“Who is it?” I would have said it long before, but the shock had made me swallow a bit of roll the wrong way. “Who is it?”
“Sir Roderick Glossop’s[91] daughter, Honoria.”
“No, no!” I cried.
“Don’t be silly, Bertie. She is just the wife for you.”
“Yes, but look here—”
“She will mould you[92].”
“But I don’t want to be moulded.”
Aunt Agatha looked at me strictly.
“Bertie! I hope you are not going to be troublesome.”
“Well, but I mean—”
“Lady Glossop has very kindly invited you to Ditteredge Hall for a few days. I told her you would be delighted to come down tomorrow.”
“I’m sorry, but I’ve got an important engagement tomorrow.”
“What engagement?”
““Well—er—”
“You have no engagement. And, even if you had, you must put it off[93]. I shall be very seriously annoyed, Bertie, if you do not go to Ditteredge Hall tomorrow.”
“Oh, right!” I said.
I felt the old fighting spirit of the Woosters reasserted itself. And I wanted to shoe Jeeves that I could act without a bit of help from him. Ordinarily, of course, I should have consulted him and trusted to him to solve the difficulty; but after what I had heard him saying in the kitchen, I didn’t want to demean myself. When I got home I addressed him:
“Jeeves,” I said, “I’m in a bit of a difficulty.”
“I’m sorry to hear that, sir.”
“Yes, quite a bad hole.”
“If I could be of any assistance, sir—”
“Oh, no. No, no. Thanks very much, but no, no. I won’t trouble you. I’ve no doubt I shall be able to manage it myself.”
“Very good, sir.”
So that was that.
Honoria was away when I got to Ditteredge on the following afternoon. Her mother told me that she was staying with some people named Braythwayt[94] in the neighbourhood, and would be back next day, bringing the daughter of the house with her for a visit. She said I would find Oswald in the park.
Rather decent, the parks at Ditteredge. A couple of terraces, a bit of lawn with a cedar on it, a bit of shrubbery, and finally a small but goodish lake with a stone bridge running across it. I’d walked round the shrubbery and found young Bingo leaning against the bridge smoking a cigarette. Sitting on the stonework, fishing, was a kid whom I took to be that pestilential Oswald.
Bingo was both surprised and delighted to see me, and introduced me to the kid. If the latter was surprised and delighted too, he concealed it like a diplomat. He just looked at me, raised his eyebrows slightly, and went on fishing. He was one of those supercilious striplings who give you the impression that you went to the wrong school and that your clothes don’t fit.
“This is Oswald,” said Bingo.
“Nice to meet you,” I replied cordially, “How are you?”
“Oh, all right,” said the kid.
“Nice place.”
“Oh, all right,” said the kid.
“Having a good time fishing?”
“Oh, all right,” said the kid.
Young Bingo invited me to walk a little.
“Oh, that Oswald’s is so talkative! Does it make your head ache sometimes?” I asked.
Bingo sighed.
“It’s a hard job.”
“What’s a hard job?”
“Loving him.”
“Do you love him?” I asked, surprised. I shouldn’t have thought it could be done.
“I try to,” said young Bingo, “for Her sake. She’s coming back tomorrow, Bertie.”
“So I heard.”
“She is coming, my love, my own—”
“Absolutely,” I said. “But about young Oswald once more. Do you have to be with him all day? How do you manage it?”
“Oh, he doesn’t give much trouble. When we aren’t working he sits on that bridge all the time, trying to catch tiddlers.”
“Why don’t you shove him in?”
“Shove him in?”
“It seems to me reasonable,” I said, regarding the stripling’s back with dislike. “It would wake him up a bit.”
Bingo shook his head.
“Your proposition attracts me,” he said, “but I’m afraid it can’t be done. You see, She would never forgive me. She is devoted to the little brute.”
“Oh Lord!” I cried. “Bingo, what would Jeeves have done?”
“How do you mean[95], what would Jeeves have done?”
“I mean what would he have advised in a case like yours? I mean you want to make an impression upon Honoria Glossop and all that. Jeeves would have got me to lure Honoria on to the bridge somehow; then, at the proper time, he would have told me to shove the kid in, the kid would have fallen into the water; and then you would have appeared and saved him out. How about it?”
“Have you invented this yourself, Bertie?” said young Bingo, in a hushed sort of voice.
“Yes, I have. Jeeves isn’t the only fellow with ideas.”
“But it’s absolutely wonderful.”
“Just a suggestion.”
“The only objection I can see is that it would be awkward for you. I mean to say, suppose the kid turned round and said you had shoved him in, that would make you unpopular with Her.”
“I don’t mind.”
The man was deeply moved.
“Bertie, this is noble.”
“No, no.”
He clasped my hand silently, then chuckled.
“Now what?” I said.
“I was only thinking,” said young Bingo, “about wet Oswald! Oh, happy day!”
6
The Hero’s Reward
I don’t know if you’ve noticed it, but nothing in this world ever seems to be absolutely perfect. The fact that Jeeves wouldn’t be on the spot to watch me in action distressed me. The beauty of the plan was, you see, that nothing could possibly go wrong. Oswald and Bingo were on the spot all day long, so all I had to worry about was getting Honoria there in due time. And I managed that very easily, by asking her if she would come for a stroll in the park with me, as I had something particular to say to her.
She had arrived shortly after lunch in the car with the Braythwayt girl. I was introduced to the latter, a tall girl with blue eyes and fair hair. I liked her—she was so unlike Honoria—and, I would rather talk to her for a bit. But business was business—I had fixed it up with Bingo to be behind the bushes at three o’clock, so I took Honoria through the park in the direction of the lake.
“You’re very quiet, Mr Wooster,” she said.
Yes, I was concentrating. We had just come in sight of the lake, and I looked around to see that everything was in order. Everything appeared to be as arranged. The kid Oswald was sitting on the bridge; and Bingo wasn’t visible. Surely, he had got into position. It was two minutes past three.
“Eh?” I said. “Oh, ah, yes. I was just thinking.”
“You said you had something important to say to me.”
“Absolutely!” I had decided to help young Bingo. I mean to say, without actually mentioning his name, I wanted to prepare the girl’s mind for the fact that there was someone who had long loved her and all that sort of things.
“It’s like this,” I said. “It may sound funny and all that, but there’s somebody who’s in love with you and so forth—a friend of mine, you know.”
“Oh, a friend of yours?”
“Yes.”
She gave a kind of a laugh.
“Well, why doesn’t he tell me so?”
“Well, you see, that’s the sort of chap he is. Very shy. Hasn’t got the nerve. Looks on you as a sort of goddess. Worships the ground you tread on.”