ashokbhatia

Some residents of Plumsville may like to join me in recalling our pre-adolescence days. Our first ever encounter with Cupid’s arrows. The time when innocence slowly started giving way to half-baked romances of a transient nature. The neighborhood crush and the chance encounters. The classroom and the furtive glances. The one-sided affections. The attempts at showcasing gallantry and modesty. The unfulfilled desire to share tips on demystifying Romeo and Juliet. The relentless yearning for companionship. The possibility of a picnic where the presence of a certain person made our hearts go all of a twitter.

A more sinister restlessness crept in when we got infatuated with someone within the dark confines of a cinema hall. Posters of an upcoming movie featuring the adored person invariably got more attention than any text-book at hand. Sneaking off to a matinée, while giving a skip to the homework assigned, was also attempted at times. This, despite the grave risks involved – either getting ticked off at home for errant behavior, or getting some of the juiciest ones on the soft spots by the Miss Tomlinsons and the Rev. Aubrey Upjohns in our lives.

In ‘The Love that Purifies’ (Very Good, Jeeves), we come across boys of a tender age who happen to be infatuated with Hollywood divas. We have Thos, who is besotted with Greta Garbo. We have Bonzo, who is in awe of Lilian Gish. Then, we have Sebastian Moon, whose affections are focused on Clara Bow.

How these infatuations transform the behavior of young boys is the nub or crux of the story. We are reminded that even menaces to society in general assume a saintly disposition when under the influence of the charms of their transient heart throbs.

Thug Thos, Pest Bonzo and Candid Moon

Greta Garbo

Many of us would recall that Thos, son of Aunt Agatha, happens to be a juvenile thug. When a Cabinet Minister reports him for smoking, he ends up getting marooned on an island, that too, when it is raining, and with no company but that of a nasty-minded swan. But when Thos comes under the spell of a Hollywood diva, his benevolent self emerges. He thinks nothing of walking a couple of miles, just to fetch a newspaper for Bertie Wooster.

Bonzo, the son of Aunt Dahlia, has a sound reputation as a pest. But if Thos sets a gold standard in devilry, Bonzo is merely a good, ordinary mischief-maker. His proud mother compares the two as follows:

‘Whenever it comes to devilry, Bonzo is a good, ordinary selling-plater. Whereas Thomas is a classic yearling.’

When Bonzo is in love, his nature gets altered. He tries to lead a finer, better life. When tempted to climb on the roof and boo down Mr Anstruther’s chimney, he refuses to oblige. When prompted to burst a paper bag below the chair of a resting old man, he merely walks off in a huff.

Jeeves is not wrong when he avers that ‘Love is a very powerful restraining influence at the age of thirteen.’

Sebastian Moon has goggle eyes and golden curls. He has a breezy candidness about him. Few years junior to both Thos and Bonzo, he happens to have long nourished a deep regard for Miss Clara Bow.

The Good Conduct Competition and the Wager

Lilian Gish

Bertie lands at Aunt Dahlia’s place without Jeeves, who is off on his annual vacation to Bognor for shrimping. He meets Mr. Anstruther, a moth-eaten septuagenarian, who had been a close friend of Aunt Dahlia’s late father. He is an agreeable cove but often suffers from nervous breakdowns. Also visiting are Aunt Dahlia’s son, Bonzo, and Aunt Agatha’s son, Thomas.

Anstruther, in an effort to get peace and quiet, has instituted a Good Conduct competition between the boys. The winner will earn a prize of five pounds.

Aunt Dahlia tells Bertie that she has entered a wager that if Thomas wins the prize, Aunt Dahlia will exchange the services of her chef Anatole for those of Lady Snettisham’s kitchen maid. Aunt Dahlia tries to persuade Bertie to get his man Jeeves down to Brinkley Court to ensure that Thomas does not win the contest, but Bertie claims he has a plan to accomplish this result.

He tries to get Thomas to lose control by making snide remarks, which are promptly laughed off by Thos. Soon, things take a sinister turn when Thos is found walking around six miles at an early hour, merely to fetch the Sporting Times for Bertie. This unselfish act of kindness gets him a bonus of twenty marks.

Bertie loses no time in reporting the matter to Aunt Dahlia.

She was stunned. Aghast, you might call it.
‘Thomas did that?’
‘Thos in person.’
‘Walked six miles to get you a paper?’
‘Walked six miles and a bit.’
‘The young hound! Good heavens, Bertie, do you realize that he may go on doing these Acts of kindness daily – perhaps twice a day? Is there no way of stopping him?’
‘None that I can think of. No, Aunt Dahlia, I must confess it. I am baffled. There is only one thing to do. We must send for Jeeves.’

Golden Curls and Despondency

Jeeves, when called upon to offer a solution, suggests bringing in Master Sebastian Moon, the boy with golden curls.

Clara Bow

Jeeves thinks that strongest natures are sometimes not proof against long golden curls. He goes on to elaborate as follows:

‘I do not think I am too sanguine, sir. You must remember that Master Moon, apart from his curls, has a personality which is not uniformly pleasing. He is apt to express himself with a breezy candour which I fancy Master Thomas might feel inclined to resent in one some years his junior.’

However, the plan to let Thos and Moon be alone somewhere and let Nature do the rest comes unstuck. Upon Moon getting a nail in his shoe, a saint-like Thos carries him on his back in hot sunshine all the way back home. After all, Thos’ idea is to spend the remainder of his life trying to make himself worthy of Greta Garbo.

Depression sets in. This is how Bertie confesses his skepticism towards taking things for granted.

You know, the older I get the more firmly do I become convinced that there is no such thing as a pip in existence. Again and again have I seen the apparently sure thing go phut, and now it is rarely indeed that I can be lured from my aloof skepticism.

Anatole’s cooking streak fails to lift the spirits of the members of the Wooster clan. Food melts in the mouth but eyes are invariably full of unshed tears. The prospect of losing Anatole is too much to bear.

The Thug succumbs to Jeeves’ cunning!

Then, on the very last afternoon of Mr Anstruther’s stay, Thos, who gets the top slot in Bertie’s Rogue’s Gallery of repulsive small boys, succumbs to Jeeves’ cunning.

It is a warm, drowsy and peaceful afternoon. The birds are hopping, the butterflies are fluttering, the bees are buzzing and the old Mr Anstruther is enjoying his afternoon siesta in the garden when all hell breaks loose.

While playing together in the stable-yard, Thos is stirred to his depths by some brutally disparaging remarks made by Master Sebastian in respect of Miss Garbo. Prompted by Jeeves, Sebastian apparently conveys his opinion that Greta Garbo is definitely inferior to Clara Bow – both in beauty and talent!

Predictably, an altercation follows. In the ensuing melee, the old man gets rudely woken up and somehow gets drenched in a bucketful of water. Moving adroitly for his age, he picks up a stick which is lying around and goes into action like a two-year old, chasing Thos round the house.

Marie Lloyd

Thanks to Jeeves, Bonzo wins the Good Conduct Contest, Aunt Dahlia wins the bet and Anatole continues to churn out his lavish spreads at her place at Worcestershire.

Bertie remarks thus:

‘Jeeves, this Younger Generation is hot stuff.’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Were you like that in your day?’
‘No, sir.’
‘Nor I, Jeeves. At the age of fourteen I once wrote to Marie Lloyd for her autograph, but apart from that my private life could bear the strictest investigation.’

Jeeves wins an extended holiday at Bognor, obviously giving a tough time to all the shrimps which attempt to pit their feeble cunning against him.

Cupid’s arrows happen to be democratic in nature. These do not discriminate based on religion, sex, ethnicity or age. One could be of an advanced age. One could have attained adulthood. One could even be of a very tender age.

These also have an uplifting effect on the soul. One aspires to lead an exemplary life. One wishes to rise in the esteem of the beloved. One aspires to be worthy of the adored person.

Unluckily, such infatuations happen to be transient in nature. Were these to last long, there would perhaps be no need to have reformatory systems in place for the kind of heinous crimes pre-adolescents appear to commit at times!

(Related Posts:

https://ashokbhatia.wordpress.com/2015/06/09/some-plumsville-kids-and-the-richter-scale-of-roguishness-part-1-of-3

https://ashokbhatia.wordpress.com/2015/06/17/some-plumsville-kids-and-the-richter-scale-of-roguishness-part-2-of-3

https://ashokbhatia.wordpress.com/2015/06/25/some-plumsville-kids-and-the-richter-scale-of-roguishness-part-3-of-3)