“Indeed? Ah! There ain’t much I couldn’t tell you about them ladies. And proud I’d be to do it. Fifty years I was with Miss Whittaker. I come to her as under-groom in old Johnny Blackthorne’s time, and stayed on as head-groom after he died. A rare young lady she was in them days. Deary me. Straight as a switch, with a fine, high colour in her cheeks and shiny black hair- just like a beautiful two-year-old filly she was. And very sperrited. Wonnerful sperrited. There was a many gentlemen as would have been glad to hitch up with her, but she was never broke to harness. Like dirt, she treated ’em. Wouldn’t look at ’em, except it might be the grooms and stablehands in a matter of ’osses. And in the way of business, of course. Well, there is some creatures like that. I ’ad a terrier bitch that way. Great ratter she was. But a business woman- nothin’ else. I tried ’er with all the dogs I could lay ’and to, but it weren’t no good. Bloodshed there was an’ sich a row- you never ’eard. The Lord makes a few on ’em that way to suit ’Is own purposes, I suppose. There ain’t no arguin’ with females.”
Lord Peter said “Ah!”
The ale went down in silence.
Mr. Piggin roused himself presently from contemplation to tell a story of Miss Whittaker in the hunting-field. Mr. Cobling capped this by another. Lord Peter said “Ah!” Parker then emerged and was introduced, and Mr. Cobling begged the privilege of standing a round of drinks. This ritual accomplished, Mr. Piggin begged the company would be his guests for a third round, and then excused himself on the plea of customers to attend to.
He went in, and Lord Peter, by skilful and maddeningly slow degrees, began to work his way back to the history of the Dawson family. Parker- educated at Barrow-in-Furness grammar school and with his wits further sharpened in the London police service- endeavoured now and again to get matters along faster by a brisk question. The result, every time, was to make Mr. Cobling lose the thread of his remarks and start him off into a series of interminable side-tracks. Wimsey kicked his friend viciously on the ankle-bone to keep him quiet, and with endless patience worked the conversation back to the main road again.
At the end of an hour or so, Mr. Cobling explained that his wife could tell them a great deal more about Miss Dawson than what he could, and invited them to visit his cottage. This invitation being accepted with alacrity, the party started off, Cobling explaining to Parker that he was eighty-seven come next Michaelmas, and hearty still, indeed, stronger than he appeared, bar the rheumatics that troubled him. “I’m not saying as I’m not bent,” said Mr. Cobling, “but that’s more the work of the ’osses. Regular lived with ’osses all my life- ”
“Don’t look so fretful, Charles,” murmured Wimsey in his ear, “it must be the tea at breakfast- it frets the coats of the stomach.”
Mrs. Cobling turned out to be a delightful old lady, exactly like a dried up pippin and only two years younger than her husband. She was entranced at getting an opportunity to talk about her darling Miss Agatha. Parker, thinking it necessary to put forward some reason for the inquiry, started on an involved explanation and was kicked again. To Mrs. Cobling, nothing could be more natural than that all the world should be interested in the Dawsons, and she prattled gaily on without prompting.
She had been in the Dawson family service as a girl- almost born in it as you might say. Hadn’t her mother been housekeeper to Mr. Henry Dawson, Miss Agatha’s papa, and to his father before him? She herself had gone to the big house as stillroom maid when she wasn’t but fifteen. That was when Miss Harriet was only three years old- her as afterwards married Mr. James Whittaker. Yes, and she’d been there when the rest of the family was born. Mr. Stephen- him as should have been the heir- ah, dear! only the trouble came and that killed his poor father and there was nothing left. Yes, a sad business that was. Poor Mr. Henry speculated with something- Mrs. Cobling wasn’t clear what, but it was all very wicked and happened in London where there were so many wicked people- and the long and the short was, he lost it all, poor gentleman, and never held up his head again. Only fifty-four he was when he died; such a fine upright gentleman with a pleasant word for everybody. And his wife didn’t live long after him, poor lamb. She was a Frenchwoman and a sweet lady, but she was very lonely in England, having no family and her two sisters walled up in one of them dreadful Romish Convents.
“And what did Mr. Stephen do when the money went?” asked Wimsey.
“Him? Oh, he went into business-a strange thing that did seem, though I have heard tell as old Barnabas Dawson, Mr. Henry’s grandfather that was, was naught but a grocer or something of that-they do say, don’t they, that from shirtsleeves to shirtsleeves is three generations? Still, it was very hard on Mr. Stephen, as had always been brought up to have everything of the best. And engaged to be married to a beautiful lady, too, and a very rich heiress. But it was all for the best, for when she heard Mr. Stephen was a poor man after all, she threw him over, and that showed she had no heart in her at all. Mr. Stephen never married till he was over forty, and then it was a lady with no family at all- not lawful, that is, though she was a dear, sweet girl and made Mr. Stephen a most splendid wife- she did indeed. And Mr. John, he was their only son. They thought the world of him. It was a terrible day when the news came that he was killed in the War. A cruel business that was, sir, wasn’t it?- and nobody the better for it as far as I can see, but all these shocking hard taxes, and the price of everything gone up so, and so many out of work.”
“So he was killed? That must have been a terrible grief to his parents.”
“Yes, sir, terrible. Oh, it was an awful thing altogether, sir, for poor Mr. Stephen as had had so much trouble all his life, he went out of his poor mind and shot hisself. Out of his mind he must have been, sir, to do it- and what was more dreadful still, he shot his dear lady as well. You may remember it, sir. There was pieces in the paper about it.”
“I seem to have some vague recollection of it,” said Peter, quite untruthfully, but anxious not to seem to belittle the local tragedy. “And young John- he wasn’t married, I suppose.”
“No, sir. That was very sad, too. He was engaged to a young lady- a nurse in one of the English hospitals, as we understood, and he was hoping to get back and be married to her on his next leave. Everything did seem to go all wrong together them terrible years.”
The old lady sighed, and wiped her eyes.
“Mr. Stephen was the only son, then?”
“Well, not exactly, sir. There was the darling twins. Such pretty children, but they only lived two days. They come four years after Miss Harriet- her as married Mr. James Whittaker.”
“Yes, of course. That was how the families became connected.”
“Yes, sir. Miss Agatha and Miss Harriet and Miss Clara Whittaker was all at the same school together, and Mrs. Whittaker asked the two young ladies to go and spend their holidays with Miss Clara, and that was when Mr. James fell in love with Miss Harriet. She wasn’t as pretty as Miss Agatha, to my thinking, but she was livelier and quicker- and then, of course, Miss Agatha was never one for flirting and foolishness. Often she used to say to me, ‘Betty,’ she said, ‘I mean to be an old maid and so does Miss Clara, and we’re going to live together and be ever so happy, without any stupid, tiresome gentlemen.’ And so it turned out, sir, as you know, for Miss Agatha, for all she was so quiet, was very determined. Once she’d said a thing, you couldn’t turn her from it-not with reasons, nor with threats, nor with coaxings- nothing! Many’s the time I’ve tried when she was a child- for I used to give a little help in the nursery sometimes, sir. You might drive her into a temper or into the sulks, but you couldn’t make her change her little mind, even then.”