More Christmas soppiness!
Dec. 25th, 2009 09:48 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mercyrobotI wrote this for ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
storyfan, who was lovely enough to type it up for me as she had the only copy. May cause sniffles and AWW-ing. Merry Joostermas!
A Star in Paris
The boxes had been in my Aunt Dahlia's attic since shortly before Jeeves and self had shipped off in '42. The most excellent agèd relative was herself no more, of course, and had not been for some years now. I'd entirely misplaced the knowledge of things' existence, as apparently had Jeeves from the curious look he gave them. We were only now reunited with the dusty luggage because some bit of the Brinkley roof had given up the ghost, and Angela had had everything cleared out. Three trunks and a large wooden crate had been sent on to Paris with Mrs Glossop's compliments and the season's glad tidings.
Stacked in a guest room the Wooster relics could no longer remain. As we were shortly to be beset by Fink-Nottles - not the originals, but the progeny, who we had sort of taken it upon ourselves to look after following their father's surprisingly heroic demise and their mother's tragic illness - and we would therefore need every inch of space to accommodate two Fink-Nottles, one Fink-Nottle-in-law, and one grand-Fink-Nottle. That is, Augusta (Gussie and I had both tried in vain to stop Emerald) and her brother James, who would be arriving with wife and daughter in tow. At the moment, however, they were neither here nor there, being somewhere in transit.
Jeeves cracked open the first of the trunks with flourish. I hadn't know, really, that good old 6A had had any particular smell to it, but there it was beneath the cedar and moth balls as though we'd been suddenly transported back to Berkeley Mansions on a warm spring day with the windows flung wide and the floors freshly polished. I nearly thought that if I turned, I would encounter a W. and S. atop my dear old piano. Of course, I wouldn't, but oft the stream of time and all that. Instead, the framed images that used to hang above the instrument were now staring me in the face-- the Eton eleven, the Drones Annual Something-or-Other, the faces of surviving friends I could now count on one hand.
"I should give this to Jim and Augie," I murmured, fishing out a casual portrait of Gussie and self at some cricket match. I touched a reminiscent finger to his smile, such a happier memory than how I'd seen him last.
Jeeves, ever the master of reading my thoughts, placed a bracing arm round me and kissed the greying spot at my temple.
"I wish there were any left of you," I said with a return of the one-armed embrace. There had been but few in the first place, but I'd carried them all with me and they'd been ruined at Ardennes.
"If you would prefer to remember me as I was, Bertie, my sister may still possess a few." There was a lilt of teasing in his voice, but I knew Jeeves was not entirely joking.
"Don't be ridiculous, Jeeves" I said, shoving the corpus round to face him fully. "You're perfect as you are. I simply used to like looking at them. I don't know, something about the way you looked at me in them."
"The poorly masked desire?" Jeeves asked, fixing me with a fair approximation of same.
"You masked it well enough for me," I reminded him. "You know I nearly didn't -"
At this, I was kissed briefly but soundly, the Wooster patellae no less weakened from having thirty-odd years to accustom themselves. "But we did," Jeeves said, still gently holding my chin. "I do not think the Jeeves of those photographs would have believed it possible."
"Nor the Wooster. Even the Wooster as is sometimes fears waking some terrible morning to find it was all a dream."
"There have been nightmarish portions," Jeeves said quietly, though I couldn't quite tell whether he was thinking of the war or of the year of cold dread spent waiting for Aunt Agatha to drop the other shoe. This less-than-dear aunt of mine (not to speak ill of the dead, but facts are facts) had gone to her grave still holding the other bit of metaphorical footwear aloft, thank heavens, and had never carried out the threats she'd made when she'd learnt the truth.
"I'd give a thousand nightmares for this," I said, not a little moved. I kissed Jeeves again, slowly and deeply, and was terribly gratified when he came away flushed and smiling.
Alas, there was a job to be done, and Jeeves set us back at the task with a promise whispered in my ear of how we could occupy the rest of the time if we finished early.
We dredged through photographs and books, forgotten souvenirs and brittled sheet music, ties and hats that even I couldn't now explain the former allure of. Three piles formed: one to keep, one to give to some deserving party and one to discard. There was a certain paisley tie I'd assumed to be destined for la poubelle, until Jeeves reminded me in no uncertain terms how we had used it once upon a time, and were by no means yet too elderly to do so again.
At last there was nothing left but the massive wooden crate. At the top lay a fascinating array of Jeevesiana-- a tattered Latin grammar he'd once told me the story of, his brother's Distinguished Conduct medal, a thin strand of pearls that had belonged to his mother, a morning coat or two and a rather squashed bowler hat of his old style that I forbade him to dispose of and placed resolutely atop my own onion. Underneath these relics lay a large wad of excelsior, which I peeled away just as the ubiquitous chappie down on the corner began to play "Ça, bergers" on his wheezing accordion.
"It's the Christmas decorations," I exclaimed on seeing a red bauble peeking out of its package. "Do you remember, Jeeves?" I asked as I unearthed garland after trinket like a man digging for treasure. "You were scandalised that nobody'd ever decked the Berkeley halls and disappeared for three hours." He'd returned with a tree and a full of complement of dressings.
"I thought it only proper," Jeeves said, reaching his own hand into the crate. He came up with an eight-pointed red and purple star, encrusted with sparkling mirrored glass and shedding green glitter on everything in its vicinity. He regarded it a fair sight more kindly than when I'd brought the thing home and bunged it proudly atop the Yule-tide fir without consulting him.
I was all astonishment at the star's continued survival. "You hated that thing, Jeeves! I could see it in your eyes! Every year you let me put it up, I was certain it would meet with the business end of a decorative candle."
"All the other decorations were of my choosing, Bertie," he said, watching the firelight sparkle off the little mirrors as he let the star spin slowly on its wires.
It was true. They had been tasteful little red and silver balls, a crystal icicle or two, an understated garland of holly.
"At first I told myself it was one of those compromises of the season, a gesture of goodwill," Jeeves said.
"At first?"
"And the following year and all those thereafter. I had not the heart to take something from you that you thought beautiful."
I was touched, I can tell you, but said lightly, "You never had any compunction about clothing or vases or that sort of thing."
"Christmas decorations are quite another matter."
The star nearly did meet with a disastrous end then and there, lunge as I did at Jeeves for having had such a reason for letting me keep the beastly ornament (and the thing was beastly, I grant, to my older and wiser eyes), but even as he threw out a hand to stop us toppling over entirely, the star did not fall.
*
We had droves of our own decorations by this time, of course. A few were tastefully matched sets, but many more were a motley assortment that had come piecemeal as gifts or commemorations. I was particularly partial to Baby's First Christmas, 1956, which held a photo of a tiny squashed-looking Pauline, the littlest Fink-Nottle.
I felt quite the proper grandfatherly sort when I held her up to help hang it with her own fat little hand. Augie, clearly destined to be the good sort of aunt, sat laughing from her spot on the floor amongst a lot of tinsel, egg-nogged to the gills and snapping away with her Instamatic. An equally grogged James was plonking out what I think was meant to be "Jingle Bells" on the piano. Mrs James, or rather Beth, emerged backward from the kitchen, wrestling a tray of cakes and cocoa from a bewildered Jeeves. Our first dealings with Beth had been a bit fraught, to say the least, but relations had warmed considerably over the last year or two as James had managed to bring her gradually round and Jeeves had charmed her very hairpins.
Beth traded me a cup of cocoa for her offspring, who immediately squirmed from her arms to toddle about the room with the sole intent of seeking out a plastic reindeer to chew on. The ladies be-tinselled the tree, though there was possibly still more attached to Augie than adorning the evergreen branches.
"That just leaves the top, then," declared the Creature from the Tinsel Lagoon. "Will we put the angel on?"
I scooped up Polly, ignoring the twinge in my back, and made as though to pop her on. "I don't know, she might get hungry up there."
"If I might make a suggestion," Jeeves said with quiet authority that lulled the laughter to a watchful hum. Without another word, he produced the old star.
"My Lord, where'd you find that thing?" snorted Augie, but James elbowed her in the ribs, perhaps perceiving the decided wistfulness on the Wooster map, and she belted up.
"It is a family heirloom," said Jeeves, looking nowhere but into my smiling eyes.
A respectful sort of silence descended over the assembled, even the perpetually babbling Polly, as Jeeves and I fixed the star to the topmost branch.
As we all steeped back to admire our handiwork, Jeeves wound an arm round my shoulder and gently brushed a bit of glitter from my cheek.
"Joyeux Noël, Jeeves," I whispered, just as the accordion wheezed to life in the street again. I couldn't hear what Jeeves said back, but it's been a long time since I really needed to.
storyfan, who was lovely enough to type it up for me as she had the only copy. May cause sniffles and AWW-ing. Merry Joostermas!A Star in Paris
The boxes had been in my Aunt Dahlia's attic since shortly before Jeeves and self had shipped off in '42. The most excellent agèd relative was herself no more, of course, and had not been for some years now. I'd entirely misplaced the knowledge of things' existence, as apparently had Jeeves from the curious look he gave them. We were only now reunited with the dusty luggage because some bit of the Brinkley roof had given up the ghost, and Angela had had everything cleared out. Three trunks and a large wooden crate had been sent on to Paris with Mrs Glossop's compliments and the season's glad tidings.
Stacked in a guest room the Wooster relics could no longer remain. As we were shortly to be beset by Fink-Nottles - not the originals, but the progeny, who we had sort of taken it upon ourselves to look after following their father's surprisingly heroic demise and their mother's tragic illness - and we would therefore need every inch of space to accommodate two Fink-Nottles, one Fink-Nottle-in-law, and one grand-Fink-Nottle. That is, Augusta (Gussie and I had both tried in vain to stop Emerald) and her brother James, who would be arriving with wife and daughter in tow. At the moment, however, they were neither here nor there, being somewhere in transit.
Jeeves cracked open the first of the trunks with flourish. I hadn't know, really, that good old 6A had had any particular smell to it, but there it was beneath the cedar and moth balls as though we'd been suddenly transported back to Berkeley Mansions on a warm spring day with the windows flung wide and the floors freshly polished. I nearly thought that if I turned, I would encounter a W. and S. atop my dear old piano. Of course, I wouldn't, but oft the stream of time and all that. Instead, the framed images that used to hang above the instrument were now staring me in the face-- the Eton eleven, the Drones Annual Something-or-Other, the faces of surviving friends I could now count on one hand.
"I should give this to Jim and Augie," I murmured, fishing out a casual portrait of Gussie and self at some cricket match. I touched a reminiscent finger to his smile, such a happier memory than how I'd seen him last.
Jeeves, ever the master of reading my thoughts, placed a bracing arm round me and kissed the greying spot at my temple.
"I wish there were any left of you," I said with a return of the one-armed embrace. There had been but few in the first place, but I'd carried them all with me and they'd been ruined at Ardennes.
"If you would prefer to remember me as I was, Bertie, my sister may still possess a few." There was a lilt of teasing in his voice, but I knew Jeeves was not entirely joking.
"Don't be ridiculous, Jeeves" I said, shoving the corpus round to face him fully. "You're perfect as you are. I simply used to like looking at them. I don't know, something about the way you looked at me in them."
"The poorly masked desire?" Jeeves asked, fixing me with a fair approximation of same.
"You masked it well enough for me," I reminded him. "You know I nearly didn't -"
At this, I was kissed briefly but soundly, the Wooster patellae no less weakened from having thirty-odd years to accustom themselves. "But we did," Jeeves said, still gently holding my chin. "I do not think the Jeeves of those photographs would have believed it possible."
"Nor the Wooster. Even the Wooster as is sometimes fears waking some terrible morning to find it was all a dream."
"There have been nightmarish portions," Jeeves said quietly, though I couldn't quite tell whether he was thinking of the war or of the year of cold dread spent waiting for Aunt Agatha to drop the other shoe. This less-than-dear aunt of mine (not to speak ill of the dead, but facts are facts) had gone to her grave still holding the other bit of metaphorical footwear aloft, thank heavens, and had never carried out the threats she'd made when she'd learnt the truth.
"I'd give a thousand nightmares for this," I said, not a little moved. I kissed Jeeves again, slowly and deeply, and was terribly gratified when he came away flushed and smiling.
Alas, there was a job to be done, and Jeeves set us back at the task with a promise whispered in my ear of how we could occupy the rest of the time if we finished early.
We dredged through photographs and books, forgotten souvenirs and brittled sheet music, ties and hats that even I couldn't now explain the former allure of. Three piles formed: one to keep, one to give to some deserving party and one to discard. There was a certain paisley tie I'd assumed to be destined for la poubelle, until Jeeves reminded me in no uncertain terms how we had used it once upon a time, and were by no means yet too elderly to do so again.
At last there was nothing left but the massive wooden crate. At the top lay a fascinating array of Jeevesiana-- a tattered Latin grammar he'd once told me the story of, his brother's Distinguished Conduct medal, a thin strand of pearls that had belonged to his mother, a morning coat or two and a rather squashed bowler hat of his old style that I forbade him to dispose of and placed resolutely atop my own onion. Underneath these relics lay a large wad of excelsior, which I peeled away just as the ubiquitous chappie down on the corner began to play "Ça, bergers" on his wheezing accordion.
"It's the Christmas decorations," I exclaimed on seeing a red bauble peeking out of its package. "Do you remember, Jeeves?" I asked as I unearthed garland after trinket like a man digging for treasure. "You were scandalised that nobody'd ever decked the Berkeley halls and disappeared for three hours." He'd returned with a tree and a full of complement of dressings.
"I thought it only proper," Jeeves said, reaching his own hand into the crate. He came up with an eight-pointed red and purple star, encrusted with sparkling mirrored glass and shedding green glitter on everything in its vicinity. He regarded it a fair sight more kindly than when I'd brought the thing home and bunged it proudly atop the Yule-tide fir without consulting him.
I was all astonishment at the star's continued survival. "You hated that thing, Jeeves! I could see it in your eyes! Every year you let me put it up, I was certain it would meet with the business end of a decorative candle."
"All the other decorations were of my choosing, Bertie," he said, watching the firelight sparkle off the little mirrors as he let the star spin slowly on its wires.
It was true. They had been tasteful little red and silver balls, a crystal icicle or two, an understated garland of holly.
"At first I told myself it was one of those compromises of the season, a gesture of goodwill," Jeeves said.
"At first?"
"And the following year and all those thereafter. I had not the heart to take something from you that you thought beautiful."
I was touched, I can tell you, but said lightly, "You never had any compunction about clothing or vases or that sort of thing."
"Christmas decorations are quite another matter."
The star nearly did meet with a disastrous end then and there, lunge as I did at Jeeves for having had such a reason for letting me keep the beastly ornament (and the thing was beastly, I grant, to my older and wiser eyes), but even as he threw out a hand to stop us toppling over entirely, the star did not fall.
*
We had droves of our own decorations by this time, of course. A few were tastefully matched sets, but many more were a motley assortment that had come piecemeal as gifts or commemorations. I was particularly partial to Baby's First Christmas, 1956, which held a photo of a tiny squashed-looking Pauline, the littlest Fink-Nottle.
I felt quite the proper grandfatherly sort when I held her up to help hang it with her own fat little hand. Augie, clearly destined to be the good sort of aunt, sat laughing from her spot on the floor amongst a lot of tinsel, egg-nogged to the gills and snapping away with her Instamatic. An equally grogged James was plonking out what I think was meant to be "Jingle Bells" on the piano. Mrs James, or rather Beth, emerged backward from the kitchen, wrestling a tray of cakes and cocoa from a bewildered Jeeves. Our first dealings with Beth had been a bit fraught, to say the least, but relations had warmed considerably over the last year or two as James had managed to bring her gradually round and Jeeves had charmed her very hairpins.
Beth traded me a cup of cocoa for her offspring, who immediately squirmed from her arms to toddle about the room with the sole intent of seeking out a plastic reindeer to chew on. The ladies be-tinselled the tree, though there was possibly still more attached to Augie than adorning the evergreen branches.
"That just leaves the top, then," declared the Creature from the Tinsel Lagoon. "Will we put the angel on?"
I scooped up Polly, ignoring the twinge in my back, and made as though to pop her on. "I don't know, she might get hungry up there."
"If I might make a suggestion," Jeeves said with quiet authority that lulled the laughter to a watchful hum. Without another word, he produced the old star.
"My Lord, where'd you find that thing?" snorted Augie, but James elbowed her in the ribs, perhaps perceiving the decided wistfulness on the Wooster map, and she belted up.
"It is a family heirloom," said Jeeves, looking nowhere but into my smiling eyes.
A respectful sort of silence descended over the assembled, even the perpetually babbling Polly, as Jeeves and I fixed the star to the topmost branch.
As we all steeped back to admire our handiwork, Jeeves wound an arm round my shoulder and gently brushed a bit of glitter from my cheek.
"Joyeux Noël, Jeeves," I whispered, just as the accordion wheezed to life in the street again. I couldn't hear what Jeeves said back, but it's been a long time since I really needed to.
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