‘Dear Mother,-I write from an “unknown destination-’

‘What was that you called me?’

‘Oh, Peter-how absurd! I wasn’t thinking.’

‘What did you call me?’

‘My lord!’

‘The last two words in the language I ever expected to get a kick out of. One never values a thing till one’s earned it, does one? Listen, heart’s lady-before I’ve done I mean to be king and emperor.’

It is not part of the historian’s duty to indulge in what a critic has called ‘interesting revelations of the marriage-bed’. It is enough that the dutiful Mervyn Bunter at length set aside his writing materials, blew out the candle and composed his limbs to rest; and that, of the sleepers beneath that ancient roof, he that had the hardest and coldest couch enjoyed the quietest slumbers.

Chapter IV. Household Gods

Lady Peter Wimsey propped herself cautiously on one elbow and contemplated her sleeping lord. With the mocking eyes hidden and the confident mouth relaxed, his big bony nose and tumbled hair gave him a gawky, fledgling look, like a schoolboy. And the hair itself was almost as light as tow-it was ridiculous that anything male should be as fair as that. No doubt when it was damped and sleeked down for the day his head would go back to its normal barley-corn colour. Last night, after Bunter’s ruthless pumping, it had affected her much as the murdered Lorenzo’s glove affected Isabella, and she had had to rub it dry with a towel before cradling it where, in the country phrase, it ‘belonged to be’.

Bunter? She spared him a stray thought from a mind drugged with sleep and the pleasure that comes with sleep. Bunter was up and about; she could faintly hear doors opening and shutting and furniture being moved down below. What an amazing muddle it had all been! But he would miraculously put everything right-wonderful Bunter-and leave one free to live and not bother one’s head. One vaguely hoped Bunter had not spent the whole night chasing black beetles, but for the moment what was left of one’s mind was concentrated on Peter-being anxious not to wake him, rather hoping he would soon wake up of his own accord, and wondering what he would say when he did. If his first words were French one would at least feel certain that he retained an agreeable impression of the night’s proceedings; on the whole, however, English would be preferable, as showing that he remembered quite distinctly who one was.

As though this disturbing thought had broken his sleep, he stirred at that moment, and, without opening his eyes, felt for her with his hand and pulled her down against him. And his first word was neither French nor English, but a long interrogative ‘M’mmm?’

‘M’m!’ said Harriet, abandoning herself. ‘Mais quel tact, mon dieu! Sais-tu enfin qui je suis?’

‘Yes, my Shulamite, I do, so you needn’t lay traps for my tongue. In the course of a mis-spent life I have learnt that it is a gentleman’s first duty to remember in the morning who it was he took to bed with him. You are Harriet, and you are black but comely. Incidentally, you are my wife, and if you have forgotten it you will have to learn it all over again.’

‘Ah!’ said the baker. ‘I thought there was visitors here. You don’t catch old Noakes or Martha Ruddle putting “please” into an order for bread. How many loaves would you be wanting? I calls every day. Righty-ho! a cottage and a sandwich. And a small brown? Okay, chief. Here they are.’

‘If,’ said Bunter, retreating into the passage, ‘you would kindly step in and set them on the kitchen table, I should be obliged, my hands being covered with paraffin.’

‘Okay,’ said the baker, obliging him. ‘Trouble with the stove?’

‘A trifle,’ admitted Bunter. ‘I have been compelled to dismantle and reassemble the burners, but I am in hopes that it will now function adequately. We should, however, be more comfortable if we could induce the fires to draw. We have sent a message by the milkman to a person called Puffett who, as I understand, is willing to oblige in the chimney-sweeping way.’

‘That’s okay,’ agreed the baker. ‘He’s a builder by rights, is Tom Puffett, but he ain’t above obliging with a chimbley. You stopping here long? A month? Then maybe you’d like me to book the bread. Where’s old Noakes?’

‘Over at Broxford, as I understand,’ said Mr Bunter, ‘and we should like to know what he means by it. No preparations made for us and the chimneys out of order, after distinct instructions in writing and promises of compliance which have not been adhered to.’

‘Ah!’ said the baker. ‘It’s easy to promise, ain’t it?’ He winked. ‘Promises cost nothing, but chimbleys is eighteenpence apiece and the soot thrown in. Well, I must scram. Anything I can do for you in a neighbourly way in the village?’

‘Since you are so good,’ replied Mr Bunter, ‘the dispatch of the grocer’s assistant with streaky rashers and eggs would enable us to augment the deficiencies of the breakfast menu.’

‘Say, boy,’ said the baker, ‘that’s okay by me. I’ll tell Willis to send his Jimmy along.’

‘Which,’ observed Mrs Ruddle, suddenly appearing from the sittingroom in a blue-checked apron and with her sleeves rolled up, ‘there’s no call to let George Willis think ’e’s to ’ave all me lord’s custom, seem’ the ’Ome & Colonial is a ’apenny cheaper per pound not to say better and leaner and I can ketch ’im w’en ’e goes by as easy as easy.’

‘You’ll ’ave to do with Willis today,’ retorted the baker, ‘unless you wants your breakfast at dinner-time, seein’ the ’Ome & Colonial don’t get here till past eleven or nearer twelve more like. Nothing more today? Okay. ‘Mornin’, Martha. So long, chief.’

The baker hastened down the path, calling to his horse, and leaving Bunter to deduce that somewhere at no great distance the neighbourhood boasted a picture-palace.

‘Peter!’

‘Heart’s desire?’

‘Somebody’s frying bacon.’

‘Nonsense. People don’t fry bacon at dawn.’

‘That was eight by the church clock and the sun’s simply blazing in.’

‘Busy old fool, unruly sun-but you’re right about the bacon. The smell’s coming up quite distinctly. Through the window, I think. This calls for investigation… I say, it’s a gorgeous morning… Are you hungry?’

‘Ravenous.’

‘Unromantic but reassuring. As a matter of fact, I could do with a large breakfast myself. After all, I work hard for my living. I’ll give Bunter a hail.’

‘For God’s sake put some clothes on-if Mrs Ruddle sees you hanging out of the window like that she’ll have a thousand fits.’

‘It’ll be a treat for her. Nothing so desirable as novelty. I expect old man Ruddle went to bed in his boots. Bunter! Bun-ter!… Damn it, here is the Ruddle woman. Stop laughing and chuck me my dressing-gown… Er-good-morning, Mrs Ruddle. Tell Bunter we’re ready for breakfast, would you?’

‘Right you are, me lord,’ replied Mrs Ruddle (for after all, he was a lord). But she expressed herself later in the day to her friend Mrs Hodges.

‘Mother-naked, Mrs ’Odges, if you’ll believe me. I declare I was that ashamed I didden know w’ere to look. And no more ’air on ’is chest that wot I ’as meself.’

‘That’s gentry,’ said Mrs Hodges, referring to the first part of the indictment. ‘You’ve only to look at the pictures of them there sun-bathers as they call them on the Lydoh. Now, my Susan’s first were a wunnerful ’airy man, jest like a kerridge-rug if you take my meaning. But,’ she added cryptically, ‘it don’t foller, for they never ’ad no family, not till ’e died and she married young Tyler over at Pigott’s.’