‘Only that it’s a great shame to knock you up at this time of night,’ said Peter.

‘It’s only a quarter to ten,’ replied Miss Twitterton, with a deprecating glance at a little china clock in the shape of a pansy. ‘Nothing, of course, to you-but you know we keep early hours in the country. I have to be up at five to feed my birds, so I’m rather an early bird myself-except on choir-practice nights, you know-Wednesday, such an awkward day for me with Thursday market-day, but then it’s more convenient for the dear Vicar. But, of course, if I’d had the smallest idea that Uncle William would do such an extraordinary thing, I’d have come over and been there to let you in. If you could wait five-or perhaps ten-minutes while I made a more suitable toilet, I could come now-as I see you have your beautiful car, perhaps-’

‘Please don’t bother, Miss Twitterton,’ said Harriet, a little alarmed at the prospect. ‘We have plenty of supplies with us, and Mrs Ruddle and our man can look after us quite well for tonight. If you could just let us have the keys-’

‘The keys-yes, of course. So dreadful for you not being able to get in, and really such a cold night for the time of year-what Uncle William can have been thinking of-and I did he say-dear me! his letter upset me so I hardly knew what I was reading-your honeymoon didn’t you say? how terrible for you-and I do hope at any rate you’ve had supper? No supper!-I simply can’t understand how Uncle could-but you will take a little bit of cake and a glass of my home-made wine?’

‘Oh, really, we mustn’t trouble you-’ began Harriet, but Miss Twitterton was already hunting in a cupboard. Behind her back, Peter put his hands to his face in a mute gesture of horrified resignation.

‘There!’ said Miss Twitterton, triumphantly. ‘I’m sure you will feel better for a little refreshment. My parsnip wine is really extra good this year. Dr Jellyfield always takes a glass when he comes-which isn’t very often, I’m pleased to say, because my health is always remarkably good.’

‘That will not prevent me from drinking to it,’ said Peter disposing of the parsnip wine with a celerity which might have been due to eagerness but, to Harriet, rather suggested a reluctance to let the draught linger on the palate. ‘May I pour out a glass for yourself?’

‘How kind of you!’ cried Miss Twitterton. ‘Well-it’s rather late at night-but I really ought to drink to your wedded happiness, oughtn’t I?-Not too much. Lord Peter, please. The dear Vicar always says my parsnip wine is not nearly so innocent as it looks-dear me!-But you will take just a little more, won’t you? A gentleman always has a stronger head than a lady.

‘Thanks so much,’ said Peter, meekly, ‘but you must remember I’ve got to drive my wife back to Paggleham.’

‘One more I’m sure won’t do any harm.-Well, just half a glass, then-there! Now of course, you want the keys. I’ll run upstairs for them at once-I know I mustn’t keep you-I won’t be a minute. Lady Peter, so please have another slice of cake-it’s home-made-I do all my own baking, and Uncle’s too-whatever can have come over him I can’t think.’ Miss Twitterton ran out, leaving the pair to gaze at one another in the light of the candle.

‘Peter, my poor, long-suffering, heroic lamb-pour it into the aspidistra.’

Wimsey lifted his eyebrows at the plant. ‘It looks rather unwell already, Harriet. I think my constitution is the better of the two. Here goes. But you might kiss me to take the taste away… Our hostess has a certain refinement (I think that’s the word) about her which I had not expected. She got your title right first shot, which is unusual. Her life has had some smatch of honour in it. Who was her father?’

‘I think he was a cowman.’

‘Then he married above his station. His wife, presumably, was a Miss Noakes.’

‘It comes back to me that she was a village schoolmistress over at some place near Broxford.’

‘That explains it… Miss Twitterton is coming down. At this point we rise up, buckle the belt of the old leather coat, grab the gent’s soft hat and make the motions of imminent departure.’

‘The keys,’ said Miss Twitterton, arriving breathless with a second candle. ‘The big one is the back door, but you’ll find that bolted. The little one is the front door-it’s a patent, burglar-proof lock-you may find it a little difficult if you don’t know the way it works. Perhaps, after all, I ought to come over and show you-’

‘Not a bit of it. Miss Twitterton. I know these locks quite well. Really. Thank you ever so much. Good night. And many apologies.’

‘I must apologise for Uncle. I really cannot understand his treating you in this cavalier way. I do hope you’ll find everything all right. Mrs Ruddle is not very intelligent.’

Harriet assured Miss Twitterton that Bunter would see to everything, and they succeeded at length in extricating themselves. Their return to Talboys was remarkable only for Peter’s observing that unforgettable was the epithet for Miss Twitterton’s parsnip wine and that if one was going to be sick on one’s wedding night one might just as well have done it between Southampton and Le Havre.

Bunter and Mrs Ruddle had by now been joined by the dilatory Bert (with his ‘trousis’ but without his gun); yet even thus supported, Mrs Ruddle had a chastened appearance. The door being opened, and Bunter having produced an electric torch, the party stepped into a wide stone passage strongly permeated by an odour of dry-rot and beer. On the right, a door led into a vast, low-ceilinged, stone-paved kitchen, its rafters black with time, its enormous, old fashioned range clean and garnished under the engulfing chimney-breast. On the whitewashed hearth stood a small oil cooking-stove and before it an arm-chair whose seat sagged with age and use. The deal table held the remains of two boiled eggs, the heel of a stale loaf, and a piece of cheese together with a cup which had contained cocoa, and a half-burnt candle in a bedroom candlestick.

‘There!’ exclaimed Mrs Ruddle. ‘If Mr Noakes ’ad let me know, I’d a-cleaned all them things away. That’ll be ’is supper wot ’e ’ad afore ’e caught the ten o’clock. But me not knowing and ’avin’ no key, you see, I couldn’t. But it won’ take me a minnit, m’lady, now we are here. Mr Noakes took all ’is meals in ’ere, but you’ll find it comfortabler in the settin’-room, m’lady, if you’ll come this way-it’s a much brighter room, like, and furnished beautiful, as you’ll see m’lord.’ Here Mrs Ruddle dropped something like a curtsy.

The sittingroom was, indeed, ‘brighter’ than the kitchen. Two ancient oak-settles, flanking the chimney-piece at right angles, and an old-fashioned American eight-day clock on the inner wall, were all that remained of the old farmhouse furniture that Harriet remembered. The flame of the kitchen candle, which Mrs Ruddle had lit, danced flickeringly over a suite of Edwardian chairs with crimson upholstery, a top-heavy sideboard, a round mahogany table with wax fruit on it, a bamboo what-not with mirrors and little shelves sprouting from it in all directions, a row of aspidistras in pots in the window-ledge, with strange hanging plants above them in wire baskets, a large radio cabinet, over which hung an unnaturally distorted cactus in a brass Benares bowl, mirrors with roses painted on the glass, a chesterfield sofa upholstered in electric blue plush, two carpets of violently coloured and mutually intolerant patterns juxtaposed to hide the black oak floor-boards-a collection of objects, in fact, suggesting that Mr Noakes had furnished his house out of auction-sale bargains that he had not been able to resell, together with a few remnants of genuine old stuff and a little borrowing from the stock-in-trade of the wireless business. They were allowed every opportunity to inspect his collection of bric-a-brac, for Mrs Ruddle made the round of the room, candle in hand, to point out all its beauties.