Jeeves and the Wedding Bells(73)

I followed on, as in a dream. When we bowed again, Lord E removed the ass’s head, to the delight of the crowd. Even the two-bob seats were up on their feet, and Georgiana pushed him forwards to take a solo bow.

As he did so, she picked up the head, and put it on me. ‘Bless thee, Bottom,’ she said. ‘Bless thee! Thou art translated.’

Strictly speaking this was Quince’s line, but no one seemed to mind. Then she took it off again, stood on tiptoe and, to the unbridled delight of those watching, planted a big kiss on my lips. I thought the ceiling might now cave in completely. Not knowing what else to do, I grabbed the dear girl round the waist and returned the kiss, with interest.

When eventually we managed to get off stage, things happened rather fast. The players went to change their clothes, but in a minute we were reunited backstage round some bottles of light ale and champagne.

Georgiana was standing beside me when the door opened and in came Lady Hackwood and Dame Judith Puxley, clearly the only two people in the hall who had not been amused. They stood there like Scylla and Charybdis, and the channel between them to the open sea was a narrow one.

‘Well, young man,’ said Lady Hackwood. ‘Can you please explain yourself?’

‘Explain what, Lady H?’ I said.

‘Explain what you mean by kissing my niece like that in front of two hundred people.’

I looked at Georgiana, who was back in her normal clothes, though still with the tiara and the fairy-queen make-up. I felt that I had compromised her in public, and the code of the Woosters allowed for only one way out.

‘I kissed her, Lady Hackwood, because … Because … we are engaged to be married.’

The pause that followed had a silence that felt bottomless, as it were.

‘Is this true, Georgiana?’ said Lady Hackwood eventually.

‘I don’t know. Is it true, Bertie?’

‘It is if you want it to be, dear girl. Dashed odd proposal, I admit. But will you marry me? Could you bear it?’

‘I want it more than anything on earth. Come on, you ass, let’s go.’

‘Where to?’

‘I’ll tell you when we’re in the car.’

She grabbed me by the hand and led me from the room.

A couple of minutes later, the roof was down on the old two-seater as we purred between the fragrant hedgerows.

‘Take the next right,’ said Georgiana, her head resting on my shoulder.

‘Where are we going?’

‘We’re going to have dinner at the Queen’s Head in Bere Regis.’

‘Then what?’ I said.

‘And then we’re going to have the rest of our lives.’





I CAN REMEMBER little of what took place over dinner. There were in any event things said on both sides which might, if repeated, bring a blush to the reader’s cheek. Georgiana was a passionate sort of girl and pretty good at expressing herself; I rather let her do the talking for both of us, restricting myself to the occasional ‘You bet’ or ‘Absolutely, old thing’.

It was perplexing, to put it mildly, that this paragon of her sex should have formed such a high opinion of Wooster, B., but I felt it would be foolish to press her on this: I didn’t want to be the cause of the scales falling from her eyes at this late stage. I’ve never really understood why girls fall for chaps at all, to be quite frank, but I suppose if a twenty-four-carat popsy like Pauline Stoker can declare undying love for an ass like Chuffy Chufnell then all things are possible. Women are, as my old housemaster had remarked, queer cattle.

The gist – if I can convey this without breaking any confidences – was that Georgiana had fallen for me from day one on the Côte d’Azur on the grounds that I was ‘different’ from all the other chaps she knew (I thought it wiser not to press her on this ‘difference’). She further felt there was a bond between us – something about parents – and that although I obviously had lots of chums, only she could see and understand the ‘real’ Bertram. There was a good deal more in this vein – including a bit of hand-squeezing and eye-dabbing – that we can happily pass over.

In return, I told her that if hers was the face I saw on the pillow every day I should believe that some mix-up in the divine sweepstake had put my name where some other fellow’s ought to be, but that I was delighted to carry on till rumbled.

There were then a few practical questions to consider. First among these was as follows: would Sir Henry Hackwood consent to his ward’s being married to a man who had spent several days under his roof impersonating a valet and then clambered over that same roof wrapped in a builder’s dust sheet?