A Damsel in Distress

A Damsel in Distress by P. G. Wodehouse was recommended as summer reading on the GirlTalk blog. So, since it is no longer summer and I have tons of work to do, I thought "what better time to start reading it?" It was especially useful in avoiding writing that Wall Street Journal summary and later my Materials Science lab report. But besides being useful for procrastination, it was well worth the read.

A happy English family is introduced to us in the first chapter. Oh wait, no, they are not really very happy. Well, Lady Caroline might be...
But not for long.
Her step-son Reggie Byng has not proposed to her brother's daughter after all like she had been hoping.
Lady Caroline is the chatelaine of Belpher Castle and sister to Lord Marshmoreton with whom she stays along with her step-son Reggie. Lord Marshmoreton is a widower with a son, Percy Marsh, Lord Belpher, and a daughter, Lady Patricia Maud Marsh (but she goes throughout the book as Maud). Lord Marshmoreton's chief delight is to garden roses. Lady Caroline's chief delight is to make everyone do as she thinks they ought to be dignified and live up to their social and historical position. She has Lord Marshmoreton working on a book about his ancestors. She is also urging her step-son Reggie to marry Maud, despite Maud having fallen in love with a penniless man in Wales. Reggie personally is in love with Lord Marshmoreton's secretary Alice.

And thus we are introduced to everyone all at once and get all their desires and the obstacles to them as well.

Now on to George.
George was usually a happy man, but one day he woke up feeling lousy. But that could have been owing to the fact that he had gone to better very late that night(or early...in the morning) because there had been a party for the opening of the new play in London for which he had composed the music. But whatever the case, he was feeling lousy. And some friends of his said his problem was that he needed to get married. So he started to run some errands feeling very down and lonely and depressed.

And then suddenly a girl hopped into his cab as it was paused in traffic and asked him to hide her.

And the adventure begins at last.
And what fun it is indeed!
Maud, for it was she who hopped into the cab, was out on the sly to meet with her man from Wales whom she heard was back from a cruise with his employer. But she saw her brother, Percy, and hopped into the strange cab. George promptly falls in love.

The story continues with much hilarious misunderstanding as everybody mixes everybody else up and confuses Lord Marshmoreton for a gardener and etc...

And of course it must all come out right in the end, or else I wouldn't be so happy about it. So now you must all go read it right away too. You can find it on Project Gutenburg as A Damsel in Distress.