Ukridge Stories - P. G. Wodehouse (e book free reading TXT) 📗

If I had an appointment, he intimated, it was his duty, however repulsive, to show me in; but, that done, he dissociated himself entirely from the whole affair.

There were two women and six Pekingese dogs in the room. The Pekes I had met before, during their brief undergraduate days at Ukridge’s dog college, but they did not appear to recognise me. The occasion when they had lunched at my expense seemed to have passed from their minds. One by one they came up, sniffed, and then moved away as if my bouquet had disappointed them. They gave the impression that they saw eye to eye with the butler in his estimate of the young visitor. I was left to face the two women.

Of these⁠—reading from right to left⁠—one was a tall, angular, hawk-faced female with a stony eye. The other, to whom I gave but a passing glance at the moment, was small, and so it seemed to me, pleasant-looking. She had bright hair faintly powdered with grey, and mild eyes of a china blue. She reminded me of the better class of cat. I took her to be some casual caller who had looked in for a cup of tea. It was the hawk on whom I riveted my attention. She was looking at me with a piercing and unpleasant stare, and I thought how exactly she resembled the picture I had formed of her in my mind from Ukridge’s conversation.

“Miss Ukridge?” I said, sliding on a rug towards her and feeling like some novice whose manager, against his personal wishes, has fixed him up with a match with the heavyweight champion.

“I am Miss Ukridge,” said the other woman. “Miss Watterson, Mr. Corcoran.”

It was a shock, but, the moment of surprise over, I began to feel something approaching mental comfort for the first time since I had entered this house of slippery rugs and supercilious butlers. Somehow I had got the impression from Ukridge that his aunt was a sort of stage aunt, all stiff satin and raised eyebrows. This half-portion with the mild blue eyes I felt that I could tackle. It passed my comprehension why Ukridge should ever have found her intimidating.

“I hope you will not mind if we have our little talk before Miss Watterson,” she said with a charming smile. “She has come to arrange the details of the Pen and Ink Club dance which we are giving shortly. She will keep quite quiet and not interrupt. You don’t mind?”

“Not at all, not at all,” I said in my attractive way. It is not exaggerating to say that at this moment I felt debonair. “Not at all, not at all. Oh, not at all.”

“Won’t you sit down?”

“Thank you, thank you.”

The hawk moved over to the window, leaving us to ourselves.

“Now we are quite cosy,” said Ukridge’s aunt.

“Yes, yes,” I agreed. Dash it, I liked this woman.

“Tell me, Mr. Corcoran,” said Ukridge’s aunt, “are you on the staff of Woman’s Sphere? It is one of my favourite papers. I read it every week.”

“The outside staff.”

“What do you mean by the outside staff?”

“Well, I don’t actually work in the office, but the editor gives me occasional jobs.”

“I see. Who is the editor now?”

I began to feel slightly less debonair. She was just making conversation, of course, to put me at my ease, but I wished she would stop asking me these questions. I searched desperately in my mind for a name⁠—any name⁠—but as usual on these occasions every name in the English language had passed from me.

“Of course. I remember now,” said Ukridge’s aunt, to my profound relief. “It’s Mr. Jevons, isn’t it? I met him one night at dinner.”

“Jevons,” I burbled. “That’s right. Jevons.”

“A tall man with a light moustache.”

“Well, fairly tall,” I said, judicially.

“And he sent you here to interview me?”

“Yes.”

“Well, which of my novels do you wish me to talk about?”

I relaxed with a delightful sense of relief. I felt on solid ground at last. And then it suddenly came to me that Ukridge in his woollen-headed way had omitted to mention the name of a single one of this woman’s books.

“Er⁠—oh, all of them,” I said hurriedly.

“I see. My general literary work.”

“Exactly,” I said. My feeling towards her now was one of positive affection.

She leaned back in her chair with her fingertips together, a pretty look of meditation on her face.

“Do you think it would interest the readers of Woman’s Sphere to know which novel of mine is my own favourite?”

“I am sure it would.”

“Of course,” said Ukridge’s aunt, “it is not easy for an author to answer a question like that. You see, one has moods in which first one book and then another appeals to one.”

“Quite,” I replied. “Quite.”

“Which of my books do you like best, Mr. Corcoran?”

There swept over me the trapped feeling one gets in nightmares. From six baskets the six Pekingese stared at me unwinkingly.

“Er⁠—oh, all of them,” I heard a croaking voice reply. My voice, presumably, though I did not recognise it.

“How delightful!” said Ukridge’s aunt. “Now, I really do call that delightful. One or two of the critics have said that my work was uneven. It is so nice to meet someone who doesn’t agree with them. Personally, I think my favourite is The Heart of Adelaide.”

I nodded my approval of this sound choice. The muscles which had humped themselves stiffly on my back began to crawl back into place again. I found it possible to breathe.

“Yes,” I said, frowning thoughtfully, “I suppose The Heart of Adelaide is the best thing you have written. It has such human appeal,” I added, playing it safe.

“Have you read it, Mr. Corcoran?”

“Oh yes.”

“And you really enjoyed it?”

“Tremendously.”

“You don’t think it is a fair criticism to say that it is a little broad in parts?”

“Most unfair.” I began to see my way. I do not know why, but I had been assuming that her novels must be the sort you find in seaside libraries. Evidently they belonged to the other class