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The Code of the Woosters calls for a strapping young chappies to come to the defense of ladies. A chappie having the physical prowess to back up his noble intentions was more or less superficial, if that's the word I mean. Superfluous? The physicality of it doesn't matter much to anyone at all. It's not the physical gifts but the metaphysical thought that counts, what?
I was at an old school chum's ancestral home for a brief visit of less than a fortnight. Events were transpiring, or the prelude to them. No wedding, yet, but at least three were betrothed as of lunch time. After dining, things seemed likely to change. It was only my first day there, but many of the rest had been on the grounds or in the vicinity of such. I knew less than half of the characters, and formal introductions hadn't really been handed out.
A scuffle on the skirmish size of things had broken out in the garden. It was a gentleman who I didn't know particularly well and a lady to whom I had not been properly introduced. Both of them were a fair bit younger than yours truly, probably of age but just. He was accosting her, gripping her by the shoulders and shouting unrepeatable things at her. I couldn't make out the words to repeat them if I wanted. I'd seen and heard enough without having the particulars.
I moved to abide by the code, albeit without the muscle to really give the real tabasco. "You have to let go of her!" I cried, which was both terribly heroic and not terribly true. He apparently didn't have to do anything of the sort.
I grabbed his arm, which then put his fist in close proximity with my face. He closed the distance, just enough to get me away from him. His fist connected with my right eye. I knew for certain that I had been struck, but there had been no sound of crunching bone. I didn't feel like suddenly dropping to the ground in a faint.
I did drop nonetheless. He walloped me on the side of the head and got a few more strikes in to the back of my head when I was turned around. I was on the floor, you see, curled up in myself like the coward that I actually am. I'd rushed at him but he'd been primed for violence.
The girl screamed, or maybe that was me. Most likely both. She was safe, I thought to myself. I'm not just trying to seem more heroic. I was plenty heroic, just foolhardy and generally foolish. She was safe because I wasn't.
My vague understanding was that Jeeves then executed the maneuver that I'd been attempting. He grabbed the villain's arm and got his first and only strike in. The chap did decide to go to sleep. Jeeves let him drop to the ground, standing over him to be sure that he still lived and that he wouldn't get up again.
Watching Jeeves handle himself so competently brought a manly tear to my eye. I wiped it away, only to realize it was manly blood instead. "I say," I said to no one in particular. That was more masculine, but damned if I knew where it could have come from. The medical mystery.
Jeeves in particular did respond, producing a clean handkerchief to blot away the blood. He was remarkably untouched. He hadn't even taken time to roll up his sleeve. I focused on looking at him to be sure that the world was still spinning along.
My head wasn't spinning. I could see clearly out of both eyes, as some unsynchronized blinking confirmed. I wasn't tired in the slightest. He'd barely harmed me at all, but I was shaking nonetheless. Jeeves helped keep me steady, not exactly taking me in his arms so much as applying the perfect amount of pressure to one arm.
The lady was sobbing into her own handkerchief. She was led away by the bystanders who had watched the villain accost us both. That was the last I saw of her. This was the type of circumstance that can lead to sudden engagements for yours truly. The Code of the Woosters is solid.
Gloved fingertips probed across my swollen face. The fabric wasn't particularly scratchy. I thought of what Jeeves must have been searching my face for. There was blurry vision, no ringing in the ears. From how I felt, I was pretty sure that I'd suffered more on a rough patch of ice.
"The bleeding is coming from a small cut under the eye," Jeeves said, making no comment about my literal thin skin. "There will be swelling over the eye, under the eyebrow." He directed me to stare into his own eyes. "No obvious damage to the eye itself."
"Does the blood make my blue eyes bluer?" I said, batting my lashes. It was only partially a joke. My masculine charm hinged on my affable face.
"Indeed, sir," Jeeves said. His eyes were very intense as he stared at my face. I believed he could see every possible flaw in my flesh and bone, down to my very soul.
We were close enough to kiss, not that he would. Two chaps wouldn't kiss. A valet wouldn't kiss his employer. Jeeves wouldn't kiss a fool like me. Of all the involved parties, Jeeves was indeed the only one that I would want to kiss.
I hardly pulled the villain off the girl to inflame her desires; I knew Jeeves hadn't done the same for me to get that kind of reaction out of me. He had, nevertheless, but he makes me want to kiss him most days by handing me my morning cup of tea.
"The cut has already begun to heal," Jeeves said, pulling me back to the matter at his hand. "You were quite fortunate."
"He hit me," I said. There wasn't anything fortunate about that. I knew that Jeeves knew what had happened. He had played a role in it all, successfully ending the whole thing.
"I strongly believe that his aim was solely to dissuade you from intervening further," Jeeves said.
"Disservice he certainly did," I said. "As well as aim."
Our trip to the country was informally cut short. Jeeves enlisted the help of other servants to bundle me up and get me out of there, on the rather reasonable pretext of needing medical attention.
Before we managed to leave, it was generally established that I had tripped, as had the villain himself. No charges to be pressed, either by myself against himself or by himself against Jeeves. I hated to leave the girl there, but I hardly wanted to take her with me. She hadn't expressed any desire to go, either.
Comfort would not be found in any quarter. For the filly, of course, but not for the young master. Not being doted on was to be expected. Jeeves was only an employee after all. He cared like his life depended on it because his livelihood certainly did.
I kept a handkerchief pressed to my eye the whole way back to London. I didn't want to scare the public with my grotesque countenance. The light wasn't bothering my eyes, the untouched one or the other. I certainly wasn't crying.
Yours truly was going to be a bit of a social para-whatsit until the next scandal came along. The confusion of couples and uncoupled meant there was likely to be a new one before we were back in London. I wouldn't know for weeks, maybe longer if it was decided that I wasn't to be trusted with certain types of struggles.
Back at the flat, I laid across the chaise. The knowledge of having attempted to do the right thing would keep the empty bed warm and the aching head soothed. I kept my head tilted back. I didn't exactly know why that was important but I felt it deeply.
Jeeves felt deeply that I wasn't to sleep until I was properly seen to. Jeeves had experience with injuries in the war and after. Jeeves tended to me in what seemed to have been much worse circumstances, and he came to with those skills. Jeeves arranged for a doctor to come. Can't have been cheap, but my money is meant to keep me fighting fit. The chap was quite clever, Jeeves promised me. There was nothing broken so there was nothing to be done, the cut and the bruising, the goose egg to the side of my head and the tenderness at the back, would all only heal with time.
Jeeves saw the fellow out, making sure he was compensated for his time and discretion. When he came back to me on the chaise, there was a twitch to my man's eyebrow. "You should take more care with yourself, sir," Jeeves said.
"Golly. I suppose you're right," I said. "No one else wants to." My ongoing objection to matrimony was one way to ensure that no one would be obligated to. My affection
If Jeeves could look wounded, he did. He was frozen in place. It was a Greek tragedy in a valet's uniform. He looked like the hero I'd been trying to be.
"I know you do, old thing," I said hastily. "And I certainly appreciate it."
He was looking at me, but specifically trained on the bruise around my right eye. "You've had a long day, sir."
"Can I sleep?" I felt capable, but wasn't sure if it was wise.
"The doctor believes you're physically capable of it," Jeeves said.
"But is it wise?" I asked. I didn't want to go to bed and wake up dead.
"I believe so."
If Jeeves believed it, then I would too. The nightly ablutions started with those words, an invocation that end with the young master between clean sheets in clean heliotrope pajamas. My head in a couple obvious spots and the rest of me was dreadfully weary.
I dreamt of nothing at all. I'd been worried that I'd run through it again, the man yelling at the woman and everything that followed. Jeeves might not have knocked the man out as they say. Instead, I closed my eyes before opening them hours later.
The morning came too soon, even though it was the afternoon. Jeeves had let me sleep through the night. He had a restorative at the ready that started the Wooster brain going. After that, I felt more or less my old self. My young self, really.
I shaved on my own. My less-than-chiseled jaw and alabaster cheek didn't hurt. I spent rather longer than normal staring at my unwhiskered reflection. The bruising was solely around my right eye. There was a bit of a knot above my left temple, but as far as my face was concerned it was just the surrounding area of the eye.
Jeeves dressed me without showing any emotion: a daily occurrence. There isn't much emotion to be had in the face of the Wooster body.
"It will look worse as it gets better," Jeeves said flatly.
I spent the day at home. I spent about eight days like that, reading and playing piano, resting and recuperating. Jeeves could hardly find fault with healing. I kept haunting my own flat before I started to feel a bit lonesome.
I decided I need to go out amongst my friends. The blooming bruise didn't hurt as much, but it still looked bad as it was healing. The cut was nearly gone.
"It must be covered up," I said, staring at my twisting face in the mirror. I couldn't hold still. "I can't have the populace thinking I'm as easily damaged as all that."
"I have some theatric acquaintances," Jeeves said, after a slight pause. "I can borrow some products to mask your healing."
I mooched about the flat while he set out to procure supplies. It scarcely made sense for me to be fully dressed to not go anywhere or see anyone, but one must have standards.
Jeeves came back with a plethora of discreet parcels. He eyed the canvas of my bruised face carefully.
"What's wrong?"
Jeeves made up my face for me to go to the Drones club. My scandal wasn't exactly front page news, wouldn't even make it into a disreputable paper. He painted my face with his tiny brush, starting with the injured eye and then moving to the other.
I pulled back, leaving his brush in the air. "Is that one so bad?"
"They must match, sir," he chided me. He was looking at me as a problem, a project.
"How do I look?" I said.
"Quite dashing, sir," Jeeves said.
I considered how I could improve the look. "I could get a pair of spectacles to obscure the paint a bit."
The brush paused. "That wouldn't suffice on its own, sir. It may help. I must confess, I'm more accustomed to covering bruises to the neck than the face."
I frowned. "The neck?"
"Love bites, sir," he said nearly hushed tones. I blushed. You would have done the same if Jeeves had started talking to you about love bites. It's a perfectly reasonable reaction. "I believe it's succhiotto in Italian, sir."
"I can't imagine you've ever had to personally," I said. I was imagining it actually, getting nearly dizzy with the idea of Jeeves marking me like that.
"I've helped friends," Jeeves said. "A young person might miscalculate how high a beloved's uniform collar rises."
My blush had to be burning the paint off my face. "I say!"
"Indeed, sir." Jeeves pulled back. The making up was ended there.
Jeeves walked me to the club. It was the first time I'd left the flat since he'd picked me up off the ground and taken me home. It wasn't quite how it turned out in some of the novels that I'd read. Still, it apparently earned me an evening stroll with the fine chap.
"Don't wait up," I said sunnily.
I dined with the fellows at the club. No one said anything about my eye, except for one or two marveling that it wasn't worse. The paint was working, the evening lighting certainly helping on that front. They were able to catch me up on all of the talk that I'd missed over the last week.
I wasn't able to contribute much to my story. I really only knew what had happened to me. They were able to fill some of the details. The villain's name was Tom. The young lady's name was Daisy. They had possibly had some kind of understanding that had terminated before or during the altercation. Daisy was now engaged to some American chap named Jay and all was well in her world. Possibly he and she were already plotting their procession towards the altar and that was why Tom has been so upset. It was nothing to do with me, never had in the first place.
Talk quickly turned to we Drones ourselves. The annual golf tournament was coming up. Other people's love affairs are fine and dandy by me, but this particular one didn't need my attention. Collaborating with the chaps on practicing our golf swings was much more important to me.
I returned home to Jeeves at a somewhat reasonable hour, sloshed more or less to the gills. It wasn't home to Jeeves as if he was my husband or wife, it was home where Jeeves made it feel like home. Jeeves was my man but not my man, if you understand.
"Generally, people would only act so selflessly for someone that they loved."
"Nonsense, I don't even know the girl," I said, pointing out the first reason why I couldn't love her.
"You would seem to be too careless with your heart," Jeeves said. The man knows how easily I fall into infatuations and engagements both, so it was fair for him to doubt me.
"I promise, my heart is perfectly safe." It was boxed up to be given to the man who wouldn't want it. "I know now that young Daisy is now engaged, and not to that villain. Would an engagement gift be in order?"
"As you said, sir, you don't know the girl," Jeeves said.
"How does one remove this paint? Turpentine?"
"Not exactly, sir," Jeeves said. He cleaned my face with a warm flannel. I let myself melt into his touch as the makeup did the same.
"You weren't at all drawn to Miss Daisy, sir?"
"Not my type. He might've been, if he wasn't so brutal." I made a considering sound at that. A bit of brutality-- Jeeves landing one perfect punch-- did have a certain appeal.
"He, sir?"
"The villain Tom," I said. The alcohol in my brain seemed done with my tongue then so I fell silent.
Jeeves kissed my forehead, just above my right eyebrow. My jaw dropped. "I'm sorry, sir."
"Jeeves--" I didn't know how to say that this was just what I had wanted. I am generally a fellow who can find a good turn of phrase, but I need some time contemplating it. Acting hasn't always been the best option, as my poor eye was showing. I kissed him, quickly darting in for a quick mashing of our mouths together.
He stroked my right cheek, thumb moving carefully around my eye. "You can't act so rashly."
"He might've have hurt her," I said. Wars have been started for more, have been finished for less.
"He did hurt you," Jeeves said, as if that was enough for war in its own,
"I'm sorry," I said, not trusting myself to say more.
He frowned, just a fraction. "You're sorry for how it affected me, not you."
"What do I need to say for you to kiss me?"
"Just that," he said softly. The second attempt at a kiss went over much better. It didn't knock sense into me any more than that punch had. It didn't solve any problems. It just confirmed I'd turned my heart over to the right man. Revising my code to keep my man happy could only follow.