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mercyrobotSorting Out the Dance Card
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7. More Fuel to the Fire
Stinker didn't prove to be much of a guest or really even much of a patient. He was more a sleeping thing in the other room that one knew existed and walked softly past. The doctor's assistant arrived as I was finishing my breakfast, and the doc. himself turned up in the afternoon. Stiffy phoned around teatime to announce that she'd be there on the morrow and was elated with the news of improvement.
Stinker's presence in the home also very happily forestalled a visit from Aunt Agatha, who viewed illness as a dangerous and highly contagious character flaw. I had half a mind to tell her he was still here far into the future, possibly with rabbits. He woke for an hour or two and I played cards with him. Someone had got him into a bath at some point because he was no longer on his way to earning his name in a more literal way. He looked much better as well, and it seemed as though the afflicted side of his face was coming back to life.
"How can I ever thank you enough, Bertie?" he kept saying. He held my discovery of the tick as his cure rather than all the potions the doctor was pumping into him, and nothing would disabuse him of the notion.
"If you'd let anybody comb your hair, someone would have found the dratted thing ages ago," I said peevishly after about the sixty-fifth time.
"They all made me feel like an invalid. You're the only one who didn't."
I scoffed. "Yes, they should bottle me up and pass me out in hospitals."
"They'd make a fortune," he said reverently, missing the point. He put his hand over mine and while it was nice to know he was getting a bit stronger, I thought I'd better not be indulging that sort of thing anymore.
I gave a perfunctory sort of squeeze in return and pretended to need that hand for my drink. "Well, you can repay my kindness by ceasing to talk all this rot of kilted Woosters at weddings. I'm not sure the populace would ever recover from the sight of my legs."
"Oh, all right," he said. "But they're perfectly good legs. Which reminds me— I hate to ask you, but did you ever get that box?"
"Yes, it's in the back of the wardrobe. I didn't like to think of it being out in the world."
"The wardrobe? Won't Jeeves look in there and wonder what it is?"
He might, at that. I'd failed to mention the thing at all, the mind having been otherwise occupied. But as far as Stinker knew, I reminded myself, Jeeves was in no posish to wonder what I was keeping in locked boxes. "He knows what a lock is for. I'll tell him it's your life savings or something if he asks." And what indeed would I tell him? If I was going about asking him for histories, he ought to get the same from me. It's not the sort of thing one just bungs in amongst the pleasantries and adoring glances, though. "And by the way, if my name's on any of that I'll thank you to burn it promptly."
"I know," Stinker sighed. "It's idiotic I've kept it at all, but I just sort of couldn't bring myself to chuck it all on a fire."
"Well, bring yourself and get to the chucking directly you can crouch near a fireplace. I've spent quite enough time in prison already."
The box haunted me all evening, like the heart that chappie kept hearing under the floorboard. I didn't like to think what would happen if Jeeves worked it out before I told him. No matter that I'd been intending to tell him; if he caught on first it would look as though I'd been trying to hide it. It was more or less scientifically proven.
Our dinner together should have been a nice companionable thing, but every time I looked at Jeeves I was assaulted by visions of him going looking for a shoe or some such thing, and no sooner did this imaginary Jeeves say to himself, 'Hello, what's this?' than the telltale obj. fell to the floor and spilled its damning contents. Nothing good could possibly follow.
I got quieter and quieter as I tried to work out how to spring it, and the looks Jeeves gave me got rummier and rummier. The cat in the adage had nothing on Bertram.
I knew it was getting a bit too thick for paddling when Jeeves asked, "Is the filet not to your liking?" and there was practically a 'sir' on the end of it.
"No, it's perfect as always," I said automatically, but then I looked down at my plate and saw I'd barely touched it. Absently carved it to bits, yes, but eaten much of it, no. Come to think of it, I hadn't really tasted what little had gone down the hatch. "I suppose I'm not very hungry."
Jeeves took the plate away silently, but the soupy eyebrow clearly said, 'I don't believe you for a moment, Wooster.' I didn't blame it. If I'd been in his shoes—well, they wouldn't have fit very well, for a start, but that was beside the point—I would have been wondering what I'd done wrong.
Oh.
I'd better out with it, I realised, before he thought he really had done something wrong. I lit a nervous cigarette and watched the sink fill with bubbles. Before Jeeves could get the sleeves rolled up and into the apron, I plunged in with both feet. Not into the sink, but the breach, as it were. "Leave that, will you?"
He left it and turned to face me.
What now? A drink. Just the thing. These things went better with drinks. Dutch courage and all. "Are the Dutch very cowardly when they're not drinking?" I asked as I rummaged through the cupboard in search of a spirit spirited enough.
"As I have never met a Dutchman, I could not say." He got between me and the rummaging in that way that only he can manage to shove someone aside without doing any proper shoving. "Allow me."
"Make it a strong one," I said. "Probably even a stronger one for yourself."
He poured two generous measures without protest, but it was a dark look he gave me when he handed me my glass. "What has happened?"
"Happened? Nothing's happened!" But no use trying to squirm out of it now. "Nothing recently, anyway. There's a thing I—" I took a fortifying gulp. "I think we'd better not do this in here."
Jeeves nodded and led us lair-ward, where I paced around the settee rather than exactly sit on it.
Another gulp and I started over. "You've seen the box in my wardrobe?"
"I had remarked on its presence, yes." He was looking at his hands.
"Well, it's Stinker's. And it's full of— well, all I know is it's full of things that are better off in a fireplace and that some of them concern me. Maybe all of them. I don't know."
Jeeves looked up sharply. "If he is threatening some sort of—"
"No, no, it's nothing like that. He'd never. He's agreed it's all going straight on a merry blaze as soon as he's up to it. Thinking he was going to pop his clogs and have it gone through by Stiffy or similar rather brought him to his senses. But what the letters or whatever they are are about, that's the thing I— I mean to say, it was a long time ago, mostly, and it's done with, but I thought you should know."
"Mostly?"
"When he came here a couple of weeks ago, we— well he— I honestly had no idea he was still— or that he was ever, until then, but I was afraid you'd open it and get the wrong idea."
"Would you please sit down, Bertie?" I'm asked this often when I get a good bit of pacing going, but never quite so kindly. I sat. "I believe you are informing me of a past liaison with Mr Pinker?"
"Just the one," I said. "It was only once. The 'mostly' part was sort of a— well, it was a kiss, but it was all wrong." Jeeves looked stony. "It was before France," I added, in case this glarishness was due to him mixing up the order of events. "Sort of why I was all dodgy that day you suggested going, actually."
"But he still intends to marry Miss Byng?"
I shrugged, wondering what difference that made. "In a kilt."
"And your discovery of the sheep-tick?"
Oh. He'd heard about that. I couldn't blame him for looking a bit cross. "You didn't see him, Jeeves. I never let on, but I would've called it a dead cert, if you'll pardon the expression, that he wasn't long for this world. He hadn't let anybody comb his hair in ages and I started out just trying to straighten it a bit, but he was so miserable, and it seemed to make him less miserable. I don't know, it just sort of seemed like the thing to do. A few years ago I wouldn't even have thought it a thing that needed explaining." I sighed. "I wish you wouldn't be angry with me."
"I am not angry with you." He took my hand and no, it didn't feel angry. "I am jealous, perhaps irrationally so."
"There's nothing to be jealous of. Possibly the opposite. That wrongness I mentioned was what finally coshed the old grey matter into realising it was you I wanted to be kissing."
Rather abruptly, I found myself being pulled sideways and kissed as though Jeeves had thought I'd meant now. Not that I minded. As kisses go, even as the generally high standard of kisses from Jeeves go, it was a corker. "Then I am indebted to him," Jeeves intoned throatily when it sadly reached its end. "And yet," he said, tightening his grasp on me, "I hate him."
"Whatever for? I look back very fondly on our friendship, even rather mourn the passing of the thing as was, but that's the end of it. Nobody could hold a candle to you, Jeeves, and I wouldn't want them to try. Not so much as a matchstick."
"As I said, it is irrational. I find myself resenting every moment the world requires me to share you with it."
"I'm all yours even when you're miles away. Twin compasses, as the fellow said." I thought it perhaps not the time to go after the bit of history I wanted from Jeeves, as it seemed it might strain him unduly after one heavyish talk. Instead I suggested making an early night of it, which was well-received, though no proper sleeping occurred until several hours thence.
The 'morrow found Stinker declared well enough to lie on the chesterfield if the curtains were drawn, and Jeeves must have been itching to get at the bed-linens, for the moment I was dressed he fairly skipped off to change them. I confess the room was due for a bit of an airing, even if it meant I was confined to chairs or the piano bench if I wished to make use of my sitting room. Stinker seemed to prefer the latter, as it meant he would be entertained.
I'd given him the pile of music to pick through so he could toss over whatever he wanted to hear, but had very purposely not handed him the Chopin. He spied it anyway. "What about that Chopin? I love Chopin."
Well, I rather thought of Chopin as something that more or less belonged to Jeeves. In view of our recent talk, I had the inkling he might be of a similar mind, what with all the reluctance to share me. I couldn't say that without making matters awkward in the extreme, so instead I said, "I make an awful hash of it. Two notes out of me and there's an earthquake in Poland caused by old Frederic rolling over in his grave."
"I think he's buried in France, actually," Stinker said, but he seemed to accept the excuse and flung a song towards me. 'And Her Mother Came Too' would surely give Jeeves a headache, but all concerned would be much happier.
I was released from my post when the doc. turned up for some more poking and prodding, followed more or less directly by a Stiffy in much better spirits than I'd seen her last. I left them to it and legged it to the kitchen where Jeeves was going through tea motions.
I dared to plant a quick one on his lips on my way to take up the paper. It turned out to have been a very daring feat indeed, as no sooner had we parted than in burst Stiffy wondering whether there were any cigarettes about. "Silver box on the mantlepiece," I managed round the pounding heart of disaster-averted. "What did the doctor have to say?"
"Harold's practically cured!" she effused, bestowing a sisterly smacker upon the still-blushing Wooster cheek for my role in the proceedings. "I think this rates you being godfather to our first child!"
Fortunately for the both of us, she bounced back out before she could see the horror-struck grimace of impending d. that clouded my brow. "What does a godfather do, precisely?" I asked Jeeves with not a little trepidation, if that's the word I want for the nerves jangling round visions of sticky-handed tots being deposited in my care at week-ends. "Mine's my Uncle George, so I don't know what of it was uncling and what was godfathering."
"Traditionally the godparents see to the child's spiritual upbringing," Jeeves replied, ever the font of knowledge.
"Well, that's all right, then. Stinker should have that well in hand."
"It has become more usual in recent years, however, for the role to more closely resemble that of an aunt or uncle," he added.
"Blast."
I had to wait a full minute for any sort of consolation on this less-than-topping development while he took the tea out. "I doubt your duties for the next few years will prove more strenuous than your presence at the christening," he said when he came back and joined me at the table, "alongside whomever is chosen as godmother."
"Double blast. It'll be Madeline Bass—er, Spode—for sure. At least she can't try to marry me. I think I shall make it my special job to see to Spodecup's continued health and long, long life. Godparents aren't generally made guardians in the event of the unthinkable, are they? When they're no relation, I mean?"
"Generally not, when a relative is available, unless the parents have specified a wish to that effect."
"Well, godfather's one thing, but I think they know better than that. And as Madeline is Stiffy's cousin, I think I'm safe, what?"
"One would think so. But had you not expressed a wish to form closer ties of that nature with your nieces?"
"Well, I said that thinking I'd be counting down the twilight years all alone." I was struck by a perfectly awful thought. "Though I suppose there's still every possibility I'll outlive you." And worse, what if he wasn't looking at this thing between us as I was? What if he'd just be off once it had run its course and he'd got tired of me?
I swallowed round a lumpish thing that had formed itself in my throat and tried to speak as quietly as I could so as not to be overheard, the combined effect being not dissimilar to one of those chappies in films crawling through a desert gasping, 'Water, water.' "You do still mean to be around that long? That is, I know we can't exactly make anything official, but I hope you know that if we could— I mean to say I'd marry you in a heartbeat if I could, and just because I can't doesn't mean I don't look on this the same way."
Jeeves gripped my hand very tightly beneath the tabletop, which would've been answer enough for me, but he also leaned over to whisper in my ear. "I love you with all my heart, Bertram, but your timing is abominable." I think I've explained before what lips near my ears do to other parts of me, and this case was no exception.
"I am, of course, of the same mind," he continued, "and should very much like to kiss you at this moment, but I fear I would be compelled to take you to bed immediately." I could not help a slight moan making its way out. "If I could control myself for even that distance," Jeeves added, causing another, less-slight moan along with all sorts of visions involving the kitchen furniture and no clothes.
Curse all Stinkers and Stiffys!
As it happened, I did not get so much as another moment alone with Jeeves for the rest of the day. Once all the excitement had done Stinker in and he'd dozed off, I was obliged to accompany Stiffy on an absolutely interminable list of wedding errands. The pinnacle of this indignity was a visit to some tailor's shop to have me poked with pins while modelling eight thousand morning coats and sixteen thousand pair of sponge-bag trousers in a veritable rainbow of nearly-exactly-the-same.
"I thought Stinker was marching up the aisle in a kilt," I complained as my pillowy bits were assaulted by yet another drawing pin.
"He is," said Stiffy, who was comfortably perched in a squashy chair and nibbling at cakes. "These are for the groomsmen. Pongo won't wear a kilt either, so we've scratched it and you'll all be in suits."
"Thank heavens for small favours. This won't do, by the way," I said, meaning the shirt. "Jeeves would be plotting its demise the moment it came through the door." As would I, come to that. My tastes admittedly tend toward the fanciful, but never venture into that land beyond the pale in which reside ruffled shirts.
"Oh, that's clever," Stiffy said. "'What would Jeeves do?' It should be a slogan. I swear I shall sob into my tea the day that man comes to his senses and goes off to run the country." Whether she meant with joy or sorrow I did not ask, and neglected to disabuse her of the notion he'd be going anywhere. "Will we put him on my side or Harold's?" she wondered while on the subj.
This was the first I'd heard of his being invited as a proper guest. I naturally would have thought it only fitting, but it did the Wooster heart good to hear other parties had thought along similar lines. "Stinker's, I should think, since I'm standing up and all, unless you really want him on yours."
"No, I suppose not. If nothing else he'll make up the numbers. Loads of Harold's friends are off building churches in jungles and won't make it, and you know he's got no family at all. You know, they say all these terrible things about our generation being aimless and useless, but I'm jolly glad half the people I know didn't die in some trench." This line of thought did make more sense than it might've appeared to on the surface, as the erstwhile Pinker maj. had been done in at Gallipoli.
As I played pincushion and kept up running commentary with Stiffy, the further-back regions of the onion contemplated Jeeves's time in said trenches. He never spoke of it but in passing, but I doubted his thoughts on the subj. were of a lightly passing nature. He had a way of reducing things to trifles when he didn't like to think of them, and the list of those trifles was rather piling up.
I couldn't simply sit him down and give him the third degree about all of it, but I couldn't help thinking that a portrait of the marvel as a young man would offer the key to his inner workings. And I did want at those inner workings. It's all well and good to have wonders perfomed in mysterious ways, but dash it, he knew the Wooster mechanism down to the last cog while I laboured in relative obscurity looking for the 'on' switch. Not that Jeeves is a machine, but if he were, he'd be a wonder of modern invention.
I came away from the tailor's with a few sore spots and a new resolve to put Jeeves toward explaining a thing or two, but as stated there was no moment alone to even make a beginning on it. Stiffy mooched about the flat well into the evening, for which I could not blame her when I learned she was enjoying the hospitality of the hair-raising Lady Florence Craye, bane of chaps far and wide who do not wish to have their minds improved and be made to run for Parliament.
Once La Byng had biffed off chez Craye after dinner, Jeeves biffed equally off chez his club to attend the send-off of some fellow Ganymedian into the ranks of the married, thereby leaving me with Stinker, a merrily crackling fire lit to stave off the damp of the dampish day, and a box full of incriminating whatsits. As the fire was already lit with Stinker positioned near it, I thought now as good a time as any to relieve us of the burden, and duly presented him with the thing.
"You haven't looked in it?" he asked, running his hands over the outside.
"How could I? It's locked."
"Right," he said, and flipped the lid open with a flourish. A distinct wistfulness passed over his map, along with a shake of the head. "I was so stupid to keep all this. Anyone might've found it."
"Well, thank your lucky stars no one did and burn the lot." I tossed some cushions down near the hearth and helped him down off the sofa to within reach of the fire.
I thought to leave him to it, but he nodded at the spot next to him and with some reluctance I settled myself in it, hoping he didn't mean to have me read through everything. "Some of it's all right to keep," he said, brandishing a postcard bearing a scene of Morocco.
I recognised it instantly. Our first year at Oxford we'd been parting company for summer hols and Stinker had said, 'Send me a postcard.'
'What, from Worcestershire?' I'd asked. 'I'm not going anywhere.'
'So send me one from someplace you'd like to go,' he'd ordered.
The card he now held out to me had been the result. Some friend of my Aunt Dahlia's had written it to her, but in pencil, so I'd rubbed it out and written my own message. It ran:
Dear Stinker,
Morocco is lovely this time of year, or so I've heard. Wish I was there and you were too. Aunt D's estate sadly lacking in camels.
Yours, Bertie
"You really kept that?" I asked, rather hoping he'd simply used it to mark a book and forgotten it existed. "I mean, back then you didn't.... Did you?"
"Since the moment I tripped over your trunk," he said with a saddish nod.
Since the moment we'd met, in other words. If it was possible to feel worse about the damage I'd done to his heart, I now did. "Oh, Stinker," I sighed in sympathy, knowing well what it was to wait and hope and wish, and ultimately despair. "If I'd had any idea—"
"You would have run the other way and never let me as close as you did," he finished for me. Possibly he was right; just look at how long it had taken me to get my head round the mere idea of Jeeves as my be-all and end-all. He threw a page on the flames and I thought I glimpsed the words 'heart's desire' curling into ash. "It never could have ended well." 'Depths of my soul' burned away.
"Are you happy?" I asked. "Will you be happy marrying Stiffy?"
"I'll be content, I think. It's really the best anyone can hope for."
Was it, I wondered? Because I'd rather been aiming for happy and had thought myself well started onto that road. This could not be stated, of course. "Life with Stiffy won't be dull," I said instead.
"Never," Stinker said with a soft laugh, now twisting a handkerchief between his fingers. I wouldn't have recognised the thing if not for the blood on it; he'd held it to my gushing beak the night I'd thought it a topping idea to scale Magdalen Tower and give one of the statues thereon a hat. Bit of a grisly thing to keep, and I was glad to see it burn away. "She wants to name our first child after her father."
"Well, that's not unusual, is it?"
"His name was Bartemius."
"That's practically begging for him to be called—"
"Barmy, I know. I tried to tell her. We'll just have to have him tutored at home."
"Maybe if you start out with Barty, it'd stick? I'm not having a Barmy for a godson. What if it's a girl?"
"Jane."
"Pray for a girl, I say. You've got an in up there, should work out."
Stinker held up a well-worn page. "Last one. First one, actually. I wrote it that morning." He handed it to me. Reading it was the last thing I wanted, but I rather felt he'd left me no choice.
Dear Bertie (it said),
I'm so sorry. I've ruined everything. If I hadn't been weak, if I hadn't given into temptation, I never would have had to know I mean nothing to you. I mistook camaraderie for affection, kindness for infatuation. I believed something ran between us that was too deep ever to be spoken, and I should never have tested my illusion. I should have taken what I was offered and not reached out for more.
If I were stronger, I would pretend to agree with you and go back to the way we were, but I am not strong. Every word from your now untouchable lips will be to my ears, 'I can't love you.' The only way out I can see is to sever even the smallest contact, but it would pain me too much to have you think that I hate you. So I will let my vocation consume me, and perhaps in time I will be able to smile and shake your hand.
Do not blame yourself for my corruption. It is on my head alone. I took something pure and beautiful and made it profane. I will spend the rest of my days seeking some kind of atonement.
If you know nothing else, if God forbid true happiness should never come your way, know at least that you were once loved with such soul-consuming depth, that you were too beautiful to resist, that you could tempt the very angels from their thrones, and that I shall never, so long as I live, be anything but—
Yours always,
Harold Pinker
"I say." I was rather misted up round the eyes despite myself, and who wouldn't be? "You don't still believe this?" For all my lamentations about wanting a love letter, this had never been the sort I'd had in mind.
"No, not all of it. I do love Stephanie, but it was something I had to talk myself round to. I think we only get that bolt from the blue once in a lifetime."
And mine was Jeeves. There was some small part of me that wished I could split in two and love them both, if only to have not been the cause of all this suffering. But Jeeves was it, and that was that. "You don't mean nothing to me, you know."
"I know. Just not as much as I would've wanted."
"I'm sorry."
"It isn't your fault." He plucked the letter from my fingers and cast it into the hearth.
All that was left in the box were the sorts of things that can only have meaning to their owner: the stub of a cinema ticket, a few shells and pebbles, a button. I rather felt that was as it should be, even sort of fitting.
Once I'd helped the patient to bed and retired to the sanctity of Jeeves's lair, I lay awake pondering these bolts from the blue. Had he felt one? Was I really the one true thing? He'd said as much, or near enough to it. It sounded like a thing there would be pretty steep odds on, but they couldn't be so bad as all that or there would be far more marriages made on an 'oh, you'll do, I suppose.'
My own parents, for example, had been head-over-heels for one another from the first to the last. That was more or less what had done my father in. Officially it was a fall off a horse, but I'd found out from overheard bits and pieces some time later that he'd been soused to the gills with grief and riding in the dark at a full gallop. Aunt Dahlia had shot the poor beast and nearly done the same to the groom who'd saddled it.
Then again, if you took someone like Bingo Little, the b. from the blue happened once a week, or had up until he'd met Rosie. Perhaps Bingo was just an odd case of not knowing the difference till he had the real thing, since he hadn't so much as looked at another girl since Rosie had captured his heart.
In the midst of my ponderings, Jeeves slipped in silently as ever. I probably looked like I was asleep, pondering as I'd been with the lids shut, but I cracked one open a fraction to watch him undress. Oh, I'd seen him do it before, of course; I'd done it myself. But it was a different matter when he didn't know he was being watched. So quick, but so careful, every button worked with a swift and studied grace— and that was Jeeves in a nutshell, wasn't it?
I was well into full-on staring in admiration by the time he finished up and came to my side. "May I join you?"
In answer I shifted over so as not to occupy the whole mattress, and was momentarily wrapped head to toe in warm, wonderful Jeeves. He smelt of clean laundry and toothpaste and the faint lingerings of the night's festivities, scotch and tobacco, with the classic Jeevesness underlying it all. "How did I ever sleep without you?" I wondered aloud, shoving a hand up the back of his pyjama shirt in protest of its existence.
"Exceedingly well, I believe, most nights."
"Oh, stop it. I was trying to be romantic." I gave a light pinch to his belly, not that there was much to pinch. "Anyway, I couldn't go back now I've drunk from the whatsit."
"I fear you shall be required to, unless you propose to cease visiting your friends and relations."
If it weren't for the fact that he was stroking my hair, I might have formed the distinct impression that he was narked with me over something. "Your mood strikes me as cynical, Jeeves. Did you not have a good time at the wake for your friend's bachelorhood?"
"It was most agreeable."
I could hear a veil of inscrutability descending—if such things can be heard—and un-embraced enough to look over at him. "Then what on earth is the matter?"
He looked away.
"Jeeves." I like to think my tone struck the proper balance between coaxing and stern.
"I happened to wonder as to the events that placed the cushions and blankets on the hearthrug."
He was jealous again! "We were burning those incriminating papers," I said. "I readily confess to a ramble or two down memory lane, but other than the content of the documents in q., there was nothing that couldn't have been done in full view of the public. I wish you'd stop thinking me fickle and faithless, Jeeves. It pains me." It was a trifle insulting, but what bothered me more was that he seemed to be going about in constant doubt of my regard. I laid a hand over the general area where his heart was. "This is it for me, you know. The big It with all the bells and whistles, the end. If it isn't for you, then—" I choked up a bit, because then what?
Fortnuately he didn't leave me to wonder very long. "It has long been my wish to spend my life by your side, Bertie."
"Then why worry? I've often said that when two chaps of iron will such as ourselves abide in close quarters, there's bound to be clashes, but when said iron-willed chaps both want the same thing? Why, it can't fail."
"I simply fear that in view of your youth—"
"In view of my youth? Are you about to fine me five pounds? You may be decades cleverer, Jeeves, but you're not so very much older."
"Eight years is a considerable time, particularly in the earlier half of life, but I spoke more in terms of experience. It was some while ago that I learned the difficult lesson of separating passionate infatuation from real love. You have not yet been forced to."
I bristled, or would have if I'd had bristles. "What, because I've never been so deeply dippy for anyone else I can't possibly really feel it?"
"I would not have put it in such terms, but that is my concern in essence: that once you realised your nature and preferences, you naturally fixed on the most likely and convenient object."
"In other words, now I've worked out the female mystique is no mystique at all, I latched onto the first chap on offer?"
"It was my own unhappy fate, some years ago."
I left that for the moment, because if I forced the story out of him now I'd never get round to saying my piece, but I resolved not to let it lie any longer than than it had to. "Your logic is flawed, Jeeves. If you remember, you were not the first chap on offer, but previous applicants were soundly rejected on the grounds of not being you. If one of us has cause to worry, it should be me. What have I got that somebody else hasn't got more and better of? And yet I take it on faith that there's some particular thingness to me that keeps you here, because you say so. It can't quite work if you don't do the same. So try, will you? As a special favour to me?"
"It is this flawed logic of which you speak that doubts," he said, gathering me back to him, "not my heart."
"Well, listen to your heart for once, will you?"
He agreed, and sealed the deal with a very serious kiss. I hadn't know kisses could be serious, really, but I suppose they can be anything they like since the feelings causing them can be anything. I wondered what an angry kiss would feel like, not that I was about to try to brass Jeeves off just to find out. Rough, I imagined, possibly with teeth. I tried it out but without any honest anger it didn't so much say, 'I am angry,' as 'please strip off my pyjamas and have your way with me.'
Not that I minded being had Jeeves's way with, but I did sort of wonder (not in the course of the thing, you understand, as I'd lost all faculty for thought, but shortly afterwards) when it would be my turn to have my way with him, as it were. I'd never so much as hinted at it, reduced to blushing and blithering as I am when made to speak of such matters, but Jeeves had no such compunction and certainly would have suggested it if he wanted it.
Perhaps he thought he wouldn't like it, or I wouldn't like it, or it carried too much of the 'master bending the servant to his will' about it. If I had a scruple about it, it was that last one, but surely someone as clever as Jeeves could find a way to carry it off without flavouring it that way.
Or, perhaps—it dawned, the pieces of the matter falling into place like one of Aunt Agatha's infernal jigsaw puzzles—he knew he didn't like it. Perhaps discovering he didn't like it had been his hard lesson, the dark thing that he alluded to, as well as the reason he always insisted on facing me.
Anger boiled up within the Wooster breast at the thought of him being so ill-used, the shuddersome notion of just what sort of awful cad it would take to approach him with anything other than reverent adoration.
Despite my resolve to have the tale told, I didn't like to spoil the basking with such an unpleasant line of questioning, but I did hold him just a little tighter as we drifted off into the dreamless. My last waking thought was to decree to myself that the moment we had the flat to ourselves, the thing would be had out once and for all.
{Next: Part 8: Book Marks}
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7. More Fuel to the Fire
Stinker didn't prove to be much of a guest or really even much of a patient. He was more a sleeping thing in the other room that one knew existed and walked softly past. The doctor's assistant arrived as I was finishing my breakfast, and the doc. himself turned up in the afternoon. Stiffy phoned around teatime to announce that she'd be there on the morrow and was elated with the news of improvement.
Stinker's presence in the home also very happily forestalled a visit from Aunt Agatha, who viewed illness as a dangerous and highly contagious character flaw. I had half a mind to tell her he was still here far into the future, possibly with rabbits. He woke for an hour or two and I played cards with him. Someone had got him into a bath at some point because he was no longer on his way to earning his name in a more literal way. He looked much better as well, and it seemed as though the afflicted side of his face was coming back to life.
"How can I ever thank you enough, Bertie?" he kept saying. He held my discovery of the tick as his cure rather than all the potions the doctor was pumping into him, and nothing would disabuse him of the notion.
"If you'd let anybody comb your hair, someone would have found the dratted thing ages ago," I said peevishly after about the sixty-fifth time.
"They all made me feel like an invalid. You're the only one who didn't."
I scoffed. "Yes, they should bottle me up and pass me out in hospitals."
"They'd make a fortune," he said reverently, missing the point. He put his hand over mine and while it was nice to know he was getting a bit stronger, I thought I'd better not be indulging that sort of thing anymore.
I gave a perfunctory sort of squeeze in return and pretended to need that hand for my drink. "Well, you can repay my kindness by ceasing to talk all this rot of kilted Woosters at weddings. I'm not sure the populace would ever recover from the sight of my legs."
"Oh, all right," he said. "But they're perfectly good legs. Which reminds me— I hate to ask you, but did you ever get that box?"
"Yes, it's in the back of the wardrobe. I didn't like to think of it being out in the world."
"The wardrobe? Won't Jeeves look in there and wonder what it is?"
He might, at that. I'd failed to mention the thing at all, the mind having been otherwise occupied. But as far as Stinker knew, I reminded myself, Jeeves was in no posish to wonder what I was keeping in locked boxes. "He knows what a lock is for. I'll tell him it's your life savings or something if he asks." And what indeed would I tell him? If I was going about asking him for histories, he ought to get the same from me. It's not the sort of thing one just bungs in amongst the pleasantries and adoring glances, though. "And by the way, if my name's on any of that I'll thank you to burn it promptly."
"I know," Stinker sighed. "It's idiotic I've kept it at all, but I just sort of couldn't bring myself to chuck it all on a fire."
"Well, bring yourself and get to the chucking directly you can crouch near a fireplace. I've spent quite enough time in prison already."
The box haunted me all evening, like the heart that chappie kept hearing under the floorboard. I didn't like to think what would happen if Jeeves worked it out before I told him. No matter that I'd been intending to tell him; if he caught on first it would look as though I'd been trying to hide it. It was more or less scientifically proven.
Our dinner together should have been a nice companionable thing, but every time I looked at Jeeves I was assaulted by visions of him going looking for a shoe or some such thing, and no sooner did this imaginary Jeeves say to himself, 'Hello, what's this?' than the telltale obj. fell to the floor and spilled its damning contents. Nothing good could possibly follow.
I got quieter and quieter as I tried to work out how to spring it, and the looks Jeeves gave me got rummier and rummier. The cat in the adage had nothing on Bertram.
I knew it was getting a bit too thick for paddling when Jeeves asked, "Is the filet not to your liking?" and there was practically a 'sir' on the end of it.
"No, it's perfect as always," I said automatically, but then I looked down at my plate and saw I'd barely touched it. Absently carved it to bits, yes, but eaten much of it, no. Come to think of it, I hadn't really tasted what little had gone down the hatch. "I suppose I'm not very hungry."
Jeeves took the plate away silently, but the soupy eyebrow clearly said, 'I don't believe you for a moment, Wooster.' I didn't blame it. If I'd been in his shoes—well, they wouldn't have fit very well, for a start, but that was beside the point—I would have been wondering what I'd done wrong.
Oh.
I'd better out with it, I realised, before he thought he really had done something wrong. I lit a nervous cigarette and watched the sink fill with bubbles. Before Jeeves could get the sleeves rolled up and into the apron, I plunged in with both feet. Not into the sink, but the breach, as it were. "Leave that, will you?"
He left it and turned to face me.
What now? A drink. Just the thing. These things went better with drinks. Dutch courage and all. "Are the Dutch very cowardly when they're not drinking?" I asked as I rummaged through the cupboard in search of a spirit spirited enough.
"As I have never met a Dutchman, I could not say." He got between me and the rummaging in that way that only he can manage to shove someone aside without doing any proper shoving. "Allow me."
"Make it a strong one," I said. "Probably even a stronger one for yourself."
He poured two generous measures without protest, but it was a dark look he gave me when he handed me my glass. "What has happened?"
"Happened? Nothing's happened!" But no use trying to squirm out of it now. "Nothing recently, anyway. There's a thing I—" I took a fortifying gulp. "I think we'd better not do this in here."
Jeeves nodded and led us lair-ward, where I paced around the settee rather than exactly sit on it.
Another gulp and I started over. "You've seen the box in my wardrobe?"
"I had remarked on its presence, yes." He was looking at his hands.
"Well, it's Stinker's. And it's full of— well, all I know is it's full of things that are better off in a fireplace and that some of them concern me. Maybe all of them. I don't know."
Jeeves looked up sharply. "If he is threatening some sort of—"
"No, no, it's nothing like that. He'd never. He's agreed it's all going straight on a merry blaze as soon as he's up to it. Thinking he was going to pop his clogs and have it gone through by Stiffy or similar rather brought him to his senses. But what the letters or whatever they are are about, that's the thing I— I mean to say, it was a long time ago, mostly, and it's done with, but I thought you should know."
"Mostly?"
"When he came here a couple of weeks ago, we— well he— I honestly had no idea he was still— or that he was ever, until then, but I was afraid you'd open it and get the wrong idea."
"Would you please sit down, Bertie?" I'm asked this often when I get a good bit of pacing going, but never quite so kindly. I sat. "I believe you are informing me of a past liaison with Mr Pinker?"
"Just the one," I said. "It was only once. The 'mostly' part was sort of a— well, it was a kiss, but it was all wrong." Jeeves looked stony. "It was before France," I added, in case this glarishness was due to him mixing up the order of events. "Sort of why I was all dodgy that day you suggested going, actually."
"But he still intends to marry Miss Byng?"
I shrugged, wondering what difference that made. "In a kilt."
"And your discovery of the sheep-tick?"
Oh. He'd heard about that. I couldn't blame him for looking a bit cross. "You didn't see him, Jeeves. I never let on, but I would've called it a dead cert, if you'll pardon the expression, that he wasn't long for this world. He hadn't let anybody comb his hair in ages and I started out just trying to straighten it a bit, but he was so miserable, and it seemed to make him less miserable. I don't know, it just sort of seemed like the thing to do. A few years ago I wouldn't even have thought it a thing that needed explaining." I sighed. "I wish you wouldn't be angry with me."
"I am not angry with you." He took my hand and no, it didn't feel angry. "I am jealous, perhaps irrationally so."
"There's nothing to be jealous of. Possibly the opposite. That wrongness I mentioned was what finally coshed the old grey matter into realising it was you I wanted to be kissing."
Rather abruptly, I found myself being pulled sideways and kissed as though Jeeves had thought I'd meant now. Not that I minded. As kisses go, even as the generally high standard of kisses from Jeeves go, it was a corker. "Then I am indebted to him," Jeeves intoned throatily when it sadly reached its end. "And yet," he said, tightening his grasp on me, "I hate him."
"Whatever for? I look back very fondly on our friendship, even rather mourn the passing of the thing as was, but that's the end of it. Nobody could hold a candle to you, Jeeves, and I wouldn't want them to try. Not so much as a matchstick."
"As I said, it is irrational. I find myself resenting every moment the world requires me to share you with it."
"I'm all yours even when you're miles away. Twin compasses, as the fellow said." I thought it perhaps not the time to go after the bit of history I wanted from Jeeves, as it seemed it might strain him unduly after one heavyish talk. Instead I suggested making an early night of it, which was well-received, though no proper sleeping occurred until several hours thence.
The 'morrow found Stinker declared well enough to lie on the chesterfield if the curtains were drawn, and Jeeves must have been itching to get at the bed-linens, for the moment I was dressed he fairly skipped off to change them. I confess the room was due for a bit of an airing, even if it meant I was confined to chairs or the piano bench if I wished to make use of my sitting room. Stinker seemed to prefer the latter, as it meant he would be entertained.
I'd given him the pile of music to pick through so he could toss over whatever he wanted to hear, but had very purposely not handed him the Chopin. He spied it anyway. "What about that Chopin? I love Chopin."
Well, I rather thought of Chopin as something that more or less belonged to Jeeves. In view of our recent talk, I had the inkling he might be of a similar mind, what with all the reluctance to share me. I couldn't say that without making matters awkward in the extreme, so instead I said, "I make an awful hash of it. Two notes out of me and there's an earthquake in Poland caused by old Frederic rolling over in his grave."
"I think he's buried in France, actually," Stinker said, but he seemed to accept the excuse and flung a song towards me. 'And Her Mother Came Too' would surely give Jeeves a headache, but all concerned would be much happier.
I was released from my post when the doc. turned up for some more poking and prodding, followed more or less directly by a Stiffy in much better spirits than I'd seen her last. I left them to it and legged it to the kitchen where Jeeves was going through tea motions.
I dared to plant a quick one on his lips on my way to take up the paper. It turned out to have been a very daring feat indeed, as no sooner had we parted than in burst Stiffy wondering whether there were any cigarettes about. "Silver box on the mantlepiece," I managed round the pounding heart of disaster-averted. "What did the doctor have to say?"
"Harold's practically cured!" she effused, bestowing a sisterly smacker upon the still-blushing Wooster cheek for my role in the proceedings. "I think this rates you being godfather to our first child!"
Fortunately for the both of us, she bounced back out before she could see the horror-struck grimace of impending d. that clouded my brow. "What does a godfather do, precisely?" I asked Jeeves with not a little trepidation, if that's the word I want for the nerves jangling round visions of sticky-handed tots being deposited in my care at week-ends. "Mine's my Uncle George, so I don't know what of it was uncling and what was godfathering."
"Traditionally the godparents see to the child's spiritual upbringing," Jeeves replied, ever the font of knowledge.
"Well, that's all right, then. Stinker should have that well in hand."
"It has become more usual in recent years, however, for the role to more closely resemble that of an aunt or uncle," he added.
"Blast."
I had to wait a full minute for any sort of consolation on this less-than-topping development while he took the tea out. "I doubt your duties for the next few years will prove more strenuous than your presence at the christening," he said when he came back and joined me at the table, "alongside whomever is chosen as godmother."
"Double blast. It'll be Madeline Bass—er, Spode—for sure. At least she can't try to marry me. I think I shall make it my special job to see to Spodecup's continued health and long, long life. Godparents aren't generally made guardians in the event of the unthinkable, are they? When they're no relation, I mean?"
"Generally not, when a relative is available, unless the parents have specified a wish to that effect."
"Well, godfather's one thing, but I think they know better than that. And as Madeline is Stiffy's cousin, I think I'm safe, what?"
"One would think so. But had you not expressed a wish to form closer ties of that nature with your nieces?"
"Well, I said that thinking I'd be counting down the twilight years all alone." I was struck by a perfectly awful thought. "Though I suppose there's still every possibility I'll outlive you." And worse, what if he wasn't looking at this thing between us as I was? What if he'd just be off once it had run its course and he'd got tired of me?
I swallowed round a lumpish thing that had formed itself in my throat and tried to speak as quietly as I could so as not to be overheard, the combined effect being not dissimilar to one of those chappies in films crawling through a desert gasping, 'Water, water.' "You do still mean to be around that long? That is, I know we can't exactly make anything official, but I hope you know that if we could— I mean to say I'd marry you in a heartbeat if I could, and just because I can't doesn't mean I don't look on this the same way."
Jeeves gripped my hand very tightly beneath the tabletop, which would've been answer enough for me, but he also leaned over to whisper in my ear. "I love you with all my heart, Bertram, but your timing is abominable." I think I've explained before what lips near my ears do to other parts of me, and this case was no exception.
"I am, of course, of the same mind," he continued, "and should very much like to kiss you at this moment, but I fear I would be compelled to take you to bed immediately." I could not help a slight moan making its way out. "If I could control myself for even that distance," Jeeves added, causing another, less-slight moan along with all sorts of visions involving the kitchen furniture and no clothes.
Curse all Stinkers and Stiffys!
As it happened, I did not get so much as another moment alone with Jeeves for the rest of the day. Once all the excitement had done Stinker in and he'd dozed off, I was obliged to accompany Stiffy on an absolutely interminable list of wedding errands. The pinnacle of this indignity was a visit to some tailor's shop to have me poked with pins while modelling eight thousand morning coats and sixteen thousand pair of sponge-bag trousers in a veritable rainbow of nearly-exactly-the-same.
"I thought Stinker was marching up the aisle in a kilt," I complained as my pillowy bits were assaulted by yet another drawing pin.
"He is," said Stiffy, who was comfortably perched in a squashy chair and nibbling at cakes. "These are for the groomsmen. Pongo won't wear a kilt either, so we've scratched it and you'll all be in suits."
"Thank heavens for small favours. This won't do, by the way," I said, meaning the shirt. "Jeeves would be plotting its demise the moment it came through the door." As would I, come to that. My tastes admittedly tend toward the fanciful, but never venture into that land beyond the pale in which reside ruffled shirts.
"Oh, that's clever," Stiffy said. "'What would Jeeves do?' It should be a slogan. I swear I shall sob into my tea the day that man comes to his senses and goes off to run the country." Whether she meant with joy or sorrow I did not ask, and neglected to disabuse her of the notion he'd be going anywhere. "Will we put him on my side or Harold's?" she wondered while on the subj.
This was the first I'd heard of his being invited as a proper guest. I naturally would have thought it only fitting, but it did the Wooster heart good to hear other parties had thought along similar lines. "Stinker's, I should think, since I'm standing up and all, unless you really want him on yours."
"No, I suppose not. If nothing else he'll make up the numbers. Loads of Harold's friends are off building churches in jungles and won't make it, and you know he's got no family at all. You know, they say all these terrible things about our generation being aimless and useless, but I'm jolly glad half the people I know didn't die in some trench." This line of thought did make more sense than it might've appeared to on the surface, as the erstwhile Pinker maj. had been done in at Gallipoli.
As I played pincushion and kept up running commentary with Stiffy, the further-back regions of the onion contemplated Jeeves's time in said trenches. He never spoke of it but in passing, but I doubted his thoughts on the subj. were of a lightly passing nature. He had a way of reducing things to trifles when he didn't like to think of them, and the list of those trifles was rather piling up.
I couldn't simply sit him down and give him the third degree about all of it, but I couldn't help thinking that a portrait of the marvel as a young man would offer the key to his inner workings. And I did want at those inner workings. It's all well and good to have wonders perfomed in mysterious ways, but dash it, he knew the Wooster mechanism down to the last cog while I laboured in relative obscurity looking for the 'on' switch. Not that Jeeves is a machine, but if he were, he'd be a wonder of modern invention.
I came away from the tailor's with a few sore spots and a new resolve to put Jeeves toward explaining a thing or two, but as stated there was no moment alone to even make a beginning on it. Stiffy mooched about the flat well into the evening, for which I could not blame her when I learned she was enjoying the hospitality of the hair-raising Lady Florence Craye, bane of chaps far and wide who do not wish to have their minds improved and be made to run for Parliament.
Once La Byng had biffed off chez Craye after dinner, Jeeves biffed equally off chez his club to attend the send-off of some fellow Ganymedian into the ranks of the married, thereby leaving me with Stinker, a merrily crackling fire lit to stave off the damp of the dampish day, and a box full of incriminating whatsits. As the fire was already lit with Stinker positioned near it, I thought now as good a time as any to relieve us of the burden, and duly presented him with the thing.
"You haven't looked in it?" he asked, running his hands over the outside.
"How could I? It's locked."
"Right," he said, and flipped the lid open with a flourish. A distinct wistfulness passed over his map, along with a shake of the head. "I was so stupid to keep all this. Anyone might've found it."
"Well, thank your lucky stars no one did and burn the lot." I tossed some cushions down near the hearth and helped him down off the sofa to within reach of the fire.
I thought to leave him to it, but he nodded at the spot next to him and with some reluctance I settled myself in it, hoping he didn't mean to have me read through everything. "Some of it's all right to keep," he said, brandishing a postcard bearing a scene of Morocco.
I recognised it instantly. Our first year at Oxford we'd been parting company for summer hols and Stinker had said, 'Send me a postcard.'
'What, from Worcestershire?' I'd asked. 'I'm not going anywhere.'
'So send me one from someplace you'd like to go,' he'd ordered.
The card he now held out to me had been the result. Some friend of my Aunt Dahlia's had written it to her, but in pencil, so I'd rubbed it out and written my own message. It ran:
Dear Stinker,
Morocco is lovely this time of year, or so I've heard. Wish I was there and you were too. Aunt D's estate sadly lacking in camels.
Yours, Bertie
"You really kept that?" I asked, rather hoping he'd simply used it to mark a book and forgotten it existed. "I mean, back then you didn't.... Did you?"
"Since the moment I tripped over your trunk," he said with a saddish nod.
Since the moment we'd met, in other words. If it was possible to feel worse about the damage I'd done to his heart, I now did. "Oh, Stinker," I sighed in sympathy, knowing well what it was to wait and hope and wish, and ultimately despair. "If I'd had any idea—"
"You would have run the other way and never let me as close as you did," he finished for me. Possibly he was right; just look at how long it had taken me to get my head round the mere idea of Jeeves as my be-all and end-all. He threw a page on the flames and I thought I glimpsed the words 'heart's desire' curling into ash. "It never could have ended well." 'Depths of my soul' burned away.
"Are you happy?" I asked. "Will you be happy marrying Stiffy?"
"I'll be content, I think. It's really the best anyone can hope for."
Was it, I wondered? Because I'd rather been aiming for happy and had thought myself well started onto that road. This could not be stated, of course. "Life with Stiffy won't be dull," I said instead.
"Never," Stinker said with a soft laugh, now twisting a handkerchief between his fingers. I wouldn't have recognised the thing if not for the blood on it; he'd held it to my gushing beak the night I'd thought it a topping idea to scale Magdalen Tower and give one of the statues thereon a hat. Bit of a grisly thing to keep, and I was glad to see it burn away. "She wants to name our first child after her father."
"Well, that's not unusual, is it?"
"His name was Bartemius."
"That's practically begging for him to be called—"
"Barmy, I know. I tried to tell her. We'll just have to have him tutored at home."
"Maybe if you start out with Barty, it'd stick? I'm not having a Barmy for a godson. What if it's a girl?"
"Jane."
"Pray for a girl, I say. You've got an in up there, should work out."
Stinker held up a well-worn page. "Last one. First one, actually. I wrote it that morning." He handed it to me. Reading it was the last thing I wanted, but I rather felt he'd left me no choice.
Dear Bertie (it said),
I'm so sorry. I've ruined everything. If I hadn't been weak, if I hadn't given into temptation, I never would have had to know I mean nothing to you. I mistook camaraderie for affection, kindness for infatuation. I believed something ran between us that was too deep ever to be spoken, and I should never have tested my illusion. I should have taken what I was offered and not reached out for more.
If I were stronger, I would pretend to agree with you and go back to the way we were, but I am not strong. Every word from your now untouchable lips will be to my ears, 'I can't love you.' The only way out I can see is to sever even the smallest contact, but it would pain me too much to have you think that I hate you. So I will let my vocation consume me, and perhaps in time I will be able to smile and shake your hand.
Do not blame yourself for my corruption. It is on my head alone. I took something pure and beautiful and made it profane. I will spend the rest of my days seeking some kind of atonement.
If you know nothing else, if God forbid true happiness should never come your way, know at least that you were once loved with such soul-consuming depth, that you were too beautiful to resist, that you could tempt the very angels from their thrones, and that I shall never, so long as I live, be anything but—
Yours always,
Harold Pinker
"I say." I was rather misted up round the eyes despite myself, and who wouldn't be? "You don't still believe this?" For all my lamentations about wanting a love letter, this had never been the sort I'd had in mind.
"No, not all of it. I do love Stephanie, but it was something I had to talk myself round to. I think we only get that bolt from the blue once in a lifetime."
And mine was Jeeves. There was some small part of me that wished I could split in two and love them both, if only to have not been the cause of all this suffering. But Jeeves was it, and that was that. "You don't mean nothing to me, you know."
"I know. Just not as much as I would've wanted."
"I'm sorry."
"It isn't your fault." He plucked the letter from my fingers and cast it into the hearth.
All that was left in the box were the sorts of things that can only have meaning to their owner: the stub of a cinema ticket, a few shells and pebbles, a button. I rather felt that was as it should be, even sort of fitting.
Once I'd helped the patient to bed and retired to the sanctity of Jeeves's lair, I lay awake pondering these bolts from the blue. Had he felt one? Was I really the one true thing? He'd said as much, or near enough to it. It sounded like a thing there would be pretty steep odds on, but they couldn't be so bad as all that or there would be far more marriages made on an 'oh, you'll do, I suppose.'
My own parents, for example, had been head-over-heels for one another from the first to the last. That was more or less what had done my father in. Officially it was a fall off a horse, but I'd found out from overheard bits and pieces some time later that he'd been soused to the gills with grief and riding in the dark at a full gallop. Aunt Dahlia had shot the poor beast and nearly done the same to the groom who'd saddled it.
Then again, if you took someone like Bingo Little, the b. from the blue happened once a week, or had up until he'd met Rosie. Perhaps Bingo was just an odd case of not knowing the difference till he had the real thing, since he hadn't so much as looked at another girl since Rosie had captured his heart.
In the midst of my ponderings, Jeeves slipped in silently as ever. I probably looked like I was asleep, pondering as I'd been with the lids shut, but I cracked one open a fraction to watch him undress. Oh, I'd seen him do it before, of course; I'd done it myself. But it was a different matter when he didn't know he was being watched. So quick, but so careful, every button worked with a swift and studied grace— and that was Jeeves in a nutshell, wasn't it?
I was well into full-on staring in admiration by the time he finished up and came to my side. "May I join you?"
In answer I shifted over so as not to occupy the whole mattress, and was momentarily wrapped head to toe in warm, wonderful Jeeves. He smelt of clean laundry and toothpaste and the faint lingerings of the night's festivities, scotch and tobacco, with the classic Jeevesness underlying it all. "How did I ever sleep without you?" I wondered aloud, shoving a hand up the back of his pyjama shirt in protest of its existence.
"Exceedingly well, I believe, most nights."
"Oh, stop it. I was trying to be romantic." I gave a light pinch to his belly, not that there was much to pinch. "Anyway, I couldn't go back now I've drunk from the whatsit."
"I fear you shall be required to, unless you propose to cease visiting your friends and relations."
If it weren't for the fact that he was stroking my hair, I might have formed the distinct impression that he was narked with me over something. "Your mood strikes me as cynical, Jeeves. Did you not have a good time at the wake for your friend's bachelorhood?"
"It was most agreeable."
I could hear a veil of inscrutability descending—if such things can be heard—and un-embraced enough to look over at him. "Then what on earth is the matter?"
He looked away.
"Jeeves." I like to think my tone struck the proper balance between coaxing and stern.
"I happened to wonder as to the events that placed the cushions and blankets on the hearthrug."
He was jealous again! "We were burning those incriminating papers," I said. "I readily confess to a ramble or two down memory lane, but other than the content of the documents in q., there was nothing that couldn't have been done in full view of the public. I wish you'd stop thinking me fickle and faithless, Jeeves. It pains me." It was a trifle insulting, but what bothered me more was that he seemed to be going about in constant doubt of my regard. I laid a hand over the general area where his heart was. "This is it for me, you know. The big It with all the bells and whistles, the end. If it isn't for you, then—" I choked up a bit, because then what?
Fortnuately he didn't leave me to wonder very long. "It has long been my wish to spend my life by your side, Bertie."
"Then why worry? I've often said that when two chaps of iron will such as ourselves abide in close quarters, there's bound to be clashes, but when said iron-willed chaps both want the same thing? Why, it can't fail."
"I simply fear that in view of your youth—"
"In view of my youth? Are you about to fine me five pounds? You may be decades cleverer, Jeeves, but you're not so very much older."
"Eight years is a considerable time, particularly in the earlier half of life, but I spoke more in terms of experience. It was some while ago that I learned the difficult lesson of separating passionate infatuation from real love. You have not yet been forced to."
I bristled, or would have if I'd had bristles. "What, because I've never been so deeply dippy for anyone else I can't possibly really feel it?"
"I would not have put it in such terms, but that is my concern in essence: that once you realised your nature and preferences, you naturally fixed on the most likely and convenient object."
"In other words, now I've worked out the female mystique is no mystique at all, I latched onto the first chap on offer?"
"It was my own unhappy fate, some years ago."
I left that for the moment, because if I forced the story out of him now I'd never get round to saying my piece, but I resolved not to let it lie any longer than than it had to. "Your logic is flawed, Jeeves. If you remember, you were not the first chap on offer, but previous applicants were soundly rejected on the grounds of not being you. If one of us has cause to worry, it should be me. What have I got that somebody else hasn't got more and better of? And yet I take it on faith that there's some particular thingness to me that keeps you here, because you say so. It can't quite work if you don't do the same. So try, will you? As a special favour to me?"
"It is this flawed logic of which you speak that doubts," he said, gathering me back to him, "not my heart."
"Well, listen to your heart for once, will you?"
He agreed, and sealed the deal with a very serious kiss. I hadn't know kisses could be serious, really, but I suppose they can be anything they like since the feelings causing them can be anything. I wondered what an angry kiss would feel like, not that I was about to try to brass Jeeves off just to find out. Rough, I imagined, possibly with teeth. I tried it out but without any honest anger it didn't so much say, 'I am angry,' as 'please strip off my pyjamas and have your way with me.'
Not that I minded being had Jeeves's way with, but I did sort of wonder (not in the course of the thing, you understand, as I'd lost all faculty for thought, but shortly afterwards) when it would be my turn to have my way with him, as it were. I'd never so much as hinted at it, reduced to blushing and blithering as I am when made to speak of such matters, but Jeeves had no such compunction and certainly would have suggested it if he wanted it.
Perhaps he thought he wouldn't like it, or I wouldn't like it, or it carried too much of the 'master bending the servant to his will' about it. If I had a scruple about it, it was that last one, but surely someone as clever as Jeeves could find a way to carry it off without flavouring it that way.
Or, perhaps—it dawned, the pieces of the matter falling into place like one of Aunt Agatha's infernal jigsaw puzzles—he knew he didn't like it. Perhaps discovering he didn't like it had been his hard lesson, the dark thing that he alluded to, as well as the reason he always insisted on facing me.
Anger boiled up within the Wooster breast at the thought of him being so ill-used, the shuddersome notion of just what sort of awful cad it would take to approach him with anything other than reverent adoration.
Despite my resolve to have the tale told, I didn't like to spoil the basking with such an unpleasant line of questioning, but I did hold him just a little tighter as we drifted off into the dreamless. My last waking thought was to decree to myself that the moment we had the flat to ourselves, the thing would be had out once and for all.
{Next: Part 8: Book Marks}
