Joy in the Morning (15 page)

‘It’s quite all right, my dear Worplesdon,’ said Boko, tapping like a woodpecker. ‘Have no concern about Stilton. He won’t get hurt. At least, I don’t think so. One may be wrong, of course. Anyway, he is paid to take these risks. Ah, Florence,’ he added, addressing the daughter of the house, who had just come alongside in a dressing-gown, with her hair in curling pins.

It was plain that Florence was not her usual calm and equable self. When she spoke, one noted a testiness.

‘Never mind the “Ah, Florence.” What is going on out here? What is all this noise and disturbance? I was woken up by someone shouting.’

‘Me,’ said Boko, and even in the uncertain light I could see that he was smirking. I doubt if in all Hampshire that night you could have found a fellow more thoroughly satisfied with himself. He had got it firmly rooted in his mind that he was the popular hero, beloved of all – little knowing that Uncle Percy’s favourite reading would have been his name on a tombstone. Rather saddening, the whole thing.

‘Well, I wish you wouldn’t. It is perfectly impossible to sleep, with people romping all over the garden.’

‘Romping? I was catching a burglar.’

‘Catching a burglar?’

‘You never spoke a truer word. A great desperate brute of a midnight marauder, who may or may not be armed to the teeth. That question we shall be able to answer better after Stilton has got together with him.’

‘But how did you catch a burglar?’

‘Oh, it’s just a knack.’

‘I mean, what were you doing here at this time of night?’

It was as if Uncle Percy had been waiting for someone to come along and throw him just that cue.

‘Exactly,’ he cried, having snorted the snort of a lifetime. ‘The very thing I want to know. The precise question I was about to ask myself. What the devil are you doing here? I am not aware that I invited you to infest my private grounds and go charging about them like a buffalo, making an appalling din and rendering peace and quiet impossible. You have a garden of your own, I believe? If you must behave like a buffalo, kindly go and do so there. And the idea of locking people in my potting shed! I never heard of anything so officious in my life.’

‘Officious?’

‘Yes, damned officious.’

Boko was patently stunned. One sensed that thoughts about birds biting the hand that fed them were racing through his mind. He stuttered a while before speaking.

‘Well!’ he said, at length, having ceased to imitate a motor bicycle. ‘Well, I’m dashed! Well, I must say! Well, I’m blowed! Officious, eh? That is the attitude you take, is it? Ha! One desires no thanks, of course, for these little good turns one does people – at some slight inconvenience to oneself, one might perhaps mention – but I should have thought that in the circumstances one was entitled to expect at least decent civility. Jeeves!’

‘Sir?’

‘What did Shakespeare say about ingratitude?’

‘“Blow, blow, thou winter wind,” sir, “thou art not so unkind as man’s ingratitude.” He also alludes to the quality as “thou marble-hearted fiend”.’

‘And he wasn’t so dashed far wrong! I brood over this house like a guardian angel, sacrificing my sleep and leisure to its interests. I sweat myself to the bone, catching burglars—’

Uncle Percy tuned in again.

‘Burglars, indeed! All silly nonsense. The man is probably some harmless wayfarer, who has taken refuge in my potting shed from the storm—’

‘What storm?’

‘Never mind what storm.’

‘There isn’t a storm.’

‘All right, all right!’

‘It’s a lovely night. No suggestion of a storm.’

‘All right, all
right
! We aren’t talking about the weather. We’re talking about this poor waif in my potting shed. I say he is probably just some homeless wayfarer, and I refuse to persecute the unfortunate fellow. What harm has he done? All the riff-raff for miles around have been using my garden as if it were their own, so who shouldn’t he? This is Liberty Hall, damn it – or seems to be.’

‘So you don’t think he’s a burglar?’

‘No, I do not.’

‘Worplesdon, you’re a silly ass. How about the brown paper? What price the treacle?’

‘Damn the treacle. Curse the brown paper. And how dare you call me a silly ass? Jeeves!’

‘M’lord?’

‘Here’s ten shillings. Go and give it to the poor chap and let him go. Tell him to buy himself a warm bed and supper.’

‘Very good, m’lord.’

Boko uttered a sharp, yapping sound, like a displeased hyena.

‘And, Jeeves!’ he said.

‘Sir?’

‘When he’s got the warm bed, better tuck him up and see that he has a hot water bottle.’

‘Very good, sir.’

‘Ten shillings, eh? Supper, egad? Warm bed, forsooth? Well, this lets me out,’ said Boko. ‘I wash my hands of the whole affair. This is the last occasion on which you may expect my help when you have burglars in this loony bin. Next time they come flocking round, I shall pat them on the back and hold the ladder for them.’

He strode off into the darkness, full to the brim of dudgeon, and I can’t say I was much surprised. The way things had panned out had been enough to induce dudgeon in the mildest of men, let alone a temperamental young author, accustomed to calling on his publishers and raising hell at the smallest provocation.

But though seeing his viewpoint, I mourned. In fact, I would go further, I groaned in spirit. The tender Wooster heart had been deeply touched by the non-smooth running of the course of the Boko-Nobby true love, and I had hoped that tonight’s rannygazoo would have culminated in a thorough sweetening of Uncle Percy and a consequent straightening out of the tangle.

Instead of which, this impulsive scrivener had gone and deposited himself lower down among the wines and spirits than ever. If the betting against his scooping in a guardian’s consent had been about four to one up to this point, it could scarcely be estimated now at anything shorter than a hundred to eight – and even at that generous price I doubt if the punters would have invested.

I was just wondering whether it would be any use my putting in a soothing word, and feeling on the whole perhaps not, when there came to my ears a low whistle, which may or may not have been the note of the lesser screech owl, and I observed something indistinct but apparently feminine bobbing about behind a distant tree. Everything seeming to point to this being Nobby, I detached myself from the main body and oiled off in her direction.

My surmise was correct. It was Nobby, in a dressing-gown but not curling pins. Apparently, with her style of hair you don’t use them. She was fizzing with excitement and the desire to learn the latest hot news.

‘I didn’t like to join the party,’ she said, after the preliminary what-hoes had been exchanged. ‘Uncle Percy would have sent me to bed. How’s it coming along, Bertie?’

It wrenched the heart-strings to have to ladle out bad tidings to the eager young prune, but the painful task could not be avoided.

‘Not too well,’ I replied sombrely.

As I had foreseen, the statement got right in amongst her. She uttered a stricken yowl.

‘Not too well?’

‘No.’

‘What went wrong?’

‘It would be better to ask what went right. The enterprise was a flop from start to finish.’

She sharp-exclamationed, and I saw that she was giving me one of those unpleasant, suspicious looks.

‘I suppose you fell down on your end of the thing?’

‘Nothing of the kind. I did all that man could have done. But there was one of those unfortunate concatenations of circumstances, which led to what we had anticipated would be a nice little night’s work for the two of us becoming a mob scene. We were just getting on with it most satisfactorily, when the gardens and messuages became a seething mass of Uncle Percys, Jeeveses, Stiltons, Florences and what not. It dished our aims completely. And I am sorry to say that Boko did not show himself at his best.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘He would keep calling Uncle Percy “my dear Worplesdon”. You can’t address a man like that as “my dear Worplesdon” for long without something cracking under the strain. Heated words ensued, quite a few being contributed by Boko. The scene, a most painful one, concluded with him calling Uncle Percy a silly ass and turning on his heel and stalking off. I fear his standing with the above has hit a new low.’

She moaned softly, and I considered for a moment the idea of patting her head. Not much use, though, I felt on consideration, and gave it a miss.

‘I did think I could have trusted Boko not to make an ass of himself just for once,’ she murmured with a wild regret.

‘I doubt if you can ever trust an author not to make an ass of himself,’ I responded gravely.

‘Golly, I’ll tick him off for this! Which way did he go, when he turned on his heel?’

‘Somewhere in that direction.’

‘Wait till I find him!’ she cried, baying like an undersized bloodhound, and was gone with the wind.

It was perhaps a couple of ticks later, or three, that Jeeves came shimmering up.

‘A disturbing evening, sir,’ he said. ‘I released Mr Clam.’

‘Never mind about Clam. Clam leaves me cold. The chap I’m worrying about is Boko.’

‘Ah, yes, sir.’

‘Silly idiot, alienating Uncle Percy like that.’

‘Yes, sir. It was a pity that the young gentleman’s manner should not have been more conciliatory.’

‘He’s sunk, unless you can think of some way of healing the breach.’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Get hold of him, Jeeves.’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Confer with him.’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Strain the bean to the utmost in order to hit upon some solution.’

‘Very good, sir.’

‘You will find him somewhere out there in the silent night. At least, it won’t be so dashed silent, because Nobby will be telling him what she thinks of him. Circle around till you hear a raised soprano voice, and that will be the spot to head for.’

He popped off, as desired, and I started to do a bit of pacing to and fro, knitting the brows. I had been knitting them for about five minutes, when something loomed up in the offing and I saw that it was Boko, come to play a return date.

CHAPTER 16

B
oko was looking subdued and chastened, as if his soul had been passed through the wringer. He wore the unmistakable air of a man who has just been properly told where he gets off by the girl of his dreams and has not yet reassembled the stunned faculties.

‘Hullo, Bertie,’ he said, in a sort of hushed, saintlike voice.

‘Pip-pip, Boko.’

‘Some night!’

‘Considerable.’

‘You haven’t a flask on you, have you?’

‘No.’

‘A pity. One should always carry a flask about in case of emergencies. Saint Bernard dogs do it in the Alps. Fifty million Saint Bernard dogs can’t be wrong. I have just passed through a great emotional experience, Bertie.’

‘Did Nobby find you?’

He gave a little shiver.

‘I’ve just been chatting with her.’

‘I had a sort of idea you had.’

‘It shows in my appearance, does it? Yes, I suppose it would. It wasn’t you who told her about those Joke Goods, was it?’

‘Of course not.’

‘Somebody did.’

‘Uncle Percy, probably.’

‘That’s true. She would have asked him how the lunch came out. Yes, I imagine that was the authoritative source from which she had her information.’

‘So she touched on the Joke Goods?’

‘Oh, yes. Yes, she touched on them. Her conversation dealt partly with them and partly with what happened to-night. She was at no loss for words on either theme. You’re absolutely sure you haven’t a flask?’

‘Quite, I’m afraid.’

‘Ah, well,’ said Boko, and relapsed into silence for a while, emerging from it to ask me in a wondering sort of voice where girls picked up these expressions.

‘What expressions?’

‘I couldn’t repeat them, with gentlemen present. I suppose they learn them at their finishing schools.’

‘She gave you beans, did she?’

‘With no niggardly hand. It was an extraordinary feeling, standing there while she put me through it. One had a dazed sensation of something small and shrill whirling about one, seething with fury. Like being attacked by a Pekinese.’

‘I’ve never been attacked by a Pekinese.’

‘Well, ask the man who has. He’ll tell you. Every moment, I was expecting to get a nasty nip in the ankle.’

‘How did it all end?’

‘Oh, I got away with my life. Still, what’s life?’

‘Life’s all right.’

‘Not if you’ve lost the girl you love.’

‘Have you lost the girl you love?’

‘That’s what I’m trying to figure out. I can’t make up my mind. It all depends what construction you place on the words “I never want to see or speak to you again in this world or the next, you miserable fathead.”’

‘Did she say that?’

‘Among other things.’

I saw that the time had come to soothe and encourage.

‘I wouldn’t let that worry me, Boko.’

He seemed surprised.

‘You wouldn’t?’

‘No. She didn’t mean it.’

‘Didn’t mean it?’

‘Of course not.’

‘Just said it for something to say? Making conversation, as it were?’

‘Well, I’ll tell you, Boko. I’ve made a pretty deep study of the sex, observing them in all their moods, and the conclusion I’ve come to is that when they shoot their heads off in the manner described, little attention need be paid to the subject matter.’

‘You would advise ignoring it?’

‘Absolutely. Dismiss it from the mind.’

He was silent for a moment. When he spoke, it was on a note of hope.

‘There’s one thing, of course. She used to love me. As recently as this afternoon. Dearly. She said so. One’s got to remember that.’