Dorothy Sayers: Busman’s Honeymoon

4 October .-Went round to Peter’s flat to advise about settings for some stones he picked up in Italy. While there registered post brought large, flat envelope-Harriet’s writing. Wondered what it was she wanted to send and not bring. (Inquisitive me!) Watched Peter open it, while pretending to examine zircon (such a lovely colour!). He flushed up in that absurd way he has when anybody says anything rather personal to him, and stood staring at the thing till I got quite wound up, and said, ‘What is it?’ He said, in an odd sort of voice, ‘The bride’s gift to the bridegroom.’ It had been worrying me for some time how she’d grapple with that, because there isn’t an awful lot, really , one can give a very well-of man, unless one is frightfully well off oneself, and the wrong thing is worse than nothing, but all the same, nobody really wants to be kindly told that they can’t bring a better gift than their sweet selves-very pretty but so patronising and Lord of Burleigh-and after all, we all have human instincts, and giving people things is one of them. So I dashed up to look, and it was a letter written on a single sheet in a very beautiful seventeenth-century hand. Peter said, ‘The funny thing is that the catalogue was sent to me in Rome, and I wired for this, and was ridiculously angry to learn it had been sold.’ I said, ‘But you don’t collect manuscripts.’ And he said, ‘No, but I wanted this for Harriet.’ And he turned it over, and I could read the signature, ‘John Donne’, and that explained a lot, because of course Peter has always been queer about Donne. It seems it’s a very beautiful letter from D. to a parishioner-Lady Somebody-about Divine and human love. I was trying to read it, only I never can make out that old-fashioned kind of writing (wonder what Helen will make of it-no doubt she’ll think a gold cigarette-lighter would have been much more suitable)-when I found Peter had got on the phone, and was saying, ‘Listen, dear heart,’ in a voice I’d never heard him use in his life. So I shot out of the room, and ran slap into Bunter, just coming in from the hall-door. Afraid Peter is getting out of hand, because when he came out after telephoning, Bunter reported that he had ‘booked the best room at the Lord Warden, my lord, for the night of the 16th, and reserved cabin and train accommodation for Mentone as instructed.’ P. asked, were the hell-hounds on the trail? B. said. Yes-leading hell-hound had approached him as expected with pump working full blast. Had asked, Why Lord Warden and not night boat or aeroplane? B. had replied. Lady a martyr to sea-and-air-sickness. Hound appeared satisfied and tipped B. 10s., which B. says he will take liberty of forwarding to Prisoners’ Aid Society. I said, ‘Really, Peter!’ but he said. Why shouldn’t he arrange continental trip for deserving couple? and posted off reservations to Miss Climpson, for benefit of tubercular accountant and wife in reduced circumstances. (Query: How does one reduce a circumstance?)

5 October .-Worth has made magnificent effort and delivered dress. Few select friends invited to see trousseau-including Miss Climpson, miraculously reduced to speechlessness by Peter’s gift of mink coat-950 guineas admittedly perhaps a trifle extravagant, but his sole contribution, and he looked as scared and guilty when he presented it as he did when he was a small boy and his father caught him with his pocket full of rabbits after a night out with that rascally of poacher Merryweather he took such a fancy to-and how that man’s cottage did smell ! But it is a lovely cloak, and H. hadn’t the heart to say more than, ‘Oh, Mr Rochester!’-in fun, and meaning Jane Eyre, who I always think behaved so ungraciously to that poor man-so gloomy to have your bride, however bigamous, insisting on grey alpaca or merino or whatever it was, and damping to a lover’s feelings… Hell-hound’s paragraph in Morning Star -discreetly anonymous but quite unmistakable. Helen rang up to know if it was true. I replied, with exactness, that it must be all invention! In evening, took Peter and Harriet to Cheyne Walk to dine with Paul-who insists on coming to wedding, arthritis or no arthritis. Noticed unusual constraint between P. and H., who had been all right when I saw them off to dinner and theatre last night. Paul gave one look at them, and started off to chatter about his eternal cloisonné and the superiority of naturally matured French wines over port. Uncomfortable evening, with everybody unlike themselves. At last, Paul sent P. and H. off by themselves in a taxi, saying he wanted to talk business with me-obvious excuse. I asked, did he think anything was wrong? Paul said, ‘Au contraire, ma soeur, c’est nous qui sommes de trop. Il arrive toujours le moment ou l’on apprend a distinguer entre embrasser et baiser’-adding with one of his grins, ‘I was wondering how long Peter would last before he let the bars down-he’s his father all over again, with a touch of myself, Honoria, with a touch of my self!’ Couldn’t waste time and breath being annoyed with Paul-who has always been the complete polygamist-and so was Peter’s father, of course, dearly as I loved him-so I said, ‘Yes, but, Paul, do you think Harriet-?’ Paul said ‘Bah! the wine she drinks is made of grapes. Il y a des femmes qui ont le genie-’ I really could not stand Paul on le genie de l’amour, because he goes on and on, getting more and more conscientiously French every moment, with illustrative anecdotes from his own career, and, anyway, he’s only as much French as I am-exactly one-eighth-so I told him hastily I was sure his diagonal was the right one (wonder whether I meant ‘angle’ or ‘diagnosis’), and I expect it is have never known Paul mistaken about the progress of a love-affair. Realise that this explains why he and Harriet have always got on so well together, though one would never have expected it, considering her reserve and his usual taste in women. Suggested to Paul it was time he went to bed; so he said rather dismally, ‘Yes, Honoria-I’m getting very old, and my bones ache. My sins are deserting me, and if I could only have my time over again I’d take care to commit more of them. Confound Peter! Il ne sait pas vivre. Mais je voudrais bien etre dans ses draps.’ ‘You’ll be in your own winding-sheet soon,’ I said, very crossly: ‘no wonder Peter calls you Uncle Pandarus, you evil old wretch.’ Paul said, ‘Well, you can’t deny I had him taught his job, and he’s no disgrace to either of us.’ There was no answer to that, so I came away… Tried The Stars Look Down again, and found it full of most unpleasant people… The fact is, one never really visualises one’s own son… But I needn’t have been so cross with Paul.

7 October .-Harriet came to see me before starting for Oxford-very nice to me. I think she will give Peter all he wants-yes, I really do. If anybody can… Felt depressed, all the same, for nearly half an hour… Later on, while coping with preparations for wedding-breakfast-all made more difficult by need for secrecy-interrupted by Peter on phone, gone suddenly all fractious because it had rained in the night and roads would be slippery, and convinced Harriet would have a skid and be killed on way to Oxford. Begged him not to behave like a half-wit and said, if he wanted healthy occupation he could come and help Emily wash all the ornaments out of drawing-room cabinets. He didn’t come-but Jerry did, in high spirits at idea of being best man, and broke a Dresden shepherdess.

Later .-Peter and Jerry got (thank goodness!) safely out of the way to Oxford. Preparations completed and all wished-for guests summoned and transport arranged for the impecunious… In evening, furious trunk-call from Helen at Denver, having had wire from Peter and demanding what we meant by inconsiderate behaviour. Took great pleasure in telling her (at considerable length and her expense) nothing to thank but her own tactlessness.