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mercyrobot) wrote2009-07-24 07:06 pm
mercyrobot) wrote2009-07-24 07:06 pm
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[Jeeves & Wooster] Fic: Sorting Out the Dance Card (4/8)
Sorting Out the Dance Card
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4. Playing To the Audience
The intervening days between the Renaud debacle and the departure to Brittany passed pleasantly enough, except that Marion had pressed me into service playing piano for an entertainment at a children's home where she did good works occasionally. The original pianist had broken an arm in some bizarre gardening accident and I was in easy supply since Jeeves was much occupied with the travel arrangements, or seemed to be with all the messages he seemed to be running to and fro with.
This entertainment was not one of those step-up-as-you-will affairs where 'Sonny Boy' is sung four times and vegetables are hurled; there was a set programme and therefore several rehearsals. They had a magic act, a few songs from Marion and some cronies of hers, a bit of puppetry, and a short play, though not quite in that order.
The closing number was to be a trio of well-known musical actors with an exlusive from their latest spectacle, which from what I'd heard of it would be quite the thing to see when it openened. The bit they were doing was a dashed catchy little tune entitled 'This Friend of Mine,' presumably chosen for its wholesome friendship-fostering character, though I was doubtful as to how much les kiddies français would really understand. A sampling went:
Jeeves happened to be in the room when I warbled the bit about 'he's certainly my better half,' which necessitated explaining the entire plot lest he think I was implying something. I wasn't, of course, but when I thought about it there were quite a few bits of Jeeves I could see in the words. My better half, most indisputably, and he did always pick me up eventually when I fell down. Bar the one very particular case, naturally, of my falling for him. He couldn't pick me up from that unless he fell right back, which was not likely.
"Oh, I'm hopeless," I muttered sotto voce.
"I rather think not, sir," Jeeves said, having reappeared.
I jumped out of my skin. "You'll give a chap a coronary, sneaking up like that, Jeeves!" I gasped. "And if you ask more or less anyone who's ever met me, I'm quite hopeless. 'Tis merely a fact of life." The words were spoken airily, but felt less so.
"I would disagree, sir, but I doubt you wish to argue."
"Not in the slightest," I peeved. I planted myself back at the piano and started banging out a tune I knew Jeeves held in great contempt. He took himself off, my intended result, but once he'd gone I found myself wishing he'd stayed and told me all the ways in which I was not hopeless. Which I think really made me even more hopless.
Annoying him right out of the room would win me no points, and I regretted having done it. In mind of redeeming myself, I took a stab at some long-neglected Mozart. I never played the stuff, but it seemed right up Jeeves's street. More than a few bars had not passed out of boyhood with me, though, so I bumbled over to the bookcase where I thought I remembered seeing something of the sort among Uncle Henry's music books. I took down some well-thumbed opus or other in triumph.
Something fluttered out from between the pages and I bent to pick it up. It was a letter, an old letter, dated 1892 and beginning 'dearest.' No name, just 'dearest.' It proved to be an extremely eloquent and adoring birthday salutation to accompany the gift of the music. It could have been from anyone to anyone; there was no signature, apparently on purpose, just '...' after all the I-am-as-ever business. It didn't look like my Aunt Emily's writing, and why wouldn't she have signed it if she'd written it?
I forgot all my musings in view of this oddity and went to put the thing to Jeeves. "What do you make of this?" I asked, entering the kitchen waving the paper at him.
He dried his hands from whatever he'd been scrubbing and took it. As soon as he did, he registered very definite surprise. "Where did you find this, sir?"
"It fell out of here." I held up the book. "I suppose I oughtn't to have read it, but I didn't know what it was and it's not to anybody or from anybody."
"I could not say, sir." But Jeeves is never incapable of saying. It's merely that he thinks he shouldn't, or doesn't want to.
"Oh, come, if you know something, out with it."
He hesitated, but sighed. "It is not a certainty, sir, but I believe this is Mr Brittingham's writing."
"Oh. I suppose he just stuck it in there and forgot about it. I don't think he ever married, so it must've gone wrong somewhere." Poor old bird. "Do you suppose he'd want it back?"
"One never knows whether these things will bring happy memories or simply open old wounds, sir."
Something about the way he drew himself up saying that told me not to press it any further. I assumed it had to do with this unpleasant time of his he'd made reference to with the jewel thievery, but I now wondered if there was more to it than duplicitous friends. Some girl breaking his heart and love dying that very day. I never know when to leave well enough alone or to listen to the somethings telling me not to do one thing or another, so I said, "You speak as though from experience, Jeeves."
"I would not wish to dwell upon it, sir. You would do me a kindness if you did not press me to say more."
Dash it, I wanted to know. What was it? Who was it? Could I find her, study her, learn once and for all what it took to ensnare his heart? Even reunite them? A painful thought, this reunion, but if he could be happy, who was I not to render aid? It wasn't that, good reason though it was, that stopped me. It was that he had not refused to tell, but asked not to be asked.
"You know any such kindness I can do you is yours for the taking," I said, with too much affection, I'm sure. Our eyes met for a moment, and in that moment, for just a fraction of it, he looked so wounded and fearful that I longed to comfort him. "I had no right to press as far as I did," I said instead of the folding-in-arms I wanted to do because whoever this girl was, she'd done some number on him.
In case he didn't want to remain forever silent on the subj., I said, "But as it seems that whatever this is weighs rather heavily on you, if you ever think speaking of it to a neutral party would make it a bit lighter, I stand ready."
"I..." He shook his head. "Thank you, sir."
I knew that was the end of it for the time being, and took a gamble at lightening matters up. "Well," I said, tucking the letter back whence it had come and thumping the cover of the book, "trying to play something you wouldn't turn up your nose at for once has backfired splendidly. In future I'll curtail all attempts to please my audience." Oh, that hadn't bally well come out right. I'd never meant to admit I was trying to play for him. I slunk off to my rehearsal and stayed out late so as not to be forced to revisit the matter.
Nothing more was said, but the day of the entertainment (which was also the day before our removal to the much-anticipated cottage), I found a shiny new Chopin collection perched atop the piano. It made me smile more than a little. I gave the thing a whirl while he was out for the daily baguettes and found I'd much improved at it since my ladhood. There was one piece I'd hated, on account of being drilled to death on its milllion and one notes, but I rather liked it now. My fingers remembered it better than I'd given them credit for. I couldn't do it with my eyes closed or anything like that, but it came more easily than expected.
Another point in its favour was that actually, when you weren't a boy cursing it to death because you wanted to play something fun, it was really dashed romantic-sounding, crescendoing up and down and every which way, but not some delicate little thing about butterflies, either; you could really throw your back into it. Sort of—no, exactly—the way I imagined this longed-for romance would go, really, if it were to go. A bit frantic, a bit mad, soft but not too soft. Fantasie Impromptu, it called itself, and if that wasn't apt I didn't know what was.
The thing of really throwing your back into something is that it rather hinders the ability to hear sounds such as footsteps and doors, and at the end of it I looked up to see Jeeves standing there, still holding the shopping and really just sort of watching me, either transfixed or horrified.
"I'm sure I'm butchering it," I said with a ducking sort of mutter.
"No, sir." There was more force in those two words than I'd ever heard him put into them. Transfixed? Really? Surely not. He must have some particular love for that bit of music. It couldn't be me. "It was very well done."
I barely got off a thank-you before he resumed his path to the kitchen. I felt a general oh-dearishness about the whole matter— what if I'd picked the one thing too affecting to hear? But were that the case, he had sense enough to know I'd never miss it if he pulled the pages out. He must have liked it. And liked me playing it. Not the way I wanted, of course, but it was something.
That evening, Mother Nature graced Paris with a downpour of Biblical proportions. The Seine swelled upon its banks and apparently over a few bridges as well, but luckily I was already on the proper bank to reach the Au Paradis des Enfants establishment without an oar and a raven. Unfortunately the chappie meant to be singing some newish and lovely French ditty was not. As the puppet show was in the same boat (not a proverbial one, if I made that out correctly), Marion begged me to fill the gap a bit.
"Just...sing something. It doesn't matter what."
"But what? I've got no music other than what's on the bill, and I'll look a perfect ass if I try to sing Philippe's song."
"But you know piles of stuff by heart." I was reminded of my young cousin Thos when as a littler gnat than he was now, he used to beg for sweets.
"Yes, and mine alone. I can't play and sing, not someplace this size. They'll never hear me unless we can turn the piano round." A laughable notion; if the instrument had been needed to escape the flood, it could have carried all the children easily. "Besides, who'll play if I don't?"
"I can, if it's nothing too complicated."
"There is still the distinct lack of anything readily performable."
"Well, didn't Jeeves come? Send him back to get something."
"Why would Jeeves come?"
"You mean you didn't ask him to?"
"What for? To sit with a bunch of squirming youngsters and suffer through stuff he doesn't even like?"
"No, you dolt!" She looked round, I think to check that we were alone. "To see you play."
"To see the side of my head?"
"Oh, Bertie. You're an idiot."
"I am? I mean, I rather am, I know— but why this time?"
"When you put your fingers on those keys, something happens. You just light up, like you're having the time of your life. It makes you look really...well, it shows your very best qualities."
"Marion, old thing, it's lovely of you to be looking out for my interests, but horses cannot be made to drink, even in this sort of deluge."
"No, but if you keep showing them water they might remember they're thirsty. Come on, there's still time. Ring him up to bring some music and when he gets here, ask him to stay." She'd been manhandling me towards the telephone during this speech, and now all but threw me on top of it.
I doubted Jeeves would remember any thirst if he hadn't by now, but I dutifully did the ringing-up. "Jeeves," I said when he answered. "I call out to you in a time of minor crisis." I explained the posish briefly and asked him to ankle round with a few sheets of something that would suit.
"Nothing too hard to play," Marion called from where she was supervising.
"Nothing too hard to play, Jeeves," I repeated.
"Yes, sir, I heard Miss Wardour. You could simply ask if any person present knows 'Sonny Boy,' sir."
"Is that your idea of a joke, Jeeves?"
"Yes, sir. I fear it was in poor taste."
I laughed. "No, we must learn to laugh at ourselves. But please, anything but that. Er. If you don't mind, that is. I know you'd probably not venture out in this weather."
"I believe I shall manage, sir."
He arrived a scant half-hour later with the goods, mysteriously dry and unruffled but for a few drops on the shoulders of his overcoat. Marion snatched the music from him before I could lay a finger on it, muttering as she leafed through. Finally she popped one on top and tapped it. "Here. This'll be perfect."
"'The Song is Ended?' It will be, at that. It'll bore the little blighters to sleep and the melody will linger on in their dreams."
"It's the closest thing to what Philippe was doing. Don't argue, Bertie."
"Oh, all right. They haven't got potatoes or anything, have they?"
"Of course not," she said. "Jeeves, Lisette is out in the front row. I'm sure she'd like some company."
"Don't feel you must, Jeeves," I said, despite the pinch I received for my trouble. "Your fearful trip is done and you're free to return to the comforts of home."
"I would not wish to miss your performance, sir." I couldn't be sure if he meant he'd like to have a good laugh at what an ass I'd make of myself or that he'd really like to see it.
"Well, then, enjoy le spectacle, I suppose."
When my turn came, Marion slipped out of the wings to announce me and took up my place on the piano bench. I do much better at singing if I've got someone to sing to, but it didn't seem quite right to direct a soppy love ballad at some unfortunate child. Nor did it seem a terribly wise idea to look at Jeeves, so I fixated at random on a bit of wall and did my best. But my traitorous gaze kept drifting, and by the time I got to the closing bit about 'you and the song had gone, but the melody lingers on,' said t.g. drifted directly onto Jeeves and had the almighty gall to, indeed, linger.
Eyes met, and I'm surprised I didn't forget to sing entirely. If I could have bottled up that moment and hung it round my neck, I would have, because for space of those two lines, the audience sort of blurred into nothing and he was the only one there. For the fleeting m., I nearly believed that perhaps he was, to continue the theme, thirsty after all. But it was over just as quickly and the world came back into focus, and with it the let-down of having fooled myself.
The lights must have made my eyes water. I hurried back to the shadows of the accompanist's seat. Marion gave me a questioning look, which I answered with a saddish shake of the bean. She sighed, patted my hand, and was gone. A few jaunty tunes and a bit of comedy soon had me in better spirits by the end, but there was a distinct undercurrent of greyness to it.
Jeeves caught up with me outside the makeshift dressing-rooms with Lisette in tow. "Marion's still changing, I think," I told her, pointing at the room allotted to the ladies.
"You sang beautifully." She got up on her tippy-toes to kiss each of my cheeks, a vast improvement on the last time her lips had been applied to the Wooster map.
"Thanks. Say goodnight to Marion for me, would you? I'm dead on my feet and facing a rather acky ack emma."
Lisette's strong grasp of English apparently did not extend to such wordplay. "A what-y ack-what?"
"I've got to get up early. We're off to Brittany for a spell."
"You must eat a crêpe sarrasin and write a postcard telling me all about it."
"Whatever those are, I'll try to search one out," I promised, though it sounded rather Rabelaisian and unpleasant.
"It is impossible not to find one. If you go to the Ti Mamm in Fougères and mention my name, Anne will take very good care of you."
"I didn't realise you were from there."
"Oh, yes. I miss it still. But a woman like me cannot truly live there, you understand." In fact, I rather did.
We'd hung about long enough that I was able to say au revoir to Marion in person. "Good luck," she whispered as she did her own bit of cheek kissing.
Jeeves was utterly silent until we were nearly out the door, and he only spoke then because I spoke first. "Well, I hope you weren't bored to tears, Jeeves."
"Not at all, sir. Most of the programme was very entertaining. I failed to congratulate you on an admirable performance."
"Well, thank you. I didn't think it was all that good, but not too shabby for half an hour's warning."
We stepped out under the awning in hopes of a cab, but there was nary a one. "There is a stand two streets over, sir," Jeeves said. "If you would care to wait indoors, I can return in one in a few minutes' time."
"Don't be silly, Jeeves. I won't melt. I'll walk with you."
"Did you not mention lending your umbrella to one of the ladies, sir?"
I had, for I'd figured I could bear the rain better than she. "Yes, but the one you carry round everywhere is big enough for half of W1. I think we can manage two streets." I'd had no idea at the time of using it as a scheme to huddle under an umbrella with the o. of my a., but one does not scrutinise the dental work of horses one is given. But one also should not push their heads into the stream. "I can wait here if you'd rather not."
"I believe it will be more expedient, sir, if I go on my own."
"Right ho, Jeeves," I said dejectedly. If the man didn't want to go round sharing umbrella space with me, it was his business. As much as I would have liked it, it wouldn't do to be constantly forcing him into close quarters. If I wasn't suspicious enough already, a thing like that would certainly be telling.
Perhaps, I thought as I waited, it was inevitable that he would work it out. Jeeves cannot be kept in the dark for long about anything. And on that day, when I said something or did something that was just an inch too revealing, he'd be lost. Did I take what I could until then and consider it better than never having loved at all? I couldn't see any other way; I didn't have it in me to pretend more than I was. I am simply not built to suddenly decide a thing should have no more power over me. I wondered if I should go so far as to find some girl to appear infatuated with, to put him off the scent, but the thought wearied me. No, the status would quo as it had always quoed, and I'd take my heartbreak like a man when he finally dished it up.
The cab arrived and I made a dash for it, not waiting for Jeeves to come valet me in. I rather whacked into him as I dove inside, as he'd been sliding across to get out. "Oof. Sorry, Jeeves."
"I was coming to assist you, sir."
"Never mind, I'm here now. Allons-y."
Jeeves waved the cabbie on. I ran my hands through my damp hair and wiped at my face with my handkerchief, which reduced it to a useless soaked thing. Jeeves took it from me and replaced it with a fresh one, with which I wiped my hands before tucking it into my pocket, fully knowing it was his. I'd pretend I hadn't noticed if he later questioned why I had it.
We did end up squashing up under the umbrella, but only for the half a second or so it took to get inside the door. I kicked off my squelching shoes as soon as we were in, and after a moment decided I couldn't bear the socks a moment longer either and sat down on the bench in the foyer to ungarter myself. Jeeves reappeared with my slippers before I'd even got one trouser leg all the way up, and he bent down to do the job for me, swift as ever, but I shivered at his fingers dragging over my calves and ankles.
"Your feet are cold, sir." He pressed each one briefly betwen warm hands before the application of slippers. Cold the toes may have been, but I suddenly felt warmed through by such a singularly—intimate? was that it?—act. "You should get into a hot bath, sir," he said as he stood up.
"What about you?" I was a trifle dazed. "Catching your death in wet clothes looking after me?"
"I am fairly dry, sir, having refrained from unsheltered forays into the downpour." It was chiding, yes, but dashed if there wasn't a bit of 'oh, you' about it if you knew how to read the inkling of a smirk.
Into the ordered bath I went, too tired and grateful for the soothing water for le corps to get up to any funny business despite all this pressing of feet. My usual nighttime whiskey, once I was chased off to bed, was served hot and with a dash of something sweet and spicy that was, naturally, just the thing to complete the journey to sleepy contenment. I remained conscious long enough to ask what time we were starting out, and to agree to something about a hired car and a leisurely pace to view any sights along the way, before biffing soundly off to the land of Nod.
We set out after an early luncheon, but as sights along the way went, there was not much. Jeeves had, to my delight, come prepared with reading material, and serenaded me with the dulcet tones of a popular mystery that had to be causing him pain. It was the sort of thing I liked, not the sort of thing he liked. Hence the delight: when one's o. of adoration does something purely for one's pleasure, one's outlook is bound to be brightened.
"'And I could hear,'" Jeeves read, in the gruffish voice he'd been using for the MP whose opponent had been done in, "'as close as if it were on top of me, a voice in the walls. You'll think me mad, Inspector, but I swear upon my honour it was humming! The most sinister tune seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere, and I chilled as though someone had walked across my grave!'"
I interrupted, having solved the case. "Well, there you are! Sliding panels in the walls, secret passageways, that's how the murderer got out of a locked room with no windows. That bit earlier about the butler singing to himself as he polished the silver— he's your murderer!" It wasn't that I was so awfully good at solving mysteries, simply that I'd read more than my fair share and knew how these things went. I doubt I would even have noticed the bit about the singing butler had I not drifted off to ponder what Jeeves's singing might sound like, were he to do any.
"Indeed, sir? I rather suspect the secretary."
"He is a bit fishy, isn't he? It could be the humming's meant to throw us off the scent. Or we could both be right— the secretary had the butler do it."
"Murder his own employer, sir?" It was, I hoped, said with at least a splash of genuine disbelief.
"When you put it that way I rather think I should start sleeping with one eye open."
"Not at all, sir."
"Well, thank goodness for that. But this late unlamented would-be MP sent at least one maid a day crying from the room. I shouldn't be shocked if his whole staff wouldn't have minded doing the job. I say! What if the butler was about to be sent packing with no reference, like the chappie Sherlock Holmes catches in 'The Muskrat Thingamabob?'"
"'The Musgrave Ritual,' sir?"
"That's the beggar. Well, he'd never get any more work if that happened, would he, so he decided to shut the old tyrant up for good."
"Perhaps, sir. Do you wish me to continue?"
"Not unless you're just riveted, Jeeves. I can finish it later."
"Thank you, sir."
A thing I'd often wondered on, most especially in recent times, but had never thought to just ask popped into my mind, and timidly, I popped it to Jeeves in turn. "Jeeves, are you— that is to say, I'm all right as employers go, aren't I? I mean, you're more or less content?"
"Were I not, sir, I would not have requested your assurance that my situation was to be a permanent one."
He had indeed, and what's more had reminded me of it a few times. I hadn't known when he'd asked, of course. If he asked the same thing now I'd likely have fainted with joy. "Well, good, then. But you know, just because you've declared yourself signed up for life doesn't mean I shouldn't try to— well, I mean, you know, if there's anything that could stand improving, say the word and I'll do my best to see it's improved."
"Nothing springs immediately to mind, sir, but I thank you for your consideration."
A less-upstanding chap would have taken the opening and demanded a pay rise and more holidays, which made me all the more inclined to find something he wanted. "Not a thing? Not even something frivolous you don't strictly need but would make it all a bit nicer?"
He shot me a rummy look, or I thought he did; hard to tell with eyes mostly on the road and all. "Nothing it would be— nothing, sir."
"No, you were about to say something. 'Nothing it would be' what? Possible to get? I suppose we must draw the line at your very own unicorn or Mona Lisa, but if it's within my powers as a mere mortal, consider it done." I couldn't think what he'd be so hesitant to ask for, unless it was the very thing I'd forbidden myself to ask for, but it couldn't be that. Unicorns in Berkeley Square were more likely.
"I will...consider requesting it, sir."
"Oh, come now, Jeeves. You can't leave a chap in suspense like that." It'd do my head in hoping and wondering, for one thing. "Out with it, I insist."
He outed with it. He was quick to assure me that what he had was more than good enough, but in mind of frivolous luxury he wouldn't mind some new furnishings in his lair. Furniture, I say! What did he take me for that such a simple thing would be ridiculous and impossible? What on earth did that say about me? I was very nearly angry, and had to clench the jaw a bit to keep from shouting, "Of course you can have it. I can't believe you'd think I would say no."
"On the contrary, sir. I knew you would not. I have no wish to take advantage of your generous nature, for as I have stated, the present furnishings are more than adequate."
"Take advantage? You're not taking advantage! If anything I take advantage of you seventeen times a day!"
"I assure you that you do nothing of the sort, sir."
While it might've seemed on the surface that all was s. and done, the atmosphere had chilled a few degrees and continued to have a distinct offishness to it. Oh, Jeeves made the requisite polite conversation, but he seemed distant. I kept trying to draw him out, to no avail.
"This cottage we're taking," I tried, "it's got all the modern conveniences?"
"Purportedly, sir."
When it became clear he was not going to describe said mod cons along with a history of the village as he might ordinarily have done, I said lamely, "Ah. Good."
I tried a funny story, I tried mangling Shakespeare so he'd correct me, I even sang the praises of a green and purple tie I'd seen in a shop window, but he never said more than a couple of words to any of it. It was like pulling teeth, really, and I don't mean for a qualified dental surgeon.
"Do you think dental surgeons use the phrase 'like pulling teeth' the way the rest of us do, or in place of something like 'a piece of cake?'" I mused aloud, having decided it no longer mattered what I drivelled on about if I could keep the stiff silence at bay.
"I'm sure I don't know, sir."
"Because cake is probably a very bad thing to a dentist, while pulling teeth is...well, a piece of cake. Doesn't some relation of yours work in a dentist's surgery?" I'd gone there once with a toothache on his recommendation.
"My cousin Penelope, sir. I will ask her when next I see her."
"Right, the secretary. You seem to have about three thousand cousins, Jeeves. It's a wonder you can keep track of them."
"It is helpful that I have known them all for some time, sir."
"Yes, it would be. I suppose I'll meet more of them at the wedding. Biffy and Mabel's, I mean."
"Provided Mr Biffen does not forget the engagement in the intervening weeks, sir."
"I say! That's awfully rough, and untrue on top of it." I knew he was no great aficionado of Biffy, but remarks of such an outright cutting nature were not normally his style. "She's the one thing he always remembers. Perhaps not every last detail, and there'll certainly be an army of us making sure he remembers what day it is and where to go, but that she exists and that he loves her he most certainly remembers! The love of one's life does not slip easily from the mind, Jeeves." Oh, how well I knew that.
"No, sir." No arguing of his point, no explanation of what he'd meant by rather insulting Biffy, nothing.
I could stand it no longer, or perhaps sit it, since sitting I was. "Is something wrong, Jeeves?" I demanded.
"No, sir."
"What if I said I know you better than that and don't believe you?"
"Then you shall have to disbelieve, sir."
"Look, if I've done something—"
"You have done nothing, sir."
"Because if I have, you should tell me. I know you gladly suffer a great deal of foolishness on my part, but it is not some duty of yours to sit idly by whilst I insult you."
"I am not insulted, sir."
"Fine," I said wearily, seeing he would not budge.
We rolled along for a stiff few miles, during which I tried to puzzle out what on earth had brought on this bout of frosty aloofness. It had all been going rather nicely until the bit about the furniture, but I could make h. nor t. of why that would upset him so.
I stopped at the next garage, which were few and far out here and had to be availed when come upon if one wanted petrol and wished to avoid a very long walk. I left Jeeves to tangle with the fellow manning the pumps and slouched into the little shop, hoping a brief separation would be enough to put him right, since if it wasn't there was no bally point in locking ourselves away in some rural shack.
This shop was something of an oddity, as shops at these country roadsides tend to be, the usual postcards and sweets and maps amongst greengroceries, souvenir ash-trays and misshapen jumpers, all sort of mashed together without much rhyme or reason.
"Bertie! What are you doing here?"
I blinked in befuddlement. The establishment apparently also traded in Glossops, to my utmost chagrin. "What ho, Honoria. Holidaying. Pausing for a spot of petrol and humbugs. The usual sort of thing. One could ask you the same."
"Oh, a friend of Daphne's has a castle or something out this way. We're going shooting." The thought of Honoria with a rifle rather withered the insides. "I'd heard you were in Paris, though."
"We were. Fancied a bit of country air and fewer artists for a spell. You know."
"Well, you should pop up to this chateau, massive party we're getting up. Plenty of room."
"Oh, I don't think so. You've seen me shoot." I moved away to settle up my purchases, but my protest fell on deaf ears and she followed.
"Here," she said, picking a postcard off a rack, "this is the one. Come Saturday."
"Impossible, I'm afraid. My physician has ordered me not to hold a rifle for at least the next three months."
"Oh, you old silly!" She gave a playful shove that only barely missed sending me flying into the jumpers. "Of course you can."
"I cannot. I shall not. I think I even must not. Give my best to the ducks or whatever you're killing. Tinkerty-tonk." I gave her a tip of the chapeau and waited no longer for the aged shopkeeper to finish counting out my change. I beat a quick path out and over to Jeeves, interrupting his conversation with le pumpeur. "Are we petrol'd, Jeeves?"
"Yes, sir—"
"Good. Hop in and let's go, I've been Glossoped."
"Glossoped, sir?" he asked as he climbed in and I lead-footed it out of there. "Would that interesting verb refer to Miss Honoria Glossop, by any chance?"
"Indeed it would, Jeeves. She's headed for some shooting party at a castle and practically dragged me there bound and trussed in the boot of her car."
"I see. When will you be joining the party, sir?"
"I won't, Jeeves."
"Indeed, sir?"
"Don't sound so surprised. I am capable of doing as I bally well please once in a while. Hang all Glossops, say I. I issued a cold nolle prosequi and an adieu, and that was that. I don't view it as a letting-down of pals, for Honoria is no pal of mine, and I think we've proven time and again that she's in no danger of feeling slighted where I'm concerned. No, I have not trod over the Wooster Code. I simply don't want to go shooting, dash it. It's like being on the way to get an ice cream and having someone offer you a lemon tart. The ice cream lays but two hours ahead and no tart will dissuade me from the plotted course." Perhaps tarts hadn't been the best confections to go with. "Not that I'm implying anything about Miss Glossop's virtue, you understand. Merely a metaphor."
"Of course, sir. But I believe you mean a simile."
There! That was my Jeeves, back at it at last. I beamed. My nip into the shop had done some good after all. In mind of which, I reached in my pocket and extracted the peace offering I'd procured while within, a package of the liquorice pastilles he seemed to favour. "Got you these, by the by."
"Thank you sir," he said solemnly.
After a final stopover for provisions in the last decent-sized town and a peek in at the landlord's for the key, we rolled up—rather far up—to our cottage about teatime. It was an ivy-covered stucco affair sat high atop the hills above some quaint village whose name contained far too many z's and h's for my taste but which sounded rather musical when Jeeves pronounced it.
Not a soul could be seen nor heard for ages, just the twittering of the birds and the faint rush of water from somewhere, which Jeeves informed me was a no-more-sensibly-named river. The back door opened onto one of the terraces the French set such store by, which gave way to a downward sprawl of grass on one side and a healthy expanse of woods on the other.
The interior was equally charming, sort of bare and sturdy in that cottagey way, but cosy all the same with the promised modern labour-saving devices and even a serviceable-looking piano. The mind harkened back to Jeeves's endless telephone calls to surely half the cottage owners in the province. I'd thought I'd heard the word piano with a Gallic inflection, but at the time it hadn't really registered. But on further consideration, I realised he'd never got us any lodgings for any length of time that were not thus equipped. It was a warming thought. Equally so was the one single sitting room and one single table; any sitting or relaxing Jeeves wanted to do, he'd just jolly well have to do it right along with me.
Jeeves set about the unpacking as I shook the dust from my heels and changed into (miraculously unwrinkled as always) fresh clothes. In his infinite wisdom he'd laid out just the sort of thing for lounging about a cottage of a summer afternoon.
I ankled out to find him mixing a little pick-me-up and saw that the grey tweed ensemble he'd travelled here in had gone the way of the phonograph cylinder and been replaced by the usual morning coat. "You know, Jeeves, you're sort of on holiday, too. No need to be so formal." I'd never told him anything of the sort, not on trips round the Continent nor round the world, but seeing him out of 'uniform' held a new fascination for me.
He merely twitched a lip minutely. "I shall bear it in mind, sir."
I took my drink and went to inspect to the piano, picking out an idle scale to check it was in tune. When I turned round again, Jeeves had vanished, presumably kitchenward if one judged by the sound of running water. I've mentioned this quirk of his before, I think— this habit of washing everything down to the last fish fork upon arrival. It had mildly annoyed me when I'd first witnessed it, but I now found it endearing. Of course, these days that was the case with most Jeevesian actions, barring odd sulks in automobiles and the occasional bit of wardrobe tyranny.
I knew he was best left to his washing quirkery, so I kicked up the feet and dug back into my mystery to see how my suspicions panned out. The next thing I knew, I'd lost my vision. I sat up abruptly with a startled shout, but it turned out I'd only fallen asleep with the book over my face. Jeeves was folding a newspaper and making to get out of the armchair.
I waved him back down. "I hadn't realised I'd fallen asleep," I said. "No fits or anything like that." My drink still had a good bit of its ice, so it couldn't have been that long. I took a gulp to wash the stale taste from my mouth and noted with satisfaction that Jeeves had at least shed the morning coat. "What's going on in the world?" I indicated the paper.
"I could not say, sir. This is the village weekly. A Monsieur Clerrand is offering a reward of twenty francs for the return of his bicycle and there is an evening of traditional Breton dancing at the village hall tomorrow."
"Ah, a country dance, sort of?"
"A closer cousin to the formation dances practised in Ireland and Cornwall, sir."
"Loads of hopping about and fiddles, you mean?"
"Those are components, sir."
"And I suppose you're wanting to go, what with the local culture and all."
"If you would not be averse to my attending, sir."
I did not fail to note the saddening lack of invitation to self, but nevertheless I would not stand between Jeeves and a good time. "Of course not. It'd be your night off anyway. Attend all you like."
"Thank you, sir."
"Think nothing of it, old chap. Now what of this eventide? I confess I'm having rather a nice time being a useless layabout, but if there's something you'd like to do, by all means."
"No, sir. I thought to relax with some light reading."
"Well, that's convenient. Dinner on the terrace, perhaps, before the rain follows us here?"
"Certainly, sir, though I believe the storm was moving in an easterly fashion."
"All the better." And I thought I had better ask, lest I find myself dining solitary out-of-doors. "You'll join me, won't you?" I sounded small even to myself as I asked it.
"If you wish, sir."
And thusly, when the time came, did we dine.
There was a corker of a sunset and I somehow managed to talk us round to boyhood remembrances. I gave a few of my own in hopes of dragging one out of Jeeves. "Gussie swears I cheated to get that Scripture Knowledge prize, but I won it fair and square. It was maths I cheated at, but that never got me anywhere because I cribbed off Tuppy most of the time. I think I did worse than if I'd just done it on my own. I bet you took all the prizes every year, didn't you, Jeeves?"
"No, sir. Penmanship and mathematics on a number of occasions, in the short portion of my education where such distinctions were available, but certainly not all."
"Well, they probably just thought it wouldn't be fair to the other boys if you took away all of them. I'm sure you deserved them all."
"Kind of you to say so, sir."
It's worth noting that we were well into the second bot. of fine vin by this point, or I might not have said quite so vigorously, "Kind, nothing! You're the cleverest person I know!"
"Thank you, sir." He looked down briefly, and surely it was just the pinkness of the sunset. One such as he would not blush under my praise, and it wasn't as though I'd never told him as much before. "I was bested for most honours by a boy called James McCreight."
"Must've cheated."
"Had he won more graciously, sir, I should not have minded, but he took great delight in lording it over me. I never could discover any cheating, however, and given his current career I am forced to believe he came by his victories honesty."
"Eh? What's he up to now, then?"
"He is a renowned medical man, sir, making great advances in the nature of infectious disease."
"Ah. Well, still, he didn't need to be so nasty about it. Bet he's learnt some manners by now. Stilton Cheesewright was horrid to me in school and now— no, wait, he's still horrid. At least he doesn't short my sheets anymore."
I think that got a bit of a chuckle out of him. "Had I ever seen him make an effort to do so, I assure you I would have prevented it, sir."
We sat out there half the night, talking over these little histories, and I daresay a good time was had by all. Jeeves unwound by slow degrees with each dose of wine, and later trips indoors for more of the stuff saw him shed some bit of the uniform. The waistcoat went, then the tie loosened before coming off, followed by the rolling up of sleeves. I found myself rather distracted by these usually unseen portions of him, but I think he took my glassy staring for inebriation.
I learned things about Jeeves I'd never thought to ask or even wondered about: that his first foray into valeting had been as a batman in the War, that he'd once written to Lillian Gish for an autograph, that he was not at all fond of dogs (this I had guessed) due to an early employer's poodle having bit him (this I had not).
I could've named piles of these little facts about everyone I knew, but up until now I could have named almost nothing about Jeeves that hadn't occurred in my direct presence. It was a bit sorry, I thought, in view of the fact that all employment and tender pash aside, I'd long considered him my most trusted friend. Then again, I couldn't have told you how Tuppy breathed or the meaning of every minute inclination of Bingo's eyebrows, so perhaps it was just a difference of association.
"What's so tight about owls?" I asked as I was being helped to the first floor by the steadfast and wonderfully close arms of Jeeves. "I've never met an owl that seemed as though it'd been drinking."
"A mystery of linguistics, sir."
As both bad and good luck would have it, I tripped on the last step up and Jeeves had to catch me. "Sorry," I choked, for my voice had gone rather out of order due to the sudden overabundance of Jeeves pressed full and warm against my back with both his arms round my waist.
"Careful, sir," he said, too close to my ear.
I extracted myself before I did something stupid.
{Next: Part 5: Fantasie Impromptu}
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4. Playing To the Audience
The intervening days between the Renaud debacle and the departure to Brittany passed pleasantly enough, except that Marion had pressed me into service playing piano for an entertainment at a children's home where she did good works occasionally. The original pianist had broken an arm in some bizarre gardening accident and I was in easy supply since Jeeves was much occupied with the travel arrangements, or seemed to be with all the messages he seemed to be running to and fro with.
This entertainment was not one of those step-up-as-you-will affairs where 'Sonny Boy' is sung four times and vegetables are hurled; there was a set programme and therefore several rehearsals. They had a magic act, a few songs from Marion and some cronies of hers, a bit of puppetry, and a short play, though not quite in that order.
The closing number was to be a trio of well-known musical actors with an exlusive from their latest spectacle, which from what I'd heard of it would be quite the thing to see when it openened. The bit they were doing was a dashed catchy little tune entitled 'This Friend of Mine,' presumably chosen for its wholesome friendship-fostering character, though I was doubtful as to how much les kiddies français would really understand. A sampling went:
He's always loyal, he doesn't spoil
A good time with a glare or a frown.
And brimming's he with charity,
Picks me up when I fall down!
It rather loses a bit without the accompanying theatricals, actually. The fellow playing the friend demonstrates all these things he doesn't do, shoving the other fellow over before picking him up and dusting him off, stomping his hat to a pancake and then whacking it back into shape, that sort of thing. A good laugh all round, and catchy indeed, as I've said. I found myself singing it round the house a good deal, sometimes without even noticing I was doing it.A good time with a glare or a frown.
And brimming's he with charity,
Picks me up when I fall down!
Jeeves happened to be in the room when I warbled the bit about 'he's certainly my better half,' which necessitated explaining the entire plot lest he think I was implying something. I wasn't, of course, but when I thought about it there were quite a few bits of Jeeves I could see in the words. My better half, most indisputably, and he did always pick me up eventually when I fell down. Bar the one very particular case, naturally, of my falling for him. He couldn't pick me up from that unless he fell right back, which was not likely.
"Oh, I'm hopeless," I muttered sotto voce.
"I rather think not, sir," Jeeves said, having reappeared.
I jumped out of my skin. "You'll give a chap a coronary, sneaking up like that, Jeeves!" I gasped. "And if you ask more or less anyone who's ever met me, I'm quite hopeless. 'Tis merely a fact of life." The words were spoken airily, but felt less so.
"I would disagree, sir, but I doubt you wish to argue."
"Not in the slightest," I peeved. I planted myself back at the piano and started banging out a tune I knew Jeeves held in great contempt. He took himself off, my intended result, but once he'd gone I found myself wishing he'd stayed and told me all the ways in which I was not hopeless. Which I think really made me even more hopless.
Annoying him right out of the room would win me no points, and I regretted having done it. In mind of redeeming myself, I took a stab at some long-neglected Mozart. I never played the stuff, but it seemed right up Jeeves's street. More than a few bars had not passed out of boyhood with me, though, so I bumbled over to the bookcase where I thought I remembered seeing something of the sort among Uncle Henry's music books. I took down some well-thumbed opus or other in triumph.
Something fluttered out from between the pages and I bent to pick it up. It was a letter, an old letter, dated 1892 and beginning 'dearest.' No name, just 'dearest.' It proved to be an extremely eloquent and adoring birthday salutation to accompany the gift of the music. It could have been from anyone to anyone; there was no signature, apparently on purpose, just '...' after all the I-am-as-ever business. It didn't look like my Aunt Emily's writing, and why wouldn't she have signed it if she'd written it?
I forgot all my musings in view of this oddity and went to put the thing to Jeeves. "What do you make of this?" I asked, entering the kitchen waving the paper at him.
He dried his hands from whatever he'd been scrubbing and took it. As soon as he did, he registered very definite surprise. "Where did you find this, sir?"
"It fell out of here." I held up the book. "I suppose I oughtn't to have read it, but I didn't know what it was and it's not to anybody or from anybody."
"I could not say, sir." But Jeeves is never incapable of saying. It's merely that he thinks he shouldn't, or doesn't want to.
"Oh, come, if you know something, out with it."
He hesitated, but sighed. "It is not a certainty, sir, but I believe this is Mr Brittingham's writing."
"Oh. I suppose he just stuck it in there and forgot about it. I don't think he ever married, so it must've gone wrong somewhere." Poor old bird. "Do you suppose he'd want it back?"
"One never knows whether these things will bring happy memories or simply open old wounds, sir."
Something about the way he drew himself up saying that told me not to press it any further. I assumed it had to do with this unpleasant time of his he'd made reference to with the jewel thievery, but I now wondered if there was more to it than duplicitous friends. Some girl breaking his heart and love dying that very day. I never know when to leave well enough alone or to listen to the somethings telling me not to do one thing or another, so I said, "You speak as though from experience, Jeeves."
"I would not wish to dwell upon it, sir. You would do me a kindness if you did not press me to say more."
Dash it, I wanted to know. What was it? Who was it? Could I find her, study her, learn once and for all what it took to ensnare his heart? Even reunite them? A painful thought, this reunion, but if he could be happy, who was I not to render aid? It wasn't that, good reason though it was, that stopped me. It was that he had not refused to tell, but asked not to be asked.
"You know any such kindness I can do you is yours for the taking," I said, with too much affection, I'm sure. Our eyes met for a moment, and in that moment, for just a fraction of it, he looked so wounded and fearful that I longed to comfort him. "I had no right to press as far as I did," I said instead of the folding-in-arms I wanted to do because whoever this girl was, she'd done some number on him.
In case he didn't want to remain forever silent on the subj., I said, "But as it seems that whatever this is weighs rather heavily on you, if you ever think speaking of it to a neutral party would make it a bit lighter, I stand ready."
"I..." He shook his head. "Thank you, sir."
I knew that was the end of it for the time being, and took a gamble at lightening matters up. "Well," I said, tucking the letter back whence it had come and thumping the cover of the book, "trying to play something you wouldn't turn up your nose at for once has backfired splendidly. In future I'll curtail all attempts to please my audience." Oh, that hadn't bally well come out right. I'd never meant to admit I was trying to play for him. I slunk off to my rehearsal and stayed out late so as not to be forced to revisit the matter.
Nothing more was said, but the day of the entertainment (which was also the day before our removal to the much-anticipated cottage), I found a shiny new Chopin collection perched atop the piano. It made me smile more than a little. I gave the thing a whirl while he was out for the daily baguettes and found I'd much improved at it since my ladhood. There was one piece I'd hated, on account of being drilled to death on its milllion and one notes, but I rather liked it now. My fingers remembered it better than I'd given them credit for. I couldn't do it with my eyes closed or anything like that, but it came more easily than expected.
Another point in its favour was that actually, when you weren't a boy cursing it to death because you wanted to play something fun, it was really dashed romantic-sounding, crescendoing up and down and every which way, but not some delicate little thing about butterflies, either; you could really throw your back into it. Sort of—no, exactly—the way I imagined this longed-for romance would go, really, if it were to go. A bit frantic, a bit mad, soft but not too soft. Fantasie Impromptu, it called itself, and if that wasn't apt I didn't know what was.
The thing of really throwing your back into something is that it rather hinders the ability to hear sounds such as footsteps and doors, and at the end of it I looked up to see Jeeves standing there, still holding the shopping and really just sort of watching me, either transfixed or horrified.
"I'm sure I'm butchering it," I said with a ducking sort of mutter.
"No, sir." There was more force in those two words than I'd ever heard him put into them. Transfixed? Really? Surely not. He must have some particular love for that bit of music. It couldn't be me. "It was very well done."
I barely got off a thank-you before he resumed his path to the kitchen. I felt a general oh-dearishness about the whole matter— what if I'd picked the one thing too affecting to hear? But were that the case, he had sense enough to know I'd never miss it if he pulled the pages out. He must have liked it. And liked me playing it. Not the way I wanted, of course, but it was something.
That evening, Mother Nature graced Paris with a downpour of Biblical proportions. The Seine swelled upon its banks and apparently over a few bridges as well, but luckily I was already on the proper bank to reach the Au Paradis des Enfants establishment without an oar and a raven. Unfortunately the chappie meant to be singing some newish and lovely French ditty was not. As the puppet show was in the same boat (not a proverbial one, if I made that out correctly), Marion begged me to fill the gap a bit.
"Just...sing something. It doesn't matter what."
"But what? I've got no music other than what's on the bill, and I'll look a perfect ass if I try to sing Philippe's song."
"But you know piles of stuff by heart." I was reminded of my young cousin Thos when as a littler gnat than he was now, he used to beg for sweets.
"Yes, and mine alone. I can't play and sing, not someplace this size. They'll never hear me unless we can turn the piano round." A laughable notion; if the instrument had been needed to escape the flood, it could have carried all the children easily. "Besides, who'll play if I don't?"
"I can, if it's nothing too complicated."
"There is still the distinct lack of anything readily performable."
"Well, didn't Jeeves come? Send him back to get something."
"Why would Jeeves come?"
"You mean you didn't ask him to?"
"What for? To sit with a bunch of squirming youngsters and suffer through stuff he doesn't even like?"
"No, you dolt!" She looked round, I think to check that we were alone. "To see you play."
"To see the side of my head?"
"Oh, Bertie. You're an idiot."
"I am? I mean, I rather am, I know— but why this time?"
"When you put your fingers on those keys, something happens. You just light up, like you're having the time of your life. It makes you look really...well, it shows your very best qualities."
"Marion, old thing, it's lovely of you to be looking out for my interests, but horses cannot be made to drink, even in this sort of deluge."
"No, but if you keep showing them water they might remember they're thirsty. Come on, there's still time. Ring him up to bring some music and when he gets here, ask him to stay." She'd been manhandling me towards the telephone during this speech, and now all but threw me on top of it.
I doubted Jeeves would remember any thirst if he hadn't by now, but I dutifully did the ringing-up. "Jeeves," I said when he answered. "I call out to you in a time of minor crisis." I explained the posish briefly and asked him to ankle round with a few sheets of something that would suit.
"Nothing too hard to play," Marion called from where she was supervising.
"Nothing too hard to play, Jeeves," I repeated.
"Yes, sir, I heard Miss Wardour. You could simply ask if any person present knows 'Sonny Boy,' sir."
"Is that your idea of a joke, Jeeves?"
"Yes, sir. I fear it was in poor taste."
I laughed. "No, we must learn to laugh at ourselves. But please, anything but that. Er. If you don't mind, that is. I know you'd probably not venture out in this weather."
"I believe I shall manage, sir."
He arrived a scant half-hour later with the goods, mysteriously dry and unruffled but for a few drops on the shoulders of his overcoat. Marion snatched the music from him before I could lay a finger on it, muttering as she leafed through. Finally she popped one on top and tapped it. "Here. This'll be perfect."
"'The Song is Ended?' It will be, at that. It'll bore the little blighters to sleep and the melody will linger on in their dreams."
"It's the closest thing to what Philippe was doing. Don't argue, Bertie."
"Oh, all right. They haven't got potatoes or anything, have they?"
"Of course not," she said. "Jeeves, Lisette is out in the front row. I'm sure she'd like some company."
"Don't feel you must, Jeeves," I said, despite the pinch I received for my trouble. "Your fearful trip is done and you're free to return to the comforts of home."
"I would not wish to miss your performance, sir." I couldn't be sure if he meant he'd like to have a good laugh at what an ass I'd make of myself or that he'd really like to see it.
"Well, then, enjoy le spectacle, I suppose."
When my turn came, Marion slipped out of the wings to announce me and took up my place on the piano bench. I do much better at singing if I've got someone to sing to, but it didn't seem quite right to direct a soppy love ballad at some unfortunate child. Nor did it seem a terribly wise idea to look at Jeeves, so I fixated at random on a bit of wall and did my best. But my traitorous gaze kept drifting, and by the time I got to the closing bit about 'you and the song had gone, but the melody lingers on,' said t.g. drifted directly onto Jeeves and had the almighty gall to, indeed, linger.
Eyes met, and I'm surprised I didn't forget to sing entirely. If I could have bottled up that moment and hung it round my neck, I would have, because for space of those two lines, the audience sort of blurred into nothing and he was the only one there. For the fleeting m., I nearly believed that perhaps he was, to continue the theme, thirsty after all. But it was over just as quickly and the world came back into focus, and with it the let-down of having fooled myself.
The lights must have made my eyes water. I hurried back to the shadows of the accompanist's seat. Marion gave me a questioning look, which I answered with a saddish shake of the bean. She sighed, patted my hand, and was gone. A few jaunty tunes and a bit of comedy soon had me in better spirits by the end, but there was a distinct undercurrent of greyness to it.
Jeeves caught up with me outside the makeshift dressing-rooms with Lisette in tow. "Marion's still changing, I think," I told her, pointing at the room allotted to the ladies.
"You sang beautifully." She got up on her tippy-toes to kiss each of my cheeks, a vast improvement on the last time her lips had been applied to the Wooster map.
"Thanks. Say goodnight to Marion for me, would you? I'm dead on my feet and facing a rather acky ack emma."
Lisette's strong grasp of English apparently did not extend to such wordplay. "A what-y ack-what?"
"I've got to get up early. We're off to Brittany for a spell."
"You must eat a crêpe sarrasin and write a postcard telling me all about it."
"Whatever those are, I'll try to search one out," I promised, though it sounded rather Rabelaisian and unpleasant.
"It is impossible not to find one. If you go to the Ti Mamm in Fougères and mention my name, Anne will take very good care of you."
"I didn't realise you were from there."
"Oh, yes. I miss it still. But a woman like me cannot truly live there, you understand." In fact, I rather did.
We'd hung about long enough that I was able to say au revoir to Marion in person. "Good luck," she whispered as she did her own bit of cheek kissing.
Jeeves was utterly silent until we were nearly out the door, and he only spoke then because I spoke first. "Well, I hope you weren't bored to tears, Jeeves."
"Not at all, sir. Most of the programme was very entertaining. I failed to congratulate you on an admirable performance."
"Well, thank you. I didn't think it was all that good, but not too shabby for half an hour's warning."
We stepped out under the awning in hopes of a cab, but there was nary a one. "There is a stand two streets over, sir," Jeeves said. "If you would care to wait indoors, I can return in one in a few minutes' time."
"Don't be silly, Jeeves. I won't melt. I'll walk with you."
"Did you not mention lending your umbrella to one of the ladies, sir?"
I had, for I'd figured I could bear the rain better than she. "Yes, but the one you carry round everywhere is big enough for half of W1. I think we can manage two streets." I'd had no idea at the time of using it as a scheme to huddle under an umbrella with the o. of my a., but one does not scrutinise the dental work of horses one is given. But one also should not push their heads into the stream. "I can wait here if you'd rather not."
"I believe it will be more expedient, sir, if I go on my own."
"Right ho, Jeeves," I said dejectedly. If the man didn't want to go round sharing umbrella space with me, it was his business. As much as I would have liked it, it wouldn't do to be constantly forcing him into close quarters. If I wasn't suspicious enough already, a thing like that would certainly be telling.
Perhaps, I thought as I waited, it was inevitable that he would work it out. Jeeves cannot be kept in the dark for long about anything. And on that day, when I said something or did something that was just an inch too revealing, he'd be lost. Did I take what I could until then and consider it better than never having loved at all? I couldn't see any other way; I didn't have it in me to pretend more than I was. I am simply not built to suddenly decide a thing should have no more power over me. I wondered if I should go so far as to find some girl to appear infatuated with, to put him off the scent, but the thought wearied me. No, the status would quo as it had always quoed, and I'd take my heartbreak like a man when he finally dished it up.
The cab arrived and I made a dash for it, not waiting for Jeeves to come valet me in. I rather whacked into him as I dove inside, as he'd been sliding across to get out. "Oof. Sorry, Jeeves."
"I was coming to assist you, sir."
"Never mind, I'm here now. Allons-y."
Jeeves waved the cabbie on. I ran my hands through my damp hair and wiped at my face with my handkerchief, which reduced it to a useless soaked thing. Jeeves took it from me and replaced it with a fresh one, with which I wiped my hands before tucking it into my pocket, fully knowing it was his. I'd pretend I hadn't noticed if he later questioned why I had it.
We did end up squashing up under the umbrella, but only for the half a second or so it took to get inside the door. I kicked off my squelching shoes as soon as we were in, and after a moment decided I couldn't bear the socks a moment longer either and sat down on the bench in the foyer to ungarter myself. Jeeves reappeared with my slippers before I'd even got one trouser leg all the way up, and he bent down to do the job for me, swift as ever, but I shivered at his fingers dragging over my calves and ankles.
"Your feet are cold, sir." He pressed each one briefly betwen warm hands before the application of slippers. Cold the toes may have been, but I suddenly felt warmed through by such a singularly—intimate? was that it?—act. "You should get into a hot bath, sir," he said as he stood up.
"What about you?" I was a trifle dazed. "Catching your death in wet clothes looking after me?"
"I am fairly dry, sir, having refrained from unsheltered forays into the downpour." It was chiding, yes, but dashed if there wasn't a bit of 'oh, you' about it if you knew how to read the inkling of a smirk.
Into the ordered bath I went, too tired and grateful for the soothing water for le corps to get up to any funny business despite all this pressing of feet. My usual nighttime whiskey, once I was chased off to bed, was served hot and with a dash of something sweet and spicy that was, naturally, just the thing to complete the journey to sleepy contenment. I remained conscious long enough to ask what time we were starting out, and to agree to something about a hired car and a leisurely pace to view any sights along the way, before biffing soundly off to the land of Nod.
We set out after an early luncheon, but as sights along the way went, there was not much. Jeeves had, to my delight, come prepared with reading material, and serenaded me with the dulcet tones of a popular mystery that had to be causing him pain. It was the sort of thing I liked, not the sort of thing he liked. Hence the delight: when one's o. of adoration does something purely for one's pleasure, one's outlook is bound to be brightened.
"'And I could hear,'" Jeeves read, in the gruffish voice he'd been using for the MP whose opponent had been done in, "'as close as if it were on top of me, a voice in the walls. You'll think me mad, Inspector, but I swear upon my honour it was humming! The most sinister tune seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere, and I chilled as though someone had walked across my grave!'"
I interrupted, having solved the case. "Well, there you are! Sliding panels in the walls, secret passageways, that's how the murderer got out of a locked room with no windows. That bit earlier about the butler singing to himself as he polished the silver— he's your murderer!" It wasn't that I was so awfully good at solving mysteries, simply that I'd read more than my fair share and knew how these things went. I doubt I would even have noticed the bit about the singing butler had I not drifted off to ponder what Jeeves's singing might sound like, were he to do any.
"Indeed, sir? I rather suspect the secretary."
"He is a bit fishy, isn't he? It could be the humming's meant to throw us off the scent. Or we could both be right— the secretary had the butler do it."
"Murder his own employer, sir?" It was, I hoped, said with at least a splash of genuine disbelief.
"When you put it that way I rather think I should start sleeping with one eye open."
"Not at all, sir."
"Well, thank goodness for that. But this late unlamented would-be MP sent at least one maid a day crying from the room. I shouldn't be shocked if his whole staff wouldn't have minded doing the job. I say! What if the butler was about to be sent packing with no reference, like the chappie Sherlock Holmes catches in 'The Muskrat Thingamabob?'"
"'The Musgrave Ritual,' sir?"
"That's the beggar. Well, he'd never get any more work if that happened, would he, so he decided to shut the old tyrant up for good."
"Perhaps, sir. Do you wish me to continue?"
"Not unless you're just riveted, Jeeves. I can finish it later."
"Thank you, sir."
A thing I'd often wondered on, most especially in recent times, but had never thought to just ask popped into my mind, and timidly, I popped it to Jeeves in turn. "Jeeves, are you— that is to say, I'm all right as employers go, aren't I? I mean, you're more or less content?"
"Were I not, sir, I would not have requested your assurance that my situation was to be a permanent one."
He had indeed, and what's more had reminded me of it a few times. I hadn't known when he'd asked, of course. If he asked the same thing now I'd likely have fainted with joy. "Well, good, then. But you know, just because you've declared yourself signed up for life doesn't mean I shouldn't try to— well, I mean, you know, if there's anything that could stand improving, say the word and I'll do my best to see it's improved."
"Nothing springs immediately to mind, sir, but I thank you for your consideration."
A less-upstanding chap would have taken the opening and demanded a pay rise and more holidays, which made me all the more inclined to find something he wanted. "Not a thing? Not even something frivolous you don't strictly need but would make it all a bit nicer?"
He shot me a rummy look, or I thought he did; hard to tell with eyes mostly on the road and all. "Nothing it would be— nothing, sir."
"No, you were about to say something. 'Nothing it would be' what? Possible to get? I suppose we must draw the line at your very own unicorn or Mona Lisa, but if it's within my powers as a mere mortal, consider it done." I couldn't think what he'd be so hesitant to ask for, unless it was the very thing I'd forbidden myself to ask for, but it couldn't be that. Unicorns in Berkeley Square were more likely.
"I will...consider requesting it, sir."
"Oh, come now, Jeeves. You can't leave a chap in suspense like that." It'd do my head in hoping and wondering, for one thing. "Out with it, I insist."
He outed with it. He was quick to assure me that what he had was more than good enough, but in mind of frivolous luxury he wouldn't mind some new furnishings in his lair. Furniture, I say! What did he take me for that such a simple thing would be ridiculous and impossible? What on earth did that say about me? I was very nearly angry, and had to clench the jaw a bit to keep from shouting, "Of course you can have it. I can't believe you'd think I would say no."
"On the contrary, sir. I knew you would not. I have no wish to take advantage of your generous nature, for as I have stated, the present furnishings are more than adequate."
"Take advantage? You're not taking advantage! If anything I take advantage of you seventeen times a day!"
"I assure you that you do nothing of the sort, sir."
While it might've seemed on the surface that all was s. and done, the atmosphere had chilled a few degrees and continued to have a distinct offishness to it. Oh, Jeeves made the requisite polite conversation, but he seemed distant. I kept trying to draw him out, to no avail.
"This cottage we're taking," I tried, "it's got all the modern conveniences?"
"Purportedly, sir."
When it became clear he was not going to describe said mod cons along with a history of the village as he might ordinarily have done, I said lamely, "Ah. Good."
I tried a funny story, I tried mangling Shakespeare so he'd correct me, I even sang the praises of a green and purple tie I'd seen in a shop window, but he never said more than a couple of words to any of it. It was like pulling teeth, really, and I don't mean for a qualified dental surgeon.
"Do you think dental surgeons use the phrase 'like pulling teeth' the way the rest of us do, or in place of something like 'a piece of cake?'" I mused aloud, having decided it no longer mattered what I drivelled on about if I could keep the stiff silence at bay.
"I'm sure I don't know, sir."
"Because cake is probably a very bad thing to a dentist, while pulling teeth is...well, a piece of cake. Doesn't some relation of yours work in a dentist's surgery?" I'd gone there once with a toothache on his recommendation.
"My cousin Penelope, sir. I will ask her when next I see her."
"Right, the secretary. You seem to have about three thousand cousins, Jeeves. It's a wonder you can keep track of them."
"It is helpful that I have known them all for some time, sir."
"Yes, it would be. I suppose I'll meet more of them at the wedding. Biffy and Mabel's, I mean."
"Provided Mr Biffen does not forget the engagement in the intervening weeks, sir."
"I say! That's awfully rough, and untrue on top of it." I knew he was no great aficionado of Biffy, but remarks of such an outright cutting nature were not normally his style. "She's the one thing he always remembers. Perhaps not every last detail, and there'll certainly be an army of us making sure he remembers what day it is and where to go, but that she exists and that he loves her he most certainly remembers! The love of one's life does not slip easily from the mind, Jeeves." Oh, how well I knew that.
"No, sir." No arguing of his point, no explanation of what he'd meant by rather insulting Biffy, nothing.
I could stand it no longer, or perhaps sit it, since sitting I was. "Is something wrong, Jeeves?" I demanded.
"No, sir."
"What if I said I know you better than that and don't believe you?"
"Then you shall have to disbelieve, sir."
"Look, if I've done something—"
"You have done nothing, sir."
"Because if I have, you should tell me. I know you gladly suffer a great deal of foolishness on my part, but it is not some duty of yours to sit idly by whilst I insult you."
"I am not insulted, sir."
"Fine," I said wearily, seeing he would not budge.
We rolled along for a stiff few miles, during which I tried to puzzle out what on earth had brought on this bout of frosty aloofness. It had all been going rather nicely until the bit about the furniture, but I could make h. nor t. of why that would upset him so.
I stopped at the next garage, which were few and far out here and had to be availed when come upon if one wanted petrol and wished to avoid a very long walk. I left Jeeves to tangle with the fellow manning the pumps and slouched into the little shop, hoping a brief separation would be enough to put him right, since if it wasn't there was no bally point in locking ourselves away in some rural shack.
This shop was something of an oddity, as shops at these country roadsides tend to be, the usual postcards and sweets and maps amongst greengroceries, souvenir ash-trays and misshapen jumpers, all sort of mashed together without much rhyme or reason.
"Bertie! What are you doing here?"
I blinked in befuddlement. The establishment apparently also traded in Glossops, to my utmost chagrin. "What ho, Honoria. Holidaying. Pausing for a spot of petrol and humbugs. The usual sort of thing. One could ask you the same."
"Oh, a friend of Daphne's has a castle or something out this way. We're going shooting." The thought of Honoria with a rifle rather withered the insides. "I'd heard you were in Paris, though."
"We were. Fancied a bit of country air and fewer artists for a spell. You know."
"Well, you should pop up to this chateau, massive party we're getting up. Plenty of room."
"Oh, I don't think so. You've seen me shoot." I moved away to settle up my purchases, but my protest fell on deaf ears and she followed.
"Here," she said, picking a postcard off a rack, "this is the one. Come Saturday."
"Impossible, I'm afraid. My physician has ordered me not to hold a rifle for at least the next three months."
"Oh, you old silly!" She gave a playful shove that only barely missed sending me flying into the jumpers. "Of course you can."
"I cannot. I shall not. I think I even must not. Give my best to the ducks or whatever you're killing. Tinkerty-tonk." I gave her a tip of the chapeau and waited no longer for the aged shopkeeper to finish counting out my change. I beat a quick path out and over to Jeeves, interrupting his conversation with le pumpeur. "Are we petrol'd, Jeeves?"
"Yes, sir—"
"Good. Hop in and let's go, I've been Glossoped."
"Glossoped, sir?" he asked as he climbed in and I lead-footed it out of there. "Would that interesting verb refer to Miss Honoria Glossop, by any chance?"
"Indeed it would, Jeeves. She's headed for some shooting party at a castle and practically dragged me there bound and trussed in the boot of her car."
"I see. When will you be joining the party, sir?"
"I won't, Jeeves."
"Indeed, sir?"
"Don't sound so surprised. I am capable of doing as I bally well please once in a while. Hang all Glossops, say I. I issued a cold nolle prosequi and an adieu, and that was that. I don't view it as a letting-down of pals, for Honoria is no pal of mine, and I think we've proven time and again that she's in no danger of feeling slighted where I'm concerned. No, I have not trod over the Wooster Code. I simply don't want to go shooting, dash it. It's like being on the way to get an ice cream and having someone offer you a lemon tart. The ice cream lays but two hours ahead and no tart will dissuade me from the plotted course." Perhaps tarts hadn't been the best confections to go with. "Not that I'm implying anything about Miss Glossop's virtue, you understand. Merely a metaphor."
"Of course, sir. But I believe you mean a simile."
There! That was my Jeeves, back at it at last. I beamed. My nip into the shop had done some good after all. In mind of which, I reached in my pocket and extracted the peace offering I'd procured while within, a package of the liquorice pastilles he seemed to favour. "Got you these, by the by."
"Thank you sir," he said solemnly.
After a final stopover for provisions in the last decent-sized town and a peek in at the landlord's for the key, we rolled up—rather far up—to our cottage about teatime. It was an ivy-covered stucco affair sat high atop the hills above some quaint village whose name contained far too many z's and h's for my taste but which sounded rather musical when Jeeves pronounced it.
Not a soul could be seen nor heard for ages, just the twittering of the birds and the faint rush of water from somewhere, which Jeeves informed me was a no-more-sensibly-named river. The back door opened onto one of the terraces the French set such store by, which gave way to a downward sprawl of grass on one side and a healthy expanse of woods on the other.
The interior was equally charming, sort of bare and sturdy in that cottagey way, but cosy all the same with the promised modern labour-saving devices and even a serviceable-looking piano. The mind harkened back to Jeeves's endless telephone calls to surely half the cottage owners in the province. I'd thought I'd heard the word piano with a Gallic inflection, but at the time it hadn't really registered. But on further consideration, I realised he'd never got us any lodgings for any length of time that were not thus equipped. It was a warming thought. Equally so was the one single sitting room and one single table; any sitting or relaxing Jeeves wanted to do, he'd just jolly well have to do it right along with me.
Jeeves set about the unpacking as I shook the dust from my heels and changed into (miraculously unwrinkled as always) fresh clothes. In his infinite wisdom he'd laid out just the sort of thing for lounging about a cottage of a summer afternoon.
I ankled out to find him mixing a little pick-me-up and saw that the grey tweed ensemble he'd travelled here in had gone the way of the phonograph cylinder and been replaced by the usual morning coat. "You know, Jeeves, you're sort of on holiday, too. No need to be so formal." I'd never told him anything of the sort, not on trips round the Continent nor round the world, but seeing him out of 'uniform' held a new fascination for me.
He merely twitched a lip minutely. "I shall bear it in mind, sir."
I took my drink and went to inspect to the piano, picking out an idle scale to check it was in tune. When I turned round again, Jeeves had vanished, presumably kitchenward if one judged by the sound of running water. I've mentioned this quirk of his before, I think— this habit of washing everything down to the last fish fork upon arrival. It had mildly annoyed me when I'd first witnessed it, but I now found it endearing. Of course, these days that was the case with most Jeevesian actions, barring odd sulks in automobiles and the occasional bit of wardrobe tyranny.
I knew he was best left to his washing quirkery, so I kicked up the feet and dug back into my mystery to see how my suspicions panned out. The next thing I knew, I'd lost my vision. I sat up abruptly with a startled shout, but it turned out I'd only fallen asleep with the book over my face. Jeeves was folding a newspaper and making to get out of the armchair.
I waved him back down. "I hadn't realised I'd fallen asleep," I said. "No fits or anything like that." My drink still had a good bit of its ice, so it couldn't have been that long. I took a gulp to wash the stale taste from my mouth and noted with satisfaction that Jeeves had at least shed the morning coat. "What's going on in the world?" I indicated the paper.
"I could not say, sir. This is the village weekly. A Monsieur Clerrand is offering a reward of twenty francs for the return of his bicycle and there is an evening of traditional Breton dancing at the village hall tomorrow."
"Ah, a country dance, sort of?"
"A closer cousin to the formation dances practised in Ireland and Cornwall, sir."
"Loads of hopping about and fiddles, you mean?"
"Those are components, sir."
"And I suppose you're wanting to go, what with the local culture and all."
"If you would not be averse to my attending, sir."
I did not fail to note the saddening lack of invitation to self, but nevertheless I would not stand between Jeeves and a good time. "Of course not. It'd be your night off anyway. Attend all you like."
"Thank you, sir."
"Think nothing of it, old chap. Now what of this eventide? I confess I'm having rather a nice time being a useless layabout, but if there's something you'd like to do, by all means."
"No, sir. I thought to relax with some light reading."
"Well, that's convenient. Dinner on the terrace, perhaps, before the rain follows us here?"
"Certainly, sir, though I believe the storm was moving in an easterly fashion."
"All the better." And I thought I had better ask, lest I find myself dining solitary out-of-doors. "You'll join me, won't you?" I sounded small even to myself as I asked it.
"If you wish, sir."
And thusly, when the time came, did we dine.
There was a corker of a sunset and I somehow managed to talk us round to boyhood remembrances. I gave a few of my own in hopes of dragging one out of Jeeves. "Gussie swears I cheated to get that Scripture Knowledge prize, but I won it fair and square. It was maths I cheated at, but that never got me anywhere because I cribbed off Tuppy most of the time. I think I did worse than if I'd just done it on my own. I bet you took all the prizes every year, didn't you, Jeeves?"
"No, sir. Penmanship and mathematics on a number of occasions, in the short portion of my education where such distinctions were available, but certainly not all."
"Well, they probably just thought it wouldn't be fair to the other boys if you took away all of them. I'm sure you deserved them all."
"Kind of you to say so, sir."
It's worth noting that we were well into the second bot. of fine vin by this point, or I might not have said quite so vigorously, "Kind, nothing! You're the cleverest person I know!"
"Thank you, sir." He looked down briefly, and surely it was just the pinkness of the sunset. One such as he would not blush under my praise, and it wasn't as though I'd never told him as much before. "I was bested for most honours by a boy called James McCreight."
"Must've cheated."
"Had he won more graciously, sir, I should not have minded, but he took great delight in lording it over me. I never could discover any cheating, however, and given his current career I am forced to believe he came by his victories honesty."
"Eh? What's he up to now, then?"
"He is a renowned medical man, sir, making great advances in the nature of infectious disease."
"Ah. Well, still, he didn't need to be so nasty about it. Bet he's learnt some manners by now. Stilton Cheesewright was horrid to me in school and now— no, wait, he's still horrid. At least he doesn't short my sheets anymore."
I think that got a bit of a chuckle out of him. "Had I ever seen him make an effort to do so, I assure you I would have prevented it, sir."
We sat out there half the night, talking over these little histories, and I daresay a good time was had by all. Jeeves unwound by slow degrees with each dose of wine, and later trips indoors for more of the stuff saw him shed some bit of the uniform. The waistcoat went, then the tie loosened before coming off, followed by the rolling up of sleeves. I found myself rather distracted by these usually unseen portions of him, but I think he took my glassy staring for inebriation.
I learned things about Jeeves I'd never thought to ask or even wondered about: that his first foray into valeting had been as a batman in the War, that he'd once written to Lillian Gish for an autograph, that he was not at all fond of dogs (this I had guessed) due to an early employer's poodle having bit him (this I had not).
I could've named piles of these little facts about everyone I knew, but up until now I could have named almost nothing about Jeeves that hadn't occurred in my direct presence. It was a bit sorry, I thought, in view of the fact that all employment and tender pash aside, I'd long considered him my most trusted friend. Then again, I couldn't have told you how Tuppy breathed or the meaning of every minute inclination of Bingo's eyebrows, so perhaps it was just a difference of association.
"What's so tight about owls?" I asked as I was being helped to the first floor by the steadfast and wonderfully close arms of Jeeves. "I've never met an owl that seemed as though it'd been drinking."
"A mystery of linguistics, sir."
As both bad and good luck would have it, I tripped on the last step up and Jeeves had to catch me. "Sorry," I choked, for my voice had gone rather out of order due to the sudden overabundance of Jeeves pressed full and warm against my back with both his arms round my waist.
"Careful, sir," he said, too close to my ear.
I extracted myself before I did something stupid.
{Next: Part 5: Fantasie Impromptu}
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A painful thought, this reunion, but if he could be happy, who w It wasn't that
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<3
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This story is so sweet, and I am LOVING it so much.
Even IF Bertie is "even more hopless." :)
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