Dorothy Sayers - Gaudy Night

“I’ve broken the ice,” she said aloud, “and the water wasn’t so cold after all. I shall go back, from time to time. I shall go back.” She picked out a pleasant pub for lunch and ate with a good appetite. Then she remembered that her cigarette-case was still in her gown. She had brought the garment in with her on her arm, and, thrusting her hand down to the bottom of the long sleeve, she extracted the case. A piece of paper came out with it-an ordinary sheet of scribbling paper folded into four. She frowned at a disagreeable memory as she unfolded it.

There was a message pasted across it, made up of letters cut apparently from the headlines of a newspaper.

YOU DIRTY MURDERESS. AREN’T YOU

ASHAMED TO SHOW YOUR FACE?

“Hell!” said Harriet. “ Oxford, thou too?” She sat very still for a few moments. Then she struck a match and set light to the paper. It burned briskly, till she was forced to drop it upon her plate. Even then, the letters showed grey upon the crackling blackness, until she pounded their spectral shapes to powder with the back of a spoon.

There are incidents in one’s life which, through some haphazard coincidence of time and mood, acquire a symbolic value. Harriet’s attendance at the Shrewsbury Gaudy was of this kind. In spite of minor incongruities and absurdities, it had shown itself to have one definite significance; it had opened up to her the vision of an old desire, long obscured by a forest of “relevant fancies, but now standing up unmistakable, like a tower set on a hill. Two phrases rang in her ears: the Dean’s, ”It’s the work you’re doing that really counts“; and that one melancholy lament for eternal loss: ”Once, I was a scholar.”

“Time is,” quoth the Brazen Head; “time was; time is past.” Philip Boyes was dead; and the nightmares that had haunted the ghastly midnight of his passing were gradually fading away. Clinging on, by blind instinct, to the job that had to be done, she had fought her way back to an insecure stability. Was it too late to achieve wholly the clear eye and the untroubled mind? And what, in that case, was she to do with one powerful fetter which still tied her ineluctably to the bitter past? What about Peter Wimsey?

During the past three years, their relations had been peculiar. Immediately after the horrible business that they had investigated together at Wilvercombe, Harriet-feeling that something must be done to ease a situation which was fast becoming intolerable-had carried out a long-cherished scheme, now at last made practicable by her increasing reputation and income as a writer. Taking a woman friend with her as companion and secretary, she had left England, and travelled slowly about Europe, staying now here, now there, as fancy dictated or a good background presented itself for a story. Financially the trip had been a success. She had gathered material for two full-length novels, the scenes laid respectively in Madrid and Carcassonne, and written a series of short stories dealing with detective adventures in Hitlerite Berlin, and also a number of travel articles; thus more than replenishing the treasury. Before her departure, she had asked Wimsey not to write. He had taken the prohibition with unexpected meekness.

“I see. Very well. Vade in pace. If you ever want me, you will find the Old Firm at the usual stand.”

She had occasionally seen his name in the English papers, and that was all At the beginning of the following June, she had returned home, feeling that after so long a break, there should be little difficulty in bringing the relationship to a cool and friendly close. By this time he was probably feeling as much settled and relieved as she was. As soon as she got back to London, she moved to a new flat in Mecklenburg Square, and settled down to work at the Carcassonne novel.

A trifling incident, soon after her return, gave her the opportunity to test her own reactions. She went down to Ascot, in company with a witty young woman writer and her barrister husband-partly for fun and partly because she wanted to get local color for a short story, in which an unhappy victim was due to fall suddenly dead in the Royal Enclosure, just at the exciting moment when all eyes were glued upon the finish of a race. Scanning those sacred precincts, therefore, from without the pale, Harriet became aware that the local colour included a pair of slim shoulders tailored to swooning-point and carrying a well-known parrot profile, thrown into prominence by the acute backward slant of a pale-grey topper. A froth of summer hats billowed about this apparition, so that it resembled a slightly grotesque but expensive orchid in a bouquet of roses. From the expressions of the parties, Harriet gathered that the summer hats were picking long-priced and impossible outsiders, and that the topper was receiving their instructions with an amusement amounting to hilarity. At any rate, his attention was well occupied.

“Excellent,” thought Harriet; “nothing to trouble about there.” She came home rejoicing in the exceptional tranquility of her own spirits. Three days later, while reading in the morning paper that among the guests at a literary luncheon-party had been seen “Miss Harriet Vane, the well-known detective authoress”, she was interrupted by the telephone. A familiar voice said, with a curious huskiness and uncertainty:

“Miss Harriet Vane?… Is that you, Harriet? I saw you were back. Will you dine with me one evening?”

There were several possible answers; among them, the repressive and disconcerting “Who is that speaking, please?” Being unprepared and naturally honest, Harriet feebly replied:

“Oh, thank you, Peter. But I don’t know whether…”

“What?” said the voice, with a hint of mockery. “Every night booked from now till the coming of the Coqcigrues?”

“Of course not,” said Harriet, not at all willing to pose as the swollen-headed and much-run-after celebrity.

“Then say when.”

“I’m free tonight,” said Harriet, thinking that the shortness of the notice might force him to plead a previous engagement.

“Admirable,” said he. “So am I. We will taste the sweets of freedom. By the way, you have changed your telephone number.”

“Yes-I’ve got a new flat.”

“Shall I call for you? Or will you meet me at Ferrara ’s at 7 o’clock?”

“At Ferrara ’s?”

“Yes. Seven o’clock, if that’s not too early. Then we can go on to a show, if you care about it. Till this evening, then. Thank you.”

He hung up the receiver before she had time to protest. Ferrara ’s was not the place she would have chosen. It was both fashionable and conspicuous. Everybody who could get there, went there; but its charges were so high that, for the present at least, it could afford not to be crowded. That meant that if you went there you were seen. If one intended to break off a connection with anyone, it was perhaps not the best opening move to afficher one’s self with him at Ferrara ’s.

Oddly enough, this would be the first time she had dined in the West End with Peter Wimsey. During the first year or so after her trial, she had not wanted to appear anywhere, even had she then been able to afford the frocks to appear in. In those days, he had taken her to the quieter and better restaurants in Soho, or, more often, carried her off, sulky and rebellious, in the car to such roadside inns as kept reliable cooks. She had been too listless to refuse these outings, which had probably done something to keep her from brooding, even though her host’s imperturbable cheerfulness had often been repaid only with bitter or distressful words. Looking back, she was as much amazed by his patience as fretted by his persistence.