Read Online Busman’s Honeymoon by Dorothy L. Sayers - Free Book Online Page A

the cottage if the wind sets that way’). ‘Now, what we want at the moment, Mrs Ruddle, is fire and food. If you’ll get some more candles and let your Bert help Bunter to bring in the provisions out of the back of the car, then we can get the fires lit—’
      ‘Fires?’ said Mrs Ruddle m doubtful accents. ‘Well, there, sir—m’lord I should say—I ain’t sure as there’s a mite of coal in the place. Mr Noakes, ’e ain’t ’ad no fires this long time. Said these ’ere great chimbleys ate up too much of the ’eat. Oil-stoves, that’s wot Mr Noakes ’ad, for cookin’ an’ for settin’ over of an evenin’. I don’t reckollect w’en there was fires ’ere last—except that young couple we ’ad ’ere August four year, we’n we had sich a cold summer—and they couldn’t get the chimbley to go. Thought there must be a bird’s nest in it or somethink, but Mr Noakes said ’e wasn’t goin’ to spend good money ’aving they chimbleys cleared. Coal, now. There ain’t none in the oil-shed, that I do know—without there might be a bit in the wash-us—but it’ll have been there a long time,’ she concluded dubiously, as though its qualities might have been lost by keeping.
      ‘I might fetch up a bucket or so of coal from the cottage, mum,’ suggested Bert.
      ‘So you might, Bert,’ agreed his mother. ‘My Bert’s got a wonderful ’ead. So you might. And a bit o’ kindlin’ with it. You can cut across the back way—and, ’ere, Bert—jest shet that cellar door as you goes by—sech a perishin’ draught as it do send up. And, Bert, I declare if I ain’t forgot the sugar—you’ll find a packet in the cupboard you could put in your pocket. There’ll be tea in the kitchen, but Mr Noakes never took no sugar, only the gran, and that ain’t right for ’er ladyship.’
      By this time, the resourceful Bunter had ransacked the kitchen for candles, which he was putting in a couple of tall brass candlesticks (part of Mr Noakes’s more acceptable possessions) which stood on the sideboard, carefully scraping the guttered wax from the sockets with a penknife with the air of one to whom neatness and order came first even in a crisis.
      ‘And if your ladyship will come this way,’ said Mrs Ruddle, darting to a door in the panelling, ‘I’ll show you the bedrooms. Beautiful rooms they is, but only the one of ’em in use, of course, except for summer visitors. Mind the stair, m’lady, but there—I’m forgettin’ you knows the ’ouse. I’ll jest pop the bed again the fire, w’en we get it lit, though damp it cannot be, ’avin’ been in use till last Wednesday and the sheets is aired beautiful, though linen, which, if folks don’t suffer from the rheumatics, most ladies and gentlemen is partial to. I ’opes as you don’t mind them old fourposters, miss—mum—m’lady. Mr Noakes did want to sell them, but the gentleman as come down to look at there said as ’ow they wasn’t wot ’e called original owing to bein’ mended on account of the worm and wouldn’t give Mr Noakes the price ’e put on ’em. Nasty old things I call ’em—w’en Ruddle and me was to be wedded I says to ’im, “Brass knobs,” I ses, “or nothink”—and, being’ wishful to please, brass knobs it was, beautiful.’
      ‘How lovely,’ said Harriet, as they passed through a deserted bedroom, with the four-poster stripped naked and the rugs rolled together and emitting a powerful odour of mothballs.
      ‘That it is, m’lady,’ said Mrs Ruddle. ‘Not but what some o’ the visitors likes these old-fashioned things—quaint, they calls ’em—and the curtains you will find in good order if wanted, Miss Twitterton and me doin’ of ’em up careful at the end of the summer, and I do assure you, m’lady, if you and your good gentleman—your good lord, m’lady—was a-wantin’ a bit of ’elp in the ’ouse you will find Bert an’ me allus ready to oblige, as I was a-sayin’