P G Wodehouse - [Jeeves 02], page 19
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blame her. I had only read a couple of his letters, but they certainly
gave the impression that poor old Rocky was by way of being the
hub of New York night life, and that, if by any chance he failed to
show up at a cabaret, the management said: “What’s the use?” and
put up the shutters.
Th
e next two nights I didn’t come across them, but the night af-
ter that I was sitting by myself at the Maison Pierre when somebody
tapped me on the shoulder-blade, and I found Rocky standing beside
me, with a sort of mixed expression of wistfulness and apoplexy on
his face. How the chappie had contrived to wear my evening clothes
so many times without disaster was a mystery to me. He confi ded
later that early in the proceedings he had slit the waistcoat up the
back and that that had helped a bit.
For a moment I had the idea that he had managed to get away
from his aunt for the evening; but, looking past him, I saw that she
was in again. She was at a table over by the wall, looking at me as if I
were something the management ought to be complained to about.
131
P. G. WODEHOUSE
“Bertie, old scout,” said Rocky, in a quiet, sort of crushed voice,
“we’ve always been pals, haven’t we? I mean, you know I’d do you a
good turn if you asked me?”
“My dear old lad,” I said. Th
e man had moved me.
“Th
en, for Heaven’s sake, come over and sit at our table for the
rest of the evening.”
Well, you know, there are limits to the sacred claims of
friendship.
“My dear chap,” I said, “you know I’d do anything in reason;
but—”
“You must come, Bertie. You’ve got to. Something’s got to be
done to divert her mind. She’s brooding about something. She’s been
like that for the last two days. I think she’s beginning to suspect. She
can’t understand why we never seem to meet anyone I know at these
joints. A few nights ago I happened to run into two newspaper men
I used to know fairly well. Th
at kept me going for a while. I intro-
duced them to Aunt Isabel as David Belasco and Jim Corbett, and
it went well. But the eff ect has worn off now, and she’s beginning
to wonder again. Something’s got to be done, or she will fi nd out
everything, and if she does I’d take a nickel for my chance of getting
a cent from her later on. So, for the love of Mike, come across to our
table and help things along.”
I went along. One has to rally round a pal in distress. Aunt Isa-
bel was sitting bolt upright, as usual. It certainly did seem as if she
had lost a bit of the zest with which she had started out to explore
Broadway. She looked as if she had been thinking a good deal about
rather unpleasant things.
“You’ve met Bertie Wooster, Aunt Isabel?” said Rocky.
“I have.”
Th
ere was something in her eye that seemed to say:
“Out of a city of six million people, why did you pick on me?”
“Take a seat, Bertie. What’ll you have?” said Rocky.
And so the merry party began. It was one of those jolly, happy,
bread-crumbling parties where you cough twice before you speak,
and then decide not to say it after all. After we had had an hour of
this wild dissipation, Aunt Isabel said she wanted to go home. In the
light of what Rocky had been telling me, this struck me as sinister.
I had gathered that at the beginning of her visit she had had to be
dragged home with ropes.
132
MY MAN JEEVES
It must have hit Rocky the same way, for he gave me a pleading
look.
“You’ll come along, won’t you, Bertie, and have a drink at the
fl at?”
I had a feeling that this wasn’t in the contract, but there wasn’t
anything to be done. It seemed brutal to leave the poor chap alone
with the woman, so I went along.
Right from the start, from the moment we stepped into the taxi,
the feeling began to grow that something was about to break loose.
A massive silence prevailed in the corner where the aunt sat, and,
though Rocky, balancing himself on the little seat in front, did his
best to supply dialogue, we weren’t a chatty party.
I had a glimpse of Jeeves as we went into the fl at, sitting in his
lair, and I wished I could have called to him to rally round. Some-
thing told me that I was about to need him.
Th
e stuff was on the table in the sitting-room. Rocky took up
the decanter.
“Say when, Bertie.”
“Stop!” barked the aunt, and he dropped it.
I caught Rocky’s eye as he stooped to pick up the ruins. It was
the eye of one who sees it coming.
“Leave it there, Rockmetteller!” said Aunt Isabel; and Rocky
left it there.
“Th
e time has come to speak,” she said. “I cannot stand idly by
and see a young man going to perdition!”
Poor old Rocky gave a sort of gurgle, a kind of sound rather like
the whisky had made running out of the decanter on to my carpet.
“Eh?” he said, blinking.
Th
e aunt proceeded.
“Th
e fault,” she said, “was mine. I had not then seen the light.
But now my eyes are open. I see the hideous mistake I have made.
I shudder at the thought of the wrong I did you, Rockmetteller, by
urging you into contact with this wicked city.”
I saw Rocky grope feebly for the table. His fi ngers touched it,
and a look of relief came into the poor chappie’s face. I understood
his feelings.
“But when I wrote you that letter, Rockmetteller, instructing
you to go to the city and live its life, I had not had the privilege of
hearing Mr. Mundy speak on the subject of New York.”
133
P. G. WODEHOUSE
“Jimmy Mundy!” I cried.
You know how it is sometimes when everything seems all mixed
up and you suddenly get a clue. When she mentioned Jimmy Mundy
I began to understand more or less what had happened. I’d seen it
happen before. I remember, back in England, the man I had before
Jeeves sneaked off to a meeting on his evening out and came back
and denounced me in front of a crowd of chappies I was giving a bit
of supper to as a moral leper.
Th
e aunt gave me a withering up and down.
“Yes; Jimmy Mundy!” she said. “I am surprised at a man of your
stamp having heard of him. Th
ere is no music, there are no drunken,
dancing men, no shameless, fl aunting women at his meetings; so for
you they would have no attraction. But for others, less dead in sin, he
has his message. He has come to save New York from itself; to force
it – in his picturesque phrase – to hit the trail. It was three days ago,
Rockmetteller, that I fi rst heard him. It was an accident that took
me to his meeting. How often in this life a mere accident may shape
our whole future!
“You had been called away by that telephone message from Mr.
Belasco; so you could not take me to the Hippodrome, as we had
arranged. I asked your manservant, Jeeves, to take me there. Th
e
man has very little intelligence. He seems to have misunderstood
me. I am thankful that he did. He took me to what I subsequently
learned was Madison Square Garden, where Mr. Mundy is holding
his meetings. He escorted me to a seat and then left me. And it was
not till the meeting had begun that I discovered the mistake which
had been made. My seat was in the middle of a row. I could not leave
without inconveniencing a great many people, so I remained.”
She gulped.
“Rockmetteller, I have never been so thankful for anything
else. Mr. Mundy was wonderful! He was like some prophet of old,
scourging the sins of the people. He leaped about in a frenzy of
inspiration till I feared he would do himself an injury. Sometimes
he expressed himself in a somewhat odd manner, but every word
carried conviction. He showed me New York in its true colours. He
showed me the vanity and wickedness of sitting in gilded haunts of
vice, eating lobster when decent people should be in bed.
“He said that the tango and the fox-trot were devices of the devil
to drag people down into the Bottomless Pit. He said that there 134
MY MAN JEEVES
was more sin in ten minutes with a negro banjo orchestra than in
all the ancient revels of Nineveh and Babylon. And when he stood
on one leg and pointed right at where I was sitting and shouted,
‘Th
is means you!’ I could have sunk through the fl oor. I came away
a changed woman. Surely you must have noticed the change in me,
Rockmetteller? You must have seen that I was no longer the careless,
thoughtless person who had urged you to dance in those places of
wickedness?”
Rocky was holding on to the table as if it was his only friend.
“Y-yes,” he stammered; “I – I thought something was wrong.”
“Wrong? Something was right! Everything was right! Rock-
metteller, it is not too late for you to be saved. You have only sipped
of the evil cup. You have not drained it. It will be hard at fi rst, but
you will fi nd that you can do it if you fi ght with a stout heart against the glamour and fascination of this dreadful city. Won’t you, for my
sake, try, Rockmetteller? Won’t you go back to the country to-mor-
row and begin the struggle? Little by little, if you use your will—”
I can’t help thinking it must have been that word “will” that
roused dear old Rocky like a trumpet call. It must have brought
home to him the realisation that a miracle had come off and saved
him from being cut out of Aunt Isabel’s. At any rate, as she said it he
perked up, let go of the table, and faced her with gleaming eyes.
“Do you want me to go back to the country, Aunt Isabel?”
“Yes.”
“Not to live in the country?”
“Yes, Rockmetteller.”
“Stay in the country all the time, do you mean? Never come to
New York?”
“Yes, Rockmetteller; I mean just that. It is the only way. Only
there can you be safe from temptation. Will you do it, Rockmettel-
ler? Will you – for my sake?”
Rocky grabbed the table again. He seemed to draw a lot of en-
couragement from that table.
“I will!” he said.
%
“Jeeves,” I said. It was next day, and I was back in the old fl at, ly-
ing in the old arm-chair, with my feet upon the good old table. I had
just come from seeing dear old Rocky off to his country cottage, and
135
P. G. WODEHOUSE
an hour before he had seen his aunt off to whatever hamlet it was
that she was the curse of; so we were alone at last. “Jeeves, there’s no
place like home – what?”
“Very true, sir.”
“Th
e jolly old roof-tree, and all that sort of thing – what?”
“Precisely, sir.”
I lit another cigarette.
“Jeeves.”
“Sir?”
“Do you know, at one point in the business I really thought you
were baffl
ed.”
“Indeed, sir?”
“When did you get the idea of taking Miss Rockmetteller to the
meeting? It was pure genius!”
“Th
ank you, sir. It came to me a little suddenly, one morning
when I was thinking of my aunt, sir.”
“Your aunt? Th
e hansom cab one?”
“Yes, sir. I recollected that, whenever we observed one of her
attacks coming on, we used to send for the clergyman of the par-
ish. We always found that if he talked to her a while of higher things it diverted her mind from hansom cabs. It occurred to me that the same treatment might prove effi
cacious in the case of Miss
Rockmetteller.”
I was stunned by the man’s resource.
“It’s brain,” I said; “pure brain! What do you do to get like that,
Jeeves? I believe you must eat a lot of fi sh, or something. Do you eat
a lot of fi sh, Jeeves?”
“No, sir.”
“Oh, well, then, it’s just a gift, I take it; and if you aren’t born
that way there’s no use worrying.”
“Precisely, sir,” said Jeeves. “If I might make the suggestion, sir,
I should not continue to wear your present tie. Th
e green shade gives
you a slightly bilious air. I should strongly advocate the blue with the
red domino pattern instead, sir.”
“All right, Jeeves.” I said humbly. “You know!”
*
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