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Deeply regret quite impossible carry out assignment you know what. Atmosphere one of keenest suspicion and any sort of action instantly fatal[61 - any sort of action instantly fatal – любая попытка заранее обречена на провал]. You ought to have seen old Bassett’s eye just now on learning of blood relationship of myself and Uncle Tom. Sorry and all that, but nothing doing.
Love. Bertie
I then went down to the hall to join Madeline Bassett. She was standing by the barometer, which would have been pointing to “Stormy” instead of “Set Fair”. She turned and gazed at me with a tender goggle which sent a thrill of dread creeping down the spine.
“Oh, Bertie,” she said, in a low voice like beer trickling out of a jug, “you ought not to be here!”
My recent interview with old Bassett and Roderick Spode had rather set me thinking along those lines myself. But I hadn’t time to explain that this was no idle social visit, and that if Gussie hadn’t been sending out SOSs I wouldn’t have dreamed of coming here. She went on, looking at me as if I were a rabbit which she was expecting shortly to turn into a gnome.
“Why did you come? Oh, I know what you are going to say. You felt that you had to see me again, just once. You could not resist the urge to take away with you one last memory, which you could cherish down the lonely years. Oh, Bertie, you remind me of Rudel[62 - Rudel – Жофре Рюдель (один из первых провансальских трубадуров XII в.)].”
The name was new to me. “Rudel?”
“The Seigneur Geoffrey Rudel, Prince of Blay-en-Saintonge[63 - Blay-en-Saintonge – Бле-ан-Сентонж].”
I shook my head. “Never met him, I’m afraid. Pal of yours?”
“He lived in the Middle Ages. He was a great poet. And he fell in love with the wife of the Lord of Tripoli[64 - Tripoli – Триполи].”
I stirred uneasily.
“For years he loved her, and at last he could resist no longer. He took ship to Tripoli, and his servants carried him ashore. ”
“Not feeling so good?” I said. “Rough crossing?[65 - Rough crossing? – На море штормило?]”
“He was dying. Of love.”
“Oh, ah.”
“They bore him into the Lady Melisande’s[66 - Melisande – Мелисанда] presence on a litter, and he had just strength enough to reach out and touch her hand. Then he died.”
She paused, and heaved a sigh. A silence ensued.
“Terrific,” I said, feeling I had to say something. She sighed again.
“You see now why I said you reminded me of Rudel. Like him, you came to take one last glimpse of the woman you loved. It was dear of you, Bertie, and I shall never forget it. It will always remain with me as a fragrant memory, like a flower pressed between the leaves of an old album. But was it wise? Should you not have been strong? Would it not have been better to have ended it all cleanly, that day when we said goodbye at Brinkley Court, and not to have reopened the wound? We had met, and you have loved me, and I had had to tell you that my heart was another’s. That should have been our farewell.”
“Absolutely,” I said. I mean to say, all that was perfectly clear, as far as it went. If her heart really was another’s, fine. Nobody more pleased than Bertram. “But I had a communication from Gussie, more or less indicating that you and he were…”
She looked at me like someone who has just solved the crossword puzzle.
“So that was why you came! You thought that there might still be hope? Oh, Bertie, I’m sorry… sorry… so sorry.”
Her eyes were about the size of soup plates.
“No, Bertie, really there is no hope, none. You must not build dream castles. It can only cause you pain. I love Augustus. He is my man.”
“And you haven’t quarreled?”
“Of course not.”
“Then what did he mean by saying ‘Serious rift Madeline and self’?”
“Oh, that?” She laughed another tinkling, silvery one. “That was nothing. It was all too perfectly silly and ridiculous. Just the little misunderstanding. I thought I had found him flirting with my cousin Stephanie, and I was silly and jealous. But he explained everything this morning. He was only taking a fly out of her eye.”
“So everything’s all right, is it?”
“Everything. I have never loved Augustus more than I do now.”
“Haven’t you?”
“Each moment I am with him, his wonderful nature seems to open before me like some lovely flower.”
“Does it?”
“Every day I find myself discovering some new facet of his extraordinary character. For instance… you have seen him quite lately, have you not?”
“Oh, rather. I gave him a dinner only the night before last.”
“I wonder if you noticed any difference in him?”
I threw my mind back to the binge. As far as I could recollect, Gussie had been the same freak I had always known.
“Difference? No, I don’t think so. Of course, at that dinner I hadn’t the chance to observe him very closely—subject his character to the final analysis, if you know what I mean. He sat next to me, and we talked of this and that, but you know how it is when you’re a host—you have all sorts of things to divert your attention, keeping an eye on the waiters, trying to make the conversation general… a hundred little duties. But he seemed to me much the same. What sort of difference?”
“An improvement, if such a thing were possible. Have you not sometimes felt in the past, Bertie, that, if Augustus had a fault, it was a tendency to be a little timid?”
I saw what she meant.
“Oh, ah, yes, of course, definitely.” I remembered something Jeeves had once called Gussie. “A sensitive plant, eh?”
“Exactly. You know Shelley[67 - Shelley – Перси Биши Шелли, английский поэт], Bertie.”
“Oh, am I?”
“That is what I have always thought him—a sensitive plant, hardly fit for the rough and tumble of life. But recently—in this last week, in fact—he has shown, together with that wonderful dreamy sweetness of his, a force of character which I had not suspected that he possessed. He seems completely to have lost his diffidence.”
“By Lord, yes,” I said, remembering. “That’s right. Do you know, he actually made a speech at that dinner of mine, and a most admirable one.”
“Why, only this morning,” she said, “he spoke to Roderick Spode quite sharply.”
“He did?”
“Yes. They were arguing about something, and Augustus told him to go and stop talking nonsense.”
“Well, well!” I said. Naturally, I didn’t believe it for a moment. That wasn’t possible.
I saw what had happened, of course. She was trying to make her boyfriend stronger and braver, like all girls. I’ve noticed the same thing in young wives. Women never know when to stop on these occasions.
I remembered Mrs Bingo Little once telling me, shortly after their marriage, that Bingo said poetic things to her about sunsets—his best friends being perfectly well aware, of course, that the old man never noticed a sunset in his life and that, if he did by a chance, the only thing he would say about it would be that it reminded him of a slice of roast beef, cooked just right. However, you can’t call a girl a liar; so I said: “Well, well!”
“It was the one thing that was needed to make him perfect. Sometimes, Bertie, I ask myself if I am worthy of so rare a soul.”
“Oh, of course you are,” I said heartily.
“It’s sweet of you to say so.”
“Not a bit. You two fit like pork and beans. Anyone could see that it was a what-do-you-call-it… ideal union. I’ve known Gussie since we were kids together, and when I met you, I said: ‘That’s the girl for him!’ When is the wedding to be?”
“On the twenty-third.”
“I’d make it earlier.”
“You think so?”
“Definitely. Get it over and done with. You can’t be married too soon to a chap like Gussie. Great chap. Splendid chap. Never met a chap I respected more. Gussie. One of the best.”
She reached out and grabbed my hand and pressed it. Unpleasant, of course, but what to do. “Ah, Bertie! Always the soul of generosity!”
“No, no, rather not. Just saying what I think.”
“It makes me so happy to feel that… all this… So many men in your position might have become embittered.”
“Silly asses.”
“But you are too fine for that. You can still say these wonderful things about him.”
“Oh, rather.”
“Dear Bertie!”
And on this cheery note we parted. I headed for the drawing room and got a cup of tea. She did not take tea, being on a diet. And I had reached the drawing room, and was about to open the door, when from the other side there came a voice. And what it was saying was: “So do not talk rot[68 - do not talk rot – не мелите чушь], Spode!”
There was no possibility of mistake as to whose voice it was. Nor was there any possibility of mistake about what he had said. The words were precisely as I have stated, and to say that I was surprised would be to put it too weakly. I saw now that it was possible that there might be something, after all, in that wild story of Madeline Bassett’s. I mean to say, an Augustus Fink-Nottle who told Roderick Spode not to talk rot was an Augustus Fink-Nottle who might have told him to go and stop talking nonsense. I entered the room, marvelling. Sir Watkyn Bassett, Roderick Spode and Gussie were present. Gussie sighted me as I entered, and waved what seemed to me a patronizing hand.
“Ah, Bertie. So here you are.”
“Yes.”
“Come in, come in and have a drink.”
“Thanks.”
“Did you bring that book I asked you to?”
“Awfully sorry. I forgot.”
“Well, of all the asses that ever lived, you certainly are the worst.”
And he called for another potted-meat sandwich. All sense of bien-être[69 - bien-être – благополучие (франц.)] was destroyed by Gussie”s peculiar manner—he looked as if he had bought the place. It was a relief when the gang had finally drifted away, leaving us alone. There were mysteries here which I wanted to probe.
I thought it best, however, to begin by taking a second opinion on the position of affairs between himself and Madeline.
“I saw Madeline just now,” I said. “She tells me that you are sweethearts still. Correct?”
“Quite correct. There was a little temporary coolness about my taking a fly out of Stephanie Byng’s eye, and I got a bit panicked and wired you to come down. However, no need for that now. I was strong, and everything is all right. Still, stay a day or two, of course, as you’re here.”
“Thanks.”
“No doubt you will be glad to see your aunt. She arrives tonight, I understand.”
“You aren’t talking about my Aunt Dahlia?”
“Of course I’m talking about your Aunt Dahlia.”
“You mean Aunt Dahlia is coming here tonight?”
“Exactly.”
This was nasty news. This sudden decision to follow me to Totleigh Towers could mean only one thing: that Aunt Dahlia had become mistrustful of my will to win, and had felt it best to come and stand over me and see that I did not shirk the appointed task.
“Tell me,” continued Gussie, “what sort of voice is she in these days? I ask, because if she is going to make those hunting noises of hers at me during her visit, I shall be compelled to tick her off[70 -
– поставить её на место] pretty sharply. I had enough of that sort of thing when I was staying at Brinkley.”
“What’s happened to you, Gussie?” I asked.
“Eh?”
“Since when have you been like this?”
“I don’t understand you.”
“Well, you are saying you’re going to tick Aunt Dahlia off. And you are telling Spode not to talk rot. By the way, what was he talking rot about?”
“I forgot. He talks so much rot.”
“I wouldn’t have the nerve to tell Spode not to talk rot,” I said frankly.
“Well, to tell you the truth, Bertie,” said Gussie, “neither would I, a week ago.”
“What happened a week ago?”
“I had a spiritual rebirth. Thanks to Jeeves. There’s a chap, Bertie!”
“Ah!”
“We are as little children, frightened of the dark, and Jeeves is the wise nurse who takes us by the hand and—”
