P G Wodehouse – Man Upstairs

But things had gone wrong. As he leaned out of his bed room window at the end of the first week, preparatory to dressing for dinner, he was more than half inclined to make some excuse and get right out of the place next day. The bland dignity of Keggs had taken all the heart out of him.

Nor was it Keggs alone who had driven his thoughts towards flight. Keggs was merely a passive evil, like toothache or a rainy day. What had begun actively to make the place impossible was a perfectly pestilential young man of the name of Barstowe.

The house-party at the Keiths had originally been, from Martin’s view-point, almost ideal. The rest of the men were of the speechless, moustache-tugging breed. They had come to shoot, and they shot. When they were not shooting they congregated in the billiard-room and devoted their powerful intellects exclusively to snooker-pool, leaving Martin free to talk undisturbed to Elsa. He had been doing this for five days with great contentment when Aubrey Barstowe arrived. Mrs. Keith had developed of late leanings towards culture. If her town house a charge of small-shot, fired in any direction on a Thursday afternoon, could not have failed to bring down a poet, a novelist, or a painter. Aubrey Barstowe, author on The Soul’s Eclipse and other poems, was a constant member of the crowd. A youth of insinuating manners, he had appealed to Mrs. Keith from the start; and unfortunately the virus had extended to Elsa. Many a pleasant, sunshiny Thursday afternoon had been poisoned for Martin by the sight of Aubrey and Elsa together on a distant settee, matching temperaments.

The rest is too painful. It was a rout. The poet did not shoot, so that when Martin returned of an evening his rival was about five hours of soul-to-soul talk up and only two to play. And those two, the after-dinner hours, which had once been the hours for which Martin had lived, were pure torture.

So engrossed was he with his thoughts that the first intimation he had that he was not alone in the room was a genteel cough. Behind him, holding a small can, was Keggs.

“Your ‘ot water, sir,” said the butler, austerely but not unkindly.

Keggs was a man-one must use that word, though it seems grossly inadequate-of medium height, pigeon-toed at the base, bulgy half-way up, and bald at the apex. His manner was restrained and dignified, his voice soft and grave.

But it was his eye that quelled Martin. That cold, blue, dukes-have-treated-me-as-an-elder-brother-eye.

He fixed it upon him now, as he added, placing the can on the floor. ‘It is Frederick’s duty, but to-night I hundertook it.”

Martin had no answer. He was dazed. Keggs had spoken with the proud humility of an emperor compelled by misfortune to shine shoes.

Might I have a word with you, sir?”

“Ye-e-ss, yes,” stammered Martin. “Won’t you take a-I mean, yes, certainly.”

“It is perhaps a liberty,” began Keggs. He paused, and raked Martin with the eye that had rested on dining dukes.

“Not at all,” said Martin, hurriedly.

“I should like,” went on Keggs, bowing, “to speak to you on a somewhat intimate subject-Miss Elsa.”

Martin’s eyes and mouth opened slowly.

“You are going the wrong way to work, if you will allow me to say so, sir.”

Martin’s jaw dropped another inch.

“Wha-a-”

“Women, sir,” proceeded Keggs, “young ladies-are peculiar. I have had, if I may say so, certain hopportunities of observing their ways. Miss Elsa reminds me in some respects of Lady Angelica Fendall, whom I had the honour of knowing when I was butler to her father, Lord Stockleigh. Her lady-ship was hinclined to be romantic. She was fond of poetry, like Miss Elsa. She would sit by the hour, sir, listening to young Mr. Knox reading Tennyson, which was no part of his duties, he being employed by his lordship to teach Lord Bertie Latin and Greek and what not. You may have noticed, sir, that young ladies is often took by Tennyson, hespecially in the summer-time. Mr. Barstowe was reading Tennyson to Miss Elsa in the ‘all when I passed through just now. The Princess, if I am not mistaken.”