The Curse of the Woosters

I owe both PG Wodehouse and HP Lovecraft an apology for this one.

Let it never be said that we Woosters are not an optimistic crew. Now I know you might have heard a different tale from Gussie Fink-Nottle, especially had you been present at the infamous school prize-giving on the occasion of his having imbibed a little more than a half pint of spirituous liquor before standing up to make his speech, but such tales are nothing but the tattling of an oaf. No, we Woosters are possessed of a spirit blithe, ever cheery at the aspect of a new born day, and never dismayed by any outrageous slings and arrows which might happen to waylay us.

I had been under the impression, therefore, upon the joyous event of the reading of the banns of marriage between Madeleine Basset and that football-headed bruiser and sometime nemesis of Bertram Wilberforce, Roderick Spode, that all peril from that quarter had been safely tidied away into the dustpan of history. A fellow might therefore feel safe from the clammy touch of matrimony and instead retire to the true reward of the just and honourable at the Drones, before returning to his Spartan bachelor domicile with a few like-minded fellows where his trusty manservant might have prepared a repast fit for such a noble gathering. There was , I have to inform you, a certain froideur between Jeeves and myself on account of his leaving brochures for the more notable cruise shipping companies about the flat and from time to time reinforcing their presence with a genteel cough and a wave of the hand indicating one of the more garish examples with pages marked, but I had not risen for the bait. No, I was being a cool fish. Jeeves, I felt, was taking too many liberties and it needed a stern demeanor on my part to reinforce the gentleman and villein relationship which should rightly lie between us.

However, despite that slight souring of our relations he continued to give satisfaction with no equal. The carpets were spruced, my trousers had creased in them which would put a guardsman off his stroke with jealousy, and the foodstuffs which in some manner went into the kitchen raw and appeared on my plate in consumable form were as excellent as ever. I don’t know much about what happens in kitchens, but the way in which unassuming eggs and pigs and vegetables are transformed into something to soothe the weary traveller upon his return never fails to strike me as something in the line of a minor miracle. So it was that brisk Autumnal day as Catsmeat Potter-Pirbright, Oofy Prossor and I passed under the lintel of the Wooster residence slightly the worse for a pre-Breakfast sharpener only to find my Aunt Agatha ensconced in my best armchair, for all the world as if she were the proprietor of the establishment.

I shall take a moment to digress. It is a sorry man who is burdened with an Aunt, and the one blot on the Wooster landscape was my ill fate to have been burdened with two. Aunt D, who is, as Aunts go, not a complete fiend, and Aunt A, whose name is uttered in whispers whenever connoisseurs of Aunt-dom convene. Both Aunts have been making sterling efforts to get your narrator frogmarched up the nearest aisle attached to anything in a frock since I was kneehigh to a grasshopper, and it is only thanks to the high fish content of Jeeves’ diet that I remain unwed. Both have spoken at length of my sainted parents and the need to continue the Wooster line, and painful experience has taught me that observing that if they are so keen on such linear extension they both possess the necessary accessories is a serious tactical error.

Returning to the subject at hand; I had breezed through my own front door, crying to Jeeves to dish up any fatted calves which might be on the premises when I was caught up short in a stare filled with gimlets which projected from slightly above my Aunt Agatha’s nose. “Bertram”, she said. “Sit down, Bertram. I want to talk to you.”
I looked around but Catsmeat and Oofy had taken the wisest line under the circumstances and absented themselves and so, bereft of manly succour from that direction, I sat.
“What-ho, Aunt A”, I said, gamely trying to put the best face on it. “I was just about to have a spot of the old B. Can I tempt you to an egg? Jeeves, you know, is a master of the poach and a wizard at the scramble. I’m sure it would be no trouble for him to – “
“Stop babbling, Bertie”, and my babbling ceased. “I’m here on important business. Your forthcoming marriage.”
“But-“
“Your forthcoming marriage, Bertram, and let us not have any of your usual claptrap.”
“But-“
“Claptrap, Bertram. You have gadded about for too long, and it is time some use was made of you.”
“But-“
“Bertram! Close your mouth. You’ll catch flies. Listen to me Bertram. It’s time you were wed and I’ll have no more nonsense out of you. You’re to go to Totleigh Towers this evening, where Sir Watkyn Basset has some news.”
“But-“
“This very evening, Bertram. I have given Jeeves strict instructions to that effect.”
And leaving no further time for additional butting on the part of the party of the first part, she rose from the chair and swept from my quarters without another word. I sat agog with horror. Totleigh Towers, you’ll recall, is not only the ancestral heap of Sir Watkyn Basset but – even more tooth chatteringly – the lair of Madeleine Basset, who amongst a multitude of other flaws has a penchant for extolling the virtues of baby bunny rabbits and fluffy baa-lambs and, worst of all, the fevered mind which produced these fancies had further conjured up a berserk belief that one Bertram Wilberforce Wooster was hopelessly in love with her. Only her impending nuptials to that offspring of a zoo ape and an madman escaped from Dartmoor, Spode, kept her distracted from, as she would put it, ‘making me the happiest man in the world’. And from what Aunt D had said the impression was that said engagement was now off and her mind had settled upon me again like the dog returning once again to whatever it is dogs return to.
I stretched out a weary paw and Jeeves, appearing as was his wont, introduced my breakfast into it. But do you know? I was so depressed I didn’t touch a single drop.

***

“Do you know?” I said, after some thinking. “I can’t say they look any different to how they usually do. Sort of white and sparkly and roughly the same number as normal, although I must be honest and confess I haven’t counted.”
It was evening of the same day and having motored up to Totleigh Towers with Jeeves I had been greeted by Madeleine Basset in the manner of one of his majestys’ finest naval agents and impressed into taking an evening stroll with her in the bower until the gong went. My comment reported above was made after a certain amount of consideration, as she had asked me whether I thought the stars were just right?
“Oh, Bertie!”, she sighed. “You are so funny!”. I made a noise which might have registered as affirmative, if one weren’t listening too closely. “Of course you must be able to see how right they are. Isn’t it as plain as the nose on your face? Soon the gibbous moon will rise and never set, the sun will drown in blood, and I shall be wed to the unspeakable one who is not to be named.”
Now I have from time to time referred to Spode in pretty ripe terms myself but I thought this was a bit rich for his betrothed, and I said so.
“See here, Madeleine. I must say this is all a bit rummy. Aunt Agatha gave me to believe that your engagement to Spode was off, and yet here you are, evidently still spliced to the nuptial trail. So good for you, old girl, I shall swallow my disappointment with aplomb and wish you the very brightest of luck in your futures. But don’t you think it a little unbecoming for the blushing bride to refer to her swain in such a manner? Discretion is the Wooster watchword as you know, but shrubberies have ears, and it wouldn’t do to for Spode to learn that you had – however accurately – summarised his legion of failings in such a warm manner.”
Madeleine gave a delighted trill of laughter, like a demented nightjar. “Don’t be so silly, Bertie! I’m not to marry Spode! I’m to marry the unspeakable one who is not to be named! And you are to be married to the blasphemous black goat of the woods who shall spawn foulness.”
I must confess that this left me no wiser. I could think of a half dozen girls who I wouldn’t be able to pick out of a police lineup with only that description to work from and Aunt Agatha might have added any one of them to the lists to tilt in my direction. Stiffie Byng? Honoria Glossop? Bobbie Wyckham? I resolved to lay my cares at Jeeves' feet at the earliest opportunity, but when Madeleine tapped me on the arm and said it was time for dinner my thoughts drifted around to the idea that a large tumbler or two of dinner, possibly followed by a schooner of supper, might not be such a bad idea.

The two of us made our promenade across the garden and through the French Windows to the dining room where a small gathering were already seated. At the head of the table was Sir Watkyn Basset, silver collector, magistrate, and all-round bane of the Wooster ever since our first unfortunate meeting when he had engaged in some grievous judicial miscarriage and given me ten shillings or thirty days for a touch of youthful japery involving a policeman’s helmet on Boat Race night. To his right was Rupert Steggles, turf accountant to the Drones, and to his right was Gussy Fink-Nottle, whose normally bulging eyes were positively gogglesome and whose pale complexion was absolutely fish-like. I settled my behind in next to Gussy and set about the soup, taking care to make all appropriate appreciative noises whilst simultaneously avoiding catching Sir Watkyn’s eye.
“I say, Bertie”, said Steggles, leaning over.
“What-ho, Steggles”, I replied with all the courtesy which an expensive education could grind into a chap.
“I’m running a book on the end of the world”, he said. “I was wondering if you’d like in. ‘Riddled by dholes’ is an outside bet at ten to one, although ‘devoured by inhuman, cyclopean monstrosities’ is a popular choice at six to two. ‘Drowned in fire and blood accompanied by the monstrous piping of mindless alien gods’ is currently favourite at evens. Would you care for a flutter?”
I turned to Gussie. “I think Steggles has finally cracked”, I sotto vocishly observed. “Gaga.”
Gussie rotated a distended eyeball towards me in reply. “Oh, no, Bertwam. He’s quite cowwect. The stars have wotated thwough their axis to unnatural angles and torn a hole in weality. All kinds of tentacled monstwosities are positively spilling thwough. I’m afwaid it’s curtains for Earth. We’re expecting Father Dagon and Mother Hydra in the lake in the gardens tomowwow.”
I had to admit I was foggy on the identities of Dagon and Hydra – and anyway, I’ve met Gussie’s parents. They’re called Frank and Hilda and have a spruce little place up on the Norfolk coast – so any import in Gussy’s news passed me by rather. Instead I was more perturbed by the spoonfuls of soup which he was ladling into his face with evident enjoyment.
“Gussie, old man”, I interjected. “The moment seems opportune to observe that your soup appears to have newts in it. Good form indicates that I not question your dietary arrangements, but it seems said newts are not enjoying the experience and might be better suited to a cosy tank in your room, or even Sir Watkyn’s bath, at a pinch.”
Gussie nodded and rolled an unsettlingly flabby and pale tongue over his lips. “Oh, yes, Bertie. All these years I thought my love of the humble newt was just due to their gentle nature and fascinating life-cycle, but no. Since the heavens wevealed their secwets I’ve discovered quite a taste for them as well.” He levered up a large, greenish spoonful and gulped it down without any suggestion of concern.

Well. With Gussie tucking into his collection on the one hand, Steggles trying to touch me for twenty nicker on a dead cert for a rain of frogs and a plague of alligators on the other, and Madeleine molesting my elbow and suggesting that if listened very hard I might hear the beautiful fluting of the elder things on the third, what else could I do but busy myself about the serious business with a knife and fork before looking up and catching Sir Watkyn’s eye with a well what can you do, they’re all bonkers but we’ve got all our marbles so what can you do old man, ha-ha sort of a glance, only to find he had me fixed with that beady glaze I remembered only too well from his time opposite me on the bench. “Wooster”, he said. “Wooster.”
Remembering my manners, I tipped my spoon at him. “Tinketty-tonk, Sir Watkyn old fruit”, I said, with as much of the old familial bonhomie as I could muster. If there’s one thing at which we Woosters excel it is the retention of bonhomie in discouraging situations. “Lovely weather, wouldn’t you say?” In reply he rolled his eyes at me in a manner not dissimilar to a horse refusing a six-bar gate and launched into a speech which I sounded suspiciously pre-prepared.
“You are to be married, Wooster. On the morrow. Wed, d’ye hear me? Wed. As the bloody sun rises and the stars align, so it shall be. For you – you of all humanity – are the chosen one”, he stalled a bit at this point, as if confused why such an honour might fall to yours truly.
“Go on, Sir W.B”, I encouraged him politely before taking the plunge back into the omelette champignons son croute. He prated on in that sort of vein for a while, not unlike one of those doom-prophets from the livelier books of the Old Testament. It was all fire this and brimstone that and Bertie getting married the other, but by that stage I had oiled myself pretty liberally with the finest the cellars of Chateau Totleigh had to offer and much of it sailed straight in though one shell-like and out again through the other without being much impeded by the grey matter in between. Instead, I simply behaved the way I always do upon encountering a loony in full spate; smile a lot, make sure I can see his hands at all times, and look for the first chance to beat the retreat and lay my cares at Jeeves’ feet. Jeeves is a marvel at seeing off loonies, you see. Not only has he a brain as sharp as a tack, but he tells me he once laid out the Boxing champ of Trinity College, Dublin with a single blow, which is the sort of accomplishment which can come in handy in a pinch.

And there you have my evening; by the time I slipped my leash and escaped from the table, Madeleine had twice asked me if I didn’t think the puppies of Tindalos weren’t the most adorable things with their great eyes full of love, Steggles had absented a tenner from me for an each way bet on “Cracked like an egg and oozed forth blasphemous ichors” in the apocalypse stakes, I had watched Gussie consume more newts than Bingo Little the time we wagered him he wouldn’t drink a pint of pond-water, and Sir Watkyn had turned clean purple as his desire to speak overcame his rather more natural urge to breathe. All in hand, I thought I had coped remarkably well, and such I observed to Jeeves once I was back in my room.

“The Wooster composure barely slipped, Jeeves. Had you seen your master at bay with that convention of refugees from the secure hospital you would have said to yourself ‘there is a man’, Jeeves. That’s what you would have said.”
“Am I to understand, sir, that the evening was not a success?”
“A success, Jeeves? I should say not. Fix me a little something to steady my nerves and I shall regale you. “ Jeeves busied himself with the necessary whilst I adorned myself with pyjamas and slipped between the sheets. “Jeeves”, I said as he eased a glass amongst my waiting digits. “It appears I was under a misapprehension. Aunt Agathas scheme, it appears, is not to see me mated with Madeleine Basset, which I suppose is a relief in itself. Understand me, Jeeves, that I bear Madeleine no ill-will. Far from it. I have at times observed her displaying an almost human intelligence. But in matters of matrimony, she and I are ill-matched, Jeeves.”
“Indeed, sir?”.
“But this was not the ruse, no indeed. According to Sir Watkyn Bassett I am to be wed tomorrow, Jeeves. Tomorrow! And they’re all in on it. Madeleine bade me a tearful good-bye as I slipped upstairs just now; and Gussie! Gussie is plainly in on the plot up to the gills – of which, incidentally, he appears to have grown a collection since last we conferred.”
“And with whom, if I might ask, sir, is the joyous event to take place?”
“Well that’s the dashiest thing, Jeeves. Never heard of her. Some foreign dolly by the name of Niggurath I’m given to understand. Do you know the name?”
I noted as I declaimed a small crease had appeared on Jeeves’ capacious brow. Normally unruffled, this crease – if you know Jeeves as I do, which is as well as a fellow might – was the surest indicator of churning distress and internal turmoil the like of which ordinary man cannot fathom. “Shub- Niggurath, sir? Black goat of the woods and mother of a thousand young?”
“The same, Jeeves.. Expected here in the A.M., I’m told. You know of her?”
“There was some talk in the servant’s hall this evening, sir, yes. Seppings the butler was most vocal on the subject, if I recall.”
“Well, what are you going to do about it, Jeeves? I can’t be hauled to the Totleigh Towers chapel altar without so much as a by-your-leave. In your capable hands lies my future, wed or unwed. I am reliant upon you Jeeves as never before, so I trust you filled up on fish at dinner as you will need to strain your intellectual accomplishments to their utmost, Jeeves. Their utmost.”
“Very good, sir. Will that be all for the evening? If so, with your permission, I should like to make use of the motor-car as I will need to take a trip to London with considerable dispatch.”
“Permission granted, Jeeves. God speed and post-haste, what?”

***

I expect you’d think I might suffer a disturbed night after the events of the evening, but when your fate is in Jeeves’ hands you may sleep like Jacob with his ladder, secure in the protection of a benign force possessed of powers beyond mortal wit. I was well on my way to the full nine or ten hours which is the reward of a clear conscience my eyes were popped into openness by two events; firstly the sun launching itself over the horizon, and as Madeleine had predicted it was not its usual cheery yellow self but a rich cherry-red and appeared to be dripping something noisome. Second – and of more immediate import – was a scaly claw latching itself to my shoulder and heaving me from my repose which, on closer examination, turned out to be attached to the arm of Gussie Fink-Nottle.

“Gussie!” I observed with considerable vim. “What the devil are you about?”
He did not answer, but instead peeled aside his lips to give me a grin which comprised of about a hundred and forty sharp teeth. I decided a change of tack was in order. “Jeeves!” I yodelled. “Jeeves!”
When I was at school the headmaster drummed Bible tales into our heads, often by drumming on our heads, and I recalled at that moment how Daniel, confined with a band of ravenous lions, showed stoicism and uttered not one peep of complaint. I can’t explain why I was reminded of that, as at the time I was hollering fit to go bang. I’m a reasonable and easy-going sort but being hoisted from my bed by something untoward puts me in a hollering frame of mind, and when I holler I feel I may as well make the most of it. But Jeeves came there none.

Gussie, Sir Watkyn and Steggles manhandled me down the servant’s stairs, where fact the carpet was in dire need of replacement was drawn to my attention by my face bouncing of it at every tread. Still ensconced in my pyjamas and without the benefit of a wakening cup of tea and slice of toast and M I found myself dumped unceremoniously on the croquet lawn, where I took stock of my circumstances. There was the sun, hovering over the spinney looking for all the world like one of the red oranges which come from Spain, with a flock of winged creatures swooping about it which I couldn’t see too clearly because of the distance which but looked beastly all the same. Meanwhile, where the lake had been at the bottom of the garden there now sat a huge puddle of a greyish sort of sludge which bubbled, like porridge left too long on the hob. From time to time bits of it would fall off, sprout legs or flippers or similar, and decant themselves off to the shrubbery which I imagined would cause the gardener no end of trouble.

“Behold!” shouted Sir Watkyn into my ear. “Your bride, Wooster!”
Well as brides go this was the absolute limit. Even Madeleine wouldn’t be such a bad prospect when compared on strict terms to something which looked it had come out of a blocked drain. In fact, under the circumstances I’d’ve settled for Bobbie Wyckham, which shows the limits to which my desperation had driven me. “Now see here, Sir Watkyn”, I said. “I have been patient. No, more than patient with this nonsense, but I shall stand no more. We’ll hear no more of this marri– “
Just as I was getting into my flow I was cut off by Gussy wrapping his mitts about me once more and marching me across the turf to the burbling morass, which made a sort of gleeful blooping noise at my approach. “You are the chosen one, Wooster!” bellowed Sir Watkyn after me. “When you are wed, the world will end!”

I could hardly agree more.

Frankly, the situation vis-a-vis the Wooster bachelordom and subsequent ongoing structural integrity of the world and reality in general looked to be poor. The odds, I mused to myself, were not good, and it even seemed unlikely I would be able to redeem my wager with Steggles. I was just bracing myself to one final blast of the Wooster hollering foghorn when Gussie pulled up short. “I say, Bertie”, he said in a sort of gurgling wheeze, “it’s your fellow Jeeves. What is that he’s about?”
I looked, and behold – there was Jeeves standing like some statue of an angry preacher of the sort you get in Scottish churches, all scowl and wagging finger and a whopping grimoire clutched in the other hand. He was declaiming something which sounded foreign; whatever it was I didn’t catch a word of it but it sounded the sort of thing you wouldn’t care to have translated and repeated over dinner with a bunch of fellows with whom you hoped to stay chums for long. As he went on, a succession of interesting events took place. Sir Watkyns’ head popped like a watermelon, the sun turned its familiar shadow of yellow, and the great grey blob of sludge in the lake drained away with a gurgle like someone had taken the plug out. At this Gussie let me go, gave a gibbering hoot, and made off down the drive. Jeeves ankled his way down to me, picked me up and brushed off the back of my jacket.

“If you’ll forgive the urgency, sir, I suspect that the local constabulary will shortly be in attendance and it might be prudent to absent ourselves before their arrival.”
“Gah”, I replied, displaying my vocab to the utmost.
“Anticipating something of this morning’s events, I took the liberty of learning the layout of a number of local back lanes which if efficiently utilised should have the desired effect of getting us some distance from Totleigh Towers without incurring any unwelcome attention, sir”, he suggested whilst levering me into through the passenger door of my motor.
“Gah”, I added.

***

The wind was breezing over my ears as Jeeves eeled the vehicle around the deserted curves and bends of the Gloucestershire countryside. “Jeeves!”, I asked, having recovered the use of my tonsils. “What the devil was that back there, Jeeves?”
“That was one of a group of alien deities collectively known as the Elder Gods, sir. An unsettling prospect at the best of times, in person their aspect can prove detrimental to both body and mind.”
“So what did you do to get it to go away?”
“I made use of certain techniques outlined in The Club Book, sir.” Jeeves is a member of a club called the Junior Ganymede, membership which is reserved exclusively for the pleasure of Gentlemen's Gentlemen.
“The club book, Jeeves? The one which you fellows write down any peccadilloes and unlucky turns of fortune which might befall your employers, and then regale yourselves with to the general merriment of the party over dinner? That club book?”
“Not in this instance, no, sir. I am referring to The Club Book.” He intoned it in such a way to ensure I was in no doubt of the capital letters.
“The Club Book?”
“Yes, sir. The Junior Ganymede club has existed for quite some time and one of our early members – a Mr Gilchrist – was gentleman to an Arabic gentleman by the name of Al-Hazred. After an unfortunate occasion which involved Mr al-Hazred, a marketplace and some invisible demons, Gilchrist was invited by his erstwhile employers’ immediate family to dispose of any effects of the deceased as he saw fit. I believe a large bonfire was their preferred option.”
“But he didn’t, Jeeves?”
“Indeed not, sir. Gilchrist instead furnished the club library of the Junior Ganymeme with all the books he could lay his hands on. A remarkably foresighted move under the circumstances, I’m sure you’ll agree. One of these books was The Club Book; an edition of the Necronomicon, sir, which is by way of a supernatural edition of what is usually referred to as simply the club book, and details said peccadilloes and weaknesses of a selection of extra-dimensional, alien and paranormal beings – of which that creature you just encountered was one. It was with this in mind that I availed myself of your car and returned to London last night, sir.”
“Well, Jeeves, I’m bally glad you did. I thought the Wooster goose was cooked for a few tense moments back there.”
“I endeavour to give satisfaction, sir.”
I thought about this, and the chill which had lain over our relationship. “You know, Jeeves, I think that cruise you suggested...”
“Sir?”
“When we get back to London, book one. Where do you suggest?”
“I hear the islands of the Pacific Ocean are very picturesque, sir?”
“And they should be jolly peaceful compared to this, eh?” I nudged him, amiably. He hates it when I do that.
“Ph'nglui mglw'nfah Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn, sir.”
“Eh, Jeeves, what was that?”
He gave a slight cough. “My apologies. I meant to say; ‘Very good, Mister Wooster, sir.’
“Ah, well. Very good, Jeeves.”