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storyfan! ♥ ♥ ♥I hope you like your present, my dear. There ain't much to it, but it was made with love. Bertie sends his felicitations
Title: Taking Notes
Pairing: Bertie/Jeeves
Words: ~1300
Rating: G, with sugar and icing.
Summary: Bertie's pen takes on a mind of its own.
Note: This came out of a conversation I had with
storyfan, so it seemed only fitting to wrap it up with a bow. Thanks also to random_nexus and chaoticchaos13 for giving it the old hairy eyeball. Not that your eyeballs are elderly or hirsute.Taking Notes
It was just my bad luck that Jeeves happened to be out on some marketing errand when Aunt Agatha 'phoned. Aunts have a sort of prescience about these things--if that's the word I want--a sixth sense of just when nephews will be undefended and least able to ward off their strikes.
I dutifully noted down the date of my summons to Steeple Bumpleigh on the telephone pad, crossing all other available digits that when Jeeves returned he could come up with some scheme to keep me from the viper's nest.
"I want you to listen very carefully, Bertie," said Aunt Agatha. "Write it down so you don't make a mess of things when the time comes. Are you writing?"
"Yes, Aunt Agatha. Would you like me to pull out the typewriter so you can hear it?"
"Don't be ridiculous. Now, Lady Kilbourne's niece Mildred...."
I started out with good enough intentions, but she did go on. I never was much at noting down the important bits of lectures, in the days when I'd attended such things, always relying on someone brainy with better penmanship to pluck out the pearls of wisdom. From what I caught of the aged relation's speech, Mildred would've been just the sort to ask such favours, and there was something I was to do and something I wasn't to mention, but the mind rather wanders, you know.
I thought mainly of Jeeves and what sort of wheeze he might be able to spawn from that great brain of his to stop us having to go. Thoughts of his brain inevitably led to thoughts of his head in general, and not just the way it bulges out in the back from all the knowledge packed in there-- more in the line of the way the sunlight gleams off the fine polished sheen of his hair of a late lazy morning.
The thing about Jeeves, you see, quite apart from some decidedly first-rate valeting and a dab hand at a well-turned phrase, is that had he belonged to the f. half of the species, Bertram would have been off the so-called market years ago. Officially, I mean. Off the books we'd had that sort of understanding for some months now, but the legal whatnots being what they were, it hadn't extended to vows or sponge-bag trousers.
"...and whatever you do, don't mention it in Lord Kilbourne's presence," Aunt Agatha was saying. "Bertie, are you listening?"
"Right ho, don't mention it," I parroted distractedly, the pen moving rather of its own accord in the form of a J to one side of the page.
"Now, as for Lady Kilbourne...."
The mind drifted again, and as the 'J' looked dashed lonely there on its own, I gave it a 'W' to keep it company. That looked a bit silly as well, as though his name were Jeeves Wooster, so I shoved a little '&' between the two. But what if? Certainly he wouldn't be Jeeves Wooster in any event, but Reginald Wooster didn't look too bad at all once I'd scrawled it alongside. Neither did Bertram Jeeves, for that matter.
There was no sign that such things could ever come to pass, to my great chagrin. Jeeves's word was enough assurance for me, of course, but it pained me to the very core that no one else could ever know, that there would be no rings on our fingers or post addressed to Messrs. B. & R. Jeeves or similar. I heaved a bit of a sigh.
"Oh, don't whine," said Aunt Agatha, taking the heaved s. as some sort of protest, though who knew to what. "It's perfectly straightforward."
"Oh, perfectly," I warbled, and returned to my ruminations as Aunt A. continued with the lecture.
I did rather a fine job of dreaming, I'm afraid. There may indeed have been a love heart with initials in, the sort one might carve into an obliging tree. The tree itself was not so obliging, resembling more than anything a log in need of a haircut--I don't know where the artistic talent in the family went, but it wasn't to me--though I thought the tie and bowler hat hanging off one of the branches rather decent renderings.
"Have you got all that down?" Aunt Agatha jolted me from my imaginings of a world where sunny picnics that resulted in clothing flung over the scenery could be had without fear.
I looked down at the page, which told me only that I was bidden to Steeple Bumpleigh on the 24th and 'don't mention the' amongst the names and initials and squiggles. "Practically verbatim," I said.
I had no time to search the innermost reaches of the bean for any missing Auntly instructions, or to shred the evidence of my rather soppy whims before Jeeves (or even less sympathetic parties) could lay eyes on them, because there was an urgent banging at the door and an urgent Tuppy voice calling my name from the other side. He was on the run from an ired Angela, who'd seen him in a pub window shovelling in fish and chips when he was meant to be on a diet. Said ired cousin followed him mere moments after I'd shoved him into the bathroom cupboard.
I confess I forgot all about my dubious artistic endeavours in the resultant hubbub--ending in Jeeves, as usual, coming to the rescue with one of his corkers--until some several hours later when the telephone rang again and Jeeves appeared next to it to see what it wanted.
He spoke perfectly normally with the chappie from the tailor's, but lifted the telephone pad, followed by an eyebrow at me. Jeeves is well used to an odd whim or two on my part, and has even been known to err on the side of the romantic at times, but the look he was giving me suggested this was a bit much.
"It was just a bit of silliness," I said the moment the 'phone was back in its cradle, hoping to head any more soupiness off at the pass. "Aunt Agatha was going on and on, and you know how my mind wanders. I would have disposed of it straight away, but Tuppy turned up and I forgot."
"And neither Mr Glossop nor Miss Travers ventured to this side of the room during their visit?" he asked in the tone I imagine he would used on alpine hats and white mess jackets, if he deigned to speak to them.
"No, not even close," I said.
The darkish soup melted away into the usual Jeevesian serenity, and then to a softer look I like to think is for my eyes only as he came to my side. "It should be destroyed, of course," he said, laying a hand gently upon my cheek, "but were it not for the risk it poses, I would cherish it."
I lifted my gaze, which had been rather bashfully trained on the region of his collar, to look into his eyes, where I found no suggestion that he thought me a bit ridiculous. "What were you looking so soupy about, then?"
"I simply feared the paper had been seen."
"Oh." I smiled and shuffled forward to lock my arms around the finely sculpted waist that seems to have been created with the arms of Woosters in mind. "I know we can't ever have the blessing of king and country or anything, and there's no use going all moony over it, but if we could, and in the unlikely event that we ever can-- well, you know what I mean." I felt a bit silly again, with another blush coming on any moment.
Jeeves folded me in his own arms, and before quite getting to the kissing-me bit, murmured against my lips, "I do."
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Date: 2009-08-02 05:51 am (UTC)I wanted to add that I loved the last two words. Sigh.
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Date: 2009-08-02 05:43 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-08-02 05:54 am (UTC)And Happy Birthday,
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Date: 2009-08-02 05:44 pm (UTC)no subject
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Date: 2009-08-02 08:19 am (UTC)A sort of nonsensical brief scene out of the daily life of too irredeemable romantics.
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Date: 2009-08-02 05:49 pm (UTC)no subject
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Date: 2009-08-02 04:28 pm (UTC)Delightful, dear.
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Date: 2009-08-02 06:10 pm (UTC)Thanks much! ♥
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Date: 2009-08-02 06:40 pm (UTC)"The mind drifted again, and as the 'J' looked dashed lonely there on its own, I gave it a 'W' to keep it company." THAT LINE WAS SO CUTE. Something about Bertie thinking everything has feelings is just so sweet.
:) Lovely as per usual.
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Date: 2009-08-02 06:55 pm (UTC)no subject
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Date: 2009-10-05 04:58 am (UTC)I like the sound of "Reginald Wooster".
Kudos for adding the doodlepad at the end.
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Date: 2009-10-08 01:52 am (UTC)