A Deuced Difficult Dilemma, Ch. 7
May. 5th, 2012 02:37 pm![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
wotwotleigh.livejournal.com posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
indeedsir_backupChapter: 7/?
Pairing: Bertie/OFC, Bertie/Jeeves (eventually)
Summary: Bertie is dismayed to find that he rather likes the latest girl that Aunt Agatha is egging him on to marry.
Rating: PG
Words: 1,050
Disclaimer: None of Wodehouse's characters belong to me. I'm just writing this for fun.
Hi, everyone! I daresay you've probably all nearly forgotten that I exist after my total disappearance for over two months. Sorry about that! I was off running around in foreign climes. But now I am back, and I'm finally pulling this little story out of the mothballs! Part 1 is here, part 2 is here, part 3 is here, part 4 is here, part 5 is here, part 6 is here.
As you may recall, when I left off with this little narrative, the sitch was as follows. The setting: a garden shed on the grounds of my Aunt Dahlia's estate. Self, stage left, sitting on a sack (probably made of canvas or gunny) and wearing only a dressing gown and slippers. Stage right: Hecken, fully dressed, attempting to break down the shed door with her bare fists. All parties stewed to the gills. All in all, a positively rummy state of affairs.
I tried a couple of times to heave myself into some sort of vertical position, but gave it up for a lost cause pretty quickly. The old pegs simply put their ears back and refused to cooperate. The larynx still seemed to be in full working order, however.
"I say," I said.
"Jeeves!" bellowed the girl.
"I wish you wouldn't make such a row."
She paused in her refrain to shoot me a look that was both glacial and wobbly. "Why shouldn't I make a row? Jeeves!"
"You're liable to attract aunts."
"I don't care if I attract locusts. I don't even care if I attract bees."
This puzzled me. I failed to see what bees had to do with anything. "What," I asked, "have bees got to do with anything?"
She smote the door emotionally. "Let 'em all come. Loads of bees! Bees, locusts, aunts, Jeeveses. Just as long as one of them has the blasted key! JEEVES!"
Well, I'm not sure entirely what was going on in my profoundly pickled bean, but for some reason in my inebriated state, the whole affair had taken on a decidedly menacing tone. There is only so much a man can take, and dealing with swarms of flying aunts was about my limit. It occurred to me that I had to quiet the little blister down one way or another.
I somehow managed to lurch to my feet and stagger over to Hecken. I had some sort of vague idea of throwing my arms around her and hauling her away from the door so that we could have a quiet talk about things. I had only got so far as the arm-throwing part of the procedure when the door abruptly opened and we both toppled through it and landed in a heap on the dewy sward.
"Bertie!" spluttered Hecken. "You're jolly well crushing me, you big dope! What do you think you're – oh!" She cut off with a little gasp, and I saw that she was staring, transfixed, at something above her. I followed her gaze, and found my worst fears confirmed. There, looming above us in the gathering twilight and heaving gently with emotion, was the unmistakable form of Aunt Agatha.
---
"Bertram Wilberforce Wooster," hissed the aunt, reminding me of nothing so much as Sir Watkyn Bassett preparing to pronounce a sentence from the magistrate's bench, "I am shocked. Profoundly shocked!"
"Oh, but look here, Aunt Agatha—"
"Quiet, Bertie!" The old relative paced the sewing room floor with a heavy tread. She had hauled both of us in by the napes of our necks. Hecken was ushered up to her room on the arm of a concerned chambermaid of some sort, while I was closeted in the aforementioned s. r. for an interrogation. Aunt Dahlia was also among those present, for which I was grateful, of course. But where, I asked myself (and I don't mind telling you I asked it dashed bitterly), was Jeeves? Seldom, during my long association with the fellow, had he ranked so low among the wines and spirits in this Wooster's estimation than he did now.
"Of course, you will have to marry the girl at once," continued the aunt.
"No!" I cried, upsetting a small ornamental table in my distress. I'm honestly not sure how I managed it, since I was sitting down at the time.
"Honestly, Aggie," chimed in Aunt Dahlia, "I'm sure there's a perfectly reasonable explanation for all this."
"There is," Aunt Agatha snapped. "And it is that Bertie has been leading Miss Fernsby astray. He plied her with drink—"
"No, no!"
"Silence, Bertie! He plied her with drink and took advantage of her delicate state of mind to lead her into prurient debauchery."
Aunt Dahlia snorted. "I don't think Bertie is capable of leading a girl into prurient debauchery, even if he wanted to."
"I should think not," I agreed. "I'm not even entirely sure what that is."
"He is undressed," Aunt Agatha pointed out. She seemed to think this settled the case.
"Hecken isn't," riposted Aunt Dahlia.
"I mean, the debauchery part I understand. I'm finding the prurient part a bit vague, though."
"I found them wrapped in each other's arms, rolling on the ground!" fumed Aunt Agatha.
"And here I thought you wanted them to hit it off," said Aunt Dahlia.
Aunt Agatha shot her sister a look that would have dropped a lesser woman in her tracks. "Must you always be so crude, Dahlia? Can you not see the seriousness of this situation? I should have known that Bertie would disappoint me again—"
"Hoy!"
"—but I did not dream that it would be in such a vulgar and indecent manner. Poor, dear Mrs. Fernsby would be so dreadfully shocked. She must never know, of course."
"Ha!" boomed Aunt Dahlia, who seemed to be deriving some sort of grim amusement from the whole situation.
"What do you mean, 'Ha!'?" demanded Aunt Agatha, and I thought it a dashed good question myself.
"She's in the sitting room as we speak, sharing tales of digestive distress with Tom. She arrived not ten minutes ago, hoping to drop in and surprise her little girl."
"What!" bellowed Aunt Agatha.
"What?!" croaked self.
"You two needn't shout," Dahlia roared back, shattering a couple of windowpanes and dislodging a small sculpture of the Infant Samuel in prayer from the mantel. "I'm not hard of hearing. I suggest you go and say hello, Aggie – she seemed pretty eager to see you. And as for you, my little inebriated imbecile . . ."
"Steady on, Aunt Dahlia!"
"I think you'd better stagger straight up to your room and put the covers over your head for the next year or so. It might take awhile for this one to blow over."
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2012-05-05 07:47 pm (UTC)Oh, Bertie, poor Bertie. And Jeeves doesn't even really want you to get out of this one because he's made up his mind that she's the right one for you, despite his own feelings.
I think Jeeves needs a slap upside the head.
no subject
Date: 2012-05-06 02:42 pm (UTC)Exactly what Bertie is thinking, I imagine!
no subject
Date: 2012-05-06 09:38 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-05-06 01:22 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-05-06 02:42 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-05-06 06:45 am (UTC)Oh Bertie. You are such a special snowflake. A special snowflake in SUCH a heap of trouble! Wonderful writing, as usual! I didn't know whether to howl with laughter or facepalm, and frequently did both!
(Aaaaaand another sculpture of the Infant Samuel at prayer bites the dust! XD)
no subject
Date: 2012-05-06 02:44 pm (UTC)(And I thoroughly enjoyed your latest entry in the Canterlot series, by the way . . . at some point I'll get myself over there and leave a proper comment!)
no subject
Date: 2012-05-06 06:20 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-05-07 09:32 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-05-07 01:47 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-05-07 09:38 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-05-07 05:00 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-05-07 09:39 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-05-09 01:27 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-05-10 08:19 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-05-10 08:18 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-05-10 09:40 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-07-22 05:08 am (UTC)