Jeeves and the Blind Master

by Gracefultree

Chapter 9: The Fall

Posted: May 16, 2015

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Jeeves saved, if not my life, at least several broken bones, for I'd charged down to the wine cellar without realizing it. To this day I have no idea how he managed to get across the kitchen so quickly. I doubt he knows, either.

He grabbed the back of my suit jacket and tugged, pulling at it since he couldn't reach my arm. I still fell head over shoes, losing the coat, taking him down with me, sliding down half a dozen steps or more before my stick tangled in the railing and stopped my forward motion. Jeeves thudded to a stop against me, his arms coming protectively around me.

"Bertie," he whispered harshly in my ear. "Bertie, don't scare me like that ever again!"

He sounded like my Aunt Dahlia had the summer when I was thirteen and got thrown from a horse.

With our combined weight against it, my stick snapped, sending us rushing forward again, though his arms remained around me the entire time, even as we twisted around the corner of the stairs, as we'd been falling too quickly for the landing to stop us. I bashed my head against the wall. I sprained an ankle. Or broke it, as the case happened to be, though I managed without breaking my arm or neck or spine, thanks to Jeeves. Jeeves would come away with what he later told me were acres of bruises from where he tried to break my fall and ease the impact on me. He was absolutely covered with them, he said, and even through the haze of a concussion and the pain of my broken ankle, I noticed how stiffly he moved for quite some time.

"Don't ever do that again," he breathed when we'd stopped, and I could feel hot tears on the back of my neck where they'd slipped down past my collar. Good Lord, was he crying over me?

"Dear God, please be more careful," he begged, and not the begging of before when I was giving my ultimatum, but real, honest-to-God begging. He sounded terrified.

"Reggie! Mr. Wooster! Are you all right?" Connie Powderhouse shouted from the top of the steps. "Call a doctor, Mr. Johnson," she added to the butler.

"Sir?" Jeeves asked.

"My ankle hurts awfully, old thing," I answered dully, too overwhelmed to bring out any other emotion. "The right one. I broke it once as a child when I was thrown from a horse, and the doctors said it would always be sensitive." Both my hands were scraped up rather badly, too, but I didn't realize that through the pain of my ankle. I'd only discover it when the doctor bandaged my hands after he'd set my ankle, the pain of the disinfectant briefly overwhelming the ankle.

But back to the wine cellar stairway. Ever so gently, without releasing me entirely, Jeeves touched my ankle, then my head where a bit of blood was flowing. I cried out in pain, and he hugged me more firmly against his chest. He kissed the side of my head, the unhurt side, pressing his lips to my temple. They moved against my skin, and I knew the shape of a prayer of thanksgiving when I felt it.

"I'm sorry, sir," he said. "This is all my fault. I'm so sorry."

"Don't bother over it," I answered, trying for a carefree tone. "I'll be right as rain in no time."

"Sir, I —"

"No, Jeeves. Not here," I interrupted. I knew he was about to talk about our parting, and I wasn't ready for it. Might never be ready for it. All I knew was that it wasn't the time or place.

"We need to talk, sir."

"Not here," I repeated. "Not now."

"Yes, sir."

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Jeeves refused to let go of me when the doctor arrived, and it took him and three other men to carry me up to the guest room assigned to me. Chuffy had a downright fit that I was in his house and hadn't made myself known and said hello. Then he noticed my ankle and the blood on my shoulder and shouted for the doctor to hurry up and fix me. His fiancee, Pauline Stoker, a former fiancee of mine, as it happened, was there as well, and cooed over my injury as if I were a dove with a broken wing. Chuffy became jealous, and we had a bit of bother between the two of them, and me, that required some sorting on Jeeves's part. That it also involved J. Washburn Stoker, his yacht, Sir Roderick Glossop, two young pustules called Seabury and Dwight, a significant number of Drones Club members, horrible banjo playing, shoe polish, superstitious policemen, and a time before the magistrate, who happened to be Chuffy, made the whole thing worse.

The doctor had Jeeves sit behind me on the bed, bracing me against his chest and holding my arms still while the doctor set my ankle and applied the plaster. I thrashed quite a bit, though Jeeves didn't complain. Jeeves didn't leave my side until the doctor gave me a shot of something to knock me out, and only consented to be brought to the next room so that his own injuries could be tended once he'd assured himself of my relative comfort.

I woke in the middle of the night to find Jeeves sitting by my bed, both of his hands cradling one of my bandaged ones. He was praying, thanking God that I'd survived. Thanking God that I hadn't been taken from him. I thought this was rather rummy, as he told me once that he's not a religious man, but I suppose a scare like me falling down a flight of stairs like I did can bring religion to anyone. I made a noise then, and he raised eyes so rimmed with red that even I could see them in the light of the single candle.

Jeeves brushed my hair off my forehead. "Sir?"

"Jeeves? I hurt," I whimpered.

"Have some medicine, sir. The doctor left it for you."

I swallowed the pills and closed my eyes, letting my thoughts drift as I waited for the painkillers to take effect. In my mind's eye I saw the stairway, the darkness. I saw the lonely night when I learned of my parents' death.

"I hate the dark, Jeeves," I said. "It reminds me of my parents."

"I'll stay with you tonight, sir," he reassured me.

"Thank you."

"I love you," he whispered, leaning over to kiss my forehead. He must have thought that I was already asleep.

I drifted back to sleep.

When I awoke to sunlight and birdsong, Jeeves stood by my bed as he always did, with tea, toast, painkillers, and the paper. He went about the usual morning tasks of setting my breakfast tray on my lap and reading the paper, standing beside the bed as he always did, even though I encouraged him to sit. His voice was a far cry from the impassioned one of the night before, now settled into the usual cultured, bored tones I expected when he read me something he'd already read for himself hours ago as he ate his own breakfast. I convinced myself I'd dreamed the whole thing about him praying and kissing my forehead.

Jeeves wasn't a religious man, I kept telling myself, so the idea of him praying seemed ludicrous. And why would he say he loved me when he left me like he did only a few weeks before? Why would he kiss my forehead when he knew I wasn't an invert?

Why hadn't he kissed my lips? I wondered as I bathed. Jeeves was with me, washing my back and hair as he'd done in Westcombe. He was required to assist with my front as well because my hands were bandaged. He worked efficiently, finishing even before my body knew where his hands were, and certainly before it knew how to respond.

It's as it should be, I told myself. It's not the done thing to grope one's invalid master while assisting him in the bath, is it? He would be kicked out of his club, if it were to become known, of that I had no doubt.

He tutted over my chin hairs and asked how they'd gotten to such a state.

"Brinkley can't hold a candle to you, Jeeves," I replied, reveling in the close shave and smooth skin when he was finished. "I'll need to see the barber, too, I fear."

"I will send for one, sir," he said, settling me in my toweling robe on an overstuffed chair so he could tend to my nails and measure my leg in preparation for altering some of my trousers to fit over the cast on my foot and ankle. I sat back and closed my eyes, letting the morning slide past in companionable silence as the newest dose of pain medication took effect. He hadn't brought up the incident last night with the kissing and declaration, so I decided it was better if I didn't as well. I wouldn't know what to do if he said it to me when I was awake and conscious.

Did I love him?

Was it possible for me to love him?

Was it possible for me to love, full stop?

Somehow, I doubted it.

I was too broken, too crippled. I was unable to return physical affection. I was scared.

Did I want to love him? Did I want it to be possible?

I was beginning to wonder.

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In the end, breaking my ankle was probably the best thing that could have happened to me, for if I'd gone back to the cottage that night, I'd likely never have left it. Brinkley, drunk, don't you know, burned it down around himself, and would have been around me, too, if Chuffy hadn't put me up in his best guest suite on account of me hurting myself on his property. There was even a bell direct to the room they assigned Jeeves belowstairs, if I needed him in the night. After that first night, he slept there, I was sad to see, even as I expected it.

We stayed a month, Jeeves and I, before he returned to London with me. Seeing me laid up softened his heart and he consented to return to my service. Offered, in fact. Practically begged to let him return. I'd expected him to stay with Chuffy, taking care of me only long enough to send for a new man from London, but he surprised me. I didn't even have to kiss him, though I thought about it quite a bit. More and more often, it seemed, distracting me at night when I should have been off with that Morpheus chap. Jeeves told me later that his sister took him aside the second night and berated him for leaving 'such a sweet man' for not being an invert. And for kissing me in the first place, but that argument is a story for another day.

Jeeves commissioned a new stick for me, longer than my old one, made of stronger wood and painted white, which, he told me, was the new fashion for blind people after the Great War. Gives others a way to identify us crossing the street, apparently. He also figured out a way to use it to better advantage, swinging it along in front of me side-to-side along the ground to detect obstacles rather than the casual tapping I'd been doing. Jeeves, brainy cove that he is, came up with this method on his own by observing me moving around and by blindfolding himself for a small while to understand what it was like to go without sight. It wasn't until 1944 that Mr. Hoover — or was it Dr. Hoover? — over in the United States somewhere, figured out the same method, and I still chafe at how his name was put on a technique Jeeves developed twenty years earlier. Jeeves says he doesn't care, and wouldn't want his name on it anyway, since he did it for me, not others.

The intimacy between Jeeves and I increased greatly during our stay at Chuffnel Hall, where we became entwined like the wisteria vine around a trellis. Sort of. Our bodies weren't entwined, but I think our souls became so. It made the eventual coming-together of our bodies that much sweeter.

Between him having to assist me more often in the bath, and help me hobble about on a broken ankle, an arm around the Wooster waist, my arm over the Jeevesian shoulders, and keep me company when Chuffy was off visiting the Stokers, well, there wasn't a question of it not happening, really.

It happened gradually. The tightening of his hand on my waist in response to my gasps of pain. The soft smile about his visage upon hearing my appreciation for his assistance with my toilette. The easy willingness to read my spine-chillers to me of an evening in favor of his preferred Spinoza or Nietzsche. Oh, I gave it a go a time or two, to please him, even though my braille copy of Nietzsche burned along with the cottage, but it was rather too much like lessons at school to have him reading it to me, and I grew bored quickly.

I made efforts to increase our intimacy as well, though I never would have called it such. I had him sit beside me at least once a day so we could talk where I could see his face. Feudal spirit be damned, he was going to sit next to me, dash it all! This led to more small touches of hands to make a point, and sometimes even his face. I leaned my head on his shoulder, too, as I'd done in Westcombe before everything went pear-shaped. He held me whenever I did that, and I enjoyed the feeling of having my side pressed against his. It was a warm feeling in the chest, a gradual lightening of the mood, and there were times when I admit that I sighed in pleasure of the simplicity of it all.

I marveled at how having him hold me like that kept some of the pain away.

I felt closer to him than I ever had before, and we both enjoyed it. He didn't try to kiss me, or do more than hold me, and I was grateful, for my dreams at night were becoming more and more fruity, and I had no idea if I'd be able to resist him if he were to do something like kiss me.

Or if I'd want to resist him.

We talked philosophy, and in conversation it felt less like school than listening to him read about it. We discussed literature, finding common ground between the pages of the Bard's collected works. I asked about his life and interests, his dreams. Travel turned out to be his biggest dream, part of why he chose to be a valet instead of a butler, and I told him I'd let him arrange a trip for us after I was healed. Wouldn't you know he chose Santorini, the place I'd wanted to take him?

Once a week or so, when Chuffy was required to dine upon the Stoker's yacht to appease Pa Stoker and encourage his relations with young Pauline, I ended up at loose ends. Not only did Pa Stoker refuse me entrance to the yacht, but I wasn't able to negotiate getting on it, with my broken ankle and all. Pauline seemed genuinely disappointed, and routinely kept me company with Chuffy and our other friends who were visiting when on dry land. Many people visited, don't you know, and they were almost always welcome aboard the yacht while the last of the Woosters was left to languor alone.

Not that I was ever alone, with Jeeves beside me.

Those evenings, when the servants had their free night, Jeeves contrived to smuggle me down to dinner with his family, where he usually ate. Thus I became more acquainted with the Jeevesian family. Mr. Powderhouse, Jeeves's brother-in-law and Chuffy's steward, was a stogy old foggie, not entertaining at all, but Jeeves's sister, the cook, more than made up for Mr. Powderhouse's lack of social wit. I heard stories of their eldest, a daughter named Mabel, who had gone to America to make her fortune on stage only to return to Old Blighty heartbroken by a missing suitor. Still on the stage, she was currently in London practicing for her newest role.

Hearing that her name was Mabel made me think. It sure was a popular name, wasn't it? Between Bingo's waitress, Biffy's missing girl, and the Powderhouse daughter, Mabels were cropping up everywhere!

Of the three boys, two were at home, the oldest of them in London studying to be an accountant, while the middle remained as a footman at Chuffnel Hall and the youngest apprenticed to, of all people, the local stonemason. It seemed he had quite the aptitude for carving, don't you know, and one afternoon Jeeves took me round the shop to feel some of his creations. He was rather good, and I liked the ornamentation he carved, though most of his work was still about hewing blocks and carrying heavy things. Unlike the other Powderhouse children, he took after his father and was built like a bull and had the dim mind to go with it, though the other three seemed to sparkle with Jeevesian intelligence.

I enjoyed these family suppers, listening to the banter and love between family members of a kind to which I was not accustomed. Everyone, excepting Jeeves himself, seemed rather more 'of the people' than I was used to, and their affection for each other was unmistakable. It was so different than my own family, with aunts who criticized my every move and thought, and who routinely threatened me with matrimony or coerced me into petty larceny for their own ends, that it took me several weeks to relax. Jeeves, as well, needed time to become accustomed to having his employer at his family table, though by the final dinner, he'd unbent enough to laugh, just a little, and share stories with his sister about childhood arguments.

For the first time since my parents died, I felt like I had a home, I confided in Jeeves that evening as he helped me to bed.

"I can't thank you enough for allowing me into your life, old thing," I said, feeling the emotions rather strongly.

"It has been my pleasure, sir," Jeeves responded. "Seeing you smile so freely has been —" He stopped, suddenly at a loss for words. "It has been gratifying, sir," he finished.

"Have I not been smiling?"

"You have been smiling, sir, however they have lacked a certain joviality for quite some time. I am merely commenting that your natural optimism and joie de vivre have returned to them."

"Joy of life, Jeeves?"

"Indeed, sir."

I considered this thought for a few minutes. Where had that joy gone, and what brought it back? I could come to only one conclusion: Jeeves made me happy. Being with Jeeves made me happy. Dining with him, and talking with him, and reading with him, and going for walks with him, all of that made me happy. More happy than I really wanted to admit.

Of course, dreaming about Jeeves made me confused. I couldn't go to him about it, and I got rather good at hiding the evidence of my late-night activities, or so I thought, though after a few years, Jeeves admitted that he'd known about them the whole time and was silently cleaning up after me as his hope for a future with me as his lover increased with each saucy dream I 'hid' from him.

"When we're back in London, Jeeves, will you still dine with me occasionally? When no one is expected?"

I heard the sharply indrawn breath and felt the tremor in his fingers as he finished buttoning my pajamas.

"I will consider it, sir," he answered, and that, as they say, was the end of that for the night.

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