Busman’s Honeymoon (37 page)

  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 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 Twitter-ton 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 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 prayerbooks 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.’