P g wodehouse, p.1
P G Wodehouse, page 1
The Manor Wodehouse Col ection
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The Little Warrior
The Swoop
William Tell Told Again
Mike: A Public School Story
Jill the Reckless
The Politeness of Princes & Other School Stories
The Man Upstairs & Other Stories
The Coming of Bill
A Man of Means: A Series of Six Stories
The Gem Collector
The Adventures of Sally
The Clicking of Cuthbert
A Damsel in Distress
Jeeves in the Springtime & Other Stories
The Pothunters
My Man Jeeves
The Girl on the Boat
Mike & Psmith
The White Feather
The Man With Two Left Feet & Other Stories
Piccadilly Jim
Psmith in the City
Right Ho, Jeeves
Uneasy Money
A Prefect’s Uncle
Psmith Journalist
The Prince and Betty
Something New
The Gold Bat & Other Stories
Head of Kay’s
The Intrusion of Jimmy
The Little Nugget
Love Among the Chickens
Tales of St. Austin’s
Indiscretions of Archie
Jeeves, Emsworth and Others
A Damsel in Distress
P. G. Wodehouse
The Manor Wodehouse Collection
Tark Classic Fiction
an imprint of
MANOR
Rockville, Maryland
2008
A Damsel in Distress by Pelham Grenville Wodehouse, in its current format, copyright © Arc Manor 2008. Th
is book, in whole or in part, may not be copied or reproduced in its current format by any means, electronic, mechanical or otherwise without the permission of the publisher.
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ISBN: 978-1-60450-056-1
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Chapter
Inasmuch as the scene of this story is that historic pile, Belpher
Castle, in the county of Hampshire, it would be an agreeable task
to open it with a leisurely description of the place, followed by some
notes on the history of the Earls of Marshmoreton, who have owned
it since the fi fteenth century. Unfortunately, in these days of rush
and hurry, a novelist works at a disadvantage. He must leap into the
middle of his tale with as little delay as he would employ in boarding
a moving tramcar. He must get off the mark with the smooth swift-
ness of a jack-rabbit surprised while lunching. Otherwise, people
throw him aside and go out to picture palaces.
I may briefl y remark that the present Lord Marshmoreton is a
widower of some forty-eight years: that he has two children – a son,
Percy Wilbraham Marsh, Lord Belpher, who is on the brink of his
twenty-fi rst birthday, and a daughter, Lady Patricia Maud Marsh,
who is just twenty: that the chatelaine of the castle is Lady Caroline
Byng, Lord Marshmoreton’s sister, who married the very wealthy
colliery owner, Cliff ord Byng, a few years before his death (which
unkind people say she hastened): and that she has a step-son, Regi-
nald. Give me time to mention these few facts and I am done. On
the glorious past of the Marshmoretons I will not even touch.
Luckily, the loss to literature is not irreparable. Lord Marsh-
moreton himself is engaged upon a history of the family, which
will doubtless be on every bookshelf as soon as his lordship gets it
fi nished. And, as for the castle and its surroundings, including the
model dairy and the amber drawing-room, you may see them for
yourself any Th
ursday, when Belpher is thrown open to the public
on payment of a fee of one shilling a head. Th
e money is collected
by Keggs the butler, and goes to a worthy local charity. At least, that
3
P. G. WODEHOUSE
is the idea. But the voice of calumny is never silent, and there exists
a school of thought, headed by Albert, the page-boy, which holds
that Keggs sticks to these shillings like glue, and adds them to his
already considerable savings in the Farmers’ and Merchants’ Bank,
on the left side of the High Street in Belpher village, next door to
the Oddfellows’ Hall.
With regard to this, one can only say that Keggs looks far too
much like a particularly saintly bishop to indulge in any such prac-
tices. On the other hand, Albert knows Keggs. We must leave the
matter open.
Of course, appearances are deceptive. Anyone, for instance, who
had been standing outside the front entrance of the castle at eleven
o’clock on a certain June morning might easily have made a mistake.
Such a person would probably have jumped to the conclusion that
the middle-aged lady of a determined cast of countenance who was
standing near the rose-garden, talking to the gardener and watching
the young couple strolling on the terrace below, was the mother of
the pretty girl, and that she was smiling because the latter had re-
cently become engaged to the tall, pleasant-faced youth at her side.
Sherlock Holmes himself might have been misled. One can hear
him explaining the thing to Watson in one of those lightning fl ashes
of inductive reasoning of his. “It is the only explanation, my dear
Watson. If the lady were merely complimenting the gardener on his
rose-garden, and if her smile were merely caused by the excellent
appearance of that rose-garden, there would be an answering smile
on the face of the gardener. But, as you see, he looks morose and
gloomy.”
As a matter of fact, the gardener – that is to say, the stocky,
brown-faced man in shirt sleeves and corduroy trousers who was
frowning into a can of whale-oil solution – was the Earl of Marsh-
moreton, and there were two reasons for his gloom. He hated to be
interrupted while working, and, furthermore, Lady Caroline Byng
always got on his nerves, and never more so than when, as now,
she speculated on the possibility of a romance between her step-son
Reggie and his lordship’s daughter Maud.
Only his intimates would have recognized in this curious cordu-
roy-trousered fi gure the seventh Earl of Marshmoreton. Th
e Lord
Marshmoreton who made intermittent appearances in London, who
lunched among bishops at the Athenaeum Club without exciting
4
A DAMSEL IN DISTRESS
remark, was a correctly dressed gentleman whom no one would have
suspected of covering his sturdy legs in anything but the fi nest cloth.
But if you will glance at your copy of Who’s Who, and turn up
the “M’s”, you will fi nd in the space allotted to the Earl the words
“Hobby – Gardening”. To which, in a burst of modest pride, his lord-
ship has added “Awarded fi rst prize for Hybrid Teas, Temple Flower
Show, 1911”. Th
e words tell their own story.
Lord Marshmoreton was the most enthusiastic amateur gar-
dener in a land of enthusiastic amateur gardeners. He lived for his
garden. Th
e love which other men expend on their nearest and dear-
est Lord Marshmoreton lavished on seeds, roses and loamy soil. Th
e
hatred which some of his order feel for Socialists and Demagogues
Lord Marshmoreton kept for roseslugs, rose-beetles and the small,
yellowish-white insect which is so depraved and sinister a character
that it goes through life with an alias – bein g sometimes called a
rose-hopper and sometimes a thrips. A simple soul, Lord Marsh-
moreton – mild and pleasant. Yet put him among the thrips, and he
became a dealer-out of death and slaughter, a destroyer in the class
of Attila the Hun and Genghis Khan. Th
rips feed on the underside
of rose leaves, sucking their juice and causing them to turn yellow;
and Lord Marshmoreton’s views on these things were so rigid that
he would have poured whale-oil solution on his grandmother if he
had found her on the underside of one of his rose leaves sucking its
juice.
Th
e only time in the day when he ceased to be the horny-hand-
ed toiler and became the aristocrat was in the evening after dinner,
when, egged on by Lady Caroline, who gave him no rest in the mat-
ter – he would retire to his private study and work on his History of
the Family, assisted by his able secretary, Alice Faraday. His prog-
ress on that massive work was, however, slow. Ten hours in the open
air made a man drowsy, and too often Lord Marshmoreton would
fall asleep in mid-sentence to the annoyance of Miss Faraday, who
was a conscientious girl and liked to earn her salary.
Th
e couple on the terrace had turned. Reggie Byng’s face, as
he bent over Maud, was earnest and animated, and even from a
distance it was possible to see how the girl’s eyes lit up at what he
was saying. She was hanging on his words. Lady Caroline’s smile
became more and more benevolent.
5
P. G. WODEHOUSE
“Th
ey make a charming pair,” she murmured. “I wonder what
dear Reggie is saying. Perhaps at this very moment – ”
She broke off with a sigh of content. She had had her troubles
over this aff air. Dear Reggie, usually so plastic in her hands, had
displayed an unaccountable reluctance to off er his agreeable self to
Maud – in spite of the fact that never, not even on the public plat-
form which she adorned so well, had his step-mother reasoned more
clearly than she did when pointing out to him the advantages of the
match. It was not that Reggie disliked Maud. He admitted that she
was a “topper”, on several occasions going so far as to describe her
as “absolutely priceless”. But he seemed reluctant to ask her to marry
him. How could Lady Caroline know that Reggie’s entire world – or
such of it as was not occupied by racing cars and golf – was fi lled
by Alice Faraday? Reggie had never told her. He had not even told
Miss Faraday.
“Perhaps at this very moment,” went on Lady Caroline, “the dear
boy is proposing to her.”
Lord Marshmoreton grunted, and continued to peer with a
questioning eye in the awesome brew which he had prepared for
the thrips.
“One thing is very satisfactory,” said Lady Caroline. “I mean that
Maud seems entirely to have got over that ridiculous infatuation of
hers for that man she met in Wales last summer. She could not be
so cheerful if she were still brooding on that. I hope you will admit
now, John, that I was right in keeping her practically a prisoner here
and never allowing her a chance of meeting the man again either by
accident or design. Th
ey say absence makes the heart grow fonder.
Stuff ! A girl of Maud’s age falls in and out of love half a dozen times
a year. I feel sure she has almost forgotten the man by now.”
“Eh?” said Lord Marshmoreton. His mind had been far away,
dealing with green fl ies.
“I was speaking about that man Maud met when she was staying
with Brenda in Wales.”
“Oh, yes!”
“Oh, yes!” echoed Lady Caroline, annoyed. “Is that the only
comment you can fi nd to make? Your only daughter becomes infatu-
ated with a perfect stranger – a man we have never seen – of whom
we know nothing, not even his name – nothing except that he is an
6
A DAMSEL IN DISTRESS
American and hasn’t a penny – Maud admitted that. And all you say
is ‘Oh, yes’!”
“But it’s all over now, isn’t it? I understood the dashed aff air was
all over.”
“We hope so. But I should feel safer if Maud were engaged to
Reggie. I do think you might take the trouble to speak to Maud.”
“Speak to her? I do speak to her.” Lord Marshmoreton’s brain
moved slowly when he was pre-occupied with his roses. “We’re on
excellent terms.”
Lady Caroline frowned impatiently. Hers was an alert, vigorous
mind, bright and strong like a steel trap, and her brother’s vagueness
and growing habit of inattention irritated her.
“I mean to speak to her about becoming engaged to Reggie. You
are her father. Surely you can at least try to persuade her.”
“Can’t coerce a girl.”
“I never suggested that you should coerce her, as you put it. I
merely meant that you could point out to her, as a father, where her
duty and happiness lie.”
“Drink this!” cried his lordship with sudden fury, spraying his
can over the nearest bush, and addressing his remark to the invis-
ible thrips. He had forgotten Lady Caroline completely. “Don’t stint
yourselves! Th
ere’s lots more!”
A girl came down the steps of the castle and made her way to-
wards them. She was a good-looking girl, with an air of quiet ef-
fi ciency about her. Her eyes were grey and whimsical. Her head was
uncovered, and the breeze stirred her dark hair. She made a grace-
ful picture in the morning sunshine, and Reggie Byng, sighting her
from the terrace, wobbled in his tracks, turned pink, and lost the
thread of his remarks.
Th
e sudden appearance of Alice Faraday always aff ected him
like that.
“I have copied out the notes you made last night, Lord Marsh-
moreton. I typed two copies.”
Alice Faraday spoke in a quiet, respectful, yet subtly authorita-
tive voice. She was a girl of great character. Previous employers of
her services as secretary had found her a jewel. To Lord Marsh-
moreton she was rapidly becoming a perfect incubus. Th
eir views
on the relative importance of gardening and family histories did not
coincide. To him the history of the Marshmoreton family was the
7
P. G. WODEHOUSE
occupation of the idle hour: she seemed to think that he ought to
regard it as a life-work. She was always coming and digging him out
of the garden and dragging him back to what should have been a
purely after-dinner task. It was Lord Marshmoreton’s habit, when
he awoke after one of his naps too late to resume work, to throw out
some vague promise of “attending to it tomorrow”; but, he refl ected
bitterly, the girl ought to have tact and sense to understand that this
was only polite persifl age, and not to be taken literally.
“Th
ey are very rough,” continued Alice, addressing her conversa-
tion to the seat of his lordship’s corduroy trousers. Lord Marshmore-
ton always assumed a stooping attitude when he saw Miss Faraday
approaching with papers in her hand; for he laboured under a pa-
thetic delusion, of which no amount of failures could rid him, that
if she did not see his face she would withdraw. “You remember last
night you promised you would attend to them this morning.” She
paused long enough to receive a non-committal grunt by way of
answer. “Of course, if you’re busy – ” she said placidly, with a half-
glance at Lady Caroline. Th
at masterful woman could always be
counted on as an ally in these little encounters.
“Nothing of the kind!” said Lady Caroline crisply. She was still
ruffl
ed by the lack of attention which her recent utterances had re-
ceived, and welcomed the chance of administering discipline. “Get
up at once, John, and go in and work.”
