read by Martin Jarvis
Originally published in 1953, Ring for Jeeves depicts a
post-war Britain in which the landed gentry have to go out to work, where
servants are a rare beast and the stately home is a dilapidating burden fast
falling down around the ears of its Lord and Master and succumbing to a fate of
disrepair and neglect through lack of funds.
Times are hard: the jaunty music is gone. Ring for Jeeves
opens with spoken text, once again expertly dramatised by the richly talented
Martin Jarvis. Bertie Wooster is barely given a mention in this tale. He has
enrolled in a school that teaches the idle rich how to fend for themselves -
how to darn their own socks, for example – and taking along a gentleman’s
gentleman is absolutely forbidden. In the mean time he has allowed Jeeves to
offer his services to William Egerton Bamfylde Ossingham Belfry, the Earl of
Rowcester – ‘Bill’ – whose stately home, Rowcester Abbey, is on the market as
the Earl clearly cannot afford its considerable upkeep - not since the ‘Socialisation’
of Britain.
The amusing and absorbing plot revolves around wealthy
American widow Rosalinda Spottsworth, who is interested in psychic phenomena
and is in England with a view to buying the Abbey (especially if it proves to
be haunted). The central theme is Mrs Spottsworth’s romance with African white
hunter Captain Biggar, who met and fell in love with her on a hunting
expedition when Mr Spottsworth (Rosalinda’s second husband) was killed. Captain
Biggar’s problem is that his code of conduct (and that of his chums in Africa)
would not allow a man of few means to propose to a woman of many. And Mrs
Spottsworth is very rich indeed. Of course, Captain Biggar’s fortunes would be
much fairer if the bookie he had made a complicated bet with had not scarpered
before paying out his £3,000 winnings. Only we the listener know that said
bookie is none other than the Earl of Rowcester himself, heavily in disguise
and aided and abetted (so to speak) by the indomitable Jeeves. Up until Captain
Biggar’s lucky bet, he had been doing rather well and had even been able to
afford servants at the Abbey. Little wonder he made a quick escape: he is
clearly on his uppers.
Soon Mrs Spottsworth, followed by Captain Biggar, who has
been pursuing the bookie’s car, arrive separately at the Abbey and are,
naturally, invited to stay. To complicate matters, however, Bill and Mrs
Spottsworth, it turns out, had met and dallied when they were a little younger,
in the South of France, much to the dismay of Bill’s jealous fiancée Jill
Wyvern, whose father happens to be Chief Constable of the county.
There is a lot more, of course, involving pendants, unplaced
bets, horse whips, creeping damp and a London store called Harrige’s. Suffice
to say, Jeeves comes up in the end with a solution that satisfies everyone,
Bertie Wooster gets expelled for cheating and asks Jeeves to return and all’s
well that ends well.
Cracking, satisfying, wonderful stuff. The social commentary
simply makes the whole thing even better.
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