Chapter Text
Title: Jeeves and the Fatal Pride
Author: Wotwotleigh
Chapter: 1/2
Pairing: Jeeves/Bertie
Rating: PG
Words: 2,187
Summary: One of Jeeves's rare character flaws lands him in the soup. Can Bertie get him out?
Disclaimer: I don't own any of these characters. I'm just writing this for fun.
Author's Notes: This is in response to the Yule fic prompt, "Bertie gets Jeeves out of the soup, leading to a 'first time' encounter." Enjoy, dear prompter!
If Jeeves has a fault—and I daresay you’d have to look pretty hard to spot it—it’s that the chap struggles with just a smidge of vanity.
I suppose even the best of us have our weak spots, and that is Jeeves’s. Disparage his character, and he will not bat an eyelash. Tell him he’s a chump and a fathead, and he’ll just smile knowingly, no doubt because he knows full well that you are talking out of the back of your neck. But knock his appearance, and his basest instincts – such as they are – come bubbling up to the surface.
Not that I know any of this from first-hand experience. I know better than to go about knocking Jeeves. Still, I’ve been witness to the results. Take the incident of Jeeves and Harold the spherical choir boy, for example. Jeeves discovered the tyke’s prowess as a sprinter on the flat while chasing the kid in order to fetch him a clip on the ear. He never would tell me exactly what the little blighter said to him to set him off, but I gathered it was some particularly fruity wheeze about Jeeves’s looks.
Why this should be such a sore spot for Jeeves, I could scarcely reckon. I mean to say, the chap looks more like something carved out of a slab of marble than anything human. I’m sure it’s all tied in somehow with the psychology of the individual—maybe he was spotty as a lad, or his ears stuck out, or his mother didn’t tell him often enough what a handsome little devil he was, and he never outgrew the complex it gave him in his tender years. I suppose it may always be one of the great imponderables. Still, there it is.
Whatever the reason for it, it was this little chink in his armor that led him to take an uncharacteristic plunge into the soup a few years into our association.
It happened one day in late December. A less discerning chap than Bertram might never have got on to the fact that something was wrong, but I detected a certain rumminess about his manner straight away. I woke up on the fateful morning, and it seemed to me that some of the shimmer had dropped out of his shimmy. He still flitted silently in with the kippers and toast at the appointed hour, but he drooped ever so slightly around the edges. The stuffed frog mask was plastered on a little too firmly. The footsteps were almost audible to the human ear.
At the time, I just attributed it to a late night out with the lads, for I had given him the last evening off to attend some sort of function at the Junior Ganymede, his club for gentlemen’s gentlemen. So we merely kidded about the weather a bit, as is our wont in the A. M., and then he went on about his business.
It wasn’t until that afternoon, when he asked positively mournfully if I would be dining in or at my club, that I began to worry.
“I say, Jeeves,” I said, “is anything the matter?”
“Sir?”
“You just seem a bit out of sorts, old fruit. You strike me as a man who has been given the pip in no uncertain manner.”
“Not at all, sir.”
“Oh, come, Jeeves! I can tell something’s eating at you.”
“Merely a touch of fatigue, sir, no doubt brought on by the oppressive cold.”
“H’m. Well, if you say so, Jeeves. I think I shall dine out. Why don’t you take another evening off and go warm your cockles at the Junior Ganymede? I’m sure that would buck you up.”
To my surprise, the fellow visibly winced at the suggestion. “Thank you, sir, but I believe I shall remain here. The silver is in need of polishing.”
I gave him a look. “Jeeves,” I said a bit sternly, “I happen to know that you spent the better part of the morning polishing the silver. You were hard at it when I stepped into the kitchen earlier to tell you about Freddie Widgeon falling into the pudding at the last dining committee meeting. What’s troubling you?”
He ramped the stuffed frog act up a level or two. “I regret to say that I have been expelled from the Junior Ganymede club, sir.”
I don’t remember if I was holding anything at the time, but if I was, it slipped from my nerveless fingers. I reeled. “What!”
“Yes, sir.”
“You, Jeeves?”
“Yes, sir.”
“But,” I said, cutting straight to the heart of the matter, “why?”
“I am loath to discuss it, sir.”
“Why, they must be positively barmy to drop a sterling chap like you from the roster!”
“It is kind of you to say so, sir, but I fear the decision was entirely justified. It was – an inexcusable lapse on my part.”
“But dash it, Jeeves, what could you have done to offend these blighters so much that they would hand you the mitten without so much as a by your leave? I simply can’t picture it.”
He pursed the lips. “I was involved in an altercation, sir,” he said in a crisp sort of voice.
“An altercation, Jeeves? You mean you were in a scrap of some sort?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Well, I’m dashed! What happened, Jeeves? Tell me all.”
He coughed a couple times and looked like a stuffed frog who has just swallowed a particularly distasteful fly. “If you insist, sir.”
“I do.”
“As it happens, sir, last night I was attending the quarterly meeting of the Junior Ganymede sartorial committee, of which I am a member.”
“You chaps have a whole committee for that sort of thing?”
“Yes, sir.”
“I suppose I shouldn’t be too surprised. Go on, Jeeves.”
He shuddered gently, clearly still shaken by the memory of the whole sordid event. “One of the younger members, a Mr. Finch, introduced a motion that members should be allowed to remove their jackets within the confines of the club between the hours of four and six in the afternoon.”
“Good lord. That must have raised a few hackles among the lads, what?”
“Indeed, sir. The meeting had been in session for nearly two hours, and tempers were running high. A heated argument ensued between Mr. Finch and Mr. Wellsby, the committee President. I attempted to intervene, and Mr. Finch took it in poor spirit. He informed me that he was of the opinion that I ought to mind my own business, called the legitimacy of my parentage into question, and made an opprobrious remark concerning my personal appearance.” He said these last two words with a sort of delicate distaste, as if he was afraid they’d burn his lips on the way out.
“Oh, Jeeves! What did you do?”
A darker hue suffused his map, and he looked ceilingward. “I struck him, sir.”
I reeled again. “You mean you biffed him?”
“Yes, sir.”
I shook the onion. “Jeeves, I am positively blowed. You could knock me down with a toothpick.”
“It was a most grievous indiscretion, sir. I am deeply abashed.”
“No, no, Jeeves! One is surprised of course, but a chap has his pride, after all. I can scarcely believe that they would give you the boot over it, though. Why, the boys at the Drones biff each other all the time, and nobody gets the breeze up about it to any great extent.”
“The rules of the Junior Ganymede Club are considerably more stringent in this respect, sir.”
I chewed the lip in sympathy. I was deeply moved. “Poor old Jeeves! Tough luck, old bean. Maybe they’ll come around after a little quiet reflection.”
“I doubt it, sir.”
“Will you be all right, and all that? I mean, should I stick around and supply the old moral support?”
“No, sir. It is an unfortunate turn of events, but I’m sure I shall bear up. It would not do for my own misadventure to hamper your enjoyment of the evening.”
“Well, all right, Jeeves.” I considered giving his shoulder a knead, but decided against it on reflection. “If you change your mind, you know where to find me.”
“Very good, sir.”
---
I had what was no doubt a hearty sup at the Drones, but the food turned to ashes in my mouth. As I glanced around the dining room of the old home away, I couldn’t help but wonder how I would feel if the membership committee ever sent me off with a flea in my ear. I wasn’t sure what the right word was, but I thought "inconsolable" might just about meet the case. The whole bally injustice of the thing was simply too much.
Even when Barmy Fotheringay-Phipps and Pongo Twistleton got a bet on to see who could hang a spoon from his nose longer while dancing the foxtrot, I simply could not shake the dark cloud that hung over me like a pall. Barmy had just lost the flutter by trying to hang his spoon handle end up when I got to my feet and quietly oiled out.
I came home to a quiet and darkish flat, and I thought at first that Jeeves must have decided to go out and drown his sorrows at a pub somewhere. But upon further investigation, I found that there was a bit of light emanating from under the door of his lair.
I stood silently without, mulling over whether I ought to rouse him. I hated to disturb the fellow, but I felt so bally awful about the whole thing that I knew I wouldn’t be able to rest until I’d done something. Steeling the nerves, I rapped on his door.
Jeeves emerged a moment later, wearing a brown dressing gown and looking surprised. “May I help you, sir?” he asked.
“No, Jeeves, just wanted to chew the fat a bit. I’m awfully sorry to wake you.”
“I was not asleep, sir.”
“Good, good. Come on out to the sitting room, Jeeves.”
“Very good, sir.”
“Let me make you a brandy and s.”
“Thank you, sir, no.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes, sir.”
“All right, I won’t twist your arm over it.”
“Thank you, sir.”
---
“Now, Jeeves,” I said when we were comfortably settled, “I simply cannot abide this whole business of you being bunged out of the Ganymede on your ear. It’s a dashed breach of justice, and I won’t let it stand.”
He looked pained. “I had hoped you would let the matter rest, sir. I fear there is little to be done.”
“Is this R. Jeeves speaking?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Come, come! You know better than anyone that there’s always something to be done.”
“I thank you for your concern, sir, but I must insist that—“
I cut in with an impatient gesture. “Jeeves, this is not like you. Why, if it were me sloshing around in the soup, you’d have come up with a scheme to fish me out in no time. I think you’re letting your pride nobble you.”
“Sir—“
“Well, I’m not going to stand idly by and let this iniquity go unchecked. You’ve got to let me help you, Jeeves.”
“I really do not think that there is anything that you could do, sir.”
“Nonsense. What is the name of the chappie who heads up your membership committee? The least I can do is talk to him.” I snapped my fingers. “Why, Jeeves, that’s just the ticket! Extend an invitation to the bird on my behalf. I’ll give him a good lunch here at the flat and build you up a bit. Expound on your sterling qualities, and all that sort of thing.”
I’m not sure what sort of reaction I expected, but a puff-faced and austere nolle prosequi was not it. “No, sir,” said Jeeves firmly. “I should hardly advocate such a course of action.”
“Surely it’s worth a try, Jeeves!”
“I should not advocate it, sir,” he repeated, this time bunging in a solemn shake of the head for good measure. “Mr. Woodmore is a man of great conviction and character. He would not be easily plied.”
“I’m not proposing to ply him, Jeeves. Just to have a good honest chat with the blighter, man to man. Surely if he only sat down to think for a moment, he’d realize what a bloomer they've made cutting you loose. You say his name is Woodmore?”
“I must insist, sir—“
I could see it was time to put down the f. “I will brook no objections, Jeeves. You know I cannot stand by and watch a pal flounder in the broth. The Code of the Woosters will not allow it. You do us both a disservice by putting your ears back in this obdurate manner. Either you invite this Woodmore over,” I said imperiously, “or I will.”
Jeeves fixed me with a positively arctic stare. “Very good, sir,” he said in his soupiest tone. “If it is agreeable to you sir, I shall retire now. Thank you, sir. Goodnight.” And he shimmered icily out.