Busman’s Honeymoon Read Free Page A

Christmas carol in mind, but remember now it has something to do with the Holy Sepulchre—must ask Peter and make sure) after tea, when Emily announced ‘Miss Vane’. Was so surprised and delighted, I jumped up quite forgetting poor Ahasuerus, who was asleep on my knee, and was dreadfully affronted. I said, ‘My dear, how sweet of you to come’—she looked so different I shouldn’t have known her—but of course it was 5½ years ago, and nobody can look her best in the dock at that dreary Old Bailey. She walked straight up to me, rather as if she was facing a firing squad, and said abruptly, in that queer deep voice of hers, ‘Your letter was so kind—I didn’t quite know how to answer it, so I thought I’d better come. Do you honestly not mind too much about Peter and me? Because I love him quite dreadfully, and there’s just nothing to be done about it.’ So I said, ‘Oh, do please go on loving him, because he wants it so much, and he really is the dearest of all my children, only it doesn’t do for parents to say so—but now I can say it to you, and I’m so glad about it.’ So I kissed her, and Ahasuerus was so furious that he ran all his claws hard into her legs and I apologised and smacked him and we sat down on the sofa, and she said, ‘Do you know, I’ve been saying to myself all the way up from Oxford, “If only I can face her and it really is all right, I shall have somebody I can talk to about Peter”. That’s the one thing that kept me from turning back halfway.’ Poor child, that really was all she wanted she was quite in a daze, because apparently it all happened quite late on Sunday evening, and they sat up half the night, kissing one another madly in a punt, poor things, and then he had to go, making no arrangements for anything, and if it hadn’t been for his signet-ring that he put on her hand all in a hurry at the last moment it might have been all a dream. And after holding out against him all these years, she’d given way all of a piece, like falling down a well, and didn’t seem to know what to do with herself. Said she couldn’t remember ever having been absolutely and shatteringly happy since she was a small child, and it made her feel quite hollow inside. On inquiry, I found she must be literally hollow inside, because as far as I could make out she hadn’t eaten or slept to speak of since Sunday. Sent Emily for sherry and biscuits, and made her—H., I mean—stay to dinner. Talked Peter till I could almost hear him saying, ‘Mother dear, you are having an orgy’ (or is it orgie?) ... H. caught sight of that David Bellezzi photograph of Peter which he dislikes so much, and I asked what she thought of it. She said, ‘Well, it’s a nice English gentleman, but it isn’t either the lunatic, the lover or the poet, is it?’ Agree with her. (Can’t think why I keep the thing about, except to please David.) Brought out family album. Thankful to say she didn’t go all broody and possessive over Peter kicking baby legs on a rug—can’t stand maternal young women, though P. really a very comic infant with his hair in a tuft, but he controls it very well now, so why rake up the past? She instantly seized on the ones Peter calls ‘Little Mischief and ‘The Lost Chord’ and said, ‘Somebody who understood him took those—was it Bunter?’—which looked like second sight. Then she confessed she felt horribly guilty about Bunter and hoped his feelings weren’t going to be hurt, because if he gave notice it would break Peter’s heart. Told her quite frankly it would depend entirely on her, and I felt sure Bunter would never go unless he was pushed out. H. said, ‘But you don’t think I’d do that. That’s just it. I don’t want Peter to lose anything. ’ She looked quite distressed, and we both wept a little, till it suddenly struck us as funny that we should both be crying over Bunter, who would have been shocked out of his wits if he’d known it. So we cheered up