“Derisively,” I explained. “I won’t do it. That’s final. I simply will not do it.”
“You will do it, young Bertie, or never darken my doors again. And you know what that means. No more of Anatole’s dinners for you.”
A strong shudder shook me. She was alluding to her chef, that superb artist. A monarch of his profession, unsurpassed—nay, unequalled—at dishing up the raw material so that it melted in the mouth of the ultimate consumer, Anatole had always been a magnet that drew me to Brinkley Court with my tongue hanging out. Many of my happiest moments had been those which I had spent champing this great man’s roasts and ragouts, and the prospect of being barred from digging into them in the future was a numbing one.
“No, I say, dash it!”
“I thought that would rattle you. Greedy young pig.”
“Greedy young pigs have nothing to do with it,” I said with a touch of hauteur. “One is not a greedy young pig because one appreciates the cooking of a genius.”
“Well, I will say I like it myself,” conceded the relative. “But not another bite of it do you get, if you refuse to do this simple, easy, pleasant job. No, not so much as another sniff. So put that in your twelve-inch cigarette-holder and smoke it.”
I began to feel like some wild thing caught in a snare.
“But why do you want me? I mean, what am I? Ask yourself that.”
“I often have.”
“I mean to say, I’m not the type. You have to have some terrific nib to give away prizes. I seem to remember, when I was at school, it was generally a prime minister or somebody.”
“Ah, but that was at Eton. At Market Snodsbury we aren’t nearly so choosy. Anybody in spats impresses us.”
“Why don’t you get Uncle Tom?”
“Uncle Tom!”
“Well, why not? He’s got spats.”
“Bertie,” she said, “I will tell you why not Uncle Tom. You remember me losing all that money at baccarat at Cannes? Well, very shortly I shall have to sidle up to Tom and break the news to him. If, right after that, I ask him to put on lavender gloves and a topper and distribute the prizes at Market Snodsbury Grammar School, there will be a divorce in the family. He would pin a note to the pincushion and be off like a rabbit. No, my lad, you’re for it, so you may as well make the best of it.”
“But, Aunt Dahlia, listen to reason. I assure you, you’ve got hold of the wrong man. I’m hopeless at a game like that. Ask Jeeves about the time I got lugged in to address a girls’ school. I made the most colossal ass of myself.”
“And I confidently anticipate that you will make an equally colossal ass of yourself on the thirty-first of this month. That’s why I want you. The way I look at it is that, as the thing is bound to be a frost, anyway, one may as well get a hearty laugh out of it. I shall enjoy seeing you distribute those prizes, Bertie. Well, I won’t keep you, as, no doubt, you want to do your Swedish exercises. I shall expect you in a day or two.”
And with these heartless words she beetled off, leaving me a prey to the gloomiest emotions. What with the natural reaction after Pongo’s party and this stunning blow, it is not too much to say that the soul was seared.
And I was still writhing in the depths, when the door opened and Jeeves appeared.
“Mr. Fink-Nottle to see you, sir,” he announced.
-5-
I gave him one of my looks.
“Jeeves,” I said, “I had scarcely expected this of you. You are aware that I was up to an advanced hour last night. You know that I have barely had my tea. You cannot be ignorant of the effect of that hearty voice of Aunt Dahlia’s on a man with a headache. And yet you come bringing me Fink-Nottles. Is this a time for Fink or any other kind of Nottle?”
“But did you not give me to understand, sir, that you wished to see Mr. Fink-Nottle to advise him on his affairs?”