‘The dead-are dead. We’ve got to be decent to the living.’
‘I’m thinking of the living. Till we get at the truth, every soul in this village is suspect. Do you want Sellon broken and hanged, because we wouldn’t speak? Must Crutchley be left under suspicion because the crime was never brought home to anybody else? Are they all to go about in fear, knowing there’s an undiscovered murderer among them?’
‘But there’s no proof-no proof!’
‘It’s evidence. We can’t pick and choose. Whoever suffers, we must have the truth. Nothing else matters a damn.’ She could not deny it. In desperation, she broke through to the real issue: ‘But must it be your hands-?’
‘Ah!’ he said, in a changed voice. ‘Yes. I have given you the right to ask me that. You married into trouble when you married my work and me.’
He spread out his hands as though challenging her to look at them. It seemed strange that they should be the same hands that only last night… Their smooth strength fascinated her. License my roving hands and let them go before, behind, between-His hands, so curiously gentle and experienced… With what sort of experience?
‘These hangman’s hands,’ he said, watching her. ‘You knew that, though, didn’t you?’
Of course she had known it, but-She burst out with the truth: ‘I wasn’t married to you then!’
‘No… That makes the difference, doesn’t it?… Well, Harriet, we are married now. We are bound. I’m afraid the moment has come when something will have to give way you, or I-or the bond.’
(So soon? Yours, utterly and for ever-he was hers, or else all faith was mockery.)
‘No-no!… Oh, my dear, what is happening to us? What has become of our peace?’
‘Broken,’ he said. ‘That’s what violence does. Once it starts, there’s no stopping it. It catches us all, sooner or later.’
‘But… it mustn’t. Can’t we escape?’
‘Only by running away.’ He dropped his hands in a hopeless gesture. ‘Perhaps it would be better for us to run. I have no right to drag any woman into this mess-least of all, my wife. Forgive me. I have been my own master so long-I think I have forgotten the meaning of an obligation.’ The stricken whiteness of her face startled him. ‘Oh, my dear-don’t upset yourself like this. Say the word, and we’ll go right away. We’ll leave this miserable business and never meddle again.’
‘Do you really mean that?’ she said, incredulously.
‘Of course I mean it. I have said it.’ His voice was the voice of a beaten man.
She was appalled, seeing what she had done. ‘Peter, you’re mad. Never dare to suggest such a thing. Whatever marriage is, it isn’t that.’
‘Isn’t what, Harriet?’
‘Letting your affection corrupt your judgement. What kind of life could we have if I knew that you had become less than yourself by marrying me?’
He turned away again, and when he spoke, it was in a queerly shaken tone: ‘My dear girl, most women would consider it a triumph.’
‘I know, I’ve heard them.’ Her own scorn lashed herself the self she had only just seen. “They boast of it-“My husband would do anything for me…” It’s degrading. No human being ought to have such power over another.’
‘It’s a very real power, Harriet.’
‘Then,’ she flung back passionately, ‘we won’t use it. If we disagree, we’ll fight it out like gentlemen. We won’t stand for matrimonial blackmail.’
He was silent for a moment, leaning back against the chimney-breast. Then he said, with a lightness that betrayed him:
‘Harriet; you have no sense of dramatic values. Do you mean to say we are to play out our domestic comedy without the great bedroom scene?’
‘Certainly. We’ll have nothing so vulgar.’
Well-thank God for that!’
His strained face broke suddenly into the familiar mischievous smile. But she had been too much frightened to be able to smile back-yet.
‘Bunter isn’t the only person with standards. You must do what you think right. Promise me that. What I think doesn’t matter. I swear it shall never make any difference.’
He took her hand and kissed it gravely. Thank you, Harriet. That is love with honour.’
They stood so for a moment; both conscious that something had been achieved that was of enormous-of overmastering importance. Then Harriet said, practically: ‘In any case, you were right, and I was wrong. The thing has got to be done. By any means, so long as we get to the bottom of it. That’s your job, and it’s worth doing.’
‘Always provided I can do it. I don’t feel very brilliant at the moment.’
‘You’ll get there in the end. It’s all right, Peter.’
He laughed-and Bunter came in with the soup. ‘I regret that dinner is a little late, my lady.’
Harriet looked at the clock. It seemed to her that she had lived through interminable ages of emotion. But the hands stood at a quarter past eight. Only an hour and a half had gone by since they had entered the house.
Chapter XVIII. Straws In The Hair
Follow the knave; and take this drab away.
– William Shakespeare: II Henry VI. II. i.
‘The really essential thing,’ said Peter, executing sketch on the table-cloth with the handle of his soupspoon, ‘is to put in a workable hot-water system and build out a bathroom over the scullery. We can make the furnace house here, so as to get a straight fall from the cistern there. And that will give us a direct outfall for the bath to the sewer-if I may dignify it by that name. I think there’d be room to make another little bedroom near the bathroom; and when we want more space, we can convert the attics. The electric plant can live in the stable.’
Harriet agreed and offered her own contribution: ‘Bunter speaks none too kindly of the kitchen range. He says he would designate it as a period piece, my lady, but, if I will permit him to say so, of an inferior period. I think it’s mid-Victorian.’
‘We will take it a few periods back and have it Tudor. I propose to install an open fire and a roasting-spit and live in the baronial manner.’
‘With a scullion to turn the spit? Or one of those bandy-legged period dogs?’
‘Well-no; I was going to compromise about that, and have the spit turned by electricity. And an electric cooker for the days when we didn’t feel so period. I like the best of both worlds-I’m quite ready to be picturesque but I draw the line at inconvenience and hard work. I’m sure it would be hard work training a modem dog to turn a spit.’
‘Talking of dogs-are we keeping that terrific bull-mastiff?’
‘We’ve only hired him till after the funeral. Unless you feel a fancy for him. He is almost embarrassingly affectionate and demonstrative; but he’d do to play with the children. The goat, on the other hand, I have sent home. It got loose while we were out and ate a row of cabbages and Mrs Ruddle’s apron.’
‘Are you sure you don’t want to keep it to provide milk for the nursery tea?’
‘Quite sure. It’s a billy-goat.’
‘Oh! well, that’s very smelly and useless. I’m glad he’s gone. Are we going to keep things?’
‘What should you like to keep? Peacocks?’
‘Peacocks need a terrace. I was thinking of pigs. They’re comfortable; and when you feel dreamy and indolent you can go and scratch their backs like Mr Baldwin. And ducks make a pleasant noise. But I don’t care much for hens.’
‘Hens have peevish faces. By the way, I’m not sure you weren’t right before dinner. On principle, it’s the proper thing to give Kirk information, but I wish one knew how he was going to use it. If once he gets a fixed idea-’
‘There’s someone at the door. If that’s Kirk, we’ll have to make up our minds.’ Bunter entered, bringing with him the fragrance-but only the fragrance-of sage and onion.