Chapter Text
For the next day or so, I watched my life through unfocused eyes.
I could not recover from the surprise of what happened, and it was impossible to think of anything else. Sleep evaded me like a bee to a stinging nettle, and while I am seldom a ball of fire on the best of days, I met the morning with listlessness. The Littles noted my strange behaviour with looks of concern, but as I could never tell them the reason for it, I kept to myself. I hadn’t the heart to even tackle toast and marmalade, if that illustrates the true picture; I simply stared at the floor until my cup of tea no longer warmed my hands.
I tried to go for a walk after breakfast, but the dread of bumping into Mr Jeeves in the fields outside Bumpleigh Hall paled much of my enjoyment. Still, the views of the blossoming spring flowers and the verdure of early trees brought out the pleasantness of the morning, and my outlook improved upon finding a stable fence to sit on while watching the melodic birds flutter against the rising sun.
With the mirth slowly returning to my person and the warmth of the day on my skin, I was at the point of continuing my stroll when I heard a sound from behind me like a well-bred sheep clearing its throat on a distant mountain-top.
“Good lord!” I wobbled on my perch, struggling to clutch between my chest and the post.
It was Mr Jeeves, of course. He never lets me see him coming, does he?
Once my nerves had been chastened back into their normal positions, I took him in entirely. He carried a small box and a letter, his face like that of a statue that’s just found out its muscles are made of marble. He wore the same clothes that he had at our last meeting, now with a dark coat hanging from his broad shoulders. Logically, I ought to have flung myself off the fence and sprinted into the horizon, but that wasn’t my first instinct; I’ve never been the best at acting logically. I waited for him to speak with a blank expression on my face matching his.
“I have been walking in the grove for some time in the hope of meeting you, sir.”
And here I was, a poor sitting duck. It interested me strangely that Mr Jeeves had approached me while I was on my ramble, and consequently in a strong strategic position to heave a handful of country mud at him.
He held out the box, the letter atop it, and I took it without thinking. “Will you do me the honour of reading this letter?”
Then, with a slight bow, he turned again and vanished into the boughs laden with green and shadow. I didn’t like the man’s manner. Too calm. Unimpressed. No indication that anything troublesome had ever passed between us. I mean, he could hardly have recovered from the harbouring-a-secret-pash-for-yours-truly stuff already – I mean to say, as much as I would have liked to kick all that under the table, it kept nipping at my ankles. Metaphorically, of course. And I should like to expect that he felt much the same.
I sat on the fence until my limbs were stiff, the box on my lap a heavy weight. Curiosity won out, so rather than throwing the paper straight into a fire, I used the fence post as a make-shift ledge for the box as I perused the letter. I shall leave it here for you in its entirety, dated from Bumpleigh at five in the ack emma–
“Be not alarmed, sir, as I shall not renew the sentiments which you met with such disapproval. You must pardon the freedom with which I demand your attention; I will not take the liberty again of assuming your feelings bestow it willingly.
Allow me to address the two charges you have laid against me, the first regarding your sister and my friend, and the second regarding the silver cow-creamer.
Though I was not long in Market Snodsbury, I knew that Mr Fink-Nottle’s attentions to your sister had given rise to a general expectation of marriage, and it was spoken of throughout town as a certain event, of which time alone could be undecided. From that moment I observed my friend’s behaviour attentively, and perceived that his fondness for Miss Wooster was far beyond what I had ever witnessed in him, even for his most precious newts. Your sister remained as cheerful as ever, but without any symptom of peculiar regard. Through the psychology of the individual, I judged that your sister did not return the depth and spirit of his sentiment, but if you have not been mistaken there, I must have been in error. Your superior knowledge of your sister must make the latter probable. I apologise for wounding your sister’s feelings; please believe that it was unintentionally done.
The second accusation I could easily excuse, but, due to my unsought respect for you, I believe you deserve a proper reply. I admit everything to you, Mr Wooster, and only you.
My blood is not noble. My father was a respectable man in service to the original proprietor of Berkeley Mansion, and served him for many long decades. Over this time, my master never married, thus producing no heirs, and he and my father were as close as the bonds of feudality could allow. His kindness was liberally bestowed upon me, as he loved me like his own child. When my father passed, I continued to look after Berkeley and its master, and worked diligently to truly earn the high opinion and fondness that was entrusted to me. He was a very kind man, but remained terribly isolated without my father, and (here I shall give you pain, since you think me too proud) I was the sole presence in his life, acting as both servant and son.
In consequence, and to great scandal, he named me the heir of his estate. He had no family to answer to, and thus I was forced into a lifestyle to which I do not belong, and do not deserve. With his most important assistance, I dedicated myself to my studies and later became the student of Dr Glossop, as you know. I implore you to understand why my manners are not befitting of a gentleman; I am a cuckoo hidden in a warbler’s nest, if I may employ your habit of allusion. I was raised in the servants’ quarters, watching company from afar. Your lesson in dance was my first, and I thank you for the kindness.
As a man from a humble background, I admit to a sensitivity regarding the treatment of servants. When my cousin, Miss Silversmith, informed me of your kind conduct and friendly nature, and I then witnessed it in clear daylight, my good opinion of you was sealed. I trusted you. I still do. It was a fault to allow my euphoria let me fall prey to the most selfish of indulgences, but I hope you comprehend why it did.
With the cow-creamer, I have no such regrets. The novelty of having an egregious income has not worn off yet (and I know not if it ever will), and I purchased it from the auction with the full intention of gifting it to you, though I was distracted by a great many things. I sent the cow-creamer to London to be assessed and polished, to ensure that it was perfect for your family. I made another purchase, one which you are not aware of, and had we been on better terms I would have rejoiced in your reception of the gift. As we are, I know you would not approve of myself owning any reminders of your existence. You shall find it inside: do as you please with it.
Of the truth of what I have related, I can summon more than one witness of undoubted veracity. If your abhorrence of me should make my assertions valueless, you cannot be prevented by the same cause from confiding in Miss Glossop; she will authenticate these details. You may wish to dispose of this letter. I can only pray you have read it.
Reginald Jeeves.”
To say I was nonplussed would be to point at a puddle and call it the ocean. Or the other way around, rather. I mean to say, it does not even begin to cover it all. Reading the contents of these papers made me feel as if some wild animal had come along and bitten off both my calves, leaving nothing but cold air for me to stand on. I could not make anything of it, all comprehension suppressed by utter astonishment.
With a start I remembered the box, sitting innocently on the post. I ran a finger along the top; the fine wood was smooth, shiny and engraved, with an intricate pattern on every side. Part of me wanted to keep it shut, perhaps bury it in the ground and forget about it forever. But we Woosters are stern of spirit, and I opened it with a tenacity that Pandora would take pride in.
Nestled in a soft and dark silk was the cow-creamer. The morning sun hit it with a blinding white light, and as I leaned closer I noted that all blemishes of age and neglect had vanished. Whatever value it had held at auction must now be doubled. I forced myself to stop biting my thumb, for fear of the blood staining anything this perfect.
I lifted the creamer out, when something slid inside the silk with a soft clank. My hands fumbled for it, and I found a long silver chain, glinting in the sunlight too. At the end hung a locket, round and empty inside. I wanted to throw it into the tall grass. I wanted to drop it in a pile of dirt and let it be trodden on for eternity. I wanted to hate what it stood for, that Mr Jeeves had ever thought of me with such a blind affection.
I tucked the chain into my fist, sinking down to the ground, now stuck in more than proverbial mud. I don’t know what I expected when I opened the letter and the box, but even with the insensibility and fury that it released, there was a thin string of hope alongside it.
[]
It is all very well to talk about the brave smile and the stiff upper lip, but my experience – and I know not if others have found the same – is that they are a dashed sight easier to drone about than to actually fix on the face. Shame, I have often found, is the kind of thing that drags the features down, rooting deep into the earth and taking the spirit with it.
And ashamed was I. Mortified, even. Positively scarlet from the neck up. Bingo and Mrs Little noted it with genuine concern, though I could not answer their questions in any intelligible way.
The scales now fallen from my eyes, I was incapable of denying credit to Mr Jeeves’s assertions about my dear sister and her affections, since he was so confident as to cite my pal Miss Glossop. If he claims he was totally unsuspicious of her attachment, then l dare say he must have been t. u. It is rare indeed that I can ever be lured from my aloof scepticism, which goes to show the acute impression that the letter left on me.
I was in a fair way of soon knowing it by heart. In the last days of my stay with the Littles, I spent my evenings curled by the fireplace, reading and rereading Mr Jeeves’s neat handwriting until the embers had long cooled. Each time I lingered over a certain word, my feelings toward the writer differed wildly, like a kite in a hurricane.
And I’ll tell you why they differed wildly: how was I to balance his style of address, his indignant stuffed-frog manner, his proud resistance, with my own unjust condemnation of him? Lord, how often had I taunted his dancing, believing him to be too high-handed to step with the likes of me and my family, when the poor fellow had simply never been taught? I had behaved like a true, abysmal chump. I did not deserve his kind feelings, if he still retained any at all. Then again, I could not forget those numerous times he was a bit of an ass. I mean to say, he insulted my entire family! He told me I was mentally negligible! Part of me felt absolutely no obligation at all to pity the fellow, and yet I could not quite shake it from my conscience.
You see, the entire thing was hopeless of remedy.
My stay with the Littles drew to a melancholic close, the pain of leaving my friends cushioned by the chance to finally escape the shadow of Bumpleigh Hall.
“Are you quite sure you’re alright?” Bingo asked, stuffing the last of my cases into the chaise, giving me a funny look.
“I hardly know, you know.”
He threw his arms around me, squeezing the last puffs of air from my poor corpus. “Do come and visit us again. I’ll dedicate an entire spare bedroom to you.”
“Awfully good of you, old boy. I shall hold you to that.”
The horses started and I rolled away. Bingo waved to me until I jaunted around a corner, and it was over like that. Perhaps I would be leaving Mr Jeeves there, lost somewhere in between memories of grey gargoyles and heavy rain. The locket buried in my case said otherwise.
Although I had steeled myself to the ordeal of returning to my family and set out full of the calm, quiet courage which makes men do desperate deeds with careless smiles, I must admit that there was a moment, just after I had toddled in sight of Brinkley Court and run an eye over the figure of Tuppy Glossop ambling away down the lane, when it needed all the bull-dog pluck of the Woosters to keep me from calling it a day and ordering the cart back around to Steeple Bumpleigh. Staying with the Littles as their live-in nuisance did not sound so unappealing now, and the added threat of my Aunt Agatha might encourage me to take up a new hobby to avoid her, like polishing every spoon, or alternatively, a vow of silence.
I had hardly reached the Brinkley steps when my aunt (of the good and deserving kind) bounded out the door to wait for me with her hands on her hips.
“Here you are again, my little plague spot. I can’t seem to be rid of you.”
“I live here, Aunt D.”
I leaned down to plant a kiss on her cheek, as a good nephew does after weeks apart, and Dahlia patted down my wind-ruffled hair.
“I am glad to see you, honest. You can deal with that sister of yours.”
She scowled and spun back into the house, and self trailing along behind her. It boded no good that she was already giving tongue while I was still on the doormat.
“Madeline’s here?” I asked, glancing around as if she might be hiding under the table. “Did your love-scheme not come to fruition, then?”
“Do stop your gibbering, Bertie, I place all fault on that reptile Spink-Bottle, and if Madeline should die of a broken heart then he will be sorry for his extremely ill treatment. And don’t forget,” she yanked my coat from me, stomping away to the library, “I’m fighting on two fronts! Agincourt was less of a pain in my–”
The last part was swallowed by the thump of her door, thank heavens. My aunt wasn’t even at Agincourt, probably. I considered following her to touch upon that subject, but wiser heads prevailed – I oiled through the corridors to find the rest of my flesh and blood.
All was quiet. Terribly quiet, as if silence had come and stamped down an iron fist of totality. Just as I was starting to suspect the rapture had come and taken all my pelican relatives, my eye caught a poof of blonde hair sticking out from under a tomb of cushions in the drawing room.
“Would you enjoy some flowers on your gravesite, or shall we wait till summer?”
The effect was immediate. Madeline shot out from the cushions, her smile all merry and bright as she tripped over the mess to embrace me. We chattered like cats with bellies full of fish, all about how absence makes the heart grow fonder, or what have you, and that yes Mrs Little was very well, and yes Aunt Agatha still sported barbed wire around the throat. Finally, we turned to a more social note.
“I am quite over him, Bertie.” Maddie threw herself back onto the chesterfield, face turned to the ceiling.
There was a gaping flaw in that statement: the him in question hadn’t been so much as named by either of us. I’m not sure Maddie even twigged this, even as she assured me that, “London is so diverting.”
“Indeed?”
“Very much so! There’s always something to do there, you know. I once saw a girl in a cart hit a fellow on the footpath! Really riveting. Oh, and I’ve decided I’m only going to eat vegetables from now on.”
“...Right-ho.”
“Honestly,” she let out a long sigh, only now turning her face to me, “if he walked past me in the street, I would not look up from the flowers.”
“Maddie–”
“It’s true!” She held my gaze: a blasé attempt at one of her usual piercing looks, not quite persuasive enough for me to believe London was really that diverting. “I am done, and he shall get no more of me, And I am glad, yea glad with all my heart–”
“Save it for a winter’s night, pray.”
The menace passed from her, that rosy love-light exiting stage left, and Maddie propped herself up on one elbow to smile at me.
“And what news from Bumpleigh?”
There’s a cow-creamer hidden under my un-ironed trousers in my case. I am being haunted by a silver locket and I don’t quite fancy exorcising it. Oh, and I refused a man’s proposal because I despised him with every single bone in my body, but now, on a fresh count, I’m roughly three vertebrae away from regretting it.
“Nothing,” I said. “Nothing more than the usual circs.”
I might have mumbled on about something else, when the door flew open with a bang, the hinges screaming bloody murder as Angela rushed in like a racehorse who had just seen the glue factory.
“Bertie! Bertie! Tell mama, tell her!”
She had a purple tinge in her face, puffed up and steaming as she pointed an accusing finger at Aunt Dahlia, who stood in the doorway with crossed arms.
“Angela, there is no point in making such a fuss.” My aunt would hardly be stirred by her daughter’s frantic tears, but as I was her dearest cousin (and at the end of my tether), I was shaken to the foundation garments.
“What is it? Did Bonzo break your window again?”
As if on cue, the little blot bounded in, skipping like a lark on the wing and grinning so wide it nearly met at the back. Not exactly the countenance of a criminal on the run.
“Maybe he has given up on loving you!” he mocked, poking Angela in the ribs and darting away when she swung at him.
She let out another scorned cry, dropping on top of Maddie’s legs and smacking the arm of the sofa as if the poor thing had incited her misery.
“Just what the devil is happening?” I asked, gaping at Aunt D and Angela but finding no answers forthcoming.
It was only Maddie, trying her best to run a soothing hand along Angela’s back, who finally enlightened me.
“She and Mr Glossop can’t afford to be married.”
From Angela’s ghastly wail, I supposed she thought this a tragedy of inhuman proportions, but it hardly made me even quiver. I mean, Tuppy wasn’t exactly in the Market Square begging for bread or nosing tobacco out of stolen pipes, so he couldn’t be that hard up. I made as much clear to the room, and Dahlia boomed an agreement.
“He hasn’t enough to marry on, that pie-faced wambler, but if he and Angela simply wait a few years–”
“How can you torment me so?” Angela wiped her teary eyes on her sleeves. “I wish to be wed now!”
“Well, if that fiancé of yours can hook a thousand pounds from the pond, then do let me know and I shall order a silver fish slice.”
My cousin huffed and puffed like she was ready to devour us mere humans for sustenance. “Bertie! Do something!”
“...And what would that something be?”
She sat for a moment, clearly wracking the little grey cells for some miraculous way I could summon gold coins from the sky, but gave the matter up as fruitless and bootless. With one last scoff she stormed out, dislodging an awful lot of dust as the sound of her stomping feet ricocheted off the floorboards. Oh, how I missed the days of gentle childhood.
We remaining few sat in quizzical mood, waiting for the bravest soul to bare their opinion first. Obviously it was Aunt Dahlia.
“Maybe, with enough time, she won’t want to marry that congenital idiot.”
“Why is she blaming us?” I scratched the old lemon. “Hardly our fault Tuppy’s missing a few bob.”
“No,” Aunt D said, “it’s Runkles.”
“Oh. Does that come with the rash or the bumps?”
“Nothing of the sort, my dearest worm, he’s a man. And a cruel one at that. There’s a whole legal battle going on between the Glossops and this Runkle, about a patent of all things, but the nub of it is that Tuppy’s been left with half a penny, and Runkle has gone on flourishing like a green bay tree.”
I had never seen a green bay tree, and neither had Madeline, judging by her furrowed brow, but I gathered what she meant. Unfortunate for the two lovebirds, of course; a lack of dough isn’t exactly helpful in stoking that holy flame.
“He sounds like a stinker.”
“A stinker supreme, Bertie.”
“And there isn’t anything to be done about it?”
Dahlia batted the idea away. “The mercenary brute lives miles away – somewhere in Derbyshire, I think. Lord knows I have a very poor opinion of young men who live in Derbyshire.”
Having said her piece, she left with a wallop against the aged floor, a loud reminder to her daughter of just who is in charge of this house, and disappeared to discuss dinner with the cherished Anatole. I, strong in the knowledge that I would delight in whatever it was he plated, lingered on, plunged into thought.
Extraordinary how I was always doing that as of late. It just showed what life was like now, all these molehills revealing themselves as Mt. Vesuvius. Really pushes the boundaries of what a fellow can stand.
I need scarcely say that Angela’s hard case had gotten right in amongst me. You might not suppose that a chap capable of betting you that you couldn’t clamber across the river via the logs before stealing the last log back deserved such consideration, but as I say, it was not so much his plight as that of my dear cousin. He really oughtn’t have gone and signed Angela up with his bank balance in such a rocky condition, but love is love. Conquers all, as the fellow said, and that must include good judgement.
[]
I always find when musing that the thing to do is bury the face in the hands, because it seems to keep the mind from wandering off into the night. I was at this now, having retired to bed after many long hours of tense silences from Angela and unmastered glee from Aunt D, and was getting along quite well, even if I couldn’t put my case and its contents from my thoughts entirely.
The idea of Tuppy and Angela hanging around and twiddling their thumbs for a short time, while saving up for married life, sounded like a good thing that wanted pushing along. I mean, in an ideal world, Angela would realise just what kind of blighter she’d written into her dance card forever and hastily scribble him out, but we do not live in such a w. No, they were quite made for each other, in the way that a flint and steel are; fine for them, catastrophic for everyone else.
Thus, as a man in possession of a good fortune and no such want of a wife, I decided that dipping a touch into the Wooster inheritance and offering it to Angela would be the kind of thing that would please her to no end. After letting her thresh it all out for a while, obviously – it would be better for all involved if she and Tuppy regained some natural degree of sense in the waiting period, and hopefully scrimped enough for a decent living, before I burst in with the cash in hand. You can lead a horse to water, but you don’t want to look in its mouth, if that’s how the saying goes.
I was still in the mood of meditation, hands blocking out the light from my sole candle, when I suddenly had the uncanny feeling that I was not alone. There aren’t a great many people who can surprise me like that within the confines of Brinkley Court, so I removed my paws and looked over at my visitor. It was a sole Madeline.
Not bothering to rise courteously, I let Maddie tuck herself into my bed with a look of tender pity on her map, as if letting me strain myself so far to thinking was too much for her sisterly concern.
“Do not worry yourself about my dear problems,” she whispered. “You must be happy, happy, happy, just as I am.”
“Euphoria.”
“I what?”
“That’s what the feeling is called, silly.”
“Oh?” Her surprise died quickly. She faded into a long sigh, turning over to stare at the wall over my shoulder. “You must learn to dream like I do, Bertie. Sometimes I dream that Mr Fink-Nottle and I are walking in the woods, and the primroses are out, sometimes he comes riding up to the door on a white horse. Sometimes we’re dancing, waltzing, and I feel as if it will go on forever. I even dream of those darling newts of his; it lightens the truth, that he is little more than a fragrant memory.”
The agony of her spirit was clear to see. She said nothing more, rolling away as if to dip into sleep for these beautiful dreams of hers, and I returned to my musing once more. Perhaps I could allow myself to dream, if that was the only thing I had left.
[]
Brinkley Court was in a fairly reduced sort of state, its inmates occupying themselves with little more than moping and staring forlornly at silver all day, until the arrival of another branch of the family tree whipped us all into some sort of put-together shape. Said branch was none other than my Uncle George and his wife: the type of loud, infectious-like-chicken-pox personalities that our home was currently lacking.
This bulging relative has been one of the recognised eyesores of London; you needn’t travel there yourself, he will inform you of that fact soon enough. A prominent clubman, with the grey topper and arm never far from a glass of the good stuff – and Maud, his wife that is, is more than familiar with this lifestyle, having been a barmaid in a past life. I dare say that explains why he only ever visits us in the country and never the Grey Gargoyle.
They were taking refuge in our domain on a whistle-stop tour of England, apparently having soaked up all the glories of London over many decades and now setting out to discover just why everyone makes such a fuss about the countryside.
It was here, as I was trying to avoid the weight of woe lingering inside the walls, that Uncle George extended an invitation of unexpected happiness.
“You are welcome to join us, Bertie – the fresh air will do you good, and the Peak District is a fair distance away from your cousin’s engagement.”
You know, no scheme could have been more agreeable to me. Time heals all wounds, and what better way to spend that time than hundreds of miles away from the fatheads who caused all my problems?
“Sounds like just the ticket, thank you! What are men to rocks and mountains?”
George and Maud laughed, not sensing that I was speaking of a fundamental truth.
“Take care, that savours strongly of bitterness,” Maud said.
“Yes, well, if you knew a fellow like Tuppy Glossop as I do, you would be sick of them all too.”
I kept my eyes low, picking at a thread on my sleeve. It was perhaps paltering with the truth to put all the blame on Tuppy Glossop, but my other objections were hardly fit for polite consumption. A sticky business, you understand.
Uncle George choked down the rest of his drink, chuckling heartily. “You are a man, are you not?”
I simply shrugged. “One of fate’s funny little happenstances.”
Our tour commenced swiftly, just a few days later. We left Brinkley a stricken home, with hearts bleeding wherever you looked, and my enjoyment was certain to be found away. Angela was happy to see the back of me, of course. I mean, she would’ve been dancing through the halls had any of the family evacuated, what with our cruel refusals to magically fix all her problems, and hopefully by the time I returned she might be restored to her usual reasonable self, as to not mention her fiancé above once a day.
I won’t bore you with a description of our journey across England – there were a lot of birds and trees and great open spaces, if that gives you an image. As a general rule, my idea of a large afternoon is not gaping wildly at titanic country estates; I find it gives me an ache in my neck. But since George and Maud reside solely within the townhouses and smoggy streets of the metropolis, I sank my prejudices on this occasion and rolled up, taking in the residences of antique families and all the principal wonders of the country.
But the blow always falls when you least expect it. That’s just the way of it.
“Where the devil are we? I mean, I know we’re in this field, but where actually are we on the map?”
I sat against a tree, surveying the ferns and emerald hills with considerable curiosity. It seemed quite likely that Uncle George hadn’t the foggiest where we were either, based on his pointed frown, squinting around as if the birds might sing out the answer to him.
Maud came to our rescue. “I believe we are quite close to Berkeley.”
It struck me like a blunt instrument. “Mr Jeeves’s home?”
“That’s the fellow. I have a hankering to see it – it boasts some of the finest woods in the country.”
“Oh, let’s not!”
I had blundered once again. My aunt and uncle turned to me with a look as if a second head had sprung from the back of my neck and started chattering. Already, there was a blush running up my neck. The possibility of running into the finely chiselled Mr Jeeves while viewing the place made me feel a bit like the horizon had flipped upside down.
“He’s so– I’d really rather not, he’s so– what I’m working round to is that he’s–” I waved my hands, grasping for a stain upon his character. “…He’s so rich.”
They did not warm to my theme; in fact, they actually cackled.
“By heavens, Bertie! What a snob you are,” George clapped his knee. “The poor man can’t help it.”
A rather aggravating voice at the back of my noggin began reciting the letter. It was true, as I very well knew: it was not his fault he was so disarmingly charming as to win over a man’s entire fortune. Not that I thought he was charming, but I could see how others might, if you follow.
It wasn’t like he would even be at home anyway, great men never are. Take me, for example. That was my only reassurance, to imagine him licking his wounds in London with Mr Fink-Nottle and Miss Glossop. Unpleasant, but it was the only way to convince myself that the estate would be empty of any large heads. My objections to the scheme went poof into the air and to Berkeley, therefore, we were to go.
See, there, I wrote it, and with considerable ease. These kinds of things, I’m bound to say, are always much more comfortable to scribble with a nonchalant blink than to face in actuality. Like David and that chap Goliath – I’m sure it was all well and good for everyone to go round saying ‘oh, David is off to blow out the lights in that monster’s head, he shall be so courageous’ but when the time came, face to face with the eight foot tall Goliath and only a slingshot to his name, David was trembling like an aspen leaf. Legs that forget how to be legs, a stomach cartwheeling like a schoolboy hopped up on molasses, a lump the size of Stonehenge stuck in his throat, that general gist.
I don’t need to outline the effects of my perturbation as we drove along, waiting for the first sight of Berkeley woods. As I said before, I am quite a connoisseur of English country houses, and I dare say I had never seen a place for which nature had done more. Trees stretched as far as the eye could see, twisting branches towering into the blue sky cut only by a great lake, rippled by swans and gleaming in the afternoon light. When the natural beauty finally subsided, we were met with Berkeley Mansion: a handsome stone building with an abundance of windows and trees framing either side. To be the master of Berkeley might truly be something.
Our footsteps echoed against the marble tiles, all of us warm in our admiration as the shock of such opulence slowly abated. The housekeeper, a respectable-looking woman, brought us through the various rooms, each as topping as the last. Everything was lofty and handsome, the furniture suitable to the fortune of its proprietor: nothing too gaudy or uselessly fine, Mr Jeeves would never have that. It was all perfectly him, you know. Practical and elegant and just as capable of injuring me as he was, which is a preux way of saying I stubbed my toe on one of the table legs.
To think, I might have been familiarly acquainted with these rooms instead of strolling through them as a stranger. There was a fair bit of silver that Uncle Tom would lose his head over, and Maddie could have spent hours in the grounds, greeting every butterfly and daffodil till the sun set and rose again.
No, Mr Jeeves had given my family the raspberry; they wouldn't have been invited here at all. It was a lucky thing I recollected that; it saved me from something like regret.
We ambled into what must have been a gallery, stuffed with shining white statues and gold-framed paintings. I supposed Mr Jeeves must have fine taste, since he was always such a stickler about his clothing – not even a drop of mud on his trousers, to make reference. My aunt and uncle asked questions upon questions about the shiny frames and pale white statues, but I was struck by one painting above all the rest, a grand likeness of Mr Jeeves himself.
The roses returned to my cheeks. I was painted once, years and years ago, by someone who ought to have had their brushes repossessed and their eyesight seen to. They gave me a terribly hungry expression; Aunt D had boomed that I looked like a dog regarding a distant bone. In no way did it denote Soul, as a painting ought to, and I think we burned it for warmth that winter.
This was different. Very different. It was a perfect portrait, the brush strokes capturing the man himself with his becoming features and that certain glint in his eyes. Well, I tell a lie, it was not perfect. It lacked a thingness around the mouth, that twitch in his lips which always throws you off balance, the kind of half-smile I sometimes saw when he looked at me.
I hadn’t realised how long I’d stood, gaping at the painting, until the others popped back up at my side.
“Is it a true likeness?” Uncle George tilted his chin.
The housekeeper glanced over me. “Does the young man know Mr Jeeves?”
“Only a little.”
“He is a very handsome gentleman, is he not, sir?”
“...Yes,” I spoke without thinking, as is my custom. “I mean to say, he certainly cuts a striking figure, indeed.”
Somewhere beside me my aunt and uncle floated away, and I tried to listen to their conversation while unable to draw myself from the portrait.
“Is your master much at Berkeley?”
“Not so much as I could wish, sir; but I daresay he may spend half his time here with his niece.”
“If your master would marry, you might see more of him.”
“Yes, sir, but I do not know when that will be. I do not know who is good enough for him. There could not have been a more worthy heir and master to this estate, and no greater mind in England. He is ever so methodical in running the house, and never has there been an issue he has not swiftly dealt with.”
Well, I say! That he was a good-tempered man I did not wonder, and restrained most assuredly, but to hear such praise from another person cast him in an amiable light. The longer I stood before his portrait, the longer I burned with shame and remorse, as if he were standing there in the flesh, watching me with that quarter-raised eyebrow. I remembered his ardent regard, the feelings deeper and warmer than those of ordinary friendship, softening his bungled attempts at conveying them, and could no longer idle in front of the portrait. I was liable to start swooning like some maiden in one of Miss Banks’s novels, and I did not wish to dent my already precarious lemon on the stone floor.
At some point, my aunt and uncle disappeared and I was left to tour on my own, wading through the house like a thief on the prowl. And, heavens, was there a lot to steal if I had been so inclined. Each room brought a new delight, from antiques to art to philosophy books, and the overall effect was that of bolstering the Wooster spirits. Then, as I oiled into another parlour, I was arrested by a familiar sight.
It was that damned painting. The very one from the auction, that distant relic from the past. I almost doubted myself, but leaning closer, it could not fool me. It sat on a table, propped up on a vase of flowers as if just left there absently, awaiting further instructions. The stars – I traced a finger across the light flecks of paint, their great beauty still clamming me up. I smiled an indulgent smile, alone now. Mr Jeeves had every right to bring it home – he did buy it, after all – and there’s not a bean in Netherfield to admire it.
I carried on with my nosy poking, until a cheery melody floated in from another room: a light piano tune that took me in completely. It was hard not to stumble on my way to the door, as I listened with a view to attempting to memorise it, for it sounded like just the thing I should be playing at home.
Peering through a crack in the door, feeling a similar sensation to those Johnnies in my spine-tinglers, I spotted the musician guilty of this delightful music. Well, I spotted her back, anyway. She had long, dark hair, and was unbothered by my presence, presumably because I shouldn’t have been there in the first place. I would extricate myself in due time, I promised, and return to my family somewhere downstairs in this labyrinth of a house. Just after the song was done.
A shape blackened the horizon. Or rather, my view of the musician. She leaped from her stool, cutting the music off abruptly, to envelope this intruder in a hug, and, dash it, did I not know those broad shoulders far too well. I should have noted the dark clothing and the noggin that stuck out at the back and reacted accordingly, but everything is easier in retrospect. As it was, I couldn’t resist watching. His manner was all affection, the makings of a smile across his countenance as he lifted the girl and spun her in the air. I was utterly transfixed.
Of course, that’s when Fate biffed me on the beak and kicked me in the shins. Mr Jeeves saw me. His demeanour changed distinctly, and I did not stick around to let him catch me in the door.
I don’t think I’ve ever sprinted so fast in my life. I felt like a British fox being hunted by the Quorn and Pytchley, sliding down stairs and almost knocking over several marble statues on the way. I consider it miraculous that I didn’t just throw myself out the window and shimmy down the drain pipe, but that was only because I hadn’t the faintest how to get the rummy things open. Realistically I knew running away from him wouldn’t solve any problems, but I’d be deuced if I didn’t try.
Just as I tasted fresh air, mere steps away from the freedom of breaking the one hundred metre dash record down the drive, a voice called out my name. I was left without the option.
I slowed to a stop, trying to somewhat calm my breathing, and turned to face Mr Jeeves. Himself. Not the portrait.
My heart did a quick country dance at the sight of him, throwing off its burden of care. It was much harder to foster my resentment for him when he was standing right there, looking like a paragon of perfect civility. If I were him, I would’ve kicked me right out of the Berkeley doors.
When I had last met him, his air had been sober and downcast, but now he seemed genuinely immovable from surprise. The way he stood in silence for a mo. really underlined this, with the sunlight playing upon his finely chiselled features as if they really were chiselled from stone.
“Mr Wooster.” A solid start.
I suppose it was my turn to talk, as is only polite. I think I even told him that once. “I thought you were in the metrop.”
“No,” he said, hastily. It was almost a consolation that he appeared as mortified as I was.
Our eyes met, and I’m bound to say a frightful blush crept across my face. Suddenly the fraying hems of my sleeves were the most interesting thing I’d seen all year.
I cleared my throat. “We understood that all the family were away, we never would have presumed–”
“No, I returned early, sir.”
“Ah, right. Yes. Very good.”
Every word he uttered increased my embarrassment, for he was so altered since our last exchange. He hadn’t taken a single verbal swipe at me, or anything remotely like that. I saw him clearly and saw him whole: he was a man more sinned against than sinning, and it was only the Code of the Woosters that kept me from legging it back to the village like a two-year-old racehorse. I summoned all the courage I had to look back up at him, resolving to tie this all up in a neat bow and vanish forever.
“I’m in Derbyshire with my aunt and uncle, you know. Bit of a tour, and all that.”
He nodded. If I had to make a comparison, I would say he looked a bit like a dying duck, but devilishly handsome all the while, which made this all the more difficult and a pain in the proverbial.
Mr Jeeves gave a soft mountain sheep cough. “And are you having a pleasant trip, sir?”
“Splendid, yes. I’m feeling quite braced with everything in the country. Tomorrow we venture onward–”
“Tomorrow, sir?”
His lips parted, and I had to avert my gaze in absolute shame. My resolve was disappearing like a wispy trail of smoke. I mean to say, the thought creeps in that maybe, if one did but know, the Woosters are priceless asses to let themselves be ruled by a code that sticks them in rummy sitches like these. I simply nodded at him, incapable of speech.
He refused to stop staring at me. “Are Mr and Mrs Travers in good health, sir? Your sister and cousins?”
“Oh, yes, they’re all boomps-a-daisy. Bobbish, you could say. Thank you… for inquiring and… what have you.”
The stone floor was really a most riveting diversion. I don’t suppose many folks examine these sorts of things closely, but in present circs it was that or meet Mr Jeeves’s burning gaze. Maybe there was something in his assessment that I was ill-equipped in dealing with the Unusual Situation.
Mr Jeeves stepped closer to me, “May I see you back to the village, sir?”
“No! I mean–” I smiled. Or, I tried to. I can’t suggest it was a joyous expression, but I managed to catch a slight quirk in the corner of his mouth in reply. “I’m rather fond of walking.”
“Yes,” he said. “Yes, I know, sir.”
A short huff escaped me. “You employed that knowledge very well in the past, if I recall.”
The change was immediate. It was like he folded in upon himself, glancing away into the horizon and flexing his hand at his side.
“Sir, you must understand how sorry I am–”
Watching him, all regretful and awkward and downcast, I felt something within me sort of slip away. I think I still disliked him, or maybe I hoped I did, because dislike would be easier to face than whatever might be left when it was gone.
He finally stopped apologising, and I nodded. My hand itched around my collar, and at length every idea failed me. Good lord, his hair was even blowing in the wind, strands acting up and falling down his forehead as if to accentuate his dark eyes. I stood there goggling. He stood there staring. How long I goggled and he stared I couldn’t say, but it felt pretty considerable, and I was just starting to wonder if this mortifying exhibition would go on forever when Mr Jeeves suddenly recollected himself, nodding to me courteously and buzzing off.
Well, I could take a hint with the best of them, and I darted off with such vim that a greyhound would have struggled to match my pace. I was halfway to the end of the grounds in a lightning flash before I looked back, only to spot the darkened figure of Mr Jeeves hovering on the balcony. I prayed he was cloud-watching.
Why the hell had we come here at all? What a hideous fiend he must have thought I was! Here I was, a menace freely passed from his life, throwing myself in his way again – that he should even speak to me at all, never mind with such civility and inquiries about my family, left me weak.
I was hardly sensible of the walk back to our lodgings, storming through fields as the light passed and evening fell. By the time I arrived, the blush had yet to retreat from my cheeks, and the rotten spell of regret still lingered in my head. I entered into the dining hall, which was bright and merry, in which respect it differed substantially from Bertram Wooster. A cursory glance was all I was at leisure to bestow, as I had planned to throw myself into bed and never emerge again, but the first thing that caught my eye was none other than Mr Jeeves. That absolute blighter.
My soul sank. I wedged myself behind a wall, cursing the day I was born and every subsequent hour that had brought me to this precipice. How, and why, had he gotten here before me? Who even told him I was here? How callous, when Nature refuses to chip in and do its bit when a human heart is in the soup; the ground should have swallowed me up on my journey.
I waited for what seemed like forever, my nervous system on pins and needles, till I deemed it safe to peer around. I only sighted the back of him, thankfully, just as he made his goodbyes to my aunt and uncle. Seeing his face again might have done me in. Counting to thirty, and then to fifty for good measure, I stepped out into the bustle of the diners, sallying up to my flesh and blood’s table with a raised eyebrow.
“Bertie!” Uncle George cried. “We’ve just met Mr Jeeves! He was very civil, was he not, Maud?”
“Very civil. How came you to tell us he was so disagreeable?”
“He invited us to visit him tomorrow!”
My eyes widened. “What? I mean, what?”
“You don’t mind delaying our journey another day, do you? There’s something pleasant about his mouth when he speaks. I really should not have thought that he could have behaved in so cruel a way to anybody – he said he particularly wants you to meet his niece.”
“His niece?”
Dash it all. I could make nothing of this. The rest of the evening passed in a sticky silence from yours truly, and dinner turned to ashes in my mouth. Though I gave myself up to meditation all night, I knew not whether to look to tomorrow with bright anticipation, or cut my losses and disappear into the Derbyshire hills to live as a shepherd.
[]
I’m not absolutely certain of my facts, but I believe it was a rather brainy bird who said that it’s always just when a fellow is feeling particularly braced with things in general that Fate sneaks up behind him with a bit of lead piping.
I would like to dispute this. In my experience, Fate does not wait until you’re at the peak; it can and will strike you down like a bolt of lightning at any time. Take, for instance, this Berkeley Mansion business. I was already mixed up in one of the scaliest affairs of my entire life, and instead of letting me pass through, Fate was dragging me back by my ears and dropping me at Mr Jeeves’s feet.
My aunt and uncle were all amazement at being invited back, and I admit, I too puzzled over it. This time, I took no joy from the beautiful nature during the drive to Berkeley, commiserating instead with those prisoners on their final steps to the gallows. The swans darting about the wide lake lurked like bad omens, if such things exist. I mean, swans are embodiments of evil – perhaps being tucked away inside the walls was safer after all.
We were escorted into the parlour where I had guiltily eavesdropped the day before, self feeling terribly out of place amongst all the richness in my scruffy blue waistcoat, where we met the residents of Berkeley Mansion. Mr Jeeves looked as tanned and fit as ever, his eyebrow raising almost imperceptibly at our arrival. Beside him stood who I could only assume was Miss Mabel, the famous niece. She smiled brightly, and if it weren’t for all the physical similarities, one would never have guessed her relation to Mr Jeeves, so different were they in manner. Though she appeared to be younger than me by a good few years, her head skimmed Mr Jeeves’s shoulder, and I somehow knew that Miss Glossop was out there cursing up a storm at the girl’s height.
“Mr Wooster!” she grinned. “My uncle has told me so much about you, I feel as if we are friends already.”
“Much obliged, really.” Her giddiness readily infected me, and I smiled at her. “What a beautiful pianoforte.”
I pointed the instrument out, as if this wasn’t their house and it might have snuck up on them.
“Oh, thank you! My uncle gave it to me, but he shouldn’t have.”
“Yes, I should have,” Mr Jeeves said.
Of course he did. The letter rang in my head again; the novelty had not yet worn off, or something to that tune. I saw him quite clearly now. Mr Jeeves gave gifts where he could not use words. My hand pressed against my collar, and I could not help but grin at him.
“Your uncle,” I said, ostensibly to Miss Mabel but leaning closer to Mr Jeeves, “once had to put up with my playing for a whole evening. That he did not wince was… What’s the word I want?”
Mr Jeeves helped me without a spare breath. “Incredible would do, sir.”
“Yes, incredible, that’s it.”
Miss Mabel frowned at us, “But he says you play so well!”
It was my turn to raise the eyebrow. “I hope you do not spread that to others, what?”
A delightful colour spread across Mr Jeeves’s countenance, and he looked to his niece. “I said you played quite well, sir.”
He did not say it with any conviction, but I beamed at him nonetheless. “Oh, quite well is not very well. I’m satisfied.”
“That is what I endeavour to achieve, sir,” he said, the corner of his lip twitching that magnificent touch.
We fell quiet, and I did everything I could to memorise his smile, doubting I would ever come to see it again, much less inspire it. I certainly did not hate him; no, hatred had gone p’fft long ago, and I was now too ashamed to even dislike him. It was a fool’s endeavour to do anything more than grin at him.
Miss Mabel gave a quiet cough, making me wonder if it didn’t run in the family, and I blinked to awareness like a startled deer. Mr Jeeves swept around, averting his eyes from me to my uncle.
“May I ask you to accompany me to the lake, sir? It is well stocked, and its occupants left in peace for too long.”
My uncle hadn’t been fishing a day in his life, unless he’d started wading in the Thames for broken bottles and pennies. “I would be delighted.”
Before the dread of having to sit for hours on end with Mr Jeeves and fish could swallow me whole, Miss Mabel leaped in with my saving grace. “Do you play duets, Mr Wooster?”
“Not as often as I should like.”
“Then you must teach me some, if you are as good a player as my uncle thinks.”
Funny, that. I really hadn’t a clue what her uncle thought, but I really wanted to figure it out.
[]
As it turns out, the things you think are going to be irredeemably blue around the edges nearly always come out not so bad after all.
Miss Mabel was the most perfect company. Having been snootered from infancy upwards by my own aunts and uncles, I liked to see that it is possible for these relatives to have a better and softer side, and Miss Mabel was a fine example of that effect. Upon my word, I cannot give you a better idea of the improving effect of her amiable conversation than by saying she had absolutely made me forget for the moment that Mr Jeeves existed.
We played for hours, to the raucous applause of my Aunt Maud and the housekeeper, all the while Mr Jeeves and Uncle George fished; out of sight, out of mind, as they say. The best of the afternoon passed as we played through every sheet she owned and every tune we remembered, and by the time I had taught her a few songs from the old noggin, Maud thought it was about time we paid tribute to the garden.
In fairness, with the arrival of spring and all that, the afternoon had grown somewhat hot, and the air inside the house had taken on a stuffiness that would force even the laziest young devils out into the bright light. But though Nature smiled, there was no disposition on the part of Bertram to follow its example. When you’re faced with the sort of ordeal I was faced with, there is but little satisfaction to be derived from the thought that you’ve got a nice day for it.
When we located the two men from the swish of their fishing lines, I could tell with one glance that Uncle George was positively bungling it all up, to put it lightly. I’m not sure he wasn’t holding the damn thing upside down, but that wasn’t an issue because he hadn’t a bob to reel in. He would have had more chance of hooking one of the swans that were floating about than anything remotely aquatic.
Mr Jeeves had no such trouble. I won’t say I ogled him, because far be it from me to insult the poor fellow like that, but I did indulge in some light staring at his fine form. His strong arms and calm features and steady stance – it all gave the suggestion of a Viking strain in the blood, a yearning for salty breezes. It seemed cruel that he should be trapped in England, as if waiting for someone to release him.
I loosened my collar a touch as we approached, and Uncle George met us with a grateful smile, eager to leave his trials and tribulations in the fishing arena behind him. He and Maud must have said something or other, but my attention was all on Mr Jeeves, who stared as if transfixed at the base of my neck.
“A lovely day, isn’t it?” I said, uncertain as to whether Mr Jeeves would meet my eye or not.
He did not. His gaze did not flinch in the slightest.
Miss Mabel looked back and forth between us, eyebrows raised in that distinctly Jeevesian manner, and brought us back to safety. “There is tea waiting inside, if you care to join us.”
My aunt and uncle gave a hearty affirmative, and started the expedition back to the house, and Miss Mabel and I followed behind, assuming Mr Jeeves would catch up after he finished his fishing or whatnot. When twenty minutes passed and he had yet to blot the horizon for tea, the rest of us tutted in concern.
“Someone ought to fetch him!” Miss Mabel fretted. “He may have lost track of time, he does that when he fishes.”
I did not leap at the chance, what with my hideous predicament and all that, but Miss Mabel directed such pleading eyes at me, and not even a fire under their chairs could have encouraged my aunt and uncle up, so it was with dragging heels that I stomped back into the sun and grass.
The lake was still and empty. Which was odd, considering there was supposed to be a chap around here somewhere. I waited on the bank, where all of the fishing equipment had been left abandoned, and supposed that Mr Jeeves might have walked back to Berkeley Mansion some other way, perhaps to avoid his visitors – only just then, at the very instant when I was ready to shrug and walk off, there was a hissing noise like a hot kettle forgotten over a fire, and out of the reeds there popped something so large and white and active that, thinking quicker than I have ever done in my puff, I dodged to the side, almost crashing into the lake.
There it was: the largest and shortest-tempered swan I had ever seen, lunging at my heels with a snap and a hiss. I scrambled and struggled, a yelp of distress drowned out by another heinous hoot, but try as I did to back away, my efforts were rendered bootless as the swan extended another eight feet of neck and gave an imitation of a particularly creaky bridge on the verge of collapse. It would be deceiving my public if I said I faced it with any strong conviction. I let out a few anxious squeaks of my own, and I hadn’t managed to retreat very far when I rolled over my ankle and hit the ground with a sharp smack.
The swan stabbed closer, its curved eyebrows giving it a peevish look, and I made the easy assumption that this would be my end: bitten in the neck by an annoyed swan - and in Derbyshire, of all places. Fate has a wicked sense of humour. Just as I was about to lie back and give it all up, hope dawned once more. There was a hero in the offing. Or, rather, in the lake.
A godlike man, tall and dark and impressive, in only a white shirt and trousers that clung to his bronzed skin, emerged from the bank, giving even the swan pause. He grabbed his removed coat and then, judging the distance to a nicety, shoved the coat over the bird’s head; and, with the fishing rod, heaved the swan back into the reeds. It scrambled and beat its wings, too confused and too sore to have at me again, and I was left breathless on the grass, looking up at Mr Jeeves like a damsel in distress. Well, if the shoe fits.
“Sir?” He said, his usual respectful voice laced with concern.
“Good lord.” I was too dazzled to say much else. No man possessed with whatever this was could be master of his actions.
Mr Jeeves knelt down, wrapping his arms around me to lift me onto my feet again. The feeling of his hands upon my person almost distracted me from the pain in my ankle, but he caught my soft wince anyway.
“You are seriously injured, sir.”
“I’m perfectly fine, Mr Jeeves. That swan just gave me a fright, my hair is standing on end like quills upon the fretful whatchamacallit.”
His eyes narrowed, and he stilled for a moment before pressing me closer, practically carrying me against his side. “Porpentine.”
“Porpentine? That can’t be right.”
We hadn’t moved and now my hand was pinned to his chest, only a flimsy cloth between my skin and his. Despite the dampness, he radiated warmth, and the colour slowly rising in his cheeks affirmed this. Mr Jeeves nodded and his gaze flicked down for a second, meeting my eyes again with a certain thingness. My mortification increased as he helped me hobble across the grass, his hold a constant reminder of his immense strength, and I decided to let the porpentine issue pass in light of a more pressing concern.
“Whatever were you doing in the lake, Mr Jeeves?”
I heard his breath catch, as his hair curled and water dripped down along his finely chiselled face. “...I was cooling off, sir. I believed you had all gone for tea.”
“Oh, we had, but your niece was worried about your absence.”
I hoped his cooling off took effect soon, because right now all I could feel was an all encompassing heat. I couldn’t have been more of a fiend if I’d tried, interrupting Mr Jeeves’s day like that because I lacked the presence of mind to fend off a bird by myself. Whatever could he think of me?
My ankle gave a pang, and Mr Jeeves halted, bracing me even closer to him to ensure I didn’t fall.
“Are you sure it’s porpentine?” I asked.
He gave a scoff, and I thought this might be the closest he could get to a bark of laughter, and turned his head to me. “Yes, sir. I have been reading my Shakespeare studiously.”
He was only a few inches from me, so close I could see the soft lines around his eyes and the droplets pooling on his nose. I wanted to reach out and wipe them away. I don’t know what came over me, but I did. His eyes fluttered shut, and when he opened them a moment later I smiled.
“The chain,” he suddenly said, as if shaking himself out of a daydream.
“What? What chain?”
Mr Jeeves directed a meaningful glance at my neck, where my collar sat undone and rumpled. “The one you are wearing. I noticed it earlier – is it–”
Ah. Well. I suppose I haven’t yet revealed all in this entry. The blush of shame mantled my cheeks, and I knew it would do no good to lie. It was the silver locket. Of course it was. When I was packing for the trip I hadn’t the faintest what to do with it. Simply bringing it in my case seemed too irrational even for me, and for whatever reason I could not bear to leave it behind, hidden at the back of a drawer like some atrocious secret, so the only solution that presented itself was to wear it. It made perfect sense.
I bunched Mr Jeeves’s shirt between my fingers, fighting the urge to run off and drown myself in the lake, ankle be damned. “It was a very kind gift.”
His lips twitched. “I see, sir.”
I doubt he did, because I myself didn’t. I remember once saying something about a heap of foul deeds, and if you conjure that image in your mind again, add another heap right next to it, towering over to the point of toppling, of gratitude. Gratitude not merely for Mr Jeeves having once loved me, if that's what it was, but for loving me still well enough to forgive the petulant manner in which I had ticked him off in rejection. He, who I had been convinced would avoid me as his greatest enemy, was now half-carrying me back to his house after rescuing me from a bally vicious swan. Befuddled was not the word for it.
Mr Jeeves reached, slowly, and tucked the locket carefully under my collar, ensuring it was entirely covered. His hands were wet, and yet they burned as they brushed my collarbone. No doubt he could feel my heart beating uninhibited under his fingertips. I had to think of something to say before my own shame poisoned me.
“You have a very lovely garden. Lots of… plants and things.”
To my astonishment, his shoulders rolled back and widened further, giving me the approximation of a smile before slinking an arm around my waist to help me on our hobble again. “Thank you, sir. I always feel that nothing is so soothing as a walk in a garden. The cool air, the scent of growing things, the vibrant colours.”
“I won a prize for my wildflower collection at school, you know.”
“Indeed, sir?”
“I worked rather hard at it, which was a surprise to most. It was the last summer I ever spent at Aunt Agatha’s, so it wasn’t as if I had much else to do – she wouldn’t let Madeline stay with her, so you can imagine how miserable I was, what?”
Mr Jeeves’s hold tightened. “I did not know your aunt felt in such a way, sir.”
I hummed, trying not to lean into him an indecent amount. “It matters not nowadays. Maddie is much more fond of the flowers that bloom in the fields around Brinkley, she visits them every day to say good morning to them all.”
“You are welcome to gather as many flowers as you like from our gardens for your sister, sir.”
I breathed deeply. Gratitude, gratitude, gratitude. I might have suffocated on it. “Awful good of you, Mr Jeeves.”
“I trust your sister is well? And Miss Travers?”
His innocent question caused me to leap perhaps five feet in the air, landing roughly with a hiss – the conundrum of Angela and Tuppy had slipped my mind completely.
“Angela is engaged to Tuppy Glossop.”
“My congratulations, sir.”
“Take them back.”
“If you wish it.”
“Expunge all such joy from your mind. They haven’t even enough to marry on, but if you’ve gathered anything about my cousin from your… assessment, shall we say, then you’ll know she isn’t one to give up without a fight. She latches on with teeth, if you follow.”
Mr Jeeves’s eyes sparkled. “It is the psychology of the individual, sir.”
“As you say. Though, I’m not certain about one thing.”
“Sir?” The corners of his lips turned down.
“Is it porpentine? Most definitely?”
There. He smiled again. I could understand how a man could be so vain, when he looked so eternally radiant.
“You may come, sir, to the library and check for yourself.”
“Very good, we shall settle this matter at once.”
We finally made it to the steps of the house, and when the others twigged my feeble condition, our little peace was shattered. It was touching, I admit, to have my smallish ailment be such a cause for concern, but I couldn’t help regretting it when Mr Jeeves let go, proceeding to run a hand through his dishevelled hair and hover on the edges of the scene as my uncle helped me to a sofa.
“Leave me here for a moment’s rest,” I said to the wall of furrowed brows surrounding me. “Enjoy the remains of your tea, I will join you in two shakes of a lamb’s tail.”
Miss Mabel nodded, if hesitantly. “Do call if you need anything at all, Mr Wooster.”
“I appreciate your consideration, and am much obliged.”
They shimmered out, Mr Jeeves the last to go. He looked back at me with a thingness in his eyes, before oiling away without so much as a sound.
My brain was liable at any moment to melt into a syrup. I respected, I esteemed, I was grateful to him, I felt a real interest in his welfare; and I only wanted to know how far I wished for that welfare to depend upon me. It was abominably selfish, you don’t have to tell me so, but the memory of his skin through the nearly translucent shirt, the smile that ghosted across his handsome features, his high esteem among everyone except, until recently, myself – it was enough to drive anyone mad.
I deflated on the sofa and slid to the floor like a corpse. My breathing remained frantic, as if I had just sprinted four miles instead of clinging to the side of a much stronger man, and I fought with such anxious energy against the buttons on my vest that they flew off as I ripped it open. Even with my vest undone and shirt exposed, my chest heaved like all the air had floated away from me.
I did what I always do, pressing my hands against my eyes to muse and letting out a long, tiresome sigh. Meditating for a few minutes on Mr Jeeves, his gentlemanly manner, our constant meetings, and the absolute mess of something that I felt for him in my heart brought me to one, sole conclusion:
Shakespeare had written porpentine. It was my mistake.