Jeeves and the Wedding Bells (17 page)

The heat of the day was such that tea was taken outdoors. The mighty urn was placed on a trestle amid the plates of sandwiches and several examples of Mrs Padgett’s bakery. The home team was still pretty full of lunch, but the Dorset Gents, who had grazed more modestly at the Red Lion, set about clearing the decks. Sir Henry manoeuvred a beer barrel into place and tapped off the first glass for himself, before inviting the others to make free with it.

We were then lined up in teams in front of the pavilion while a Mr Jay, the photographer from the
Melbury-cum-Kingston
Courier
(incorporating the
Magnum in Parvo Gazette
), took photo graphs. He spent an age with his head under the black cloth before he was satisfied that we were properly aligned; finally he held up his flash and the ordeal was over.

A reporter in a brown chalk-stripe suit and soft hat went about collecting names and checking them off against the batting order that he seemed to have purloined from the dressing-room door. ‘And you’re Mr Venables senior? Which one’s Lord Etringham? The readers do love an aristocrat. Righty ho. Thank you, gents. And have you any comment on the day, Mr Beeching? Is that “beech” like the tree or “beach” like the sand? That’s all tickety-boo. Anything else to say to our readers at all, sir?’

‘Oh, do let’s get on, shall we?’ said Sir Henry. ‘We’ve got a cricket match to finish here, you know.’

A couple of the opposition went off to pad up; the others looked happy to have stopped chasing leather all over the county. They had the satisfied look of labourers at day’s end as they settled on the grass with their beer and cigarettes.

The Melbury Hall XI was starting to take the field when I became aware of a discreet coughing in my ear.

‘I thought you would like to know, sir, that I sent a small boy to the village during the interval. In return for a sixpence, he placed a telephone call from the post office to the bookmaker in Dorchester.’

‘Any luck?’

‘Yes, sir. In double measure.’

‘I say, well done, Jeeves. So far so good, what?’

‘Indeed, sir.’

‘Any provision for a draw?’

‘Alas not, sir. The win is imperative.’

‘Well, I should have thought we’ve made enough runs.’

‘Yes, sir, though securing all ten wickets may prove difficult on such a benign surface.’

‘But they won’t have a Beeching, will they?’

‘They are said to be stronger with bat than ball, sir. Mr Beeching may yet rue giving up his wicket.’

‘Are you saying Woody got out on purpose?’

‘I believe he may have been embarrassed by the thought of scoring such a large number of runs. A gentleman should not score more than half his team’s total.’

‘How do you know that, Jeeves?’

‘It is my job to know, sir.’

‘You don’t just make these rules up?’

‘Certainly not, sir. Might I suggest you station yourself on the pavilion side of the field? In the event of a high catch, you will be less likely to be dazzled by the late afternoon sun.’

Sir Henry Hackwood had assumed the wicket-keeping gloves and was now setting his field as the Gents’ openers came out.

The umpires were in place and the sun was still high when mine host of the Hare and Hounds called out ‘Play!’ and Harold Niblett accelerated in from the Hall end of the ground. He leapt up at the crease and propelled the new ball down the track with a manly grunt; it bounced, reared up and touched the outside edge of the opener’s bat. It flew straight into the
gloves of Sir Henry Hackwood behind the stumps, from where it fell harmlessly to the turf.

‘Sorry, bowler,’ said Sir Henry.

At the other end, Woody came ambling in with the deceptive canter I’d seen the night before. The Dorset Gent looked surprised when the ball zipped past his defensive poke. He at once called a mid-pitch conference with his fellow Gent, which ended with a good deal of head-shaking and ground-prodding.

Out in the deep, I found my mind wandering a bit. I had no idea why the Dorset Gents, even if they might not have Woody’s touch, didn’t just give it a wallop like old Stinker.

I was also thinking about Rupert Venables. He was stationed on the other side of the pitch from me, recognisable by his white sunhat. I wondered how much of his time he spent travelling and how much writing, whether he would run out of places and types of transport that began with the same letter, and what the role of the wife of such a fellow might be. I had gone into something of a daydream, and may even have been muttering out loud ‘By Tricycle to Torquay’ when a cry of ‘Wilberforce!’ reached my ears and I saw the ball rapidly approaching. I bent to stop it, but as I did so it diverted off some plantain or daisy and carried on its way unmolested to the boundary.

‘Get something behind it, man!’ the captain called out from behind the timbers.

The afternoon reached a rather sleepy passage, like the slow movement in a bit of music at the Albert Hall when you
snatch a bracing forty winks to give yourself strength for the rousing finale and the sharp exit to dinner. The Dorset Gents had reached 85 for the loss of three wickets. A group of small boys were training a magnifying glass on to the back of a wooden bench, with some success. Dame Judith had her nose back in Sumeria, if that’s where Hammurabi came from. Amelia had taken up some sewing, and beside her Georgiana was staring silently into the summer air. A few villagers who had a crack at the beer barrel now lay snoozing peacefully with handkerchiefs over their faces.

Liddle came on to bowl what Sir Henry referred to as his ‘wobblers’ – a curious procedure with a whirling of both arms from which the ball eventually emerged at a friendly pace. It may have swung or wobbled a bit as it went, but from my angle it was hard to see.

‘Etringham!’ said Sir Henry. ‘Do you fancy a couple of overs?’

Jeeves marked out a short run, made some minor adjustments to the field, and came in to bowl. The ball bit into the ground as it landed and turned away from the batsman, who followed it with his bat, edging into the eager gloves of the custodian. A mighty fumble was followed by a curse as the ball trickled down his pad and on to the ground.

‘Sorry, bowler,’ said Sir Henry, bending down to pick up the ball.

Jeeves had come halfway down the wicket. Sir Henry meant to throw the ball back to him, but managed only to throw it over his head, so the journey was fruitless.

‘Sorry, bowler,’ said Sir Henry again, a bare couple of seconds separating the two apologies. ‘Sorry, bowler.’

Eventually, a catch flew to Woody, who managed to cling on to it.

‘Well held, old man,’ I said, as he walked past me.

‘Thank you. We just have to hope no more chances go to Old Irongloves.’

‘A dashed disrespectful way to refer to the future father-in-law, young Beeching.’

The look I received in return could best be described, I think, as stricken. Clearly even 95 of the best had not melted the heart of the young Ice Queen of Kingston St Giles.

The Dorset Gents were making good progress, when Sir Henry threw the ball to Sidney Venables. ‘Let’s see a few of those in-duckers you were telling me about, Venables.’

Vishnu Venables looked frankly surprised to be called into the attack at this point.

‘You remember,’ said Sir Henry. ‘You told me you took six for thirty-eight against the Bombay Gymkhana.’

I couldn’t say what particular delivery Venables senior then proceeded to offer, but it certainly seemed to tickle the fancy of the Dorset Gentlemen, whose total rocketed upwards.

‘What sort of bowling is that?’ I asked Woody as we crossed again at the end of the over. ‘Leg spin or something?’

‘It’s called cafeteria,’ said Woody. ‘Help yourself.’

The Gents proceeded to do exactly that, and their total began to approach that of the home side when one of them, a burly youth who seemed to have been at the crease all
afternoon, hit one high in the air towards Venables junior.

Readers who have been lulled into a sense of calm by the summer afternoon proceedings may be surprised by what happened next; keener types may have noticed that one character has been notable by his absence – so far.

Opinions later differed as to what it was about Venables junior that got right up the dog Bartholomew’s nose. Some blamed the floppy white sunhat; others thought Venables had shown insufficient respect towards the hound before lunch – he being a dog who generally commanded a fair bit of bowing and scraping. Stiffy claimed Bartholomew was ‘only trying to help catch the ball, which that useless yard of tap water would never have managed on his own’.

The long and the short of it was that Bartholomew launched himself off his mistress’s lap like a terrier who’s been told that they were about to close off the last rabbit hole in Dorset. The lung power required to bark and run simultaneously had been developed by years of practice, and he covered the mown grass in a blur. He arrived at his chosen destination a moment before the descending red ball, timed his leap to perfection and, closing his jaws at the
moment critique
, as I believe it’s known, landed a juicy one on the Venables rear end.

The fielding side was divided in the aftermath of this event, some inclining to anger at the missed catch and concern for the fielder, others offering ribald suggestions for treatment and who might administer it.

The batsmen were unconcerned, and the game, minus Rupert Venables, left its slow movement behind and came to its noisy
climax. The Dorset Gents went past 200 with eight wickets down, and when the ninth man was judged leg before wicket to Jeeves, with the score at 220, Sir Henry called us together.

‘There’s time for one more over,’ he said. ‘Beeching, you bowl it. They need six to win, we need one wicket. A draw’s no use to me.’

‘Surely a draw would be a happy outcome on such a pleasant afternoon,’ said Woody.

Sir Henry’s face went an odd shade of purple. ‘I tell you, young man, a draw is no earthly good. Do you understand? We are going to win this game. We will take that last wicket. No other result will do. Have you thoroughly grasped that now?’

‘Yes, Sir Henry.’

‘Get back to your places.’

I retreated to my post in front of the pavilion, praying that the wretched thing wouldn’t come anywhere near me. Woody went to the end of his run and moved a few fielders this way and that.

The batsman facing him was not the number eleven but the chap who’d been in for hours. Woody seemed to be offering him a single so he could have a go at the tailender, but the Gent was too canny for that. Five balls went by without a run and without a wicket. I was relieved that any chance of my involvement was now almost out of the question. They still needed six to win off the last ball. A draw now looked so certain that even Honest Sid Levy would have closed his book.

In his frustration, Woody banged the final ball of the match hard into the turf, about halfway up the track. Unable to resist,
the batsman went back on to his heels and gave it a mighty whack to leg. High in the air it went, hovering up there, like a red bird against the sky. It seemed to have someone’s name on it for sure, though it was only as it began its spiralling descent that I understood that name was mine.

I could feel the boundary rope against the heel of my boots. I raised both hands in what may, I suppose, have looked like prayer.

It’s a rum thing, but although you could hardly have imagined a closer match, not everyone at the ground was following it with their full attention.

As the ball plummeted towards me, Lady Hackwood said, ‘I’m bored, I’m cold and I want a drink.’

In amazed response, there came the sound of a frisky brook going over the strings of a particularly well-tuned harp.

Sir Henry Hackwood yelled, ‘Catch it, you fool!’

A dog unseen began to bark.

I don’t know which of these sounds made me jerk my head like a frightened thoroughbred, but my money would be on the harp, since it was Georgiana’s face I had in my eyeline as the ball hit my upturned hands. It would have been one thing if I’d simply let it drop, but my sudden movement made me palm the thing upwards, giving it the extra boost it needed to carry over the rope for the winning six.

Dinner at Melbury Hall that night was about as much fun as the burial of Sir John Moore at Corunna, with the role of the
corpse – or ‘corse’, as I seem to remember the poet had it – assigned to B. Wooster.

Hoad had apparently had another ‘funny turn’ after his impression of a limpet at the crease and the services of Wilberforce, stand-in footman, were once more in demand. It was with a leaden heart that, after an icy visit to the staff ablutions, I exchanged the cream flannel for the evening wear and went down the lime-wood staircase to old Mrs Padgett’s galley.

‘By ’eck, Mr Wilberforce, I ’eard all about that cricket match. Sir ’Enry’s been locked in the library since he come ’ome. Mr Bicknell’s run off his feet taking in whisky and soda. ’E must be on his fifth by now.’

‘I envy him, Mrs Padgett. There are times when only oblivion will do.’

‘Ah, don’t talk so soft, Mr W. It’s only a game.’

‘If only, Mrs P. Now, what shall I do?’

‘Fetch me over them little pots on the chest there. I’ve made soufflés to start. Sir ’Enry’s right fond of a cheese soufflé and I thought as how it might cheer him up.’

‘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.