What's in a Name?
by MsLiz
Intro: A brief tale of Bertie musing. My appreciation goes out to all the fab ones at IndeedSir...a corking good audience!
I felt warmth as I'd never known when the realization fully broke like the morning dawn upon me that I love this gentleman's gentleman, this valet, this paragon. I know how deeply I have come to rely on his sage advice and counsel, and dash it, this Wooster heart flutters like a hummingbird's wings whenever he enters the room.
I muse at length to determine the proper way to address the objet de mon affection now that my feelings for him have taken a decided turn for the romantic. I read somewhere that a rose by any othA er name would still smell something-or-other (dash it, he'd know!). I knew this was the same...no matter what name sprang from my lips toward his direction, his glorious aroma of Earl Grey, crisp linen, and whotsis would never change. Even so, I felt it my mission to put the gray matter to work to figure out the bally best way to address him in light of my newfound regard.
Reginald? No, for to me it conjures a chap not unlike my uncles—an older man bent to the iron will of a woman who eats broken bottles and wears barbed wire next to the skin. Reggie? Certainly familiar, but hardly puts one in mind of a man who takes a size 14 hat, eats tons of fish, and moves in mysterious ways his wonders to perform, what?
One prays the reader doesn't misunderstand. I adore both of these sobriquets—if sobriquet is the word I want—for the very fact that they are his. These names have been uttered by others who have confided in him, been guided by him, cared for him, desired him, loved him. However, they do not hit the bull's eye at which Bertram aims his verbal dart, so to speak.
So then one is led to consider what the females of our race fondly call "pet names." Darling? Sweetheart? Honey? Cutie pie? All too soppy and Bassett-like. Wooly baa-lamb? Specific dream rabbit? Indeed not; these are better left to the Stiffy Byngs of this world. Chipmunk? Laughable, for it conjures in this Wooster brain a coquettish music hall chorine being pursued by an insistent paramour—hardly my vision of my own heart's desire.
Dash it, there is only one name I can use, one appellation with which I can express my desire and my joy, whether we find ourselves on the most crowded street of the old metrop. or alone in our cozy flat. I have but to have this n. flash in my mind's ear to experience shivers down the young master's spine such as nothing else ever had or ever possibly could.
The name to me is a sigh of contentment, a cry of longing, a roar of passion. The name thrills me to the core of my being as much today as the first time I heard it uttered in his warm enveloping voice.
Jeeves.
THE END