Vale, Pater
For Heliopause/ Heliopausa
It had seemed to Jerry wrong to go without speaking at least once to his father. After dinner would be the best time.
Jerry was amused at the mental picture of himself trying to get the one remaining footman to announce him. Perhaps the man would be able to see him at that. There were two sides to a blanket, after all, and his father's behaviour (and Uncle Peter's before he met Aunt Harriet, and his own before Dorothea, for that matter) was quite normal by the standards of previous dukes of Denver.
Appearing quietly in his father's study seemed the best idea.
Jerry stood next to the fireplace for a few minutes. His father's head was bent over some book about tax, greyer and thinner of hair than Jerry remembered. After a few minutes, Jerry decided that he had appeared rather too quietly. It also proved more difficult to speak to someone who was unaware of his presence than he had anticipated. Knocking over the coal tongs seemed the only solution.
His father's hearing was still good.
"Jerry?"
"Pater." A short pause.
"If I'd realised – how much – I mean – I would have been back sooner if only –" Jerry knew now how keenly his father had been watching for any sign of his ghostly presence. Perhaps he should have done this sooner.
"Pa, it's not…well there are various reasons why it's best not to hang about really. Only there was something I really had to tell Bredon, and it seemed wrong not to speak to you as well."
"I… I could have been a better father, I know. We are – well you know how it turned out I suppose. Anyway, I'm sorry – and we are grateful you know."
"You did your bit in the one before – it's a matter of luck rather than anything, I suppose."
"Look – your mother – please don't blame her. If I'd been a better husband she might have been a better … Don't judge her too harshly. She's terribly upset you know."
"She would have been a better mother, you mean. I dare say I could have done a better job at being a son." His father looked guilty. Perhaps it was because Jerry had explicitly voiced the criticism that that his father had never made, nor permitted anyone else to make. Uncle Peter had once told Jerry he spoke truths that were neither kind nor necessary. Being Uncle Peter, he had merely stated it as a fact.
"I did try to say something one day. Seeing her crying so much." Jerry had never seen his mother cry while he had lived. He didn't realise that until he was dead. She hadn't been able to see him or hear him when he tried to comfort her.
There was a small awkward pause. Somehow being dead had given Jerry more authority and changed their relative positions. This was not how it should be.
"You've been kind to Dorothea. Thank you for that." Jerry said.
"You don't mind her remarrying?"
"That – no - it's one of the differences about being dead, I suppose. He seems a good chap. Dorothea deserves to be happy." Jerry said.
"I thought that I would never go into that church without thinking about your funeral. And I don't, of course. But now I find myself remembering Winifred's christening. She cried and you blew raspberries at her."
"Did it stop her crying?" Jerry couldn't remember the christening, although he had remembered that his little sister had liked silly noises.
"Yes." Father's eyes relaxed very slightly at the corners. Perhaps this was a good time to go. Jerry stood straighter.
"I'd better make myself scarce, I suppose. As I said, there are reasons why it's better not to hang around more than absolutely necessary, so this will probably be the last time."
His father met his eyes and gave a slight, sad nod. Whatever else you might say about the him, Jerry thought, he had his own dignity.
"Thank you for speaking to me." Father reached out as if to embrace Jerry.
"Better not." Jerry said, "I'm told it's unpleasant. I'd rather you didn't remember me like that."
"Well, goodbye then, Jerry." His father said as Jerry let himself fade, leaving a sketchy salute to fade last, and last of all two words hanging in the air.
Vale, Pater.
Notes: Heliopause wondered what the meeting between Jerry Wimsey's ghost and his father might be like.
I'll post this as a Peter Wimsey story only, since although Dorothea Callum from the Swallows and Amazons series is has been Jerry's widow for nearly nine years, only Dorothy L. Sayers characters, or at least my poor representation of them, appear in this story.
There are other and better versions of this story to be told, but this is the one that follows on from the end of my Swallows and Amazons story *Pieces" and therefore this is the version of the story for me to tell.
I do hope I've got the Latin right. Please tell me if I haven't.