Peter pulled his brother out of that mess, and, to my relief, was human enough to get drunk on the strength of it. He now admits that his ‘hobby’ is his legitimate work for society, and has developed sufficient interest in public affairs to undertake small diplomatic jobs from time to time under the Foreign Office. Of late he has become a little more ready to show his feelings, and a little less terrified of having any to show.
His latest eccentricity has been to fall in love with that girl whom he cleared of the charge of poisoning her lover. She refused to marry him, as any woman of character would. Gratitude and a humiliating inferiority complex are no foundation for matrimony; the position was false from the start. Peter had the sense, this time, to take my advice. ‘My boy,’ said I, ‘what was wrong for you twenty years back is right now. It’s not the innocent young things that need gently handling – it’s the ones that have been frightened and hurt. Begin again from the beginning – but I warn you that you will need all the self-discipline you have ever learnt.’
Well, he has tried. I don’t think I have ever seen such patience. The girl has brains and character and honesty; but he has got to teach her how to take which is far more difficult than learning to give. I think they will find one another, if they can keep their passions from running ahead of their wills. He does realise, I know, that in this case there can be no consent but free consent.
Peter is forty-five now, it is really time he was settled. As you will see, I have been one of the important formative influences in his career, and, on the whole, I feel he does me credit. He is a Delagardie, with little of the Wimseys about him except (I must be fair) that underlying sense of social responsibility which prevents the English landed gentry from being a total loss, spiritually speaking. Detective or no detective, he is a scholar and a gentleman; it will amuse me to see what sort of shot he makes at being a husband and father. I am getting an old man, and have no son of my own (that I know of); I should be glad to see Peter happy. But as his mother says, ‘Peter has always had everything except the things he really wanted,’ and I suppose he is luckier than most.
PAUL AUSTIN DELGARDIE.
WIMSEY, Peter Death Bredon, D.S.O.; born 1890, 2nd son of Mortimer Gerald Bredon Wimsey, 15th Duke of Denver, and of Honoria Lucasta, daughter of Francis Delagardie of Bellingham Manor, Hants.
Educated: Eton College and Balliol College, Oxford (1st class honours, Sch. of Mod. Hist 1912); served with H.M. Forces 1914/18 (Major, Rifle Brigade). Author of: ‘Notes on the Collecting of Incunabula’, ‘The Murderer’s Vade-Mecum’, etc. Recreations: Criminology; bibliophily; music; cricket.
Clubs: Marlborough; Egotists’. Residences: 110A Piccadilly, W.; Bredon Hall, Duke’s Denver, Norfolk.
Arms: Sable, 3 mice courant, argent; crest, a domestic cat couched as to spring, proper; motto: As my Whimsy takes me.
The Unpleasantness at the Bellona Club Page 25