Mrs Ruddle retired, but with dignity.
‘Sech manners!’
‘Put yer flat foot right into it that time, Ma,’ observed Crutchley. He grinned. Mrs Ruddle turned in the doorway.
‘People can do their own dirty work after this,’ she remarked witheringly, and departed.
Bunter took up the violated bottle of port and cradled it mournfully in his arm. ‘All the port! All the port! Two and a half dozen, all shook up to blazes! And his lordship bringing it down in the back of the car, driving as tender and careful as if it was a baby in arms.’
‘Well,’ said Crutchley, ‘that’s a miracle, judgin’ by the way he went to Pagford this afternoon. Nearly blew me and the old taxi off the road.’
‘Not a drop fit to drink for a fortnight!-And him looking forward to his glass after dinner!’
‘Well,’ said Crutchley again, with the philosophy we keep for other men’s misfortunes, ‘he’s unlucky, that’s all.’
Bunter uttered a Cassandra-like cry: ‘There’s a curse upon this house!’
As he turned, the door was flung violently open to admit Miss Twitterton, who shrank back with a small scream, on receiving this blast of eloquence full in the face.
‘Ere’s Miss Twitterton,’ said Mrs Ruddle, unnecessarily, and banged out
‘Oh, dear!’ gasped the poor lady. ‘I beg your pardon. Er… is Lady Peter at home?… I’ve just brought her a… Oh, I suppose they are out… Mrs Ruddle is so stupid… Perhaps…’ She looked appealingly from one man to the other. Bunter, pulling himself together, recaptured his mask, and this stony metamorphosis put the finishing touch to Miss Twitterton’s discomfort. ‘If it isn’t troubling you too much, Mr Bunter, would you be so kind as to tell Lady Peter that I’ve brought her a few eggs from my own hens?’
‘Certainly, Miss Twitterton.’ The social solecism had been committed and could not now be redeemed. He received the basket with the condescending kindness due from my lord’s butler to a humble dependant of the house.
‘The Buff Orpingtons,’ explained Miss Twitterton. ‘They-they lay such pretty brown eggs, don’t they? And I thought, perhaps-’
‘Her ladyship will greatly appreciate the attention. Would you care to wait?’
‘Oh, thank you… I hardly know…’
‘I am expecting them back very shortly. From the vicarage.’
‘Oh!’ said Miss Twitterton. ‘Yes.’ She sat down rather helplessly on the proffered chair. ‘I meant just to hand the basket to Mrs Ruddle, but she seems very much put about.’
Crutchley gave a short laugh. He had made one or two attempts at escape; but Bunter and Miss Twitterton were between him and the door, and now he appeared to resign himself. Bunter seemed glad of the opportunity for an explanation.
‘I have been very much put about. Miss Twitterton. Mrs Ruddle has violently agitated all his lordship’s vintage port, just as it was settling down nicely after the journey.’
‘Oh, how dreadful!’ cried Miss Twitterton, her sympathetic mind grasping that the disaster, however incomprehensible, was of the first magnitude. ‘Is it all spoilt? I believe they have some very good port wine at the Pig and Whistle-only it’s rather expensive-4s. 6d. a bottle and nothing on the empties.’
‘I fear,’ said Bunter, ‘that would scarcely meet the case.’
‘Or if they would like some of my parsnip wine I should be delighted to-’
‘Huh!’ said Crutchley. He jerked this thumb at the bottle in Bunter’s arms. ‘What does that stand his nibs in for?’ Bunter could bear no more. He turned to go.
Two hundred and four shillings the dozen!’
‘Cripes!’ said Crutchley. Miss Twitterton could not believe her ears.
‘The dozen what?’
‘Bottles!’ said Bunter. He went out shattered, with drooping shoulders, and shut the door decisively.
Miss Twitterton, reckoning rapidly on her fingers, turned in dismay to Crutchley, who stood with a derisive smile, making no further effort to avoid the interview. ‘Two hundred and four-seventeen shillings a bottle! Oh, it’s impossible! It’s… it’s wicked!’
‘Yes. Cut above you and me, ain’t it? Bah! There’s a chap could give away forty pound out of his pocket and never miss it. But does he? No!’
He strolled over to the hearth and spat eloquently into the fire.
‘Oh, Frank! You mustn’t be so bitter. You couldn’t expect Lord Peter-’
‘“Lord Peter”!-who’ve you to be calling him by his pet name? Think you’re somebody, don’t you?’
‘That is the correct way to speak of him,’ said Miss Twitterton, drawing herself up a little. ‘I know quite well how to address people of rank.’
‘Oh. yes!’ replied the gardener, sarcastically, ‘I dessay. And you say “Mister” to his blasted valet. Come off it, my girl. It’s “me lord” for you, same as for the rest of us… I know your mother was a school-teacher, all right. And your father was old Ted Baker’s cow-man. If she married beneath ’er, it ain’t nothing to be stuck up about.’
I’m sure’-Miss Twitterton’s voice trembled-‘you’re the last person that ought to say such a thing to me.’
Crutchley’s face lowered. ‘That’s it, is it? Tryin’ to make out you been lowerin’ yourself by associating with me, eh? All right! You go and hobnob with the gentry. Lord Peter!’
He thrust his hands deep down in his pockets and strode irritably towards the window. His determination to work up a quarrel was so evident that even Miss Twitterton could not mistake it. It could have only one explanation. With fatal archness, she wagged a reproving finger.
‘Why, Frank, you silly old thing! I believe you’re jealous!’
‘Jealous!’ He looked at her and began to laugh. It was not a pleasant laugh, though it showed all his teeth. ‘That’s good! That’s rich, that is! What’s the idea? Startin’ to make eyes at his lordship now?’
‘Frank! He’s a married man. How can you say such things?’
‘Oh, he’s married all right. Tied up good and proper. ’Ead well in the noose. “Yes, darling!” “No, darling!” “Cuddle me quick, darling.” Pretty, ain’t it?’
Miss Twitterton thought it was pretty, and said so.
‘I’m sure it’s beautiful to see two people so devoted to one another.’
‘Quite a romance in ’igh life. Like to be in ’er shoes, wouldn’t you?’
‘You don’t really think I’d want to change places with anybody?’ cried Miss Twitterton. ‘But oh, Frank! If only you and I could get married at once.’
‘Ah, yes!’ said Crutchley, with a kind of satisfaction. ‘Your Uncle Noakes has put a bit of a spoke in that wheel, ain’t ’e?’
‘Oh!-I’ve been trying all day to see you and talk over what we were to do.’
‘What we’re going to do?’
‘It isn’t for myself, Frank. I’d work my fingers to the bone for you.’
‘And a fat lot o’ good that ’ud do. ’Ow about my garridge? If it ’adn’t a-been for your soft soap I’d a-got my forty quid out o’ the old devil months ago.’
Miss Twitterton quailed before his angry eyes. ‘Oh, please don’t be so angry with me. We couldn’t either of us know. And oh!-there’s another terrible thing-’
‘What’s up now?’
‘I-I-I’d been saving up a little bit-just a little here and there, you know-and I’d got close on £50 put away in the savings bank.’
‘Fifty pounds, eh?’ said Crutchley, his tone softening a little. ‘Well, that’s a tidy little bit…’
‘I meant it for the garage. It was to be a surprise for you-’
‘Well, and what’s gone wrong with it?’ The sight of her imploring eyes and twitching, bony hands brought back his irritation. ‘Post-office gone bust?’
‘I-I-I lent it to Uncle. He said he was short-people hadn’t paid their bills-’
‘Well,’ said Crutchley, with impatience, ‘you got a receipt for it, I suppose.’ Excitement seized him. ‘That’s your money. They can’t get at that. You ’ave it out o’ them-you got a receipt for it. You give me the receipt and I’ll settle with that MacBride. That’ll cover my forty quid, anyhow.’