My Man Jeeves by Pelham Grenville Wodehouse (reading cloud ebooks TXT) 📖

end of it. I tell you, Bertie, I’ve

examined the darned cloud with a microscope, and if it’s got a silver

lining it’s some little dissembler!”

 

“But, Rocky, old top, it’s too bally awful! You’ve no notion of what

I’m going through in this beastly hotel, without Jeeves. I must get

back to the flat.”

 

“Don’t come near the flat.”

 

“But it’s my own flat.”

 

“I can’t help that. Aunt Isabel doesn’t like you. She asked me what you

did for a living. And when I told her you didn’t do anything she said

she thought as much, and that you were a typical specimen of a useless

and decaying aristocracy. So if you think you have made a hit, forget

it. Now I must be going back, or she’ll be coming out here after me.

Good-bye.”

 

*

 

Next morning Jeeves came round. It was all so home-like when he floated

noiselessly into the room that I nearly broke down.

 

“Good morning, sir,” he said. “I have brought a few more of your

personal belongings.”

 

He began to unstrap the suit-case he was carrying.

 

“Did you have any trouble sneaking them away?”

 

“It was not easy, sir. I had to watch my chance. Miss Rockmetteller is

a remarkably alert lady.”

 

“You know, Jeeves, say what you like—this is a bit thick, isn’t it?”

 

“The situation is certainly one that has never before come under my

notice, sir. I have brought the heather-mixture suit, as the climatic

conditions are congenial. To-morrow, if not prevented, I will endeavour

to add the brown lounge with the faint green twill.”

 

“It can’t go on—this sort of thing—Jeeves.”

 

“We must hope for the best, sir.”

 

“Can’t you think of anything to do?”

 

“I have been giving the matter considerable thought, sir, but so far

without success. I am placing three silk shirts—the dove-coloured, the

light blue, and the mauve—in the first long drawer, sir.”

 

“You don’t mean to say you can’t think of anything, Jeeves?”

 

“For the moment, sir, no. You will find a dozen handkerchiefs and the

tan socks in the upper drawer on the left.” He strapped the suit-case

and put it on a chair. “A curious lady, Miss Rockmetteller, sir.”

 

“You understate it, Jeeves.”

 

He gazed meditatively out of the window.

 

“In many ways, sir, Miss Rockmetteller reminds me of an aunt of mine

who resides in the south-east portion of London. Their temperaments are

much alike. My aunt has the same taste for the pleasures of the great

city. It is a passion with her to ride in hansom cabs, sir. Whenever

the family take their eyes off her she escapes from the house and

spends the day riding about in cabs. On several occasions she has

broken into the children’s savings bank to secure the means to enable

her to gratify this desire.”

 

“I love to have these little chats with you about your female

relatives, Jeeves,” I said coldly, for I felt that the man had let me

down, and I was fed up with him. “But I don’t see what all this has got

to do with my trouble.”

 

“I beg your pardon, sir. I am leaving a small assortment of neckties on

the mantelpiece, sir, for you to select according to your preference. I

should recommend the blue with the red domino pattern, sir.”

 

Then he streamed imperceptibly toward the door and flowed silently out.

 

*

 

I’ve often heard that chappies, after some great shock or loss, have a

habit, after they’ve been on the floor for a while wondering what hit

them, of picking themselves up and piecing themselves together, and

sort of taking a whirl at beginning a new life. Time, the great healer,

and Nature, adjusting itself, and so on and so forth. There’s a lot in

it. I know, because in my own case, after a day or two of what you

might call prostration, I began to recover. The frightful loss of

Jeeves made any thought of pleasure more or less a mockery, but at

least I found that I was able to have a dash at enjoying life again.

What I mean is, I braced up to the extent of going round the cabarets

once more, so as to try to forget, if only for the moment.

 

New York’s a small place when it comes to the part of it that wakes up

just as the rest is going to bed, and it wasn’t long before my tracks

began to cross old Rocky’s. I saw him once at Peale’s, and again at

Frolics on the roof. There wasn’t anybody with him either time except

the aunt, and, though he was trying to look as if he had struck the

ideal life, it wasn’t difficult for me, knowing the circumstances, to

see that beneath the mask the poor chap was suffering. My heart bled

for the fellow. At least, what there was of it that wasn’t bleeding for

myself bled for him. He had the air of one who was about to crack under

the strain.

 

It seemed to me that the aunt was looking slightly upset also. I took

it that she was beginning to wonder when the celebrities were going to

surge round, and what had suddenly become of all those wild, careless

spirits Rocky used to mix with in his letters. I didn’t blame her. I

had only read a couple of his letters, but they certainly gave the

impression that poor old Rocky was by way of being the hub of New York

night life, and that, if by any chance he failed to show up at a

cabaret, the management said: “What’s the use?” and put up the

shutters.

 

The next two nights I didn’t come across them, but the night after that

I was sitting by myself at the Maison Pierre when somebody tapped me on

the shoulder-blade, and I found Rocky standing beside me, with a sort

of mixed expression of wistfulness and apoplexy on his face. How the

chappie had contrived to wear my evening clothes so many times without

disaster was a mystery to me. He confided later that early in the

proceedings he had slit the waistcoat up the back and that that had

helped a bit.

 

For a moment I had the idea that he had managed to get away from his

aunt for the evening; but, looking past him, I saw that she was in

again. She was at a table over by the wall, looking at me as if I were

something the management ought to be complained to about.

 

“Bertie, old scout,” said Rocky, in a quiet, sort of crushed voice,

“we’ve always been pals, haven’t we? I mean, you know I’d do you a good

turn if you asked me?”

 

“My dear old lad,” I said. The man had moved me.

 

“Then, for Heaven’s sake, come over and sit at our table for the rest

of the evening.”

 

Well, you know, there are limits to the sacred claims of friendship.

 

“My dear chap,” I said, “you know I’d do anything in reason; but–-”

 

“You must come, Bertie. You’ve got to. Something’s got to be done to

divert her mind. She’s brooding about something. She’s been like that

for the last two days. I think she’s beginning to suspect. She can’t

understand why we never seem to meet anyone I know at these joints. A

few nights ago I happened to run into two newspaper men I used to know

fairly well. That kept me going for a while. I introduced them to Aunt

Isabel as David Belasco and Jim Corbett, and it went well. But the effect

has worn off now, and she’s beginning to wonder again. Something’s got to

be done, or she will find out everything, and if she does I’d take a

nickel for my chance of getting a cent from her later on. So, for the

love of Mike, come across to our table and help things along.”

 

I went along. One has to rally round a pal in distress. Aunt Isabel was

sitting bolt upright, as usual. It certainly did seem as if she had

lost a bit of the zest with which she had started out to explore

Broadway. She looked as if she had been thinking a good deal about

rather unpleasant things.

 

“You’ve met Bertie Wooster, Aunt Isabel?” said Rocky.

 

“I have.”

 

There was something in her eye that seemed to say:

 

“Out of a city of six million people, why did you pick on me?”

 

“Take a seat, Bertie. What’ll you have?” said Rocky.

 

And so the merry party began. It was one of those jolly, happy,

bread-crumbling parties where you cough twice before you speak, and

then decide not to say it after all. After we had had an hour of this

wild dissipation, Aunt Isabel said she wanted to go home. In the light

of what Rocky had been telling me, this struck me as sinister. I had

gathered that at the beginning of her visit she had had to be dragged

home with ropes.

 

It must have hit Rocky the same way, for he gave me a pleading look.

 

“You’ll come along, won’t you, Bertie, and have a drink at the flat?”

 

I had a feeling that this wasn’t in the contract, but there wasn’t

anything to be done. It seemed brutal to leave the poor chap alone with

the woman, so I went along.

 

Right from the start, from the moment we stepped into the taxi, the

feeling began to grow that something was about to break loose. A

massive silence prevailed in the corner where the aunt sat, and,

though Rocky, balancing himself on the little seat in front, did his

best to supply dialogue, we weren’t a chatty party.

 

I had a glimpse of Jeeves as we went into the flat, sitting in his

lair, and I wished I could have called to him to rally round. Something

told me that I was about to need him.

 

The stuff was on the table in the sitting-room. Rocky took up the

decanter.

 

“Say when, Bertie.”

 

“Stop!” barked the aunt, and he dropped it.

 

I caught Rocky’s eye as he stooped to pick up the ruins. It was the eye

of one who sees it coming.

 

“Leave it there, Rockmetteller!” said Aunt Isabel; and Rocky left it

there.

 

“The time has come to speak,” she said. “I cannot stand idly by and see

a young man going to perdition!”

 

Poor old Rocky gave a sort of gurgle, a kind of sound rather like the

whisky had made running out of the decanter on to my carpet.

 

“Eh?” he said, blinking.

 

The aunt proceeded.

 

“The fault,” she said, “was mine. I had not then seen the light. But

now my eyes are open. I see the hideous mistake I have made. I shudder

at the thought of the wrong I did you, Rockmetteller, by urging you

into contact with this wicked city.”

 

I saw Rocky grope feebly for the table. His fingers touched it, and a

look of relief came into the poor chappie’s face. I understood his

feelings.

 

“But when I wrote you that letter, Rockmetteller, instructing you to go

to the city and live its life, I had not had the privilege of hearing

Mr. Mundy speak on the subject of New York.”

 

“Jimmy Mundy!” I cried.

 

You know how it is sometimes when everything seems all mixed up and

you suddenly get a clue. When she mentioned Jimmy