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purplefluffycatTitle: Jeeves and the Artistic Verisimilitude
Chapter: Three - Predictions and Predilections.
Author: PurpleFluffyCat
Rating: This chapter PG-13. The story will rate NC-17 at its fruitiest moments ;-)
Characters: Bertie/Jeeves, with several of Bertie's crowd making an appearance along the way, and a couple of new faces.
Words: This chapter: ~7000 , about 52,000 overall.
Genre: Chiefly Romance, with some Drama, Angst, Humour and Fluff.
Summary:
"Surely, one would think, nothing could be more relaxing for a young Wooster than a week spent by the seaside? - Golf and sand-castle building without an aunt in sight!
One may think so, indeed, but the combination of several 'friends' with their own agendas, a theatrical production and the mysterious designs of my very own valet conspired to make that week spent in Spindleythorpe-on-sea one of the most memorable and life-changing of the lot..."
There will be fortune tellers! And Gilbert and Sullivan! And (the chaps are rather glad to hear), plenty of romantic fluffy goodness!
Chapter One - 'Escape and Entrapment'
Chapter Two - 'Drama and Divination'
Chapter Three - Predictions and Predilections
Tuesday's am. was not quite as much of a shock to the Wooster constitution as Monday's. I had made sure Jeeves had warned me about the rehearsals the night before, you see, so those dratted little coloured boxes couldn't creep up on me in the night and catch me unawares. It was not at all pleasant having to rise so early, but at least I was prepared for it, and bowled down to the ballroom that morning with score in hand and even a few minutes to spare.
What I was totally unprepared for, however, was the curiously ebullient reception I received upon arriving there. Bingo strode forwards with arm outstretched. “What-ho, Bertie! My greatest congratulations to you. What good news.”
“Yes, who would have thought Wooster would be settling down already, eh? Well done, old man!” That was Tuppy, patting me enthusiastically on the back.
Much as it was lovely to be greeted so warmly by one's chums, I couldn't help thinking that I might have missed something. “Hello. Yes, what-ho Bingo, Tuppy, Gussie,” I said, “Spiffing to see you all, as ever... But what's all this about settling down?”
“Oh don't play all coy with us, Bertie,” said Tuppy forcefully, “Bingo's told us all about it, and now we know who your intended is exactly, what's left to do but crack open the champers? The girls have practically chosen their dresses already.”
“Yes,” said Gussie, “It was Madeline who worked it out – she's terribly clever like that. Oh, here she is again. Madeline, dear, do come over here and tell Bertie how you knew who he is going to marry.”
“Who I'm going to marry?” A mere repetition was all I could manage at that point, rather like a scratchy wax cylinder.
“Good morning, Bertie!” called Madeline as she approached, “Isn't it a beautiful day? Well I suppose any day is beautiful now you are a groom-to-be. I'm so glad I puzzled out the tarot-reading for you both – you and Honoria are going to be so happy!”
“Honoria?” My face drained of colour. There had to be a mistake; this was pure madness… Me, marry Honoria? She’d eat me alive! I had managed to wriggle out of this one before, and I wondered whether I could hear the sound of cruel fate knocking to collect his due.
Keen to avoid the scaly hand of the spectral tax-collector one more time, I tried a reasoning approach with the assembled company - surely they would be able to see the flaw in this ridiculous scheme. Suppressing the panic I felt, I gathered my most reasonable tone. “Ah, Honoria, eh? That's an interesting idea, Madeline, but why exactly did you think that the fortune teller's words pointed to me and her? I can't quite see it, myself...”
“Ah, the sign of true love is often being unable to appreciate the obvious, Bertie,” Madeline replied with an assumed tone of mysticism. “You are just so very fortunate that I was there to see it for you, or your one true chance of pre-ordained happiness might have slipped through your fingers.”
“Ah, yes, quite. Much obliged, I'm sure. But why exactly do you thing the fortune points in this direction?” I had to get it out of her – there was no other way I might have ammunition to fire at these devilish circs. otherwise.
“Just think about it, Bertie. You have known Honoria for a long time, yes?”
“Well, yes, I suppose so.” Far longer than I care to remember would have been a more honest answer, but I was trying to keep things cordial.
“She's a very tall girl, just as Madam Osiris predicted...”
“Yes, I can't argue with that one,” I said, with scary images of being loomed over for years to come.
“And she has very dark hair! The predictions are complete.” Madeline gazed upward at that point for cosmic effect, but it mainly served to highlight the yellowing plaster on the ceiling of the ballroom. “I really am delighted for you both, you know, Bertie. The stars will be in a special kind of daisy-chain tonight, just to mark your engagement.”
I thought hard about the reasons given as Madeline finished talking. “Aha!” I said then, with probably more gusto than was altogether polite, but I didn't mind that – I had found the flaw. “I regret to say, Madeline, my dear, that you are mistaken. Honoria does not have very dark hair. It is more the colour of a...”
Well, 'a mouse' was the natural and obvious creature to complete that sentence. You know - one of the little brown field chappies that lends its name to the more general descriptor, 'mousey'. However, B. Wooster was feeling particularly quick on his toes that morning, and I remembered at the last moment before uttering such an adjective that it does not go down well among members of the so-called fairer sex. Not at all well, if a tear-stained and tennis-racquet-impacted blazer I have hanging in my London closet can be described as fair witness to a previous occasion of my innocently employing the term. Therefore, I very cunningly searched my vocabulary for an alternative woodland creature that would fit the bill. A fox? No, much too red. A badger? Too stripy.
Aha! Yes, that was it. “Honoria is far more like a shrew,” I completed triumphantly.
Madeleine’s boggley eyes boggled even further at that point, and I realised that perhaps I had managed to upset the sisterly camaraderie after all. These Junior Lipsticks could be ferocious in packs, you know. “How could you speak about your fiancée like that, Bertie?” she asked in a hushed, yet rather cross tone, “Now, you better be nice about our dear Honoria now, for here she is.”
And yes, low and behold, my apparent intended strode into the room at that very moment, approximately eleven feet tall, and crested by an extraordinary plume of very, very black hair.
Honoria, as Jeeves has said in the past, is a ‘healthy young lady.’ She has the ability to wallop a chap on the back with the force of several miffed rhinoceroses, then pull him along by the arm at the speed of a locomotive that has become detached from its carriages while descending a rather severe incline. Anything that is left of said chap after such treatment would probably be best left out for the blackbirds or any passing vultures.
It was therefore perhaps understandable that I was at bit perturbed to find myself the target of a speeding Miss Glossop at that moment, who seemed intent on giving yours truly the hug to end all hugs. Or respirations, for that matter.
“What-ho, Bertie!” she hollered toward me.
“Ah, yes... Hullo, Honoria,” I managed, “Quite a surprise, you having dark hair today... isn't it? I could have sworn it was somewhat, err, paler than that yesterday...”
“How sweet of you to notice, my dear Bertram. Perhaps you're not quite as much of a lost cause as I thought; I will be able to make something of you, after all!”
“Ah, is that so...” Quite why every female I meet seems intent to 'make something of me,' is a fact that I never have, never shall understand. Do I come across as the human equivalent of those little pieces of toy train track, or perhaps like a pile of ingredients for a Victoria sponge?
“But yes, as I was saying,” continued Honoria, “I am indeed willing to make great efforts and sacrifices for artistic verisimilitude. I have had my hair coloured especially for Saturday night's performance, to create the proper Japanese effect. Doesn't it look realistic?”
“Oh, ra-ther,” I agreed, silently thinking that hair may be one thing, but the fact that Honoria could quite easily represent two authentic Japanese ladies was quite another.
“And so, on to business, because I'm sure that you won't want to let me slip through your fingers again, now, will you Bertie? I have telegrammed the vicar in our home parish to enquire about a Saturday next month, and we can have the reception at home, of course. I haven't told Mummy and Daddy quite yet – after last time I don't think that you are their very favourite, all things considered – but I'm sure they'll come round if I present the whole affair as a fait accompli. Your aunt Agatha will be pleased, of course. Spiffing, what?”
Honoria then decided that I needed embracing to settle the matter, and I steeled myself for the crunch, feeling pretty powerless to escape; the Code of the Woosters is definitely a curse as well as a blessing, you know. Now, I have heard Stiffy Byng and certain other girls whose conversation has a habit of turning somewhat to the feline, say that Honoria has an ‘hour-glass figure’ – presumably in preference to the waif-like profile that seems to be fashionable these days. It seemed to Bertram then, when embroiled in a rib-crushing embrace with the terror, that ‘month-glass,’ or ‘year-glass’ might have been a more appropriate term.
When it was over I peeled myself off of Honoria's skirt-suit and attempted to regain a third bodily dimension. I was just about to launch some kind of gentle protest – about not wanting to rush things, and the like – when Josephine strode over and tried to call the rehearsal to order, immediately engaging Honoria’s assistance.
I had noticed during the course of rehearsals thus far, that Honoria and Josephine were really rather chummy with each other – two sergeant majors in the same pod, one might say. They were both equally bossy and domineering, but not so much so with each other. Perhaps they sensed that - like Chinese Samurai fish - a battle would last to the death were they to embark upon one, so it was safer to join forces instead.
Admittedly - if the viewer was on the other side of a nice thick plate of glass - they made a pretty striking pair. Honoria was tall and broad and Josephine was shaped more like a needle than a Venus. They strode around with the same bossy gait putting all of us lesser mortals to rights, and sometimes disappeared behind a big desk in the corner to draw up long lists, elaborate plans, and more of those terrifying charts with the little coloured boxes.
This all came much to the chagrin of Bingo of course, who was feeling distinctly sidelined in his official role of ‘assistant producer’. He looked on in consternation when Josephine had called Honoria over to discuss the finer points of costume design, or set, or characterizi-thingy, while leaving him in a corner with terse instructions to ‘sweep the stage before we start Act II.’ Perhaps he was hoping to debunk Honoria onto me for the rest of the week to have a clearer access where Josephine was concerned? If that was so, Bingo was due to slide a long way down my list of favoured chums, and I’d be half-inclined to feed him to Tuppy for breakfast.
I was woken from such thoughts by a harsh clapping of hands, directed mainly towards the gents’ chorus, who were trying to see who could balance a hard-boiled egg on the end of his nose for longest. I had my money on Cyril personally, given the broadness of his proboscis, but alas we were never to find out.
“When you have quite finished, gentlemen…” said Josephine in her finest school mistress tone, “As you know, the performance is approaching quickly, and therefore we really need to up the pace of rehearsals following yesterday’s gentle introduction.” Eight hours straight with barely a break for lunch didn’t seem very gentle to me, but I declined to argue that point. “Today, the group will be split between myself and the musical director in alternating combinations to maximise our productivity. The principals will rehearse music first, with Deirdre in the conservatory. We might as well start with you, Nanki-Poo. Off you go then, chop-chop.”
Simply typical for me to be picked on first, I say, but for once I didn’t really mind – it gave me an excuse to escape Honoria’s beady eye, for the short term at least. I picked up my score and toddled off to the conservatory as I was told, to find Deirdre there in all her terrified glory. She nodded at me shyly and gestured to the top of my first song as a place to begin. I agreed that the beginning was indeed, a jolly sensible place to pick things up, and she launched herself at the rickety café-piano with full force.
Deirdre didn’t say much as we went about things for the next hour or so, but then again she didn’t really need to – every instruction was perfectly clear from the way she bashed the ivories and rode the pedals as if they were stirrups and she was the winning jockey in the Grand National. By the end of things it had actually done the trick, I think; we’d ironed out all the sticky bits and I had a fair idea how to find the starting note of each piece from the final note of the previous one. I was sure that all such notions would be worth their weight in gold come the public exposure that Saturday so kindly offered, and cringed resignedly to myself at the thought of it all.
When I went back into the ballroom, I was met with an extraordinary sight – the gents’ chorus were engaged in something that might have been supposed to resemble dancing but looked more like a rugby scrum, or possibly human knitting.
“Not there, you great Oof!”
“Watch it! That was my toe!”
“She said ‘left!’ How many different versions of ‘left’ can there possibly be, eh?!”
Unfortunately, I wasn’t afforded much chance to watch the comedy, because Josephine swooped down on me like an eagle finding a vole in the undergrowth. “Ah, there you are, Bertram! What on earth have you been doing?”
I was just about to answer, “Singing until I was blue in the face, thank you very much, and at your own orders, Miss Bossy-Boots,” but sadly the brave words died in my throat before I could get them out.
“Now go over to where Madeline is waiting for you to practice lines with her. Dear Honoria is just going to run-through her vocal numbers now, but you will be rehearsing with her this afternoon.” Josephine gave me a meaningful look, presumably just to go with all the others I had already suffered that day on the subject of my apparent betrothal, but being Josephine, this one seemed more severe than usual. I scurried in the direction of the pointy pointed finger before she had the chance to tell me to chop-chop again.
As the supposed lead-couple, Madeline and I had a fair amount of stage-time together, and a glance through the libbi-whatsit revealed that there were vast amounts of cutsiness and innumerable daft sweet nothings that we were expected to get through. I just thanked my lucky stars that it was only acting - a lifetime of being married to Madeline would be too much to contemplate. However, on the subject of candidates for marriage to Madeline, Gussie was giving me dashed rummy looks during all of this practising. It’s not as if I particularly wanted to keep embracing her and having her fluffy head on my shoulder, but Josephine insisted that we should keep going until it looked realistic.
In the mean time, Gussie and Tuppy were supposed to be clowning around with the ladies’ chorus – the young girls mercilessly tormenting poor old Pooh-Bah in a way that looked almost too realistic. The pack of fillies - led by my cousin Angela in the role of Pitti-Sing - kept tweaking his ears, ruffling his hair and poking him in the middle, followed swiftly each time by a fit of giggles and a speedy escape. This had been going on for over half-an-hour and Tuppy was looking distinctly nonplussed by the whole affair.
His moment of reprieve came when Gussie was summoned to go and sing in the conservatory, drawing that particular scene to an end. Gussie nodded at Josephine’s command, but then seemed to come over all shifty, like a cat-burglar trying to make off with a particularly fine Siamese. That is what they do, isn’t it? - Cat-burglars, I mean.
Such impression was reinforced when Josephine caught him tip-toeing out into the lobby when the conservatory was clearly in the opposite direction. “And just where do you think you’re going, Augustus?” she cried, and all eyes turned to glare at Gussie. Quite right, too, say I. If the rest of us were doomed to be cooped up in here for the week, practising some dashed kiwi-thingummy, why should he get time off? I’m sure that we’d all rather have liked to be dipping our toes in the big blue s. just then, but the flag of dedication was being flown all round, and deserters were not to be dealt with lightly.
“I’m err… just going to get a, um.. glass of water,” he explained. “I’ll go straight there afterwards, no need to check or anything… ha ha…” And with that Gussie sloped off, in a direction that looked suspiciously like the front door of the hotel.
*****
On a usual sort of day, lunchtime would have perked me up no end, but what with Gussie going missing – just as I had suspected, the blighter! - most of the gents nursing bruised toes and yours truly lamenting the impending loss of his bachelor status, it was a pretty sombre affair. Not that the midday repast was allowed to last for very long, of course. I was just deciding whether I fancied strawberry ice-cream with chocolate sauce or chocolate ice cream with strawberry sauce, when Josephine swanned into the dining room and began ringing a bell at us, like ringing the dinner gong in reverse.
I heaved a sigh and complied with her percussive instructions, trotting back into the dusty old ballroom despite the call of sea breeze and sunshine. Just to make matters worse, Honoria charged over to me then, full of the joys of assorted vegetables.
“I’m really glad we can get a jolly god run at our scenes now, Bertie,” she said, “Dashed sporting of Josephine to give us the whole afternoon session to rehearse together, what?”
“Oh, ra-ther…” Was it really going to be the whole afternoon? Aagh. Jeeves had warned me about the number of imposing little coloured boxes I was due to suffer, but perhaps I should have asked about their type as well. A chap should be able to steel himself for four hours of straight Honoria, you know, especially under the particular rummy circs. vis her and self.
I realised then that Honoria was still talking to me. “…and I think it will be important for us to bring out the subtextual true love that is really felt between Nanki-Poo and Katisha…”
“But he can’t stand her, can he? He’s being forced into this whole marriage business against his will?” I was pretty sure I had that right from the libbi-whatsit. The ironic parallels at play between the actors and characters just then did not escape me either.
“Ah yes, that is the impression one might gather from an initial, shallow reading of the text, Bertram, but upon deeper inspection, it is clear that at heart Nanki-Poo really wants the more mature, forceful woman, who will be able to take him in hand, make something of him…”
I was just about to say, ‘No he bally well doesn’t,’ but Josephine then leapt to Honoria’s side and the two of them peered at me as a small boy might peer at an interesting beetle he has found in the garden. Right before he rips its legs off, that is. I knew then that what ever artistic-whatnot the two of them had in mind was going to be irresistible for poor old Bertram - in the literal sense.
“Let’s make a start then,” said Josephine, “I think we’ll begin with Honoria’s marvellous concept of a spectral adoring Nanki-Poo during Katisha’s lament.”...
*****
Following several unwelcome hours of being clamped to Honoria's ample bosom in the name of art, it was the sorry remains of a Wooster who made his way upstairs before dinner. Fortunately, Jeeves was waiting for me, and had a reviving G & T on hand as I walked in the door.
“Just what I needed, Jeeves. Thank you,” I said, handing him back the glass after I had drained it in one gulp, “For the solace of liquor is the only thing your employer has left to him in this life. By the time the month is out, all will be lost.”
“Sir?” Jeeves enquired, with a measured look of concern.
“I'm doomed, Jeeves!” I wailed, “For I've become engaged to Honoria Glossop again, and it's all the fault of that bally fortune-teller.”
Jeeves was silent for a moment as he took in my distressing news. “If I may offer an opinion, sir, Miss Glossop does not quite fit the description that Madam Osiris gave regarding your intended as you have relayed it to me. Granted, the lady has been of your acquaintance for some time, and she is of considerable height, but her hair... is certainly something of the murine.”
“Precisely my train of thought, Jeeves,” I said despairingly, (although also taking a little pride that I had thought of the same idea as Jeeves when faced with the same bare facts - maybe I wasn't so silly after all). “I thought the small-woodland-creature-clause was going to be my saving grace, but it turns out the dratted female has blackened her hair for Oriental effect – thus fulfilling the prophecy and making everyone else dash for the confetti. What a rum do!”
“Ah, most unfortunate, sir,” said Jeeves – with a fair amount of venom, actually, by Jeeves' polite standards. I was touched by the extent to which he was moved to defend me in these circs. “I am sure this is not what Madam Osiris had in mind.”
“How do we know what she had in mind, Jeeves?” I snapped, feeling exasperated. “Perhaps these eternal spirits are a malevolent bunch, and take sport in torturing poor chaps like me over their ethereal tea and crumpets. Besides, however much of a marvel you are, my dear Jeeves, I was not aware that you had a direct line to the supernatural.”
Jeeves looked considering for a moment, almost as if he might, in fact, regularly send cables to the Big Chap Upstairs. In the end, he merely said, “As you say, sir,” and poured me another stiff one by way of condolence.
Dinner that evening seemed to be a festal affair for most – the girls done up in their favourite frocks and the chaps all in a particularly ebullient mood, no doubt feeling encouraged by the fact that yours truly had apparently led the way so bravely ahead in the wooing and winning stakes. Gussie had re-emerged, and seemed to have told Madeline something to keep her happy, so they were cooing away to each other at one corner of the table.
I couldn't escape sitting next to Honoria at dinner, so was in a position to thoroughly enjoy being criticised for the way I slurped my soup, carved my meat and of course, drank too much wine. Well, what was a chap to do? In such dire circs. the old Bacchanal anaesthetty-thingy was the only possible way to cope. I thought that if I got properly sozzled and distracted I might at least be able to forget about it for a few hours. It was therefore jolly welcome when Bingo leant toward me in a conspiratorial manner with a plan for further entertainment that evening.
“I say, Bertie,” he whispered, “How do you fancy having a super time tonight when the fillies have gone to bed?”
“Sounds like just what I need right now, Bingo, old thing,” I replied glumly.
“Marvellous!” he hissed, “ I may or may not have mentioned that my uncle keeps a little cottage around here – it's just at the other end of the prom. He's not here at the moment, and has said I can use it to entertain. The old chap has quite a collection of bottles, and another sort of collection too, which I think you'll find most interesting - not to mention informative, with regard to upcoming events.” He gestured toward Honoria then, who was in deep conversation with Josephine. “So, are you in?”
I didn't have the foggiest what Bingo was talking about, but it sounded fun all the same, and bottles were a definite plus. “Yes, spiffing. I shall tell Jeeves not to wait up for me.”
“Good stuff, Bertie!” said Bingo, then tapped the side of his nose with a finger that was unfortunately liberally coated with toffee sauce. “And remember, not a word to the girls.”
“Right-ho,” I agreed, then handed him a napkin.
*****
As someone-or-other's law would have it, it took the Junior Lipsticks a dashed long time – two brandies and a snifter of port, to be precise – to decide that it was time for bed. They were being rather grievously buoyed by talk of crinolines and sugared almonds and suchlike, and I was very keen to keep a low profile.
Finally however, we chaps bade them goodnight and then cautiously made our way out of the hotel into the sleepy seaside evening. We walked along the prom as the dark ocean swished this way and that, chatting gaily about the cricket, or the shows, or fast cars and suchlike. As it was just we Drones again, I began to cheer up a bit, - there’s nothing like the low-lying presence of females to tap the spirits. All that was missing was a few wry comments from Jeeves, and the Wooster existence would have been complete.
As Bingo had promised, his uncle's dwelling wasn't far off at all, and we soon came across a charming little place decked out in the rustic style, which would comfortably accommodate Bingo Senior – the blessed old bachelor – and no doubt, his valet, or housekeeper, or whoever it was who looked after him in these parts.
“Here we are, then,” said Bingo cheerfully, and ushered us all inside into the front parlour. The room had a fair collection of comfortable sofas and wing-backed chairs by a big stone fireplace and displays of unlikely-looking fishermens' knots in glass cases around the walls – all rather cosy. “Now, what would you chaps like to drink?” With a flourish, Bingo opened the door of a full-height cabinet, and revealed what must have been over a hundred different bottles, all stacked in neat rows and containing various potent-looking liquids.
“Cor, how splendid! As we're by the sea, how about a spot of rum?” said Tuppy.
“Quite right too,” agreed Bingo, “Now would you like standard dark or something called 'overproof special' - according to this label?”
“Ooh, I think we should go for the special,” chorused Gussie, and the assembled company murmured their agreement.
“Good show, special all round then,” declared Bingo, who then started to pass around a tray of glasses and the most unusual-looking bottle of liquor. When the aforementioned g.s and l. arrived with me, I gave it a jolly good slug – and then a bit more for luck. For goodness only knows, if anyone needed luck just then it was the chap who found himself engaged to Honoria Glossop.
“Down the hatch, then!” called someone, and we all obliged, wheezing a little at the burn, but not enough to prevent the bottle from whizzing around once more in pretty short order. There's nothing like a little refreshing tipple to make one feel better, you know.
The evening continued thus for some while, the conversation becoming more and more animated while probably covering less and less actual content. All decidedly merry, indeed; this was the kind of thing I had come to the seaside for, after all.
After a time, Bingo banged his glass on a side table to grab everyone's attention, unfortunately de-rigging his uncle's ship-in-a-bottle in the process. “Right chaps, now we're all warmed up, the fun can really start. And this,” he picked up a large packet of papers of some sort, “Is the very essence of paradise, in print form. My uncle gets them directly from a supplier in Paris - you'll never find anything this err, good made in Blighty. So, who wants a look?”
There then followed an extraordinary clamouring of both the vocal and the physical kind.
“Ooh, me, me!”
“Over here, Bingo!”
“Go on, me first, I did let you win at draughts the other day, after all!”
Needless to say, I hadn't the slightest clue what the fuss was all about – surely a packet of leaflets, or postcards, or whatever they were couldn't be that exciting.
Bingo lifted the sheaf of papers above his head to keep them out of the way of grabbing mitts. He reprimanded those closest to him by saying, “Watch it! Most of you chaps saw these when I brought them to the Drones' last month, anyway,” and then decreed, “Everyone will get their turn, but actually I think Bertie should go first, to mark his engagement and all that. Here you go, old man. As well as being utterly spiffing, these things should come in dashed useful – consider them a road-map for what's to come.” There were many not-so-discreet chortles at that last remark, and I then found myself sitting with the curious package on my lap, and with at least a dozen Drones craning over my shoulder to see whatever lay within.
I shrugged at the overwhelming enthusiasm they were all displaying, but quickly obliged the hordes by removing one of the items from its brown paper wrapping. It turned out to be a scrapbook of some sort – the type that people use for keeping postcards together – and was someone had written 'French Letters for French Ladies' across the front.
“Go on, Bertie, open it up!” called Gussie, so I did as he asked. I was then faced with the most peculiar set of images. They were all fillies, but they were all, well naked. Not a stitch to be seen.
Now, I've seen the Greek sculptures in the museums just as much as any other chap (not that I tend to linger much over the Aphrodites truth be told, but the Davids and Apollos are all jolly fine). However those national treasures tend to be a.) made of cold, hard marble, and b.) tastefully arranged. You know – with strategically placed vine leaves or bits of cloth or what have you. These pictures of Bingo's could boast neither of the aforesaid attributes, looking distinctly warm and fleshy, and leaving absolutely nothing to the imagination. They also seemed distinctly unappealing, truth be told, although the other Drones certainly didn't seem to think so.
“Gosh! Look at her,” said Tuppy, “I hope Angela's that well set-up on top,”
“You'd be lucky. But how about Bobby Wickham, eh?” answered Cyril.
“Good call, good call, old thing,” agreed someone else, “Come on, Bertie, let's see some more.”
In consternation I reached once more for the rum bottle and gave myself a generous top-up – the flow of liquid meeting the glass with less than perfect accuracy, I must confess. However, bowing to the force of peer pressure I also turned the pages a few more times, becoming increasingly alarmed at quite what the pictures were willing to display. There were girls spread-eagled in every conceivable position, and the cameraman clearly wasn't too worried about steaming up his lens. Combined with all this were the ever-louder cries of appreciation from my fellow Drones, forever urging me to show more of the frightful pictures.
“Well, I don't quite know about this, old thing...” I said at one point, but there was a fair amount of tutting and guffawing at that, and someone reached over and took over the duty of turning the pages. I felt properly hemmed-in just then, my alcohol-numbed coconut being further drenched with images of all these terrifying French beazels, salaciously goggling chaps on every which side of me, and then a sickening, horrifying notion as I begun to understand what Bingo meant when he was making references to my engagement to Honoria.
As if he had read my thoughts, Bingo chimed in, “So Bertie, what do you think, eh? Both fun and educational for the old wedding night, what, what?”
Tuppy flicked over the page again just then, revealing what must have been the prize postcard in Bingo Senior's collection, as it was in colour. My queasiness then reached full horror, and I could only think that this must all be some kind of rummy joke or optical illusion. I said the first thing that came to mind on seeing such an image, “My goodness, how awful! Is that poor girl wounded?”
They must have thought me quite the comedian, but trust me, a distressed and tipsy B. Wooster found the situation just then anything but funny. “Don't be silly, Bertie,” said Gussie, “That's what it's supposed to look like.”
Supposed to look like? Well, someone or other up there had clearly gone very wrong on the design side of things, and I certainly wanted absolutely no part of it. People were supposed to keep there insides, well... on the inside. Admittedly, chaps had a certain hydraulic variability in these matters, as it were, but the whole package was basically smooth and intact and viewable without fear of loosing one's roast goose.
Now this feminine... what-ever-it-was... was an entirely different matter altogether. Not wanting to upset those of a less than strong constitution, but I was reminded significantly of an eel-fishing trip the previous summer. And that was one of the milder analogies that sprang to mind, let me tell you.
“Goodness, yes! That's why we all want to get married, eh?” said Tuppy, making some particularly suggestive gestures with his tumbler and a banana from the nearby fruit bowl, “How marvellous – Can't you just imagine...”
I really didn’t want to. If there had been any cotton wool handy, I would have stuffed it in my ears. And my eyes too for good measure, most probably.
“Oh, yes!” chorused Bingo, pointing back to the photograph still poised dangerously on my lap, “She's just beautiful, isn't she?”
“Oh, yes! What a corker.”
“Ooh la la!”
“So Bertie,” persisted Bingo once more, “Isn't this the most beautiful thing you've ever seen? And soon you will get to see the very same – and much more – in real life!”
“Um, I err...” I started. I was all a-quiver. I now understood the implications of Bingo's words with sickening clarity, and there was nothing that seemed more perfectly horrid, truth be told. The rum lurched dangerously from side to side in my digestion and my head swum in a confused cloud of disbelief, cut with a small internal voice with a decidedly indignant tone that might perhaps help me to make sense of it all.
How could they all think that these female frights were beautiful? I knew instinctively that beauty wasn’t supposed to look like that. Beauty was tall and strong and dark haired. Beauty was clever and reliable and always one step ahead. Beauty spoke in melodious, complicated sentences and moved with an almost supernatural precision and grace. Surely, it was obvious, wasn’t it? That these images were nothing like the real thing? Or at least it was perfectly obviously to me; Bingo and Gussie and the rest seemed clearly of the contrary opinion, and I vaguely wondered just how much rum was necessary for a chap to loose his senses so.
Of course, I hadn’t ever analysed my thoughts on the matter before, and I had precious little opportunity to do so then. All I knew at that moment was that pink and squidgy things on postcards were still sitting imposingly on my lap, and I stood a very good chance of producing something equally unpleasant on Bingo Senior's hearthrug if I didn’t leave immediately. That very instant.
“Um, thanks Bingo, old chap, but I've really got to go right now,” I jabbered, and then sprung from my chair, sending the benighted album flying goodness-knows-where and bolted for the door, the bracing sea air just managing to take the edge off what would have otherwise been an explosive exit.
I set my course along the darkened promenade, feet catching at invisible obstacles on the floor and generally feeling very dizzy and very glum indeed. I took my time, cherishing the space and relative quiet around me, and feeling thankful to be away from the assembled company. When I had caught my breath, I attempted to cast a critical eye over the whole affair – which in truth, was not easy to do in such an impressive state of inebriation as I was then, but I tried nevertheless.
Why should those pictures have seemed so bally rummy to me, when the others were having the time of their lives? At this rate, I was never going to find a woman I could stand to marry, I thought, and even if I did, I’d be so vexed and repulsed by the whole honeymoon business, things would end badly before they had even begun. It was all looking pretty bleak for the Wooster line, as indeed my aunts were fearing.
And then I remembered I was engaged to Honoria (the rum had that nasty effect of springing the same unpleasant surprise on a chap over and over again). I failed to suppress an enormous shudder at all that would entail, and the liquor vied strongly to be released into the community.
A few cleansing deep breaths later, and I set off on my way once again, with another attempt at profound thoughts. It wasn't that Honoria was such a bad old bean herself, my addled brain slowly reasoned - if one likes the sergeant-major types, anyway. There was just something so ultimately, physically, viscerally wrong with the principal of the thing…
I stood in utter, blackened desolation for a good while, looking out to sea. And then, all of sudden, something clicked! For the first time in my life, it all made glorious, beautiful crystal clear sense, even though my liquor-soaked bean was spinning on its spindly support and I could barely remember the way back to the hotel. I realised you see, that I didn’t want to be married to any Bassett, or Glossop or divine goddess, not particularly because there might be something undesirable about them personally, but because I just wasn’t designed like that.
B. Wooster was not programmed to like the fillies. Full stop. End of story.
The ecstatic combination of liberation and libation I felt at that moment, while shakily toddling along the seafront is difficult to describe. All of my anti-matrimonial wriggles suddenly felt justified; part of some divine plan that would clearly have a purpose and a trajectory. In fact, the marvellous sense of triumphant wisdom I possessed just then, pales only in comparison to the earth-shattering realisation that occurred to me some fifty yards and twenty-five minutes later.
It appeared as people might describe a visitation from one of those prophet chappies. One moment I was intimately acquainted with a seafront litter-bin, wondering whether it would have been more efficient to simply have brought the bottle of rum to said bin, rather than using my insides as a kind of temporary receptacle. The next moment, I was gazing out across the dark and surging ocean and a full chorus of heavenly beings started singing the angelus – with trumpets, and lyres and any other kind of beatific instrument you care to mention. It was like discovering the most fundamental truth of all the world, and at the same time realising that deep down I knew it all along anyway.
I was in love with Jeeves.
Deeply, madly, head-over-heels in love with Jeeves, in a way that was so integral and fundamental to being Bertram Wooster that I hadn’t even recognised it for what it was. Jeeves was my beloved, my betrothed. It was just as the fortune-teller had told me.
That statement was pure and simple and so irrevocably true, I just stood there and basked in the glory of it for a good few minutes. Luckily, most of brain cells were still dealing with the aftermath of Bingo Senior’s liquor cabinet, so there was no power left over for doubts, or worries or dismissals, as might have been the case if such a profound truth were to strike a fully sober chap.
No, I knew I was in love with Jeeves just as I was sure that my name was Bertie and that tweed was the one true material for jackets. Everything suddenly made so much more sense, and I was floating on top of the world.
Chapter Four - 'Sentimentality and Subtext'
Chapter: Three - Predictions and Predilections.
Author: PurpleFluffyCat
Rating: This chapter PG-13. The story will rate NC-17 at its fruitiest moments ;-)
Characters: Bertie/Jeeves, with several of Bertie's crowd making an appearance along the way, and a couple of new faces.
Words: This chapter: ~7000 , about 52,000 overall.
Genre: Chiefly Romance, with some Drama, Angst, Humour and Fluff.
Summary:
"Surely, one would think, nothing could be more relaxing for a young Wooster than a week spent by the seaside? - Golf and sand-castle building without an aunt in sight!
One may think so, indeed, but the combination of several 'friends' with their own agendas, a theatrical production and the mysterious designs of my very own valet conspired to make that week spent in Spindleythorpe-on-sea one of the most memorable and life-changing of the lot..."
There will be fortune tellers! And Gilbert and Sullivan! And (the chaps are rather glad to hear), plenty of romantic fluffy goodness!
Chapter One - 'Escape and Entrapment'
Chapter Two - 'Drama and Divination'
Chapter Three - Predictions and Predilections
Tuesday's am. was not quite as much of a shock to the Wooster constitution as Monday's. I had made sure Jeeves had warned me about the rehearsals the night before, you see, so those dratted little coloured boxes couldn't creep up on me in the night and catch me unawares. It was not at all pleasant having to rise so early, but at least I was prepared for it, and bowled down to the ballroom that morning with score in hand and even a few minutes to spare.
What I was totally unprepared for, however, was the curiously ebullient reception I received upon arriving there. Bingo strode forwards with arm outstretched. “What-ho, Bertie! My greatest congratulations to you. What good news.”
“Yes, who would have thought Wooster would be settling down already, eh? Well done, old man!” That was Tuppy, patting me enthusiastically on the back.
Much as it was lovely to be greeted so warmly by one's chums, I couldn't help thinking that I might have missed something. “Hello. Yes, what-ho Bingo, Tuppy, Gussie,” I said, “Spiffing to see you all, as ever... But what's all this about settling down?”
“Oh don't play all coy with us, Bertie,” said Tuppy forcefully, “Bingo's told us all about it, and now we know who your intended is exactly, what's left to do but crack open the champers? The girls have practically chosen their dresses already.”
“Yes,” said Gussie, “It was Madeline who worked it out – she's terribly clever like that. Oh, here she is again. Madeline, dear, do come over here and tell Bertie how you knew who he is going to marry.”
“Who I'm going to marry?” A mere repetition was all I could manage at that point, rather like a scratchy wax cylinder.
“Good morning, Bertie!” called Madeline as she approached, “Isn't it a beautiful day? Well I suppose any day is beautiful now you are a groom-to-be. I'm so glad I puzzled out the tarot-reading for you both – you and Honoria are going to be so happy!”
“Honoria?” My face drained of colour. There had to be a mistake; this was pure madness… Me, marry Honoria? She’d eat me alive! I had managed to wriggle out of this one before, and I wondered whether I could hear the sound of cruel fate knocking to collect his due.
Keen to avoid the scaly hand of the spectral tax-collector one more time, I tried a reasoning approach with the assembled company - surely they would be able to see the flaw in this ridiculous scheme. Suppressing the panic I felt, I gathered my most reasonable tone. “Ah, Honoria, eh? That's an interesting idea, Madeline, but why exactly did you think that the fortune teller's words pointed to me and her? I can't quite see it, myself...”
“Ah, the sign of true love is often being unable to appreciate the obvious, Bertie,” Madeline replied with an assumed tone of mysticism. “You are just so very fortunate that I was there to see it for you, or your one true chance of pre-ordained happiness might have slipped through your fingers.”
“Ah, yes, quite. Much obliged, I'm sure. But why exactly do you thing the fortune points in this direction?” I had to get it out of her – there was no other way I might have ammunition to fire at these devilish circs. otherwise.
“Just think about it, Bertie. You have known Honoria for a long time, yes?”
“Well, yes, I suppose so.” Far longer than I care to remember would have been a more honest answer, but I was trying to keep things cordial.
“She's a very tall girl, just as Madam Osiris predicted...”
“Yes, I can't argue with that one,” I said, with scary images of being loomed over for years to come.
“And she has very dark hair! The predictions are complete.” Madeline gazed upward at that point for cosmic effect, but it mainly served to highlight the yellowing plaster on the ceiling of the ballroom. “I really am delighted for you both, you know, Bertie. The stars will be in a special kind of daisy-chain tonight, just to mark your engagement.”
I thought hard about the reasons given as Madeline finished talking. “Aha!” I said then, with probably more gusto than was altogether polite, but I didn't mind that – I had found the flaw. “I regret to say, Madeline, my dear, that you are mistaken. Honoria does not have very dark hair. It is more the colour of a...”
Well, 'a mouse' was the natural and obvious creature to complete that sentence. You know - one of the little brown field chappies that lends its name to the more general descriptor, 'mousey'. However, B. Wooster was feeling particularly quick on his toes that morning, and I remembered at the last moment before uttering such an adjective that it does not go down well among members of the so-called fairer sex. Not at all well, if a tear-stained and tennis-racquet-impacted blazer I have hanging in my London closet can be described as fair witness to a previous occasion of my innocently employing the term. Therefore, I very cunningly searched my vocabulary for an alternative woodland creature that would fit the bill. A fox? No, much too red. A badger? Too stripy.
Aha! Yes, that was it. “Honoria is far more like a shrew,” I completed triumphantly.
Madeleine’s boggley eyes boggled even further at that point, and I realised that perhaps I had managed to upset the sisterly camaraderie after all. These Junior Lipsticks could be ferocious in packs, you know. “How could you speak about your fiancée like that, Bertie?” she asked in a hushed, yet rather cross tone, “Now, you better be nice about our dear Honoria now, for here she is.”
And yes, low and behold, my apparent intended strode into the room at that very moment, approximately eleven feet tall, and crested by an extraordinary plume of very, very black hair.
Honoria, as Jeeves has said in the past, is a ‘healthy young lady.’ She has the ability to wallop a chap on the back with the force of several miffed rhinoceroses, then pull him along by the arm at the speed of a locomotive that has become detached from its carriages while descending a rather severe incline. Anything that is left of said chap after such treatment would probably be best left out for the blackbirds or any passing vultures.
It was therefore perhaps understandable that I was at bit perturbed to find myself the target of a speeding Miss Glossop at that moment, who seemed intent on giving yours truly the hug to end all hugs. Or respirations, for that matter.
“What-ho, Bertie!” she hollered toward me.
“Ah, yes... Hullo, Honoria,” I managed, “Quite a surprise, you having dark hair today... isn't it? I could have sworn it was somewhat, err, paler than that yesterday...”
“How sweet of you to notice, my dear Bertram. Perhaps you're not quite as much of a lost cause as I thought; I will be able to make something of you, after all!”
“Ah, is that so...” Quite why every female I meet seems intent to 'make something of me,' is a fact that I never have, never shall understand. Do I come across as the human equivalent of those little pieces of toy train track, or perhaps like a pile of ingredients for a Victoria sponge?
“But yes, as I was saying,” continued Honoria, “I am indeed willing to make great efforts and sacrifices for artistic verisimilitude. I have had my hair coloured especially for Saturday night's performance, to create the proper Japanese effect. Doesn't it look realistic?”
“Oh, ra-ther,” I agreed, silently thinking that hair may be one thing, but the fact that Honoria could quite easily represent two authentic Japanese ladies was quite another.
“And so, on to business, because I'm sure that you won't want to let me slip through your fingers again, now, will you Bertie? I have telegrammed the vicar in our home parish to enquire about a Saturday next month, and we can have the reception at home, of course. I haven't told Mummy and Daddy quite yet – after last time I don't think that you are their very favourite, all things considered – but I'm sure they'll come round if I present the whole affair as a fait accompli. Your aunt Agatha will be pleased, of course. Spiffing, what?”
Honoria then decided that I needed embracing to settle the matter, and I steeled myself for the crunch, feeling pretty powerless to escape; the Code of the Woosters is definitely a curse as well as a blessing, you know. Now, I have heard Stiffy Byng and certain other girls whose conversation has a habit of turning somewhat to the feline, say that Honoria has an ‘hour-glass figure’ – presumably in preference to the waif-like profile that seems to be fashionable these days. It seemed to Bertram then, when embroiled in a rib-crushing embrace with the terror, that ‘month-glass,’ or ‘year-glass’ might have been a more appropriate term.
When it was over I peeled myself off of Honoria's skirt-suit and attempted to regain a third bodily dimension. I was just about to launch some kind of gentle protest – about not wanting to rush things, and the like – when Josephine strode over and tried to call the rehearsal to order, immediately engaging Honoria’s assistance.
I had noticed during the course of rehearsals thus far, that Honoria and Josephine were really rather chummy with each other – two sergeant majors in the same pod, one might say. They were both equally bossy and domineering, but not so much so with each other. Perhaps they sensed that - like Chinese Samurai fish - a battle would last to the death were they to embark upon one, so it was safer to join forces instead.
Admittedly - if the viewer was on the other side of a nice thick plate of glass - they made a pretty striking pair. Honoria was tall and broad and Josephine was shaped more like a needle than a Venus. They strode around with the same bossy gait putting all of us lesser mortals to rights, and sometimes disappeared behind a big desk in the corner to draw up long lists, elaborate plans, and more of those terrifying charts with the little coloured boxes.
This all came much to the chagrin of Bingo of course, who was feeling distinctly sidelined in his official role of ‘assistant producer’. He looked on in consternation when Josephine had called Honoria over to discuss the finer points of costume design, or set, or characterizi-thingy, while leaving him in a corner with terse instructions to ‘sweep the stage before we start Act II.’ Perhaps he was hoping to debunk Honoria onto me for the rest of the week to have a clearer access where Josephine was concerned? If that was so, Bingo was due to slide a long way down my list of favoured chums, and I’d be half-inclined to feed him to Tuppy for breakfast.
I was woken from such thoughts by a harsh clapping of hands, directed mainly towards the gents’ chorus, who were trying to see who could balance a hard-boiled egg on the end of his nose for longest. I had my money on Cyril personally, given the broadness of his proboscis, but alas we were never to find out.
“When you have quite finished, gentlemen…” said Josephine in her finest school mistress tone, “As you know, the performance is approaching quickly, and therefore we really need to up the pace of rehearsals following yesterday’s gentle introduction.” Eight hours straight with barely a break for lunch didn’t seem very gentle to me, but I declined to argue that point. “Today, the group will be split between myself and the musical director in alternating combinations to maximise our productivity. The principals will rehearse music first, with Deirdre in the conservatory. We might as well start with you, Nanki-Poo. Off you go then, chop-chop.”
Simply typical for me to be picked on first, I say, but for once I didn’t really mind – it gave me an excuse to escape Honoria’s beady eye, for the short term at least. I picked up my score and toddled off to the conservatory as I was told, to find Deirdre there in all her terrified glory. She nodded at me shyly and gestured to the top of my first song as a place to begin. I agreed that the beginning was indeed, a jolly sensible place to pick things up, and she launched herself at the rickety café-piano with full force.
Deirdre didn’t say much as we went about things for the next hour or so, but then again she didn’t really need to – every instruction was perfectly clear from the way she bashed the ivories and rode the pedals as if they were stirrups and she was the winning jockey in the Grand National. By the end of things it had actually done the trick, I think; we’d ironed out all the sticky bits and I had a fair idea how to find the starting note of each piece from the final note of the previous one. I was sure that all such notions would be worth their weight in gold come the public exposure that Saturday so kindly offered, and cringed resignedly to myself at the thought of it all.
When I went back into the ballroom, I was met with an extraordinary sight – the gents’ chorus were engaged in something that might have been supposed to resemble dancing but looked more like a rugby scrum, or possibly human knitting.
“Not there, you great Oof!”
“Watch it! That was my toe!”
“She said ‘left!’ How many different versions of ‘left’ can there possibly be, eh?!”
Unfortunately, I wasn’t afforded much chance to watch the comedy, because Josephine swooped down on me like an eagle finding a vole in the undergrowth. “Ah, there you are, Bertram! What on earth have you been doing?”
I was just about to answer, “Singing until I was blue in the face, thank you very much, and at your own orders, Miss Bossy-Boots,” but sadly the brave words died in my throat before I could get them out.
“Now go over to where Madeline is waiting for you to practice lines with her. Dear Honoria is just going to run-through her vocal numbers now, but you will be rehearsing with her this afternoon.” Josephine gave me a meaningful look, presumably just to go with all the others I had already suffered that day on the subject of my apparent betrothal, but being Josephine, this one seemed more severe than usual. I scurried in the direction of the pointy pointed finger before she had the chance to tell me to chop-chop again.
As the supposed lead-couple, Madeline and I had a fair amount of stage-time together, and a glance through the libbi-whatsit revealed that there were vast amounts of cutsiness and innumerable daft sweet nothings that we were expected to get through. I just thanked my lucky stars that it was only acting - a lifetime of being married to Madeline would be too much to contemplate. However, on the subject of candidates for marriage to Madeline, Gussie was giving me dashed rummy looks during all of this practising. It’s not as if I particularly wanted to keep embracing her and having her fluffy head on my shoulder, but Josephine insisted that we should keep going until it looked realistic.
In the mean time, Gussie and Tuppy were supposed to be clowning around with the ladies’ chorus – the young girls mercilessly tormenting poor old Pooh-Bah in a way that looked almost too realistic. The pack of fillies - led by my cousin Angela in the role of Pitti-Sing - kept tweaking his ears, ruffling his hair and poking him in the middle, followed swiftly each time by a fit of giggles and a speedy escape. This had been going on for over half-an-hour and Tuppy was looking distinctly nonplussed by the whole affair.
His moment of reprieve came when Gussie was summoned to go and sing in the conservatory, drawing that particular scene to an end. Gussie nodded at Josephine’s command, but then seemed to come over all shifty, like a cat-burglar trying to make off with a particularly fine Siamese. That is what they do, isn’t it? - Cat-burglars, I mean.
Such impression was reinforced when Josephine caught him tip-toeing out into the lobby when the conservatory was clearly in the opposite direction. “And just where do you think you’re going, Augustus?” she cried, and all eyes turned to glare at Gussie. Quite right, too, say I. If the rest of us were doomed to be cooped up in here for the week, practising some dashed kiwi-thingummy, why should he get time off? I’m sure that we’d all rather have liked to be dipping our toes in the big blue s. just then, but the flag of dedication was being flown all round, and deserters were not to be dealt with lightly.
“I’m err… just going to get a, um.. glass of water,” he explained. “I’ll go straight there afterwards, no need to check or anything… ha ha…” And with that Gussie sloped off, in a direction that looked suspiciously like the front door of the hotel.
On a usual sort of day, lunchtime would have perked me up no end, but what with Gussie going missing – just as I had suspected, the blighter! - most of the gents nursing bruised toes and yours truly lamenting the impending loss of his bachelor status, it was a pretty sombre affair. Not that the midday repast was allowed to last for very long, of course. I was just deciding whether I fancied strawberry ice-cream with chocolate sauce or chocolate ice cream with strawberry sauce, when Josephine swanned into the dining room and began ringing a bell at us, like ringing the dinner gong in reverse.
I heaved a sigh and complied with her percussive instructions, trotting back into the dusty old ballroom despite the call of sea breeze and sunshine. Just to make matters worse, Honoria charged over to me then, full of the joys of assorted vegetables.
“I’m really glad we can get a jolly god run at our scenes now, Bertie,” she said, “Dashed sporting of Josephine to give us the whole afternoon session to rehearse together, what?”
“Oh, ra-ther…” Was it really going to be the whole afternoon? Aagh. Jeeves had warned me about the number of imposing little coloured boxes I was due to suffer, but perhaps I should have asked about their type as well. A chap should be able to steel himself for four hours of straight Honoria, you know, especially under the particular rummy circs. vis her and self.
I realised then that Honoria was still talking to me. “…and I think it will be important for us to bring out the subtextual true love that is really felt between Nanki-Poo and Katisha…”
“But he can’t stand her, can he? He’s being forced into this whole marriage business against his will?” I was pretty sure I had that right from the libbi-whatsit. The ironic parallels at play between the actors and characters just then did not escape me either.
“Ah yes, that is the impression one might gather from an initial, shallow reading of the text, Bertram, but upon deeper inspection, it is clear that at heart Nanki-Poo really wants the more mature, forceful woman, who will be able to take him in hand, make something of him…”
I was just about to say, ‘No he bally well doesn’t,’ but Josephine then leapt to Honoria’s side and the two of them peered at me as a small boy might peer at an interesting beetle he has found in the garden. Right before he rips its legs off, that is. I knew then that what ever artistic-whatnot the two of them had in mind was going to be irresistible for poor old Bertram - in the literal sense.
“Let’s make a start then,” said Josephine, “I think we’ll begin with Honoria’s marvellous concept of a spectral adoring Nanki-Poo during Katisha’s lament.”...
Following several unwelcome hours of being clamped to Honoria's ample bosom in the name of art, it was the sorry remains of a Wooster who made his way upstairs before dinner. Fortunately, Jeeves was waiting for me, and had a reviving G & T on hand as I walked in the door.
“Just what I needed, Jeeves. Thank you,” I said, handing him back the glass after I had drained it in one gulp, “For the solace of liquor is the only thing your employer has left to him in this life. By the time the month is out, all will be lost.”
“Sir?” Jeeves enquired, with a measured look of concern.
“I'm doomed, Jeeves!” I wailed, “For I've become engaged to Honoria Glossop again, and it's all the fault of that bally fortune-teller.”
Jeeves was silent for a moment as he took in my distressing news. “If I may offer an opinion, sir, Miss Glossop does not quite fit the description that Madam Osiris gave regarding your intended as you have relayed it to me. Granted, the lady has been of your acquaintance for some time, and she is of considerable height, but her hair... is certainly something of the murine.”
“Precisely my train of thought, Jeeves,” I said despairingly, (although also taking a little pride that I had thought of the same idea as Jeeves when faced with the same bare facts - maybe I wasn't so silly after all). “I thought the small-woodland-creature-clause was going to be my saving grace, but it turns out the dratted female has blackened her hair for Oriental effect – thus fulfilling the prophecy and making everyone else dash for the confetti. What a rum do!”
“Ah, most unfortunate, sir,” said Jeeves – with a fair amount of venom, actually, by Jeeves' polite standards. I was touched by the extent to which he was moved to defend me in these circs. “I am sure this is not what Madam Osiris had in mind.”
“How do we know what she had in mind, Jeeves?” I snapped, feeling exasperated. “Perhaps these eternal spirits are a malevolent bunch, and take sport in torturing poor chaps like me over their ethereal tea and crumpets. Besides, however much of a marvel you are, my dear Jeeves, I was not aware that you had a direct line to the supernatural.”
Jeeves looked considering for a moment, almost as if he might, in fact, regularly send cables to the Big Chap Upstairs. In the end, he merely said, “As you say, sir,” and poured me another stiff one by way of condolence.
Dinner that evening seemed to be a festal affair for most – the girls done up in their favourite frocks and the chaps all in a particularly ebullient mood, no doubt feeling encouraged by the fact that yours truly had apparently led the way so bravely ahead in the wooing and winning stakes. Gussie had re-emerged, and seemed to have told Madeline something to keep her happy, so they were cooing away to each other at one corner of the table.
I couldn't escape sitting next to Honoria at dinner, so was in a position to thoroughly enjoy being criticised for the way I slurped my soup, carved my meat and of course, drank too much wine. Well, what was a chap to do? In such dire circs. the old Bacchanal anaesthetty-thingy was the only possible way to cope. I thought that if I got properly sozzled and distracted I might at least be able to forget about it for a few hours. It was therefore jolly welcome when Bingo leant toward me in a conspiratorial manner with a plan for further entertainment that evening.
“I say, Bertie,” he whispered, “How do you fancy having a super time tonight when the fillies have gone to bed?”
“Sounds like just what I need right now, Bingo, old thing,” I replied glumly.
“Marvellous!” he hissed, “ I may or may not have mentioned that my uncle keeps a little cottage around here – it's just at the other end of the prom. He's not here at the moment, and has said I can use it to entertain. The old chap has quite a collection of bottles, and another sort of collection too, which I think you'll find most interesting - not to mention informative, with regard to upcoming events.” He gestured toward Honoria then, who was in deep conversation with Josephine. “So, are you in?”
I didn't have the foggiest what Bingo was talking about, but it sounded fun all the same, and bottles were a definite plus. “Yes, spiffing. I shall tell Jeeves not to wait up for me.”
“Good stuff, Bertie!” said Bingo, then tapped the side of his nose with a finger that was unfortunately liberally coated with toffee sauce. “And remember, not a word to the girls.”
“Right-ho,” I agreed, then handed him a napkin.
As someone-or-other's law would have it, it took the Junior Lipsticks a dashed long time – two brandies and a snifter of port, to be precise – to decide that it was time for bed. They were being rather grievously buoyed by talk of crinolines and sugared almonds and suchlike, and I was very keen to keep a low profile.
Finally however, we chaps bade them goodnight and then cautiously made our way out of the hotel into the sleepy seaside evening. We walked along the prom as the dark ocean swished this way and that, chatting gaily about the cricket, or the shows, or fast cars and suchlike. As it was just we Drones again, I began to cheer up a bit, - there’s nothing like the low-lying presence of females to tap the spirits. All that was missing was a few wry comments from Jeeves, and the Wooster existence would have been complete.
As Bingo had promised, his uncle's dwelling wasn't far off at all, and we soon came across a charming little place decked out in the rustic style, which would comfortably accommodate Bingo Senior – the blessed old bachelor – and no doubt, his valet, or housekeeper, or whoever it was who looked after him in these parts.
“Here we are, then,” said Bingo cheerfully, and ushered us all inside into the front parlour. The room had a fair collection of comfortable sofas and wing-backed chairs by a big stone fireplace and displays of unlikely-looking fishermens' knots in glass cases around the walls – all rather cosy. “Now, what would you chaps like to drink?” With a flourish, Bingo opened the door of a full-height cabinet, and revealed what must have been over a hundred different bottles, all stacked in neat rows and containing various potent-looking liquids.
“Cor, how splendid! As we're by the sea, how about a spot of rum?” said Tuppy.
“Quite right too,” agreed Bingo, “Now would you like standard dark or something called 'overproof special' - according to this label?”
“Ooh, I think we should go for the special,” chorused Gussie, and the assembled company murmured their agreement.
“Good show, special all round then,” declared Bingo, who then started to pass around a tray of glasses and the most unusual-looking bottle of liquor. When the aforementioned g.s and l. arrived with me, I gave it a jolly good slug – and then a bit more for luck. For goodness only knows, if anyone needed luck just then it was the chap who found himself engaged to Honoria Glossop.
“Down the hatch, then!” called someone, and we all obliged, wheezing a little at the burn, but not enough to prevent the bottle from whizzing around once more in pretty short order. There's nothing like a little refreshing tipple to make one feel better, you know.
The evening continued thus for some while, the conversation becoming more and more animated while probably covering less and less actual content. All decidedly merry, indeed; this was the kind of thing I had come to the seaside for, after all.
After a time, Bingo banged his glass on a side table to grab everyone's attention, unfortunately de-rigging his uncle's ship-in-a-bottle in the process. “Right chaps, now we're all warmed up, the fun can really start. And this,” he picked up a large packet of papers of some sort, “Is the very essence of paradise, in print form. My uncle gets them directly from a supplier in Paris - you'll never find anything this err, good made in Blighty. So, who wants a look?”
There then followed an extraordinary clamouring of both the vocal and the physical kind.
“Ooh, me, me!”
“Over here, Bingo!”
“Go on, me first, I did let you win at draughts the other day, after all!”
Needless to say, I hadn't the slightest clue what the fuss was all about – surely a packet of leaflets, or postcards, or whatever they were couldn't be that exciting.
Bingo lifted the sheaf of papers above his head to keep them out of the way of grabbing mitts. He reprimanded those closest to him by saying, “Watch it! Most of you chaps saw these when I brought them to the Drones' last month, anyway,” and then decreed, “Everyone will get their turn, but actually I think Bertie should go first, to mark his engagement and all that. Here you go, old man. As well as being utterly spiffing, these things should come in dashed useful – consider them a road-map for what's to come.” There were many not-so-discreet chortles at that last remark, and I then found myself sitting with the curious package on my lap, and with at least a dozen Drones craning over my shoulder to see whatever lay within.
I shrugged at the overwhelming enthusiasm they were all displaying, but quickly obliged the hordes by removing one of the items from its brown paper wrapping. It turned out to be a scrapbook of some sort – the type that people use for keeping postcards together – and was someone had written 'French Letters for French Ladies' across the front.
“Go on, Bertie, open it up!” called Gussie, so I did as he asked. I was then faced with the most peculiar set of images. They were all fillies, but they were all, well naked. Not a stitch to be seen.
Now, I've seen the Greek sculptures in the museums just as much as any other chap (not that I tend to linger much over the Aphrodites truth be told, but the Davids and Apollos are all jolly fine). However those national treasures tend to be a.) made of cold, hard marble, and b.) tastefully arranged. You know – with strategically placed vine leaves or bits of cloth or what have you. These pictures of Bingo's could boast neither of the aforesaid attributes, looking distinctly warm and fleshy, and leaving absolutely nothing to the imagination. They also seemed distinctly unappealing, truth be told, although the other Drones certainly didn't seem to think so.
“Gosh! Look at her,” said Tuppy, “I hope Angela's that well set-up on top,”
“You'd be lucky. But how about Bobby Wickham, eh?” answered Cyril.
“Good call, good call, old thing,” agreed someone else, “Come on, Bertie, let's see some more.”
In consternation I reached once more for the rum bottle and gave myself a generous top-up – the flow of liquid meeting the glass with less than perfect accuracy, I must confess. However, bowing to the force of peer pressure I also turned the pages a few more times, becoming increasingly alarmed at quite what the pictures were willing to display. There were girls spread-eagled in every conceivable position, and the cameraman clearly wasn't too worried about steaming up his lens. Combined with all this were the ever-louder cries of appreciation from my fellow Drones, forever urging me to show more of the frightful pictures.
“Well, I don't quite know about this, old thing...” I said at one point, but there was a fair amount of tutting and guffawing at that, and someone reached over and took over the duty of turning the pages. I felt properly hemmed-in just then, my alcohol-numbed coconut being further drenched with images of all these terrifying French beazels, salaciously goggling chaps on every which side of me, and then a sickening, horrifying notion as I begun to understand what Bingo meant when he was making references to my engagement to Honoria.
As if he had read my thoughts, Bingo chimed in, “So Bertie, what do you think, eh? Both fun and educational for the old wedding night, what, what?”
Tuppy flicked over the page again just then, revealing what must have been the prize postcard in Bingo Senior's collection, as it was in colour. My queasiness then reached full horror, and I could only think that this must all be some kind of rummy joke or optical illusion. I said the first thing that came to mind on seeing such an image, “My goodness, how awful! Is that poor girl wounded?”
They must have thought me quite the comedian, but trust me, a distressed and tipsy B. Wooster found the situation just then anything but funny. “Don't be silly, Bertie,” said Gussie, “That's what it's supposed to look like.”
Supposed to look like? Well, someone or other up there had clearly gone very wrong on the design side of things, and I certainly wanted absolutely no part of it. People were supposed to keep there insides, well... on the inside. Admittedly, chaps had a certain hydraulic variability in these matters, as it were, but the whole package was basically smooth and intact and viewable without fear of loosing one's roast goose.
Now this feminine... what-ever-it-was... was an entirely different matter altogether. Not wanting to upset those of a less than strong constitution, but I was reminded significantly of an eel-fishing trip the previous summer. And that was one of the milder analogies that sprang to mind, let me tell you.
“Goodness, yes! That's why we all want to get married, eh?” said Tuppy, making some particularly suggestive gestures with his tumbler and a banana from the nearby fruit bowl, “How marvellous – Can't you just imagine...”
I really didn’t want to. If there had been any cotton wool handy, I would have stuffed it in my ears. And my eyes too for good measure, most probably.
“Oh, yes!” chorused Bingo, pointing back to the photograph still poised dangerously on my lap, “She's just beautiful, isn't she?”
“Oh, yes! What a corker.”
“Ooh la la!”
“So Bertie,” persisted Bingo once more, “Isn't this the most beautiful thing you've ever seen? And soon you will get to see the very same – and much more – in real life!”
“Um, I err...” I started. I was all a-quiver. I now understood the implications of Bingo's words with sickening clarity, and there was nothing that seemed more perfectly horrid, truth be told. The rum lurched dangerously from side to side in my digestion and my head swum in a confused cloud of disbelief, cut with a small internal voice with a decidedly indignant tone that might perhaps help me to make sense of it all.
How could they all think that these female frights were beautiful? I knew instinctively that beauty wasn’t supposed to look like that. Beauty was tall and strong and dark haired. Beauty was clever and reliable and always one step ahead. Beauty spoke in melodious, complicated sentences and moved with an almost supernatural precision and grace. Surely, it was obvious, wasn’t it? That these images were nothing like the real thing? Or at least it was perfectly obviously to me; Bingo and Gussie and the rest seemed clearly of the contrary opinion, and I vaguely wondered just how much rum was necessary for a chap to loose his senses so.
Of course, I hadn’t ever analysed my thoughts on the matter before, and I had precious little opportunity to do so then. All I knew at that moment was that pink and squidgy things on postcards were still sitting imposingly on my lap, and I stood a very good chance of producing something equally unpleasant on Bingo Senior's hearthrug if I didn’t leave immediately. That very instant.
“Um, thanks Bingo, old chap, but I've really got to go right now,” I jabbered, and then sprung from my chair, sending the benighted album flying goodness-knows-where and bolted for the door, the bracing sea air just managing to take the edge off what would have otherwise been an explosive exit.
I set my course along the darkened promenade, feet catching at invisible obstacles on the floor and generally feeling very dizzy and very glum indeed. I took my time, cherishing the space and relative quiet around me, and feeling thankful to be away from the assembled company. When I had caught my breath, I attempted to cast a critical eye over the whole affair – which in truth, was not easy to do in such an impressive state of inebriation as I was then, but I tried nevertheless.
Why should those pictures have seemed so bally rummy to me, when the others were having the time of their lives? At this rate, I was never going to find a woman I could stand to marry, I thought, and even if I did, I’d be so vexed and repulsed by the whole honeymoon business, things would end badly before they had even begun. It was all looking pretty bleak for the Wooster line, as indeed my aunts were fearing.
And then I remembered I was engaged to Honoria (the rum had that nasty effect of springing the same unpleasant surprise on a chap over and over again). I failed to suppress an enormous shudder at all that would entail, and the liquor vied strongly to be released into the community.
A few cleansing deep breaths later, and I set off on my way once again, with another attempt at profound thoughts. It wasn't that Honoria was such a bad old bean herself, my addled brain slowly reasoned - if one likes the sergeant-major types, anyway. There was just something so ultimately, physically, viscerally wrong with the principal of the thing…
I stood in utter, blackened desolation for a good while, looking out to sea. And then, all of sudden, something clicked! For the first time in my life, it all made glorious, beautiful crystal clear sense, even though my liquor-soaked bean was spinning on its spindly support and I could barely remember the way back to the hotel. I realised you see, that I didn’t want to be married to any Bassett, or Glossop or divine goddess, not particularly because there might be something undesirable about them personally, but because I just wasn’t designed like that.
B. Wooster was not programmed to like the fillies. Full stop. End of story.
The ecstatic combination of liberation and libation I felt at that moment, while shakily toddling along the seafront is difficult to describe. All of my anti-matrimonial wriggles suddenly felt justified; part of some divine plan that would clearly have a purpose and a trajectory. In fact, the marvellous sense of triumphant wisdom I possessed just then, pales only in comparison to the earth-shattering realisation that occurred to me some fifty yards and twenty-five minutes later.
It appeared as people might describe a visitation from one of those prophet chappies. One moment I was intimately acquainted with a seafront litter-bin, wondering whether it would have been more efficient to simply have brought the bottle of rum to said bin, rather than using my insides as a kind of temporary receptacle. The next moment, I was gazing out across the dark and surging ocean and a full chorus of heavenly beings started singing the angelus – with trumpets, and lyres and any other kind of beatific instrument you care to mention. It was like discovering the most fundamental truth of all the world, and at the same time realising that deep down I knew it all along anyway.
I was in love with Jeeves.
Deeply, madly, head-over-heels in love with Jeeves, in a way that was so integral and fundamental to being Bertram Wooster that I hadn’t even recognised it for what it was. Jeeves was my beloved, my betrothed. It was just as the fortune-teller had told me.
That statement was pure and simple and so irrevocably true, I just stood there and basked in the glory of it for a good few minutes. Luckily, most of brain cells were still dealing with the aftermath of Bingo Senior’s liquor cabinet, so there was no power left over for doubts, or worries or dismissals, as might have been the case if such a profound truth were to strike a fully sober chap.
No, I knew I was in love with Jeeves just as I was sure that my name was Bertie and that tweed was the one true material for jackets. Everything suddenly made so much more sense, and I was floating on top of the world.
Chapter Four - 'Sentimentality and Subtext'
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2007-06-23 01:51 pm (UTC)You actually have me pulling for them... and I have to admit that they are perfect for each other.
Heck, maybe this WAS a subtext in the original?
L
(no subject)
Date: 2007-07-29 12:57 am (UTC)