Busman’s Honeymoon (5 page)

  ‘Oh, dear!’ said Harriet. This, she felt, was her fault. Her idea in the first place. Her house. Her honeymoon. Her—and this was the incalculable factor in the thing—her husband. (A repressive word that, when you came to think of it, compounded of a grumble and a thump.) The man in possession. The man with rights, including the right not to be made a fool of by his belonging! The dashboard light was switched off, and she could not see his face; but she felt his body turn and his left arm move along the back of the seat as he leaned to call across her: ‘Try the back!’—and something in his assured tone reminded her that he had been brought up in the country and knew well enough that farm-houses were more readily assailable in the rear. ‘If you can’t find anybody there, make for the place where the dog is.’

  He tootled on the horn again, the dog responded with a volley of yelps, and the shadowy bulk that was Bunter moved round the side of the building.

  ‘That,’ continued Peter, with satisfaction, and throwing his hat into the back of he car,’ will keep him busy for quite a bit. We shall now give one another that attention which for the last thirty-six hours, has been squandered on trivialities....
Da mihi basia mille, deinde centum
.... Do you realise, woman, that I’ve done it? ... that I’ve got you? ... that you can’t get rid of me now, short of death or divorce? ...
et tot millia millies Quot sunt sidera caelo
.... Forget Bunter. I don’t care a rap whether he goes for the dog or the dog goes for him.’

  ‘Poor Bunter!’

  ‘Yes, poor devil! No wedding bells for Bunter.... Not fair, is it? All the kicks for him and all the kisses for me.... Stick to it, old son! Wake Duncan with thy knocking. But there’s no hurry for the next few minutes.’

  The fusillade of knocks had begun again, and the dog was growing hysterical.

  ‘Somebody must come some time,’ said Harriet, still with a sense of guilt that no embraces could stifle, ‘because, if not—’

  ‘If not ... Last night you slept in a goose-feather bed. and all that. But the goose-feather bed and the new-wedded lord are inseparable only in ballads. Would you rather wed with the feathers or bed with the goose—I mean the gander? Or would you make shift with the lord in the cold open field?’

  ‘He wouldn’t be stranded in a cold open field if I hadn’t been so idiotic about St George’s, Hanover Square.’

  ‘No—and if I hadn’t refused Helen’s ten villas on the Riviera! ... Hurray! Somebody’s throttled the hound—that’s a step in the right direction.... Cheer up! The night is yet young, and we may even find a goose-feather bed in the village pub—or in the last resort sleep under a haystack. I believe, if I’d had nothing but a haystack to offer you, you’d have married me years ago.’

  ‘I shouldn’t be surprised.’

  ‘Damnation! Think what I’ve missed.’

  ‘Me too. At this moment I could have been tramping at your heels with five babies and a black eye, and saying to a sympathetic bobby, “You leave ’im be—’e’s my man, ain’t ’e?—’E’ve a right to knock me abaht”.’

  ‘You seem,’ said her husband, reprovingly, ‘to regret the black eye more than the five babies.’

  ‘Naturally. You’ll never give me the black eye.’

  ‘Nothing so easily healed. I’m afraid. Harriet—I wonder what sort of shot I’m going to make at being decent to you.’

  ‘My dear Peter—’

  ‘Yes, I know. But I’ve never—now I come to think of it inflicted myself on anyone for very long together. Except Bunter, of course. Have you consulted Bunter? Do you think he would give me a good character?’

  ‘It sounds to me,’ said Harriet, ‘as though Bunter had picked up a girl friend.’

  The footsteps of two people were, in fact, approaching from behind the house. Somebody was expostulating with Bunter in high-pitched tones:

  ‘I’ll believe it w’en I sees it, and not before. Mr Noakes is at Broxford, I tell you, and has been ever since last Wednesday night as ever is, and he ain’t never said nothing to me nor nobody, not about sellin’ no ’ouse nor about no lords nor ladies neither.’

  The speaker, now emerging into the blaze of the headlights, was a hard-faced angular lady of uncertain age, dressed in a mackintosh, a knitted shawl, and a man’s cap secured rakishly to her head with knobbed and shiny hatpins. Neither the size of the car, the polish of its chromium plating nor the brilliance of its lamps appeared to impress her, for advancing with a snort to Harriet’s side she said, belligerently:

  ‘Now then, ’oo are you and wot d’you want, kicking up all this noise? Let’s ’ave a look at yer!’

  ‘By all means,’ said Peter. He switched on the dashboard light. His yellow hair and his eye-glass seemed to produce an unfortunate impression.

  ‘H’mph!’ said the lady. ‘Film-actors, by the look of yer. And’ (with a withering glance at Harriet’s furs) ‘no better than you should be, I’ll be bound.’

  ‘We are very sorry to have disturbed you,’ began Peter, ‘Mrs—er—’

  ‘Ruddle is my name,’ said the lady of the cap. ‘Mrs Ruddle, and a respectable married woman with a grown son of her own. He’s a-coming over from the cottage now with his gun, as soon as he’s put his trousis on, which he had just took ’em off to go to bed in good time, ’aving to be up early to ’is work. Now then! Mr Noakes is over at Broxford, same as I was sayin’ to this other chap of yours, and you can’t get nothing out of me, for it ain’t no business of mine, except that I obliges ’im in the cleaning way.’

  ‘Ruddle?’ said Harriet. ‘Didn’t he work at one time for Mr Vickey at Five Elms?’

  ‘Yes, ’e did,’ said Mrs Ruddle, quickly, ‘but that’s fifteen year agone. I lost Ruddle last Michaelmas five year, and a good ’usband ’e was, when he was himself, that is. ’Ow do you come to know Ruddle?’

  ‘I’m Dr Vane’s daughter, that used to live at Great Pagford. Don’t you remember him? I know your name, and I think I remember your face. But you didn’t live here then. The Batesons had the farm, and there was a woman called Sweeting at the cottage who kept pigs and had a niece who wasn’t quite right in the head.’

  ‘Lor’ now!’ cried Mrs Ruddle. ‘To think o’ that! Dr Vane’s daughter, is you, miss? Now I come to look at you, you ’
ave
got a look of ’er. But it’s gettin’ on for seventeen years since you and the doctor left Pagford. I did ’ear as ’e’d passed away, and sorry I was—’e was a wonderful clever doctor, was your dad, miss—I ’ad ’im for my Bert, and I’m sure it’s a mercy I did, ’im comin’ into the world wrong end up as you might say, which is a sad trial for a woman. And how are you, miss, after all this time? We
did
’ear as you’d been in trouble with the perlice, but as I said to Bert, you can’t believe the stuff they puts into them papers.’

  ‘It was quite true, Mrs Ruddle—but they’d got hold of the wrong person.’

  ‘Just like ’em!’ said Mrs Ruddle. ‘There’s that Joe Sellon! Tried to make out as my Bert ’ad been stealin’ Aggie Twitterton’s ’ens. “’Ens,” I said. “You’ll be making out next as ’e took that there pocket-book of Mr Noakes’s, wot ’e made all the fuss about. You look for your ’ens in George Withers’s back kitchen.” I says, and sure enough, there they was. “Call yourself a perliceman,” I ses. “I’d make a better perliceman than you any day, Joe Sellon.” That’s what I ses to ’im. I’d never believe nothing none of them perlicemen said, not if I was to be paid for it, so don’t you think it, miss. I’m sure I’m very pleased to see you miss, looking so well, but if you and the gentleman was wanting Mr Noakes—’

  ‘We did want him, but I expect you can help us. This is my husband and we’ve bought Talboys and we arranged with Mr Noakes to come here for our honeymoon.’

  ‘You don’t say!’ ejaculated Mrs Ruddle. ‘I’m sure I congratulate you, miss—mum, and sir.’ She wiped a bony hand on the mackintosh and extended it to bride and groom in turn. ‘’Oneymoon—well, there!—it won’t take me a minnit to put on clean sheets, which is all laying aired and ready at the cottage, so if you’ll let me ’ave the keys—’

  ‘But,’ said Peter, ‘that’s just the trouble. We haven’t got the keys. Mr Noakes said he’d make all the preparations and be here to let us in.’

  ‘Ho!’ said Mrs Ruddle. ‘Well, ’e never told me nothing about it. Off to Broxford ’e was, by the ten o’clock ’bus Wednesday night, and never said nothing to nobody, not to mention leave me my week’s money.’

  ‘But,’ said Harriet, ‘if you do his cleaning, haven’t you got a key to the house?’

  ‘No, I have
not,
’ replied Mrs Ruddle. ‘You don’t ketch ’
im
givin’ me no keys. Afraid I’ll pinch sommink, I suppose. Not that ’e leaves much as ’ud be worth pinchin’. But there you are, that’s ’im all over.
And
burglar-proof bolts on all the winders. Many’s the time I’ve said to Bert, supposin’ the ’ouse was to go on fire with ’im away an’ no keys nearer than Pagford.’

  ‘Pagford?’ said Peter. ‘I thought you said he was at Broxford.’

  ‘So ’e is—sleeps over the wireless business. But you’d ’ave a job ter get him, I reckon, ’im being’ a bit deaf and the bell ringin’ inter the shop. Your best way’ll be ter run over ter Pagford an’ git Aggie Twitterton.’

  ‘The lady who keeps hens?’

  ‘That’s ’er. You mind the little cottage down by the river, miss—mum, I should say—where old Blunt useter live?

  Well, that’s it, an’ she’s got a key to the ’ouse—comes over ter see ter things w’en ’e’s away, though, come ter think of it, I ain’t seen ’er this last week. Maybe she’s poorly, because, come ter think of it, if ’e knowed you was coming it’s Aggie Twitterton ’e’d a-told about it.’

  ‘I expect that’s it,’ said Harriet. ‘Perhaps she meant to let you know, and got ill and couldn’t see to it. We’ll go over. Thank you very much. Do you think she could let us have a loaf of bread and some butter?’

  ‘Bless you, miss—mum—I can do that. I got a nice loafer bread, ’ardly touched, and ’arf a pound er butter at ’ome this minnit. And,’ said Mrs Ruddle, not for an instant losing her grasp upon essentials, ‘the clean sheets, like I was sayin’. I’ll run and fetch them directly, and it won’t take no time to get straight w’en you and your good gentleman comes back with the keys. Excuse me, mum, wot might your married name be?’

  ‘Lady Peter Wimsey,’ said Harriet, feeling not at all sure that it was her name.

  ‘I never!’ said Mrs Ruddle. ‘That’s wot ’e said’—she jerked her head at Bunter—‘but I didn’t pay no ’eed to ’im. Begging your pardon, mum, but there’s some of these commercial fellers ’ud say anythink, wouldn’t they, sir?’

  ‘Oh, we all have to pay heed to Bunter,’ said Wimsey. ‘He’s the only really reliable person in the party. Now, Mrs Ruddle, we’ll run over to get the keys from Miss Twitterton and be back in twenty minutes. Bunter, you’d better stay here and give Mrs Ruddle a hand with the things. Is there room to turn?’

  ‘Very good, my lord. No, my lord. I fancy there is
not
room to turn. I will open the gate for your lordship. Allow me, my lord. Your lordship’s hat.’

  ‘Give it to me,’ said Harriet, Peter’s hands being occupied with the ignition switch and the self-starter.

  ‘Yes, my lady. Thank you, my lady.’

  ‘After which,’ said Peter, when they had reversed through the gate and were once again headed for Great Pagford, ‘Bunter will proceed to make it quite plain to Mrs Ruddle—in case she hasn’t grasped the idea—that Lord and Lady Peter Wimsey are my lord and lady. Poor old Bunter! Never have his feelings been so harrowed. Film-actors, by the look of you! No better than you should be! These commercial fellers will say anythink!’

  ‘Oh, Peter! I wish I could have married Bunter. I do love him so.’

  ‘Bride’s Wedding-Night Confession; Titled Clubman Slays Valet and Self. I’m glad you take to Bunter—I owe him a lot.... Do you know anything about this Twitterton woman we’re going to see?’

  ‘No—but I’ve an idea there was an elderly labourer of that name in Pagford Parva who used to beat his wife or something. They weren’t Dad’s patients. It’s funny, even if she’s ill, that she shouldn’t have sent Mrs Ruddle a message.’

  ‘Dashed funny. I’ve got my own ideas about Mr Noakes. Simcox—’

  ‘Simcox? Oh, the agent, yes?’

  ‘He was surprised to find the place going so cheap. It’s true it was only the house and a couple of fields—Noakes seems to have sold part of the property. I paid Noakes last Monday, and the cheque was cleared in London on Thursday, I shouldn’t wonder if another bit of clearing was done at the same time.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Friend Noakes. It doesn’t affect our purchase of the house—the title is all right and there’s no mortgage; I made sure of that. The fact that there was no mortgage cuts both ways. If he was in difficulties, you’d expect a mortgage; but if he was in great difficulties, he might have kept the property free for a quick sale. He kept a bicycle shop in your day. Was he ever in difficulties with that?’

  ‘I don’t know. I think he sold it and the man who bought it said he’d been cheated. Noakes was supposed to be pretty sharp over a bargain.’

  ‘Yes. He got Talboys dirt cheap, I fancy, from what Simcox said. Got some kind of squeeze on the old people and put the brokers in. I’ve an idea he was fond of buying and selling things as a speculation.’

  ‘He used to be spoken of as a warm man. Always up to something.’

  ‘All sorts of little enterprises, h’m? Picking things up cheap on the chance of patching ’em up for resale at a profit—that sort?’

  ‘Rather that sort.’

  ‘Um. Sometimes it works, sometimes not. There’s a London tenant of mine who started twenty years ago with a few second-hand oddments in a cellar. I’ve just built him a very handsome block of flats with sunshine balconies and vita-glass and things. He’ll do very well with them. But then he’s a Jew, and knows exactly what he’s doing. I shall get my money back and so will he. He’s got the knack of making money turn over. We’ll have him to dinner one day and he’ll tell you how he did it. He started in the War, with the double handicap of a slight deformity and a German name, but before he dies he’ll be a damn’ sight richer than I am.’