The Literary Lord Peter

 

CHAPTER III

 

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.

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 to-night, 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 hearth-stone 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 to-morrow, 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."

 

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's insubordination, from which I refuse to be diverted by Mrs. 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 so—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 of 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 we 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 tenait 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 quandmême 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 sponge-bag. 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 blackbeetles 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 armchairs. 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.

 

"Dear Mother,—I write from an 'unknown destination——'"

 

 

 

"What was that you called me?"

 

"Oh, Peter—how absurd! I wasn't thinking."

 

"What did you call me?"

 

"My lord!"

 

"The last two words in the language I ever expected to get a kick out of. One never values a thing till one's earned it, does one? Listen, heart's lady—before I've done I mean to be king and emperor."

 

 

 

It is no part of the historian's duty to indulge in what a critic has called "interesting revelations of the marriage-bed." It is enough that the dutiful Mervyn Bunter at length set aside his writing materials, blew out the candle and composed his limbs to rest; and that, of the sleepers beneath that ancient roof, he that had the hardest and coldest couch enjoyed the quietest slumbers.