Follow the new adventures of Gieves

Sundered hearts trouble the world of Bartie Wooster.

Aunt Dehlia rues the day she sold Milady’s Boudoir to Liverpool newspaper magnate Mr LG Trotter. She wants her magazine back home to the fold.
Meanwhile the Market Snodsbery Grammar School, of which she is a governor, needs either a new roof or damp-proof scholars.
If only, she laments to Bartie, some benefactor, or mug, or Drones Club millionaire, could be found to buy back her beloved magazine. Oh, a and new roof would be nice, too.

Meanwhile Gussie Fonk-Nittle regrets deserting his fiancée Medaline in a moment of vegetarianism and eloping with her father’s cook. Not half so much, it must be said, as Pop Stoker, the cook’s heavily armed father.
Medaline regrets, as who wouldn’t, accepting Spade, Lord Sidcup’s marriage proposal as a gesture to score off Gussie. Is it her fate, she wonders, to be forever introduced as Lady Spade? Or can the fates see their way to a rapprochement with Lincolnshire’s premier authority on newts?

Bartie is often baffled but never stymied. When storm clouds gather over the world of Wooster, there is only one thing to be done. Only one brain, hat size fourteen and full to the brim with fish can reunite sundered hearts with the newt-lovers, pixie queens and magazines they love the best. Oh, and keep dry the necks of the Market Snodsbery scholars.

Sit back with your favourite tipple, press the buzzer, and bring Gieves to the Fore.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Chapter One

The musical twittering of a bird or two at the window nudged my slumbering thoughts into gentle consciousness and heralded the beginning of a new day. Eyes still peacefully closed, for one does not wish to rush these things, I listened to the birds reaching the end of their first verse and spiral into the chorus, wondering idly which bird took the lead tenor and which the bass. Gradually, I became aware of a new animal joining in from afar, as the distant coughing of an elderly sheep took up the baritone.

            ‘Good morning, sir. Your tea.’

            This was no elderly sheep, I realised, reason returning to its throne. It was Gieves, my gentleman’s personal gentleman. Gieves, though a man of many parts, is neither elderly nor a sheep. Nor, for the matter of that, afar.

            ‘Good morning, Gieves,’ I uttered, sleep banished for the nonce. Dimly I perceived the birds wrapping up and folding their song sheets, their work here done.

            ‘Tell me, Gieves,’ I asked, for Gieves is a font of wisdom, ‘which bird takes the bass?’

            ‘Sir?’

            I saw I had not made myself clear. ‘The dawn chorus. Well, dawnish. How do they allocate singing roles? My guess is the blackbird or raven would insist on singing the bass, whereas the higher notes might be more suited to a smaller bird. Do you agree?’

            ‘It may well be as you say, sir,’ he replied, placing the tea things just so on the bed. ‘Although Ravens, I believe, do not sing. May I add, sir, that you seem to be in good spirits this morning?’

            ‘Indeed you may, Gieves, indeed you may, with knobs on. You find Bartrum Wilberforce Whoster at the top of his form. The snail is on the thorn and all that.’

            ‘Yes sir. The poet Browning…’ 

            ‘…Says all is right with the world. Yes I know. And you may tell him from me that he is on to something there.’

            ‘Very good sir.’

I was in the apartment, London W1, enjoying a tête-à-tête over the breakfast doings with Gieves, my, as I said, gentleman’s personal gentleman. Having recently returned from two weeks in Cannes with my Aunt Dehlia, I was taking things easy and generally picking up the threads. London on a fine June morning was just the place to be.

‘Oh to be in England now that April’s here. Well, June actually, but let’s not split hairs.’ I reached for the tea. ‘Any communications?’

‘Yes, sir. Mrs Trevers telephoned. Three times.’

            ‘A three line whip, eh?’ I mused thoughtfully over the steaming brew.  ‘This seems a bit strong, even for Aunt Dehlia. She normally issues her orders in one fell swoop. Two above par is a bit strong. Any idea what she wants?’

            ‘Yes, sir. Mrs Trevers asked me to convey her compliments. She requests your presence at her town house for luncheon.’

            ‘Lunch?’ Pleased, I beamed at the honest fellow and stretched for the breakfast things. ‘Why certainly, nothing would give me greater pleasure.’

And indeed, lunch with Aunt Dehlia is always a pleasure, she being my good and deserving Aunt, unlike my Aunt Agatha whose idea of a satisfying meal is neck of villager at the height of the full moon. ‘Nothing,’ I continued, buttering merrily, ‘would give me greater pleasure than to don the nosebag with the ancient relative. Especially with Anatole wielding the skillet. But three telephone calls? Mysterious, Gieves.’

            ‘Yes Indeed sir.’

            ‘But then, the ways of aunts always are. Ours not to reason why, eh?’

            ‘Quite, sir.’

            ‘Aunts move in mysterious ways… how does it go?’

            ‘…their wonders to perform. Cowper, sir.’

            ‘Oom beroofen. So Gieves, Aunt Dehlia requires me to be present at the luncheon table.’

            ‘That was the central thrust of her communication, sir.’

            ‘Yes, but why? That is the question, Gieves. After all, I gave her lunch at the Ritz only yesterday. And this not long after our two weeks in Cannes. That should have kept her Whoster requirements topped up for a week or two, to say the least. Some say one meal with me is sufficient for up to a year. Ah well, aunts are only human.’ I swallowed a satisfied morsel of kipper. ‘Any other telephone calls?’

‘Yes, sir.’

            At this point a cloud passed by the window. Perspicuously, if that is the word I want, or rather perspicaciously, Gieves’s left eyebrow flickered downwards, just visible in the faltering light, signifying disapproval.

            ‘Mr Prossor rang.’

            ‘Oufy? Another Cannes refugee. I wonder what on Earth he wanted. Did he enlighten you?’

            ‘No, sir. Mr Prossor did not see fit to take me into his confidence. He said he will see you tonight at your club.’ Gieves spoke with a certain amount of perspicacious what-cha-call-it in his voice. Respectful, but…

            ‘You don’t like Oufy, do you, Gieves?’

Gieves instantly assumed his customary expression; that of a particularly taciturn stuffed frog.

‘It is scarcely fitting for me to venture an opinion, sir.’

            ‘No? Well I don’t greatly admire him either. Oufy gives skinflint millionaires a bad name.’

‘If you say so, sir.’

            Gieves, as always, seemed unwilling to commit himself to a position on what he refers to as the Quality, so I let it go.

‘Any other communications?’

            ‘Yes, sir. Mr Fonk-Nittle. He too is desirous of your advice at your earliest convenience.’

            ‘Gussey?’ This was odd. Gussey Fonk-Nittle, an old school pal, face like a fish, was to my certain knowledge somewhere in the American southern states, squaring up to his prospective father-in-law. A long story, but the gist was that Gussey Fonk-Nittle had parted brass rags with his long-time fiancée Medaline Bossett and eloped with Emerald Staker, her father’s cook. Before the happy couple could tie the knot, Old Pop Staker mysteriously found out about it and requested Gussey’s attendance at a get-to-know-the-family gathering. Pop Staker being a mafia millionaire with a penchant for kidnapping prospective suitors, I did not expect...

 ...Continued in Gieves to the Fore...

I wish to thank the Master, Sir Pelham Grenville Wodehouse, better known as PG Wodehouse, Plum to his friends, for inspiring me to write this book. Thank you for creating the magic world into which I have dipped my toe.
 
Author: Barry Tighe

Names have been changed because the the copyright people threatened to loose bears into my garden.

Acquire Gieves to the Fore here.

Follow the new adventures of Gieves