Never Regret Anything That Made You Smile
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“There’s one thing that I know,” said Jeeves, “and it is that you will be very sorry when I’m gone.” “You don’t think so?” said Bertie. “I mean, not really? It’s all right now. We’ve got you out of the mess we got into and—well, you can see how things stand now.”
“Not a bit of it!” said Jeeves. “You’ve lost your only friend! What else have you done to keep in touch with reality? Oh, yes, I forgot, if I may remind you: there is that new chum who’s going to join you at Bournemouth. But do remember what I say!
There’ll be nothing on earth to keep me from coming back and telling you how much better off you are now than you ever were before without me, so make up your mind that you’d give up a thousand pounds just for one more day of our old happy association.
You can’t possibly tell! I’m sure there will be no trouble at all to get an extra night with you.” “I’m very grateful, Jeeves!” said Bertie, rather sadly; “but we shall never need anyone in my office again, as long as we live!” And so forth and so on.
The thing that most worried Bertie was the thought that if Jeeves did return he would have to find something else to occupy his mind. He didn’t want Jeeves to go. Not a bit of it. For he liked him. They were getting on splendidly together.
It had been so long since he’d enjoyed himself, or found anything interesting going on, that they could talk about it. In fact, Bertie couldn’t imagine his life without Jeeves. So much, then, that if I may express myself in such terms, when the time came he had no hesitation whatever in offering to buy him a house with two acres and a bungalow and a garden shed and everything!
And even to furnish it for him! “Oh, Jeeves!” he said to himself; “what a wonderful chap you are! Just like my father used to be! But what a rotten thing I’ve got you into, with the old boy down there! If we don’t come out of this soon I’m afraid you’ll not get away from here alive!”
***
“You can’t tell!” “There’s no use worrying! You may not get away with it!” “He might shoot you!” “If you don’t hurry up he’ll find the door locked.”
In fact, there was a lot of nonsense spoken by everybody except me. I knew quite well that it would be easy. All we needed to do was to slip round behind the old boy and pull him out of his bed, put him in the car, and drive him off.
Then, if you please, let me explain that I was right and Bertie was wrong in his idea that the old fellow would be unable to move. The trouble, so to speak, was that we never had a chance to find out because—well, because he’d been asleep all the time.
He didn’t even know it until the morning! There, I said it and I’m not ashamed to admit it! We were so anxious, I thought it best to wake him up with a bang on the head and put him out of his misery. After that we could take it more easily, knowing he’d gone to sleep peacefully and happily ever after.
So as far as he was concerned, there was nothing in the world to worry about. Except that he was going to have a new chum in Bournemouth with whom to make up his mind. That made him nervous, but not a bit of it did I expect him to think of that before we’d finished playing the game! No, there wasn’t anything for it but to wait. And so I did!
For one night! Then we decided to go out and take it easy. But we could only do that because it turned out to be Sunday afternoon, with the place quiet, and a few people about. As we drove along the road, looking at all the little old-world shops and houses, I asked Bertie how it was all looking to him.
“It’s awfully dull!” he answered; “but what can we do about it? We must be patient for a bit. There isn’t any hurry.” Then suddenly he stopped the car abruptly and exclaimed: “Oh, Jeeves! Do you remember my idea of writing to that woman?” “Yes, sir. It was a splendid suggestion! But, unfortunately, your letters failed to produce the desired result—”
“She didn’t answer them, did she?” “That was so. She did not.” “I don’t understand! You can’t tell me she didn’t know where to come from when you gave her my address?” “Sir, that was impossible!” “Well, I’ll tell you what I mean to do,” he said. “You may think it silly, but if it’s the way to make her come, why not go down there and give her another chance to get away? Let’s find out what the devil the matter is.”
The thought had never entered my head, but I liked the notion. In fact, it made such good sense that I decided to join him.
“Why not?” said Bertie, “and, while we’re about it, we might drop in and see Mrs. Sloper.” He knew it was the one thing she couldn’t bear and was, therefore, sure to welcome his company.
The only thing left to us to do now was to go to the station, book into some cheap lodging house, then walk out together through the streets—for the first time, I say, for Bertie had never been off before on a holiday—and knock at the door of number eleven.
It wasn’t a big house and there were three windows, one on either side and a porch leading into the hall. We had no trouble finding it, but when we knocked there was no answer and after waiting there a bit I tried the handle with my key.
To our surprise—but we hadn’t had much experience, so we could hardly be expected to know—”Oh, it’s unlocked!” I said; and as I put it in I heard Bertie gasp: “Look here! Look who’s here!” The door opened and we found ourselves standing at the entrance of an old-fashioned front parlor.
It was empty except for a lady seated by the window, looking in our direction. She turned round when we came in, looked us up and down slowly, with her hands under her arms, and said, “Yes?” I thought we ought to have gone back again, but I knew what was coming and I just managed to control myself.
“We’ve come to see Mrs. Sloper,” said Bertie. She shook her head slowly and answered with an affected air: “I’m afraid you can’t see Mrs. Sloper. Not now. Not until next week.” I suppose that would have surprised us less if she’d called us “strange,” or perhaps “peculiar”; but “silly” was too bad.
We’d been doing no silly thing at all. We’d got hold of a scheme that had promised to be quite a clever move. And the more we saw of it the wiser we felt. If this woman didn’t appreciate it, we should know better where we were. As soon as she left us, we took a turn up and down the pavement to cool off.
Then Bertie turned to me and remarked: “I don’t think I ever want to see those three rooms again! They look awfully cold. Do you feel like walking back?”
No, I didn’t. “Well, then, how about driving? What do you say?” I hadn’t any objection—as I said, we had plenty of money, so we might as well spend it, and I thought that if Bertie had a good drive in front of him he would forget for the moment our disappointment.
He did. I noticed his face brighten when he caught sight of the car parked outside. So we went into the station, bought a couple of tickets on the same train that we’d used on the way out, and settled ourselves for a long journey.
I could tell by the way he talked that my cousin had already begun to make up his mind to give it a second trial. In fact, he seemed to have lost faith in the idea, since I saw that the only thing that really interested him was that we should have another go at it and that if that failed we should take some other line and try it once more.
He didn’t like our plan; I can’t remember what he objected to, but he was very much mistaken in saying it was silly. The trouble with Bertie was that he always expected a lot and never got it, so when he found himself in a new experience, like riding in a car, he felt that something was wrong.
It was quite the contrary: he’d just discovered what was missing from our lives. He’d found something we’d lacked for years. But I knew what would happen if we kept on trying to get away from home without having any luck—it would drive Bertie out of his head! We might find ourselves back on the same ground. And I thought I ought to make a point of saying it to him while there was time. So I told him: “Listen, old chap, let’s make one more try—then we’ll be off.”
“Why?” asked Bertie, frowning as he drove along. “What makes you say we should make a third attempt? What have we lost?” “That’s all right,” said I, “we’ve lost nothing, and the worst of it is that we shall have been disappointed again, and perhaps even disgraced!
But I’m not going to have any of this if that’s what you mean. We must make a fresh start; we’re both tired of this sort of thing. We ought to do something else now. I don’t know what—” But Bertie had turned to me and interrupted me; he’d heard something that disturbed him.
“Wait!” he said. “Stop here. There’s something I want to tell you first.” We stopped and looked at each other, then at the house. It seemed a pity to go on driving round about it, so we took one last look inside, and then went to the door with our tickets in our pockets.
“You see those windows over the side door?” he said; “look how they’ve got stuck open, and there’s that funny stuff coming out.” I hadn’t noticed anything special. “Well, what of it?” I asked. “We can come in through there—I think!” He put his hand up to the door of the car.
“Wait! Wait!” said he suddenly, and then he went on as if talking to himself: “It’s not like the way you’d do it, I expect. It doesn’t look as though it had been tried often. I’m not sure we’re doing right!” The trouble was that I’d had my doubts all the time myself; we hadn’t found it very easy to get in, either!
We’d had no trouble at all, so far. If you could get in, there wasn’t much more to do; it only required courage. And as I looked back, I thought: “That’s the end of the whole business for me and Bertie. I wonder what he’ll do if he hasn’t got any luck?”
“Well?” asked Bertie when he’d been sitting there for quite a while. “What about it? Do you think there’s any good in it? Or shall we forget it?” “Well, what’s the use of waiting?” I asked him. “Look, we might as well give up and get a move on us before someone comes along and takes this place over.”
“But look at it!” cried Bertie. “It’s all over the place now!” I couldn’t see anything particularly unusual about the windows or the door. I didn’t feel inclined to get upset myself at being shut out again after we’d made such an effort of it. But I did notice the smell coming from the window.
It smelt rather odd. It seemed to be like the smell of something rotten. I looked at the stuff in the doorway and noticed how much had come down with the rain—and I noticed the marks on the ground where it had dropped off.
“Why, you idiot! It’s gone through into the yard. It was in the kitchen,” said Bertie. He was quite right; I saw it too late. There were two big pieces of it. That meant we’d been a little slow—it would have gone on a bit farther than that. “Oh!” said Bertie.
“I say, you can still come in through that other way, don’t you see? If we go in here we’ll never catch it, anyway!” He took his hand off the door, but I stopped him and went back to the car.
“Look, old chap! You’ve got it all wrong. We won’t go inside—we’ll go round and take the next thing on this side—there’s only one entrance. It ought to be somewhere here, so we needn’t be looking for it, you know!” We walked along the frontage, keeping away from the door where the stuff was.
I felt rather anxious as to what sort of place this was going to be, but the rain made me feel happier and more hopeful, and when we came to the gate I could hardly keep quiet, because of the great number of things that were waiting for us. “You must remember!” I said, “we’re only getting in by luck and accident now!” But then, just at that moment, Bertie found the place he wanted.
“Come and look!” he cried, “this is something like.” And sure enough, there was the opening. A little way inside the hedge we saw the gate to some other house, and the door was standing wide open. We were not afraid, and we didn’t hesitate about taking that one too.
“There’s no hurry,” said Bertie. “It’s raining pretty hard outside.” We went in by the door; it was quite dry inside. As we did so the gate shut itself with a bang, and then we couldn’t find any handle at all. Bertie gave it a good pull and nothing happened. He pulled again, and then I saw the thing.
“Why, they’re locked up!” I shouted out. “They can’t do that!” The trouble was that we’d got them turned inwards; there had been no thought of them being shut when we first opened the doors. It seemed rather silly to be trying to get in with the gates shut! “Let’s turn ’em out!” said I.
So we pushed them all together, and the whole thing clicked shut with a sound like the click of a safe. “Now we’re safe!” cried Bertie, who was feeling very excited and happy. “I say! You see if that hasn’t put us on to a real place here, my old thing! It’s all right!” And as he said it he began to laugh and feel a little more cheerful about everything.
The End