Work Text:
Interruption
Bump in the night -or- In medias res and all that
A terrible crash sounded and Bertram thought he heard the sound of wood splintering. The willowy form sprang up, tangled itself in the dressing gown and collapsed onto the broken wrist. Bertram stifled a cry of agony as what seemed like a sea of bluebottles flooded the sleeping chamber. “Stay right where you are!”
Aunt Agatha loomed in the doorway. “Don’t worry, Bertie, this will all be dealt with immediately.” The auntly jaw dropped as she took in Wooster on the floor, pale and gasping in pain like a stunned goldfish. “What are you doing? Get up! We’ve come to take Jeeves.”
“Ah, whatsit?” Thankfully, Aunt Dahlia came in right afterwards, and swatted Aunt A. with her bag. They commenced to bellowing like mastodons as aunts will do, although this time favoring the Wooster bedchamber rather than the sitting room at Steeple Bumpleigh as a replacement for a primeval swamp. The swatting was novel, and arrested the attention of all the bystanders, which appeared to be legion, that had flooded the Wooster domicile.
“Agatha! Whatever are you doing?”
Aunt A. drew herself up and flailed, setting at Aunt D. with her more substantial reticule and an impressive arm. The older set never let their guard down like this in front of my own generation, and the Wooster jaw flapped in shock. The spectacle would have been most enjoyable had I not perceived the form of Sir Roderick Glossop, scolding the police from the bedroom. “We must get that man away from Bertie!” Aunt Agatha cried, getting in a neat shot that sent Aunt D howling.
Bertram elected to join the quorum and entered the fray at this juncture, stepping between the aunts and being pelted mercilessly on both sides. “No, dash it! We will not take away Jeeves. Jeeves stays and that is final.”
By this time Aunt D. had inserted Bertram into the dressing gown between delivering blows to the weedier aunt, and I sloped out into the drawing room to see that the sea of bluebottles had resolved into two officers, who had been relegated to the entryway and were shuffling their feet in embarrassment. Sir Roderick Glossop was eyeing the destruction, as the officers had smashed a side table in addition to the door, with a stern, er, gaze. Meanwhile, Biffy Biffen and Stilton Cheesewright had collected at the threshold and were peering in from the hallway, Mr. Jarvis hopping up behind them brandishing a key.
Jeeves emerged from the kitchen door and it occurred to me to wonder what had slowed him, when I spied a lovely beazel in a flimsy dress clinging to him like a limpet and weeping like the full cast of the Trojan Women. The Wooster heart shattered and a sort of stifled howl burst forth from the lips before I realized that the b. in a f.d. and clinging like a l. was in fact his niece, Mabel. She must have come to talk him out of working for me, as was her custom after taking in a couple of hours of the latest efforts of the musical comedy world with her husband Biffy Biffen.
In the beginning, -or- Pre-midnight invasion
I was in the kitchen with my niece, Mabel Biffen, having a cozy chat over hot tea and toast with marmalade, her childhood favorite. She had returned from a theater evening and was waiting to meet her husband, who had stopped into the Drones Club, he thought to meet Mr. Wooster. However, Mr. Wooster had taken a soothing mixture and gone to sleep early against the pain in his arm, which had become severe during this stage of healing. His sleep had been much disturbed and the worry over that and more personal matters had also impeded my rest.
We had reached the point in the evening when Mabel scolded me for remaining in Mr. Wooster’s employ. “Biffy’s uncle offered you that good job as a bookkeeper. And you could marry and have a family.” I had forborne to tell her of a similar offer from Lord Chuffnell. Much as I like and respect Lord Chuffnell and the Messrs. Biffen, however, my place is at Mr. Wooster’s side.
“My dear Mabel, I do not expect you to understand…” I hardly understood myself. As Mr. Wooster’s arm had begun to heal, my own feelings became increasingly unsettled and I had struggled with my desire for him. I did not want a connection of obligation or convenience to endanger our cozy bachelor arrangements. I held strict views about appropriate behavior and could hardly forgive myself for breaching propriety when he was so badly hurt.
“He is a lovely gentleman, Uncle Reg.” Tears rose in her eyes. “But you look so worn and tired….”
I took Mabel’s hand. “Darling, I will never speak to you of this again. However, to put your mind at rest, please listen. Last year, my salary and tips in Mr. Wooster’s service, amounted to nearly three hundred pounds.”
“Then you should have saved more than enough to set yourself up in business.”
“My dear Mabel, I am content. Please believe me.”
“Then why do you look so exhausted?”
I was just opening my mouth to explain, when someone broke down the front door.
Medias beginning, no, dash it, primus res… er ab initio, that’s the prawn…
Three weeks had passed since Bertram had visited Brinkley Court. The wrist had been broken and Aunt Dahlia told Jeeves she was dying and paid him some immense sum to stay with me. Bally awful. The wrist still ached dreadfully, and no word had been had from the aged r. Uncle Tom said she seemed calmer at the New Year and that likely she would see Wooster in another week or two. All-in-all not the most oofa-cum-spiff situation.
And then there was Jeeves. He’d been dashed tender and affectionate, staying in the bed with the young master for some days, but left off after I’d slept through the night. I’d been trying to build up the nerve to speak to him about it, but the wrist had been bally aching and the very night I’d started in, Mabel Biffen stopped by and interrupted us. Jeeves had poured me a soothing mixture and Bertram had bedded down, hopeful of having some peace to speak to him the next morning.
Back to the medias medias, er, the middle, that is, I say, what?
Aunt Dahlia was fit to be tied. She shoved Wooster aside roughly, bashing the injured arm against a wall. The aged r. continued whacking Aunt Agatha with her bag about the head and neck, and then resorting to a rolled up copy of Milady’s Boudoir, heedless of Biffy and Stilton and Mabel, who were milling about and trying to make small talk during the oompus boompus. Stilton spoke a few quiet words to the bluebottles and they clumped out under Jarvis’s watchful eye. Aunt A. had backed into the dining room under the onslaught, and Sir Roderick had to step between the aunts when Aunt D. gave M’s B. up as too gentle and took up Mrs Beeton’s Household Management, a hefty volume if ever there was one.
“Dash it, Agatha! I gave Jeeves the money, you prat! Now stop it. Stop it at once.” Sir Roderick slid the doors closed, then poked his head out and called to Jeeves. The loony doctor gave me a hearty wink and slipped Jeeves what looked like a fiver. Jeeves shimmered off somewhere, while Stilton accepted my offer of some refreshment and started bunging up brandy and sodas.
“Is that wrist broken?” he asked. I replied in the affirmative. “Have you a spare sash or a tie?” We ankled to the bedroom and he helped me fashion a sort of sling while I tended the hair. “They ache terribly about three weeks in.” He regaled me with some tale of twisting a wrist while we were at Eton. Biffy tried to pour oil on his wife Mabel, as she wept and insisted that they take ‘Uncle Reggie’ home immediately.
Jeeves shimmered back in with Jarvis and a burly fellow equipped with some boards. “We will effect a temporary repair until the door can be replaced tomorrow, sir.”
“Ah, very good Jeeves.” The b. f. started to clip things to other things while Jeeves had a quiet conference with Mabel. The Biffens felt it was a good time to ooze off, and D’Arcy accompanied them. Sir Roderick called me into the dining room.
Bellowing mastodons and loony doctors
Aunt A. is not the easiest soul to sway. Beating with weekly magazines for ladies of refinement did not move her an inch. “I still believe he has untoward intentions for my nephew.”
“Dash it, Agatha. The fellow cannot help looking like that awful jilt.” Aunt A. froze and Aunt D. continued. Sir Roderick concurred or whatsit, then produced a photo of a man who looked awfully like Jeeves. Apparently he had j-ed Aunt A and one of her friends when she was a young slip of a thing.
Wooster could not keep track of the ins and outs of it, but apparently the A’s and Sir Roderick had been at an entertainment of some sort when Aunt Agatha, taking after her husband, had suddenly looked at a midnight supper, shouted about eggs and dashed off to call the constabulary. The news of Aunt D. dying had totally unhinged the broken-glass eater and she had set off to protect me, her favorite nephew. Apparently, she felt that Aunt Dahlia was the only earthly force capable of keeping Jeeves under control. In the end, Aunt A agreed not to try to have Jeeves arrested ever again and to check into Sir Roderick’s clinic for some weeks in order to rest her nerves. The loony doctor took Aunt A. by the arm and exited, leaving Bertram face-to-face with the dying aunt.
“Bountiful boy, I must apologize.”
I confess to being confused. The aged r had taken time from her busy schedule of shuffling off the coil to defend the favorite nephew. “Ah, why?”
“I am not dying. It was a false alarm. I could kill that idiot physician. Tom was shaken to the core, and Agatha has turned round the bend.”
Bertram nearly collapsed in relief. “Good! That's as well, then.”
She patted the shoulder kindly, sending waves of pain through the corpus. “Tell Jeeves he can keep the money.”
The last of the Woosters cradled the injured limb. “Very well. But I mean to say, what did you intend by all this…”
A kind patient look suffused the auntly visage. “You don’t want to marry, blot, and you can’t look after yourself. At least, we haven’t found anyone who would take you. These young women are such a frightful lot these days. And Jeeves seems fond of you.”
I nodded sagely. “But why the oof?”
“He’s been turning down jobs where he could marry and have a family. It’s just a nest egg, so he is not tempted to leave.”
This was a surprise. “Ah. But I should give you back, then…”
“Thank-you, beautiful boy, but no. It’s getting late and I am exhausted, so I will leave you. Sorry about your door.”
“No matter. You’ll live and that’s all that’s important to Bertram.”
She clucked and indicated the wrist. “Did you break that, blot?”
“Yes, apparently.”
“And while helping me, no doubt. Sorry about that as well, Bertie.” She kissed the golden head and biffed out, leaving the nephew amid the wreckage of the flat.
The burly f. meanwhile had clamped some bits together and explained how Jeeves could fasten us in for the night. Jeeves spread around some oof and then materialized by the Wooster side holding a salver.
“A whiskey, sir?”
“Thank-you, Jeeves.”
Interruption
I told Jeeves to sit. “Sir?”
Wooster was bally well riled. The door had been splintered and bluebottles had invaded the place. Aunts had come to fisticuffs in the front room and, worst of all Jeeves had tenderly snuggled me and kissed the golden head for days and then stopped… the bean reeled and the voice took on an imperious, if not testy, timber. “Jeeves, sit.” He sat. “Aunt Dahlia had some good news.”
“Sir?”
“It was a false alarm. She’s not dying.”
He seemed to let out a breath. I’d no idea he was attached to the aged relation. “I am delighted to hear it, sir.”
“She said you can keep the money.”
The Jeevesian visage stiffened. “That will not be necessary, sir.” He sounded offended.
I lifted the whiskey and took up the i. tone once more. “You’ll keep it, Jeeves.”
“Yes, sir.”
“And, Jeeves, I really must ask…” At this point the pipes closed and the eyes filled with tears as the enormity of the last few weeks crashed down on young Wooster like an avalanche of heliotrope socks. Wooster choked on his mouthful of whiskey and bit back the rising sobs. Gentle hands took the whiskey and gave a manly press to the shoulder while I collected myself.
“Perhaps you would like to lie down, sir,” Jeeves hoisted me up and steered me into the bedchamber. “Are you in pain?”
The arm was throbbing. “Yes, Jeeves.” He deposited me on the bed and oiled out. As he flowed back in, I said, “I am not taking anything that will knock me out, Jeeves.”
“No, sir,” he said. “You seemed to wish an explanation.”
I tipped the beverage down the hatch. “I do, Jeeves.” I indicated the chair. He raised an eyebrow. Wooster saw his eyebrow and raised him one. He sat. “You see, Jeeves, I have been confused about what happened just after we returned from Brinkley Court and I really must ask…” The pipes closed again.
“Sir?”
“What you meant, Jeeves. I must ask you what you meant by it.” He opened his mouth and I held up a hand. “Because, Jeeves, if you understand what I mean, I rather, that is, you may not understand what I mean, or er, meant when I suggested that, er, Aunt Dahlia had found me out…”
The Jeevesian countenance looked rather bothered and bewildered. “No, sir.” He grew very embarrassed. “Sir, I do admit that at first, I thought I did understand, but now I am uncertain.”
Wooster mulled this over. “You felt you understood?”
“Yes, sir.”
“And now you do not feel you understand?”
“No, sir.”
“And what occasioned this?”
“Sir?”
“Jeeves, I am really in no mood…”
“I apologize, sir. It is merely awkward. My own feelings may have clouded my judgment.”
This was a bit of a corker. “Your own feelings?”
“Yes, sir.”
“And you have these feelings for …?”
“You, sir. I apologize for the presumption.”
Well, dash it. Wooster had not really considered this possibility. Perhaps the gentle snuggles should have been a tip-off. “But, Jeeves, you think the young master mentally negligible and wanting in sartorial sense.”
Had I been told that I would ever see Jeeves squirm, I would not have believed it, but s. he did. “I have the utmost respect for you, sir. And such things notwithstanding, even were they true, I do not believe they would counteract your numerous endearing qualities or my almost overpowering fondness.”
The Wooster countenance flushed a bright crimson. “I, er, ah.”
“I do apologize again for my presumption, sir. If you would like to dismiss me, I do understand.” He swayed politely.
I needed some time for the old lemon to have a shake at thinking. “Jeeves, I imagine that the chaps will be here early to bung in a new door?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Perhaps you will be so good as to interrupt our conversation for now, and we can resume it once they have finished their work?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Unless you have something more to say?”
“No, sir. Will that be all?”
“Just one more thing, Jeeves. I bally well do not wish to dismiss you.”
“Thank-you, sir."
Presumption
In all my time with Mr. Wooster, I had never felt so mortified. Events had conspired so that I confessed my feelings to my employer. Even if he was inclined to seek the intimate company of men, what good could possibly come of such a revelation? The differences in our situations alone should have prevented further understanding. How would Mrs. Travers ever forgive me for leading him astray?
Mabel had been correct in noticing my exhaustion. I had been unable to sleep for worry, and I lay awake again after my aborted conversation with Mr. Wooster. He appeared to sleep through the installation of the new front door, and I hoped to have some time to take a brief rest before he awakened. I took the liberty of looking in on Mr. Wooster before I retired and found him lying awake, looking at the ceiling.
“Jeeves?”
“Good morning, sir.”
“Are they finished?”
“Yes, sir.”
“You look done in.”
“It is no matter, sir. Would you like some tea?”
“Perhaps later, Jeeves. Might I have something soothing? I haven’t been able to close the e.s. since we left off talking.”
“Of course, sir.” I went to the kitchen to prepare a soothing mixture, and returned to find Mr. Wooster nursing his broken arm. “The doctor left morphine, sir.”
“No! No bally morphine. Clouds the mind.”
“I apologize, sir.”
“It’s all right, Jeeves.”
“I prepared a soothing beverage, sir.”
“Thank-you, Jeeves.” Mr. Wooster looked at me, and then the beverage, and seemed to square himself. “Jeeves, you said it was the only sensible plan, but what did you mean?”
“I cannot see the sense in leaving you, sir. It would… the thought is very disagreeable.”
“Is the flat all locked up?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Not the day for the cleaner or the cook?”
“No, sir.”
“Jarvis told not to let in any guests or bluebottles?”
“Yes, sir. Mr. Cheesewright was quite clear on that point.”
“Would you drink half of this and then stay with me?”
I felt the blood rush to my face. “It would be…” The look of hurt on his face interrupted me. “Of course, if you wish it, sir.”
“I do wish it, if it does not offend.”
“No sir, it does not offend.”
He drew himself up again. “I cannot say I am certain what we will decide, Jeeves, but I do wish you to stay.” It was as if a knot loosened itself in my breast. “You’d better bung on some pajamas.”
“That will not be necessary,” I said, thinking of the limp garments I wore for weeks to save washing. I shed my outer clothes, thankful I had put on clean underthings that morning. I settled into the bed beside Mr. Wooster and shared his soothing mixture, then gathered him into my arms as we lay down like two spoons in a drawer.
“I’d like to know you better, Jeeves,” he said, sighing as I propped his arm on a pillow.
“If you like, sir.”
“Perhaps we can take that around-the-world trip.”
“That would be very generous, sir.”
“Or… perhaps we could go to, er, France, and er, Italy, and er, ah, Iceland, and then, er, Geneva…” Mr. Wooster grew increasingly red as he listed these locations, all places where inverts were tolerated.
“As you wish, sir.”
“What would you like, Jeeves?”
“Sir?”
“What would you like?”
I took the liberty of cuddling Mr. Wooster more closely. “For the moment, I am quite content, sir, but I would welcome an opportunity for some quiet reflection on our situation.”
“Would you like to go off on your own?” My arm tightened reflexively around him.
“No, sir. Not at all.” Mr. Wooster relaxed and nestled more closely against me.
“Good.”
“Very good, sir. Will that be all?” I felt myself smile then, for he had fallen asleep against me. I watched him breathe quietly as my own eyes grew heavy and I drifted off, snuggling the man I loved in my arms.