Thank You, Jeeves

A few moments later, while I was still wondering what it was all about and generally turning the thing over in my mind, I observed Jeeves looming up on the right flank.

I was glad to see him. I desired enlightment.

'What was all that, Jeeves?'

'The disturbance, sir?'

'It sounded as if little Seabury was being murdered. No such luck, I take it?'

'The young gentleman was the victim of a personal assault, sir. At the hands of Sir Roderick Glossop. I was not an actual eyewitness of the episode. I derive my information from Mary, the parlourmaid, who was present in person.'

'Present?'

'Peeping through the door, sir. Sir Roderick's appearance when she encountered him by chance on the stairs seems to have affected the girl powerfully, and she tells me that she had followed him about in a stealthy manner ever since, waiting to see what he would do next. I gather that his aspect fascinated her. She is inclined to be somewhat frivolous in her mental attitude, like so many of these young girls, sir.'

'And what occurred?'

'The affair may be said to have had its inception, sir, when Sir Roderick, passing through the hall, stepped upon the young gentleman's butter-slide.'

'Ah! So he put that project through, did he?'

'Yes, sir.'

'And Sir Roderick came a stinker?'

'He appears to have fallen with some heaviness, sir. The girl Mary spoke of it with a good deal of animation. She compared his descent to the delivery of a ton of coals. I confess the imagery somewhat surprised me, for she is not a highly imaginative girl.'

I smiled appreciatively. The evening, I felt, might have begun rockily, but it was certainly ending well.

'Incensed by this, Sir Roderick appears to have hastened to the drawing-room, where he immediately subjected Master Seabury to a severe castigation. Her ladyship vainly endeavoured to induce him to desist, but he was firm in his refusal. The upshot of the matter was a definite rift between her ladyship and Sir Roderick, the former stating that she never wished to see him again, the latter asseverating that, if he could once get safely out of this pestilential house, he would never darken its doors again.'

'A real mix-up.'

'Yes, sir.'

'And the engagement's off?'

'Yes, sir. The affection which her ladyship felt for Sir Roderick was instantaneously swept away on the tidal wave of injured mother love.'

'Rather well put, Jeeves.'

'Thank you, sir.'

'Then Sir Roderick has pushed off for ever?'

'Apparently, sir.'

'A lot of trouble Chuffnell Hall is seeing these days. Almost as if there was a curse on the place.'

'If one were superstitious, one might certainly suppose so, sir.'

'Well, if there wasn't a curse on it before, you can bet there are about fifty-seven now. I heard old Glossop applying them as he passed.'

'He was much moved, I take it, sir?'

'Very much moved, Jeeves.'

'So I should imagine, sir. Or he would scarcely have left the house in that condition.'

'How do you mean?'

'Well, sir, if you consider. It will scarcely be feasible for him to return to his hotel in the existing circumstances. His appearance would excite remark. Nor, after what has occurred, can he very well return to the Hall.'

I saw what he was driving at.

'Good Lord, Jeeves! You open up a new line of thought. Let me just review this. He can't go to his hotel – no, I see that, and he can't crawl back to the Dowager Lady C and ask for shelter – no, I see that too. It's a dead stymie. I can't imagine what on earth he'll do.'

'It is something of a problem, sir.'

I was silent for a moment. Pensive. And, oddly enough, for you would have thought my mood would have been one of sober joy, the heart was really rather bleeding a bit.

'Do you know, Jeeves, scurvily as that man has treated me in the past, I can't help feeling sorry for him. I do, absolutely. He's in such an awful jam. It was bad enough for me being a black-faced wanderer, but I hadn't the position to keep up that he has. I mean to say, the world, observing me in this condition, might quite easily just have shrugged its shoulders and murmured "Young Blood!" or words to that effect, what?'

'Yes, sir.'

'But not with a bloke of his standing.'

'Very true, sir.'

'Well, well, well! Dear, dear, dear! I suppose, if you come right down to it, this is the vengeance of Heaven.'

'Quite possibly, sir.'

It isn't often that I point the moral, but I couldn't help doing it now.

'It just shows how we ought always to be kind, even to the humblest, Jeeves. For years this Glossop has trampled on my face with spiked shoes, and see where it has landed him. What would have happened if we had been on chummy terms at this juncture? He would have been on velvet. Observing him shooting past just now, I should have stopped him. I should have called out to him "Hi, Sir Roderick, half a second. Don't go roaming about the place in make-up. Stick around here for a while and pretty soon Jeeves will be arriving with the necessary butter, and all will be well." Shouldn't I have said that, Jeeves?'

'Something of that general trend, no doubt, sir.'

'And he would have been saved from this fearful situation, this sore strait, in which he now finds himself. I dare say that man won't be able to get butter till well on in the morning. Not even then, if he hasn't money on the person. And all because he wouldn't treat me decently in the past. Makes you think a bit, that, Jeeves, what?'

'Yes, sir.'

'But it's no use talking about it, of course. What's done is done.'

'Very true, sir. The moving finger writes and, having writ, moves on, nor all your piety and wit can lure it back to cancel half a line, nor all your tears wash out a word of it.'

'Quite. And now, Jeeves, the butter. I must be getting about my business.'

He sighed in a respectful sort of way.

'I am extremely sorry to be obliged to inform you, sir, that, owing to Master Seabury having used it all for his slide, there is no butter in the house.'

16 TROUBLE AT THE DOWER HOUSE

I stood there with my hand out, frozen to the spot. The faculties seemed numbed. I remember once, when I was in New York, one of those sad-eyed Italian kids who whizz about Washington Square on roller skates suddenly projected himself with extraordinary violence at my waistcoat as I strolled to and fro, taking the air. He reached journey's end right on the third button from the top, and I had much the same sensation now as I had had then. A sort of stricken feeling. Stunned. Breathless. As if somebody had walloped the old soul unexpectedly with a sandbag.

'What!'

'Yes, sir.'

'No butter?'

'No butter, sir.'

'But, Jeeves, this is frightful.'

'Most disturbing, sir.'

If Jeeves has a fault, it is that his demeanour on these occasions too frequently tends to be rather more calm and unemotional than one could wish. One lodges no protest, as a rule, because he generally has the situation well in hand and loses no time in coming before the Board with one of his ripe solutions. But I have often felt that I could do with a little more leaping about with rolling eyeballs on his part, and I felt it now. At a moment like the present, the adjective 'disturbing' seemed to me to miss the facts by about ten parasangs.

'But what shall I do?'

'I fear that it will be necessary to postpone the cleansing of your face till a later date, sir. I shall be in a position to supply you with butter to-morrow.'

'But to-night?'

'To-night, I am afraid, sir, you must be content to remain in statu quo.'