Title: The Last Toodle-pip

Summary: Bertie cannot hide who he is any longer. Warning for suicide and rape.

Rating: T

Disclaimer: Any familiar characters are Plum's.

Dear Jeeves,

My good fellow, I am so dashed sorry that you will have to read this. No doubt the young master's predicament (is that the word?) is now clear to you and I am already in Valhalla, swilling the cups with the Woosters of old and those Wagner coves in the horned helmets who you've always tried to teach me about.

I am truly sorry, Jeeves. The truth is, this holiday of mine's all been a swindle as you may have by now conceived – I left for the coast so that you would not have to find me. The sight of Bertram, empty and bloodied, would doubtless have had a downright rummy effect on that wonderful sike? psik? psychology of yours and I couldn't rest easy knowing I'd been the cause of that. Far better that it's just a cheery toddle-pip between us, then sorted in some quiet little nook in Brighton, what? Chin up, lad, and stiff upper lip.

But you know I couldn't leave you on this mortal coil without knowing what led to this startling turn in the y. m.'s plans, vis. going from wanting to live to wanting to stop living; so I left you this, which I know a clever cove like you will find when the time comes. The truth of the bally thing is Jeeves, I am just so sad. Without your constant oiling of life's wheels, I should have packed it in years ago because I can't stand to see that chap in the mirror who gloats and wastes before my eyes anymore, much less to acknowledge that that is what's become of the last of the Woosters. I disgust myself, old chap, and there is no-one I can confide in without fear of exposure and rejection. Not even you. My crimes are of the worst ilk, running deeper even, than the pinching of the constabulary headwear: my crimes are of the spirit.

Do you recall when I told you of those old days at my private school when I would be called upon in turn to take an educational walk with the chaplain and find myself without a word to lend to conversation? I'm afraid I was never straight about that. It began when I was eleven years old and this chaplain plunged his hand down my trousers. Suddenly everything seemed to go sort of numb, so that at first I was only aware of the sunshine on my face and the birdsong. Well, given my current status, suddenly lacking mother and father – suddenly alone in the world, one might say – I did nothing at all to stop him. You know as well as I do Jeeves that when you close your eyes, these things can feel far from unpleasant, no matter how un-p. the facts might be. What I'm trying to say is that I wanted to fight this old son-without-a-father, but I never did.

As time went by, my pastoral walks got more frequent and longer, and more and more bally horrific. Some trips were more sordid than others: sometimes blood was drawn, sometimes I was kissed and fed chocolate – I could never tell which it would be until we were far into the woods at the back of the school, and the not knowing kept me in wide-eyed awe and loyalty to him for two years. In days of adulthood, I've realised I was far from unique in my adventures with this chaplain, but starting Eton I felt that my path in life was already well and truly marked out for me.

Perhaps I should cease the scribing, what? I bet that fish-enlarged brain of yours can see where this psychology of my own has led me.

To hell.

At Eton I was my house's tart not a week after I arrived. Everything that happened ever since that bloody educational walk has been spiralling down around me seeming to fall further into the shadows – but I don't stop and think, you see, Jeeves? I have not half the courage needed to look back on what I did and savour my childhood depravities. The one thing there is to be said of the late Bertram is that despite actively seeking out sin, I never enjoyed it. Older boys admitted me to their beds with no q.s asked. Generally I would sit about in the evening, flattering them while they disrobed until we exchanged this certain smile that always lead to the same thing. About half way through, when we were both devoid of garments, the childhood Wooster would begin to panic. It's the rummiest thing, Jeeves – make of it what you will – but although I felt like I needed that same tender pash. bestowed on me by my old chaplain, when it was in fruition, the heart began to race and the tum to churn and the eyes to leak. Nevertheless, it came to be that these tender pashes were all I could think about, as though if I could relive that old summer's afternoon on the educational walk and the next time get something right where it had gone wrong before, I could leave the image of the old chaplain's face behind me and get on with my other boyhood fancies (being an explorer or a war hero – you know the sort thing, Jeeves).

So I spent the rest of Eton tossed hither and thither, from one bed to the next, looking out for this sort of... (is absolution the word, Jeeves?) but as it turned out, these young chaps could be just as rough, if not rougher than that bally man of God. The thing that was most dashed horrible is that once I had started, I could never stop: if I refused them, they would laugh and jeer and take me wherever I stood.

And so I turned eighteen, with this reputation stuck fast, and moved on up to Oxford. By this time I had realised that the educational walks would be with me forever, but like an Englishman I squared up to it and tried my damnedest to live in the present.

Oh Jeeves. I fear you will hate me reading what happened next. By a magnanimous cove stretching his imagination, you may have thought until now that Bertram remained fit for polite society. Now you will be unable to forgive me. This is what hurts the most. I can see that my time should be up before its due date and that I should have to go without ever hearing wedding bells or the pitter patter of little f., but I feel so bally bloody hurt that what I have done will cease your mourning for me forever.

I fell in love, you see. I shan't write his name, for discretion's sake, but one of the top boys in the country at the moment, with crimson hair and a mysterious smile that seemed to me to hold all the treasures of the Earth. I mustn't sicken you with the details of our love, but be assured, my dear chap, that I became practiced in romantic arts that no religion advocates. For two years we tried to stick it out together. It may shock you, but we were in fact, like any other couple in some respects. We enjoyed spending the day walking together and going to the theatre, or taking a drive for a picnic. Eventually though, it was Bertram's reliable idiocy that proved our demise – selfishly, I believed that we should make public the facts of our union; be proud and forward-thinking and such. He, who was much more well-stocked upstairs, gave this plan the knock-down it deserved. Of course he was right, but my idiotic pride took a deep gash and we both went our separate w.

After Oxford, I vowed, my head would never again be turned by a pretty cove with a mysterious smile. This routine took a lot of getting used to, but in time I found it wasn't awfully diff. provided that one never let one's mind wander over to anything too intimate, and my relations with the fairer sex were never intolerable: I grew to enjoy their company in small doses and to view the prospect of marriage to one as something that I'd have to get used to. I got engaged. To Florrie Cray.

So there was Bertram, twenty-four and looking forward to a new life on the other side of the leaf. Then you know the rest of the story, don't you? The tall, dark, handsome stranger of gypsy legend arrived on my doorstep and streamed into my life. At first I tried to welcome you, take you in hand (so to speak) so that we might live out a happy existence as master and servant. But you know the rest, what? Silky dark hair; calm, brilliant eyes, that elegant sinewy form that excites and at the same time, lulls, the Wooster heart like no other. In your presence, I can see nothing else of myself except this dashed perversion of mine: when I am with you, I forget that I am Bertie, the last of the Woosters. I forget that I am only an idiot and a boy beside you. I forget even that I must pay you for your company. All I can see is this sordid, God-forbidden love that pulses through my veins and can never be satisfied or exerc? exorcised. You are a man, and I am a man. An unnatural, sick, God-defying man, who does not deserve to live in a world that contains men like you.

I will not ask you to accept my love as my sign-off, but please Jeeves, have a long and happy strut and fret upon the stage, like the poet said.

Bertie