The Literary Lord Peter

 

(Chapter V Continued)

 

 

 

Miss Twitterton glanced at Crutchley, as though to check him if he showed signs of bursting into riotous song. She was relieved to see that he had dissociated himself from Mr. Puffett, and was mounting the steps to wind the clock.

 

"And Miss Twitterton, of course," said Mr. Goodacre, "presides at the organ."

 

Miss Twitterton smiled faintly and looked at her fingers.

 

"But," pursued the vicar, "we sadly need new bellows. The old ones are patched past mending, and since we put in that new set of reeds they have become quite inadequate. The Hallelujah Chorus exposed our weaknesses sadly. In fact, the wind gave out altogether."

 

"So embarrassing," said Miss Twitterton. "I didn't know what to do."

 

"Miss Twitterton must be saved embarrassment at all costs," said Peter, producing his note-case.

 

"Oh, dear!" said the vicar. "I didn't mean... Really, this is most generous. Too bad, your very first day in the parish. I—really—I am almost ashamed to—so very kind—so large a sum—perhaps you would like to look at the programme of the concert. Dear me!" His face lit up with a childlike pleasure. "Do you know, it is quite a long time since I handled a proper Bank of England note."

 

For the space of a moment, Harriet saw every person in that room struck into a kind of immobility by the magic of a piece of paper as it crackled between the vicar's fingers. Miss Twitterton awestruck and open-mouthed; Mr. Puffett suddenly pausing in mid-action, sponge in hand; Crutchley, on his way out of the room with the step-ladder over his shoulder, jerking his head round to view the miracle; Mr. Goodacre himself smiling with excitement and delight; Peter amused and a little self-conscious, like a kind uncle presenting a Teddy bear to the nursery; they might have posed as they stood for the jacket-picture of a thriller: Bank-Notes in the Parish.

 

Then Peter said meaninglessly, "Oh, not at all." He picked up the concert-programme which the vicar had let fall in clutching at the note; and all the arrested motion flowed on again like a film. Miss Twitterton gave a small ladylike cough, Crutchley went out, Mr. Puffett dropped the sponge into the watering-can, and the vicar, putting the ten-pound note carefully away in his pocket, inscribed the amount of the subscription in a little black note-book.

 

"It's going to be a grand concert," said Harriet, peering over her husband's shoulder. "When is it? Shall we be here?"

 

"October 27th," said Peter. "Of course we shall come to it. Rather."

 

"Of course," agreed Harriet; and smiled at the vicar.

 

Whatever fantastic pictures she had from time to time conjured up of married life with Peter, none of them had ever included attendance at village concerts. But of course they would go. She understood now why it was that with all his masquing attitudes, all his cosmopolitan self-adaptations, all his odd spiritual reticences and escapes, he yet carried about with him that permanent atmosphere of security. He belonged to an ordered society, and this was it. More than any of the friends in her own world, he spoke the familiar language of her childhood. In London, anybody, at any moment, might do or become anything. But in a village—no matter what village—they were all immutably themselves; parson, organist, sweep, duke's son and doctor's daughter, moving like chessmen upon their allotted squares. She was curiously excited. She thought, "I have married England." Her fingers tightened on his arm.

 

England, serenely unaware of his symbolic importance, acknowledged the squeeze with a pressure of the elbow. "Splendid!" he said, heartily. "Piano solo, Miss Twitterton—we mustn't miss that, on any account. Song by the Reverend Simon Goodacre, "Hybrias the Cretan"—strong, he-man stuff, padre. Folk-songs and Sea-Shanties by the Choir..."

 

(He took his wife's caress to indicate that she shared his appreciation of the programme. And, indeed, their minds were not far apart, for he was thinking: How these old boys run true to form! "Hybrias the Cretan"! When I was a kid, the curate used to sing it—"With my good sword I plough, I reap, I sow"—a gentle creature who wouldn't have harmed a fly ... Merton, I think, or was it Corpus?...with a baritone bigger than his whole body...he fell in love with our governess....)

 

"Shenandoah," "Rio Grande," "Down in Demerara." He glanced round the dust-sheeted room. "That's exactly how we feel. That's the song for us, Harriet." He lifted his voice:

 

"Here we sit like birds in the wilderness——"

 

All mad together, thought Harriet, joining in:

 

"Birds in the wilderness——"

 

Mr. Puffett could not bear it and exploded with a roar:

 

"BIRDS in the wilderness——"

 

The vicar opened his mouth:

 

"Here we sit like birds in the wilderness,

Down in Demerara!"

 

Even Miss Twitterton added her chirp to the last line.

 

"Now this old man, he took and died-a-lum,

Took and died-a-lum,

Took and died-a-lum,

This old man, he took and died-a-lum,

Down in Demerara!"

 

(It was just like that poem by someone or other: "Everyone suddenly burst out singing.")

 

"So here we sit like birds in the wilderness,

Birds in the wilderness,

Birds in the wilderness!

Here we sit like birds in the wilderness,

Down in Demerara!"

 

"Bravo!" said Peter.

 

"Yes," said Mr. Goodacre, "we rendered that with great spirit."

 

"Ah!" said Mr. Puffett. "Nothing like a good song to take your mind off your troubles. Is there, me lord?"

 

"Nothing!" said Peter. "Begone, dull care! Eructavit cor meum."

 

"Come, come," protested the vicar, "it's early days to talk about troubles, my dear young people."

 

"When a man's married," said Mr. Puffett, sententiously, "his troubles begin. Which they may take the form of a family. Or they may take the form of sut."

 

"Soot?" exclaimed the vicar, as though for the first time he was asking himself what Mr. Puffett was doing in the domestic chorus. "Why, yes, Tom—you do seem to be having a little trouble with Mr. Noakes's—I should say, Lord Peter's—chimney. What's the matter with it?"

 

"Something catastrophic, I gather," said the master of the house.

 

"Nothing like that," dissented Mr. Puffett, reprovingly. "Just sut. Corroded sut. Doo to neglect."

 

"I'm sure——" bleated Miss Twitterton.

 

"No call to blame present company," said Mr. Puffett. "I'm sorry for Miss Twitterton, and I'm sorry for his lordship. It's corroded that 'ard you can't get the rods through."

 

"That's bad, that's bad," ejaculated the vicar. He braced himself, as a vicar should, to deal with this emergency occurring in his parish. "A friend of mine had sad trouble with corroded soot. But I was able to assist him with an old-fashioned remedy. I wonder now—I wonder—is Mrs. Ruddle here? The invaluable Mrs. Ruddle?"

 

Harriet, receiving no guidance from Peter's politely impassive expression, went to summon Mrs. Ruddle, of whom the vicar instantly took charge.

 

"Ah, good morning, Martha. Now, I wonder if you could borrow your son's old shot-gun for us. The one he uses for scaring the birds."

 

"I could pop over and see, sir," said Mrs. Ruddle, dubiously.

 

"Let Crutchley go for you," suggested Peter. He turned abruptly as he spoke and began to fill his pipe. Harriet, studying his face, saw with apprehension that he was brimming over with an awful anticipatory glee. Whatever cataclysm impended, he would not put out a finger to stop it, he would let the heavens fall and tread the antic hay on the ruins.

 

"Well," conceded Mrs. Ruddle, "Frank's quicker on his feet nor what I am."

 

"Loaded, of course," cried the vicar after her, as she vanished through the door. "There's nothing," he explained to the world at large, "like one of these old duck-guns, discharged up the chimney, for clearing corroded soot. This friend of mine——"

 

"I don't 'old with that, sir," said Mr. Puffett, every bulge in his body expressing righteous resentment and a sturdy independence of judgment. "It's the power be'ind the rods as does it."

 

"I assure you, Tom," said Mr. Goodacre, "the shot-gun cleared my friend's chimney instantly. A most obstinate case."

 

"That may be, sir," replied Mr. Puffett, "but it ain't a remedy as I should care to apply." He stalked gloomily to the spot where he had piled his cast-off sweaters and picked up the top one. "If the rods don't do it, then it's ladders you want, not 'igh explosive."

 

"But, Mr. Goodacre," exclaimed Miss Twitterton anxiously, "are you sure it's quite safe? I'm always very nervous about guns in the house. All these accidents——"

 

The vicar reassured her. Harriet, perceiving that the owners of the house, at any rate, were to be relieved of all responsibility for their own chimneys, nevertheless thought it well to placate the sweep.

 

"Don't desert us, Mr. Puffett," she pleaded. "One can't hurt Mr. Goodacre's feelings. But if anything happens——"

 

"Have a heart, Puffett," said Peter.

 

Mr. Puffett's little twinkling eyes looked into Peter's, which were like twin grey lakes of limpid clarity and wholly deceptive depth.

 

"Well," said Mr. Puffett, slowly, "anything to oblige. But don't say I didn't warn you, m'lord. It's a thing I don't 'old with."

 

"It won't bring the chimney down, will it?" inquired Harriet.

 

"Oh, it won't bring the chimney down," replied Mr. Puffett. "If you likes to 'umour the old gentleman, on your 'ead be it. In a manner of speaking, m'lady."

 

Peter had succeeded in getting his pipe to draw, and, with both hands in his trousers-pockets, was observing the actors in the drama with an air of pleased detachment. At the entrance of Crutchley and Mrs. Ruddle with the gun, however, he began to retreat, noiselessly and backwards, like a cat who has accidentally stepped in a pool of spilt perfume.

 

"My God!" he breathed delicately. "Waterloo year!"

 

"Splendid!" cried the vicar. "Thank you, thank you, Martha. Now we are equipped."

 

"You have been quick, Frank!" said Miss Twitterton. She eyed the weapon nervously. "You're sure it won't go off of its own accord?"

 

"Will an army mule go off of its own accord?" queried Peter, softly.

 

"I never like the idea of fire-arms," said Miss Twitterton.

 

"No, no," said the vicar. "Trust me; there will be no ill effects." He possessed himself of the gun and examined the lock and trigger mechanism with the air of one to whom the theory of ballistics was an open book.

 

"It's all loaded and ready, sir," said Mrs. Ruddle, proudly conscious of her Bert's efficiency.

 

Miss Twitterton gave a faint squeak, and the vicar, thoughtfully turning the muzzle of the gun away from her, found himself covering Bunter, who entered at that moment from the passage.

 

"Excuse me, my lord," said Bunter, with superb nonchalance but a wary eye; "there is a person at the door——"

 

"Just a moment, Bunter," broke in his master. "The fireworks are about to begin. The chimney is to be cleared by the natural expansion of gases."

 

"Very good, my lord." Bunter appeared to measure the respective forces of the weapon and the vicar. "Excuse me, sir. Had you not better permit me——?"

 

"No, no," cried Mr. Goodacre. "Thank you. I can manage it perfectly." Gun in hand, he plunged head and shoulders beneath the chimney-drape.

 

"Humph!" said Peter. "You're a better man than I am, Gunga Din."

 

He removed his pipe from his mouth and with his free hand gathered his wife to him. Miss Twitterton, having no husband to cling to, flung herself upon Crutchley for protection, uttering a plaintive cry:

 

"Oh, Frank! I know I shall scream at the noise."

 

"There's no occasion for alarm," said the vicar, popping out his head like a showman from behind the curtain. "Now—are we all ready?"

 

Mr. Puffett put on his bowler hat.

 

"Ruat cælum!" said Peter; and the gun went off.

 

 

It exploded like the crack of doom, and it kicked (as Peter had well foreseen) like a carthorse. Gun and gunman rolled together upon the hearth, entangled inextricably in the folds of the drape. As Bunter leaped to the rescue, the loosened soot of centuries came plunging in a mad cascade down the chimney; it met the floor with a soft and deadly violence and mushroomed up in a Stygian cloud, while with it rushed, in a clattering shower, masonry and mortar, jackdaws' nests and the bones of bats and owls, sticks, bricks and metal-work, with fragments of tiles and potsherds. The shrill outcry of Mrs. Ruddle and Miss Twitterton was drowned by the eruptive rumble and boom that echoed from bend to bend of the forty-foot flue.

 

"Oh, rapture!" cried Peter, with his lady in his arms. "Oh, bountiful Jehovah! Oh, joy for all its former woes a thousand-fold repaid!"

 

"There!" exclaimed Mr. Puffett, triumphantly. "You can't say as I didn't warn yer."

 

Peter opened his mouth to reply, when the sight of Bunter, snorting and blind, and black as any Nubian Venus, struck him speechless with ecstasy.

 

"Oh, dear!" cried Miss Twitterton. She fluttered round, making helpless little darts at the swaddled shape that was the vicar. "Oh, dear, dear, dear! Oh, Frank! Oh, goodness!"

 

"Peter!" panted Harriet.

 

"I knew it!" said Peter. "Whoop! I knew it! You blasphemed the aspidistra and something awful has come down that chimney!"

 

"Peter! it's Mr. Goodacre in the sheet."

 

"Whoop!" said Peter again. He pulled himself together and joined Mr. Puffett in unwinding the clerical cocoon; while Mrs. Ruddle and Crutchley led away the unfortunate Bunter.

 

Mr. Goodacre emerged in some disorder.

 

"Not hurt, sir, I hope?" inquired Peter with grave concern.

 

"Not at all, not at all," replied the vicar, rubbing his shoulder. "A little arnica will soon put that to rights!" He smoothed his scanty hair with his hands and fumbled for his glasses. "I trust the ladies were not unduly alarmed by the explosion. It appears to have been effective."

 

"Remarkably so," said Peter. He pulled a pampas grass from the drain-pipe and poked delicately among the debris, while Harriet, flicking soot from the vicar, was reminded of Alice dusting the White King. "It's surprising, the things you find in old chimneys."

 

"No dead bodies, I trust," said the vicar.

 

"Only ornithological specimens. And two skeleton bats. And eight feet or so of ancient chain, as formerly worn by the mayors of Paggleham."

 

"Ah!" said Mr. Goodacre, filled with antiquarian zeal, "an old pot-chain, very likely."

 

"That's what it'll be," concurred Mr. Puffett. "'Ung up on one of them ledges, as like as not. See 'ere! 'Ere's a bit of one o' they roasting-jacks wot they used in the old days. Look, see! That's the cross-bar and the wheel wot the chain went over, like. My grannie had one, the dead spit of this."

 

"Well," said Peter, "we seem to have loosened things up a bit, anyhow. Think you can get your rods through the pot now?"

 

"If," said Mr. Puffett, darkly, "the pot's still there." He dived beneath the chimney-breast, whither Peter followed him. "Mind your 'ead, me lord—there might be some more loose bricks. I will say as you can see the sky if you looks for it, which is more than you'd see this morning."

 

"Excuse me, my lord!"

 

"Hey?" said Peter. He crawled out and straightened his back, only to find himself nose to nose with Bunter, who appeared to have undergone a rough but effective cleansing. He looked his servitor up and down. "By god, Bunter, my Bunter, I'm revenged for the scullery pump."

 

The shadow of some powerful emotion passed over Bunter's face; but his training held good.

 

"The individual at the door, my lord, is inquiring for Mr. Noakes. I have informed him that he is not here, but he refuses to take my word for it."

 

"Did you ask if he would see Miss Twitterton? What does he want?"

 

"He says, my lord, that his business is urgent and personal."

 

Mr. Puffett, feeling his presence a little intrusive, whistled thoughtfully, and began to collect his rods together and secure them with string.

 

"What sort of an 'individual,' Bunter?"

 

Mr. Bunter lightly shrugged his shoulders and spread forth his palms.

 

"A financial individual, my lord, to judge by appearances."

 

"Ho!" said Mr. Puffett, sotto voce.

 

"Name of Moses?"

 

"Name of MacBride, my lord."

 

"A distinction without a difference. Well, Miss Twitterton, will you see this financial Scotsman?"

 

"Oh, Lord Peter, I really don't know what to say. I know nothing about Uncle William's business. I don't know if he'd like me to interfere. If only Uncle——"

 

"Would you rather I tackled the bloke?"

 

"It's too kind of you, Lord Peter. I'm sure I oughtn't to bother you. But with Uncle away and everything so awkward—and gentlemen always understand so much better about business, don't they, Lady Peter? Dear me!"

 

"My husband will be delighted," said Harriet. She was wickedly tempted to add, "He knows everything about business," but was fortunately forestalled by the gentleman himself.

 

"Nothing delights me more," pronounced his lordship, "than minding other people's business. Show him in. And, Bunter! Allow me to invest you with the Most Heroic Order of the Chimney, for attempting a rescue against overwhelming odds."

 

"Thank you, my lord," said Mr. Bunter, woodenly, stooping his neck to the chain and meekly receiving the roasting-jack in his right hand. "I am much obliged. Will there be anything further?"

 

"Yes. Before you go—take up the bodies. But the soldiers may be excused from shooting. We have had enough of that for one morning."

 

Mr. Bunter bowed, collected the skeletons in the dust-pan and departed. But as he passed behind the settle, Harriet saw him unwind the chain and drop it unobtrusively into the drain-pipe, setting the roasting-jack upright against the wall. A gentleman might have his joke; but a gentleman's gentleman has his position to keep up. One could not face inquisitive Hebrews in the character of Mayor of Paggleham and Provincial Grand Master of the Most Heroic Order of the Chimney.