more oakish or the roadside inns more tempting if they’d tried.

‘I say, Jeeves,’ I said, waving an arm in the general direction of Stourhead, ‘it’s odd to think we might have lost all this. During the …’ I trailed off, not wanting to put a damper on things.

‘The hostilities, do you mean, sir?’

‘Yes. Do you think it will all ever just … disappear?’

‘No, sir. A thing of beauty is a joy for ever. Its loveliness increases; it will never pass into nothingness.’

‘Hang on, Jeeves. I recognise that.’

‘I am pleased to hear it, sir. It was the poet—’

‘Don’t tell me. It was … the poet Keats, wasn’t it?’

‘It was indeed, sir. The lines supply the opening of an early work, “Endymion”.’

We drove on in silence for a mile or so. ‘I say, Jeeves, do you know, I think that’s the first time I’ve ever recognised one of your quotations.’