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They peered at me for a while as if I were something in a glass case, and I had a look at the girl. There’s no doubt about it, she was different from what Aunt Agatha had called the bold girls one meets in London nowadays. No bobbed hair[60 - bobbed hair – накладные волосы], no cigarette. I don’t know when I’ve met anybody who looked so respectable. She had on a kind of plain dress, and her hair was plain, and her face was sort of saintlike. I don’t pretend to be a Sherlock Holmes[61 - Sherlock Holmes – Шерлок Холмс] or anything of that order, but the moment I looked at her I said to myself, “The girl plays the organ in a village church!”
Well, we gazed at one another for a bit, and there was a certain amount of chit-chat[62 - chit-chat – болтовня], and then I went away. But before I went I had been told to take brother and girl for a drive that afternoon. And the thought of it depressed me to such an extent that I felt there was only one thing to be done. I went straight back to my room, took out the cummerbund, and draped it round myself. I turned round and saw Jeeves.
“I beg your pardon, sir,” he said. “You are surely not proposing to appear in public in that thing?”
“The cummerbund?” I said in a careless way. “Oh, yes!”
“I should not advise it, sir, really I shouldn’t.”
“Why not?”
“The effect, sir, is unpredictable.”
I looked at him. I mean to say, nobody knows better than I do that Jeeves is a master mind and all that, but, damn it, a fellow must call his soul his own. You can’t be a slave to your valet. Besides, I was feeling pretty low and the cummerbund was the only thing which could cheer me up.
“You know, the trouble with you, Jeeves,” I said, “is that you’re too—what’s the word I want?—too isolated. You can’t realize that you aren’t in Piccadilly[63 - Piccadilly – Пикадилли] all the time. In a place like this something colourful and poetic is expected of you. Why, I’ve just seen a fellow downstairs in a suit of yellow velvet.”
“Nevertheless, sir—”
“Jeeves,” I said firmly, “my mind is made up. I am feeling a little low-spirited[64 - low-spirited – в плохом настроении] and need cheering. Besides, what’s wrong with it? This cummerbund seems to me to be quite right. I consider that it has rather a Spanish effect. The old hidalgo and the bull fight.”
“Very good, sir[65 - Very good, sir. – Слушаюсь, сэр.],” said Jeeves coldly.
If there’s one thing that upsets me, it’s unpleasantness in the home. Aunt Agatha, the Hemmingway girl … I felt though nobody loved me.
The drive that afternoon was boring as I had expected. The curate fellow prattled on of this and that; the girl admired the view; and I got a headache. I went back to my room to dress for dinner, feeling like a toad under the harrow. I tried to talk to Jeeves.
“I say, Jeeves,” I said.
“Sir?”
“Mix me some brandy and soda.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Jeeves, not too much soda.”
“Very good, sir.”
After it, I felt better.
“Jeeves,” I said.
“Sir?”
“I think I’m in a big trouble, Jeeves.”
“Indeed, sir?”
I looked at him. He still remembers the cummerbund.
“Yes,” I said, suppressing the pride of the Woosters. “Have you seen a girl here with a parson brother?”
“Miss Hemmingway, sir? Yes, sir.”
“Aunt Agatha wants me to marry her.”
“Indeed, sir?”
“Well, what about it?”
“Sir?”
“I mean, have you anything to suggest?”
“No, sir.”
His manner was very cold.
“Oh, well, tra-la-la!” I said.
“Precisely sir,” said Jeeves.
And that was all.
4
Pearls Mean Tears
I remember—it must have been when I was at school—reading a poem or something about something or other in which there was a line which went, “Shades of the prison house begin to close upon the growing boy.” During the next two weeks that’s exactly how it was with me. I mean to say, I could hear the wedding bells chiming faintly in the distance and getting louder and louder every day, and I could not imagine how to slide out of it. Jeeves, no doubt, was offended, and I couldn’t ask him directly. He could see easily enough that the young master was in a bad way and, if that wasn’t enough, well, it meant that the old feudal spirit was dead in his bosom and there was nothing to be done about it.
It was really funny how the Hemmingway family had taken to me[66 - had taken to me – вцепилась в меня]. I wouldn’t have said that there was anything particularly fascinating about me—in fact, most people look on me as rather an ass; but this girl and her brother didn’t seem happy if they were away from me. In fact, I’d got into the habit now of retiring to my room when I wanted to rest a little. I got a rather decent suite on the third floor, looking down on to the promenade.
I had gone in my suite one evening and for the first time that day was feeling that life wasn’t so bad after all. Right through the day from lunch-time I’d had the Hemmingway girl nearby. The result was, as I looked down on the lighted promenade and saw all the people walking happily to dinner and the Casino, a kind of wistful feeling came over me. I thought how happy I could have been in this place if only Aunt Agatha and her friends had been elsewhere.
I heaved a sigh, and at that moment there was a knock at the door.
“Someone at the door, Jeeves,” I said.
“Yes, sir.”
He opened the door, and in came Aline Hemmingway and her brother. The last persons I had expected. I really had thought that I could be alone for a minute in my own room.
“Oh, hallo!” I said.
“Oh, Mr Wooster!” said the girl. “I don’t know how to begin.”
Then I noticed that she appeared shocked, and as for the brother, he looked like a sheep with a secret sorrow.
This made me sit up and take notice. I supposed that they had arrived to chat a little, but apparently something serious had happened.
“What’s the matter?” I asked.
“Poor Sidney—it was my fault—I ought never to have let him go there alone,” said the girl, she was agitated.
At this point her brother gave a little cough[67 - gave a little cough – слегка кашлянул], like a sheep caught in the mist on a mountain top.
“The fact is, Mr Wooster,” he said, “a sad, a most deplorable thing has occurred. This afternoon, while you were so kindly escorting my sister, I found the time … I was tempted to—ah—gamble at the Casino.”
I looked at the man with respect. If only I’d known earlier that he went in for that sort of thing, I felt that we might have had a better time together.
“Oh!” I said. “Did you win?”
He sighed heavily.
“If you mean was I successful, I must answer in the negative. I thought that the colour red, having appeared no fewer than seven times in succession, must inevitably give place the colour black. I was in error. I lost everything, Mr Wooster.”
“Bad luck,” I said.
“I left the Casino,” proceeded the fellow, “and returned to the hotel. There I encountered one of my parishioners, Colonel Musgrave[68 - Colonel Musgrave – полковник Музгрэйв]. I—er—asked him to cash me a cheque for one hundred pounds on my little account in my London bank.”
“Well, that was all to the good, eh?” I said. “I mean, you were lucky to find someone who gave you some money.”
“On the contrary, Mr Wooster, it made matters worse. I burn with shame, but I immediately went back to the Casino and lost the entire sum—this time under the mistaken supposition that the colour black would appear.”
“I say!” I said. “You are having a good time!”
“And,” concluded the fellow, “the most lamentable part of the whole affair is that I have no funds in the bank to meet the cheque when presented[69 - to meet the cheque when presented – оплатить чек, когда она будет предъявлен].”
Though I realized by this time that all this was leading up to draw money from me, my heart warmed to the poor guy. Indeed, I gazed at him with interest and admiration. Never before had I encountered such a curate. He certainly appeared to be a real daredevil; and I wished he had shown me this side of his character before.
“That Colonel Musgrave,” he went on, “is not a man who would be likely to overlook the matter. He is a hard man. He will expose me to the priest. The priest is a hard man, too. In short, Mr Wooster, if Colonel Musgrave presents that cheque, I shall be ruined. And he leaves for England tonight.”
The girl, who had been standing by biting her handkerchief, now wept.
“Mr Wooster,” she cried, “won’t you, won’t you help us? Oh, do say you will! We must have the money to get back the cheque from Colonel Musgrave before nine o’clock—he leaves on the nine-twenty. I remembered how kind you had always been. Mr Wooster, will you lend Sidney the money and take these as security?”
And before I knew what she was doing she had dived into her bag, taken a case, and opened it.
“My pearls,” she said. “I don’t know what they are worth—they were a present from my poor father—”
“Now, alas, no more—” said her the brother.
“But I know they must be worth ever so much more than the amount we want.”
It was embarrassing. It made me feel like a pawnbroker.
“No, I say, really,” I protested. “There’s no need of any security, you know. Only too glad to let you have the money. I’ve got it on me, as a matter of fact. Rather luckily drew some this morning.”
And I took the money out of my pocket and laid it on the table. The brother shook his head.
“Mr Wooster,” he said, “we appreciate your generosity, your confidence in us, but we cannot permit this.”
“What Sidney means,” said the girl, “is that you really don’t know anything about us. You mustn’t risk lending all this money without any security at all to two people who, after all, are almost strangers. If I hadn’t thought that you would treat it like some business I would never have dared to come to you.”
“The idea of—er—pledging the pearls at the local pawnbroker shop was, you will readily understand, repugnant to us,” said the brother.
“If you will just give me a receipt, as a matter of form[70 - as a matter of form – соблюдая формальности]—”
“All right!”
I wrote out the receipt and handed it over.
“Here you are,” I said.
The girl took the piece of paper, put it in her bag, grabbed the money and slipped it to brother Sidney, and then, before I knew what was happening, she had darted at me, kissed me, and legged it from the room.
I’m bound to say this surprised me a lot. So sudden and unexpected. I mean, a girl like that. Always been quiet and demure. Through a sort of mist I could see that Jeeves had appeared and was helping the brother on with his coat. His coat was more like a sack than anything else. Then the brother came up to me and grasped my hand.
“I cannot thank you sufficiently, Mr Wooster!”
“Oh, not at all.”
“You have saved my good name. Good name in man or woman,” he said, “is the immediate jewel of their souls. Who steals my purse steals trash. It was mine, it was his, and has been slave to thousands. But he that steals my good name robs me and makes me poor indeed. I thank you from the bottom of my heart. Good night, Mr Wooster.”
“Good night, old man,” I said.
I blinked at Jeeves as the door shut.
“Rather a sad affair, Jeeves,” I said.
“Yes, sir.”
“Luckily I happened to have all that money.”
“Well—er—yes, sir.”
“You speak as though you didn’t think much of it.”
“I can’t criticize your actions, sir, but I can say that I think you behaved a little rashly.”
“What, lending that money?”
“Yes, sir. These fashionable French watering places[71 - watering places – морские курорты] are famous for dishonest characters.”
This was incredible.
“Now look here, Jeeves,” I said. “I can stand a lot but now you are going to slander that holy man!”
