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Jeeves is wearing a baby pink and white polka dot silk tie and the fancy spats that those dancer chaps in the movies from across the pond wear. He is also wearing a very soft lavender waistcoat in satin and above all a carnation in his button hole (not green but a creamy white to perfectly match his shirt). His suit is a soft grey that brings out the silver in his still-thick hair.
Oh, I started right in the middle of it all again, didn't I?
This sitch does frequently occur. I have a story to tell – older pals around here will tell you, I always have many stories to tell – but say I pick one of them for writing and sooner as you can say Calliope I've bunged my readers into the crux. Quite like Catsmeat's telling of a joke, you know. He throws the punchline at us first and is then surprised that we aren't laughing at the funniest part of it when we have no idea what the joke itself was. Jeeves has been trying to rid my stories of this for the last fifty years, but alas. Even my paragon of paragons can do only so much with a limited intellect such as yours truly possesses.
So let's try again, shall we? Right, so my name is Bertram Wilberforce Wooster. Bertie to most of those who still know me and speak to me. Except for my man Jeeves, of course. He calls me Bertram in private and I reciprocate with Reg, Reginald, sweetheart, darling, apple of my eye, snail on my thorn, lark of my bush, solis of my azure caelum, and so on. That he can encompass all of these and then some, in his single ‘Sir', is now recognised by all and has never ceased to marvel.
We met in the doorway of my flat in the erstwhile Berkeley Mansions. (It has been restored but it lacks a certain je ne sais quoi.) The very many adventures of our youth have almost all been published and admired for their dashing hero – my inimitable Jeeves. My pride and trust in him is but a given, his loyalty to me and mine unquestionably accepted.
But few know of the tender pash that we each have nurtured in our bosoms for the other. We met as gentleman and valet, and he soon became my man in more ways than one. Indeed, it has been well nigh forty years since we declared ourselves to each other. Well, I confess it was a garbled nervous confession on the part of the y.m. and a complete and utter silence for several minutes on the part of the p. of p. But then he extended a faintly trembly limb and set it upon the Wooster clasped-tightly-with-fear-and-emotion claw, and all was well with the world.
It hasn't been easy. There have been a few slips by the Woosterian lips, and a couple even by the Jeevesian mien, but given his fish-fed brains and my generally accepted vacuity, we have been rather successful at dodging the pillory.
The one thing among all those essential manoeuvres that caused the greatest pain to me were the stories. Yes, they are indeed my joy and pride, for they are my lettres d'amour to this roi de mon cœur. It was the one way that I could proclaim my admiration for my man to the world. The stories are true, for the most part, and so is my portrayal of most of those involved. But, you see, in them I deliberately painted Jeeves' treatment of the y.m. as unduly harsh and, yes, sometimes downright abominable.
It has caused considerable distress over the years to this Wooster to do so instead of simply proclaiming our love. But it was Jeeves’ idea in the first place.
Wooster brides (and a few grooms) have always been cause célèbre. The bunk sheets had declared the mater the most beautiful bride of the season. Aunt Dahlia had been labelled the most striking beauty to adorn a horseback. Angela was rewarded countless such adulations in her turn (by then the rag mags had joined the fray), and even Uncle's “barmaid” had her portrait printed in a London newspaper. As a tadpole, one was constantly told that, considering historical precedent, no matter if one were an ugly blot, one's bride would make up for the lack of one’s physical charms. So it has been something of a constant thorn that one cannot boast that this has truly come to pass. Not that Jeeves can be called a bride in any manner or fashion, but in as much as the beauty of my man is indeed unparalleled. He can give any Arrow-man a run for his money.
****
The war wasn't too kind to any of us, of course. I've had to use a cane after the damage to my knee. It has been too many years and still the damp and the winter bother it. What was worse was that the war bunged me back in the metrop with nary a familiar map in sight. Especially Jeeves's. Jeeves, of course, was away tilting at the windmills till the very end. He crisscrossed enemy lines and brought back both packets and people. He finally came away, thinner than a maypole, suffering a severe infection of the lungs made worse by cheap cigarettes and a deplorably cynical view of humanity in general and international politics in particular.
Unlike many fortunes that went topsy turvy post-war, ours survived. I should say mine, for it is so on paper, but really, does anyone doubt who the brains of this operation is? (Jeeves will insist on removing this American phrase and I shall insist on keeping it, for it shall never go to the printers and hence is all mine.) The investments survived and even thrived thanks to Jeeves' astute management and unimpeachable predictions. We have never needed to look askance. They say money can’t buy happiness, but there were a few years money couldn’t even buy a banana. Consider this: When was the last time a canister of Ceylon tea was a suitable birthday gift for Lady Worplesdon? On what occasion that you can recall did Mrs. Travers’ chin tremble because you procured for M. Anatole a whole pound of butter with two kilos of unbleached flour for the Travers anniversary? It was the same story with woollens, books, paper, ink, chocolate, fresh meat, eggs, new hats, or shoes.
But more importantly, it left us without many of the people.
An air raid took away Silversmith (that was Jeeves' Uncle Charlie, you know). He was accompanying Aunt Dahlia to the capital.
Then there was my cousin Eustace, who joined the RAF. Even today when I meet Claude it seems like seeing half of a rudely torn painting.
Ginger lost half an arm and most of his marbles. Hasn't been to the metrop in the last eighteen years.
Boko’s face will never be the same after that fire.
Mabel and Biffy left for Australia shortly after. And while we have visited them twice now it surely isn’t the same especially for Jeeves who spends far lesser time with family than yours truly.
The rest were taken away by time. Aunt A was snatched away from this realm rather suddenly in her sleep. An unfitting end to a boisterous life.
It was a couple of years after that Aunt D withered away on her bed for a month, only to follow her sister to the next realm over.
Angela and Tuppy kept her final years happy with their two children. For ages after his return, Tuppy woke up screaming searching frantically for Angela. Angela, that darling girl, had worked as an ambulance driver. It is said that many a soldier, from sea to land to air, owes his life and mind to her work and her off-duty ministrations. She herself has turned rather calm and forgiving. I grieve the demise of her joie de vivre almost as much as the loss of the people.
Sir Roderick, too, is long gone.
Honoria married an American soldier in haste but the fellow is as rotten as an egg hidden at last year’s Easter but discovered only at this year’s. She travels and lectures now and has taken up with Buddhist philosophy or something.
Perhaps Rosie and Bingo are the only ones that have aged with grace and at least some happiness. Bingo had some job in a government facility that he isn’t allowed to speak about even today. Rosie managed the house, videlicet: six foster children in addition to their own (then it was just the one), her writing — which was full of triumphant and brave soldiers falling in love with equally courageous and beautiful girls who waited for them, and old Lord Bittlesham, who had no one else, along with squaring the rationing; and all in Bingo’s absence. She and I keep weekly company for tea each Friday, since my return.
Rosie’s books now sell on five continents and have even been translated into other languages. Bingo never did much but is still very much dedicated to her. Their children are all hale and hearty. There are four of them — two of each, don’t ask how they managed that fearful symmetry, yours truly never did make such indelicate queries. Mrs. Little’s charitable organizations for little ones puts donations to thoroughly good uses and three of the Little’s have managed to make enough money to fuel those organizations for decades, even minus contributions such as I make. While that youngest, sweetest child whom I was most fond of is now a matron of one herself and does more managing than Rosie nowadays.
One should also mention Madeline and Spode perhaps. He had abandoned his fascist ideals by the time Britain joined the war, and is rumoured to have been instrumental in uprooting fascist societies both during and post-war on both sides of the Atlantic. They did marry eventually. Sadly, she truly wanted little Spodes but the storks never accepted their invitation.
***
But today is neither about what we lost or gained nor new beginnings nor any of that. Today is when Jeeves and I celebrate us. Indeed, I am wearing the best of Jeevesian efforts. Immaculate costume, grooming and smile, all in place. It has been a week since the blasted law was passed, which condescendingly told us that even homosexuals, such as we are, can love and be loved. As if we needed that bally law. What good is the law to us? What I need is a law that completely does away with any special treatment of us homosexuals and lets us get on with our lives the way the rest do. Including, marriage.
Jeeves said not a word, but yours truly was completely miffed by those blighters' audacity to sit in the Parliament and tell me that I could love my Jeeves so long as I kept it to private areas, did it with Jeeves alone — or at a time, as if homosexuals only fuck in orgies — and could do so only if I was above 21 years of age. If you ask me, it makes matters worse and not better. After a whole day of my terrible mood, Jeeves lost his famous cool (he does so now and then — age and familiarity have done their job) and asked what I'd rather have and I told him. I would have preferred to go on bended knee and have a ring handy. The result was rather much as required if you get my meaning.
And so here we are in Paris.
And today is the day when Jeeves and I become flesh of flesh. Our rings shall henceforth rest on each others’ fingers and not one blasted copper will be able to bung us in the chokey.
Though if we were able to marry in a church, I doubt Jeeves would have obliged yours truly by wearing all my favourite pieces of clothing at once. He looks dashing, as usual, even if I do say so.
***