A Deuced Difficult Dilemma, Chapter 12
Aug. 6th, 2014 01:15 am![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
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indeedsir_backupWhat ho, all! I'm still alive! And I'm still working on this! The whole blasted thing as it currently exists is up on AO3: http://archiveofourown.org/works/728447
Rated PG, characters not mine, and all that rot.
But here is the brief update for now:
I left the presence of the aged relative feeling considerably braced. I won’t go so far as to say that I felt entirely human, but a hint of the old spring was restored to the Wooster step. After a few moments of quiet contemplation, I decided to seek out the female third of the sketch and put her abreast of the latest developments.
Years of hard experience told me that I would not find Hecken eagerly shoveling in the eggs and b. After a night of revelry on the scale that we had just experienced, she was likely to be holed up in bed with the pillow over her head.
When I arrived at the Fernsby lair, I wasted no time applying knuckle to woodwork. Perhaps a bit harsh, under the circumstances, but I felt that the urgent business at hand warranted strong measures. It took several attempts before my efforts were rewarded by a string of muffled oaths not fit for reproduction in any respectable publication, followed by an eloquent soliloquy on where I could stow my blasted hand after I was finished trying to batter the damn’ door down with it. I took this as my cue to enter.
As I had suspected, Hecken was in bed with the covers drawn up to her neck. Despite the valises under her eyes and the disheveled curls, she still rewarded closer examination. I was conscious of a pang, but I did my best to suppress it.
“What ho, old bean,” I said gently.
“Oh, it’s you, Bertie.”
“Right here, dear girl.”
She massaged the scalp tenderly. Hers, not mine. “Oh, Bertie. Do you remember all that rot I was talking last night about how the Americans would be well rid of Prohibition?”
“I think so. Last night is something of a blur, I’m afraid.”
“Well, I was wrong. They’re a lot of fatheads who don’t know a good thing when they see one. I’m through with the demon liquor, Bertie. It shall never cross my lips again, and if anyone ever catches me so much as looking at a pint of watered down beer I hope they’ll give me a swift kick in the pants.”
I gave her a wise but sympathetic look. “Many’s the time I’ve felt that way after a particularly fruity binge at the Drones. The feeling will pass, old thing.”
She tried to shake her head. I could have told her it was a bad idea, but she didn’t wait around for my sage advice. She simply smacked into with no preamble. This set off another round of hearty expletives. I’m not sure where modern girls pick up these vocabularies.
“Bertie,” she said when she had finally sufficiently recovered, “it seems to me that something very important happened last night, but hanged if I can remember what it was. Something to do with Jeeves.”
“Ah,” I said. “On this subject I can definitely be of assistance. You’re engaged to him.”
She prodded a temple or two. “Ah yes. It’s all coming back to me now.”
“At least, you were as of the time we parted company. Is that still on?”
“As far as I know.”
“Well, can’t you get out of it?”
“I’m sorry, Bertie. I can’t.”
I chewed the lip a bit. It had been too much to hope for, of course, but worth a try. Still, we Woosters are not so easily dissuaded. “But why not?”
“You don’t know my mother, Bertie. She makes your Aunt Agatha look like St. Francis of Assisi. She’d make my life and Jeeves’s a living hell until she got her way, and no force of man or nature could stop her.”
Bad, of course, but I couldn’t very well hold it against the poor girl. I daresay no one is more sensible of the difficulties of getting out of unwanted engagements than Bertram W. Wooster. I decided not to press the issue further. “Well, I suppose that ties it, unless Jeeves or Aunt Dahlia can think of something.”
“Jeeves!” said Hecken ruefully. “He’s the one who got us into this mess to begin with.”
There was something in what she said, of course, but I felt compelled to defend my man’s honor. “Don’t be too hard on the poor old chap. He was only trying to help.”
“I wish he wouldn’t.”
“It’s his way. He can’t see a pickle without hitching up his socks and rushing in to fish someone out of it. Usually he’s quite the nib at this sort of thing. One of the best, in fact.”
“If you say so.”
“I do say so.”
“Well, fine.”
“All right!”
“Anyway, it’s all rot.”
“What’s all rot?”
“I was never in love with Rogers.”
Here, she had lost me. “Who,” I asked, “is Rogers?”
“That footman Mother is always going on about.”
I racked the grey matter. I vaguely recalled something about a footman coming up in the course of the previous night’s little conference, but the details seemed to have escaped me. I told her as much.
“Mother is convinced that I am constantly becoming infatuated with servants,” Hecken explained. “She latches on to the slightest evidence. I was friends with him, of course. We would sometimes sneak gaspers together in the potting shed.”
It occurred to me that the elder Fernsby ought to be more concerned about her daughter’s increasingly apparent fascination with potting sheds, but I held my tongue. “But you felt nothing of the tender pash for this fellow,” I offered instead. “Nothing truer and deeper than ordinary friendship and all that rot, what?”
“Not a smidge. But she was convinced that I was head over heels for him.”
“H’m,” I said. Something was stirring in the old brainpan, a niggling germ of an idea that this morsel of information was somehow vitally important to the whole case. It had something, I felt, to do with the psychology of the individual – the individual in this case being Mrs. F.
“Why do you say ‘h’m’?”
“Oh, nothing. Just a thought.”
“Not,” she went on, blushing prettily, “to say that Jeeves isn’t awfully attractive.”
She was rambling, of course, but I didn’t like the turn things had taken. “Steady on, old girl!”
“I’m sorry, Bertie. I’m just trying to look at the bright side of the thing. I mean to say, if I’ve got to be forcibly hitched to somebody, I could do a lot worse, couldn’t I?”
“I have a feeling I’m going to be terribly jealous in a moment if I can just sort out which of you I’m supposed to be jealous of.”
She waved a weary hand. “Oh, never mind me. I’m talking through my hat. You should really be on your way, Bertie. Mother’s probably going to raid the place at any moment and start checking under the duvet for illicit domestics.”
“Right ho,” I said. “I shall keep you apprised of further developments.”
I beetled out, feeling rattled but still vaguely hopeful. The next thing to do, I told myself, was to find Jeeves and enlighten him viz. my new intelligence on the psychological state of Fernsby the Senior.
My search for the honest chap was almost immediately crowned with success. To my considerable chagrin, said s. was not unqualified – for Jeeves appeared to be deep in conference with my Aunt Agatha. She had cornered him in the dim recesses of the stairwell. I could discern that she was muttering at him in quietly sinister tones, but I could not grasp the gist of the chinwag.
I began the process of oiling out quietly, for I was in no condition to deal with hoards of Aunt Agathas cluttering up the stairwell. But the previous night’s debauchery had somewhat impeded my form, and I was not stealthy enough to evade the relative’s preternatural skills of nephew detection. She called out in a hiss that turned the blood to ice.
“Ah, Bertie! Do come here. I must speak with you.”
Rated PG, characters not mine, and all that rot.
But here is the brief update for now:
I left the presence of the aged relative feeling considerably braced. I won’t go so far as to say that I felt entirely human, but a hint of the old spring was restored to the Wooster step. After a few moments of quiet contemplation, I decided to seek out the female third of the sketch and put her abreast of the latest developments.
Years of hard experience told me that I would not find Hecken eagerly shoveling in the eggs and b. After a night of revelry on the scale that we had just experienced, she was likely to be holed up in bed with the pillow over her head.
When I arrived at the Fernsby lair, I wasted no time applying knuckle to woodwork. Perhaps a bit harsh, under the circumstances, but I felt that the urgent business at hand warranted strong measures. It took several attempts before my efforts were rewarded by a string of muffled oaths not fit for reproduction in any respectable publication, followed by an eloquent soliloquy on where I could stow my blasted hand after I was finished trying to batter the damn’ door down with it. I took this as my cue to enter.
As I had suspected, Hecken was in bed with the covers drawn up to her neck. Despite the valises under her eyes and the disheveled curls, she still rewarded closer examination. I was conscious of a pang, but I did my best to suppress it.
“What ho, old bean,” I said gently.
“Oh, it’s you, Bertie.”
“Right here, dear girl.”
She massaged the scalp tenderly. Hers, not mine. “Oh, Bertie. Do you remember all that rot I was talking last night about how the Americans would be well rid of Prohibition?”
“I think so. Last night is something of a blur, I’m afraid.”
“Well, I was wrong. They’re a lot of fatheads who don’t know a good thing when they see one. I’m through with the demon liquor, Bertie. It shall never cross my lips again, and if anyone ever catches me so much as looking at a pint of watered down beer I hope they’ll give me a swift kick in the pants.”
I gave her a wise but sympathetic look. “Many’s the time I’ve felt that way after a particularly fruity binge at the Drones. The feeling will pass, old thing.”
She tried to shake her head. I could have told her it was a bad idea, but she didn’t wait around for my sage advice. She simply smacked into with no preamble. This set off another round of hearty expletives. I’m not sure where modern girls pick up these vocabularies.
“Bertie,” she said when she had finally sufficiently recovered, “it seems to me that something very important happened last night, but hanged if I can remember what it was. Something to do with Jeeves.”
“Ah,” I said. “On this subject I can definitely be of assistance. You’re engaged to him.”
She prodded a temple or two. “Ah yes. It’s all coming back to me now.”
“At least, you were as of the time we parted company. Is that still on?”
“As far as I know.”
“Well, can’t you get out of it?”
“I’m sorry, Bertie. I can’t.”
I chewed the lip a bit. It had been too much to hope for, of course, but worth a try. Still, we Woosters are not so easily dissuaded. “But why not?”
“You don’t know my mother, Bertie. She makes your Aunt Agatha look like St. Francis of Assisi. She’d make my life and Jeeves’s a living hell until she got her way, and no force of man or nature could stop her.”
Bad, of course, but I couldn’t very well hold it against the poor girl. I daresay no one is more sensible of the difficulties of getting out of unwanted engagements than Bertram W. Wooster. I decided not to press the issue further. “Well, I suppose that ties it, unless Jeeves or Aunt Dahlia can think of something.”
“Jeeves!” said Hecken ruefully. “He’s the one who got us into this mess to begin with.”
There was something in what she said, of course, but I felt compelled to defend my man’s honor. “Don’t be too hard on the poor old chap. He was only trying to help.”
“I wish he wouldn’t.”
“It’s his way. He can’t see a pickle without hitching up his socks and rushing in to fish someone out of it. Usually he’s quite the nib at this sort of thing. One of the best, in fact.”
“If you say so.”
“I do say so.”
“Well, fine.”
“All right!”
“Anyway, it’s all rot.”
“What’s all rot?”
“I was never in love with Rogers.”
Here, she had lost me. “Who,” I asked, “is Rogers?”
“That footman Mother is always going on about.”
I racked the grey matter. I vaguely recalled something about a footman coming up in the course of the previous night’s little conference, but the details seemed to have escaped me. I told her as much.
“Mother is convinced that I am constantly becoming infatuated with servants,” Hecken explained. “She latches on to the slightest evidence. I was friends with him, of course. We would sometimes sneak gaspers together in the potting shed.”
It occurred to me that the elder Fernsby ought to be more concerned about her daughter’s increasingly apparent fascination with potting sheds, but I held my tongue. “But you felt nothing of the tender pash for this fellow,” I offered instead. “Nothing truer and deeper than ordinary friendship and all that rot, what?”
“Not a smidge. But she was convinced that I was head over heels for him.”
“H’m,” I said. Something was stirring in the old brainpan, a niggling germ of an idea that this morsel of information was somehow vitally important to the whole case. It had something, I felt, to do with the psychology of the individual – the individual in this case being Mrs. F.
“Why do you say ‘h’m’?”
“Oh, nothing. Just a thought.”
“Not,” she went on, blushing prettily, “to say that Jeeves isn’t awfully attractive.”
She was rambling, of course, but I didn’t like the turn things had taken. “Steady on, old girl!”
“I’m sorry, Bertie. I’m just trying to look at the bright side of the thing. I mean to say, if I’ve got to be forcibly hitched to somebody, I could do a lot worse, couldn’t I?”
“I have a feeling I’m going to be terribly jealous in a moment if I can just sort out which of you I’m supposed to be jealous of.”
She waved a weary hand. “Oh, never mind me. I’m talking through my hat. You should really be on your way, Bertie. Mother’s probably going to raid the place at any moment and start checking under the duvet for illicit domestics.”
“Right ho,” I said. “I shall keep you apprised of further developments.”
I beetled out, feeling rattled but still vaguely hopeful. The next thing to do, I told myself, was to find Jeeves and enlighten him viz. my new intelligence on the psychological state of Fernsby the Senior.
My search for the honest chap was almost immediately crowned with success. To my considerable chagrin, said s. was not unqualified – for Jeeves appeared to be deep in conference with my Aunt Agatha. She had cornered him in the dim recesses of the stairwell. I could discern that she was muttering at him in quietly sinister tones, but I could not grasp the gist of the chinwag.
I began the process of oiling out quietly, for I was in no condition to deal with hoards of Aunt Agathas cluttering up the stairwell. But the previous night’s debauchery had somewhat impeded my form, and I was not stealthy enough to evade the relative’s preternatural skills of nephew detection. She called out in a hiss that turned the blood to ice.
“Ah, Bertie! Do come here. I must speak with you.”
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Date: 2014-08-13 11:16 pm (UTC)