Дживс, вы – гений! / Thank you, Jeeves!. Пелам Гренвилл Вудхаус

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      “I shall dine out, Brinkley,” I said.

      This man had been sent down by the agency in London, and I want to say he wasn’t the fellow I’d have selected if I had had time to make a choice in person. Not at all the man of my dreams. A melancholy blighter, with a long, thin, face and deep eyes. I had been trying to establish cordial relations ever since he had arrived, but with no success. Outwardly he was all respectfulness, but inwardly you could see that he was a man who was dreaming about the Social Revolution and looked on Bertram as a tyrant and an oppressor.

      “Yes, Brinkley, I shall dine out.”

      He said nothing, merely looking at me.

      I went round to the garage and got the car out. It was only a matter of thirty miles or so to Bristol, and I got there to watch a musical comedy. I was feeling rested and refreshed when I started back home.

      As I opened the door of my room, I dropped the candle. Pauline Stoker in my heliotrope pyjamas was sitting on my bed.

      7

      A Visitor for Bertie

      The attitude of fellows towards finding girls in their bedroom after midnight varies. Some like it. Some don’t. I didn’t.

      “What—What—What—?”

      “It’s all right.”

      “All right?”

      “Quite all right.”

      “Oh?” I said. I stooped to pick up the candle, and the next moment I had uttered a cry.

      “Don’t make such a noise!”

      “But there’s a corpse on the floor.”

      “There isn’t.”

      “There is, I tell you. I was looking about for the candle, and my fingers touched something cold and still and wet.”

      “Oh, that’s my swimming suit.”

      “Your swimming suit?”

      “Well, do you think I came ashore by aeroplane?”

      “You swam here from the yacht?”

      “Yes.”

      “When?”

      “About half an hour ago.”

      “Why?” I asked.

      “You know, Bertie, steps should be taken about you.”

      “Eh?”

      “You ought to be in some sort of a home.”

      “I am,” I replied coldly and rather cleverly. “My own. But what are you doing in it?”

      She did not answer.

      “Why did you want to kiss me in front of father? I can quite understand now why Sir Roderick told father that you ought to be under restraint.”

      “The incident to which you allude is readily explained. I thought he was Chuffy.”

      “Thought who was Chuffy?”

      “Your father.”

      “I don’t see what you mean,” she replied coldly.

      I explained.

      “The idea was to let Chuffy observe you in my embrace. To force him act speedily.”

      “That was very sweet of you.”

      “We Woosters are sweet, exceedingly sweet, when a pal’s happiness is spoken about.”

      “I can see now why I accepted you that night in New York,” she said meditatively. “If I wasn’t so crazy about Marmaduke, I could easily marry you, Bertie.”

      “No, no,” I said, with some alarm. “Don’t dream of it. I mean to say—”

      “Oh, it’s all right. I’m not going to. I’m going to marry Marmaduke; that’s why I’m here.”

      “And now,” I said, “we’ve come right back to it. You say you swam ashore from the yacht? Why? You came here. Why?”

      “Because I wanted somewhere to go till I could get clothes, of course. I can’t go to the Hall in a swimming suit.”

      “Oh, you swam ashore to get to Chuffy?”

      “Of course. Father was keeping me a prisoner on board the yacht, and this evening Jeeves arrived with an early letter from Marmaduke. Oh! I cried six pints when I read it. It was beautiful. It throbbed with poetry.”

      “It did?”

      “Yes.”

      “This letter?”

      “Yes.”

      “Chuffy’s letter?”

      “Yes. You seem surprised.”

      I was a bit.

      “I felt I couldn’t wait another day without seeing him,” she continued. “And, talking of Jeeves, what a man!”

      “Oh, you confided in Jeeves?[59]“

      “Yes. And told him what I was going to do.”

      “And he didn’t try to stop you?”

      “Stop me? He was all for it.”

      “He was, was he?”

      “You should have seen him. Such a kind smile. He said you would be delighted to help me.”

      “He did, eh?”

      “He spoke most highly of you.”

      “Really?”

      “Oh, yes, he thinks a lot of you. I remember his very words. ‘Mr Wooster, miss,’ he said, ‘is, perhaps, mentally somewhat negligible[60], but he has a heart of gold.’ He was lowering me from the side of the boat by a rope.”

      I was chewing the lip in some chagrin.

      “What the devil did he mean, ‘mentally negligible’?”

      “Oh, you know. Loopy.”

      “Tchah!”

      “Eh?”

      “I said ‘Tchah!’”

      “Why?”

      “Why? Well, wouldn’t you say ‘Tchah!’ if your late servant was telling people you were mentally negligible?”

      “But СКАЧАТЬ