“She interests me very much,” said Peter.
“I like her, you know.”
“So do I.”
“But I’m afraid those are her kind of hairpins.”
“I know they are,” said he. He took his hand from his pocket and held it out. They were close under Tudor, and the light from an adjacent window showed a melancholy, spraddle-legged hairpin lying across his palm. “She shed this on the dais after dinner. You saw me pick it up.”
“I saw you pick up Miss Shaw’s scarf.”
“Always the gentleman. May I come up with you, or is that against the regulations?”
“You can come up.”
There were a number of students scurrying about the corridors in undress, who looked at Peter with more curiosity than annoyance. In Harriet’s room, they found her gown lying on the table, together with the dossier. Peter picked up the book, examined the paper and string and the seals which secured them, each one stamped with the crouching cat and arrogant Wimsey motto.
“If that’s been opened, I’ll make a meal of hot sealing wax.”
He went to the window and looked out into the quad.
“Not a bad observation post-in its way. Thanks. That’s all I wanted to look at.”
He showed no further curiosity, but took the gown she handed to him and followed her downstairs again.
They were half-way across the quad when he said suddenly:
“Harriet. Do you really prize honesty above every other thing?”
“I think I do. I hope so. Why?”
“If you don’t, I am the most blazing fool in Christendom. I am busily engaged in sawing off my own branch. If I am honest, I shall probably lose you altogether. If I am not-”
His voice was curiously rough, as though he were trying to control something; not, she thought, bodily pain or passion, but something more fundamental.
“If you are not,” said Harriet, “then I shall lose you, because you wouldn’t be the same person, should you?”
“I don’t know. I have a reputation for flippant insincerity. You think I’m honest?”
“I know you are. I couldn’t imagine your being anything else.”
“And yet at this moment I’m trying to insure myself against the effects of my own honesty. ‘I have tried if I could reach that great resolution, to be honest without a thought of heaven or hell.’ It looks as though I should get hell either way, though; so I need scarcely bother about the resolution. I believe you mean what you say-and I hope I should do the same thing if I didn’t believe a word of it.”
“Peter, I haven’t an idea what you’re talking about.”
“All the better. Don’t worry. I won’t behave like this another time. ‘The Duke drained a dipper of brandy-and-water and became again the perfect English gentleman.’ Give me your hand.”
She gave it to him, and he held it for a moment in a firm clasp, and then drew her arm through his. They moved on into the New Quad, arm in arm, in silence. As they passed the archway at the foot of the Hall stairs, Harriet fancied she heard somebody stir in the darkness and saw the faint glimmer of a watching face; but it was gone before she could draw Peter’s attention to it. Padgett unlocked the gate for them; Wimsey, stepping preoccupied over the threshold, tossed him a heedless goodnight.
“Good-night, Major Wimsey, sir!”
“Hullo!” Peter brought back the foot that was already in St. Cross Road, and looked closely into the porter’s smiling face.
“My God, yes! Stop a minute. Don’t tell me. Caudry-1918-I’ve got it! Padgett’s the name. Corporal Padgett.”
“Quite right, sir.”
“Well, well, well. I’m damned glad to see you. Looking dashed fit, too. How are you keeping?”
“Fine, thank you, sir.” Padgett’s large and hairy paw closed warmly over Peter’s long fingers. “I says to my wife, when I ’eard you was ’ere, ‘I’ll lay you anything you like,’ I says, ‘the Major won’t have forgotten.’”
“By Jove, no. Fancy finding you here! Last time I saw you, I was being carried away on a stretcher.”
“That’s right, sir. I ’ad the pleasure of ’elping to dig you out.”
“I know you did. I’m glad to see you now, but I was a dashed sight gladder to see you then.”
“Yes, sir. Gorblimey, sir-well, there! We thought you was gone that time. I says to Hackett-remember little Hackett, sir?”
“the little red-headed blighter? Yes, of course. What’s become of him?”
“Driving a lorry over at Reading, sir, married and three kids. I says to Hackett, ‘Lor’ lumme!’ I says, ‘there’s old Winderpane gawn’-excuse me, sir-and he says, ‘ ’Ell! wot ruddy luck!’ So I says, ‘Don’t stand there grizzlin’-maybe ’e ain’t gawn after all.’ So we-”
“No,” said Wimsey. “I fancy I was more frightened than hurt. Unpleasant sensation, being buried alive.”
“Well, sir! W’en we finds yer there at the bottom o’ that there old Boche dug-out with a big beam acrost yer, I says to Hackett, ‘Well,’ I says,‘ ’e’s all ’ere, anyhow.’ And he says, ‘Thank gawd for Jerry!’ ’e says-meanin’, if it ’adn’t been for that there dugout-”
“Yes,” said Wimsey, “I had a bit of luck there. We lost poor Mr. Danbury, though.”
“Yes, sir. Bad thing, that was. A nice young gentleman. Ever see anything of Captain Sidgwick nowadays, sir?”
“Oh, yes. I saw him only the other day at the Bellona Club. He’s not very fit these days, I’m sorry to say. Got a dose of gas, you know. Lungs groggy.”
“Sorry to hear that, sir. Remember how put about ’e was over that there pig-”
“Hush, Padgett. The less said about that pig, the better.”
“Yes, sir. Nice bit o’ crackling that pig ’ad on ’im. Coo!” Padgett smacked reminiscent lips. “You ’eard wot ’appened to Sergeant-Major Toop?”
“Toop? No-I’ve quite lost sight of him. Nothing unpleasant, I hope. Best sergeant-major I ever had.”
“Ah, he was a one.” Padgett’s grin widened. “Well, sir, ’e found ’is match all right. Little bit of a thing-no ’igher than that, but, lummy!”
“Go on, Padgett. You don’t say so.”
“Yes, sir. When I was workin’ in the camel ’ouse at the Zoo-”
“Good God, Padgett!”
“Yes, sir-I see them there and we passed the time o’ day. Went round to look ’em up afterwards. Well, there! She give ’im sergeant-major all right. Put ’im through the ’oop proper. You know the old song: Naggin’ at a feller as is six foot three-”
“And her only four foot two! Well, well! How are the mighty fallen! By the bye, I’ll tell you who I ran into the other day-now, this will surprise you-”
The stream of reminiscence ran remorselessly on, till Wimsey, suddenly reminded of his manners, apologized to Harriet and plunged hastily out, with a promise to return for another chat over old times. Padgett, still beaming, swung the heavy gate to, and locked it.
“Ah!” said Padgett, “he ain’t changed much, the major ’asn’t. He was a lot younger then, o’ course-only just gazetted-but he was regular good officer for all that-and a terror for eye-wash. And shavin’-lummy!”
Padgett, supporting himself with one hand against the brickwork of the lodge, appeared lost in the long ago.
“‘Now, men,’ ’e’d say, when we was expectin’ a bit of a strafe, ‘if you gotter face your Maker, fer gawd’s sake, face ’Im with a clean chin.’ Ah! Winderpane, we called ’im, along of the eyeglass, but meanin’ no disrespect. None on us wouldn’t ’ear a word agin ’im. Now, there was a chap came to us from another unit-’ulkin’ foul-mouthed fellow, wot nobody took to much-’Uggins, that was the name, ’Uggins. Well, this bloke thinks ’e’s goin’ to be funny, see-and ’e starts callin’ the major Little Percy, and usin opprobrious epithets-”
Here Padgett paused, to select an epithet fit for a lady’s ear, but, failing, repeated:
“Opprobrious epithets, miss. And I says to ’im-mind you, this was afore I got my stripes; I was jest a private then, same as ’Uggins-I says to ’im, ‘Now, that’s quite enough o’ that.’ And ’e says to me-Well, anyway, the end of it is, we ’ad a lovely scrap, all round the ’ouses.”