Pelham Wodehouse - Spring Fever

Stanwood sat up. His features were drawn, but his voice was clear and his speech articulate.

"I'm not plastered."

"Ain't you?" said Augustus Robb, surprised. "Well, you look it. Country air's what you need. I've packed."

"Then unpack."

"What? Aren't we going to this Beevor Castle?"

"No," said Stanwood, and proceeded to explain.

One points at Augustus Robb with pride. A snob from the crown of his thinly covered head to the soles of his substantial feet, his heart had been set on going to stay at Beevor Castle. He had looked forward to writing letters to his circle of friends on crested stationery and swanking to them later about his pleasant intimacy with the titled and blue-blooded, and, as he listened to Stanwood's story, he felt like a horn-rimmed spectacled peri excluded from paradise.

But his sterling nature triumphed over the blow. A few muttered "Coo's," and he was himself again. Of all the learned professions none is so character-building as that of the burglar. The man who has been trained in the hard school of porch climbing, where you often work half the night on a safe only to discover that all it contains is a close smell and a dead spider, learns to take the rough with the smooth and to bear with fortitude the disappointments from which no terrestrial existence can be wholly free.

But, though philosophic, he could not approve.

"No good's going to come of this," he said.

"Why not?"

"Never does, cocky, from lies and deceptions. Sooner or later you'll find you've gone and got yourself into a nasty mess with these what I might call subterfuges. 'Oh, what a tangled web we weave, when first we practise to deceive!' I used to recite that as a nipper. Many a time I remember my old uncle Fred giving me a bag of peppermints to stop. Said it 'ampered 'im in the digesting of his dinner. Used to keep the peppermints handy, in case I started. Well, if you're not stinko, what are you looking like that for?"

"Like what?"

"Like the way you are. You look like three penn'orth of last week's cat's meat," said Augustus Robb, who was nothing if not frank.

In ordinary circumstances Stanwood might have hesitated to confide his more intimate secrets to the flapping ears of one whose manner he sometimes found a little familiar and who, he suspected, needed but very slight encouragement to become more familiar still. But a great sorrow had just come into his life, earthquakes and black frosts had been playing havoc with his garden of dreams, and at such moments the urge to tell all to anyone who happens to be handy cannot be resisted.

"If you really want to know," he said hollowly, "my heart's broken."

"Coo! Is it?" Augustus Robb was surprised and intrigued. "Lumme, no that this Stoker jane of yours is in London and you 'aven't got to leave her, I'd have thought you'd have been as happy as a lark. What's gone wrong? Been playing you up, has she? Always the way with these spoiled public favorites. You young fellows will keep giving them flattery and adulation, when what they really need is a good clump over the ear'ole, and that makes 'em get above themselves. Found somebody else, has she, and gone and handed you your hat? I thought something like that would happen."

Stanwood groaned. He was finding his companion's attitude trying, but the urge to confide still persisted.

"No, it's not that. But I went to see her just now—"

"Shouldn't have done that, cocky. Rash step to take. Girls often wake up cross after a binge."

"She wasn't cross. But she told me she had been thinking it over and had made up her mind she wasn't going to get married again unless the fellow had money."

"Mercenary, eh? You're well out of it, chum."

"She's not mercenary, blast you."

"Language!"

"It's just that she says she's tried it a couple of times and it doesn't work. She says you can't stop marriage being a bust if the wife has all the dough."

Augustus Robb seated himself on the sofa and, having shifted his employer's knees to one side, for they were interfering with his comfort, put the tips of his fingers together like Counsel preparing to give an opinion in chambers.

"Well, she's quite right," he said. "You can't get away from that. I wouldn't have thought a Hollywood star would have had so much sense. Never does for the old man to have to keep running to the missus every time he wants a bob for a packet of gaspers or half a dollar to put on some 'orse he's heard good reports of. Prevents him being master in the 'ome, if you follow my meaning. It's 'appened in me own family. My uncle Reginald—"

"Damn your uncle Reginald!"

"Language again." Augustus Robb rose, offended. "Very well, I was going to tell you about him, and now I won't. But the fact remains she's perfectly correct. I'd have thought you'd have seen that for yourself. You don't want to be supported by your old woman, do you? Where's your self-respect?"

"To hell with self-respect!"

"Language once more. I wonder if you've ever considered the risk you're running of everlasting fire? Well what are you going to do about it?"

"I don't know."

"Nor me. Well, I'll tell you what I'll do, seeing that things has arrived at such a pass that it's only 'umane to relax the rules a bit. I'll fetch you a brandy and soda."

"Make it brandy straight."

"All right, churn, if you prefer it. No use spoiling the ship for a ha'p'orth of tar."

It was some little time before Augustus Robb returned, for a ring at the front doorbell had delayed him. When he did so, he found his employer sitting up and taking nourishment in the shape of a cigarette.

"I'll tell you what I'm going to do," said Stanwood, accepting the brandy gratefully. He had the air of one who has been thinking things over. "I'm going to talk her out of it."

Augustus Robb shook his head.

"Can't see how that's to be done," he said. "You aren't in the posish. It would mean pursuing 'er with your addresses; going to 'er and pleading with 'er, if you see what I mean, using all the eloquence at your disposal."

"That's what I'm going to do."

"No, you're not, chum. Talk sense. How can you pursue her with your addresses if she's in London and you're in the country? It's the identical am-parce Mr. Cardinal found himself up against, only there the little parcel of goods was in the country and 'im in London. Still, the principle's the same."

Stanwood, though feeling better after the brandy, was still ill disposed to listen to the gibberings of a valet who appeared to have become mentally deranged. He stared bleakly at Augusuts Robb.

"What are you talking about? I told you I wasn't going to the country."

"But you'll have to, chum, now this cable's arrived."

"What cable?"

Augustus Robb slapped his forehead self-reproachfully.

"Forgot you 'adn't seen it. Be forgettin' me own 'ead next. It come while I was fetching you that brandy, and I was reading it in the hall and left it on the hall table. It's from your pop. There's been a new development."

"Oh, my God! What's happened now?"

"It's about these photografts."

"What photographs?"

"All right, all right, don't bustle me. I'm coming to that. It's a long cable, and I can't remember it all, but here's the nub. Your pop, taking it for granted, as you might say, that you're going to this Beevor Castle, says he wants you to send along a lot of photografts of its interior, with you in 'em."

"What!"

"Yus. Seems funny," said Augustus Robb with an indulgent smile, "anyone wanting photografts of a dial like yours, don't it? But there's a reason. He don't say so in so many words, but, reading between the lines, as the expression is, it's obvious that why he wants 'em is so's he can show 'em around among his cronies in New York and stick on dog. See what I mean? He meets one of his gentlemen friends at the club or wherever it may be, and the gentleman friend says, Tell me, cocky, what's become of that son of yours? Don't seem to have seen 'im around in quite a while.' 'Ho,' says your pop. 'Ain't you 'card? He's residing with this aristocratic English earl at his old-world castle.' 'Coo!' says his pal. 'An earl?' 'Yus,' says your pop. 'One of the best of'em, and the castle has to be seen to be believed. My boy's just sent me some photografts of the place. Look, this is 'im lounging in the amber droring room, and 'ere's another where he's sauntering around the portrait gallery. Nice little place, ain't it, and they treat him like one of the family, he tells me.' And then he puffs out his blinkin' chest and goes off to tell the tale to someone else. Sinful pride, of course, like Jeshurun who waxed fat and kicked, but there you are."