Harriet laughed, but in Saint-George’s quick, appraising glance at Miss Barton she had again seen his uncle look for a moment out of his eyes. These family resemblances were unnerving. She curled herself into the window-seat and watched for nearly ten minutes. The viscount sat still, smoking a cigarette, and looking entirely at his ease. Miss Lydgate, Miss Burrows and Miss Shaw came in and began to pour out tea. The tennis-party finished the set and moved away. Then, from the left, came a quick, light step along the gravel walk.
“Hullo!” said Harriet to the owner of the step.
“Hullo!” said Peter. “Fancy seeing you here!” He grinned. “Come and talk to Gerald. He’s in the loggia.”
“I see him quite plainly,” said Harriet. “His profile has been much admired.”
“As a good adopted aunt, why didn’t you go and be kind to the poor lad?”
“I never was one to interfere. I keep myself to myself.”
“Well, come now.”
Harriet got down from the window-seat and joined Wimsey outside.
“I brought him here,” said Peter, “to see if he could make any identifications. But he doesn’t seem able to.”
Lord Saint-George greeted Harriet enthusiastically.
“There was another female went past me,” he said, turning to Peter. “Grey hair badly bobbed. Earnest manner. Dressed in sack-cloth. Institutional touch about her. I got speech of her.”
“Miss Barton,” said Harriet.
“Right sort of eyes; wrong sort of voice. I don’t think it’s her. It might be the one that collared you, Uncle. She had a kind of a lean and hungry look.
“H’m!” said Peter. “How about the first one?”
“I’d like to see her without her glasses.”
“If you mean Miss de Vine,” said Harriet, “I doubt whether she could see very far without them.”
“That’s a point,” said Peter, thoughtfully.
“I’m sorry to be so vague and all that,” said Lord Saint-George. “But it’s not easy to identify a hoarse whisper and a pair of eyes seen once by moonlight.”
“No,” said Peter, “it needs a good deal of practice.”
“Practice be blowed,” retorted his nephew. “I’m not going to make a practice of it.”
“It’s not a bad sport,” said Peter. “You might take it up till you can start games again.”
“How’s the shoulder getting on?” inquired Harriet.
“Oh, not too bad, thanks. The massage bloke is working wonders with it. I can lift the old arm shoulder-high now. It’s quite serviceable-for some things.”
By way of demonstration he threw the damaged arm round Harriet’s shoulders, and kissed her rapidly and expertly before she could dodge him. “Children, children!” cried his uncle, plaintively, “remember where you are.”
“It’s all right for me,” said Lord Saint-George. “I’m an adopted nephew. Isn’t that right, Aunt Harriet?”
“Not bang underneath the windows of the S.C.R.,” said Harriet.
“Come round the corner, then,” said the viscount, impenitently, “and I’ll do it again. As Uncle Peter says, these things need a good deal of practice.” He was impudently set upon tormenting his uncle, and Harriet felt extremely angry with him. However, to show annoyance was to play into his hands. She smiled upon him pityingly and uttered the Brasenose porter’s classic rebuke:
“It’s no good you making a noise, gentlemen. The Dean ain’t a-coming down tonight.”
This actually silenced him for the moment. She turned to Peter, who said: “Have you any commissions in Town?”
“Why, are you going back?”
“I’m running up tonight and on to York in the morning. I expect to get back on Thursday.”
“York?”
“Yes; I want to see a man there-about a dog, and all that.”
“Oh, I see. Well-if it wouldn’t be out of your way to call at my flat, you might take up a few chapters of manuscript to my secretary. I’d rather trust you than the post. Could you manage it?”
“With very great pleasure,” said Wimsey, formally.
She ran up to her room to get the papers, and from the window observed that the Wimsey family was having the matter out with itself. When she came down with the parcel, she found the nephew waiting at the door of Tudor, rather red in the face.
“Please, I am to apologize.”
“I should think so,” said Harriet, severely. “I can’t be disgraced like this in my own quad. Frankly, I can’t afford it.”
“I’m most frightfully sorry,” said Lord Saint-George. “It was rotten of me. Honestly, I wasn’t thinking of anything except getting Uncle Peter’s goat. And if it’s any satisfaction to you,” he added, ruefully, “I got it.”
“Well, be decent to him; he’s very decent to you.”
“I will be good,” said Peter’s nephew, taking the parcel from her, and they proceeded amicably together till Peter rejoined them at the Lodge.
“Damn that boy!” said Wimsey, when he had sent Saint-George ahead to start up the car.
“Oh, Peter, don’t worry about every little thing so dreadfully. What does it matter? He only wanted to tease you.”
“It’s a pity he can’t find some other way to do it. I seem to be a perfect mill-stone tied round your neck, and the sooner I clear out the better.
“Oh, for goodness’ sake!” said Harriet irritated. “If you’re going to be morbid about it, it certainly would be better for you if you did clear out. I’ve told you so before.”
Lord Saint-George, finding his elders dilatory, blew a cheerful “hi-tiddleyhi-ti, pom, pom” on the horn.
“Damn and blast!” said Peter. He took gate and path at a bound, pushed his nephew angrily out of the driving-seat, jerked the door of the Daimler to noisily and shot off up the road with a bellowing roar. Harriet, finding herself unexpectedly possessed of a magnificent fit of bad temper, went back, determined to extract the last ounce of enjoyment out of it; an exercise in which she was greatly helped by the discovery that the little episode on the loggia had greatly intrigued the Senior Common Room, and by learning from Miss Allison, after Hall, that Miss Hillyard, when she heard of it, had made some very unpleasant observations, which it was only right that Miss Vane should know about.
Oh, God! thought Harriet, alone in her room, what have I done, more than thousands of other people, except have the rotten luck to be tried for my life and have the whole miserable business dragged out into daylight?… Anybody would think I’d been punished enough… But nobody can forget it for a moment… I can’t forget it… Peter can’t forget it… If Peter wasn’t a fool he’d chuck it… He must see how hopeless it all is… Does he think I like to see him suffering vicarious agonies?… Does he really suppose I could ever marry him for the pleasure of seeing him suffer agonies?…Can’t he see that the only thing for me to do is to keep out of it all?… What the devil possessed me to bring him to Oxford?… Yes-and I thought it would be so nice to retire to Oxford… to have “unpleasant observations” made about me by Miss Hillyard, who’s half potty, if you ask me… Somebody’s potty, anyhow… that seems to be what happens to one if one keeps out of the way of love and marriage and all the rest of the muddle… Well if Peter fancies I’m going to “accept the protection of his name” and be grateful, he’s damn well mistaken… A nice, miserable business that’d be for him… It’s a nice, miserable business for him, too, if he really wants me-if he does-and can’t have what he wants because I had the rotten luck to be tried for a murder I didn’t do… It looks as if he was going to get hell either way… Well, let him get hell, it’s his lookout… It’s a pity he saved me from being hanged-he probably wishes by now he’d left me alone… I suppose any decently grateful person would give him what he wants… But it wouldn’t be much gratitude to make him miserable… We should both be perfectly miserable, because neither of us could ever forget… I very nearly did forget the other day on the river… And I had forgotten this afternoon, only he remembered it first… Damn that impudent Little beast! how horribly cruel the young can be to the middle-aged!… I wasn’t frightfully kind myself… And I did know what I was doing… It’s a good thing Peter’s gone… but I wish he hadn’t gone and left me in this ghastly place where people go off their heads and write horrible letters… “When I am from him I am dead till I be with him.”… No, it won’t do to feel like that… I won’t get mixed up with that kind of thing again… I’ll stay out of it… I’ll stay here… where people go queer in their heads… Oh, God, what have I done, that I should be such a misery to myself and other people? Nothing more than thousands of women…