Young lovers of the late 1940s, thwarted in love. First is Stanwood Cobbold, a strong young fellow but none too sharp, Stan has a very rich father who does not approve of Stan's love interest, Eileen Stoker. She is a Hollywood actress and she is off to London and has told Stan she will not marry him because he is dependent on his father for money.
Next is Lord Shortlands, aka Shorty. He is in love with his cook, Alice Punter. But he shares his home, Beevor Castle, with his rival, the butler, Mervyn Spink. Spink also desires to wed Mrs. Punter, but neither man measures up to her demands: she wants to own a pub and be her own boss. The man she marries must be able to provide her with said pub. Neither Shorty nor Spink can do so. Shorty's income is nil after taxes and he depends upon his eldest daughter for spending money. And Spink is a gambler but not a very lucky gambler.
And then there is Lady Teresa, also one of Shorty's daughters (there's three of them). She would like to fall in love with Mike Cardinal, a Hollywood agent who is also in London trying to get Eileen to sign with his agency. Mike is leading-man-handsome and Terry had a bad experience with a handsome young actor who cheated on her. She fears that Mike is also what she calls a flibbertigibbet, according to her a man who chases after other women while wooing one woman.
They all end up at Beevor Castle, with Mike posing as Stan, and Stan posing as a Mr. Rossiter, with Shorty and Spink hatching various plans to get their hands on the funds needed to woo Mrs. Punter and with Terry becoming engaged three different times to Stan and Mike. And I can't leave out Augustus Robb, a former burglar and booze-hound who has reformed and is now an ardent Christian and employed as Stan's valet and who turns out to be a dark horse.
To quote the Scottish poet, Robert Burns, "The best laid schemes o' mice an' men / Gang aft a-gley / An' lae'e us nought but grief an' pain, / For promised joy." So it is with the schemes of the plotters in Beevor Castle. But unlike Burns' little mouse, all comes out beautifully in the end. A fun and lighthearted story, typical Wodehouse, I really enjoyed reading it again.
No comments:
Post a Comment