‘Oh, Frank, you shouldn’t have said that!’

‘Well, I did say it. Can’t you let me tell his lordship what he wants to know?’

Harriet’s glance had caught Peter’s again, and he had nodded. The money for the house. But if he had told Crutchley as much as that-‘Did he say where this money of his was coming from?’

‘Not him. He’s not the sort to tell more than he has to. Matter of fact, I never thought he was expecting no money in particular. Making excuses, he was. Never pays out money till the last moment, and not then if he can ’elp it. Might lose ’arf a day’s interest, don’t you see,’ added Crutchley, with a sudden half-reluctant grin.

‘Sound principle, so far as it goes,’ said Wimsey.

‘That’s right; that’s the way he’s made his bit. He’s a warm man, is Mr Noakes. Still, all the same for that, I told him I wanted the forty pound for my new garridge-’

‘Yes, the garahge,’ put in Miss Twitterton, with a corrective little frown and shake of the head. ‘Frank’s been saving up a long time to start his own garahge.’

‘So,’ repeated Crutchley with emphasis, ‘wantin’ the money for the garridge, I said, “I’ll see my money Wednesday,” I said, “or I’ll ’ave the law on you.” That’s what I said. And I went out sharp and I ain’t seen him since.’

‘I see. Well’-Peter glanced from Crutchley to Miss Twitterton and back again-’we’ll run over to Broxford presently and hunt the gentleman up, and then we can get it straight. In the meantime, we shall want the garden kept in order, so perhaps you’d better carry on as usual.’

‘Very good, my lord. Shall I come Wednesday same as before? Five shillings, Mr Noakes give me by the day.’

‘I’ll give you the same. Do you know anything about running an electric light plant, by the way?’

‘Yes, my lord; there’s one at the garridge where I work.’

‘Because,’ said Peter, with a smile at his wife, ‘though candles and oil-stoves have their romantic moments and all that, I think we shall really have to electrify Talboys.’

‘You’ll electrify Paggleham if you do, my lord,’ said Crutchley, with sudden geniality. ‘I’m sure I’d be very willing-’

‘Frank’, said Miss Twitterton brightly, ‘knows everything about machinery!’

The unfortunate Crutchley, on the verge of an explosion, caught Peter’s eye and smiled in some embarrassment.

‘All right,’ said his lordship. ‘We’ll talk it over presently. Meanwhile, carry on with whatever it is you do on Wednesdays.’ Whereupon the gardener thankfully made his escape, leaving Harriet to reflect that school-manning seemed to have got into Miss Twitterton’s blood and that nothing was so exasperating to the male sex in general as an attitude of mingled reproof and showmanship.

The click of the distant gate and a footfall on the path broke in on the slightly blank pause which followed Crutchley’s exit.

‘Perhaps’, cried Miss Twitterton, ‘that’s Uncle coming now.’

‘I hope to God’, said Peter, ‘it’s not one of those infernal reporters.’

‘It’s not,’ said Harriet, running to the window. ‘It’s a vicar-he’s coming to call.’

‘Oh, the dear vicar! perhaps he may know something.’

‘Ah!’ said Mr Puffett.

‘This is magnificent,’ said Peter. ‘I collect vicars.’ He joined Harriet at her observation-post. ‘This is a very well-grown specimen, six-foot-four or thereabouts, short-sighted, a great gardener, musical, smokes a pipe-’

‘Good gracious!’ cried Miss Twitterton, ‘do you know Mr Goodacre?’

‘-untidy, with a wife who does her best on a small stipend; a product of one of our older seats of learning-1890 vintage-Oxford, at a guess, but not, I fancy, Keble, though as high in his views as the parish allows him to be.’

‘He’ll hear you,’ said Harriet, as the reverend gentleman withdrew his nose from the middle of a clump of dahlias and cast a vague glance through his eyeglass towards the sitting-room window. ‘To the best of my knowledge and belief, you’re right. But why the strictly limited High Church views?’

‘The Roman vest and the emblem upon the watch-chain point the upward way. You know my methods, Watson. But a bundle of settings for the Te Deum under the arm suggest sung Matins in the Established way; besides, though we beard the church clock strike eight there was no bell for a daily Celebration.’

‘However you think of these things, Peter!’

‘I’m sorry,’ said her husband, flushing faintly. ‘I can’t help taking notice, whatever I’m doing.’

‘Worse and worse,’ replied his lady. ‘Mrs Shandy herself would be shocked.’ While Miss Twitterton, completely bewildered, made haste to explain:

‘It’s choir practice tonight, of course. Wednesdays, you know. Always Wednesdays. He’ll be taking them up to the church.’

‘Of course, as you say,’ agreed Peter with relish. ‘Wednesdays always is choir practice. Quod semper, quod ubique, quod ab omnibus. Nothing ever changes in the English countryside. Harriet, your honeymoon house is a great success. I am feeling twenty years younger.’

He retired hastily from the window as the vicar approached, and declaimed with considerable emotion:

‘Give me just a country cottage, where the soot of ages falls,

And, to crown a perfect morning, look! an English vicar calls!

I, too. Miss Twitterton, though you might not think it, have bawled Maunder and Garrett down the neck of the blacksmith’s daughter singing in the village choir, and have proclaimed the company of the spearmen to be scattered abroad among the beasts of the people, with a little fancy pointing of my own.’

‘Ah!’ said Mr Puffett, ‘that’s an orkerd one, is the beasts of the people.’ As though the word ‘soot’ had struck a chord in his mind, he moved tentatively in the direction of the fireplace. The car vanished within the porch.

‘‘My dear,’ said Harriet, ‘Miss Twitterton will think we are both quite mad; and Mr Puffett knows it already.’

‘Oh, no, me lady,’ said Mr Puffett. ‘Not mad. Only ’appy. I knows the feeling.’

‘As man to man, Puffett,’ said the bridegroom, ‘I thank you for those kind and sympathetic words. Where, by the way, did you go for your honeymoon?’

‘Erne Bay, me lord,’ replied Mr Puffett.

‘Good God, yes! Where George Joseph Smith murdered his first Bride-in-the-Bath. We never thought of that Harriet-’

‘Monster,’ said Harriet, ‘do your worst! There are only hip-baths here.’

‘There!’ cried Miss Twitterton, catching at the only word in this conversation that appeared to make sense. ‘I was always saying to Uncle that he really ought to put in a bathroom.’

Before Peter could give further proofs of insanity, Bunter mercifully announced: ‘The Reverend Simon Goodacre.’

The vicar, thin, elderly, clean-shaven, his tobacco-pouch bulging from the distended pocket of his suit of ‘clerical grey’ and the left knee of his trousers displaying a large three-cornered tear carefully darned, advanced upon their with that air of mild self-assurance which a consciousness of spiritual dignity bestows upon a naturally modern disposition His peering glance singled out Miss Twitterton from the group presented to his notice, and he greeted her with a cordial shake of the hand, at the same time acknowledging Mr Puffett’s presence with a nod and a cheerful, ‘Morning Tom!’

‘Good morning, Mr Goodacre,’ replied Miss Twitterton in a mournful chirp. ‘Dear, dear! Did they tell you-?’

‘Yes, indeed,’ said the vicar. ‘Well this is a surprise!’ He adjusted his glasses, beamed vaguely about him, and addressed himself to Peter. ‘I fear I am intruding. I understand that Mr Noakes-er-’

‘Good morning, sir,’ said Peter, feeling it better to introduce himself than to wait for Miss Twitterton. ‘Delighted to see you. My name’s Wimsey. My wife.’

‘I’m afraid we’re all at sixes and sevens,’ said Harriet. Mr Goodacre, she thought, had not changed much in the last seventeen years. He was a little greyer, a little thinner, a little baggier about the knees and shoulders, but in essentials the same Mr Goodacre she and her father had occasionally encountered in the old days, visiting the sick of Paggleham. It was clear that he had not the faintest recollection of her; but, taking soundings as it were in these uncharted seas, his glance encountered something familiar-an ancient dark-blue blazer, with ‘O.U.C.C.’ embroidered on the breast pocket.