Fic: Jeeves and the End of the Metaphor

[whatho.livejournal.com]

I was directed here by the kindly people at fryandorlaurie. I come bearing fic. Here.

TITLE: Jeeves and the End of the Metaphor.
AUTHOR: Whatho
PAIRING: J/W
RATING: Oh, anyone.
WARNINGS: Not a one.
SUMMARY: Well, there are crumpets and an unwanted engagement and a scheme and whatnot. The usual, in essence.
DISCLAIMER: Characters created by PG Wodehouse and owned, I assume, by the estate thereof.



Jeeves and the End of the Metaphor.



'I'll tell you the rummy thing about crumpets, Jeeves,' I said, and brandished one of the offending articles at the table lamp with feeling. 'It's the way they release their butter unfettered into the moustachios with not a thought for the women and children. I shall be imbibing these bally dairyish fumes for a twelvemonth at the least.'

'Most inconvenient, sir,' said Jeeves, shimmering past with a fresh pot of tea. He said it rather sniffily, I thought, but I had no intention of getting into this tired old moustache debacle over the breakfast table. Besides, I'd sorely lacked Jeeves' much valued presence for the best past of a fortnight and I wasn't going to risk scaring the blighter off at this delicate stage in the proceedings. It was a ghastly two weeks spent tending to kettles and looking for errant handkerchiefs while Jeeves scooped fish out of the English channel and, no doubt, dangled his sun-kissed toes in the water. I fancy I grew the moustache for the company. So I blithely turned the other cheek and swilled half a gallon or so of molten butter from the soup strainer with a cup of Darjeeling. It soothed my momentarily fractured nerves and brought my predicament into stark and humbling focus.

'Doubtless there are worse smells with which to assault the nostrils,' I said to Jeeves, my tone as sweet and fair as if some chime had smote the air or however the saying goes.

'Indeed, sir.'

'A bracing hint of the country atmos. without the attendant aunts.'

'Quite so, sir.' And more than that he would not say. I left him to the clearing up while I kicked the feet up on the table and lit a cigarette.

Some time later I put my head around the kitchen door and caught Jeeves drawing cats with his forefinger in the pool of butter on the plate.

'I shall be taking a leisurely bath, Jeeves. Tell all applicants applying by telephone that the post has been fulfilled and turn all starving travellers from the door.'

'Very good, sir,' said Jeeves with a stately nod and dug himself up to the elbows into the water.

*

I sucked in the breath and nine tenths of my person disappeared beneath the surface. Jeeves shimmered in, polished the mirror and refolded a few towels before oozing to my elbow. He gave his patent cough that sounded like nothing more than a cotton-swathed sheep on a hillside precisely two miles distant. I parted the bubbles and blinked up at him.

'We have received a telegraphic communication, sir. Do you wish to entertain it?'

'Lob it over,' I said, not seeing the harm, and extended a series of damp digits over the side of the bath. Jeeves proffered the epistle and loomed politely over my right shoulder while I perused it.

'We've been summoned to the Glossop residence, Jeeves,' I announced at length.

'At Miss Honoria Glossop's behest, sir?' said Jeeves, a thoughtful finger on his lower lip. I fancy I detected a touch of wariness in his voice. Well might he be wary. This Glossop female, hearty and bone-breaking, had cast long and muscular shadows over my bachelorhood on many and varied occasions. But I was able, on this one, to reassure.

'By the parents, Jeeves,' I chirped and offered the note. 'I expect I'm required to chew the fat with my pal, Sir Roderick. I must say,' I said, and proceeded to say it, 'I am a mite relieved to have established amicable relations with the old bean at last.'

'Most gratifying, sir,' said Jeeves and shimmered out to warm up the two-seater and throw trousers and things into suitcases.

I soaped up a pensive leg and, in due course, rinsed it off again. I had no major objections to the notion of hoofing it to more rural climes. There was always the unspeakable terror of bumping into the unspeakable Honoria, but Jeeves and I made an unspoken agreement to leave this terror, for the time being, unspoken.

*

We rolled up the drive of the stately pile at a well-judged half-past eleven. Jeeves unloaded the bags: I drank in my surroundings and espied Honoria cantering about in the middle distance, looking a dashed sight more braced and hearty than is strictly decent for this or any time of the AM. I sent out a timid wave. She bellowed a friendly greeting and the birds rose from the trees.

Sir Roderick was biffing around his study chewing fountain pens into splinters. He greeted me with a firmish handshake and regaled me with several amusing stories of bishops, uncles and other eminent personages who'd all fallen slightly from their perches before the bell went for lunch. I hailed Lady Glossop with a cheery what-ho and repeated it twice for good measure. She trembled slightly in its wake.

We were well into the main course when Sir Roderick downed tools among the asparagus and got down to brass tacks.

'Not that we aren't grateful for your company,' was his opening gambit. I smiled in gratitude. 'But Lady Glossop and I did summon you to Ditteridge with something of an ulterior motive. It's really for our daughter's benefit that you're here.'

'Oh yes?' said I and loosened my collar a touch.

'Honoria is in something of a delicate state of mind at present, Mr Wooster.'

I choked quietly on a green bean.

'A young doctor chap she was engaged to didn't quite cut the mustard. We rather hoped you might be able to rally the poor girl.

'Oh, rather,' I said and pushed my plate to one side.

*

I smoked a calming cigarette in the library and marched through the French windows all prepared to rally. Honoria was lurking around the flower beds looking anything but delicate.

'Bertie!' she cried from the souls of her boots. 'Nobody told me you were coming. Whyever are you here?'

'To see you, old girl,' I said with an appropriate degree of larkiness. 'Always a pleasure. I heard of your recent...you know. Thought you could do with a touch of rallying.'

'And you came up here of your own initiative? Using your very own brain?'

'Well...not exactly. But it wasn't Jeeves either, if that's what you were thinking.' She gave a sort of equine snort. 'Actually, your father sort of sent me. For you. As it were. For your exclusive...employment.' And here I faltered. I felt that there were better ways of phrasing that sentiment.

'You'll make a perfect replacement,' said Honoria, proving I was right, and bounded indoors to make the necessary arrangements.

On the plus side, the thing was over with remarkably little preamble. I tottered Jeeves-wards, weighing up the relative demerits of stressful anticipation and abject misery as prevailing states of being. Neither absolutely hit the spot.

*

'I'm in it up to my neck and beyond, Jeeves. You have to fish me out.'

Jeeves turned back my sheets. I slithered in and ran a few trembling hands through my hair.

'There's no Bingo around on whom to palm off the blighted character. The Vile Oswald's been packed off to school anyway, so I can't really go shoving him into the river.'

'If you will recall, sir, when faced with similar difficulties in the past, we have had some little success in attempting to convince Sir Roderick Glossop that there is a history of mental illness in your family that has not been so gracious as to skip a generation.'

'But dash it all, Jeeves,' said I. 'Sir Roderick and I are bosom pals these days. Treacherous blighter he may be, but the fellow means well and I don't much want to bish things up. For once, I would like to hear from you a scheme that doesn't end up with my looking a perfect loon in front of those I most respect and cherish. No, Jeeves. Subtlety is called for. Does nothing leap to mind?'

'Not at present, sir.'

'Then I must accept my fate?'

'For the time being, sir, yes.'

I blinked and heaved a heavyish one from the very depths of my soul. Jeeves dusted an ornamental table and regarded me out of the corner of his eye.

'I ought, sir, to remind you that Miss Glossop does not like me. If the engagement stays the course, she is likely to dispense with my services.'

'I know, Jeeves,' I said, through a tremulous gulp, and pulled the sheets up to my chin. I recalled all too clearly the conversation between Honoria and my Aunt Agatha, the hefty one who eats nephews for breakfast and serves up the bones to her Aberdeen terrier. Both were in strict agreement about the detrimental effect Jeeves had on my home life and general character. I gulped again, thought of the kettle and regarded him with moistening eyes. Jeeves looked down at me with something approaching a smile and eased me forwards with a firm but gentle hand between the shoulder blades. He plumped my pillow, released my spine and sidled off to do something with the window pane.

I did not sleep as such. I tossed and turned and fretted and from time to time thought I heard the ghost of Hamlet's father egging me on to catch the conscience of the king and the like. It turned out to be Jeeves reading in my bedside armchair. He was reading rather loudly, I thought, for one who generally does so in the head. It was one of those Kipling jobs for kiddies. The one about solitary cats: I don't know if you know it. I'm not awfully keen on the ending where he tells all proper men to heave their boots at passing cats. Not, in my view, a civilised way to behave in the presence of passing cats. Otherwise, a soothing tale with rhythm and structure and jolly nice words and whatnot. I was all set to heave the impertinent fellow out of the room before I twigged that he was probably a dream, in which case I was better off letting him be. His voice was soothing. I knew no more till dawn.

*

I rose early the following morning, just two hours after Ditteridge's deranged breakfasting hour, and sallied forth into the grounds. Doubtful of Jeeves' ever managing to come up with a scheme that didn't involve my being shipped from the building in a sturdy white jacket with my arms slung around the back of my neck, I sought out Honoria in the hope of getting in among her opinions: either of my suitability as husband material or Jeeves' status as a jolly decent egg. It might yet come to nothing: Jeeves claims to have a bit of a thing about not working for married bods anyway. Still, we can but try.

I found her reining in a sizeable herd of Labradors in the vicinity of the back door.

'What ho, Honoria!'

'Bertie!' she announced to the world at large. The Labradors scattered, whimpering. I stood still and let the wind buffet me gently. 'What are you up to these days?'

It was a fair enquiry from one intent on cleaving herself to the Wooster family name and hearth. 'Still not working,' I said, cleverly, and saw at once the error of my ways. She had that cruel glint in the corner of her eye, like a sergeant major eyeing up a shambles of a private with a deal of hidden potential. That girl has ambitions to mould and Bertram can only take so much moulding.

'I'm going off the country as well,' I stammered, noticing her gaiters.

'I don't mind living in town,' said Honoria. I kicked a passing plant pot.

'I heard you had plans to move to the country not so long ago, Bertie. To take a house and have your sister and nieces to live with you.'

'Oh well,' I said with a noncommittal shrug. 'One has these wild notions from time to time.'

'Did Jeeves put you off?'

'He helped me to see the error of my ways.'

'That's horrid.'

I bristled slightly. 'Oh, I don't know. I would've made an almighty bish of it somewhere along the line.'

'What a beastly man.'

'No, no.'

'He does it to exert his control, of course.'

'Come, come.'

'You deserve better.'

'I'm not at all sure I do.' This conversation was not going entirely as planned. I thought it as well to wrap the whole thing up before she began stalking through the grounds with a shotgun.

'We shan't have him to worry about before long,' said Honoria before I could get any more words out. She dismissed me with a slap on the shoulder that almost knocked my arm from its socket and strode into the house with the most confident of all confident laughs. Jeeves held the door from her and gave her the nearest thing he could muster to a smile. Which was a good deal more than the little excrescence deserved.

*

I took a moody stroll in the grounds after luncheon, trailing my leaden feet and casting my eyes on the path before me and generally feeling pretty much like a toad under the harrow. Nature bleated and chirruped in that dashed irritating way it has when you'd really rather it pulled its head in and kept the wretched noise down.

Lady Glossop stood on tiptoe in the middle of the bridge, straightening out those parts of Sir Roderick's apparel that weren't quite plumb. I stood and watched the play for a time. It was as close as Ditteridge ever came to unfettered passion. The moment passed and I trudged ever onwards.

Honoria reclined dreamily against a distant tree trunk, shifting it several degrees from the perpendicular. I gave a watery smile and ran aground in the dahlias. Jeeves hoved alongside, looking steely and efficient, and tweaked my tie-knot into place.

'Leave the tie alone, Jeeves.'

'Very good, sir,' he said, and brushed something invisible to the naked eye from my right shoulder. It was a rather a vacant gesture for Jeeves and it riled me somewhat.

'Dash it, Jeeves. Brighten up. The horror gurns on the threshold yonder.' I waved in muted desperation at the figure on the horizon, now skipping away in the direction of the house and scattering the wildlife before her. I turned my back on the painful sight. 'Why are you not charging headlong into action on my behalf?'

'I was led to understand, sir, that you did not desire me on this occasion to charge headlong into action, as you put it. Subtlety, if you'll recall, sir, is what you said was called for.'

'Well, I take it all back, Jeeves. Use every last wile you have to hand. Have me shove Sir Roderick himself in the blessed stream. Fill my waistcoat pockets with cats. What are you doing, Jeeves?'

He paused a moment and glanced vaguely over the top of my head. 'I'm sorry, sir. You appear to have retained a certain amount of debris in your moustache, probably from luncheon. If you'll allow me to relieve you of it, sir.'

I ran a few fingers through said moustache and found it quite free of any d. from l. 'I can discern nothing, Jeeves,' I said, 'but by all means go to it.'

Jeeves bowed minutely, averted his eyes from the middle distance and bent to his task. I stood to attention and continued my feverish ranting as best I could under the circs. 'I don't know...can't we dig up some local hearty for the young blighter to sink her teeth into? Can we not lure back whichever unfortunate perisher she chewed up and spat out before she roped me in? Can we do any bally thing, Jeeves?'

He stood off for a moment and inspected his handiwork. He ran a gloved wrist across his mouth. A muscle in his cheek twitched.

'The thing is done, sir,' he said, and turned on his heel with a nod.

*

I retired to my room in the long grim hours between luncheon and afternoon tea in order to dwell on the rumminess of what had just occurred. Something had evidently come adrift in that marvellous, oversized head of Jeeves' if he thought the bally matter was settled by his doing and saying precisely nothing. I mooched downstairs some time later and took a half-hearted stab at the assorted crumpets and muffins before slithering off into the garden two thirds of the way through a Glossop anecdote about a lay preacher who fancied he was a woodpigeon.

Honoria, already in position, summoned me with an expansive gesture. I tottered over with an unbecoming degree of slavish obedience. She snapped a hefty limb off a neighbouring willow tree. I shied into a solid brick wall and tried to look blase about it.

'Is Jeeves about?' she said.

'It's his afternoon off. I expect he's divesting the river of livestock.'

She began shredding the branch into bite-sized segments in a way that made my nerves shoot about an inch through my pores and curl in on themselves.

'I'm calling it off, Bertie. The engagement. Consider it scuppered.'

After coaxing the old eyeballs back into their sockets, I managed to retrieve the voice from its newfound resting place in the pit of my stomach. 'Oh!' I said, impressing myself enormously. 'I mean, dashed sorry and everything. No hard feelings whatsoever, it goes without saying. Affections engaged elsewhere? Understandable. Terribly miffed to hear it of course, but wishing you all the best and whatnot.'

'Stop rambling, Bertie.'

I did as she requested.

'And no. My affections are not engaged elsewhere. I rather fancied yours were. Why don't you ever tell people things, you silly?'

I blinked. It seemed safest not to question. She planted a tender kiss on the Wooster temple and followed it up with a hearty backslap that sent me reeling into the geraniums.

'I wish you every happiness, Bertie,' she said, which didn't sound much like the sort of thing she'd be likely to trot out, but I took it in the spirit it was intended all the same. And off she biffed.

*

I traced Jeeves to the banks of the river of sorts that trundled its way through the grounds of the Glossop pile. He presented a casual tweed-clad back to the world at large and was dangling a line into the river's foamy depths. I gambolled through the buttercups and dormice and things and caught his attention with a bracing halloo. He began to rise so I stayed the fellow with a charitable hand and he settled for touching the brim of his hat.

'Stocking up on the old brain food, Jeeves?'

'As you say, sir.'

'Fish biting today?'

'Tolerably well, sir.'

'Miss Glossop has called off our engagement, Jeeves.'

'I am gratified to hear it, sir.'

'She seemed to be under the impression that my affections were very much engaged elsewhere.'

Jeeves put his shoulders back a touch. I heaved a couple of pebbles into the water, ran a meditative tongue around the old molars and settled beside him on the bank.

'What the dickens did you say to her?'

'I said nothing, sir. Miss Glossop observed our encounter in the grounds after luncheon, when you thought she had returned to the house.'

'Did we have an encounter?'

'Yes, sir. Possibly your subconscious redesigned the incident; its being of a somewhat public nature.'

I sucked the incisors, to the best of my knowledge, and sidled close enough to lower my voice.

'You thought it safe?'

'I discerned that Miss Glossop is not by any means a cruel or vindictive young woman, sir. Boisterous and decidedly wilful, but not entirely without feeling. She would not wish to see you broken-hearted.'

'She can't stand the bally sight of you.'

'Our fates in this matter are somewhat linked, sir. My own reprieve is merely a welcome side-effect.'

I drummed my heels against the bank and whistled a few lines of something light and catchy in the key of C. The sun shined down on Bertram with rather more feeling than it had of late. The lark did what the lark is best at, and I did not reproach him for it. I watched Jeeves reeling in the marine life for a time and absentmindedly poked a blade of grass into his hat.

'I afternoon-tea'd on crumpets, don't you know,' I said at length. 'They do a jolly good crumpet in this neck of the woods.'

'Indeed, sir. I sampled one myself in the servants' dining room, a little after four. With butter, sir, and a modicum of raspberry jam.'

I nodded. 'Excellent stuff, raspberry jam. Of course I'm now faced with the perennial problem of a 'tache full of butter.'

'Most distressing for you, sir. Perhaps the simplest remedy might be to remove the offending article. I purchased a new razor this morning, sir, with that very purpose in mind.'

Here it came. I probed the offending and distinctly buttery article with the tip of my tongue.

'Do you have some objection to my moustache, Jeeves?'

'I feel no pressing need to venture an opinion on the object in question, sir.'

I steeled the eyeballs. We Woosters have never been ones to shoot down reasonable arguments.

'What, Jeeves, is your objection to my moustache?'

'I am developing a stubble-rash, sir, on my upper-lip.'

I glanced furtively about the lawn in search of prying eyes. I met none.

'Then say no more,' I pipped in only barely hushed tones. 'We shall dispense with the soup strainer during the evening ablutions. Until then, we shall endeavour to restrain ourselves.'

'Thank you, sir,' said Jeeves, and reeled in a tiddler.

I leaned back in the grass and settled to restraining myself. Jeeves cast his line and gazed stoically at the water, looking all prim and statuesque. It was rather a while until evening.

'Shall you read to me tonight, Jeeves?'

'With pleasure, sir.'

I picked myself up again, plucked one of the buttercups that across the field was making sunshine rifts of splendour, as Jeeves likes to put it, and held it under the fellow's chin.

'Do you like butter, Jeeves?'

A gentle yellow glow and a delicate twitching at the corner of his mouth that wasn't anything so undignified as a smile seemed to indicate that the answer might be yes.

Comments

[finding-jay.livejournal.com]

I love how their relationship is implied but it's never directly stated. Wonderful work!

[whatho.livejournal.com]

Thank you! I was hoping the 'never directly stated' thing wouldn't come across as too much of a swindle, but it seems to have gone down okay. Glad you enjoyed it.

[mechanicaljewel.livejournal.com]

Subtlety indeed ;-) Great work!

[whatho.livejournal.com]

Many thanks.

[melchy.livejournal.com]

Some time later I put my head around the kitchen door and caught Jeeves drawing cats with his forefinger in the pool of butter on the plate.

That would be such a wonderful sight to witness!

'I am developing a stubble-rash, sir, on my upper-lip.'

*giggle*

[whatho.livejournal.com]

I have jealousy of Bertie. And Jeeves. And most Wodehouse people. Thanks for the comment.

[desrose.livejournal.com]

Most excellent! At first I must admit I didn't quite grasp it but after rereading the lightbulb finally switched to on! And then I feel in love with your story! Subtlety really works well here. I loved all the sweet touches you added. You really managed to stay in the Wodehousian spirit too! With Jeeves and Bertie so in character! *Applaudes you*

[whatho.livejournal.com]

Yay! Thanks for rereading...glad to hear it clicked on a second attempt.

[bronzelionel.livejournal.com]

Brilliant job; easily one of the best fics out there.

[whatho.livejournal.com]

Wow. Thanks!

[emma-in-oz.livejournal.com]

Lady Glossop stood on tiptoe in the middle of the bridge, straightening out those parts of Sir Roderick's apparel that weren't quite plumb. I stood and watched the play for a time. It was as close as Ditteridge ever came to unfettered passion. The moment passed and I trudged ever onwards.

How sweet that Bertie doesn't recognise the same behaviour in his own relationship!

[clarify.livejournal.com]

I know you wrote this back in 2006, but I gotta say, I absolutely love your Honoria Glossop, along with everything else in this fic. Well played. :)

[whatho.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the comment! I like getting comments on distant posts. Honoria was a joy to write - I really ought to try it again some day.

[clarify.livejournal.com]

If you did, I would definitely read it. :)