Chapter 14
Future readers of this account (though at the moment I cannot conceive as to who you might be), will no doubt by now consider my powers of perception remarkably dim and perhaps even have begun to wonder if my master's memoirs were in fact nothing but works of utter fiction.
Again and again - when I learned of the missing bicycle, when I heard there had been blood on Mr. Wooster's shirt, when young Philpot blurted out the name Nixon - I had been handed clues that something disastrous had happened and yet had failed to follow them up.
But what was worse than that, what is completely confounding to me, is how often I had come close to fully realizing my guilt, only to run from it each and every time. It bespeaks of a sort of cowardice I would never have considered I possessed. Even now, my mind apparently flees from the idea of how much pain I caused: re-reading the chapter I wrote just yesterday, I claim that Mr. Wooster's weeping of the night after the luncheon were the first tears I had seen from him, but of course that is not true. How could I have been so quick as to forget the scene in the music room at Brinkley Court? Or the turning away of his head when I made my feeble apology at the hospital?
For that matter, how could I have forgot the look on his face when my part in the incident of the girls' school was revealed? Or the horror I felt when porter Philpot informed me Mr. Wooster had been struck by a car? The guilt I felt watching his family wait anxiously for word of his surgery? Even when my unconscious laid the issue bare with a horrifying dream, I was still able to run from it, either by seizing on distractions or by - my Lord - convincing myself that somehow I was the one who had been wronged!
No, fool that I was, I would literally need things spelled out in black and white before I could truly see the damage I had done.
-x-
The morning after Mr. Wooster's upset was an exceedingly beautiful one. The sun was shining with a warmth and a slightly hazy quality that foretold a humid and uncomfortable afternoon, but at that hour, with the dew still lingering on the grass in the park across the street, it was glorious. In spite of his usual penchant for sleeping late, it was the sort of morning my master would have greeted with exuberance.
Which brought me to a conundrum: should I awaken my master at the time I had done so for the past few mornings since our return from Market Snodsbury, or let him sleep until he awoke naturally?
At that point, I still had no idea why he had requested the change in our routine, but it had seemed to please him. And, as I had had no instructions to the contrary, I decided to proceed. With restorative in hand, I knocked gently on his door.
"Sir? Are you awake, sir?" There was no answer, but I did hear sounds of stirring and so I entered.
In the two years or so I had served him, I do not think I had ever seen Mr. Wooster so uneasy in his sleep. He was not stirring, but rather tossing and turning feverishly. As I stood there watching with mounting concern, he kicked the bedclothes away with a moan, only to shiver and then clutch at them convulsively a second later, pulling them up so far that they came loose and exposed the bare mattress.
Without further thought, I placed the glass with the restorative on his night table and reached out my hand to wake him. I had no time to say anything, the merest touch on his shoulder caused him to jerk upright in bed with a shout.
"Sir? Are you all right?" Rigid and staring with wide, wild eyes, I am not sure if he knew I was there. I tried again. "It is me, sir. Jeeves. There is nothing to worry about."
He was shaking and the colour had drained from his face. He turned to look at me, but still did not speak.
Despite the inappropriateness of the action, I placed my hand on his shoulder again, hoping to ease his trembling. "Everything is all right, sir. It was only a dream."
"No," he whispered so softly I almost didn't hear him. "It wasn't."
"Sir?" He had to have been dreaming of the accident. Please tell me, sir, I begged silently. Please let me help you.
"Nothing, Jeeves. Nothing."
"Very good, sir." I adjusted his pillows behind him, so that he could sit up comfortably against the bedstead and offered him the restorative.
"Came home under the surface again, did I, Jeeves?" he asked after downing it, making an effort to sound normal but without quite pulling it off.
"It is not for me to say, sir."
"No, no, of course not." His hand quivered as he worried at the sheets. "What sort of day is it then, Jeeves?"
"Extremely clement, sir."
"Ah, yes...that's...that's good...I suppose." He sounded uncertain of the fact.
I hesitated. "If you will forgive me for saying so, sir, you still appear to be out of sorts from your disturbance. It is early; perhaps you would prefer to return to your rest for another few hours?"
"No!" he exclaimed. Then, slightly abashed, he went on. "No, no, its fine, Jeeves - its nothing getting on the outside of a spot of breakfast couldn't cure."
I did not let the frown show on my face. "As you wish, sir."
As I had never made a habit of watching him take his morning meal, I returned to the kitchen to clear away the dishes. When I came back for the tray, however, I saw him pushing the eggs around on his plate with a mindless despondency and I sighed; he could not have eaten more than a few bites. But when I inquired if breakfast had been to his liking, he insisted that it had been fine. "Top hole" was the exact term he used.
But the same subdued mood seemed to hold him in its grip as he bathed. He sat in the water so long without reaching for the soap I was almost tempted to remind him to wash. Afterwards, when I was assisting him to dress, he expressed no desires for any outlandishly coloured tie, or indeed even any particular suit, insisting on leaving the decision to me. I choose his light brown suit, but then I purposely picked a pair of socks of the most odious dark olive colour to see how he would react.
"Are these socks to your liking, sir?"
"They're perfectly fine, Jeeves." Normally I would have put a statement like this down to my masters questionable sense of colour, but this time he had not even looked at them.
"But they are olive, sir."
"Oh, please, just do whatever you think best, Jeeves!" he demanded with the same hopeless frustration an exhausted child displays when tasked with too many questions or chores that are beyond him. I was severely taken aback by pain I heard threading his tone and, wordlessly, I put the offending socks back in the drawer and choose a more suitable pair.
However, what truly worried me, what shook me to my core, was something that happened not ten minutes later when Mr. Wooster donned his jacket and hat as if meaning to go out, but then stopped in front of the door and simply stood there.
When I asked him if something was the matter, he said with a small, lost voice, "I...I don't know where to go, Jeeves."
I stiffened, but strove to keep my voice steady. "Do you not want to go to your club, sir?" Truthfully, it was a little early for that as none of his friends would be there, but his actions upon leaving had seemed so automatic that was where I had assumed he was off to.
He gave a small shake of his head.
I walked slowly closer, watching him carefully. "Did you perhaps have an errand to run? A trip to the tailor's or the bank?" I suggested gently, as if he had had something to do and it had merely slipped his mind like a name on the tip of a person's tongue.
"No, there's nowhere I want to be and definitely nowhere I need to be. No one wants to see me. There's no one I..." he trailed off, but he continued to stand there, gazing at the door before him as if rooted to the spot.
"Perhaps you would enjoy a walk in the park, sir. Or a picture at the cinema," I went on, spouting inconsequential nonsense in a soothing tone so as not to startle him, and hoping more than anything that the chill going through me was nothing but an overreaction.
The eyes that turned to me were haunted and dark, but it was the voice that said, "No one wants me, Jeeves," so matter-of-factly that I could not bear. It broke me from my proper servant armour and I grabbed his arm.
"Please do not speak that way, sir! There are many people who would wish for your company. Too many to count, in fact."
"I thought I was finally doing something right. I thought one of them might finally approve of me."
"Please, sir, you are still overwrought. And worn down. The doctors said you still needed another four weeks of rest and recovery but you have been going out every morning. Why not stay home today? Come. Come sit on the chesterfield, sir, and I will make you some tea."
He kept talking in that same flat tone as if he hadn't heard me. "I was going to get a job, you see. I pounded the streets for hours and went to every employment agency I could find. I even asked old Sippy for a job working with him at the Mayfair Gazette. And I was going to ask Aunt Agatha if she could arrange for me to have another fling at being a personal secretary to that Cabinet Minister of hers."
"Sir, finding employment can be a difficult proposition. But you mustn't get discouraged - "
"A wife too. I was going to get a wife. I was going to go through with it this time. I was even happy about it. I didn't know if Id really like it, but I thought, 'Now at least there'll be someone for me, someone I'm special to, someone who is will stick by me more than anyone else.' Everyone has someone like that, you know. Tuppy has Angela, Gussie has Madeline, Bingo has Rosie, Ginger has Mrs. Ginger. Even Aunt Dahlia and Uncle Tom have each other."
It was in my mind to tell him that someday he would find that person, that he was too good of a man to spend his life alone, that everything came to those who waited, but he suddenly snapped out of his trance and pulled his arm out of my grasp.
"No. Don't touch me." He backed away from me, then shook himself and straightened his spine. "I'm just talking rot. I'm fine. Everything's fine."
I had never seen him - or had ever thought to see him - so changeable as I did that morning. Nightmares, anxiousness, melancholy, and now this drawing away into himself, all in the space of an hour. It could not go on. "Sir, is there perhaps something more that is bothering you? Should we not discuss the events at Brinkley Court?"
"NO!"
"Sir, I must insist - "
"No, I will not!" he exclaimed and moved towards the door, but I quickly stepped between him and it.
"Sir, please! I cannot let you go out while you are in this state."
"Damnit, Jeeves! What are you playing at? Get out of my way!"
"I will not, sir!"
He grabbed hold of me and tried to move me by force, but it was no good. "You have no right to do this, Jeeves!" he cried furiously. "This is my flat and you are my servant!"
I took hold of his arms and held him away from me. "That is as may be, but I cannot let you go."
"Jeeves, take your hands off me!" He struggled and did his best to try and twist out of my grasp, but I would not release him.
"I will not let you leave, sir."
"JEEVES! I demand that you let me go!" he ordered.
"No, sir!"
He reached for the front of my uniform coat and squeezed the material in his hands. "Please, Jeeves," he pleaded. "Please... I can't. It's just too blasted hard!"
"We must discuss what happened, sir."
His shoulders slumped and he bowed his head. "No, I can't. I can't," he mumbled, defeated now, and my word, how it did hurt to hear him like that.
"You must try and understand, sir - you cannot go on like this. We cannot go on like this."
In answer, he suddenly swayed and sagged against me. Thankfully I already had a grip on him, or he would have fallen to the floor, but he was bent double over my arm before I could even think.
"Oh, Jeeves, everything's spin...spinning," he panted.
I got him to the chesterfield and made him sit down and bend over so that his head was between his legs. "How do you feel, sir?"
"Like all of my insides have been washed out and replaced with ice water."
"Sir, I'm going to ring the doctor."
"No, I don't want - "
"Sir, there will be no arguing about this. I am going to ring the doctor whether you like it or not." I do not know whether it was due to his own weakness, or the strain and slight edge of panic evident in my voice, but he ceased his protestations.
The nurse I spoke to on the phone assured me the doctor would arrive as soon as he could. Her tone suggested it was something she said to every patient, but I hoped for the best. I then assisted Mr. Wooster to his bed. He voiced his complaints, but I believe his condition was worrying even him because they sounded like something made purely for form's sake. As I was helping him remove the clothes I had just put him into such a short time ago (I believe it was a sign of the severe state of distraction we were both in that Mr. Wooster was still wearing his outer jacket), he had another dizzy spell and bumped his knee against his night table, knocking over his lamp and a couple of books.
He groaned. "I swear, with all of this swooning, I'm beginning to feel like some bally Victorian beazel in one of Rosie's novels." If he hadn't sounded so genuinely distressed, I might have smiled at how normal his comment was.
"I do not think you are quite that bad, sir," I tried to say lightly, but the falling objects had been an eerie reminder to me of when he had collapsed at Brinkley that fateful day.
He did not answer, but laid down and immediately closed his eyes, letting out one long sigh. He was asleep within seconds.
After watching him some time to make sure he was truly resting peacefully, I bent to pick up the lamp and the books off of the floor. As I did so, a packet of folded over papers fell out of one of the volumes.
Now, I have made several confessions in this narrative, not the least of which is eavesdropping. But I will declare here that I do not make it a habit to read my master's personal documents. However, they spilled on the floor in such a way that I was able to catch my own name on the top of the first page.
I looked at my master. His eyes were still closed and his breathing was even. And the papers had fallen on the other side of the night table, out of his sight. I hesitated a moment more, but then I plucked the sheets off of the floor and swiftly secreted them in my morning coat, all the while feeling like a furtive cad, but nearly as guilty as I should have.
Deciding that my quarters would be the safest place to examine the documents, I went there and only withdrew the packet after locking the door behind me. I listened for a moment in case my master needed me, then I sat on my bed, unfolded the papers and smoothed them out on my knee.
It was one of his lists. He makes them often when he cannot decide on something.
This one appeared to be about me. (I have re-created it here, from a copy I made in order to always remind myself of the lesson I was so slow to learn.)
-x-
JEEVES
Debit - He got rid of my mess jacket after specifically promising not to. So not only does he think nothing of destroying my things, he breaks his promises too.
Credit - He thought it would make me look foolish. He's probably right. Maybe if I could tell these things better, I wouldn't look like such a fathead all of the time.
Debit - He told the substitute valet (and Pauline Stoker!) that I was mentally negligible.
Credit - Aren't I? I can't hand the fellow the mitten just for stating a fact. And what would I do without him? I'd be exactly the Attila Aunt D calls me, strewing ruin and desolation about the countryside. What kind of havoc would I cause without Jeeves there to clean up after me? It must tire the poor cove out immeasurably.
Debit - He told Bingo's uncle I was a loony.
Credit - It did solve Bingo's problem, no matter how it made me feel.
Debit - He helped Gussie without even asking me.
Credit - Why should that bother me?
Debit - I'm the one he works for. Is it so wrong to think he should work harder for me than for some chump I haven't seen in years, who doesn't even have the decency to wait until I'm home before wrangling my valet to pull him out of the soup?
Credit - Jeeves was probably just doing it because he thought I would want him to. And what if Jeeves feels he HAS to help because its part of his job? What if he felt forced into it?
Debit - That's nonsense. He has no trouble saying no to me when there's something he doesn't want to do.
Credit - No matter what, you cant fault a cove for trying to help someone in need.
Debit - Why does he do his job so well? I thought it was because he liked serving me, but maybe its just professional pride on his part. Maybe he doesn't like being here at all, but is just a perfectionist. Or maybe its something else. Maybe he likes being so much smarter than me and being able to control me so easily.
Credit - Does any of it matter? He serves me because I pay him and that's all that I should expect. Maybe my assuming we were friends was presumptuous and unfair. In any case, it would be pretty one-sided. Its hardly like he can say he hates me.
Debit - Everyone will laugh at me if I keep him, now that they know the full story. They must know; Aunt Agatha could have only heard from Aunt Dahlia, but how did she find out? Did he tell her? Was he bragging about it? They'll think I'm as spineless as a jelly if I don't sack a man who could humiliate me that way and they'd be right.
Credit - He's all I have to offer. When I told Gussie I was in his corner, he said, "Thanks, old man. And Jeeves, of course, which is the thing that really matters." So I should be grateful; they only want a clown with me, but they stop laughing when they want something, at least for a little bit.
Debit - He'll just go off again someday. He's not loyal. I'll want to play the trumpet, or I'll buy a really horrific tie, and he'll be off.
Credit - It's your fault for growing dependent on him in the first place. It's good to remember that people always leave.
Debit - He made me realize I haven't got anyone I can trust.
Credit - He opened your eyes. And who has he got to trust?
Debit - He could trust me.
Credit - To do what? Get him and everyone else deeper into the soup and start it boiling?
Debit - He made me feel invisible. No one was thinking of ME at all.
Credit - Maybe I've been making him feel invisible? Is that what its like to be a servant?
Debit - He made me feel so alone.
Credit - I am, so maybe I should keep him so I remember that fact.
Debit - He purposely turned the others against me and made them hate me, even if only for a little while.
Credit - He did it to serve what he thought were my wishes.
Debit - Did he? Maybe he just likes making his plans and playing his game with all of us.
Credit - You don't know that.
Debit - He had everyone laughing at me. Just when I most wanted them to respect me - which he knew - he made me the focus of all their scorn and derision.
Credit - They hardly needed his help. And hes done you a favour by showing you what they really think.
Debit - He tricked me, humiliated me, betrayed me, went out of his way to frighten me with that awful story about Mr. Nixon, all to laugh at me and get his own back about the mess jacket.
Credit - Are my hurt feelings really worth taking his livelihood away?
Debit - How can I trust him? I'm just an egg to him.
Credit -
-x-
The reference to an egg confused me, but it hurt even more to see that there was nothing in the Credit column. Did that mean he was going to dismiss me?
But I was quickly distracted from that thought by something written shakily at the bottom of the page, far below the rest of the list:
-x-
Debit - He made me feel worthless.
Credit - Do I deserve any better? Look what I did to the Davies family. They're right - Aunt Agatha, Aunt Dahlia, all of them. I am worthless. I could've killed that little boy and his family.
-x-
He breaks his promises.
He told the substitute valet I was mentally negligible.
He's all I have to offer.
It's good to remember that people always leave.
He had everyone laughing at me.
He made me feel so alone.
He made me feel worthless.
How can I trust him?
My God! Is this what he had been going through all of this time? I read the end of the list again and noticed something: They're right. I could've killed that little boy and his family. And not less, but worthless. I am worthless.
That was what had been torturing him the night before.
For the first time in my adult life, tears pricked at my eyes. I crumpled the list in my clenched fist and covered my mouth with my other hand to stop a gasp. I had already felt remorse, but this this made me see what I was.
Is this what I did to people? Destroy their sense of self-worth? Take away all of their illusions of happiness and security? Manipulate them into this kind of despair and hopelessness and then keep my position because I left them feeling they did not deserve any better?
I could've killed that little boy and his family.
This sickened me most of all, that this... this...was what I had brought my master to. I knew his kind heart would have made him feel bad for the accident when it happened - that was unavoidable no matter how much I might have tried to convince him the incident was not his fault - but to think that he had been tormenting himself all these weeks with so much guilt believing that he had nearly killed a child...
I swore then and there that I would make it better. Somehow I would make him understand that it was not his fault at all, that it was mine. Somehow I would make him see how truly deserving he was.
The doorbell rang and I wiped my eyes before going to let in the doctor.
Author's note: Sorry if the Debit/Credit list seems a little confusing. I had originally had spaces between each new argument, but keeps screwing up the format every time I try to save.