Jooster multi-chapter series: The Long Road, Chapter 6

[triedunture]

Title: The Long Road (Chapter 6)
[Previous parts: Chapter One, Chapter Two, Chapter Three, Chapter Four, Chapter Five]
Rating: PG13? I feel very silly giving this a rating. Just make up your own minds!
Beta: the ever-so British hwshipper
Length: 3600
Warnings: Angst, violence, general dark themes.
Summary: A very bad thing happens. And then we must go on.

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Bertie walked down the hallway, perhaps not with a spring in his step, but steadier than any of the previous hours. A Jeeves was under his roof once more, awake and alert and taking control. It felt good to have her, even if she was now a Jacobs née Jeeves.

He was nearly to the kitchen when Bertie heard the doorbell ring. This time, instead of the single, dignified peal from Catherine, it sounded like it was being jabbed repeatedly. Bertie froze behind the standard lamp with the plate still in his hand.

Catherine emerged from the bedroom after the fifth or sixth ring. 'Mr Wooster? It sounds as if someone's at the door,' she called out to him.

'Oh?' Bertie worked his tongue round in his dry mouth. Only an insane, bloodthirsty madman would ring a doorbell like that, he was certain.

'Shall I answer it?' She had to shout loudly to be heard over the racket.

The door of the guest room slammed open, and an angry Mrs Fennaweave appeared swathed in a dour-looking dressing gown. 'What is all this commotion?' she bellowed.

'Oh, hullo,' Catherine yelled over the ringing. 'I'm Catherine Jacobs. My brother is—'

'A pleasure,' Mrs Fennaweave muttered at her before continuing to assail Bertie with her foghorn voice. 'Will you please answer that infernal doorbell, Mr Wooster? I haven't had a moment's rest all day!'

In the end, it was decided among the three of them that Catherine would answer the door. She did so, and the buzzing of the bell immediately stopped. Bertie peeked from behind the lampshade to see a gigantic mountain of a man step over the threshold. Bertie shook like a leaf.

'Catherine,' the man said in a strangely small voice, 'how is he? Has he—?'

'Reg is all right, Father. Take a breath.' Catherine opened her arms and the behemoth embraced her in return.

'Oh, thank the Lord,' he sighed.

Upon closer inspection, Bertie realised this was indeed the man he had seen in the severe photograph on Jeeves' dresser. Jeeves the Elder was even taller than the usual model, if you can credit it. And amazingly, he didn't share the dark features of his children; rather, a shock of copper-red hair was revealed when he removed his hat. Bertie vaguely remembered Jeeves once remarking on redheads, how they were not to be trusted. Did that only apply to females, or did this Mr Jeeves fall into the same category as well? Bertie placed his crumb-dusted plate on a bookshelf; the kitchen was too far away; he wanted to keep an eye on everything.

'Can I see him?' the father pleaded, addressing his daughter only.

'Of course,' Catherine soothed.

'Certainly not!' Mrs Fennaweave struck back. 'The patient is supposed to be resting. He cannot take all the strain and excitement of crowds coming in and out.'

Bertie opened his mouth to protest, to try to reason with the Draconian nursemaid, but Catherine beat him to it.

'We are Reginald's family and we have every right to be with him,' she said in a low, cold voice. Her hand gripped her father's arm, and she steered him by Mrs Fennaweave. 'On your expert advice, we will be sure not to disturb him. But I'll be damned if I let you keep us from his bedside. Come on, Father.'

And the Jeeveses shimmered off. Bertie blinked; the Jeeves women were quite the firebrands.

'Well, I never!' Mrs Fennaweave sputtered. She rounded on Bertie with clenched fists. 'Shall I be expected to work under such conditions, Mr Wooster? This is completely uncalled for. Totally out of bounds.'

To be frank, Bertie thought the shriveled shrew has deserved a good ticking off. She was a mean woman and scowled like the dickens. But if something were to go wrong, and Jeeves needed help, well, she was his best hope. So Bertie attempted to calm her.

'They said they'd be quiet,' he offered.

Mrs Fennaweave gave a low growl like an angry terrier and stormed off down the hall. Bertie could hear the click of a carpetbag clasp. He peeked into the guest room and saw Mrs Fennaweave stuffing her black skirts and blouses into the bag's gaping maw.

'Oh, surely you can't leave!' he cried, pushing through the doorway. 'Please, Mrs Fennaweave, stay. We need you here.'

'I'm too old and too tired for this sort of nonsense,' she muttered, balling up a pair of stockings and tossing them in as well. 'Have your doorman fetch a cab for me; I'm going right this instant.'

'Look, I'm sorry about Catherine and Mr Jeeves. They've had a nasty shock, and I'm sure they're just worried about—'

'Yes, yes, you're all very worried about the valet. It's extremely impressive; one could nearly be fooled into thinking you give a blasted thought to his health!' Mrs Fennaweave spat, whirling on Bertie like a rabid swan.

Bertie stood there with his mouth hanging open. The nurse nodded briskly at him in dismissal and returned to her packing.

'Now see here,' Bertie said to her ramrod back, his voice quiet. 'I am thinking of Jeeves' health. I've been thinking of nothing else. That's why I need you to stay and attend to him, despite the fact that, well, your bedside manner borders on that of a military attack dog.' He watched her hands slow in her messing round with the bag. 'I just want Jeeves better. You're the only one I can trust with that.'

'You keep saying no other valet will do. You want him better so you can put him back to work as soon as possible, I suppose?' she asked archly, not turning to face him.

'No.' Bertie frowned, his words coming out as a whine. 'Why would I want to do that? He tore out those stitches so easily today. I wouldn't dare risk it.'

Mrs Fennaweave did turn then and gave Bertie an ocular measurement against some unseen yardstick. 'I've seen plenty of gentlemen act anything but kind towards their hired help,' she said, still stiff in her tone.

'I'm not one of them.' Bertie spread his hands out to his sides and welcomed her critique. She must have seen something she liked, because she finally nodded and put the carpetbag down.

'My husband was a footman,' she said as she slowly unpacked once more. 'Broke his leg in the service of an earl and had to go back to work before the bone was properly healed. Died of inflammation, he did. We'd only been married three years.'

'I'm sorry,' Bertie said, though it seemed awfully inadequate.

'I'm going to try to sleep once more,' the nurse declared with a sniff. 'Good night, Mr Wooster.'

'Good night, Mrs Fennaweave.' Bertie closed the door behind himself after getting one last glimpse of the old woman standing like a sentinel beside the bed in her dark dressing gown, completely motionless.

Bertie crept down the hallway, pausing at his bedroom door to listen. All was silent on the other side, and he pushed on through, thinking perhaps the Jeeveses would like some company during their bedside vigil. He found Jeeves still sleeping where he'd left him in the center of the bed. His father was now sitting in the armchair, his hands clasped under his lips, his eyes not leaving his son. Catherine stood beside her father. Her hand was rubbing soothing circles over his black-coated shoulder.

'I haven't taken your overcoat,' Bertie said, his face heating with embarrassment. He took a step forward. 'Here, I can hang it—'

'I'm fine,' the elder Jeeves murmured. His lips were the only thing that moved.

'Let Mr Wooster take your coat, Father,' Catherine admonished. 'It's warm in here.'

'Is it?' he answered blandly, his eyes like clouded glass, reflecting nothing.

Catherine pursed her lips. 'You can see for yourself that Reg is all right. Go get some rest.'

'I want to be here when he opens his eyes,' Mr Jeeves said.

'Do you really think that's best?' Catherine said sharply. The elder butler finally looked up at his daughter while Bertie wondered at her scathing tone. 'You really should get some rest after such a long journey,' she said more gently.

'Perhaps...perhaps you're right,' Mr Jeeves said.

'Would you like a cup of tea?' Bertie blurted out for want of anything else to break the tension. 'I was about to make myself a pot.'

'Yes, that would be refreshing. Although I would gladly make it, Mr Wooster.' The butler rose from his chair to his full impressive height. 'I know Lord Wingfield wouldn't recognise a kettle if it hit him in the face, and if Reg has been doing his job properly, neither would you.' He chuckled, a false sound like a rattle inside a steam engine.

Bertie's answering smile danced with frayed nerves. 'Yes. Quite.'

He ushered the monolith of a man out the door, but not before casting a questioning glance back at the feminine Jeeves. Catherine returned his gaze coolly and said nothing. She merely took the vacant seat at her brother's bedside.

Bertie met Mr Jeeves in the kitchen, where a pot of tea was well underway. The older man had taken off his coat and rolled up his shirtsleeves, and when Bertie came ducking through the swinging door, he turned to offer him a teacup.

'Thanks very much,' Bertie said, taking it and leaning against the counter for want of a table. He'd have to see about getting a new one delivered, he supposed, but it could wait.

'I must apologise for my daughter, Mr Wooster,' Mr Jeeves said while he strained the leaves. 'She can be a bit of a hard biscuit. Shouldn't be so blunt in front of you, though she means well.'

'Oh, rather. I mean, that's all right.' Bertie watched as Mr Jeeves poured the milk and tea into his waiting cup with the same double-handed technique employed by his son. 'What did she mean, I wonder, when she said it would be best for you to biff off?' He looked up, suddenly realising what an inappropriate question that might be for a man whose son was so injured. 'That is to say, it was unexpected,' Bertie added nervously.

Mr Jeeves sighed and poured a cup for himself. 'Reg and I...he isn't as close to me as some boys are to their fathers,' he said, leaning on the counter alongside Bertie. He wrapped his large hands round the steaming teacup and gazed into its depths. 'No, I suppose if I were to be completely honest, I couldn't say whether Reggie would want me here with him or not. But he's my son, Mr Wooster, and I can't stay away. Not when he's in trouble. Even if he hates me.'

'Jeeves never mentioned anything of the sort to me,' Bertie said. He felt his brow creasing with concern; yet another thing he hadn't known about his valet.

'He wouldn't, would he?' Mr Jeeves mused, sipping at his tea. 'Always been a quiet boy ever since he were a lad. Took after his mother in that respect. They could sit for hours in the late evenings, poring over books of poetry and history together, never saying a word. They'd sit side-by-side on the hearth, their heads bent over the pages. All that firelight shining off their black hair. Always so silent.'

Bertie quirked his lips. 'I have a rather different impression of your son,' he admitted. 'When he gets on one of his verbal jaunts, be it on Shakespeare or Milton or some other brainy subject, I can't get him to clam up.'

'Smart as the blazes, is Reg,' Mr Jeeves agreed with a smirk of pride. 'Just like his mum. She could walk into a room and notice every piece of dust, every tilted picture frame, and have it all put to rights in under a minute. The best housekeeper I'd ever seen, Helen. And the most beautiful woman I'd ever laid eyes on. Lord knows why she chose to marry me, a daft country butler.' He smiled sadly and toyed with his cup. 'Reg was the apple of her eye. They understood each other. Could say what they meant with just a look. I sometimes wished I could be allowed in that little world they had, but it was beyond me.'

Mr Jeeves rubbed at his sharp-angled jaw. 'He had dreams, you know, when he was still a child, of leaving Wingfield Hall. I told him, "Reggie, the Jeeves family has been serving here for generations. You already have a place. You should be thankful."' The older man shook his head. 'But Reg was stubborn. He wanted to see the world, and his mother's books kept feeding him ideas. Things were strained between us, but my wife made peace. She was so good at doing that. So calm.

'But when Helen died, bless her soul, Reggie was like a ship without a harbour. He was lost, angry, angry at me, angry at the scarlet fever that took his mother. Just a mass of ice-cold rage. We exchanged words, and Lord forgive me, I said some things I shouldn't have.'

Mr Jeeves blinked several times in rapid succession and kept his gaze on his cup. Bertie couldn't stop himself from asking, 'What was it you said?'

The older man's voice was small and tight: 'I told him if he wanted to run away from Wingfield Hall so badly, he could start immediately. I secured him a position as page-boy at a girls' school three counties distant and he accepted without hesitation. I thought perhaps, in time, he'd return to the Hall and take up the tradition as I had, but he never came back. We haven't spoken properly in years.'

The man set his cup aside and pressed his hands to his face. A choked sob slipped through the cracks of his fingers. 'I sent away my only son, and he could have died before I told him how sorry I am. God, I am so sorry.'

Bertie could stand it no longer. He put down his tea. 'Mr Jeeves,' he said, then gave up on saying anything. He leaned forward and wrapped his arms round the huge shoulders. Mr Jeeves didn't hesitate. He clung to Bertie with bruising force, but Bertie held on and let him sob into his shoulder.

Time passed strangely. It may have been minutes or hours before Bertie heard Catherine's soft cough. He turned to see her standing in the doorway.

'He's awake,' she said.

'Oh!' Mr Jeeves gasped, dashing a hand across his eyes and standing up straight.

'He's asking for you.' She pointed to Bertie.

Bertie pointed at himself, grimacing at the pain that Jeeves' father must be feeling at that slight. But Mr Jeeves said, 'No, no. It's all right. Go, and thank you, Mr Wooster.'

So he legged it.

Bertie poked his head into the master bedroom to find Jeeves still laying in bed, his eyes open, if not entirely focused. A plate with nothing but toast crumbs sat on the side table; Bertie was pleased to see that Catherine had gotten her brother to eat something. Bertie could have danced in relief if he wasn't so bally tired; he had been afraid that Jeeves might still be under the spell of the medicine, speaking in riddles and acting all wrong.

'My sister tells me my father is here,' Jeeves said in a hoarse but lucid voice.

'Hang on, old thing.' Bertie poured a glass of water from the jug on the nightstand and handed it over.

Jeeves took it, but didn't drink. 'Sir. Did you contact him?' he asked.

Bertie stuffed his hands in his trouser pockets and rocked on his heels. 'I thought it was the only proper thing to do, Jeeves. You did tell me to call the Ganymede and track down the elder Jeeves, what?'

'I meant, sir, in the event of—' Jeeves paused and took an annoyed drink from the water glass. 'Only if something happened to me, sir, did I expect the necessity of my father's arrival.' A grimace of pain passed over his face, and his hand pressed to his injured side.

'Something did happen to you,' Bertie snapped. 'Or has the bullet thingummy slipped your mind?'

Jeeves looked up then, staring with all the weight of his tired, red-rimmed eyes. 'I don't wish my father to see me like this, sir,' he said quietly. 'Please tell him to return to Norfolk.'

'I'll do no such thing, Jeeves.' Bertie turned his back on the valet and busied himself with rearranging the daffodils in their vase with shaking hands. 'Jeeves Senior is torn to pieces over this whole thing. He's more worried about you than I can even express. He practically flew down here when he heard the news, and I'm not about to send him packing now.'

'Sir.' Jeeves' voice seemed to be gaining some of its old clout. 'With all due respect, this is not your concern. This is my family, and I—'

Bertie whirled on him. 'Do you have any idea how close it was!?' he cried. 'A few hours ago, you were in a drugged haze, telling me...' Bertie bit his lip. No reason to repeat the ghoulish conversation. He tried another tack. 'For God's sake, Jeeves, are you going to wait until you really do die to speak to your father?'

'You don't understand,' Jeeves said with stern refusal. 'He is not an ideal parent.'

'At least you've got one!' Bertie shouted. He felt more tears spilling over his cheeks and he let them fall. In the heavy, tense silence between them, Jeeves looked away, his eyes laden with what Bertie hoped was guilt.

'If you don't want to see him tonight,' Bertie whispered through his tears, 'I will tell him you've gone back to sleep. But I won't send him away. Not when he's come so far to speak to you.'

Jeeves cleared his throat and, though it seemed to take all his effort, spoke in a clear, deep voice. 'I will allow my father to see me, sir. But know that it is only out of respect for your wishes that I will do so. My current situation changes nothing between my father and me. He will always be a cold, narrow-minded man.'

'He seems normal enough to me, Jeeves.' Bertie wiped his sleeve across his face. 'Maybe time has changed him.'

Jeeves looked up with dark eyes, hollow, ringed with shadows. 'Clarence Jeeves will never change, sir.'

'Well.' Bertie frowned. 'That makes two of you.'

Jeeves turned his head on the pillow, his eyes sliding shut. 'I'm sorry to have upset you, sir,' he said. 'If you would show my father in, I believe I have some strength left before I must sleep again.'

'Right.' Bertie paused in the doorway, his hand on the frame. 'Do you...want me to hover round or will you be all right alone with Jeeves the Elder?'

'Perhaps you should get some sleep, sir,' Jeeves sighed. 'I will manage, thank you.'

So Bertie breezed back into the kitchen to impart the news. He felt a little like a messenger in Macbeth, flitting from scene to scene at just the right moment to deliver one or two lines about all the wild action that was to be taking place off-stage, and then he was done. Mr Jeeves practically ran to the master bedroom, leaving Bertie in the dust, as it were.

Catherine was bent over the sink, washing up the teacups and abandoned sandwich plate. 'You wouldn't follow Reg's orders either?' she asked with an impressed eyebrow. 'You're a stronger man than I originally perceived, Mr Wooster.'

'Oh, not really.' Bertie dabbed at his still-leaky eyes with his wrists. 'Apparently all I need to do is turn on the manly waterworks and Jeeves begs off. Not that I can blame him. Nothing so disconcerting as a red-faced, puffy-eyed Wooster.'

'Reggie has never dealt with tears very well. You'd be wise to use them more often.' Catherine turned the tap off and dried her hands on a tea towel. 'I'd better get back to the house now,' she sighed.

Bertie looked at the wall clock. It was getting on towards the late evening. 'You could stay if you like. Erm, you can have Jeeves' room. No trouble at all.'

'No, my girls will be home soon. I need to be there; my husband couldn't make supper if you handed him a manual.' Catherine swept out into the hallway and Bertie followed on shaking legs.

'But you will come back?' he said in a pleading tone.

'If I can manage to get away.' Catherine fixed her hat on her head and looked over Bertie's slack expression. 'Don't be afraid, Mr Wooster. You're managing everything very well.'

'If this is "well" then I don't wish to see the other side of the spectrum,' Bertie mumbled. 'I've got a wounded valet, a rabid nurse, and a shaky giant of a man in the house, and no idea what to do with them all.'

Catherine favoured Bertie with a fond smile and leaned forward to place a sisterly kiss on his cheek. 'I can see why Reggie chose you,' she said. 'You have a good heart, Mr Wooster. You'll be able to handle this and more.'

Bertie blushed at the bold compliment. 'Good bye, Mrs Jacobs.'

'Good bye, Mr Wooster.' And the door closed on Bertie's best ally.


Continue to Chapter 7.

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

When I came into it, Jeeves and Mr Jeeves and Bertie were all pretty chummy. I loved the entrance of Mr Jeeves. I loved his panic, I loved Catherine's Jeevesian calm - and how everyone in Jeeves' family is measured in terms of how like or unlike they are to Jeeves himself.
And I love that Catherine's husband would need more than a manual to handle supper on his own. Nice touch.