Whether, left to themselves, they would have succeeded in emerging from this speechless trance, and might not, in the manner of Donne’s ecstatic couple, have remained like sepulchral statues in the same posture and saying nothing until nightfall, is uncertain. Three-quarters of an hour later an elderly bearded person came creaking up the lane with a horse and waggon. He looked at them with ruminative eyes, showing no particular curiosity; but the spell was broken. Harriet swung herself hurriedly off her husband’s knees and stood up; Peter, who in London would rather have been seen dead than embracing anybody in public, astonishingly showed no embarrassment, but cried out a cordial greeting to the carter.
‘Is my bus in your way?’
‘No, sir, thank’ee. Don’t disturb yourself.’
‘Lovely day it’s been.’ He strolled down to the gate, and the man checked his horse.
‘That it has. A real lovely day.’
‘Pleasant little spot, this. Who put up the seat?’
‘That’s squire done that, sir; Mr Trevor over at the big house. He done it along of the women as likes to come up Sunday arternoons with their flowers and such. The new church ain’t only been built five year, and there’s a sight of folks likes to ’tend to the graves in the old churchyard. It’s closed for buryings now, of course, but squire says, why not make it pleasant and comfor’ble-like. It’s a stiffish pull up the lane and weariful to the children and the old people. So that’s what he done.’
‘We are very much beholden to him. Was the sun-dial here before that?’
The carter chuckled.
‘Lord love you, no, sir. She’s a regular job, is that there sun-dial. Vicar, he found the top of her put away in the rubbish-’ole when they was clearing away the old church, and Bill Muggins he says, “There’s the stone outer the old mill ’ud make a beautiful base for ’er, if so be we ’ad a bit of a drain-pipe or summat to put between ’em.” And Jim Hawtrey, he says, “I know a man,” he says, “over at Paggleham wot ’as ’arf-a-dozen of them ancient old chimbley-pots for sale. What’s the matter with that?” So they tells vicar and he tells squire and they gets the bits together and Joe Dudden and ’Arry Gates, they puts ’em up with a lick o’ mortar in their spare time, vicar puttin’ the top on with ’is watch in ’is ’and and a little book so she’ll tell the time correct. You’ll find ’er middlin’ right now, sir, if you look. ’Course, in summer she’s an hour out, her keepin’ to God’s time an us ’aving to go by Gov’ment time. It’s a cur’ous thing you askin’ about that there sun-dial, because why? The very man wot sold vicar the chimbley-pot, ’e wos found dead in his own ’ouse only yesterday, and they do say it was murder.’
‘You don’t say so. It’s a queer world, isn’t it? What’s the name of this village? Lopsley? Thanks very much. Get yourself a drink. . . . By the way, you know you’ve got a loose shoe on your near hind?’
The carter said he had not noticed it and thanked the observant gentleman for his information. The horse lolloped on.
‘Time we were getting back,’ said Peter, with a reluctant note in his voice, ‘if we’re to change in time for the vicar’s sherry. We’ll call on the squire, though, before we’re many days older. I’m determined to have that pot.’
15
SHERRY – AND BITTERS
Fool, hypocrite, villain – man! Thou canst not call me that.
GEORGE LILLO: Tragedy of George Barnwell.
HARRIET WAS GLAD they had taken the trouble to dress. The vicar’s wife (whom she vaguely remembered to have seen in the old days at bazaars and flower shows, perpetually stout, amiable and a little red in the face) had done honour to the occasion with a black lace dress and a daring little bridge coat in flowered chiffon velvet. She advanced with a beaming face to meet them.
‘You poor things! What an upset for you! It is so nice of you to come and see us. I hope Simon apologised for my not calling, but what with the house and the parish work and the Women’s Institute I was quite busy all day. Do come and sit down by the fire. You, of course, are an old friend, my dear, though I don’t suppose you remember me. Let my husband help you off with your coat. What a pretty frock! Such a lovely colour. I hope you don’t mind my saying so. I do love to see bright colours and bright faces about me. Come and sit on the sofa, against this green cushion – you’ll make quite a picture. . . . No, no, Lord Peter, don’t sit on that! It’s a rocking-chair; it always takes people by surprise. Most men like this one, it’s nice and deep. Now, Simon, where did you put those cigarettes?’
‘Here they are, here they are. I hope they’re the kind you like. I’m a pipe-smoker myself and not very knowledgeable, I fear. Oh, thank you, thank you, no – not a pipe just before dinner. I will try a cigarette, just for a change. Now, my dear, will you join us in this little dissipation?’
‘Well, I don’t usually,’ said Mrs Goodacre, ‘because of the parish, you know. It’s very absurd, but one has to set an example.’
‘These particular parishioners,’ said Peter, striking a match persuasively, ‘are corrupted already beyond hope of repentance.’
‘Very well, then, I will,’ said the vicar’s lady.
‘Bravo!’ said Mr Goodacre. ‘That really makes it quite a gay party. Now! It is my prerogative to distribute the sherry. I believe I am right in saying that sherry is the only wine with which the goddess Nicotina does not quarrel.’
‘Quite right, padre.’
‘Ah! you confirm that opinion. I am very glad – very glad indeed to hear you say so. And here – ah, yes! Will you have some of these little biscuits? Dear me, what a remarkable variety! Quite an embarras de richesses!’
‘They come assorted in boxes,’ said Mrs Goodacre, simply. ‘Cocktail biscuits, they call them. We had them at the last whist drive.’
‘Of course, of course! Now which is the kind that has cheese inside it?’
‘These, I think,’ said Harriet, from a plenitude of experience, ‘and those long ones.’
‘So they are! How clever of you to know. I shall look to you to guide me through this delectable maze. I must say, I think a little social gathering like this before dinner is a most excellent idea.’
‘You are sure you would not like to stay and dine with us?’ said Mrs Goodacre, anxiously. ‘Or to spend the night? Our spare room is always ready. Are you really comfortable at Talboys, after all this terrible business? I told my husband to tell you that if there was anything at all we could do—’
‘He faithfully delivered your kind message,’ said Harriet. ‘It’s ever so good of you. But really and truly we’re quite all right.’
‘Well,’ said the vicar’s wife, ‘I expect you would rather be alone, so I won’t be an officious old busybody. In our position one’s always interfering with people for their good, you know. I’m sure it’s a bad habit. By the way, Simon, poor little Mrs Sellon’s very much upset. She was taken quite ill this morning, and we had to send for the district nurse.’
‘Oh, dear, dear!’ said the vicar. ‘Poor woman! That was a very extraordinary suggestion Martha Ruddle made at the inquest. There can’t, surely, be anything in it.’
‘Certainly not. Nonsense. Martha likes to make herself important. She’s a spiteful old thing. Though I can’t help saying, even now he’s dead, that William Noakes was a nasty old creature.’
‘Not in that way, surely, my dear?’
‘You never know. But I meant, I couldn’t blame Martha Ruddle for disliking him. It’s all very well for you, Simon. You always think charitably of everyone. And besides, you never talked to him about anything except gardening. Though as a matter of fact, Frank Crutchley did all the work.’
‘Frank is a very clever gardener, indeed,’ said the vicar. ‘In fact he is clever all round. He found the defect in my motor-car engine immediately. I’m sure he will go far.’
‘He’s going a little too far with that girl Polly, if you ask me,’ retorted his wife. ‘It’s about time they asked you to put up the banns. Her mother came up to se
e me the other day. Well, Mrs Mason, I said, you know what girls are, and I admit it’s very difficult to control them these days. If I were you, I should speak to Frank and ask him what his intentions are. However; we mustn’t begin talking about parish matters.’
‘I should be sorry,’ said the vicar, ‘to think ill of Frank Crutchley. Or of poor William Noakes, either. I expect there is nothing in it but talk. Dear me! To think that when I called at the house last Thursday morning, he was lying there dead! I particularly wanted to see him, I remember. I had a small offering of a Teesdalia nudicaulis for his rock-garden – he was fond of rock-plants. I felt very melancholy when I planted it here, myself, this morning.’
‘You are even fonder of plants than he was,’ said Harriet, glancing round the shabby room, which was filled with potplants on stands and tables.
‘I am afraid I must admit the soft impeachment. Gardening is an indulgence of mine. My wife tells me it runs away with too much money, and I dare say she is right.’
‘I said he ought to get himself a new cassock,’ said Mrs Goodacre, laughing. ‘But if he prefers rock-plants, that’s his business.’
‘I wonder,’ said the vicar, wistfully, ‘what will become of William Noakes’s plants. I suppose they will belong to Aggie Twitterton.’
‘I don’t know,’ said Peter. ‘The whole thing may have to be sold, I suppose, for the benefit of the creditors.’
‘Dear, dear!’ exclaimed the vicar. ‘Oh, I do hope they will be properly looked after. Especially the cacti. They are delicate creatures, and it is getting rather late in the year. I remember peeping in at the window last Thursday and thinking it was hardly safe for them to be left in that room without a fire. It’s time they were put under glass for the winter. Particularly the big one in the hanging pot and that new variety he’s got in the window. Of course, you will be keeping up good fires.’
‘We shall, indeed,’ said Harriet. ‘Now that we have got the chimneys clear, with your assistance. I hope your shoulder isn’t still painful.’
‘I can feel it. I can feel it a little. But nothing to speak of. Just a slight bruise, that is all. . . . If there is to be a sale, I shall hope to make an offer for the cacti – if Aggie Twitterton doesn’t want to buy them in for herself. And with your permission, my dear, of course.’
‘Frankly, Simon, I think them detestably hideous things. But I’m quite ready to offer a home to them. I know you’ve been coveting those cacti for years.’
‘Not coveting, I hope,’ said the vicar. ‘But I fear I must confess to a great weakness for cacti.’
‘It’s a morbid passion,’ said his wife.
‘Really, my dear, really – you shouldn’t use such exaggerated language. Come, Lady Peter – another glass of sherry. Indeed, you mustn’t refuse!’
‘Shall I put them peas on, Mr Bunter?’
Bunter paused in his occupation of tidying the sitting-room and strode with some haste to the door.
‘I will see to the peas, Mrs Ruddle, at the proper time.’ He looked up at the clock, which marked five minutes past six. ‘His lordship is very particular about peas.’
‘Is he now?’ Mrs Ruddle seemed to take this as a signal for conversation, for she appeared on the threshold. ‘That’s jest like my Bert. “Ma,” ’e allus says, “I ’ates peas ’ard.” Funny, ’ow often they is ’ard. Or biled right away outer their shells. One or other.’
Bunter offered no comment, and she tried again. ‘’Ere’s them things you arst me to polish. Come up lovely, ain’t they?’
She offered for inspection a brass toasting-fork and the fragment of a roasting-jack that had so unexpectedly made its appearance from the chimney.
‘Thank you,’ said Bunter. He hung the toasting-fork on a nail by the fireplace and, after a little consideration, set the other specimen upright on the what-not.
‘Funny,’ pursued Mrs Ruddle, ‘the way the gentry is about them old bits o’ things. Curios! Rubbish, if you ask me.’
‘This is a very old piece,’ replied Bunter, gravely, stepping back to admire the effect.
Mrs Ruddle sniffed. ‘Reckon them as shoved it up the chimbley knew wot they wos doin’. Give me a nice gas-oven any day. Ah! I’d like that – same as my sister’s wot lives in Biggleswade.’
‘People have been found dead in gas-ovens before now,’ said Bunter, grimly. He took up his master’s blazer, shook it, appeared to estimate its contents by their weight, and removed a pipe, a tobacco-pouch and three boxes of matches from one pocket.
‘Lor’ now, Mr Bunter, don’t you talk like that! Ain’t we ’ad enough corpusses about the ’ouse already? ’Ow they can go on livin’ ’ere I don’t know!’
‘Speaking for his lordship and myself, we are accustomed to corpses.’ He extracted several more matchboxes and, at the bottom of the nest, discovered a sparking-plug and a corkscrew.
‘Ah!’ said Mrs Ruddle, with a deep, sentimental sigh. ‘And w’ere ’e’s ’appy, she’s ’appy. Ah! It’s easy to see she worships the ground ’e treads on.’
Bunter drew out two handkerchiefs, male and female, from another pocket and compared them indulgently. ‘That is a very proper sentiment in a young married woman.’
‘ ’Appy days! But it’s early days yet, Mr Bunter. A man’s a man w’en all’s said and done. Ruddle, now – ’e useter knock me about something shocking w’en ’e’d ’ad a drop – though a good ’usband, and bringin’ the money ’ome reg’lar.’
‘I beg,’ said Bunter, distributing matchboxes about the room, ‘you will not institute these comparisons, Mrs Ruddle. I have served his lordship twenty years, and a sweeter-tempered gentleman you could not wish to find.’
‘You ain’t married to ’im, Mr Bunter. You can give ’im a munce warning any day.’
‘I hope I know when I am well situated, Mrs Ruddle. Twenty years’ service, and never a harsh word nor an unjust action in all my knowledge of him.’ A tinge of emotion crept into his tone. He laid a powder-compact aside on the what-not; then folded the blazer together with loving care and hung it over his arm.
‘You’re lucky,’ said Mrs Ruddle. ‘I couldn’t rightly say the same of pore Mr Noakes, which though he’s dead and gone I will say ’e wos a sour-tempered, close-fisted, suspicious brute, pore old gentleman.’
‘Gentleman, Mrs Ruddle, is what I should designate as an elastic term. His lordship—’
‘There now!’ interrupted Mrs Ruddle. ‘If there ain’t love’s young dream a-comin’ up the path.’
Bunter’s brows beetled awfully. ‘To whom might you be referring, Mrs Ruddle?’ he demanded in a voice like Jupiter Tonans.
‘W’y, that Frank Crutchley, to be sure.’
‘Oh!’ Jupiter was appeased. ‘Crutchley? Is he your choice for a second?’
‘Go along with you, Mr Bunter! Me? No fear! No – Aggie Twitterton. Runs arter ’im like an old cat with one kitten.’
‘Indeed?’
‘At ’er age! Mutton dressed as lamb. Makes me fair sick. If she knowed wot I knows – but there!’
This interesting revelation was cut short by the entrance of Crutchley himself.
‘ ’Evenin’,’ said he, generally, to the company. ‘Any special orders tonight? I ran over, thinkin’ there might be. Mr ’Ancock don’t want me for an hour or two.’
‘His lordship gave instructions that the car was to be cleaned; but now it’s out again.’
‘Ah!’ said Crutchley, apparently taking this as an intimation that gossip might proceed unchecked. ‘Well, they got a nice day for it.’
He made a tentative motion to seat himself, but caught Bunter’s eye and compromised by leaning negligently against the end of the settle.
‘ ’Ave you ’eard when they’ve fixed for the funeral?’ inquired Mrs Ruddle.
‘ ’Leven-thirty ter-morrer.’
‘And ’igh time too – with ’im layin’ there a week or more. There won’t be many wet eyes, neither, if you ask me. There’s one or two couldn’t abide Mr No
akes, not countin’ ’im wot did away with ’im.’
‘They didn’t get much forrader at the inquest, seems to me,’ observed Crutchley.
Bunter opened the what-not, and began to select wine-glasses from among its miscellaneous contents.
‘ ’Ushin’ it up,’ said Mrs Ruddle, ‘that’s wot they wos. Tryin’ to make out there wasn’t nothing atween Joe Sellon and ’im. That Kirk, ’is face was a treat w’en Ted Puddock got askin’ all them questions.’
‘Seemed to me they went a bit quick over all that part of it.’
‘Didn’t want nobody to think as a bobby might a-been mixed up in it. See ’ow the crowner shut me up w’en I started to tell ’im? Ah! But them noospaper men wos on to it sharp enough.’
‘Did you communicate your opinion to them, may I ask?’
‘I might a-done, or I might not, Mr Bunter, only jest at that instant minnit, out comes me lord, and they wos all on to ’im like wopses round a jam-pot. ’Im and ’is lady’ll be in all the papers ter-morrer. They took a photer o’ me too, with ’er ladyship. It’s nice to see your friends in the papers, ain’t it now?’
‘The laceration of his lordship’s most intimate feelings can afford no satisfaction to me,’ said Bunter, reprovingly.
‘Ah! if I’d telled ’em all I thinks about Joe Sellon they’d ’ave me on the front page. I wonder they lets that young feller go about at large. We might all be murdered in our beds. The moment I sees pore Mr Noakes’s body, I says to myself, “Now, wot’s Joe Sellon doin’ in this ’ere – ’im bein’ the last to see the pore man alive?”’
‘Then you were already aware that the crime had been committed on the Wednesday night?’
‘Well, o’course – No, I didn’t, not then – See ’ere, Mr Bunter, don’t you go a-puttin’ words in a woman’s mouth – I—’