Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

An already promising day took a juicy turn when Jeeves shimmered in after the dispensation of the morning nectar with a telegram from a dear old friend.

“I say, Jeeves! It’s from Jack.”

“Indeed, sir?”

“Yes! Oh, of course, you haven’t met Jack yet. We crossed paths as youths at some unbearable summer fête or other, hit it off like firecrackers, and endeavored to spend every summer of our childhood henceforth together.”

“I see, sir.”

“It’s been ages since we’ve seen each other now, never in the same country anymore. Jack’s been positively devoted to France for the past—hmm, has it really been three whole years? And now Jack proposes to pop round after lunch to wag the old jaws in the way of catching up.”

Jeeves nodded his understanding of the operation and shimmered back out of the room to retrieve the breakfast supplies.

I leant back in the pillows and grinned. Now, that was just like old Jack—reasonable and merciful, not bounding in at some ungodly hour or demanding to be lunched with pheasant and soufflé at a moment’s notice.

As I commenced a good remembrance of my pal, a very small fly appeared in this otherwise fruity aperitif. When Jeeves returned, I coughed and settled myself more upright than I usually favor in the AM. “Jeeves, my good man. I suspect you’ll get along with Jack famously, except—er—well, I feel I should warn you. Now, let’s see, how to put this delicately…” I cudgeled the grey matter thoroughly and came out with: “You see, one of the many terrains upon which we, Jack and I, that is, forged our pally bond was that of couture.”

“Indeed, sir?” Jeeves inquired, the tightening of one mouth-corner the only giveaway that he cottoned on to my broader meaning.

“I say this only to pre-smooth any feathers than may be ruffled. Just, as the poets say, gird your loins.”

“Yes, sir.” My man straightened his spine exactly one quarter inch further than its ramrod resting state, the Jeevesian equivalent of such action.

I was breakfasted and rested and very lightly bored by the time of the appointed—or is that anointed?—hour, this being the perfect combination of affects in which to receive the vivacity of one such as Jack.

Jeeves had prepared tea and various snackaroonis and even un-hidden the good brandy. This last’s usual location is a secret even to me, on the grounds that I am not capable of protecting my own interests, whiskey-wise. This is evidenced by a certain incident involving approximately a crate of cognac, that dear reprobate Bingo Little, and two or twelve of his newest amor’s closest friends turning up one evening. The old flat had been absolutely packed to the gills with all types, diverse in character except for their thirsty penchant for the good stuff, and I do believe both Jeeves and I were feasting on that particular memory as our eyes met over the booze.

“I can assure you, Jeeves, this will not be like that, ah, event. Jack’s not an over-drinker, nor a thief, nor even a bleeder-of-favors. Absolutely top-shelf personage. Aside from our already under-the-bridge allusion to a worldly sensibility when it comes to color and fabric, the only speck on the cove’s lens would be a tendency towards bounder-dom.”

“Is that so, sir?”

“Quite so. To be downright indiscreet, Jack’s a bit of a skirt chaser. But that shouldn’t be relevant here, as we haven’t got any of the bally things roaming about the place.”

“I should think not, sir.”

“That was rather another point of our enjoining friendship as adulthood broke over us. Wanting to run wild and free and so on and so forth, yet always getting pressed to marry. The aunts throwing females at me as fast as they could get their sticks on the type. And poor Jack, evading hurled chappies with the skill of a lifelong dodge baller.”

Jeeves blinked—a dramatic choice, but what have you, he did it. “Pardon, sir?”

I didn’t have a chance to pardon the man as a vibrant knock rung out and sent Jeeves floating automatically to the door.

“Jack!” I cried, the moment her magnificent silhouette came into focus from beyond the oak-and-valet barrier.

“Bertie, old thing!” she sprang forward to shake my hand with the force of at least three rhinoceroses. I beamed and held on for dear life because if there was any pal I’d be well pleased to have making off with one of my cherished limbs, it was Jack. Really the cats’ finest pajamas, though come to think of it, I haven’t a single memory of seeing a cat wearing pajamas of any stripe—or polka dot.

Feline accoutrement aside, I really was dashed pleased to see the old man. Where ‘man,’ you’ll understand, is less an official title and more a term of affection among bosom buddies. I’d always felt Jack understood me as none other did—save when Jeeves came along, of course—and as such, I was downright pickled with the finest joy to see her crinkle-eyed, freckly grin.

It’s said we Woosters run to height, but if that’s so, then old Jack positively sprinted to the stuff—she stands towering above mere mortal men. And like a petite David behind Jack’s Goliath, she towed in her wake a floaty bit of blonde stuff pasted with a mysterious brand of smile, who I could only assume was her ladies’ maid or else some member of the woodland fae picked up in her international travels.

I let this description of my guests run long to build up to the most truly plum bite of all: Jack was attired in the most singularly awe-inspiring coat I’d ever had the heavenly fortune to plop my peepers on. It was a thick wool done up in salmon and turquoise houndstooth, with great golden buttons depicting—on closer inspection—various cavorting farm animals inscribed in the metal. The whole dazzling deal clashed marvelously with Jack’s merry orange hair, which spilled in short, sporting waves all over her head like pumpkin innards.

“I say,” I said, for what else was there to say.

“I know,” Jack rejoined, every inch pride.

“When they say ‘coat’…”

“They’ll bally well have to retire the word!”

“You’ve quite cornered the market.” I’m not ashamed to say I was gushing to such a degree that I didn’t immediately spot the waver in Jeeves’ stance as the coat-to-end-all-coats took its toll.

The tiny yellow-haired thing in Jack’s company, however, was more astute in the matter, perhaps better prepared to spot the impact given her continual presence in the article’s sphere of influence.

“Let me take your coat, darling,” she said, popping the marvel off her lady’s shoulders.

“Thanks ever so much, my dear.”

I gave the coat a wistful pat as it was skillfully whisked away. Jeeves gestured to the hall closet with great relief, keeping a healthy yard between himself and the garment at all times as it was safely stowed beyond the eye’s reach.

“It’s really marvelous to see you again, Jack, old man. You’ve been abroad so long at times I thought I’d just imagined you.”

“Ah! That is the dream, to be a dream, isn’t it?” she said, the exact brand of beautiful nonsense that so often sent those skirts she chased chasing her right back. “I do apologize for being in absentia so long, it’s truly unforgiveable. But I return! And I hope this time we shall stay.” She quickly explicated the ‘we’ of that statement with a fond wrapping of arm around shoulder to her companion. “This is the fantastic—the indefatigable—the incomparable, my lady’s lady, Mary.”

“How do you do?” I gave Mary a little bow, which she received with great amusement.

Taking the reins on the introductory front, I briefly considered performing a parallel arm-around-shoulder maneuver with Jeeves, but halted the train on account of how poor Jeeves looked like one more shock might be the end. With a cough and a gesture, I said, “And my gentleman’s gentleman, Jeeves.”

“It’s a pleasure…” Jeeves’ mouth remained open but released nothing except a questioning absence of air. I realized immediately—because although I’ve been said to have the speeding wit of a frog trapped in concrete, there are certain circumstances in which the Wooster brain’s skill is unparalleled—that in traditional Jack-ian fashion, the customary norms of greeting were in so many pieces on the floor.

“I say, Jeeves, you can just call old Jack ‘Jack,’ can’t you?”

The violent flicker of an eyelash clarified that no he bloody well could not.

Jack took up the question with her usual grin, since it could be said that confusing people with her mere existence was both her life’s great purpose and pleasure. “No need to break the bounds of propriety with a first name basis if it upsets you, my good man. A simple ‘sir’ will do nicely, ‘miss’ in a pinch, but if you reach for the ‘ma’am’ I’m afraid I’ll have no recourse but grievous violence, what?” She slapped Jeeves’ upper arm with enough force to wobble that great pillar of strength a whopping inch. If I hadn’t already been inoculated against Jack’s world-warping effects by years of exposure, I might have gasped at the sight.

“Please, don’t mind silly Jack,” little Mary touched a single delicate finger to Jeeves’ sleeve. “She treats everyone as buddies on the rugby pitch, and though she means no harm, she nonetheless performs it on an hourly basis.”

“Yes, sir—miss,” Jeeves corrected with a twitching eyelid.

“Oh, you can just call me Mary,” the girl insisted with another tap to Jeeves’ cufflink.

“Is that an unusual patronymic or simply a courtesy?”

“I should choose a third term, though I certainly mean no discourtesy.”

“She means a secret,” Jack explained fondly. “She keeps her internal life like an oyster hoards its pearl. I only got her family name out of a visiting sister, and that on pain of death.”

“Ahem…”

“Alright, on pain of my bursting into tears from frustration.”

Mary straightened Jack’s jaunty tie and explained, “Jack is Miss Wilberton when she’s been cornered into participation in polite society. Although she goes by Jack now, her given name was Caroline. She considers Caroline a very fine name, the only problem with which is that she can’t determine from what other personage it escaped in order to clamp itself to her.”

I jolly well took an instantaneous liking to little Mary—dashed useful to have someone out there explaining all those twisted-up interior thinkings to others. A rosetta stone for a fellow’s psychology, what!

“It really only takes one look to see I’m no Caroline, certainly no Caroline of any quality,” Jack added, “I haven’t got the temperament for it. Nor the shoulders.”

I understood completely. “Dashed true, old man, dashed true.”

Mary continued to smile her enigmatic ‘I’ve got a secret or perhaps a small animal hidden in my cheek’ smile. “You’ll see, Mister Jeeves, why Jack is generally countenanced as off her rocker by her fellows, but further understand why we prefer such terms as ‘eccentric.’ If I may be so bold, I’d venture you have some experience in that area?”

“I’m sure I couldn’t say, Miss Mary.” Jeeves’ eyes twinkled, however, in a way that said a great deal.

“Come through for a drink, Jack?” I offered.

“I should’ve slugged you if you waited a moment more to ask!”

We tromped on into the sitting room, where Jeeves mixed us up his finest in brandy and soda work yet. Leaving us settled and liquored, Jeeves asked Mary if she should like to tour the kitchen facilities, and they filtered away in that direction.

We flung ourselves down on the chesterfield and now sat nose to nose, glass to glass, knee to knee—ready, in other words, for a good old fashioned goss.

“Proper manners prod me to ask after the Earl and Countess.”

“Oh, they’re absolute pets, as always. Mother has taken up painting, which I think is doing a great deal of good for her soul and whatnot. And Father has taken to napping in a corner of her studio, so they both have pleasant hobbies to occupy themselves. They’re quite thrilled to have me back, and I must say, I’d missed popping round for Sunday tea. In fact, I’m sure mother and father would love to entertain you sometime, Bertie!”

“I’m sure they wouldn’t,” I shot back, “you do remember the sort of thing we got up to in our youths? It’s you they adore to the moon and back, not me. They should hardly forgive a Wooster-nobody for the evils done to their rosebushes in the name of good sport.”

Under the correct circumstances—i.e. those in which precious rosebushes have not been recently trampled—the Earl and Countess of whatsits really were a couple of pets. They’d found themselves rather short in the children department and approaching the age in which the prospects no longer looked good, when baby Jack saw fit to arrive at the eleventh hour, so to speak. They doted on their only child and devoted any necessary resources to protecting her from harm or negative influence. It speaks well of Jack, I think, that she did not depart this tender bosom utterly spoiled but merely open-hearted and sure of the inherent goodness of the universe.

“Ah, yes, I’d nearly forgotten,” she mused, “It was dashed creative, playing croquet with bowling balls, even they should have to admit.”

“I don’t believe creativity was quite the issue, what?”

“Very true.” She sighed, and I imagined the tinkling of broken glass in her happy reminiscence. “Now, Bertie, how have you been?”

“Me? Oh, I’m me.”

“I’d gathered as much. But which ‘me’? A happy me, I should hope?”

“Oh, positively! Why, you’ve met my man, Jeeves. Hardly a cove who could call himself unhappy with Jeeves looking out for him.”

“Ah.” Jack patted my leg fondly, and winked. I glanced over my shoulder to see if the gesture had been intended for some third party. “I rather thought that’s how it was. I’m so happy for you, Bertie, my boy! You deserve nothing less than the best.”

“Well, Jeeves is naught but the very stoutest,” I agreed, somewhat bewildered. “But enough with the decency and platitudes! Tell me all about your great journey to and through the continent.”

“Oh, where to begin? The incident with the crocodile and the channel? Not a live crocodile, of course, but we weren’t to know that. Perhaps the story about that dear lady with the magenta cape who became convinced I was the reincarnation of her beloved late husband? Oh, but how can I forget the one with the asparagus, the walking stick, and the dog sled team!”

I egged her on to spin tales long into the day. Jeeves floated in and placed some eatables and more drinkables at hand at the appropriate times. Mary floated with a slightly different yet equally silent tenor as Jeeves. It must also be said that Jeeves deposited only refreshments, and no kisses to the cheek, as Mary did to her employer. Perhaps this was a custom they’d picked up on the continent.

“Well, old boy,” I shook my head, “I can hardly believe you’re back on the island. From the way you tell it, it boggles the mind to see how you ever saw fit to leave France.”

“I saw little rational reason to do so! Yet, the heart wants what it wants, and my heart wanted to trawl again these London streets. And my heart’s heart outside my body, as they say, has her own attachments to the place, namely father and mother and entirely too many sisters to name.” Jack sighed and tossed an arm over the back of the sofa as I struggled to decipher this last. “Oh Bertie, as happy as I am to be in the country I’ll always think of as home, I do miss the freedom. There are places in France where they’d draw and quarter you for wearing an ill folded cravat but not bat an eye at my bringing Mary in on my arm, neither on account of sex nor class.”

“Jolly understanding bunch, the French. Well, except for that Napoleonic business. But the bread!”

“The bread,” Jack agreed heartily, “Mary has endeavored to replicate such but, bless her beautiful soul, has failed entirely.”

“I’d meant to ask, where did you find your Mary?”

“Oh, it was purely a scheme of fate! I went through a whole slew of girls—you know how it is, lacking sense of humor when it came to soup- and stew-related practical jokes, overly developed sense of propriety when it came to the guests I entertained. I do suspect I was on my very last chance with that agency when the clouds parted, and lo and behold, the magnificent Mary materialized on my doorstep. Or rather, at my compartment door. It was on a train, you see.”

“The agency sent her by train?”

“Actually, I’m not entirely clear on that point. Now that I rehearse the tale, I don’t believe the agency was involved, strictly speaking.” She pondered this briefly, chewing on a cigarette, “You see, the general circs. were that I’d entertained the maidship of a woman making generous way into her sixties, who’d simply gone and passed away en route to the countryside.”

“Good lord!”

“Quite. Dashed inconvenient for the poor lady, not to mention sad, considering that she despised the country more than anything. Well, I was setting things up, ensuring the body would travel comfortably and respectably and all that—you can’t be chucking these things in with the living passengers, I learned—and was trying to wrestle through a telegram to the poor woman’s relatives, and was positively on my last straw or nerve or however that goes, when this beautiful blonde angel descended with a smile and asked if I required assistance.”

“And surely, no man had ever needed assistance more.”

“How positively clairvoyant! That was near exactly what I said to her. And as it happened, not only had the position of my maid been very recently vacated, but she too had separated from her mistress and sought employment in the arms of one less prone to flinging shoes about the place as missiles. Well, I assured her I’d only flung shoes in the pursuit of boyish entertainment and never in anger, and she assured me that she had no desire to make off with my valuables in the dead of night, and that sounded like the kind of partnership we could both enjoy. She entered my employ immediately. Then after a brief period of tap dancing around each other, we realized we were of a kind, and have been inseparable ever since.”

“Indeed! She sounds like quite a special kid.”

“Oh, she’s tops, Bertie. I do believe that tricky old sun himself shines through her eyes to light up this dreary world.”

Now, if my other oldest and dearest pal Bingo were the fellow speaking those words, I’d nod and smile and know quite well that it was a load of—to be delicate—great steaming garbage. However, Jack was an entirely different sort of cove. Although she had enjoyed the company of just about any willing female of her age while we were approaching man’s estate, her lips were not loose in the dispensing of praise she didn’t heartily mean.

"Absolutely charmed to hear an old bounder like yourself has found a bone fit to gnaw until the eternal sunset."

“Til death do us part, and all that rot!” she toasted the aphorism and I cheered. “Now how about you, Bertie? How did you get your grubby little hands on a treasure like Jeeves?”

“Oh, I can’t really take any credit nor blame. Much like you, I weathered the adversities of many a man, including a sniffy little scoundrel who had a penchant for pinching my socks, before the agency saw fit to send me the hero in pinstripe known as Jeeves.”

Jack grinned and tapped the side of her nose. “Ah.”

“Ah?”

“Yes, ah.”

“Ah, what?”

“Ah, as in, ah, yours chose you as well.”

“Who chose?”

“Jeeves, old boy, do follow along! Much like my Mary, who saw me for what I am straightaway, your Jeeves must have spotted the lonely spirit within the playful shell. And thus, tender emotions awoken, chosen to remain in your employ. Even after all became evident. Indeed, perhaps because of such?”

She winked again. It made a slight whistling noise as it went over my head.

“I get the funniest feeling, Jack, that you are saying one thing while meaning entirely another.”

“That is the idea.”

“Well, if that’s the idea, may I ask how I’m meant to follow along with the meanings I’m not privy to?”

“Very carefully, I should think.”

“Right-o.”

“Well, we’d better be off,” Jack announced, “I promised I’d take Mary to see a show. She likes to get there early so she can read the little program cover to cover before it begins. I suspect she doesn’t trust any bit of art she does not have a thorough mastery over.”

“Really? I didn’t think anyone actually read those programs. Rather thought they were just for fanning oneself when hot, or building a paper house out of when bored.”

“So did I! But that’s my Mary. An intellectual,” she declared, eyes shining.

“That’s my Jeeves all over, as well. Great brain, that one. I imagine they’re getting along splendidly, probably settling the last details of their plan for world domination as we speak. By Jove!” I realized. “Just think how smart their children would be…”

“I say,” she exclaimed, brightening at some interior revelation, “That makes me think. Really! I’ve just had the fruitiest thought go flying through my head.”

“Let it loose, Jack, old man!”

“Well, stick this in your onion and give it a chop: what if we were to marry?”

“Marry?” I repeated.

“Yes!”

“We?”

“Yes again!”

Despite clarifications, I still struggled to chart the flow of this conversation. “You say—I mean to be quite clear—you are suggesting that you, Jack, and I, Bertie, should do the old…china patterns and family name hand off?”

“Well not actually, dear muttonhead, that would be absurd.”

“Ah, yes,” I said, my relief as great as a very-great-thing, “exactly, quite absurd.”

“No, I merely suggest that since I have my Mary and you have your Jeeves, the circumstances would be ideal for what a friend of mine charmingly terms a lavender charade.” 

“I…don’t see how purple comes into the matter. Or is it the herb?”

“Blast it, Bertie, you are being thick. I do so adore that in you. Anyway, think it over!” Jack leapt to her feet with an energy I usually reserve for escaping oncoming aunts. “I’d love to smack a few of my nosier relations over the head with this wet fish of an engagement. And it would surely be a laugh! Tally ho, then. Mary, darling!” she called to her girl, who drizzled out of the kitchen with Jeeves as her comparatively gigantic shadow.

Jeeves approached the coat closet with caution befitting a lion tamer in the den who’s lost his touch. “Sir, may I retrieve your…coat?” Jeeves pronounced this last like he nearly couldn’t bear to apply the term to the apparel in question.

“I’ll handle it, you poor dear thing,” Mary sliced through and snagged the delight before Jeeves was forced to lay his precious paws on it. She draped it across Jack’s shoulders and then latched onto her lady’s arm. “Thank you ever so much for the conversation, Mister Jeeves, I do look forward to meeting again.”

“As do I, Miss Mary,” Jeeves inclined his head warmly.

“I’ll see you soon, Bertie!” Jack called, already whisking out the door.

I waved a dazzled goodbye at the space where she’d just been.

“How odd,” I said as Jeeves tucked the door back into its frame.

“Yes, sir?”

“Jack said something very strange, just as she was leaving…” I let the thought stretch and then shook it off. “Never mind, I’m sure it was just some passing fancy.”

“Very good, sir.”

“How about you, Jeeves? You seem to have borne up under the siege alright.”

“Sir?”

“Young Jack! I saw the ginger positively evaporate from your system when you clapped eyes on all her, well, her-ness!”

“I’ll admit certain aspects of the lady’s comportment drew me up short in the moment, sir.”

“Only to be expected. I think she should have been quite put out if there was no one here to startle. But after a certain period of adjustment, what say you?”

“I should not presume to comment upon the quality of your friends, sir.”

“No, of course not. But if you were to undertake such a task…”

“Then I should find Miss Wilberton a most…exuberant individual.”

“Yes, never a dull moment. If you find yourself nodding off, you can always take a peep at that bright hair of hers and bam! Alertness resumes its post.”

“A most insightful comment, sir.”

Catching a certain glint in his eye, I wagged my finger reproachfully. “I recall that in the past you’ve had a certain suspicion of those falling in the orangey to auburn range when it comes to nature’s choice of headgear. Don’t think I’ve forgotten!”

“I should never consider it, sir.”

“No, I quite recall. But it’s no mark against her, in fact, I think anything less than the most garish shade should suit her most badly. Quite the wrong stuff.”

“Doubtless, sir, it bespeaks the irrepressible individuality of her character.”

“Quite, quite.”

“An individuality I cannot say is lacking in her taste in habiliments.”

“I knew you should come for that magnificent coat before long.”

“I must admit, sir, that the garment in question caused me no little distress. Her taste in company, however, is indisputably of high quality.”

“Ah, yes, I thought you’d take to Miss Mary.”

“Although Miss Mary is also an undoubtedly fine personage, I was referring to yourself, sir.”

“Oh.” I positively roasted beneath my collar. Rather kind thing to say, rather unkind to toss such a thing at a fellow when he wasn’t expecting it—bit of an iron horseshoe of affection between the eyes, as offhand comments from Jeeves go. “Ah, hm,” I added, to round out the conversation.

Seeking steady ground, I returned to the topic from whose shores I’d just unwisely swam away. “I’ve never met a bird with an eye for the finer things like her. I should trade any body part of a black marketeer’s choosing to possess a coat such as that.”

“Indeed, sir?” Pain dripped from Jeeves’ tone.

“I mean to say, that’s the breed of coat which, if passed on the road on your average afternoon, couldn’t fail to draw the eye of any right thinking person with all due speed.”

“On that, sir, we are entirely in agreement.”

“However…well, I don’t wish to malign the Wooster name by claiming weakness, but I’d be overreaching if I said I possessed sufficient ‘oomph’ to carry off the look.”

“Your humility becomes you, sir,” Jeeves said, positively radiating relief.

Things began to roll back into their usual place. I was wasting away on the old Rococo, cigarette in hand and contemplating the wainscotting with no little fervor, when the telephone blasted its horn.

I perked up with interest as Jeeves approached.

“Miss Wilberton is calling, sir.”

“What, already?”

“Yes, sir.”

“I say, she made quick work of that show.”

“I should think not, sir, unless the entertainment in question was located in a heretofore unsung quarter of the local constabulary.”

“What?”

“I should clarify, sir, that Miss Wilberton is contacting you from the interior of the local police station.”

“What the devil is she doing there?”

“Currently, she’s quite occupied with being under arrest, sir.”

“What?”

Jeeves coughed delicately while I regained my bearings.

“Now, listen, Jeeves, I think this whole tin-can-and-two-strings routine could rather have the excess removed if I were simply to take up the telephone myself, what?”

“My feelings precisely, sir.”

I snatched up the horn and called out, “Hello, Jack?”

“Bertie! Dreadfully sorry to call you up like this, but I’m afraid you’re the only soul I really know in London at the moment.”

“No apologies req., old thing. But I shouldn’t turn down an explanation?”

“Ah! Well, you see, Mary and I were on our way to that show I mentioned.”

“Quite, quite,” I murmured, following along pretty tightly so far.

“And this perfectly monstrous old lady tottered out in front of us, being towed along by her evil little dog.”

“I see.”

“And the wretched creature was moving at such a clip that it positively threw itself at Mary’s lowest quarter. She tripped and went to the pavement with a cry.”

“Oh, I say! That’s dreadful, is she alright?”

“She may have sprained an ankle,” Jack said tearfully, “Think of it! Her perfect ankles.”

“Yes, well, in an excess of politeness, I shan’t actually think of the ankles in question.”

“Oh, good on.”

“Anyhow, I struggle to connect this occurrence with your current unwanted residence?”

“Right! Well, this blasted old bat comes fussing up over her dog, of all things, doesn’t even think to apologize to my Mary. I’ll admit, old boy…I saw red.” She coughed. “All I could think was that stupid little dog had nearly taken my poor Mary’s very life, and what did the blasted fur receptacle think it was, and…”

“Oh, Jack, you didn’t!”

“No, I didn’t! I realized quick enough that the dog was hardly to blame.”

“No, no…”

“It was the owner.”

“Ah.”

“This particular old lady, heartless and cruel as she was, had this great awful hat with some late breed of bird affixed to the brim.”

“Oh?”

“Well, you see, I figured that the bird was already dead.”

“Yes—”

“And the bird, in its state of advanced death and subsequent preservation, could hardly object—”

“No—”

“So, I tore the lid from the old chicken’s head, stomped on it thoroughly, and then hurled it frisbee-style beneath the wheels of a passing cab to ensure a job properly done.”

I pinched the bridge of my nose. “I had hoped this story would end differently.”

“So did I,” Jack said morosely, “I thought I’d brought my temper under control. I was so very calm in France, you’d hardly know me. It appears now that it was less to the credit of my fantastic mental powers than to the nature of France being a largely inoffensive country. Except, as previously noted, for its certain dictatorial exports and occasional warmongering.”

Now, I felt, was certainly time to rally round my old friend. Hardly a day back in town and already on the verge of the tar-and-feathering treatment by the Met. “Jack, my pal, a few bumps upon return to the old homestead are much to be expected. I suspect dismemberment of a fetid old bit of millinery is hardly the worst you could have engaged in.”

“That’s what I said! Neither the old lady nor the policemen she sicced on me seemed to feel the same way.”

“Well, that’s only to be expected.”

There was a bit of a hubbub on the other side of the line. “Listen, Bertie, this blasted be-helmeted creature is demanding I release the telephone, so I’ll have to forego the usual niceties.”

“Oh, quite so! Hold on, old chap, I’ll be swift as can be to procure your freedom.”

“That’s quite kind, but what I’m really worried about is poor Mary. I was carted off before I could see to her! She could be bleeding out in the streets, for all my power and knowledge!”

“Oh, I shouldn’t think she’s in as bad a state as all that from a low-powered terrier,” I assured Jack, “but I’ll pop round and make sure, just in case.”

I said a speedy goodbye and went off to explain the current state of affairs to Jeeves, who picked up on the whole thing with his usual stunning alacrity.

“So, you see, Jeeves, why we must rush off to Jack’s hotel to inquire after the health of her Mary, and then follow through to the police station to free Miss Mary’s patron.”

“I understand, sir.”

I sensed a bit of frost gathering in the tone and attempted to head off any false impressions. “I wouldn’t want you to get any notion into your head that Jack’s a violent sort of chap.”

“No, sir.”

“I mean, to say that Jack is quick to violence would be to produce an unfair caricature of her personality.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Yet, to claim that she has not given mealy-mouthed miscreants a mouthful of knuckle from here to Shropshire would also be to malign my own code of honesty.”

“Indeed, sir?”

“Indeed, but she’s really quite a lamb, once you get used to her.”

“I’ve no doubt, sir.”

This last was lacking in the gentle humoring of the young master I’d expected in the course of the defense. In fact, the frost I’d feared from earlier—you may remember it, just a few lines back—had never materialized, and I suspected I’d quite misjudged the weather, if you follow my metaphor.

“Do you…you quite understand then?”

“Certainly, sir.”

“Ah. Rather rummy of you. Forgive and forget, what?”

“It is less a matter of forgetting than of prognostication, sir.”

“Bless you!”

“I mean to say, I am not particularly surprised at this turn of events, sir. You see, Miss Mary had rather given me to understand that although her mistress is at heart a kind and generous soul, and not one to ever raise her hand to one who could not raise it back, she was rather reaching a breaking point.”

“Breaking point?”

“I do not wish to fracture any confidences imparted to me,” Jeeves said as he readied us both to traverse the metrop. and complete our duties, “but I do not think it ill-mannered to share with you the fact that this return trip to England was not entirely in the way of pleasing Miss Wilberton.”

I let this simmer briefly before venturing, “You’re saying old Jack didn’t actually want to come home?”

“I should not go so far as to assert that she was against the proposition of such, so much as that she would not have been motivated entirely by her own singular interests to undertake the action.”

This roundabout thruple-backing of double-negatives left my head spinning. Jeeves, in a kindly moment of mercy, scraped away the cobwebs and set about explaining the situation as thus:

“Although Miss Wilberton has put forward an admirable show of buoyancy at returning to England, Miss Mary suspects that this move has been embarked upon primarily for the benefit of herself more so than for Miss Wilberton. You see, Miss Mary comes from rather a large family, her extended absence from which has been felt keenly on both sides. I’m given to understand the young lady’s parents are pleased that she’s found a future with a wealthy young gentleman, and are not overly concerned that the gentleman in question is of an unconventional nature.”

“By which you mean that she is a gentleman of the technically female description?”

“Precisely, sir.”

“Jolly well understanding of them. There are those who are rather less sanguine in such matters.”

“Yes, sir,” Jeeves agreed, striking a deeper note of solemnity than was his usual.

“So, if I’m grasping the situation correctly, then old Jack abandoned France’s tender bosom so as to ensure her dear girl could remain close to her beloved parents and forty-seven odd sisters?”

“That is my understanding, sir.”

“Dashed good of Jack. I’d heard tell that love can make a hero of man, but I don’t know that I’d ever witnessed the spectacle up close."

“Then you approve of Miss Wilberton’s choice, sir?”

“I’d hardly say it’s my place to approve or disapprove of any such thing, but between you and me, I certainly do. There are few things we Woosters rate higher than loyalty.”

“Very true, sir,” Jeeves said, and I thought I scented a note of pride in his tone, though I couldn’t place the cause.

“And it seems to me that what old Jack requires most right now is a friend, a loyal friend, and that is what I intend to provide.”

“Very good, sir.”

Silence marched between us for several long moments.

It was not entirely uncharacteristic, this lightly strained quiet. There had recently been a degree of tension in the household emanating entirely from my person. It had set in with a vengeance after I’d made the either extremely fortunate or extremely unfortunate discovery that I was, to put it with hideous and insufficient plainness of verbiage, head over kettle in love with Jeeves.

It had simply happened one day. There I was, doing my best to muddle through what was proving to be a challenging fictional murder, and there was Jeeves, folding the dressing gown over the end of the bed, and suddenly there it was, Love. Dashed inconvenient.

The feeling had shown no sign of stopping its tremendous growth as time wore on. Short of joining a monastery (unpleasant) or replacing Jeeves with a less delectable valet (unthinkable) there seemed no solution to the problem except to wait about the place and hope that Jeeves would develop a spontaneous case of desire for willowy and kind-hearted gentlemen, or that God would send lightning down from heaven to finish the job. And then who should return to my life but that royalty of seductions, Jack “The Cat” Wilberton!

I felt this lent a slightly seamy undertone to my truly genuine desire to renew friendship with Jack. But what have you, the truth is the truth, and frankly I doubted she’d mind. Much more likely, if I ever got up the nerve to put voice to thought, she’d root for me and my romantic aspirations with the vigor of an inveterate gambler down to his last dollar on a nobbled horse. And there was no doubt, this horse was thoroughly nobbled. Yet, given Jack’s own victory in the area of enticing an attractive working person to more than an employer-employee relationship…perhaps the odds would not be so very long for, ah, long?

But then, you don’t want to hear about all this gooey, emotional nonsense vis a vis how I should like to dip myself in the dark moonlight of Jeeves’ eyes and all that rot. Do you? Well, I suppose I shall have to carry on with this comédie romantique on the assumption that my public does indeed retain a soft spot in their hearts for a certain B. Wooster and the matching soft spot in his heart for you-know-dashed-well-by-now-who.

“It is all, then, very good, I say?” I said, saying it rather quickly.

“Pardon, sir?” Jeeves delicately sidestepped a newsboy on the sidewalk. I received a faceful of the front page.

“Jack, I mean?” Attempting to scuttle the newsprint that seemed intent on molding itself to my features, “You, ah, you approve of the friendship, then?”

“Sir?” Jeeves extricated me from the grip of worldly knowledge, brushing away with his thumb what I presumed was an unsightly ink stain from the tip of my nose. The gesture may have made a lesser man blush. As it was, I only nearly fainted.

“It’s simply that given how I intend to commit myself to ensuring Jack settles back into life in the metrop. without further judicial incident, it seems only sensible to inquire as to your opinion on the campaign. You know, there are no opinions I value more highly than yours.”

“Very kind, sir.” Jeeves marched on with quiet thoughtfulness for a few paces more, then concluded, “Following today’s period of familiarization and certain enlightening conversation with Miss Mary, I suspect Miss Wilberton to be well fitted in the nature of friendship with yourself, sir.”

“Ah. Excellent. Very good.”

“I believe this establishment is our intended destination…” Jeeves gestured to the hotel that I’d very nearly strolled right past, which presumably contained little Miss Mary, on the assumption that she hadn’t been taken to hospital following the miniature canine’s assault.

We discovered Mary quickly and without difficulty in the lobby, largely unharmed if slightly hysterical at the apprehension of her lady by the law. She carried in her small person an army of invectives I’d never have guessed she’d even be familiar with, much less speak aloud at significant volume in public, and it took a few minutes and a treatment of brandy before she was equal to the task of a sensible elucidation of her side of events.

After checking our details against hers it was agreed that I should make a solo trip to free Jack, while I left Jeeves behind to ensure Mary didn’t set out to single-handedly unman the entire London gendarmerie.

I beetled without delay to the police HQ. Once inside, I requested Jack’s presence, the process helped along by the judicious application of a fiver to the wanting palm of the desk sergeant.

Before long, a magnificent ginger head was bobbing sadly along the barred rows, and all nine feet of so of Jack came into view, looking very little worse for the wear considering her current locality.

“I say, prison rather agrees with you, old boy!”

“I know,” she said miserably, “I made several lifelong friends with the ladies of lock-up. I have been invited to Nina’s nephew’s birthday bash the following week. And what’s more, one of the officers asked me if I wasn’t the same Jack W. who had nearly married his sister Josephine, and when I said ‘no,’ he asked if then I wasn’t the same Jack W. who had nearly married his brother Joseph, and when I said ‘no’ again and inquired if these two strangers were not actually the same Jack W., this sent the fellow off on quite the thinking spree, and what I’m getting at here, is that I have also been invited to this officer’s sister and brother’s respective oncoming engagement parties.”

“You’ve made an absolute splash!”

“I know!” she said, still more miserably. “Here I am, charming the locals, while my poor Mary is off breathing her very last. Is she breathing her very last, Bertie?”

“Hardly! I should suspect she’s breathing her very middle-est, or really, her mid-earliest, given the flush of youth in her healthy cheeks.”

“You mean it? She’s really not grievously injured?”

“She’s not injured at all, she’s in mint condition.”

“Oh, then it’s almost worse,” Jack squeezed her eyes shut, “for then she’s in perfect health to see to it I get my just desserts for jamming myself up like this.”

“She seems a forgiving sort?” I ventured.

“Oh, she is, and terribly. I imagine I could commit at least seven heinous crimes before she’d see her way to censuring me directly.” 

“Well then, you’ve got a half dozen chances left—quite a comfortable berth.”

“It’s not that I fear being told off. In fact, I should prefer it. It will be the thousand tiny revenges. A loving look, turned down in warmth by precisely three degrees. A handkerchief offered just a second too late…”

“I think you’ve rather gotten hold of the wrong stick. Stick-end? In any case, you’ve botched the read.”

“Pardon, you great ass?”

“Your Mary’s wrath is not directed at you. In fact, you’ll be glad to know, she was talking a blue streak to shame the very sauciest of sailors in regards the moral mouldering of the metropolitan police force. I don’t think she blames you in the least for being caught up in the drama. I mean, the dog, the bird, the old lady!”

“The old lady, the bird, the dog!” Jack agreed with excitement. “Well, then,” she slung a heavy arm around my shoulders as we walked down the street with the joie de vivre only men newly freed from the terrors of domestic discomfort can have, “that’s alright. Quite alright!”

“Alright ala carte with some extra alright on the side.”

“All that remains then is to thank my gallant rescuer!” She gave me a colossal shake that proved the old bean could not possibly be as loosely connected to my shoulders as certain relations of mine would say, since I survived the experience intact.

“No need, no need. It is what one collects friends for, and so on.”

“Still, if there’s anything you need…windows washed, automobile engine tuned, someone’s block knocked clean off, just say the word. I don’t suppose you’ve made a decision regarding my earlier offer?”

“Which offer would that be?”

“The one with marriage in it.”

“Ah yes. In re your previous matrimonial offer, I have but one question.”

“And that is?”

“What? And also, if you’ll allow a spare, why?”

“I shall perhaps answer the second question first.”

“Carry on.”

“You see, I like to get engaged every few seasons to an appropriately disinterested chap, to keep the badgering relations at bay.”

“Ah. Disinterested, you say?”

“I do, that’s most essential. Miss that ingredient and you’re setting yourself up for a rummy sort of misunderstanding—I’ve still got a scar on my elbow from the first time I attempted this and had to flee a church. Anyway, story for another time. The ruse is quite simple: Person A and Person B, who share naught but the most platonic affections, state their engagement. Applause follows, other unwanted proposals wither on the vine, happiness ensues. You get the idea?”

“I do,” I tapped my chin, growing fonder of the scheme with every moment. “And would you say it is effective on all relations, including the aunt of the species?”

“Even the aunts,” she promised. “I’ve got an Aunt Imogen who’s particularly intent upon pursuit of my unhappy matrimony. Of late, she keeps pushing some Lord at me with uncalled for ferocity. There is no power on earth that can stop an aunt in its tracks, but a solid phony engagement can certainly slow them down.”

She may as well have offered the eighth wonder of the world at my feet and asked if I wanted it gift wrapped.

“And it would all just be for show? I mean, no real danger of a frogmarch down the aisle?”

“Oh, bury the thought. No, we needn’t do anything more strenuous than pass some Ritzy dinners together, visit a few blinkered old family twits, and catch hold of any decent gifts our acquaintances may see fit to sling our way.”

It sounded too good to be true. “This sounds too good to be true,” I said. “Surely if this plan is such a winner then you’d have wafted it to me, your dear old pal in need, before now?”

“My dear old thing, if I’d realized your situation was so dire I’d have sold you the scheme for a song. But just think how fortunate it is that we’re reunited now, the stoutest fake fiancés fate could ever craft, right when we’ve both found someone…”

She paused, and I had the ice-water-down-the-back sensation that something awfully genuine was about to be spoken. “Well, it’s my Mary. She doesn’t like to show it, and she’d well be damned before saying it, but she’s worried she’ll be…” Jack shook her head and gave a hollow sort of laugh. “Well, it’s the silliest thing. As if I’d cast her aside even in the disastrous, nay, apocalyptic event wherein I was wrangled into marrying some unfortunate chap.”

“I see,” I said.

“You don’t see.”

“No, not a pip,” I admitted.

“As long as I remain free, there remains the corresponding threat of matrimony on the horizon. However, were I to take a similarly un-amorous partner—that’s you, Bertie—then the danger would be allayed! We could settle more comfortably into…” she blanched a bit, “domestic life.”

“I say.” I matched her paled complexion.

“Yes, quite.” She shook off fears of futures we weren’t yet strong enough to face. “Now, I can’t deny my own selfish interest in the matter. If you were to agree, it would be a great boon to me, and I’d owe you—til death do us part, as they say. But I think you’d find it to your taste as well. A bit of camouflage, what? I do understand it’s rather more difficult for your type, Bertie.”

“My type?”

“Gentlemen. In the legal sense. They have those silly laws against it, don’t they? Not that girls have it so easy, but it seems, that loathsome thing called society is rather more comfortable pretending we are just simply the dearest of friends no matter what evidence they encounter to the contrary.”

I didn’t entirely follow this scrap of social analysis, too busy pondering the whole engagement conspiracy. It seemed unsinkable, yet I’d been burnt too many times before to leap into the pan with both feet, so to speak. “I think it’s a very fine concept, Jack, but I should like to talk it over with Jeeves first, if there’s no race on the timetable?”

“Oh, not at all! And I should never dream of asking you to enter into such a contract—even on farcical terms—without consulting your dear Jeeves.”

I smiled. It was jolly to be in company that understood Jeeves’ dearness.

We toddled along to the hotel, upon which I deposited Jack to rush into Mary’s arms, and picked up my own Jeeves to return to the Berkeley Mansions.

I tossed my stick into its rack as Jeeves attended to hat and coat, and pored back over my slightly confused conversation with Jack. I hit up upon the most opaque point of the talk and decided to bring it before the wisest counsel I knew.

“I say, Jeeves, have they instituted laws against it?”

“Against what, sir?”

“Being gentlemen? Perhaps I missed it?”

“I can say with rather complete certainty that they have not done any such thing.”

“Ah. Yes, that’s rather what I suspected. Which leaves the thing as clear as muddy-mud-mud.”

“If I may ask, to which thing are you referring, sir?”

“Well, this dashed odd tosh old Jack was talking. Something about it being illegal.”

“If it comforts you, I can once again confirm that your being of the masculine persuasion is quite in order, legally speaking. However, it’s quite possible the situation is not so assured for Miss Jack…”

Jeeves laid one of his heavy emphases across the title like a winter comforter sinking onto a bed.

“Oh.” I contemplated the matter gravely. “That may indeed be what she meant with that stuff about it being illegal for gentlemen. I don’t see where girls being friends comes into it, though.”

Jeeves pursed his lips and I decided to give up one lost cause for another which seemed rather more worth the fight. “There was another point I sought to raise with you, Jeeves.”

“Sir?”

“What do you think of, ah, marriage?”

“I think it an ancient and generally well-respected institution offering a variety of social and financial benefits to its participants. However, was there a specific facet of the contract on which you wished to consult me?”

“Er, yes. A quite specific one, that is to say, a marriage to me.”

“Marriage to you, sir?”

“To me. With me. A marriage with me in it. Me and a woman!” I clarified abruptly, feeling this hallmark of the scheme may have been temporarily obscured.

“Of course, sir.”

I sighed, inspecting the wallpaper, “That’s a requirement.”

“A legally unimpeachable conclusion, sir.” 

“But not just any woman.”

“Naturally, sir.” There was a slight scuffle of shoes. Quite unlike Jeeves to make such a racket, but the fireplace mantle now held my complete and uninterrupted attention, and I dared not break concentration to investigate. “If I might inquire, sir, about the woman to whom you make matrimonial reference?”

“Thought you might.”

“She is, perhaps, someone you meet on your sojourn to the local prison?”

“Good lord, no!” Furnishings forgotten, I rejoined Jeeves’ suggestion, “I haven’t dropped-knee to a lady of the lock up, though from the sound of Jack’s stories they’re an accommodating and friendly bunch. No, it’s—it’s Jack.”

“What is Jack, sir?”

“The woman. Or, well, you know what I mean.”

“The woman, sir….”

“Who I would be marrying in this hypothetical scenario we’re developing here.”

I expected an “I see, sir,” from Jeeves, but no see was said.

“Have you broached the topic with the…young lady, sir?”

“Of course! It was her idea in the first place. And for hers, yours, and my sake, let’s not refer to the old man as a young lady.”

“Very good, sir.” Whatever invisible force had been holding Jeeves taught as a slingshot bearing a rotten apple released its grip, sans fruity ammunition. “Then, am I correct in surmising that Miss Wilberton advocated this proposal as a somewhat less than genuine stratagem?”

“As a self-serving farce, yes,” I smiled, “She can bop about town, serenely building a life for two with her chosen girl, and meanwhile, I can duck and parry the weaponry of aunts and batting eyes of eligible females with the simple phrase, ‘this fish has been hooked, stick your reel elsewhere.’” I mimed this satisfactory send-off of hypothetical women proudly. “Well, now that I’ve painted in the numbers, what say you, Jeeves?”

“I think it a sound scheme, sir, very sound.”

“I’m relieved to hear it,” I said, noticing that Jeeves seemed rather relieved as well, though I couldn’t puzzle what horse he had in this race. Perhaps he’d thought the adventure would include his dismissal, as past and less pleasant engagements to young ladies had threatened? As if Bertram could bear to part company. Surely by now, such an intellect as his would understand that simple law of nature, even if the secret love of Wooster still beat covertly in thine breast?

“Do you intend to take Miss Wilberton up on her offer immediately, sir?”

“I think not immediately, no, Jeeves. Because it is so undoubtedly sound, and with your seal of approval no less, I feel I should hold off on lighting the fuse on such a juicy success. Keep it in store for the onset of a break glass in case of emergency sitch.”

“Very good, sir.”

And I’ll be dashed if it wasn’t very, very good. Jack was the fresh rosemary atop the gorgeously roasted fowl that was B. Wooster’s quietly joyous life. She and her Mary fit beautifully into the portrait.

I wasted no time in introducing my old pal to my other old pals, and I’m pleased to report that the chaps at the Drones took to Jack like fish to the wet stuff. No sooner was she through the gates then at least a dozen fellows were following her about like lost ducklings as she taught them the finer points of Chandelier Badminton and mixing a really eye-popping, neck-twisting cocktail.

Jack’s alcoholic beverages are not the stuff of comedy, unless the comedian in question is also in possession of a cast-iron gut and perhaps his last will and testament. We had been partaking more liberally than intended one evening, having lost track of consumption once the drinks became entangled in a game of chicken wherein one fellow wrestled another while both chaps were perched on the shoulders of two other, sturdier chaps. Jack and I won—or perhaps, lost?—by a respectable margin, whichever of those results meant that we left the club with at least one foot dipping delicately into our cups. We took a long route home, letting the cold breeze call sobriety to its hearth, as we agreed that fine gentleman did not arrive home twelve sheets to the wind, or any number of sheets past sensibility, for that matter.

“Mary, darling!” Jack called once we’d sloshed past my foyer. Since she was still put up at some dreary five-star whilst argumentation over flat ownership commenced, we’d tended to reconvene post-evening-enjoyments at my lodgings. This had the advantage of giving our respected dear companions each other as company when the young masters were out on the town—though, we suspected slightly that this was less our own genius doing than what they intended all along.

“In here, Jack, my sweet!”

‘Here’ was the kitchen, where we found Mary and Jeeves engaged in that oldest and thickest game of wits, the horror known as chess. Why some people of the intellectual orientation choose to beat their brains against those wooden squares of misery, I know not, but Jeeves and Mary and their ample supplies of grey matter seemed to enjoy doing civil battle across the black and whites.

“Knight to C4, Miss Mary.” Jeeves removed one of the teeniest pieces from the board—those little pawn chappies, you know—and Jack rallied round her little thing.

“Stay strong, my dear!” she squeezed Mary’s shoulders with two bracing palms, “I’m sure you’ll get the blighter next time—no offense, Jeeves.”

“None taken, sir,” he replied lightly.

Mary responded in kind with her next move and stole one of Jeeves’ pawns from the sixty-four. I was no chess strategist myself, but I suspected that losing pieces fell in the negative column of gameplay.

“Bear up, old chap, there are so many of those pawns about, one can’t really matter.” In the excitement of the game and the lingering flow of wine where blood should be, I found myself clapping Jeeves’ broad shoulders in a friendly, supportive sort of gesture. But of Jack’s carefree negligence of affection’s borders, I have naught, and as soon as consciousness of the act took hold, I was frozen in place. I felt Jeeves' muscles stiffen beneath my fingers. Thoughts of fleeing to Panama or another such faraway and possibly fictional locale floated across the surface of the Wooster bean.

“Sorry, Jeeves. Bit bold.” I let go with slightly greater speed than that the time I’d attempted to brew my own tea and had taken hold of the boiling pot.

“On the contrary, sir,” Jeeves said quietly, “I think it quite within the bounds of propriety, under the circumstances. I shall need all the support I can acquire to match Miss Mary’s uncanny virtuosity.”

With caution befitting a cove sneaking up on a slumbering tiger whilst carrying a can of the finest tuna, I returned my hands to their previous audacious position on my valet’s stately shoulders.

I couldn’t begin to tell you what happened re: the rest of the match, and for reasons much less to do with my total lack of chess-adjacent-knowledge than might be assumed. However, I am proud to report that the home team did us proud. Jeeves won what must have been an extremely touch-and-go victory judging by the single bead of sweat which saw fit to accumulate on his forehead.

“Very well played, Mr. Jeeves,” Mary complimented her opponent with sparkling eyes, a wry smile hung on her pretty features.

“Thank you, Miss Mary.” Jeeves paused. “You know, it is the strangest sensation. The way you smile upon your vanquisher rather gives such a man the sensation that he has, somehow, actually been the vanquished.”

“Is that so?” The enigmatic nature of Mary’s smile increased tenfold.

Jack laughed and laid a broad hand against the back of Mary’s neck, gently massaging the gracious loser’s person. “To Mary, there is no such thing as defeat. Nor against her, can victory be found. A most excellent paradox, don’t you agree?”

“Quite scintillating, sir.”

“Well, we’d best leave you to tend to your young gentleman, Mr. Jeeves, while I attend to mine,” Mary stood, the backs of her fingers brushing Jack’s jawline, “After the culinary tips you offered regarding morning-after restoratives, I believe dear Jack is in for a proportionately less distressing awakening, come the sunrise.”

“Good lord,” I goggled, “you don’t mean that Jeeves has relented on his vow of secrecy and divulged the ingredients of his magic concoction?”

“Nothing so drastic, sir,” Jeeves intervened with an expression of pleasant mystery, “Miss Mary and I simply explored the contents of a well-stocked cupboard and compared the respective vices and virtues of various combinations therein. The young lady has a cunning grasp of chemical reactions and may, in the course of discussion, have come entirely of her own volition into a certain degree of understanding.”

“Marvelous!” Jack crowed, “I assure you, this sacred knowledge you have so kindly and indirectly bestowed shall not be squandered.” With an arm pulling Mary to her side, she pressed a brotherly farewell kiss to my cheek. “Pass that on to your man, would you?” she asked, before cheesing it.

The kitchen echoed with Jeeves and I’s suddenly singular and intimate co-presence.

“I say, what?” This usually infallible turn of phrase ricocheted among the pots and pans and returned home with no easier an atmosphere.

“Miss Jack is most kind, sir, to offer her compliments.”

“Yes, yes, terribly kind. Terrible. Ah.”

“Do you intend to share the proffered wishes in the current moment, or wait for a later situation in which to dispense the gesture?”

The old onion positively spun. Orbited the spinal column at no little speed. “Pardon?”

“It is my understanding, sir, that as Miss Jack departed, there was a particular action that she wished you might undertake in her place.”

Dark head dipped and cheek was proffered. Well. Perhaps I did need to be told twice, but it certainly wouldn’t take a third.

I ducked forward and bestowed the kiss along the perfect dip of cheekbone. And you mustn’t let this get about, but I’ll confess in the confines of this private page that the kiss was not the same one Jack had shared with me. That gesture of platonic affection I retained while substituting a completely romantic one in its place.

Kiss dispensed, I re-instituted a safe number of kitchen tiles between my shoes and Jeeves’, the better to observe the results from.

“Thank you, sir.” Jeeves’ expression was unaltered. The meaning of this lack of alteration, I knew not, and had no further opportunity to explore. “Will there be anything else, sir?”

“No, no.” Yes! Would you, quickly, before you off to the dreamless, consent to spend the rest of your earthly days with your hand in mine? Please? “That will be all. Thank you, Jeeves.”

“Goodnight, sir.”

“Goodnight, Jeeves.”

Those who’ve done me the honor of perusing my past adventures will recognize that this is not, to put it simply, the usual stuff. Surely you agree that it is a positive sign of Jack’s involvement in my life that my standing with Jeeves had progressed to such dizzying heights as the press of lips to cheek?

This is not to say that there have not been small—perhaps negligible, but nonetheless extant—hiccups in the Wooster-Wilberton social union. Jack and I were getting outside a respectable quantity of restaurant lunch when the topic of wardrobe arose between fish and soup.

“You can understand,” Jack began, “that your average lady’s maid doesn’t generally have cause for extensive or detailed knowledge of dressing a gentleman.”

“Certainly.”

“She usually rather specializes in frocks and petticoats and the like.”

“Quite sensible, given the career path.”

“So, your man Jeeves has quite kindly taken Mary under his wing and introduced more formally the world of shirtsleeves, ties, and braces to which she had not been trained.”

“Aha!”

“I do believe she’s been enjoying the lessons. She’s ever so engaged with my wardrobe now, and has put me on to what she calls ‘understated’ and ‘refined’ modes of dress, which she assures me are ever so flattering.”

She adjusted the tightly wrangled knot of her dark gray tie by a millimeter and realization hit like a chicken roasted by way of lightning strike.

“I say, old man.”

“Say what?”

“I sense the hand of Jeeves in this.”

“Well, naturally, I just said—”

“No, no,” I took hold of her elbow with all due seriousness. “You know well that I should lay down my life, my heart, and my finest niblick for the man, but he’s a devil of a stick-in-the-mud when it comes to the wearables.”

“You mean to say…”

“I mean to say he’s been tutoring your Mary in the way of turning your brilliant attire to the conservative side of palette and pattern.”

“No!” Jack looked properly aghast. “Why that’s bordering on the fiendish! Bertie, I had hardly liked to say anything—and you must understand, you look every part the dapper gent, hardly a mannequin on Regent who could lay claim to your put-together-ness—but in comparing the old to the post-reunion, your wardrobe has…altered. A change, the quality of which I shouldn’t speak to, but it is, perhaps, more subdued than I had previously associated with your tastes.”

“Awfully kind of you to hop round the issue as you do, but there’s no need, as I grasp precisely what you’re hurtling towards. That je na sais something-something has gone right out of the Wooster raiment.”

“I shouldn’t say that! But…” she thought deeply, “I also should not like to say that my own vestments have undergone a parallel metamorphosis in future, so perhaps I need lay aside subtleties.”

“Lay aside, lay aside!”

“I shall confront Mary, forthwith.”

“Quite so.”

“Hmm.”

“On the other hand…” I trailed off.

“On the other hand,” she agreed.

“Unity and happiness in the home…quite paramount, what?”

“Paramount, that is precisely the term which I should have employed.”

“And it’s not as if we don’t both look the part of the fine gentlemen we are.”

“Indeed! No one’s slipping in their duties.”

“Not at all!”

“So…well, I do suppose they call them ‘better halves’ not for nothing, eh? Surely they know best?”

“Surely! And to spark a confrontation over something so small as a silly swatch of neutral tones and gentle herringbone…”

“Absurd. Considering the consequences. After all, to court disaster over dress with those we cohabitate with is, well, ‘disaster’ is the correct descriptor!”

“I heartily agree. While fortunately I have little practical experience in it, I should say that crossing Jeeves is about as dangerous as attempting to brush one’s teeth while stricken with a severe case of the hiccups.”

“Oh, is that quite fraught?”

“Terribly! I performed the maneuver once and nearly lost my front teeth.”

“I say! How did you get rid of them?”

“The hiccups?”

“Yes, as I imagine you sought to keep the teeth.”

“Ah well, I naturally enlisted Jeeves in the service. He had some preposterous theory about addressing the diaphragm, but I insisted that the old remedies are best, and requested he do his best to scare the dastardly things away.”

“And that worked?”

“A little too well, I’m afraid. He announced that my Aunt Agatha had been hidden away in the cupboard and observed my earlier conversation with my cousins Eustace and Claude in regard to our mutual distaste for said relative.”

“Lord!”

“Yes, yes,” I recollected the incident fondly, “I fainted dead away, actually, which quite took care of the hiccups. Gave me a minor concussion as well, but I suppose, everything has its price.”

“Truer words,” Jack sighed, “and if the price of domestic bliss is a tame afternoon suit and unremarkable dinnerwear?”

“Then it would be a steal. However…that coat—you know the one—you shouldn’t be forced to part with that?”

“Love me, love my pink and turquoise houndstooth,” Jack declared. “It shall be a coffin for three: me, Mary, and the blessed coat.”

“And quite right!”

So, you see, life was burbling on quite happily in London. I hadn’t had to flee to the countryside, the continent, or the colonies in absolute oodles of time. This may have been, of course, due in part to the fact that my Aunt Agatha had carried her personal suite of doom and gloom stateside herself. The aged relative could not be entertained by the Americans forever, alas, and I much sooner than desired found myself across the luncheon table from her.

“And what, Bertie, have you been keeping yourself occupied with of late? Nothing of good or consequence, I presume.”

“Correctly presumed,” I beamed. “Oh! Well, there is one thing—I’ve been spending rather a lot of time with my good old pal Jack.”

Aunt Agatha deposited her glass on the table with a disapproving clatter. “By that infernal nickname, I should hope you do not mean to indicate the infamous Caroline Wilberton.”

“Now, if you would just give the fellow a ch—”

“She is not a fellow!”

“Well, perhaps not by the strictest definition,” I conceded, “But the way I see it, a fellow is not so much determined by what they are than by what they do. And by Jove, you’ll not find a fellow who does the work of fellow-ing as well as that fellow, Jack!”

“Harrumph,” Aunt Agatha made her opinion clear with a rather horsey sound. “What she is, is a disgrace to decent society.”

“That’s why she’s about the only thing to make living in decent society tolerable.”

“Why you insist on protecting that—that creature—is beyond me. Now the Lady Coltrane’s daughter, Miss Landsbury, that is a real woman. A woman who could make something of you.”

“Whatever Miss Landsbury should like to make of me, I’m quite certain I don’t want to be made into.”

“You’ll learn to live with it. You’ll see—”

“No, I shan’t see!” I’ll admit I lost my temper a touch here, and set my dessert fork down with considerable ruckus. Aunt Agatha gasped. “Now, sorry, dear aunt, that was a bit extreme.”

“Really, Bertram!”

“But you’ll just have to forgive my outburst because…because…” I grasped round for a good reason, and suddenly recalled the existence of a reason much better than mere good. Something positively genius, something Jeeves-approved. I downed the old oxygen, and a bit of wine for courage, and was out with it: “Because I can hardly let you speak in such a demeaning way of my fiancée.”

“What…Miss Landsbury?”

“Hardly! Jack—I mean, Miss Wilberton.”

“Miss…Wilberton?”

“Yes, Miss Wilberton. She agreed to accept my hand in marriage—or I accepted her—whichever way round it usually goes, I forget. But it doesn’t particularly matter, as we accepted each other’s necessary limbs into a promise of the union of holy matrimony, to be undertaken at a future date in the, ah, future.”

Was silence ever so sweet? I enjoyed the remainder of my quite succulent raspberry tart, each bite all the better for Aunt Agatha gaping like a fish receiving very bad news from home.

Such beauty cannot last, however, for the aunt recovered her nerve and with it her power of speech, and set about getting on my former with her latter immediately.

“If you think that you’re actually going to marry that, that person, then you—”

“—are thinking quite clearly and rationally, which is not a diagnosis I often receive.”

“She is not suitable. She is, in a word, unsuitable.”

“Miss Wilberton,” I emphasized the last name, “is of exceedingly good stock, which I’ve gathered from past skirmishes is your primary point of interest. There lays on the horizon the possibility of a title and inheritance of land, wealth, and social connection, not to mention a winning stable of horses and a wine cellar that should by all rights only exist in the fevered imaginations of sommeliers. Of what, precisely, do you complain? That she is a playful sort of eccentric? I’ve been regularly labelled a worm and a prize ass and even a developing lunatic who’s one peccadillo away from a straight-waistcoat, so it still sounds that I’m getting the superior end of this bargain.”

She who runs with hatchets seemed torn between conflicting fundamental impulses, viz., informing me in color and detail why the nephew is mistaken, versus encouraging me to engage myself to the nearest female of good family. For once, she could not do both—an occasion that really should be marked by national holiday in future.

“I do still wish,” Aunt Agatha finally continued, “that I had been consulted prior to the engagement. It is highly irregular. I have not even had a chance to meet properly with the—the girl, or her parents, to discuss the details of such an alliance.”

“I don’t see where detail comes into it, but—well, ho! Speak of the devil.”

“Devil?” Jack repeated sprightly, toddling up to the table like a friendly apparition, “I do love a good bit of devilry. Who are we tempting to sin today, then? You, Mrs. Gregson?” She tossed a sporting wink at Aunt Agatha, whom it bounced off of without effect.

“Miss Wilberton. Your arrival is most timely.”

“Is it? That’s unusual. My Mary says I shouldn’t be on time for my own funeral. I know it’s a joke but I confess, I can’t quite follow it to the punchline.”

I gave it a bit of thought. “Perhaps Jeeves could explain it to us?”

“Oh, rather!”

“Yes!” Aunt Agatha interrupted our jocular discussion with her haughty alto, “There is much to explain. I should like to have been consulted prior to your engagement to my nephew, of course, but perhaps you got used to a different way of doing things during your time on the continent.”

Jack blinked. “Pardon?”

“My dear aunt is referring, of course, to the incident the other day with the proposal,” I interjected, “The one involving you and me.”

“You make it sound like a traffic accident,” Aunt Agatha sniffed.

“Yes, well, roughly the same in terms of casualties. An awful lot alike, really, now that I come to think of it. Two cars suddenly become one and it’s a matter of determining whether the united vehicle is road worthy.”

“Do stop blithering, Bertie,” Aunt Agatha ordered, then turned to Jack, “I do hope when you are married you shall be able to cure him of his incessant chatter.”

“Married!” The gas finally lit and Jack tossed herself down in a chair. “Ah, yes! The impending nuptials. Not impending too quickly, or anything so drastic. But slowly and surely impending.”

“Definitively impending,” I agreed.

“I assume you were congratulating your nephew on making a catch that is—if you’ll pardon me, Bertie—quite outside his usual league.”

“Her praise was effusive,” I agreed, “The comparisons to my Greek godhood, bordering on the obscene.”

“You’ve outdone yourself,” Jack helped herself to the gorgeously toasted remains of raspberry and crust I’d been pushing about my plate in despair, getting around my dessert in record speed and with admirable lack of fork and knife. “Speaking of, I was hoping you might be free this afternoon? You may remember that some fellows at your club insisted they could best me in arm wrestling and I very politely promised to push their faces in. We require a referee lest blood be spilt and you were named a sufficiently neutral party. Despite,” she spoke this last rather self-consciously towards the thundering presence of Aunt Agatha, “your great and undying love for me and noted devotion to such a staggeringly well-suited fiancée.”

“I should be honored to watch your break the arms of all my dearest friends.”

“Tally ho, then! I’ll let you close the interview with your most honored relation. Mrs. Gregson,” she stood and gave a gallant bow that appeared to cause Aunt Agatha a bout of indigestion, “I shall of course settle the tab.”

“No, no, I couldn’t possibly allow it, I insist—” I tried to stand as well but one of Jack’s no-nonsense spade-like hands planted me firmly back in my seat.

“No, I insist. I’ll deal with the highway robbery this restaurant calls a bill and see you soon, ah, dearest.”

“Yes, very well, um, my darlingest.”

When I turned again to face Aunt Agatha, she was as bewildered as I’d ever seen her.

“Er…Aunt Agatha? Are you quite well?”

“Me? Oh, yes, I’m…well, I…” she let out a little puffing noise. If such a thing had emanated from the radiator, I should have given it a firm kick, but I doubted such a remedy would be appreciated in these circumstances. “I say, Bertie, I shall have to give this some thought.”

“Yes! Yes, wonderful idea. Give it a good think.”

“Yes, yes…” she chewed pensively on the rim of her water glass and I realized this was as good an opportunity as any to make my skedaddle. I’m not ashamed to say I fled the place as I would the very depths of Hades.

“What ho, fiancé!” Jack called after me, emerging just behind myself from the restaurant, blinking into the sun.

“What ho, what ho!” I paused in my tactical retreat to allow her to join rank. “I say, sorry old chap, I didn’t mean to drop you in the soup without a warning.”

“Don’t mention it, dear boy. It was my idea, wasn’t it? Bit odd to hear of my engagement from a third party, but then, the whole point of this was to avoid a proposal, what?”

“What!” I agreed.

“Then I don’t think much else need be said. Shall we off to the sporting? I long for violence.”

I patted her back fondly, thinking that I should like to see Miss Landsbury or Miss Glossop or Miss Stoker or any of my past fiancées go nose to nose with the current model.

Jack flattened Catsmeat Potter-Pirbright without missing a beat in the recounting of the engagement tale. Catsmeat whimpered away, wrist clutched and pride wounded, and a fresh victim took his seat.

“But you can’t marry a chappie,” Barmy gasped as his favored arm was nearly separated from the rest.

Jack nodded gravely, “I know that, and you know that, but the blighted board of aunts haven’t cottoned on. So, old Bertie’s as good a middle ground as any.”

This earned nods and hushed agreement from all comers.

Someone piped up from the back of the crowd, “Do you suppose you’ll wear a dress?”

“No. No! I mean…well…” Jack gave it a sprinkle of thought, “I suppose it is the thing, isn’t it? Bertie can hardly be the one, he doesn’t have the legs for it.”

This was generally agreed upon by the room. I was lightly pipped at this. My legs were nothing to sneeze at, what?

“A dress,” Jack shuddered, “I haven’t worn one of those since I was small enough to be restrained and strapped into the thing. Nothing against dresses in principle, mind you! Quite enjoy seeing a dress pass by on the street, if you know what I mean.”

It was agreed that we did indeed know what she meant.

“But to wear one myself? At this age? It seems a bit absurd.”

“Undoubtedly,” I agreed, “Oh, and if you could release Oofy? He might need that arm, someday.”

“What? Oh, sorry, dear boy.” She freed Oofy, who decided to take his bruised ego and landed-goldfish act to the bar, while a dog-faced sort of chap who presumably didn’t have two brain cells to rub together took his place. Entertaining carnage ensued, but I admit I was still stuck on the jibe.

Later, at home with Jeeves, I raised the point about dress-suitability again.

“I say, Jeeves, do you think I could pull off a dress?”

Jeeves’ smoothly oiled movements did not jar in the slightest as he concluded, “I should say it would depend entirely on the waistline of the garment in question, sir.”

“Ah! Right-o. That’s the kind of considered opinion I sought. Silly old Jack, saying I don’t have the legs for it.”

“A grave slight, sir.”

“That’s rather what I thought, but it’s all in good fun. And since she may be the one forced into such a device for the happy occasion, I suppose she’s earned a bit of steam-loosing.”

This time the Jeeves-machine did skip a gear. “You are referring to a…wedding, sir?”

“Indeed, that tragicomedy we call matrimony. I confess neither I nor Jack are looking forward to the rigamarole. Though I have heard some couples clean up rather nicely in the gifts department.”

“That is so, sir.”

“Still, we’re hoping to put the dread thing off as long as we can. Forever, if at all possible.”

“That would be ideal, sir. Do I gather correctly then, that you have chosen to engage Miss Wilberton in her scheme?”

“Oh, yes! I jumped in with the dénouement just there, didn’t I? Indeed, at lunch today my Aunt Agatha tried to slip me some snake oil about a Miss Something-or-Other’s eligibility or suitability or other horrid qualities, and I chose in a moment of lightning-fast bean-work to put the proposal plot in motion. Fortunately, Jack was nearby—no doubt busy sowing her own seeds of chaos—and was able to put a bit of paint on the story. I shouldn’t like to count my…say, what is it one counts prematurely?”

“Chickens, sir.”

“Precisely—I shouldn’t like to count my chickens before they’ve hatched, but I expect your dashing employer may be looking down a very smooth and female-free road before him.”

Jeeves returned to the dusting with a spring in his feathers. “Most pleasing, sir.”

The telephone rang and sent Jeeves chasing gracefully after its trill. He returned with this simple yet blood chilling message: “Mrs. Gregson will be arriving tomorrow for lunch, to discuss the particulars of your engagement with Miss Wilberton.”

“Particulars, particulars! I frankly don’t see what’s so particular about the whole affair.”

“I have no doubt Mrs. Gregson will endeavor to explain each and every particular to you, if you so desire.”

“Or if I do not so desire, I imagine.”

“Indeed, sir. She also expressed a wish for Miss Wilberton to attend the event.”

“Ah, a bit of good news! Jack oiled out of a real, full Aunt Agath-ine encounter today. I’d like to see how well she can buffer her future husband from the evils of overzealous relatives.”

It must be said that old Jack proved a reliable friend and fighter-off of aunts, for she arrived with Mary in tow an entire two minutes before the aunt herself, so as to ready ourselves collectively for battle.

“Have you prepared the works for siege?” she asked, drawing up beside me to survey the ground.

“Absolutely! The soup, the fish, the wine, all laid in. Even now, Jeeves lurks among the foodstuffs, putting the finishing touches on what I’m sure will be one of his finest sweet courses to date.”

The bell rang out and Mary retreated to the kitchen with a smile. Jack gazed longingly after her, but I touched the elbow and bestowed a serious look. “Steady on, old friend—er, fiancée.”

“Steady on, old boy,” she agreed, then amended, “Or, ah, sweetheart.”

“Bertie!” Aunt Agatha called, blasting through the foyer and into the living room.

Jeeves trickled in behind, announcing with amused redundancy, “Mrs. Gregson has arrived, sir.”

“Yes, thank you, Jeeves.” He dematerialized practically before our eyes and I wished he would take me with him one of these times.

“Miss Wilberton,” Aunt Agatha set her icy glare on Jack, upon whom its chilly effect steamed off like water against a hot stove. “How pleasant to see you again.”

“Not as pleasant as it is to see you again, Mrs. Gregson,” Jack took the aunt’s outstretched hand and gave it a chivalrous kiss. To say it was not well received would be accurate, but also rather playing it down.

“Let us talk,” Aunt Agatha ordered primly, dropping down on a chair like a ton of ill-tempered bricks.

“Let us,” Jack agreed, sitting down opposite on the settee and reaching for a cigarette.

I felt at this juncture that my presence might not be, strictly speaking, required. Yet, surely it was not a move of the gentlemanly variety to make a dash for freedom and leave my pal behind to be snacked on by the metaphorical bear.

I was still debating the merits of such courses of action when I saw Mary poke her sweet little face out of the kitchen door. Her gaze fell on the Aunt. The face faltered. It blanched. It retreated with all due speed.

A few moments later, I heard the gentle click of the front door being opened, fled through, and closed.

Now, as I’ve just confessed, I too had entertained thoughts of simply exiting the scene. It was a dickens of a nerve to act on them, however, and despite my previous great respect for anyone who could earn Jack’s undying affection, I found myself mentally casting aspersions—if those are indeed what one casts—on the quality of character of Miss Mary.

“If you’ll excuse me,” I dropped briefly into the conversation, which had flowed on unbothered without me, “I’ll see to the readiness of the luncheon.”

I slid into the kitchen before anyone could argue that the readiness of the luncheon wouldn’t much care about my presence.

“Jeeves!”

“Yes, sir?”

I quickly surveyed the kitchen to confirm my suspicions read: it being absent of Marys. Indeed, it was a Mary-free zone.

“Might I ask if I’m correct in assuming that Miss Mary recently took one look at my Aunt Agatha and decided that her company was better placed elsewhere?”

“That is broadly correct, sir.”

“Oh? What would be more narrowly correct, if I may ask?”

Jeeves adjusted the fold of a napkin by one-quarter inch, expression thoughtful. “It is a somewhat delicate matter, sir. However, I feel that Miss Mary would assent to my sharing certain pertinent details of her predicament in order to address the current situation. Miss Wilberton told to you, I think, the circumstances surrounding their initial meeting?”

Floundering at the apparent change in subject, I scratched through the dusty files of memory and reported back, “Eh, something about a train? Fate?”

“Yes, as fate would have it, Miss Wilberton was absent a lady’s maid, and Miss Mary was absent a lady.”

“Quite convenient, that.”

“A manufactured convenience, as it happened, sir,” Jeeves confided. “For Miss Mary chose to leave her contemporary employer at precisely the moment that she discovered Miss Wilberton required an employee.”

“You mean…” I performed the mental arithmetic and checked my answers thoroughly, “you mean, Mary just…took one look at Jack’s admittedly striking features and tossed her lot in?”

“I believe it was the strong breadth of Miss Wilberton’s shoulders spotted across the length of the carriage that first put the idea of absenting her post in Miss Mary’s mind, but yes, sir, that is the general shape of things.”

“So, she simply…left?”

“The phrase ‘done a runner’ seems applicable.”

“Great Scott. Does Jack know?”

“Miss Mary has seen fit to keep this aspect of their meeting to herself. One is allowed a certain measure of pride, sir.”

“Of course, of course,” I marveled a bit to myself. “Well, that’s an entertaining enough bit of ink to spill, but I don’t quite understand the relevance. What pushed the girl to leg it just now?”

“It’s quite simple, sir. The person from whose employ Miss Mary left abruptly and without notice, and indeed, without luggage, was Mrs. Gregson.”

I stared. I goggled. I gawked. “You mean to tell me…you mean to say…that Miss Mary cruelly and viciously—and I would be clear, also quite fairly and correctly—left Aunt Agatha to the whims of destiny? Abandoned the great lady like the wrappings of a subpar sandwich? That our girl Mary was last seen fleeing the scene of what my aunt no doubt believes to be the crime of the century, i.e. her own temporary inconvenience?”

“Quite accurately and fully explained, sir.”

“But then—then we can’t let them catch sight of each other! Never the twain shall meet, or hell and suchlike shall spurt forth with great vim!”

“Indeed, sir. This is precisely the rationale which led me to encourage Miss Mary to replicate certain elements of the original incident, in a regrettably rapid fashion, leading to the current lack of maids on our premises.”

“I see. You’re telling me you held the door and said, ‘as fast as you can, and for your life’?”

“In short, sir.”

“Excellent. Quick thinking as always, Jeeves. Have you a salve for the question of the announced maid’s current location, to top the scheme off?”

“Yes, sir, I think the simple fabrication that the young lady was taken suddenly ill will suffice to meet the current circumstances.”

“Quite right. Simple and not entirely untrue, as it happens. I’m certain the good Miss Mary is feeling distinctly under the weather after being suddenly confronted with her ex-employer’s dial. Aunt Agatha’s visage is enough to inspire unwellness in an Olympian.”

“Now that you mention it, sir, Miss Mary did have a slightly greenish tinge as she exited the flat.”

“Well, I suppose there’s nothing to it but for me to return to the fray. What was it that Shakespeare said? Once more undo the britches?”

“Once more unto the breach, sir?”

“That’s the bit! Once more unto the breach. Or lunch, as it so happens.”

“Yes, sir.”

Chapter Text

A visit to town apparently not being enough to size us up to her liking, Aunt Agatha soon demanded the young engaged couple—that being myself and Jack, strange as that was—come visit her at the country estate. The weather was fine and the grounds fit for all the sporting endeavors that Jack enjoys. I therefore hoped that despite Aunt Agatha’s marked dislike for my bride-to-never-be, and Jack’s quite sensible dislike of people who were openly horrid to her, there was a chance that peace would prevail.

This was an utterly foolish bit of tosh, of course, and things turned from bad to worse before the first day’s sun had set.

There was no keeping a civil word in Aunt Agatha’s accursed head. She criticized everything from Jack’s clothing to her language to her demeanor to her backhand on the tennis court, which was above reproach from any reasonable viewer. There had even been a comment about the absence of Jack’s maid—explained to both Jack and Aunt Agatha somewhat mendaciously as the necessity of an urgent situation requiring Mary to attend to her family without delay—and how this person must be entirely useless and unreliable and surely there was no hope for girls these days. It’s a bally good thing she said this last only in the presence of Bertram and not his fiancée, or said fiancée might have torn into Aunt Agatha with the ferocity and skill of a veteran leopard, not one to suffer abuse of her little woman even in absentia.

To summarize the sitch., in Jack’s own words: “I promised myself that I should never hit a lady. Fortunately, that’s immaterial in the case of that nasty old bat!”

Despite agreeing with Jack on the matter of Aunt Agatha’s old-bat-ness, I could hardly allow my betrothed to deck my old aunt across the incisors, and so the end of just two days saw me absolutely worn to the bone in my duty as local diplomatic attaché.

Relief came one night after dinner as Jack and I were smoking and enjoying a snootful of brandy—a habit which had Aunt Agatha fuming on the settee, since she didn’t believe people of Jack’s persuasion should partake in such masculine habits, to which Jack would usually reply that she didn’t see what her persuasion had to do with the good old human need to dull the senses when trapped in close quarters with one’s future in-laws.

Aunt Agatha’s butler stepped dolefully into the tense atmosphere and deposited a telegram at Jack’s elbow.

She tore into it with no little vim, then her face fell. “Oh, dear! It’s my mother, she’s taken ill. She’s written to ask if I could possibly come to her side.” She glanced up at Aunt Agatha, “I’m very sorry, Mrs. Gregson, but I shall have to take my leave.”

Jack rose and rushed from the room, with me tripping after her. “I’m dashed sorry to hear it, old thing! Is there anything I can do?”

“Only if you’ve brought your swimming gear,” Jack laughed, slowing as we neared the stairs.

I skidded to a halt, “Pardon?”

“My mother’s fit as a fiddle, darling, she’s just written to tell me they finished installing the indoor pool. I simply couldn’t stand another minute in this house, you see, and so concocted a little fish story when I saw opportunity crack at the door.”

“Oh! Oh, I see. Quick thinking, old thing!”

“You can thank—” Jack’s eyes flicked to the lounge door, “you—er—thank you for your, ah, well wishes, Bertie, dear.”

I heard the step of Aunt Agatha nearing, quiet as a panther, and jumped into my role. “Oh, naturally, naturally. I hope your dear old mother heals up quick and well! Perhaps…” A little idea of my own jumped to mind like a frog from a stream, “perhaps, I should join you? Support for my spouse to be, and all that?”

“Nonsense,” Aunt Agatha declared, tearing forth from my shoulder, “Miss Wilberton must be off with all possible speed, an oaf such as yourself will only slow her down.”

Jack shrugged, as if to say, ‘sorry old chap, enjoy being feasted upon by lions,’ and she took off with the starting whistle.

I trudged up to relay the news to Jeeves.

“So, you see, old Jack is free as the proverbial bird while we remain bound to the hellmouth, for the time being.”

“Indeed, sir.”

“I say, you don’t seem terribly surprised?”

Jeeves folded a sock with satisfaction and knowledge. “Miss Wilberton may have mentioned in passing that her parents were eager to hear tell of the Gregson estate, and that she was herself looking forward to the usual update of their own homely affairs. I may have suggested in turn that the arrival of such a parental missive would create an opportune moment for Miss Wilberton to escape the current, uncomfortable quarters. I suspect that with the ground prepared, so to speak, Miss Wilberton had ready her excuse when the prospect arrived.”

I sighed, only slightly raging with jealousy, “Well, once again Jeeves, you demonstrate that your intellect is second to none.”

“Thank you, sir.”

“Yet…you couldn’t come up with an excuse that would loose our own shackles as well?”

“I hope that with Miss Wilberton absent and the concurrent interest in observing the two of you as a couple rendered null, your aunt will naturally tire of your solitary company, and encourage you to leave of your own volition. This, without the negative associations she would likely hold against you were you to leave without her express permission.”

“Quite adroitly figured, Jeeves.” I let him take the dinner jacket and tugged free the tie, twirling it thoughtfully about. “I think you’re spot on. Give her a day or two, and she’ll beg me to stop haunting the place.”

“Precisely, sir.”

The next morning dawned probably very early, but I wasn’t awake to deal with the bally thing. I slept in peacefully to my usual preferred ten in the AM, sipped the elixir and tackled the toast from the comfort of bed, and Jeeves didn’t attempt to pour me into the proper country raiment until it was nearly noon.

I executed a very pleasant lunch due to the fact that my aunt was out visiting with somebody or other, and then decided such a gorgeous afternoon could only be appropriately passed in the great outdoors.

“This is the life, Jeeves,” I pronounced as we crossed the picturesque green to bask in the shade of a lakeside willow.

“Indeed, sir?”

“Indeed, indeed, and a third indeed for good measure. What is Life at its Finest, if not a cloudless day, a view to inspire the most muddleheaded painter, and not one social commitment to sully the schedule?”

“I find no flaw in your argument, sir.”

“And there is no one I should sooner while away these perfect hours with than you, Jeeves.”

“Very kind of you to say, sir.”

This last line of mine had rather tripped past the guards and out of my mouth without permission from the bits of a man’s brain that stop him from expelling sentimental rubbish at inopportune times. Jeeves’ bland reception of the comment was both reassuring—in re: he did not feel inappropriately lavished with praise—and disappointing—in that the fellow had brushed it off politely like the fur of a friendly dog from one’s trouser leg.

Still, onwards. Jeeves laid down a blanket and sat primly with his back to the trunk of the tree. I myself splattered down with less care for the limbs’ posish. and more for ensuring I received a balance view of man and water—two vistas I didn’t care to miss out on at any time.

“If you don’t mind my asking, how do you intend to spend your afternoon, sir?”

“I suspect I’ll read,” I lied happily, knowing full well my future held nothing but a spot of the dreamless.

“That may prove difficult, sir, given your lack of reading material.”

“What a shame, I’ve forgotten my book. Ah well, I suppose there’s only one thing for it!” I stretched right out and closed my eyes.

“Very good, sir. Shall I wake you in time for tea?”

“If you please.”

The pleasure of an afternoon nap under the gentle touch of a fresh breeze cannot be overestimated. But I learned there was another gentle touch which made such a condition several automobile-lengths closer to paradise, and that was the touch of a loyal valet, who even with one hand occupied by an improving book ensures the other is free to card through the light waves of his employer’s hair.

I paddled fully into consciousness and found the old lemon pillowed on the strong yet supple thigh of said valet. Jeeves’ hand still moved in a perfect affectionate rhythm, even as blue eyes opened to meet brown.

“Did you have a pleasant rest, sir?”

“Er.” The pleasantness of the rest quite paled in comparison to the pleasantness of waking in the current circs. “Yes. Quite. Satisfactory, or that is to say, much greater than satisfactory.” The question of whether or not I was expected to abandon the sublime comfort of the current arrangement arose in my mind and refused to be batted away. “I say,” I began, “didn’t mean to treat you like furniture, my good man.”

Jeeves smiled. I would repeat that it was, very distinctly, a smile. The hand, I would also mention, so pleasurably caught up in the business of running tenderly through my hair, did not call the end of its workday. “I should hardly think myself ill-used, sir.”

“Ah. Good. Splendid.”

Silence reigned. I hesitated to take her crown. Perhaps I could simply close my eyes, remain just so, and turn in an award-winning performance of returning to sleep? As certainly, sleep herself would elude me now…

The rustle of a waistcoat and click of metal informed me that at least one of us was still attuned to worldly things, namely, the approach of teatime.

“It is nearing three o’clock, and I suspect Mrs. Gregson would appreciate your presence for tea, sir,” Jeeves informed me, and I thought I heard a brother to my own sudden melancholy in his voice.

I also rather thought Aunt Agatha could stand to break bread all on her blasted lonesome, but this was hardly the sort of meanspirited thought one wanted to give air to in front of the object of their affections.

“Of course, right you are, Jeeves.”

I sprung reluctantly upright, inspired by the old saying about ripping the plaster off in one fell swoop. Jeeves collected the blanket and we returned to the house, myself wondering the entire journey if and how I might have used such a moment of intimacy to further the lover’s cause.

Spotting Aunt Agatha as soon as we crossed the threshold knocked loose the romantic fantasies that had cluttered my mental facilities.

“Ah, returned from your socializing, dear Aunt? I take it there were no fatalities.”

“Bertie! What a coincidence!” Aunt Agatha cooed.

Now, call me paranoid, but this struck an odd note in the Wooster ear. “Coincidence? I hardly think there’s a surplus of coincidence in my turning up in the hall of my flesh-and-blood’s home, the home I am currently residing in.”

“Yes,” Aunt Agatha coughed, and I caught sight of some manner of female lurking beyond her skirts. “Now, Bertie, I don’t believe you’ve met Miss Landsbury…”

The cerebral klaxons positively roared at that name. The last time I’d heard it, after all, I’d been desperate enough to hurl myself into an engagement with a dear friend who nonetheless thought husbands generally pestilent.

“Good Lord!” Jeeves cried, and we all jumped about a meter in the air.

“Jeeves!” Aunt Agatha shrieked, perhaps in a contest of volume, “What on earth do you mean by exclaiming so?”

“I apologize, madam. I was merely uninformed that you’d taken to cultivating free range rattus norvegicus.”

“Pardon?”

“I was unaware you’d seen fit to install rats in the woodwork,” Jeeves clarified helpfully.

“Rats?” Miss Landsbury shrieked and shot up the nearest bit of elevated ground she could find. I must say, this at least showed she was a sensible girl, as I myself was considering climbing Jeeves at the moment.

“Purvis!” Aunt Agatha screeched for her aged butler, “Retrieve the firearm! There’s a scourge!”

All parties fled the scene, myself at the forefront of the strategic retreat. I’m no yellow-belly, to borrow the filmic cowboy’s parlance, but nor do I treasure time spent with rodents of any variety.

As soon as we arrived back in the hopefully minus-rat rooms, Jeeves began packing my things.

“Good idea, Jeeves,” I clapped my hands, “it doesn’t seem safe to the health to remain on the premises with an infestation.”

“I do think a return to London will do your health good, sir, and the rush to locate the fictitious rodent will no doubt give cover to our sudden absence.”

“The fictitious…Jeeves, do you mean to say you lied?”

“Yes, sir.”

“You are, so to speak, the boy who cried rat?”

“It could be said so, sir.”

“But why?”

“Upon our return, I realized immediately what Mrs. Gregson must have intended to accomplish with the introduction of Miss Landsbury. No doubt she arranged the young lady’s visit the very moment Miss Wilberton left the grounds, hoping to effect a switch in your affections from someone she finds unsuitable to someone she herself hand-selected. Mrs. Gregson not being bound by the rules of fair play nor above the use of force and trickery, I saw fit to employ a necessarily unsubtle piece of dissembling in order to extricate us from the potential for disaster.”

“Jeeves,” I wondered, “you are truly a marvel.”

“Thank you, sir.”

“I know I’ve said so before, and it sounded just as pale and insufficient a description then, but you really are a marvel.”

“You’re most gracious, sir.”

“Well, we’d better scurry off before the dread Aunt realizes you’ve invented her great rat nemesis and decides to turn her hatchet on us, instead.”

“Very good, sir.” Jeeves positively radiated contentment as he hefted the luggage, and I must say, I’ve never enjoyed fleeing the scene of any crime so much as I did that one.

*****

“A telegram from Miss Wilberton, sir,” Jeeves announced some days later, floating in the doorway as I was becoming one with the bathwater, “sent from her father the Earl’s estate.”

“Oh? Well, crack it open!”

“Very good, sir.” Jeeves coughed and recited the missive: “Hullo Bertie. Hope you’re well. I’m well. But quite bored. Blasted children. If free, do visit. If not, pooh pooh on you.” This concluding statement rather stuck in my man’s craw, but it’s a testament to his commitment to the craft that he soldiered through.

“I got the first bit straightaway. And the last bit, well, it speaks for itself.”

“Yes, sir.”

“But the middle?”

“You allude not to the plea of boredom, sir, but the apparent curse on those of younger disposition?”

“Exactly so. It’s not at all like Jack to curse generally the youth of today, in fact, she’s usually rather taken with them. Just before she departed London, she mused over an incident wherein a tiny child whose parents put it up for inspection before a passing policeman gave the nougat they’d been nibbling a strong lick, then mashed it firmly into the constable’s mustache. Dashed inspiring.”

“Undoubtedly, sir. However, if I were to speculate, I may surmise that Miss Wilberton was not referring in her missive to a sudden development of hatred towards all children, but rather, the vexation was reflective of a particular encounter.”

“You mean to say, some specific little blighter or blighters unknown have sacked her over the head with a blackjack and caused this absence of euphoria?”

“Precisely, sir.”

“Well, in that case, I simply must meet the child who could put old Jack back on her heels.”

There had been no need for Jack to threaten pooh-poohing, as after Jeeves assembled the necessaries, we flew down to the Earl’s charming country estate without delay.

It had been some time since I’d last trod those green grasses and haunted those richly tapestried halls. My memory may be lacking, but I suspected the last time I visited had been an occasion in which Jack and I, at the foolish age of not-yet-adulthood-but-not-not-childhood, had decided to wallpaper a horse. No parties involved—the horse, the owners of the horse, the workmen who’d been using the wallpaper to refinish a sitting room—had been particularly pleased with our creative endeavor.

I still smiled at the memory as we bounced up the drive in the two-seater.

The Jack herself greeted us at the door, chivvying off the butler to take my luggage in her own strong hands. “Thanks for coming so quickly, Bertie darling, you’re a dream.”

“I know I am, but thanks for saying so. Shall I give my best to the lord and lady of the manor, or…?”

“Mother and father are in the lounge, reading and napping respectively, and won’t be roused from their pursuits until the dinner gong. I’ll present you then.”

“Just to check my notes against yours, Jack, they are aware that you and I are—”

“Oh, quite. They’re thrilled to the gills at our engagement while also strongly suspecting it won’t amount to anything really dangerous. I’ll admit, they don’t entirely remember who you are, but then dreams such as yourself often slip away from the conscious mind, what?”

“Beautifully true. Now that we’ve gotten the pleasantries out of the way…” I observed Jack hurl the luggage into a set of rooms I vaguely recalled being named The Pastoral Suite, due to a heavy tendency towards sheep and shepherd in the decoration, “might you care to inform me why you so dearly desired my company at this juncture?”

Jack sighed deeply. I assumed the position of empathy—sat on the edge of a wingback chair, lighting a cigarette, leant forward with elbows on knees to listen carefully. Jeeves silently went about the unpacking, but I knew he wouldn’t miss a word and would be ready to drop in with one of his bits of genius if the occasion called.

“Things were going along quite swimmingly for a while,” she began heavily, “Pleasant company, my dear old parents, and they get along with Mary ever so well. And I’m a social lad! I’ve never complained of a friendly guest, no matter the age. You know I’m actually quite in favor of children. A supporter, all the way. Never a word against the species!”

Feeling a reassuring phrase was called for at this juncture, I piped up, “I can swear to it! In terms of personality, you are halfway to fatherhood already, I should think.”

“Awfully kind. Yes, I’ve assured my Mary that she shall have all the children she wants. After all, there always seem to be loose kids scattered about these days. Orphans at every turn. Surely I could scrape together a son and daughter before the sun went down, if pressed?”

“A dozen of each, if you really tried.”

“Just so. But the significant factor in this equation is that I supposed the moment when we would enter upon the parental contract was still some time down the road. We are in the midst of our own youths, are we not? What’s the sense in spoiling that?”

“Senseless, senseless.”

“And I don’t see the appeal of babies, as a class. Hardly conversationalists, eh? Wouldn’t know a football if it smacked them in the face, and it would if you weren’t careful, because their catching hands lag even behind their speech.”

I nodded that no one could disagree with the diagnosis.

“Now, once they’ve grown up a bit, that’s different. A person can have a chat with them about their day, teach them how to fish, show them the intricacies of snooker pool, argue about the current state of politics. But before you reach that golden age—woof.”

“Woof,” I concurred.

“So why, I ask you, has that squalling lump taken over entirely my pride of place in the home?”

“To which squalling lump do you refer?”

“Oh, some cousin’s nephew, or nephew’s cousin, or nephew once removed or cousin by divorce—I can’t be bothered to keep track. But the child, its parent in tow, came to visit last week and chose to remain, sans parent!”

This was the first I’d heard of infants making the living arrangements, but I supposed, one can hardly put such a thing past the babies of today.

“Despite the presence of a nurse paid well to see to the brat’s every need, my Mary does nothing but coddle the creature, day and night. She hardly cares a fig for me. I could simply disappear in a puff of smoke and she’d just chide the ashy remains for disrupting the little one’s quality of air.”

“I think you may exaggerate, old thing.”

“Undoubtedly, but exaggeration is about the only source of joy left to me.” Jack’s depressed head hung between limp, depressed shoulders. “You know I am hardly one to make assumptions on the basis of a person’s sex. A woman can be any kind of woman, including not a woman at all! And yet, Bertie, and yet. It is a scene from a predictable and pedestrian play. The child calls, and motherly instinct rushes forth.”

“Yes, I see the issue. Have you spoken to the patient about her sudden onset of maternal obsession?”

“How can I? To protest Mary’s affections for the tot would make me seem the narcissistic whinging child.”

“With all due respect, my dear pal, have you not a shade of the narcissistic whinging child?”

“Well, perhaps, but I don’t wish to advertise the fact.”

A thoughtful silence glooped into place around us like a jelly. When the old bean offered nothing of use, I turned—as always—to Jeeves. “Jeeves? Have you been taken by one of your flashes of brilliance?”

“I’m afraid not, sir.” Jeeves’ brow was creased in thought, eyes unfocused in the search for a plan. “I believe I may require more time to assess the facts before I could hope to offer a solution to the current difficulties.”

“Time is aplenty in these parts,” Jack sighed, rising slowly. “I’d best be off to dress for dinner. By myself, most likely, as the dratted infant will surely claim inability to put its own pants on.” She left, muttering more in this vein, and I exchanged a meaningful glance with Jeeves.

“I sense the soup, Jeeves. It simmers nearby.”

“Yes, sir. Though there is a chance that the unfortunate situation will resolve of its own accord, if the parent of the child returns to claim it in the near future.”

“I dare not hope for such a rosy conclusion to carry itself off,” I predicted, “certainly not if Miss Mary’s taste for motherhood is piqued.”

“That is always a possibility, sir.”

“We shall have to give this sticky problem our best mental efforts.”

“Indeed, sir.”

With dinner jacket donned and tie perkily bowed, we made our way to the meal trough to reconnect with the master and mistress of the house.

Mixed feelings dwell in the Wooster bosom regarding the Earl and Countess. Although solid enough characters in general, up close and personal they can sometimes have what is termed An Effect on a chap.

There’s a word for what the Countess is—several words, in fact, though I’ve been informed they’re not all appropriate for polite company, and so due to an abundance of caution, I avoid them all. The long and the short of it, however, is that she’s all for the betterment of the situation of women. Writ large, that is. She’s absolutely potty about rights. Positively flush with respect for her fairer sex. Where ‘fairer’ in this instance indicates those who wish to be treated fairly.

Now, some less liberally minded husbands have expressed distaste at their wives having such feelings—at, indeed, their wives having any feelings not explicitly signed off on by said husbands. The Earl is no such chump. He knows a good thing when he sees it, and there’s no good-er thing in his sight than the Countess.

The Earl is a quiet, retiring, simple bit of stuff in a suit, to put it both bluntly and lovingly. He resembles only so much clay arranged in a sleepy manner with a mustache added up front to complete the picture.

Where the Countess is vivacity, the Earl is tranquility itself. Where Lady Augusta, as she is called by those whom she gives the honor of supping in her presence, is pep and vim, the good Sir Geoffrey, as he is called by any and sundry due to his not being very picky about nomenclature, is mildness and placidity. Taken together, the couple perfectly complement each other. Which is to say, for the spectator, it’s a bit like being burned and frozen at the same time. You technically leave at the same temperature in which you arrived, but are quite cognizant of a reaction having occurred to your person in the meantime.

I’ve painted what I hope is a detailed image of the couple so you can understand properly that a fellow must be robust in health to survive this reactive combination of passionate and soporific over the dinner table. The addition of yet a third chemical to this combustive soiree was therefore not just unwelcome but could prove downright hazardous to life and limb.

Jeeves had just departed to the kitchen and I was about to toddle into the dining room when Jack suddenly waylaid me with something just short of a rugby tackle.

“Old boy, I’m terribly sorry,” she apologized, slightly out of breath, “if I’d known she would be here, I should never have summoned you, not for the squalling of a thousand infants.”

“My dear fellow, what on earth—?”

“Caroline!” An imperious voice boomed from the dining room and Jack shrank back.

I should make clear, I’ve seen Jack the Cat shrink back exactly three times in our extended acquaintance, and two of those three times involved the brandishing of loaded firearms. The third merely a Pekinese and a misunderstanding which doesn’t bear mentioning, but I think you grasp the essentials. Jack was not a person easily stirred to the shrinking stuff.

Yet, she shrank.

“Ah,” said a rather birdlike older woman upon breaching the hall and spotting yours truly, “This must be that Wooster creature you mentioned. I shouldn’t think he looks any terribly better than he did when you two were children. A growth disorder, perhaps.”

“His growing hasn’t been disordered, Aunt Imogen,” Jack protested.

“No, my dear lady, it’s simply that all men look small next to Jack, here,” I smiled brightly and clapped my fiancée’s broad shoulder.

Although this answer seemed to tickle Jack, the Aunt remained untickled. I couldn’t express surprise at this lack of result, as a state of un-tickle-ment is the natural one for Aunts. Indeed, in meeting the aunt’s gimlet eye I was tempted to a bit of shrinking myself.

It was quite clear that Aunt Imogen remembered me rather better than I should have preferred. From her gaze, I deduced she remembered the wallpapered horse. She remembered the croquet modified so as to be played with bowling balls. She also likely remembered the Aberdeen terrier aquatic races, mousse juggling contest, and blindfolded badminton match, these amusing youthful incidents which I myself only fuzzily recalled through the gauze of time. But it was clear from the expression on her face that she not only knew every ill deed of my past but had a hearty suspicion of every floater I would commit in the future.

This sketch may strike you as familiar, and I can confirm that indeed, Aunt Imogen was so strongly built along the lines of my own Aunt Agatha that one would suppose they burst forth from the same demonic mold.

“Frederick!” she called suddenly, sparking a nervous jump in both Jack and myself. We exchanged a glance. Neither of us answering to the name in question, I was about to inquire if perhaps the aunt had misplaced someone or something, when appeared behind her a tall young man with waves of golden hair. I have in the past expressed my distrust of those with hair that waved, and I should reiterate it on this occasion, for the gentleman’s snide expression did not bode well for a change in my opinion.

“Ah, Frederick,” Aunt Imogen patted the newcomer’s arm, “I would like you to meet my niece, Miss Caroline Wilberton. And, ah,” she gave me a glance similar to the one you’d level at the bottom of your shoe after a trek through the fields, “another guest, Mr. Wooster. This is Lord Frederick Grindley.”

“How do you do?” The waver-of-hair took Jack’s hand and—in a rather alarming maneuver—planted a kiss on her rugged knuckles.

She winced, checking the back of her hand as if for residue. “I’d do a sight better if you’d keep your lips to yourself, Lord Whatsit.”

The Lord grinned, “I do like a spirited young lady.” I felt a bit ill at the proclamation, and no better when he turned a disdainful gaze on me. “And good to meet you, ah, what was it? Hoocher?”

“Wooster, Bertie Wooster,” I pasted on a smile and held out the requisite hand. He gave it a dismissive shake and then returned his attention to Jack.

“May I escort you into the dining room, Miss?” he asked, oozing.

“Can I stop you?” Jack replied.

Lord Grindley laughed, unctuous and too loud, and attempted to lead Jack away by the elbow. She remained unmoved despite him putting his back into the effort, and shared an incredulous look with yours truly. I shrugged, hoping to communicate that I had no better clue than she as to how to proceed. She sighed and allowed herself to be towed away.

“—at that point, I had simply gone through my stock of patience, and so I took the only reasonable course, and began to thrash him about the ears with the decorative ladle,” the Countess was concluding a colorful tale from her place at the head of the table (I would direct the confused reader to the earlier passage viz., the rights of women) as we entered the dining room.

“Excellent, my dear, excellent,” the Earl lauded fuzzily, patting his wife’s arm even as his eyes wandered to the incoming first course.

I recalled that the Aunt Imogen infested the Countess’ side of the family tree, yet the sisters could not be more unalike. Imogen exclusively wore monotone arrangements of white, gray, and black. At first glance, you may even suspect she was in mourning. At second glance, you may nervously begin to wonder if she were not the cause of said mourning.

The Countess, on the other hand, was as bright as a tropical bird. She was decked out stem to stern in bright orange, green, and blue layers which wove in and out of the others like a magician’s scarf trick caught in a windmill. I was reminded of where Jack got not only her strength of personality, but her fondness for eye-catching accoutrement.

The Earl surely must have been finely dressed as well, but it was difficult to tell beneath the layer of dust and biscuit crumbs that always adorned his uppermost layer. A fond feeling rose in the heart at the sight of him, and I recalled vaguely that Jack and I had had a shadowy accomplice who applauded our work in the wallpapered-horse scheme.

“Mr. Wooster and Lord Grindley,” the Countess turned her eagle eyes on the newcomers, “how lovely that you both could join us. I admit it’s been some time since I entertained menfolk. Other than Geoffrey of course, and he’ll be the first to confirm he is, at best, one-third of a man, and all the better for it.”

“Happy to tick the percentage up a bit,” I replied, taking my seat, “Combined we may add up to a whole man and some extra, what?”

Lady Augusta smiled at me, confirming another cloudy memory that she’d always been a good and sporting egg, but the Aunt was not amused. “Augusta, my dear,” she said ‘my dear’ in the way others said ‘colossal ass,’ “I don’t see that you need to bring the foul language of your little hobby to the dinner table.”

“Imogen, my sweet sister,” Augusta said ‘sweet sister’ in a similar tone as others would say ‘accursed boil,’ “I don’t see that you need to bring your bills to my coffers, yet it continues as does the march of the seasons.”

The dinner, which I had not expected to be any more joyful that your average rainy funeral, now took on an enhanced lethal quality. Sisterly quarrels often produce substantial body counts, and when one of those sisters is a militant political type and the other is a militant Auntly type, the resulting wounded skyrockets. Lord Grindley looked like he wished he could trade places with the fish, Jack kept sinking lower and lower in her chair as if to slip entirely below the table, and even the blessedly absent Earl seemed to register that something was amiss.

Jeeves skated into the room on a few occasions, bearing potatoes and wine and other necessities, and I attempted to send him signals via furious blinks, taps on the table, and pleading glances. I have no doubt that all such messages were received, but given that I was not rescued from the flames, I must assume he had no tools available with which to save the young master.

Coffee could not come too soon.

We finally retired to the drawing room to engage in various post-dinner activities, the Augusta vs. Imogen skirmish having ended in a draw. Us three young gentlemen were in varying states of emaciated health following the violence. Jack was the least injured given her decades of building up immunity, while Frederick and myself were left as but pale shadows of ourselves.

Although I would not call Lord Grindley a kindred spirit, his nerves of steel at surviving such a family dispute recommended him to me more than a hundred letters from friends. I wondered what could possibly have enticed him to broach these Aunt-infested waters, but was not given the chance to engage the fellow in conversation, as the final character in the drama now descended from the mists of folklore into reality.

Mary entered the room carrying The Baby. The cousin’s-nephew (or nephew’s-cousin) was a round and rosy-cheeked type of the like spotted in magazine advertisements for those creams and lotions of which the species apparently cannot be expected to live long without. It was also rather strongly spoken for a creature of its age.

The child let loose a stream of high language-like sounds, gesturing emphatically.

“Ah, and a fine gobbledy gooble to you, my good little lad,” the Earl said to the infant with a husky laugh. He tickled the baby under the chin to great applause.

I had to admit, the little blighter was awfully sweet. To call it adorable would not be far afield.

Without thinking, I approached.

“Hrrgblrk?” the child asked of me.

“Oh, how do you do?” I replied, feeling I was close to grasping this strange childish tongue, if only given a few more minutes of study.

“Oh, Mr. Wooster,” Mary cooed, “Look how he reaches for you!”

I’m not too proud to admit the teensy fellow had stirred a paternal chord. To the extent that, when proffered said child, I took him without hesitation or indeed any sound thought as to the consequences.

He gurgled happily against my fine black dinner coat as I patted his chubby back.

“Why, you’re a natural!” Mary determined, and the Earl agreed, “Absolutely, absolutely. What a picture, what a picture.”

A viewer on this little domestic scene might have noticed a clear division of loyalties play out in the geography of the dramatis personae’s seating arrangements. Here, to the west, lay Bertram, baby, Mary, and Earl. Aligned eastward were the Aunt, the interloping Lord, and Jack. Only the Countess remained in neutral territory, and she seemed committed primarily to continuing her engagement with a steaming cup of coffee.

Aunt Imogen sniffed, a sure precursor to passing comment. “I don’t think it’s at all natural for men to be so chummy with babies. Do you?” Here she sought reaction from her sister, but the latter party had apparently hung up her sword. The aunt swung Lord-wards, and here she found the ally she sought.

“I agree entirely, Lady Imogen. A real man is far too rough and strong in hand and mind to deal with infants.”

My heightened estimation of Lord Grindley took a firm hit.

“If being a man means being a coarse and unthinking brute, then I should think Bertie and I are glad not to be afflicted with the disease,” Jack cut in. I aimed a gracious smile in her direction, but her soft answering wink only awakened guilt in the Wooster bosom.

Here I was, meant to be coming to the aid of the troubled pal, and instead I was consorting with the enemy. Actually embracing the dread infant, all the while Jack still defended me from passing rogues. It’s fair to say that Bertram was wracked, yes positively wracked with regret.

As if it had spied my wavering allegiance and sought to remonstrate me for my trespasses, the child raised the volume of his gurgling to alarming new heights.

“Oh, dear, I’d better—” Mary began to say, but it was too late. The barrage had begun.

The child—its innocence forever vanquished from my mind—had spit up some significant quantity of its evening meal on the previously spotless fabric of my dinner jacket.

“Oh, little baby,” Mary retrieved the infant, who seemed none the better for its expelling, judging by the rather constipated expression on its tiny face, “look what you’ve done to poor Mr. Wooster’s lovely suit.”

Jack had popped up from her seat with a laugh, not actually saying ‘serves you right,’ but her attitude communicating the memo soundly enough.

I inspected the damage. I suspected it was a complete loss. Then, the full depth of horror of my position began to sink in.

“Jeeves,” I moaned, “he may never bring himself to forgive me.”

“I should hope not,” Jack decreed. But hers was not a personality built to hold grudges. She melted in moments at the look of terror on Bertram’s face. “Oh, come along,” she took my elbow and coaxed me out of the room, “Let’s get you cleaned up. Perhaps this ratty old thing is salvageable.”

Mary tailed us on our exit, the perpetrator of the crime quieting in her arms. “I really am terribly sorry, and he’s very sorry, I’m sure he’d say it if he could.”

“Perfectly alright,” I said, only a touch brittle, “nothing for the little fellow to apologize for.”

“Quite so,” Jack tacked on with a hopeful glance towards her erstwhile companion. “Er, shall I, ah, see you soon then, my dear?”

“Oh, not soon, darling,” Mary hedged, “He’s been like this all day, and the nurse and I are looking at a long night. Though, Mr. Jeeves promised to show me a little trick he picked up some time back about settling restless babies. I believe a snuff box and a grandfather clock are involved.” She sent a sweet smile in my direction. “Thank you for that as well, Mr. Wooster. Sharing Jeeves, I mean. I’d hate to take away your man when you need him most.”

“At least he shall not be forced to bear witness to the carnage,” I picked out this silver lining rather morosely. Privately, I was thinking that Jack had rather undersold the threat the child posed. The sun had hardly set and now here was Jeeves torn from my side and risking falling under its spell as well?

We trudged up to the old quarters. Jack hurricaned into my room as if she owned it, and I supposed through inheritance she rather did, but I still would’ve appreciated if she took a lighter hand to the upholstery as she slapped the fireplace armchair off its legs in frustration.

“You’ve turned, Bertie,” she accused once we were ensconced in privacy, “The child has worked its evil magics upon you.”

“Now, dash it all, Jack!” Whether I was more offended at the accusation of betrayal or the truth behind it, I should prefer not to say.

“Never mind!” She held up a long-fingered, regal hand. “It’s my own fault. I should have suspected your tender heart would render you vulnerable to corruption when I invited you.”

“No matter how sweet faced that infant is, his vitriolic attack has settled my opinion against him.”

Jack inspected the visage for signs of falsehood. “You really haven’t been swayed?”

“I’ll admit…the softer side of Bertram put in an appearance. But no more! I see now the dangers you laid out and shall redouble my efforts to send the child packing to its parents.”

Jack allowed a grin. “Very well. I suspected as much, but had to be sure. Now then! Let us scrutinize the damage.”

I peeled off the outer layer and held it at arm’s length. Jack gasped and I wondered what fresh horror could possibly be contained in the remains of the honorable old coat, but her gaze was fixed on my shirt.

“Bertie, dearheart, there is another victim.” She tapped my shoulder and I glanced down to find that true to her word, the infant’s spew had sunk through into the shirt below.

“Damn and—well, I suppose I shouldn’t lose my temper,” I said, honorably cutting off the ungentlemanly language.

“I’ll be happy to lose my temper on your behalf, and finish that thought, damn and blast.”

“At least the shirt is but one among many.”

“Then let it be gone.” Jack slapped my chest in a rousing, ‘come on soldier, let’s take that last hill’ kind of manner.

I began to unbutton the stained stiff-front, wondering that the infant hadn’t managed to steal the studs out of it in his quest for destruction. “What course would you recommend, Jack? I’m all for burying it in the garden and letting the worms eat away the sin.”

“Creative, but it would require unpleasant manual labor. We could burn the evidence?” she suggested with a thoughtful look at the fireplace.

“Jeeves would note the ashes,” I put the kibosh on the idea, “more than that, no matter what route of demolition we choose, he’ll note the absence of even just the shirt, never mind the dinner jacket qua wardrobe centerpiece.” I pulled said shirt completely off the pale, willowy shoulders, and Jack leaned in to take another look at the gruesome stain.

“Perhaps, we could find a way to blame the dog—”

This fruity suggestion from Jack was interrupted by the lightning crack of my door flying open and making violent contact with the opposing wall.

“I knew it!” Aunt Imogen screeched, partway the voice of horror, more so the crow of victory. “I knew the moment I saw you, Mr. Wooster, that you were a fiend!”

Now, gentle reader, for a few paragraphs now you may have been furiously waving your hat at me and shouting, ‘foolish author, stop this folly at once! Surely you see how you’re making a great big bloomer and a half!’ Well, I’ll inform you now that I didn’t see. When one is wrapped up in the moment, these sticky situations are much more difficult to spot. They sneak up on you. The niceties of expectation and carefully delineated rules of polite society rather hide from a chap until he’s already waded out neck deep in their breakage. I, for instance, was utterly baffled as to what fiendhood the irritating Aunt could possibly be accusing me of. But perhaps you are as in the dark as I was? Well, in that case, I’ll allow the aunt to detail the situation for you.

“Luring a young, innocent girl to your bedchamber with wily words!”

I glanced about in alarm for this young, innocent girl who’d apparently snuck into my bedchambers. Jack raised her eyebrows, confirming she didn’t spot the girl either.

“Exposing your foul self to her!” the aunt carried on, leveling a bony finger in my direction.

“Good Lord!” I pulled the remains of the shirt to my chest; my face could’ve given a tomato a run for its rosy hue. I hardly minded old Jack getting a peek under the hood, in the same way any lad changes his shift with the other rugby boys, but elderly aunts were entirely another matter.

“Come away, Caroline!” she shrieked, “Free yourself of this filthy, wanton beast!”

It was at this last exclamation that I finally realized what precisely had so turned up the flame on the aunt’s defamation scale.

“Oh, but I say, there’s nothing of that nature—”

My protests meant nothing to the aunt, as admittedly they rarely do to any of the breed, who roared on with cries along the lines of ‘disgracing the ancient family home’ and ‘besmirching the purity of virginal maidens,’ this last of which made Jack openly guffaw.

I couldn’t join in her laughter so long as the aunt kept looming closer and closer. I was hemmed in, unless I chose to make a break for the window, and I didn’t much fancy my chances on the third floor sans a convenient drainpipe which I may shimmy down (I had checked earlier—one never knows when one may need such a device). 

“Alright, Aunt Imogen,” Jack took her relative’s wretched arm and began hauling her backwards, “you’ve made your point, you bloody-minded old crone. For Bertie’s sake, I shall leave,” she upped the volume and added, “I’ll come back to bid you goodnight, darling, when you’re less nude.”

Jack pulled the door shut behind them. I collapsed at the foot of the bed, shirt still clutched like a safety blanket to my heart, a tragic and shivering wreck of my former self.

It nearly spelled the end for Bertram when the door opened again of its own accord, albeit much more gently.

I flew to my feet ready to shout for rescue or possibly grab one of the nearby decorative lamps and defend myself, but found to my everlasting relief that it was merely Jeeves.

“Sir?” he blinked twice at the scene before him.

“Good Lord!” I startled all over again as he approached, “He’s got you as well!”

The unmistakable damage of a baby-barrage speckled Jeeves’ usually irreproachable garments.

“I’m afraid so, sir. The child is preternaturally gifted in the art of distance expulsion.” Jeeves allowed only a short, pained glance down at himself. “I should, of course, have first attended to my unacceptable appearance before returning to your quarters, but upon hearing the commotion, I suspected haste may be required.”

“Then you know what has transpired?”

“Roughly, sir, having just passed the Lady Imogen and Miss Wilberton in the hall, I received a sketch.”

“A siege of aunts has been upon us, Jeeves,” I despaired, “What have we done to earn such vile treatment?”

“Nothing, sir, of that I’m quite sure.” Jeeves’ calm voice, spiced with fondness, was just what the nerves needed to stop sticking a foot out of the body. I slumped back on the bed with a heavy breath.

“I had hoped to do something to remedy the damage before you were forced to bear witness,” I admitted, gesturing to the ruined suit jacket.

“A kind thought, sir,” Jeeves lifted it to the lamplight with only a resigned sigh. “Perhaps I shall begin treatment with a simple vinegar concoction…”

“Oh!” I stood as I realized, “You must address your own wounds as well. Off with the bloodied garments,” I insisted, reaching for his own spoiled clothing. He stilled as I approached, not unlike a deer pretending to be invisible among the trees. “May I?” It occurred to me it was the polite thing to ask.

He licked his lips before replying, “Of course, sir.”

I peeled the dark, previously immaculate jacket from his shoulders. His own crisp white shirt bore no signs of infantile impact, I was disappointed to find. Then I had to consider why ‘disappointment’ was the reigning emotion. Then I had to work hard to forget the whole intellectual process once I’d figured it out. Guileless fatuity was my only protection as I watched my hands, certainly of their own volition, spread across the snowy linen covering Jeeves’ chest. To double check for damage, of course.

“It seems at least the shirt has been spared,” I noted, keeping the voice level with some effort.

“On first inspection that is so, sir.” Jeeves’ hand covered my own and guided it to a spot near his collar. “But I believe this may be evidence to the contrary. Can you see?”

“Oh, yes,” I barely breathed, “yes, I can see.” I swallowed. “If you would allow me…your tie, it rather obscures…”

“Yes,” Jeeves agreed promptly. I pulled the tie to pieces in some haste and threw it thoughtlessly in the direction of the discarded outermost layer.

It was not uncommon for myself to be in a state of undress near Jeeves. In fact, it was a condition of his employment that I enter upon undressing and dressing in his presence. Such a situation was his first duty, so to speak.

Yet, I had never been so near to Jeeves in a state of undress.

I was gathering my nerve for the final assault on his shirt when a clatter at the door nearly concluded the evening in cardiac arrest.

After gasping and clutching at Jeeves’ shoulder for support, I realized I recognized that hearty knock.

I went quickly to crack open the door and peer out at Jack.

“Ah, what ho?” I offered rather weakly.

“What ho,” she replied in good order, taking a pointed squint at me, “Still wafting about in the buff, old man?”

“No! I mean, not wafting, merely collecting…”

“I’ve only come to check that Aunt Imogen didn’t actually scare you into an early grave. And see if you intended to return to the gathering or if the incident has provoked a need to retire.”

“Yes, or that is to say, no,” my gaze flashed back to Jeeves, the curve of his shoulder, the hollow of his throat, and Jack’s shining eyes followed the trail, “I couldn’t possibly—that is—I wouldn’t want to—”

“Oh ho!” Jack said with a gleam in her eye that positively put the chill in my bones, “I quite understand, old thing. And you call me a dog!”

“What? Oh!” I suspect observers of the occurrence as far away as New York City could probably spot the red glow of my ears, “No, that’s not it at all, it’s—well, it’s quite simple to explain, really—but I mean to say, it’s only Jeeves—”

“I should hope it’s Jeeves!” Jack laughed again at extremely unhelpful volume, “If you had another fellow in there I would give you a sound thrashing on Jeeves’ behalf. Anyway, off you go, I shall make your excuses while you make, ahem, merry.”

She took her merciful leave, abandoning me to my vain hope that the house’s foundations would turn out to be quite lacking in the next few seconds and suck us all down into a horrific mess of broken timbers and cracked stone. I waited, closed my eyes, and winced preemptively, but no such fortunate disaster broke loose. Nothing for it, then.

I turned an about face.

“Miss Wilberton is a most attentive host, sir,” Jeeves noted, tone absent emotion.

“Yes, yes, that is certainly one way to describe her.”

In the reflection of a decorative plate on the wall, I spotted a distinct redness to the back of Jeeves’ neck. I calmed marginally in the realization that I was not alone in my mortification.

“Well,” I shimmied a bit closer, though not half as close as I dared just moments earlier. “Perhaps we’d best…continue. After all, if we’re going to do battle again with the infant’s cascades—”

“Actually,” Jeeves’ brows drew together, “Miss Mary had just received news from the parents before I departed her company. They’re set to return tomorrow morning to retrieve their child.”

“At last! That is a relief. It is as you hoped, time was all that was needed to heal the rupture.”

“It is a most agreeable outcome, sir.”

A certain nervous cool had descended in the room. The bravery that had propelled me partway back to the man had given out with a wheeze and a rattle.

“Has, ah, has old Jack been informed? Of the good tidings and Mary’s return to her hearth and all that?”

“I imagine there has not yet been the opportunity to do so, sir.”

“Hmm. Perhaps I should, er, chase after her, then. I can impart the news and clarify, er, set straight, that is—” I coughed, then coughed again. “Ensure there are no…misunderstandings.”

“Yes, sir.” There was a certain paleness now to Jeeves’ handsome features which distressed me, but having no clue what caused it and therefore no idea how to remedy it, I supposed that a moment of quiet solitude might be as good a curative as any.

“Back in a flash,” I gave a half-hearted wave.

Wrapping myself in a fresh shirt and dressing gown, I sallied forth.

I wandered with no clear idea where the target of my search may be located. I tried the bedroom (with extreme caution, the Aunt Encounter still at the forefront of my mind), the drawing room (containing a snoozing Earl, and the Countess and Lord playing a biting game of checkers, but no Jack), and the makeshift nursery (holding only nurse and subject).

Finally, I wandered past the darkened billiard room door and heard a sort of feminine squeak. It was high and brief and surprised, and cut off quickly. Visions of trespassing malefactors and innocent victims dashed through the brain and I acted with all due gallant speed.

I burst into the room and flung on the electric light and found the source of the squeak, Mary, sat up on the billiards table, and the likely instigator of said squeak, Jack, doing the important work of holding Mary against the billiards table.

It had been, I realized at this point, not a cry indicating ‘oh, I’ve been attacked by a rancid burglar’ but rather ‘oh, I’ve received an unexpected but not unwelcome embrace from my handsome lady and now she’s checking under my skirt to ensure everything’s still up to code.’

“Dear lord, ha—” I pressed hand to eye and attempted to leave the room, but with my sight obstructed I merely succeeded in bumping the bean on the doorframe.

“It seems to be our night for unexpected intrusions,” Jack noted in a jollier tone that I’d heard from her all day, “here I thought you’d retired for the evening and the danger had passed.”

“Sorry,” I chanced a peek through the fingers and found the scene had settled into appropriate public viewing, “I simply wanted to share the news that, er, the infant was, ah, unfortunately set to depart in the morn. I believed you’d want to hear it as soon as possible. I see now you’ve no doubt had it straight from the source.”

Mary grinned one of her mysterious grins.

“Message delivered, my good chap,” Jack said, “Now, was there something else, or should we return to our previous business?”

“Ah, yes, well, actually referring to that particular type of business,” I hastened on, “I did have an ulterior motive in seeking you out…regarding what you saw, or that is to say, what you thought you saw, upstairs, with myself and Jeeves—”

“You hardly need to explain! We are old friends, are we not, and haven’t you just completed a mirrored stumble into passion’s embrace?”

“That’s precisely the issue. There is no embrace and no passion and therefore nothing to…well, simply there is nothing.”

“Nothing?”

“Nothing. Not a thing. Things, there are none.”

Jack blinked like a concussed bulldog. She turned to Mary. Mary sent her a knowing and possibly telepathic look.

“Are you trying to say…” Jack’s gears froze up as she attempted to comprehend, “do you mean to tell me that there is…nothing?”

“That is exactly what I mean to say.”

“But I was given to understand that you and Jeeves…” Here Jack proceeded to enact an elaborate hand gesture that I did not follow yet which also made me blush profusely. “I mean to say, that you and Jeeves had an understanding much like myself and Mary.”

I sidled closer, to ensure voices did not carry. “That is not the case. I shouldn’t say that I wouldn’t wish that were the case, if I am being honest. But if we are speaking purely of cold, harsh realities, then no, I must confess that there is no understanding, not at all.”

This admission exhausted me and apparently infuriated Jack.

“But, but—” she sputtered, doing a passable imitation of an overheating water boiler, “but you! The two of you! You’re so…!”

“Oh, my poor romantic dear,” Mary rubbed a soothing hand along Jack’s arm.

“You!” Jack turned on Mary, “You knew? You knew all along that these two nincompoops were naught but respectable employer and employee?”

Mary replied primly, “It was hardly my place to say.”

“Not your place, my foot!” Jack kicked the billiard table to illustrate her point and its legs quaked nervously, while Mary remained impassive, “Something must be done.”

I didn’t like the sound of this ‘something.’ “Now, listen—”

“My sweet,” Mary took one of Jack’s big hands in her two small ones, “you mustn’t meddle.”

“But I—”

“Remember the Riviera,” Mary said firmly.

Jack deflated.

“What happened on the Riviera?” I asked, imagining plumes of smoke and hailing fire.

Jack fidgeted. “Nothing so bad. Nothing so good, either. It was simply that, well, a certain matchmaking endeavor of mine went, ah, er—”

“Were there any deaths?” I inquired.

“No! Of course not. Well, not human deaths.”

I crossed my arms and applied the obvious follow-up inquiry, “And were the police summoned?”

“There was a policeman, but that was incidental, as he just happened to own the rose garden where the prizefighter and the dentist decided to hold their grudge match.”

“Let us be politic and say it did not go to plan,” Mary interceded.

“Yes,” Jack sheepishly conceded. “My record when it comes to arbitration of romantic entanglements is not entirely spotless. But how either of you expect me to simply stand here, hands bound behind my back, and watch as one of my oldest and dearest friends continues to lumber desolately through existence with the love of his life at his very fingertips—”

“Although I’d not like to be added to the list of the dead or detained, after this prizefighter and his dentist, I actually had long considered seeking your advice, old man.”

“Really?” Jack perked up considerably.

“Absolutely! I look upon your happy union…”

Here, Jack wrapped an arm around Mary, nearly hiding her from view behind the considerable girth of her bicep. Mary giggled and pecked Jack’s chin.

“…and I think to myself, Bertram Wooster, there is no better suited gentleman to whom you could take your case. Get thee to the Cat, and but quick!”

“I should be honored beyond all reason if I could assist you on the path to requited affection with your man. Whom I must admit I’m still shocked to discover is merely your man and not your man.”

“That division between states has proven exceedingly difficult to cross.”

“Understandable, dear boy, perfectly understandable.” Jack adjusted the fit of Mary in the crook of her arm and got down to serious thinking. “Now, is it at all possible that you could simply approach your Jeeves, announce your intention to lay a kiss upon his perfect ruby lips, and then follow through on the action?”

I stumbled back and nearly put an elbow through an oil painting of a Wilberton relative hanging at inopportune height on the wall behind me.

“No, I didn’t think so,” Jack conceded, taking my pale and shivering aspect for a reply, “Circumspection is the order of the day for a man as reserved as your Jeeves. Have you considered…”

I waited patiently for her to compress the pearl of wisdom. Much like the true pearl, however, it seemed I may be staring down a timetable ranking in the decades.

After another minute in which I studied the cuticles, Jack finally exhaled deeply and admitted, “I’m afraid that circumspect reserve is not my forte. The cellar is empty. But take my word, Bertie, I shall not rest until I have shaken loose from the cobwebbed attic a plan to spur forth the desired courtship.”

“Well, you may rest occasionally,” I allowed, “For Miss Mary’s sake.”

Jack swung forward to land a comforting paw on my shoulder, nearly leveling me to the ground. “Be strong, old friend. Love always finds its course.”

“And if all else fails, we’d be happy to arrange an incident whereby you and Jeeves are accidentally locked in a cozy closet to correct that course,” Mary offered.

“Ah, steady on,” I laughed nervously and began to affect a retreat, “I’m sure we haven’t come to a point where the application of closets is indicated.”

“Not yet,” Jack nodded wisely, “but you never know.”

After securing a promise that no non-consensual closet vacations lurked in my immediate future (with no such agreements applying to the whole of my earthly presence), I withdrew to the bedchamber, feeling no less jittery than I had upon fleeing it.

I found Jeeves once more pressed and ready for service. All evidence of baby-related disaster had been swept away.

“Do you wish to retire for the night, sir?” he asked as I stumbled back to the embrace of relative safety, minus actual embraces.

“Yes, I think I’d better.” My head was swimming with thoughts of closets and jacket-less valets. It was no state in which to remain vertical and conscious.

As I undressed, something of the earlier tension remained. I was anxiously aware of the places where Jeeves’ practiced fingertips brushed through shirt and against skin, at shoulder, neck, wrist, and waist.

Sliding between the sheets with a book and final brandy, I was sensitive to a difference in the atmosphere which I couldn’t name. Perhaps it was the feelings which I had finally given verbal outing to Jack and Mary. Perhaps it was the recent image of Jeeves’ only-shirt-clad shoulders still lingering in the mind. Perhaps it was a heretofore unknown poisonous aftereffect of the child’s regurgitations. Whatever the source, I felt the stirrings of a Change with a capital-C in the relations between master and man, but had no tools at my disposal with which to address it.

“Will that be all, sir?” Jeeves asked, as was his custom.

“Yes, thank you,” I replied, considering that a goodnight kiss was unlikely to fall within the parameters of that custom.

He left the room with a final nod and my heart twisted with the kind of painful pang that could keep a fellow up for every night of his miserable life.

Despite such dire predictions, sleep took me in its generous embrace and the following morning unfolded much as any other morning.

After the usual tea-and-toast bed routine and sharing eggs and b. with a pleasantly somnolent Earl at the breakfast table, I went out in search of Jack or her keeper.

I instead found Lord Grindley, which I’m sure you can understand was not an item of equal or greater value.

“There you are, Wooster,” he began upon spotting me passing through the sitting room towards the great outdoors. The outdoors seemed even greater, positively superlative, in comparison to a sitting room containing this man in his current mood, for he seemed irked up to the teeth with some botheration.

“The dear, proud Lady Imogen has just passed on a most troubling tale to me.”

“Oh?” said I, not at all sure what the dear proud Lady Imogen’s troubles had to do with me.

“I’m well aware that Miss Caroline—”

“Who?”

“The daughter of this house,” he clarified obscurely.

“Oh. Oh, you mean Jack!”

“Miss Caroline,” Lord G. insisted, which confirmed my suspicion that this conversation was going to be a slow and grinding one, “has her eccentricities. I have been fully briefed.”

“Oh, my condolences, old man. I was briefed once at Eton, in front of my whole class. Dashed uncomfortable. And cold.”

A hysterical note crept into the man’s voice as he barreled on, “I have been informed that Miss Caroline must be humored in certain of her tendencies, but from the picture the Lady Imogen paints, it appears that you have taken advantage of the confused fantasies of this poor helpless girl!”

“Sorry, what helpless girl is this?”

“Miss Caroline!” Lord Grindley gripped a nearby fireplace instrument with sudden fervor.

“Oh.” I’d been repeating this vowel a lot thus far, as it seemed the only one appropriate to the circs.

Grindley continued to hiss, “Have you nothing to say for yourself?”

“Ah…no, no I don’t believe I do,” I replied, as always, a paragon of honesty.

He shook with unspecified rage. “I struggle to believe that a lady of such good standing as Miss Caroline should ever see fit to entertain your company of her own will. Least of all, when the Lady Imogen has brought me here to seek her hand in marriage!”

“Lady Imogen?” I repeated in mild horror, “My good man, she’s old enough to be your mother. Surely there’s a bird of your own age—”

“Not Lady Imogen!” he shrieked, “Miss Caroline, you great twittering, lascivious fool.”

I began to be particularly conscious of the fireplace poker still held steadily in his agitated fist.

“I may reluctantly accept the charge of the occasional twitter, but I draw firm against accusations of lasciviousness. I’m not entirely sure what is required to hold such a position but I am certain I lack the necessary qualifications.”

At this point Jeeves entered the room, the family’s droopy springer spaniel (whose undying loyalty Jeeves had earned the night previously with the kindly dispensation of some fish fragments) tight on his heels.

“You may have money, Wooster, but my family holds title and prestige,” the Lord sneered, “Between the two of us, it is no contest whom the honorable Miss Caroline would prefer.”

Pride pricked, I drew up and declared, matching his snobbish height of nose-in-air, “I say this with all due respect, Lord Prindle-or-something, but old Jack would as soon bind herself to you as she would a decomposing sheep carcass. At least the sheep wouldn’t rant so.”

Upon reflection, when a man is brandishing a sharp and heavy iron object in one’s immediate vicinity, it is not necessarily the time upon which to embark on witty ripostes.

Lord Grindley roared and raised the poker. I began to duck and make peace with my god. Jeeves made a slight move in the corner of my eye that I prayed dearly would intervene in the visions of bloodshed dancing before me.

Before Jeeves could complete any maneuver, however, there came a bellow from the open French doors beyond his shoulder. “You! You scrawny blond berserker!”

Jack stormed inside, compass pointed straight for the enraged Grindley. “Put that poker down at once or I shall have your hide.”

“But Caroline—”

“Only my mother calls me Caroline, and I don’t seem to recall suckling at your teat, you cad!”

With this, she smacked the Lord’s onion a mighty whallop.

I imagine little knocks the lovelight from one’s eyes as efficiently as a club on the back of the head from the adored one’s own hand. My ex-pursuer seemed baffled, rattled, nettled.

“Now what’s this all about, Lord—hmm, I forget your name. Lord Gondola, Gladiola…?”

“Lord Grindley,” the lord in question ground out the correction from between clenched teeth.

“Yes, of course, Lord Gummy,” Jack went on blithely, “Now, would you like to rescind whatever your complaint is with Mr. Wooster, or should you like me to inform my parents that you’ve taken to chasing my fiancé around the place with a fireplace poker as a sort of hobby?”

“Your...you mean you’re actually going to marry this man?” I couldn’t blame the fellow for contorting his face like that at the news, it was a sensible enough reaction to Jack and I’s purple proposition—or is that a puce proportion? The term escapes me, but you grasp the sketch. He was stumped.

“That is the idea,” Jack declared loftily.

“But Lady Imogen didn’t say…”

“What Lady Imogen didn’t say could no doubt fill volumes. You may be better advised to not, in future, take such hasty action merely on the strength of my Aunt Imogen’s omissions.”

“She…she indicated to me quite certainly that this…scoundrel had lured you to his private quarters with the notion of…of perpetuating untoward acts.”

“First and foremost, I would have you know that I’m deeply insulted by the implication that of the two of us, Bertie is the scoundrel, and not I. And secondly, I should like you to understand that any untoward acts I may or may not choose to partake in are very much none of your business.”

“But—”

“None! Of your business.”

Lord Grindley huffed sharply out of his aquiline nose. “Well, I suppose that is that, then. If you really have your heart set on exchanging vows with this watery-spined simpleton…”

“He’s the only watery-spined simpleton for me. Consider yourself straight out of the running.”

The Grindley huffed and puffed at higher volume. Jack developed a twinkle in her eye that made sweat pop out on my brow. “Don’t worry about what comes next, darling,” she whispered, “just keeping up appearances.” Then she bent down and kissed me thoroughly.

Jack released me only when she heard the Lord’s distressed gurgling. Breaking apart, she turned a cool eye on his scandalized map and asked, “Was there something else you needed?”

He let out another landed-fish type of noise and then chose to exit the scene without further dialogue.

“Well,” Jack shook her head, and me, since she still held my person in her grip, “That was more excitement than I expected to encounter this morning. Sorry to have invaded the bod. like that, dear one. And with so little warning, no less.”

“On the contrary, old man, it was an honor. If I had a hat, I would tip it,” I gestured grandly in lieu, “I begin to understand why all those girls fell so easily under your charms.”

“They are significant charms,” Jack agreed with a grin. She turned and spotted Jeeves. Her face fell. “Oh, I’m sorry, my dear man. I can’t imagine that was easy to watch.”

“I don’t know what you mean, Miss,” Jeeves responded funereally.

Jack dashed her shoe against the hardwood. “Oh, if not for the bloody Riviera…” This opaque reference did nothing for Jeeves and only made my earlier bout of sweating redouble.

“Anyway!” I shouted, feeling the current dicey situation like hot rocks beneath bare feet, “Your rescue was both timely and debonair. Thank you, my most lovely beloved.” I poured the phony romance on with a heavy hand and, as I hoped, Jack snorted with laughter.

“Anytime, my precious pumpkin.” She pinched my cheek and then departed with a last, slightly hopeless glance at Jeeves and a whistle for the dog to follow.

“I do believe I could use a drink,” I announced to the suddenly echoingly empty room.

“Of course, sir,” Jeeves nodded and led the way.

His strides were as even and efficient as ever, yet I couldn’t ignore a trace of wrong-ness lingering in the air. 

“I say, Jeeves, is there something the matter?”

The back of his head as we ascended the stairs revealed nothing. “No, sir.”

“Are you sure?” I skipped up to walk at his side, “You appear…put out, if you don’t mind the observation.”

“Well, sir, it was simply that there was a taxidermied duck mounted rather shabbily on the mantlepiece,” Jeeves confessed. “And further, the dog Gingersnap has an inordinate fondness for truffles. Not to mention that I acquired the very useful information from the kitchen staff that Lord Grindley has a certain horror of waterfowl.”

I contemplated this answer. Finally, I was pressed to admit, “Jeeves, I hate to say it, but you’re positively blithering.”

“I imagine I am,” Jeeves agreed, and I believe the only person more shocked at the admission than me was the man himself. “My apologies, sir. It is quite clear that you were in no need of my assistance when your very capable fiancée was at hand, thus rendering the plan I’d begun to form irrelevant.”

The old shoulders shuddered of their own accord as we reached the safety of the private bedroom, “Enough with the fiancée stuff, Jeeves, I beg you.”

“Pardon, sir. But mightn’t you need to acclimate yourself to the condition of engagement? Especially with the prospect of matrimony on the horizon.”

“Matrimony?” The shivers returned, tenfold, “You know as well as I that matrimony is what Jack and I’s engagement was designed to avoid.”

“I merely thought you may be considering accelerating your plan’s timeline, given the recent performance.”

“Performance being the key term, Jeeves!”

“I see, sir,” Jeeves said, in a categorically soupy tone.

I admit at this point I’d developed a certain shock and confusion. “What’s all this, Jeeves? Dissent in the home? You’ve already given your blessing to Jack and I’s dishonest union, there are no takesies-backsies!”

“I should never endeavor to undertake such an action, sir.”

“Then you’re not off the false engagement idea?”

“Certainly not, sir. In fact, it’s as sensibly constructed and executed an idea as I should be proud to call my own.”

“Well then, there you are!”

“Indeed, sir.” Except there was something doleful in the syllables that pointed in a different direction than assent altogether. He puttered about the room, making right-er what was surely already right, while I sat in the armchair and chewed on the invisible issue.

I set myself to the task of simply inquiring with the man what had gotten his knickers in a metaphorical knot (as he surely would not allow this to pass literally).

“I’m sorry to be indelicate and press an issue already pressed. But after many years of your acquaintance, Jeeves, I believe I can tell when you’re holding something back.”

“Is that so, sir?”

“It is.”

Jeeves went to the window, removed his handkerchief, and passed it over a slight imperfection in the glass. “It is merely my observation, sir, that such a scheme as you’ve embarked upon—regarding the engagement—can only remain effective if both parties fail to develop an actual romantic attachment.”

“Actual romantic…? Jeeves! There is no chance.”

“Indeed, sir?”

“Don’t ‘indeed, sir,’ me! The idea is beyond absurd. Why Jack would no sooner love a man than I would...” I trailed off in search of an appropriate comparison.

“I see, sir,” Jeeves spoke once more to the window.

“See what?”

“That Miss Wilberton would no sooner love a man than you would.”

“Oh no, that’s not right at all,” I dismissed the idea distractedly, “No, I was thinking: Jack would no sooner love a man than I would…an octopus. There! Nothing against cephalopods, it is simply a question of build and chemistry.”

Finally, the outer landscape having apparently lost its charm, Jeeves turned his gaze once more inwards. It fell like summer light upon the night-chilled frame. “Most apt, sir,” a smile warmed his eyes, “most apt, indeed.”

My mouth went dry. Thoughts of my conversation with Jack and Mary the previous night came trickling down from brain to lips.

“Jeeves, darling?”

“Yes, sir—”

Although ‘yes, sir’ was undoubtedly as complete a sentence as Jeeves usually required, this particular utterance left the distinct impression of lacking a period to complete it. Given this peculiar absence of typical punctuation, I listened back over the previous syllables of our little tête-à-tête.

I paled.

“Ah, listen…”

“Yes, sir?”

“What I said just now—”

“Yes, sir.”

“It was, ah, what you may call a slip of the old tongue. A misdeed of the mouth. A lapse in the yap-trap.”

“Yes, sir, most understandable.”

“I wouldn’t want you to think that I—I mean to say, that is—actually, I wouldn’t want you to not think that I’m—or rather…” My self-knot-tying reached the pretzel-stage in record time, but Jeeves, poor chap, looked in no fit condition to fish me out of this soup of my own making.

“I say, old thing!” I said rather desperately, “I just wouldn’t want you to be offended by the misbehaving Wooster beak.”

“Offense is not the condition into which I entered upon hearing the mistaken appellation, nor should it ever be so in similar circumstances, sir.”

“Right! Not offended,” I repeated, feeling that this was the kernel of the matter, “That’s pretty rummy of you, considering.”

“Not at all, sir.”

“Well, so, you’re saying…we’re all clear and even?”

“As we always are, sir.”

“Excellent. Topping. Perfect-o!”

“Yes, sir. Shall I prepare your brandy, sir?”

“Ah, yes, without delay.”

Jeeves returned—without a moment’s delay—and proffered the beloved beverage.

“Thank you, darling—Jeeves!”

It was, as the poets say, too little, too blasted late.

When I tell you, dear reader, that I could have died just then and there, I don’t want you to imagine I was in the situation oft expressed by speakers in novels wherein they claim to seek death but really merely wish to be transported from an awkward position. No, I say I could have died in the most literal sense available—finito, caput, doing the final sleepy mamba to the grave. I heard Saint Peter muttering expletives as he looked over the roster of my life and I spotted the undertaker checking my measurements.

Yet, despite the harrowing near-death experience the young master was currently rafting, Jeeves merely blinked and suggested, “Perhaps another brandy is required, sir.”

I gargled accordance, not trusting the traitor known as language just yet, and accepted the peace offering. “Too much time with Jack, I suppose,” I muttered, before doing my damnedest to drown myself in the tumbler.

Chapter Text

Having completed an afternoon at the Drones, Jack and I strolled down the pavement together towards homebase, the former pondering out loud, “My Mary’s birthday is thrumming over the horizon, and I am simply wringing myself out in the search for a worthy gift.”

“You can’t think of anything she’d like?” I ventured, ready with some plum replies along the lines of the ever popular ‘novelty rubber chicken,’ were this to be the case.

“Oh, I know well enough her general likes and dislikes. There’s always the usual, foot-wear and neck spritzes, but I already have a habit of purchasing said luxuries at an astonishing rate. I can’t help myself!”

“It’s quite true, she’s the best hooved and scented girl this side of the channel.”

“Mere objects simply aren’t enough to serve as expressions of my affection. They are but tokens!”

“Some girls do appreciate a well selected bit of token-ry.”

“How about you? Have you ever located a real corker to present to Jeeves on his birthday?”

“Jeeves’ day of birth remains a secret known only to him, and presumably his mother,” I admitted, “as such, the opportunity of gift-giving in that particular circumstance has not arisen.”

“Oh, a shame,” Jack gave my shoulder a truculent sort of squeeze that resulted in slight local anesthesia, “we truly have located two of the most mysterious to share our lives with.”

“Truer words, old man,” I sighed, “but as long as there’s happiness in the home, I suppose neither dispelling mystery nor gift-location-skills are really vital to ensuring long-term contentment.”

“The home!” Jack shouted, halting without warning and stopping up London pavement traffic for at least three blocks. “That’s it, Bertie, that’s it!”

“What’s it?”

“Home!” she repeated, with no less illumination for us uninitiated. “Never mind, my dear, it’s a personal scheme which I shall have to work out on my own time.” She resumed forward motion and the city breathed a sigh of relief.

We reached the flat shortly thereafter and Jack asked if she could possibly impose upon the use of my telephone, to which I graciously acceded. She returned post-call in a manner of jubilance which I well recognized as preceding one of her great physical shows of emotion. I braced duly.

Jack is not something you choose, she is something that happens to you, and you’d simply best hold on for dear life. So, to dear life I held as she scooped me up around the middle in an embrace that left my feet dangling several inches above the carpet and my arms stuck up like sticks about her neck.

“Bertie, my dear, your genius is unrecognized and underappreciated! Following your advice, I have set into motion the wheels of the perfect gift for my darling girl.”

“Glad to hear it, old chap,” I coughed from my jolly impressive altitude, “Thought I haven’t the foggiest what this grand advice was.”

“Jeeves!” she called as the man condensed into existence beside the bar, “Are you aware that your employer is of a singular intelligence and warmth of spirit when attending to matters of the heart?”

“I have often had occasion to note the characteristics of which you speak, sir,” Jeeves agreed, with an introspective sort of look as he observed said employer still hoisted a goodly distance above the floor.

Noticing as if for the first time that she still held me prisoner, Jack laughed and dropped me back to earth with a resounding thud. Jeeves helpfully laid a hand at my elbow lest my sudden fall lead to lightheadedness (in truth, the hand-at-elbow procedure was more likely to produce the effect).

Seeing that I was once again to rights and planted on my own pins, Jeeves returned to the important work of brandying and sodaing. I watched him go with an expression apparently inducing pity in my friend, for she gripped me by the lapels and wiggled me lightly back and forth as she whispered, “Here I was, thinking you were receiving liberal doses of affection on at least an hourly basis, and from highly trained hands. Now, the truth is out, and I find you a lonely figure.”

I hissed back, hand covering my mouth, “Nonsense.”

“Positively tragic,” she insisted.

“Surely an overstatement.”

“It’s not. My heart bleeds, Bertie.”

I pleaded with silent but soulful eyes for her to move along to a safer topic of conversation. Exhibiting a stunning lack of true friendship, she ignored my supplication and announced loudly, “You see, Jeeves, how even a simple embrace of brothers affects him? Man cries out for a tender touch but his call is lost in the frigid wasteland of modernity.”

“Modernity isn’t frigid,” I complained, “If you find it so then you’re misusing your radiator.”

“Silly boy,” she thwacked me on the back and I nearly coughed up viscera. “The issue remains that I simply have no skill in the area. My affection for you, Bertie, is boundless but the practical application is deeply wanting. Forsooth shall embrace the lonely cavalier?”

“Now, Jack—”

“Forsooth?” she insisted.

“Forsooth my foot, I don’t believe either of us actually knows what that word means, and you’re certainly not using it correctly.”

My grammatical grappling swept aside, Jack spoke directly to Jeeves, “You are the only person available and suited to administer the needed daily dose of affection. As the keeper of my fiancé, I must ask you to do your due diligence and ensure the young master is not left cold in the frigid—”

“—not this modernity tripe again—”

“—the frigid wasteland of modernity that we call life in London.”

“I shall do my best to give satisfaction, sir,” Jeeves assured her with a typically unreadable expression.

“Excellent.” Jack clapped her massive hands together. “Now, I must be off. Aunt Imogen has finally decided on a mode of revenging herself upon me for cuffing that lord of hers around the ear. She’s sent some waif up from the country for me to shepherd about from museum to restaurant to hotel.”

Catching my shocked eye she grinned, “Aha, I see that you recall why this shall not turn in the aunt’s favor. Every once in a while, memory fades and I must top up again the many and manifold reasons why I should not be trusted with the welfare of an impressionable young girl.”

“Dancing, drinking, devilry?” I inquired.

“In short order and significant quantity. This sweet child shall leave my arms a woman of taste and backbone. And possibly armament. I don’t think nearly enough women carry knives on their persons, do you, Bertie?”

“Oh, indubitably,” I agreed, “Scandalously lacking in blades, the feminine classes are.”

“Not for long!”

She leant in to kiss my forehead and shot off a perky wink at Jeeves which reignited my briefly restrained horror at her impertinence. My fiancée she may be, but that didn’t give her the right to meddle in my love life!

“A lot of blasted cheek,” I muttered, more to calm the nerves than to spark conversation.

“On the contrary,” Jeeves had snuck closer without bothering to generate sound, “I believe your future wife—”

I shuddered and passed a hand over my eyes.

“—pardon me, sir, your companion with whom you hope to maintain a semi-permanent state of engagement, has struck a sensible note. The poets and philosophers of our state of modernity agree on very little except that estrangement is a fundamental feature of the contemporary age.”

I blinked up past the shielding fingers, “Do you…do you share this same sense of, ah, frigidity in the modern waste-scape or what have you?”

“I should hardly be able to call myself a citizen of the nouveau era if I weren’t cognizant of a certain alienation inherent to the structure of the prevailing culture.”

Nodding wisely, I attempted to pick apart any relevant meaning from this string of intelligent but unintelligible syllables, “Then, you agree? That certain affectionate gestures…”

“Certain affection gestures,” Jeeves graciously picked up the dropped phrase, “must be elicited forthrightly in order to provide a corrective for the otherwise corrosive nature of contemporary existence.” He slid ever closer. Close enough that eye contact was not just a politeness but a necessity. Close enough that a fellow might be imagining it, but was that the warmth of his solid form branching out, seeming to caress the skin with its very proximity?

“And you…you…” The words waffled about between my lips and tried to head back indoors.

“I believe, sir, if it is not too bold, that you have experienced a degree of alienation in your young life which may be in need of…correcting.”

I nodded the bean fervently.

“Far be it from me to remonstrate the behavior of one held in such high regard, but Miss Wilberton’s technique in the manner of embrace leaves something to be desired. Don’t you agree, sir?”

“Oh, entirely, entirely. Well-meant but lacking in the, er, nuances of the thing.”

“If I may demonstrate what I believe to be an improved practice of the desired undertaking, sir…?”

Speech once again absenting the premises, I resumed the nodding business.

Jeeves raised his elegant arms and, miracle of miracles, set about wrapping them tenderly around the young master. I readily reciprocated, throwing keen arms around the firm trunk, fingers settling on and—dare I say—squeezing slightly the tender flesh at hand. A sigh may have escaped at this point, but no gentleman or gentleman’s gentleman would ever comment on such.

As I was considering that the position was of such quality as to be maintained forever, Jeeves gently inquired, “Does the discomfiting condition of modernity reduce its icy grip on your soul, sir?”

“The alienation recedes, forthwith,” I muttered into the strong and pleasantly scented shoulder pressed against my snout.

Eventually the strain of social nicety and indeed the calf muscle requested we part ways, but if I may be permitted poetic license, something of the embrace remained behind in the ghost of separation.

“Thank you, Jeeves,” I said, feeling compliments were due, “Certainly, ah, effective.”

“Indeed, sir?”

“Indubitably. Quite possibly repeated treatments are indicated.”

A warm smile lurked beyond the familiar brick-and-mortar exterior, “Most likely, sir.”

I made a mental note to send Jack several hundred roses at the nearest convenience.

It was not Jack that I ran into next, however, but her better half.

The effective but painfully acute intervention of my old friend into the affair of Courting Jeeves Without Jeeves Catching On led me to wonder if Jack's own Miss Mary might not provide a more subtle yet equally efficacious suggestion towards forwarding the scheme.

I came across Mary in a crowd of onlookers watching some chaps play a bit of rugby in the park. I easily spotted Jack among these chaps, what with her red hair and red blood and tearing through the rest like tissue paper, where ‘the rest’ constituted a number of extremely burly and street-hardened thugs.

“What ho, Miss Mary,” I greeted the delicate blonde, who was chewing her nails and looking as if she wished to be just about anywhere else.

“Oh, hello, Mr. Wooster. How nice to see you.”

“Not a nice sight here, is it.”

“No,” she agreed.

“Always one of our greatest diffs., Jack and I,” I said, dipping into reflection, “I prefer only the gentler sports, whereas she cultivates a certain degree of bloodthirst. I enjoy the merry rush of a bet brought off with profit, while she can’t understand the attraction of any endeavor that primarily involves standing on the sidelines and thinking positive thoughts.”

“I’d rather prefer she came home with fewer split lips and black eyes. But I suppose there’s little else for it, besides her taking to the street as a sort of vigilante. She’s got to get those energies out somehow.”

“Oh yes, quite,” I said distractedly, still somewhat caught up in the idea of Jack stalking criminals in the dark of night. Had to say, I didn’t fancy those hypothetical purse snatchers’ chances.

“Oh!” Mary clutched at my sleeve in a paroxysm of fright and I caught a glimpse beneath the cool, collected exterior. Ah, the power of Love, to make the strongest branch bend beneath its great whacking poundage. “Mr. Wooster,” she whispered up at me, “Would you think me terribly presumptuous if I were to take your hand and give it a squeeze when it looks like my poor Jack is on the brink of being murdered by these brutes?”

“Squeeze away, dear girl,” I said, and offered the strong, manly hand of support. “And I wouldn’t worry about Jack, she’s ten times the brute as any of these lads.”

On consideration, this seemed slightly impolitic a statement, but little Mary just pressed the flesh with industry and slammed her eyes shut.

“Think of how I feel, Mr. Wooster,” she said with gaze still averted, “Imagine the person you love most in all the world being repeatedly hurled to the ground and covered in the furious muscled bodies of a dozen filthy, grunting men!”

I thought of my relevant person, and duly imagined him beneath the pile of so-described masculine flesh, and I readily admitted I didn’t care for the concept at all, and gave Mary’s hand a bracing squeeze from my side of our private arm wrestling match (score: zero to Bertram).

“Miss Mary…”

“Yes?”

“Would it be at all acceptable for me to ask an extremely inappropriate and prying question of you?”

“I should think an inappropriate and prying question would be most welcome at this juncture. Do take my mind off the carnage by insulting me thoroughly, please.”

“Right ho! It is simply that…since we spoke so candidly that evening in the billiard room of Jack’s homestead, I have been thinking…well, I should be greatly, er, grateful to know…how did Jack…?” I dropped my voice even lower, “I mean to say, in what manner did Jack communicate her, ah, interest? In you? To you?”

“Oh, that,” Mary smiled softly, eyes fading away from the field to a romantic past. “As a matter of fact, it was I who made clear my interest first.”

“Really! Then, er, if you don’t mind my asking…”

“It was very simple, actually.”

“Yes?”

“Yes, I simply joined her in the bath.”

“…in the bath.”

“Yes.”

“In the bath, you joined her.”

“Precisely.”

“You joined her in the bath—”

“I did, of course, inquire as to whether my company would be desirable in the circumstances.”

“Yes, naturally…”

“And she fortunately acquiesced, with delight, if I may put a somewhat fine point on it.”

“A finer point never made.”

“It made matters quite unambiguous between us.”

“Yes! Unambiguous. Exactly the word I was seeking.”

Mary rustled her skirts apologetically, “I’m afraid such an approach may be inapplicable to other cases, however.”

“Indeed,” I nodded with fervor, “Tragically irrelevant. I mean, to begin with, a different person seeking to follow the path you forged may immediately run into practical barriers. I should think many would require an especially large tub, if at least one of the persons involved were not as petite as yourself.”

“Well said, Mr. Wooster,” she nodded sweetly. “Another aspect you must understand is that my father is an American ex-patriate, and as such, a certain degree of un-British directness does occasionally sneak into my behavioral oeuvre.”

“Quite, quite.”

“Such an approach would not be appropriate for a tender, retiring, classically English soul like your own.”

“No, no…”

“Nor, of course, would Jeeves ever take such a fearfully unswerving route.”

“Certainly not—I mean! I mean, what has Jeeves got to do with it, ha, what?” I said, feeling that I’d just saved the moment with a bit of quick thinking, but that a swift left turn wouldn’t hurt the cause either, “I say, is that meant to happen?” I pointed out at the field where Jack and about a hundred men were scrimmaging in some awful way that I felt certain couldn’t benefit either side.

“Oh!” Mary squeaked and covered her eyes.

Jack went on to survive the rugby match, and possibly her team even won, who’s to say? The nib of the matter was that I was no further along in my search for a practical yet genteel approach to making my feelings a matter of public record with Jeeves.

A week or so later, it was an unseasonably warm day in the metrop. and a round of poker was all the sport either Jack or I could bear to face.

Poker was always a particularly rummy experience with Jack because I couldn’t bluff worth a damn and she couldn’t remember which combinations of cards are worth more than other combos., so we usually came out even wins and losses-wise. We were bungling a round of cards in our shirtsleeves, as wind from the open window ruffled our hair and routinely upset the game. She was clad in a pretty fruity green-stripe button down cuffed at the elbow to make room for her rugby-toned forearms.

Jeeves had caught my longing gaze for her exquisite garment out of the corner of his eye and immediately announced loudly and without further provocation that it really was such a pity that Mr. Wooster’s light, tender complexion could not balance the rich, forceful tone of colors like chartreuse—unlike Miss Wilberton, whose robust tan naturally paired successfully with the hue.

I should have complained of the ill-treatment of my natural coloring, which surely could support the likes of a hearty green if given a bit of practice, but Jack laid her cards down with a victorious cry of, “I’m out!

“Pardon? We’re playing stud, not canasta.”

Jack took her chin in her hand. “Oh, that’s quite right. Sorry, my dear!”

“No, I’m not faring much better, I seem to have acquired seven cards.”

“That’s not right either, what?”

“I suspect it’s entirely incorrect unless I am also secretly playing canasta. What say you, Jeeves?”

“I must agree that seven cards is precisely two cards over what is called for in the title of the game ‘five card stud,’ sir.”

Jack swiped a hand over her perspiring map, “I say, I’m not usually this hopeless at cards, but the blasted heat has cooked my brains into an unseasoned pudding.”

She glanced over at Mary, who was draped delicately across a chair nearby, loosening the neck of her dress to flash her collarbone a bit of fresh air.

“Then again,” Jack grinned at the sight, “perhaps something can be said for these temperatures.”

“Dog,” I coughed loudly and kicked her shin under the table. 

She laughed and kicked right back. “I think what this game needs is to strengthen the number of players. What say you, Jeeves?”

“I should be delighted to participate, sir,” Jeeves acceded from where he was hovering nearby, completely lacking in sweat, perspiration, and dew.

“What of Miss Mary?” I asked.

Jack clucked her tongue, “I can’t usually get Mary to play, as the coarse game upsets her delicate constitution.”

Mary rose to brush a stray auburn curl off of Jack’s damp forehead, “Also, I win quite inevitably.”

“Yes, there’s that too.” Jack gave Mary a fond pinch. “Well, what say you, Wooster? Prepared to lose your shirt?”

“Always!”

“Perhaps a cool beverage before we begin, sirs and miss?” Jeeves suggested, and the words had hardly left his lips before we all heartily agreed.

Just then the doorbell rang, and so with the kind of silent communication such super-intelligences possessed, Mary agreed to go to the kitchen to presumably prepare the necessary refreshments while Jeeves attended the entryway, leaving Jack and I panting a bit and trying to remember how to count to ten.

“Mr. Little, sir,” Jeeves announced as he returned, the Bingo himself right behind. To a stranger or even a mediocre friend, the Jeevesian dial might have appeared as tranquil as a pond on a windless day. But with my practiced eye, I could locate signs of concern, even agitation. Why Bingo, a familiar and usually harmless sort of cove, should produce such consternation in my stolid and solid man, I couldn’t guess.

“What ho, Bingo!” I received him cautiously, “It’s been a while since you darkened my doorstep.”

“Hallo, Bertie,” Bingo sighed, “That’s the life of a working man. I’ve been sweating out in the country trying to drum up enough of the oofy stuff to live on, while you sip martinis in the cool embrace of the city. I’m here town now to tow about the dratted kid I’m tutoring this season.”

“Tough bird?”

“The stringiest. I haven’t got long before I’ll have to retrieve him from the museum, but I couldn’t bear to just sit around. This blasted town is not fit for human habitation.”

“Well, good thing it’s just you here, then.”

“I figured I could find respite in the home of a friend.”

“Always. We were just sitting down to a hand of poker. Oh, I’m sorry, have you met Jack?” I gestured to the Jack of reference.

I stole another look at Jeeves, wondering if perhaps he’d divined some hint that young Bingo and Jack would take one look at each other and immediately commit to a lifelong hatred.

“I say!” Bingo perked up, came around, and dragged a seat nearer Jack, “That’s some shirt you’ve got there.”

“Thank you, old chap!” Jack beamed, “It’s an import from my time in France.”

They began to prattle a bit about cufflinks and tie pins, and it seemed to me about as neutral ground as you could find, and about as positive a meeting as two heat-soaked fellows on a miserable day like this could spark off.

Then Mary returned with a tray of drinks and the mental dominoes fell with a resounding ker-plop.

“Oh!” Bingo shot to his feet, nearly upending the table and cards and card-players-in-waiting.

“Oh, hello,” Mary smiled, setting the beverages down.

“This is my girl, Mary,” Jack said, placing a hand at the small of Mary’s back as she took a seat beside her lady.

“Hello, Mary,” Bingo said breathlessly, still standing.

I couldn’t believe it—or rather, I could entirely believe it, but rather wished it wasn’t occurring so I wouldn’t have to believe it.

Bingo had developed the look of a very sick goat, which was in Bingoese a sure sign of imminent all-consuming obsession with the nearest feminine creature.

Bingo’s instant love connections often fizzled out one-sided and unfulfilled, but this particular bolt from the blue promised to be a good deal more than just unrequited—lethal, is perhaps the word I’m seeking here.

Now all that remained was to twiddle one’s thumbs and observe the clock hands clicking closer to doom as an inevitable sequence of events took place: Bingo would make his amorous feelings known, Jack would take issue, Bingo would persist, and then Jack would take off Bingo’s head. Unless, of course, a spot of quick Wooster thinking could break the chain.

“I say!” I shouted, and once all eyes were on B. W. continued, “It’s a spot of warm weather we’re having, isn’t it?”

“Quite,” Mary agreed. Her bright round eyes informed me that the coming apocalypse had not escaped her notice.

“Yes,” Bingo piped up, “Dreadful heat. Makes a fellow feel funny all over.” He gazed longingly at Mary. Jack interceded her bulk between gazer and gazee.

“Perhaps you’re coming down with something, Mr. Little,” Jack suggested, the fondness of nicknames a thing of the past. “You seem a bit feverish.”

“Yes, a fever, most possible,” Bingo sighed.

Jack snorted like a bull spotting a bright flag. The flag, in this case, being Bingo’s head, which she (the bull) should quite like to impale quicklike.

“Bingo,” I tried again, “Now, I can’t quite recall, but weren’t you entangled with some girl last time we spoke?”

“Helen,” Bingo replied blandly, “yes, I’d nearly gotten engaged to her last fall. But she went off and eloped with the butcher. All well in the end, for she had an inordinate attachment to cats, and as you know, I’m terribly allergic.”

“Cats! Yes, most marvelous creatures,” I complimented their taste in being allergens to one such as Bingo, “Speaking of, you’re absolutely bursting over with cats at home, aren’t you Miss Mary?”

Mary took her cue, “Oh, yes, I’ve got ten or twenty around the place at any given time.”

“I love animals,” Bingo declared, “What’s a little sniffle in light of their pure love?”

Mary, Jeeves, and I exchanged a hopeless glance. Jack had pierced Bingo with a stare that by all rights should have left him drained of several pints of blood.

The subtleties were straight out, directness was the only thing for it. Yet, I wondered if perhaps discretion would prevent Jack from making her possession of Mary’s romantic affections known.

That was not the case.

It was the work of a moment to have Mary very nearly in Jack’s lap. They were now sharing a glass of lemonade. Their attachment could not be clearer if they wore a celebratory sash draped round their shoulders spelling it out in bright red letters.

But there was no hope of this display discouraging Bingo who, like the homing pigeon, would come to roost no matter wind, rain, snow, or extremely violent lovers.

I turned to Jeeves with desperation beating out sweat from every pore. We cannot allow the flat to become a battleground, I silently cried, think of the carpets!

Jeeves must have been busy sending up psychic smoke signals to his counterpart because Mary rose and announced the next moment, “You gentlemen must be starving. I’ll just go see if we have anything edible in the icebox.”

“Oh, allow me to assist!” Bingo bounded upright but Jack’s hamlike fist shot out to grab him by the tie.

“I’m sure she can manage the lengthy trip through the sitting room on her own,” Jack declared while Bingo gasped for air.

“Bwahh—” Bingo’s protests, when he couldn’t communicate them by voice, he attempted to share via hand gestures.

“I’ll go with the girl,” I said, hurrying around to Mary’s side and wondering if she could perhaps be gently ejected via window to safe harbor, “hostly duties and all that. Jeeves!”

“Yes, sir?”

“Why don’t you deal the fellows a nice soothing hand of, ah…go fish, perhaps?”

“A pleasant suggestion, sir,” Jeeves agreed, retrieving the deck and attempting to induce Jack to substitute a hand of cards for her hold on Bingo’s throat.

Mary and I fled to the kitchen, General Wooster covering the rear flank during retreat. As soon as we crossed the threshold, Mary took hold of my elbow and quite professionally arranged me at a strategic position near the door from whence we could observe the action with clear sound and picture.

“Got any threes?” Bingo offered senselessly, not even looking at his cards, his whole body extended towards the kitchen as greatly as possible while still technically remaining seated.

“Go fish.”

“Miss Wilberton,” Jeeves cut in smoothly before Jack could think better of abandoning that throttling enterprise so soon, “I wonder if you could remind me when Miss Mary’s nuptials are to take place?”

“Pardon?” Jack and Bingo said in precisely the same tone of shocked horror.

“Miss Mary’s wedding, sir,” Jeeves coughed politely, “to the rather energetic gentleman. I imagine it had to be postponed significantly what with that business surrounding the unlikely disappearance of the gardener. As I understand, his bloodied rake was later found in the garden of Miss Mary’s fiancé. Not to mention there are those manslaughter charges the local magistrate keeps threatening to make good on.”

Jack blinked in bafflement and I sympathized entirely. Bingo looked like he’d met with a garden implement of his own, though I felt less sympathy in that case.

“The possibility of a prison term does rather tend to hamper the scheduling of festivities, does it not, sir?” Jeeves pressed.

It finally clicked. “Ah, yes, that wedding,” Jack realized with a wicked sort of grin. “Mary’s wedding, to that lunatic chap.”

“She’s—I mean to say, the girl is engaged?” Bingo goggled miserably, “And it’s, it’s quite, ah, serious?”

“Oh, deadly so,” Jack assured him.

“But how can you allow such a sweet, kindly creature to become entangled with a—a jailbird?”

“The gentleman in question has not actually done hard time just yet, sir,” Jeeves clarified, “Though you are not wrong in suspecting that the person Miss Mary is attached too is the violent sort, and not always of sound judgement.”

“You mean, a bit of a madman?”

“That rather undersells the situation, sir. It was only last week that he arrived at the flat to dangle Mister Wooster from the sitting room window for a misunderstanding surrounding the sale of a small quantity of flaxseed.”

Bingo adjusted his wrung-out tie. “I see. Well,” the deterred suitor made a show of checking his watch, “I hope you don’t mind, but I think I’ve let the time slip by. I’d best go collect my charge. It was jolly nice to meet you, Jack. Jeeves, would you tell Bertie I’ve had to skedaddle?”

“Certainly, sir.”

“I’ll show you out,” Jack declared, clasping a pointed paw to Bingo’s shoulder.

“Oh, my dear Jack,” Mary squealed pianissimo to me, “I’m so proud of her!”

“Very good job not hacking off my old pal’s head,” I granted, “Admirable restraint.”

“Precisely. The last time she fended off a young man’s unwanted advances on my behalf, I’m given to understand he required a rather lengthy stay in hospital.”

I stared at the girl as Jeeves arrived to join the kitchen party.

“Of course, I’m sure your friend is really a very nice chap,” Mary assured me.

“Ah, yes, perfectly nice,” this seemed the appropriately milquetoast description, “Though I must confess, between those two options, you’ve certainly got the better. Bingo is a perfectly serviceable pal but his lips are nothing to write home about. Whereas the smacker your good lady planted on me—in the service of some necessary flimflammery at her parents’ estate—was museum-worthy, if not precisely suited to the current customer.”

“Mr. Wooster!” Mary’s eyes lit up, “You shock me. Do continue.”

“Nothing much to continue," I leaned in with a playfully arched brow, "Just a little boyish fun had, emphasis on the little, both in relation to his name and quantity.”

Mary giggled with delight but when I caught a glimpse of Jeeves, something of an altogether different nature raged just behind his mask.

The front door slammed and Jack quickly followed up the performance by erupting into the kitchen with an exclaimed, “The blasted nerve on that fellow!”

“Oh, Jack, darling!” Mary hurled herself like a small bird spotting a seed into her lady’s arms. “You were ever so calm. So controlled! I could tell you wanted nothing more than to rip out his spine and use it to jump rope, but you did not.”

“I so dearly desired to extract his intestines and string them as decorations along the streets, but I contained my rage.”

“Your wish to parade his head on a spike for all the town to see glowed like embers on the hearth of your devotion, but you held your passion in check.”

Arms encircling Mary, Jack agreed, “As tightly as I hold you in my embrace, darling.”

“Good lord,” I murmured, then spoke more loudly, “Why, Jeeves!” I felt without looking behind me for the sleeve of comfort and caught it.

Jeeves coughed at being caught. “Yes, sir?”

“It being such a fine day and all—”

“—pardon, sir?”

“—yes, well, perhaps fine is an overstatement. Still, surely there is fineness contained even within this foul weather. The soul of the current interview, however, is this: should we not vacate the premises so as to enjoy whatever hell this is more thoroughly?”

“As you wish, sir.”

We bid farewell to the jubilant couple, who paid us no mind.

Putting on hat and coat in this weather was akin to heaping the graveyard dirt on one’s own coffin, but needs must when the devil drives up the mercury, or however that saying goes.

The sun beat down on us as we stepped onto the exterior pavement but we were undeniably better off.

“Sorry to subject us both to the outdoors on such a cooker of a day,” I explained, “but I fear that those two were going to do unspeakable things in my flat whether we were present or not, and I’d just as soon be ‘not.’”

“Very wise, sir. Jealousy can be a strange but potent aphrodisiac for some.”

“Given the evidence, I must concede that point, yet it still puzzles me. The green-eyed monster is termed ‘monster’ for good reason, I hardly find it more attractive than I would any given rabid terrier.”

“Indeed, sir.” Jeeves’ tone took on an excess of its usual somber note, “Jealousy does not befit a gentleman.”

A distant gong rang in the old brain-box. Lurking in who else’s countenance may I have spotted the emerald peepers that day? “Then again, ah, a spot of jealousy now and again doesn’t hurt. Can be a sign of the intensity of one’s love, what?”

“Also true, sir.” Jeeves allowed the shiver of a smile and the sun crowned his head in a glory of bright light.

I clutched at my collar. “It really is hot out.”

“Indeed, sir. Mr. Little’s reference to the museum earlier reminded me that that structure contains a stone-lined basement which is known to remain chill even in the warmest of summer days.”

I gripped this rescue line with both hands. “Lead on to this paradise, Jeeves, lead on!”

*****

Jack was not the type to look as if she had a secret sorrow. In fact, her sorrows were rarely secret, and much more commonly the breaking news of whatever purveyor of fine liquor was nearest to the incident in question. Mary, I had imagined, seemed more likely to develop an expression that hinted quietly—secretly, if you will—at sorrow, whilst remaining mum on the subject.

This turned out not to be the case at all. The opposite was empirically demonstrated, and in my own flat, no less.

I arrived home and had no sooner tossed aside stick and hat than my ears pricked up in notice of a sound. A sound not native to the premises. Tears, the old lemon said, those are tears falling down the cheeks of a feminine person, and at speed.

Moving with the caution befitting such a situation, I gathered my nerve and poked my head around the door of my kitchen, from whence the racket emanated.

“Ah, hello?”

I peered round and found to my considerable shock little Miss Mary sobbing her eyes out at the table while Jeeves patted her back gently, his face lined with distress.

“Hello, sir,” Jeeves greeted me coldly. “Is there something I can do for you?”

“Yes, well,” I began strongly, “You see, Jeeves, I thought I heard a girl crying back here.”

“Yes, sir.”

“And now I see there is a girl crying back here.”

“There is, sir.”

“It seemed to me if that were the case—and we’ve now ascertained it is—that something ought to be done about it.”

“Indubitably, sir.” Jeeves’ eyes flashed, and if I were a lesser man I’d have run for the hills. As it was, I only jumped, gulped, and clutched the counter as one would a treasured childhood blanket.

“What—what, what’s the matter, dear girl?” I asked the shaking Mary.

Mary gurgled, and after a moment, I came to believe that what issued forth from her mouth was language. Not being much experienced with bawling females, I wasn’t in good form on deciphering the tongue, but Jeeves slid into the conversation with a delicate, “If you’ll allow me, Mary.”

He blinked dolefully up at me and declared, “Various circumstances would suggest that, in short, Miss Wilberton has formed an attachment of no small significance to Miss Honoria Glossop.”

Mary’s muffled sobs leapt free of confinement once again and it was credit to Jeeves’ investment in the situation that he let her smear tears and a great deal worse on his impeccable jacket.

“Jack? After Honoria Glossop?” I checked.

“It would appear so, sir.”

“Well, that’s absolute rot!”

“If I may, sir,” Jeeves cut in, and I was vividly reminded of the running-for-the-hills impulse of approximately fifteen seconds earlier. “The evidence in favor of such a conclusion is significant. Miss Wilberton has spent the last three nights at the Glossop estate, her time consumed with Miss Glossop’s company, and just this morning…she sent Mary to return to their London lodgings with no explanation or stated date of reunion.”

“Oh-h-h,” Mary broke in, not at first appearing up to making a more substantial comment than that, but after a few more moments she finally managed, “I can hardly—hardly blame her, I mean, Miss Glossop,” Mary said the name with the venom I’d often thought it deserved, “is a lady. A real lady. And I’m—I’m—I’m just an upstart nothing who tagged after Jack on a train!” She broke down in yet louder sobs, which were quite equal to drowning out Jeeves' and my best efforts of persuading her otherwise on the complexities of inter-class relations.

I had to admit that this did appear grim. Honoria Glossop. I shuddered to contemplate any decent cove being glued to that creature—brusque, brainy, drill-sergeant sort of girl with a voice like a train going over gravel and muscles you didn’t usually spot off a sports pitch.

“Oh lord,” I realized aloud. Now that the bean was on the job, I could see it with terrible clarity. While surely no decent human being deserved such a fate as being Mr. Glossop, it wasn’t outside the realm of possibility that old Jack would be bowled over in a fit of fondness for a vigorous, brawny type not entirely unlike her own.

“Now, that’s not to say…” I began, not quite sure where I landed on the matter.

You see my dilemma: on the one hand, Jack was one of my oldest friends, and I couldn’t see my way to endorsing such a callous interpretation of her actions. On the other hand, Jack was one of my oldest friends, and I’d once seen her manage to wine and dine three women separately in one night due to a bit of a scheduling mishap and a desire not to lose out on good odds.

“If the situation really is as dire as all that, then I feel duty-bound to intervene,” I finally concluded. “Thus, I see only one thing for it. We shall return…” A shudder wracked my frame at the thought, but I pressed on, “…to the Glossop lair. Once more unto the briefs, Jeeves!”

“I believe the word you’re seeking is ‘breach,’ sir,” Jeeves correctly lightly, sailing past.

“Right, of course. Someday I shall have the hang of that particular quotable.”

“Very good, sir. I have taken the liberty of completing the necessary arrangements so that we may depart in the two-seater without delay.”

Upon making landfall at the Glossop estate, I left Jeeves at the door to deal with practical matters—setting a pot of oil boiling, sharpening the stakes, etc.—while I located a member of the household who kindly informed me that the subject of my search was taking a pleasant turn around the garden.

I set off to make that turn rather less pleasant.

“Jack!” I called as soon as I spotted her distinctive silhouette.

“Bertie, darling!” Jack clapped my shoulder and I clapped hers back, before I remembered that she was speeding towards enemy-status and one shouldn’t dispense good solid friendly shoulder-claps to the enemy, whether or not you were currently engaged to them.

“Don’t ‘Bertie, darling,’ me, old chap,” I said as sternly as I could, which in all honesty, wasn’t very.

“Why not? Bertie, darling, are you in one of your silly moods?”

“I jolly well am not! What with Mary turning up in my kitchen—”

“She made it back to London alright, then? Good. I had wondered when she didn’t call…” She took my shoulder again with a more serious expression than usually twisted her handsome features. “She doesn’t suspect, does she?”

“Suspect? Suspect!” I could’ve frothed at the mouth at the nervy, straightforward confirmation of all. “Yes, I think she bloody well does suspect!”

“Oh, dash it all!”

“Dash it all, indeed!” I fumed, a Renaissance masterpiece of righteous fury. “Dash it all to pieces and then run the pieces over with a cab and dash them again. It is off!”

“What’s off?”

“We are! I should not very much like to be engaged to someone who goes around behind my back making love to girls who aren’t the girl I quite supported her making love to behind my back.”

Silence trooped between us with heavy, clumsy feet. “Bertie, old thing, I don’t follow a word,” she finally confessed.

“I mean to say, you breaking poor Mary’s heart to chase after Honoria Glossop, of all people—”

“What?”

“You and Honoria fluttering off together after you send Mary packing!”

“How absurd!” Jack looked not unlike a hedgehog recently concussed with the business end of a spade. “Me and Honoria? She’s a fine enough girl to talk philosophy with, and you know how I despise philosophy—”

“—that’s true—”

“But me send Mary packing? Why I only bade her return to London so she wouldn’t find out!”

“Find out what?”

“About my getting that nasty old Sir Roderick to grant me permission to build the house! He’s been awfully stubborn. You know these psychological types, no patience with me.”

I nodded, having experience both in the specific and the general with these psychological types having no patience with me, either.

“But I think I’ve just about cracked him. He can dislike me all he likes—more so, even, as it helps my cause—because blast it, I’m not leaving until he gives me the say-so.”

“The say-so to say what, so?”

“Worchestichere-Over-Dale,” Jack explained impatiently, “The Glossops have ancestral claim to development of the outlying areas. If I were to build a home there, it would require the creation of roads and wells and all that tosh. If I’m going to be digging up those precious grasses, then I must have Sir Roderick’s blessing. And since it became immediately clear I would not acquire such by charming him, I turned instead to charming his daughter.”

“That still sounds rather cad-ish behavior, what?”

“Hardly!” Jack puffed out her chest with indignance. “My actions with Honoria have been nothing short of—well, honorable. Nonetheless, her father despises my infectious closeness with his only daughter, leaving rather a ripe opportunity to exploit his backwards thinking for my own ends. A silent bit of blackmail, you see? I’ll sever my friendly ties to your little girl—whom, I would add, may yet someday be a lovely addition to the world of women who eschew men’s intimate company—if you give me a few measly infrastructural allowances!”

Doing all in my power to follow this, I confessed to not understanding one small detail: “And what in the world does this have to do with poor Mary?”

“Why, her people are from just beyond the hill of Worchestichere-Over-Dale! You hardly think I’d set up shop in such an infernally quiet neck of English woods for no reason, do you?”

“No, no,” I rushed to assure.

“Naturally, the surprise of my gift would be quite ruined if Mary were to overhear the details of this little set-up before their completion. I’d trade my very life to see her expression when she realizes we’ll be installed not a hop, skip, nor jump from that steel-faced mother of hers.” Jack’s own face took a funny turn, which I deduced to be an acute case of lovesickness.

“Now, Bertie,” her floaty expression became ground-bound once more, “why on earth have you come scampering in, chattering nonsense about that Honoria girl?”

“What?” I was quite at a loss. I’ve been wrong-footed before, but this case was rather more like stamping said foot down in the Arctic when you’ve dressed for the Sahara. Which is to say, I wanted mainly to do a bit of sobbing and leave forthwith. “I—er—I’m afraid I was a bit…a bit confused, old thing…”

“I’d say more than a bit!”

“Yes, quite…” My eyes bulged, my head spun, my stomach did positive gymnastics as I realized that for once, I was not the only one who’d been codswalloped by soupy circumstances. “Jeeves!” I realized.

“Ah, yes,” Jack gave my back a bracing pat, “do say hello to your man, from me. I’m sure he took good care of Mary as she struggled on without the young mistress to tend to.”

I made a noise like a chappie swallowing a goldfish at gunpoint.

“Toodle-oo, darling!” Jack tossed off an exaggerated kiss which hit like a football to the noggin and sent me running off in the opposite direction.

I know very little as a general rule, but I knew in my bones that something dreadful was afoot, and there was only one person who could stop it—the person who’d almost certainly started it.

“Jeeves!” I cried, rounding the corner at unwise velocity and shooting straight into his arms.

He caught me and there was a heavy metal clunk as whatever object he’d abandoned in service of rescuing the y.m. hit the deck. The proximity of his dark, liquid eyes temporarily distracted from the news I had meant so urgently to convey to him.

“Is there something I can do for you, sir?” he inquired, carefully restoring me to my own feet, which it must be said, seemed a downgrade from the past situation.

“Um, that is…I say, Jeeves,” I gestured towards the ground, “is that a harpoon gun?”

“Why, I do believe it is, sir,” he said mildly.

“Ah. And, er, would you like to say what it’s doing here?”

“I should not, sir.”

“Well…oh! Right! Nearly forgot. Call off the hounds, or whichever breed of creature you intended to sic on poor old Jack.”

“On what account, sir?” Jeeves asked coldly.

“On account of her innocence! She made a right soup of things, I’ll be the first to admit, and she’d surely be the second, but it was quite unintentional.”

Seeing that Jeeves was not going to be leashed without a full explanation of things, I endeavored to do as solid a job as could be done with the speed required to head off whatever east wind I sensed Jeeves had summoned. “You see, she’s merely pretending to a famous friendship with Honoria in a precisely calculated maneuver to discomfit Sir Roderick Glossop to such a degree that he relents and gives in on some land rights deal or another she’s arguing with him. All in the service of seeing her Jack-iness sooner off the premises and away from his daughter!” I chortled, quite pleased at the thought of the tiresome nerve specialist developing pluckable nerves himself, due to his own short-sightedness in regards a friendship which I felt could only have done Honoria some much-needed good. “Anyhow, it’s all quite innocent, at least where Mary’s concerned. Jack just sent the girl away so as not to spoil the surprise that they’d soon be laying down roots in a home specially built to be near Mary’s people.”

“I…see.” That Jeeves left the ‘sir’ off this utterance shook me to the very core.

“Jeeves?” I inquired nervously. “Are you…quite well? Or rather, are things in this part of the world going to continue to be, ah, quite well?”

“I should say not, sir.” Jeeves’ expression shuttered. “A series of events is about to unfold over which I no longer have control, but which will end in Miss Wilberton being summarily pilloried by the entire Glossop clan. Though, I am pleased to say, not perforated with certain instruments intended to fell large aquatic mammals.” With a swift kick, Jeeves ensured the harpoon gun became quite pally with the rhododendron-dwelling worms.

“You say you can’t stop this chain reaction, then?”

“I’m terribly sorry to say, I cannot, sir.”

“Then there’s only one thing for it.” I tightened my tie and straightened my lapels. “Wheretofore, Jeeves?”

“If you’ll follow me, sir, we can intercept the party this way…”

We emerged from the gardens to approach the front door of the house in time to see the entire Glossop family—father, mother, daughter, and annoying little blighter of a brother—encase poor Jack in a sort of pincer move any standing army would be proud of.

“I say, is something the matter?” Jack asked, as innocent as she was baffled.

“My riding crop!” shouted Honoria.

“My teapot!” shrieked the Lady Glossop.

“My fishing pole!” cried the youngest.

“My reading glasses!” trumpeted Sir Roderick.

This array of stated objects did little to explicate the situation.

“Are we putting together a jumble sale, or..?” Jack queried politely.

The Glossops had cultivated expressions of such pure rage as to stun even the most discriminating of collectors, but this latest punted the lot even further.

“Mister Wooster!” Sir Roderick exclaimed upon spotting my personage, in a sudden relief of sensible anger. “I was not aware we had the pleasure of your company.” He said ‘pleasure’ in the manner a person more often pronounces ‘misery.’ “But upon learning this fact, the current situation becomes rather clearer.”

“Does it?” Jack asked earnestly. “I say, I didn’t know you Glossops were pals of my fiancé!”

Sir Roderick: “Pals!”

Honoria: “Fiancé!”

“Ah, yes, did I forget to mention that?”

“Of course, you two are bound together!” Sir Roderick roared, “I should think it well matched—scum for scum!”

“I say!” Jack protested, and I saw the old firelight come to life behind her eyes. Whereas I favored flight, she would take fight every time.

“Now listen here, Roddy,” I took liberty with the old man’s name considering I was most certainly about to be flounced from the premises and may as well get my money’s worth, “I don’t take particularly well to your speaking that way to my beloved and belovely betrothed.”

“I’ll speak anyway I like to this…this rogue!”

Jack and I exchanged a disappointed glance. Rogue? We’d been called worse for skivving off the last ten minutes of church services. Hardly seemed a sufficient insult given the circumstances. Speaking of…

“What precisely are you hefting such, ah, serious language about for?” I inquired.

“I believe there has been a spree of practical joking on the premises,” Jeeves commented ruefully, having shimmered into place at my side.

“If you call these acts of criminal malintent mere joking matters!”

I laughed weakly, “Can something involving teapots and reading glasses be considered a crime?”

Sir Roderick actually leapt at me at this point. I do believe Jack would have stepped in after she’d gotten over the bally shock of the whole thing, but that wasn’t quite soon enough. I readied a full-body flinch, awaiting the blow, but experienced only a soft rush of wind as the slender form of the Glossop patriarch flopped upon the ground at my feet, having been tripped.

I cannot use anything but the passive voice to describe this incident. The perpetrator of said trip was utterly invisible. Yet, I knew in my heart of hearts who it was.

Jeeves coughed, the only sign that he was even present in our physical plane. I gazed at him in rapt amazement—truly, there is no man, no marvel, the equal of my Jeeves.

Jack, being a sporting chap, knelt to help Sir Roderick to his feet. He accepted the help only enough to launch at her throat once upright.

“I did it!” I cried, and the farce froze like actors at intermission. “I did…the crime, to which you refer. I am the one who…”

Jeeves stepped forward and whispered the necessary facts in my ear.

“Good lord! Really?” I quivered a bit, and then continued the confession, “I’m the one who…who substituted your treasured belongings for…various rude vegetables which resemble…er…rather inappropriate…aspects of the human form.”

“You mean to claim responsibility for this outrage?” Sir Roderick’s eyebrows bristled to an even more threatening degree. “How then, do you explain that the…herbaceous atrocities…bore the initials of Miss Wilberton carved into their hated flesh?”

“I’m afraid Mr. Wooster’s ill-timed joke was truly aimed at his bride to be,” Jeeves sliced in like a rescue clipper on the high seas. “You see, he and the future Mrs. Wooster—” Jack and I both balked at that dreaded sobriquet, “—have an enchanting habit of engaging in lighthearted mischief, and to speak to their competitive natures, then ensuring the other is blamed for it. You’ll find the original, desired objects stowed away beneath Miss Wilberton’s bed, to further this aspect.”

“Oh!” the Lady Glossop and son fled immediately to the house to retrieve their apparently essential-to-life teapot and fishing rod. Sir Roderick remained to dish out the lashes and Honoria, being one who liked the rough stuff, remained to observe.

“I see.” Sir Roderick still regarded us both with nothing short of loathing, but it was lessened by a degree in respect to Jack. “Then there is but one true villain to this story, and one more victim. I can only assume, Miss Wilberton, that you shall be concluding your attachment to this—this excrement, forthwith!”

“I say…I say…”

“You must, Jack,” I urged, “I’m no good.”

“Bertie!” her eyes had turned so mournful as to make the most calloused desperado break down and call for his mother.

“I release you, dear Jack—er—Miss Wilberton, from our bond.”

“Then I…I release you, as well, old thing—that is, Mister Wooster.”

Sir Roderick issued a pleased grunt. “Very well, then. I suppose that will have to be punishment enough, short of the firing squad. Mr. Wooster, I presume you don’t need me to tell you that you’re summarily banished from this estate?”

“Ah, yes. Well, no, you don’t need to tell me, that is, I think I’ve rather gotten hold of the idea.”

“And Miss Wilberton…you may have your land permissions, if you will only leave us now in peace.”

“I say…that’s…”

“Jolly well generous of you!” I slapped Jack on the shoulder before she could undercut this ripe development.

Sir Roderick let loose a final squawk of frustrated rage and good old Jack and I sprang back. Honoria laid a forlorn sort of look on Jack before being dragged away from our little circle of inequity by her father.

We watched the doctor stomp back to the house, myself feeling relieved, Jack the pinnacle of puzzlement.

“Bertie, darling—well, ex-darling. I don’t understand an ounce of this soup we’ve just swum out of.”

“I understand only a cupful myself, ex-dearest.”

Jeeves coughed a cough laden with regret. “Sirs, I must at this juncture make clear both my culpability in the matter and my deepest regrets for having instigated it.”

“Why—you mean—Jeeves,” Jack was heartily gobbed-and-smacked, “why would you do such a thing?”

“I was under the mistaken impression that you were giving Miss Honoria your fullest attentions having—to use the common parlance—given Miss Mary the toss over.”

“You…why! I would never!”

“That much has become clear to me, I fear, too late. I should be only too glad to take any requested measures to correct this mistake, including a foreclosure on my time in Mister Wooster’s service…”

“Slow down, old thing—” I said at the same time as Jack protested, “Apply the brakes, old man!”

She continued, “Jeeves. You are, to put it simply, a topping kind of chappie. Although I hardly enjoy being dipped in the boiling broth, I can’t deny that it has produced the desired results. And most importantly, you did what you did for the very best of reasons: to protect my Mary. I can hardly begrudge you that, a sacred duty I share. Besides,” she gave me a colossal squeeze about the waist, “old Bertie here could hardly forgive me if I chucked his man in the pond for a little misunderstanding!”

“Seconded!” I affirmed.

“Your forgiveness is most appreciated, sirs.”

“Well, then!” Jack clapped her hands together, the matter put to rest, “I’d say it’s about time we toddled on from this wretched estate for the fairer climes of good old London town.”

She and I laughed at the ripeness of it all and Jeeves looked on with placid bemusement, undercut by something a talented poet may know how to describe, but which I could only meet with a breathless wanting silence.

Jack packed up her things and we fled the scene forthwith. We journeyed immediately to my flat, where we’d left Mary safely ensconced with a good book and certain confectionary comforts.

If you haven’t already guessed, Mary did forgive Jack. She threw a chocolate egg cream in Jack’s face upon our return and stomped on Jack’s foot with aggravated intent, but upon application of calm words and a bit of brandy from Jeeves, she calmed down enough to listen. After detailing the extenuating circumstances, forgiveness was once more installed on her throne.

We had a very fine dinner—the preparation of which Jack insisted Mary play no part in so as to relax, and so she attempted to substitute for her girl’s duties, at which point Jeeves had to lay firm ground rules about which persons were allowed working entry to His Kitchen—and some very fine wine and some positively rummy conversation flowed. Then we packed my good old ex-fiancée and her lovely girl into a cab and sent them home to continue making things up to one another, minus unnecessary audience.

Jeeves was straightening up and I was observing the procedure with a comfortable sort of feeling when he gently slipped some syllables into the air. “If now is an appropriate time, sir, I should like to continue my apology from earlier.”

“Oh? Well, I hardly think that’s necessary. All’s well that ends well, Jeeves, if I may quote the bard.”

“You may, sir.”

“Right-o!”

“But if I could, sir, I would still express some explanation for my actions today.”

“Go on, if it will make you feel better.”

“Thank you, sir.” Jeeves didn’t look particularly like it would make him feel better, per se, more that he had little internal choice in the matter. Not unlike a fellow who’s drank too much and is about to introduce his breakfast to the roadside. “I wish to say that my actions were unforgivable, though your kindly nature has already seen to forgiving them. Not least, they were indefensible because they were motivated by a jealousy that I am most ashamed to admit.”

“Jealousy?”

“Yes, sir. You see, I believe the ill wisdom of my actions was, in part, determined by a certain foreclosing of insight based on an inaccurate conjecture I made regarding the nature of Miss Wilberton’s affection for you, and yours for her.”

“I…don’t quite follow you, Jeeves.”

“I operated under the misapprehension that you and Miss Wilberton may be falling in love.”

“I say.” Then, for good measure, “I say. Jeeves, have we not been through this before? I thought you were something past genius, yet you couldn’t decipher that I’m jolly well not Jack’s type?”

“Upon measured reflection that does seem obvious, sir. However, your camaraderie was such that I mistakenly believed there may have been more than mere friendship brewing in your potential marriage.”

“Well. I suppose a fellow can be forgiven for thinking an almost husband and wife had a bit of non-platonic affection for each other, what?”

“Yes, sir.”

“But I can’t imagine old Jack falling for any chappie, even me, not in a month of ice cream sundaes.”

“Very true, sir.”

"And I've never thought of Jack as anything but a brother!"

"Another truth conspicuous in hindsight, sir."

“Hang on,” I squinted up at Jeeves from my comfortable seat, “where did jealousy come into this?”

Jeeves looked, in a word, pained.

“If you could see your way to forgiving yet another trespass today, sir, then you’ll allow me to say that I…did not appreciate seeing your affections soaked up by Miss Wilberton. In this state of mind, I was quite ready to believe her a rake, and all too willing to exercise this aggravation in punishment for a slight unrelated to the one originally generating malice.”

My head spun with vowels and those other thingys that make up words. “Take mercy on the old lemon, Jeeves. I can only say I went to Eton, not that it had any ameliorative effects.”

Jeeves remained silent a moment, before dropping elegantly to his knees beside my chair.

Our faces (his somber, mine gaping) now nearly level, he continued. “To put it simply, sir. When I believed you and Miss Wilberton to be fine friends, I was happy. When I believed you may grow into more than friends, I was not. It became all too clear that she was not only wealthy and titled, but a cheerful and handsome companion whom I had no doubt you could grow to cherish. I envisioned you moving to a new home with her, a home together, and building a life that no longer required my presence. It made me very melancholy, and in turn, cruel.”

I reached out to grasp his shoulder but found the gesture insufficient, and so pulled on the extremity until I could clasp his hand in mine. “I’ve known you to be many things, Jeeves, most of them fantastic in the extreme. But I’ve never seen you be cruel and I don’t think I ever will.”

“Sir—”

“And to think you would believe even for a moment that I could reach a point in life that did not require your presence? Pure folly, Jeeves. Easily a bloomer of the greatest scale you could ever achieve.”

Breathlessness reigned.

In what could have been a polite aside, but I dearly hoped was not, Jeeves gathered himself up and asked with a grip on my hand, “Sir, might I inquire into your opinions on love between the classes?”

The heart nearly burst from its moorings.

“Specifically,” Jeeves pressed, “your thoughts on whether it would be possible, for instance, for a person of significant social status to express feelings of affection for one of more moderate placement?”

“Possible, perhaps, but dashed tricky business!” I explained, “I shouldn’t think it at all appropriate for a person of higher social rank to press themselves on a person held in their service, that is to say, someone who might not have the means to give them a deserved slap and tell them precisely where to get off.”

“I see. I understand your concern, sir.” Jeeves spoke rather quickly, which was not his custom. “However, you do approve of Miss Wilberton and Miss Mary’s relationship—”

“Oh, that’s entirely different,” I waved a breezy hand, “Mary was the initial party to make her interest clear. There was a rather scandalous tale involving a bathtub, as I recall, precipitating their, ah, match.”

“Indeed, sir. So, it is your sensitivity to the power imbalance inherent to relations of employment that stirs your conscience in such matters.”

“Ah, yes, or rather, I think yes. Essentially, I believe that to love is to love, but love is not love when either party cannot tell the other to take a flying leap without risking home and hearth.”

“A most just and well-considered view, sir. I would add only one small caveat to your logical perspective. Specifically, that while a working person may feel bound to accept their patron’s affections, desired or otherwise, this person would be equally obliged not to risk those same negative consequences by making known their own potentially unreciprocated feelings of warmth.”

Throat threatening to close from some emotion I dared not name, I stuttered out, “That—that is quite true. I had not taken such an essential detail into account.”

“And now, sir?”

“It occurs to me that if one found oneself in a similar posish., one may dash one’s brains out ere finding a solution with both parties’ hands thus tied. But perhaps…perhaps such circumstances call for one to prove the loyalty of their heart by taking the grim plunge nonetheless.”

Jeeves’ breath caught and I realized there could be no better time than now to make matters clear. Heroism was not my usual schtick, but there’s always a first time for something or other, hippity-hoppity ho!

“I know you think me rather negligible, brains-wise,” I saw Jeeves about to object and waved it off, “No, no, you do, and it’s quite fair, and one may say, true. I’ve no great intellect, but I don’t see that that should necessarily be a serious blow against happiness. After all, you’ve got the realm of intelligence rather vastly covered. Therefore, however brilliant I could ever be, I’d simply be a sort of paltry redundancy in case of breakdown.” I steeled myself, for if this flopped I might as well toss myself beneath the wheels of the four o’clock to Brighton. “Therefore, I feel that my other worthy qualities—of which there are, I am assured, at least one and perhaps one and a half—may come to the fore and win fair gentleman’s hand. Or, in the current case, fair gentleman’s gentleman’s hand.”

“Sir,” Jeeves raised my hand to his lips and kissed the knuckles with overwhelming tenderness, “My hand has only ever been yours to win.”

“Golly. If I’d known I was in the race, I’d have run a dashed lot harder to snaffle you from the trophy table,” I confessed, dizzy with such easy victory.

“And now, sir?”

“Now…” I clasped the graceful neck, let my fingers slide to cup the back of that brainy head, leaned down and pressed my lips to his.

I had kissed and been kissed before, of course, but this blew all past contenders so far out of the water that they should no longer qualify as aquatic dwellers. When reading romances or watching them unfold onstage, one doesn’t necessarily attend to the interplay of all the senses: not just the sight of the beloved, the music of their voice, but also the magic of their touch, the familiarity of scent, the startling newness of taste. Jeeves was simply everything in my arms.

The embrace was perfect and warm and delicious and absolutely hell on the spine what with all the romantic kneeling and grasping we’d gotten ourselves into.

The kiss escalated and so did we, the long Wooster pins stretched to maximum as Jeeves stood and took me with him, toes balanced on expensive wingtips to ensure no contact was lost. I threw my arms about his shoulders and held on lest he get any ideas about oiling off somewhere I couldn’t reach. Fortunately, his thoughts did not appear to tend in this direction, as his broad and sensible palms slid beneath the jacket of my suit to spread along the line of my back.

A resounding, buzzing, ringing racket seemed to shake the very flat itself and I clutched at Jeeves.

“The telephone, sir,” Jeeves explained, in case I hadn’t placed the abysmal noise.

“Yes, it certainly seems to be.” I wanted nothing more than to take said telephone, carry it to the window, open the sash, and quite carefully drop the confounded machine through the gap to introduce it to the waiting pavement below. “But don’t you dare answer it. I’d not have you release me now for a thousand phone calls from a thousand drowning orphans seeking rescue.”

“Considering the impossibility of parentless children accessing a telephone whilst trapped in a watery—”

“Yes, yes, so we come to the conclusion that this telephone missive cannot be of such weighty concern.” I stroked a hand through his hair, enjoying the sight of my man in a state of pleasant disarray. “In fact, no phone call could possibly be more important than this.”

“No, sir, it could not be.”

I stole another kiss before murmuring against the finely chiseled line of his cheek, “I think you’d better not call me ‘sir’ anymore, considering our, er, change in relations.”

“What would you recommend instead, sir?”

“There you go again! I shouldn’t see why my given name won’t do.”

“…Perhaps, in time. For now, it may ease your way to know that there can be no comparison between when I say ‘sir’ to strangers and when I call you ‘sir.' You are a sir—my sir—of entirely different stamp.”

“Very good, Jeeves. As long as I am yours, you can call me what you will. I’d respond equally to sir, to Bertram, to bally Saint Nicholas. Just as long as you call.”

“Yes, sir.”

Epilogue

I wandered back into awareness, the crisp morning light battering at the poor eyelids, and reached out for—

“Jeeves?”

“Sir?” Jeeves was near the bed but most notably not in the bed, a situation I neither understood nor approved of. He was also entirely and properly dressed, which was not the condition I’d last left him in.

“Well? What in the world are you doing up there?”

“Up where, sir?”

“There! There not being here, you see.” I patted the mattress in a fit of demonstration.

“I endeavored to predict that you would, regardless of the activities of the former evening, still desire your morning tea.”

“I don’t give a whit for tea!” This was a bald-faced lie and we both knew it. “I should like…I mean to say…if you…”

Jeeves perched himself on the edge of the bed and ran a finger along my jaw in a way that rather made me forget entirely about tea.

“Ah, well…” I laid a hand on Jeeves’ thigh and squeezed it in the manner of a contented cat. “I believe we may yet find our way to a compromise. For example, you may…take tea with me?”

“Very good, sir.” Jeeves stood and I couldn’t very well allow those beautiful hands to pass me by without pressing a kiss to them.

He returned with a full-laden tea tray carrying not the customary one but a delightful pair of cups.

“A telegram for you, sir,” Jeeves said, voice as imperturbable as ever, but now coming from the extremely pleasant proximity of my right ear as I ushered him to stretch out beside me. He looked a sight, shiny black shoes balanced atop the duvet. We would have to work on his capacity to unwind.

“Jolly good,” I grasped the missive and noted the sender, “Ah, it’s from Jack!”

I held it out and read, “Break ground on new home next week. You and Jeeves shall be first guests. I suspect by then you both have removed heads from sand. Guessing that why you incapable of answering phone. Happy dog! Yours forever (on loan from Mary), Jack.”

“A most perceptive gentleman, your erstwhile fiancée,” Jeeves commented, adding the milk.

“Yes, too perceptive sometimes, yet not at all at others,” I took the proffered teacup, “When she realized you and I hadn’t been wrapped in one another’s arms behind closed doors during the whole of our acquaintance, she very nearly—I say, what’s the word for a wife killing her husband?”

“Mariticide,” Jeeves supplied.

“Mariticide, not the finest way to begin a marriage. Good job that we never made is as far as a church.”

“Highly fortunate, sir.”

“Leaves a space by my side for a partner of a more suited nature.” Well aware of Jeeves’ staggering intelligence, I decided that confirmation still wouldn’t go awry, and let my weight dip eastward to press a gentle kiss to his waiting mouth. “Have you got any particular plans for the rest of your life?”

“No, sir,” Jeeves smiled with just his eyes, just for me.

“Then I’d be most honored if you would consider penciling me in.”

“With great pleasure, sir.”