Pelham Wodehouse - Spring Fever

Recovering his breath, he said (with some justice) "Hey!", and Lord Short-lands hastened to explain. He said:

"Wasp."

"Wasp?"

"Wasp," repeated Lord Shortlands, and with a pointing finger directed the other's attention to the remains. "Wasp," he added, driving the thing home.

Stanwood viewed the body, and all doubt concerning the purity of his preserver's motives left him.

"Wasp," he said, fully concurring.

"Wasp," said Lord Shortlands, summing the thing up rather neatly. "Messing about on your back. I squashed it."

"Darned good of you."

"Not at all."

"Courageous, too."

"No, no. Perhaps a certain presence of mind. Nothing more. Offer you a cocktail?"

"Or me you?"

"No, me you."

"Well, you me this time," said Stanwood, yielding the point with a pleasant grace. "But next time me you."

The ice was broken.

When two men get together who are not only crossed in love but are both reasonably full of McGuffy's Specials, it is inevitable that before long confidences will be exchanged. The bruised heart demands utterance. Gradually, as he sat there drawing closer and closer spiritually to this new friend, there came upon Stanwood an irresistible urge to tell his troubles to Lord Shortlands.

The orthodox thing, of course, would have been to tell them to Aloysius McGuffy, who may be said to have been there more or less for the purpose, but this would have involved getting up and walking to the bar and putting his foot on the rail and leaning forward and pawing at Aloysius McGuffy's shoulder. Far simpler to dish it out to this sympathetic stranger.

Very soon, accordingly, he was explaining his whole unhappy position to Lord Shortlands in minute detail. He told him of his great love for Eileen Stoker, of his father's short way with sons who loved Eileen Stoker, of his ecstasy on learning of Eileen Stoker's impending arrival in London, of his welcome to her when she did arrive and finally of the crushing blow which had befallen him, knocking his new-found happiness base over apex; this wholly unforeseen cable from his father, ordering him to leave the metropolis immediately and go to some ghastly castle, the name of which had escaped him for the moment.

Throughout the long and at times rambling exposition Lord Shortlands had listened with the owlish intentness of a man who has already started lunching, uttering now a kindly "Ah?" and anon a commiserating "Good gad!" At this mention of going to castles a grave look came into his face. He had grown fond of this young man, and did not like to see him heading for misery and disaster.

"Keep away from castles," he advised.

"But I can't, darn it."

"Castles," said Lord Shortlands, speaking the word with a bitter intonation. "I could tell you something about castles. They have moats."

"Yay, but—"

"Nasty smelly moats. Stinking away there since the Middle Ages. Be guided by me, my dear boy, and steer jolly clear of all castles."

Stanwood was beginning to wonder if it would not have been wiser to stick to the sound old conservative policy of telling his troubles to the barman. This stranger, though sympathetic, seemed slow in the uptake.

"But don't you understand? I've got to go to this castle."

"Why?"

"My father says so."

Lord Shortlands considered this. Until now, though Stanwood had been at some pains to elaborate it, the point had escaped him. It was not long before a happy solution presented itself.

"Kick him in the eye."

"How can I? He's in America."

"Your father is?"

"Yay."

"I could tell you something about fathers in America, too," said Lord Shortlands. "This very morning, as the stable clock was striking seven—"

"If I don't do what he tells me to, he'll slice off my allowance. It's like in the Bible," said Stanwood, searching for an illustration and recalling Augustus Robb's observations on the subject. "You remember? Where the bozo said 'Come' and they goeth."

Lord Shortlands had now a complete, if muzzy, grip of the position of affairs.

"Ah, now I see. Now I understand. You are financially dependent on your father?"

"That's right."

"As I am on my daughter Adela. Most unpleasant, being dependent on people."

"You betcher."

"Especially one's daughter. Adela—I wouldn't tell this to everyone, but I like your face—Adela oppresses me. You have heard of men being henpecked. I am chickpecked. She makes me live all the time at my castle."

"Have you a castle?"

"I have indeed. One of the worst. And she makes me live there. I feel like a caged skylark."

"I feel like a piece of cheese. Run out of London just at the very moment when I want to be sticking to Eileen like a poultice, and chased off to this damned castle. A hell of a setup, don't you think?"

Lord Shortlands, who had a feeling heart, admitted that his young friend's predicament was such as to extort the tear of pity.

"Though it is scarcely," he went on to say, "to be compared with the one in which I find myself. I'm just a toad beneath the harrow."

"You said you were a skylark."

"A toad, too."

"Have you got to go to a castle?"

"I'm at a castle already. I told you that before."

"Gee, that's tough."

"You . . . What was that expression you used just now? Ah yes, You betcher."

"Must grind you a good deal, being at a castle already."

"You betcher. But that, serious though it is, is not my principal trouble."

"What's your principal trouble?"

Lord Shortlands hesitated for a moment. So far his British reserve had triumphed over a pint of champagne, a double whiskey and splash and three McGuffy Specials; but now he felt it weakening. A brief spiritual conflict, and he, too, had decided to tell all.

"It is this. At my castle there is a cook."

"Look, look, lookie, here comes cookie!"

"I beg your pardon?"

"Just a song I happened to remember."

"I see. Well, as I was saying, at my castle there is a cook."

"Another cook?"

"No, the same cook. And the fact is, well, I—er—I want to marry her."

"Good for you."

"You approve?"

"You betcher."

"I am delighted to hear you say so, my dear boy. You know how much your sympathy means to me. Marry her, you suggest?"

"You betcher."

"But here is the difficulty. My butler wants to marry her, too."

"The butler at your castle?"

"You betcher. It is a grave problem."

Stanwood knitted his brows. He was thinking the thing out.

"You can't both marry her."

"Exactly." This clear-sightedness delighted Lord Shortlands. An old head on young shoulders, he felt. "You have put your finger on the very core of the dilemma. What do you advise?"

"Seems to me the cagey move would be to fire the butler."

"Impossible. When I spoke of him as 'my' butler, I used the word loosely. His salary is paid by my daughter Adela. Firing butlers is her prerogative, and she guards it jealously."

"Gee, that's like it is with me and Augustus Robb. Well, then, you'll have to cut him out."

"Easier said than done. He is a man of terrific personal attractions. His profile alone ... The only thing that gives me hope is that he bets."

"Would he know anything good for Kempton Park next Friday?"

"Most unlikely. He seems to pick nothing but losers. That is why the fact that he is a betting man causes me to hope. He squanders his money, and Alice disapproves."

"Who's Alice?"

"The cook."

"The cook at your castle? The cook we've been talking about?"

"That very cook. She wants a steady husband. And she thinks me steady."

"She does?"

"I have it from a reliable source."

"Then you're set. It's in the bag. All you've got to do is keep plugging away and giving her the old personality. I think you'll nose him out."