Dorothy Sayers - Busman’s Honeymoon

Peter Wimsey rather hoped so, too. It took a long time to clear the woodshed, which contained not very much wood but an infinite quantity of things like dilapidated mangles and wheelbarrows, together with the remains of an old pony-trap, several disused grates, and a galvanised iron boiler with a hole in it. But he had his doubts about the weather, and was indisposed to allow Mrs Merdle (the ninth Daimler of that name) to stand out all night. When he thought of his lady’s expressed preference for haystacks, he sang songs in the French language; but from time to time he stopped singing and wondered whether, after all, she might not have been happier at the Hotel Gigantic somewhere-or-other on the Continent.

The church clock down in the village was chiming the three-quarters before eleven when he finally coaxed Mrs Merdle into her new quarters and re-entered the house, brushing the cobwebs from his hands. As he passed the threshold a thick cloud of smoke caught him by the throat and choked him. Pressing on, nevertheless, he arrived at the door of the kitchen, where a first hasty glance convinced him that the house was on fire. Recoiling into the sittingroom, he found himself enveloped in a kind of London fog, through which he dimly descried dark forms struggling about the hearth like genies of the mist. He said ‘Hallo!’ and was instantly seized by a fit of coughing. Out of the thick rolls of smoke came a figure that he vaguely remembered promising to love and cherish at some earlier period in the day. Her eyes were streaming and her progress blind. He extended an arm, and they coughed convulsively together.

‘Oh, Peter!’ said Harriet. ‘I think all the chimneys are bewitched.’

The windows in the sittingroom had been opened and the draught brought fresh smoke billowing out into the passage. With it came Bunter, staggering but still in possession of his faculties, and flung wide both the front door and the back. Harriet reeled out into the sweet cold air of the porch and sat down on a seat to recover herself. When she could see and breathe again, she made her way back to the sittingroom, only to meet Peter coming out of the kitchen in his shirt-sleeves.

‘It’s no go,’ said his lordship. ‘No can do. Those chimneys are blocked. I’ve been inside both of them and you can’t see a single star and there’s about fifteen bushels of soot in the kitchen chimney-ledges, because I felt it.’ (As indeed his right arm bore witness.) ‘I shouldn’t think they’d been swept for twenty years.’

‘They ain’t been swep’ in my memory,’ said Mrs Ruddle, ‘and I’ve lived in that cottage eleven year come next Christmas quarter-day.’

‘Then it’s time they were,’ said Peter, briskly. ‘Send for the sweep tomorrow, Bunter. Heat up some of the turtle soup on the oil-stove and give us the foie gras, the quails in aspic and a bottle of hock in the kitchen.’

‘Certainly, my lord.’

‘And I want a wash. Did I see a kettle in the kitchen?’

‘Yes, m’lord,’ quavered Mrs Ruddle. ‘Oh, yes-a beautiful kittle as ’ot as ’ot. And if I was jest to put the bed down before the Beetrice in the settin’-room and git the clean sheets on-’

Peter fled with the kettle into the scullery, whither his bride pursued him. ‘Peter, I’m past apologising for my ideal home.’

‘Apologise if you dare-and embrace me at your peril. I am as black as Belloc’s scorpion. He is a most unpleasant brute to find in bed at night.’

‘Among the clean sheets. And, Peter-oh, Peter! the ballad was right. It is a goosefeather bed!’

– John Donne: An Epithalamion on the Marriage of Lady Elizabeth and Count Palatine .

Peter, dispensing soup and pate and quails from a curious harlequin assortment of Mr Noakes’s crockery, had said to Bunter: ‘We’ll do our own waiting. For God’s sake get yourself some grub and make Mrs Ruddle fix you up something to sleep on. My egotism has reached an acute stage tonight, but there’s no need for you to pander to it.’

Bunter smiled gently and vanished, with the assurance that he should ‘do very well, my lord, thank you’.

He returned, however, about the quail stage, to announce that the chimney in her ladyship’s room was clear, owing (he suggested) to the circumstance that nothing had been burned “I it since the days of Queen Elizabeth. He had consequently succeeded in kindling upon the hearthstone a small fire of wood which, though restricted in size and scope by the absence of dogs, would, he trusted, somewhat mitigate the inclemency of the atmosphere.

‘Bunter,’ said Harriet, ‘you are marvellous.’

‘Bunter,’ said Wimsey, ‘you are becoming thoroughly demoralised. I told you to look after yourself. This is the first time you have ever refused to take my orders. I hope you will not make it a precedent.’

‘No, my lord. I have dismissed Mrs Ruddle, after enlisting her services for tomorrow, subject to her ladyship’s approval. Her manner is unpolished, but I have observed that her brass is not and that she has hitherto maintained the house in a state of commendable cleanliness. Unless you ladyship desires to make other arrangements-’

‘Let’s keep her on if we can,’ said Harriet, a little confused at being deferred to (since Bunter, after all, was likely to suffer most from Mrs Ruddle’s peculiarities). ‘She always worked here and she knows where everything is, and she seems to be doing her best.’

She glanced doubtfully at Peter, who said: ‘The worst I know of her is that she doesn’t like my face, but that will hurt her more than it will me. I mean, you know, she’s the one that’s got to look at it. Let her carry on… In the meantime, there is this matter of Bunter’ insubordination, from which I refuse to be diverted by Mr; Ruddle or any other red herring.’

‘My lord?’

‘If, Bunter, you do not immediately sit down here and have your supper, I will have you drummed out of the Regiment. My god!’ said Peter, putting a formidable wedge of foie gras on a cracked plate and handing it to his man, ‘do you realise what will happen to us if you die of neglect and starvation? There appear to be only two tumblers, so your punishment shall be to take your wine in a teacup and make a speech afterwards. There was a little supper below-stairs at my mother’s on Sunday night, I fancy. The speech you made then will serve the purpose, Bunter, with suitable modifications to fit it for our chaste ears.’

‘May I respectfully inquire,’ asked Bunter, drawing up an obedient chair, ‘how your lordship comes to know about that?’

‘You know my methods. Bunter. As a matter of fact, James blew-if I may call it-the gaff.’

‘Ah, James!’ said Bunter, in a tone that boded James no good. He brooded a little over his supper, but, when called upon, rose without overmuch hesitation, teacup in hand.

‘My orders are,’ said Mr Bunter, ‘to propose the health of the happy couple shortly to-the happy couple now before us. To obey orders in this family has been my privilege for the last twenty years-a privilege which has been an unqualified pleasure, except perhaps when connected with the photography of deceased persons in an imperfect state of preservation.’