Free Jeeves and the Feudal Spirit by P.G. Wodehouse

taken me but an instant to spot that under existing conditions
there were grave objections to going there. I need scarcely say that I allude
to the fact that Florence was on the premises and Stilton expected shortly.
    It was
this that was giving me pause. Who could say that the latter, finding me in
residence on his arrival, would not leap to the conclusion that I had rolled up
in pursuit of the former like young Lochinvar coming out of the west? And
should this thought flit into his mind, what, I asked myself, would the harvest
be? His parting words about my spine were still green in my memory. I knew him
to be a man rather careful in his speech, on whose promises one could generally
rely, and if he said he was going to break spines in four places, you could be
quite sure that four places was precisely what he would break them in.
    I
passed a restless and uneasy evening. In no mood for revelry at the Drones, I
returned home early and was brushing up on my Mystery of the Pink Crayfish when
the telephone rang, and so disordered was the nervous system that I shot
ceilingwards at the sound. It was as much as I could do to totter across the
room and unhook the receiver.
    The
voice that floated over the wire was that of Aunt Dahlia.
    Well,
when I say floated, possibly ‘thundered’ would be more the mot juste. A
girlhood and early womanhood spent in chivvying the British fox in all weathers
under the auspices of the Quorn and Pytchley have left this aunt brick-red in
colour and lent amazing power to her vocal cords. I’ve never pursued foxes
myself, but apparently, when you do, you put in a good bit of your time
shouting across ploughed fields in a high wind, and this becomes a habit. If
Aunt Dahlia has a fault, it is that she is inclined to talk to you when face to
face in a small drawing-room as if she were addressing some crony a quarter of
a mile away whom she had observed riding over hounds. For the rest, she is a
large, jovial soul, built rather on the lines of Mae West, and is beloved by
all including the undersigned. Our relations had always been chummy to the last
drop.
    ‘Hullo,
hullo, hullo!’ she boomed. The old hunting stuff coming to the surface, you
notice. ‘Is that you, Bertie, darling?’
    I said
it was none other.
    ‘Then
what’s the idea, you half-witted Gadarene swine, of all this playing
hard-to-get? You and your matter-weighing! I never heard such nonsense in my
life. You’ve got to come here, and immediately, if you don’t want an aunt’s
curse delivered on your doorstep by return of post. If I have to cope unaided
with that ruddy Percy any longer, I shall crack beneath the strain.’
    She
paused to take in breath, and I put a question.
    ‘Is
Percy the whiskered bloke?’
    ‘That’s
the one. He’s casting a thick pall of gloom over the place. It’s like living in
a fog. Tom says if something isn’t done soon, he will take steps.’
    ‘But
what’s the matter with the chap?’
    ‘He’s
madly in love with Florence Craye.’
    ‘Oh, I
see. And it depresses him to think that she’s engaged to Stilton Cheesewright?’
    ‘Exactly.
He’s as sick as mud about it. He moons broodingly to and fro, looking like
Hamlet. I want you to come and divert him. Take him for walks, dance before
him, tell him funny stories. Anything to bring a smile to that whiskered,
tortoiseshell-rimmed face.’
    I saw
her point, of course. No hostess wants a Hamlet on the premises. But what I
couldn’t understand was how a chap like that came to be polluting the pure air
of Brinkley. I knew the old relative to be quite choosey in the matter of guests.
Cabinet Ministers have sometimes failed to crash the gate. I put this to her,
and she said the explanation was perfectly simple.
    ‘I told
you I was in the middle of a spot of business with Trotter. I’ve got the whole
family here — Percy’s stepfather, L.G. Trotter, Percy’s mother, Mrs. Trotter,
and Percy in person. I only wanted Trotter, but Mrs. T. and Percy