Short Fic: Jeeves Replies

[wotwotleigh.livejournal.com]

Title: Jeeves Replies
Author: Wotwotleigh
Pairing: Bertie/Pauline (but the story is pretty gen)
Rating: G
Words: 820-something
Summary: Jeeves replies to Rosie's letter.
Disclaimer: Jeeves, Bertie et al. belong to P. G. Wodehouse. I just wrote this for fun.
Author's Notes: This is the companion piece to my other little epistolary ficlet, Dear Mr. Jeeves. I don't know why, but this was far, far more difficult to write than the previous installment, which basically wrote itself. I'm still not entirely satisfied with it. erynn999  has also written her own wonderful version of Jeeves's reply, which is here.
 

My Dear Miss Wooster,

                I can scarcely express the astonishment and delight that I felt upon receiving your letter. I hope you will forgive the lateness of my reply, but I found myself for some time at a loss for how to begin. In fact, this is my third attempt at composing this missive, and I fear it is still hardly adequate. I am gratified that you have reached out to me, and humbled to think that in so doing you found the courage that has eluded me for so many years.

                While I certainly cannot claim to possess any magical abilities, I am happy to assure you that I am quite real, alive, and well. The organisation that engaged me during the war has since been dissolved, but I am still comfortably employed by the government. Not the most diverting work, but it suffices for now. It is true that there is little call in these times for the services of a gentleman's gentleman, and such work holds little appeal for me of late. Happily, the Jr. Ganymede club still exists, and so your letter was able to reach me. However, the club is a mere shadow of its former self, and I am now but a member emeritus.   

How wonderful it is know that Mr. Wooster has built a family for himself. I remember distinctly that, during the early years of our association, he once expressed to me his desire to have a daughter. I wonder if he has ever told you the tale of his encounter with a group of mischievous school-girls and their terrible headmistress. Despite his exceptional ebullience, there were times in his youth when your father could be quite shy.

                But I fear I am rambling, and I know that you did not send me such a forthright letter in the hopes of receiving mere idle pleasantries in return. Since you were so frank with me, I feel I owe you the same courtesy. Leaving your father's employ was terribly difficult for me. The years I spent in his service were some of the happiest of my life. My sense of propriety would have prevented me from saying this at the time, but now I am much older, and I find that the older I get, the less I give a damn (if you will pardon the expression). Your father was more than an employer to me. He was a friend – a very dear friend.

                I considered writing to Mr. Wooster many times in the years after I left his service, but with one thing and another I never got around to it. My work during the war kept me terribly busy, and the nature of the work was so sensitive that I was precluded from much direct contact with former acquaintances and friends. My abrupt departure from your father's service was painful for me, and I was certain that his feelings would be wounded. I was not at liberty to explain the full reason for my departure or the nature of my new duties. When I saw the news of his engagement to your mother shortly after the severance of our association, any vague hope that I had of returning to his service after the war dissipated. I chose to write to your mother rather than face the task of saying goodbye to him properly. That, of course, was the letter that you read. As the years went by I felt less and less confident that Mr. Wooster would even wish to hear from me at all. It seemed to me almost as if ending my silence after so much time had passed would only compound any awkwardness between us that might have resulted from my aloofness.

The time for such flimsy excuses has long ended. I am enclosing a personal letter to Mr. Wooster along with this one. I hope he will forgive my inexcusable neglect in not contacting him years earlier.

                Finally, I implore you not to despair of the truthfulness of your father's stories. However whimsical they may be, all tales hold deeper truths about the teller – and the listener. To employ the parlance of cryptography, one must simply learn to read between the lines. Your father has always been a gentleman of great sensitivity and imagination; he remains one of the most truly kind and profoundly joyful people I have ever met. I am confident that his great desire, in telling you these stories (however embellished or fanciful they may be), has not been to mislead you, but simply to impart to you some measure of his own uncommon joie de vivre. And that is a very great gift indeed.

                When we meet – and I am confident that we shall – I will have many stories of my own to tell you of the days when I served your father. Please give my warmest regards to your parents, and tell your father that we shall indeed meet at Philippi.

                Sincerely yours,

                Reginald Jeeves

                P.S. – There were three cats: black, tabby, and yellow, as I recall.

 

Comments

[erynn999.livejournal.com]

This is, at the same time, happier and sadder than my version. Here's the post with Dear Miss Wooster (http://mice1900.livejournal.com/105781.html) for your linkage. I'll post the intro stuff with a link to my LJ myself, but you can post a link to it in the header for yours if you like!

[wotwotleigh.livejournal.com]

Thanks, I have updated with a link to yours.

This is, at the same time, happier and sadder than my version.

I know exactly what you mean, but I can't quite put my finger on why.

[durffy.livejournal.com]

"I know exactly what you mean, but I can't quite put my finger on why."

Trying to figure out how to say this, and I've typed and deleted things for about fifteen minutes now. ::sighs::

This is BRILLIANT just as it stands, so I'm by no means trying to wheedle yet another continuation from you. But maybe a reply from Bertie would provide an easement to our aching hearts? After all, that's what Bertie is good at, eh? Being funny and charming and a relief to everyday woes....

Again, let me say thank you for this AMAZING fic! I'll read it again and again!

[wotwotleigh.livejournal.com]

Thank you! <3 I have been thinking for the past couple of days about writing Bertie's reply, and I have a feeling I'm not going to feel like this is finished until I've done that.

[saylee.livejournal.com]

Aw! This is both sweet and sad. The postscript about the cats is perfect.

[wotwotleigh.livejournal.com]

Thank you! <3

[durffy.livejournal.com]

Ohhhh...this is warm and lovely and...still heart-breaking.

Maybe it's because we have all--if we've lived long enough--lost touch with people we love?

Beautifully written!!

[wotwotleigh.livejournal.com]

Thanks so much. I think you're right . . . it is something we've all experienced, and reconnecting with someone after many years is always bittersweet.

[kalayo.livejournal.com]

"The parlance of cryptography"...I always liked to imagine that Jeeves spent WWII codebreaking with Alan Turing :-)

[wotwotleigh.livejournal.com]

My backstory for these letters is that Jeeves was working (in some capacity that I haven't fully worked out yet) for the SOE (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special_Operations_Executive). It's a theme I'd love to explore more fully in a future fic.

[kalayo.livejournal.com]

I love it! If Bertie had become Lord Yaxley by then, he could donate his country estate for headquarters.

[erynn999.livejournal.com]

Yeah, that's exactly the sort of thing I'd have envisioned him doing. It would certainly be more likely to end up with him being wounded than sitting around at Bletchley working on Enigma.

[imshi.livejournal.com]

gosh i want this to continue to their meeting so much. or perhaps bertie's letter in reply to jeeves.. or jeeves's letter to bertie. either way, i would love to see more because it's making me quite achey in an altogether pleasant way. <3

[wotwotleigh.livejournal.com]

Thank you! <3 I'm definitely feeling like I need to write at least one more installment (probably Bertie's reply).

[imshi.livejournal.com]

yes please! i think that would be a lovely ending to it, definitely. not knowing how bertie feels about the whole thing is mildly excruciating.

[erynn999.livejournal.com]

I would love to see it. I'm sure it'll be just as beautiful as the first two. I can't see them severing that friendship of years because of the war and its hurts. They cared too much for each other to let it pass.

[trista-zevkia.livejournal.com]

Lovely and hopeful and heartbreaking! I do love it, except one tiny thing. Would Jeeves really say 'around to it'? Maybe it's b/c I hear that all the time, my grandmother even had a little round broach that said 'to it' (it was a round to it) so I think of it as an American thing. Anyway, I still loved this and eagerly await the Bertie letter,which could even be Bertie's letter to Pauline. 'Rose and I are with Jeeves. I'm never letting him out of my sight again' But you know, funnier, nicer and full of slash.

[wotwotleigh.livejournal.com]

Thank you! <3

The phrase "get (a)round to it" is used in both British and American English, although to make it sound more British I suppose I might have used something more like "I never got round to it". I think the problem might be more that it sounds just a tad informal, but I did want a hint of Jeeves's more relaxed/informal voice in there (especially in the middle section where he is spilling his feelings, to the extent that he does).

In my headcanon for this story, Bertie really does love Pauline. That is not to say there might not have been some deeper feelings between Bertie and Jeeves as well, expressed or otherwise. I always thought of Bertie as bisexual, or even biromantic (he just doesn't strike me as a very sexual person, whatever his orientation).

[trista-zevkia.livejournal.com]

Ah! I wasn't sure, but now I'm glad I asked. I did see that Jeeves' voice had relaxed considerably, so that came through. I tend to think of Bertie as sexual, but not yet turned on. Needs a jump start from Jeeves' lips to kick start his hormones. But hey, I'm a pervert, your backstory may vary;)

[wotwotleigh.livejournal.com]

Ah, good, glad it came through! I'm not totally certain of my Jeeves voice just yet, since there's only one canon story written entirely from his POV.

I tend to think of Bertie as sexual, but not yet turned on. Needs a jump start from Jeeves' lips to kick start his hormones.

Haha, yeah, that's kind of the angle I was trying to explore with my last story. It just . . . hadn't occurred to him before.

But hey, I'm a pervert, your backstory may vary;)

Hee! You're right, that does need to be icon'd. XD

[with-rainfall.livejournal.com]

*wibble* This captures Jeeves's voice beautifully, especially the last bit about meeting at Philippi.

Your father has always been a gentleman of great sensitivity and imagination; he remains one of the most truly kind and profoundly joyful people I have ever met. Aww. I feel like we never got to see much of their friendship in book!canon.

Does Jeeves actually leave Bertie's service at the end of the series, or is this set after Thank You, Jeeves?

[wotwotleigh.livejournal.com]

Aw, thank you! No, Jeeves never leaves in the series (in fact, he promises never to do so in the penultimate book, Jeeves and the Tie That Binds -- although only in the American edition, I think?). This is a hypothetical post-series situation.