“Now,
Polly, old girl,” said Peter, “cut out the sob-stuff. I accidentally ran into
this Goyles chap last night at your Soviet Club. I asked that Miss Tarrant to
introduce me, but the minute Goyles heard my name, he made tracks.
I
rushed out after him, only meanin' to have a word with him, when the idiot
stopped at the corner of Newport Court, potted me, and bunked. Silly-ass thing
to do. I knew who he was. He couldn't help gettin' caught.”
“Peter——”
said Mary in a ghastly voice.
“Look
here, Polly,” said Wimsey. “I did think of you. Honest injun, I did.
Honest Injun
In the 1800s,
Europeans romanticized the Native American as a “noble savage.” They were
typically believed to be more honest than white men (who made treaties and then
broke them, time and again.). The phrase is not politically correct today.
The term noble savage
(French, bon sauvage) expresses the concept of an idealized indigene, outsider,
or "other" and refers to the literary stock character. In English,
the phrase first appeared in the 17th century in John Dryden's heroic play, The
Conquest of Granada (1672), wherein it was used by a Christian prince disguised
as a Spanish Muslim to refer to himself, but it later became identified with
the idealized picture of "nature's gentleman", which was an aspect of
18th-century sentimentalism. The noble savage achieved prominence as an
oxymoronic rhetorical device after 1851, when used sarcastically as the title
for a satirical essay by English novelist Charles Dickens, whom some believe
may have wished to disassociate himself from what he viewed as the
"feminine" sentimentality of 18th and early 19th-century romantic
primitivism
I
haven't had the man arrested. I've made no charge at all—have I, Parker? What
did you tell 'em to do when you were down at the Yard this morning?”
“To
detain Goyles pending inquiries, because he was wanted as a witness in the
Riddlesdale case,” said Parker slowly.
“He
knows nothing about it,” said Mary, doggedly now. “He wasn't anywhere near. He
is innocent of that!”
“Do you
think so?” said Lord Peter gravely. “If you know he is innocent, why tell all
those lies to screen him? It won't do, Mary. You know he was there—and you
think he is guilty.”
“No!”
“Yes,”
said Wimsey, grasping her with his sound hand as she shrank away. “Mary, have
you thought what you are doing? You are perjuring yourself and putting Gerald
in peril of his life, in order to shield from justice a man whom you suspect of
murdering your lover and who has most certainly tried to murder me.”
“Oh,”
cried Parker, in an agony, “all this interrogation is horribly irregular.”
“Never
mind him,” said Peter. “Do you really think you're doing the right thing,
Mary?”
The
girl looked helplessly at her brother for a minute or two. Peter cocked up a
whimsical, appealing eye from under his bandages. The defiance melted out of
her face.
“I'll
tell the truth,” said Lady Mary.
“Good
egg,” said Peter, extending a hand. “I'm sorry. I know you like the fellow, and
we appreciate your decision enormously. Truly, we do. Now, sail ahead, old
thing, and you take it down, Parker.”
“Well, it really all started years ago with George. You were
at the Front then, Peter, but I suppose they told you about it—and put
everything in the worst possible light.”
“I
wouldn't say that, dear,” put in the Duchess. “I think I told Peter that your
brother and I were not altogether pleased with what we had seen of the young
man—which was not very much, if you remember. He invited himself down one
week-end when the house was very full, and he seemed to make a point of
consulting nobody's convenience but his own. And you know, dear, you even said
yourself you thought he was unnecessarily rude to poor old Lord Mountweazle.”
“He
said what he thought,” said Mary. “Of course, Lord Mountweazle, poor dear,
doesn't understand that the present generation is accustomed to discuss things
with its elders, not just kow-tow to them. When George gave his opinion, he
thought he was just contradicting.”
“To be
sure,” said the Dowager, “when you flatly deny everything a person says it does
sound like contradiction to the uninitiated. But all I remember saying to Peter
was that Mr. Goyles's manners seemed to me to lack polish, and that he showed a
lack of independence in his opinions.”
“A lack
of independence?” said Mary, wide-eyed.
“Well,
dear, I thought so. What oft was thought and frequently much better expressed,
as Pope says—or was it somebody else? But the worse you express yourself these
days the more profound people think you—though that's nothing new. Like
Browning and those quaint metaphysical people, when you never know whether they
really mean their mistress or the Established Church, so bridegroomy and
biblical—to say nothing of dear S. Augustine—the Hippo man, I mean, not the one
who missionised over here, though I daresay he was delightful too, and in those
days I suppose they didn't have annual sales of work and tea in the parish
room, so it doesn't seem quite like what we mean nowadays by missionaries—he
knew all about it—you remember about that mandrake—or is that the thing you had
to get a big black dog for? Manichee, that's the word. What was his name? Was
it Faustus? Or am I mixing him up with the old man in the opera?”
“Well,
anyway,” said Mary, without stopping to disentangle the Duchess's sequence of
ideas, “George was the only person I really cared about—he still is. Only it
did seem so hopeless. Perhaps you didn't say much about him, mother, but Gerald
said lots—dreadful things!”
“Yes,”
said the Duchess, “he said what he thought. The present generation does, you
know. To the uninitiated, I admit, dear, it does sound a little rude.”
Peter
grinned, but Mary went on unheeding.
“George
had simply no money. He'd really given everything he had to the Labour Party
one way and another, and he'd lost his job in the Ministry of Information: they
found he had too much sympathy with the Socialists abroad. It was awfully
unfair. Anyhow, one couldn't be a burden on him; and Gerald was a beast, and
said he'd absolutely stop my allowance if I didn't send George away. So I did,
but of course it didn't make a bit of difference to the way we both felt. I
will say for mother she was a bit more decent. She said she'd help us if George
got a job; but, as I pointed out, if George got a job we shouldn't need
helping!”
“But,
my dear, I could hardly insult Mr. Goyles by suggesting that he should live on
his mother-in-law,” said the Dowager.
“Why
not?” said Mary. “George doesn't believe in those old-fashioned ideas about
property. Besides, if you'd given it to me, it would be my money. We believe in
men and women being equal. Why should the one always be the bread-winner more
than the other?”
“I
can't imagine, dear,” said the Dowager. “Still, I could hardly expect poor Mr.
Goyles to live on unearned increment when he didn't believe in inherited
property.”
“That's
a fallacy,” said Mary, rather vaguely. “Anyhow,” she added hastily, “that's
what happened. Then, after the war, George went to Germany to study Socialism
and Labour questions there, and nothing seemed any good. So when Denis Cathcart
turned up, I said I'd marry him.”
“Why?”
asked Peter. “He never sounded to me a bit the kind of bloke for you. I mean,
as far as I could make out, he was Tory and diplomatic and—well, quite crusted
old tawny, so to speak. I shouldn't have thought you had an idea in common.”
Toryism is a
traditionalist and conservative political philosophy which grew out of the
Cavalier faction in the Wars of the Three Kingdoms. It is a prominent ideology
in the politics of the United Kingdom, but also features in parts of The
Commonwealth, particularly in Canada. Historically it also had exponents in
former parts of the British Empire, for instance the Loyalists of British
America who sided with Britain and the Crown during the American Revolutionary
War. The Tory ethics can be summed up with the phrase 'God, King and Country'.
Tories generally advocate monarchism, are usually of a High Church Anglican
religious heritage, and are opposed to the radical liberalism of the Whig
faction.
The Tory political
faction emerged within the Parliament of England to uphold the legitimist
rights of James, Duke of York to succeed his brother Charles II to the throne.
James II was a Catholic, while the state institutions had broken from the
Catholic Church—this was an issue for the Exclusion Bill supporting Whigs, the
political heirs to the nonconformist Roundheads and Covenanters. There were two
Tory ministries under James II; the first led by Lord Rochester, the second by
Lord Belasyse. Some were later involved in his usurpation with the Whigs, which
they saw as defending the Anglican Church. Tory sympathy for the Stuarts ran
deep however and some supported Jacobitism, which saw them isolated by the
Hanoverians until Lord Bute's ministry under George III.
Conservatism emerged
by the end of the 18th century—which synthesised moderate Whig positions and
some of the old Tory values to create a new political ideology, in opposition
to the French Revolution. Edmund Burke and William Pitt the Younger led the way
in this. Due to this faction eventually leading to the formation of the
Conservative Party, members of that party are colloquially referred to as
Tories, even if they are not traditionalists. Actual adherents to traditional
Toryism in contemporary times tend to be referred to as High Tories to avoid
confusion.
“No; but then he
didn't care twopence whether I had any ideas or not. I made him promise he
wouldn't bother me with diplomats and people, and he said no, I could do as I
liked, provided I didn't compromise him. And we were to live in Paris and go
our own ways and not bother. And anything was better than staying here, and
marrying somebody in one's own set, and opening bazaars and watching polo and
meeting the Prince of Wales. So I said I'd marry Denis, because I didn't care
about him, and I'm pretty sure he didn't care a halfpenny about me, and we
should have left each other alone. I did so want to be left alone!”
“Was
Jerry all right about your money?” inquired Peter.
“Oh yes.
He said Denis was no great catch—I do wish Gerald wasn't so vulgar, in that
flat, early-Victorian way—but he said that, after George, he could only thank
his stars it wasn't worse.”
“Make a
note of that, Charles,” said Wimsey.
“Well,
it seemed all right at first, but, as things went on, I got more and more
depressed. Do you know, there was something a little alarming about Denis. He
was so extraordinarily reserved. I know I wanted to be left alone, but—well, it
was uncanny! He was correct. Even when he went off the deep end and was
passionate—which didn't often happen—he was correct about it. Extraordinary.
Like one of those odd French novels, you know, Peter: frightfully hot stuff,
but absolutely impersonal.”
“Charles,
old man!” said Lord Peter.
“M'm?”
“That's
important. You realize the bearing of that?”
“No.”
“Never
mind. Drive on, Polly.”
“Aren't
I making your head ache?”
“Damnably;
but I like it. Do go on. I'm not sprouting
a lily with anguish moist and fever-dew, or anything like that. I'm getting
really thrilled. What you've just said is more illuminating than anything I've
struck for a week.”
Peter quotes from the
poem the Belle Dame sans Merci: La Belle Dame sans Merci (French: "The Beautiful
Lady Without Mercy" ) is a ballad written by the English poet John Keats.
It exists in two versions, with minor differences between them. The original
was written by Keats in 1819. He used the title of a 15th century poem by Alain
Chartier, though the plots of the two poems are different. The poem is
considered an English classic, stereotypical to other of Keats' works. It
avoids simplicity of interpretation despite simplicity of structure. At only a
short twelve stanzas, of only four lines each, with a simple ABCB rhyme scheme,
the poem is nonetheless full of enigmas, and has been the subject of numerous
interpretations.
“Really!”
Mary stared at Peter with every trace of hostility vanished. “I thought you'd
never understand that part.”
“Lord!”
said Peter. “Why not?”
Mary
shook her head. “Well, I'd been corresponding all the time with George, and
suddenly he wrote to me at the beginning of this month to say he'd come back
from Germany, and had got a job on the Thunderclap—the
Socialist weekly, you know—at a beginning screw of £4 a week, and wouldn't I
chuck these capitalists and so on, and come and be an honest working woman with
him. He could get me a secretarial job on the paper. I was to type and so on
for him, and help him get his articles together. And he thought between us we
should make £6 or £7 a week, which would be heaps to live on. And I was getting
more frightened of Denis every day. So I said I would. But I knew there'd be an
awful row with Gerald. And really I was rather ashamed—the engagement had been
announced and there'd be a ghastly lot of talk and people trying to persuade
me. And Denis might have made things horribly uncomfortable for Gerald—he was
rather that sort. So we decided the best thing to do would be just to run away
and get married first, and escape the wrangling.”
“Quite
so,” said Peter. “Besides, it would look rather well in the paper, wouldn't it?
'Peer's Daughter Weds Socialist—Romantic Side-car Elopement—“£6 a Week Plenty,”
says Her Ladyship.'”
“Pig!”
said Lady Mary.
“Very
good,” said Peter, “I get you! So it was arranged that the romantic Goyles
should fetch you away from Riddlesdale—why Riddlesdale? It would be twice as
easy from London or Denver.”
“No.
For one thing he had to be up North. And everybody knows one in town,
and—anyhow, we didn't want to wait.”
“Besides,
one would miss the Young Lochinvar touch. Well, then, why at the unearthly hour
of 3 a.m.?”
Marmion is an epic
poem by Walter Scott about the Battle of Flodden Field (1513). It was published
in 1808.
Scott started writing
Marmion, his second major work, in November 1806. When Archibald Constable, the
publisher, learnt of this, he offered a thousand guineas for the copyright
unseen. William Miller and John Murray each agreed to take a 25% share in the
project. Murray observed: "We both view it as honourable, profitable, and
glorious to be concerned in the publication of a new poem by Walter
Scott." Scott later said that he thoroughly enjoyed writing the work. He
told his son-in-law, Lockhart, "Oh, man, I had many a grand gallop among
these braes when I was thinking of Marmion."
Lochinvar was a character in
that poem.
“He had
a meeting on Wednesday night at Northallerton. He was going to come straight on
and pick me up, and run me down to town to be married by special license. We
allowed ample time. George had to be at the office next day.”
“I see.
Well, I'll go on now, and you stop me if I'm wrong. You went up at 9.30 on
Wednesday night. You packed a suit-case. You—did you think of writing any sort
of letter to comfort your sorrowing friends and relations?”
“Yes, I
wrote one. But I——”
“Of
course. Then you went to bed, I fancy, or, at any rate, turned the clothes back
and lay down.”
“Yes. I
lay down. It was a good thing I did, as it happened——”
“True,
you wouldn't have had much time to make the bed look probable in the morning,
and we should have heard about it. By the way, Parker, when Mary confessed her
sins to you last night, did you make any notes?”
“Yes,”
said Parker, “if you can read my shorthand.”
“Quite
so,” said Peter. “Well, the rumpled bed disposes of your story about never
having gone to bed at all, doesn't it?”
“And I
thought it was such a good story!”
“Want
of practice,” replied her brother kindly. “You'll do better, next time. It's
just as well, really, that it's so hard to tell a long, consistent lie. Did
you, as a matter of fact, hear Gerald go out at 11.30, as Pettigrew-Robinson
(damn his ears!) said?”
“I
fancy I did hear somebody moving about,” said Mary, “but I didn't think much
about it.”
“Quite
right,” said Peter, “when I hear people movin' about the house at night, I'm
much too delicate-minded to think anything at all.”
“Of
course,” interposed the Duchess, “particularly in England, where it is so oddly
improper to think. I will say for Peter that, if he can put a continental
interpretation on anything, he will—so considerate of you, dear, as soon as you
took to doing it in silence and not mentioning it, as you so intelligently did
as a child. You were really a very observant little boy, dear.”
“And
still is,” said Mary, smiling at Peter with surprising friendliness.
“Old
bad habits die hard,” said Wimsey. “To proceed. At three o'clock you went down
to meet Goyles. Why did he come all the way up to the house? It would have been
safer to meet him in the lane.”
“I knew
I couldn't get out of the lodge-gate without waking Hardraw, and so I'd have to
get over the palings somewhere. I might have managed alone, but not with a
heavy suit-case. So, as George would have to climb over, anyhow, we thought
he'd better come and help carry the suit-case. And then we couldn't miss each
other by the conservatory door. I sent him a little plan of the path.”
“Was
Goyles there when you got downstairs?”
“No—at
least—no, I didn't see him. But there was poor Denis's body, and Gerald bending
over it. My first idea was that Gerald had killed George. That's why I said, 'O
God! you've killed him!'” (Peter glanced across at Parker and nodded.) “Then
Gerald turned him over, and I saw it was Denis—and then I'm sure I heard
something moving a long way off in the shrubbery—a noise like twigs
snapping—and it suddenly came over me, where was George? Oh, Peter, I saw
everything then, so clearly. I saw that Denis must have come on George waiting
there, and attacked him—I'm sure Denis must have attacked him. Probably he
thought it was a burglar. Or he found out who he was and tried to drive him
away. And in the struggle George must have shot him. It was awful!”
Peter
patted his sister on the shoulder. “Poor kid,” he said.
“I
didn't know what to do,” went on the girl. “I'd so awfully little time, you
see. My one idea was that nobody must suspect anybody had been there. So I had
quickly to invent an excuse for being there myself. I shoved my suit-case
behind the cactus plants to start with. Jerry was taken up with the body and
didn't notice—you know, Jerry never does notice things till you shove them
under his nose. But I knew if there'd been a shot Freddy and the Marchbankses
must have heard it. So I pretended I'd heard it too, and rushed down to look
for burglars. It was a bit lame, but the best thing I could think of. Gerald
sent me up to alarm the house, and I had the story all ready by the time I
reached the landing. Oh, and I was quite proud of myself for not forgetting the
suit-case!”
“You
dumped it into the chest,” said Peter.
“Yes. I
had a horrible shock the other morning when I found you looking in.”
“Nothing
like the shock I had when I found the silver sand there.”
“Silver
sand?”
“Out of
the conservatory.”
“Good
gracious!” said Mary.
“Well,
go on. You knocked up Freddy and the Pettigrew-Robinsons. Then you had to bolt
into your room to destroy your farewell letter and take your clothes off.”
“Yes.
I'm afraid I didn't do that very naturally. But I couldn't expect anybody to
believe that I went burglar-hunting in a complete set of silk undies and a
carefully knotted tie with a gold safety-pin.”
“No. I
see your difficulty.”
“It
turned out quite well, too, because they were all quite ready to believe that I
wanted to escape from Mrs. Pettigrew-Robinson—except Mrs. P. herself, of
course.”
“Yes;
even Parker swallowed that, didn't you, old man?”
“Oh,
quite, quite so,” said Parker gloomily.
“I made
a dreadful mistake about that shot,” resumed Lady Mary. “You see, I explained
it all so elaborately—and then I found that nobody had heard a shot at all. And
afterwards they discovered that it had all happened in the shrubbery—and the
time wasn't right, either. Then at the inquest I had to stick to my story—and
it got to look worse and worse—and then they put the blame on Gerald. In my
wildest moments I'd never thought of that. Of course, I see now how my wretched
evidence helped.”
“Hence
the ipecacuanha,” said Peter.
“I'd
got into such a frightful tangle,” said poor Lady Mary, “I thought I had better
shut up altogether for fear of making things still worse.”
“And
did you still think Goyles had done it?”
“I—I
didn't know what to think,” said the girl. “I don't now. Peter, who else could
have done it?”
“Honestly,
old thing,” said his lordship, “if he didn't do it, I don't know who did.”
“He ran
away, you see,” said Lady Mary.
“He
seems rather good at shootin' and runnin' away,” said Peter grimly.
“If he
hadn't done that to you,” said Mary slowly, “I'd never have told you. I'd have
died first. But, of course, with his revolutionary doctrines—and when you think
of Red Russia and all the blood spilt in riots and insurrections and things—I
suppose it does teach a contempt for human life.”
“My
dear,” said the Duchess, “it seems to me that Mr. Goyles shows no especial
contempt for his own life. You must try to look at the thing fairly. Shooting
people and running away is not very heroic—according to our standards.”
“The
thing I don't understand,” struck in Wimsey hurriedly, “is how Gerald's
revolver got into the shrubbery.”
