1.
I awoke at my customary early hour, around ten am, slightly alarmed to discover that the bed was tipping gently from side to side. It must have been a good night at the Drones Club last night.
I smiled, then frowned, as I failed utterly to recall having been in the Drones Club. It must have been a very good night in the Drones Club last night. Getting up was going to require professional assistance.
“Jeeves!” I called, weakly. I needn’t have bothered, the man had a sixth sense for knowing when I was awake. I opened an eye experimentally, and there he was, fully equipped with a steaming hot cup of tea. I searched the tray for any sign of his potent morning after restorative, but I searched in vain.
“Jeeves? Where’s your magic potion?”
“Sir?”
“I need some of your ‘morning after’ jollop, Jeeves. The room is swaying.”
“The room is swaying, sir, due to the effects of the North Atlantic. We are at sea, sir.”
I was about to tell him not to be a dratted fool when I remembered. We really were at sea. This was not my bedroom in Berkeley Mansions but it was a cabin aboard the SS Cruxton Abbey, en route from Southampton to New York.
“Ah, yes. Aunt Eulalia.”
“Indeed so, sir.”
“And the Dowager Countess Deborah of High Groaning.”
“Absolutely, sir.”
“Spike Sharp and the Crux Chronicle.”
“It was most unfortunate, sir, that he happened to be outside Madame Messaline’s at the precise moment that Lord Jollyrei and yourself emerged.”
I sipped some tea, moodily. “Lurking with his camera like that. The man’s a bounder, Jeeves.”
“Indeed he is, sir.”
“A cad.”
“Very true, sir.”
“He should be horsewhipped.”
“Such a course of action would be inadvisable, sir. It could only lead to further adverse publicity for Lord Jollyrei and yourself.”
“Meanwhile, Aunt Eulalia is disinheriting me.” While not wishing any ill to the aged relative, she had quite a pile in the Northern Forest, and one does mathematics when contemplating the future. But she had not been best pleased to see her nephew on the front page of the Crux Chronicle, and now I feared that the mathematics of the future for Wragg, B. might well involve sitting in the street with a hat and a scruffy dog.
“I fear so, sir.”
“And the Dowager’s done the same to poor Jolly.”
“I am given to understand that her Ladyship has indeed embarked upon such a course of action, sir.”
“I don’t suppose….?”
“No, sir. I am afraid not. Lord Jollyrei has asked if you will join him for lunch in the restaurant, sir. I have laid out your morning suit.” And with that, he departed.
I had feared as much. The man was in a huff. Jollyrei and I had hatched up a plan to take flight across the Atlantic, endeavouring to put a healthy stretch of ocean between my Aunt and his mother, who were both extremely anxious to have heart to heart conversations with us about that blasted Crux Chronicle article. We were equally anxious to avoid such interviews, and George Windar had extended an open invitation for us to visit him in America. No time like the present, what? The only problem was that Jeeves had had his heart set on a trip to the South of France, a scheme which I had shelved indefinitely in preference to old Windar’s hospitality. As a result, he was being distinctly frosty, and was steadfastly refusing to come up with a scheme to put me back into Aunt Eulalia’s good books.
I sighed, my only hope being that absence would make Aunt Eulalia’s heart grow fonder. A very faint hope, I knew only too well that Aunt Eulalia was apt to bear a grudge for a long time.
I awoke at my customary early hour, around ten am, slightly alarmed to discover that the bed was tipping gently from side to side. It must have been a good night at the Drones Club last night.
I smiled, then frowned, as I failed utterly to recall having been in the Drones Club. It must have been a very good night in the Drones Club last night. Getting up was going to require professional assistance.
“Jeeves!” I called, weakly. I needn’t have bothered, the man had a sixth sense for knowing when I was awake. I opened an eye experimentally, and there he was, fully equipped with a steaming hot cup of tea. I searched the tray for any sign of his potent morning after restorative, but I searched in vain.
“Jeeves? Where’s your magic potion?”
“Sir?”
“I need some of your ‘morning after’ jollop, Jeeves. The room is swaying.”
“The room is swaying, sir, due to the effects of the North Atlantic. We are at sea, sir.”
I was about to tell him not to be a dratted fool when I remembered. We really were at sea. This was not my bedroom in Berkeley Mansions but it was a cabin aboard the SS Cruxton Abbey, en route from Southampton to New York.
“Ah, yes. Aunt Eulalia.”
“Indeed so, sir.”
“And the Dowager Countess Deborah of High Groaning.”
“Absolutely, sir.”
“Spike Sharp and the Crux Chronicle.”
“It was most unfortunate, sir, that he happened to be outside Madame Messaline’s at the precise moment that Lord Jollyrei and yourself emerged.”
I sipped some tea, moodily. “Lurking with his camera like that. The man’s a bounder, Jeeves.”
“Indeed he is, sir.”
“A cad.”
“Very true, sir.”
“He should be horsewhipped.”
“Such a course of action would be inadvisable, sir. It could only lead to further adverse publicity for Lord Jollyrei and yourself.”
“Meanwhile, Aunt Eulalia is disinheriting me.” While not wishing any ill to the aged relative, she had quite a pile in the Northern Forest, and one does mathematics when contemplating the future. But she had not been best pleased to see her nephew on the front page of the Crux Chronicle, and now I feared that the mathematics of the future for Wragg, B. might well involve sitting in the street with a hat and a scruffy dog.
“I fear so, sir.”
“And the Dowager’s done the same to poor Jolly.”
“I am given to understand that her Ladyship has indeed embarked upon such a course of action, sir.”
“I don’t suppose….?”
“No, sir. I am afraid not. Lord Jollyrei has asked if you will join him for lunch in the restaurant, sir. I have laid out your morning suit.” And with that, he departed.
I had feared as much. The man was in a huff. Jollyrei and I had hatched up a plan to take flight across the Atlantic, endeavouring to put a healthy stretch of ocean between my Aunt and his mother, who were both extremely anxious to have heart to heart conversations with us about that blasted Crux Chronicle article. We were equally anxious to avoid such interviews, and George Windar had extended an open invitation for us to visit him in America. No time like the present, what? The only problem was that Jeeves had had his heart set on a trip to the South of France, a scheme which I had shelved indefinitely in preference to old Windar’s hospitality. As a result, he was being distinctly frosty, and was steadfastly refusing to come up with a scheme to put me back into Aunt Eulalia’s good books.
I sighed, my only hope being that absence would make Aunt Eulalia’s heart grow fonder. A very faint hope, I knew only too well that Aunt Eulalia was apt to bear a grudge for a long time.
At sea, there are not even newspapers to while away the morning hours, so I entertained myself with a second-rate whodunit until it was time to go and meet Jollyrei.