[Jeeves & Wooster] Fic: Sorting Out the Dance Card (6/8)
Sorting Out the Dance Card
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6. Ticking Off Stinker
"Well," I said when we'd fetched up at the Paris res. and stowed the luggage. "At least it's Paris. Nobody will be too bothered what we do provided we mind where it gets done. And at least we won't have to hide anything from Marion and Lisette. Actually, I rather think they'll be pleased."
"Indeed," Jeeves said, and produced a telegram from the box on the door.
"Blast." Nobody knew we'd gone away, so it could've been there for days. "Well, read it."
"It arrived a few hours ago, apparently. It is from Miss Byng."
"Stiffy? What can she want? This had better not be about kilts."
He perused the thing a moment, and his eyebrows nearly went up into his hair before fixing into a deep frown. "She writes: 'Harold gravely ill and asking for you. Return at once Totleigh Towers.'"
"Good lord." I sat down, or rather sort of fell onto a luckily placed chair.
I was no Sherlock Holmes, but even I could draw a few conclusions. One, Stinker would truly have to be in a very bad way for such a telegram to be sent to anyone. Two, he had not so much got over these erstwhile feelings of his toward self, and three, he must be steadily knocking at death's door to care little enough what anyone would think of him asking for me, which rather strengthened point two.
Where Jeeves might once have continued to hover, he now came and wrapped me in a comforting embrace. I wondered if I should tell him my conclusions and the history behind them, but decided it didn't matter just now.
"I suppose we'd better go, then," I said morosely. Worried as I was for Stinker, I didn't want to leave. I would, of course, but it felt rather like having the rug yanked out from under me just when I'd begun to settle in. I scolded myself not a little bit; it was heartless to be mourning the temporary loss of my own pleasures when I might shortly be mourning the loss of a very dear friend.
Jeeves had me on the next train out, promising to follow with the car and luggage as soon as he could. Making the journey alone was the last thing I wanted, but some haste is due in such circs.
Jostled and feeling rather grimy, I was met at what in Totleigh-in-the-Wold passed for a train station by an equally dishevelled and somewhat red-eyed Siffy. "Stiffy, old girl," I greeted with sympathy. "You needn't have come. I could've made it up on my own."
"I needed to do something, Bertie," she said, her voice bearing the strain of one who's done a good deal of crying. "It's all just sitting and waiting and nothing doing any good. Uncle Watty's been very nice, but you know he's not the comforting sort, and Maddie's in the middle of the ocean somewhere." Honeymooning with Spodecup, presumably. "Even if I got a cable to her she'd never make it back in time. So it's just been me and Uncle Watty and the doctor and an army of servants all acting like nothing's wrong. Where's Jeeves?"
I don't know if she thought Jeeves could fix this or if she was simply wondering. "Packing up the kit back in Paris. We'd just got back from Brittany and I more or less turned round and left again directly."
"Oh, I'm sorry."
"Think nothing of it." I put her firmly into the passenger seat of Sir Watkyn's car, despite her clear intention to drive, and attempted to look on the bright side. "Still, Stinker can't be too bad off if he can tell you who he wants to visit him." I didn't so much believe this, but it was all the silver lining I could muster.
"He was full of morphine and out of his head," she said flatly. "He also called out for his mother and brother, who can't exactly come back to life and turn up, but you could, so I thought why not. I could use a friend myself." And with a sob she added, "Bertie, I really think he's going to die."
"Oh, now. Don't talk that way. Stinker's made of far sterner stuff than that. What's the matter with him, anyway?"
"They don't know," she sniffed. "He'd been visiting a family whose baby had scarlet fever, but his fever went, so they say it isn't that. We all had to go about in masks for days before the doctor decided it wasn't catching, but they still don't know what it is. He says everything hurts and can't even have a light on because it makes him sick. And now this morning he can't feel half his face. He's dying little by little right before my eyes and nobody can do a god-damned thing about it!"
Any more and she might've needed a doctor herself, but I'd rolled up in front of Totleigh Towers. Stiffy took several deep breaths, quite visibly bottling it all back up.
"It won't do to lose hope," I said. "He's never given up on you."
"Even when I was horrid to him," she sniffed.
"Come, now. No sense making it worse by throwing blame around. From the sound of it, it's quite bad enough on its own. Telling him to go and boil his head once or twice didn't make him sick. What ho, Butterfield." With that I handed off the car and led the sniffling Stiffy inside by the elbow.
"Do you want to see him now or go up to your room first?" she asked.
"Well, under the circs I don't suppose he'll mind if I'm not altogether fresh as a daisy. Might even take it as a show of solidarity, what?"
Stiffy laughed a bit, I think in spite of herself because she stopped it short and looked guilty.
"Look here," said I, feeling I knew a thing or two about conducting oneself in the company of the ailing. When my poor mother was in the process of shuffling off the mortal coil, there had been a strict rule of keeping a stiff upper lip and a sunny disposish anywhere near the patient. "If you go about like he's dying, he'll think he is, and won't trouble himself not to. Business as usual and never mind the mumps, that's the stuff for the troops."
"I'm trying," Stiffy sighed. "But after a week of worse and worse, it's hard to keep up. Why do you think I was so quick to drag you back here the moment he mentioned you? The most violent bad feeling you ever have is mild annoyance."
I was indeed mildly annoyed at the supposition. It's not that I've got great unplumbed depths or anything like that, but I do bleed if pricked, as the fellow said. "That I let on, Stiffy," I said seriously.
"Well, all right, but it's the same to anyone looking."
"Unfortunately, your ailing affianced is one of the few who can tell the difference," I said, leaving her to make of that what she would. "Still, best foot forward and all that." I put it forward through the door.
The room was just this side of pitch-dark. I recognised it as one of the music salons pressed into service as a sickroom, the piano covered with a sheet and propping up all sorts of bottles and bowls. In the centre of it was a bed that contained an unmoving lump I assumed to be the man himself.
"Harold, I've brought Bertie," Stiffy announced, her voice so high with false cheer it was a wonder the windows didn't crack.
The lump stirred slightly and went, "Mmph."
"What ho, Stinker," I said as airily as I could in so not-airy a place.
"Mmph," went the lump.
The shadowy outline of Stiffy shrugged helplessly. "I've been sitting there sort of blathering at him," she whispered. "The doctor says it helps."
I considered the armchair pulled up to the bed, but went the other direction in the end to peel up an edge of the sheet from the business end of the piano and seat myself there. I dug back into the memory for something he'd like and set to it as softly as I could in case noise had the same effect as light.
I have no particular fondness for 'Goodbye My Coney Island Baby,' not least because it's hardly worth it for one chap to sing it all alone, but he'd begged me to learn it, and learn it I had, so well that years later I could still play it in the dark.
Stiffy's shadow held itself in a sceptical way, but a verse or so in, the lump began to slowly stir, and by the end of it had transformed into a greyish formation of a nearly-sitting-up Stinker. Thus spake it: "You hate that song." The statement was slurred and slow, but a vast improvement on 'mmph.'
"Yes, but you like it, and as you're feeling poorly I thought it only sporting."
"I always loved it when you'd play for me."
"Well, I'm at your disposal."
I'm not sure he even knew Stiffy was there. "I'll go fetch some more music, shall I?" she said, and I was glad she'd announced herself again before he might've said something he'd rather not say in front of her.
"No use, old girl," I said. "Can't see a thing. But I'd be much obliged if you'd find somebody to bring me a glass of something."
"Of course. Harold, dear, do you need anything?"
"No, darling," he said. "You should rest." There was more than a slur, I realised- more in the way of a lisp, like he had a wad of cotton shoved in his cheek. Stiffy let out a bitterish sort of 'hah.' "Please, Stephanie, you've barely left this room. I could never forgive myself if you got sick, too, because you've run yourself down."
"Fine," she said. "Bertie, send for me if anything- if you need me." She pressed a kiss to Stinker's beleaguered brow and trudged off.
I noticed he shielded his eyes against the light when the door opened, and I also saw for the first time how terrible he really looked. He was ashen and drawn, and one side of his face was all droopy, which I suppose accounted for the cottony speech.
"I'm so glad you came, Bertie," he said when she'd gone.
"Friend in need and all. I wouldn't be anywhere else."
There was a tap at the door, proving to be one of Butterfield's minions with a tray. Apparently Stiffy had ordered sandwiches as well as half the contents of a bar. The nurse followed the chappie in with some broth I assumed was for Stinker. "He needs to 'ave that, sir," the nurse told me, indicating the bowl, and she clearly meant to come pour it into him, not the sort of indignity I thought he'd stick lightly.
"I'll see to it," I assured.
"Don't let him drink it too fast, sir," she said. "Else it'll just come right back up."
I think I hid my grimace pretty well, and my back was to Stinker anyway. "Thank you, er-"
"Mrs Oster, sir, but round 'ere I'm Nannie Faye."
"Right ho. Thank you, Nannie Faye." I had the inkling she was the same Nannie Faye who Stiffy had mentioned in passing once or twice in the course of comparing notes on childhoods; she was certainly the proper vintage for it.
I popped the tray on the table near the bed, and self into the chair. "Oh, not more bloody broth," Stinker grumbled.
"Well, if you'd hurry along and get better, you can have something nicer."
He sighed heavily, and there was a worrying sort of wheeze to it. "I'm not going to get better, Bertie."
"Don't talk rubbish. Of course you are. You already seem much improved on what I'd been led to expect."
"I feel like somebody's going at my joints with a rusty spoon, I can't feel half my face, and I have to sit in the dark. Who knows what'll go next."
I decided this was no time for wondering what gestures I should and shouldn't make, and reached out to take his hand. He squeezed back, but weakly. "Don't give up," I said. "Could be it all sorts itself out."
"Sometimes I wonder if I'm being punished. If this is God's wrath for my sins."
"It's also a sin to eat lobster, to borrow a phrase," I said, borrowing it from Lisette.
"I need you to do something for me, Bertie, and you're the only one I can ask."
"Name it, old egg."
"Under my bed at home, there's a strongbox. If anyone should see what's in it...."
I caught his meaning. He should've known better than to keep something like that lying about, but the sooner it was not lying about, the better for all concerned. "Worry not, it will be disposed of with all due haste."
"Thank you," he said with obv. relief. "At the funeral-"
"Hoi! There's not going to be any bally funeral, Stinker!"
"Please, Bertie. Stephanie won't hear a word of it either. I don't want people going round saying 'it's what he would've wanted.' I want somebody to actually know."
"That's all well and good, but in the-not-so-soon, by the way-end, I've got no more say than Stiffy's dog. Hadn't you better put all this down properly? I'm sure Sir Watkyn knows a thing or two."
"I don't want him having anything to do with it."
"Fine, I'll get my solicitor down here. But what's the matter with Sir Watkyn doing it?"
"What little I've got I want to go to Magdalen, to start a scholarship fund for future clergy."
"Well, that's dashed decent of you, I must say. Why on earth would he mind?"
"I think he'll see it as a slight to Stephanie. A couple of months more and it would've all gone to her."
"It's not as though she needs it. But what you want is what you want, despite the certain mootness of it all. I'll phone up to London in the morning." I patted his hand, which I was somehow still holding. "But I still say you're going to be fine."
"I wish I could believe that."
"You are," I insisted. "I've attended a deathbed vigil or two in my time and this has none of the earmarks. You're getting better, not worse. The fever's gone and now everything's just patching itself up."
A bout of friendly tenderness caused me to reach up and attempt to bring his hair out of disarray. He heaved a wheezy sigh and hummed a bit, so I indulged him, petting his hair like he was some giant clumsy cat and hoping matters stood clearly enough between us that he wouldn't take it for something it wasn't. Come to that, I wasn't sure Jeeves, had he been present, wouldn't have taken it for something it wasn't.
I was about to draw back on that thought, but a few things happened in quick succession. I felt something odd at the back of his head, a little hard spot like a scab, but also not. "What's this?" I asked, poking at it. "Does it hurt?"
"It's probably dirt," he said.
Just as I'd grasped it between my fingers, Stiffy and an elderly cove strode into the room. "The doctor's here with a new- what on earth are you doing?"
"Hang on, I've almost got it," I said, now feeling I absolutely must have something to show for this wrongish-looking state. I extracted the thing and brought it eyeward to inspect. "I say! It's some sort of bug."
"Oh, lovely, now I'm dying and I've got fleas," Stinker grumbled.
The doc. came over and peered at my prisoner through a little glass. "Not fleas, Reverend," he said, looking as though all his Christmases had come at once. "That is a sheep-tick, and, I would wager, the cause of all your troubles. Medical understanding of the matter is in its infancy, but there are several sera which have proven very effective."
"You mean he'll get better?" Stiffy said, wide-eyed and hand on heart.
"It's been left very late indeed, but I am optimistic that there will be no lasting damage," said the doc.
Stiffy squealed and ploughed over not to embrace her intended, but to plant a sopping wet kiss upon the Wooster cheek. "I say!" I exclaimed.
Stinker gave me an amused look and a grateful smile, or I assumed so, for due to the palsy it came over a bit grimacey. Stiffy transferred her embrace to the more proper target, Nannie Faye crossed herself, and the doctor dropped the offending insect into a little jar. He began to explain the treatment, which was a dashed painful-sounding mercurochrome injection direct to the spine to kill off the micro-whatsits, followed by a sort of anti-venom thing if that didn't do the whole job.
I slipped out in all the rejoicing hubbub and made for the nearest telephone, hoping Jeeves was still in Paris and could stop the presses on departing since I could now simply join him again in a few days. No joy, however, and the railway co. couldn't tell me for certain if a chap fitting his particulars had bought a ticket to Calais.
I nearly resorted to having them try to find him, but the French cove on the other end seemed to be getting the impression I was after some wayward servant who'd made off with the silver. I didn't want to put Jeeves to any more trouble, so I gave it up as a bad job and resolved to await his arrival. Perhaps we could still go back to Paris. I was even feeling rather charitable toward Japan at this point; the simple allure of someplace where nobody knew us.
I returned to the sickroom to find the doctor suggesting Stinker be moved to London for easier access to all the pills and powders and whatnot, a case of Muhammad coming to the mountain, or possibly the other way round. The village chemist in Totleigh environs wasn't precisely equipped to be boiling up the needful, so it would have to come from London wherever Stinker was.
"He'll be sick the whole way," Stiffy protested. "All that light and noise. Surely he'll be more comfortable here."
"It's my health, thank you," Stinker said peevishly. "Between a few hours of misery or waiting another week to get any better, I'll put on some dark glasses and grit my teeth." He sort of scoffed, though he is not the scoffing sort ordinarily. "On one side, anyway."
Stiffy looked wounded. The doc. began clattering on about what a nice place the Royal London Infirmary was these days, but she stopped him. "Harold, you hate hospitals. You say it every time you have to go round to one."
"I'm quite determined, Stephanie," he said. "The sooner I'm rid of this, the better."
"Well, I won't hear of you suffering in some horrid old hospital. We'll just find someone in London who won't mind you staying with them for a bit." Three guesses who her eyes fell on, and the first two don't count.
I couldn't very well protest, could I? 'Sorry, no, I can't possibly be prevented from unclothing my manservant whenever I please,' would go over none too well, and there was no other reason to say no, so I hastened to extend the invite. There was a slight silver lining: the spare bedroom was indisposed due to either a Claude or an Eustace having somehow broken the bed frame on their last visit, so as the only other suitable thing for Stinker was my own room, I could bunk in with Jeeves without raising any eyebrows. Even if Stinker worked it out, he couldn't precisely cast stones, little though he might like it.
Trouble was, the doc. seemed eager to have the thing done quickly, no doubt to start writing up his findings for M'doctor's Boudoir or whatever it is they read. "Jeeves won't be best pleased to get here and find I've scarpered," I warned, "and what's more, I'm no use at soup and tea."
"Well," Stiffy said, "take a telegram to Butterfield and have him send it to all the trains and the ferry. He'll get it one place or another and come straight to London, easy-peasy."
"Oh, all right. At least let me change before we go?"
I was permitted the luxury even of bathing, but only because the doc. had to go and requisition an ambulance since Stinker couldn't precisely just be thrown in the back of the Bentley. Along with a hefty tip for his trouble, I sent the following off with Butterfield:
JEEVES STOP TERRIBLY SORRY STOP CHANGE OF PLAN STOP STINKER NOT DYING BUT NEEDS TREATMENT IN LONDON STOP IS TO STAY WITH US STOP PROCEED DIRECT HOME STOP BWW
I had to leave off the endearments and what all, of course, since Butterfield and who knew how many telegraph operators had to see the thing. While awaiting the ambulance I slipped out and nipped over to the rectory and fished the fearful box out from under Stinker's bed. I considered it no less of a danger just because he'd conceded not to do any shuffling-off just yet. Now that I knew about it the thing would haunt me until I knew there was nothing in it that, if viewed by the wrong parties, could even possibly lead to self and Jeeves being torn asunder. There was a sturdy lock on it, at least, and I very valiantly resisted the urge to pry it off and dump the whole contents in the nearest fireplace.
Stinker was not sick the whole way. He drifted off from sheer exhaustion about halfway there and recommenced more or less the moment we woke him, but did manage to hold it in long enough to get through the door. I'm sure we made quite a picture- Stinker, the doc., the driver, Nannie Faye and self. Jarvis gave me about as rummy a look as he could get away with.
"What ho, Jarvis," I said as though not attending a practically blindfolded curate, not that he could tell as Stinker had on a nightshirt and overcoat. Stiffy had stayed behind to get a bit of rest and pack up and would follow in a couple of days. Obviously there was no room for her chez Wooster, but the girl had plenty of friends and would stay with one or another of them.
To my relief, Jeeves 'phoned up within minutes of our arrival, which suggested he'd either been trying for a bit or had very good timing. "Jeeves! One of the wires got to you, then?"
"Yes, sir, when I disembarked the train at Calais. I will be on the five o'clock ferry and have arranged with the garage for the car to be in readiness when I arrive at Folkestone."
"Oh, good, jolly good. I was afraid you'd turn up at Totleigh only to find your efforts in vain. I tried to catch you in Paris to tell you to stay there, but you must've already gone. I suppose it's just as well since Stinker will be convalescing here."
"So I gathered, sir." I wished he'd stop with the 'sir,' but the amount of noise around him meant he was where people could hear him, so if anyone knew he was speaking to his employer he couldn't precisely call me 'darling.' Not that he'd ever called me that. I tried to imagine it and found it a very pleasing thought.
"Sorry about all this," I said.
"I doubt Paris will change very much before Reverend Pinker is recovered, sir."
That final exchange, in re the wording, was utterly mundane, but what I meant was more like 'I didn't want to go back to the world yet,' and what I heard ran along the lines of 'neither did I, but we can go back and I'll dance with you.' It left me a bit wistful and misty.
Nannie Faye, the marvellous creature, agreed to stay the night so as not to leave us without an able-bodied person with a household skill or two. In London, not the flat. I wouldn't have her in a chair all night and she wouldn't put me out of the last bed going, so as a compromise I got her a room at the hotel round the corner, which she seemed quite happy to accept.
Her cooking was not a patch on Jeeves's, of course, but where his was all rather gourmand, if that's the word I want, hers had a homey comforting nannie-ish quality to it, which I suppose made sense with her being a nannie and all. As it turned out, Stiffy had begged her out of retirement, trusting no one else to nurse poor Stinker. All I got was an odd look when I asked her if she knew Nannie Pete, so I suppose there isn't a club for nannies like there is for butlers and valets.
It was about nine when she and the doc. finally cleared out, the latter after doing something to Stinker that made him groan so loudly I could hear it two rooms away. He advised me Stinker was likely out for the night, so I happily toddled off to Jeeves's lair to rest the bones.
I'd never spent much time in there, you understand, as even the firstmost-rate valet has to have a little something to himself that isn't constantly invaded by his employer. I'd only called on him there in the direst of circs, and dire circs being what they are, I never took much time to look round.
It was nice enough. Smallish but cosy, with a screen separating the desk and settee from the bed. I saw what he'd meant about the furniture (though I now suspected that request had been hastily supplied in the stead of one of those thought-better-ofs he'd mentioned). There was nothing wrong with it, strictly speaking, but it was beginning to show its age. The bed seemed comfortable enough, though only big enough for two if they liked each other a great deal.
The most striking thing about the place was that anywhere one could put a book, he'd put a book. Every shelf was packed tight with tome after tome; there was even a set of something in bookends atop the chest of drawers. I was sure he'd only had at most two cases when he'd moved in, so either he'd snuck all this up when I wasn't home or he'd collected it all since coming to me.
I recognised a few volumes as bought in my presence or given by me on Christmsases and birthdays, but they wouldn't have filled even one shelf. I'd always thought his requests for books when asked what he wanted were an attempt not to ask for anything too extravagant, for even before I'd realised and confessed my feelings I'd have had no qualms about the bestowing of pricey trinkets, but apparently they really were what he wanted. I had the notion to surprise him with one or five sometime soon, but the task of working out what he might want that wasn't here made me weary and I drifted towards the bed. The linens were pristinely clean, naturally, but they still carried enough of the singular Jeevesian scent that I sighed happily as I wrapped myself in the covers.
I awoke to the real thing seated on the side of the bed, delicately touching my cheek with one hand and balancing a cup of tea in the other. "Jeeves," I said with a smile. "What time is it?"
"Half-past nine."
I groaned and burrowed my face between blanket and tweeded thigh. Jeeves let out a low chuckle and raked his fingers through the back of my hair, which, while lovely, jogged the memory as to what I was doing in this bed in the first place. Reluctantly, I wrenched the bean upwards. "Stinker all right?" I asked.
"According to Mrs Oster, he was feeling some improvement when he woke a few hours ago, though he is still highly fatigued and has been sleeping intermittently. I took the liberty of getting her a train back to Gloucestershire."
"Jolly good." I sat up enough to have a few gulps of tea. "Not too bad a go on the ferry, I hope?"
"It was much as expected."
"I missed you, you know," I said, suddenly shy for some reason and hiding behind the china.
Jeeves moved the cup aside and pressed his lips softly to mine. I rather warmed to the theme and it escalated into something a bit more suggestive. I did not toss the tea over my shoulder and demand to be ravished, but only because Jeeves stopped the proceedings before it got that far. "We mustn't," he said, hoarse and a bit breathy.
"You can't hear a thing in here from anywhere else in the flat," I protested. "Or have you forgotten all the times you've had to peel me off the ceiling because I'd thought you weren't home?"
"I do not customarily make the level of noise there would be, were we to continue."
He had a point. "Fine, we'll use some of your science and logic. Go in another room and I'll make some noise, and you come in when you've heard me." He looked as though he found me quite amusing, but did as I asked. Calling out didn't bring him back in, which was encouraging, and neither did calling out while scraping a chair back and forth. It wasn't until I was singing 'Ukulele Lady' at a fairly full-throated volume and sort of bouncing up and down on the bed that he returned, now looking as though he found me very amusing. "You see? We could have a herd of elephants through here and no one would know. Now come over here and...." Well, and what? I had a few things in mind, of course, but I've already stated where I stand on the matter of talking vs. doing.
"And?" he asked innocently, as he approached with what could have been taken for less-than-innocent intent.
"Have your wicked way with me?" I tried.
"I am afraid," he said, stopping just out of my reach, "that you will have to be more specific." There was a darkish something to his eyes that made several organs stand up and take notice.
"Joining me on the bed would be a good start." He couldn't possibly make me tell him every little thing, could he? That would surely be tiresome.
Jeeves sat down like one might in a theatre, only instead of watching for the lights to dim and the curtain to go up, he was awaiting my next request. It has been said, and will likely continue to be, that Bertram is not the sharpest wossit in the what-have-you, but I'm not so desperately dim that I couldn't tell how he meant this to go. I could easily have simply plastered myself to him and put an end to this game of his; I was sure he'd understand and let it be business as usual.
But quite apart from not being altogether eager to admit my squirmishness about speaking bluntly of these things and back down from the challenge, which did figure into my determination to go on with it, it was what he wanted. Here was Jeeves, asking for a thing that for whatever reason would please him, no hint of if-it-won't-trouble-you or if-I-may-suggest. Simply asking because it was his right. I couldn't just stomp it out without even trying. What's more, I wanted to give it to him.
I drew a steadying breath and summoned the Wooster spirit. "Kiss me?" I said. Not that it was on the list of things I had qualms about outright requesting. Just sort of the traditional beginning to this ilk of proceeding.
I was duly kissed, well and thoroughly, and I was glad Jeeves seemed to view the customary embracing as part and parcel, but when out of habit I began to tug at his tie, he batted my hands away. Well, really! "Clothes need to go," I said, and just to leave nothing to chance, "all of them. Yours and mine."
And thusly the thing went, self giving the instructions and Jeeves carrying them out. I managed it without having to say anything too horrifying until the 'a bit further down' instructions ran their course and the upper portions of my legs were the object of a talented and teasing mouth. It wasn't so much what Jeeves was doing-I made a sort of sighing-moaning noise as he dragged his teeth softly over the crease where thigh met body-but what he was very purposely not doing.
"Perhaps-oh-a bit to the left?"
That got him to the exact same spot on the opposite leg.
"Jee-eeves," I complained. There was most certainly no whining quality to it whatsoever.
He raised his head and regarded me with positive devilment. "Was this not where you meant?"
No, it dashed well wasn't, which he knew. I voiced the request in a stammering rush, but in no uncertain (or polite) terms. With a gorgeous moan he practically swallowed me. He seemed to know the precise moment at which I would be pushed over the edge and lose all ability to pay any mind to the noise-and why shouldn't he, since it was largely due to that thing he kept doing with his tongue-and at said moment clapped a hand firmly over my mouth, reducing what would've been quite the shout to a muffled 'mmmph!' I confess it added a certain je ne sais quoi to the experience, but I lacked the wits to examine it very closely for the present.
I was reduced to a quivering jelly, of course, but Jeeves was still rather more rigid if you get my meaning. Made a bit bold by the recent exertions I asked, "Well, what shall we do with that?" and teased my fingertips over-what's the proper euphe-whatsit? evidence of his regard?-well, that.
"What would you like to do?"
Rather than force out any more risqué requests, I simply turned over and presented him with the suggestion. It was not a new suggestion, though on the one or two past occasions I'd been on my back doing a rather convincing impression of a pretzel. Not that it wasn't up there amongst the loveliest things in the universe, but this way seemed a bit more sensible.
When there was no rattling in drawers or exploring hands or even any movement at all, I looked back over my shoulder to find that Jeeves had indeed gone quite still, and what's more, looked as though he'd sustained a kick to the gut.
"Jeeves, what's the matter?" Perhaps he didn't want to? Was he disappointed I wasn't going on with the game? "If you don't want-"
"I did not mean to give that impression," he said. "I would simply prefer to face you."
I flipped the corpus back over. "Is this one of those things you're going to want me not to ask about? Because I don't mind telling you, it makes a fellow wonder."
"I know," he said, eyes closed.
I pulled him downwards and kissed him what I hoped was reassuringly. "I'd never make you, not that I could. Just, if it bothers you that much I'd rather like to know why."
"I think you will no longer welcome my attentions when the history of that particular aversion is revealed," he said, and made to move away.
"Now look here!" Jeeves has got a good two stone of pure muscle and a couple of inches on me, but he must not have wanted to go too very badly because grabbing the nearest arm was enough to stop his retreat. "Nothing could make me do that." All these bits of unexplained things, these things I couldn't ask him. I got the sinking feeling someone had done something more terrible to him than simply break his heart. Whatever unpleasant memory it was had rather flagged his desire, but I refused to let us stop on such a sour note. "Tell me or don't, but don't keep it to yourself because you think I'll head for the hills." I plied him with as sweet a kiss as I knew how to give and after a moment he made a sound in the back of his throat and began to warm back up.
It may come as a surprise to anyone who's merely heard tell of this particular pastime, or seen the sort of films one can't see in a cinema, but it's not a simple case of this-goes-here and have at it. If it's to be anything other than a miserable experience, steps must be taken to ease the way. In my humble opinion it's best done in a slow and methodical way and carried on a bit past the point of readiness for the main event so that the party on the receiving is more or less ready to beg for it. Or at least that's the way Jeeves does it, so I'll admit to a certain bias. I suppose one 'please, now,' doesn't really amount to begging, but had that not done the trick I would have carried on until it did.
From atop and within me as he waited for the slight burn to subside, and somehow he always knew when it had, Jeeves fixed an intense-I might even say penetrating-gaze upon me and said, "I love you, Bertie. I love you." I could only respond with the sort of noise that doesn't translate well to written accounts; as good as it may sound to the parties involved, the best approximation is something like 'aunnngh,' which looks like it could be some painful grunting thing, but take me at my word that it was not. It was the sound of a blissful Bertram, for Jeeves had begun to move, and continued to do so, with the slow controlled perfection that's present in all he does.
Despite the interesting contortions one's legs are forced into, a point highly in favour of facing each other was that I had the privilege of watching this control escape him bit by bit. If Jeeves himself is a work of art, Jeeves giving into the very ectasy of love, as the fellow said, is a sky-high stack of museums. I could imagine nothing else like it, hearing my name invoked alongside deities as he forgot himself utterly, grasping at sheets and hands and shoulders until he suddenly went completely still with the proverbial spilling-over of desire.
The problem with these things is that you can't proceed direct to the basking without a certain amount of housekeeping first unless you'd like the laundress to wonder what on earth you've been getting up to. Most times back at the cottage, Jeeves had stumbled off for something in the way of a cloth fairly soon after the fact, but in this case he simply scooped me up and carried me to the bath. The thing was barely big enough for one, but we both squeezed in somehow. I closed my eyes and let myself be washed and rubbed and held, now wondering again who had hurt him so, who could have been so heartless not to adore and cherish his every blink. "I love you, too," I said, belated though it was, and didn't mind one bit that the kiss I got for it was a bit soapy.
Due to the time of day and the unfortunate houseguest, we were forced back to ourselves sooner than I would have liked. I found myself a trifle crestfallen at the news that my clothes and toilet accoutrements could be found in the spare bedroom and hall bath respectively. In the Brittany cottage there had been but one bathroom and it had given me a silly little warm feeling to see our toothbrushes side by side in the holder.
"There is a ready excuse if it happens to come to light that you are not sleeping in the spare bedroom," Jeeves explained, "but no one would expect you to also bathe and dress in my quarters."
I'd never given a thought to anybody actually thinking about it at all. "Well, where are they going to think you're sleeping?"
"If anyone should pause to consider it, they will likely assume that I have prevailed upon the hospitality of some other servant in the building."
If they even considered it. Someone might bother to wonder after my needs if they were feeling especially charitable, but not after Jeeves's. This was not Brittany, and I'd best buck up and get used to it.
{Next: Part 7: More Fuel to the Fire}
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6. Ticking Off Stinker
"Well," I said when we'd fetched up at the Paris res. and stowed the luggage. "At least it's Paris. Nobody will be too bothered what we do provided we mind where it gets done. And at least we won't have to hide anything from Marion and Lisette. Actually, I rather think they'll be pleased."
"Indeed," Jeeves said, and produced a telegram from the box on the door.
"Blast." Nobody knew we'd gone away, so it could've been there for days. "Well, read it."
"It arrived a few hours ago, apparently. It is from Miss Byng."
"Stiffy? What can she want? This had better not be about kilts."
He perused the thing a moment, and his eyebrows nearly went up into his hair before fixing into a deep frown. "She writes: 'Harold gravely ill and asking for you. Return at once Totleigh Towers.'"
"Good lord." I sat down, or rather sort of fell onto a luckily placed chair.
I was no Sherlock Holmes, but even I could draw a few conclusions. One, Stinker would truly have to be in a very bad way for such a telegram to be sent to anyone. Two, he had not so much got over these erstwhile feelings of his toward self, and three, he must be steadily knocking at death's door to care little enough what anyone would think of him asking for me, which rather strengthened point two.
Where Jeeves might once have continued to hover, he now came and wrapped me in a comforting embrace. I wondered if I should tell him my conclusions and the history behind them, but decided it didn't matter just now.
"I suppose we'd better go, then," I said morosely. Worried as I was for Stinker, I didn't want to leave. I would, of course, but it felt rather like having the rug yanked out from under me just when I'd begun to settle in. I scolded myself not a little bit; it was heartless to be mourning the temporary loss of my own pleasures when I might shortly be mourning the loss of a very dear friend.
Jeeves had me on the next train out, promising to follow with the car and luggage as soon as he could. Making the journey alone was the last thing I wanted, but some haste is due in such circs.
Jostled and feeling rather grimy, I was met at what in Totleigh-in-the-Wold passed for a train station by an equally dishevelled and somewhat red-eyed Siffy. "Stiffy, old girl," I greeted with sympathy. "You needn't have come. I could've made it up on my own."
"I needed to do something, Bertie," she said, her voice bearing the strain of one who's done a good deal of crying. "It's all just sitting and waiting and nothing doing any good. Uncle Watty's been very nice, but you know he's not the comforting sort, and Maddie's in the middle of the ocean somewhere." Honeymooning with Spodecup, presumably. "Even if I got a cable to her she'd never make it back in time. So it's just been me and Uncle Watty and the doctor and an army of servants all acting like nothing's wrong. Where's Jeeves?"
I don't know if she thought Jeeves could fix this or if she was simply wondering. "Packing up the kit back in Paris. We'd just got back from Brittany and I more or less turned round and left again directly."
"Oh, I'm sorry."
"Think nothing of it." I put her firmly into the passenger seat of Sir Watkyn's car, despite her clear intention to drive, and attempted to look on the bright side. "Still, Stinker can't be too bad off if he can tell you who he wants to visit him." I didn't so much believe this, but it was all the silver lining I could muster.
"He was full of morphine and out of his head," she said flatly. "He also called out for his mother and brother, who can't exactly come back to life and turn up, but you could, so I thought why not. I could use a friend myself." And with a sob she added, "Bertie, I really think he's going to die."
"Oh, now. Don't talk that way. Stinker's made of far sterner stuff than that. What's the matter with him, anyway?"
"They don't know," she sniffed. "He'd been visiting a family whose baby had scarlet fever, but his fever went, so they say it isn't that. We all had to go about in masks for days before the doctor decided it wasn't catching, but they still don't know what it is. He says everything hurts and can't even have a light on because it makes him sick. And now this morning he can't feel half his face. He's dying little by little right before my eyes and nobody can do a god-damned thing about it!"
Any more and she might've needed a doctor herself, but I'd rolled up in front of Totleigh Towers. Stiffy took several deep breaths, quite visibly bottling it all back up.
"It won't do to lose hope," I said. "He's never given up on you."
"Even when I was horrid to him," she sniffed.
"Come, now. No sense making it worse by throwing blame around. From the sound of it, it's quite bad enough on its own. Telling him to go and boil his head once or twice didn't make him sick. What ho, Butterfield." With that I handed off the car and led the sniffling Stiffy inside by the elbow.
"Do you want to see him now or go up to your room first?" she asked.
"Well, under the circs I don't suppose he'll mind if I'm not altogether fresh as a daisy. Might even take it as a show of solidarity, what?"
Stiffy laughed a bit, I think in spite of herself because she stopped it short and looked guilty.
"Look here," said I, feeling I knew a thing or two about conducting oneself in the company of the ailing. When my poor mother was in the process of shuffling off the mortal coil, there had been a strict rule of keeping a stiff upper lip and a sunny disposish anywhere near the patient. "If you go about like he's dying, he'll think he is, and won't trouble himself not to. Business as usual and never mind the mumps, that's the stuff for the troops."
"I'm trying," Stiffy sighed. "But after a week of worse and worse, it's hard to keep up. Why do you think I was so quick to drag you back here the moment he mentioned you? The most violent bad feeling you ever have is mild annoyance."
I was indeed mildly annoyed at the supposition. It's not that I've got great unplumbed depths or anything like that, but I do bleed if pricked, as the fellow said. "That I let on, Stiffy," I said seriously.
"Well, all right, but it's the same to anyone looking."
"Unfortunately, your ailing affianced is one of the few who can tell the difference," I said, leaving her to make of that what she would. "Still, best foot forward and all that." I put it forward through the door.
The room was just this side of pitch-dark. I recognised it as one of the music salons pressed into service as a sickroom, the piano covered with a sheet and propping up all sorts of bottles and bowls. In the centre of it was a bed that contained an unmoving lump I assumed to be the man himself.
"Harold, I've brought Bertie," Stiffy announced, her voice so high with false cheer it was a wonder the windows didn't crack.
The lump stirred slightly and went, "Mmph."
"What ho, Stinker," I said as airily as I could in so not-airy a place.
"Mmph," went the lump.
The shadowy outline of Stiffy shrugged helplessly. "I've been sitting there sort of blathering at him," she whispered. "The doctor says it helps."
I considered the armchair pulled up to the bed, but went the other direction in the end to peel up an edge of the sheet from the business end of the piano and seat myself there. I dug back into the memory for something he'd like and set to it as softly as I could in case noise had the same effect as light.
I have no particular fondness for 'Goodbye My Coney Island Baby,' not least because it's hardly worth it for one chap to sing it all alone, but he'd begged me to learn it, and learn it I had, so well that years later I could still play it in the dark.
Stiffy's shadow held itself in a sceptical way, but a verse or so in, the lump began to slowly stir, and by the end of it had transformed into a greyish formation of a nearly-sitting-up Stinker. Thus spake it: "You hate that song." The statement was slurred and slow, but a vast improvement on 'mmph.'
"Yes, but you like it, and as you're feeling poorly I thought it only sporting."
"I always loved it when you'd play for me."
"Well, I'm at your disposal."
I'm not sure he even knew Stiffy was there. "I'll go fetch some more music, shall I?" she said, and I was glad she'd announced herself again before he might've said something he'd rather not say in front of her.
"No use, old girl," I said. "Can't see a thing. But I'd be much obliged if you'd find somebody to bring me a glass of something."
"Of course. Harold, dear, do you need anything?"
"No, darling," he said. "You should rest." There was more than a slur, I realised- more in the way of a lisp, like he had a wad of cotton shoved in his cheek. Stiffy let out a bitterish sort of 'hah.' "Please, Stephanie, you've barely left this room. I could never forgive myself if you got sick, too, because you've run yourself down."
"Fine," she said. "Bertie, send for me if anything- if you need me." She pressed a kiss to Stinker's beleaguered brow and trudged off.
I noticed he shielded his eyes against the light when the door opened, and I also saw for the first time how terrible he really looked. He was ashen and drawn, and one side of his face was all droopy, which I suppose accounted for the cottony speech.
"I'm so glad you came, Bertie," he said when she'd gone.
"Friend in need and all. I wouldn't be anywhere else."
There was a tap at the door, proving to be one of Butterfield's minions with a tray. Apparently Stiffy had ordered sandwiches as well as half the contents of a bar. The nurse followed the chappie in with some broth I assumed was for Stinker. "He needs to 'ave that, sir," the nurse told me, indicating the bowl, and she clearly meant to come pour it into him, not the sort of indignity I thought he'd stick lightly.
"I'll see to it," I assured.
"Don't let him drink it too fast, sir," she said. "Else it'll just come right back up."
I think I hid my grimace pretty well, and my back was to Stinker anyway. "Thank you, er-"
"Mrs Oster, sir, but round 'ere I'm Nannie Faye."
"Right ho. Thank you, Nannie Faye." I had the inkling she was the same Nannie Faye who Stiffy had mentioned in passing once or twice in the course of comparing notes on childhoods; she was certainly the proper vintage for it.
I popped the tray on the table near the bed, and self into the chair. "Oh, not more bloody broth," Stinker grumbled.
"Well, if you'd hurry along and get better, you can have something nicer."
He sighed heavily, and there was a worrying sort of wheeze to it. "I'm not going to get better, Bertie."
"Don't talk rubbish. Of course you are. You already seem much improved on what I'd been led to expect."
"I feel like somebody's going at my joints with a rusty spoon, I can't feel half my face, and I have to sit in the dark. Who knows what'll go next."
I decided this was no time for wondering what gestures I should and shouldn't make, and reached out to take his hand. He squeezed back, but weakly. "Don't give up," I said. "Could be it all sorts itself out."
"Sometimes I wonder if I'm being punished. If this is God's wrath for my sins."
"It's also a sin to eat lobster, to borrow a phrase," I said, borrowing it from Lisette.
"I need you to do something for me, Bertie, and you're the only one I can ask."
"Name it, old egg."
"Under my bed at home, there's a strongbox. If anyone should see what's in it...."
I caught his meaning. He should've known better than to keep something like that lying about, but the sooner it was not lying about, the better for all concerned. "Worry not, it will be disposed of with all due haste."
"Thank you," he said with obv. relief. "At the funeral-"
"Hoi! There's not going to be any bally funeral, Stinker!"
"Please, Bertie. Stephanie won't hear a word of it either. I don't want people going round saying 'it's what he would've wanted.' I want somebody to actually know."
"That's all well and good, but in the-not-so-soon, by the way-end, I've got no more say than Stiffy's dog. Hadn't you better put all this down properly? I'm sure Sir Watkyn knows a thing or two."
"I don't want him having anything to do with it."
"Fine, I'll get my solicitor down here. But what's the matter with Sir Watkyn doing it?"
"What little I've got I want to go to Magdalen, to start a scholarship fund for future clergy."
"Well, that's dashed decent of you, I must say. Why on earth would he mind?"
"I think he'll see it as a slight to Stephanie. A couple of months more and it would've all gone to her."
"It's not as though she needs it. But what you want is what you want, despite the certain mootness of it all. I'll phone up to London in the morning." I patted his hand, which I was somehow still holding. "But I still say you're going to be fine."
"I wish I could believe that."
"You are," I insisted. "I've attended a deathbed vigil or two in my time and this has none of the earmarks. You're getting better, not worse. The fever's gone and now everything's just patching itself up."
A bout of friendly tenderness caused me to reach up and attempt to bring his hair out of disarray. He heaved a wheezy sigh and hummed a bit, so I indulged him, petting his hair like he was some giant clumsy cat and hoping matters stood clearly enough between us that he wouldn't take it for something it wasn't. Come to that, I wasn't sure Jeeves, had he been present, wouldn't have taken it for something it wasn't.
I was about to draw back on that thought, but a few things happened in quick succession. I felt something odd at the back of his head, a little hard spot like a scab, but also not. "What's this?" I asked, poking at it. "Does it hurt?"
"It's probably dirt," he said.
Just as I'd grasped it between my fingers, Stiffy and an elderly cove strode into the room. "The doctor's here with a new- what on earth are you doing?"
"Hang on, I've almost got it," I said, now feeling I absolutely must have something to show for this wrongish-looking state. I extracted the thing and brought it eyeward to inspect. "I say! It's some sort of bug."
"Oh, lovely, now I'm dying and I've got fleas," Stinker grumbled.
The doc. came over and peered at my prisoner through a little glass. "Not fleas, Reverend," he said, looking as though all his Christmases had come at once. "That is a sheep-tick, and, I would wager, the cause of all your troubles. Medical understanding of the matter is in its infancy, but there are several sera which have proven very effective."
"You mean he'll get better?" Stiffy said, wide-eyed and hand on heart.
"It's been left very late indeed, but I am optimistic that there will be no lasting damage," said the doc.
Stiffy squealed and ploughed over not to embrace her intended, but to plant a sopping wet kiss upon the Wooster cheek. "I say!" I exclaimed.
Stinker gave me an amused look and a grateful smile, or I assumed so, for due to the palsy it came over a bit grimacey. Stiffy transferred her embrace to the more proper target, Nannie Faye crossed herself, and the doctor dropped the offending insect into a little jar. He began to explain the treatment, which was a dashed painful-sounding mercurochrome injection direct to the spine to kill off the micro-whatsits, followed by a sort of anti-venom thing if that didn't do the whole job.
I slipped out in all the rejoicing hubbub and made for the nearest telephone, hoping Jeeves was still in Paris and could stop the presses on departing since I could now simply join him again in a few days. No joy, however, and the railway co. couldn't tell me for certain if a chap fitting his particulars had bought a ticket to Calais.
I nearly resorted to having them try to find him, but the French cove on the other end seemed to be getting the impression I was after some wayward servant who'd made off with the silver. I didn't want to put Jeeves to any more trouble, so I gave it up as a bad job and resolved to await his arrival. Perhaps we could still go back to Paris. I was even feeling rather charitable toward Japan at this point; the simple allure of someplace where nobody knew us.
I returned to the sickroom to find the doctor suggesting Stinker be moved to London for easier access to all the pills and powders and whatnot, a case of Muhammad coming to the mountain, or possibly the other way round. The village chemist in Totleigh environs wasn't precisely equipped to be boiling up the needful, so it would have to come from London wherever Stinker was.
"He'll be sick the whole way," Stiffy protested. "All that light and noise. Surely he'll be more comfortable here."
"It's my health, thank you," Stinker said peevishly. "Between a few hours of misery or waiting another week to get any better, I'll put on some dark glasses and grit my teeth." He sort of scoffed, though he is not the scoffing sort ordinarily. "On one side, anyway."
Stiffy looked wounded. The doc. began clattering on about what a nice place the Royal London Infirmary was these days, but she stopped him. "Harold, you hate hospitals. You say it every time you have to go round to one."
"I'm quite determined, Stephanie," he said. "The sooner I'm rid of this, the better."
"Well, I won't hear of you suffering in some horrid old hospital. We'll just find someone in London who won't mind you staying with them for a bit." Three guesses who her eyes fell on, and the first two don't count.
I couldn't very well protest, could I? 'Sorry, no, I can't possibly be prevented from unclothing my manservant whenever I please,' would go over none too well, and there was no other reason to say no, so I hastened to extend the invite. There was a slight silver lining: the spare bedroom was indisposed due to either a Claude or an Eustace having somehow broken the bed frame on their last visit, so as the only other suitable thing for Stinker was my own room, I could bunk in with Jeeves without raising any eyebrows. Even if Stinker worked it out, he couldn't precisely cast stones, little though he might like it.
Trouble was, the doc. seemed eager to have the thing done quickly, no doubt to start writing up his findings for M'doctor's Boudoir or whatever it is they read. "Jeeves won't be best pleased to get here and find I've scarpered," I warned, "and what's more, I'm no use at soup and tea."
"Well," Stiffy said, "take a telegram to Butterfield and have him send it to all the trains and the ferry. He'll get it one place or another and come straight to London, easy-peasy."
"Oh, all right. At least let me change before we go?"
I was permitted the luxury even of bathing, but only because the doc. had to go and requisition an ambulance since Stinker couldn't precisely just be thrown in the back of the Bentley. Along with a hefty tip for his trouble, I sent the following off with Butterfield:
JEEVES STOP TERRIBLY SORRY STOP CHANGE OF PLAN STOP STINKER NOT DYING BUT NEEDS TREATMENT IN LONDON STOP IS TO STAY WITH US STOP PROCEED DIRECT HOME STOP BWW
I had to leave off the endearments and what all, of course, since Butterfield and who knew how many telegraph operators had to see the thing. While awaiting the ambulance I slipped out and nipped over to the rectory and fished the fearful box out from under Stinker's bed. I considered it no less of a danger just because he'd conceded not to do any shuffling-off just yet. Now that I knew about it the thing would haunt me until I knew there was nothing in it that, if viewed by the wrong parties, could even possibly lead to self and Jeeves being torn asunder. There was a sturdy lock on it, at least, and I very valiantly resisted the urge to pry it off and dump the whole contents in the nearest fireplace.
Stinker was not sick the whole way. He drifted off from sheer exhaustion about halfway there and recommenced more or less the moment we woke him, but did manage to hold it in long enough to get through the door. I'm sure we made quite a picture- Stinker, the doc., the driver, Nannie Faye and self. Jarvis gave me about as rummy a look as he could get away with.
"What ho, Jarvis," I said as though not attending a practically blindfolded curate, not that he could tell as Stinker had on a nightshirt and overcoat. Stiffy had stayed behind to get a bit of rest and pack up and would follow in a couple of days. Obviously there was no room for her chez Wooster, but the girl had plenty of friends and would stay with one or another of them.
To my relief, Jeeves 'phoned up within minutes of our arrival, which suggested he'd either been trying for a bit or had very good timing. "Jeeves! One of the wires got to you, then?"
"Yes, sir, when I disembarked the train at Calais. I will be on the five o'clock ferry and have arranged with the garage for the car to be in readiness when I arrive at Folkestone."
"Oh, good, jolly good. I was afraid you'd turn up at Totleigh only to find your efforts in vain. I tried to catch you in Paris to tell you to stay there, but you must've already gone. I suppose it's just as well since Stinker will be convalescing here."
"So I gathered, sir." I wished he'd stop with the 'sir,' but the amount of noise around him meant he was where people could hear him, so if anyone knew he was speaking to his employer he couldn't precisely call me 'darling.' Not that he'd ever called me that. I tried to imagine it and found it a very pleasing thought.
"Sorry about all this," I said.
"I doubt Paris will change very much before Reverend Pinker is recovered, sir."
That final exchange, in re the wording, was utterly mundane, but what I meant was more like 'I didn't want to go back to the world yet,' and what I heard ran along the lines of 'neither did I, but we can go back and I'll dance with you.' It left me a bit wistful and misty.
Nannie Faye, the marvellous creature, agreed to stay the night so as not to leave us without an able-bodied person with a household skill or two. In London, not the flat. I wouldn't have her in a chair all night and she wouldn't put me out of the last bed going, so as a compromise I got her a room at the hotel round the corner, which she seemed quite happy to accept.
Her cooking was not a patch on Jeeves's, of course, but where his was all rather gourmand, if that's the word I want, hers had a homey comforting nannie-ish quality to it, which I suppose made sense with her being a nannie and all. As it turned out, Stiffy had begged her out of retirement, trusting no one else to nurse poor Stinker. All I got was an odd look when I asked her if she knew Nannie Pete, so I suppose there isn't a club for nannies like there is for butlers and valets.
It was about nine when she and the doc. finally cleared out, the latter after doing something to Stinker that made him groan so loudly I could hear it two rooms away. He advised me Stinker was likely out for the night, so I happily toddled off to Jeeves's lair to rest the bones.
I'd never spent much time in there, you understand, as even the firstmost-rate valet has to have a little something to himself that isn't constantly invaded by his employer. I'd only called on him there in the direst of circs, and dire circs being what they are, I never took much time to look round.
It was nice enough. Smallish but cosy, with a screen separating the desk and settee from the bed. I saw what he'd meant about the furniture (though I now suspected that request had been hastily supplied in the stead of one of those thought-better-ofs he'd mentioned). There was nothing wrong with it, strictly speaking, but it was beginning to show its age. The bed seemed comfortable enough, though only big enough for two if they liked each other a great deal.
The most striking thing about the place was that anywhere one could put a book, he'd put a book. Every shelf was packed tight with tome after tome; there was even a set of something in bookends atop the chest of drawers. I was sure he'd only had at most two cases when he'd moved in, so either he'd snuck all this up when I wasn't home or he'd collected it all since coming to me.
I recognised a few volumes as bought in my presence or given by me on Christmsases and birthdays, but they wouldn't have filled even one shelf. I'd always thought his requests for books when asked what he wanted were an attempt not to ask for anything too extravagant, for even before I'd realised and confessed my feelings I'd have had no qualms about the bestowing of pricey trinkets, but apparently they really were what he wanted. I had the notion to surprise him with one or five sometime soon, but the task of working out what he might want that wasn't here made me weary and I drifted towards the bed. The linens were pristinely clean, naturally, but they still carried enough of the singular Jeevesian scent that I sighed happily as I wrapped myself in the covers.
I awoke to the real thing seated on the side of the bed, delicately touching my cheek with one hand and balancing a cup of tea in the other. "Jeeves," I said with a smile. "What time is it?"
"Half-past nine."
I groaned and burrowed my face between blanket and tweeded thigh. Jeeves let out a low chuckle and raked his fingers through the back of my hair, which, while lovely, jogged the memory as to what I was doing in this bed in the first place. Reluctantly, I wrenched the bean upwards. "Stinker all right?" I asked.
"According to Mrs Oster, he was feeling some improvement when he woke a few hours ago, though he is still highly fatigued and has been sleeping intermittently. I took the liberty of getting her a train back to Gloucestershire."
"Jolly good." I sat up enough to have a few gulps of tea. "Not too bad a go on the ferry, I hope?"
"It was much as expected."
"I missed you, you know," I said, suddenly shy for some reason and hiding behind the china.
Jeeves moved the cup aside and pressed his lips softly to mine. I rather warmed to the theme and it escalated into something a bit more suggestive. I did not toss the tea over my shoulder and demand to be ravished, but only because Jeeves stopped the proceedings before it got that far. "We mustn't," he said, hoarse and a bit breathy.
"You can't hear a thing in here from anywhere else in the flat," I protested. "Or have you forgotten all the times you've had to peel me off the ceiling because I'd thought you weren't home?"
"I do not customarily make the level of noise there would be, were we to continue."
He had a point. "Fine, we'll use some of your science and logic. Go in another room and I'll make some noise, and you come in when you've heard me." He looked as though he found me quite amusing, but did as I asked. Calling out didn't bring him back in, which was encouraging, and neither did calling out while scraping a chair back and forth. It wasn't until I was singing 'Ukulele Lady' at a fairly full-throated volume and sort of bouncing up and down on the bed that he returned, now looking as though he found me very amusing. "You see? We could have a herd of elephants through here and no one would know. Now come over here and...." Well, and what? I had a few things in mind, of course, but I've already stated where I stand on the matter of talking vs. doing.
"And?" he asked innocently, as he approached with what could have been taken for less-than-innocent intent.
"Have your wicked way with me?" I tried.
"I am afraid," he said, stopping just out of my reach, "that you will have to be more specific." There was a darkish something to his eyes that made several organs stand up and take notice.
"Joining me on the bed would be a good start." He couldn't possibly make me tell him every little thing, could he? That would surely be tiresome.
Jeeves sat down like one might in a theatre, only instead of watching for the lights to dim and the curtain to go up, he was awaiting my next request. It has been said, and will likely continue to be, that Bertram is not the sharpest wossit in the what-have-you, but I'm not so desperately dim that I couldn't tell how he meant this to go. I could easily have simply plastered myself to him and put an end to this game of his; I was sure he'd understand and let it be business as usual.
But quite apart from not being altogether eager to admit my squirmishness about speaking bluntly of these things and back down from the challenge, which did figure into my determination to go on with it, it was what he wanted. Here was Jeeves, asking for a thing that for whatever reason would please him, no hint of if-it-won't-trouble-you or if-I-may-suggest. Simply asking because it was his right. I couldn't just stomp it out without even trying. What's more, I wanted to give it to him.
I drew a steadying breath and summoned the Wooster spirit. "Kiss me?" I said. Not that it was on the list of things I had qualms about outright requesting. Just sort of the traditional beginning to this ilk of proceeding.
I was duly kissed, well and thoroughly, and I was glad Jeeves seemed to view the customary embracing as part and parcel, but when out of habit I began to tug at his tie, he batted my hands away. Well, really! "Clothes need to go," I said, and just to leave nothing to chance, "all of them. Yours and mine."
And thusly the thing went, self giving the instructions and Jeeves carrying them out. I managed it without having to say anything too horrifying until the 'a bit further down' instructions ran their course and the upper portions of my legs were the object of a talented and teasing mouth. It wasn't so much what Jeeves was doing-I made a sort of sighing-moaning noise as he dragged his teeth softly over the crease where thigh met body-but what he was very purposely not doing.
"Perhaps-oh-a bit to the left?"
That got him to the exact same spot on the opposite leg.
"Jee-eeves," I complained. There was most certainly no whining quality to it whatsoever.
He raised his head and regarded me with positive devilment. "Was this not where you meant?"
No, it dashed well wasn't, which he knew. I voiced the request in a stammering rush, but in no uncertain (or polite) terms. With a gorgeous moan he practically swallowed me. He seemed to know the precise moment at which I would be pushed over the edge and lose all ability to pay any mind to the noise-and why shouldn't he, since it was largely due to that thing he kept doing with his tongue-and at said moment clapped a hand firmly over my mouth, reducing what would've been quite the shout to a muffled 'mmmph!' I confess it added a certain je ne sais quoi to the experience, but I lacked the wits to examine it very closely for the present.
I was reduced to a quivering jelly, of course, but Jeeves was still rather more rigid if you get my meaning. Made a bit bold by the recent exertions I asked, "Well, what shall we do with that?" and teased my fingertips over-what's the proper euphe-whatsit? evidence of his regard?-well, that.
"What would you like to do?"
Rather than force out any more risqué requests, I simply turned over and presented him with the suggestion. It was not a new suggestion, though on the one or two past occasions I'd been on my back doing a rather convincing impression of a pretzel. Not that it wasn't up there amongst the loveliest things in the universe, but this way seemed a bit more sensible.
When there was no rattling in drawers or exploring hands or even any movement at all, I looked back over my shoulder to find that Jeeves had indeed gone quite still, and what's more, looked as though he'd sustained a kick to the gut.
"Jeeves, what's the matter?" Perhaps he didn't want to? Was he disappointed I wasn't going on with the game? "If you don't want-"
"I did not mean to give that impression," he said. "I would simply prefer to face you."
I flipped the corpus back over. "Is this one of those things you're going to want me not to ask about? Because I don't mind telling you, it makes a fellow wonder."
"I know," he said, eyes closed.
I pulled him downwards and kissed him what I hoped was reassuringly. "I'd never make you, not that I could. Just, if it bothers you that much I'd rather like to know why."
"I think you will no longer welcome my attentions when the history of that particular aversion is revealed," he said, and made to move away.
"Now look here!" Jeeves has got a good two stone of pure muscle and a couple of inches on me, but he must not have wanted to go too very badly because grabbing the nearest arm was enough to stop his retreat. "Nothing could make me do that." All these bits of unexplained things, these things I couldn't ask him. I got the sinking feeling someone had done something more terrible to him than simply break his heart. Whatever unpleasant memory it was had rather flagged his desire, but I refused to let us stop on such a sour note. "Tell me or don't, but don't keep it to yourself because you think I'll head for the hills." I plied him with as sweet a kiss as I knew how to give and after a moment he made a sound in the back of his throat and began to warm back up.
It may come as a surprise to anyone who's merely heard tell of this particular pastime, or seen the sort of films one can't see in a cinema, but it's not a simple case of this-goes-here and have at it. If it's to be anything other than a miserable experience, steps must be taken to ease the way. In my humble opinion it's best done in a slow and methodical way and carried on a bit past the point of readiness for the main event so that the party on the receiving is more or less ready to beg for it. Or at least that's the way Jeeves does it, so I'll admit to a certain bias. I suppose one 'please, now,' doesn't really amount to begging, but had that not done the trick I would have carried on until it did.
From atop and within me as he waited for the slight burn to subside, and somehow he always knew when it had, Jeeves fixed an intense-I might even say penetrating-gaze upon me and said, "I love you, Bertie. I love you." I could only respond with the sort of noise that doesn't translate well to written accounts; as good as it may sound to the parties involved, the best approximation is something like 'aunnngh,' which looks like it could be some painful grunting thing, but take me at my word that it was not. It was the sound of a blissful Bertram, for Jeeves had begun to move, and continued to do so, with the slow controlled perfection that's present in all he does.
Despite the interesting contortions one's legs are forced into, a point highly in favour of facing each other was that I had the privilege of watching this control escape him bit by bit. If Jeeves himself is a work of art, Jeeves giving into the very ectasy of love, as the fellow said, is a sky-high stack of museums. I could imagine nothing else like it, hearing my name invoked alongside deities as he forgot himself utterly, grasping at sheets and hands and shoulders until he suddenly went completely still with the proverbial spilling-over of desire.
The problem with these things is that you can't proceed direct to the basking without a certain amount of housekeeping first unless you'd like the laundress to wonder what on earth you've been getting up to. Most times back at the cottage, Jeeves had stumbled off for something in the way of a cloth fairly soon after the fact, but in this case he simply scooped me up and carried me to the bath. The thing was barely big enough for one, but we both squeezed in somehow. I closed my eyes and let myself be washed and rubbed and held, now wondering again who had hurt him so, who could have been so heartless not to adore and cherish his every blink. "I love you, too," I said, belated though it was, and didn't mind one bit that the kiss I got for it was a bit soapy.
Due to the time of day and the unfortunate houseguest, we were forced back to ourselves sooner than I would have liked. I found myself a trifle crestfallen at the news that my clothes and toilet accoutrements could be found in the spare bedroom and hall bath respectively. In the Brittany cottage there had been but one bathroom and it had given me a silly little warm feeling to see our toothbrushes side by side in the holder.
"There is a ready excuse if it happens to come to light that you are not sleeping in the spare bedroom," Jeeves explained, "but no one would expect you to also bathe and dress in my quarters."
I'd never given a thought to anybody actually thinking about it at all. "Well, where are they going to think you're sleeping?"
"If anyone should pause to consider it, they will likely assume that I have prevailed upon the hospitality of some other servant in the building."
If they even considered it. Someone might bother to wonder after my needs if they were feeling especially charitable, but not after Jeeves's. This was not Brittany, and I'd best buck up and get used to it.
{Next: Part 7: More Fuel to the Fire}