The Code of the Woosters / Фамильная честь Вустеров. Пелам Гренвилл Вудхаус

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      “I think that we should start at once, sir.”

      “I suppose so.”

      “I will pack immediately. Would you wish me to call Mrs Travers on the telephone?”

      “Why?”

      “She has rung up several times this morning.”

      “Oh? Then perhaps you had better give her a call.”

      “I think it will not be necessary, sir. I fancy that this would be the lady now.”

      A long peal had sounded from the front door. A moment later it was plain that his intuition had not deceived him. A booming voice rolled through the flat.

      “Isn’t that young hound awake yet, Jeeves?… Oh, there you are.”

      Aunt Dahlia appeared. The breath came jerkily, and the eyes gleamed with a goofy light.

      “I’ve been awake some little time,” I corrected. “As a matter of fact, I was just about to partake of the morning meal. You will join me, I hope? Bacon and eggs may, eh?”

      She snorted

      “Eggs! What I want is a brandy and soda. Tell Jeeves to mix me one. And if he forgets to put in the soda, it will be all right with me. Bertie, a frightful thing has happened.”

      “Let’s go to the dining saloon, my dear aunt,” I said. “We shall not be interrupted there. Jeeves will come in here to pack.”

      “Are you off somewhere?”

      “Totleigh Towers. I have had a most disturbing—”

      “Totleigh Towers? Well, I’m dashed! That’s just where I came to tell you you had got to go immediately”

      “Eh?”

      “Matter of life and death.”

      “What do you mean?”

      “You’ll soon see, when I’ve explained.”

      “Then come along to the dining room and explain at your earliest convenience.”

      “Now then, my dear old auntie,” I said, when Jeeves had brought the foodstuffs and withdrawn, “tell me all.”

      For an instant, there was silence, broken only by the musical sound of an aunt drinking brandy and soda. Then she drew a deep breath. “Bertie,” she said, “I wish to begin by saying a few words about Sir Watkyn Bassett. May greenfly attack his roses. May his cook be drunk on the night of the big dinner party. May all his hens die.”

      “Does he keep hens?” I said. “May his cistern start leaking, and may white ants, if there are any in England, gnaw away the foundations of Totleigh Towers. And when he walks to the church with his daughter Madeline, may he get a sneezing fit and find that he has come out without a pocket handkerchief”

      She paused.

      “Quite,” I said. “I agree with you in too. But what has he done?”

      “I will tell you. You remember that cow-creamer?”

      I dug into a fried egg, quivering a little.

      “Remember it? I shall never forget it. You will scarcely believe this, Aunt Dahlia, but when I got to the shop, who should be there by the most amazing coincidence but this same Bassett—”

      “It wasn’t a coincidence. He had gone there to have a look at the thing, to see if it was all Tom had said it was. For—can you imagine such lunacy, Bertie?—that uncle of yours had told the man about it. Tom lunched with Sir Watkyn Bassett at the latter’s club yesterday. And the fiend Bassett had come to the shop and bought the cow-creamer. The man had promised to hold it for Tom till three o’clock, but naturally when three o’clock came and he didn’t turn up and there was another customer looking at the thing, and he let it go. So there you are. Bassett has the cow-creamer, and took it down to Totleigh last night.”

      It was a sad story, of course. A magistrate who could nick a fellow for five pounds, when a mere reprimand would more than have met the case, was capable of anything, but I couldn’t see what she thought there was to be done about it. It’s better to start a new life and try to forget. That’s what I said to my aunt. She gazed at me in silence for a moment.

      “Oh? So that’s how you feel, is it?”

      “I do, yes.”

      “You admit, I hope, that by every moral law that cow-creamer belongs to Tom?”

      “Oh, certainly”.

      “But would you allow this ugly man to get away with the swag? You would just sit tight and say ‘Well, well!’ and do nothing?”

      I weighed this.

      “Possibly not ‘Well, well!’, but I wouldn’t do anything.”

      “Well, I’m going to do something. I’m going to steal the damn thing.”

      I started at her, astounded. I uttered no verbal rebuke, but there was a distinct “Tut, tut!” in my gaze. Even though the provocation was, I admitted, I could not approve of these strong methods. And I was about to awaken her dormant conscience, when she added:

      “Or, rather, you are!”

      “Who, me?”

      “That’s right. You’re going to stay at Totleigh. You will have a hundred excellent opportunities—”

      “But, dash it![48]”

      “—and I must have it, because otherwise I shall never be able to dig a cheque out of Tom for that Pomona Grindle serial. He simply won’t be in the mood. And I signed the old girl up yesterday at a fabulous price, half the sum agreed upon to be paid in advance a week from current date. So, my lad. I can’t understand why you are so surprised. It doesn’t seem to me much to do for a loved aunt.”

      “It seems to me a dashed thing. I’m not going to—”

      “Oh, yes you are, because you know what will happen, if you don’t.”

      She paused significantly.

      “You follow me, Watson[49]?”

      I was silent. She had no need to tell me what she meant. This was not the first time she had displayed a sword. This ruthless relative has one all powerful weapon which she holds constantly over my head like the sword. The threat that if I don’t obey she will bar me from her board and wipe Anatole’s cooking from my lips. I shall not forget the time when she placed sanctions on me for a whole month—right in the middle of the pheasant season. I made one last attempt to reason with her.

      “But why does Uncle Tom want his frightful cow-creamer? It’s a ghastly object. He would be far better without it.”

      “He doesn’t think so. Well, there it is. Perform this simple, easy task for me, or guests at my dinner table will soon be saying: ‘Why СКАЧАТЬ