Dorothy Sayers
Busman’s Honeymoon
Lord Peter Wimsey, Book 13, 1937
That will ask some tears in the true performing of it; if I do it, let the audience look to their eyes; I will move storms, I will condole in some measure… I could play Ercles rarely, or a part to tear a cat in, to make all split… a lover is more condoling.
– William Shakespeare; A Midsummer-Night’s Dream.
TO MURIEL ST. CLARE BYRNE, HELEN SIMPSON AND MARJORIE BARBER
Dear Muriel, Helen and Bar,
With what extreme of womanly patience you listened to the tale of Busman’s Honeymoon while it was being written, the Lord He knoweth. I do not like to think how many times I tired the sun with talking-and if at any time they had told me you were dead, I should easily have believed that I had talked you into your graves. But you have strangely survived to receive these thanks. You, Muriel, were in some sort a predestined victim, since you wrote with me the play to which this novel is but the limbs and outward flourishes; my debt and your long-suffering are all the greater. You, Helen, and Bar were wantonly sacrificed on the altar of that friendship of which the female sex is said to be incapable; let the lie stick i’ the wall! To all three I humbly bring, I dedicate with tears, this sentimental comedy.
It has been said, by myself and others, that a love-interest is only an intrusion upon a detective story.” But to the characters involved, the detective-interest might well seem an irritating intrusion upon their love-story. This book deals with such a situation. It also provides some sort of answer to many kindly inquiries as to how Lord Peter and his Harriet solved their matrimonial problem. If there is but a ha’porth of detection to an intolerable deal of saccharine, let the occasion be the excuse.
Yours in all gratitude,
Dorothy L. Sayers.
MARRIAGES
WIMSEY-VANE. On the 8th October at St Cross Church Oxford, Peter Death Bredon Wimsey, son of the late Gerald Mortimer Bredon Wimsey, 15th Duke of Denver, to Harriet Vane, daughter of the late Henry Vane, M.D., of Great Pagford, Herts.
Prothalamion
My Dear Honoria,
So Peter is really married: I have ordered willow-wreaths for half my acquaintance. I understand that it is a deciduous tree; if nothing is available but the bare rods, I shall distribute them all the same, for the better beating of breasts.
Honestly, as one frank old woman to the other, how do you feel about it? A cynic should have cause to be grateful, since to see your amorous sweet devil of a son wedded to an Oxford-Bloomsbury blue-stocking should add considerably to the gaiety of the season. I am not too blind to see through Peter, with all his affectations, and if I had been hall a century younger I would have married him myself, for the fun of it. But is this girl flesh and blood? You say she is passionately devoted to him, and I know, of course, that she once had a half-baked affair with a poet-but. Heaven deliver us, what’s a poet? Something that can’t go to bed without making a song about it. Peter wants more than a devoted admirer to’ hold his hand and recite verses to him; and he has a foolish, pleasant trick of keeping to one woman at a time, which he may find inconvenient in a permanent relationship. Not that many marriages can be called permanent these days, but I can’t see Peter exhibiting himself in the Divorce Courts for his own amusement, though, no doubt, if asked to oblige, he would carry it through with an air. (Which reminds me that my idiot great-nephew, Hughie, has bungled matters as usual. Having undertaken to do the thing like a gentleman, he sneaked off to Brighton with a hired nobody, and the Judge wouldn’t believe either the hotel bills or the chamber maid-knowing them all too well by sight. So it means starting all over again from the beginning.)
Well, my dear, we shall see what we shall see, and you may be sure I shall do my best for Peter’s wife, if only to spite Helen, who no will doubtless make everything as unpleasant as possible for her new sister-in-law. Naturally, I pay no attention to her snobbish nonsense about misalliances, which is ridiculous and out-of-date. Compared with the riffraff we are getting in now from the films and the night-clubs, a country doctor’s daughter, even with a poet in her past, is a miracle of respectability. If the young woman has brains and bowels, she will suit well enough. Do you suppose they intend to have any children? Helen will be furious if they do, as she has always counted on Peter’s money going to Saint George. Denver, if I know anything about him, will be more concerned to secure the succession in case Saint-George breaks his neck in that car of his. Whatever they do, somebody will be indignant, so I imagine they will please themselves. I was sorry I could not come to the reception-you seem to have diddled the Press very neatly-but my asthma has been very bad lately. Still, I must be thankful to have retained my faculties and my sense of humour so long. Felt Peter to bring his Harriet to see me as soon as they return from this mysterious honeymoon of theirs, and believe me, dear Honoria, always (in spite of my venomous old tongue)
Most affectionately yours,
Mirabelle Severn and Thames.
… Well, dear, prepare for a shock! Peter Wimsey is married-yes, actually married-to that extraordinary young woman who lived with a Bolshevist or a musician or something, and murdered him, or something-I forget exactly, it was all ages ago, and such odd things happen every day, don’t they? It seems a sad waste, with all that money-but it does rather go to show, doesn’t it, that there is something not quite right about the Wimseys-the third cousin, you know, the one that lives shut up in a little villa at Monte, is more than eccentric-and in any case Peter must be forty-five if he’s a day. You know, dear, I always thought you were a little unwise to try to get him for Monica, though of course I didn’t like to say so when you were working so hard to bring it off…
… Of course, the sensation is the Wimsey-Vane marriage. It must be a sort of sociological experiment. I should think, because, as you know, darling, he is the world’s chilliest prig and I’m definitely sorry for the girl, in spite of the money and the title and everything, because nothing would make up for being tied to a chattering icicle in an eyeglass, my dear, too weary-making. Not that it’s likely to last…
My Dear Marjorie,
Thank you for your kind inquiries. Tuesday was indeed a most exhausting day, though I am feeling rather more rested this evening. But it has been a very trying time for all of us. Peter, of course, was just as tiresome as he could be, and that is saying a good deal. First of all, he insisted on being married in church, though, considering everything, I should have thought the Registrar’s Office would have been more appropriate. However, we resigned ourselves to St George’s, Hanover Square, and I was prepared to do everything in my power to see that the thing was done properly, if it had to be done at all. But my mother-in-law took it all out of my hands, though I am sure we were distinctly given to understand that the wedding would take place on the day I had suggested, that is, next Wednesday. But this, as you will see, was just one of Peter’s monkey tricks. I feel the slight very much, particularly as we had gone out of our way to be civil to the girl, and had asked her to dinner.
Well! Last Monday evening, when we were down at Denver, we got a wire from Peter, which coolly said, ‘If you really want to see me married, try St Cross Church, Oxford, tomorrow at two.’ I was furious-all that distance and my frock not ready, and, to make things worse, Gerald, who had asked sixteen people down for the shooting, laughed like an idiot, and said, ‘Good for Peter!’ He insisted on our both going, just like that, leaving all our guests to look after themselves. I strongly suspect Gerald of having known all about it beforehand, though he swears he didn’t. Anyway, Jerry knew all right, and that’s why he stayed in London. I am always telling Jerry that his uncle means more to him than his own parents; and I needn’t tell you that I consider Peter’s influence most pernicious for a boy of his age. Gerald, man-like, said Peter had a right to get married when and where he liked; he never considers the embarrassment and discomfort these eccentricities cause to other people.