From the Diaries of Sir Shash, September19__
‘Faster you silly goose, faster,’ shouted Lady Roberta ‘Bobbie’ Wickham in her most encouraging voice.
Bertie Wooster, my dear friend, looked over his shoulder to acknowledge the voice that now ran his life and then promptly fell over in his sack.
He looked around sheepishly, grinned at no one in particular and said ‘Right then, I will be up in a minute.’
‘Blast,’ said Bobbie. She waved at Bertie and said, ‘It is okay dearest, there is still time to catch up with Tuppy!’
I happened to be standing next to Bobbie. I had been cheering and hooting for the participants by turns. Honoria Glossop, Tuppy Glossop, Bertie Wooster and Lady Angela Travers were in the sack race on the lawns of Brinkley Court. It should be mentioned at this point, that the lawns of Brinkley Court were large and could well have been used for an Olympic event or two. The only problem would have been that the athletes would be distracted by the flowers and the manicured foliage that Aunt Dahlia Travers was so proud of.
It was Lady Angela Travers’s birthday and she had already received the appropriate greeting of a pastry to the face courtesy of young Bonzo, that pest brother of hers, who had first woken her up in the early hours of the morning with the simultaneous ringing of three alarm clocks.
I had the privilege of witnessing the upshot of this experiment when a few moments later Bonzo ran into my room. I was just waking up from the din of the alarm clocks and noticed him diving under the bed. Unfortunately for him, Lady Angela, still in her pyjamas, also entered my room. She looked at me, muttered a silent ‘sorry’ and then proceeded to drag out Bonzo by the ear while administering three smacks of the newspaper on his back. He broke free and legged it as fast as he could.
It is only fitting that a morning that had begun thus should feature a sack race before lunch. Inclement weather in London had delayed the arrival of several guests the previous evening. However, today was the happy day and the sun had been shining all morning at Brinkley. Aunt Dahlia was certain that by afternoon, we would have the mafiosi in attendance without any exceptions. At the prospect of this gathering, Lord Travers at breakfast had made several grumbling noises without speaking out specific objections. He was known to dislike the idea of having guests in the woodwork. However, he also knew that while he was the Lord of the manor, he was still second in command aboard the ship of domestic life. Also, Aunt Dahlia did have a booming voice, that Bertie has often mentioned can scare the living daylights out of both man and beast.
I seem to have lost my train of thought. Back to the race then.
Lady Honoria Glossop, that fine sportswoman and terror to the Drones lads had pointed out during breakfast that she could outrun any man or woman from the guest list that Lady Angela had shown her. Her announcement, made in a confident voice, was also an open challenge to the youth at the table. Bertie and I had known from the cumulative experience of our encounters with Honoria that such obvious bait was to be ignored.
Naturally. Bobbie could not resist the bait.
‘Bertie will race you, Honoria, won’t you Bertie?’
Bertie had tried to protest but between the protest and an additional omelette with jam served up by that wonderful cook Anatole, found himself signed up without having given the matter his consent.
Unfortunately, the preening peacock Tuppy, in his eagerness to please Angela had also said, ‘I beg to differ, Honoria.’ And then Angela in her eagerness to impress her fiancée had said, ‘Perhaps, we could take you up on that Honoria. Both Tuppy and I will participate in a race with you.’
With gleaming eyes, Honoria had quietly slipped in the suggestion of the sack race, an event she was almost sure to win given her history of winning races of all kinds at her boarding school.
Now here we were.
Bertie who was two steps behind Tuppy had fallen over. Tuppy looked back at Bertie, guffawed loudly and tripped promptly himself. Bertie got up and in a dignified manner jumped past Tuppy, muttering something about a tortoise beating a hare and tried to catch up with Angela and Honoria. He could not. The hare won. Angela finished a distant second behind Honoria.
Honoria looked at everyone triumphantly. I knew that she would rub it in. She began.
First, she looked at Angela and Tuppy and said ‘Hah!’. Before she could add more to that exclamation, Angela and Tuppy promptly retreated to two chairs under an umbrella where cold drinks had made an appearance.
She turned to Bobbie and said, ‘Bertie looks slimmer than usual Roberta, I hope you are taking care of him. You cannot simply leave all responsibilities to Jeeves. I mean I know that you are busy with the shoots for the cover pages of Aunt Dahlia’s Milady’s Boudoir Magazine. I heard our dear Baroness Pauline Stoker did last month’s issue. Has dear Chuffy has lost bit of weight too?’
‘You should ask Pauline, yourself Honoria. You should, really. And don’t you worry Honoria; Bertie is in very capable hands and will remain there.’ replied Bobbie. She then put her arm in Bertie’s and expressed a desire to go for a walk.
Honoria turned to me next. I pursed my lips involuntarily.
‘Sir Shash, interesting that you did not wish to take me up on my challenge.’
‘Erm…’ I began.
‘No need to come up with an excuse. I am just glad that you assessed my capabilities properly.’
‘I did…yes.’
She cheerfully trotted up to discuss economic affairs with Lord Travers, who I believe, was discussing the impact of higher taxes with Aunt Dahlia over a coffee. Aunt Dahlia looked relieved that Honoria was now in the mix of the conversation and she took the opportunity to excuse herself.
Jeeves who had been standing not too far away from me said, ‘We are likely to have a most interesting day, Sir. Biscuit?’
‘I am afraid, you are right as usual, Jeeves,’ I replied as I took two.
I looked all around me. Brinkley Court despite being the scene of many events that Bertie describes would befit a lunatic asylum is a sight for every eye. The mansion is majestic. In size and in architectural splendour, it is among the finest old mansions in the world. A royal from any country could easily fall prey to a prolonged spell of envy by just looking at it. Its grounds were expansive, with abundant greenery and multiple miniature gardens of flowers that could inspire poetry in the most cynical heart. There was even a smallish lake, if one felt like playing angler. I have always maintained that it was also the personal warmth of Aunt Dahlia and Lord Tom Travers that gave it that extra atmosphere of being an utterly incredible place. If you got an invite, you had to feel lucky. Lady Angela was always gentle, graceful and beautiful. Bonzo was what a boy his age could reasonably be expected to be. You had that great artist Anatole cooking up delicacies to delight even the most fastidious of food critics. Seppings, the butler, was quite splendid. Jeeves sets the bar exceedingly high but Seppings is there somewhere in the middle of that scale. Bertie and Bobbie were often at Brinkley, this being a second home to both. As for me, I had been frankly delighted by the kindness with which I had been welcomed into the fold.
My pleasant thoughts about Brinkley were interrupted by a yell. A largish reptile, green and brown, darted by my leg in the terrifying manner that lizards can dart, causing me to break out into an unusual spring dance. Gussie Fink-Nottle was on the scene and he was chasing said lizard. He passed me by throwing a casual ‘Hello’ in my direction and not waiting to hear a reply. It was Emerald Stoker, his wife, and Baroness Pauline Stoker’s sister, who came up to me and said ‘So sorry, Shash. It is Gussie’s new pet. I’m afraid it doesn’t seem inclined to obey him. I am sorry about the scare.’
I stopped moving my hands and legs and regained my composure immediately. ‘Emerald, how delightful to see you again. What scare? I wasn’t scared. And why are you saying sorry? It is Gussie. I will have a word with him later.’ We hugged and Emerald moved on to say her hellos to the others.
‘Fancy seeing you again, I thought Lord Travers would have tired of you by now but it seems, he is losing his touch in his old age.’ said a gorilla.
I turned around and said, ‘Aah, Roderick Spode, witty as ever. How is Miss Madeline?’
‘What is it to you, how she is? Don’t for one moment think about her. You would do well to remember that.’
‘I assure you,’ I began but was cut off by Stiffy Byng’s dog Bartholomew jumping all over me enthusiastically wagging his tail. Stiffy came up and spoke.
‘Hullo, Sir Shash, you are looking dashing, if you don’t mind my saying.’
At this point, I was sitting on the lawn having a wrestling match of sorts with Bartholomew. I attempted to return the compliment, ‘Young Stiffy, you are a sight for sore eyes, may I say that you look prettier than the last time I saw you. Old Stinker Pinker is one lucky chap.’
‘That he is,’ she said, without a trace of vanity. ‘Here is Harold.’
Harold and I exchanged a warm handshake and many manly pats of the shoulder. Spode had been witnessing all this. He walked off snorting.
Stiffy looked at me and said, ‘He has not forgotten his fisticuffs with Harold, I suppose. Harold had him knocked out clean.’
I had heard of the story. Spode was a silverback gorilla with short moustache and was about eight feet high. However, he had been no match for the amateur boxing skills of Harold Pinker. A priest who could knock you out with a single punch, now that was something the neighbourhood could be secretly proud of. Harold, of course, was as gentle as they come.
‘Heh,’ I replied, ‘no wonder he scurried away.’ Stiffy spotted Angela and went off to greet her.
A soft voice addressed us.
‘Happy crowd of friends
Sweet memories and amends
A diary fills’
Madeline Basset was looking at me as she materialized on the scene with a haiku.
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