Busman’s Honeymoon (7 page)

  ‘He seems to have left all his things behind him,’ said Harriet, looking at an old-fashioned nightshirt laid ready for use on the bed and at the shaving tackle and sponge on the washstand.

  ‘Oh, yes, m’lady. Kept a spare set of everythink over at Broxford, ’e did, so ’e ’adn’t to do nothing but step into the ’bus. More often at Broxford than not ’e was, lookin’ after the business. But I’ll ’ave everythink straight in no time only jest to change the sheets and run a duster over. Maybe you’d like me to bile yer a kittle of water on the Beetrice, m’lady—
and
’—Mrs Ruddle’s tone suggested that this consideration had often influenced the wavering decision of prospective summer visitors—‘
down
this ’ere little stair—mind yer ’ead, mum—everythink is modern, put in by Mr Noakes w’en ’e took to lettin’ for the summer.’

  ‘A bathroom?’ asked Harriet hopefully.

  ‘Well, no, m’lady, not a
bath
room,’ replied Mrs Ruddle, as though that were too much to expect, ‘but everythink else is quite modern as you’ll find—only requirin’ to be pumped up night and morning in the scullery.’

  ‘Oh, I see,’ said Harriet. ‘How nice.’ She peered from the lattice. ‘I wonder if they’ve brought in the suitcases.’

  ‘I’ll run and see this minnit,’ said Mrs Ruddle, gathering all Mr Noakes’s toilet apparatus dexterously into her apron as she passed the dressing-table and whisking his nightgear in after it, ‘and I’ll ’ave it all up before you can look round.’

  It was Bunter, however, who brought the luggage. He looked, Harriet thought, a little worn, and she smiled deprecatingly at him. ‘Thank you, Bunter. I’m afraid this is making a lot of work for you. Is his lordship—?’

  ‘His lordship is with the young man they call Bert, clearing out the woodshed to put the car away, my lady.’ He looked at her and his heart was melted. ‘He is singing songs in the French language, which I have observed to be a token of high spirits with his lordship. It has occurred to me, my lady, that if you and his lordship would kindly overlook any temporary deficiencies in the arrangements, the room adjacent to this might be suitably utilised as a dressing-room for his lordship’s use, so as to leave more accommodation here for your ladyship. Allow me.’

  He opened the wardrobe door, inspected Mr Noakes’s garments hanging within, shook his head over them, removed them from the hooks and carried them away over his arm. In five minutes, he had cleared the chest of drawers of all its contents and, in five minutes more, had re-lined all the drawers with sheets of the
Morning Post,
which he produced from his coat-pocket. From the other pocket he drew out two new candles, which he set in the two empty sticks that flanked the mirror. He took away Mr Noakes’s chunk of yellow soap, his towels and the ewer, and presently returned with fresh towels and water, a virgin tablet of soap wrapped in cellophane, a small kettle and a spirit-lamp, observing, as he applied a match to the spirit, that Mrs Ruddle had placed a ten-pint kettle on the oil-stove, which in his opinion, would take half an hour to boil, and would there be anything further at the moment, as he rather thought they were having a little difficulty with the sitting-room fire and he would like to get his lordship’s suitcase unpacked before going down to give an eye to it.

  Under the circumstances, Harriet made no attempt to change her dress. The room, though spacious and beautiful in its half-timbered style, was cold. She wondered whether all things considered, Peter would not have been happier in the Hotel Gigantic somewhere-or-other on the Continent. She hoped that, after his struggles with the woodshed, he would find a good, roaring fire to greet him and be able to eat his belated meal in comfort.

  Peter Wimsey rather hoped so, too. It took a long time to clear the woodshed, which contained not very much wood but an infinite quantity of things like dilapidated mangles and wheelbarrows, together with the remains of an old pony-trap, several disused grates, and a galvanised iron boiler with a hole in it. But he had his doubts about the weather, and was indisposed to allow Mrs Merdle (the ninth Daimler of that name) to stand out all night. When he thought of his lady’s expressed preference for haystacks, he sang songs in the French language; but from time to time he stopped singing and wondered whether, after all, she might not have been happier at the Hotel Gigantic somewhere-or-other on the Continent.

  The church clock down in the village was chiming the three-quarters before eleven when he finally coaxed Mrs Merdle into her new quarters and re-entered the house, brushing the cobwebs from his hands. As he passed the threshold a thick cloud of smoke caught him by the throat and choked him. Pressing on, nevertheless, he arrived at the door of the kitchen, where a first hasty glance convinced him that the house was on fire. Recoiling into the sitting-room, he found himself enveloped in a kind of London fog, through which he dimly descried dark forms struggling about the hearth like genies of the mist. He said ‘Hallo!’ and was instantly seized by a fit of coughing. Out of the thick rolls of smoke came a figure that he vaguely remembered promising to love and cherish at some earlier period in the day. Her eyes were streaming and her progress blind. He extended an arm, and they coughed convulsively together.

  ‘Oh, Peter!’ said Harriet. ‘I think all the chimneys are bewitched.’

  The windows in the sitting-room had been opened and the draught brought fresh smoke billowing out into the passage. With it came Bunter, staggering but still in possession of his faculties, and flung wide both the front door and the back. Harriet reeled out into the sweet cold air of the porch and sat down on a seat to recover herself. When she could see and breathe again, she made her way back to the sitting-room, only to meet Peter coming out of the kitchen in his shirt-sleeves.

  ‘It’s no go,’ said his lordship. ‘No can do. Those chimneys are blocked. I’ve been inside both of them and you can’t see a single star and there’s about fifteen bushels of soot in the kitchen chimney-ledges, because I felt it.’ (As indeed his right arm bore witness.) ‘I shouldn’t think they’d been swept for twenty years.’

  ‘They ain’t been swep’ in
my
memory,’ said Mrs Ruddle, ‘and I’ve lived in that cottage eleven year come next Christmas quarter-day.’

  ‘Then it’s time they were,’ said Peter, briskly. ‘Send for the sweep tomorrow, Bunter. Heat up some of the turtle soup on the oil-stove and give us the
foie gras
, the quails in aspic and a bottle of hock in the kitchen.’

  ‘Certainly, my lord.’

  ‘And I want a wash. Did I see a kettle in the kitchen?’

  ‘Yes, m’lord,’ quavered Mrs Ruddle. ‘Oh, yes—a beautiful kittle as ’ot as ’ot. And if I was jest to put the bed down before the Beetrice in the settin’-room and git the clean sheets on—’

  Peter fled with the kettle into the scullery, whither his bride pursued him. ‘Peter, I’m past apologising for my ideal home.’

  ‘Apologise if you dare—and embrace me at your peril. I am as black as Belloc’s scorpion. He is a most unpleasant brute to find in bed at night.’

  ‘Among the clean sheets. And, Peter—oh, Peter! the ballad was right. It
is
a goosefeather bed!’

  The feast with gluttonous delays

  Is eaten ...

  ... night is come; and yet we see

  Formalities retarding thee ...

  A bride, before a ‘Good-night’ could be said,

  Should vanish from her clothes into her bed,

  As souls from bodies steal, and are not spied.

  But now she’s laid; what though she be?

  Yet there are more delays, for where is he?

  He comes and passeth through sphere after sphere;

  First her sheets, then her arms, then anywhere.

  Let not this day, then, but this night be thine;

  Thy day was but the eve to this, O Valentine.

  JOHN DONNE:
An Epithalamion on the Marriage of Lady Elizabeth and Count Palatine.

  Peter, dispensing soup and
pâté
and quails from a curious harlequin assortment of Mr Noakes’s crockery, had said to Bunter: ‘We’ll do our own waiting. For God’s sake get yourself some grub and make Mrs Ruddle fix you up something to sleep on. My egotism has reached an acute stage tonight, but there’s no need for you to pander to it.’

  Bunter smiled gently and vanished, with the assurance that he should ‘do very well, my lord, thank you’.

  He returned, however, about the quail stage, to announce that the chimney in her ladyship’s room was clear, owing (he suggested) to the circumstance that nothing had been burned in it since the days of Queen Elizabeth. He had consequently succeeded in kindling upon the hearthstone a small fire of wood which, though restricted in size and scope by the absence of dogs, would, he trusted, somewhat mitigate the inclemency of the atmosphere.

  ‘Bunter,’ said Harriet, ‘you are marvellous.’

  ‘Bunter,’ said Wimsey, ‘you are becoming thoroughly demoralised. I told you to look after
yourself.
This is the first time you have ever refused to take my orders. I hope you will not make it a precedent.’

  ‘No, my lord. I have dismissed Mrs Ruddle, after enlisting her services for tomorrow, subject to her ladyship’s approval. Her manner is unpolished, but I have observed that her brass is not and that she has hitherto maintained the house in a state of commendable cleanliness. Unless you ladyship desires to make other arrangements—’

  ‘Let’s keep her on if we can,’ said Harriet, a little confused at being deferred to (since Bunter, after all, was likely to suffer most from Mrs Ruddle’s peculiarities). ‘She always worked here and she knows where everything is, and she seems to be doing her best.’

  She glanced doubtfully at Peter, who said:

  ‘The worst I know of her is that she doesn’t like my face, but that will hurt her more than it will me. I mean, you know, she’s the one that’s got to look at it. Let her carry on.... In the meantime, there is this matter of Bunter’ insubordination, from which I refuse to be diverted by Mr; Ruddle or any other red herring.’

  ‘My lord?’

  ‘If, Bunter, you do not immediately sit down here and have your supper, I will have you drummed out of the Regiment. My god!’ said Peter, putting a formidable wedge of
foie gras
on a cracked plate and handing it to his man, ‘do you realise what will happen to us if you die of neglect and starvation? There appear to be only two tumblers, so your punishment shall be to take your wine in a teacup and make a speech afterwards. There was a little supper below-stairs at my mother’s on Sunday night, I fancy. The speech you made then will serve the purpose, Bunter, with suitable modifications to fit it for our chaste ears.’

  ‘May I respectfully inquire,’ asked Bunter, drawing up an obedient chair, ‘how your lordship comes to know about that?’

  ‘You know my methods. Bunter. As a matter of fact, James blew—if I may call it—the gaff.’

  ‘Ah, James!’ said Bunter, in a tone that boded James no good. He brooded a little over his supper, but, when called upon, rose without overmuch hesitation, teacup in hand.

  ‘My orders are,’ said Mr Bunter, ‘to propose the health of the happy couple shortly to—the happy couple now before us. To obey orders in this family has been my privilege for the last twenty years—a privilege which has been an unqualified pleasure, except perhaps when connected with the photography of deceased persons in an imperfect state of preservation.’

  He paused, and seemed to expect something.

  ‘Did the kitchen-maid shriek at that point?’ asked Harriet ‘No, my lady—the housemaid; the kitchen-maid having been sent out for giggling when Miss Franklin was speaking.’

  ‘It’s a pity we let Mrs Ruddle go,’ said Peter. ‘In her absence we will deem the shriek to have been duly uttered. Proceed!’

  ‘Thank you, my lord.... I should, perhaps,’ resumed Mr Bunter, ‘apologise for alarming the ladies with so unpleasant an allusion, but that her ladyship’s pen has so adorned the subject as to render the body of a murdered millionaire as agreeable to the contemplative mind as is that of a ripe burgundy to the discriminating palate. (
Hear, hear!
) His lordship is well known as a connoisseur, both a fine body (
Keep it clean, Bunter!
)—in every sense of the word (
Laughter
)—and of a fine spirit (
Cheers
)—also in every sense of the word (
Renewed laughter and applause
). May I express the hope that the present union may happily exemplify that which we find in a first-class port—strength of body fortified by a first-class spirit and mellowing through many years to a noble maturity. My lord and my lady—your very good health!’ (
Prolonged applause, during which the orator drained his cup and sat down.
)

  ‘Upon my word,’ said Peter, ‘I have seldom heard an after-dinner speech more remarkable for brevity and—all things considered—propriety.’

  ‘You’ll have to reply to it, Peter.’

  ‘I am no orator as Bunter is, but I’ll try.... Am I mistaken, by the way, in imagining that that oil-stove is stinking to heaven?’

  ‘It’s smoking, at any rate,’ said Harriet, ‘like nothing on earth.’

  Bunter, whose back was towards it, got up in alarm.

  ‘I fear, my lord,’ he observed, after some minutes of silent struggle, ‘that some catastrophe has occurred to the burner.’

  ‘Let’s have a look,’ said Peter.

  The ensuing struggle was neither silent nor successful

  ‘Turn the blasted thing out and take it away,’ said Peter at length. He came back to the table, his appearance in no way improved by several long smears from the oily smuts which were now falling in every part of the room. ‘Under the present conditions, I can only say, Bunter, in reply to your good wishes for our welfare, that my wife and I thank you sincerely and shall hope that they may be fulfilled in every particular. For myself, I should like to add that any man is rich in friends who has a good wife and a good servant, and I hope I may be dead, as I shall certainly be damned, before I give either of you cause to leave me (as they say) for another. Bunter, your health—and may heaven send her ladyship and you fortitude to endure me, so long as all shall live. I may as well warn you that I for one am firmly resolved to live as long as I possibly can.’

  ‘To which,’ said Mr Bunter, ‘always excepting the fortitude as being unnecessary, I should wish—if the expression may be permitted—to observe. Amen.’

  Here everybody shook hands, and there was a pause, broken by Mr Bunter’s saying, with slightly self-conscious haste, that he thought he had better attend to the bedroom fire.

  ‘And in the meantime,’ said Peter, ‘we can have a final cigarette over the Beatrice in the sitting-room. I suppose, by the way, Beatrice is capable of heating us a little washing water?’

  ‘No doubt of it, my lord,’ said Mr Bunter, ‘always supposing that one could find a new wick for it. The present wick appears, I regret to say, inadequate.’

  ‘Oh!’ said Peter, a little blankly. And indeed, when they reached the sitting-room, Beatrice was seen to be at her last expiring blue glimmer.

  ‘You must see what you can do with the bedroom fire,’ was Harriet’s suggestion.

  ‘Very good, my lady.’

  ‘At any rate,’ said Peter, lighting the cigarettes, ‘the matches still seem to strike on the box; all the laws of Nature have not been suspended for our confusion. We will muffle ourselves in overcoats and proceed to keep each other warm in the accepted manner of benighted travellers in a snow-bound country. “If I were on Greenland’s coast,” and all that. Not that I see any prospect of a six-months’ night; I wish I did; it is already past midnight.’

  Bunter vanished upstairs, kettle in hand.

  ‘If,’ said her ladyship, a few minutes later, ‘you would remove that contraption from your eye, I could clean the bridge of your nose. Are you sorry we didn’t go to Paris or Mentone after all?’

  ‘No, definitely not. There is a solid reality about this. It’s convincing, somehow.’

  ‘It’s beginning to convince me, Peter. Such a series of domestic accidents could only happen to married people. There’s none of that artificial honeymoon glitter that prevents people from discovering each other’s real characters. You stand the test of tribulation remarkably well. It’s very encouraging.’

  ‘Thank you—but I really don’t know that there’s a great deal to complain of. I’ve got you, that’s the chief thing, and food and fire of sorts, and a roof over my head. What more could any man want?—Besides, I should hate to have missed Bunter’s speech and Mrs Ruddle’s conversation—and even Miss Twitterton’s parsnip wine adds a distinct flavour to life. I might, perhaps, have preferred rather more hot water and less oil about my person. Not that there is anything essentially effeminate about paraffin—but I disapprove on principle of perfumes for men.’

  ‘It’s a nice, clean smell.’ said his wife, soothingly, ‘much more original than all the powders of the merchant. And I expect Bunter will manage to get it off you.’

  ‘I hope so,’ said Peter. He remembered that it had once been said of ‘
ce blond cadet de famille ducale anglaise
’—said, too, by a lady who had every opportunity of judging—that ‘
il prenait son lit en Grand Monarque et s’y démenait en Grand Turc.
’ The Fates, it seemed, had determined to strip him of every vanity save one. Let them. He could fight this battle naked. He laughed suddenly.

  ‘
Enfin, du courage! Embrasse-moi, chérie. Je trouverai quand même le moyen de te faire plaisir. Hein? tu veux? dis donc!’

  ‘
Je veux bien.
’

  ‘Dearest!’

  ‘Oh, Peter!’

  ‘I’m sorry—did I hurt you?’

  ‘No. Yes. Kiss me again.’

  It was at some point during the next five minutes that Peter was heard to murmur, ‘Not faint Canaries but ambrosial’; and it is symptomatic of Harriet’s state of mind that at the time she vaguely connected the faint canaries with the shabby tigers—only tracing the quotation to its source some ten days later.

  Bunter came downstairs. In one hand he held a small and steaming jug, and in the other a case of razors and a spongebag. A bath-towel and a pair of pyjamas hung from his arm, together with a silk dressing-gown.

  ‘The fire in the bedroom is drawing satisfactorily. I have contrived to heat a small quantity of water for your ladyship’s use.’

  His master looked apprehensively.

  ‘But what to me, my love, but what to me?’

  Bunter made no verbal reply, but his glance in the direction of the kitchen was eloquent. Peter looked thoughtfully at his own finger-nails and shuddered.

  ‘Lady,’ said he, ‘get you to bed and leave me to my destiny.’

  The wood upon the hearth was flaring cheerfully, and the water, what there was of it, was boiling. The two brass candlesticks bore their flaming ministers bravely, one on either side of the mirror. The big four-poster, with its patchwork quilt of faded blues and scarlets and its chintz hangings dimmed by age and laundering, had, against the pale, plastered walls, a dignified air as though of exiled royalty. Harriet, warm and powdered and free at last from the smell of soot, paused with the hair-brush in her hand to wonder what was happening to Peter. She slipped across the chill dark of the dressing-room, opened the farther door, and listened. From somewhere far below came an ominous clank of iron, followed by a loud yelp and a burst of half-suffocated laughter.

  ‘Poor darling!’ said Harriet.…

  She put out the bedroom candles. The sheets, worn thin by age, were of fine linen, and somewhere in the room there was a scent of lavender.... Jordan river.... A branch broke and fell upon the hearth in a shower of sparks, and the tall shadows danced across the ceiling.

  The door-latch clicked, and her husband sidled apologetically through. His air of chastened triumph made her chuckle, though her blood was thumping erratically and something seemed to have happened to her breath. He dropped on his knees beside her.

  ‘Sweetheart,’ he said, his voice shaken between passion and laughter, ‘take your bridegroom. Quite clean and not the least paraffiny, but dreadfully damp and cold. Scrubbed like a puppy under the scullery pump!’

  Dear Peter!’(‘...
en Grand Monarque
...’)

  ‘I think,’ he went on, rapidly and almost indistinguishably, ‘I
think
Bunter was enjoying himself. I have set him to clean the black beetles out of the copper. What does it matter?  What does anything matter? We are here. Laugh, lover, laugh. This is the end of the journey and the beginning of all delight.’

  Mr Mervyn Bunter, having chased away the beetles, filled the copper and laid the fire ready for lighting, wrapped himself up in two great-coats and a rug and disposed himself comfortably in a couple of arm-chairs. But he did not sleep at once. Though not precisely anxious, he was filled with a kindly concern. He had (with what exertions!) brought his favourite up to the tape and must leave him now to make the running, but no respect for the proprieties could prevent his sympathetic imagination from following the cherished creature every step of the way. With a slight sigh he drew the candle towards him, took out a fountain-pen and a writing-pad, and began a letter to his mother. The performance of this filial duty might, he thought, serve to calm his mind.