CHAPTER 1
There are a variety of things, all of them true, that one could say
about Jeeves to raise him to the rank of a demigod. His adeptness at
folding shirts, for one thing, with a grace in the hands seldom seen
even in the feet of dancers. His apparent ability to be everywhere at
once, for another thing. Need I even mention his staggering
intellect? Even if you're unacquainted with my previous narratives, I
hardly see any way that you can be unacquainted with the old bean's
brain. If he doesn't subsist solely upon fish, you will find me a
very surprised Wooster.
The particular item I speak of, however, is a rarity even among the
gentlemen's gentlemen of Jeeves' own Junior Ganymede Club - I should
know, as I have employed a fair number of them in my time before
discovering this wonder - and that is his willingness to serve
breakfast to yours truly anytime after 9.30 antemeridian.
I don't tend to favour an alarm clock unless I'm to travel somewhere
at some ungodly hour. And since there were currently no travel plans
in my future (I say "currently" with a tinge of irony, and you shall
soon see why), I awoke in my own time. Nonetheless, as soon as I did
so, Jeeves was present at the door.
"Ah! Good morning, Jeeves."
There was a small, aunt-shaped pause before he spoke. "Good morning,
sir. Mrs. Travers to see you."
For a gentleman to be confronted with an aunt before having his coffee
is most unpleasant, but Jeeves seemed to be unaware of this. I told
him that it was all w. and g. that she was to see me, so long as she
understood that I was not to see her.
"She seemed most insistent, sir."
"Well, you can be most insistent as well, can't you, Jeeves? I don't
know many people more insistent than you when you get an idea in your
head."
A slight cough. "As you say, sir."
"So get an idea in your head to turn her out until I've had some
proper breakfast. I'll speak to her then, and not before."
I suspect that Jeeves would have argued the point in the most feudal
way possible had he been allowed to respond, but he was interrupted by
the arrival of a looming figure behind him. How a personage more than
a foot shorter than himself should have occasion to loom is beyond me,
but suffice to say, it did loom.
"Bertie, you disgusting toad, I should have known you'd still be in
bed."
"You ought to know by now, aged one, that I am customarily in bed at
this time of morning. You've come by at this time often enough to
have picked that up."
Aunt Dahlia - for it was Aunt Dahlia, the nicest of my aunts, which
isn't saying a great deal - pressed herself past Jeeves and into my
chambers. "Do tell him to stop being difficult, Jeeves."
"Very good, Mrs. Travers." He afforded me a significant look as
though to say nothing would give him greater pleasure, but remained
silent after that.
"I've had to stop by early because I'm on my way to a very important
meeting. You were just on the way."
"Cuckolding another novelist to do a serial for Milady's Boudoir?" I
queried, but it reached my mouth stilted, owing to the fact that I was
being tugged bodily out of bed by the ancient relative. She set me on
my feet, took the dressing gown proffered by Jeeves, and slung it at me.
"Quite so. But for once, that's the least of my worries."
I noted that this was a change from the s. q. and told her so. My
Aunt Dahlia, you see, is the owner of the aforementioned magazine for
women of discriminating taste, which has a nasty way of eating up her
money (or rather, the money she gets out of my uncle Tom) with very
little recompense. An occasion in which something grieved her more
than the ailing mag was a rare one for her, but a worrying one for me.
As I followed her from my bedroom with Jeeves close behind, my brain
was working rapidly to figure out what sort of trouble I would be
getting into shortly. Aunts always bring trouble. It's in the job
description, you know, next to nagging and laying on guilt.
She kicked off by explaining that, rather than prod old Uncle Tom for
money - given that he was in a surly mood at the time - she had pawned
a bit of her jewelry. When she went on to say that she now had enough
from Tom (having waited for the bleak mood to pass and then asking for
the cash in the name of the mag) to buy the item in question back, I
confessed myself to be a bit puzzled.
"That's a good thing, though, isn't it?"
"Hardly." She glared at me with little steely eyes. I've never
considered the eyes in question to be little or steely on a regular
basis, but she has the extraordinary ability to make them that way
when the situation demands. I've never been fond of that habit of
hers, and I wonder even now if perhaps there are long-repressed
memories from my childhood of Aunt Dahlia turning steely-eyed on me
and giving me night terrors for a week after.
"The problem is that someone else snapped the pin up before I did."
"Oh, it's a pin, is it?"
"A diamond stickpin, yes. Shaped like a bumblebee."
I told her that it seemed a rather fanciful and childish object for a
lady of her distinguished age to wear, and she was better off without
it. She disagreed, and rather nastily, shouting that it had been a
gift from Tom, and if he discovered it missing so shortly after asking
for money from him, his brief good mood would be shattered, and God
knows what might happen. A knock at the door checked her outburst,
and Jeeves shimmered off to answer it. I suppose he was glad of the
reprieve.
"That blasted Sir Watkyn's gotten it," she muttered, and here the
Wooster brain clicked unpleasantly into gear.
"Ah, I see where you're going with this, dear old ancestor," I cut her
off, and I shook my head with what I hoped was a superior smile.
"Young Bertram's learned his mathematics well, and he knows that
Totleigh Towers plus valuable item almost always equals burglary
performed by yours truly. Well, I'll none of it this time. I've run
this course far too often."
"Don't be silly," snapped the aunt, and here she rose. I feared she
might be closing the conversation by going home, which would leave me
hanging unpleasantly at the end of her suppositions. "You'll do it,
and you'll do it tomorrow."
I came back, just as emphatically, that I wouldn't do it tomorrow, nor
any other time. She opened her mouth to come back even more
emphatically, but then paused, and her eyes softened from their
steeliness and twinkled a bit. It wasn't a friendly twinkle, either.
It was an untrustworthy twinkle, and it made me feel ill. I
considered the possibility of repressed twinkle memories.
"Well, then. I suppose I shall have to take matters into my own
hands."
I suggested that she do just that.
Jeeves had remained lingering by the door, and saw her out silently.
I asked who had been at the door, and he replied that it had been a
Mr. Dimmesdale and, per my previous request, had been shooed away.
Flimsy had been inviting himself over for meals lately at the most
ridiculous hours, and I gave Jeeves carte ... well, something about a
cart, I know ... to dispose of the blighter as he pleased.
"Nasty business, Jeeves."
"Mr. Dimmesdale, sir, or Mrs. Travers?"
I admitted that both were nasty businesses. "But if Aunt Dahlia
expects me to traipse down to Totleigh and pilfer valuables from Pop
Bassett -- well, I hardly need remind you about the cow creamer
incident?"
"Hardly, sir. However, it might be prudent in this particular case to
do as Mrs. Travers asks."
"Oh, Jeeves, really! It's bad enough that my beloved blood relative
wants me to go about stealing bumblebee pins from magistrates -- now
my trusted retainer expects it of me, too?"
Jeeves appeared unaffected by the use of the phrase "trusted retainer"
- which was a pity, since it usually does the trick. "It might,
perhaps, be beneficial in this-"
"It's not beneficial in any case, Jeeves. We shall speak no more
about it."
"Very good, sir."
But I'd forgotten that I DID want to speak more about it, so I broke
my own vow of silence. "What do you suppose she meant by taking
things into her own hands?"
"I should not like to speculate, sir." Jeeves frowned as much as
Jeeves ever frowns, which is admittedly not much, but the trained eye
learns to spot these subtle shifts.
"Nothing to worry about, is it?"
"Impossible to tell, sir. Mrs. Travers does tend to 'venture forth
without fear' where it would generally be unadvisable. The tone in
her voice, however, indicated that she might be hiding something."
After steely eyes and evil twinkles, I didn't want to contemplate what
she might be hiding, so I shrugged off the whole mess and dropped the
hint to Jeeves that he might do something about breakfast. He
snatched it up, of course, and went off to do just that.
There are a variety of things, all of them true, that one could say
about Jeeves to raise him to the rank of a demigod. His adeptness at
folding shirts, for one thing, with a grace in the hands seldom seen
even in the feet of dancers. His apparent ability to be everywhere at
once, for another thing. Need I even mention his staggering
intellect? Even if you're unacquainted with my previous narratives, I
hardly see any way that you can be unacquainted with the old bean's
brain. If he doesn't subsist solely upon fish, you will find me a
very surprised Wooster.
The particular item I speak of, however, is a rarity even among the
gentlemen's gentlemen of Jeeves' own Junior Ganymede Club - I should
know, as I have employed a fair number of them in my time before
discovering this wonder - and that is his willingness to serve
breakfast to yours truly anytime after 9.30 antemeridian.
I don't tend to favour an alarm clock unless I'm to travel somewhere
at some ungodly hour. And since there were currently no travel plans
in my future (I say "currently" with a tinge of irony, and you shall
soon see why), I awoke in my own time. Nonetheless, as soon as I did
so, Jeeves was present at the door.
"Ah! Good morning, Jeeves."
There was a small, aunt-shaped pause before he spoke. "Good morning,
sir. Mrs. Travers to see you."
For a gentleman to be confronted with an aunt before having his coffee
is most unpleasant, but Jeeves seemed to be unaware of this. I told
him that it was all w. and g. that she was to see me, so long as she
understood that I was not to see her.
"She seemed most insistent, sir."
"Well, you can be most insistent as well, can't you, Jeeves? I don't
know many people more insistent than you when you get an idea in your
head."
A slight cough. "As you say, sir."
"So get an idea in your head to turn her out until I've had some
proper breakfast. I'll speak to her then, and not before."
I suspect that Jeeves would have argued the point in the most feudal
way possible had he been allowed to respond, but he was interrupted by
the arrival of a looming figure behind him. How a personage more than
a foot shorter than himself should have occasion to loom is beyond me,
but suffice to say, it did loom.
"Bertie, you disgusting toad, I should have known you'd still be in
bed."
"You ought to know by now, aged one, that I am customarily in bed at
this time of morning. You've come by at this time often enough to
have picked that up."
Aunt Dahlia - for it was Aunt Dahlia, the nicest of my aunts, which
isn't saying a great deal - pressed herself past Jeeves and into my
chambers. "Do tell him to stop being difficult, Jeeves."
"Very good, Mrs. Travers." He afforded me a significant look as
though to say nothing would give him greater pleasure, but remained
silent after that.
"I've had to stop by early because I'm on my way to a very important
meeting. You were just on the way."
"Cuckolding another novelist to do a serial for Milady's Boudoir?" I
queried, but it reached my mouth stilted, owing to the fact that I was
being tugged bodily out of bed by the ancient relative. She set me on
my feet, took the dressing gown proffered by Jeeves, and slung it at me.
"Quite so. But for once, that's the least of my worries."
I noted that this was a change from the s. q. and told her so. My
Aunt Dahlia, you see, is the owner of the aforementioned magazine for
women of discriminating taste, which has a nasty way of eating up her
money (or rather, the money she gets out of my uncle Tom) with very
little recompense. An occasion in which something grieved her more
than the ailing mag was a rare one for her, but a worrying one for me.
As I followed her from my bedroom with Jeeves close behind, my brain
was working rapidly to figure out what sort of trouble I would be
getting into shortly. Aunts always bring trouble. It's in the job
description, you know, next to nagging and laying on guilt.
She kicked off by explaining that, rather than prod old Uncle Tom for
money - given that he was in a surly mood at the time - she had pawned
a bit of her jewelry. When she went on to say that she now had enough
from Tom (having waited for the bleak mood to pass and then asking for
the cash in the name of the mag) to buy the item in question back, I
confessed myself to be a bit puzzled.
"That's a good thing, though, isn't it?"
"Hardly." She glared at me with little steely eyes. I've never
considered the eyes in question to be little or steely on a regular
basis, but she has the extraordinary ability to make them that way
when the situation demands. I've never been fond of that habit of
hers, and I wonder even now if perhaps there are long-repressed
memories from my childhood of Aunt Dahlia turning steely-eyed on me
and giving me night terrors for a week after.
"The problem is that someone else snapped the pin up before I did."
"Oh, it's a pin, is it?"
"A diamond stickpin, yes. Shaped like a bumblebee."
I told her that it seemed a rather fanciful and childish object for a
lady of her distinguished age to wear, and she was better off without
it. She disagreed, and rather nastily, shouting that it had been a
gift from Tom, and if he discovered it missing so shortly after asking
for money from him, his brief good mood would be shattered, and God
knows what might happen. A knock at the door checked her outburst,
and Jeeves shimmered off to answer it. I suppose he was glad of the
reprieve.
"That blasted Sir Watkyn's gotten it," she muttered, and here the
Wooster brain clicked unpleasantly into gear.
"Ah, I see where you're going with this, dear old ancestor," I cut her
off, and I shook my head with what I hoped was a superior smile.
"Young Bertram's learned his mathematics well, and he knows that
Totleigh Towers plus valuable item almost always equals burglary
performed by yours truly. Well, I'll none of it this time. I've run
this course far too often."
"Don't be silly," snapped the aunt, and here she rose. I feared she
might be closing the conversation by going home, which would leave me
hanging unpleasantly at the end of her suppositions. "You'll do it,
and you'll do it tomorrow."
I came back, just as emphatically, that I wouldn't do it tomorrow, nor
any other time. She opened her mouth to come back even more
emphatically, but then paused, and her eyes softened from their
steeliness and twinkled a bit. It wasn't a friendly twinkle, either.
It was an untrustworthy twinkle, and it made me feel ill. I
considered the possibility of repressed twinkle memories.
"Well, then. I suppose I shall have to take matters into my own
hands."
I suggested that she do just that.
Jeeves had remained lingering by the door, and saw her out silently.
I asked who had been at the door, and he replied that it had been a
Mr. Dimmesdale and, per my previous request, had been shooed away.
Flimsy had been inviting himself over for meals lately at the most
ridiculous hours, and I gave Jeeves carte ... well, something about a
cart, I know ... to dispose of the blighter as he pleased.
"Nasty business, Jeeves."
"Mr. Dimmesdale, sir, or Mrs. Travers?"
I admitted that both were nasty businesses. "But if Aunt Dahlia
expects me to traipse down to Totleigh and pilfer valuables from Pop
Bassett -- well, I hardly need remind you about the cow creamer
incident?"
"Hardly, sir. However, it might be prudent in this particular case to
do as Mrs. Travers asks."
"Oh, Jeeves, really! It's bad enough that my beloved blood relative
wants me to go about stealing bumblebee pins from magistrates -- now
my trusted retainer expects it of me, too?"
Jeeves appeared unaffected by the use of the phrase "trusted retainer"
- which was a pity, since it usually does the trick. "It might,
perhaps, be beneficial in this-"
"It's not beneficial in any case, Jeeves. We shall speak no more
about it."
"Very good, sir."
But I'd forgotten that I DID want to speak more about it, so I broke
my own vow of silence. "What do you suppose she meant by taking
things into her own hands?"
"I should not like to speculate, sir." Jeeves frowned as much as
Jeeves ever frowns, which is admittedly not much, but the trained eye
learns to spot these subtle shifts.
"Nothing to worry about, is it?"
"Impossible to tell, sir. Mrs. Travers does tend to 'venture forth
without fear' where it would generally be unadvisable. The tone in
her voice, however, indicated that she might be hiding something."
After steely eyes and evil twinkles, I didn't want to contemplate what
she might be hiding, so I shrugged off the whole mess and dropped the
hint to Jeeves that he might do something about breakfast. He
snatched it up, of course, and went off to do just that.