Fic: Wooster At War, Part 3 of 3
Dec. 29th, 2010 11:38 am![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
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indeedsir_backupTitle: Wooster at War, part 3 of 3
Total Word Count: 7,656
Pairing: Jeeves/Bertie
Rating: PG
Summary: In the aftermath of WWII, Jeeves and Bertie start to put their lives back together.
Disclaimer: Jeeves and Wooster belong to PG Wodehouse, not me. "Wodehouse At War" belongs to Iain Sproad, not me.
Part 1
Part 2
1. Jeeves
“Yes. Yes, I understand. Thank you for informing me. Yes. Thank you, Madam. To you as well. Good bye.”
I placed the building's phone soundly upon its jack and permitted myself a moment of silent meditation ere I vacated the phone booth. I doubted too many people would be queueing for it at five in the morning, anyway. It was April, 1948, and likely to be a fine, temperate day with a gentle breeze possessing still a tang of winter, and no rain. Not unlike the April day twelve years earlier, when Mr. Wooster announced his decision to move us to Paris. I wondered – not for the first, or even the thousandth time – if that unnamed blackmailer who had started this entire ghastly business could have been dealt with some other way. Just what sort of evidence had he possessed? Could I have done something to silence him myself? Should I have? Even if I had killed him, and found myself swinging on the next available rope, would it not have been preferable? Better I than Mr. Wooster.
But these were tired, concentric circles upon which my mind was running, constantly spinning, and always leading to the same place: I had failed, terribly, and regardless of the reason – shocked into stupefaction? Lulled into complacency by love and time and happiness? – the result was the same, and could not be changed. Some loathsome mistake had been made at some point, and now, twelve, or eight – or what, twenty three? – years later, the final gong had sounded. My failure was absolute, my life's work over, and I could not begin to think of what to do with the rest of my time.
The phone call I had received, you see, was a long-distance call from England. From Mrs. Travers, Mr. Wooster's aunt Dahlia. She had acquired the number to my building through Mr. Wooster's American bank, where I had transferred his funds during the war, and her message had not been a welcome one. To be swift and explicit, her message was that Mr. Wooster's prison camp had been thoroughly excavated, and buried bodies had been found. While there was no record of Mr. Wooster's execution, the presence of several unidentified bodies at the camp and the fact that Mr. Wooster had been silent, lost, and unaccounted for for a period of six years was evidence enough that Mr. Wooster no longer lived. Mrs. Travers had called to inform me that he had been declared legally dead that morning.
It is difficult to say with precision just what it was I was feeling in that moment. Certainly I grieved, but it was not entirely grief, for I had dispatched with the greater part of mourning some years earlier. It was not shock, for in truth, I had been expecting such news since the very day his Berlin broadcasts ceased. It was not even precisely sorrow, for the call had not actually changed any conditions of my life or even any of my rational expectations. No, more than anything, it was a sort of profound disappointment, not of the mind, but of the heart. For in my analytical discerning mind, I had known for years that he was gone, just as I had known for the duration of our time together that he was a fool and an ambitionless weight on society, something my father would have referred to as “a waste of air,” with a curl to his lip. It was only in that part of me that idolized him for his pedigree, adored him for his tragic life, and cherished him for his selflessness and naïve foolhardiness and his unaffected, childlike charming smile that had ever held any hope of reunion. It had never been anything but a mirage, that hope of mine, a pale, fading hallucination of water in the trackless desert – if only I dragged myself just a few miles further. All these years, I had been allowing myself to court a shade, swept away by my romantic illusions. Now at last the Greek myth of my life had ended, and before me stretched reality alone, in all its vast and supremely uninteresting variety.
Mrs. Travers had taken away my delusions and had given me my life. Was the trade equitable? I was not certain.
She had taken something else as well. I truly appreciated her time and effort, but I did not appreciate her implication toward the end of our brief conversation that I would soon be required to “relinquish control of his funds,” to quote her directly. She told me in no uncertain terms that the money was to be distributed as stated in Mr. Wooster's will (It was, I must admit, news to me that Mr. Wooster even had a will; it seems he had prepared one with his solicitor sometime in the year 1929). She had not yet heard the will, but was on her way to hear it read as soon as our conversation ended. Based on her comments, I assumed that she had reason to believe that she or at least her daughter, stood to inherit no small amount from him, and also that the entire family had been deeply suspicious of my doings in America, and of the state of the account.
Well, I could have told them that their fears were unfounded. Mr. Wooster's wealth was practically untouched, as I had used it sparingly to cover only my accommodation, and had used my own earnings for everything else. Even if I had been some sort of profligate spender, they need hardly have worried. Mr. Wooster had enough money for ten extravagant lifetimes.
It hurt me to know that I would soon be required to vacate the fine lodgings I had settled in. It had, of course, been my rather insane hope that once Mr. Wooster and I were reunited, he could live in that particular flat with me. It was expensive and fine and perfectly furnished, just as I knew he liked it. But that was a dead dream now anyway. Mr. Wooster was dead and I myself certainly didn't require such a lavish residence. I could easily take cheap rooms in some guesthouse once the money was gone.
Is it terrible for me to confess that I did not want to leave? I did not need the pricey rooms, but I did love them. I had never in my entire life lived anywhere that was not sumptuous and extravagant. I had served wealthy men and lived in great mansions. Indeed, these rooms were the cheapest I had ever taken! It terrified me to imagine living in a slum, or a single bedroom rented by the week like James and Edward.
I started to weep in the telephone booth. Not for the rooms, though that was a small part of it. I wept for Mr. Wooster, whom I had always hoped and dreamed and even ardently believed to be alive. Some part of me still refused to accept that he was gone, had been gone for years. Even though he had been long absent, I had still, in my heart, continued to be his man. I kept his house for him, though he had never seen it. I managed his funds for him, even washed his clothes for him from time to time, so that they would be ready whenever he should require them. But how could I continue with this fantasy? He was gone at last, gone for good. I had a life to live, and I had to live it without him. There was no choice, no future to hold out for, no master to serve. Nothing but me and my base needs.
It was nearly the most horrible moment of my life. No one to wait for, no one to care for, no one to protect, to guide, to scold, to dress, to love. I had never felt so utterly lost, so completely terrified.
* * *
It is odd, is it not, how life plays itself out? I have never been an abundantly devout man; I tend to take my church at Christmas and at Easter, and then only out of childhood habit and a desire to be respectable. Nevertheless, there are brief moments, miniscule pockets in this vast, undulating world that make me pause and reflect that perhaps there is indeed a great hand at work. I have had this revelation only a few times, but each instance stands out in my memory with a prominence that renders them, in my heart, as conspicuous and decisive as any great Biblical miracle.
The first such experience came when I was but a lad of ten. While swimming alone in a river, my foot became entangled in an old, cast-off fishing net amongst the rocks at the bottom. I was trapped with my face mere inches below the surface, thrashing for my life. It was only when I gave myself up for lost and felt my consciousness slipping away that my foot fell free of the netting, seemingly by its own accord, and I floated upward to sweet air, light, and life.
The second occurrence I have recounted – rather sparingly – already, it being the moment when Mr. Wooster proclaimed his feelings to me and dragged me, not unwilling, into his bed.
The third happened that very night.
I had gone to work after recovering my outward composure, and once there I informed James of that morning's events. He was properly horrified and patted me soundly on the back, as a good friend does, and then he extended himself to the point of inviting me out for dinner. He and Edward had planned a night out at a popular restaurant on Third Avenue they had often heard about. The food and music were both supposed to be first-rate.
“You must come, Reggie,” he urged me as I attempted to decline. “What are you going to do if you don't come out? Will you go and sit in your empty apartment and drink yourself into oblivion? Come out and live a bit.” Then he leaned in close to me and hissed the clincher. “They say there's a piano player there who can play a mean Gershwin. Just like the old days. What do you say?”
And though I had never been a Gershwin enthusiast, I remembered fondly a young, handsome, blue-eyed lad with a heart of gold who used to play him sweetly in the summer of '27, and I fancied that I would love to hear the silly old songs again, just this once.
“All right, then,” I said, and James slapped my shoulder.
We arrived about half an hour before the music was to start, and ordered our meal. We chatted pleasantly over the food, talking about this and that, when the star musician was announced. The head waiter gave his name as Billy Wilson, and the applause went up like thunder at his introduction. I was seated facing away from the stage, and as I was enjoying my meal I did not bother to turn around when he entered. I clapped politely as the others did and then continued eating.
And then something most remarkable happened. The pianist played his first few notes, and quite suddenly I was transported back to the year 1927, to a beautiful flat in London. I was preparing Mr. Wooster's luncheon, for he had decided to stay in and practice a new Gershwin song he had just purchased. As I put the finishing touches to his meal, he began to play, light and easy as always, and his fine tenor voice rang through the kitchen door.
“There's a saying old says love is blind,” Mr. Wooster sang; it seemed a sweet little song, though rather inane. He had tended toward heartfelt love songs for the last few months, ever since – well. I smiled softly to myself and prepared to bring his tray.
I blinked and I was back in New York, back in the year 1948. James and Edward, sitting side by side across from me, smiled dreamily in the pianist's direction. His fine tenor voice sang on.
“Still we're often told 'Seek and ye shall find.' So I am going to seek a certain lad I've had in mind. Looking everywhere, I haven't found him yet. He's the big affair I cannot forget. Only man I ever think of with regret. I'd like to add his initial to my monogram. Tell me, where is the shepherd for this lost lamb?”
I remained frozen, staring away from the singer, my back rigid. I dared not turn round. His voice was so similar, his playing so alike, if I closed my eyes I could see Mr. Wooster in my mind, just as he was that day, two decades before. I brought his luncheon to the table on the silver tray, but he remained at the piano, caught up in his sweet silly song. I stood behind him for a time and I listened. I was a young man still, and I was in love.
“There's a somebody I'm longing to see,” Mr. Wooster sang, his thin hands dancing lightly over the keys. “I hope that he turns out to be someone who'll watch over me.”
On that occasion in 1927 I did not permit him to finish the song. He was so innocent, so naïve, and so sincere, so very much the lost lamb whose words he was singing, I had no choice but to slip my arms about him. He stopped playing at once and turned his face to kiss me. I sank beside him onto the piano bench and we kissed each other desperately. It was all so new then, so thrilling and frightening and beautiful, and we were so young. I remember thinking to myself that I would watch over him forever. I believe I even whispered the sentiment into his ear.
But of course, I did not watch over him. I was not the shepherd that I should have been; like a coward, I stood there, in our flat in Paris, and I watched my lamb be led to the slaughter.
I tell you now with shame that I began to weep right there. Meanwhile, the pianist played on.
“I'm a little lamb who's lost in the wood. I know I could always be good. Someone who'll watch over me.”
James noticed my tears and put a hand on my shoulder. He murmured some concerned words, but I didn't hear them. All I heard was the pianist's sweet voice – so familiar! My will was overpowered by my insane hope, and I turned; I turned and I beheld him, not fifteen feet from me, aged and careworn, gray-haired and scarred, and yet, somehow, still innocent. Still blue-eyed and bright, still playing that ridiculous, love-sick song from a simpler, happier time. What was it he called himself? Billy Wilson? I laughed out loud through my lingering tears; I admit I turned a few disapproving heads, but for once I did not care.
Billy Wilson! Could he have chosen a more obvious pseudonym? How like him to keep the same initials!
“That,” I said to my friends, who at this point must scarcely have known what to think, “is Bertram Wooster.”
I heard James gasp, heard Edward mutter one of his vulgar expressions that he picked up in the navy, but from that moment, I paid them no more attention for the rest of the evening. It was rather bad form, I own, but I do not think I legitimize my actions disproportionately when I suggest that anyone might do the same under similar circumstances. I certainly heard little enough from James for a good week or two after Edward's ship came into port, and they were separated a mere six months. I had not seen my master in eight long years.
I will say for myself that I kept my composure quite well. I did not rush to Mr. Wooster as he played. I did not leap onto the the table and scream his name. I did not faint, nor die of apoplexy. I sat still and calm, though delighted and mystified, and I watched his performance. Over the next hours, he played many songs, almost all of which elicited memories of our time together. I watched with awe and glowing love as he brought the audience to tears and then, mere moments later, made them laugh out loud for joy. I watched as the man I loved, so recently commended to the grave and resurrected, worked his beautiful, untarnished magic on a crowd of strangers, just as he had always done with his writing, his singing, and his precious, perfect self. All the while James and Edward sat on either side of me, having moved their chairs in an effort to give me support should I collapse or some such thing, and they watched with me, laughing and weeping along with everyone else.
When the two hours had finally wound down to a close, and dear Mr. Wooster was taking a quick, self-conscious bow, James leaned over and said, “No wonder you didn't want anyone else.” I smiled at him, grateful beyond words. James' eyes were twinkling with affection, and it struck me that here I had as good a friend as I could ever desire. I smiled my gratitude, still shamefully speechless, and turned my eyes back to the beloved man at the piano.
As Mr. Wooster stepped off the little stage and began to make his way to the kitchen, I noted with a pang of sorrow that he now walked with a marked limp, favoring the right leg.
Scarcely knowing what I was doing, I stood quickly and went to his side. In a moment, he was close enough to touch, and still he hadn't seen me; he was busy thanking those members of the audience who had rushed to give him praise. No doubt he thought me another nameless admirer. For a brief moment I panicked; what would I do if he did not recognize me? It had been eight long years, after all. What if I were to hold out my hand to him, and he took it and thanked me, and walked away? I could not imagine what I would do, or what I would say to James. Nevertheless, I had to touch him, to speak to him, to look him in the eye. I had to assure myself that this was not some illusion or specter. I patiently waited my turn.
At last he turned to me, his dear old smile steady, and he held out his hand.
“Thank you!” he said warmly. I felt a small jolt of surprise that he spoke with an American accent. For a second I almost doubted myself. Was this in fact some American doppleganger? Had I deceived myself with hope and loneliness and longing? Had I, in fact, forgotten his face over the years and replaced it somehow with that of some low-class lounge singer? Had my guilt finally driven me mad? All of these hysterical cogitations stormed through my mind in an instant. One instant more and my apprehensions were answered. “So good of –” His eyes met mine and his words choked off mid-sentence. For a long silent moment he stood gaping at me like a fish, and in his dumb bewilderment I had my confirmation.
“Sir,” I said, finding my voice at last. “You were wonderful. As always, sir.”
“I say,” he hissed, almost British again, and blinked his bright blue eyes. “I say! Is that... I mean to say... Is that you, Jeeves?”
“Indeed, sir.”
“Well! I say!” he stammered, and for the first time in eight years, he held me in his arms.
2. Bertie
It seemed a night quite like any other. I mean to say, I had no psychic premonitions, perceived no omens. No great black bird perched on the bust above my door. Nothing of that sort. As I say, it was an ordinary day. I lounged about quite late, as was my habit, having nowhere to go and nothing to do until I was needed to play at the restaurant at eight in the evening. It was a smashing little job, I had, not at all difficult; a pure pleasure, in fact, and since I brought in a fairly steady crowd during the hours I played, I earned more for my three hours daily than I had for my eight hours at the men's clothing store. Altogether I was pulling in about $1,000 a year, which would have seemed a pittance to me at one point, but at this stage in my life was quite sufficient. I had modest lodgings at a guest house on 85th and 3rd, and most of my meals I took from the restaurant where I worked, free of charge if the food had been sent back or left uneaten by patrons. All in all, I felt quite braced about things in general, except, of course, for the notable lack of Jeeves, but that was such a constant and familiar anguish I hardly let it bother me anymore.
On this particular day, I rose at noon, read a few chapters of a somewhat lackluster mystery novel, drank a little tea (for I had learned how to make it myself, after much trial and error), and tapped my foot to the second-hand radio I had procured from a nearby junk shop some few months earlier. It was a jolly good time, really, the sort of day I had been enjoying immensely since I had taken up employment as a restaurant pianist nearly a year before. Sometimes I met a friend for a ramble in the park or a bit of lunch, if I had a little extra green lining my pockets, but that day, I stayed in. I left my room at six o'clock and strolled straight down 3rd Avenue for forty three blocks, taking about forty five minutes to do so. When I arrived at my place of employment, I slipped in through the kitchen door and helped myself to an abandoned chicken dinner. Finally, I strode out onto the stage and took my seat to begin playing at precisely 8 o'clock.
I have mentioned before that I have a touch of what theater types call “stage fright.” If you ask me to address a large audience and speak to them knowledgeably (as Jeeves did once, bless him) I'll inevitably clam up and choke on my own tongue, then trip over my feet on my way down the stairs. This unpleasant pheno... what's the word I'm looking for? It's a multi-syllabled chappie that means “odd occurrence,” or some-such thing. Oh well. Anyway, the point is, this doesn't tend to happen when I am playing piano and singing, since I make it a point never to look out at the audience until I have quite well finished. Singing has always come easier to me than speaking, anyway. Music has never given me the terror that unaccompanied speech can raise in me.
I say this to explain why it was that I didn't notice Jeeves, even though he was apparently sitting center and staring straight at me for three hours. You'd think I'd notice something like that, but no. Not I. I hadn't the foggiest that he was there watching me, not until I'd hopped down from the stage and tried to make my getaway. Even then it took me a moment. I'd nearly shaken his hand before his face suddenly stopped belonging to a stranger and melted into Jeeves.
I stared at him in utter shock. He was older, to be sure; well, it had been, what, eight years? Of course he was older! But he looked well, all the same. A trifle pale, certainly, but what more could you expect? He'd just seen a ghost, after all. I must have been just as pale. After all, I'd just seen a ghost myself.
“Sir, you were wonderful,” he said, and his voice was the just the same as it was in my dreams, though perhaps rather less disapproving than it usually is. “As always, sir,” he said. I believe I stammered out some nonsense, but it hardly matters. As soon as I had ascertained that he was in fact my man with the size 14 hat and the all-fish diet, I simply had to have my hands on him, quick as possible.
He felt jolly good, I must say. Jolly good, what?
3. Jeeves
The desperate force of his embrace jolted me back to the very first time I held him, more than two decades earlier. A late night it had been then as well, and I had waited for him somewhat irritably, for I was weary and concerned by his long absence. He had left for the Drones some ten hours earlier, and he had not made any mention to me of any plans that would keep him away past dinner. I was torn between enervated disgust at his carelessness and a wild, nameless sort of horror at the possibility of disaster. I was very nearly reaching for the telephone to ring the police when he came tumbling in the door, a pale, ragged, disheveled shade of my generally dashing master.
“Jeeves!” he'd shouted – far too boisterously for the late hour – and tripped over his own feet. He fell into a heap on the floor and I hastened to gather him up.
“I say, Jeeves,” he said, once I'd straightened him out and set him on his feet again. He swayed dangerously and I put my arms about him to bolster him. “I say, Jeeves. Jeeves, I say. Jeeves.”
“Yes, sir?” I said at last, wondering if he was indeed entirely conscious.
“Jeeves, old thing. Old boy. You know, don't you, how frightfully fond of you I am?”
“Sir, it is time we were both in bed.” I spoke rather bitingly, all of my concern now replaced with annoyance. The hour had passed one a.m., and Mr. Wooster had been out carousing without a word of explanation.
“I say!” he cried. “I should say that it is! High time.” He leaned heavily upon my shoulder and pressed his pale, weary face to my ear. “You'll come then, will you? I must tell you, old thing... I... I had a dashed hard time trying to find the words, you know.”
Still oblivious to his meaning, I began half-carrying him to his bedroom. “I imagine it would be difficult to find any words at all in your condition, sir.”
He barked a laugh. “True! All the same, it makes it easier, does it not? A little easier. Jeeves, old thing.” I deposited him into his bed and attempted to straighten myself, but his hands clasped mine and held me down. “Jeeves!” he hissed, “You said that we should go to bed! You aren't... You aren't leaving, are you?”
“Sir,” I began, but I was stopped by his unexpected kiss. It was brief and innocent and sweet, everything I had often dreamed it might be. It was so perfect and so unforeseen, I scarcely could convince myself that it had happened.
“Jeeves,” he said again, and I realized he was weeping, “don't leave me now. I don't know what I would do... Just, please, stay with me. You don't know how lonesome I've been. Always.”
“Oh, sir,” I said, sinking into his arms, “I have been lonesome as well.”
I snapped myself back into the present. This was no fantasy, no long-passed, oft-retreaded memory. This was current and real! He was here, in this same room with me, alive again, and I was with him and enveloped in his arms.
“Jeeves,” he whispered. I remembered with a flash of joy – how could I have forgotten? – that his mouth was the perfect height to whisper directly into my ear. “Jeeves,” he whispered, “I've bloody well dreamed about this!”
“As have I,” I hissed. Another bright flash of remembrance: if I placed my lips just so, I could kiss him right where I felt his lifeblood pulsing in his throat. It was there still, that heart, still beating just as it had in London, in Paris, in Steeple Bumpleigh, in Brinkley, in Poland, in Germany, and here, in New York. It had never stopped. I turned my face upward instinctually, gravitating toward his dear, beloved mouth. At the same second he turned his face downward and we were but a breath apart.
But I did not kiss him. In the last instant I remembered myself, remembered where we were: in a crowded restaurant on Third Avenue, surrounded by people, eyes watching on every side. I pushed him away as casually as I could. He fought me for a second and then I think he remembered as well and let me go. We stood a foot or so apart, glancing sheepishly about. There certainly were some people staring. “Well, old friend,” I said loudly for the crowd's benefit, “Forgive the emotional greeting. I thought for certain you were dead!”
“Not yet, old man,” he said back. “Not yet.” He slugged me manfully in the arm for good measure, and I granted him a smile.
“Won't you introduce me to your friends?” he asked, and I swiftly complied.
The introductions were done away with quickly, and we retook our seats at the table we had occupied for Mr. Wooster's show. We ordered a round of drinks, and before too long had passed, James had asked the question of the hour, that which hung even upon my reticent lips.
“So how in God's name did you end up here? We thought you were dead!”
To his credit, Mr. Wooster took the question gracefully, issuing a quick laugh and burying his hands in his pockets bashfully. “Oh, well, funny story, don't you know. I jumped out of a bally window!” he began, right in the middle of things, as usual. Soon enough, he had sorted himself out and started again from the moment he was dragged from our flat in Paris. The tale didn't take too long to relate, and he held us fascinated with every beat. He is, after all, a gifted storyteller above all, far superior in that regard to myself. I had hardly realized how much I had missed just this. Certainly I had ached for him in every way that a man can ache, but it had never occurred to me that I missed his meandering stories and his clipped Etonian accent, and even his use of cheap vernacular phrases. By then sufficient time had passed to render his “Right ho's” and “Toodle-pip's” antiquated and obsolete, and rather than grit my teeth and bare them, as I had always done before, I found myself adoring them as one might adore a regained relic from one's innocent childhood.
By the end of his tale, I was absolutely glowing. It was a lamentable and lachrymose saga, to be certain, but I could not bring myself to feel anything but enchanted. I had failed him, yes, but he seemed to hold no malice. He had suffered, but he had persevered, miraculously undamaged. We had been separated, but we were reunited. More importantly, he had survived! There was no tragedy here, only some extended discomfort, punctuated by the most exquisite joy. Here he was again, truly here and alive and mine, and for the first time in nearly a decade, the old favorite verse drifted back into my head.
God's in his heaven, I thought to myself, taking Mr. Wooster's hand under the table, and all is right with the world.
4. Bertie
Jeeves' friends were good enough chaps, but I can't say I was entirely pipped to see them go, once I'd finished my little tale of woe. No doubt we had seen the beginning of a beautiful friendship and all that, but I was quite eager to get Jeeves to myself without delay. I was lightheaded, even an hour after he popped back into my life, and I couldn't quite get it out of my mind that I might be hallucinating. Holding his hand under the table was all well and good, but I was all for diving right into things and seeing how they sat with us, if you catch my meaning. It had been an awfully long time, after all, and though I'd spent the whole blessed lot of it thinking of Jeeves and wondering how he was, I had not an inkling of how Jeeves himself had passed the years. I might be a hot-headed fool, but I wanted everything out where I could see it clearly, and I mean that both figuratively and literally.
As I say, it had been an awfully long time.
Well, the friendly coves buzzed off at last and left us to it, and Jeeves said, quite soberly, that he meant to take me home with him, which sounded jolly good to me. He paid the bill and I followed him eagerly into the night, having not the foggiest of where we were headed. He took me down 3rd until we reached 14th Street, and then we branched off in some new direction and I quite lost my bearing.
After a moment or two, we rounded a corner and found ourselves in a dark sort of place without any other people in sight. I took my chance right then; I couldn't wait a moment longer, could I? I have to tell you, I'm rather impressed with myself that I waited as long as I did! Anyway, I took him by the shoulders and sort of pushed him over against the wall, and then I landed a sound one right on his lips. It wasn't really a great kiss at all; I've done better blind drunk. But a kiss it was, and I stuck it, too. I thought it might be the last one, after all.
Maybe I should back up a bit here and explain that while Jeeves and I had been talking with his friends and telling our life stories to each other, it had rather occurred to me that Jeeves thought I was no longer in this world, shall we say. Not that I blame him. But the point that I am making here is that we had been separated for eight years, and Jeeves was such a dashed fantastic, marvelous chappie, I couldn't imagine that he'd gone all this time and not caught someone else's attention. So by the time we found ourselves in that deserted alley, I had fairly well prepared myself for Jeeves to announce that he had an arrangement with some other fellow – no doubt a cleverer, better-looking cove than I – and that he was, in fact, taking me to meet him in the guise of “an old friend.” I explained all this so that you would understand why I kissed him as if for the final time.
He kissed me back, which I must say was quite a pleasant surprise, but then Jeeves never wanted to offend the y.m., and I never had been quite certain how much of our relationship was love and how much was just the feudal spirit gone a bit wrong. He told me he loved me often enough, but he was so much better a man than I, I couldn't ever quite believe it was true.
When at last I backed off a step or two, I noted with some dismay that the old chap was tearing up a bit.
“Now, now,” I said, “what's all this? It's all right, really. If you've a prior commitment to some other bird, I won't give you the pip. Tell me I've got to go, and it'll be as you say. I don't mean to make trouble for you, old thing. I only missed you so bally much.”
“What on Earth are you saying?” he asked.
“Eh?” I asked. “What?”
“Mr. Wooster,” he said, very quietly, “I sincerely hope that you would never believe that there was anyone else. I have taken rooms, sir, fine rooms, and I have taken them, furnished them, and maintained them for you. Everything I have done these past twenty years has been for you, sir.” Here he put his hands quite smartly round my face and looked me square in the eye. “I want you to know that, sir.”
Well, I don't mind saying that there was a t. in the Wooster e. then, too. I let it pour and I kissed him again, properly this time, and I was feeling so braced about the world and life and everything that I let it go on for some time before I backed off again. It was jolly good. Just what the doctor ordered, I might say.
When I pulled away at last, smiled at him and said, “Well, perhaps there's one more thing you could do for me.”
“Anything, sir.”
“All right then. Stop calling me 'sir.' My name is Billy now, so call me that. Or William if you must, but I'm done with titles. As far as the law goes, I'm William Wilson of New York City, and I've never been to university. I am not of the noblesse, and, what is more, I haven't any money. Not a penny. I certainly can't employ you. The best I can do is go dutch on the rent, if it isn't too steep, and if we do that, then you're going to have to call me by my first name, or our friends are all going to think that we're barmy. Have you got that?”
He gave me a stony sort of look then and said, “Well, let us walk while we talk. It is getting quite late.” I obliged, and as we went he started to speak again. “I am afraid... Billy... No. It isn't right. Mightn't I at least call you Bertram? You are still Bertram Wooster, regardless of what your papers say.”
I slipped my hand into his arm. “All right, then. Bertram will do, if we're home by ourselves.”
“A small blessing at least. You are a gentleman, Bertram. You will always be so, whether you believe it or not. This is no different than when we lived in exile in Paris. You were a Wooster then, and you're a Wooster now.”
“I'm a Wilson now.”
“You are no such thing!” Jeeves growled, surprisingly emphatic.
“I say!” I said.
“You are a gentleman,” he said, considerably calmed already, but still forceful. “Destitute or not, exiled or not, disgraced or not, you are still noble, still a descendant of knights. Bertram, perhaps you don't understand, but that is who you are, and that is who I need you to be.”
“Oh,” I said, not quite certain what to make of it. “Right ho.”
“Now listen closely, because this is important. You were declared dead this morning, Bertram.”
“Only this morning? Gosh. I thought for certain they would have done it ages ago.”
“Well, they didn't. It was this morning, and up until now I have been able to keep your fine flat for you. But now that you're dead, I can't afford it. I would advise, sir, that you contact your family tonight and tell them that you are still alive.”
“Like hell!” I cried, surprising myself with my own fervor. “Listen here, Jeeves. Reginald. I've done a bit of research, and I know what they think of me back in old Blighty. They think I'm a traitor, and I have no intention of declaring my existence to anyone. I don't want to hear a word of it.”
“In that case, you know that we will lose all of your money, and the flat. We'll be destitute.”
“What of it? I've been destitute for years. I'm good at it.” I was in fine fettle, ready for a fight, and I was just about to give him another piece of my mind when something odd struck me. “I say,” I said, “why will we lose the money?”
“Because you are dead,” Jeeves said with his old familiar air of infinite patience. So he still thought me daft, did he? Well then, right ho. “You can't keep your money after you die.”
“Yes, but – dash it! Who's going to take it from you? Is there some frightful new inheritance tax I don't know about?”
Jeeves sighed heavily. “No, sir. But your money will be distributed to –”
“To who?” I asked, my panic rising. “Won't they read my will?”
“Yes, I dare-say they've already read it. Your aunt mentioned that she was on her way to your solicitor's office this morning.”
Relief jolly well flooded the old senses, I can tell you. I pulled Jeeves close to my side with a reassuring chuckle. He was warm and solid and wonderful beside me, even if he was jumpier than a wet cat at the mo. “Then we're all right,” I told him.
“But–”
“But nothing, man! I made out the will in '29 or '30, or something. I forget exactly. But I made it out after we – well. You know. Don't you know? It was on our second anniversary, in fact. It was meant to be a present to you, but it seemed so dashed morbid I couldn't ever bring myself to talk to you about it. The time always seemed wrong.”
“I don't follow you, sir.”
“Don't you? I thought you'd have guessed, anyway. I left all of my money to you!”
“Sir?”
“Ha! Now see, it isn't right or proper to call me that anymore, Mr. Moneybags! You're the gentleman now.” I threw my arm about his waist and pulled him to me, planting a kiss on him.
“You are certain?” he asked me softly, his mouth still within a breath of mine.
“Unshakably.”
Then he shook with silent laughter and hissed, “I would have dearly loved to have seen Lady Worplesdon's face when the solicitor read that.”
I joined him in laughter, but sobered up presently. When I spoke it was in a serious tone. “I couldn't think of a more deserving soul, my good man. You know, old thing, that you're the only person living who really cares for me. Not certain what that says about you, but there it is.”
He looked me long and hard in the eye after that, and then he kissed me soundly himself. “That may be true,” he said, rather bitterly, “but at least you may have the comfort of knowing that I love you with my entire being, and for all my life. I hope that that can be enough for you.”
“Dear old thing,” I said, throwing a chummy arm about his shoulders. “It's jolly well more than enough. I say!” For I had spotted a smashing building not to far from us that looked just my sort of place. “Is that us?”
“It is. Does it please you?”
“Please me?” I stammered. I mean to say! You get a moment like this handed to you, with the bright lights all about you and the Darling One on your arm, and the motorcars themselves singing a sort of hurried love song, and the most dashed beautiful building you've ever seen right before you, and you know there's a posh, warm room in it just for you, and you feel – well, dash it! You feel as if you're home at last, don't you? Home is the sailor, home from the sea, as the poet johnny said, what?
But it wasn't the place really, and it wasn't the cars or the lights, or even the knowledge that the whole bally ordeal was over. It was this man, you see. Just this man. I'd been fool enough to let him get away from me a few times in my puff, but dash it, he always found his way back, however long it took, and when I looked at my whole life and all the wrong steps I'd taken, his presence there at the end of it, holding my arm and loving me all the same through time and space and all that, well, it rather wiped the whole slate clean, if you know what I mean. I certainly made a great mess of things in the War, but it hardly seemed to matter all of the sudden. What I mean is, perhaps I couldn't go to England again, have a drink at the Drones, get my revenge on Tuppy, tickle Angela's ankles. Perhaps I couldn't ever go home again, but really, what did that matter? England wasn't really home at all, was it? It was just this man, with his great brain and his hidebound views on fashion, and all of it, every facet of him; I knew that I could be anywhere, be anyone, a traitor even, and he would still look at me and see me for what I really was, down in the core of me, don't you know, and at the end of the day, he would mix me a b. and s. and everything would be all right.
I'm babbling now, but all I'm really trying to say is that I really had come home again, and it wasn't so much a place as it was a feeling, and it wasn't so much the building itself as it was the fact that Jeeves had chosen it. Does that make any sense? He was in charge again, and that was the way it was meant to be. So I held him close and I said, “Well, my good man, I haven't seen the apartment yet, but I trust your judgment. If you chose it for me, then I have no doubt it will be the finest home I could wish for.”
And then Jeeves brought me in and sat me by the fire and mixed me a drink and sat down close beside me. And that might as well be the end of the story, if we want to keep things decent, I mean.
Total Word Count: 7,656
Pairing: Jeeves/Bertie
Rating: PG
Summary: In the aftermath of WWII, Jeeves and Bertie start to put their lives back together.
Disclaimer: Jeeves and Wooster belong to PG Wodehouse, not me. "Wodehouse At War" belongs to Iain Sproad, not me.
Part 1
Part 2
1. Jeeves
“Yes. Yes, I understand. Thank you for informing me. Yes. Thank you, Madam. To you as well. Good bye.”
I placed the building's phone soundly upon its jack and permitted myself a moment of silent meditation ere I vacated the phone booth. I doubted too many people would be queueing for it at five in the morning, anyway. It was April, 1948, and likely to be a fine, temperate day with a gentle breeze possessing still a tang of winter, and no rain. Not unlike the April day twelve years earlier, when Mr. Wooster announced his decision to move us to Paris. I wondered – not for the first, or even the thousandth time – if that unnamed blackmailer who had started this entire ghastly business could have been dealt with some other way. Just what sort of evidence had he possessed? Could I have done something to silence him myself? Should I have? Even if I had killed him, and found myself swinging on the next available rope, would it not have been preferable? Better I than Mr. Wooster.
But these were tired, concentric circles upon which my mind was running, constantly spinning, and always leading to the same place: I had failed, terribly, and regardless of the reason – shocked into stupefaction? Lulled into complacency by love and time and happiness? – the result was the same, and could not be changed. Some loathsome mistake had been made at some point, and now, twelve, or eight – or what, twenty three? – years later, the final gong had sounded. My failure was absolute, my life's work over, and I could not begin to think of what to do with the rest of my time.
The phone call I had received, you see, was a long-distance call from England. From Mrs. Travers, Mr. Wooster's aunt Dahlia. She had acquired the number to my building through Mr. Wooster's American bank, where I had transferred his funds during the war, and her message had not been a welcome one. To be swift and explicit, her message was that Mr. Wooster's prison camp had been thoroughly excavated, and buried bodies had been found. While there was no record of Mr. Wooster's execution, the presence of several unidentified bodies at the camp and the fact that Mr. Wooster had been silent, lost, and unaccounted for for a period of six years was evidence enough that Mr. Wooster no longer lived. Mrs. Travers had called to inform me that he had been declared legally dead that morning.
It is difficult to say with precision just what it was I was feeling in that moment. Certainly I grieved, but it was not entirely grief, for I had dispatched with the greater part of mourning some years earlier. It was not shock, for in truth, I had been expecting such news since the very day his Berlin broadcasts ceased. It was not even precisely sorrow, for the call had not actually changed any conditions of my life or even any of my rational expectations. No, more than anything, it was a sort of profound disappointment, not of the mind, but of the heart. For in my analytical discerning mind, I had known for years that he was gone, just as I had known for the duration of our time together that he was a fool and an ambitionless weight on society, something my father would have referred to as “a waste of air,” with a curl to his lip. It was only in that part of me that idolized him for his pedigree, adored him for his tragic life, and cherished him for his selflessness and naïve foolhardiness and his unaffected, childlike charming smile that had ever held any hope of reunion. It had never been anything but a mirage, that hope of mine, a pale, fading hallucination of water in the trackless desert – if only I dragged myself just a few miles further. All these years, I had been allowing myself to court a shade, swept away by my romantic illusions. Now at last the Greek myth of my life had ended, and before me stretched reality alone, in all its vast and supremely uninteresting variety.
Mrs. Travers had taken away my delusions and had given me my life. Was the trade equitable? I was not certain.
She had taken something else as well. I truly appreciated her time and effort, but I did not appreciate her implication toward the end of our brief conversation that I would soon be required to “relinquish control of his funds,” to quote her directly. She told me in no uncertain terms that the money was to be distributed as stated in Mr. Wooster's will (It was, I must admit, news to me that Mr. Wooster even had a will; it seems he had prepared one with his solicitor sometime in the year 1929). She had not yet heard the will, but was on her way to hear it read as soon as our conversation ended. Based on her comments, I assumed that she had reason to believe that she or at least her daughter, stood to inherit no small amount from him, and also that the entire family had been deeply suspicious of my doings in America, and of the state of the account.
Well, I could have told them that their fears were unfounded. Mr. Wooster's wealth was practically untouched, as I had used it sparingly to cover only my accommodation, and had used my own earnings for everything else. Even if I had been some sort of profligate spender, they need hardly have worried. Mr. Wooster had enough money for ten extravagant lifetimes.
It hurt me to know that I would soon be required to vacate the fine lodgings I had settled in. It had, of course, been my rather insane hope that once Mr. Wooster and I were reunited, he could live in that particular flat with me. It was expensive and fine and perfectly furnished, just as I knew he liked it. But that was a dead dream now anyway. Mr. Wooster was dead and I myself certainly didn't require such a lavish residence. I could easily take cheap rooms in some guesthouse once the money was gone.
Is it terrible for me to confess that I did not want to leave? I did not need the pricey rooms, but I did love them. I had never in my entire life lived anywhere that was not sumptuous and extravagant. I had served wealthy men and lived in great mansions. Indeed, these rooms were the cheapest I had ever taken! It terrified me to imagine living in a slum, or a single bedroom rented by the week like James and Edward.
I started to weep in the telephone booth. Not for the rooms, though that was a small part of it. I wept for Mr. Wooster, whom I had always hoped and dreamed and even ardently believed to be alive. Some part of me still refused to accept that he was gone, had been gone for years. Even though he had been long absent, I had still, in my heart, continued to be his man. I kept his house for him, though he had never seen it. I managed his funds for him, even washed his clothes for him from time to time, so that they would be ready whenever he should require them. But how could I continue with this fantasy? He was gone at last, gone for good. I had a life to live, and I had to live it without him. There was no choice, no future to hold out for, no master to serve. Nothing but me and my base needs.
It was nearly the most horrible moment of my life. No one to wait for, no one to care for, no one to protect, to guide, to scold, to dress, to love. I had never felt so utterly lost, so completely terrified.
* * *
It is odd, is it not, how life plays itself out? I have never been an abundantly devout man; I tend to take my church at Christmas and at Easter, and then only out of childhood habit and a desire to be respectable. Nevertheless, there are brief moments, miniscule pockets in this vast, undulating world that make me pause and reflect that perhaps there is indeed a great hand at work. I have had this revelation only a few times, but each instance stands out in my memory with a prominence that renders them, in my heart, as conspicuous and decisive as any great Biblical miracle.
The first such experience came when I was but a lad of ten. While swimming alone in a river, my foot became entangled in an old, cast-off fishing net amongst the rocks at the bottom. I was trapped with my face mere inches below the surface, thrashing for my life. It was only when I gave myself up for lost and felt my consciousness slipping away that my foot fell free of the netting, seemingly by its own accord, and I floated upward to sweet air, light, and life.
The second occurrence I have recounted – rather sparingly – already, it being the moment when Mr. Wooster proclaimed his feelings to me and dragged me, not unwilling, into his bed.
The third happened that very night.
I had gone to work after recovering my outward composure, and once there I informed James of that morning's events. He was properly horrified and patted me soundly on the back, as a good friend does, and then he extended himself to the point of inviting me out for dinner. He and Edward had planned a night out at a popular restaurant on Third Avenue they had often heard about. The food and music were both supposed to be first-rate.
“You must come, Reggie,” he urged me as I attempted to decline. “What are you going to do if you don't come out? Will you go and sit in your empty apartment and drink yourself into oblivion? Come out and live a bit.” Then he leaned in close to me and hissed the clincher. “They say there's a piano player there who can play a mean Gershwin. Just like the old days. What do you say?”
And though I had never been a Gershwin enthusiast, I remembered fondly a young, handsome, blue-eyed lad with a heart of gold who used to play him sweetly in the summer of '27, and I fancied that I would love to hear the silly old songs again, just this once.
“All right, then,” I said, and James slapped my shoulder.
We arrived about half an hour before the music was to start, and ordered our meal. We chatted pleasantly over the food, talking about this and that, when the star musician was announced. The head waiter gave his name as Billy Wilson, and the applause went up like thunder at his introduction. I was seated facing away from the stage, and as I was enjoying my meal I did not bother to turn around when he entered. I clapped politely as the others did and then continued eating.
And then something most remarkable happened. The pianist played his first few notes, and quite suddenly I was transported back to the year 1927, to a beautiful flat in London. I was preparing Mr. Wooster's luncheon, for he had decided to stay in and practice a new Gershwin song he had just purchased. As I put the finishing touches to his meal, he began to play, light and easy as always, and his fine tenor voice rang through the kitchen door.
“There's a saying old says love is blind,” Mr. Wooster sang; it seemed a sweet little song, though rather inane. He had tended toward heartfelt love songs for the last few months, ever since – well. I smiled softly to myself and prepared to bring his tray.
I blinked and I was back in New York, back in the year 1948. James and Edward, sitting side by side across from me, smiled dreamily in the pianist's direction. His fine tenor voice sang on.
“Still we're often told 'Seek and ye shall find.' So I am going to seek a certain lad I've had in mind. Looking everywhere, I haven't found him yet. He's the big affair I cannot forget. Only man I ever think of with regret. I'd like to add his initial to my monogram. Tell me, where is the shepherd for this lost lamb?”
I remained frozen, staring away from the singer, my back rigid. I dared not turn round. His voice was so similar, his playing so alike, if I closed my eyes I could see Mr. Wooster in my mind, just as he was that day, two decades before. I brought his luncheon to the table on the silver tray, but he remained at the piano, caught up in his sweet silly song. I stood behind him for a time and I listened. I was a young man still, and I was in love.
“There's a somebody I'm longing to see,” Mr. Wooster sang, his thin hands dancing lightly over the keys. “I hope that he turns out to be someone who'll watch over me.”
On that occasion in 1927 I did not permit him to finish the song. He was so innocent, so naïve, and so sincere, so very much the lost lamb whose words he was singing, I had no choice but to slip my arms about him. He stopped playing at once and turned his face to kiss me. I sank beside him onto the piano bench and we kissed each other desperately. It was all so new then, so thrilling and frightening and beautiful, and we were so young. I remember thinking to myself that I would watch over him forever. I believe I even whispered the sentiment into his ear.
But of course, I did not watch over him. I was not the shepherd that I should have been; like a coward, I stood there, in our flat in Paris, and I watched my lamb be led to the slaughter.
I tell you now with shame that I began to weep right there. Meanwhile, the pianist played on.
“I'm a little lamb who's lost in the wood. I know I could always be good. Someone who'll watch over me.”
James noticed my tears and put a hand on my shoulder. He murmured some concerned words, but I didn't hear them. All I heard was the pianist's sweet voice – so familiar! My will was overpowered by my insane hope, and I turned; I turned and I beheld him, not fifteen feet from me, aged and careworn, gray-haired and scarred, and yet, somehow, still innocent. Still blue-eyed and bright, still playing that ridiculous, love-sick song from a simpler, happier time. What was it he called himself? Billy Wilson? I laughed out loud through my lingering tears; I admit I turned a few disapproving heads, but for once I did not care.
Billy Wilson! Could he have chosen a more obvious pseudonym? How like him to keep the same initials!
“That,” I said to my friends, who at this point must scarcely have known what to think, “is Bertram Wooster.”
I heard James gasp, heard Edward mutter one of his vulgar expressions that he picked up in the navy, but from that moment, I paid them no more attention for the rest of the evening. It was rather bad form, I own, but I do not think I legitimize my actions disproportionately when I suggest that anyone might do the same under similar circumstances. I certainly heard little enough from James for a good week or two after Edward's ship came into port, and they were separated a mere six months. I had not seen my master in eight long years.
I will say for myself that I kept my composure quite well. I did not rush to Mr. Wooster as he played. I did not leap onto the the table and scream his name. I did not faint, nor die of apoplexy. I sat still and calm, though delighted and mystified, and I watched his performance. Over the next hours, he played many songs, almost all of which elicited memories of our time together. I watched with awe and glowing love as he brought the audience to tears and then, mere moments later, made them laugh out loud for joy. I watched as the man I loved, so recently commended to the grave and resurrected, worked his beautiful, untarnished magic on a crowd of strangers, just as he had always done with his writing, his singing, and his precious, perfect self. All the while James and Edward sat on either side of me, having moved their chairs in an effort to give me support should I collapse or some such thing, and they watched with me, laughing and weeping along with everyone else.
When the two hours had finally wound down to a close, and dear Mr. Wooster was taking a quick, self-conscious bow, James leaned over and said, “No wonder you didn't want anyone else.” I smiled at him, grateful beyond words. James' eyes were twinkling with affection, and it struck me that here I had as good a friend as I could ever desire. I smiled my gratitude, still shamefully speechless, and turned my eyes back to the beloved man at the piano.
As Mr. Wooster stepped off the little stage and began to make his way to the kitchen, I noted with a pang of sorrow that he now walked with a marked limp, favoring the right leg.
Scarcely knowing what I was doing, I stood quickly and went to his side. In a moment, he was close enough to touch, and still he hadn't seen me; he was busy thanking those members of the audience who had rushed to give him praise. No doubt he thought me another nameless admirer. For a brief moment I panicked; what would I do if he did not recognize me? It had been eight long years, after all. What if I were to hold out my hand to him, and he took it and thanked me, and walked away? I could not imagine what I would do, or what I would say to James. Nevertheless, I had to touch him, to speak to him, to look him in the eye. I had to assure myself that this was not some illusion or specter. I patiently waited my turn.
At last he turned to me, his dear old smile steady, and he held out his hand.
“Thank you!” he said warmly. I felt a small jolt of surprise that he spoke with an American accent. For a second I almost doubted myself. Was this in fact some American doppleganger? Had I deceived myself with hope and loneliness and longing? Had I, in fact, forgotten his face over the years and replaced it somehow with that of some low-class lounge singer? Had my guilt finally driven me mad? All of these hysterical cogitations stormed through my mind in an instant. One instant more and my apprehensions were answered. “So good of –” His eyes met mine and his words choked off mid-sentence. For a long silent moment he stood gaping at me like a fish, and in his dumb bewilderment I had my confirmation.
“Sir,” I said, finding my voice at last. “You were wonderful. As always, sir.”
“I say,” he hissed, almost British again, and blinked his bright blue eyes. “I say! Is that... I mean to say... Is that you, Jeeves?”
“Indeed, sir.”
“Well! I say!” he stammered, and for the first time in eight years, he held me in his arms.
2. Bertie
It seemed a night quite like any other. I mean to say, I had no psychic premonitions, perceived no omens. No great black bird perched on the bust above my door. Nothing of that sort. As I say, it was an ordinary day. I lounged about quite late, as was my habit, having nowhere to go and nothing to do until I was needed to play at the restaurant at eight in the evening. It was a smashing little job, I had, not at all difficult; a pure pleasure, in fact, and since I brought in a fairly steady crowd during the hours I played, I earned more for my three hours daily than I had for my eight hours at the men's clothing store. Altogether I was pulling in about $1,000 a year, which would have seemed a pittance to me at one point, but at this stage in my life was quite sufficient. I had modest lodgings at a guest house on 85th and 3rd, and most of my meals I took from the restaurant where I worked, free of charge if the food had been sent back or left uneaten by patrons. All in all, I felt quite braced about things in general, except, of course, for the notable lack of Jeeves, but that was such a constant and familiar anguish I hardly let it bother me anymore.
On this particular day, I rose at noon, read a few chapters of a somewhat lackluster mystery novel, drank a little tea (for I had learned how to make it myself, after much trial and error), and tapped my foot to the second-hand radio I had procured from a nearby junk shop some few months earlier. It was a jolly good time, really, the sort of day I had been enjoying immensely since I had taken up employment as a restaurant pianist nearly a year before. Sometimes I met a friend for a ramble in the park or a bit of lunch, if I had a little extra green lining my pockets, but that day, I stayed in. I left my room at six o'clock and strolled straight down 3rd Avenue for forty three blocks, taking about forty five minutes to do so. When I arrived at my place of employment, I slipped in through the kitchen door and helped myself to an abandoned chicken dinner. Finally, I strode out onto the stage and took my seat to begin playing at precisely 8 o'clock.
I have mentioned before that I have a touch of what theater types call “stage fright.” If you ask me to address a large audience and speak to them knowledgeably (as Jeeves did once, bless him) I'll inevitably clam up and choke on my own tongue, then trip over my feet on my way down the stairs. This unpleasant pheno... what's the word I'm looking for? It's a multi-syllabled chappie that means “odd occurrence,” or some-such thing. Oh well. Anyway, the point is, this doesn't tend to happen when I am playing piano and singing, since I make it a point never to look out at the audience until I have quite well finished. Singing has always come easier to me than speaking, anyway. Music has never given me the terror that unaccompanied speech can raise in me.
I say this to explain why it was that I didn't notice Jeeves, even though he was apparently sitting center and staring straight at me for three hours. You'd think I'd notice something like that, but no. Not I. I hadn't the foggiest that he was there watching me, not until I'd hopped down from the stage and tried to make my getaway. Even then it took me a moment. I'd nearly shaken his hand before his face suddenly stopped belonging to a stranger and melted into Jeeves.
I stared at him in utter shock. He was older, to be sure; well, it had been, what, eight years? Of course he was older! But he looked well, all the same. A trifle pale, certainly, but what more could you expect? He'd just seen a ghost, after all. I must have been just as pale. After all, I'd just seen a ghost myself.
“Sir, you were wonderful,” he said, and his voice was the just the same as it was in my dreams, though perhaps rather less disapproving than it usually is. “As always, sir,” he said. I believe I stammered out some nonsense, but it hardly matters. As soon as I had ascertained that he was in fact my man with the size 14 hat and the all-fish diet, I simply had to have my hands on him, quick as possible.
He felt jolly good, I must say. Jolly good, what?
3. Jeeves
The desperate force of his embrace jolted me back to the very first time I held him, more than two decades earlier. A late night it had been then as well, and I had waited for him somewhat irritably, for I was weary and concerned by his long absence. He had left for the Drones some ten hours earlier, and he had not made any mention to me of any plans that would keep him away past dinner. I was torn between enervated disgust at his carelessness and a wild, nameless sort of horror at the possibility of disaster. I was very nearly reaching for the telephone to ring the police when he came tumbling in the door, a pale, ragged, disheveled shade of my generally dashing master.
“Jeeves!” he'd shouted – far too boisterously for the late hour – and tripped over his own feet. He fell into a heap on the floor and I hastened to gather him up.
“I say, Jeeves,” he said, once I'd straightened him out and set him on his feet again. He swayed dangerously and I put my arms about him to bolster him. “I say, Jeeves. Jeeves, I say. Jeeves.”
“Yes, sir?” I said at last, wondering if he was indeed entirely conscious.
“Jeeves, old thing. Old boy. You know, don't you, how frightfully fond of you I am?”
“Sir, it is time we were both in bed.” I spoke rather bitingly, all of my concern now replaced with annoyance. The hour had passed one a.m., and Mr. Wooster had been out carousing without a word of explanation.
“I say!” he cried. “I should say that it is! High time.” He leaned heavily upon my shoulder and pressed his pale, weary face to my ear. “You'll come then, will you? I must tell you, old thing... I... I had a dashed hard time trying to find the words, you know.”
Still oblivious to his meaning, I began half-carrying him to his bedroom. “I imagine it would be difficult to find any words at all in your condition, sir.”
He barked a laugh. “True! All the same, it makes it easier, does it not? A little easier. Jeeves, old thing.” I deposited him into his bed and attempted to straighten myself, but his hands clasped mine and held me down. “Jeeves!” he hissed, “You said that we should go to bed! You aren't... You aren't leaving, are you?”
“Sir,” I began, but I was stopped by his unexpected kiss. It was brief and innocent and sweet, everything I had often dreamed it might be. It was so perfect and so unforeseen, I scarcely could convince myself that it had happened.
“Jeeves,” he said again, and I realized he was weeping, “don't leave me now. I don't know what I would do... Just, please, stay with me. You don't know how lonesome I've been. Always.”
“Oh, sir,” I said, sinking into his arms, “I have been lonesome as well.”
I snapped myself back into the present. This was no fantasy, no long-passed, oft-retreaded memory. This was current and real! He was here, in this same room with me, alive again, and I was with him and enveloped in his arms.
“Jeeves,” he whispered. I remembered with a flash of joy – how could I have forgotten? – that his mouth was the perfect height to whisper directly into my ear. “Jeeves,” he whispered, “I've bloody well dreamed about this!”
“As have I,” I hissed. Another bright flash of remembrance: if I placed my lips just so, I could kiss him right where I felt his lifeblood pulsing in his throat. It was there still, that heart, still beating just as it had in London, in Paris, in Steeple Bumpleigh, in Brinkley, in Poland, in Germany, and here, in New York. It had never stopped. I turned my face upward instinctually, gravitating toward his dear, beloved mouth. At the same second he turned his face downward and we were but a breath apart.
But I did not kiss him. In the last instant I remembered myself, remembered where we were: in a crowded restaurant on Third Avenue, surrounded by people, eyes watching on every side. I pushed him away as casually as I could. He fought me for a second and then I think he remembered as well and let me go. We stood a foot or so apart, glancing sheepishly about. There certainly were some people staring. “Well, old friend,” I said loudly for the crowd's benefit, “Forgive the emotional greeting. I thought for certain you were dead!”
“Not yet, old man,” he said back. “Not yet.” He slugged me manfully in the arm for good measure, and I granted him a smile.
“Won't you introduce me to your friends?” he asked, and I swiftly complied.
The introductions were done away with quickly, and we retook our seats at the table we had occupied for Mr. Wooster's show. We ordered a round of drinks, and before too long had passed, James had asked the question of the hour, that which hung even upon my reticent lips.
“So how in God's name did you end up here? We thought you were dead!”
To his credit, Mr. Wooster took the question gracefully, issuing a quick laugh and burying his hands in his pockets bashfully. “Oh, well, funny story, don't you know. I jumped out of a bally window!” he began, right in the middle of things, as usual. Soon enough, he had sorted himself out and started again from the moment he was dragged from our flat in Paris. The tale didn't take too long to relate, and he held us fascinated with every beat. He is, after all, a gifted storyteller above all, far superior in that regard to myself. I had hardly realized how much I had missed just this. Certainly I had ached for him in every way that a man can ache, but it had never occurred to me that I missed his meandering stories and his clipped Etonian accent, and even his use of cheap vernacular phrases. By then sufficient time had passed to render his “Right ho's” and “Toodle-pip's” antiquated and obsolete, and rather than grit my teeth and bare them, as I had always done before, I found myself adoring them as one might adore a regained relic from one's innocent childhood.
By the end of his tale, I was absolutely glowing. It was a lamentable and lachrymose saga, to be certain, but I could not bring myself to feel anything but enchanted. I had failed him, yes, but he seemed to hold no malice. He had suffered, but he had persevered, miraculously undamaged. We had been separated, but we were reunited. More importantly, he had survived! There was no tragedy here, only some extended discomfort, punctuated by the most exquisite joy. Here he was again, truly here and alive and mine, and for the first time in nearly a decade, the old favorite verse drifted back into my head.
God's in his heaven, I thought to myself, taking Mr. Wooster's hand under the table, and all is right with the world.
4. Bertie
Jeeves' friends were good enough chaps, but I can't say I was entirely pipped to see them go, once I'd finished my little tale of woe. No doubt we had seen the beginning of a beautiful friendship and all that, but I was quite eager to get Jeeves to myself without delay. I was lightheaded, even an hour after he popped back into my life, and I couldn't quite get it out of my mind that I might be hallucinating. Holding his hand under the table was all well and good, but I was all for diving right into things and seeing how they sat with us, if you catch my meaning. It had been an awfully long time, after all, and though I'd spent the whole blessed lot of it thinking of Jeeves and wondering how he was, I had not an inkling of how Jeeves himself had passed the years. I might be a hot-headed fool, but I wanted everything out where I could see it clearly, and I mean that both figuratively and literally.
As I say, it had been an awfully long time.
Well, the friendly coves buzzed off at last and left us to it, and Jeeves said, quite soberly, that he meant to take me home with him, which sounded jolly good to me. He paid the bill and I followed him eagerly into the night, having not the foggiest of where we were headed. He took me down 3rd until we reached 14th Street, and then we branched off in some new direction and I quite lost my bearing.
After a moment or two, we rounded a corner and found ourselves in a dark sort of place without any other people in sight. I took my chance right then; I couldn't wait a moment longer, could I? I have to tell you, I'm rather impressed with myself that I waited as long as I did! Anyway, I took him by the shoulders and sort of pushed him over against the wall, and then I landed a sound one right on his lips. It wasn't really a great kiss at all; I've done better blind drunk. But a kiss it was, and I stuck it, too. I thought it might be the last one, after all.
Maybe I should back up a bit here and explain that while Jeeves and I had been talking with his friends and telling our life stories to each other, it had rather occurred to me that Jeeves thought I was no longer in this world, shall we say. Not that I blame him. But the point that I am making here is that we had been separated for eight years, and Jeeves was such a dashed fantastic, marvelous chappie, I couldn't imagine that he'd gone all this time and not caught someone else's attention. So by the time we found ourselves in that deserted alley, I had fairly well prepared myself for Jeeves to announce that he had an arrangement with some other fellow – no doubt a cleverer, better-looking cove than I – and that he was, in fact, taking me to meet him in the guise of “an old friend.” I explained all this so that you would understand why I kissed him as if for the final time.
He kissed me back, which I must say was quite a pleasant surprise, but then Jeeves never wanted to offend the y.m., and I never had been quite certain how much of our relationship was love and how much was just the feudal spirit gone a bit wrong. He told me he loved me often enough, but he was so much better a man than I, I couldn't ever quite believe it was true.
When at last I backed off a step or two, I noted with some dismay that the old chap was tearing up a bit.
“Now, now,” I said, “what's all this? It's all right, really. If you've a prior commitment to some other bird, I won't give you the pip. Tell me I've got to go, and it'll be as you say. I don't mean to make trouble for you, old thing. I only missed you so bally much.”
“What on Earth are you saying?” he asked.
“Eh?” I asked. “What?”
“Mr. Wooster,” he said, very quietly, “I sincerely hope that you would never believe that there was anyone else. I have taken rooms, sir, fine rooms, and I have taken them, furnished them, and maintained them for you. Everything I have done these past twenty years has been for you, sir.” Here he put his hands quite smartly round my face and looked me square in the eye. “I want you to know that, sir.”
Well, I don't mind saying that there was a t. in the Wooster e. then, too. I let it pour and I kissed him again, properly this time, and I was feeling so braced about the world and life and everything that I let it go on for some time before I backed off again. It was jolly good. Just what the doctor ordered, I might say.
When I pulled away at last, smiled at him and said, “Well, perhaps there's one more thing you could do for me.”
“Anything, sir.”
“All right then. Stop calling me 'sir.' My name is Billy now, so call me that. Or William if you must, but I'm done with titles. As far as the law goes, I'm William Wilson of New York City, and I've never been to university. I am not of the noblesse, and, what is more, I haven't any money. Not a penny. I certainly can't employ you. The best I can do is go dutch on the rent, if it isn't too steep, and if we do that, then you're going to have to call me by my first name, or our friends are all going to think that we're barmy. Have you got that?”
He gave me a stony sort of look then and said, “Well, let us walk while we talk. It is getting quite late.” I obliged, and as we went he started to speak again. “I am afraid... Billy... No. It isn't right. Mightn't I at least call you Bertram? You are still Bertram Wooster, regardless of what your papers say.”
I slipped my hand into his arm. “All right, then. Bertram will do, if we're home by ourselves.”
“A small blessing at least. You are a gentleman, Bertram. You will always be so, whether you believe it or not. This is no different than when we lived in exile in Paris. You were a Wooster then, and you're a Wooster now.”
“I'm a Wilson now.”
“You are no such thing!” Jeeves growled, surprisingly emphatic.
“I say!” I said.
“You are a gentleman,” he said, considerably calmed already, but still forceful. “Destitute or not, exiled or not, disgraced or not, you are still noble, still a descendant of knights. Bertram, perhaps you don't understand, but that is who you are, and that is who I need you to be.”
“Oh,” I said, not quite certain what to make of it. “Right ho.”
“Now listen closely, because this is important. You were declared dead this morning, Bertram.”
“Only this morning? Gosh. I thought for certain they would have done it ages ago.”
“Well, they didn't. It was this morning, and up until now I have been able to keep your fine flat for you. But now that you're dead, I can't afford it. I would advise, sir, that you contact your family tonight and tell them that you are still alive.”
“Like hell!” I cried, surprising myself with my own fervor. “Listen here, Jeeves. Reginald. I've done a bit of research, and I know what they think of me back in old Blighty. They think I'm a traitor, and I have no intention of declaring my existence to anyone. I don't want to hear a word of it.”
“In that case, you know that we will lose all of your money, and the flat. We'll be destitute.”
“What of it? I've been destitute for years. I'm good at it.” I was in fine fettle, ready for a fight, and I was just about to give him another piece of my mind when something odd struck me. “I say,” I said, “why will we lose the money?”
“Because you are dead,” Jeeves said with his old familiar air of infinite patience. So he still thought me daft, did he? Well then, right ho. “You can't keep your money after you die.”
“Yes, but – dash it! Who's going to take it from you? Is there some frightful new inheritance tax I don't know about?”
Jeeves sighed heavily. “No, sir. But your money will be distributed to –”
“To who?” I asked, my panic rising. “Won't they read my will?”
“Yes, I dare-say they've already read it. Your aunt mentioned that she was on her way to your solicitor's office this morning.”
Relief jolly well flooded the old senses, I can tell you. I pulled Jeeves close to my side with a reassuring chuckle. He was warm and solid and wonderful beside me, even if he was jumpier than a wet cat at the mo. “Then we're all right,” I told him.
“But–”
“But nothing, man! I made out the will in '29 or '30, or something. I forget exactly. But I made it out after we – well. You know. Don't you know? It was on our second anniversary, in fact. It was meant to be a present to you, but it seemed so dashed morbid I couldn't ever bring myself to talk to you about it. The time always seemed wrong.”
“I don't follow you, sir.”
“Don't you? I thought you'd have guessed, anyway. I left all of my money to you!”
“Sir?”
“Ha! Now see, it isn't right or proper to call me that anymore, Mr. Moneybags! You're the gentleman now.” I threw my arm about his waist and pulled him to me, planting a kiss on him.
“You are certain?” he asked me softly, his mouth still within a breath of mine.
“Unshakably.”
Then he shook with silent laughter and hissed, “I would have dearly loved to have seen Lady Worplesdon's face when the solicitor read that.”
I joined him in laughter, but sobered up presently. When I spoke it was in a serious tone. “I couldn't think of a more deserving soul, my good man. You know, old thing, that you're the only person living who really cares for me. Not certain what that says about you, but there it is.”
He looked me long and hard in the eye after that, and then he kissed me soundly himself. “That may be true,” he said, rather bitterly, “but at least you may have the comfort of knowing that I love you with my entire being, and for all my life. I hope that that can be enough for you.”
“Dear old thing,” I said, throwing a chummy arm about his shoulders. “It's jolly well more than enough. I say!” For I had spotted a smashing building not to far from us that looked just my sort of place. “Is that us?”
“It is. Does it please you?”
“Please me?” I stammered. I mean to say! You get a moment like this handed to you, with the bright lights all about you and the Darling One on your arm, and the motorcars themselves singing a sort of hurried love song, and the most dashed beautiful building you've ever seen right before you, and you know there's a posh, warm room in it just for you, and you feel – well, dash it! You feel as if you're home at last, don't you? Home is the sailor, home from the sea, as the poet johnny said, what?
But it wasn't the place really, and it wasn't the cars or the lights, or even the knowledge that the whole bally ordeal was over. It was this man, you see. Just this man. I'd been fool enough to let him get away from me a few times in my puff, but dash it, he always found his way back, however long it took, and when I looked at my whole life and all the wrong steps I'd taken, his presence there at the end of it, holding my arm and loving me all the same through time and space and all that, well, it rather wiped the whole slate clean, if you know what I mean. I certainly made a great mess of things in the War, but it hardly seemed to matter all of the sudden. What I mean is, perhaps I couldn't go to England again, have a drink at the Drones, get my revenge on Tuppy, tickle Angela's ankles. Perhaps I couldn't ever go home again, but really, what did that matter? England wasn't really home at all, was it? It was just this man, with his great brain and his hidebound views on fashion, and all of it, every facet of him; I knew that I could be anywhere, be anyone, a traitor even, and he would still look at me and see me for what I really was, down in the core of me, don't you know, and at the end of the day, he would mix me a b. and s. and everything would be all right.
I'm babbling now, but all I'm really trying to say is that I really had come home again, and it wasn't so much a place as it was a feeling, and it wasn't so much the building itself as it was the fact that Jeeves had chosen it. Does that make any sense? He was in charge again, and that was the way it was meant to be. So I held him close and I said, “Well, my good man, I haven't seen the apartment yet, but I trust your judgment. If you chose it for me, then I have no doubt it will be the finest home I could wish for.”
And then Jeeves brought me in and sat me by the fire and mixed me a drink and sat down close beside me. And that might as well be the end of the story, if we want to keep things decent, I mean.
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Date: 2010-12-29 06:54 pm (UTC)When you kicked it off with Jeeves getting word that Bertie was 'dead', my palms started sweating. These three parts have just been...wonderful. Beyond wonderful. Beautifully written and paced, and i love how you didn't change the characters, but adjusted them to fit with the times.
Wonderful job!
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Date: 2010-12-29 07:59 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-12-29 10:17 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-12-29 11:31 pm (UTC)Just one thing, which I hope you don't mind me pointing out, but if Jeeves had murdered that blackmailing scounderel then he most likely would have been hanged and not jailed for life. Gruesome times.
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Date: 2010-12-30 12:29 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-12-30 12:23 am (UTC)The only thing I was lacking was a wee bit of smut, but I recognize that this is entirely a matter of taste, and is not at all a flaw in the story!
Bravo!
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Date: 2010-12-30 12:31 am (UTC)Haha, yes. I am not so gifted in the art of smut, I'm afraid. I have tried and it always turns out terribly!
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Date: 2010-12-30 12:35 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-12-30 12:46 am (UTC)And enjoyed the story, a lot. Very mushy and emotional and somewhat unusual and most engaging.
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Date: 2010-12-30 03:33 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-12-30 04:26 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-12-30 04:59 pm (UTC)Lady Worplesdon's face
Date: 2010-12-31 03:15 am (UTC)And you are not alone there, Mr. Wooster. I'd love it twice as much!
//the end of the story, if we want to keep things decent, //
But whoever wanted to keep things decent? *giggles* I so want to see more of their home in New York. (And if you think Aunt Agatha hated Jeeves *before*? LOL)
This has been a totally fabulous story - and I hope it is the first of many. MANY many! Will begging help? How about applause? *applauds*
Re: Lady Worplesdon's face
Date: 2010-12-31 06:12 am (UTC)But thank you, seriously. Everyone here is so kind. That's why I love this comm!
I have been toying with the idea of a follow-up series. A sort of "getting to know you.... again" sort of thing, since they've both changed quite a lot over the years, in ways they themselves don't even comprehend, as of yet. It could be fun.
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Date: 2011-01-01 10:14 pm (UTC)damn, I forgot
Date: 2011-01-01 10:18 pm (UTC)Re: damn, I forgot
Date: 2011-01-03 05:51 pm (UTC)And yes, actually! Limp, gray hair, American accent... Might be rather more than a shade. ;) Also: I love your icon!
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Date: 2011-01-04 10:42 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-01-16 02:52 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-01-20 03:11 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-11-15 12:13 pm (UTC)