It went well. No question about that. For the first time, a smile lit up Aunt Dahlia’s drawn face. Uncle Tom grunted approvingly. Anatole said something in Provencal that sounded complimentary. And I thought I detected even on Angela’s map a slight softening.
“A very excellent idea,” said Aunt Dahlia. “One of the best. Nip round to the garage at once.”
After Tuppy had gone, some extremely flattering things were said about his intelligence and resource, and there was a disposition to draw rather invidious comparisons between him and Bertram. Painful for me, of course, but the ordeal didn’t last long, for it couldn’t have been more than five minutes before he was with us again.
Tuppy seemed perturbed.
“I say, it’s all off.”
“Why?”
“The garage is locked.”
“Unlock it.”
“I haven’t the key.”
“Shout, then, and wake Waterbury.”
“Who’s Waterbury?”
“The chauffeur, ass. He sleeps over the garage.”
“But he’s gone to the dance at Kingham.”
It was the final wallop. Until this moment, Aunt Dahlia had been able to preserve her frozen calm. The dam now burst. The years rolled away from her, and she was once more the Dahlia Wooster of the old yoicks-and-tantivy days—the emotional, free-speaking girl who had so often risen in her stirrups to yell derogatory personalities at people who were heading hounds.
“Curse all dancing chauffeurs! What on earth does a chauffeur want to dance for? I mistrusted that man from the start. Something told me he was a dancer. Well, this finishes it. We’re out here till breakfast-time. If those blasted servants come back before eight o’clock, I shall be vastly surprised. You won’t get Seppings away from a dance till you throw him out. I know him. The jazz’ll go to his head, and he’ll stand clapping and demanding encores till his hands blister. Damn all dancing butlers! What is Brinkley Court? A respectable English country house or a crimson dancing school? One might as well be living in the middle of the Russian Ballet. Well, all right. If we must stay out here, we must. We shall all be frozen stiff, except”—here she directed at me not one of her friendliest glances–-“except dear old Attila, who is, I observe, well and warmly clad. We will resign ourselves to the prospect of freezing to death like the Babes in the Wood, merely expressing a dying wish that our old pal Attila will see that we are covered with leaves. No doubt he will also toll that fire bell of his as a mark of respect—And what might you want, my good man?”
She broke off, and stood glaring at Jeeves. During the latter portion of her address, he had been standing by in a respectful manner, endeavouring to catch the speaker’s eye.
“If I might make a suggestion, madam.”
I am not saying that in the course of our long association I have always found myself able to view Jeeves with approval. There are aspects of his character which have frequently caused coldnesses to arise between us. He is one of those fellows who, if you give them a thingummy, take a what-d’you-call-it. His work is often raw, and he has been known to allude to me as “mentally negligible”. More than once, as I have shown, it has been my painful task to squelch in him a tendency to get uppish and treat the young master as a serf or peon.
These are grave defects.
But one thing I have never failed to hand the man. He is magnetic. There is about him something that seems to soothe and hypnotize. To the best of my knowledge, he has never encountered a charging rhinoceros, but should this contingency occur, I have no doubt that the animal, meeting his eye, would check itself in mid-stride, roll over and lie purring with its legs in the air.
At any rate he calmed down Aunt Dahlia, the nearest thing to a charging rhinoceros, in under five seconds. He just stood there looking respectful, and though I didn’t time the thing—not having a stop-watch on me—I should say it wasn’t more than three seconds and a quarter before her whole manner underwent an astounding change for the better. She melted before one’s eyes.