"Пэлем Вудхауз. Jeeves in the offing (Предложения Дживса, engl)" - читать интересную книгу автора

Eustace. But I found them difficult to explain. He's a rather bad
listener. I hope I shan't find him at Brinkley, too.'
'Are you going to Brinkley?'
'Tomorrow afternoon.'
'You'll enjoy that.'
'Well, shall I? The point is a very moot one.'
'You're crazy. Think of Anatole. Those dinners of his! Is the name
of the Peri who stood disconsolate at the gate of Eden familiar to
you?'
'I've heard Jeeves mention her.'
'Well, that's how I feel when I remember Anatole's dinners. When I
reflect that every night he's dishing them up and I'm not there, I come
within a very little of breaking down. What gives you the idea that you
won't enjoy yourself? Brinkley Court's an earthly Paradise.'
'In many respects, yes, but life there at the moment has its
drawbacks. There's far too much of that where-every-prospect-pleases-
and-only-man-is-vile stuff buzzing around for my taste. Who do you
think is staying at the old dosshouse? Aubrey Upjohn.'
It was plain that I had shaken him. His eyes widened, and an
astonished piece of toast fell from his grasp.
'Old Upjohn? You're kidding.'
'No, he's there. Himself, not a picture. And it seems only yesterday
that you were buoying me up by telling me I'd never have to see him
again. The storm clouds may lower, you said, if you recollect...'
'But how does he come to be at Brinkley?'
'Precisely what I asked the aged relative, and she had an
explanation that seems to cover the facts. Apparently after we took our
eye off him he married a friend of hers, one Jane Mills, and acquired a
stepdaughter, Phyllis Mills, whose godmother Aunt Dahlia is. The
ancestor invited the Mills girl to Brinkley, and Upjohn came along for
the ride.'
'I see. I don't wonder you're trembling like a leaf.'
'Not like a leaf, exactly, but... yes, I think you might describe me
as trembling. One remembers that fishy eye of his.'
'And the wide, bare upper lip. It won't be pleasant having to gaze
at those across the dinner table. Still, you'll like Phyllis.'
'Do you know her?'
'We met out in Switzerland last Christmas. Slap her on the back,
will you, and give her my regards. Nice girl, though goofy. She never
told me she was related to Upjohn.'
'She would naturally keep a thing like that dark.'
'Yes, one sees that. Just as one would have tried to keep it dark if
one had been mixed up in any way with Palmer the poisoner. What ghastly
garbage that was he used to fling at us when we were serving our
sentence at Malvern House. Remember the sausages on Sunday? And the
boiled mutton with caper sauce?'
'And the margarine. Recalling this last, it's going to be a strain
having to sit and watch him getting outside pounds of best country
butter. Oh, Jeeves,' I said, as he shimmered in to clear the table,
'you never went to a preparatory school on the south coast of England,