‘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.’
When Mr Bunter tapped discreetly at the door and entered with a wooden bucket full of kindling, her ladyship had vanished and his lordship was sitting on the window-ledge smoking a cigarette.
‘Good-morning, Banter. Fine morning.’
‘Beautiful autumn weather. I trust your lordship found everything satisfactory.’
‘H’m. Bunter, do you know the meaning of arriere-pensée?’
‘No, my lord.’
‘I’m glad to hear it. Have you remembered to pump up the cistern?’
‘Yes, my lord. I have put the oil-stove in order and summoned the sweep. Breakfast will be ready…in a few minutes, my lord, if you will kindly excuse tea for this morning, the local grocer not being acquainted with coffee except in bottles. While you are breakfasting, I will endeavour to kindle a fire in the dressing-room, which I would not attempt last night, on account of the time being short and there being a board in the chimney-no doubt to exclude draughts and pigeons. I fancy, however, it is readily removable.’
‘All right. Is there any hot water?’
‘Yes, my lord-though I would point out there is a slight leak in the copper which creates difficulty as tending to extinguish the fire. I would suggest bringing up the baths in about forty minutes’ time, my lord.’
‘Baths? Thank God! Yes-that’ll do splendidly. No word from Mr Noakes, I suppose?’
‘No, my lord.’
‘We’ll see to him presently. I see you’ve found the fire-dogs.’
‘In the coal-house, my lord. Will you wear the Lovats or the grey suit?’
‘Neither-find me an open shirt and a pair of flannel bags and-did you put in my old blazer?’
‘ Certainly, my lord.’
‘Then buzz off and get breakfast before I get like the Duke of Wellington, nearly reduced to a skellington…I say, Bunter.’
‘My lord?’
‘I’m damned sorry you’re having all this trouble.’
‘Don’t mention it, my lord. So long as your lordship is satisfied-’
Yes. All right, Bunter. Thanks.’
He dropped his hand lightly on the servant’s shoulder in what might have been a gesture of affection or dismissal as you chose to take it, and stood looking thoughtfully into the fireplace till his wife rejoined him.
‘I’ve been exploring-I’d never been in that part of the house. After you go down five steps to the modern bit you turn a corner and go up six steps and bump your head and there’s another passage and a little ramification and two more bedrooms and a triangular cubby-hole and a ladder that goes up to the attics. And the cistern lives in a cupboard to itself-you open the door and fall down two steps and bump your head, and bring up with your chin on the ballcock.’
‘My god! You haven’t put the ballcock out of order? Do you realise, woman, that country life is entirely conditioned by the ballcock in the cistern and the kitchen boiler?’