ENTER PSMITH
§ 1
A
T about the hour when Lord Emsworth’s train, him and his son Freddie to London, had the half-way point in its journey, a very tall, very thin, very man, in a top and a morning-coat of fit, the steps of Number Eighteen, Wallingford Street, West Kensington, and the front-door bell. This done, he the hat; and having touched his with a handkerchief, for the sun was warm, about him with a distaste.
“A neighbourhood!” he murmured.
The man’s was one at which people with an for would have cavilled. When the great against London’s and of and architects, endurance, take the law into their own hands and through the city and destroying, Wallingford Street, West Kensington, will surely not the torch. Long since it must have been marked for destruction. For, though it of a low practical kind, being in the of rents and for the and the Underground, it is a little street. Situated in the middle of one of those where London out into a of of red brick, it of two of semi-detached villas, all alike, each by a hedge, each with of an nature let into the panels of the door; and from the artists’ up Holland Park way may sometimes be through it with hands over their eyes, teeth “How long? How long?”
A small maid-of-all-work appeared in answer to the bell, and as the visitor, producing a monocle, it in his right and her through it.
“A warm afternoon,” he said cordially.
“Yes, sir.”
“But pleasant,” the man. “Tell me, is Mrs. Jackson at home?”
“No, sir.”
“Not at home?”
“No, sir.”
The man sighed.
“Ah well,” he said, “we must always that these are sent to us for some good purpose. No they make us more spiritual. Will you her that I called? The name is Psmith. P-smith.”
“Peasmith, sir?”
“No, no. P-s-m-i-t-h. I should to you that I started life without the letter, and my father always to the plain Smith. But it to me that there were so many Smiths in the world that a little might well be introduced. Smythe I look on as a evasion, do I approve of the too of another name on in by means of a hyphen. So I to the Psmith. The p, I should add for your guidance, is silent, as in phthisis, psychic, and ptarmigan. You me?”
“Y-yes, sir.”
“You don’t think,” he said anxiously, “that I did in this course?”
“N-no, sir.”
“Splendid!” said the man, a of from his coat-sleeve. “Splendid! Splendid!”
And with a he the steps and his way the street. The little maid, having him with till he was out of sight, closed the door and returned to her kitchen.
Psmith on. The of the him. He lightly—only stopping when, as he the end of the street, a man of his own age, the rapidly, almost ran into him.
“Sorry,” said the man. “Hallo, Smith.”
Psmith upon him with affection.
“Comrade Jackson,” he said, “this is well met. The one man of all others I would have to encounter. We will off somewhere, Comrade Jackson, should your permit, and our with a cup of tea. I had to touch the Jackson family for some refreshment, but I was that your wife was out.”
Mike Jackson laughed.
“Phyllis isn’t out. She . . .”
“Not out? Then,” said Psmith, pained, “there has been dirty work done this day. For I was from the door. It would not be to say that I was the bird. Is this the Jackson hospitality?”
“Phyllis is a tea to some of her old pals,” Mike. “She told the to say she wasn’t at home to else. I’m not allowed in myself.”
“Enough, Comrade Jackson!” said Psmith agreeably. “Say no more. If you have been out in of all the loving, honouring, and your wife promised at the altar, who am I to complain? And possibly, one can by reflecting, we are well out of it. These of old girls’-school are not the of your man of wants to into. Capital company as we are, Comrade Jackson, we should have been in the way. I the would have with of the dear old school, of of cocoa-drinking in the and what the said when Angela was tobacco in the shrubbery. Yes, I we have not missed a lot. . . . By the way, I don’t think much of the new home. True, I only saw it from the outside, but . . . no, I don’t think much of it.”
“Best we can afford.”
“And who,” said Psmith, “am I to my friend with his poverty? Especially as I myself am on the very of destitution.”
“You?”
“I in person. That low you is the my door.”
“But I your uncle gave you a good salary.”
“So he did. But my uncle and I are about to part company. From now on he, so to speak, will take the high road and I’ll take the low road. I with him to-night, and over the nuts and I shall hand him the news that I to my position in the firm. I have no that he he was doing me a good turn by starting me in his fish business, but what little I have had of it has me that it is not my proper sphere. The the ‘Psmith has not his niche!’
“I am not,” said Psmith, “an man. I that must be with fish. I am not from a of fish myself. But to be with a that the material in the is not my idea of a large life-work. Remind me to tell you some time what it like to out of at four a.m. and go to in Billingsgate Market. No, there is money in fish—my uncle has a pot of it—but what I is that there must be other walks in life for a man. I it to-night.”
“What are you going to do, then?”
“That, Comrade Jackson, is more or less on the of the gods. To-morrow I think I will to an agency and see how the market for men stands. Do you know a good one?”
“Phyllis always goes to Miss Clarkson’s in Shaftesbury Avenue. But . . .”
“Miss Clarkson’s in Shaftesbury Avenue. I will make a note of it . . . Meanwhile, I wonder if you saw the Morning Globe to-day?”
“No. Why?”
“I had an in it, in which I myself as willing—indeed, eager—to any that had nothing to do with fish. I am of replies. I look to the and the most desirable.”
“Pretty hard to a job these days,” said Mike doubtfully.
“Not if you have something good to offer.”
“What have you got to offer?”
“My services,” said Psmith with reproach.
“What as?”
“As anything. I no restrictions. Would you to take a look at my manifesto? I have a copy in my pocket.”
Psmith produced from his a clipping.
“I should welcome your opinion of it, Comrade Jackson. I have said that for common you alone. Your should be invaluable.”
The advertisement, which some hours had so the Hon. Freddie Threepwood in the smoking-room at Blandings Castle, to affect Mike, mind was of the and type, differently. He his and speechlessly.
“Neat, don’t you think?” said Psmith. “Covers the ground adequately? I think so, I think so.”
“Do you to say you’re going to put like that in the paper?” asked Mike.
“I have put it in the paper. As I told you, it appeared this morning. By this time to-morrow I shall no have out the of replies.”
Mike’s took him to the of days.
“You are an ass!”
Psmith the to his pocket.
“You me, Comrade Jackson,” he said. “I had a from you. In fact, I that you would have to the offices of the and in a yourself. But nothing that you can say can my spirit. The goes Kensington (and district) ‘Psmith is off!’ In what direction the to state: but that the will supply. And now, Comrade Jackson, let us into tea-shop and drink success to the in a cup of the steaming. I had a particularly hard to-day among the whitebait, and I need refreshment.”
§ 2
After Psmith had his person from it, there was an of twenty minutes anything else to the of Wallingford Street. The of the in its grip. Occasionally a tradesman’s would the corner, and from time to time cats appeared, among the evergreens. But at ten minutes to five a girl ran up the steps of Number Eighteen and the bell.
She was a girl of medium height, very and slim; and her hair, her smile, and the of her all to a of gaiety, a of sunniness—accentuated by the that, like all girls who looked to Paris for in their dress that season, she was black.
The small appeared again.
“Is Mrs. Jackson at home?” said the girl. “I think she’s me. Miss Halliday.”
“Yes, miss?”
A door at the end of the narrow had opened.
“Is that you, Eve?”
“Hallo, Phyl, darling.”
Phyllis Jackson the passage like a rose-leaf on the wind, and herself into Eve’s arms. She was small and fragile, with great under a cloud of dark hair. She had a look, and most people who her wanted to her. Eve had always her, from their days at together.
“Am I late or early?” asked Eve.
“You’re the first, but we won’t wait. Jane, will you tea into the drawing-room.”
“Yes’m.”
“And, remember, I don’t want to see anyone for the of the afternoon. If calls, tell them I’m not at home. Except Miss Clarkson and Mrs. McTodd, of course.”
“Yes’m.”
“Who is Mrs. McTodd?” Eve. “Is that Cynthia?”
“Yes. Didn’t you know she had married Ralston McTodd, the Canadian poet? You she out to Canada?”
“I that, yes. But I hadn’t that she was married. Funny how out of touch one with girls who were one’s best friends at school. Do you it’s nearly two years since I saw you?”
“I know. Isn’t it awful! I got your address from Elsa Wentworth two or three days ago, and then Clarkie told me that Cynthia was over here on a visit with her husband, so I how it would be to have a regular reunion. We three were such friends in the old days. . . . You Clarkie, of course? Miss Clarkson, who used to be English at Wayland House.”
“Yes, of course. Where did you into her?”
“Oh, I see a of her. She a Domestic Employment Agency in Shaftesbury Avenue now, and I have to go there about once a to a new maid. She Jane.”
“Is Cynthia’s husband with her this afternoon?”
“No. I wanted it to be us four. Do you know him? But of you don’t. This is his visit to England.”
“I know his poetry. He’s a celebrity. Cynthia’s lucky.”
They had their way into the drawing-room, a little full of all those antimacassars, flowers, and dogs from the type of London house. Eve, though the of Number Eighteen should have prepared her for all this, was unable to check a as she the of the least of the dogs, at her from the mantelpiece.
“Don’t look at them,” Phyllis, her gaze. “I try not to. We’ve only just moved in here, so I haven’t had time to make the place nice. Here’s tea. All right, Jane, put it there. Tea, Eve?”
Eve sat down. She was puzzled and curious. She her mind to the days at and the Phyllis of that as almost opulent. A there had been then, she recollected. What had of him now, that he should allow Phyllis to in like this? Eve a mystery, and in her way to the of it.
“Tell me all about yourself,” she said, having as much as the of her chair would permit. “And that I haven’t you for two years, so don’t anything out.”
“It’s so difficult to know where to start.”
“Well, you your ‘Phyllis Jackson.’ Start with the Jackson. Where he come in? The last I about you was an in the Morning Post that you were to—I’ve the name, but I’m it wasn’t Jackson.”
“Rollo Mountford.”
“Was it? Well, what has of Rollo? You to have him. Did you off the engagement?”
“Well, it—sort of itself off. I mean, you see, I and married Mike.”
“Eloped with him, do you mean?”
“Yes.”
“Good heavens!”
“I’m about that, Eve. I I Rollo badly.”
“Never mind. A man with a name like that was for suffering.”
“I for him. He had . . .”
“I understand. So you with your Mike. Tell me about him. Who is he? What he do?”
“Well, at present he’s master at a school. But he doesn’t like it. He wants to to the country again. When I met him, he was agent on a place in the country to some people named Smith. Mike had been at and Cambridge with the son. They were very rich then and had a big estate. It was the next place to the Edgelows. I had gone to with Mary Edgelow—I don’t know if you her at school? I met Mike at a dance, and then I met him out riding, and then—well, after that we used to meet every day. And we in love right from the start and we and got married. Oh, Eve, I wish you have our little house. It was all over and roses, and we had and dogs and . . .”
Phyllis’ off with a gulp. Eve looked at her sympathetically. All her life she herself had been impecunious, but it had to matter. She was and adventurous, and in the of trying to make ends meet. But Phyllis was one of those sweet girls the of life of stimulating. She needed and surroundings. Eve looked at the dog, which at her with an good-fellowship.
“We had got married,” Phyllis, blinking, “when Mr. Smith died and the whole place was up. He must have been or something, I suppose, he left any money, and the had to be sold. And the people who it—they were people from Wolverhampton—had a nephew for they wanted the agent job, so Mike had to go. So here we are.”
Eve put the question which she had been waiting to ask since she had entered the house.
“But what about your stepfather? Surely, when we were at school, you had a rich in the background. Has he his money, too?”
“No.”
“Well, why doesn’t he help you, then?”
“He would, I know, if he was left to himself. But it’s Aunt Constance.”
“What’s Aunt Constance? And who is Aunt Constance?”
“Well, I call her that, but she’s my stepmother—sort of. I she’s my step-stepmother. My married again two years ago. It was Aunt Constance who was so when I married Mike. She wanted me to Rollo. She has me, and she won’t let my do anything to help us.”
“But the man must be a worm!” said Eve indignantly. “Why doesn’t he insist? You always used to tell me how he was of you.”
“He isn’t a worm, Eve. He’s a dear. It’s just that he has let her him. She’s a terror, you know. She can be nice, and they’re of each other, but she is as hard as sometimes.” Phyllis off. The door had opened, and there were in the hall. “Here’s Clarkie. I she has Cynthia with her. She was to her up on her way. Don’t talk about what I’ve been telling you in of her, Eve, there’s an angel.”
“Why not?”
“She’s so about it. It’s sweet of her, but . . .”
Eve understood.
“All right. Later on.”
The door opened to admit Miss Clarkson.
The which Phyllis had to her late was well chosen. Miss Clarkson motherliness. She was large, wholesome, and soft, and she on Eve like a hen on its chicken almost the door had closed.
“Eve! How to see you after all this time! My dear, you’re looking perfectly lovely! And so prosperous. What a hat!”
“I’ve been it since you came, Eve,” said Phyllis. “Where did you it?”
“Madeleine Sœurs, in Regent Street.”
Miss Clarkson, having and a cup of tea, started to the occasion. Eve had always been a of hers at school. She upon her.
“Now doesn’t this show—what I always used to say to you in the dear old days, Eve—that one must despair, black the may seem? I you at school, dear, as as a church mouse, and with no prospects, none whatever. And yet here you are—rich . . .”
Eve laughed. She got up and Miss Clarkson. She that she was to a note, but it had to be done.
“I’m sorry, Clarkie dear,” she said, “but I’m I’ve you. I’m just as as I was. In fact, when Phyllis told me you were an Employment Agency, I a note to come and see you and ask if you had some to of. Governess to a child would do. Or isn’t there some author or something who wants his answered and his press-clippings in an album?”
“Oh, my dear!” Miss Clarkson was concerned. “I did . . . That . . . !”
“The hat’s the whole trouble. Of I had no to think of it, but I saw it in the shop-window and it for days, and fell. And then, you see, I had to live up to it—buy shoes and a dress to match. I tell you it was a perfect orgy, and I’m of myself now. Too late, as usual.”
“Oh, dear! You always were such a wild, child, at school. I how often I used to speak to you about it.”
“Well, when it was all over and I was again, I I had only a left, not nearly to see me through till the arrived. So I it over and to my little all.”
“I you something safe?”
“It ought to have been. The Sporting Express called it ‘To-day’s Safety Bet.’ It was Bounding Willie for the two-thirty at Sandown last Wednesday.”
“Oh, dear!”
“That’s what I said when old Willie came in sixth. But it’s no good worrying, is it? What it means is that I must something to do that will me through till I my next quarter’s allowance. And that won’t be till September. . . . But don’t let’s talk here. I’ll come to your office, Clarkie, to-morrow. . . . Where’s Cynthia? Didn’t you her?”
“Yes, I you were going to Cynthia up on your way, Clarkie,” said Phyllis.
If Eve’s as to her financial had Miss Clarkson to mourn, the mention of Cynthia her into the very of woe. Her mouth and a tear her cheek. Eve and Phyllis glances.
“I say,” said Eve after a moment’s pause and a only by a from their late instructress, “we aren’t being very cheerful, are we, that this is to be a reunion? Is anything with Cynthia?”
So was Miss Clarkson’s that Phyllis, in a of alarm, rose and left the room in search of the only that itself to her—her smelling-salts.
“Poor dear Cynthia!” Miss Clarkson.
“Why, what’s the with her?” asked Eve. She was not to Miss Clarkson’s grief, but she not help the of smiles. In a she had been to her school-days, when the other’s of the out of the material had been a of ever-fresh to her. Not for an did she to any news of her old friend than that she was in with a cold or had her ankle.
“She’s married, you know,” said Miss Clarkson.
“Well, I see no in that, Clarkie. If a more Safety Bets go wrong, I shall have to out and someone myself. Some nice, rich, man who will me.”
“Oh, Eve, my dear,” Miss Clarkson, with alarm, “do be you marry. I of one of my girls marrying without that the may and that, all unknowing, she may be over a precipice!”
“You don’t tell them that, do you? Because I should think it would a on the wedding festivities. Has Cynthia gone over precipices? I was just saying to Phyllis that I her, marrying a like Ralston McTodd.”
Miss Clarkson gulped.
“The man must be a fiend!” she said brokenly. “I have just left dear Cynthia in of at the Cadogan Hotel—she has a very room on the fourth floor, though the not with the wall-paper. . . . She was broken-hearted, child. I did what I to her, but it was useless. She always was so strung. I must be to her very soon. I only came on here I did not want to you two dear girls . . .”
“Why?” said Eve with intensity. She from that Miss Clarkson, unless checked, would and the point for minutes without it.
“Why?” Miss Clarkson, as if the word was something solid that had her unexpectedly.
“Why was Cynthia in of tears?”
“But I’m telling you, my dear. That man has left her!”
“Left her!”
“They had a quarrel, and he walked out of the hotel. That was the day yesterday, and he has not been since. This the note came from him to say that he to return. He had and in a most way for his to be from the hotel to a District Messenger office, and from there he has taken it no one where. He has disappeared.”
Eve stared. She had not been prepared for news of this order.
“But what did they about?”
“Cynthia, child, was too to tell me!”
Eve her teeth.
“The beast! . . . Poor old Cynthia. . . . Shall I come with you?”
“No, my dear, let me look after her alone. I will tell her to and let you know when she can see you. I must be going, Phyllis dear,” she said, as her re-entered, a small bottle.
“But you’ve only just come!” said Phyllis, surprised.
“Poor old Cynthia’s husband has left her,” Eve briefly. “And Clarkie’s going to look after her. She’s in a way, it seems.”
“Oh, no!”
“Yes, indeed. And I must be going at once,” said Miss Clarkson.
Eve waited in the drawing-room till the door and Phyllis came to her. Phyllis was more than ever. She had been looking to this tea-party, and it had not been the happy occasion she had anticipated. The two girls sat in for a moment.
“What some men are!” said Eve at length.
“Mike,” said Phyllis dreamily, “is an angel.”
Eve the to return to a more topic. She very for the Cynthia, but she talk, and nothing have been more than for her and Phyllis to there a of which neither more than the outlines. Phyllis had her tragedy, too, and it was one where Eve saw the possibility of doing something practical and helpful. She was a girl of action, and was to be able to attack a issue.
“Yes, let’s go on talking about you and Mike,” she said. “At present I can’t the position at all. When Clarkie came in, you were just telling me about your and why he wouldn’t help you. And I you out a very case for him. Tell me some more. I’ve his name, by the way.”
“Keeble.”
“Oh? Well, I think you ought to and tell him how hard-up you are. He may be under the that you are still in luxury and don’t need any help. After all, he can’t know unless you tell him. And I should ask him out to come to the rescue. It isn’t as if it was your Mike’s fault that you’re broke. He married you on the of a very good position which looked like a permanency, and it through no fault of his own. I should to him, Phyl. Pitch it strong.”
“I have. I to-day. Mike’s just been offered a opportunity. A of farm place in Lincolnshire. You know. Cows and things. Just what he would like and just what he would do well. And we only need three thousand to it. . . . But I’m nothing will come of it.”
“Because of Aunt Constance, you mean?”
“Yes.”
“You must make something come of it.” Eve’s up. She looked like a Goddess of Determination. “If I were you, I’d their till they had to give you the money to of you. The idea of doing that driving-into-the-snow in these days! Why shouldn’t you the man you were in love with? If I were you, I’d go and myself to their and like a dog till they out with cheque-books just to some peace. Do they live in London?”
“They are in Shropshire at present at a place called Blandings Castle.”
Eve started.
“Blandings Castle? Good gracious!”
“Aunt Constance is Lord Emsworth’s sister.”
“But this is the most thing. I’m going to Blandings myself in a days.”
“No!”
“They’ve me to the library.”
“But, Eve, were you only joking when you asked Clarkie to you something to do? She took you seriously.”
“No, I wasn’t joking. There’s a to my going to Blandings. I you know the place well?”
“I’ve often there. It’s beautiful.”
“Then you know Lord Emsworth’s second son, Freddie Threepwood?”
“Of course.”
“Well, he’s the drawback. He wants to me, and I don’t want to him. And what I’ve been is a easy job like that, which would me over till September, is to make up for the of having to be always Freddie. I ought to have of it right at the beginning, of course, when he and told me to apply for the position, but I was so at the idea of regular work that it didn’t to me. Then I to wonder. He’s such a man. He early and often.”
“Where did you meet Freddie?”
“At a theatre party. About two months ago. He was in London then, but he and I had a heart-broken from him, saying that he had been up and and his father had him away to live at Blandings, which is Freddie’s idea of the Inferno. The world full of hard-hearted relatives.”
“Oh, Lord Emsworth isn’t hard-hearted. You will love him. He’s so and absent-minded. He about the garden all the time. I don’t think you’ll like Aunt Constance much. But I you won’t see a great of her.”
“Whom shall I see much of—except Freddie, of course?”
“Mr. Baxter, Lord Emsworth’s secretary, I expect. I don’t like him at all. He’s a of cave-man.”
“He doesn’t attractive. But you say the place is nice?”
“It’s gorgeous. I should go, if I were you, Eve.”
“Well, I had not to. But now you’ve told me about Mr. Keeble and Aunt Constance, I’ve my mind. I’ll have to look in at Clarkie’s office to-morrow and tell her I’m up and shan’t need her help. I’m going to take your sad case in hand, darling. I shall go to Blandings, and I will dog your stepfather’s footsteps. . . . Well, I must be going. Come and see me to the door, or I’ll be my way in the miles of corridors. . . . I I mayn’t that dog I go? Oh, well, I just I’d ask.”
Out in the the little maid-of-all-work up and them.
“I to tell you, mum, a called. I told him you was out.”
“Quite right, Jane.”
“Said his name was Smith, ’m.”
Phyllis gave a of dismay.
“Oh, no! What a shame! I particularly wanted you to meet him, Eve. I wish I’d known.”
“Smith?” said Eve. “The name familiar. Why were you so for me to meet him?”
“He’s Mike’s best friend. Mike him. He’s the son of the Mr. Smith I was telling you about—the one Mike was at and Cambridge with. He’s a perfect darling, Eve, and you would love him. He’s just your sort. I do wish we had known. And now you’re going to Blandings for how long, and you won’t be able to see him.”
“What a pity,” said Eve, uninterested.
“I’m so sorry for him.”
“Why?”
“He’s in the fish business.”
“Ugh!”
“Well, he it, dear. But he was left like all the of us after the crash, and he was put into the by an uncle who is a of fish magnate.”
“Well, why he there, if he it so much?” said Eve with indignation. The type of man was her aversion. “I a man who’s got no enterprise.”
“I don’t think you call him unenterprising. He me like that. . . . You must meet him when you come to London.”
“All right,” said Eve indifferently. “Just as you like. I might put in his way. I’m very of fish.”
