‘I think,’ said Bunter, ‘you had better be careful.’
‘That’s right, Ma,’ agreed Crutchley. ‘You go on imaginin’ things, you’ll land yourself in Queer Street one o’ these days.’
‘Well,’ retorted Mrs Ruddle, backing out of the door, ‘I didn’t bear no pertickler grudge against Mr Noakes. Not like some as I could name – with their forty poundses.’
Crutchley stared at her retreating form.
‘Gawdamighty, wot a tongue! I wonder ’er own spit don’t poison ’er. I wouldn’t ’ang a dog on ’er evidence. Mangy old poll-parrot!’
Bunter voiced no opinion, but picked up Peter’s blazer and a few other scattered garments and walked upstairs. Crutchley, relieved of his vigilant eye and stern regard for the social proprieties, strolled quietly over to the hearth.
‘Ho!’ said Mrs Ruddle. She brought in a lighted lamp, set it on a table on the far side of the room and turned on Crutchley with a witch-like smile. ‘Waitin’ for kisses in the gloamin’?’
‘Wotcher gettin’ at?’ demanded Crutchley, morosely.
‘Aggie Twitterton’s a-comin’ down the ’ill on ’er bicycle.’
‘Gawd!’ The young man shot a quick look through the window. ‘It’s ’er all right.’ He rubbed the back of his head and swore softly.
‘Wot it is to be the answer to the maiden’s prayer!’ said Mrs Ruddle.
‘Now, see ’ere, ma. Polly’s my girl. You know that. There ain’t never been nothin’ atween me and Aggie Twitterton.’
‘Not between you and ’er – but there might be atween ’er and you,’ replied Mrs Ruddle, epigrammatically, and went out before he could reply. Bunter, coming downstairs, found Crutchley thoughtfully picking up the poker.
‘May I ask why you are loitering about here? Your work is outside. If you want to wait for his lordship, you can do so in the garage.’
‘See ’ere, Mr Bunter,’ said Crutchley, earnestly. ‘Let me bide in here for a bit. Aggie Twitterton’s on the prowl, and if she was to catch sight o’ me – you get me? She’s a bit—’
He touched his forehead significantly.
‘H’m!’ said Bunter. He went across to the window and saw Miss Twitterton descend from her bicycle at the gate. She straightened her hat and began to fumble in the basket attached to the handle-bars. Bunter drew the curtains rather sharply. ‘Well, you can’t stop here long. His lordship and her ladyship may be back any minute now. What is it now, Mrs Ruddle?’
‘I’ve put out the plates like you said, Mr Bunter,’ announced that lady with meek self-righteousness. Bunter frowned. She had something rolled in the corner of her apron and was rubbing at it as she spoke. He felt that it would take a long time to teach Mrs Ruddle a good servants’-hall manner.
‘And I’ve found the other vegetable-dish – only it’s broke.’
‘Very good. You can take these glasses out and wash them. There don’t seem to be any decanters.’
‘Never you mind that, Mr Bunter. I’ll soon ’ave them bottles clean.’
‘Bottles?’ said Bunter. ‘What bottles?’ A frightful suspicion shot through his brain. ‘What have you got there?’
‘Why,’ said Mrs Ruddle, ‘one o’ them dirty old bottles you brought along with you.’ She displayed her booty in triumph. ‘Sech a state as they’re in. All over whitewash.’
Bunter’s world reeled about him and he clutched at the corner of the settle.
‘My God!’
‘You couldn’t put a thing like that on the table, could you now?’
‘Woman!’ cried Bunter, and snatched the bottle from her, ‘that’s the Cockburn ’96!’
‘Ow, is it?’ said Mrs Ruddle, mystified. ‘There now! I thought it was summink to drink.’
Bunter controlled himself with difficulty. The cases had been left in the pantry for safety. The police were in and out of the cellar, but, by all the laws of England, a man’s pantry was his own. He said in a trembling voice:
‘You have not, I trust, handled any of the other bottles?’
‘Only to unpack ’em and set ’em right side up,’ Mrs Ruddle assured him cheerfully. ‘Them cases’ll come in ’andy for kindling.’
‘Gawdstrewth!’ cried Bunter. The mask came off him all in one piece, and nature, red in tooth and claw, leapt like a tiger from ambush. ‘Gawdstrewth! Would you believe it? All his lordship’s vintage port!’ He lifted shaking hands to heaven. ‘You lousy old nosy-parking bitch! You ignorant, interfering old bizzom! Who told you to go poking your long nose into my pantry?’
‘Really, Mr Bunter!’ said Mrs Ruddle.
‘Go it,’ said Crutchley, with relish. ‘ ’Ere’s someone at the front door.’
‘ ’Op it out of here!’ stormed Bunter, unheeding, ‘before I take the skin off you!’
‘Well, I’m sure! ’Ow was I to know?’
‘Get out!’
Mrs Ruddle retired, but with dignity.
‘Sech manners!’
‘Put yer flat foot right into it that time, Ma,’ observed Crutchley. He grinned. Mrs Ruddle turned in the doorway.
‘People can do their own dirty work after this,’ she remarked witheringly, and departed.
Bunter took up the violated bottle of port and cradled it mournfully in his arm.
‘All the port! All the port! Two and a half dozen, all shook up to blazes! And his lordship bringing it down in the back of the car, driving as tender and careful as if it was a baby in arms.’
‘Well,’ said Crutchley, ‘that’s a miracle, judgin’ by the way he went to Pagford this afternoon. Nearly blew me and the old taxi off the road.’
‘Not a drop fit to drink for a fortnight! – And him looking forward to his glass after dinner!’
‘Well,’ said Crutchley again, with the philosophy we keep for other men’s misfortunes, ‘he’s unlucky, that’s all.’
Bunter uttered a Cassandra-like cry:
‘There’s a curse upon this house!’
As he turned, the door was flung violently open to admit Miss Twitterton, who shrank back with a small scream, on receiving this blast of eloquence full in the face.
‘ ’Ere’s Miss Twitterton,’ said Mrs Ruddle, unnecessarily, and banged out.
‘Oh, dear!’ gasped the poor lady. ‘I beg your pardon. Er . . . is Lady Peter at home? . . . I’ve just brought her a . . . Oh, I suppose they are out . . . Mrs Ruddle is so stupid . . . Perhaps . . .’ She looked appealingly from one man to the other. Bunter, pulling himself together, recaptured his mask, and this stony metamorphosis put the finishing touch to Miss Twitterton’s discomfort.
‘If it isn’t troubling you too much, Mr Bunter, would you be so kind as to tell Lady Peter that I’ve brought her a few eggs from my own hens?’
‘Certainly, Miss Twitterton.’ The social solecism had been committed and could not now be redeemed. He received the basket with the condescending kindness due from my lord’s butler to a humble dependant of the house.
‘The Buff Orpingtons,’ explained Miss Twitterton. ‘They – they lay such pretty brown eggs, don’t they? And I thought, perhaps—’
‘Her ladyship will greatly appreciate the attention. Would you care to wait?’
‘Oh, thank you . . . I hardly know . . .’
‘I am expecting them back very shortly. From the vicarage.’
‘Oh!’ said Miss Twitterton. ‘Yes.’ She sat down rather helplessly on the proffered chair. ‘I meant just to hand the basket to Mrs Ruddle, but she seems very much put about.’
Crutchley gave a short laugh. He had made one or two attempts at escape; but Bunter and Miss Twitterton were between him and the door, and now he appeared to resign himself. Bunter seemed glad of the opportunity for an explanation.
‘I have been very much put about, Miss Twitterton. Mrs Ruddle has violently agitated all his lordship’s vintage port, just as it was settling down nicely after the journey.’
‘Oh, how dreadful!’ cried Miss Twitterton, her sympathetic mind grasping that th
e disaster, however incomprehensible, was of the first magnitude. ‘Is it all spoilt? I believe they have some very good port wine at the Pig and Whistle – only it’s rather expensive – 4s. 6d. a bottle and nothing on the empties.’
‘I fear,’ said Bunter, ‘that would scarcely meet the case.’
‘Or if they would like some of my parsnip wine I should be delighted to—’
‘Huh!’ said Crutchley. He jerked his thumb at the bottle in Bunter’s arms. ‘What does that stand his nibs in for?’
Bunter could bear no more. He turned to go.
‘Two hundred and four shillings the dozen!’
‘Cripes!’ said Crutchley. Miss Twitterton could not believe her ears.
‘The dozen what?’
‘Bottles!’ said Bunter. He went out shattered, with drooping shoulders, and shut the door decisively. Miss Twitterton, reckoning rapidly on her fingers, turned in dismay to Crutchley, who stood with a derisive smile, making no further effort to avoid the interview.
‘Two hundred and four – seventeen shillings a bottle! Oh, it’s impossible! It’s . . . it’s wicked!’
‘Yes. Cut above you and me, ain’t it? Bah! There’s a chap could give away forty pound out of his pocket and never miss it. But does he? No!’
He strolled over to the hearth and spat eloquently into the fire.
‘Oh, Frank! You mustn’t be so bitter. You couldn’t expect Lord Peter—’
‘ “Lord Peter”! – who’re you to be calling him by his pet name? Think you’re somebody, don’t you?’
‘That is the correct way to speak of him,’ said Miss Twitterton, drawing herself up a little. ‘I know quite well how to address people of rank.’
‘Oh, yes!’ replied the gardener, sarcastically, ‘I dessay. And you say “Mister” to his blasted valet. Come off it, my girl. It’s “me lord” for you, same as for the rest of us. . . . I know your mother was a school-teacher, all right. And your father was old Ted Baker’s cowman. If she married beneath ’er, it ain’t nothing to be stuck up about.’
‘I’m sure’ – Miss Twitterton’s voice trembled – ‘you’re the last person that ought to say such a thing to me.’
Crutchley’s face lowered.
‘That’s it, is it? Tryin’ to make out you been lowerin’ yourself by associating with me, eh? All right! You go and hobnob with the gentry. Lord Peter!’
He thrust his hands deep down in his pockets and strode irritably towards the window. His determination to work up a quarrel was so evident that even Miss Twitterton could not mistake it. It could have only one explanation. With fatal archness, she wagged a reproving finger.
‘Why, Frank, you silly old thing! I believe you’re jealous!’
‘Jealous!’ He looked at her and began to laugh. It was not a pleasant laugh, though it showed all his teeth. ‘That’s good! That’s rich, that is! What’s the idea? Startin’ to make eyes at his lordship now?’
‘Frank! He’s a married man. How can you say such things?’
‘Oh, he’s married all right. Tied up good and proper. ’Ead well in the noose. “Yes, darling!” “No, darling!” “Cuddle me quick, darling.” Pretty, ain’t it?’
Miss Twitterton thought it was pretty, and said so.
‘I’m sure it’s beautiful to see two people so devoted to one another.’
‘Quite a ro-mance in ’igh life. Like to be in ’er shoes, wouldn’t you?’
‘You don’t really think I’d want to change places with anybody?’ cried Miss Twitterton. ‘But oh, Frank! If only you and I could get married at once—’
‘Ah, yes!’ said Crutchley, with a kind of satisfaction. ‘Your Uncle Noakes has put a bit of a spoke in that wheel, ain’t ’e?’
‘Oh! – I’ve been trying all day to see you and talk over what we were to do.’
‘What we’re going to do?’
‘It isn’t for myself, Frank. I’d work my fingers to the bone for you.’
‘And a fat lot o’ good that ’ud do. ’Ow about my garridge? If it ’adn’t a-been for your soft soap I’d a-got my forty quid out o’ the old devil months ago.’
Miss Twitterton quailed before his angry eyes.
‘Oh, please don’t be so angry with me. We couldn’t either of us know. And oh! – there’s another terrible thing—’
‘What’s up now?’
‘I – I – I’d been saving up a little bit – just a little here and there, you know – and I’d got close on £50 put away in the savings bank—’
‘Fifty pounds, eh?’ said Crutchley, his tone softening a little. ‘Well, that’s a tidy little bit. . . .’
‘I meant it for the garage. It was to be a surprise for you—’
‘Well, and what’s gone wrong with it?’ The sight of her imploring eyes and twitching, bony hands brought back his irritation. ‘Post-office gone bust?’
‘I – I – I lent it to Uncle. He said he was short – people hadn’t paid their bills—’
‘Well,’ said Crutchley, with impatience, ‘you got a receipt for it, I suppose.’ Excitement seized him. ‘That’s your money. They can’t get at that. You ’ave it out o’ them – you got a receipt for it. You give me the receipt and I’ll settle with that MacBride. That’ll cover my forty quid, anyhow.’
‘But I never thought to ask Uncle for a receipt. Not between relations. How could I?’
‘You never thought –? Nothing on paper –? Of all the blasted fools –!’
‘Oh, Frank, dear, I’m so sorry. Everything seems to have gone wrong. But you know, you never dreamt, any more than I did—’
‘No; or I’d ’ave acted a bit different, I can tell you.’
He ground his teeth savagely and struck a log on the hearth with his heel so that the sparks flew. Miss Twitterton watched him miserably. Then a new hope came to sustain her.
‘Frank, listen! Perhaps Lord Peter might lend you the money to start the garage. He’s ever so rich.’
Crutchley considered this. Born rich and born soft were to him the same thing. It was possible, if he made a good impression – though it did mean truckling to a blasted title.
‘That’s a fact,’ he admitted. ‘He might.’
In a rosy flush, Miss Twitterton saw the possibility as an accomplished fact. Her eager wishes flew ahead into a brilliant future.
‘I’m sure he would. We could get married at once, and have that little corner cottage – you know – on the main road, where you said – and there’d be ever so many cars stopping there. And I could help quite a lot with my Buff Orpingtons!’
‘You and your Buff Orpingtons!’
‘And I could give piano-lessons again. I know I could get pupils. There’s the stationmaster’s little Elsie—’
‘Little Elsie’s bottom! Now, see here, Aggie, it’s time we got down to brass tacks. You and me getting spliced with the idea of coming into your uncle’s money – that was one thing, see! That’s business. But if there’s no money from you, it’s off. You get that?’
Miss Twitterton uttered a faint bleat. He went on, brutally:
‘A man that’s starting in life wants a wife, see? A nice little bit to come ’ome to. Some’un he can cuddle – not a skinny old hen with a brood o’ Buff Orpingtons.’
‘How can you speak like that?’
He caught her roughly by the shoulder and twisted her round to face the mirror with the painted roses.
‘Look at yourself in the glass, you old fool! Talk about a man marrying his grandmother—’
She shrank back and he pushed her from him.
‘Coming the schoolmarm over me, with yer “Mind yer manners, Frank,” and “Mind yer aitches,” and bum-sucking round to his lordship – “Frank’s so clever” – t’sha! making me look a blasted fool.’
‘I only wanted to help you get on.’
‘Yes – showing me off, like as if I was your belongings. You’d like to take me up to bed like the silver tea-pot – and a silver tea-pot ’ud be about as much use to you, I
reckon.’
Miss Twitterton put her hands over her ears. ‘I won’t listen to you – you’re mad – you’re—’
‘Thought you’d bought me with yer uncle’s money, didn’t you? Well – where is it?’
‘How can you be so cruel? – after all I’ve done for you?’
‘You’ve done for me, all right. Made me a laughing-stock and got me into a blasted mess. I suppose you’ve been blabbing about all over the place as we was only waitin’ for vicar to put up the banns—’
‘I’ve never said a word – truly, truly I never have.’
‘Oh, ain’t you? Well, you should a-heard old Ruddle talk.’
‘And if I had,’ cried Miss Twitterton, with a last desperate burst of spirit, ‘why shouldn’t I? You’ve told me over and over again you were fond of me – you said you were – you said you were—’
‘Oh, can that row!’
‘But you did say so. Oh, you can’t, you can’t be so cruel! You don’t know – you don’t know – Frank, please! Dear Frank – I know it’s been a dreadful disappointment – but you can’t mean this – you can’t! I – I – I – oh, do be kind to me, Frank – I love you so—’
In frantic appeal, she flung herself into his arms: and the contact with her damp cheeks and stringy body drove him to an ugly fury.
‘Damn you, get off! Take your blasted claws out of my neck. Shut up! I’m sick and tired of the sight of you.’
He wrenched her loose and flung her heavily upon the settle, bruising her, and knocking her hat grotesquely over one ear. As he looked at her with a sort of delight in her helpless absurdity and her snuffling humiliation, the deep roar of the Daimler’s exhaust zoomed up to the gate and stopped. The latch clicked and steps came along the path. Miss Twitterton sobbed and gulped, hunting vaguely for her handkerchief.
‘Hell’s bells!’ said Crutchley, ‘they’re comin’ in.’
Above the creak of the gravel came the sound of two voices singing together softly:
‘Et ma joli’ colombe
Qui chante jour et nuit,
Et ma joli’ colombe
Qui chante jour et nuit,
Qui chante pour les filles
Qui n’ont pas de mari –
Auprès de ma blonde
Qu’il fait bon, fait bon, fait bon,