‘Oh, dear, dear!’ said the vicar. ‘Poor woman! That was a very extraordinary suggestion Martha Ruddle made at the inquest. There can’t surely, be anything in it.’
‘Certainly not. Nonsense. Martha likes to make herself important. She’s a spiteful old thing. Though I can’t help saying, even now he’s dead, that William Noakes was a nasty old creature.’
‘Not in that way, surely, my dear?’
‘You never know. But I meant I couldn’t blame Martha Ruddle for disliking him. It’s all very well for you, Simon. You always think charitably of everyone. And besides, you never talked to him about anything except gardening.
Though as a matter of fact, Frank Crutchley did all the work.’
‘Frank is a very clever gardener, indeed,’ said the vicar. ‘In fact he is clever all round. He found the defect in my motor-car engine immediately. I’m sure he will go far.’
‘He’s going a little too far with that girl Polly, if you ask me,’ retorted his wife. ‘It’s about time they asked you to put up the banns. Her mother came up to see me the other day. Well, Mrs Mason, I said, you know what girls are, and I admit it’s very difficult to control them these days. If I were you, I should speak to Frank and ask him what his intentions are. However; we mustn’t begin talking about parish matters.’
‘I should be sorry,’ said the vicar, ‘to think ill of Frank Crutchley. Or of poor William Noakes, either. I expect there is nothing in it but talk. Dear me! To think that when I called at the house last Thursday morning, he was lying there dead! I particularly wanted to see him, I remember.
I had a small offering of a Teesdalia nudicaulis for his rock-garden-he was fond of rock-plants. I felt very melancholy when I planted it here, myself, this morning.’
‘You are even fonder of plants than he was,’ said Harriet, glancing round the shabby room, which was filled with potplants on stands and tables.
‘I am afraid I must admit the soft impeachment. Gardening is an indulgence of mine. My wife tells me it runs away with too much money, and I dare say she is right.’
‘I said he ought to get himself a new cassock,’ said Mrs fl Goodacre, laughing. ‘But if he prefers rock-plants, that’s his is business.’
‘I wonder,’ said the vicar, wistfully, ‘what will become of William Noakes’s plants. I suppose they will belong to Aggie Twitterton.’
‘I don’t know,’ said Peter. ‘The whole thing may have to be sold, I suppose, for the benefit of the creditors.’
‘Dear, dear!’ exclaimed the vicar. ‘Oh, I do hope they will be properly looked after. Especially the cacti. They are delicate creatures, and it is getting rather late in the year. I remember peeping in at the window last Thursday and thinking it was hardly safe for them to be left in that room without a fire. It’s time they were put under glass for the winter. Particularly the big one in the hanging pot and-that new variety he’s got in the window. Of course, you will be keeping up good fires.’
‘We shall, indeed,’ said Harriet. ‘Now that we have got the chimneys clear, with your assistance. I hope your shoulder isn’t still painful.’
‘I can feel it. I can feel it a little. But nothing to speak of. Just a slight bruise, that is all… If there is to be a sale, I shall hope to make an offer for the cacti-if Aggie Twitterton doesn’t want to buy them in for herself. And with your permission, my dear, of course.’
‘Frankly, Simon, I think them detestably hideous things. But I’m quite ready to offer a home to them. I know you’ve been coveting those cacti for years.’
‘Not coveting, I hope,’ said the vicar. ‘But I fear I must confess to a great weakness for cacti.’
‘It’s a morbid passion,’ said his wife.
‘Really, my dear, really-you shouldn’t use such exaggerated language. Come, Lady Peter-another glass of sherry. Indeed, you mustn’t refuse!’
‘Shall I put them peas on, Mr Bunter?’
Bunter paused in his occupation of tidying the sittingroom and strode with some haste to the door.
‘I will see to the peas, Mrs Ruddle, at the proper time.’ He looked up at the clock, which marked five minutes past six. ‘His lordship is very particular about peas.’
‘Is he now?’ Mrs Ruddle seemed to take this as a signal for conversation, for she appeared on the threshold. ‘That’s jest like my Bert. “Ma,” ’e allus says, “I ’ates peas ’ard.” Funny, ’ow often they is ’ard. Or biled right away outer their shells. One or other.’
Bunter offered no comment, and she tried again. ‘’Ere’s them things you arst me to polish. Come up lovely, ain’t they?’
She offered for inspection a brass toasting-fork and the fragment of a roasting-jack that had so unexpectedly made its appearance from the chimney.
‘Thank you,’ said Bunter. He hung the toasting-fork on a nail by the fireplace and, after a little consideration, set the other specimen upright on the whatnot
‘Funny,’ pursued Mrs Ruddle, ‘the way the gentry is about them old bits o’ things. Curios! Rubbish, if you ask me.’
‘This is a very old piece,’ replied Bunter, gravely, stepping back to admire the effect.
Mrs Ruddle sniffed. ‘Reckon them as shoved it up the chimbley knew wot they wos doin’. Give me a nice gas-oven any day. Ah! I’d like that-same as my sister’s wot lives in Biggleswade.’
‘People have been found dead in gas-ovens before now,’ said Bunter, grimly. He took up his master’s blazer, shook it, appeared to estimate its contents by their weight, and removed a pipe, a tobacco-pouch and three boxes of matches from one pocket.
‘Lor’ now, Mr Bunter, don’t you talk like that! Ain’t we ’ad enough corpusses about the ’ouse already? ’Ow they can go on livin’ ’ere I don’t know!’
‘Speaking for his lordship and myself, we are accustomed to corpses.’ He extracted several more matchboxes and, at the bottom of the nest, discovered a sparking-plug and a corkscrew.
‘Ah!’ said Mrs Ruddle, with a deep, sentimental sigh. ‘And w’ere ’e’s ’appy, she’s ’appy. Ah! It’s easy to see she worships the ground ’e treads on.’
Bunter drew out two handkerchiefs, male and female, from another pocket and compared them indulgently. ‘That is a very proper sentiment in a young married woman.’
‘’Appy days! But it’s early days yet, Mr Bunter. A man’s a man w’en all’s said and done. Ruddle, now-’e useter knock me about something shocking w’en ’e’d ’ad a drop-though a good ’usband, and bringin’ the money ’ome reg’lar.’
‘I beg,’ said Bunter, distributing matchboxes about the room, ‘you will not institute these comparisons, Mrs Ruddle. I have served his lordship twenty years, and a sweeter-tempered gentleman you could not wish to find.’
‘You ain’t married to ’im, Mr Bunter. You can give ’im a munce warning any day.’
‘I hope I know when I am well situated, Mrs Ruddle. Twenty years’ service, and never a harsh word nor an unjust action in all my knowledge of him.’ A tinge of emotion crept into his tone. He laid a powder-compact aside on the what-not; then folded the blazer together with loving care and hung it over his arm.
‘You’re lucky,’ said Mrs Ruddle. ‘I couldn’t rightly say the same of pore Mr Noakes, which though he’s dead and gone I will say ’e wos a sour-tempered, closefisted, suspicious brute, pore old gentleman.’
‘Gentlemen, Mrs Ruddle, is what I should designate as an elastic term. His lordship-’
‘There now!’ interrupted Mrs Ruddle. ‘If there ain’t love’s young dream a-comin’ up the path.’
Bunter’s brows beetled awfully. ‘To whom might you be referring, Mrs Ruddle?’ he demanded in a voice like Jupiter Tonans.