Uneasy Money

Bill (Lord) Dawlish, twenty-four, is a good footballer, boxer and golfer, has good health, many friends, a beautiful (though hard) fiancée, minor actress Claire Fenwick, and no money except the £400 a year he gets as secretary to exclusive Brown's Club. Claire refuses to marry him on £400 a year. Then Bill hears he has been left a million pounds by an eccentric American whose golfing slice he had cured. He also hears that the eccentric's niece, Elizabeth Boyd, who farms bees on Long Island, had expected to inherit the million pounds. Bill, without telling Claire, goes to America (as Bill Chalmers) to see that Elizabeth gets at least half of the inheritance. Claire, separately and unknown to Bill, also goes to America, to stay with her ex-chorus-girl friend who is now a successful barefoot dancer calling herself Lady Pauline Wetherby. Claire meets an American millionaire on the boat and makes him propose to her, and she accepts. Then, hearing of Bill's new wealth, she breaks with her American and expects to be taken back by Bill. But Bill now is in love with Elizabeth, though she refuses to marry him with no money of her own.

Well, the eccentric old millionaire had made a later will, and so...

This novel has the common early Wodehouse Anglo-American pattern, with Anglo-American marriages. There is some untidy gun-play near the end and Claire's millionaire accidentally shoots a pet monkey.

Source: Richard Usborne. Plum Sauce. A P G Wodehouse Companion.