‘Bunter can do that.’

‘Oh, no-he’s panting to attend the obsequies. I’ve just seen him brushing his best bowler. Are you coming down?’

‘Not for a moment. There’s a letter from my agent I’ve simply got to attend to. I thought I’d cleared everything up nicely, but one of the tenants has chosen this moment to create a tiresomeness. And Jerry has got himself into a jam with a woman and is really frightfully sorry to bother me, but the husband has turned up with the light of blackmail in his eye and what on earth is he to do?’

‘Great heavens! That boy again?’

‘What I shall not do is to send him a cheque. As it happens, I know all about the lady and gentleman in question, and all that is required is a firm letter and the address of my solicitor, who knows all about them too. But I can’t write downstairs, with Kirk oiling in and out of the windows and brokers’ men wrangling over the whatnot.’

‘Of course you can’t. I’ll go and see to things. Be busy and good… And I used to think you were God’s own idler, without a responsibility in the world!’

‘Property won’t run itself, worse luck! Nor yet nephews. Aha! Uncle Pandarus likes giving avuncular advice, does he? Trust me to distribute a little avuncular advice in the quarter where it will do most good. Every dog has his day… C’est bien, embrasse-moi… Ah, non! voyons, to me depeignes…Allons, hop! il faut etre serieux.’

Peter, having dealt with his correspondence and been persuaded, fretfully protesting, into a black suit and a stiff collar, came downstairs and found Superintendent Kirk about to take his leave, and Mr MacBride just issuing victor from a heated three-cornered argument between himself, Mr Solomons and a dusty-looking professional person who explained that he represented the executrix. What precise business arrangement had been come to. Peter did not ask and never discovered. The upshot seemed to be that the furniture was to go, Harriet (on Peter’s behalf) having waived all claim to it on the grounds (a) that they had so far paid nothing for the use of it, (b) that they would not have it if it were given away with a pound of tea and (c) that they were going away for the weekend and (d) would be glad to have it out of the house as soon as possible to make room for their own goods.

This point having been settled, Mr MacBride appealed to the Superintendent for leave to carry on. Kirk nodded gloomily.

‘No luck?’ asked Peter.

‘Not a ha’porth,’ said Kirk. ‘It’s as you said. Puffett and Bert Ruddle have left their marks all over the place upstairs, but there’s no telling if some of them wasn’t made last week. I There’s no dint on this floor, as there might be if a stone had been thrown down-but on the other ’and, this old oak is that ’ard, you couldn’t make any impression on it if you heaved rocks at it for a week. I dunno, I’m sure. I never see finger on, like.’

‘Have you tried squeezing Sellon through the window?’

‘Joe Sellon?’ Kirk snorted. ‘If you was to go down to the village, you’d see Joe Sellon. Coo! talk of a traffic jam! I never see nothing like it in all my born days There’s ’alf Pagford here and pretty well the ’ole of Broxford, and all them newspaper men from London, and the Broxford and Pagford Gazette and the North-Herts Advertiser and a chap with one of them moving-picture cameras, and cars that thick in front of the Crown nobody can’t get in, and such a mob round the bar, they can’t get served when they are in. Joe’s got more’n he can do. I’ve left my sergeant down there to lend ’im a hand. And,’ said the Superintendent, indignantly, ‘jest as we’d got about twenty cars parked neat and tidy in the lane by Mr Giddy’s field, up comes a kid and squeaks, “Oh, please, mister-can’t you let me by? I’ve brought the cow to bull”-and we ’ad to move ’em all out again. Aggravating ain’t the word. But there! It can’t last for ever, that’s a comfort; and I’ll bring Joe up here when the funeral’s over and out of the way.’

Mr MacBride’s men worked expertly. Harriet, watching the swift disintegration of her honeymoon house into a dusty desert of straw and packing-cases, rolled-up curtains and spidery pictures spreading their loose wires like springes, wondered whether the whole of her married life would have the same kaleidoscopic quality. Character is destiny: probably there was something in her and Peter that doomed them never to carry any adventure to its close without preposterous interruptions and abrupt changes of fortune. She laughed, as she assisted matters by tying a bunch of fire- irons together, and remembered what a married friend had once confided to her about her own honeymoon.

‘Jim wanted a peaceful place, so we went to a tiny fishing village in Brittany. It was lovely, of course, but it rained a good deal, and I Hunt- it was rather a mistake we had so little to do. We were very much in love, I don’t mean we weren’t-but there were a great many hours to get through, and it didn’t seem somehow quite the right thing just to sit down quietly and read a book. There’s something to be said, after all, for the sight-seeing kind of honeymoon-it does give one a programme.’

Well; things did not always go according to programme. Harriet looked up from the fire-irons and with some surprise observed Frank Crutchley.

‘Were you wanting any help, my lady?’

‘Well, Crutchley, I don’t know. Are you free this morning?’

Crutchley explained that he had brought a party over from Great Pagford for the funeral; but they were going to lunch at the Crown and would not be wanting him again till later on.

‘But don’t you want to go to the funeral? You’re in the Paggleham choir, aren’t you? And the vicar said something about a choral service.’

Crutchley shook his head.

‘I’ve had words with Mrs Goodacre-leastways, she ’ad words with me. That Kirk… interfering. It ain’t no business of Vicar’s wife about me and Polly Mason. I went up about ‘aving the banns published, and Mrs Goodacre set on me.’

‘Oh!’ said Harriet. She was not very well pleased with Crutchley herself; but since he obviously had no idea that Miss Twitter-ton had made her troubles public, it seemed better not to refer to the subject. By this time. Miss Twitterton was probably regretting that she had spoken. And to take the matter up with Crutchley would only emphasise the poor little woman’s humiliation by giving it importance. Besides, one of the removal-men was kneeling in the window, laying the bronze horsemen and other objects of art tenderly away in a packing-case, while another, on the step-ladder, had relieved the walls of the painted nun-or and was contemplating an attack on the clock.

‘Very well, Crutchley. You can give the men a hand if they need it.’

‘Yes, my lady. Shall I get some of this stuff out?’

‘Well-no, not for the moment.’ She turned to the man in the window, who had just placed the last atrocity in the case and was putting the lid on.

‘Do you mind leaving the rest of this room to the last? My husband will be coming back here after the funeral and may have one or two people with him. We shall need some chairs to sit on.’

‘Right you are, lady. Could we do a bit upstairs?’

‘Yes; certainly. And we shan’t want this room very long.’

O.K., lady. Come along. Bill, this way.’

Bill, a thin man with an apologetic moustache, came obediently down from the steps.

‘Right-ho, George. It’ll take us a bit o’ time to take down them four-posters.’

‘Can this man give you any help? He’s the gardener here.’

George eyed Crutchley, who had taken the steps and brought them back to the centre of the room. ‘There’s them plants in the green’us,’ said George. ‘We ain’t got no special instructions about them, but we was told to take everything.’

‘Yes; the plants will have to go, and the ones in here as well. But these will do later. Go and see to the greenhouse, Crutchley.’