Alan Hunter: Landed Gently

‘Say, are you married, Gently?’

Gently came out of his revery to find Earle holding up a frilly, black silk specimen of female underwear.

‘No,’ he said, ‘no. Guess I never was, Earle.’

‘Gee, that’s a pity. I thought maybe you could help me out over the size of these things.’ He inspected the exhibit with naive admiration. ‘Cute, ain’t they? I paid nine pounds seven shillings and fourpence half-penny for these, and I guess that’s plenty. You think they will fit a sorta average kind of female?’

Gently gave the matter his attention. ‘It’s out of my province, but I imagine they probably would.’

‘Yeah, that’s what the sales girl reckoned. It’s darned difficult when you don’t know the lady well enough to ask her measurements. I been going through these things most of the afternoon — guess that must have been where it went to, at that.’

He wrapped the lingerie up carefully in its tissue, and put it away in a flowery carton bearing the name of a famous West End firm.

‘But don’t get me wrong when I call that female average, Gently. No, sir! There ain’t nothing average about the second cousin of a real live lord. You mix with the aristocracy, huh?’

‘Not habitually, Earle. I just run across them now and then.’

‘Guess you’ve seen some of those classy dames, duchesses and suchlike?’

‘An occasional duchess, perhaps.’

‘Well, a lord’s second cousin don’t rate as high as a duchess, of course, but the quality is there all right, don’t you forget it. I guess once you’re in on the blood, you’re in, and it don’t signify how many removes you come out at. Wouldn’t you say that was a fact?’

‘Guess you would, Earle, at that.’

‘And, man, this one surely is a peach — and nobody’s kidding nobody. Janice Elizabeth Augusta they call her, Feverell that was, Page that is. Married to a surgeon, she used to be, but he cashed his chips a couple of years back.’

‘And she’s living with her cousin now?’

‘She is too. Which is how Lieutenant Earle came to make her acquaintance. I guess you never did try your hand at tapestry-weaving, Gently?’

‘Tapestry-weaving?’ Gently stared at this abrupt and apparently irrelevant switch of subject.

‘Yeah, that’s what I said. Tapestry-weaving. Me, I didn’t know it was still going on till maybe a couple of months back. My old man runs a newspaper back in Carpetville, Missouri, and either I go on the paper when I come out or else I don’t. Well, if I don’t I aim to be a painter — they reckon I’ve got talent in New York, where I studied some — but now I’ve seen this tapestry-weaving slant I ain’t so sure as I was. You follow me OK?’

Gently blinked a little. ‘Could be,’ he conceded, ‘but what’s tapestry-weaving got to do with Lord Somerhayes’s second cousin?’

‘I’m coming to it. I just wanted to put you square with the set-up. Now a couple of months back there’s one of those culturals going on in camp, and this guy Brass comes along to chew the rag about tapestry. Well, that was all news to Lieutenant Earle, who used to figure tapestry packed up about the time bows and arrows went out. But no, sir, not a bit of it. Seems like they’d been turning it out steadily all the time. And this guy Brass, who’d spent a year or two in Paris, had got a workshop good and busy right there in Lord Somerhayes’s house. Well, Lieutenant Earle got mightily curious about this business. He got himself invited in to see how the stuff was cooked up. And now he’s taking lessons just as often as he can get there, and wondering whether the USA couldn’t use a tapestry workshop.’

‘And Lord Somerhayes’s second cousin?’

Earle waved his big hands.

‘They’re all knee-deep in the racket. I guess she helps with the business side. This Brass guy reckons Lord Somerhayes went off the deep end about something that happened in the House of Lords, can you imagine it? So he takes up this tapestry notion by way of giving the House of Lords the air. Sure thing he never sets foot in there these days, though I guess they get along pretty fine without him.’

Earle brooded a moment, frowning at the two inches of ash on the end of his cigar.

‘He’s a queer sort of buster, the lord. I just can’t get around to figuring him out. But Lord Chesterfield didn’t have nothing on him when it comes to class, and time you’re a lord I guess you’ve a right to act strange. Wouldn’t you say that was a fact?’

Gently grinned at the American’s puzzled countenance. ‘I think you would, Earle,’ he said, ‘I think you’d definitely say it was a fact.’

Onward thundered the Northshireman through the frost-sharp night. London was far behind them, only now and then did a cluster of lights shine out from the jet-like blackness, or a station briefly startle them with its astral flight. In the swaying compartment it was warm and drowsy. Several times Gently nodded off, to be brought back to consciousness by the sudden rasp of a bridge under which they had flashed, or the roll of the coach as it tore round a curve sharper than usual. Finally he must have dropped right off. He was wakened by a hand shaking his shoulder, and opened his eyes to see Earle standing by him, parcels piled high in the American’s arms.

‘End of the track, Gently… Guess you won’t get any further on this wagon.’

‘Norchester, is it?’

‘That’s what it says on the boards.’

Gently stretched himself, rose, and began pulling down his cases. Earle was having trouble opening the door with such an armful.

‘Well, it’s been nice knowing you, Gently. Reckon we’ll have to skip the handshake. You wouldn’t know where I pick up a train for a whistle-stop called Merely?’

Gently smiled into the distant reaches of the night.

‘It’s this one on the opposite platform. Get a move on or we’ll lose it.’

‘Hey,’ exclaimed Earle, ‘you wouldn’t be coming that way too?’

‘I would, Lieutenant. All the way to Merely.’

‘But jeez, there’s nothing there except the station-hut and the lord’s!’

‘There’s also the Manor House, Lieutenant… you must have overlooked it. I’ve got the impression that you and I are going to extend our acquaintance.’

‘ Your morning tea, sir?’

Gently prolonged the voluptuous moment of wakening in a superbly warm and comfortable bed. Off duty, that was the happy thought that came to him. No need to leap suddenly from the nurturing bowers of sleep, to race through his toilet, to plunge into the chaotic morning Underground. He was off duty, and miles away. Out here, waking up was a pleasure worth tasting and lingering over.

‘You didn’t answer, sir, so I took the liberty of bringing it in.’

He opened an eye. A neat little maid in uniform stood by the bed smiling at him. She was carrying, not a cup, but an interesting-looking bed-tray on which he could see, inter alia, copies of The Times and the Eastern Daily Post. He dragged himself up the bed a few points to receive this consignment. The atmosphere of the room was pleasantly warm, and he remembered with appreciation that the amenities of Merely Manor included central heating.

‘How’s the weather outside?’

‘Oh, there’s a nip in the air, sir, but it’s quite dry.’

‘Pike weather, would you say?’

‘I don’t rightly know, sir, but the master and some of his friends have got some big ’uns this last week or two. Will you want your bath run, sir?’

‘Mmm… all hot. By the time I’m through here it’ll be about right.’

The maid dropped a polite little curtsey and tripped away into the bathroom, from which direction Gently could soon hear the steady swish of water, and see the occasional tendril of steam. He unbonneted the pot and poured himself a fragrant cupful. Under a plated cover he found some fingers of toast; on a plate were some wholemeal biscuits. He chose the former, and dismissing yesterday’s resolution, settled down to peruse his papers.