What-ho all! Jooster fic here!
Er, greetings all. I'm a little nervous about posting this, it's the first time I've tried writing even remotely slashy fic - actually, the first bit of fanfic I've ever finished - so... go gentle on it?
That said, all comments and concrit are greatly appreciated.
Title: Of Swords and Shepherds
Fandom/Pairing: PG Wodehouse, Jeeves/Wooster
Rating: PG, maybe PG-13? Although I'm sure I had more graphic sex-ed classes when I was ten so...
Summary: The Aunts decide Bertie is in serious need of some education.
Disclaimer: I don't own Jeeves or Wooster or indeed any characters mentioned here. PG Wodehouse/ the Wodehouse Estate have all rights on them, I've just borrowed them for the time being.
In my experience, the sound of a telephone is never the ideal alarm bell. People who call before a chap has even had a chance to down a fortifying cup of tea are almost certainly har… harb… harpies of doom. Such was to be the case that fateful morning. I had scarce struggled into an upright position when Jeeves arrived to inform me that my Aunt Agatha wished to speak to me.
“What time is it?” I blearily enquired.
“A quarter to eight, sir.”
With a heartfelt groan I heaved myself out of bed. When I have not had my eight hours’ worth, I am not a fellow to be trifled with so I proceeded to the ‘phone with the intention of giving her a piece of my mind.
However, by the time I reached the receiver I had woken up slightly and recalled that this was no ordinary Aunt that I addressed. No indeed, this was Aunt Agatha. Terror of the Woosters, crusher of nephews and Scourge of Middle England. I therefore swallowed my pride and attempted a light, airy tone.
“What-ho, aged A!”
“Bertie? Is that you?”
Having assured her that I was, in fact, me, the whole thing began again in earnest.
“I’ve just been speaking to that dreadful valet of yours. Do you know he refused to let me speak to you? Well, I soon reminded him of his place!”
My heart went out to the man. Being put in one’s place by Aunt Agatha is somewhat akin to being hit over the head with a mallet. Nevertheless, I soldiered on.
“Er… Gosh. Really? Er, what did you want to talk to me about?”
“Your education, young man! We, that is to say Dahlia and myself, require your presence at Brinkley Court now, if not sooner. This affair with the Basset girl has gone on long enough. There is no choice in the matter. You must be apprised of certain Facts.”
Somehow, you could hear the capital letter. “Righto Aunt Agatha. I’ll just tell Jeeves to pack - Ah! I see you already have, Jeeves. Capital! Well, we’ll be down sometime before lunch then.”
“Good!” And on that abrupt note, she rang off.
“Decidedly rummy, Jeeves. Apparently she has urgent info. re the Basset sitch. that I must be told of at once. I say, do you suppose she’s got wind of some off-colour event from her past and the whole thing will be off?” I made no attempt to disguise the hope in my voice.
“Unlikely, sir. Miss Basset appears to me to be the very soul of propriety.”
“Deuced odd then. Ah well, shall we depart?”
The drive down was singularly silent. I was pondering the kind of facts that could get an Aunt to ring up at such an unholy hour and Jeeves appeared to be interested only in the road ahead.
When we finally arrived at Brinkley it was unnaturally quiet. Normally the place is full of bright sparks and the scene of all kinds of capers.
“Where do you suppose everyone is, Jeeves?”
“If I am not mistaken, sir, we are the only guests, with the exception of Mrs. Gregson.”
A cry of “Bertie, you young blot!” echoed across the valleys as my Aunt Dahlia emerged. Now I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: Aunt Dahlia is a queen among Aunts. A thoroughly good egg. And her chef Anatole is some sort of domestic deity.
Soon, we were digging in to one of Anatole’s finest, although conversation could not be said to flow freely. Every time I began a thoroughly engrossing tale of exploits at the Drones’ Club, I was driven into silence by one of Aunt Agatha glares, the type known to freeze a volcano at twenty paces.
After the meal I was left to potter around the house alone, Jeeves having vanished to wherever valets go. As I lurked in one of the larger sitting-rooms however, Seppings accosted me.
“Miss Gregson requests your presence in the Small Drawing Room, sir.”
I am not ashamed to say that the Wooster heart quailed a little at these words but, with thoughts of my ancestors at Agincourt, I steeled myself for the inevitable.
“Oh, ah, really? I’ll just… toddle along then, shall I?”
The scene in the drawing room would not have looked out of place as an illustration for the Day of Judgement. Both Aunts sat facing me. With an imperious wave of the hand, I was invited to sit.
“Bertie,” began Aunt Agatha in a serious tone, “do you intend to marry Madeleine Basset?”
The Wooster Spirit made itself felt with a little yelp. “Of course I shall marry her!” I exclaimed with dignity. “Please, please, please don’t make me,” I mumbled.
“Speak up, boy!”
“Yes. I will marry her. No man of honour could do anything else. One cannot,” I continued, warming to my theme, “meddle with the heart of a young girl and then scorn her. One cannot -”
“Yes alright! Very well then…” Aunt A turned uncomfortably to Aunt D. “Dahlia, perhaps it would be best if you …?”
Aunt D stared fixedly into the middle distance.
“Very well. I shall take responsibility for this boy’s moral and physical well-being. Bertie… as your dear parents departed this world so soon, you have had little in the way of reliable mentoring. Normally a father figure would be the one to impart this but all your Uncles appear to have gone abroad. Except for you Uncle Frederick - “
“What, Mad Uncle Fred?” I interrupted, trying to lighten the mood.
“- Your Uncle Frederick,” went on Aunt Agatha, “who is… unwell at present. As such, it has been left to Dahlia and me to impart certain… knowledge to you. Bertie, are you aware what married couples do?”
“Well aside from throwing dinner parties, no. But I expect we’ll pick it up as we go along, eh?”
Aunt Dahlia’s stare became incredulous. She seemed to find the urge to speak too great. “Bertie, do you recall when your dog Shepherd turned out to be a Shepherdess? And how soon you had a lot of little Shepherdettes to play with?”
I vaguely remembered this incident and said so.
“Well, that’s what will happen with you and Madeleine.”
“What, she’s not going to turn out to not be a girl at all, is she?” I asked in horror. At this juncture, I am sure I saw both Aunts cast their eyes heavenwards. It is an expression I tend to produce in a lot of people.
“No I’m sure Madeleine is a girl,” said Aunt Agatha, through gritted teeth.
“Bertie,” interjected Aunt Dahlia, attempting to regain control of the discussion, “a man has a certain organ…”
I was lost. Many will tell you the Bertram is not the brightest of things, but for the life of me I could not understand why they had gone to all this trouble simply to get me to play music to Madeleine.
“Yes Aunt Dahlia, there’s a piano in my flat. It won’t be a problem,” I assured her.
Aunt A adopted a scandalised expression. Aunt D merely blinked and shook herself as though trying to shake things into some sort of order.
“When I say ‘organ’ you do know I’m not referring to a musical instrument, don’t you?”
“Er… Ahaha yes, of course. That’s obvious.”
My revered relative muttered something that may have been, “Clueless! Innocent as a babe and thick as a paving slab.” She seemed to draw herself up with renewed determination. “Bertie, let us say, hypothetically, that Mr. Smith has a … sword. And Mrs. Smith has a sheath that fits this sword. Do you follow?”
I couldn’t help thinking what a dashed pugna… violent lot these Smiths were, but I nodded vigorously.
“Good. Well, when a couple are married, Mr. Smith is allowed to put his sword in Mrs. Smith’s sheath and, some time later, she will give birth a child.”
I continued to nod until struck by a sudden thought. “I say, do you suppose Madeleine knows about all this? I mean to say, it’ll be jolly awkward if I start poking her with a sword and she completely oblivious to the reasoning behind it. Could create a rather unpleasant situation in the Wooster household, that sort of thing you know!”
The Aunts withdrew for a whispered consultation.
“…let him be. He’ll find out soon enough.”
“…what that school was thinking of! I shall be having words…”
“…ask Jeeves?” This from Aunt Dahlia.
A slightly shocked silence followed and this seemed to settle the matter for Aunt Agatha turned to me and said, “On reflection, perhaps we shall tell Madeleine too.”
That, it appeared, was the end of the interview and I returned to my room rather shaken. To my great relief, Jeeves was there, carefully folding the young master’s pyjamas.
“Jeeves!” I gasped, hoarse from my ordeal. “Whisky and soda please. Heavy on the whisky.”
The miracle-worker obliged and soon I was feeling distinctively calmer.
“Were you aware, Jeeves, that a state of matrimonial bliss may be achieved by poking one’s beloved with a sword?”
“No sir. I confess that comes as a great surprise to me. Are you certain you heard correctly?”
“Absolutely to the letter, Jeeves. And this, so they say, results in children!”
An air of enlightenment dawned on the man’s map. “Your aunts were, I believe, alluding to what is known as ‘intercourse’. Being English gentlewomen, they could not approach the subject directly and this has resulted in your… confusion.”
“Please explain, Jeeves.”
“Well, sir, in my bag I happen to have an anatomical textbook that may further elucidate the matter …”
Thus passed a dashed interesting half hour. You may say what you will about Jeeves but the fellow believes firmly in getting right to the heart of the matter.
“Well, Jeeves. That settles it. You must do all in your power to call the wedding off! I can just about cope with being in the same room as the Basset but that! We Woosters are not afraid to say when we’ve met our match, and the thought of… of ‘intercourse’ with a girl who thinks the stars are God’s daisy-chain… just makes my blood run cold. And you say everybody does it?”
“Oh yes, sir. I believe several authors make reference to this fact. Indeed, Sigmund Freud -”
“Oh, bother Freud, Jeeves! I can’t go through with this - this madness!”
“If you’ll forgive me, sir, I believe I may have a solution. If you recall, Sir Watkyn Basset expressed a mild disapprobation at the prospect of gaining you as a son-in-law. I would suggest you go to him with yourself implicated in some form of scandal. The additional impetus of this news may lead to him forbidding the banns entirely, leaving you, as I believe the colloquialism has it, ‘off the hook’.”
Well, I mean to say! The man’s a marvel. He stands alone.
“Jeeves, if you were a female, I’d marry you right now!” I told him.
“Even now you are aware of what matrimony involves, sir?” I’d have sworn the man sounded amused, his eyebrow elevated to the precise level that equals a hysterical fit in any lesser mortal.
I tried to imagine a female Jeeves, but to be quite frank could find no way to improve on the model before me.
“I don’t suppose this ‘intercourse’ thingy of yours would work between two chaps, would it Jeeves?”
For a second, the mask slipped. I caught a glimpse of what one might term ‘the inner Jeeves’ and I was left in no doubt what the answer was. His voice seemed to catch in his throat as he replied, “I believe the Ancient Greeks had a rather more liberal approach to love than our present society.”
A Classical education will rub of on a chap and one can’t have Greek architecture and poetry and lifestyle forced on one without occasionally wishing to emulate them. I realised that what was good enough for the Greeks was more than good enough for me, especially as I had Jeeves and they, poor saps, were Jeevesless.
“Jeeves,” I murmured, attempting a beguiling eyelash flutter (although I’m sure girls get special training in these things). “Would you object to a more practical lesson?”
“Perhaps if you will allow me to lock the door, sir, a demonstration might be devised…”
As in all other things, Jeeves was - well mere words could never do justice but one must try - magnificent and soon drove all thought of the Basset situation from my mind.
Later, much, much later, I turned to Jeeves for advice.
“Is this the sort of scandal I should be telling Sir W?” I asked teasingly.
“I think… gambling debts might be more acceptable, sir.”
Author's note: I'm not entirely happy with making Bertie this innocent. However, some of the misunderstandings were too funny (well, they seemed that way to me at 2 am) to leave out so...
Also, as a point of interest, the Romans called their scabbards vaginas. I know, best bit of Latin I've learnt all year. So the sword-sheath analogy was perhaps a little more accurate than Dahlia intended.
That said, all comments and concrit are greatly appreciated.
Title: Of Swords and Shepherds
Fandom/Pairing: PG Wodehouse, Jeeves/Wooster
Rating: PG, maybe PG-13? Although I'm sure I had more graphic sex-ed classes when I was ten so...
Summary: The Aunts decide Bertie is in serious need of some education.
Disclaimer: I don't own Jeeves or Wooster or indeed any characters mentioned here. PG Wodehouse/ the Wodehouse Estate have all rights on them, I've just borrowed them for the time being.
In my experience, the sound of a telephone is never the ideal alarm bell. People who call before a chap has even had a chance to down a fortifying cup of tea are almost certainly har… harb… harpies of doom. Such was to be the case that fateful morning. I had scarce struggled into an upright position when Jeeves arrived to inform me that my Aunt Agatha wished to speak to me.
“What time is it?” I blearily enquired.
“A quarter to eight, sir.”
With a heartfelt groan I heaved myself out of bed. When I have not had my eight hours’ worth, I am not a fellow to be trifled with so I proceeded to the ‘phone with the intention of giving her a piece of my mind.
However, by the time I reached the receiver I had woken up slightly and recalled that this was no ordinary Aunt that I addressed. No indeed, this was Aunt Agatha. Terror of the Woosters, crusher of nephews and Scourge of Middle England. I therefore swallowed my pride and attempted a light, airy tone.
“What-ho, aged A!”
“Bertie? Is that you?”
Having assured her that I was, in fact, me, the whole thing began again in earnest.
“I’ve just been speaking to that dreadful valet of yours. Do you know he refused to let me speak to you? Well, I soon reminded him of his place!”
My heart went out to the man. Being put in one’s place by Aunt Agatha is somewhat akin to being hit over the head with a mallet. Nevertheless, I soldiered on.
“Er… Gosh. Really? Er, what did you want to talk to me about?”
“Your education, young man! We, that is to say Dahlia and myself, require your presence at Brinkley Court now, if not sooner. This affair with the Basset girl has gone on long enough. There is no choice in the matter. You must be apprised of certain Facts.”
Somehow, you could hear the capital letter. “Righto Aunt Agatha. I’ll just tell Jeeves to pack - Ah! I see you already have, Jeeves. Capital! Well, we’ll be down sometime before lunch then.”
“Good!” And on that abrupt note, she rang off.
“Decidedly rummy, Jeeves. Apparently she has urgent info. re the Basset sitch. that I must be told of at once. I say, do you suppose she’s got wind of some off-colour event from her past and the whole thing will be off?” I made no attempt to disguise the hope in my voice.
“Unlikely, sir. Miss Basset appears to me to be the very soul of propriety.”
“Deuced odd then. Ah well, shall we depart?”
The drive down was singularly silent. I was pondering the kind of facts that could get an Aunt to ring up at such an unholy hour and Jeeves appeared to be interested only in the road ahead.
When we finally arrived at Brinkley it was unnaturally quiet. Normally the place is full of bright sparks and the scene of all kinds of capers.
“Where do you suppose everyone is, Jeeves?”
“If I am not mistaken, sir, we are the only guests, with the exception of Mrs. Gregson.”
A cry of “Bertie, you young blot!” echoed across the valleys as my Aunt Dahlia emerged. Now I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: Aunt Dahlia is a queen among Aunts. A thoroughly good egg. And her chef Anatole is some sort of domestic deity.
Soon, we were digging in to one of Anatole’s finest, although conversation could not be said to flow freely. Every time I began a thoroughly engrossing tale of exploits at the Drones’ Club, I was driven into silence by one of Aunt Agatha glares, the type known to freeze a volcano at twenty paces.
After the meal I was left to potter around the house alone, Jeeves having vanished to wherever valets go. As I lurked in one of the larger sitting-rooms however, Seppings accosted me.
“Miss Gregson requests your presence in the Small Drawing Room, sir.”
I am not ashamed to say that the Wooster heart quailed a little at these words but, with thoughts of my ancestors at Agincourt, I steeled myself for the inevitable.
“Oh, ah, really? I’ll just… toddle along then, shall I?”
The scene in the drawing room would not have looked out of place as an illustration for the Day of Judgement. Both Aunts sat facing me. With an imperious wave of the hand, I was invited to sit.
“Bertie,” began Aunt Agatha in a serious tone, “do you intend to marry Madeleine Basset?”
The Wooster Spirit made itself felt with a little yelp. “Of course I shall marry her!” I exclaimed with dignity. “Please, please, please don’t make me,” I mumbled.
“Speak up, boy!”
“Yes. I will marry her. No man of honour could do anything else. One cannot,” I continued, warming to my theme, “meddle with the heart of a young girl and then scorn her. One cannot -”
“Yes alright! Very well then…” Aunt A turned uncomfortably to Aunt D. “Dahlia, perhaps it would be best if you …?”
Aunt D stared fixedly into the middle distance.
“Very well. I shall take responsibility for this boy’s moral and physical well-being. Bertie… as your dear parents departed this world so soon, you have had little in the way of reliable mentoring. Normally a father figure would be the one to impart this but all your Uncles appear to have gone abroad. Except for you Uncle Frederick - “
“What, Mad Uncle Fred?” I interrupted, trying to lighten the mood.
“- Your Uncle Frederick,” went on Aunt Agatha, “who is… unwell at present. As such, it has been left to Dahlia and me to impart certain… knowledge to you. Bertie, are you aware what married couples do?”
“Well aside from throwing dinner parties, no. But I expect we’ll pick it up as we go along, eh?”
Aunt Dahlia’s stare became incredulous. She seemed to find the urge to speak too great. “Bertie, do you recall when your dog Shepherd turned out to be a Shepherdess? And how soon you had a lot of little Shepherdettes to play with?”
I vaguely remembered this incident and said so.
“Well, that’s what will happen with you and Madeleine.”
“What, she’s not going to turn out to not be a girl at all, is she?” I asked in horror. At this juncture, I am sure I saw both Aunts cast their eyes heavenwards. It is an expression I tend to produce in a lot of people.
“No I’m sure Madeleine is a girl,” said Aunt Agatha, through gritted teeth.
“Bertie,” interjected Aunt Dahlia, attempting to regain control of the discussion, “a man has a certain organ…”
I was lost. Many will tell you the Bertram is not the brightest of things, but for the life of me I could not understand why they had gone to all this trouble simply to get me to play music to Madeleine.
“Yes Aunt Dahlia, there’s a piano in my flat. It won’t be a problem,” I assured her.
Aunt A adopted a scandalised expression. Aunt D merely blinked and shook herself as though trying to shake things into some sort of order.
“When I say ‘organ’ you do know I’m not referring to a musical instrument, don’t you?”
“Er… Ahaha yes, of course. That’s obvious.”
My revered relative muttered something that may have been, “Clueless! Innocent as a babe and thick as a paving slab.” She seemed to draw herself up with renewed determination. “Bertie, let us say, hypothetically, that Mr. Smith has a … sword. And Mrs. Smith has a sheath that fits this sword. Do you follow?”
I couldn’t help thinking what a dashed pugna… violent lot these Smiths were, but I nodded vigorously.
“Good. Well, when a couple are married, Mr. Smith is allowed to put his sword in Mrs. Smith’s sheath and, some time later, she will give birth a child.”
I continued to nod until struck by a sudden thought. “I say, do you suppose Madeleine knows about all this? I mean to say, it’ll be jolly awkward if I start poking her with a sword and she completely oblivious to the reasoning behind it. Could create a rather unpleasant situation in the Wooster household, that sort of thing you know!”
The Aunts withdrew for a whispered consultation.
“…let him be. He’ll find out soon enough.”
“…what that school was thinking of! I shall be having words…”
“…ask Jeeves?” This from Aunt Dahlia.
A slightly shocked silence followed and this seemed to settle the matter for Aunt Agatha turned to me and said, “On reflection, perhaps we shall tell Madeleine too.”
That, it appeared, was the end of the interview and I returned to my room rather shaken. To my great relief, Jeeves was there, carefully folding the young master’s pyjamas.
“Jeeves!” I gasped, hoarse from my ordeal. “Whisky and soda please. Heavy on the whisky.”
The miracle-worker obliged and soon I was feeling distinctively calmer.
“Were you aware, Jeeves, that a state of matrimonial bliss may be achieved by poking one’s beloved with a sword?”
“No sir. I confess that comes as a great surprise to me. Are you certain you heard correctly?”
“Absolutely to the letter, Jeeves. And this, so they say, results in children!”
An air of enlightenment dawned on the man’s map. “Your aunts were, I believe, alluding to what is known as ‘intercourse’. Being English gentlewomen, they could not approach the subject directly and this has resulted in your… confusion.”
“Please explain, Jeeves.”
“Well, sir, in my bag I happen to have an anatomical textbook that may further elucidate the matter …”
Thus passed a dashed interesting half hour. You may say what you will about Jeeves but the fellow believes firmly in getting right to the heart of the matter.
“Well, Jeeves. That settles it. You must do all in your power to call the wedding off! I can just about cope with being in the same room as the Basset but that! We Woosters are not afraid to say when we’ve met our match, and the thought of… of ‘intercourse’ with a girl who thinks the stars are God’s daisy-chain… just makes my blood run cold. And you say everybody does it?”
“Oh yes, sir. I believe several authors make reference to this fact. Indeed, Sigmund Freud -”
“Oh, bother Freud, Jeeves! I can’t go through with this - this madness!”
“If you’ll forgive me, sir, I believe I may have a solution. If you recall, Sir Watkyn Basset expressed a mild disapprobation at the prospect of gaining you as a son-in-law. I would suggest you go to him with yourself implicated in some form of scandal. The additional impetus of this news may lead to him forbidding the banns entirely, leaving you, as I believe the colloquialism has it, ‘off the hook’.”
Well, I mean to say! The man’s a marvel. He stands alone.
“Jeeves, if you were a female, I’d marry you right now!” I told him.
“Even now you are aware of what matrimony involves, sir?” I’d have sworn the man sounded amused, his eyebrow elevated to the precise level that equals a hysterical fit in any lesser mortal.
I tried to imagine a female Jeeves, but to be quite frank could find no way to improve on the model before me.
“I don’t suppose this ‘intercourse’ thingy of yours would work between two chaps, would it Jeeves?”
For a second, the mask slipped. I caught a glimpse of what one might term ‘the inner Jeeves’ and I was left in no doubt what the answer was. His voice seemed to catch in his throat as he replied, “I believe the Ancient Greeks had a rather more liberal approach to love than our present society.”
A Classical education will rub of on a chap and one can’t have Greek architecture and poetry and lifestyle forced on one without occasionally wishing to emulate them. I realised that what was good enough for the Greeks was more than good enough for me, especially as I had Jeeves and they, poor saps, were Jeevesless.
“Jeeves,” I murmured, attempting a beguiling eyelash flutter (although I’m sure girls get special training in these things). “Would you object to a more practical lesson?”
“Perhaps if you will allow me to lock the door, sir, a demonstration might be devised…”
As in all other things, Jeeves was - well mere words could never do justice but one must try - magnificent and soon drove all thought of the Basset situation from my mind.
Later, much, much later, I turned to Jeeves for advice.
“Is this the sort of scandal I should be telling Sir W?” I asked teasingly.
“I think… gambling debts might be more acceptable, sir.”
Author's note: I'm not entirely happy with making Bertie this innocent. However, some of the misunderstandings were too funny (well, they seemed that way to me at 2 am) to leave out so...
Also, as a point of interest, the Romans called their scabbards vaginas. I know, best bit of Latin I've learnt all year. So the sword-sheath analogy was perhaps a little more accurate than Dahlia intended.