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I’ve neglected to mention it before now, dear reader, but on occasion Jeeves and I like to go to the movies.
I fail to do so out of respect for decorum; or rather, Jeeves’ respect for decorum. Since moving permanently to New York in order to settle down peacefully, well away from tyrannical aunts, sappy young ladies, fatheaded Drones and suchlike, I had rather hoped for a slight yielding of Jeeves’ steadfast feudal spirit; one can get away with a lot of things abroad that would be impossible back home, after all. Unfortunately, the man sticks to his principles and cannot be moved by Time itself nor unashamed pleading.
A not insignificant sacrifice of manly pride did manage, however, to convince him to accompany me to a flick. He winced slightly at my choice, but agreed nevertheless. I learned later that the wincing was not so much due to his dread at spending more time with the master than was strictly necessary, but more because Jeeves is secretly a movie fiend. It astonishes me how one can still learn these things about a man whom one has known for as many years as I have.
Our subsequent Saturday nights, therefore, became almost chummy; Jeeves would slip out of the valet gear and don the apparel of a friend of Wooster. And friend he was, too.
It was on a Saturday night that this whole dashed situation started.
—
Jeeves busied himself with adjusting my tie as I hummed slightly in anticipation.
“What did you say was the name of this one, Jeeves?”
“The Servant, sir.”
I hummed, amused. “Rather on the nose, what?”
“Perhaps, sir.”
“The title, I mean. Fairly blunt. One can hardly imagine it being about anything but a servant. Although one also can’t expect Hollywood to be overly knowledgeable on the subject, I suppose.”
Jeeves coughed. “It is a British production, I believe, sir, although the director is American.”
How he finds these things out, one simply can’t imagine.
—
The movie started out fairly ordinary, and I settled into the groove of the story: chappie moves into a new house, and thus needs a manservant. Said chappie also has a fiancée, and a twinkling in his eye for building cities in Brazil. Pretty standard stuff.
The scenes with the manservant, Barrett, were most interesting. Barrett was nothing at all like Jeeves. Polar opposites, in fact. I found myself peeking over at Jeeves whenever Barrett made a mistake or treated his employer with disrespect to observe the telltale signs of a pained look on his masked face. He really was an awful fellow; I briefly wondered if Jeeves had selected this film to teach me a moral lesson on the dangers of allowing him to ever slip away again, after the unfortunate episode of the banjolele. Guilty, I dismissed the thought, for it was beneath him. Besides, the terror of Brinkley had been quite enough.
The second half of the film was decidedly more rummy. After the double-crossing maid, Barrett’s fiancée, had buzzed off, leaving the chappie with a ruin for a home life, his and Barrett’s relationship began to grow notably more peculiar. Nevertheless, Jeeves sat stoically on as man and manservant played awfully physical games around the house, breaking vases and so forth with reckless abandon. I must confess that I had gone rather red by the time Barrett was creeping up on the chap in a strangely intense game of hide and seek, and was unsuccessfully resisting the urge to squirm in my seat.
You might be curious, dear reader, about my seemingly extreme reaction to the state of affairs. I can’t completely explain it myself, of course, but I think it had a little to do with Jeeves’ presence. It’s a trifle awkward, one may deduce, to witness this sort of thing next to one’s own valet, especially if said valet holds a more tender spot in one’s heart than strangers might ordinarily venture to suppose. Nothing untoward, of course. I’d simply begun to regard Jeeves as more of a friend than a servant after all these years, and the idea of a more familiar sort of dynamic between us gave me a bit of a thrill. It was the reason I so enjoyed our evenings out together.
Barrett was certainly less gentle a companion than Jeeves, however. As the film went on the poor chappie fellow seemed to be dissolving into mush before him. It was odd. I fidgeted with my collar a bit, for the theatre seemed to have gotten warmer.
By the time we had reached the final few scenes of the film, I hardly dared glance at Jeeves at all for fear of looking like a fish struggling around a hook for dear life. The chappie was now very timid under Barrett’s stern hand, as if they had switched roles, and I tried not to let my insides wriggle at the thought. Barrett had got him plastered now, it seemed; he crawled along the floor and seemed to melt at touch.
I was feeling just about full up with all this strangeness when Barrett grabbed the chap by the tie with force, pulling him upwards as if he were dead weight and flinging him to the floor. This was truly the frozen limit. I gulped nervously and my eyes flitted compulsively to Jeeves, who was, dash it, completely unaffected. He glanced at me with an unusual thingness and I fought to suppress some curious thoughts which began to bubble to the surface of the Wooster brain.
The whole experience had, all in all, been nearly too much to bear. When it was over I staggered out of my seat with the air of a man who had just been bashed swiftly on the head with a blunt instrument. Jeeves stood beside me, patient and seemingly unmoved. Observing my reddened and gasping face, he calmly suggested walking back to the apartment in order to get some air. It was late, but the summer night was a still one. I agreed like a drowning man reaching out for a buoy.
The fresh air did a lot to clear my head, in fact, and I found myself reflecting on what I had seen with a rather more thoughtful perspective. What had first seemed like unprecedented psychological torture personally targeted at self had in fact been a rather clever bit of cinema. I told Jeeves so, and he inclined his head in agreement.
“Indeed, sir.”
Usually, I am not one to flounder in conversation, but I found myself a little awkward at the prospect of discussing the questions currently floating around in my mind. The bit about the tie excepted, the point that seemed to stick with me the most was the one of household chores and overworking. This Barrett had been no Jeeves, of course, but even Jeeves was human. Would he appreciate my helping around a little, in light of having settled down for the foreseeable future? After all, if I hoped to make our relationship a fonder one, I must surely act in a way to show that I didn’t look down on him. Or would he only see my interest in the domestic realm as an insult to his professional pride? I walked on in silence, my tongue tied in knots with confusion.
—
Sticking my courage to the sticking place, as the saying goes, I rallied myself onwards to address Jeeves, who was dusting the mantelpiece with a serene flare. I’ve often found that a good mood on behalf of both parties is always a suitable measure for keeping a conversation from becoming disagreeable.
“I say, Jeeves, one worries about your knees.”
Jeeves stopped dusting and regarded me in a manner that can only be described as the patience of a saint.
“Sir?”
It has occurred to me that perhaps you, dear reader, have also failed to understand the meaning behind my line of conversation. It appeared to me that I had found a potential avenue for introducing one Bertie W. Wooster onto the domestic maintenance scene: Jeeves’ comparatively older age. Of course, I was not so much spurting from the fountain of youth myself any longer, but I had a slight advantage on the man.
“Well, old thing, you and I, we’re getting on. I mean to say, we’re not so nimble as we used to be, what?”
Jeeves set the duster gently on the mantelpiece.
“I’m not quite sure what you are driving at, sir.” A faint oddness was creeping into his voice.
“Well, I mean to say, er–” Jeeves had turned to face me, now, and I grasped desperately for the proper words, “take this dusting you’ve been doing, I suppose. There is some pretty tall furniture in this apartment, what? Must be awfully bad for the back, all the leaping about from one place to another. One can do these things in small doses, of course, which about amounts to the crux of my point, that is, er–”
Jeeves raised an eyebrow a fraction of an inch in the direction which indicated amusement, and coughed minutely.
“If you’ll pardon the assumption, sir, are you offering to take a share in the household duties?”
“Yes, precisely, Jeeves! You’ve hit the nail on the head.” The aforementioned eyebrow movement had stirred me to self confidence, and I was relieved at Jeeves’ unoffended reaction. I barely tried to mask what I suspected to be a thoroughly stupid grin spreading across my face.
Jeeves’ unreadable expression showed no signs of shifting, but he spoke once more:
“If I might advise you, sir, I would suggest that you avoid the more menial tasks such as dusting. I’m afraid you would find them rather unstimulating. If you are insistent on this point, however, perhaps I may be able to instruct you on how to prepare some basic household staples, so you are better equipped in case of my brief absence? A cup of tea, for example.”
I wrinkled the nose a bit at the suggestion that the reasons for my desire to contribute were purely selfish, but I stymied the urge to fight back as I remembered to consider the psychology of the individual. I recalled Jeeves’ tender love for a new vase which I had been nothing short of coerced into buying upon moving into the new flat, and shuddered at the thought of him coming upon me standing dazed next to its shattered pieces. Perhaps the secrets of tea would be a more suitable choice, after all.
Besides, if I was convincing enough, maybe he would let me serve it to him.
—
Jeeves and I are stood in the kitchen of our New York flat, the kettle perched cheerfully on the cooktop between us. It is around 4 o’clock in the afternoon, and the rain has been pattering down miserably for the better half of the day. We are both nursing bruises on our respective left feet.
The sharper reader can probably discern, from my brief sketch of the atmosphere, that things thus far had not gone according to plan. Indeed, tea making had not thus far stuck very resolutely to the ideal scenario, although I was holding out a meagre hope that it was salvageable. In effect, it had gone something like this.
“So, Jeeves, the time has come for me to uncover one of your many wonderful secrets. How should I start?”
Jeeves retrieved the kettle from the cupboard on my right and handed it to me with care.
“One must begin, sir, by boiling the water.”
“Right ho.”
I turned towards the sink, and promptly dropped the dratted thing right on top of our feet.
I am not being completely fair to myself, however, for the inciting incident of the described tragedy was equally devastating. Jeeves had placed his hand squarely upon my shoulder, thumb almost stroking my nape, and given it a pat.
The Wooster corpus was not well prepared to handle this sort of thing, and all but leapt into the air with surprise, forgetting all about the kettle which swiftly elicited a yelp of pain from both parties. At least, I thought mid-frantic hop, the kettle was not yet filled. It’s always best to focus on the positive in these situations. Jeeves was not quite hopping, but he seemed to be jittering slightly. I noted that he’d retreated into his impression of a stuffed frog, perhaps to find solace.
“Awfully sorry, dear fellow. I don’t know what came over me.” I managed to bite out through what was at best an abstract rendering of a smile. It felt wrong to mention the shoulder pat, somehow. I suspect some part of me didn’t want him to be discouraged.
It wasn’t that I was morphing into the mushy chappie from the film. I didn’t really fear Jeeves, and I doubted very much that he had any ill intentions towards me or my wealth. If I considered the facts evenly, it was very obvious that this Barrett fellow paled in comparison to Jeeves in every respect, including his conduct. But there was something in the concept of Jeeves behaving in that odd manner, as if I was something he could guide and mold at will, that made me feel a little funny. Some unnamed emotion was nipping at the back of my mind, stirring up these actions and thoughts, but I could only inspect it with blank confusion.
I realised that Jeeves had been gazing at me for a while now, mildly expectant. He was raising his hand to deliver a pointed cough when I reached down for the kettle, undented thanks to the sacrifice of our left feet, and began filling it with water nervously. I half expected Jeeves to begin running his fingers through my hair, but decided that it was wiser to avoid this line of thinking.
Thankfully, the rest of the experience sailed by without a hitch. There was a slight coolness between us to start with, I will admit, but one can’t exactly blame Jeeves for frostiness if one has recently deposited a kettle upon his left foot. Under his instruction, I busied myself with warming the pot and my small success seemed to cheer him up a little. Jeeves’ stuffed frog expression had all but melted away by the time we reached the application of the tea strainer.
We ran back into a spot of trouble, however, when I decided to broach the subject of how the tea should be dealt with. The image of Jeeves sitting comfortably on the sofa while I poured him a cup had only grown more enticing as the afternoon wore on, and I hoped that this new shoulder-patting Jeeves might be agreeable. Unfortunately, Jeeves did not take a liking to my philosophy. In fact, he went so far as to allow his disapproval to show on his face.
“I do not think it would be at all appropriate, sir.”
“Oh, come on, old thing, just this once. I’ve made it for you, after all. Under your helpful guidance, of course.” I fidgeted a bit with my hands.
“No, sir.” He said, firmer than usual.
“Well, if that’s how you feel, Jeeves, then I won’t insist.”
I must admit that I felt terribly confused. Naturally, I was deflated that Jeeves had refused my offer, but it was his sudden change of temperament that I was struggling to comprehend. Surely, if one is disinclined to bend the rules of decorum a little, one would refuse to engineer this entire situation in the first place? And refrain from patting the young master on the shoulder as if you were pleased with him? I tried squinting at Jeeves while he was handling the teapot, hoping to glean some clues in re. his unusual behaviour, but the man seemed to have readjusted his shroud of mystery. Discouraged, the tea tasted of nothing but wasted opportunity.
—
I blinked wearily as Jeeves glided into the room with tea and breakfast, opening the curtains a tad more briskly than usual. I winced at the flood of daylight as my bleary eyes swam in discomfort, but he didn’t seem to notice. He placed the tray down in front of me with the required amount of care, but a lack of gentleness.
“What time is it?” I was more or less accustomed to this new morning routine by now.
“Ten o’clock, sir.”
He shimmered out of the room without hesitation, leaving me to eat my kippers alone.
—
I crept back to the flat with what I hoped was the caution of a thief in the night, casting my eyes about nervously for potential witnesses. I’d had the bright idea, you see, of coaxing Jeeves out of his shell with the purchase of an offensive tie, but this time I seemed to have rather overstepped the bounds. The thing was hideous: mustard yellow tarnished with a nauseatingly bright green, and the knowledge that one was wearing it out in public seemed to produce a distinct feeling of being throttled. It was the sort of tie which is best kept as a figment of one’s imagination.
I stumbled into the flat with relief and greeted Jeeves, who unsurprisingly failed to return a warm sentiment as his eyes settled on my neck. I won’t say that he turned pale and clutched his mouth in horror, but the description is a whiff too accurate to be labelled a hyperbole. He ushered me inside rather coolly and made no attempt to strike up conversation. I wondered if, for the first time, I had perhaps rendered him completely speechless.
“So, what do you think, Jeeves?” I suppressed a grin. His reaction had cancelled out my own apprehension of the thing, and I found myself now willing to rush to its defense. He responded with the Jeevesian equivalent of giving me a look.
“I really could not say, sir.”
“Oh, tosh. You always have an opinion, Jeeves, I know you too well. Come on, out with it.”
Jeeves glowered rather ominously, and I considered briefly that I had gone too far.
“Sir, might I inquire whether something has been on your mind lately?”
“Wh-what?”
Blast him, he’d caught me completely off guard. My eyes were wide, and I was conscious of him observing me innocently. I reasoned that his intention had been to shed light on the cause of the mental imbalance which had enabled me to buy the dratted tie, and the truth was that my mind had been preoccupied by something lately. However, I was also not inclined to share the nature of that something with Jeeves.
My fascination with the chappie and his manservant had been wavering on obsession for a while, and the incident with the tea seemed to have teetered it over the edge. Time spent with Jeeves began to border on unbearable. To make matters worse, the man had recently been as emotionally present as a brick wall, and that had made it all the more easy to imagine him in the position of the cruel Barrett. I pictured him ordering me about, ticking me off when I did something wrong - the sight of the kettle still made me wince - and from there he would start handling me rather more roughly, his hands around my shoulders, in my hair, on my-
I shuddered. I had hoped that the tie would restore a sense of normality to our dynamic as Jeeves emerged from his aloof exterior, but it obviously hadn’t worked.
“Sir? Are you quite alright?”
I realised that Jeeves had come closer, and was regarding me for the first time in days with an expression that could be identified as a human emotion - concern. Oh.
It occurred to me that I hadn’t spoken in quite a while, as Jeeves studied me carefully. I was wavering a little, like a jelly, for it is a wonderful thing to observe Jeeves’ mask slipping off, even for a fraction of a second. He was still peering at me curiously, and I’d be dashed if he didn’t seem a little baffled.
“Er- yes. Quite alright. Toodle-pip.” I buzzed off quick as I could to ruminate on what I had seen.
—
I closed The Chilling Case of Bramly Manor with exasperation and began drumming my fingers against the cover. It seemed to me that this Detective Quickwit had things too easy. He simply had to point out pieces of evidence near the end of the story and the culprit would bear their teeth, bringing all to light. Not for Bertram, I sighed, the neat conclusion of a story. The only pieces of evidence that I had collected so far were:
- The shoulder pat,
- Jeeves’ subsequent distant manner,
- And his recent baffled expression.
Put together, they made no bally sense whatsoever. The shoulder pat suggested a Jeeves amenable to a cosier relationship with self, but Jeeves had then become positively glacial at my own effort to return the sentiment. And then there was the peculiar impression of an oblivious Jeeves from item number 3.
I picked up my novel once more in irritation. Quickwit paced the room with confidence, inspecting each character in turn. All of a sudden, a shot was fired from across the room and he ducked just in time, rolling across the floor of the sitting room with agility and glancing up to be met with the murderous and imposing figure of- Daisy Goodwoman, his fiancée?
My brow furrowed, and a sinking feeling started to spread in my chest. Perhaps I had misinterpreted the available evidence? The shoulder pat could be explained away by my collar having been in disarray or some other small defect in my appearance which Jeeves might have been seeking to correct. True, it was strange for him to do so without warning, but I was not usually so skittish. I was used to his touch, and he had no way of knowing about my recent disturbance. It would explain his icy reaction to my impropriety, certainly. And his confusion?
Quickwit overpowered Daisy and held her in his grasp as he scrambled for her gun. There were tears in his eyes as he watched his beloved recoil from his grip, digging her pretty nails into the skin which she had once caressed. So it was all an act, Daisy, my love? Just to get close to the Manor? He cried. Godammit, Quickwit, you haven’t defeated me yet! Her voice was brimming with hatred.
I checked the clock on the mantelpiece idly. It was growing late, which meant that it would soon be time to dress for dinner.
Of course Jeeves was confused. I had been behaving dashed oddly all week. Obviously he had accepted my sudden interest in household chores as one of the quirks of old age, but now he had observed that I was struggling to respond to simple questions. Not to mention- my hand wandered to my tie nervously. I was disheartened to imagine that Jeeves was honestly worried about my wellbeing. There was not an insignificant helping of guilt, too, for I knew perfectly that there was plenty for him to worry about; it just so happened that senility was not featured.
Quickwit held the gun firmly in his trembling hands. Daisy struggled on the floor, her dress ruined, unable to rise to his height. The Bramly family surrounded her, gazing down with a horror that was only just beginning to register. She was a traitor- Quickwit held her, captured, with the point of his gun. Slowly, so slowly that no one might have noticed, Daisy reached for her ankle and retrieved a dagger-
The gun went off as Quickwit gave a sob, and Daisy slumped lifelessly against his shoes.
My eyes flitted to the clock once more as I knew that I was to expect Jeeves soon. There was nothing for it, I thought darkly. I had to tell all.
—
Jeeves seemed to materialise in place as I turned my head to greet him with forced joviality. He wore no trace of the baffled expression which had been written plain across his map hours before, but there was a certain offset in his shoulders that told me he, too, did not consider this evening to be a mundane and uneventful one. I didn’t wait for him to clear his throat before addressing him.
“I say, Jeeves, we need to talk.” I sounded defeated.
He nodded his head in a composed manner, and opened the door behind him.
“Shall we continue this in the sitting room, sir?”
I followed him through the doorway like a man walking into a noose.
I slumped into the sofa with growing dread, and tried not to look too uncomfortable when he insisted on standing upright, his eyes fixed on me with a look of what you could almost call anticipation. He offered me a brandy and soda, and I accepted it gratefully, especially when I noted that he had not been overly generous with the soda. I stared down into the glass for a few minutes, and he made no effort to hurry me into talking. I cleared my throat, embarrassed.
“Dreadfully sorry, old chap, but it’s hard to confess what I know you will only hate hearing.”
Jeeves looked at me shrewdly, and I felt as if I were beginning to melt into my seat. I gathered up my courage once more, ready to face the music.
“It’s only that- well, first I must emphasise that you are very much permitted to leave my employ at once after this, if that’s what you wish. Frankly, I don’t blame you at all.” I willed the tears away from my eyes.
“The truth of the matter is, the reason for my unacceptable behaviour in the last week has been entirely my fault. I hope you don’t mind me saying so, old thing, but I’ve grown awfully fond of you in these past years we’ve spent together. And, well, that film we saw together last week seems to have awakened some odd streak in my psyche, because I’ve been rather preoccupied with the relationship of that Barrett fellow and his chappie, and I couldn’t stop it from interfering with our own. I can’t begin to apologise for making you so uncomfortable, Jeeves. But I felt I had to tell you because I couldn’t let it go on any longer.”
I hadn’t looked at him for the entire duration of my little speech. The humiliation would have been too much to bear. Picturing the disgust, horror and betrayal which was no doubt unwinding across his face at this very moment was punishment enough.
“Sir, you have entirely misinterpreted the situation.”
I glanced upwards in surprise. Jeeves was standing a meter or so away from me, and his face was clearly registering amazement.
“What?”
My heart was pounding as he moved a little closer.
“Your.. confession does not make me in the least bit uncomfortable, sir. It appears we have both misunderstood each other rather tremendously.” Did he look happy?
“But I don’t understand.”
“If you will allow me, sir, to point out who chose the particular film which seems to have been the cause of your troubles.”
I gazed at the man in wonder. “You don’t mean that you intended for this to happen?”
Jeeves looked sheepish for a moment. I hope that you, reader, would forgive me, considering this description, if my eyes were said to have practically bulged out of the sockets.
“By Jove, you did! I’ve been led on, manipulated, precisely like the chappie from the film. There’s a certain symmetry to it, I suppose.” I realised that, due to his refusal to sit, I was now looking up at him. A shiver of delight came over me as it occurred to me that he was acutely aware of the fact as well.
“But what about the business with the tea? And your coolness this past week? I’m afraid I still don’t fully understand it.”
“I imagined, sir, that your rather extreme reaction to my advancement was borne of discomfort and the unpleasant surprise. I felt, in this case, that it was prudent to adopt a more distant and professional manner for a short while in an attempt to rectify the situation. I was planning to hand in my resignation if the rift continued.”
I goggled at him. “So you thought I was planning to dismiss you?”
Jeeves grimaced a little. “I’m afraid so, sir.”
“Goodness me. Well, it only goes to show we deserve each other, I suppose.”
I breathed a bit of a sigh, and froze as Jeeves reached his hand down to rest under my chin, inclining my head upwards so that we were making direct eye contact. Even the hands of the clock seemed to stop their busy ticking and focus on his eyes, sparkling with a rummy sort of force.
“I agree, sir.” He kept the honorific, but it came across as more teasing; it was obvious who held the power here. I swallowed slowly.
“There’s just one thing, Jeeves. If you weren’t opposed to a change in our relationship, which in fact is an even more drastic change than I was previously hankering for- why wait? Why pretend to disapprove? You would have saved me an awful lot of heartbreak, you know.” I spoke carefully, making an effort not to move in case he decided to withdraw his hand.
Jeeves didn’t look terribly sorry.
“One likes to do these things properly, sir.”
“Relish the experience, I suppose?”
“Yes.”
I’m afraid to say that I was most definitely looking rather dreamily up at him by this point. It’s not every day you play right into your valet-slash-object-of-your-affection’s hands. Unless you’re Bertie Wooster, I reflected. It was beginning to dawn on me that it happened to me quite a lot. Not that I minded in the least, of course.
I grasped for the right words to say next. I was anxious to explore this newfound dynamic, desperate to revel in his presence. Then something occurred to me.
“I say, Jeeves, it’s still a Saturday night, isn’t it? What is it that poet chappie said about stretching the legs under the moonlight with your dearly beloved?”
“Let us go then, you and I, when the evening is spread out against the sky like a patient etherised upon a table.”
He’d dropped the sirs, and I must admit to a certain jellying effect on the insides. The passive, patient and detached poetry-quoting Jeeves had disappeared for good, and his words seemed wonderfully sincere, as if they were his alone.
“Well, what do you say, eh? Fancy another visit to the silver screen?” I said, weakly.
An unfamiliar gleam suddenly came into Jeeves’ eyes.
I don’t know if you’ve ever been manhandled by your valet, but I can thoroughly recommend the experience. I can’t guarantee it’ll be quite the same if it isn’t Jeeves, of course. He grabbed me rather roughly by the tie and held me to him, kissing me forcefully until he let me go with a sharp intake of breath. I quivered a little under his grip, still tight around the object. With pleasure, I noted that his eyes were fixed on me, on the way I shifted under his hand, hanging rather helplessly. His lips quirked into what I noted with amazement could only be a smile, and he spoke, very softly.
“Actually, Bertie, I would much prefer a night in.”
One lives for these sorts of moments, what?