Madeline Bassett is a fictional character in the Jeeves stories by English comic writer P. G. Wodehouse, being an excessively sentimental and fanciful young woman to whom Bertie Wooster intermittently, and reluctantly, finds himself engaged.

Life and character

The daughter of Sir Watkyn Bassett and the cousin of Stephanie "Stiffy" Byng, Madeline has golden hair, a treacly voice, a tinkling, silvery laugh and when she sighs, it sounds "like the wind going out of a rubber duck". Bertie Wooster describes her in Right Ho, Jeeves as "a pretty enough girl in a droopy, blonde, saucer-eyed way but not the sort of breath-taker that takes the breath", though elsewhere he describes her as "physically in the pin-up class". He also notes that she is excessively mushy and fanciful, regularly espousing whimsical beliefs about gnomes and stars. She plays piano and is apt to sing folk songs, especially when she is trying to cheer herself up. She was educated at Roedean. Madeline enjoys reading Christopher Robin and Winnie the Pooh and the works of Rosie M. Banks. Inspired by the poet Percy Bysshe Shelley to become a vegetarian, she nonetheless has no knowledge of cooking. While generally calm, she is capable of giving out an angry glare that could match even that of Bertie's Aunt Agatha. Bertie is surprised to learn this in Stiff Upper Lip, Jeeves, when he asks her hypothetically what would happen if Gussie Fink-Nottle ate steak and kidney pie (against her wish for him to be vegetarian). She questions Bertie if Gussie has been doing so. As Bertie states: "I had never supposed that she had it in her to give anyone a piercing look, but that is what she gave me now. I don't think even Aunt Agatha's eyes have bored more deeply into me." Her first appearance is in Right Ho, Jeeves. She meets and befriends Angela Travers and also meets Angela's cousin Bertie Wooster during a stay in Cannes. She mistakenly believes that Bertie is in love with her and is gazing at her with long, dumb, searching looks. When he tries to tell her subtly that "someone" (Gussie Fink-Nottle) has feelings for her, Madeline incorrectly thinks that Bertie is talking about himself. To his great relief, she turns him down, as she is in love with Gussie; she assures Bertie that, if ever her engagement to Gussie were to fail, Bertie is the first person she would look to as a replacement fiancé. Since Bertie's personal code does not allow him to insult her by correcting her misunderstanding or rejecting her offer, he is thereafter under threat of having to marry her if she rejects her first choice. She becomes engaged (and disengaged) frequently in the novels, having idealistic standards that sometimes her fiancé cannot live up to. She becomes engaged to Bertie and Gussie in Right Ho, Jeeves and to Bertie and then back to Gussie in The Code of the Woosters. Her engagement to Gussie holds during The Mating Season, in which she visits an old friend of hers, Hilda Gudgeon, with whom she was educated at Roedean. Gussie later elopes with Emerald Stoker and Madeline becomes engaged variously to Bertie and Roderick Spode (Lord Sidcup) in Stiff Upper Lip, Jeeves and again to Bertie and then back to Spode in Much Obliged, Jeeves. Ultimately, she is engaged to Spode and appears to be on her way to becoming the next Countess of Sidcup.

Appearances

Madeline appears in: Madeline is mentioned in:

Quotes

Madeline is distinctive for her maudlin and fanciful statements, illustrated by the following examples. Direct speech: Attributed speech:

Adaptations