The Literary Lord Peter

 

CHAPTER II

 

Denver Ducis: The Power and the Glory

 

 

"And the moral of that is," said the Duchess....

 

Lewis Carroll: Alice in Wonderland

 

 

The Great North Road again, mile upon mile, through Hatfield, Stevenage, Baldock, Biggleswade, north and east to the Hertfordshire border—the same road they had travelled four days earlier, with Bunter sitting behind and two-and-a-half dozen of port stowed under his feet in an eiderdown. Harriet found herself dozing. Once, Peter's touch on her arm roused her to hear him say, "That's the turn for Pagford...." Huntingdon, Chatteris, March—still north and east, with the wind blowing keener over the wide flats from the bitter northern sea, and the greyness that heralds the dawn lifting coldly into the sky ahead.

 

"Where are we now?"

 

"Coming into Downham Market. We've just passed through Denver—the original Denver. Duke's Denver is about fifteen miles further on."

 

The car swung through the little town and turned due east.

 

"What time is it?"

 

"Just upon six. I've only averaged thirty-five."

 

The fen lay behind them now, and the country was growing more wooded. As the sun rose, they slipped into a tiny village with a church from whose tower a clock struck the quarter.

 

"Denver Ducis," said Peter. He let the car dawdle down the narrow street. In the cottages, lighted windows showed where men and women were rising to go early to work. A man came out from a gate, stared at the car and touched his hat. Peter acknowledged the salute. Now they were out of the village, and running along beside a low wall, with high forest trees hanging over it.

 

"The Dower House is on the other side," said Peter. "It'll save time to go through the park." They swung into a tall gateway, with a lodge beside it. The growing light showed the stone beasts crouched upon the posts, holding each a shield of arms. At the noise of the horn, a man hurried out of the lodge in his shirt-sleeves and the gates swung back.

 

"'Morning, Jenkins," said Peter, and let the car stop. "Sorry to bring you out so early."

 

"No call to be sorry, my lord." The lodge-keeper turned to call over his shoulder. "Mother! here's his lordship!" He was an elderly man, and spoke with the familiarity of long service. "We were expecting you any time, and the sooner the better for us. Will this be her new ladyship?"

 

"Got it in one, Jenkins."

 

A woman appeared wrapping a shawl about her and curtsying. Harriet shook hands with the pair of them.

 

"This is no way to bring your bride home, my lord," said Jenkins, reprovingly. "We had the bells rung for you o'Tuesday, and we were meaning to give you a good welcome when you came."

 

"I know, I know," said Peter, "but I never could do anything right from a boy, could I? Talking of that, are the boys all well?"

 

"Doing first-rate, my lord, thank you. Bill's got his sergeant's stripes last week."

 

"Good luck to it," said Peter heartily. He let the clutch in, and they moved on up a wide avenue of beeches.

 

"I suppose it's a mile from your gate to the front door?"

 

"Just about."

 

"And do you keep deer in the park?"

 

"We do."

 

"And peacocks on the terrace?"

 

"I'm afraid so. All the story-book things."

 

At the far end of the avenue, the great house loomed grey against the sunlight—a long Palladian front, its windows still asleep, and behind it the chimneys and turrets of rambling wings and odd, fantastic sprouts of architectural fancy.

 

"It's not very old," said Peter, apologetically, as they turned away, leaving the house on their left. "Nothing before Queen Elizabeth. No donjon keep. No moat. The castle fell down a good many years ago, I'm thankful to say. But we've got specimens of all the bad periods since then and one or two of the good ones. And the Dower House is impeccable Inigo Jones."

 

 

Harriet, stumbling sleepily up the impeccable Inigo Jones staircase in the wake of a tall footman, was aware of a scurry of high heels on the landing and a cry of delight. The footman flattened himself swiftly against the wall as the Dowager Duchess shot past him in a rose pink dressing-gown, her white plaits flying and Ahasuerus clinging for dear life to her shoulder.

 

"My darlings, how lovely to see you!—Morton, go and get Franklin out of bed and send her to her ladyship immediately—You must be tired and famished—How dreadful about that poor young man!—Your hands are frozen, my dear—I do hope Peter hasn't been driving at a hundred miles an hour this horrid cold morning—Morton, you silly man, can't you see Ahasuerus is scratching me? Take him off at once—I've put you in the Tapestry Room, it's warmer—Dear me! I feel as though I hadn't seen either of you for a month—Morton, tell them to bring breakfast up here instantly—and what you want, Peter, is a hot bath."

 

"Baths," said Peter, "real baths are definitely a good idea." They walked along a wide landing, with aquatints along the wall, and two or three tables in Queen Anne Chinoiserie, with Famille Rose jars upon them. At the door of the Tapestry Room was Bunter—who must either have got up very early or never gone to bed, for he was dressed with an impeccability worthy of Inigo Jones. Franklin, also impeccable, but slightly flurried in her manner, arrived almost at the same moment. The grateful sound of running water broke refreshingly upon the ear. The Duchess kissed them both, announcing that they were to do exactly as they liked and that she wasn't going to bother them; and before the door shut they heard her energetically scolding Morton for not having gone to see the dentist and threatening him with gumboils, pyorrhœa, septic poisoning, indigestion and a complete set of false teeth if he persisted in behaving like a baby.

 

 

"This," said Peter, "is one of the presentable Wimseys—Lord Roger; he was a friend of Sidney's and wrote poetry and died young of a wasting fever, and all that kind of thing. That, as you see, is Queen Elizabeth; she slept here in the usual way and nearly bust the family bank. The portrait is said to be by Zucchero, but it's not. The contemporary duke, on the other hand, really is by Antonio Moro, and that's the best thing about it. He was one of the tedious Wimseys, and greed was his leading characteristic. This old harridan was his sister, Lady Stavesacre, who slapped Francis Bacon's face. She's no business to be here, but the Stavesacres are hard up, so we bought her in...."

 

The afternoon sun slanted in through the long windows of the gallery, picking out here a blue Garter ribbon, there a scarlet uniform, lighting up a pair of slender hands by Van Dyck, playing among the powdered curls of a Gainsborough, or throwing into sudden startling brilliance some harsh white face set in a sombre black periwig.

 

"That awful ill-tempered-looking brute is the—I forget which duke, but his name was Thomas and he died about 1775—his son made a sad, imprudent marriage with a hosier's widow—here she is, looking rather fed-up about it. And there's the prodigal son—rather a look of Jerry about him, don't you think?"

 

"Yes, it's very like him. Who's this one? He's got a queer, visionary sort of face, rather nice."

 

"That's their younger son, Mortimer; he was as mad as a hatter and founded a new religion with himself as its only follower. That's Dr. Gervase Wimsey, Dean of St. Paul's; he was a martyr under Queen Mary. This is his brother, Henry—he raised the standard for Queen Mary in Norfolk at her accession. Our family's always been very good at having a foot in both camps. That's my father, like Gerald, but much better looking.... That's a Sargent, which is about its only excuse for existence."

 

"How old were you then, Peter?"

 

"Twenty-one; full of illusions and trying hard to look sophisticated. Sargent saw through that, damn the fellow! Here is Gerald, with a horse, by Furse; and downstairs, in the horrible room he calls his study, you will find a picture of a horse, with Gerald, by Munnings. Here's my mother, by Laszlo—a first-class portrait of her, a good many years ago, of course. Not that anything but a very rapidly moving picture could really convey her quality."

 

"She fills me with delight. When I came down just before lunch I found her in the hall, putting iodine on Bunter's nose, where Ahasuerus had scratched him."

 

"That cat scratches everybody. I saw Bunter—he was very self-conscious about it. 'I am thankful to say, my lord, that the colour of the application is exceedingly transient.' My mother is rather wasted upon a small household. She was at her best with the staff at the Hall, who all went in mortal terror of her. There is a legend that she personally ironed our old butler's back for lumbago; but she says it wasn't a flat-iron but a mustard-plaster. Have you seen enough of this Chamber of Horrors?"

 

"I like looking at them, though they make me feel sympathetic to the hosier's widow. And I'd like to hear some more about their histories."

 

"You'll have to get hold of Mrs. Sweetapple. She's the housekeeper and knows them all by heart. I'd better show you the library, though it isn't what it ought to be. It's full of the most appalling rubbish and the good stuff isn't properly catalogued. Neither my father nor my grandfather did anything about it, and Gerald's hopeless. We've got an old bird muddling round there now—he's my third cousin, not the one who's potty and lives at Nice, his younger brother. He hasn't got a bean, so it quite suits him to toddle about down here; and he does his best, and really knows quite a lot of antiquarian stuff, only he has very short sight and no method, and never can keep to one subject at a time. This is the great ballroom—it's rather fine, really, if you don't object to pomp on principle. You get a good view from here over the terraces down to the water-garden, which would look much more impressive if the fountains were turned on. That silly-looking thing among the trees there is one of Sir William Chambers's pagodas, and you can just see the roof of the orangery.... Oh, look! there you are—you insisted on peacocks; don't say we didn't provide them for you."

 

"You're right, Peter—it is a story-book place."

 

They went down the great staircase and across a hall chilly with statuary and thence by way of a long cloister to another hall. A footman came up with them as they paused before a door ornamented with classical pilasters and a carved cornice.

 

"Here's the library," said Peter. "Yes, Bates, what is it?"

 

"Mr. Leggatt, my lord. He wanted to see His Grace urgently. I told him he was away, but that your lordship was here, and he asked, could you spare him a moment?"

 

"It's about that mortgage, I expect—but I can't do anything about it. He must see my brother."

 

"He seems very anxious to speak to your lordship."

 

"Oh—very well, I'll see him. Do you mind, Harriet?—I won't be long. Have a look round the library—you may find Cousin Matthew there, but he's quite harmless, only very shy and slightly deaf."

 

The library, with its tall bays and overhanging gallery, looked east and was already rather dark. Harriet found it restful. She wandered along pulling out here and there a calf-bound volume at random, sniffing the sweet, musty odour of ancient books, smiling at a carved panel over one of the fireplaces, on which the Wimsey mice had escaped from the coat of arms and played in and out of a heavily undercut swag of flowers and wheat-ears. A large table, littered deep in books and papers, she judged to belong to Cousin Matthew—a half-written sheet in an elderly man's rather tremulous writing appeared to be part of a family chronicle; propped open on a stand beside it was a fat manuscript book, containing a list of household expenses for the year 1587. She pored over it for a few moments, making out such items as "to i paire quysshons of redd sarsnet for my lady Joans chambere" and "to ii li tenterhooks, and iii li nayles for the same," and then continued to explore, till rounding the corner of the bookshelves into the end bay, she was quite startled to come upon an elderly gentleman, in a dressing-gown. He was standing by the window, with a book in his hand, and the family features were so clearly marked on him—especially the nose—that she could have no doubt of his identity.

 

"Oh!" said Harriet, "I didn't know anyone was here. Are you——" Cousin Matthew must have a surname, of course; the potty cousin at Nice was the next heir, she remembered, after Gerald's and Peter's lines, so they must be Wimseys—"are you Mr. Wimsey?" (Though, of course, he might quite well be Colonel Wimsey, or Sir Matthew Wimsey, or even Lord Somebody.) "I'm Peter's wife," she added, by way of explaining her presence.

 

The elderly gentleman smiled very pleasantly and bowed, with a slight wave of the hand as though to say, "Make yourself at home." He was slightly bald, and his grey hair was cropped very closely above his ears and over the temples. She judged him to be sixty-five or so. Having thus made her free of the place, he returned to his book, and Harriet, seeing that he seemed disinclined for conversation, and remembering that he was deaf and shy, decided not to worry him. Five minutes later, she glanced up from examining a number of miniatures displayed in a glass case, and saw that he had made his escape and was, in fact, gazing down at her from a little stair that ran up to the gallery. He bowed again and the flowered skirts of the dressing-gown went whisking up out of sight, just as somebody clicked on the lights at the inner end of the room.

 

"All in the dark, lady? I'm sorry to have been so long. Come and have tea. That bloke kept me talking. I can't stop Gerald if he wants to foreclose—as a matter of fact, I advised him to. The Mater's come over, by the way; and there's tea going in the Blue Room. She wants you to look at some china there. She's rather keen on china."

 

With the Duchess in the Blue Room was a slight, oldish man, rather stooping, dressed neatly in an old-fashioned knicker-bocker suit, and wearing spectacles and a thin grey beard like a goat's. As Harriet entered, he rose from his chair and came forward with extended hand, uttering a faint nervous bleat.

 

"Oh, hullo, Cousin Matthew!" cried Peter, heartily, clapping the old gentleman smartly on the shoulder. "Come and be introduced to my wife. This is my cousin, Mr. Matthew Wimsey, who keeps Gerald's books from falling to pieces with age and neglect. He's writing the history of the family from Charlemagne downwards, and has just about got to the Battle of Roncevaux."

 

"How do you do?" said Cousin Matthew. "I—I hope you had a pleasant journey. The wind's rather chilly to-day. Peter, my dear boy, how are you?"

 

"All the better for seeing you. Have you got a new chapter to show me?"

 

"Not a chapter" said Cousin Matthew. "No. A few more pages. I'm afraid I got rather led away upon a side-line of research. I think I have got upon the track of the elusive Simon—the twin, you know, who disappeared and was supposed to have turned pirate."

 

"Have you, by jove? Sound work. Are these muffins? Harriet, I hope you share my passion for muffins. I meant to find out before I married you, but the opportunity never arose."

 

Harriet accepted the muffin, and said, turning to Cousin Matthew:

 

"I made a silly mistake just now. I met somebody in the library and thought it must be you, and addressed him as Mr. Wimsey."

 

"Eh?" said Cousin Matthew. "What's that? Somebody in the library?"

 

"I thought everybody was away," said Peter.

 

"Perhaps Mr. Liddell came in to look up the County Histories" suggested the Duchess. "Why didn't he ask them to give him tea?"

 

"I think it was someone living in the house," said Harriet, "because he was in his dressing-gown. He's sixty-ish and a little bald on top, with the rest of his hair very short, and he's rather like you, Peter—side-face, anyhow."

 

"Oh, dear me," said the Duchess; "it must have been Old Gregory."

 

"Good lord! so it must," agreed Peter, with his mouth full of muffin. "Well, really now, I take that very kind of Old Gregory. He doesn't usually venture out so early in the day—not for a visitor, at any rate. It's a compliment to you, Harriet. Very decent of the old boy."

 

"Who is Old Gregory?"

 

"Let me see—he was some sort of cousin of the eighth—ninth—which duke was it, Cousin Matthew?—the William-and-Mary one, anyway. He didn't speak, I suppose?... No, he never does, but we always hope that one day he'll make up his mind to."

 

"I quite thought he was going to, last Monday evening," said Mr. Wimsey. "He was standing up against the shelves in the fourth bay, and I was positively obliged to disturb him to get at the Bredon Letters. I said, 'Pray excuse me, just for one moment,' and he smiled and nodded and seemed about to say something. But he thought better of it, and vanished. I was afraid I might have offended him, but he reappeared in a minute or two in the politest way, just in front of the fireplace, to show there was no ill feeling."

 

"You must waste quite a lot of time bowing and apologising to the family spooks," said Peter. "You should just walk slap through them as Gerald does. It's much simpler, and doesn't seem to do either party any harm."

 

"You needn't talk, Peter," said the Duchess. "I distinctly saw you raise your hat to Lady Susan one day on the terrace."

 

"Oh, come, Mother! That's pure invention. Why on earth should I be wearing a hat on the terrace?"

 

Had it been possible to imagine either Peter or his mother capable of discourtesy, Harriet would have suspected an elaborate leg-pull. She said tentatively:

 

"This sounds almost too story-book."

 

"Not really," said Peter, "because it's all so pointless. They never foretell deaths or find hidden treasures or reveal anything or alarm anybody. Why, even the servants don't mind them. Some people can't see them at all—Helen, for example."

 

"There!" said the Duchess. "I knew there was something I meant to tell you. Would you believe it?—Helen's insisted on making a new guests' bathroom in the west wing, right in the middle of where Uncle Roger always walks. So stupid and thoughtless. Because, however well one knows they're not solid, it is disconcerting for anyone like Mrs. Ambrose to see a captain of the guard step out of the towel-cupboard when she's in no state either to receive him or retreat into the passage. Besides, I can't think that all that damp heat is good for his vibrations, or whatever they call them—last time I saw him he looked quite foggy, poor thing!"

 

"Helen is sometimes a trifle tactless," said Mr. Wimsey. "The bathroom was certainly needed, but she could quite well have put it further along and given Uncle Roger the housemaid's pantry."

 

"That's what I told her," said the Duchess; and the conversation took another turn.

 

Well, no! thought Harriet, sipping her second cup of tea; the idea of being haunted by old Noakes was not likely to worry Peter much.

 

 

 

"...because, if I'm interfering, you know," said the Duchess, "I had much better be put in a lethal chamber at once, like poor Agag—not in the Bible, of course, but the one before Ahasuerus, he was a blue persian—and why everybody shouldn't be if they feel like it, I don't know, when they get old and sick and a nuisance to themselves—but I was afraid you might find it a little worrying the first time it happened, so I mentioned it...though being married may make a difference and it may not happen at all.... Yes, that's Rockingham—one of the good designs—most of it is too twopence-coloured, but this is one of Brameld's landscapes.... You wouldn't think anyone who talked so much could be so inaccessible, really, but I always tell myself it's that absurd pretence that one hasn't got any weaknesses—so silly, because we all have, only my husband never would hear of it.... Now isn't this bowl amusing?... You can see it's Derby by the glaze, but the painting was done by Lady Sarah Wimsey, who married into the Severn-and-Thameses—it's a group of her and her brother and their little dog, and you can recognise the funny little temple, it's the one down by the lake.... They used to sell the white china, you know, to amateur artists, and then it went back to be fired in the factory. It's sensitive work, isn't it? Wimseys are either very sensitive, or not sensitive at all, to things like painting and music."

 

She put her head on one side and looked up at Harriet over the rim of the bowl with bright brown eyes like a bird's.

 

"I thought it might be rather like that," said Harriet, going back to what the Duchess had really said. "I remember one time, when he'd just finished up a case, he came out to dinner and really seemed quite ill."

 

"He doesn't like responsibility, you know," said the Duchess, "and the War and one thing and another was bad for people that way.... There were eighteen months...not that I suppose he'll ever tell you about that, at least, if he does, then you'll know he's cured.... I don't mean he went out of his mind or anything, and he was always perfectly sweet about it, only he was so dreadfully afraid to go to sleep...and he couldn't give an order, not even to the servants, which made it really very miserable for him, poor lamb!... I suppose if you've been giving orders for nearly four years to people to go and get blown to pieces it gives you a—what does one call it nowadays?—an inhibition or an exhibition, or something, of nerves.... You needn't sit holding that tea-pot, my dear, I'm so sorry—give it to me, I'll put it back.... Though really I'm chattering away quite in the dark, because I don't know how he takes these things now, and I shouldn't think anybody did, except Bunter—and considering how much we owe Bunter, Ahasuerus should have known better than to scratch him like that. I do hope Bunter isn't being difficult or anything."

 

"He's a marvel—and quite amazingly tactful."

 

"Well, that's nice of the man," said the Duchess, frankly, "because sometimes these attached people are rather difficult...and seeing that if anybody can be said to have pulled Peter round again it was Bunter, one might have to make allowances."

 

Harriet asked to be told about Bunter.

 

"Well," said the Duchess, "he was a footman at Sir John Sanderton's before the War and he was in Peter's unit...sergeant or something eventually...but they were in some—what's that American word for a tight place?—jam, isn't it?—yes, some jam or other together, and took a fancy to one another...so Peter promised Bunter that, if they both came out of the War alive, Bunter should come to him.... Well, in January 1919, I think it was—yes, it was, because I remember it was a dreadfully cold day—Bunter turned up here, saying he'd wangled himself out...."

 

"Bunter never said that, Duchess!"

 

"No, dear, that's my vulgar way of putting it. He said he had succeeded in obtaining his demobilisation, and had come immediately to take up the situation Peter had promised him. Well, my dear, it happened to be one of Peter's very worst days, when he couldn't do anything but just sit and shiver.... I liked the look of the man, so I said, 'Well, you can try—but I don't suppose he'll be able to make up his mind one way or the other.' So I took Bunter in, and it was quite dark, because I suppose Peter hadn't had the strength of mind to switch the lights on ...so he had to ask who it was. Bunter said, 'Sergeant Bunter, my lord, come to enter your lordship's service as arranged'—and he turned on the lights and drew the curtains and took charge from that moment. I believe he managed so that for months Peter never had to give an order about so much as a soda-siphon.... He found that flat and took Peter up to Town and did everything.... I remember—I hope I'm not boring you with Bunter, my dear, but it really was rather touching—I'd come up to Town one morning early and looked in at the flat. Bunter was just taking in Peter's breakfast...he used to get up very late in those days, sleeping so badly... and Bunter came out with a plate in his hand and said, 'Oh, your Grace! His lordship has told me to take away these damned eggs and bring him a sausage.'... He was so much overcome that he put down the hot plate on the sitting-room table and took all the polish off.... From those sausages," concluded the Duchess, triumphantly, "I don't think Peter ever looked back!"

 

Harriet thanked her mother-in-law for these particulars. "If there is a crisis," she said, "when the Assizes come on, I'll take Bunter's advice. Anyway, I'm very grateful to you for warning me. I'll promise not to be wifely and solicitous—that would probably put the lid on."

 

 

 

"By the way," said Peter, the following morning, "I'm terribly sorry and all that, but could you possibly bear being hauled off to church?... I mean, it'll be kind of well-thought-of if we turn up in the family pew ...gives people something to talk about and all that sort of thing. Not, of course, if it makes you feel absolutely like Saint Thingummy on the gridiron—all hot and beginning to curl at the corners—only if it's a comparatively mild martyrdom, like the little-ease or the stocks."

 

"Of course I'll come to church."

 

It felt a little odd, all the same, to stand virtuously in the hall with Peter, waiting for a parent to come and shepherd one away to Morning Service. It took, for one thing, so many years off one's age. The Duchess came down putting on her gloves, just as one's mother had always done, and saying, "Don't forget, dear, there's a collection to-day," as she handed her prayer-book to her son to carry.

 

"And oh!" said the Duchess, "the vicar sent up a message that his asthma's rather bad and the curate away; so as Gerald isn't here he'd be very grateful if you'd read the Lessons."

 

Peter said amiably that he would, but hoped it wouldn't be anything about Jacob, whose personality irritated him.

 

"No, dear. It's a nice gloomy piece out of Jeremiah. You'll do it so much better than Mr. Jones, because I was always very careful about adenoids, making you breathe through the nose. We'll pick up Cousin Matthew on the way...."

 

The small church was packed. "Good house," said Peter, surveying the congregation from the porch. "The peppermint season has begun, I notice." He removed his hat and followed his female belongings up the aisle with preternatural decorum.

 

"...world without end, amen."

 

The congregation sat down with a creak and a shuffle, and disposed itself to listen with approval to his lordship's rendering of Jewish prophecy. Peter, handling the heavy red-silk markers, glanced round the building, collected the attention of the back pews, clasped the brass eagle firmly by either wing, opened his mouth, and then paused, to direct his eye-glass awfully upon a small boy sitting just beneath the lectern.

 

"Is that Willy Blodgett?"

 

Willy Blodgett became petrified.

 

"Now, don't you pinch your sister again. It's not cricket."

 

"There," said Willy Blodgett's mother in an audible whisper, "sit still! I declare I'm ashamed of you."

 

"Here beginneth the Fifth Chapter of the Book of the Prophet Jeremiah.

 

"Run ye to and fro through the streets of Jerusalem, and see now, and know, and seek in the broad places thereof, if ye can find a man, if there be any that executeth judgment..."

 

(Yes, indeed. Frank Crutchley in the local gaol—was he listening to execution and judgment? Or didn't you have to attend Divine Service until after you were tried and sentenced?)

 

"Wherefore a lion out of the forest shall slay them, and a wolf of the evenings shall spoil them, a leopard shall watch over their cities..."

 

(Peter seemed to be rather enjoying the zoo. Harriet noticed that the family pew had crouching cats in place of the ordinary poppy-heads, in compliment no doubt to the Wimsey crest. There was a chantry at the east end of the south aisle, with canopied tombs. Wimseys again, she supposed.)

 

"Hear now this, O foolish people, and without understanding; which have eyes and see not..."

 

(To think how they had looked on while that pot was wiped clean!... The reader, untroubled by this association of ideas, had passed happily on into the next verse—the exciting one, about waves tossing and roaring.)

 

"For among my people are found wicked men: they lay wait, as he that setteth snares; they set a trap, they catch men...."

 

(Harriet looked up. Had she fancied that slight check in the voice? Peter's eyes were steadily fixed on the page.)

 

"...and my people love to have it so: and what will ye do in the end thereof?

 

"Here endeth the First Lesson."

 

"Very well read," said Mr. Wimsey, leaning across Harriet, "excellent; I can always hear everything you say."

 

Peter said in Harriet's ear:

 

"You ought to hear old Gerald, when he gets in among the Hivites and the Perizzites and the Girgashites."

 

As the Te Deum started, Harriet again thought of Paggleham, and wondered whether Miss Twitterton had found courage to preside at the organ.