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Chapter Text

Title: A Deuced Difficult Dilemma
Chapter: 1/?
Pairing: Bertie/OFC, Bertie/Jeeves (eventually)
Summary: Bertie is dismayed to find that he rather likes the latest girl that Aunt Agatha is egging him on to marry.
Rating: G (so far)
Words: 2,410-ish
Disclaimer: None of Wodehouse's characters belong to me. I'm just writing this for fun.

“Jeeves,” I said, “I shall enjoy this.”

“Yes, sir.”

“I have it straight from Aunt Dahlia’s lips that Anatole is in mid-season form.”

“Most gratifying, sir.”

“And I’m sure you must be looking forward to a little time out in the great open spaces, what?”

“Yes indeed, sir. I find the climate at Brinkley Court to be decidedly agreeable at this time of year.”

“And no doubt you will want to get in some time chivvying the local piscine denizens.”  

Those of you who are familiar with these little reminiscences of mine will no doubt have gathered by this point that self and Jeeves were preparing for a voyage, or sojourn, if you like, to my Aunt Dahlia’s country seat. We were planning to tool down in the old two-seater later that afternoon. Jeeves was in my bedroom messing about with trouserings and things in preparation for the journey, while the young master sat by providing moral support.

“Yes, sir,” said Jeeves, in reply to my most recent remark. “Mr. Seppings informs me that the fishing in Market Snodsbury is quite satisfactory this season.”

I was just formulating some sort of comeback when the telephone tinkled in the hall. I toddled over to the instrument, put receiver to ear and hullo-ed.

“Bertie, you unspeakable little blot on the landscape, is that you?” boomed a stentorian voice from the other end of the wire. I have often speculated that my Aunt Dahlia has induced premature deafness in squads of hapless switchboard operators.

“What ho, ancient ancestor,” I replied, rubbing my throbbing ear.

“Are you packing?”

“I am. Or at least, Jeeves is.”

“Well, you’d better tell him to stop. It’s all off.”

I was speechless for a moment. As you may have gleaned from my introductory obiter dicta, I had been looking forward to putting on the nosebag with this aged relative. I was stunned that she would suddenly pull in the welcome mat and give Bertram the raspberry in this heartless fashion.

“Are you there?” she bellowed.

“Yes, Aunt Dahlia, I’m here. Simply stunned.”

“Oh, don’t give me that wounded puppy routine. It’s for your own good. When your Aunt Agatha heard you were coming down, she swooped down on Brinkley Court like a malnourished vulture. She’s got some species of young female in tow that she wants to hitch you up to.”

I shuddered. “Good lord! What’s she like?” 

“About the same as usual, I should think. Lots of grey hair and a sensitive stomach lining.”

“No, dash it, not Aunt Agatha. The girl.”

“I’ve hardly spoken to the poor child myself. Can’t get her alone long enough. Agatha’s always looming over her shoulder like some sort of morbid parrot. Anyway, she seems nice enough, but we’ve hardly exchanged more than a passing how-do-you-do.”

I shuddered again, for good measure. “Well, knowing Aunt Agatha’s track record, I’d keep an eye on Uncle Tom’s silver collection if I were you.”

“What are you on about, you silly ass?”

“A sordid tale for another time, old flesh-and-blood.” I heaved a wistful s. “Very well, then. I shall give Brinkley Court a wide berth until further notice.”

“That’s a good lad. I’ll make sure Anatole keeps something in the larder for you. He’s in top form these days, you know.”

I groaned. “Have mercy, aged a.!”  

“All right, all right, stop sounding like a dying duck. I’ll let you know when the matrimonial menace blows over. And don’t say your old auntie never did anything for you.”

“I’m in your debt, Aunt Dahlia,” I said humbly. “Just as a matter of interest, what are you going to say to Aunt Agatha?”

“Oh, I’ll tell her you’ve come over with consumption or pleurisy or something of the sort. Just leave it to me, my young bloodhound.” And with that, she signed off.

It was with a heavy heart that I biffed back to the master bedroom. “Jeeves,” I said, “you might as well unpack the old kit bag. The whole thing is a bust.”

“I am sorry to hear that, sir.”

“That was my Aunt Dahlia.”

“So I gathered, sir.”

“Apparently Aunt Agatha got word that a visit from Bertram was in the offing and is now polluting Brinkley Court in the hopes of yoking me to some ghastly beazel.”

“Most disturbing, sir.”

“My thoughts exactly Jeeves. Why is it that fate always seems to crop up with the stuffed eel-skin just when things are going along at their most swimmingly?”

“There’s many a slip ‘twixt cup and lip, sir.”

“How right you are, Jeeves. Speaking of cups and lips, I think I shall go indulge in a light restorative. Care for anything, Jeeves?”

“No, sir, thank you. You are most kind.”

I had just wandered off to fix myself the soothing whiskey and s. when the telephone tootled a second time. I fetched the receiver once again, and this time held it a safe distance from the bean. “Hello again, old aunt of my b.,” I shouted across the divide. “How did the news go over?”

But the voice that crackled out of the earpiece was not Aunt Dahlia’s. “Kindly stop bellowing, Bertie,” said the v., “and do not address me in that manner. How did what news go over?”

I nearly dropped the instrument in my distress. “Aunt Agatha?” I gulped. “Terribly sorry. I thought you were someone else.”

“Do stop blithering, Bertie. Who else could I possibly be? Am I to understand you are too ill to come to Brinkley Court?”

I gave a couple of pathetic coughs. “I’m afraid so, Aunt Agatha. Terribly under the weather, you know, and all that sort of thing.”

“Well, I shouldn’t wonder. No doubt it’s that stuffy city air and unwholesome living you subject yourself to day in and day out. Spending your time running about at all hours in low nightclubs . . .”

“Oh, now come, Aunt Agatha.”

“ . . . smoking, drinking, probably taking hot baths.”

“What’s wrong with hot baths?”

“Stop interrupting me, Bertie. If you are ill, than nothing will do you more good than spending a few days in the country.”

I coughed a few more times. “I’m sure I just need some bed rest and clear broth, Aunt Agatha.”

“Fresh air is what you need. You will come down to Brinkley at once.”

“I’m afraid I’m far too weak to make the trip.”

“Nonsense. Can’t that man of yours drive you?”

“Oh, dash it, I suppose, but you know how taxing these bumpy country roads are to the system.”

A sound floated over the wire that I took to be a tongue being clicked peevishly. “Well, if you are too ill to come to Brinkley, then I must come to you. If you can’t get fresh air, then you should at least have a woman’s touch about the home.”

I must have leaped about three feet into the air. If there was one prospect that chilled the marrow more than spending a few days closeted in the country with Aunt Agatha, it was spending a few days closeted with her in my own flat. “No, no, Aunt Agatha!” I yelped. “I mean, don’t trouble yourself, what?”

“Please do not shout! And stop talking nonsense. It will be no trouble.”

I grimaced. “Now look, Aunt Agatha, there’s no need for that. I’m sure you’re right. Fresh country air is just the ticket. I’ll be at Brinkley Court before sundown.”
---
“Well Jeeves,” I said as we sped for Brinkley in the old two-seater, “a fine turn of events this is. We shall have to be on our guard.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Constant vigilance, Jeeves. That will be our mantra.”

“Just as you say, sir.”

“I say, you wouldn’t happen to know anything about this latest gawd-help-us of Aunt Agatha’s, would you?”

“No, sir. I do not even know the name of the young person in question.”

“Well, I suppose it was a long shot, but things do have a way of getting back to you.”

“Yes, sir. In this case, however, I fear that my information is no more complete than your own. I shall institute enquiries when we arrive at Brinkley Court.”

“Institute away, Jeeves. And fill up on fish –I shall need all of your copious grey matter at my disposal if I am to avoid being dragged to the altar under the watchful bally eye of Aunt Agatha.”

“Very good, sir.”
---
When we pulled up to the old country estate a short while later, I was dismayed to see that Aunt Agatha herself was waiting for me on the drive. I was so overwhelmed by the presence of the formidable relative that I nearly failed to notice the willowy young female lurking somewhere off her starboard stern. I bunged myself out onto the drive, and Jeeves drove off with my luggage, leaving me gazing mournfully after him as the baleful welcoming committee bore down upon me.

“What ho, Aunt Agatha?” I said as the aged kinswoman hove to.

“Bertie. You do look dreadful,” she said, examining me as if I were something on a slab of ice.

I was about to draw myself up indignantly when I remembered I was meant to be ill. “Oh, ah, yes. But I fancy the country air is already reviving the flagging spirits.” I drew a deep breath and smote the waistcoat heartily. “How right you were, Aunt Agatha.”

“Of course I was right, you silly child,” she sniffed, patting my hand. I could see that she was in one of her rare congenial moods. No doubt she had recently slaked her appetite for blood and was flush with the milk of almost-human kindness. “Bertie, there is someone I would like you to meet. This is Miss Helen Fernsby, the daughter of a dear friend of mine. I do hope you will get to know her while you are here.” She leaned in and added in a stage whisper that froze the blood in my veins, “Not exactly the sort of girl I had in mind for you, but she comes from a good family.”

At this point, the dreaded female drifted forward and presented a hand to me. She was a slight, weedy sort of a girl with darkish hair and lightish eyes. Not a bad looking specimen, but not in the Myrna Loy class, either. There was something droopy and haunted in her aspect that put me in mind of a cat that’s had one too many bricks bunged at it. “How do you do, Mr. Wooster?” she said as I clasped the proffered mitt.

“What ho, Miss Fernsby?”

“I shall leave you two to get acquainted,” announced Aunt Agatha, and she biffed off. The girl and I watched her retreating into the distance, and there was a noticeable lightening of the atmosphere.

I turned back to the recent Helen Fernsby and found that her entire aspect had suddenly changed. She seemed to unfurl like a morning glory noticing that the sun has at last decided to blow in. The whole effect reminded me decidedly of the Soul’s Awakening.

“Mr. Wooster,” she said earnestly. “May I call you Bertie?”

“Oh, ah . . . well, that is, of course, rather.”

“Thank you, Bertie. I'm Helen, but my friends call me Hecken.”

This took a moment to penetrate the addled bean. “Oh yes? Oh . . . yes! Ha!”

She took my elbow and leaned in conspiratorially. “I say, Bertie. I don’t mean to speak ill of one of your relations, but . . . your Aunt Agatha. She makes me terribly nervous, don’t you know.”

I felt myself warming considerably toward the poor child. “She has that effect on everyone, old thing. Eats broken bottles for breakfast and howls at the full moon.”

She beamed, edging firmly into Myrna Loy territory. “Gracious, I’m so glad you understand. She’s been hanging around me like a dratted shadow since I got here, watching my every move, lecturing me about the dangers of eating too much red meat and the corrupting effects of lipstick and French perfume.  I didn’t think I’d ever have a moment to myself.”

I clicked the tongue sympathetically. My heart bled for the little blister. “My poor, dear girl!”

“You seem awfully nice, though. When she dragged me down here to meet you, I was afraid that – Oh, hello.”

“Good afternoon, miss.”

I turned to see that Jeeves had floated silently into our midst and was standing by in a respectful manner. The girl detached herself from me and moved to greet him.

“You must be Jeeves. I’ve heard so much about you.”

“Indeed, miss?”

She gave his hand a hearty squeeze and leaned up to whisper something in his ear, blushing richly as she did so. Jeeves didn’t exactly smile – he never does – but one of the corners of his mouth turned up a fraction of an inch.

“Thank you, miss,” he said, doffing his hat.

She suddenly turned back to me. “Oh, but I almost forgot! You’re sick, aren’t you, Bertie?”

“Ah, well . . .”

“You do look a bit flushed. And here I am keeping you standing around in the cold. I’m sure you want to get settled in and rest after your trip. Maybe later, if you feel up to it, you can show me around the grounds.”

“Oh, rather.”

“Now if you don’t mind, I’m going to go hide in a garden shed for a while. If you see Mrs. Gregson, tell her I’ve drowned in the lake. Toodle-pip, Bertie – I do hope I’ll see more of you later. Awfully nice to meet you, Mr. Jeeves.” And she was gone.  

“Jeeves,” I said, when we found ourselves alone, “if I might ask, what exactly did she say to you just now?”

“She said, sir, that Mrs. Gregson had warned her that I am a wily scoundrel, that I do not know my place, and I that am not to be trusted.”

“Good lord! Of all the blasted nerve!”

“Yes, sir. The young lady went on to inform me that, coming from Mrs. Gregson, she took this to be a resounding recommendation, and that she was sure that she and I would get along splendidly.”

I stood for a moment silently contemplating a passing butterfly. “Well Jeeves, it seems to me that events have taken a more sinister turn than I could have imagined.”

“Indeed, sir?”

“Indeed, Jeeves. Heaven help me – I like this blasted girl!”

Chapter Text

Title: A Deuced Difficult Dilemma
Chapter: 2/?
Pairing: Bertie/OFC, Bertie/Jeeves (eventually)
Summary: Bertie is dismayed to find that he rather likes the latest girl that Aunt Agatha is egging him on to marry.
Rating: G (so far)
Words: 2,500-ish
Disclaimer: None of Wodehouse's characters belong to me. I'm just writing this for fun.

Here's more . . . and, uh, wow, this one is taking on a life of its own. Chapter 1 is here.

Having finally settled into my customary quarters, I went in search of my good hostess. Being a regular habitué chez Travers, and familiar with the customs of the natives, I knew the aged relative was likely to be holed up in the drawing room, taking a whack at the Times crossword.

When I arrived at the entrance to the lair, my suspicions were immediately rewarded. A stream of hearty hunting-ground expletives filtered through the woodwork. I gave the door a couple of smart raps.

“Unless you know a ten-letter word for a flowering shrub of the family Asparagaceae,” a voice boomed from within, “go away!”

I rapped a second time, and this time my efforts yielded a particularly fruity oath and a dull thud, as if some handsomely bound volume of collected works had just been heaved at the door. Hoping that the good aunt had exhausted her immediate supply of ammunition, I opened the door and inserted the lemon.

“What ho, Aunt Dahlia.”

She was just inflating herself for another round of irate hunting noises when the cold reality of the situation hit home. “Bertie, you unmitigated fathead! What in the name of Jehosephat are you doing here?” she rumbled.

“Now, now, dearest a.,” I retorted, once the window panes had stopped rattling, “is that any way to greet a beloved nephew?”

“It jolly well is, when he’s supposed to be laid up in bed with measles, mumps and pertussis!”

“Well, I’m sorry to break it to you, Aunt Dahlia, but your scheme blew a gasket.”

“I should say it did. Your absence was the essential element of the whole strategy.”

I waved an indulgent hand. “I’m not saying I don’t appreciate your efforts, Auntie D., but I think you failed to take into account the psychology of the individual. The individual in question being, of course, your sister Agatha. She rang me and threatened to come up to London and play nursemaid. I was between a rock and a whatsis.”

“You could have told her you were under quarantine.”

I chewed the lip. “I say. That never occurred to me.”

“Ha! I should say not. Did you ask Jeeves for his advice?”

“That didn’t occur to me either, I’m afraid.”

She threw up her hands. “Sometimes I despair of you, young Bertie. Well, I’ve done my part. You’re here now, so I suppose all you can do is commend your soul to Jeeves and wait it out. Shut the door, will you?” I did so, and she glanced around in a conspiratorial manner, as if she expected to find scads of enemy agents lurking behind the chaise longue. “So,” she went on in what I suppose she took for a low voice, “have you met this Fernsby blister?”  

“I have. But I should hardly describe her as a blister.”  

If my Aunt Dahlia wore spectacles, she would have peered at me over them at this juncture. As it is, she had to make do with squinting suspiciously. “If I didn’t know better, I’d think I detected a note of admiration in your voice.”

I paced the drawing room with a heavy tread. “That’s just the trouble, Aunt Dahlia. I’ve only spent about one and a half minutes in her society, so perhaps it’s a bit early to formulate an opinion, but . . . well, dash it, she seems all right.”

“And what, exactly, do you mean by ‘all right’?”

“Well, you’ve known her longer than I have, old flesh-and-blood. What do you think of her?”

“What does it matter what I think? You’re the one in danger of being chained to her for life.”

“Just humour me for a minute, aged a. What’s your impression of the girl?”

“Virtually nonexistent. She’s about as talkative as a cucumber sandwich any time I’ve been around her. A little skiddish, is how she strikes me. Always looks like she’s expecting to be biffed at any moment.”

“That, my dearest relative, is because you have only seen her in the presence of Aunt Agatha. Closet poor Miss Fernsby with the aforementioned, and she comes down with a raging inferiority complex. Get her alone, and she’s downright vivacious, if vivacious is the word I want.”

“How intriguing. Go on.”

“She’s also dashed pretty.”

“Is she?”

“And she likes Jeeves.”

“Gracious. Have you started picking out drapes?”

I shivered. “The whole thing is positively ominous.”

“I fail to understand you, my dear blighted Bertie. If this girl really is such a paragon, then why all the wailing and gnashing of teeth?”

“Because, Aunt Dahlia,” I explained patiently, “if I actually enjoy the bally popsy’s company, what hope do I have of avoiding getting engaged to her? You know the effect this place has on a chap’s constitution.”

“Bertie, you galloping oaf, why should you avoid getting engaged to her if you’re so taken with her? Besides, aren’t you getting ahead of yourself? You’ve only known the girl for about five seconds. Who’s to say she’s so keen to go throwing her lot in with you?”

I threw up the hands. “Oh, now dash it, look here!”

“How do you mean, ‘Oh, now dash it, look here’? It seems to me that this is all very simple. If you want to marry the girl, then marry her. If you don’t, then don’t.”

I tutted a bit. “You females always fail to grasp the complexities of these situations. You forget that I am a man of experience. I know how dashed difficult it is, not marrying beazels.”

“And you forget, my young fathead, that each and every time you have found yourself on the brink of matrimony, Jeeves has charged in and rescued you. When will you learn to have faith?”

“There is something in what you say, aged a.”

“Of course there is. Now for heaven’s sake, go away. It will be time for dinner in about half an hour, and I need time to set my affairs in order. Tom’s had another call from the income tax man, and Agatha’s practically got us all on a diet of water and bread crusts.”

“Really, Aunt Dahlia, I am surprised. Letting your sister dictate the menu in your own house?”

“We’re supposed to be setting a good example for the future Mrs. Wooster.  Apparently she’s one of these fast-living city girls, and Agatha is trying to reform her. Anyway, I don’t have it in me to break out the dueling pistols over it. So run along and change into your best black crepe. I’m sure dinner will be a positive riot from start to finish.”

---  

By the time I floated up to my room, it was nearly time for the gong to sound. Jeeves gave me a reproachful look when I blew in. I can dress for dinner in ten minutes, but Jeeves is of the opinion that you need a good twenty to do the job properly. I decided to ignore the r. l. One must know when to let these things slide.

“Ah, Jeeves,” I said, as I began wiggling out of the outer crust, “I don’t suppose you’ve had a chance to institute any of those enquiries yet, what?”

“As a matter of fact, sir, I have conducted a preliminary survey of the household staff. Opinion of Miss Fernsby in the servant’s hall is overwhelmingly positive. I am informed that she shares her cigarettes with the scullery maids.”

“Jolly decent of her.”

“Mr. Seppings was also favorably impressed with the young lady, who listened with great sympathy for a full twenty minutes as he apprised her of the state of his lumbago.”

“Good lord. She’s a better man than I, Gunga Din.”

“Indeed, sir. It is also my understanding that Miss Fernsby’s proclivities are a source of great concern to her family. Her mother is quite anxious to see her wed to an eligible young gentleman. It is Mrs. Fernsby’s hope that marriage will induce the young person to settle into a more staid and respectable lifestyle. Mrs. Gregson naturally concluded that the betrothal of Miss Fernsby and yourself would provide a satisfactory and mutually beneficial solution to her friend’s difficulty.”

“Positively chilling, Jeeves.”

“Yes, sir.”

“By the way, what do you mean when you say ‘proclivities’? What sort of proclivities?”

“The usual sort of thing, I should be disposed to imagine, sir. I understand that the young lady occasionally drinks.”

“No.”

“And smokes.”

“What is the world coming to, Jeeves?”

“And gambles, sir. She has also shown a marked tendency since childhood to be overly familiar with members of the lower classes.”

“Tut, tut. Next I suppose you are going to tell me that she rouges her lips and dances the occasional foxtrot.”

“Quite possibly, sir. Your tie, sir.”

“Eh?”

“One aims for the perfect butterfly effect, sir. If you will allow me?”

“Oh, right ho, then.”  

I pondered for a moment as he adjusted the neckwear. “I say, Jeeves,” I said. “Do you still stick by it that you would pop off for greener pastures if I were ever to tie the knot?”

He paused to fuss with my lapels before answering. “I fear so, sir.”

“Ah.”

“May I ask why, sir? Are you considering a betrothal with Miss Fernsby?”

“Good lord, no. It was merely one of those hypothetical questions, if hypothetical is the word I want.”

“Very good, sir. Might I suggest that you refrain from eating too heartily at dinner, sir, if you are intending to maintain the pretense that you are recovering from an illness?”

“Very good, Jeeves. You know best.”

---

Even when he is fettered by draconian restrictions, Anatole turns out a corking nosh. Still, even his most superlative effort could scarcely have lifted the fug that hung over the table like a pall. It was not hard to follow Jeeves’s advice in re the heartiness with which I attacked the menu.

The Fernsby girl spent the whole time gazing mournfully at her glass and making bread pills. Aunt Agatha delivered a deeply-felt treatise on the overuse of butter in French cooking. Uncle Tom occupied himself slurping his soup and looking like a pterodactyl with a secret sorrow. Even Aunt Dahlia was positively subdued – her occasional remarks still rattled the windowpanes, of course, but no chunks of plaster fell from the ceiling.   
 
As soon as I had put myself around the outside of the last course and was able to politely disentangle myself from the funeral party, I made for the great open spaces. I had just parked myself on one of Brinkley Court’s many rustic benches and was lighting up a gasper when a female voice sounded somewhere to the south-west of me.

“Good God, I thought it would never end!” said the f. v.  

I leaped like a startled adagio dancer. And if anyone ever tries to tell you it is impossible to leap while seated on a rustic bench, then you can take it from me that they don’t know what they are jolly well talking about. Craning the neck about, I quickly perceived the source of the voice. Helen Fernsby was among those present.

“What ho, Hecken,” I said, gathering up my scattered cigarettes.

“Oh, I’m sorry, Bertie. Did I scare you?”

“Not at all.”

“May I join you?”

“Of course, old thing.”

She sat down heavily, like a girl who has the weight of a thousand Aunt Agathas pressing down upon her shoulders. “I’m nearing my limit, Bertie. She seems to think I need constant watching. I say . . . would you mind terribly if I nicked one of those cigarettes? Mrs. Gregson confiscated my case, and I’m positively gasping.”

“Certainly! That is to say, no. I mean, help yourself.”

She gave a laugh like ice tinkling in a glass and patted me on the knee. “Don’t be so nervous, Bertie. I won’t bite you.”  

“Oh, no. Quite.”

She lit up and took a few thoughtful puffs. “I do like your Aunt Dahlia, you know. She’s all right.”

“One of the best.”

“And your Jeeves. He’s a funny chap, isn’t he? I met him just now taking a stroll in the garden. I said something about how jolly the stars look tonight and he started reciting poetry at me. Something about Minerva’s snow-white marble eyes.”

“Well, I wouldn’t be alarmed. He does that sort of thing all the time. Just means he likes you.”

She flashed me one of her smiles and slipped an arm through mine, and I felt the old bean grow alarmingly light. “Let’s stay out here for a while, if you feel well enough. As long as we’re together, your aunt won’t bother us.”

“Oh. Right ho, then.”

“I found a wonderful shed to hide in, by the way. I managed to read two whole chapters of my Rex West before I had to go in and dress for dinner.”

“Good lord! You read Rex West?”

“I’m positively addicted.”

“Well I’m dashed! Have you read The Case of the Poisoned Donut?”

She gave a sort of squeak. “That’s the one I’m on now! And don’t you dare say a word about it. I can see in your eyes that you’re just dying to tell me that the butler did it.”

“My dear girl! A Wooster never gives away the ending.”

“Good. I wouldn’t want to have to beat you with my shoe.”  

“Oh no, absolutely.”

We both brooded silently for a moment, puffing our respective gaspers and letting various winged creatures of the night barge into us unheeded.

“Just as a matter of interest,” I said at length, “if you were ever to marry a chap – speaking strictly hypothetically, of course . . .”

“Of course.”

“Speaking strictly hypothetically – would you ever come up behind him at breakfast, put your hands over his eyes, and say ‘Guess who’?”

She snorted like a disgruntled steam engine. “Good God, no! What kind of abysmal chump would do something like that?”  

“Well, you know. I’ve known girls who might.”

“Oh dear. I’m awfully sorry to hear that.”

“And also . . . again, merely by way of idle conversation – have you ever heard of something called The Types of Ethical Theory?”

“Not until this moment. Why, is it something I’m likely to run into?”

“I don’t know, but my advice is to avoid it, if at all possible.”

“I’ll do my best.”

“And one more thing . . . would you ever, well, egg on a chap’s friend to puncture his hot water bottle?”

“That sounds frightfully unsporting! What sort of girls have you been hanging around with, Bertie?”

“The wrong sort, apparently.”

She smiled and leaned closer. My cigarette fell from my suddenly nerveless fingers. “There’s something awfully sweet about you, Bertie,” she said. “I like you.”   

I could feel myself sliding. I've mentioned before that Brinkley Court is one of these places that's simply lousy with atmosphere. The stars were bearing down on us mercilessly, the roses were stubbornly cranking out their heady aroma, and a balmy blighted breeze was tossing Helen's dark curls about and making them tickle my nose. In short, I didn't have a chance.

I groaned and shut the eyes. “Well, here we go, blast it all,” I muttered.

“What’s that?”

“Oh, nothing,” I said, and kissed her with every ounce of oomph at my disposal.

Chapter Text

Title: A Deuced Difficult Dilemma
Chapter: 3/?
Pairing: Bertie/OFC, Bertie/Jeeves (eventually)
Summary: Bertie is dismayed to find that he rather likes the latest girl that Aunt Agatha is egging him on to marry.
Rating: PG
Words: 1,771
Disclaimer: None of Wodehouse's characters belong to me. I'm just writing this for fun.

Whew, part 3 at last! Part 1 is here, part 2 is here.

I don’t mind telling you, it was one of my finer efforts. After some initial startled squirming, Helen gave it up for a lost cause and threw her arms around my neck. When I finally broke away, she maintained the posish, and we sat there gazing into each other’s eyes and breathing stertorously. The whole situation was becoming alarmingly French, but I somehow couldn’t bring myself to give a damn.

“Gracious, Bertie,” said the girl dreamily, “are you always so quick off the mark?”

“By no means,” I said. “But it’s seldom I meet a girl I’m so anxious to kiss straightaway.”

She heaved a happy sigh and put her head on my shoulder, and heaven help me, I nearly broke down. It all felt so dashed cozy and, well, right. I closed my eyes and laid my cheek on her hair. I think I might have been trembling a bit.

“I’m not going to pretend I don’t know why I’m here, Bertie,” she said after a moment. “I know your aunt wants to marry us off.”  

“Oh, I don’t know, old thing . . .”

“Oh, yes you do, Bertie. It’s all right.” She pulled back to look me square in the eyes. “I came down here with every intention of despising you, like all the other repulsive blighters my family has tried to foist me off on. But I can’t. I hardly know you, but I can already tell you’re a kindred soul.”

“My dear girl . . .”

“But I just want you to know, Bertie, that I understand if – well, what I’m trying to say is – I don’t want you doing anything just because you feel it’s expected of you.”

“Nothing of the sort, my dear old soul!”

“Good. Just so long as we understand each other.” And before I could answer, she pulled me in for a second kiss.

But as her lips moved to meet mine, a rummy thing happened.

I wonder if you have ever had this sort of experience? It had happened to me once before, when I was a stripling of about seven. I was picking blackberries in the garden of the childhood home, and I had spotted a particularly ripe clump of berries plumb spang in the center of the bush. I reached my little arm in as far as it would go and was straining on the tips of my toes to grasp the bally things, when I suddenly tipped forward and took the purler of a lifetime right into the middle of the shrubbery.

The queer thing about it was that, while the whole thing took about half a blink to play out in its sordid entirety, it seemed like a decade. In that moment when I felt myself losing my balance, time seemed to freeze, and the inevitability of my fate was borne in upon me like a stuffed eel-skin between the eyes. “Wooster,” the young Bertram thought to himself in that endless moment, “your future is full of thorns, and there’s not a blessed thing you can do about it.” Or something to that effect.

Well, the same thing was happening now. Time slowed to a trickle, and my whole future flashed before my eyes. Only this time, it was not a future riddled with prickly bits—it was a future bereft of Jeeves. I gulped like a stricken bull-pup and flinched sharply. Helen’s lips missed their target and brushed my cheek instead.

She gave me a wide-eyed look. “Why, Bertie, what’s wrong?”

“I say, I ought to be getting inside,” I said weakly. “I’m starting to feel faint.”

“Oh, oh heavens, I’m so sorry. I forgot you were sick!”

“Don’t worry, dear girl. It’s nothing serious. Just nerves, you know. Too much fast city living and all that. Well, good night.” And I dashed off, leaving the poor girl staring after me in wonderment.

---

I scuttled into the house and crawled up to my room, feeling positively wretched. Various aunts tried to catch my eye in the hall, but I pretended not to notice. Once I was safely holed up in my lair, I sank into a chair and put in a bit of head clutching.

A moment later, there was a gentle rap at the door, and Jeeves himself floated in. I groaned and melted deeper into the chair.

“Are you well, sir?” he asked, registering concern. “You appear distraught.”

I shook the lemon mournfully. “Oh, Jeeves. I think I am falling in love with Miss Fernsby.”

A corner of one of his eyebrows shifted minutely. “Indeed, sir?”

“I’m probably going to ask her to marry me.”  

“She is an uncommonly charming young lady, sir.”

I boggled at the man. “Are you saying you approve, Jeeves?”

“If I may say so, sir, it strikes me as a consummation devoutly to be wished.”

“Well, I’m blowed, Jeeves. Positively blowed. I can’t believe you are standing there and coolly advocating that I link my lot with this girl.”

“Am I not correct in understanding, sir, that you are enamoured of the young person?”

“Oh, I am, Jeeves, I am. But that doesn’t usually stop you from shoving your oar in. Have I upset you in some way?”

“No, sir.”

“You’re not still sore about those striped socks I bought last month, are you?”

He winced. “I had nearly put the articles from my mind, sir.”

“Then what is it, Jeeves? Why aren’t you saving me from myself, dash it?”

“In this case, sir, intervention strikes me as unnecessary. If you are indeed in love with the girl –“

“Not in love, Jeeves. I’ve only just met her. But falling in love, to be sure. It would take only the merest shove, and I would be over the brink. What this needs is some in-the-bud nipping, and dashed quick.”

“One wonders, sir, why you are so resistant to such a development.”

I scowled darkly at a passing lamp. “I suppose we Woosters have a perverse streak.”

“Indeed, sir?”

“Dash it, I don’t know. You’re the expert in the psychology of the individual and all that rot. What’s the matter with me, Jeeves?”

“It is difficult to say, sir.”

“I’m sure I could be happy with her and all that, but . . .”

“Sir?”

“But why take a chance on being happy with Helen when I’m already happy with – with – what I’ve got?”

One of those lengthy awkward silences passed between us. Jeeves finally broke it with a faint cough.

“I hope it is not presumptuous of me to ask, sir . . .”

“Yes, Jeeves?”

“Are you happy, sir, or merely complacent?”

I don’t know why, but the question chilled me to the core. “What on earth are getting at?”

He looked me squarely in the eyeball. “I merely suggest, sir, that you are perhaps letting ‘I dare not’ wait upon ‘I would’. It is all too easy, when one is in a comfortable routine, to sacrifice a chance for true contentment in favor of the familiar.”

“Are you telling me I’m in a rut and afraid to get out of it?”

“It is a possibility to be considered, sir.”

I put in a little more brooding silence. “You know what your problem is, Jeeves?” I said at length.

“No, sir.”

“Your problem is that you’re a hopeless romantic. You see a match to be made, and you are compelled to make it. It’s the sporting blood in you. You go about the place thinking that you’re spreading sweetness and light, and you don’t think through the bally consequences. Well, this time you’ve let this dratted compulsion of yours get the best of you. If I marry Helen, what will happen to you?”

“The problem had not escaped my attention, sir. However, it would hardly do for me to stand in the way of your happiness with the young lady. Although it would pain me to leave your employ, I am certain that I would be able to secure employment elsewhere.”

“But, blast it, Jeeves,” I blurted, “that’s just the trouble. I don’t want you to jolly well secure employment elsewhere! Yes, I’m falling in love with Helen, but I already – well, what I mean to say is, I don’t want to lose you. Why, I couldn’t carry on a day without you, old top! I know . . . I’ve jolly well tried!”  

“Well, sir . . .”

“Who would get me out of the soup?”

“Miss Fernsby strikes me as an eminently sensible young person, sir. I am sure that she would—“

“Oh, now come, Jeeves! The girl hides in potting sheds to avoid my aunt Agatha. She may have twice the adult recommended dosage of brain matter for all I know, but she’s at least as goofy as I am when it comes to dealing with the bullion.”

“Sir, I hardly think that—“

“Look, Jeeves, I may have thought I could get along without you once, but that was before I knew better. You’re indispensable. And I’ve got to put a stop to this business with Helen before I find out she’s indispensable as well. Don’t ask me to choose between the cream in my coffee and the salt in my stew, Jeeves – I can’t bally well do it. And,” I added, “stop looking so dashed blurry!” For at some point, during the course of these remarks, Jeeves had ceased to look like the crisp, finely chiseled valet I was accustomed to and was beginning to look like a squiggly, watery valet.

I averted the map from his gaze and tried to dab discreetly at the leaky plumbing. “Sorry, Jeeves,” I said in a voice that came out rather roopily, “I’m not used to dealing with so many emotions in a single evening. The starch seems to have gone right out of the old upper lip.”

“My dear Mr. Wooster,” said Jeeves, and I hiccupped rather violently. It was rare enough for him to address me by name, but I had never heard him bung in a qualifier before. “It was not my intention to cause you distress. I merely thought—”

“I know, Jeeves,” I said, reaching for my cigarette case and hoping they were the sort of cigarettes that make you nonchalant.
“I’m sure you have the young master’s best interests at heart and all that. But just indulge me, old thing, and see what you can do. Tell the bally girl I’m off my nut, or that I’m a career criminal or something. You know, your usual sort of thing.”

“I will give the matter my best attention, sir.”

“Thank you, Jeeves.”

Chapter Text

Title: A Deuced Difficult Dilemma
Chapter: 4/?
Pairing: Bertie/OFC, Bertie/Jeeves (eventually)
Summary: Bertie is dismayed to find that he rather likes the latest girl that Aunt Agatha is egging him on to marry.
Rating: PG
Words: 2,145
Disclaimer: None of Wodehouse's characters belong to me. I'm just writing this for fun.

More of this at last! Part 1 is here, part 2 is here, part 3 is here.

I woke up the next morning feeling somewhat bucked. The sleeve of care was still a bit ravell’d and all that, but I no longer felt like something clinging to the bottom of a shoe. Jeeves had trickled in quietly at some point in the wee hours and laid out the gentlemanly accoutrements. I wiggled into them, reassured by the knowledge that the honest fellow was off exerting the grey matter on the young master’s behalf somewhere.

However, you will probably not be surprised to learn that it didn’t take long for a dickens of a spanner to come crashing into the works. It occurred to me as soon as I had legged it down to the sideboard for a rasher of bacon and the morning cuppa that the wisest course would have been to stay bed and pull the blankets over my head. Aunt Agatha was lying in wait, hovering by the French window with a positively hungry look in her eye.

“Bertie,” said the Scourge of the Woosters as I hove into view, “I see you are out of bed at last. Did you know it is nearly ten o’clock?”

“That early? Good Lord.”

The aunt speared me with a baleful glance, but declined to comment. She moved on to another subj. “Have you seen Miss Fernsby?”

“Eh? Not since last night.”

“How have you been getting on with her?”

I squirmed a bit. “Jolly well, as a matter of fact.”

Aunt Agatha gazed pensively out the window for a moment. “She has been such a terrible burden to her poor mother,” she remarked. “She’s such an impulsive girl. I realize I am asking the blind to lead the blind, but I hope you might be a positive influence on her, Bertie.”

“Oh, now, I say—“

“I have arranged for the two of you to attend an entertainment at the village church in Market Snodsbury this afternoon, a recital of the music of Mrs. Carrie Jacobs-Bond. I’m sure it will be most uplifting.”

“But dash it, Aunt Agatha—“

“Restrain your language, Bertie!”

“Sorry, Aunt Agatha. It’s just that – well, I’m still not myself, what?”

“The fresh air will do you good.” 

“But—“

“The entertainment begins at two o’clock, Bertie. Do try for once not to disappoint me. Ah, Helen!”

I followed the dreaded aunt’s gaze and saw young Hecken, frozen in the doorway like a startled rabbit who has just been caught trying to sneak out of a cabbage patch.

“Oh! Hullo, Mrs. Gregson. What ho, Bertie? I was just going – out. To the garden, you know.”

“Bertie has just made a most wonderful suggestion, Helen. There is to be a recital in the village this afternoon, and he has graciously offered to escort you.”

 The girl cast me a sort of wild-eyed look. “Oh—oh yes?”

“You will leave at one thirty.”

“Oh.”

“I am sure you will both enjoy a little wholesome entertainment. There’s so little of it to be had in London.”

“Oh, quite.”

“Right,” I said. “I’ll just go and sort of tell Jeeves, don’t you know.” And I began edging for the door.

Aunt Agatha dropped me in my tracks with a look that hit me like a slab of ice to the side of my head. “I see no reason to involve Jeeves,” she said coldly.

“I thought he would, er, drive, and all that sort of thing.”

“I’m sure you are quite capable of driving yourself. Jeeves will remain here.”

“Oh, all right, Aunt Agatha, all right!”  

---

“Jeeves,” I said as I slipped into the morning suit a few hours later, “I’m for it.”

“Indeed, sir?”

“In a short while I’m going to be closeted with Miss Fernsby for the duration of this blasted performance, trying not to brush shoulders with her as we are subjected to some blighted soprano warbling out ‘I Love You Truly’ and ‘Just Awearyin’ for You.’ The very thought chills the blood. Not even the most hard-hearted cove could stay strong under such circumstances”

“Most disturbing, sir.”  

I frowned at him. “You know, Jeeves, there are times when I think I understand why chaps get married.”

“Sir?”

“I mean, a sympathetic ‘most disturbing sir’ here and there is all well and good, but sometimes what a fellow really wants is a tender hand to squeeze or a neck to weep on.”

I thought I saw his map flicker rummily for a moment, but I couldn’t swear to it. “It is true that there are certain benefits to be derived from matrimonial arrangements,” he said. “The blue tie with that coat, I should think, sir.”

“Fine, Jeeves, fine. You always know best. But help me on with it, will you? I’m far too balled up to be messing about with knots.”

“Very good, sir.”  

“I don’t suppose you’ve hit on anything yet, Jeeves?” I asked as he wrestled with the neckwear.

He coughed gently. “Nothing that you would find satisfactory, I fear, sir.”

“Why don’t you try me?”

“Well, I had considered that you might try speaking frankly with the young person, sir.”

I boggled. “What, Jeeves? You mean, just waltz up to the poor girl and tell her, ‘I say, I think you’re topping and all that, but I just can’t see my way to marrying you, so maybe we should give all this romantic stuff a miss’?”

“Precisely, sir.”

I shook the bean sadly. “Oh, Jeeves. I always knew this day would come. That magnificent brain of yours has finally gone off the rails, hasn’t it?”

“Well, sir . . .”

“I mean to say, consider what you are saying. Is this gentlemanly, Jeeves? Would this be the act of a preux chevalier? No, it would not.”

“With respect, sir, there are moments when straight talk, if I may use the expression, is preferable to discretion.”

“Perhaps so, Jeeves, but this is not one of those moments. No, you shall have to do better than that. You must to find some way of inducing this beasel to come to the conclusion that I am not husband material of her own accord.”  

“Just as you say, sir.”

“But dash it, what do I do in the meantime?”

“I can only suggest that you abide for the present until a more acceptable idea occurs to me, sir.”

“Fine, Jeeves, fine. But for heaven’s sake, look slippy about it. I’m afraid my number’s almost up.”

“Very good, sir.”

---

I had half managed to convince myself that I was overreacting to the bally business until I walked out onto the drive and found Hecken waiting for me. She was wearing some sort of flowery summer frock that flattered her deucedly well, and she looked, on the whole, more radiant than ever. I groaned inwardly.

“Bertie,” she said breathlessly, rushing to my side. “I can’t thank you enough for taking me out. I thought I would explode if I was cooped up here much longer with Mrs. Gregson. I mean, I can only hide in the shed for so long.”

I didn’t have the heart to break it to her that the whole beastly scheme was Aunt Agatha’s idea in the first place. So I settled for a strangled laugh and a spot of oh-rathering. Just then, Seppings brought the car round, and we piled in and tooled off.  

“You know,” she said, once we had gotten underway, “I was afraid when you took off last night that I’d done something to offend you.”

“Oh, no! Just fatigue, old bean.”

She clicked the tongue sympathetically and gave my knee a pat. “Poor dear. I know all about fatigue. I didn’t sleep a wink last night.”

“Oh?”

She blushed prettily. “I was thinking about you.”

I gave the steering wheel an involuntary twiddle and nearly plunged us into a passing privet hedge. If she noticed, she didn’t let on.

“I’m so glad you weren’t upset,” she went on dreamily. “I haven’t had such a nice evening in ages. I tossed and turned all night, just thinking about those kisses.”

I could feel my ticker battering itself silly against my ribs. I clutched the wheel a bit tighter. I took a couple of gulps. “That was rather topping, wasn’t it?” I choked.

She beamed at me, leaned over, and planted a tender kiss on my cheek. I came within a toucher of colliding with a second privet hedge. “Oh, Bertie, you sweet thing. I’m so happy right now I can’t see straight!”

I don’t mind telling you I felt positively rotten. If I could have sunk through the floor of the old two-seater, I would have done it in a moment. I was just trying to think of something to say when she started up again.

“I saw Jeeves this morning.”

“Oh, yes?” I said, grateful for the introduction of a new motif.

“I went out for a walk in the grounds. I thought I’d watch the sun rise, since I couldn’t sleep.”

“Good Lord.”

“I know, awful, isn’t it? I don’t remember when I was last up before ten-thirty. I’m a mess, Bertie! Anyway, I was standing by the lake, watching the sky turn pink, and suddenly I heard this quiet voice right in my ear. I nearly jumped out of my skin. It was Jeeves. I haven’t the slightest idea where he came from.”

“He does that. Took me a dickens of a time to get used to it. I’m still convinced he can somehow materialize out of thin air. What did he say?”

“He said, ‘Wake! For morning in the bowl of night has flung the stone that puts the stars to flight, and lo, the hunter of the east has caught the sultan’s turret in a noose of light.’ He’s too funny, isn’t he?”

“Did he really say that?”

“Word for word.”

“H’m!”

“What is it?”

“Something’s eating him. Jeeves never breaks out the Omar Khayyam unless he’s brooding pretty tensely over something.”

She laughed. “You two are like an old married couple.”  

I shot her a sharp look. “Eh? How’s that?”

“You know all of each other’s little habits. I think it’s sweet.”

I felt the vascular workings starting to kick into high gear again. I tried to chuckle nonchalantly. “I suppose that’s what happens when a couple of coves spend a few years closeted together day in and day out, what?”

“I suppose so. But you’re right – he did look a little sad, I think. It’s hard to tell, of course, but there was just something about his eyes.”

I squeezed the steering wheel a bit tighter than was strictly necessary. “Did he say anything else?”

“Not really. I said ‘Good morning,’ and he said ‘Good morning, miss,’ and he tipped his hat, and we stood there side by side watching the sun rise for a few moments. Then he gave me a funny little smile and went on his way. I went back in a bit later.”

I chewed the lower lip a bit. The whole thing sounded dashed rummy. I was sure Jeeves was up to something, but hanged if I could figure out what. I had been hoping for something more along the lines of dropping hints in the girl’s presence about my past as a notorious orphanage arsonist. I couldn’t imagine what he hoped to accomplish by mooning about like this.

“He seemed lovesick, if you ask me,” said Hecken suddenly. I nearly drove into a third privet hedge. She gasped a bit. “Are you all right, Bertie? You’re awfully jumpy this morning.”

“Lovesick!” I gargled. “For whom?”

“Oh, I don’t know. It was just a feeling I got. He had that wistful look in his eye, like he was pining for someone. I’ve probably just got romance on the mind. Oh look, here we are! What’s this show we’re going to see, anyway?”

The bean was still spinning, so it took me a moment to adjust to this sudden turn in the give-and-take.

“Er, it’s a sort of a concerty thing. Wholesome village entertainment and all that sort of rot. The venue was Aunt Agatha’s idea,” I said apologetically.

Hecken shuddered delicately. “If it’s all the same to you, Bertie, why don’t we just go to the cinema instead? I’ve heard that ‘Take a Chance’ is an absolute scream. Your aunt would never be the wiser, would she?”  

Had I been myself, I would have said something to the effect that Aunt Agatha probably had an elaborate network of spies in place that would put the SIS to shame, but I just couldn’t manage it. “I don’t suppose she would,” I said weakly.

She beamed and gave my elbow a squeeze. “That’s the spirit, darling. Oh, this is exciting! I can’t remember the last time I’ve had so much fun!”

I wished like the dickens I could feel the same way.

Chapter Text

Title: A Deuced Difficult Dilemma
Chapter: 5/?
Pairing: Bertie/OFC, Bertie/Jeeves (eventually)
Summary: Bertie is dismayed to find that he rather likes the latest girl that Aunt Agatha is egging him on to marry.
Rating: PG
Words: 1,065
Disclaimer: None of Wodehouse's characters belong to me. I'm just writing this for fun.

A relatively brief update this time! Part 1 is here, part 2 is here, part 3 is here, part 4 is here.

When we arrived back at the estate a few hours later, I slipped away quietly to my lair, leaving Hecken to confer with various relatives. I was relieved to find Jeeves lurking about the place.

“What a disaster, Jeeves.”

“Sir?”

“My outing, Jeeves. With Hecken.”

“I am sorry to hear it, sir. Did you find the entertainment disagreeable?”

I collapsed into one of the handful of overstuffed chairs that my guest quarters had to offer. “No. I found it entirely too agreeable. That’s just the trouble. Hecken very soundly advised that we give Aunt Agatha’s beastly recital a wide berth and avail ourselves of the local cinema instead. We went to see ‘Take a Chance.’”

“I have heard it is a pleasantly diverting picture, sir.”

“It was a riot, Jeeves. We laughed at all the same spots. We sang that corking new number ‘Night Owl’ all the way home, even though neither of us knows the words. Hecken sings a bit off key, but her voice is so dashed sweet it doesn’t matter. I could listen to her warble all day. And to make matters worse, I realized about half way through the blasted picture that she looks altogether too much like Lillian Roth when she smiles.”

“Good heavens, sir.”

“Why does she have to have dimples, Jeeves?”

“Young ladies are notoriously unsportsmanlike in this regard, sir.”

“Oh, woman, woman, as the chap says, what?”

“Indeed, sir.”

“It was a close call helping her out of the car when we got back. I nearly went down on one knee right then and there when I caught sight of her sideways for a moment.”

He looked about as imperturbable as I’ve ever seen him, if imperturbable is the word I want. I mean to say, the cove looked more like a stuffed frog than your average stuffed frog. “This is most serious indeed, sir.”

“Blast it, Jeeves, you don’t sound so jolly well concerned as you ought to. I’m taking the dickens of a purler over this girl. Haven’t you come up with anything?”

“I fear not, sir. Shall I draw your bath, sir?”

I was wounded by his callous manner, but I was too exhausted by the whole ordeal to argue. “Fine, Jeeves,” I said, waving a dismissive hand.  

---

I was pleased to discover that the rubber duck, abandoned by some youthful visitor, was still in the soap dish where I had left it on my last sojourn. I toyed listlessly with the thing for awhile and sang a few disconsolate bars of “Night Owl”, but it didn’t really help. I couldn’t understand why Jeeves was acting so dashed peculiar about the whole thing.

I remembered what Hecken had said about him seeming lovesick, and a chill gripped the spine despite the heat of the bathwater. It suddenly occurred to me that Jeeves himself was in love, and was looking for a good excuse to oil out of my employ so that he could run off and attach himself to the object of his d. The very thought made me feel so bally rotten that even the duck couldn’t cheer me up. I set the thing back in the soap dish and crawled miserably out of the tub.

I had just slipped into my dressing gown when Jeeves himself floated in, looking positively animated. He coughed conspiratorially and pulled the door shut behind him.

“I beg your pardon, sir . . .” he began in a low voice.

“What is it, Jeeves?” I asked mournfully.

“I chanced to overhear a conversation between Mrs. Gregson and Mrs. Travers a few moments ago, sir. I fear that Mrs. Gregson has discovered that you escorted Miss Fernsby to a ribald cinematic entertainment rather than to the recital that Mrs. Gregson had suggested. She is . . . perturbed, sir.”

I started violently, momentarily forgetting about my frightful theory. “How on earth did she find out, Jeeves?”

“I gather that Mrs. Gregson is friends with one of the ladies who organized the performance, sir. The lady in question reported that you and Miss Fernsby were absent from the recital when Mrs. Gregson telephoned her a short while ago.”

“Blast it, I should have known she would figure it out somehow! The bally relative is more like a bloodhound than anything human. Whatever will I do?”

“I believe it would be expedient for you to make yourself inconspicuous for the present, sir. If I might suggest the shed by the pond . . .”

I shuddered. “How long will I have to hide, Jeeves?”

“Not long, I should imagine, sir. I will endeavor to correct the situation as efficiently as possible. In the meantime, in case you are forced to miss dinner, I have secured some provisions from the larder for you.” And he handed me a basket that felt like it weighed about two tons.

“Good lord, Jeeves, what’s in here? This has to be about a week’s worth of rations!”

“I considered it best to err on the side of excess in this case, sir.”

“Well, if you say so. Lead on, Jeeves.”  

We slipped out into the gathering dusk, narrowly avoiding several aunts and a nosy butler on the way. Jeeves silently ushered me into the shed, and I stood blinking in the darkness, still gripping the improbably heavy basket. I had just set the thing down when a voice suddenly spoke from the shadows.

“Bertie?” said the voice.

I gave a yelp and hit my head on a passing beam.

“I’m sorry, Bertie,” said the source of the voice, emerging from behind a bunch of sacks of potting soil. It was Hecken, grasping a candle in one hand and a spine-chiller in the other. “I didn’t mean to scare you. What are you doing here?”

“Oh, well, you know, just trying to avoid aunts and all that. I beg your pardon. Didn’t realize this shed was taken. I’ll just be on my way.” I turned to the door, but I found to my horror that the thing had closed behind me. Some vigorous rattling confirmed my worst suspicions. “Good Lord!” I ejaculated.

“What is it?”

“The door’s locked!”

“What! But who would do such a thing?”

I ground a tooth or two. “Jeeves!” I hissed.

“But,” said Hecken, cutting straight to the heart of the matter, “why?”

 “Ah,” I said darkly, “there you have me.”

Chapter Text

Title: A Deuced Difficult Dilemma
Chapter: 6/?
Pairing: Bertie/OFC, Bertie/Jeeves (eventually)
Summary: Bertie is dismayed to find that he rather likes the latest girl that Aunt Agatha is egging him on to marry.
Rating: PG
Words: 1,732
Disclaimer: None of Wodehouse's characters belong to me. I'm just writing this for fun.

Sorry to leave you all hanging on such a traumatic note last time! Here's some more. Part 1 is here, part 2 is here, part 3 is here, part 4 is here, part 5 is here.

The girl stood goggling at me for a moment in wonder, then chucked her head back and started to laugh. I couldn’t see what was so dashed funny about the situation myself, but I refrained from saying so.

“What is it, old thing?” I said instead.

“Oh, it’s just too ridiculous, that’s all,” she said at last, wiping away a mirthful tear or two. “Your Aunt Agatha was right. He is a scoundrel.”

“For once, I’m forced to agree with the old girl. He’s really gotten above himself this time.”  

“What on earth is he trying to accomplish?”

“Hanged if I know,” I said, although I had a few ideas.

“How long do you suppose he intends to keep us in here?”

I prodded the basket with my toe. “Quite some time, unless I very much miss my guess,” I said moodily.

“Ooh,” she said, casting a hungry eye at the basket. “What’s in there? I’m famished!”

“Well, you’re in luck, my dear girl. Judging from the weight of the thing, there’s enough to feed an army in there.” I knelt down and cracked open the hatch. “Gosh!” I said.

Hecken leaned in to inspect the goods. “Golly!” she said. We looked at each other in a wild surmise.

The basket contained two sandwiches wrapped neatly in brown paper, two glasses, a corkscrew, and two bottles of the best port the Brinkley Court cellars had to offer, nestled in a tea towel so they wouldn’t clink.

“Well, I’m dashed,” I said, hauling out one of the bottles. “No wonder the bally thing was so heavy. Does he really expect us to tie one on to such an extent?”

Hecken shrugged. “I’m game if you are, dearie,” she said. “Anyway, just a snifter or two couldn’t hurt, could it? It might warm you up a bit, poor thing.” She gave my wet hair a sympathetic tousle. I realized suddenly that I was still only wrapped in a dressing gown, and nearly dropped the bottle.

I gulped. “Perhaps you’re right,” I said weakly. “I could use a little fortification.”

Hecken rustled up a crate and a couple sacks of sod for a table and chairs, and I uncorked the goods and poured out two generous glasses of the restorative.

“Skin off your nose, old thing,” I said.

“Mud in your eye, darling.”

We drained our glasses in a couple of gulps.

“I say,” said the girl, “that’s awfully good port.”

“Well, if there’s one thing I can say for my Uncle Tom, it’s that he knows a good thing when he spots it. Peculiar taste in silver aside. Another glass, my dear squirt?”

“Oh, I shouldn’t,” she said, thrusting out her glass. We both downed a second libation.

“You know,” she continued as I fumbled with the sandwiches, “I’d be in a hell of a lot of trouble if my mother ever found out I was drinking this stuff.”

“Ah,” I said, pouring a third glass for each of us. “Teetotaller, eh?”

“Yes indeed. She thinks the Americans have got the right idea with that prohibition business.”

“Apparently they don’t agree. I’ve heard they’re probably giving it the bum’s rush by the end of this year.”

She sloshed her glass enthusiastically. “Well, God bless ‘em, I say!” It seemed like as reasonable a thing to drink to as any, so we got around the outside of our third glass in short order, and then took a brief intermission to munch thoughtfully on our respective sandwiches.

“This hiding in sheds wheeze of yours isn’t half bad,” I admitted after a bit. “With the right provisions, anyway. I mean, I wouldn’t want to live here, mind you.”

“No,” she agreed. “Too drafty. And spidery.”

I shivered. “Not too spidery, I hope.”

“Reasonably spidery. Are you cold, darling?”

“Oh, no.”

“Don’t be silly. You’re turning blue around the edges.” She picked up her sack and hauled it around to my side of the crate, and then proceeded to lean up against me. I inhaled a bit of my sandwich. “For heaven’s sake, Bertie,” said Hecken, pounding me on the back a few times, “why do I make you so nervous? I thought you liked me.”

“I do like you, dear girl,” I croaked. “That’s just the trouble.”

“What do you mean, ‘That’s just the trouble’?”

“More port?”

“Yes, please.”

“You see,” I began, having fortified the old nerves a little further, “the thing is.”

“Yes?”

“The thing is, Hecken old top . . . you’re a great, great girl and all that.”

“And I think you’re simply the cat’s knees.”

“I’m in love with you, don’t you know. Well, falling in, as it were.”

She hiccupped violently and slipped an arm around my waist. “Oh, Buh-ertie!” She gazed a little unsteadily into my eyes. “Do you want to ki-hiss me right now?”

“More than anything. In fact, I’m about this close to asking you to marry me,” I said, and I tried to hold up my thumb and index finger to show her, but they didn’t seem to be quite working right.

“But Bertie, it’s all so—“ She was cut off by another particularly powerful hiccup.

“Fast?” I suggested.

“I was going to say suh-oon. Or maybe sudden. But fast works too, don’t you know. I don’t know wha—excuse me! I don’t know what to say.”

“Well, it would make things considerably easier for me if you’d say . . .”

“What?”

I paused to belt back another snifter. “If you’d say ‘Bertie, you ass, why don’t you go and boil your head?’”

She pulled back to look at me and nearly toppled over. “But wuh-y would I say that?”

“Because,” I said, poking at her with my glass to underline my point, “I’m a bounder. A frightful bounder.”

“You’re not!”

“I am.”

“But why?”

“Well,” I said, pausing to top off our glasses, “you see, old girl, I’m in love with someone else already.” I could scarcely believe what I was saying. I mean, scarcely preux, what? And until I said it, I hadn’t realized it myself. But you know how it is when you have a few doses of the best under your belt. The words just sort of sloshed out of their own accord.

Her eyes widened. “Oohh!” she said.

“But it’s not what you’re thinking. At least, it’s not what I think you’re thinking.”

“What do I think you’re – what do you think – I mean, what?”

“I mean, I’m not two-timing anyone or any of that sort of rot. I’m not that sort of a chap. It’s one of those things that’s . . . I say, what do you call it when person A loves person B, but the party of the second whatsit – person B, that is – thinks person A is all right, but doesn’t feel anything truer and deeper for person A than ordinary friendship?”

“Unre-hic-quited?” she offered helpfully.

“Right! That’s exactly the chap I’m looking for. It’s most awfully unrequited.”

She leaned in and eyed me keenly. “How do you know? Have you said anything?”

I shook the lemon firmly. “No. Absolutely – I could never, I mean to say.”

“Then how do you knuh-how it’s unrequited?”

“Trust me, dear soul, it’s about as unrequited as it gets. If you knew Jeeves—“

“Jeeves!”

I felt my face tingle rummily. “I mean, if you knew Jeeves’ theories. About the whatsit of the individual and all that. Psychology, that’s the bird. He’d tell you just how unrequited it is. Anyway, that’s the thing. I’m falling in love with you, but I already love this other person, and it’s all so dashed confusing that I don’t know up from down.”

“I see. I think. Well, you don’t seem so awfully keen on marrying me.”

“If you say yes, I’ll do it.”

She frowned. “But you don’t want to.”

“I don’t know what I want, dash it!”

“Well, what would make you happier? Going on mooning over this person you love unre-huh—unre—un—that you love, but who doesn’t love you, or so you say, or being with someone who definitely does love you?”

“I was perfectly happy doing the first one until you came along,” I said, a bit petulantly.

“Oh, no!” she said, and her eyes flashed in a way I never thought I’d see outside of one of the more lurid Rosie M. Banks novels. “Now you listen to me, Buh-ertie Woo-hooster. Don’t you go putting the responsibility for your goofiness on my head! You know what your problem is?”

“What?”

“You’re too complacent, that’s what!”

“That’s the same bally word that Jeeves used,” I said miserably.

“Well, Jeeves is a smart man.”

“You don’t know the half of it. Although lately I wonder if he’s going completely off his nut.”

“I don’t think so. I think he just got tired of you moping around waiting for him to make up your muh-hind for you.”

“Oh, now look here—“

“You’ve got a lot of nerve, did you know that? I like your crust, trying to shove your silly dilemma off on me!”

“But—“

“All I know is, I’m not going to jolly well make this easy on you. You’ve got to make your own decision. I’m not going to say yes and then spend the rest of my life wondering if you regret marrying me. I’m not going to say no and wonder if you’re going to spend the rest of your days pining away over both me and this other blister, and knowing that you’ll blame me either way. You make your choice and you stick with it!”

“But, dash it--!”

“And for heaven’s sake, you’ll never know how J—how this other person feels unless you jolly well ask. You’re a sweet boy, but you don’t see so blasted well, do you?” And with that, she rose to her feet and marched unsteadily to the exit. “Too-hoodle pip, Buh-ertie,” she hiccupped coldly over her shoulder, just before crashing rather magnificently into the door. She turned back to me austerely. “That,” she said, “would have been much more impressive if this door wasn’t still locked.”

“Oh, quite.”

“I was going to storm out and slam it after me.”

“I was already taking it as read.”  

“Good. Now, if you’ll excuse me.” And she turned back to the door and roared for Jeeves.

Chapter Text

Title: A Deuced Difficult Dilemma
Chapter: 7/?
Pairing: Bertie/OFC, Bertie/Jeeves (eventually)
Summary: Bertie is dismayed to find that he rather likes the latest girl that Aunt Agatha is egging him on to marry.
Rating: PG
Words: 1,050
Disclaimer: None of Wodehouse's characters belong to me. I'm just writing this for fun.

Hi, everyone! I daresay you've probably all nearly forgotten that I exist after my total disappearance for over two months. Sorry about that! I was off running around in foreign climes. But now I am back, and I'm finally pulling this little story out of the mothballs! Part 1 is here, part 2 is here, part 3 is here, part 4 is here, part 5 is here, part 6 is here.

As you may recall, when I left off with this little narrative, the sitch was as follows. The setting: a garden shed on the grounds of my Aunt Dahlia's estate. Self, stage left, sitting on a sack (probably made of canvas or gunny) and wearing only a dressing gown and slippers. Stage right: Hecken, fully dressed, attempting to break down the shed door with her bare fists. All parties stewed to the gills. All in all, a positively rummy state of affairs.

I tried a couple of times to heave myself into some sort of vertical position, but gave it up for a lost cause pretty quickly. The old pegs simply put their ears back and refused to cooperate. The larynx still seemed to be in full working order, however.

"I say," I said.

"Jeeves!" bellowed the girl.

"I wish you wouldn't make such a row."

She paused in her refrain to shoot me a look that was both glacial and wobbly. "Why shouldn't I make a row? Jeeves!"

"You're liable to attract aunts."

"I don't care if I attract locusts. I don't even care if I attract bees."

This puzzled me. I failed to see what bees had to do with anything. "What," I asked, "have bees got to do with anything?"

She smote the door emotionally. "Let 'em all come. Loads of bees! Bees, locusts, aunts, Jeeveses. Just as long as one of them has the blasted key! JEEVES!"

Well, I'm not sure entirely what was going on in my profoundly pickled bean, but for some reason in my inebriated state, the whole affair had taken on a decidedly menacing tone. There is only so much a man can take, and dealing with swarms of flying aunts was about my limit. It occurred to me that I had to quiet the little blister down one way or another.

 I somehow managed to lurch to my feet and stagger over to Hecken. I had some sort of vague idea of throwing my arms around her and hauling her away from the door so that we could have a quiet talk about things. I had only got so far as the arm-throwing part of the procedure when the door abruptly opened and we both toppled through it and landed in a heap on the dewy sward.

"Bertie!" spluttered Hecken. "You're jolly well crushing me, you big dope! What do you think you're – oh!" She cut off with a little gasp, and I saw that she was staring, transfixed, at something above her.  I followed her gaze, and found my worst fears confirmed. There, looming above us in the gathering twilight and heaving gently with emotion, was the unmistakable form of Aunt Agatha.

---

"Bertram Wilberforce Wooster," hissed the aunt, reminding me of nothing so much as Sir Watkyn Bassett preparing to pronounce a sentence from the magistrate's bench, "I am shocked. Profoundly shocked!"

"Oh, but look here, Aunt Agatha—"

"Quiet, Bertie!" The old relative paced the sewing room floor with a heavy tread. She had hauled both of us in by the napes of our necks. Hecken was ushered up to her room on the arm of a concerned chambermaid of some sort, while I was closeted in the aforementioned s. r. for an interrogation. Aunt Dahlia was also among those present, for which I was grateful, of course. But where, I asked myself (and I don't mind telling you I asked it dashed bitterly), was Jeeves? Seldom, during my long association with the fellow, had he ranked so low among the wines and spirits in this Wooster's estimation than he did now. 

"Of course, you will have to marry the girl at once," continued the aunt.

"No!" I cried, upsetting a small ornamental table in my distress. I'm honestly not sure how I managed it, since I was sitting down at the time.

"Honestly, Aggie," chimed in Aunt Dahlia, "I'm sure there's a perfectly reasonable explanation for all this."

"There is," Aunt Agatha snapped. "And it is that Bertie has been leading Miss Fernsby astray. He plied her with drink—"

"No, no!"

"Silence, Bertie! He plied her with drink and took advantage of her delicate state of mind to lead her into prurient debauchery."

Aunt Dahlia snorted. "I don't think Bertie is capable of leading a girl into prurient debauchery, even if he wanted to."

"I should think not," I agreed. "I'm not even entirely sure what that is."

"He is undressed," Aunt Agatha pointed out. She seemed to think this settled the case.

"Hecken isn't," riposted Aunt Dahlia.

"I mean, the debauchery part I understand. I'm finding the prurient part a bit vague, though."

"I found them wrapped in each other's arms, rolling on the ground!" fumed Aunt Agatha.

"And here I thought you wanted them to hit it off," said Aunt Dahlia.

Aunt Agatha shot her sister a look that would have dropped a lesser woman in her tracks. "Must you always be so crude, Dahlia? Can you not see the seriousness of this situation? I should have known that Bertie would disappoint me again—"

"Hoy!"

"—but I did not dream that it would be in such a vulgar and indecent manner. Poor, dear Mrs. Fernsby would be so dreadfully shocked. She must never know, of course."

"Ha!" boomed Aunt Dahlia, who seemed to be deriving some sort of grim amusement from the whole situation.

"What do you mean, 'Ha!'?" demanded Aunt Agatha, and I thought it a dashed good question myself.

"She's in the sitting room as we speak, sharing tales of digestive distress with Tom. She arrived not ten minutes ago, hoping to drop in and surprise her little girl."

"What!" bellowed Aunt Agatha.

"What?!" croaked self.

"You two needn't shout," Dahlia roared back, shattering a couple of windowpanes and dislodging a small sculpture of the Infant Samuel in prayer from the mantel. "I'm not hard of hearing. I suggest you go and say hello, Aggie – she seemed pretty eager to see you. And as for you, my little inebriated imbecile . . ."

"Steady on, Aunt Dahlia!"

"I think you'd better stagger straight up to your room and put the covers over your head for the next year or so. It might take awhile for this one to blow over."

Chapter Text

Title: A Deuced Difficult Dilemma
Chapter: 8/?
Pairing: Bertie/OFC, Bertie/Jeeves (eventually)
Summary: Bertie is dismayed to find that he rather likes the latest girl that Aunt Agatha is egging him on to marry.
Rating: PG
Words: 1,799
Disclaimer: None of Wodehouse's characters belong to me. I'm just writing this for fun.

Gah, more of this at last! Part 1 is here, part 2 is here, part 3 is here, part 4 is here, part 5 is here, part 6 is here, part 7 is here.

To follow my aunt’s advice was, with me, the work of an instant. Or, it would have been, had I not been quite so far beneath the surface. I got lost twice on the way to my room.

When I finally staggered through the door, I found that I was not alone. At first I thought there were two or three valets in the middle of my bedroom, all standing about looking like a gang of particularly impassive stuffed frogs. But after a moment, they resolved themselves into a single Jeeves.

“You!” I said.

“Sir?” said Jeeves.

“So!” I riposted. I waited a moment, grinding a tooth or two, and then said “So!” again for good measure. In general, I am against the wanton saying of “So!” to people. I find it a deplorable habit, not fit for civilized discourse, and am inclined to leave that sort of thing to the Spodes and Stiltons of the world. But I suppose we all have our moments of weakness, and this particular moment seemed to call for extreme measures.

“If I may say so, sir, you appear somewhat distraught.”

“Distraught! Distraught, Jeeves? I ask you to get me out of the soup, and you respond by shoving me in headfirst and holding me under until I jolly well stop kicking! Where have you been all this time?”

“I beg your pardon, sir. I was waiting for an opportune moment to release you from the shed –“

“Oh, you were, were you?”

“—when I noticed a figure advancing down the garden path. I did not recognize the lady in question, but I suspected at once that she might be Miss Fernsby’s mother.”

“Well, you suspected right, Jeeves. She’s in the house right now, probably plotting my demise with Aunt Agatha as we speak.” I made an emotional gesture and nearly fell over sideways. Jeeves caught my elbow and steered me bedward.

“As I was saying, sir,” he continued, gently shoving me into a sitting position, “I felt it would be wise to intervene before she came close enough to overhear anything. I moved to intercept her, and, in my haste, I left the key to the shed in the lock.”

I groaned and massaged the bean. “Do you know who found that key, Jeeves?”

I may have imagined it, but I thought the chap looked almost chagrined. “I have a notion, sir.”

“Well, if your notion is ‘Aunt Agatha,’ then your notion is correct.”

“A highly unfortunate turn of events, sir.”

I gave in to gravity, which seemed to be putting in a better effort than usual, and sank backwards onto the bed. “Unfortunate, is it? I had a slightly stronger word in mind,” I said. “Anyway, it’s not like you to be so sloppy about this sort of thing.”

“Yes, sir. I fear I was somewhat emotionally overwrought at the time, and I allowed myself to become careless.”

If I had been my usual keen self, I might have thought to ask him why. Instead I opted for a derisive snort. “You, emotionally overwrought! How do you think I felt during all of this?”

“I can only imagine, sir. In any case, my surmise was correct. The lady was in fact Mrs. Fernsby. When I came to meet her, she told me that she had dropped in on a whim, hoping to surprise her daughter with a visit. Upon her arrival, she had been greeted by Mr. Seppings, who informed her that Miss Fernsby was in the garden. I told her that his intelligence was outdated, and that she would find her daughter inside the house, preparing for dinner. I showed her into the sitting room and informed Mr. Travers of her arrival, in the hopes that he might keep her occupied until I could arrive at a satisfactory solution.

“Once Mrs. Fernsby and Mr. Travers were both ensconced in the sitting room, I prepared to return to the garden and release you and the young lady from your captivity. Before I could do so, I was intercepted by Mrs. Travers, who informed me that you and Miss Fernsby had already been discovered. I am sure you are already aware of what transpired next.”

“I am,” I assured the ceiling. “Aware, I mean. Of what transpired. And I’m sure I don’t have you tell you I’m not too bally well chuffed about it.”

“No, sir.”

“Of course, the real question is . . . what is the real question? Ah, right. There’s the bird. The real question is, why, Jeeves?”

“Sir?”

“Don’t be obtuse, Jeeves. Or is obtuse the word I want? Maybe it’s abstruse. Actually, I think both would fit the bill right about now. What I mean is, why the dickens did you lock me and Hecken in a shed in the first place? What did you hope to accomplish, one asks oneself? Did you simply do it for amusement? Did you run out of fresh Spinoza to keep you busy during the long evenings?”

“I was hoping to assist you in the resolution of your dilemma, sir.”

I made a futile effort to prop up the corpus, hoping to boggle at him in disbelief. Instead I gave up and boggled at the ceiling. “Oh, Jeeves,” I said sadly. “I always feared this day would come. That magnificent brain of yours has finally blown a fuse.”

“I think not, sir.”

“In that case, you’ve grown tired of the young master and decided to cruelly toss him aside like a soiled glove.”

“Not at all, sir. It was my hope that, by enclosing you in a confined space with the young lady and freeing you from your inhibitions by means of an ample supply of ardent spirits, I might induce you to confront your true feelings regarding Miss Fernsby, whatever those might be.”

“I see,” I said, although I wasn’t sure that I did.

Jeeves unshipped a gentle cough. “I have noticed, sir, that alcohol tends to have a fortifying and disinhibiting effect on many young persons, including yourself. If you will recall the occasion on which you expressed your opinion to Mrs. Gregson, whilst under the influence of a particularly strong brandy and soda, that she was ‘talking rot.’”

“It was one of my finer moments,” I agreed wistfully.

“It was most impressive, sir. I was hoping that a similar effect might be achieved in this case.”

“You wanted me to tell Hecken that she was talking rot?”

“Not necessarily, sir. I merely hoped that you would be forthright with her.”

“In vino whatsit, and all that?”

“Precisely, sir.”

“Well, I think you underestimated alcohol’s other major effect on young persons, which is that it causes them to act like absolute asses. Did you really expect this bally situation to end with me not proposing to the little blighter?”

“Did you, sir?”

“Did I what?”

“Propose to her.”

“Well . . . not precisely. But I came within a toucher. And I said some dashed peculiar things to her, too. It was all decidedly un-preux. I wouldn’t blame her if she never wanted to speak to me again.”

“Would you be averse to such an outcome, sir?”

I managed to lift the lemon long enough to glare at him. “Yes. Er . . . not entirely. Dash it, I don’t know, Jeeves! What’s the matter with you, anyway? You’ve never made such a fuss about scuppering one of my engagements before.”

“Your previous amatory entanglements were . . . decidedly inadvisable, sir. In this case, I thought it only fair to both you and the young lady that I allow you to come to your own decision.”

“Pah, Jeeves!”

“Well,” said a voice from somewhere in the hinterlands around the bedroom door, “I don’t think it was such a terrible idea.”

---

It’s a good thing I was lying across the bed sideways, or I probably would have rolled off of it. “Hecken?” I gargled.

“Miss Fernsby,” said Jeeves, swiveling to greet the interloper.

“You two both have the same problem, you know,” said the girl, a little louder than was strictly necessary. She seemed to have shaken off the hiccups, but she was teetering alarmingly. “Neither of you big poops knows how to just talk to someone. I mean, it’s all well and good, what you were trying to do, Jeeves. But you can’t ask him to make a decision like that when he’s got incomplete information.”

“What do you mean, miss?” asked Jeeves’ back.

Hecken staggered over and gave him a prod or two in the chest. “I think you know dashed well what I mean,” she said. “Do mean to tell me you haven’t figured out that this poor boy’s in love with you? And worse, he thinks it’s . . . oh, hell, I’m too far gone to try that one again. Bertie, what do you think it is?”

“Unrequited?” I squeaked manfully.

“There,” she said. “That one.” She crossed her arms in a final sort of manner and waited for a reply.

I stared anxiously at the back of Jeeves’ neck, which was being slowly suffused with a darker hue. Hecken, meanwhile, stared at his front, a look of defiance plastered on her lovely – if somewhat sozzle-eyed – map.

Jeeves slowly pivoted in my direction and stood there gazing at me with a positively rummy look on his face. I clutched at an apprehensive pillow.

I was too well marinated to try to formulate a coherent denial. I wilted under his gaze like a soggy kipper. “I know it sounds peculiar, Jeeves,” I croaked. “Chaps pining over other chaps and all that. But it does happen, you know. In French novels and that sort of thing.”

“It is a phenomenon with which I am familiar, sir.”

“I mean, I like girls, too. It’s a dashed confusing business, if you ask me. I didn’t really realize how I felt about you until I started feeling the same way about her.” I tilted the bean toward Hecken.

There was a long silence, one of those pregnant ones. I rather hoped that I might suddenly liquefy and seep quietly into the mattress, but it didn’t seem to be in the offing. I decided to take refuge behind the pillow instead.

“Well, go on,” said Hecken, giving Jeeves another prod. “Tell him, for crying out loud. Tell him you love him passionately or tell him to go boil his head, but don’t let him just sit there in agony.”

He gave her a pained look.

“All right, all right,” she said. “I can take a hint. If either of you needs me, just yell.” She leaned in, gave Jeeves a quick kiss on the cheek, and toddled unsteadily into my bathroom, leaving me alone with my man.

Chapter Text

I groaned and buried my dial in the pillow. There was an awkward silence for the space of about a decade, broken at last by the merry burble and hiss of the shower coming on in the bathroom.

“Go ahead and talk, boys,” called Hecken over the ruckus of the plumbing. “I can’t hear a thing over the water.”

“Lovely girl,” I said into the pillow. “Don’t know if I’d rather kiss her or kick her in the pants.”

“I can readily sympathize with the sentiment, sir.”

“Fine time to take a shower.”

“Indeed, sir.”

I cautiously extended an eye over the apex of the pillow. “Jeeves. You’re still here.”

“Yes, sir.”

“You haven’t shimmied down the nearest convenient water pipe.”

“No, sir.”

“Waiting to slip out on the early milk train, are you?”

“No, sir.”

“Jeeves –“ I began, but whatever I had been about to say never made it past the larynx. During the course of our repartee, Jeeves had been drifting gradually Woosterward, and was now close enough to gently pry the pillow from my clutches. He tossed the object aside and deposited himself beside me on the bed.

I boggled. I mean to say, it is rare enough that I find myself in close quarters with a Jeeves who is not fully upright, outside of a vehicle or the confines of the kitchen. Having one in my bed simply took the biscuit. “Jeeves!” I said again, this time bringing it up an octave or two. “Dare I hope . . . You don’t mean to tell me that you feel . . .”

“Sir, Miss Fernsby is quite correct,” interrupted Jeeves, and if I didn’t know better, I would say there was a tremor in his voice. “There is much that I should tell you, but I . . . find myself at a loss for words. For now, this must suffice.” He gathered me in slowly, like shepherd fondly scooping up a particularly loony lamb, and pressed his lips to mine.

What happened next is something of a blur. At that point my higher faculties, which were already more than a little strained, gave it up for a loss. I felt more like something in aspic than anything human. My extremities, however, had their own ideas about how to manage the situation. I know that I had shoved a few fingers through Jeeves’s hair, and I was just taking a stab at disarraying his impeccable half-Windsor with the other hand when I heard a sound that turned the blood to ice in my veins. It seemed that at least a dozen aunts were congregating directly outside my bedroom door, all talking at once.

“—mustn’t go in there,” Aunt Dahlia was saying. “I’m sure he’s incredibly contagious.”

Aunt Agatha’s voice joined the chorus. “I can assure you, Helen is not in my nephew’s room. She’s probably in the garden again. The dear girl simply craves fresh air.”

“Enough!” said a third voice – this one unfamiliar, but decidedly auntish in its timbre. “I have been led on one wild goose chase after another from the moment I arrived. I came to see my daughter, and I will find her if I have to search this entire house!” With that, the door banged open, but not before I had managed, in a spectacular feat of agility, to insert the corpus between bed and floor. I realized in retrospect that it was shameful of me to abandon Jeeves in this dire hour in such a craven manner, but the old cerebellum was decidedly inflamed at the time. I was not, in other words, the usual gallant self.

As I made myself comfortable between three large dust balls and a single enamel shirt stud – no doubt a residual bit of flotsam from Gussie Fink-Nottle’s last stay under the same bed – I was able to observe three pairs of feminine underpinnings arrayed about the room. Not exactly ring-side seating, I mean to say, but I got enough of the picture to be getting on with. I recognized Aunt Dahlia’s stoutish pegs on the left, and Aunt Agatha’s rather bonier ones at far right. Between them I observed a pair of sturdy specimens, encased in somber grey stockings and terminating in a pair of painfully well-kept ladies’ patent-leather shoes. Despite the dulling effects of the port on the old grey matter, I was still keen enough to deduce that this last set of gams belonged to Helen’s mother.

“Good evening, Mrs. Travers, Mrs. Gregson, Mrs. Fernsby,” said Jeeves, who was once again fully vertical and standing about twelve inches north-west of my left earlobe. How he managed to sound so bally calm under the circs was beyond me, but that’s Jeeves for you. One would be hard-pressed to find a stiffer upper lip. “May I be of some assistance?”

“Yes, you may,” snapped the owner of the patent-leathers. “You can start by telling me where my daughter is, and I don’t want any nonsense this time.”

“Forgive me, madam . . . I was under the impression that Miss Fernsby was in her room, preparing for dinner.”

“Well, she is not in her room, nor is she in the garden. And the maid most definitely told me that she saw my daughter entering this very room.”

Aunt Dahlia let loose with what I suppose she thought was an indulgent chuckle, but sounded more like an aging war-horse having a bronchial spasm. “Oh, that silly girl does let her imagination get the best of her. Always seeing burglars lurking about the grounds and that sort of thing. She’s as bad as Tom. You can see as well as I can that there’s nobody here but Jeeves.”

“I hear water running,” observed the Fernsby menace.

“Mr. Wooster is taking a refreshing shower, madam. He hoped that it might help stave off his fever. The young gentleman is in rather poor health this evening, I fear.”

“So I have been told,” she said, lowering the room temp. a degree or three. There followed a few protracted huffs, and I was just starting to wonder why she had chosen this moment to do her breathing exercises when the blighted female spoke again. “My daughter has been here. I smell that foul Parisian perfume of hers.”

“Yes, madam,” said Jeeves. “Mr. Wooster lent the young lady his coat when they were walking the grounds yesterday evening, and the air became chilly. No doubt the scent is still lingering on the fabric.”

“How gentlemanly of him, Jeeves,” chimed in Aunt Agatha. “No wonder the poor dear caught a chill. What a lovely gesture. Don’t you think, Dahlia?” My already spinning bean spun a bit more vigorously at this. I am not accustomed to being built up by Aunt Agatha under any circs.

“That’s our Bertie,” agreed Aunt Dahlia amiably. “Always prided himself on being a preux something-or-other.”

There were a few more huffs, and the gleaming shoes advanced on Jeeves. “It’s coming from you,” said the Fernsby.

“Madam?”

“You reek of my daughter’s perfume!” The ghastly human bloodhound huffed again. “And what’s more, this room smells of alcohol. What in heaven’s name . . . there is lipstick on your cheek!”

I heard a stifled gasp emerging from somewhere in the neighborhood of Aunt Agatha. I myself would have reeled, but my station beneath the bed wasn’t particularly conducive to that sort of thing.

“Madam, I can assure you –“

“Please, spare me your explanations! Look at you! Hair mussed, tie askew . . . It is obvious what is happening here.”

“Is it?” asked Aunt Dahlia. “I wish someone would fill me in.”

“My daughter has always had a perverse attraction to menials,” said Mrs. Fernsby ruefully. “I had to fire a perfectly good footman when she was sixteen because she wouldn’t stop mooning over him. Now it seems she’s been conducting herself shamefully with this . . . this . . .”

“Valet, madam.”

“Yes, this valet of your nephew’s. I’ve always feared that something like this might happen. I should never have let her out of my sight! I knew she would go and disgrace herself if given the slightest opportunity!”

“Oh, do calm down,” said Aunt Dahlia. “I’m sure there’s a perfectly reasonable explanation for all this. Isn’t there, Jeeves?”

Given a moment or two, I’m sure Jeeves would have come up with something pretty ripe. But the poor fish never had a chance. At some point during the above exchange, the water in the shower had cut off, but all of the parties present had been too enrapt in the unfolding drama to notice. Now a chipper but decidedly inebriated feminine voice called out from somewhere in the depths of the bathroom, “Yoo-hoo, I’m coming out!” And, with a creak and a puff of soapy-smelling steam, the door swung open. A pair of shapely and very nude legs, emerging from beneath just a hint of towel, hove into view. I groaned inwardly and buried my face in the carpet – not the wisest course, since it nearly set off a sneezing fit. This time the gasp from Aunt Agatha was unstifled.

“Don’t mind me, I’ll be on my way in a minute. Oh, I feel so much better,” Hecken was saying as she emerged. “Jeeves, does Bertie have a spare set of – oh! Mother!”

“Helen! What—what—what is the meaning of this?” quavered the senior Fernsby.

“Oh. Mother,” repeated Hecken, in a markedly subdued manner.

“This is worse . . . far worse than I had imagined. What would your dear departed father think, rest his soul? I have never been so humiliated! Is there no limit to your impudicity?”

“Mother, what are you—“

“Silence, child! There’s only one thing to be done. It’s hardly the future I had imagined for you, but it seems we have little choice. You’ll have to marry this man. The sooner the better.”

There was a moment of stunned silence as her meaning settled in on the rest of the room like a truckload of anvils.

“Marry Jeeves?” Aunt Agatha piped up, aghast. “But there’s been some misunderstanding! Surely this can’t be what it seems . . .”

“I fail to see how else one might construe this little scene,” snapped Mrs. Fernsby. “I had hoped, Agatha, that under your watchful eye something like this might have been prevented.” Aunt Agatha had no immediate reply, but I’m sure she must have drawn herself up indignantly.

At this point, Jeeves finally resurfaced. “Madam, if you will allow me –“ he began.

“Silence!” snapped the Fernsby. “You have caused us all enough grief already. I suggest you go break the news to your poor master, wherever he really is. Helen, come with me. We have wedding preparations to attend to.”

And Helen meekly uttered the two most appalling words I had heard yet in a long evening of appalling words: “Yes, mother.”

With that, they departed, daughter’s legs weaving unsteadily along behind mother’s, and Aunt Agatha yipping at their heels.

Chapter Text

The door thumped shut with an ominous finality, and I hunkered deeper amongst the dust balls. As far as Bertram was concerned, the last trump had sounded and the four horsemen were rolling up their sleeves and preparing to smack into it with all the vigour at their disposal. I could see no hope.

I was so immersed in these dire contemplations that I nearly forgot that two other members of the party were still in the presence. So when Aunt Dahlia piped up in a voice that caused the very foundations of Brinkley Manor to quiver, I nearly brained myself on the underside of the bed.

“Well, Jeeves, you old scalawag,” said the relative, “I’m sure there really must be a perfectly reasonable explanation for all this, but hanged if I know what it might be. Enlighten a poor confused old woman, will you?”

“It is . . . a long story, madam,” said Jeeves, and I sensed a certain whatsit in his voice. I mean to say, it wouldn’t be obvious to the untrained ear, but it was clear to me that the man was deeply stirred.

“I have nothing but time, Jeeves. It seems that dinner is a non-starter. Tom’s digestion is probably ruined for the next two months. Anatole has undoubtedly sunk into a deep depression, knowing that his latest masterpiece has been cruelly banished to the larder. And I will never hear the end of all this from Agatha. So what more do I have to lose? At least entertain your beleaguered hostess, who has nothing else to look forward to in this life.”

“Perhaps another time, madam.”

“Oh, all right, Jeeves. Have it your way. But can you at least tell me where that ridiculous master of yours has gotten off to? He’s not going to come bursting out of that bathroom in the nude as well, is he? I don’t think my nerves could take the strain.”

“Mr. Wooster is—“

“Here, Aunt Dahlia,” I said miserably, poking the bean out from under the bedstead.

The aged relative gazed at me with a sort of pained, quiet dignity. “I should probably be surprised,” she said, “but I just don’t have it in me anymore. I don’t suppose you would care to explain any of this?”

I glanced at Jeeves, who fixed me with what I believe the nibs call a gimlet eye. I laid my cheek on the carpet wearily. The port seemed to have suddenly set in with unusual severity. “To be honest, auntie, I think I’d rather sleep. No, don’t bother to try and move me, Jeeves. Right here should do the job nicely.”

The aunt rolled her eyes heavenward. “Well, I can see that mine is a hopeless cause. Jeeves, take one of his arms, and I’ll take the other – there’s a good man. If you two asses ever decide to avail yourselves of my help, you’ll know where to find me, though goodness knows I ought to spare myself the pain. I’m not getting any younger, you know.”

Her monologue may have continued beyond this point, but that was the last I managed to absorb. The upshot is that somehow I was transferred from the ventral portion of the bed to the dorsal, at which point I drifted into merciful oblivion.

---

I woke to a brutal assault of sunbeams. I was just pulling the coverlet over the throbbing lemon when I discerned that it – the coverlet, I mean, not the coconut – was pinned to the bed by some foreign object. I heaved open an eyelid, and perceived that the f. o. in question was Jeeves, seated on the edge of the bed in the vicinity of my legs.

“Jeeves!” I croaked, rubbing away the fog of sleep. “Last night . . . did I tell you . . . did we . . .”

“Yes, sir.”

“Then I wasn’t imagining . . .”

“No, sir.”

We looked at each other with what I suppose was a wild surmise on my side, and merely quiet contemplation on Jeeves’. “You really did . . . kiss me?” I pressed on, a shade timidly.

“Yes, sir.”

“Oh. Oh, Jeeves . . .”

“If you will recall, sir, I also became betrothed. To the young lady.”

I groaned, one of those hollow ones. It occurred to me that I was well exceeding the adult recommended dosage of groaning and brow clutching on this particular sojourn chez Travers. “Oh, Jeeves,” I said again. “You mean I wasn’t imagining that either?”

“I fear not, sir.”

“And you haven’t figured out a way to oil out yet?”

“I am giving the matter my utmost attention, sir. But I fear that nothing suggests itself yet.”

“Hecken still plans to cooperate in this foul business?”

“So it would seem, sir.”

“I am surprised, Jeeves. Surprised and shocked. I gave her more credit.”

“You are failing to take into account the psychology of the individual, sir. Miss Fernsby fears her own mother even more than she fears Mrs. Gregson. Outside the sphere of Mrs. Fernsby’s influence, the young lady puts on a show of defiance. However, when confronted directly . . .”

I sucked in some air through the teeth. “I see, Jeeves. I suppose she is more to be pitied than censured. I admit there have been times when Aunt Agatha has had more or less the same effect on me.”

“Indeed, sir.”

“Have you had a chance to speak to her?”

“Not at any great length, sir.”

I rubbed a brow that was in dire need of a ministering angel and cast an eye about in search of tea. Before I could say a word, Jeeves produced a cup of the restorative as if from thin air. I heaved a grateful s. and shoved a draught of the elixir over the larynx. I decided it was time for another round of Oh Jeevesing.

“Oh, Jeeves,” I sighed, “you are without equal.”

“Thank you, sir.”

“You know, we really should do something about all this Jeevesing and sirring. Under the circs, it hardly seems . . .”

“Yes, sir.”

“If you know what I mean, er, Reginald.”

“Indeed, sir. Guv’nor. Mr. Wooster.”

I gave him a look and set my cup aside. “Well, I suppose we can consider it a work in progress for now. In the meantime, we must turn our attention to this business of your engagement.”

“Yes, s—yes.”

“Right ho, Reg.”

“Very good . . . Bertie.”

I gulped two or three times. I’ve always been reasonably fond of the old appellation, but I had never realized it could sound quite so corking. I clutched my man’s hand and pressed it to the lips, overcome. The words “I love you” were just starting to tremulously assemble themselves and were drifting around in the epiglottal region when Jeeves bunged a particularly ripe spanner into the works.

“Sir . . . Bertie,” he said, in an uncharacteristically halting sort of way, “I feel I must tell you that . . . that I have informed Mrs. Travers of the entire situation.”

Chapter Text

“You what?! When?” I ejaculated. And if there was a bit of squeakiness in my delivery, what of it? Greater men than B. Wooster would be reduced to squeaking in the face of such a revelation.

“Last night, after you retired to bed.”

“Jeeves!” I spluttered, forgetting the recently established first name b. in my distress. “What would possess you to do such a thing? Have you entirely taken leave of your senses?”

He pursed a well-formed lip or two. “I must admit that the emotional strain of recent events has taken its toll on my faculties. But I felt that a sympathetic coadjutor might be of help in the rather difficult circumstances in which we find ourselves at present.”

“Oh, really? And I suppose you looked at my Aunt Dahlia and thought, ‘By Jove, if ever I saw a sympathetic coadjutor, this is the bird! Who better to tell of my scandalous liaison with the young master than his own blasted aunt?’”

“I merely felt—“

I was deeply stirred. “I never thought I’d find myself saying this to you, Jeeves, but what we want at the moment is a little less feeling and a little more thinking. Dash it all! And damn it all, too! Do you realize what you’ve brought down on our heads? I’ll never hear the end of this. At best, we shall be booted out of Brinkley Manor with fleas in our ears. I hardly dare to think about the worst. I’ll probably be expected to sack you, do you realize that? Curse all aunts! And while we’re at it, curse all bungling bally valets!”

Jeeves looked hurt, to the extent that he ever does. I was put in mind of the time when he found my stash of green silk handkerchiefs with the jolly blue stripes. “I beg your pardon, Bertram, but if we cannot trust Mrs. Travers, whom can we?”

I picked a couple pips out of a fretful lemon slice and took a few deep breaths to steady the quivering ganglia. “I’m sorry, Reg,” I said, a little stiffly. “Perhaps you’re right. You usually are, although I don’t mind telling you your recent track record leaves a bit to be desired. And switch off the ‘Bertram,’ dash it, I don’t want to feel like I’m getting a scolding from my mother. How did she take it, anyway?”

“She seemed unsurprised.”

“Unsurprised? Are you sure?”

“Quite sure.”

“Well, if you say so. Still, it’s bound to make for dashed awkward conversation over the breakfast sideboard.”

“Your aunt has already breakfasted. You will find her in the drawing room.”

“And what about Hecken?”

“The young lady is still in her room, as far as I am aware.”

I massaged the aching bean. “And I suppose her mother is still lurking about the premises.”

“Yes,” he said, visibly biting off a stray “sir”.

“Well, I suppose I must go and face the gauntlet. No use delaying the inevitable.”

---
A short time later, I slunk into the drawing room with rather less than the customary spring in my step. I wasn’t sure what Aunt Dahlia’s reaction to the revelation would be, but I couldn’t imagine that it would be anything less than volcanic. A quick scan of the premises confirmed Jeeves’ information. The aunt was indeed present, standing at the French window in a blaze of indecently bright late morning sunlight with a distant, thoughtful look on her map.

“Aunt Dahlia?” I said meekly.

She pivoted in my direction. “Hello, Bertie,” she rejoined in a tone so close to that of a normal decibel level for indoor conversation that I feared for a moment I had got the wrong relative. “Have a seat, why don’t you?”

I slid into a chair and braced myself for the worst.

“So, my dear young blighter,” said Aunt Dahlia, depositing herself across from me on the divan, “it seems we have much to discuss.”

“Jeeves—“

“Told me everything, yes. For heaven’s sake, stop looking so pale. I’m not going to bite you.”

Hope stirred in the Wooster bosom. “You seem remarkably plussed, aged a.”

“Well, it’s not as if it’s any great surprise. And it certainly explains the exceptional level of fatheadedness the two of you have been demonstrating over the past couple of days.”

“Aunt Agatha doesn’t know, does she?”

She waved a dismissive hand. “She’s long suspected that you and Jeeves might be on matier terms than are strictly considered cricket by some.”

“Well, that was news to me until yesterday,” I said, fiddling with a lint pill on the arm of my chair. “Why am I always the last to find out about these things?”

“Because you’re an ass,” she said affectionately. “Why do you think she disapproves of Jeeves so heartily?”

“I always thought it was because she didn’t like him shoving his oar into family business.”

“Well, that’s part of it, of course. But she also thinks he’s the greatest obstacle to you getting respectably married to some respectable girl and breeding a lot of respectable little Woosters. And you can hardly argue with that.”

“But she doesn’t know, does she? Good lord, she’d have me hauled before the constabulary—“

Aunt Dahlia snorted derisively. “And risk tainting the family name with a scandal of that magnitude? She’d sooner die.”

“How can you be so sure?”

“You should take a page from Jeeves’s book sometime. What is that business he’s always prattling on about – the psychology of the individual? You ought to know by now that Agatha doesn’t operate that way. Bribery, blackmail, and underhanded skullduggery are her preferred methods of dealing with family contretemps. Truly a sister after my own heart, in some respects,” she mused, with a hint of ghoulish pride. “For all the fuss she made, I’d be willing to wager a fair sum that she was secretly thrilled to find you rolling about in the garden shed with that Fernsby girl. She thought she finally had you squarely under her thumb and ready to truss up and drag to the altar. In fact, she’s probably your greatest ally against the senior Fernsby’s matrimonial plans for Jeeves.”

I shuddered. “Good lord. But why is this Fernsby menace so keen to marry her daughter off to a servant? Isn’t she concerned about family honor and all that too?”

“That is where she differs from your aunt Agatha. Mrs. Fernsby adheres to some sort of ghastly moral code, I gather, and actually feels obliged to make an honest woman of her daughter by marrying her off to Jeeves.”

“Good lord!” I reiterated. “But . . . but what about you, Aunt Dahlia?”

“What about me?”

“How do you feel about the whole thing? Having a nephew who’s . . . bent?”

“Oh, honestly, Bertie, I suppose I ought to disapprove, but I just can’t bring myself to it. What’s the harm, after all? And who better to shepherd you through life than Jeeves? Anyway, you’re hardly the first man in the family to have eccentricities in that direction.”

I boggled. “Really? But who . . .”

“You remember your uncle Henry, of course.”

“How could I forget? Kept rabbits in his bedroom, generally disapproved of by all and sundry, though he always struck me as a perfectly decent chap.”

“And he was. The best brother a girl could have. But, as I say, eccentric. The rabbits were only the skin on the pudding. The part you didn’t hear about growing up was that he used to dress up as a geisha and hang about in the Piccadilly Circus, going by the alias ‘Princess Yum Yum.’ He would get pinched regularly, and Agatha would send one of the servants round incognito to bail him out.”

“What!”

“There was one rozzer in particular who seemed to make it his life’s work to pinch the mysterious Yum Yum at every opportunity. Eventually, this strapping young constable began to skip the station altogether and took to simply dropping Henry off on the edge of the family estate under cover of night.

“I gather that one night the officer hinted broadly to Henry that he was about to take a holiday in the south of France, and heavens, wouldn’t it be a shame if he had to arrest someone on the train and abscond with him to Antibes, or something of the sort. Well, Henry never made it to the train. I’m not sure how she did it, but Agatha somehow pipped him at the post and managed to shackle the poor dumb chum to your aunt Emily within a week. You know the rest, of course . . . they had Claude and Eustace together, and Henry lived out the rest of his days in a more quiet and respectable sort of lunacy, surrounded by rabbits. Agatha considered it a triumph on par with the moulding of your aunt Julia and the undoing of George and the barmaid.”

“Both of which Jeeves and I had a hand in scuppering,” I mused.

“Is it any wonder she considers the pair of you scourges of the first water?”

“But I always thought Uncle Henry was fairly potty about Aunt Emily.”

“Oh, there was no question that he loved her, in his way. And he found a certain amount of happiness, to be sure – taking solace in his rabbits and doting on those two lunatic sons of theirs. Still, I always felt a pang for him when I thought of that young policeman.”

You could have knocked me down with a toothpick. “Well, I’m blowed, Auntie. Positively blowed. Old Uncle Henry! Who would have thought?”

“Nobody, if Agatha had anything to say about it.”

I wrung the mitts fretfully. “But, dash it, Aunt Dahlia! If Aunt Agatha nobbles me and Jeeves like she did Uncle Henry and his policeman . . . or, just as bad, if Mrs. Fernsby forces Jeeves and Hecken to marry . . . I mean to say, what am I going to do?”

“Well, normally I’d suggest consulting Jeeves, but at the moment he seems to be nearly edging you out in the race for chump of the year. It must be contagious. I may not have his prodigious brains, but I’m at least compos mentis for the moment. Let me do a little thinking and see what I can dredge up.”

I was deeply moved. I had always known that Aunt Dahlia was a sound egg, but I had never expected this level of sympathy and good sportsmanship. “Aunt Dahlia, you are the queen of your species,” I gushed, swooping in for a peck on the cheek.

“Don’t get too cozy with me just yet, you fiend in human shape. I might contract chumpitis from you too, and then where will you be? Now, off with you!”

I uttered a few more garbled words of thanks and staggered off.

Chapter Text

I left the presence of the aged relative feeling considerably braced. I won’t go so far as to say that I felt entirely human, but a hint of the old spring was restored to the Wooster step. After a few moments of quiet contemplation, I decided to seek out the female third of the sketch and put her abreast of the latest developments.

Years of hard experience told me that I would not find Hecken eagerly shoveling in the eggs and b. After a night of revelry on the scale that we had just experienced, she was likely to be holed up in bed with the pillow over her head.

When I arrived at the Fernsby lair, I wasted no time applying knuckle to woodwork. Perhaps a bit harsh, under the circumstances, but I felt that the urgent business at hand warranted strong measures. It took several attempts before my efforts were rewarded by a string of muffled oaths not fit for reproduction in any respectable publication, followed by an eloquent soliloquy on where I could stow my blasted hand after I was finished trying to batter the damn’ door down with it. I took this as my cue to enter.

As I had suspected, Hecken was in bed with the covers drawn up to her neck. Despite the valises under her eyes and the disheveled curls, she still rewarded closer examination. I was conscious of a pang, but I did my best to suppress it.

“What ho, old bean,” I said gently.

“Oh, it’s you, Bertie.”

“Right here, dear girl.”

She massaged the scalp tenderly. Hers, not mine. “Oh, Bertie. Do you remember all that rot I was talking last night about how the Americans would be well rid of Prohibition?”

“I think so. Last night is something of a blur, I’m afraid.”

“Well, I was wrong. They’re a lot of fatheads who don’t know a good thing when they see one. I’m through with the demon liquor, Bertie. It shall never cross my lips again, and if anyone ever catches me so much as looking at a pint of watered down beer I hope they’ll give me a swift kick in the pants.”

I gave her a wise but sympathetic look. “Many’s the time I’ve felt that way after a particularly fruity binge at the Drones. The feeling will pass, old thing.”

She tried to shake her head. I could have told her it was a bad idea, but she didn’t wait around for my sage advice. She simply smacked into with no preamble. This set off another round of hearty expletives. I’m not sure where modern girls pick up these vocabularies.

“Bertie,” she said when she had finally sufficiently recovered, “it seems to me that something very important happened last night, but hanged if I can remember what it was. Something to do with Jeeves.”

“Ah,” I said. “On this subject I can definitely be of assistance. You’re engaged to him.”

She prodded a temple or two. “Ah yes. It’s all coming back to me now.”

“At least, you were as of the time we parted company. Is that still on?”

“As far as I know.”

“Well, can’t you get out of it?”

“I’m sorry, Bertie. I can’t.”

I chewed the lip a bit. It had been too much to hope for, of course, but worth a try. Still, we Woosters are not so easily dissuaded. “But why not?”

“You don’t know my mother, Bertie. She makes your Aunt Agatha look like St. Francis of Assisi. She’d make my life and Jeeves’s a living hell until she got her way, and no force of man or nature could stop her.”

Bad, of course, but I couldn’t very well hold it against the poor girl. I daresay no one is more sensible of the difficulties of getting out of unwanted engagements than Bertram W. Wooster. I decided not to press the issue further. “Well, I suppose that ties it, unless Jeeves or Aunt Dahlia can think of something.”

“Jeeves!” said Hecken ruefully. “He’s the one who got us into this mess to begin with.”

There was something in what she said, of course, but I felt compelled to defend my man’s honor. “Don’t be too hard on the poor old chap. He was only trying to help.”

“I wish he wouldn’t.”

“It’s his way. He can’t see a pickle without hitching up his socks and rushing in to fish someone out of it. Usually he’s quite the nib at this sort of thing. One of the best, in fact.”

“If you say so.”

“I do say so.”

“Well, fine.”

“All right!”

“Anyway, it’s all rot.”

“What’s all rot?”

“I was never in love with Rogers.”

Here, she had lost me. “Who,” I asked, “is Rogers?”

“That footman Mother is always going on about.”

I racked the grey matter. I vaguely recalled something about a footman coming up in the course of the previous night’s little conference, but the details seemed to have escaped me. I told her as much.

“Mother is convinced that I am constantly becoming infatuated with servants,” Hecken explained. “She latches on to the slightest evidence. I was friends with him, of course. We would sometimes sneak gaspers together in the potting shed.”

It occurred to me that the elder Fernsby ought to be more concerned about her daughter’s increasingly apparent fascination with potting sheds, but I held my tongue. “But you felt nothing of the tender pash for this fellow,” I offered instead. “Nothing truer and deeper than ordinary friendship and all that rot, what?”

“Not a smidge. But she was convinced that I was head over heels for him.”

“H’m,” I said. Something was stirring in the old brainpan, a niggling germ of an idea that this morsel of information was somehow vitally important to the whole case. It had something, I felt, to do with the psychology of the individual – the individual in this case being Mrs. F.

“Why do you say ‘h’m’?”

“Oh, nothing. Just a thought.”

“Not,” she went on, blushing prettily, “to say that Jeeves isn’t awfully attractive.”

She was rambling, of course, but I didn’t like the turn things had taken. “Steady on, old girl!”

“I’m sorry, Bertie. I’m just trying to look at the bright side of the thing. I mean to say, if I’ve got to be forcibly hitched to somebody, I could do a lot worse, couldn’t I?”

“I have a feeling I’m going to be terribly jealous in a moment if I can just sort out which of you I’m supposed to be jealous of.”

She waved a weary hand. “Oh, never mind me. I’m talking through my hat. You should really be on your way, Bertie. Mother’s probably going to raid the place at any moment and start checking under the duvet for illicit domestics.”

“Right ho,” I said. “I shall keep you apprised of further developments.”

I beetled out, feeling rattled but still vaguely hopeful. The next thing to do, I told myself, was to find Jeeves and enlighten him viz. my new intelligence on the psychological state of Fernsby the Senior.

My search for the honest chap was almost immediately crowned with success. To my considerable chagrin, said s. was not unqualified – for Jeeves appeared to be deep in conference with my Aunt Agatha. She had cornered him in the dim recesses of the stairwell. I could discern that she was muttering at him in quietly sinister tones, but I could not grasp the gist of the chinwag.

I began the process of oiling out quietly, for I was in no condition to deal with hoards of Aunt Agathas cluttering up the stairwell. But the previous night’s debauchery had somewhat impeded my form, and I was not stealthy enough to evade the relative’s preternatural skills of nephew detection. She called out in a hiss that turned the blood to ice.

“Ah, Bertie! Do come here. I must speak with you.”

Chapter Text

Jeeves gave me an apologetic look and faded into the woodwork. I was alone with the Agatha.

“What ho, Aunt Agatha,” I said. It was not the carefree, effervescent sort of what ho for which we Woosters are known. It was a wary and world-weary what ho, the kind of what ho that is uttered by a man who has seen hard times and knows too much.

“Let us dispense with the inanities, Bertie,” said the ancestral relic. “It is time to take action. I have just finished informing your valet of his options.”

I was conscious of a distinct chill in the hemoglobin. “His options?”

“Specifically, that he may give notice and leave quietly with some shred of his dignity intact, or that he will be discharged.”

A younger Wooster, less hardened by the aunts of the world, might have registered shock and surprise. The present Wooster, however, remained stoic. “My dear Aunt Agatha,” I said calmly, “what possible reason would I have for discharging Jeeves? What purpose would this serve? Why, one asks oneself? To what end?”

“Because,” she replied, with a nasty click of the incisors, “Mrs. Fernsby may be fool enough to throw her only daughter away on a comfortably employed valet. But I doubt that even she would want to see the apple of her eye married off to a disgraced former valet whose prospects for future employment are grim.”

“Even if I were to sack Jeeves –“ and I uttered this last phrase with what I hoped was an airy chuckle “—I would hardly describe his prospects as grim. Why, the moment word got out that he was on the market, the queue of young gentlemen waiting to snatch him up would stretch from London to Berwick-upon-Tweed.”

“Not if word got out that he has a tendency to engage in illicit liaisons with his employers’ betrothed.”

“But he didn’t. And she wasn’t.”

“She wasn’t what? Don’t blither, Bertie.”

“My betrothed. You forget, in your excitement, that Hecken and I were never engaged.”

“After what took place in the garden last night, you most certainly were. And I am not about to let this miscarriage of justice continue. I will see you married to that girl, Bertie.”

I was suddenly struck by one of those inspirations that suddenly strike one sometimes. “I say, Aunt Agatha. Why don’t you just tell Mrs. Fernsby the truth?”

“What?”

“I mean to say, just tell her what really happened, viz. that any illicit liaising that took place was with Bertram, not with Jeeves. You saw it with your own eyes.”

The relative regarded me with a peculiar look in her eye. It was a mixture of pity and what I might have taken – had I not known better – to be approval. “I already did,” she said at length. “With great reluctance. She did not believe me.”

“Really? But I thought you and she were great friends. She doesn’t consider you to be a reliable witness?”

“It was not my testimony that she found unreliable, but her daughter’s motives. She said that it was Helen who led you astray, and that she was merely playing upon your affections as to get closer to the true object of her desire: Jeeves.”

The jaw dropped. “What rot!” I ejaculated.

“As much as it pains me to say so, I must agree with your sentiment, Bertie. I seriously overestimated the woman’s intelligence.”

“It seems to me that this Fernsby woman takes a rather warped view of humanity. How did you meet her, anyway?”

“She was a reference for that imbecile who briefly taught Latin to my son Thomas. I went round to speak to her in person before hiring him on, and she seemed to me quite sensible at the time. I suppose I should have realized after my experience with Mr. Little that her judgement was severely unsound, but I gave her the benefit of the doubt. We all have our lapses.”

I was agog. “Mr. Little?”

“Yes.”

“As in – Bingo Little?”

“I believe ‘Richard’ was his Christian name, but yes. That was the vulgar alias that he employed, if I recall correctly.”

“You mean the Bingo Little.”

“I only know of one Bingo Little, and I certainly hope, for the sake of all that is good and civilized in the world, that there are not more of them.”

“Well, I’m dashed!”

“Language, Bertie.”

“But how—“

“Enough, Bertie! We are getting off the subject. You have until tomorrow morning. I don’t care how you do it. Just see to it that Jeeves is gone, or I shall have to see to it myself.”

My eyes were downcast in rueful contemplation at that point, but I rather imagine that she then vanished in a puff of red smoke.

---

“Reggie, old fruit,” I said as I tossed a freshly-brewed pick-me-up down the gullet, “things are beginning to get a bit thick.” I had returned to my quarters and found the dear chap waiting for me with the life-saving elixir already in hand.

“Indeed,” replied Jeeves – or I should say Reg, for we have reached that point in the story, after all. “The atmosphere has become positively glutinous.”

“If you say so. At any rate, I have just had a rather grim tête-à-tête with my Aunt Agatha. I am sure you can work out the gist of the thing.”

“Yes, she had already presented me with her ultimatum.”

“Utter flapdoodle, of course. I would never stand for it. But still, we must be vigilant. Who knows what sort of treasons, stratagems and spoils the old buzzard will get up to. There may be one bright spot in all this, though. I have learned some dashed interesting things about La Fernsby Sr. since our last conference –both from Aunt Agatha and from young Hecken.” And with a few well-chosen words, I informed him of the recent scuttlebutt.

“Most intriguing,” he said.

“Yes, I thought so too. But dash it, what does it all mean?”

“In the absence of more complete information, I can only speculate. However, I may have a hunch.” As he said this, a look of such keen intelligence crept over his map that I found myself sagging at the knees a bit. I gave his arm a knead.

“Oh, Reg! Don’t tell me that marvelous brain of yours has hit upon something already.”

He patted my kneading hand and smiled kindly. “It is only the merest suggestion of a hunch, Bertie, hardly worth elaborating upon at this juncture. I shall investigate further. In the meantime, I suggest you call Mr. Little at once and see if you can elicit any relevant information from him.”

“Consider it a fait accompli, old bean.”

Chapter Text

To get old Bingo on the line was, for Bertram, the work of a moment.

“Bless my soul! It’s not Bertie Wooster?” said the old familiar v.

“None other,” I replied.

“Well, well. To what do I owe the pleasure?”

“Bingo, I’m afraid something of a crisis has arisen here at Brinkley Court, and I am in need of your aid and succor.”

“Anything for an old school chum.”

“Tell me, Bingo. Do you know someone named Fernsby?”

“Fernsby?” he repeated, sounding fogged.

“Rack the brain matter, Bingo. I have it from a reliable source that this very Fernsby knowingly and willfully recommended your services as a Latin tutor to my Aunt Agatha.”

Realization dawned. “Oh!” said Bingo. “Ah yes, it all comes back to me now. Buy me lunch, Bertie, and I shall tell you all I know.”

“Can’t be done, old man. I have the dickens of an emergency here, and time is of the essence. I can’t just go popping off to London.”

“Well, then let’s meet halfway. Rosie has me on a special diet, and I’m practically gnawing the walls.”

“What, again! Didn’t she learn her lesson the last time?”

A mournful sigh trickled over the wire. “That’s the trouble with being married to a writer, Bertie. Not only is she always writing, but she’s always reading things, as well. It’s a dashed menace. On a recent trip to America she got hold of an issue of Popular Science Monthly, and now she keeps raving about the dangers of sodium and the superior health of Prehistoric Man.”

“Oh, all right, all right,” I said. After all, we Woosters may be practical, but we are not heartless. “Meet me at the King’s Arms, and don’t spare the accelerator pedal.”

---
After a pretty tense drive up in the old two-seater, I found myself at the venerable establishment, ensconced in a booth across from Bingo and poking listlessly at a bubble and squeak. We engaged in a little preliminary banter, and then I decided to cut straight to the res.

“Tell me about your association with this Fernsby woman, Bingo,” I said. “Omit no detail, however trivial.”

“Well,” replied the Bingo, emptying approximately three quarters of a salt pot onto his steak and kidney p., “she was really more of an acquaintance of Rosie’s than of mine. Apparently she fancies herself something of a writer, and they met through a mutual publisher. Some sort of women’s rag.”

“Was an acquaintance of Rosie’s? Why the past tense, old egg? Have they parted ways? Did some coolness arise between them?”

“Not exactly. She just abruptly stopped coming round. It was about the time when we hired Gertie, come to think of it.”

“Gertie?”

“The parlourmaid.”

I shuddered. “I shouldn’t wonder. Horrible girl.”

“I didn’t know you knew Gertie, Bertie.”

“Only a passing acquaintance, I’m happy to say. She was practically baying for my blood on the occasion when you induced me to pinch that beastly dictation cylinder from your house.”

Now it was Bingo’s turn to shudder. “Let us never speak of that incident again, Bertie.”

“Fine with me.”

“It was a dark chapter in my life.”

“Rather.”

“Anyway, the Fernsby woman used to drop in fairly often for tea and whatnot. Sometimes she’d bring her daughter with her.” A sort of dreamy, wistful look came over his map. “Did you know she had a daughter, Bertie? Wonderful girl, simply delightful.”

If ever I had seen a bud in which swift nipping was required, this was it. I came within a toucher of rapping the blighter across the knuckles with my butter knife. Instead I opted for the censorious frown and the cold, haughty voice. “Steady on, Bingo! You’re a married man!”

“Oh all right, Bertie, all right. No need to get so hotted up about it. You know I’d never dream of straying from Rosie. But a chap can still acknowledge an absolute corker when he sees one, can’t he? I say – you’re coming over all lobstery! Don’t tell me you’re in love with this girl, Bertie!”

“Bingo,” I said, maintaining the cold and haughty v., “We are not here to discuss my love life.”

“Of course not, old man.”

“Never mind about the younger Fernsby. Let us not get sidetracked. It is the mater in whom we are interested at present, not the daughter.”

“Right. Well, as I was saying, she’d come around quite a bit and chew the fat with Rosie about this and that. She was cordial enough, but always made me a bit nervous. Altogether too governesslike for me, if you know what I mean.”

“I’d say more auntlike, but yes, I follow. How did you come to put her down as a reference, anyway?”

He shrugged the shoulders. “I once helped her out with a bit of Latin for some thing or other she was writing. She seemed rather impressed at the time. I suppose she must have been, too, because your Aunt Agatha hired me on.”

“What was she writing about?”

“Oh, one thing and another. Lots of stodgy history and culture stuff, as I recall. The only thing I really remember is that she spent quite a bit of time interviewing Anatole." A rueful and vaguely reproachful note entered his voice. "This was back when he worked for us, you know. Before that aunt of yours pinched him.”

I shied like a startled filly. “Anatole!” I exclaimed. “This Fernsby female knows Anatole?”

“Yes, apparently they were old associates. She practically went into paroxysms of excitement when she found out he was working for us. I gather she’d been trying to get in touch with the man for some time. Said she was writing some sort of exposé on the French Chef in the English Kitchen and the influence of Auguste Escoffier on the British palate or some such rot. Practically lived in our kitchen for a couple of weeks.”

I was on the edge of my seat. “And then?”

“Well, as I said, she suddenly dropped off the face of the earth. She published the thing not long after. It was positively savage. Blamed the French Chef for everything from the Fall of Man to the Spanish Influenza. I say, where are you going?”

He uttered this last remark because, at some point during the preceding commentary, I had suddenly passed a napkin across the lips in a distracted manner and risen to my feet.

“Bingo,” I said, “I must take my leave. You may have just saved the lives of at least three of your fellow citizens. I am in your debt.”

“But I don’t understand!” cried Bingo.

“Neither do I,” I said, and legged it.

---

Before beginning the interminable drive back to Brinkley Court, I thought it prudent to inform Aunt Dahlia of the whole sordid affair. I called her from a public phone box I found on the premises, glancing about furtively the whole time, like an informant who expects Mugsy and Knuckles to pop out at any moment with the freshly polished blackjack.

“This is all very interesting,” said the aged relative when I had finished delivering my statement. “But what the devil does it mean?”

“I haven’t the foggiest,” I replied, “but the Wooster intuition tells me it is all very significant. I’m sure you and Jeeves will be able to make something of it.”

“All right. But I have to tell you, young Bertie, I don’t like it. Not one bit.”

“What do you mean?”

“Any scheme involving Anatole is ripe for disaster. But never mind, I shall do what I can. In the meantime, you’d better get back here. Agatha and the Fernsby woman have been skulking about like a couple of hungry foxes. I don’t know how much more I can take.”

“I shall drive like the wind, aged a.”

---

I arrived at the ancestral homestead after what seemed like an eternity. When I decanted myself onto the drive, I found Aunt Dahlia and dear Reggie waiting for me – the latter’s eyes gleaming with intelligence, and the former practically dancing with excitement.

“It’s about time you got here, you young fiend!” cried Aunt Dahlia. “What took so long? Did you and the car take it in turns carrying one another?”

“I came as fast as I could, Aunt Dahlia,” I said, brushing the dust of the road from the outer casings. “Well, don’t keep me in suspense! What did you find out?”

“Everything, Bertie, everything.” She did a few steps of a jig, or perhaps a reel. “Jeeves has worked his magic. All shall be revealed tonight, at dinner.”

“What! Dash it, Aunt Dahlia, why can't you tell me now?”

The aunt crossed her arms defiantly. “What I am about to do, I do at great personal risk. I hope you appreciate that, young nephew. If this is to be done, the least you can do is let me do it in my own way.”

I cast a pleading glance at my man, who was stuffed frogging with every ounce of effort at his disposal. “Jeeves – Reg –“ I began.

“I’m afraid I am sworn to secrecy, Bertie,” he said. “Mrs. Travers has made her wishes in this matter quite clear.”

“There’s a good lad,” said Aunt Dahlia. “You see? Jeeves knows the score. Dinner is at seven, Bertie. Don’t be late.” And with those ominous words, she biffed off.

Chapter Text

I kicked at a passing clod of dirt. “Did I already say ‘Curse all aunts,’ Reg?”

“Yes. This morning.”

“Well, it bears repeating. Curse all aunts! The lives of myself and two of my dearest associates hang in the balance. I have just driven all over God’s green earth, I have wined and dined scads of Bingo Littles, all to obtain any meager scrap of information that might help us out of this pickle to end all pickles – and this beastly relative decides that now is the time to play coy? It beats all, Reggie. The biscuit has definitively been taken.”

He pursed his lips sympathetically. “It was Mrs. Travers’ feeling that the psychological impact of the revelation on all parties involved would be maximized by a certain amount of clandestinity.”

“Dash it, my dear chap, hasn’t my psychology been impacted enough for one day? What’s the harm in telling me? You know a Wooster does not squeal.”

“I am sorry. If it were up to me, I would readily divulge the information. However, your aunt made her wishes—“

“Quite clear, yes, I know.” I sighed. “I suppose all I can do is wait it out, then, what?”

“Precisely.”

“I gather the two of you must have dug up some pretty good stuff.”

“I believe that ‘ripe’ is the adjective you would employ.”

“And you think it will bring home the goods?”

“It will assuredly bring home something.”

“Well, there’s a comfort.”

We passed a moment in strained silence, interrupted only by the tootling of birds and the hum of various insects. My whole world, I realized, had gone terribly wonky. Normally, at a moment such as this, I would have dismissed the cove with a despondent “Right ho, Jeeves,” and he would have said “Very good, sir,” and beetled off. But now one sensed that the old familiar banter would no longer pass muster. Something more needed saying, but I groped in vain.

“Well, old thing,” I began haltingly, “I suppose . . . what I mean to say is – dash it, are we going to be all right?”

He leaned in close, as if to whisper discretely in my ear, but instead planted a shy kiss upon my temple. “Joy cometh in the morning,” he said, and vanished into the gathering shadows.

---

I stood rooted to the spot for some time, still tingling pleasantly from the touch of recent Reginald’s lips. When I finally induced myself to glance at my pocket watch, I was dismayed to see that some considerable time remained until the dinner bell was scheduled to bong. I couldn’t bring myself to enter the house, teeming as it was with aunts and mothers, so long before the appointed hour.

I decided instead to seek out the pond in the kitchen garden and chuck rocks into it, an activity with which I had whiled away many a happy hour in my youth. I wended my way thither, gathering up quite a neat collection of cobbles as I went and shoving them into my trouser pockets. Reg would not approve, of course, as they rather played havoc with the line of the garment, but I felt that what he did not know wouldn’t hurt him.

The pond in question was embellished with one of those little ornamental bridges, and it was on this that I proposed to park myself in order to carry out the task at hand. I was surprised to find that the bridge was already occupied by a figure of feminine aspect. A moment’s inspection revealed that the figure belonged to Hecken. She was perched on the railing, gazing pensively out over the water.

“What ho, young prune,” I said as I hove to.

“Bertie!” she cried. “Where have you been?”

“Oh, hither and yon.” It was an awkward subj., and not one on which I wished to linger. “What are you doing out in the open? This is unlike you. Were all the sheds taken?”

“I’m taking a break from sheds. They’re bad for my nerves. And besides, after last night’s Laurel and Hardy routine, everyone knows where the best one is.”

I wondered briefly who was Laurel and who Hardy in this scenario, but decided not to press the issue. “I say,” I said, “you look considerably more bucked than you did when I saw you this morning.”

“Yes,” she said dreamily. “Not long after you left, Jeeves came in with this sort of magic potion in a glass. It went down like a sock to the jaw, but oh, boy! I have an idea of what Lazarus must have felt like.”

“That’s one of Jeeves’s specialities,” I said with a knowing nod. “He gave me one of those things the day I hired him. Thinking back, I suppose it was love at first gulp.”

“He’s a treasure, Bertie. I don’t blame you for being in love with him.”

“I owe it to you for making me finally see it, old girl.” I deposited myself next to her on the railing, and she leaned up against me a bit.

“You know Bertie,” she said at length, “I’m a bit embarrassed.”

“Embarrassed? Whatever about?”

“Well, I gave you a hell of a time last night about letting other people make your decisions for you and all that sort of thing. At least, I think I did.”

“You did,” I assured her. “But it’s all right. You were right, you know.”

“Maybe so. But now I’m sitting out here feeling sorry for myself while that goon squad is in there deciding my future for me. I suppose, for all my talk, I’m still a few vertebrae shy of a backbone myself.”

“Oh, come!”

“Don’t ‘oh, come,’ me, Bertie. You know it's true. I ought to be in there right now putting a stop to all this nonsense somehow.”

“Don’t be so hard on yourself. An Aunt Agatha or a Ma Fernsby alone is more akin to a hurricane than anything human. Put them together on the same premises, and you have a situation of Biblical proportions. You can’t expect ordinary man or woman to face something like that and come out intact. Better to batten down the hatches, put Jeeves on the case, and wait for everything to blow over.”

“If you say so.”

"I do say so. In fact, even as we speak, Jeeves and my Aunt Dahlia are in there working in mysterious ways their wonders to perform. It'll be all right. You'll see."

"Hmm."

“Here,” I said, withdrawing from my pocket a hefty chunk of granite – or was it gneiss? Jeeves would know – and pressing it into her hand. “Why don’t you bung this into the water? It will have you feeling better in no time.”

She looked dubious, but hurled the cobble with considerable vim. It hit home with a jolly satisfying ker-plunk, followed by an explosive exodus of indignant frogs from the surrounding lily pads. She turned back to me with a radiant smile. “You’re right, Bertie. That’s wonderful. Have you got any more?”

I produced a sizable handful of rocks from the depths of my trousers. “’Be prepared’ is the Wooster motto, my dear.”

“Oh, Bertie, darling. You always know just what a girl needs.”

And so we passed a relatively carefree hour or so, until at last, with heavy hearts and grumbling tummies, we dragged ourselves inside to dress for dinner.

---

When I entered my room, I was surprised to note that Reg was nowhere to be found. It is his normal practice to hover fairly close to the young master during the donning of the soup and fish, in order to check that various pleats are positioned correctly and that there is no oompus-boompus in the manner of soft-bosomed shirts or stripey spats. I will admit that his absence concerned me. I chewed the lip a bit and dithered about for several minutes in the hope that he would materialize. When he did not, I downed a quick aperitif to soothe the quivering ganglia and disrobed.

Some little while later, when I had affixed the final shirt stud and prodded my necktie into what I hoped was a passable butterfly shape, the clock on the mantel informed me that there were still about fifteen minutes until seven. I uttered a few choice oaths and headed to the drawing room. As unpleasant as I found the prospect of chewing the fat with whatever fiendish characters I might find lurking there, I couldn’t bear to sit alone in the room and wait.

When I arrived and tentatively poked the lemon through the door, it was all I could do to stifle a gasp. Reading from left to right, the contents of the room consisted of Reginald Jeeves, splendidly arrayed in full evening dress and sipping an elegant cocktail.

Chapter Text

I had the distinct impression that, when the Good Lord created men’s formal attire, this was the image He’d had in mind. “Oof!” I said eloquently.

Reg pinkened slightly and ran a hand over his waistcoat. “It was the best I could do at such short notice,” he said.

I was conscious of two conflicting desires battling within my gently heaving b.: the first being to somehow preserve him in his present state forever, and the second being to leap on the poor chap and rip every stitch of the bally suit off of him. I fished out a handkerchief and mopped a few beads of persp. from my brow. “It’s – you’re – I mean – wow!”

“You are too kind.”

“But . . . not that I’m complaining mind you, just as a matter of interest . . . what are you doing here?”

He waggled an inscrutable eyebrow at me. “The same thing that you are, I should imagine. Waiting for the dinner gong to sound.”

I remained fogged, perhaps because I was still fairly well rattled by the vision before me. “You mean you’re having dinner – here? Not here as in here, but in the dining room? With us?”

He set down his glass and stepped forward to adjust my neckwear. “Indeed. Mrs. Travers has graciously invited me to her table.”

I was still formulating a reply when he gave a gentle cough and receded. I perceived that we were no longer alone.

I turned to find that we had been joined by Aunt Dahlia, swathed in a silk gown and looking every bit the charming and fashionable hostess. “Oh, good, you’re both here,” she beamed. “Good evening, boys. Jeeves, you look absolutely ravishing.”

“Thank you, Madam.”

“Doesn’t he look lovely, Bertie? I sent him into town to get the suit just for the occasion.”

“I must point out that a single afternoon is hardly sufficient time for the proper fitting and tailoring of a gentleman’s bespoke—“

Here, I felt I must cut in. Experience told me that if quick measures were not taken, things would soon get out of hand. “I can assure you, dearest a., no one in this room is more appreciative of Jeeves’s aesthetic qualities than I. But if you wouldn’t mind shelving the subject for a minute, I would really like to know what in the dickens is going on.”

But the aunt stayed me with a dismissive gesture and a click of the tongue. “Young people these days! No patience at all!”

“But dash it –“

“You are so caught up in the rush of modern life that you have lost all sense of – oh, look, it’s Agatha. Yoo-hoo, Aggie!”

A cursory inspection revealed that Aunt Agatha was indeed among those present. She hovered in the doorway, quivering from toes to topknot and gradually turning vermillion. When she finally spoke, it was in a voice that chilled the bones and curdled the blood.

“What is he doing here?”

“Who, dear?” asked Aunt Dahlia, smiling sweetly.

“Do not play the fool with me, Dahlia. You know exactly who I mean.”

All eyes swiveled Jeevesward.

“Why, you’re not referring to our Reggie, are you?” said Aunt Dahlia, laying a maternal hand on Reg’s shoulder. “He is here to break bread with us, of course. What sort of hostess would I be if I didn’t invite him to sup beside his new fiancée? Far be it from me to separate two loving hearts on a beautiful night like this.”

During this brief monologue, Aunt Agatha had been steadily inflating, her lips moving wordlessly. I was just beginning to cast about for some kind of shelter from the impending explosion when two more dinner guests arrived, namely Hecken and an imposing female that I deduced must be the elder Fernsby. Aunt Agatha subsided into the shadows with a lean and hungry look, like a lioness who was just getting ready to tuck into a haunch of wildebeest only to be rudely interrupted by a gang of hyenas.

This was, I realized, my first time seeing any portion of Hecken’s mother above roughly the mid-calf level. I found myself rather surprised. I had been expecting something along the lines of a female Winston Churchill. Instead I was reminded strongly of that peculiar old American beazel who had been in the papers a few years back for keeping a secret love slave stashed in her attic. Handsome enough, I mean, but with the kind of gleam in her eye that would have the boys at Colney Hatch laying out the fresh linens and polishing the good tin cups.

“Oh, and here is the rest of our little party. Splendid,” said Aunt Dahlia genially. “Why, Matilda! You haven’t met Bertie, have you?”

Mrs. Fernsby – whose name, I had keenly gathered from the above spot of dialogue, must be Matilda –gave me the once-over. “No,” she said. “I have not.”
“Well, now you have. This is my nephew, Bertie Wooster. Something of an acquired taste, but we are fond of him.”

“What ho,” I said, without much conviction. To my surprise, this Matilda stepped forward and clasped my hand in both of hers. Dashed uncomfortable, of course, but what could one do?

“Mr. Wooster,” she said, “I must apologize for my daughter. I did have such high hopes, as I’m sure you did as well.”

I found myself momentarily at a loss. I was vaguely aware of a faint whiffling noise emerging from Aunt Agatha, who was still lurking in the gloom near the fireplace. I glanced at Hecken, who had the look of a girl who wanted to quietly deliquesce and trickle through the floorboards. “Oh, Mother!” she groaned. “For goodness’ sake!”

“Oh no, nothing of the sort!” I stammered. “There’s just been a bit of a mix-up, don’t you know—“

The old girl cut me off before I could go any further. “There, there. It’s all right. What a pity. You do seem like such a lovely young man.” She glanced icily at Jeeves. “So forgiving.”

“Oh, isn’t this jolly!” sighed Aunt Dahlia, clasping her hands in girlish excitement. “All of us together here like one great happy family.”

I gladly pursued this new motif. “Speaking of family, Aunt Dahlia, where is Uncle Tom?”

“I sent him off to dine at his club. I don’t think his stomach lining could handle this much coziness. ‘You run along and have fun with the lads,’ I told him. ‘Us girls will hold down the fort.’”

Just then, the dinner gong sounded, causing most of those assembled to leap about three feet vertically. With a merry cry of “Tally-ho!” Aunt Dahlia led the charge.

---

If you have read any of my other little chronicles, then you are most likely alive to the fact that B. Wooster is a seasoned veteran of the awkward dinner party. It should tell you a great deal, then, when I say that out of a lifetime of doozies, I felt that this one must certainly rank among the top three, and it had barely left the starting gate.

Our genial hostess was seated at the head of the table, beaming down at us like a kindly shepherdess watching over her flock. Aunt Agatha sat at the foot, which meant that she was in prime position to skewer anyone she wished on a razor-sharp eyeball. Reg and Hecken were seated abreast on one side of the table, looking awfully interested in the ceiling and the silverware, respectively. Matilda Fernsby and self were shoved in side by side across from them. The only bright spot to all this that I could see was that I had a dashed pleasant view, so long as I kept the orbs fixed directly ahead.

It was Aunt Dahlia who finally cracked the permafrost as the opening course floated in. “I’m particularly anxious to hear your opinion on this consommé, Matilda,” she said. “I understand you’re something of a nib when it comes to cuisine de bon goût. In fact, I have read some of your work on the subject.”

“Oh, yes?” said la Fernsby, seeming a tad surprised to have encountered a fan of her literary oeuvre in the present company.

“Well, as you may know, I run a modest magazine for the delicately nurtured, as young Bertie would put it – Milady’s Boudoir. Perhaps you have heard of it? In any case, I occasionally scour the competition for promising material. I was strangely interested by your critique of French Cuisine in the English Home.”

A certain stiffness entered Matilda’s manner. “Oh, yes,” she repeated. “Well, my father was an hotelier around the time when César Ritz was organizing his little coup in various respectable London restaurants. He was quick to snatch up a few promising young chefs for both the hotel kitchens and our own home. So it is a matter in which I have some personal interest.”

“’An insidious and inimical influence on the health and morale of the English household’ was your verdict, as I recall.”

“I agree completely,” said Aunt Agatha, coming to the surface to the first time. She turned suddenly to Reg. “You have some Gallic blood, don’t you, Jeeves?”

But before the poor fish could even draw breath to answer, the Matilda blister started up again. “I shouldn’t wonder,” she said coldly. “Helen has always had a certain affinity for all things French.”

Hecken massaged her temples and stifled a groan. An expression briefly flickered across Reg’s map that, to my discerning eye, appeared to be a sympathetic wince. I even fancied, from the minute shift of his shoulder, that he might have given her knee a pat beneath the table. An uncharacteristic gesture, to be sure, but I rather got the sense that he had come to look upon the young squirt with a fond and protective eye.

“Nevertheless,” said Aunt Dahlia, “whatever your feelings on the French, I’m sure you’ll agree that the consommé is the bees knees. I daresay it would melt a tongue of stone.”

Matilda shrugged and sipped the broth. It must have been something of a revelation to her, because the color drained slowly from her face and her two eyes, like stars, started from their spheres. I wouldn’t go so far as to say that her knotted and combined locks parted and stood on end like quills upon the fretful porpentine, but they might as well have done. “It is exquisite,” she said, slowly lowering the spoon.

“I knew you’d think so. Why, you really should meet the chef.”

Just then, as if on cue, Anatole himself shimmered in with a tray of something – huîtres rôties au some sort of beurre, if I had to take a guess. The result was immediate and electrifying.

“You!” cried Matilda, leaping to her feet and upsetting her bowl of consommé, which bunged itself onto my waistcoat with what struck me as deliberate malice.

Anatole made a sound like a piece of parchment paper being torn violently in half and let the huîtres slip from his nerveless fingers. “Zut alors!” he cried in a strangled voice.

“Oh,” said Aunt Dahlia, blinking innocently. “I see you’ve already met.”

Chapter Text

“What are you doing here?” cried Matilda. It seemed to me that this was becoming something of a catch phrase, or motto, if you like, among the denizens of Brinkley Court.

Anatole drew himself up to his full height – not a particularly impressive act when one is built on the scale of an Anatole, but aided somewhat by the presence of his hat. “One might to ask the same of you, my good fellow,” he said haughtily. “I am employed here.”

“So you have left the Littles and come to infest another respectable household. I suppose you must have grown tired of that poor little parlourmaid, then?”

Anatole’s whiskers quivered with emotion. “You have the wrong of me once more, Madame! If you had not—” But he seemed to think better of whatever he had been about to say, and buttoned up.

“What is all this?” asked Aunt Agatha, rising to her feet. Dashed insightful question, I thought.

“Sit down, Agatha,” said Aunt Dahlia, with an imperious wave of her hand. “You know, it’s funny. This all reminds me of a little story I heard recently – we need not say from where. I have my sources. Would you like to hear it? Good. No, do stay, Anatole, I think you will find this quite interesting.”

“Dahlia,” snapped Aunt Agatha, who was still standing, “now is hardly the time— ”

“Agatha, dear, you are my big sister, and I love you dearly, but you always seem to forget your manners at these little gatherings. Now kindly sit down and dry up. I have something to say.”

To my vast surprise, the dreaded ancestor did as she was told. An anxious silence had fallen over the assembled masses. Aunt Dahlia, having paused to fortify herself with a hearty swig of Bollinger and flick a speck of dust from her irreproachable table cloth, began her tale.

“There was once a bright-eyed and promising young French chef who came to London to seek his fortune. He found work in the kitchens of a reputable hotel, and it was not long before he caught the eye – or, rather, the taste buds – of his employer. This hotelier took the young man home and employed him in his own kitchen, offering him a luxurious salary and a pantry stuffed with whatever ingredients his heart desired. Now, as it happened, the hotelier had a beautiful daughter—”

“Ha!” I interjected.

“What’s that, Bertie?”

“Well, I was just thinking, that’s a rummy coincidence, what? Wasn’t Mrs. Fernsby just telling us that her father was an hotelier?”

My aunt smiled indulgently. “Bertie, darling.”

“Yes, Aunt Dahlia?”

“Do be quiet and let Auntie finish her story, won’t you?”

“Oh. Right ho.”

“There’s a good lad. As I was saying, this hotelier had a beautiful young daughter, and this poor fish – the chef, that is – fell for the girl like a ton of bricks.”

At this point, Ma Fernsby, who had been doing a passable impersonation of an ice sculpture for quite a few moments, suddenly seemed to feel the thrill of life along her keel. She pressed a hand to her bosom and slumped into her chair, breathing stertorously. Hecken looked from her mother to me with wide and questioning eyes. I could only offer a helpless shrug in reply.

Aunt Dahlia pressed on. “The young lovers met in secret for some time, until they were discovered in one of their trysts. The chef was sacked at once, of course, and the young lady was wed in short order to a wealthy gentleman – a banker or something of that ilk. Some seven months later, they were blessed with a bouncing baby girl.”

“What!” gasped Aunt Agatha. She had the look of an aunt who has just been doing figures in her head, and does not care for the sum.

“Meanwhile, the poor Frenchman fled to America, heartbroken and disgraced. Years later, once the old wounds had healed somewhat, he returned to England. He dallied with various young women, but none of them measured up to his first and only true love. Then, one day, she suddenly reappeared in his life, like a ray of light after a long rain—”

I was jolted in my seat by a sudden blast, like the tooting of a particularly moist trumpet. I quickly divined that the source of the noise was Anatole blowing his nose vigorously into a silk hanky.

“It seems that our heroine was now a widow, and she too had carried the burning torch of her love all those years. Somehow, she found out where her old flame was employed – with a young family in London, it seems – and they began to meet again. All was well until, in a moment of passion, he asked her to . . .”

“Enough!” cried Matilda suddenly. “I think we’ve all heard enough. Yes, it’s true, damn it. It’s all true.”

To say that I was blowed would be severely understating the case. It seemed to me that this was a moment for saying something, but words failed me. I looked at Reg, but his dial remained inscrutable as ever. Hecken had been crushing an unfortunate bread roll into a premature oblivion with a white-knuckled fist, but she now let it fall listlessly to her plate.

Anatole broke the silence with another nasal fanfare. “C’est vrai!” he sobbed. “I proposed her to marry me, but she is turned me down on the flat. And I am so broken-hearted that I run to the arms of another. But she was nothing to me, ma petite chou-fleur! All is finished with her now! You were the only one in my heart all the time.”

“Oh, Anatole,” wailed Matilda. She began to heave alarmingly. I proffered a silent handkerchief. Never let it be said that we Woosters are not Johnnies-on-the-spot in these moments of crisis.

“Well,” said Aunt Agatha, once the chorus of honking had subsided, “this has been most diverting. Thank you, Dahlia. But I hardly think that we need to get so worked up over such a trivial and, frankly, vulgar little anecdote.” She smiled like a vulture that has just spotted a particularly ripe wildebeest carcass. “Why, I imagine that in the excitement of preparing for your daughter’s wedding to my nephew, we shall all soon forget the whole unpleasant business. Don’t you think so, Dahlia?”

An icy frisson gripped the spine. I am not sure what sort of reaction I was expecting from the aged r., but this ruthless sangfroid was not it.

Matilda squinted at her through pink and puffy eyelids. “No! My daughter is not marrying your nephew! How many times must I tell you this?”

“But surely you must see—”

Matilda rose to her feet. “No. The greatest mistake I ever made was turning down the man I loved – twice! – first because I was too afraid to stand up and fight for him, and then because of my pig-headedness and foolish pride. I was wrong, I see that now. And I won’t see my daughter make the same mistake I did by letting her settle for some empty-headed young wastrel instead of following the dictates of her heart!”

“Oi,” I remarked, but my heart wasn’t really in it.

“For years, I tried to keep her from going down the same path that I did. I thought I was protecting her. But when I saw her lipstick on that young manservant’s cheek, I finally realized that I was fighting the inexorable hand of fate. I knew at last what I had to do. And now fate has rewarded my decision by bringing my Anatole back to me. Can you ever forgive me, my love?”

Anatole uttered a strangled cry and rushed to her side. He pressed her hand to his lips. “But of course, my darling!”

Aunt Agatha snorted heartily. “What absolute drivel!”

“Yes,” said a quiet voice from across the table. “Drivel is the exact word for it. Or possibly rot.”

Hecken, whose native hue of spiritual resolution had been looking pretty well sicklied o’er during most of the above cross-talk act, now seemed to have found her second wind and was rallying spectacularly. The cheeks flamed, the nostrils flared, and the eyes flashed dangerously. “So, that’s what this has been about all these years, is it? Driving off all my pals, never letting me have a moment’s privacy, and now this ridiculous business with poor Mr. Jeeves . . . all because you were trying to sort out your own silly psychological complex?”

Matilda gaped at her daughter. She was clearly not the sort of mother who is accustomed to being ticked off by her offspring, and she seemed momentarily at a loss. “N-now, Helen—” she stammered at length.

“Oh, no! Nobody is going to ‘Now, Helen’ me, not anymore. I like your crust, Mother, and yours too, Mrs. Gregson, thinking you can sit around and hash out my future for me. Well, I’ve had enough!" And with that, she leaped to her feet and made a hasty exit through the French window.

With a sinking feeling in my innards, I hastened to follow her, leaving a rising clamour of voices behind me.

---

I found her standing on the drive, staring fixedly at the moon, her shawl wrapped tightly around her against the chill of the evening air. I put a tentative hand on her elbow.

“Hecken, old girl . . .”

She did not look at me. “Well, Bertie, your Aunt Dahlia certainly has a flare for the dramatic.”

I winced. “I’m afraid she’s been reading too much of the stuff she publishes in that bally rag of hers. It must have gone to her head. I’m awfully sorry, old bean. If I’d had any idea what she and Jeeves were planning . . .”

Hecken finally tore her gaze away from the celestial obj. and fixed me with glittering eyes. “Oh, it’s all right, Bertie. Who knows if the truth ever would have come out if they hadn’t put Mother on the spot like that. It’s sort of liberating, don't you know . . . finding out that your whole life has been built on a lie.” And with that, the poor girl buried her face in her hands and began to cry.

My heart nestled in even deeper amongst the nether organs. I threw my arms around her and pulled her close. “Oh, Hecken,” I murmured into her hair. “What a bally mess this whole thing has turned out to be.”

She dabbed her eyes on her shawl and took a few bracing breaths. “Yes, Bertie, but the thing of it is . . . I’ve lived my whole life under my mother’s boot heel. And suddenly, well, that’s all over. The spell is broken. Why, I should be thrilled! I can finally start living for myself. Only . . . only now I haven’t the foggiest notion who I am.”

“Well, we know you’re a dashed sound egg. And that’s a good place to start.”

Chapter Text

At that moment, I heard a familiar, gentle cough. I fancied that I detected in it a hint of urgency, as if it were the cough of an elderly sheep on a distant hillside who has just noticed that the local wolf has decided to drop round for a quick nosh.

“Jeeves!” said Hecken.

“Reg!” said I. As I turned to face him, I was ready with the stern glare and the reproving word. However, I had quite forgotten, in my distracted state, that he was still decked out in the full soup and fish. I must confess that the sight of him thus arrayed under the silvery light of the moon and stars rather knocked the stuffing out of me for a moment. But I quickly composed myself.

“Now look here," I said in what I hoped was a cool and steely tone, "I have had to have words with you about these rough methods of yours before, but this really is the frozen limit. If I’d had the slightest inkling what sort of frightful three ring circus act you and that beastly aunt of mine were about to subject this poor girl to—”

“No, Bertie,” interrupted Hecken. She lifted her chin and squared her shoulders bravely. “I told you, it’s all right. In fact, it’s better than all right. Bless you, Jeeves, and Mrs. Travers, too. I don't know what sort of magic you worked back there, but I feel like a new woman. I’ve never had the nerve to stand up to my mother like that before. Lord knows how you found out all that stuff, but . . . good lord, I probably I would have gone my whole life without knowing!”

He smiled kindly and clasped her hands in his. “I endeavor to give satisfaction, miss. But if I may make the suggestion, I believe a hasty departure may be in order.”

“Oh, lord,” I said, clutching the brow. “Aunt Agatha must be polishing the old halberd and hitching up the greaves as we speak.”

“The situation within is rather volatile, I fear. Mrs. Gregson and Mrs. Fernsby began to argue shortly after your departure, and their remarks to one another quickly became personal in nature. Mrs. Gregson threatened to reveal Mrs. Fernsby’s past indiscretions to their mutual acquaintances, particularly the other members of the Women’s Board of the Temperance Society to which both ladies belong. Mrs. Fernsby avowed that she did not – if you will pardon me – give a damn who knew. She then openly declared her intention to marry Monsieur Anatole. Furthermore, she stated that Mrs. Gregson and her ghastly collection of relatives had had a corrupting and deleterious effect on her daughter’s morale, and that she would see Miss Helen married to Mr. Wooster over her dead body. Mrs. Gregson suggested that such an arrangement would be perfectly amenable to her. It was at this point that I decided to make a discreet exit.”

“Egad, Reginald!”

“Indeed, Bertram.”

“Hell hath no fury, what? What do you think we should do?”

“A lengthy holiday in some agreeable foreign clime suggests itself as a reasonable course of action.”

“This is positively the brightest idea I have heard in days. I don’t suppose you could nip in and fetch my bags?”

“I have already done so. I thought it prudent to take preemptive measures before Mrs. Travers’ revelation at the dinner table. The bags are waiting in the car.”

“You are without equal, Reg.”

“But,” said Hecken meekly, “you two aren’t going to just pop off and leave me here alone with that lot, are you?”

“Perish the thought, my dear girl! A Wooster does not simply scoot and leave a pal in peril. Nor does a Jeeves. You shall come with us. We’ll have Aunt Dahlia send your things along.”

Reg coughed again. “I took the liberty before dinner of asking the housemaid to pack Miss Helen’s possessions and place them in the car while we were dining.”

She gaped at him, deeply moved. “You did? Why, Reggie, you darling lamb! Oh . . . you don’t mind if I call you Reggie, do you?”

I would scarcely credit it if I hadn’t heard it with my own ears, but the chap actually chuckled. “My dear, I am your fiancé. You may call me whatever you wish.”

She gave a little gasp and clapped her hand to her mouth. “Why, so you are!” she said. “In all the excitement, I keep forgetting that little detail.” And she dissolved into a fit of helpless giggling.

Just as I was beginning to wonder if the poor girl had become completely unhinged under the strain of recent events, she shook herself a bit and seemed to regain her composure. “Well, I suppose I don’t really have to say this, but of course that’s all off now. Still, there’s just one more thing I’d like to do before I release you from your obligation.”

“What is that, miss?”

Then, before my wide and wondering eyes, she reached up, gently drew my man’s face close to hers, and kissed him full on the mouth. I suppose I should have been pipped, but instead I found myself strangely transfixed. I felt a blush mantling the damask cheek, and my heart seemed to be flinging itself about with reckless abandon somewhere in the vicinity of my collarbone.

“There,” she said breathlessly, having unlocked the lips and given his tie an affectionate twiddle. “I just had to try it once, you know, to see what the fuss was all about.” She jerked her thumb toward the house. “Now, come on, you two! Let’s get out of here before the Elephant and Castle Mob gets tired of fighting the Sabini Gang and they both decide to come after us.” And she hied for the two-seater, leaving self and Reg to toddle after her in stunned silence.

Chapter Text

“I don’t know about you two,” I said, when we had safely ensconced ourselves in the ever-so-humble and brushed the dust of the road from our clothes some hours later, “but I could do with a stiff one.”

“Me too,” said Hecken, with girlish enthusiasm. She seemed to have put her morning’s vow of temperance completely from her mind. “I’ve worked up a dickens of a thirst.”

I turned to Reg with a “How about it, old top?” hovering on the lips, only to find that he already had the decanter in hand. “Bless you, my dear lad,” I said instead. “And never mind the soda.”

It had been a pretty quiet and tense drive back to the old Metrop. It was not until we were well on our way, with Hecken tucked into the dickey seat and Brinkley Court a rapidly shrinking blot on the horizon, that any of us regained our power of speech. After some quick discussion, we had settled on nipping back to the flat for a good night’s doss. We would then hop on the first boat out of old Blighty in the ack emma – after, of course, dashing off a quick wire to Aunt Dahlia thanking her for her hospitality and general good sportsmanship.

There was a bit of back and forth about what our destination ought to be. Hecken was all for France – “Why, I probably have loads of relations there,” she said – but I felt compelled to issue a nolle prosequi.

“Not nearly far enough, dear girl. I’ve found that in these circs it’s best to put at least an ocean’s worth of distance between oneself and an enraged Aunt Agatha. No, I think we’d better head to New York for the time being. We can hole up with some of the bohemian chaps I know out there until things blow over. Why, half of those birds wouldn’t bat an eye at . . . you know, me and Jeeves.”

“You’re probably right,” she said, but there was a certain wistfulness in her tone.

“Don’t worry, we needn’t stay forever. Just a few months while we wait for Aunt Agatha and your mother to cool their heels enough that they won’t come charging after us straightaway. After that, why . . . who knows? Perhaps we can go on that round the world cruise you’ve been itching for all these years, Reg. What do you think?”

He did not remove his eyes from the road, conscientious chappie that he is, but I saw a corner of his mouth tick up a few millimeters. “A splendid idea, Bertie.” My heart did a little buck and wing, as it did every time he called me “Bertie,” and we all lapsed again into silent reverie, soothed by the roar of the road and the rush of the wind in our faces.

Anyway, I have let my narrative wander off the track again. We were now, as I said, back at the flat, and I don’t mind telling you it felt dashed cozy to be home again. I had deposited myself on the divan, and Hecken was stretched out with her head in my lap. Reg approached with three brimming tumblers of brandy on a tray. Hecken and I gratefully helped ourselves to two of them, and, to my delight, Reg scooted in next to us with the third. Hecken laid her legs across his lap, and we remained so arranged for some moments, quietly nursing our restoratives.

“So tell me, Reginald old bean,” I said at last, “where the dickens did you and Aunt Dahlia turn up that spectacular dish on Mrs. Fernsby and Anatole?”

“If you will recall, Mrs. Travers’ former housemaid had an amatory history with Monsieur Anatole. It was the awkwardness between these two persons that finally induced Monsieur Anatole to enter Mrs. Travers’ employ, when Mrs. Travers sent her housemaid to work for the Littles.”

“Ah yes, I remember. One of your fruitier schemes.”

“It was a simple matter to contact the young person, who was only too happy to divulge the scandalous details of her former beau’s romantic history. The story was corroborated by several other members of Mrs. Travers’ household staff.”

“I used to go round with Mother to visit the Littles sometimes,” said Hecken. She groaned. “To think, it was all going on right under my nose, and I never suspected a thing!”

“Well, if it’s any comfort you, old girl, Anatole is about as sterling a chap as one could hope to find. A little excitable, perhaps, but that’s just his artistic temperament.”

“I know Bertie. I don’t mind a bit about Anatole. I hope he and Mother will be very happy and all that sort of thing.”

“Oh, rather.”

“I mean, I never really knew the fellow I thought was my Pop all that well. He was always gone, and I was a pretty young kid when he died. It might be nice having a dad again, especially one who can sling the hash like that. I can’t even poach an egg without the fire brigade dropping in. I’m just hopping mad that Mother spent all these years acting like I was the one sneaking about with a wardrobe bursting with skeletons! I mean to say, the jolly nerve.”

I’m not sure what induced me to say what I said next. Perhaps it was the effect of the liquid stimulant sloshing about in my nearly empty tum. In any case, no sooner had the thought entered my head than the words spilled unbidden from my lips. “Hecken, I don’t want to marry you.”

To my vast relief, she laughed. “I know, Bertie. It’s all right. I don’t want to marry you, either.”

“Oh, good,” I said, but something twinged painfully within the bosom. “It’s not that I don’t think you’re wonderful . . . It’s just . . .” I glanced at Reg, whose hand moved quietly to meet mine where it rested on the back edge of the divan.

“I know,” she said.

“But you know, the rummy thing about it is, I think you’re the only girl I’ve ever loved enough to say that to. Does that make sense?”

“Not a lick. It’s one hundred percent barmy. Still, I think it’s the most sensible thing I’ve heard on this whole ridiculous adventure.”

“But . . . I still don’t want to live another day without either of you. Dash it, I thought I’d have all these feeling sorted out by now, but I’m more confused than ever.”

“Me too,” said Hecken dreamily. “I have no idea what’s what anymore. I think it’s rather wonderful, actually. What about you, Reggie?”

“I must confess that I cannot recall another time in my life when I have felt so utterly bewildered,” said the honest fellow, absentmindedly easing one of Hecken’s feet out of a dainty silk shoe.

“Well,” I said, loosening my tie with trembling fingers and trying to ignore the Zutty Singleton solo that had suddenly broken out inside my ribcage, “I suppose we’ll have plenty of time to hash it all out.”

“I’m in no hurry,” said Hecken as she helped Reg slide off one of her stockings.

“Neither am I,” I said, or rather tried to say, as I fumbled with my cuffs. I’m not sure I managed much more than a hoarse whisper.

“Sweet flowers are slow and weeds make haste,” remarked Reg, shrugging off his dinner jacket and starting to work on his shirt studs. A dashed good wheeze, I thought. But then, he’s always had a way of putting these things rather neatly.

FIN