“Oh, I say, can you?” said the child, with marked pleasure.
“Where do you want to go?”
“There’s a turning to the left about a mile farther on. If you’ll put me down there, I’ll walk the rest of the way. I say, thanks awfully. I’ve got a nail in my shoe.”
She climbed in at the back. A red-haired young person with a snub nose and an extremely large grin. Her age, I should imagine, would be about twelve. She let down one of the spare seats, and knelt on it to facilitate conversation.
“I’m going to get into a frightful row,” she began. “Miss Tomlinson will be perfectly furious.”
“No, really?” said the guv’nor.
“Per-fectly furious, my dear! It’s a half-holiday, you know, and I sneaked away to Brighton, because I wanted to go on the pier and put pennies in the slot-machines. I thought I could get back in time so that nobody would notice I’d gone, but I got this nail in my shoe, and now there’ll be a fearful row. Oh, well,” she said, with a philosophy which, I confess, I admired, “it can’t be helped. What’s your car? A Sunbeam, isn’t it? We’ve got a Wolseley at home.”
The guv’nor was visibly perturbed. As I have indicated, he was at this time in a highly malleable frame of mind, tender-hearted to a degree where the young of the female sex were concerned. Her sad case touched him deeply.
“Oh, I say, this is rather rotten,” he observed. “Isn’t there anything to be done? I say, Jeeves, don’t you think something could be done?”
“It was not my place to make the suggestion, sir,” I replied, “but, as you yourself have brought the matter up, I fancy the trouble is susceptible of adjustment. I think it would be a legitimate subterfuge were you to inform the young lady’s school-mistress that you are an old friend of the young lady’s father. In this case you could inform Miss Tomlinson that you had been passing the school and had seen the young lady at the gate and taken her for a drive. Miss Tomlinson’s chagrin would no doubt in these circumstances be sensibly diminished if not altogether dispersed.”
“Well, you are a sportsman!” observed the young person, with great enthusiasm. And she proceeded to kiss me—in connection with which I have only to say that I was sorry she had just been devouring some sticky species of sweetmeat.
“Jeeves, you’ve hit it!” said the guv’nor. “A sound, even fruity, scheme. I say, I suppose I’d better know your name and all that, if I’m a friend of your father’s.”
“My name’s Peggy Mainwaring, thanks awfully,” said the young person. “And my father’s Professor Mainwaring. He’s written a lot of books. You’ll be expected to know that.”
“Author of the well-known series of philosophical treatises, sir,” I said. “They have a great vogue, though, if the young lady will pardon my saying so, many of the Professor’s opinions strike me personally as somewhat empirical. Shall I drive on to the school, sir?”
“Yes, carry on. I say, Jeeves, it’s a rummy thing. Do you know, I’ve never been inside a girls’ school in my life.”
“Indeed, sir?”
“Ought to be a dashed interesting experience, Jeeves, what?”
“I fancy that you may find it so, sir,” I said.
We drove on a matter of half a mile down a lane, and, directed by the young person, I turned in at the gates of a house of imposing dimensions, bringing the car to a halt at the front door. The guv’nor and the child went in, and presently a parlourmaid came out.
“You’re to take the car round to the stables, please,” she said.
“Ah! Then everything is satisfactory, eh? Where has the guv’nor got to?”
“Miss Peggy has taken him off to meet her friends. And cook says she hopes you’ll step round to the kitchen later and have a cup of tea.”
“Inform her that I shall be delighted. Before I take the car to the stables, would it be possible for me to have a word with Miss Tomlinson?”
A moment later I was following her into the drawing-room.
Handsome but strong-minded—that was how I summed up Miss Tomlinson at first glance. In some ways she recalled to my mind the guv’nor’s Aunt Agatha. She had the same penetrating gaze and that indefinable air of being reluctant to stand any nonsense.
“I fear I am possibly taking a liberty, madam,” I began, “but I am hoping that you will allow me to say a word with respect to my employer. I fancy I am correct in supposing that Mr. Wooster did not tell you a great deal about himself?”
“He told me nothing about himself, except that he was a friend of Professor Mainwaring.”
“He did not inform you, then, that he was the Mr. Wooster?”
“The Mr. Wooster?”
“Bertram Wooster, madam.”
I will say for the guv’nor that, mentally negligible though he no doubt is, he has a name that suggests almost infinite possibilities. He sounds like Someone—especially if you’ve just been told he’s an intimate friend of Professor Mainwaring. You might not be able to say off-hand whether he was Bertram Wooster the novelist, or Bertram Wooster the founder of a new school of thought; but you would have an uneasy feeling that you were exposing your ignorance if you did not give the impression of familiarity with the name. Miss Tomlinson, as I had rather foreseen, nodded brightly.
“Oh, Bertram Wooster!” she said.
“He is an extremely retiring gentleman, madam, and would be the last to suggest it himself, but, knowing him as I do, I am sure that he would take it as a graceful compliment if you were to ask him to address the young ladies. He is an excellent extempore speaker.”
“A very good idea!” said Miss Tomlinson, decidedly. “I am very much obliged to you for suggesting it. I will certainly ask him to talk to the girls.”
“And should he make a pretence—through modesty—of not wishing—— ?”
“I shall insist!”
“Thank you, madam. I am obliged. You will not mention my share in the matter? Mr. Wooster might think that I had exceeded my duties.”
I drove round to the stables and halted the car in the yard. As I got out, I looked at it somewhat intently. It was a good car, and appeared to be in excellent condition, but somehow I seemed to feel that something was going to go wrong with it—something pretty serious—something that wouldn’t be able to be put right again for at least a couple of hours.
One gets these presentiments.
IT may have been some half-hour later that the guv’nor came into the stable-yard as I was leaning against the car and smoking a quiet cigarette.
“No, don’t chuck it away, Jeeves,” he said, as I withdrew the cigarette from my mouth. “As a matter of fact, I’ve come to touch you for a smoke. Got one to spare?”
“Only gaspers, I fear, sir.”
“They’ll do,” responded the guv’nor, with no little eagerness. I observed that his manner was a trifle fatigued and his eye somewhat wild. “It’s a rummy thing, Jeeves, I seem to have lost my cigarette-case. Can’t find it anywhere.”
“I am sorry to hear that, sir. It is not in the car.”
“No? Must have dropped it somewhere, then.” He drew at his gasper with relish. “Jolly creatures, small girls, Jeeves,” he remarked, after a pause.
“Extremely so, sir.”
“Of course, I can imagine some fellows finding them a bit exhausting in—er——”
“En masse, sir?”
“That’s the word. A bit exhausting en masse.”
“I must confess, sir, that that is how they used to strike me. In my younger days, at the outset of my career, sir, I was at one time page-boy in a school for young ladies.”
“No, really? I never knew that before. I say, Jeeves—er—did the—er—dear little souls giggle much in your day?”
“Practically without cessation, sir.”