Wimsey lifted his eyebrows at the plant.
‘It looks rather unwell already, Harriet. I think my constitution is the better of the two. Here goes. But you might kiss me to take the taste away. . . . Our hostess has a certain refinement (I think that’s the word) about her which I had not expected. She got your title right first shot, which is unusual. Her life has had some smatch of honour in it. Who was her father?’
‘I think he was a cowman.’
‘Then he married above his station. His wife, presumably, was a Miss Noakes.’
‘It comes back to me that she was a village schoolmistress over at some place near Broxford.’
‘That explains it . . . Miss Twitterton is coming down. At this point we rise up, buckle the belt of the old leather coat, grab the gent’s soft hat and make the motions of imminent departure.’
‘The keys,’ said Miss Twitterton, arriving breathless with a second candle. ‘The big one is the back door, but you’ll find that bolted. The little one is the front door – it’s a patent, burglar-proof lock – you may find it a little difficult if you don’t know the way it works. Perhaps, after all, I ought to come over and show you—’
‘Not a bit of it, Miss Twitterton. I know these locks quite well. Really. Thank you ever so much. Good night. And many apologies.’
‘I must apologise for Uncle. I really cannot understand his treating you in this cavalier way. I do hope you’ll find everything all right. Mrs Ruddle is not very intelligent.’
Harriet assured Miss Twitterton that Bunter would see to everything, and they succeeded at length in extricating themselves. Their return to Talboys was remarkable only for Peter’s observing that unforgettable was the epithet for Miss Twitterton’s parsnip wine and that if one was going to be sick on one’s wedding night one might just as well have done it between Southampton and Le Havre.
Bunter and Mrs Ruddle had by now been joined by the dilatory Bert (with his ‘trousis’ but without his gun); yet even thus supported, Mrs Ruddle had a chastened appearance. The door being opened, and Bunter having produced an electric torch, the party stepped into a wide stone passage strongly permeated by an odour of dry-rot and beer. On the right, a door led into a vast, low-ceilinged, stone-paved kitchen, its rafters black with time, its enormous, old-fashioned range clean and garnished under the engulfing chimney-breast. On the whitewashed hearth stood a small oil cooking-stove and before it an arm-chair whose seat sagged with age and use. The deal table held the remains of two boiled eggs, the heel of a stale loaf and a piece of cheese, together with a cup which had contained cocoa, and a half-burnt candle in a bedroom candlestick.
‘There!’ exclaimed Mrs Ruddle. ‘If Mr Noakes ’ad a-let me know, I’d a-cleaned all them things away. That’ll be ’is supper wot ’e ’ad afore ’e caught the ten o’clock. But me not knowing and ’avin’ no key, you see, I couldn’t. But it won’t take me a minnit, m’lady, now we are here. Mr Noakes took all ’is meals in ’ere, but you’ll find it comfortabler in the settin’-room, m’lady, if you’ll come this way – it’s a much brighter room, like, and furnished beautiful, as you’ll see, m’lord.’ Here Mrs Ruddle dropped something like a curtsy.
The sitting-room was, indeed, ‘brighter’ than the kitchen. Two ancient oak-settles, flanking the chimney-piece at right angles, and an old-fashioned Amer-ican eight day clock on the inner wall, were all that remained of the old farm-house furniture that Harriet remembered. The flame of the kitchen candle, which Mrs Ruddle had lit, danced flickeringly over a suite of Edwardian chairs with crimson upholstery, a top-heavy sideboard, a round mahogany table with wax fruit on it, a bamboo what-not with mirrors and little shelves sprouting from it in all directions, a row of aspidistras in pots in the window-ledge, with strange hanging plants above them in wire baskets, a large radio cabinet, over which hung an unnaturally distorted cactus in a brass Benares bowl, mirrors with roses painted on the glass, a chesterfield sofa upholstered in electric blue plush, two carpets of violently coloured and mutually intolerant patterns juxtaposed to hide the black oak floor-boards – a collection of objects, in fact, suggesting that Mr Noakes had furnished his house out of auction-sale bargains that he had not been able to re-sell, together with a few remnants of genuine old stuff and a little borrowing from the stock-in-trade of the wireless business. They were allowed every opportunity to inspect his collection of bric-à-brac, for Mrs Ruddle made the round of the room, candle in hand, to point out all its beauties.
‘Fine!’ said Peter, cutting short Mrs Ruddle’s panegyric on the radio cabinet (‘which you can hear it lovely right over at the cottage if the wind sets that way’). ‘Now, what we want at the moment, Mrs Ruddle, is fire and food. If you’ll get some more candles and let your Bert help Bunter to bring in the provisions out of the back of the car, then we can get the fires lit—’
‘Fires?’ said Mrs Ruddle in doubtful accents. ‘Well, there, sir – m’lord I should say – I ain’t sure as there’s a mite of coal in the place. Mr Noakes, ’e ain’t ’ad no fires this long time. Said these ’ere great chimbleys ate up too much of the ’eat. Oil-stoves, that’s wot Mr Noakes ’ad, for cookin’ an’ for settin’ over of an evenin’. I don’t reckollect w’en there was fires ’ere last – except that young couple we ’ad ’ere August four year, we’n we had sich a cold summer – and they couldn’t get the chimbley to go. Thought there must be a bird’s nest in it or somethink, but Mr Noakes said ’e wasn’t goin’ to spend good money ’aving they chimbleys cleared. Coal, now. There ain’t none in the oil-shed, that I do know – without there might be a bit in the wash-us – but it’ll have been there a long time,’ she concluded dubiously, as though its qualities might have been lost by keeping.
‘I might fetch up a bucket or so of coal from the cottage, Mum,’ suggested Bert.
‘So you might, Bert,’ agreed his mother. ‘My Bert’s got a wonderful ’ead. So you might. And a bit o’ kindlin’ with it. You can cut across the back way – and, ’ere, Bert – jest shet that cellar door as you goes by – sech a perishin’ draught as it do send up. And, Bert, I declare if I ain’t forgot the sugar – you’ll find a packet in the cupboard you could put in your pocket. There’ll be tea in the kitchen, but Mr Noakes never took no sugar, only the gran, and that ain’t right for ’er ladyship.’
By this time, the resourceful Bunter had ransacked the kitchen for candles, which he was putting in a couple of tall brass candlesticks (part of Mr Noakes’s more acceptable possessions) which stood on the sideboard; carefully scraping the guttered wax from the sockets with a penknife with the air of one to whom neatness and order came first, even in a crisis.
‘And if your ladyship will come this way,’ said Mrs Ruddle, darting to a door in the panelling, ‘I’ll show you the bedrooms. Beautiful rooms they is, but only the one of ’em in use, of course, except for summer visitors. Mind the stair, m’lady, but there – I’m forgettin’ you knows the ’ouse. I’ll jest pop the bed again the fire, w’en we get it lit, though damp it cannot be, ’avin’ been in use till last Wednesday, and the sheets is aired beautiful, though linen, which, if folks don’t suffer from the rheumatics, most ladies and gentlemen is partial to. I ’opes as you don’t mind them old fourposters, miss – mum – m’lady. Mr Noakes did want to sell them, but the gentleman as come down to look at them said as ’ow they wasn’t wot ’e called original owing to being mended on account of the worm and wouldn’t give Mr Noakes the price ’e put on ’em. Nastly old things I call ’em – w’en Ruddle and me was to be wedded I says to ’im, “Brass knobs,” I ses, “or nothink” – and, bein’ wishful to please, brass knobs it was, beautiful.’
‘How lovely,’ said Harriet, as they passed through a deserted bedroom, with the four-poster stripped naked and the rugs rolled together and emitting a powerful odour of mothballs.
‘That it is, m’lady,’ said Mrs Ruddle. ‘Not but what some o’ the visitors likes these old-fashioned things – quaint, they calls ’em – and the curtains you will find in good o
rder if wanted, Miss Twitterton and me doin’ of ’em up careful at the end of the summer, and I do assure you, m’lady, if you and your good gentleman – your good lord, m’lady – was awantin’ a bit of ’elp in the ’ouse you will find Bert an’ me allus ready to oblige, as I was a-sayin’ only jest now to Mr Bunter. Yes, m’lady, thank you. Now, this’ – Mrs Ruddle opened the farther door – ‘is Mr Noakes’s own room, as you may see, and all ready to okkerpy, barrin’ ’is odds-and-ends, which it won’t take me a minnit to put aside.’
‘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 bathroom,’ 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 suit-cases.’
‘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 suit-case 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 ponytrap, 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!’
3
JORDAN RIVER
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.
<
br /> 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
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 your 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’s always worked here and she knows where everything is, and she seems to be doing her best.’
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