“Sir?” he asked, his expression the same as it always is.

“Jeeves,” I gargled, “did I espy a large mass of feathers just now?”

“Sir?” he repeated.

“Feathers—you know, fluffy things—birds have them. Would look quite naked without them.”

Jeeves’s expression did not change save for his right eyebrow moving upward an eighth of an inch. “Sir, if there was any quantity of feathers in the kitchen I believe I would be aware of it. Are you quite well?”

“Dash it! I’m seeing things, Jeeves. I shall lie down. Bring me a wet flannel to put over my eyes and whiskey, which I will not put over my eyes.” I tottered into the sitting room and draped myself over the sofa.

As it did not occur again, I put the incident out of my mind. Fortunately I have a well-developed capacity for putting incidents out of my mind, which might anger some of the more persnickety sort but which enables me to sail along in life with nary a care. Until I took a cottage one summer in the village of Cobwobbleigh.

The metrop was unbearably hot. Not only that, both of my aunts invited me to their country seats, each of which contained a beazel with matrimony on her to-do list. So it was a small rustic cottage for Bertram, far away from all and sundry. As Jeeves had arranged it, there was a river which, he assured me, had an ample stock of fish.

“Fish all you desire, Jeeves,” I said with an airy wave of the hand. “As long at your duties are done with your usual swiftness, you have my permission to spend your spare time in wading boots.”

Jeeves bowed his noble head. “Thank you, sir.”

After that I didn’t seem much of the fellow except when he brought me my meals. After a day or so, I felt rather bereft. Without Jeeves flitting about, the cottage seemed cold inhospitable. The garden was a source of loneliness rather than pleasure.  I missed the man terribly, which seemed rather foolish given that he was cooking and cleaning. But he was gone for much of the day. Fishing, dash it!

When the charm palled of reading day-old newspapers and a mystery novel that I had forgotten I had already read, I took strolls in the countryside, wishing I was back in London, in my cozy flat, with Jeeves.

One afternoon I felt a desperate urge to speak to another human being. However the cottage was miles from Cobbwobbleigh proper. I ankled down to the river to ask Jeeves to take a drive with me and find a pub.

You’ll have to take it on faith that the ensuing events are not a load of argy-bargy, fantastic though they are.

Jeeves was fishing, standing on the riverbank with a small, contented smile on his map. But that was what not what gave this Wooster pause.

It was the wings.

The same mass of white feathers I had first espied in the Wooster household. Graceful, enormous white wings, sticking out of Jeeves’s back! I ducked behind a nearby tree, trying to keep my eyes from falling out of my head and rolling on the ground.

Jeeves’s wings would have been impressive even if stuck on the back of a hippopotamus. However, Jeeves was not a hippopotamus. No wonder his back and shoulders were so broad, having to manage something so unwieldy. At one point he rolled his head around, loosening his neck. At the same time, his wings expanded to their full wingspan. At least eight feet!

“I say!” I exclaimed.

Startled, Jeeves turned. Instantly the wings vanished. Under other circumstances I would have said young Bertram was hallucinating, perhaps because of a spot of bad fish at lunch. But no, I was feeling dandy and in any event I’d been staring for a full ten minutes.

“Do you need something, sir?” he said. Jeeves’s tone was not quite as serene at it usually is. In fact, one detected a slight tremor. He lay down his fishing pole.

“Jeeves, you have wings, my good man.” To emphasize my point, I folded my arms.

“I do not know what you mean, sir.”

“Tish and tosh, Jeeves! I have been hiding behind the tree you see there for not a little time, observing you. Do not try to argue, Jeeves. I know what I saw. And what I saw was a honking great pair of white wings.”  He started to speak, but I held up a hand. “Jeeves, you cannot change my mind. You have wings.”

The chap looked thoughtful, then looked at me. “There is no point in lying to you, sir.” And with that, the wings reappeared! I suppressed a gasp. They were enormous and white, the feathers slightly iridescent in the sun.

I maintained my sang froid, the only sign of perturbation being that my voice shot up an octave. “The question arises then: why do you have wings, Jeeves?”

Jeeves reddened slightly but looked me straight in the eye. “Because I am an angel, sir.”

“Don’t joke. I mean to say, you move in mysterious ways your wonders to perform, but you’re not a bally angel.”

“Indeed I am, sir.” The breeze ruffled his feathers a bit.

Well!

“Well!” I exclaimed. “Well!” I exclaimed again. “Well!” I exclaimed a third time, at a loss for any other words at all. Jeeves, he of the sedate expression and unflappable temperament—well, not unflappable, he had a large pair of flaps-flaps—an angel? This was too unbelievable. Besides, what would an angel want with Bertie Wooster? Shouldn’t Jeeves have been a demon? Plunging me into the soup so often? Although, come to think of, that was rather small potatoes for a demon. Nothing you could brag to Beelzebub about. Jeeves’s voice cut through my increasingly muddled thoughts.

“Perhaps I should explain, sir.”

“Are you my guardian angel? Have you been watching over me my entire life?” I considered for a moment. “If you are, then why didn’t you smite Aunt Agatha?”

“I am not your guardian angel.” His face softened. “But I am your angel, Mr. Wooster. For centuries, I have watched mankind from a distance, as all angels do. I have loved mankind from a distance, as all angels do. But then I saw you, Mr. Wooster. I did not want to love you at a distance.”

“Good lord—I mean, good heavens---I mean, I say!” The mind reeled.  Jeeves, an angel. Was the chappie—could you call an angel a chappie—fallen?

“Are you fallen, Jeeves? Did it hurt? Where did you land?”

“I am not fallen, sir.” Again that small smile. “I was allowed by The Agency to be with you, provided I performed no miracles and walked on the earth as a man.”

I confess that once again, my eyes tried to leave their sockets. Jeeves was not only an angel, he was an angel who had gotten permission from (I assume) God to be with this Wooster?

“Jeeves, are you saying—are you saying that you love me, Jeeves?”

“Indeed, sir. I love you.”

“Hmmm.” I was a bit reluctant to follow his logic. “But aren’t angels beings of love?”

Jeeves’s eyebrows shot up. “Oh, no, sir! We are obedient, sometimes vengeful, sometimes beneficent.” His eyes moved back down. “I am not a particularly beneficent angel, Mr. Wooster. In fact, Michael the Archangel thought I tended to get above myself.” He shrugged, and those huge white wings moved with him. It was simply the most magnificent thing I’d ever seen in my life.

“No, I’m sure you are more beneficent than you give yourself credit for. Although at times I wonder if you don’t get a certain sort of sadistic glee from tossing me into the potage. Are you certain you’re not part demon?”

“Not the last time I checked, sir.”

I paused and stroked my upper lip with a finger. “Jeeves, here’s something I don’t understand—not that I understand any of this—how did you know how I felt before I did?” It came to me a second too late that I hadn’t known how I felt until this instant. Of course this Wooster was in love with this heavenly being. Even better, this heavenly being was in love with this Wooster! It made me feel most awfully bucked. “I say, Jeeves! Did you just make me fall in love with you?”

He smiled. “No, sir. I told you, I am not allowed to perform miracles. From observing humanity for so long I have come to know every emotional state known to man. I’ve known for some time that you love me. I was prepared to wait for as long as it took, sir, for you to realize. Your discovery of my natural appearance proved most fortuitous.”

I’m not ashamed to say a manly tear came to my eye. “Jeeves.” Then it seemed the logical thing to do under the circs. was to kiss him. I’ve kissed popsies and the occasional cove in my time, but not a cove who had decided to shut the Pearly Gates behind them to be with young Bertram! However, previous participants simply could not compare to kissing my very own bowler-hatted seraph. He made a deep, soft sigh as our mouths met. Every hair on the back of my neck stood on end.

Into the breach, Bertram! I don’t mind telling you that, like Rudolph Valentino, I threw my arms around his waist and pulled him to me, kissing Jeeves rather forcefully. I mean to say, what would you do in my place? Yes, you would! Fortunately my chiseled-featured cherub got into the spirit of the thing and we enjoyed quite a bit of osculation before we broke apart. Jeeves was breathless, as was I.

“Sir...” he said in amazement.

“Jeeves,” I replied in much the same way. Looking over his shoulder at his pinions, I had to ask. “If it’s not too much to ask, may I touch your wings?”

“I very much wish you would, sir,” he said softly, burying his head in the crook of my neck. I reached out my right hand and touched his left wing.

It wasn’t as warm as I expected, neither was it cold. My hand sank into the soft feathers, into the down underneath. Jeeves shivered, his wing jerking slightly. I moved my hand back to my face and smelled it.

How can I describe the aroma? It was a fresh cup of tea on a spring morning, a cat’s belly, a garden of wild flowers, brandy from a recently discovered ancient wine cellar. Take all of those and multiply by a thousand and you won’t come within hailing distance. Suffice to say that I again plunged my hand into Jeeves’s feathers, simply spreading out the fingers. It was bliss. He dropped his arm, and his wing came around and cupped us. I buried the dial in his feather and took a deep breath. I felt dizzy and tingly and very, very good. “Good lord, Jeeves,” I said into the feathers, feeling my warm breath going into them. I pulled my head out. “Is it alright if I say good lord? I don’t want to offend you.”

“You do not offend me in the least, sir.” He lifted his head and kissed my cheek.