‘Not at all,’ said the Viscount. ‘Not much return, I’m afraid, after banging you all over the place and throwing your property about. May I know, by the way, whom I have had the honour of inconveniencing?’
‘My name’s Harriet Vane.’
Lord Saint-George stood still, and smote himself heavily over the forehead.
‘My God, what have I done? Miss Vane, I do beg your pardon – and throw myself abjectly on your mercy. If my uncle hears about this he’ll never forgive me, and I shall cut my throat. It is borne in upon me that I have said every possible thing I should not.’
‘It’s my fault,’ said Harriet, seeing that he looked really alarmed, ‘I ought to have warned you.’
‘As a matter of fact, I’ve no business to say things like that to anybody. I’m afraid I’ve inherited my uncle’s tongue and my mother’s want of tact. Look here, for God’s sake forget all that rot. Uncle Peter’s a dashed good sort, and as decent as they come.’
‘I’ve reason to know it.’ said Harriet.
‘I suppose so. By the way – hell! I seem to be putting my foot in it all round, but I ought to explain that I’ve never heard him talk about you. I mean, he’s not that sort. It’s my mother. She says all kinds of things. Sorry, I’m making things worse and worse.’
‘Don’t worry,’ said Harriet. ‘After all, I do know your uncle, you know – well enough, anyhow, to know what sort he is. And I certainly won’t give you away.’
‘For Heaven’s sake, don’t. It isn’t only that I’d never get anything more out of him – and I’m in a devil of a mess – but he makes one feel such an appalling tick. I don’t suppose you’ve ever been given the wrong side of my uncle’s tongue – naturally not. But of the two, I recommend skinning.’
‘We’re both in the same boat. I’d no business to listen. Good-bye – and many thanks for the meringues.’
She was half-way up St. Aldate’s when the viscount caught her up.
‘I say – I’ve just remembered. That old story I was ass enough to rake up—’
‘The Viennese dancer?’
‘Singer – music’s his line. Please forget that. I mean, it’s got whiskers on it – it’s six years old, anyway. I was a kid at school and I dare say it’s all rot.’
Harriet laughed, and promised faithfully to forget the Viennese singer.
9
Come hether freind, I am ashamed to hear that what I hear of you. . . . You have almost attayned to the age of nyne yeeres, at least to eight and a halfe, and seeing that you knowe your dutie, if you neglect it you deserve greater punishment then he which through ignorance doth it not. Think not that the nobilitie of your Ancestors doth free you to doe all that you list, contrarywise, it bindeth you more to followe vertue.
PIERRE ERONDELL
‘So,’ said the Bursar, coming briskly up to the High Table for lunch on the following Thursday; ‘Jukes has come to grief once more. . . .’
‘Has he been stealing again?’ asked Miss Lydgate. ‘Dear me, how disappointing!’
‘Annie tells me she’s had her suspicions for some time, and yesterday being her half-day she went down to tell Mrs. Jukes she would have to place the children somewhere else – when lo, and behold! in walked the police and discovered a whole lot of things that had been stolen a fortnight ago from an undergraduate’s rooms in Holywell. It was most unpleasant for her – for Annie, I mean. They asked her a lot of questions.’
‘I always thought it was a mistake to put those children there,’ said the Dean.
‘So that’s what Jukes did with himself at night,’ said Harriet. ‘I heard he’d been seen outside the College here. As a matter of fact, I gave Annie the tip. It’s a pity she couldn’t have removed the children earlier.’
‘I thought he was doing quite well,’ said Miss Lydgate. ‘He had a job – and I know he kept chickens – and there was the money for the little Wilsons, Annie’s children, I mean – so he ought not to have needed to steal, poor man. Perhaps Mrs. Jukes is a bad manager.’
‘Jukes is a bad lot,’ said Harriet. ‘A nasty bit of business altogether. He’s much best out of the way.’
‘Had he taken much?’ inquired the Dean.
‘I gather from Annie,’ said the Bursar, ‘that they rather think they can trace a lot of petty thieving to Jukes. I understand it’s a question of finding out where he sold the things.’
‘He’d dispose of them through a fence, I suppose,’ said Harriet; ‘some pawnbroker or somebody of that kind. Has he been inside – in prison – before?’
‘Not that I know of,’ said the Dean; ‘though he ought to have been.’
‘Then I suppose he’ll get off lightly as a first offender.’
‘Miss Barton will know all about that. We’ll ask her. I do hope poor Mrs. Jukes isn’t involved,’ said the Bursar.
‘Surely not,’ cried Miss Lydgate, ‘she’s such a nice woman.’
‘She must have known about it,’ said Harriet, ‘unless she was a perfect imbecile.’
‘What a dreadful thing, to know your husband was a thief!’
‘Yes,’ said the Dean. ‘It would be very uncomfortable to have to live on the proceeds.’
‘Terrible,’ said Miss Lydgate. ‘I can’t imagine anything more dreadful to an honest person’s feelings.’
‘Then,’ said Harriet, ‘we must hope, for Mrs. Jukes’ sake, she was as guilty as he was.’
‘What a horrible hope!’ exclaimed Miss Lydgate.
‘Well, she’s got to be either guilty or unhappy,’ said Harriet, passing the bread to the Dean with a twinkle in her eye.
‘I dissent altogether,’ said Miss Lydgate. ‘She must either be innocent and unhappy or guilty and unhappy – I don’t see how she can be happy, poor creature.’
‘Let us ask the Warden next time we see her,’ said Miss Martin, ‘whether it is possible for a guilty person to be happy. And if so, whether it is better to be happy or virtuous.’
‘Come, Dean,’ said the Bursar, ‘we can’t allow this sort of thing. Miss Vane, a bowl of hemlock for the Dean, if you please. To return to the subject under discussion, the police have not, so far, taken up Mrs. Jukes, so I suppose there’s nothing against her.’
‘I’m very glad of that,’ said Miss Lydgate; and, Miss Shaw arriving at that moment, full of woe about one of her pupils who was suffering from perpetual headache, and an incapacity to work, the conversation wandered into other channels.
Term was drawing to a close, and the investigation seemed little farther advanced; but it appeared possible that Harriet’s mightly perambulationus and the frustration of the Library and Chapel scandals had exercised a restraining influence on the Poltergeist, for there was no further outbreak of any kind, not so much as an inscription in a lavatory or an anonymous letter, for three days. The Dean, exceedingly busy, was relieved by the respite, and also cheered by the news that Mrs. Goodwin the secretary would be back on the Monday to cope with the end-of-term rush. Miss Cattermole was seen to be more cheerful, and wrote a quite respectable paper for Miss Hillyard about the naval policy of Henry VIII. Harriet asked the enigmatic Miss de Vine to coffee. As usual, she had intended to lay bare Miss de Vine’s soul, and, as usual, found herself laying bare her own.
‘I quite agree with you,’ said Miss de Vine, ‘about the difficulty of combining intellectual and emotional interests. I don’t think it affects women only; it affects men as well. But when men put their public lives before their private lives, it causes less outcry than when a woman does the same thing, because women put up with neglect better than men, having been brought up to expect it.’
‘But suppose one doesn’t quite know which one wants to put first. Suppose,’ said Harriet, falling back on words which were not her own, ‘suppose one is cursed with both a heart and a brain?’
‘You can usually tell,’ said Miss de Vine, ‘by seeing what kind of mistakes you make. I’m quite sure that one never makes fundamental mistakes about the thing one really wants to
do. Fundamental mistakes arise out of lack of genuine interest. In my opinion, that is.’
‘I made a very big mistake once,’ said Harriet, ‘as I expect you know. I don’t think that arose out of lack of interest. It seemed at the time the most important thing in the world.’
‘And yet you made the mistake. Were you really giving all your mind to it, do you think? Your mind? Were you really being as cautious and exacting about it as you would be about writing a passage of fine prose?’
‘That’s rather a difficult sort of comparison. One can’t, surely, deal with emotional excitements in that detached spirit.’
‘Isn’t the writing of good prose an emotional excitement?’
‘Yes, of course it is. At least, when you get the thing dead right and know it’s dead right, there’s no excitement like it. It’s marvellous. It makes you feel like God on the Seventh Day – for a bit, anyhow.’
‘Well, that’s what I mean. You expend the trouble and you don’t make any mistake – and then you experience the ecstasy. But if there’s any subject in which you’re content with the second-rate, then it isn’t really your subject.’
‘You’re dead right,’ said Harriet after a pause. ‘If one’s genuinely interested one knows how to be patient, and let time pass, as Queen Elizabeth said. Perhaps that’s the meaning of the phrase about genius being eternal patience, which I always thought rather absurd. If you truly want a thing, you don’t snatch; if you snatch, you don’t really want it. Do you suppose that, if you find yourself taking pains about a thing, it’s a proof of its importance to you?’
‘I think it is, to a large extent. But the big proof is that the thing comes right, without those fundamental errors. One always makes surface errors, of course. But a fundamental error is a sure sign of not caring. I wish one could teach people nowadays that the doctrine of snatching what one thinks one wants is unsound.’
‘I saw six plays this winter in London,’ said Harriet, ‘all preaching the doctrine of snatch. I agree that they left me with the feeling that none of the characters knew what they wanted.’
‘No,’ said Miss de Vine. ‘If you are once sure what you do want, you find that everything else goes down before it like grass under a roller – all other interests, your own and other people’s. Miss Lydgate wouldn’t like my saying that, but it’s as true of her as of anybody else. She’s the kindest soul in the world, in things she’s indifferent about, like the peculations of Jukes. But she hasn’t the slightest mercy on the prosodical theories of Mr. Elkbottom. She wouldn’t countenance those to save Mr. Elkbottom from hanging. She’d say she couldn’t. And she couldn’t, of course. If she actually saw Mr. Elkbottom writhing in humiliation she’d be sorry, but she wouldn’t alter a paragraph. That would be treason. One can’t be pitiful where one’s own job is concerned. You’d lie cheerfully, I expect, about anything except – what?’
‘Oh, anything!’ said Harriet, laughing. ‘Except saying that somebody’s beastly book is good when it isn’t. I can’t do that. It makes me a lot of enemies, but I can’t do it.’
‘No, one can’t,’ said Miss de Vine. ‘However painful it is, there’s always one thing one has to deal with sincerely, if there’s any root to one’s mind at all. I ought to know, from my own experience. Of course, the one thing may be an emotional thing; I don’t say it mayn’t. One may commit all the sins in the calendar, and still be faithful and honest towards one person. If so, then that one person is probably one’s appointed job. I’m not despising that kind of loyalty; it doesn’t happen to be mine, that is all.’
‘Did you discover that by making a fundamental mistake?’ asked Harriet, a little nervously.
‘Yes,’ said Miss de Vine. ‘I once got engaged to somebody. But I found I was always blundering – hurting his feelings, doing stupid things, making quite elementary mistakes about him. In the end I realised that I simply wasn’t taking as much trouble with him as I should have done over a disputed reading. So I decided he wasn’t my job.’ She smiled. ‘For all that, I was fonder of him than he was of me. He married an excellent woman who is devoted to him and does make him her job. I should think he was a full-time job. He is a painter and usually on the verge of bankruptcy; but he paints very well.’
‘I suppose one oughtn’t to marry anybody, unless one’s prepared to make him a full-time job.’
‘Probably not; though there are a few rare people, I believe, who don’t look on themselves as jobs but as fellow-creatures.’
‘I should think Phœbe Tucker and her husband were like that,’ said Harriet. ‘You met her at the Gaudy. That collaboration seems to work. But what with the wives who are jealous of their husbands’ work and the husbands who are jealous of their wives’ interests, it looks as though most of us imagined ourselves to be jobs.’
‘The worst of being a job,’ said Miss de Vine, ‘is the devastating effect it has on one’s character. I’m very sorry for the person who is somebody else’s job; he (or she, of course) ends by devouring or being devoured, either of which is bad for one. My painter has devoured his wife, though neither of them knows it; and poor Miss Cattermole is in great danger of being identified with her parents’ job and being devoured.’
‘Then you’re all for the impersonal job?’
‘I am,’ said Miss de Vine.
‘But you say you don’t despise those who make some other persons their job?’
‘Far from despising them,’ said Miss de Vine; ‘I think they are dangerous.’
Christ Church,
Friday.
Dear Miss Vane,
If you can forgive my idiotic behaviour the other day, will you come and lunch with me on Monday at 1 o’clock? Please do. I am still feeling suicidal, so it would really be a work of charity all round. I hope the meringues got home safely.
Very sincerely yours,
Saint-George.
My dear young man, thought Harriet, as she wrote an acceptance of this naïve invitation, if you think I can’t see through that, you’re mightily mistaken. This is not for me, but for les beaux yeux de la cassette de l’oncle Pierre. But there are worse meals than those that come out of the House kitchen, and I will go. I should like to know how much money you’re managing to get through, by the way. The heir of Denver should be rich enough in his own right without appealing to Uncle Peter. Gracious! when I think that I was given my college fees and my clothes and five pounds a term to make whoopee on! You won’t get much sympathy or support from me, my lord.
Still in this severe mood, she drove down St. Aldate’s on Monday and inquired of the porter beneath Tom Tower for Lord Saint-George; only to be told that Lord Saint-George was not in College.
‘Oh!’ said Harriet, disconcerted, ‘but he asked me to lunch.’
‘What a pity you weren’t let know, miss. Lord Saint-George was in a nasty motor-accident on Friday night. He’s in the Infirmary. Didn’t you see it in the papers?’
‘No, I missed it. Is he badly hurt?’
‘Injured his shoulder and cut his head open pretty badly, so we hear,’ said the porter, with regret, and yet, with a slight relish at the imparting of bad news. ‘He was unconscious for twenty-four hours; but we are informed that his condition is now improving. The Duke and Duchess have left for the country again.’
‘Dear me!’ said Harriet. ‘I’m sorry to hear this. I’d better go round and inquire. Do you know whether he is allowed to see anybody yet?’
The porter looked her over with a paternal eye, which somehow suggested to her that if she had been an undergraduate the answer would have been No.
‘I believe, miss,’ said the porter, ‘that Mr. Danvers and Lord Warboys were permitted to visit his lordship this morning. I couldn’t say further than that. Excuse me – there is Mr. Danvers just crossing the quadrangle. I will ascertain.’
He emerged from his glass case and pursued Mr. Danvers, who immediately came running to the lodge.
‘I say,’ said Mr. Danvers, ‘are you Miss Vane? Because
poor old Saint-George has only just remembered about you. He’s terribly sorry, and I was to catch you and give you some grub. No trouble at all – a great pleasure. We ought to have let you know, but he was knocked clean out, poor old chap. And then, what with the family fussing round – do you know the Duchess? – No? – Ah! Well, she went off this morning, and then I was allowed to go round and got my instructions. Terrific apologies and all that.’
‘How did it happen?’
‘Driving a racing car to the danger of the public,’ said Mr. Danvers, with a grimace. ‘Trying to make it before the gates were shut. No police on the spot, as it happened, so we don’t know exactly what did happen. Nobody killed, fortunately. Saint-George took a telegraph pole in his stride, apparently, went out head first and pitched on his shoulder. Lucky he had the windscreen down, or he’d have had no face to speak of. The car’s a total wreck, and I don’t know why he isn’t. But all those Wimseys have as many lives as cats. Come along in. These are my rooms. I hope you can eat the usual lamb cutlets – there wasn’t time to think up anything special. But I had particular orders to hunt out Saint-George’s Niersteiner ’23 and mention Uncle Peter in connection with it. Is that right? I don’t know whether Uncle Peter bought it or recommended it or merely enjoyed it, or what he had to do with it, but that’s what I was told to say.’
Harriet laughed. ‘If he did any of those things, it’ll be all right.’
The Niersteiner was excellent, and Harriet heartlessly enjoyed her lunch, finding Mr. Danvers a pleasant host.
‘And do go up and see the patient.’ said Mr. Danvers, as he escorted her at length to the gate. ‘He’s quite fit to receive company, and it’ll cheer him up no end. He’s in a private ward, so you can get in any time.’
‘I’ll go straight away,’ said Harriet.
‘Do,’ said Mr. Danvers. ‘What’s that?’ he added turning to the porter, who had come out with a letter in his hand. ‘Oh, something for Saint-George. Right. Yes. I expect the lady will take it up, if she’s going now. If not, it can wait for the messenger.’