Aunts Aren't Gentlemen
Categories: [ Books/Wodehouse ]
© Amazon.fr
Published in 1974.
Bertie's physician suggested him to go and rest in the countryside. Bertie decides to rent a cottage at Maidens Eggesford, where his Aunt Dahlia is staying with friends of hers, the Briscoes. Colonel Briscoe breeds horses, and his horse's only serious competitor is Mr. Cook's horse, his arch-rival. On his first day at the village, Bertie accidentally meets Cook, who, learning that Bertie knows Briscoe, is convinced he has come to sabotage the training of his horse by pinching the cat. The cat appeared one day and since then, Cook's horse refuses to train if she is not around. Moreover, Major Plank is staying at Cook's place and, although an attack of malaria prevents him from remembering in what circumstances he had previously met Bertie, there is a risk in the future that he would remember that he is convinced Bertie is a thief. When Aunt Dahlia, who had bet a very large sum of money on Briscoe's horse, learns about the cat, she asks Briscoe's niece to help her pinch the cat. Thanks to a local poacher of her accointance, the cat is stolen and delivered to Bertie. Bertie then pays the poacher to take it back, but the cat follows him back to Bertie's place and refuses to leave. At the same time, Cook's daughter Vanessa, whom Bertie had met once at a party a year ago, quarrels with her fiance Orlo, the son of Cook's former business partner, who has entrusted the control of Orlo's inheritance to Cook. The reason of the quarrel is that she finds Orlo didn't ask her father hard enough for the release oh his money. Orlo needs the money to be able to marry Vanessa, but her father refuses her to marry the communist he is. Vanessa therefore announces Bertie they are now engaged, and that she will make him loose all his bad habits (smoking, drinking cocktails, going do the Drones' club and reading light books). Orlo is of course furious and threatens Bertie, but since the former, an insurance salesman by trade, managed to sell Bertie a life insurance, killing him would be bad business. Bertie manages to convince Orlo that Vanessa actually still loves him, and encourages him to ask again for his money. When Jeeves comes back from visiting his aunt at a nearby place, he tells Bertie that the cat is actually his aunt's, and they use the animal to force Cook into releasing Orlo's money and dropping the charges agains Bertie for cat-theft (Plank having meanwhile remembered his first meeting with Bertie). Briscoe's horse eventually wins the race and everything ends well.
[ Posted on June 27th, 2010 at 16:14 | no comment | permanent link ]
