Page:Carry On, Jeeves.pdf/16

JEEVES TAKES CHARGE 15

Easeby wasn’t one of those country houses you read about in the society novels, where young girls are lured on to play baccarat and then skinned to the bone of their jewellery, and so on. The house-party I had left had consisted entirely of law-abiding birds like myself.

Besides, my uncle wouldn't have let anything of th at kind go on in his house. He was a rather stiff, precise sort of old boy, who liked a quiet life. He was just finishing a history of the family or something, which he had been working on for the last year, and didn’t stir much from the library. He was rather a good instance of what they say about its being a good scheme for a fellow to sow his wild oats. I ’d been told that in his youth Uncle Willoughby had been a bit of a rounder. You would never have thought it to look at him now.

When I got to the house, Oakshott, the butler, told me th at Florence was in her room, watching her maid pack. Apparently, there was a dance on at a house about twenty miles away that night, and she was motoring over with some of the Easeby lot and would be away some nights. Oakshott said she had told him to tell her the moment I arrived; so I trickled into the smoking-room and waited, and presently in she came. A glance showed me that she was perturbed and even peeved. Her eyes had a goggly look, and altogether she appeared considerably pipped. " Darling! ” I said, and attempted the good old embrace; but she side-stepped like a bantam weight. “Don’t!” “What’s the matter?” " Everything’s the matter! Bertie, you remember asking me, when you left, to make myself pleasant to your uncle? ” “Yes.” The idea being, of course, that as at that time I was more or less dependent on Uncle Willoughby I couldn’t very well marry without his approval. And though