Joy in the Morning Read online

  Table of Contents

  Cover

  Copyright

  About the Author

  Some of the P.G. Wodehouse titles

  Joy in the Morning

  Part One

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Part Two

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Part Three

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Other Books by P. G. Wodehouse

  Also available in Arrow

  This eBook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.

  Version 1.0

  Epub ISBN 9781409064466

  www.randomhouse.co.uk

  Published by Arrow Books 2008

  1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2

  Copyright by The Trustees of the Wodehouse Estate

  All rights reserved

  This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser

  First published in the United Kingdom in 1947 by Herbert Jenkins Ltd

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  ISBN 9780099513766

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  The author of almost a hundred books and the creator of Jeeves, Blandings Castle, Psmith, Ukridge, Uncle Fred and Mr Mulliner, P.G. Wodehouse was born in 1881 and educated at Dulwich College. After two years with the Hong Kong and Shanghai Bank he became a full-time writer, contributing to a variety of periodicals including Punch and the Globe. He married in 1914. As well as his novels and short stories, he wrote lyrics for musical comedies with Guy Bolton and Jerome Kern, and at one time had five musicals running simultaneously on Broadway. His time in Hollywood also provided much source material for fiction.

  At the age of 93, in the New Year’s Honours List of 1975, he received a long-overdue knighthood, only to die on St Valentine’s Day some 45 days later.

  Some of the P.G. Wodehouse titles

  JEEVES

  The Inimitable Jeeves

  Carry On, Jeeves

  Very Good, Jeeves

  Thank You, Jeeves

  Right Ho, Jeeves

  The Code of the Woosters

  Joy in the Morning

  The Mating Season

  Ring for Jeeves

  Jeeves and the Feudal Spirit

  Jeeves in the Offing

  Stiff Upper Lip, Jeeves

  Much Obliged, Jeeves

  Aunts Aren’t Gentlemen

  BLANDINGS

  Something Fresh

  Leave it to Psmith

  Summer Lightning

  Blandings Castle

  Uncle Fred in the Springtime

  Full Moon

  Pigs Have Wings

  Service with a Smile

  A Pelican at Blandings

  MULLINER

  Meet Mr Mulliner

  Mulliner Nights

  Mr Mulliner Speaking

  UNCLE FRED

  Cocktail Time

  Uncle Dynamite

  GOLF

  The Clicking of Cuthbert

  The Heart of a Goof

  OTHERS

  Piccadilly Jim

  Ukridge

  The Luck of the Bodkins

  Laughing Gas

  A Damsel in Distress

  The Small Bachelor

  Hot Water

  Summer Moonshine

  The Adventures of Sally

  Money for Nothing

  The Girl in Blue

  Big Money

  Part 1

  CHAPTER 1

  After the thing was all over, when peril had ceased to loom and happy endings had been distributed in heaping handfuls and we were driving home with our hats on the side of our heads, having shaken the dust of Steeple Bumpleigh from our tyres, I confessed to Jeeves that there had been moments during the recent proceedings when Bertram Wooster, though no weakling, had come very near to despair.

  ‘Within a toucher, Jeeves.’

  ‘Unquestionably affairs had developed a certain menacing trend, sir.’

  ‘I saw no ray of hope. It looked to me as if the blue bird had thrown in the towel and formally ceased to function. And yet here we are, all boomps-a-daisy. Makes one think a bit, that.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘There’s an expression on the tip of my tongue which seems to me to sum the whole thing up. Or, rather, when I say an expression, I mean a saying. A wheeze. A gag. What, I believe, is called a saw. Something about Joy doing something.’

  ‘Joy cometh in the morning, sir?’

  ‘That’s the baby. Not one of your things, is it?’

  ‘No, sir.’

  ‘Well, it’s dashed good,’ I said.

  And I still think that there can be no neater way of putting in a nutshell the outcome of the super-sticky affair of Nobby Hopwood, Stilton Cheesewright, Florence Craye, my Uncle Percy, J. Chichester Clam, Edwin the Boy Scout and old Boko Fittleworth – or, as my biographers will probably call it, the Steeple Bumpleigh Horror.

  Even before the events occurred which I am about to relate, the above hamlet had come high up on my list of places to be steered sedulously clear of. I don’t know if you have ever seen one of those old maps where they mark a spot with a cross and put ‘Here be dragons’ or ‘Keep ye eye skinned for hippogriffs’, but I had always felt that some such kindly warning might well have been given to pedestrians and traffic with regard to this Steeple Bumpleigh.

  A picturesque settlement, yes. None more so in all Hampshire. It lay embowered, as I believe the expression is, in the midst of smiling fields and leafy woods, hard by a willow-fringed river, and you couldn’t have thrown a brick in it without hitting a honeysuckle-covered cottage or be
aning an apple-cheeked villager. But you remember what the fellow said – it’s not a bally bit of use every prospect pleasing if man is vile, and the catch about Steeple Bumpleigh was that it contained Bumpleigh Hall, which in its turn contained my Aunt Agatha and her second husband.

  And when I tell you that this second h. was none other than Percival, Lord Worplesdon, and that he had with him his daughter Florence and his son Edwin, the latter as pestilential a stripling as ever wore khaki shorts and went spooring or whatever it is that these Boy Scouts do, you will understand why I had always declined my old pal Boko Fittleworth’s invitations to visit him at the bijou residence he maintained in those parts.

  I had also had to be similarly firm with Jeeves, who had repeatedly hinted his wish that I should take a cottage there for the summer months. There was, it appeared, admirable fishing in the river, and he is a man who dearly loves to flick the baited hook. ‘No, Jeeves,’ I had been compelled to say, ‘much though it pains me to put a stopper on your simple pleasures, I cannot take the risk of running into that gang of pluguglies. Safety first.’ And he had replied, ‘Very good, sir,’ and there the matter had rested.

  But all the while, unsuspected by Bertram, the shadow of Steeple Bumpleigh was creeping nearer and nearer, and came a day when it tore off its whiskers and pounced.

  Oddly enough, the morning on which this major disaster occurred was one that found me completely, even exuberantly, in the pink. No inkling of the soup into which I was to be plunged came to mar my perfect bien être. I had slept well, shaved well and shower-bathed well, and it was with a merry cry that I greeted Jeeves as he brought in the coffee and kippers.

  ‘Odd’s boddikins, Jeeves,’ I said, ‘I am in rare fettle this a.m. Talk about exulting in my youth! I feel up and doing, with a heart for any fate, as Tennyson says.’

  ‘Longfellow, sir.’

  ‘Or, if you prefer it, Longfellow. I am in no mood to split hairs. Well, what’s the news?’

  ‘Miss Hopwood called while you were still asleep, sir.’

  ‘No, really? I wish I’d seen her.’

  ‘The young lady was desirous of entering your room and rousing you with a wet sponge, but I dissuaded her. I considered it best that your repose should not be disturbed.’

  I applauded this watch-dog spirit, showing as it did both the kindly heart and the feudal outlook, but continued to tut-tut a bit at having missed the young pipsqueak, with whom my relations had always been of the matiest. This Zenobia (‘Nobby’) Hopwood was old Worplesdon’s ward, as I believe it is called. A pal of his, just before he stopped ticking over some years previously, had left him in charge of his daughter. I don’t know how these things are arranged – no doubt documents have to be drawn up and dotted lines signed on – but, whatever the procedure, the upshot was as I have stated. When all the smoke had cleared away, my Uncle Percy was Nobby’s guardian.

  ‘Young Nobby, eh? When did she blow into the great city?’ I asked. For, on becoming Uncle Percy’s ward, she had of course joined the strength at his Steeple Bumpleigh lair, and it was only rarely nowadays that she came to London.

  ‘Last night, sir.’

  ‘Making a long stay?’

  ‘Only until to-morrow, sir.’

  ‘Hardly worth while sweating up just for a day, I should have thought.’

  ‘I understand that she came because her ladyship desired her company, sir.’

  I quailed a bit.

  ‘You don’t mean Aunt Agatha’s in London?’

  ‘Merely passing through, sir,’ replied the honest fellow, calming my apprehensions. ‘Her ladyship is on her way to minister to Master Thomas, who has contracted mumps at his school.’

  His allusion was to the old relative’s son by her first marriage, one of our vilest citizens. Many good judges rank him even higher in England’s Rogues’ Gallery than her stepson Edwin. I was rejoiced to learn that he had got mumps, and toyed for a moment with a hope that Aunt Agatha would catch them from him.

  ‘And what had Nobby to say for herself?’

  ‘She was regretting that she saw so little of you nowadays, sir.’

  ‘Quite mutual, the agony, Jeeves. There are few better eggs than this Hopwood.’

  ‘She expressed a hope that you might shortly see your way to visiting Steeple Bumpleigh.’

  I shook the head.

  ‘Out of the q., Jeeves.’

  ‘The young lady tells me the fish are biting well there just now.’

  ‘No, Jeeves. I’m sorry. Not even if they bite like serpents do I go near Steeple Bumpleigh.’

  ‘Very good, sir.’

  He spoke sombrely, and I endeavoured to ease the strain by asking for another cup of coffee.

  ‘Was Nobby alone?’

  ‘No, sir. There was a gentleman with her, who spoke as if he were acquainted with you. Miss Hopwood addressed him as Stilton.’

  ‘Big chap?’

  ‘Noticeably well developed, sir.’

  ‘With a head like a pumpkin?’

  ‘Yes, sir. There was a certain resemblance to the vegetable.’

  ‘It must have been a companion of my earlier years named G. D’Arcy Cheesewright. In our whimsical way we used to call him Stilton. I haven’t seen him for ages. He lives in the country somewhere, and to hobnob with Bertram Wooster it is imperative that you stick around the metropolis. Odd, him knowing Nobby.’

  ‘I gathered from the young lady’s remarks that Mr Cheese-wright is also a resident of Steeple Bumpleigh, sir.’

  ‘Really? It’s a small world, Jeeves.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘I don’t know when I’ve seen a smaller,’ I said, and would have gone more deeply into the subject, but at this juncture the telephone tinkled out a summons, and he shimmered off to answer it. Through the door, which he had chanced to leave ajar, the ear detected a good deal of Yes-my-lord-ing and Very-good-my-lord-ing, seeming to indicate that he had hooked one of the old nobility.

  ‘Who was it?’ I asked, as he filtered in again.

  ‘Lord Worplesdon, sir.’

  It seems almost incredible to me, looking back, that I should have received this news item with nothing more than a mildly surprised ‘Oh, ah?’ Amazing, I mean, that I shouldn’t have spotted the sinister way in which what you might call the Steeple Bumpleigh note had begun to intrude itself like some creeping fog or miasma, and trembled in every limb, asking myself what this portended. But so it was. The significance of the thing failed to penetrate and, as I say, I oh-ahed with merely a faint spot of surprise.

  ‘The call was for me, sir. His lordship wishes me to go to his office immediately.’

  ‘He wants to see you?’

  ‘Such was the impression I gathered, sir.’

  ‘Did he say why?’

  ‘No, sir. Merely that the matter was of considerable urgency.’

  I mused, thoughtfully champing a kipper. It seemed to me that there could be but one solution.

  ‘Do you know what I think, Jeeves? He’s in a spot of some kind and needs your counsel.’

  ‘It may be so, sir.’

  ‘I’ll bet it’s so. He must know all about your outstanding gifts. You can’t go on as you have gone on so long, dishing out aid and comfort to all and sundry, without acquiring a certain reputation, if only in the family circle. Grab your hat and race along. I shall be all agog to learn the inside story. What sort of a day is it?’

  ‘Extremely clement, sir.’

  ‘Sunshine and all that?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘I thought as much. That must be why I’m feeling so dashed fit. Then I think I’ll take myself for an airing. Tell me,’ I said, for I was a trifle remorseful at having had to adopt that firm attitude about going to Steeple Bumpleigh and wished to bring back into his life the joy which my refusal to allow him to get in among the local fish had excluded from it, ‘is there any little thing I can do for you while I’m out?’

  ‘Sir?’

  ‘Any little gift yo
u would like, I mean?’

  ‘It is extremely kind of you, sir.’

  ‘Not at all, Jeeves. The sky is the limit. State your desire.’

  ‘Well, sir, there has recently been published a new and authoritatively annotated edition of the works of the philosopher Spinoza. Since you are so generous, I would appreciate that very much.’

  You shall have it. It shall be delivered at your door in a plain van without delay. You’re sure you’ve got the name right? Spinoza?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘It doesn’t sound probable, but no doubt you know best. Spinoza, eh? Is he the Book Society’s Choice of the Month?’

  ‘I believe not, sir.’

  ‘Well, he’s the only fellow I ever heard of who wasn’t. Right ho. I’ll see to it instanter.’

  And presently, having assembled the hat, the gloves and the neatly rolled u., I sauntered forth.

  As I made my way to the bookery, I found my thoughts turning once more, as you may readily imagine, to this highly suggestive business of old Worplesdon. The thing intrigued me. I found it difficult to envisage what possible sort of a jam a man like that could have got himself into.

  When, about eighteen months before, news had reached me through well-informed channels that my Aunt Agatha, for many years a widow, or derelict, as I believe it is called, was about to take another pop at matrimony, my first emotion, as was natural in the circumstances, had been a gentle pity for the unfortunate goop slated to step up the aisle with her – she, as you are aware, being my tough aunt, the one who eats broken bottles and conducts human sacrifices by the light of the full moon.