The Literary Lord Peter

 

Chapter XIX Continued

 

 

 

Mr. MacBride's men worked expertly. Harriet, watching the swift disintegration of her honeymoon house into a dusty desert of straw and packing-cases, rolled-up curtains and spidery pictures spreading their loose wires like springes, wondered whether the whole of her married life would have the same kaleidoscopic quality. Character is destiny: probably there was something in her and Peter that doomed them never to carry any adventure to its close without preposterous interruptions and abrupt changes of fortune. She laughed, as she assisted matters by tying a bunch of fire-irons together, and remembered what a married friend had once confided to her about her own honeymoon.

 

"Jim wanted a peaceful place, so we went to a tiny fishing village in Brittany. It was lovely, of course, but it rained a good deal, and I think it was rather a mistake we had so little to do. We were very much in love, I don't mean we weren't—but there were a great many hours to get through, and it didn't seem somehow quite the right thing just to sit down quietly and read a book. There's something to be said, after all, for the sight-seeing kind of honeymoon—it does give one a programme."

 

Well; things did not always go according to programme. Harriet looked up from the fire-irons and with some surprise observed Frank Crutchley.

 

"Were you wanting any help, my lady?"

 

"Well, Crutchley, I don't know. Are you free this morning?"

 

Crutchley explained that he had brought a party over from Great Pagford for the funeral; but they were going to lunch at the Crown and would not be wanting him again till later on.

 

"But don't you want to go to the funeral? You're in the Paggleham choir, aren't you? And the vicar said something about a choral service."

 

Crutchley shook his head.

 

"I've had words with Mrs. Goodacre—leastways, she 'ad words with me. That Kirk...interfering. It ain't no business of Vicar's wife about me and Polly Mason. I went up about 'aving the banns published, and Mrs. Goodacre set on me."

 

"Oh!" said Harriet. She was not very well pleased with Crutchley herself; but since he obviously had no idea that Miss Twitterton had made her troubles public, it seemed better not to refer to the subject. By this time, Miss Twitterton was probably regretting that she had spoken. And to take the matter up with Crutchley would only emphasise the poor little woman's humiliation by giving it importance. Besides, one of the removal-men was kneeling in the window, laying the bronze horsemen and other objects of art tenderly away in a packing-case, while another, on the step-ladder, had relieved the walls of the painted mirror and was contemplating an attack on the clock.

 

"Very well, Crutchley. You can give the men a hand if they need it."

 

"Yes, my lady. Shall I get some of this stuff out?"

 

"Well—no, not for the moment." She turned to the man in the window, who had just placed the last atrocity in the case and was putting the lid on.

 

"Do you mind leaving the rest of this room to the last? My husband will be coming back here after the funeral and may have one or two people with him. We shall need some chairs to sit on."

 

"Right you are, lady. Could we do a bit upstairs?"

 

"Yes; certainly. And we shan't want this room very long."

 

"O.K., lady. Come along, Bill, this way."

 

Bill, a thin man with an apologetic moustache, came obediently down from the steps.

 

"Right-ho, George. It'll take us a bit o' time to take down them four-posters."

 

"Can this man give you any help? He's the gardener here."

 

George eyed Crutchley, who had taken the steps and brought them back to the centre of the room. "There's them plants in the green'us," said George. "We ain't got no special instructions about them, but we was told to take everything."

 

"Yes; the plants will have to go, and the ones in here as well. But these will do later. Go and see to the greenhouse, Crutchley."

 

"And there's a sight o' things in the outhouse," said George. "Jack's out there; he'd be glad of a hand with them."

 

Crutchley put the steps back against the wall and went out. George and Bill departed upstairs. Harriet remembered that Peter's tobacco and cigars were in the what-not and collected them. Then, smitten by a sudden pang, she hastened out into the pantry. It was already stripped. With the Furies at her heels, she bounded down the cellar steps, not even pausing to remember what had once lain at the foot of them. The place was dark as Egypt, but she struck a match, and breathed again. All was well. The two-and-a-half dozen of port lay carefully ranged upon the racks; and in front of them was tacked a notice in large letters: HIS LORDSHIP'S PROPERTY. DO NOT TOUCH. Coming up again into the light, she encountered Crutchley entering by the back door. He started at seeing her.

 

"I went to see if the wine was all right. I see Bunter has put up a notice. But please tell the men specially that they mustn't on any account lay a finger on those bottles."

 

Crutchley broke into a wide smile that showed Harriet how attractive his face could be and threw light on the indiscretions of Miss Twitterton and Polly Mason.

 

"They ain't likely to forget, my lady. Mr. Bunter, he spoke to them himself—very solemn. He sets great store by that wine, seemin'ly. If you could a-heard him yesterday ticking off Martha Ruddle——"

 

Harriet wished she had heard it, and was greatly tempted to ask for an eye-witness account of the scene; but considered that Crutchley's forwardness of manner scarcely called for encouragement; besides, whether he knew it or not, he was in her bad books. She said, repressively:

 

"Well; take care they don't forget it."

 

"Very good. They can take the barrel, I suppose."

 

"Oh, yes—that doesn't belong to us. Only the bottled beer."

 

"Very good, my lady."

 

Crutchley went out again, without taking whatever it was he had come for, and Harriet returned to the sitting-room. With a kind of tolerant pity, she lifted the aspidistras from their containing pots and gathered them into a melancholy little group on the floor, together with a repellent little cactus like an over-stuffed pincushion and a young rubber-plant. She had seldom seen plants she could care less for, but they were faintly hallowed by sentimental association: Peter had laughed at them. She reflected she must be completely besotted about Peter, if his laughter could hallow an aspidistra.

 

"Very well," said Harriet aloud to herself, "I will be besotted." She selected the largest aspidistra and kissed one of its impassive shining surfaces. "But," she added cheerfully to the cactus, "I won't kiss you till you've shaved." A head came suddenly through the window and startled her.

 

"Excuse me, lady," said the head. "Is that there perambulator in the outhouse yourn?"

 

"What? Oh, dear no," said Harriet, with a vivid and sympathetic appreciation of Peter's feelings the evening before. (I knew I should make a bloody fool of myself—they both seemed to be fated that way.) "It must be something the late owner picked up in a sale."

 

"Right you are, lady," said the head—Jack's, presumably—and disappeared whistling.

 

Her own clothes were packed. Bunter had come up shortly after breakfast—while Peter was writing letters—and had discovered her struggling with the orange frock. After watching her thoughtfully for a few moments he had offered his assistance, and it had been accepted with relief. The more intimate parts of the business had, after all, been effected previously—though, when Harriet saw her underwear unpacked later on, she could not remember having used so much tissue paper and was surprised to know herself such a neat packer.

 

Anyhow; it was all done.

 

Crutchley came into the sitting-room, with a number of glasses on a tray.

 

"Thought you might be needing these, my lady."

 

"Oh, thank you, Crutchley. How very sensible of you. Yes, we probably shall. Just put them down over there, would you?"

 

"Yes, my lady." He seemed disposed to linger.

 

"That fellow Jack," he said suddenly, after a pause, "wants to know what he's to do with some of that tinned and bottled stuff."

 

"Tell him to leave it in the pantry."

 

"He don't know which is yours, my lady."

 

"Everything with a Fortnum-&-Mason label. If there's anything else, it probably belongs to the house."

 

"Very good, my lady.... Shall you and his lordship be coming back here again, later on, if I might ask?"

 

"Oh, yes, Crutchley—I'm sure we shall. Were you thinking about your job here? Of course. We may be going away for a time while alterations are done, but we should like you to keep the garden in order."

 

"Thank you, my lady. Very good." There was a slightly embarrassed silence. Then:

 

"Excuse me, my lady. I was wonderin'——" He had his cap in his hands, twisting it rather awkwardly... "—seein' as me and Polly Mason is goin' to get married, whether his lordship.... We was meanin' to start that garridge, only me 'avin' lost that forty pound.... If it might be a loan, my lady, we'd pay it back faithful——"

 

"Oh, I see. Well, Crutchley, I can't say anything about that. You must speak to his lordship yourself."

 

"Yes, my lady.... If you was to put in a word for me, maybe..."

 

"I'll think about it."

 

For the life of her, she could not infuse any genuine warmth into her tone; she wanted so much to say, "Are we to advance you the amount of Miss Twitterton's savings, too?" On the other hand, there was nothing unreasonable about the request, since Crutchley could not know how much she knew. The interview was ended, but the young man lingered, so that she was relieved to hear the car at the gate.

 

"They're coming back. They haven't been very long."

 

"No, my lady; it don't take long."

 

Crutchley hesitated for a second, and went out.

 

It was quite a large party that entered—if they had all come in the Daimler they must have looked like an undertakers' bean-feast; but no! the vicar was there, and he might have brought some of them in his own little car. He came in, wearing his cassock, with his surplice and Oxford hood over one arm while with the other he gave fatherly support to Miss Twitterton. She, Harriet saw at a glance, was in a much more resilient mood than she had been the evening before. Though her eyes were red with funerary tears, and she clutched a handkerchief with a sable border in her black-kid-gloved hand, the excitement of being chief mourner behind so important a hearse had evidently restored all her lost self-importance. Mrs. Ruddle followed. Her mantle, of strange and ancient cut, glittered with black beads, and the jet ornaments on her bonnet danced even more gaily than they had done at the inquest. Her face was beaming. Bunter, following upon her heels, and burdened with a pile of prayer-books and a severe-looking bowler, might, by contrast, have been the deceased's nearest and dearest relative, so determined was his countenance in an appropriate gloom. After Bunter came, rather unexpectedly, Mr. Puffett, in a curious greenish-black cutaway coat of incredible age, buttoned perilously across his sweaters over his working trousers. Harriet felt sure he must have been married in that coat. His bowler was not the bowler of Wednesday morning, but of the mashing curly-brimmed pattern affected by young bloods of the 'nineties.

 

"Well!" said Harriet, "here you all are!"

 

She hastened forward to greet Miss Twitterton, but was arrested mid-way by the entrance of her husband, who had stopped to put a rug over the radiator. He came in now with a touch of bravura, probably induced by self-consciousness. The effect of his sombre suit and scarf, rigidly tailored black overcoat, and tightly furled silk umbrella was slightly marred by the irresponsible tilt of his top-hat.

 

"Hullo-ullo-ullo," said his lordship, genially. He grounded the umbrella, smiled diffidently, and removed the topper with a flourish.

 

"Do come and sit down," said Harriet, recovering herself, and leading Miss Twitterton to a chair. She took the black-kid hand and squeezed it comfortingly.

 

"Jerusalem, my happy home!" His lordship surveyed his domain and apostrophised it with some emotion. "Is this the city that men call the perfection of beauty? Woe to the spoiler—the chariots of Israel and the horsemen thereof!"

 

He appeared to be in that rather unreliable mood which is apt to follow upon attendance at funerals and other solemn functions. Harriet said severely, "Peter, behave yourself," and turned quickly to ask Mr. Goodacre:

 

"Were there many people at the funeral?"

 

"A very large attendance," replied the vicar. "Really a remarkable attendance."

 

"It's most gratifying," cried Miss Twitterton, "—all this respect for Uncle." A pink flush spread over her cheeks—she looked almost pretty. "Such a mass of flowers! Sixteen wreaths—including your beautiful tribute, dear Lady Peter."

 

"Sixteen!" said Harriet. "Just fancy!" She felt as though she had received a sharp jolt over the solar plexus.

 

"And fully choral!" continued Miss Twitterton! "Such touching hymns. And dear Mr. Goodacre——"

 

"The Reverend's words," pronounced Mr. Puffett, "if I may say so, sir, went right to the 'eart."

 

He pulled out a large red cotton handkerchief with white spots and trumpeted into it briskly.

 

"Ow," agreed Mrs. Ruddle, "it was all just beautiful. I never seen a funeral to touch it, and I been to every buryin' in Paggleham these forty year and more."

 

She appealed to Mr. Puffett for confirmation, and Harriet seized the opportunity to question Peter:

 

"Peter—did we send a wreath?"

 

"God knows. Bunter—did we send a wreath?"

 

"Yes, my lord. Hothouse lilies and white hyacinths."

 

"How very chaste and appropriate!"

 

Bunter said he was much obliged.

 

"Everybody was there," said Miss Twitterton. "Dr. Craven came over, and old Mr. and Mrs. Sowerton, and the Jenkinses from Broxford and that rather odd young man who came to tell us about Uncle William's misfortunes, and Miss Grant had all the school-children carrying flowers——"

 

"And Fleet Street in full force," said Peter. "Bunter, I see glasses on the radio cabinet. We could do with some drinks."

 

"Very good, my lord."

 

"I'm afraid they've commandeered the beer-barrel," said Harriet, with a glance at Mr. Puffett.

 

"That's awkward," said Peter. He stripped off his overcoat, and with it his last vestige of sobriety. "Well, Puffett, I dare say you can make do for once with the bottled variety. First discovered, so they say, by Izaak Walton, who while fishing one day——"

 

Into the middle of this harangue there descended unexpectedly from the stairs Bill and George, carrying, the one a dressing-mirror and a wash-basin, and the other, a ewer and a small bouquet of bedroom utensils. They seemed pleased to see the room so full of company, and George advanced gleefully upon Peter.

 

"Excuse me, guv'nor," said George, flourishing the utensils vaguely in the direction of Miss Twitterton, who was sitting near the staircase. "All them razors and silver-mounted brushes up there——"

 

"Tush!" said his lordship, gravely, "nothing is gained by coarseness." He draped his coat modestly over the offending crockery, added his scarf, crowned the ewer with his top-hat, and completed the effect by hanging his umbrella over George's extended arm. "Trip it featly here and there through the other door and ask my man to come up presently and tell you which things are what."

 

"Right-oh, guv'nor," said George, ambling away a trifle awkwardly—for the topper showed a tendency to over-balance. The vicar, surprisingly, relieved the general embarrassment by observing with a reminiscent smile:

 

"Now, you might not believe it, but when I was up at Oxford I once put one on the Martyrs' Memorial."

 

"Did you?" said Peter. "I was one of the party that tied an open umbrella over each of the Cæsars. They were the Fellows' umbrellas. Ah! here come the drinks."

 

"Thank you," said Miss Twitterton. She shook her head sadly at the glass. "And to think that the last time we partook of Lord Peter's sherry——"

 

"Dear me, dear me!" said Mr. Goodacre. "Thank you. Ah! yes, indeed."

 

He turned the wine musingly upon his tongue and appeared to compare its flavour favourably with that of the best sherry in Pagford.

 

"Bunter—you've got some beer in the kitchen for Puffett."

 

"Yes, my lord."

 

Mr. Puffett, reminded that he was, in a manner of speaking, in the wrong place, picked up his curly bowler and said heartily:

 

"That's very kind of your lordship. Come along, Martha. Get off your bonnet and shawl and we'll give these lads a 'and outside."

 

"Yes," said Harriet. "Bunter will be wanting you, Mrs. Ruddle, to see about getting some lunch of some sort. Will you stay and have something with us, Miss Twitterton?"

 

"Oh, no, really. I must be getting home. It's so good of you——"

 

"But you mustn't hurry," said Harriet, as Puffett and Mrs. Ruddle vanished. "I only said that because Mrs. Ruddle—though an excellent servant in her way—sometimes needs a reminder. Mr. Goodacre, won't you have a drop more sherry?"

 

"No, really—I must be moving homewards."

 

"Not without your plants," said Peter. "Mr. Goodacre has prevailed on Mr. MacBride, Harriet, to let the cacti go to a good home."

 

"For a consideration, no doubt?"

 

"Of course, of course," said the vicar. "I paid him for them. That was only right. He has to consider his clients. The other person—Solomons, I think his name is—made a slight difficulty, but we managed to get over that."

 

"How did you manage?"

 

"Well," admitted the vicar, "I paid him too. But it was a small sum. Quite a small sum, really. Less than the plants are worth. I did not like to think of their going to a warehouse with no one to care for them. Crutchley has always looked after them so well. He is very knowledgeable with cacti."

 

"Indeed?" said Miss Twitterton, so sharply that the vicar stared at her in mild astonishment. "I am glad to hear that Frank Crutchley fulfilled some of his obligations."

 

"Well, padre," said Peter, "rather you than me. I don't like the things."

 

"They are not to everybody's taste, perhaps. But this one, for instance—you must acknowledge that it is a superb specimen of its kind."

 

He shuffled his short-sighted way towards the hanging cactus and peered at it with an anticipatory pride of possession.

 

"Uncle William," said Miss Twitterton in a quavering voice, "always took great pride in that cactus."

 

Her eyes filled with tears, and the vicar turned quickly towards her.

 

"I know. Indeed, Miss Twitterton, it will be quite happy and safe with me."

 

Miss Twitterton nodded, speechlessly; but any further demonstration was cut short by the entrance of Bunter, who said, coming up to her:

 

"Excuse me. The furniture removers are about to clear the attics and have desired me to inquire what is to be done with the various trunks and articles labelled 'Twitterton'."

 

"Oh! dear me! Yes of course. Oh, dear—yes, please tell them I think I had better come and see to that myself.... You see—dear me!—however did I come to forget?—there are quite a lot of my things here." She fluttered towards Harriet. "I hope you won't mind—I won't trespass on your time—but I'd better just see what's mine and what isn't. You see, my cottage is so very small, and Uncle very kindly let me store my little belongings—some of dear Mother's things——"

 

"But of course," said Harriet. "Do go anywhere you like, and if you want any help——"

 

"Oh, thank you so much. Oh, Mr. Goodacre, thank you."

 

The vicar, politely holding open the staircase door, extended his hand.

 

"As I shall be going in a very few minutes, I'll say good-bye now. Just for the moment. I shall of course come and see you. And now, you mustn't allow yourself to brood, you know. In fact, I'm going to ask you to be very brave and sensible and come and play the organ for us on Sunday as usual. Now, will you? We've all come to rely on you so much."

 

"Oh, yes—on Sunday. Of course, dear Mr. Goodacre, if you wish it, I'll do my best——"

 

"It will gratify me very much."

 

"Oh, thank you. I—you—everybody's so good to me."

 

Miss Twitterton vanished upstairs in a little whirl of gratitude and confusion.

 

"Poor little woman! poor little soul!" said the vicar. "It's most distressing. This unsolved mystery hanging over us——"

 

"Yes," said Peter, absently; "not too good."

 

It gave Harriet a shock to see his eyes, coldly reflective, still turned towards the door by which Miss Twitterton had gone out. She thought of the trap-door in the attic—and the boxes. Had Kirk searched those boxes, she wondered. If not—well, then, what? Could there be anything in a box? A blunt instrument, with perhaps a little skin and hair on it? It seemed to her that they had all been standing silent a very long time, when Mr. Goodacre, who had resumed his doting contemplation of the cactus, suddenly said:

 

"Now, this is very strange—very strange indeed!"

 

She saw Peter start as it were out of a trance and cross the room to see the strange thing. The vicar was staring up into the nightmare vegetable above his head with a deeply puzzled expression. Peter stared too; but, since the bottom of the pot was three or four inches over his head, he could see very little.

 

"Look at that!" said Mr. Goodacre, in a voice that positively shook. "Do you see what that is?"

 

He fumbled in his pocket for a pencil, with which he pointed excitedly to something in the centre of the cactus.

 

"From here," said Peter, stepping back, "it looks like a spot of mildew, though I can't see very well from this distance. But perhaps in a cactus that's merely the bloom of a healthy complexion."

 

"It is mildew," said the vicar, grimly. Harriet, feeling that intelligent sympathy was called for, climbed on the settle, so that she could look at the plant on a level.

 

"There's some more of it on the upper side of the leaves—if they are leaves, and not stalks."

 

"Somebody," said Mr. Goodacre, "has been giving it too much water." He looked accusingly from husband to wife.

 

"We haven't any of us touched it," said Harriet. She stopped, remembering that Kirk and Bunter had handled it. But they were scarcely likely to have watered it.

 

"I'm a humane man," began Peter, "and though I don't like the prickly brute——"

 

Then he, too, broke off; and Harriet saw his face change. It frightened her. It became the kind of face that might have belonged to that agonised dreamer of the morning hours.

 

"What is it, Peter?"

 

He said in a half whisper:

 

"Here we go round the prickly pear, the prickly pear, the prickly pear——"

 

"Once the summer is over," pursued the vicar, "you must administer water very sparingly, very sparingly indeed."

 

"Surely," said Harriet, "it couldn't have been the knowledgeable Crutchley."

 

"I think it was," said Peter, as though returning to them from a long journey. "Harriet—you heard Crutchley tell Kirk how he watered it last Wednesday week and wound the clock before collecting his wages from old Noakes."

 

"Yes."

"And the day before yesterday you saw him water it again."

 

"Of course; we all saw him."

 

Mr. Goodacre was aghast.

 

"But, my dear Lady Peter, he couldn't have done that. The cactus is a desert plant. It only requires watering about once a month in the cooler weather."

 

Peter, having emerged to clear up this minor mystery, seemed to be back on his nightmare trail. He muttered: "I can't remember——" But the vicar took no notice.

 

"Somebody has touched it lately," he said. "I see you've put it on a longer chain."

 

Peter's gasp was like a sob.

 

"That's it. The chain. We were all chained together."

 

The struggle passed from his face, leaving it empty as a mask. "What's that about a chain, padre?"