7--Without the Option - (1)

The evidence was all in. The machinery of the law had worked without a hitch. And the beak, having adjusted a pair of pince-nez which looked as though they were going to do a nose dive any moment, coughed like a pained sheep and slipped us the bad news. 'The prisoner, Wooster,' he said--and who can paint the shame and agony of Bertram at hearing himself so described?--'will pay a fine of five pounds.'
    'Oh, rather!' I said. 'Absolutely! Like a shot!'
    I was dashed glad to get the thing settled at such a reasonable figure. I gazed across what they call the sea of faces till I picked up Jeeves, sitting at the back. Stout fellow, he had come to see the young master through his hour of trial.
    'I say, Jeeves,' I sang out, 'have you got a fiver? I'm a bit short.'
    'Silence!' bellowed some officious blighter.
    'It's all right,' I said; 'just arranging the financial details. Got the stuff, Jeeves?'
    'Yes, sir.'
    'Good egg!'
    'Are you a friend of the prisoner?' asked the beak.
    'I am in Mr Wooster's employment, Your Worship, in the capacity of gentleman's personal gentleman.'
    'Then pay the fine to the clerk.'
    'Very good, Your Worship.'
    The beak gave a coldish nod in my direction, as much as to say that they might now strike the fetters from my wrists; and having hitched up the pince-nez once more, proceeded to hand poor old Sippy one of the nastiest looks ever seen in Bosher Street Police Court.
    'The case of the prisoner Leon Trotzky--which,' he said, giving Sippy the eye again, 'I am strongly inclined to think an assumed and fictitious name--is more serious. He has been convicted of a wanton and violent assault upon the police. The evidence of the officer has proved that the prisoner struck him in the abdomen, causing severe internal pain, and in other ways interfered with him in the execution of his duties. I am aware that on the night following the annual aquatic contest between the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge a certain licence is traditionally granted by the authorities, but aggravated acts of ruffianly hooliganism like that of the prisoner Trotzky cannot be overlooked or palliated. He will serve a sentence of thirty days in the Second Division without the option of a fine.'
    'No, I say--here--hi--dash it all!' protested poor old Sippy.
    'Silence!' bellowed the officious blighter.
    'Next case,' said the beak. And that was that.
    *       *       *       *       *
    The whole affair was most unfortunate. Memory is a trifle blurred; but as far as I can piece together the facts, what happened was more or less this:
    Abstemious cove though I am as a general thing, there is one night in the year when, putting all other engagements aside, I am rather apt to let myself go a bit and renew my lost youth, as it were. The night to which I allude is the one following the annual aquatic contest between the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge; or, putting it another way, Boat-Race Night. Then, if ever, you will see Bertram under the influence. And on this occasion, I freely admit, I had been doing myself rather juicily, with the result that when I ran into old Sippy opposite the Empire I was in quite fairly bonhomous mood. This being so, it cut me to the quick to perceive that Sippy, generally the brightest of revellers, was far from being his usual sunny self. He had the air of a man with a secret sorrow.
    'Bertie,' he said as we strolled along towards Piccadilly Circus, 'the heart bowed down by weight of woe to weakest hope will cling.' Sippy is by way of being an author, though mainly dependent for the necessaries of life on subsidies from an old aunt who lives in the country, and his conversation often takes a literary turn. 'But the trouble is that I have no hope to cling to, weak or otherwise. I am up against it, Bertie.'
    'In what way, laddie?'
    'I've got to go tomorrow and spend three weeks with some absolutely dud--I will go further--some positively scaly friends of my Aunt Vera. She has fixed the thing up, and may a nephew's curse blister every bulb in her garden.'
    'Who are these hounds of hell?' I asked.
    'Some people named Pringle. I haven't seen them since I was ten, but I remember them at that time striking me as England's premier warts.'
    'Tough luck. No wonder you've lost your morale.'
    'The world,' said Sippy, 'is very grey. How can I shake off this awful depression?'
    It was then that I got one of those bright ideas one does get round about 11.30 on Boat-Race Night.
    'What you want, old man,' I said, 'is a policeman's helmet.'
    'Do I, Bertie?'
    'If I were you, I'd just step straight across the street and get that one over there.'
    'But there's a policeman inside it. You can see him distinctly.'
    'What does that matter?' I said. I simply couldn't follow his reasoning.
    Sippy stood for a moment in thought.
    'I believe you're absolutely right,' he said at last. 'Funny I never thought of it before. You really recommend me to get that helmet?'
    'I do, indeed.'
    'Then I will,' said Sippy, brightening up in the most remarkable manner.
    *       *       *       *       *
    So there you have the posish, and you can see why, as I left the dock a free man, remorse gnawed at my vitals. In his twenty-fifth year, with life opening out before him and all that sort of thing, Oliver Randolph Sipperley had become a jail-bird, and it was all my fault. It was I who had dragged that fine spirit down into the mire, so to speak, and the question now arose, What could I do to atone?
    Obviously the first move must be to get in touch with Sippy and see if he had any last messages and what-not. I pushed about a bit, making inquiries, and presently found myself in a little dark room with whitewashed walls and a wooden bench. Sippy was sitting on the bench with his head in his hands.
    'How are you, old lad?' I asked in a hushed, bedside voice.
    'I'm a ruined man,' said Sippy, looking like a poached egg.
    'Oh, come,' I said, 'it's not so bad as all that. I mean to say, you had the swift intelligence to give a false name. There won't be anything about you in the papers.'
    'I'm not worrying about the papers. What's bothering me is, how can I go and spend three weeks with the Pringles, starting today, when I've got to sit in a prison cell with a ball and chain on my ankle?'
    'But you said you didn't want to go.'
    'It isn't a question of wanting, fathead. I've got to go. If I don't my aunt will find out where I am. And if she finds out that I am doing thirty days, without the option, in the lowest dungeon beneath the castle moat--well, where shall I get off?'
    I saw his point.
    'This is not a thing we can settle for ourselves,' I said gravely. 'We must put our trust in a higher power. Jeeves is the man we must consult.'
    And having collected a few of the necessary data, I shook his hand, patted him on the back and tooled off home to Jeeves.
    'Jeeves,' I said, when I had climbed outside the pick-me-up which he had thoughtfully prepared against my coming, 'I've got something to tell you; something important; something that vitally affects one whom you have always regarded with--one whom you have always looked upon--one whom you have--well, to cut a long story short, as I'm not feeling quite myself--Mr Sipperley.'
    'Yes, sir?'
    'Jeeves, Mr Souperley is in the sip.'
    'Sir?'
    'I mean, Mr Sipperley is in the soup.'
    'Indeed, sir?'
    'And all owing to me. It was I who, in a moment of mistaken kindness, wishing only to cheer him up and give him something to occupy his mind, recommended him to pinch that policeman's helmet.'
    'Is that so, sir?'
    'Do you mind not intoning the responses, Jeeves?' I said. 'This is a most complicated story for a man with a headache to have to tell, and if you interrupt you'll make me lose the thread. As a favour to me, therefore, don't do it. Just nod every now and then to show that you're following me.'
    I closed my eyes and marshalled the facts.
    'To start with then, Jeeves, you may or may not know that Mr Sipperley is practically dependent on his Aunt Vera.'
    'Would that be Miss Sipperley of the Paddock, Beckley-on-the-Moor, in Yorkshire, sir?'
    'Yes. Don't tell me you know her!'
    'Not personally, sir. But I have a cousin residing in the village who has some slight acquaintance with Miss Sipperley. He has described her to me as an imperious and quick-tempered old lady.... But I beg your pardon, sir, I should have nodded.'
    'Quite right, you should have nodded. Yes, Jeeves, you should have nodded. But it's too late now.'
    I nodded myself. I hadn't had my eight hours the night before, and what you might call a lethargy was showing a tendency to steal over me from time to time.
    'Yes, sir?' said Jeeves.
    'Oh--ah--yes,' I said, giving myself a bit of a hitch up. 'Where had I got to?'
    'You were saying that Mr Sipperley is practically dependent upon Miss Sipperley, sir.'
    'Was I?'
    'You were, sir.'
    'You're perfectly right; so I was. Well, then, you can readily understand, Jeeves, that he has got to take jolly good care to keep in with her. You get that?'
    Jeeves nodded.
    'Now mark this closely: The other day she wrote to old Sippy, telling him to come down and sing at her village concert. It was equivalent to a royal command, if you see what I mean, so Sippy couldn't refuse in so many words. But he had sung at her village concert once before and had got the bird in no uncertain manner, so he wasn't playing any return dates. You follow so far, Jeeves?'
    Jeeves nodded.
    'So what did he do, Jeeves? He did what seemed to him at the moment a rather brainy thing. He told her that, though he would have been delighted to sing at her village concert, by a most unfortunate chance an editor had commissioned him to write a series of articles on the colleges of Cambridge and he was obliged to pop down there at once and would be away for quite three weeks. All clear up to now?'
    Jeeves inclined the coco-nut.
    'Whereupon, Jeeves, Miss Sipperley wrote back, saying that she quite realized that work must come before pleasure--pleasure being her loose way of describing the act of singing songs at the Beckley-on-the-Moor concert and getting the laugh from the local toughs; but that, if he was going to Cambridge, he must certainly stay with her friends, the Pringles, at their house just outside the town. And she dropped them a line telling them to expect him on the twenty-eighth, and they dropped another line saying right-ho, and the thing was settled. And now Mr Sipperley is in the jug, and what will be the ultimate outcome or upshot? Jeeves, it is a problem worthy of your great intellect. I rely on you.'
    'I will do my best to justify your confidence, sir.'
    'Carry on, then. And meanwhile pull down the blinds and bring a couple more cushions and heave that small chair this way so that I can put my feet up, and then go away and brood and let me hear from you in--say, a couple of hours, or maybe three. And if anybody calls and wants to see me, inform them that I am dead.'
    'Dead, sir?'
    'Dead. You won't be so far wrong.'
    It must have been well towards evening when I woke up with a crick in my neck but otherwise somewhat refreshed. I pressed the bell.
    'I looked in twice, sir,' said Jeeves, 'but on each occasion you were asleep and I did not like to disturb you.'
    'The right spirit, Jeeves.... Well?'
    'I have been giving close thought to the little problem which you indicated, sir, and I can see only one solution.'
    'One is enough. What do you suggest?'
    'That you go to Cambridge in Mr Sipperley's place, sir.'
    I stared at the man. Certainly I was feeling a good deal better than I had been a few hours before; but I was far from being in a fit condition to have rot like this talked to me.
    'Jeeves,' I said sternly, 'pull yourself together. This is mere babble from the sickbed.'
    'I fear I can suggest no other plan of action, sir, which will extricate Mr Sipperley from his dilemma.'
    'But think! Reflect! Why, even I, in spite of having had a disturbed night and a most painful morning with the minions of the law, can see that the scheme is a loony one. To put the finger on only one leak in the thing, it isn't me these people want to see; it's Mr Sipperley. They don't know me from Adam.'
    'So much the better, sir. For what I am suggesting is that you go to Cambridge, affecting actually to be Mr Sipperley.'
    This was too much.
    'Jeeves,' I said, and I'm not half sure there weren't tears in my eyes, 'surely you can see for yourself that this is pure banana oil. It is not like you to come into the presence of a sick man and gibber.'
    'I think the plan I have suggested would be practicable, sir. While you were sleeping, I was able to have a few words with Mr Sipperley, and he informed me that Professor and Mrs Pringle have not set eyes upon him since he was a lad of ten.'
    'No, that's true. He told me that. But even so, they would be sure to ask him questions about my aunt--or rather his aunt. Where would I be then?'
    'Mr Sipperley was kind enough to give me a few facts respecting Miss Sipperley, sir, which I jotted down. With these, added to what my cousin has told me of the lady's habits, I think you would be in a position to answer any ordinary question.'
    There is something dashed insidious about Jeeves. Time and again since we first came together he has stunned me with some apparently drivelling suggestion or scheme or ruse or plan of campaign, and after about five minutes has convinced me that it is not only sound but fruity. It took nearly a quarter of an hour to reason me into this particular one, it being considerably the weirdest to date; but he did it. I was holding out pretty firmly, when he suddenly clinched the thing.
    'I would certainly suggest, sir,' he said, 'that you left London as soon as possible and remained hid for some little time in some retreat where you would not be likely to be found.'
    'Eh? Why?'
    'During the last hours Mrs Spenser has been on the telephone three times, sir, endeavouring to get into communication with you.'
    'Aunt Agatha!' I cried, paling beneath my tan.
    'Yes, sir. I gathered from her remarks that she had been reading in the evening paper a report of this morning's proceedings in the police court.'
    I hopped from the chair like a jack rabbit of the prairie. If Aunt Agatha was out with her hatchet, a move was most certainly indicated.
    'Jeeves,' I said, 'this is a time for deeds, not words. Pack--and that right speedily.'
    'I have packed, sir.'
    'Find out when there is a train for Cambridge.'
    'There is one in forty minutes, sir.'
    'Call a taxi.'
    'A taxi is at the door, sir.'
    'Good!' I said. 'Then lead me to it.'
    *       *       *       *       *
    The Maison Pringle was quite a bit of a way out of Cambridge, a mile or two down the Trumpington Road; and when I arrived everybody was dressing for dinner. So it wasn't till I had shoved on the evening raiment and got down to the drawing-room that I met the gang.
    'Hullo-ullo!' I said, taking a deep breath and floating in.
    I tried to speak in a clear and ringing voice, but I wasn't feeling my chirpiest. It is always a nervous job for a diffident and unassuming bloke to visit a strange house for the first time; and it doesn't make the thing any better when he goes there pretending to be another fellow. I was conscious of a rather pronounced sinking feeling, which the appearance of the Pringles did nothing to allay.
    Sippy had described them as England's premier warts, and it looked to me as if he might be about right. Professor Pringle was a thinnish, baldish, dyspeptic-lookingish cove with an eye like a haddock, while Mrs Pringle's aspect was that of one who had had bad news round about the year 1900 and never really got over it. And I was just staggering under the impact of these two when I was introduced to a couple of ancient females with shawls all over them.
    'No doubt you remember my mother?' said Professor Pringle mournfully, indicating Exhibit A.
    'Oh-ah!' I said, achieving a bit of a beam.
    'And my aunt,' sighed the prof, as if things were getting worse and worse.
    'Well, well, well!' I said, shooting another beam in the direction of Exhibit B.
    'They were saying only this morning that they remembered you,' groaned the prof, abandoning all hope.
    There was a pause. The whole strength of the company gazed at me like a family group out of one of Edgar Allan Poe's less cheery yarns, and I felt my joie de vivre dying at the roots.
    'I remember Oliver,' said Exhibit A. She heaved a sigh. 'He was such a pretty child. What a pity! What a pity!'
    Tactful, of course, and calculated to put the guest completely at his ease.
    'I remember Oliver,' said Exhibit B, looking at me in much the same way as the Bosher Street beak had looked at Sippy before putting on the black cap. 'Nasty little boy! He teased my cat.'
    'Aunt Jane's memory is wonderful, considering that she will be eighty-seven next birthday,' whispered Mrs Pringle with mournful pride.
    'What did you say?' asked the Exhibit suspiciously.
    'I said your memory was wonderful.'
    'Ah!' The dear old creature gave me another glare. I could see that no beautiful friendship was to be looked for by Bertram in this quarter. 'He chased my Tibby all over the garden, shooting arrows at her from a bow.'
    At this moment a cat strolled out from under the sofa and made for me with its tail up. Cats always do take to me, which made it all the sadder that I should be saddled with Sippy's criminal record. I stooped to tickle it under the ear, such being my invariable policy, and the Exhibit uttered a piercing cry.
    'Stop him! Stop him!'
    She leaped forward, moving uncommonly well for one of her years, and having scooped up the cat, stood eyeing me with bitter defiance, as if daring me to start anything. Most unpleasant.
    'I like cats,' I said feebly.
    It didn't go. The sympathy of the audience was not with me. And conversation was at what you might call a low ebb, when the door opened and a girl came in.
    'My daughter Heloise,' said the prof moodily, as if he hated to admit it.
    I turned to mitt the female, and stood there with my hand out, gaping. I can't remember when I've had such a nasty shock.
    I suppose everybody has had the experience of suddenly meeting somebody who reminded them frightfully of some fearful person. I mean to say, by way of an example, once when I was golfing in Scotland I saw a woman come into the hotel who was the living image of my Aunt Agatha. Probably a very decent sort, if I had only waited to see, but I didn't wait. I legged it that evening, utterly unable to stand the spectacle. And on another occasion I was driven out of a thoroughly festive night club because the head waiter reminded me of my Uncle Percy.
    Well, Heloise Pringle, in the most ghastly way, resembled Honoria Glossop.
    I think I may have told you before about this Glossop scourge. She was the daughter of Sir Roderick Glossop, the loony-doctor, and I had been engaged to her for about three weeks, much against my wishes, when the old boy most fortunately got the idea that I was off my rocker and put the bee on the proceedings. Since then the mere thought of her had been enough to make me start out of my sleep with a loud cry. And this girl was exactly like her.
    'Er--how are you?' I said.
    'How do you do?'
    Her voice put the lid on it. It might have been Honoria herself talking. Honoria Glossop has a voice like a lion tamer making some authoritative announcement to one of the troupe, and so had this girl. I backed away convulsively and sprang into the air as my foot stubbed itself against something squashy. A sharp yowl rent the air, followed by an indignant cry, and I turned to see Aunt Jane, on all fours, trying to put things right with the cat, which had gone to earth under the sofa. She gave me a look, and I could see that her worst fears had been realized.
    At this juncture dinner was announced--not before I was ready for it.
    *       *       *       *       *
    'Jeeves,' I said, when I got him alone that night, 'I am no faint heart, but I am inclined to think that this binge is going to prove a shade above the odds.'
    'You are not enjoying your visit, sir?'
    'I am not, Jeeves. Have you seen Miss Pringle?'
    'Yes, sir, from a distance.'
    'The best way to see her. Did you observe her keenly?'
    'Yes, sir.'
    'Did she remind you of anybody?'
    'She appeared to me to bear a remarkable likeness to her cousin, Miss Glossop, sir.'
    'Her cousin! You don't mean to say she's Honoria Glossop's cousin!'
    'Yes, sir. Mrs Pringle was a Miss Blatherwick--the younger of two sisters, the elder of whom married Sir Roderick Glossop.'
    'Great Scott! That accounts for the resemblance.'
    'Yes, sir.'
    'And what a resemblance, Jeeves! She even talks like Miss Glossop.'
    'Indeed, sir? I have not yet heard Miss Pringle speak.'
    'You have missed little. And what it amounts to, Jeeves, is that, though nothing will induce me to let old Sippy down, I can see that this visit is going to try me high. At a pinch, I could stand the prof and wife. I could even make the effort of a lifetime and bear up against Aunt Jane. But to expect a man to mix daily with the girl Heloise--and to do it, what is more, on lemonade, which is all there was to drink at dinner--is to ask too much of him. What shall I do, Jeeves?'
    'I think that you should avoid Miss Pringle's society as much as possible.'
    'The same great thought had occurred to me,' I said.
    It is all very well, though, to talk airily about avoiding a female's society; but when you are living in the same house with her, and she doesn't want to avoid you, it takes a bit of doing. It is a peculiar thing in life that the people you most particularly want to edge away from always seem to cluster round like a poultice. I hadn't been twenty-four hours in the place before I perceived that I was going to see a lot of this pestilence.
    She was one of those girls you're always meeting on the stairs and in passages. I couldn't go into a room without seeing her drift in a minute later. And if I walked in the garden she was sure to leap out at me from a laurel bush or the onion bed or something. By about the tenth day I had begun to feel absolutely haunted.
    'Jeeves,' I said, 'I have begun to feel absolutely haunted.'
    'Sir?'
    'This woman dogs me. I never seem to get a moment to myself. Old Sippy was supposed to come here to make a study of the Cambridge colleges, and she took me round about fifty-seven this morning. This afternoon I went to sit in the garden, and she popped up through a trap and was in my midst. This evening she cornered me in the morning-room. It's getting so that, when I have a bath, I wouldn't be a bit surprised to find her nestling in the soap dish.'
    'Extremely trying, sir.'
    'Dashed so. Have you any remedy to suggest?'
    'Not at the moment, sir. Miss Pringle does appear to be distinctly interested in you, sir. She was asking me questions this morning respecting your mode of life in London.'