Chapter Text
The noise of the British Intelligence Service’s Christmas Ball spilled from the ballroom’s windows into the early December air, sending laughter, music, and volleys of cigar smoke tumbling away down the hill. Electric candelabras threw golden light across a hundred dress uniforms bearing a thousand shining medals and a gleaming hoard of dress swords. Harriet thought she might go mad from the strain of distinguishing her newly bestowed husband from his fellows. At least Bunter, thank goodness, appeared to have the knack of identifying him; she would simply have to wait for him to light upon a candidate and approach.
The crowd and its chatter drew Harriet’s nerves up tight. She had been steeling herself for this public outing on Peter’s arm for days, tormenting herself with imitations of the goodly wife she knew was expected to appear, only to find that it was in fact Bunter on Peter’s arm, describing a wide and jovial circuit of the company and trailing fond reminiscences. It saved her the trouble, of course; she ought not to have minded. Indeed, she didn’t mind seeing the two of them together. The image had a rightness to it that she discovered she had missed in the happy weeks of honeymoon and playing house. When the circuit was complete and they went their several ways, however, Harriet had been sure it was her turn; but it was not. Peter was now afloat on a sea of Intelligence, and Harriet, full to the brim with nerves and champagne, felt it was hardly her duty to dive in after him.
Instead, she commenced her own circuit, smiling pleasantly at other wives as they nodded to her in passing. On coming to the edge of the ballroom, she discovered an alcove which led to a small memorial wing, and telling herself that introductions were tiresome, stepped inside for a respite.
The exhibit boasted only two rooms, both seemingly permanent collections. The nearer room displayed a number of portraits in a straightforward style which Peter would no doubt have deprecated; placards beneath related the accomplishments of their subjects. Harriet perused these with middling interest. The farther room, so small it was barely a closet, held a collection of artifacts. These had rather less explanatory text beyond the name of their donor, perhaps because their grandeur spoke for itself. Harriet did not usually feel a temptation to breach etiquette at a museum, but these possessed an irresistible magnetism, and no one else was there to see her. With a little thrill, she ran her fingertips over the hilts of swords that had seen service as much as four centuries ago, and brushed the fabric of uniforms worn by men who had died before she was born. It was hard to imagine Peter in such an outfit. There was even a little leather diary from the Great War; her daring in picking it up went unrewarded, however, for it was in German, which she could not read.
A quiet cough behind her made her jump, and she replaced the diary.
“My apologies, my lady,” said Bunter. “Forgive the intrusion. You were missed at the ball.” He carried no sign of inquisitiveness or judgement, and Harriet willed her shoulders to come down from around her ears. Still, for a moment, she had the absurd urge to start an argument with him. She quashed it firmly. Harriet was Bunter’s lady now, which meant he was dependent on her. She could not quarrel irritably with him as she did with Peter.
She trotted over to him obediently. “Curiosity got the best of me. I’m incurably nosey, I’m afraid.”
Peter would have amiably quoted some old chestnut about the perils of snooping; Bunter merely held out his arm. She took it, tensing herself for the return to the party. As she did so, Bunter turned toward her and said, “Your ladyship may find the antiquities in the ballroom of interest as well,” and startled a laugh out of her.
“That I may,” she said. “You’ll be my docent, then.”
They passed the next hour in good company. Bunter, with a twinkle in his eye, graciously escorted her on what proved to be a fascinating tour of the British Expeditionary Forces, once attended by his sotto voce remarks in between. This lieutenant who fancied himself a friend to the enlisted men had been the object of innumerable practical jokes put on by his underlings; that major’s wife whom the other officers spoke to with obvious reverence was venerated not for the sake of her feckless spouse, but because she had been part of a secretarial group whose translations of German papers had saved hundreds of lives. Harriet found herself forgetting that she ought to be a proper society wife and merely indulged in the pleasure of conversing with a student of human nature.
“And here,” Bunter said, with a flourish, “you will find a major of the rifle corps who once found an order of battle stoppering a bottle of wine, though we may never know whether he was looking for the document or the wine.” Harriet followed his gesture into a clot of uniformed gentlemen, lighting upon the upturned face of her husband, pink with heat and whisky.
“The lady is restored to her love, and all is right in the world. How are you, darling, bearing up tolerably under Bunter’s ministrations? And it was the document, of course, my lad. Inspired by Catullus, you know.” Peter tucked Harriet in at his side, and she felt again the warm glow that always enveloped her when she came within his orbit.
“Rubbish,” said the fellow to her left, bearing a large mustache. “Peter the Eater, that’s what we called him! Showed up in the fields of France using a Michelin Guide for a map, if you can believe it.”
“And a good thing he did, too,” said a slight man across their circle, raising his glass to Peter. “It was the only map HQ had of the place!”
“Harriet, may I introduce Jack Miers, who wouldn’t know fine dining if it bit him, Tom Fielding, to whom we shan’t be loaning Mrs. Merdle, and Percy Fearnside—”
“—Who hath no fear ’nside!” roared several voices, dissolving into laughter. The bearer of this moniker turned to Harriet and shook hands, face flushed and eyes twinkling. “You’ll have to pardon us, Lady Harriet,” he said. “We haven’t many evenings in one another’s company these days. Brings out the rough edges.”
“Not at all,” said Harriet, who felt keenly the welcome accorded to her in sharing their jokes. “I hope you’ll tell me the story behind that rallying cheer.”
Percy did, interrupted with great vigor and frequency by Tom and Jack, and footnoted cuttingly by Peter, who spun that story into another. Their circle drew a modest crowd; soon the veterans were swapping tales of valor with recitations of rather more comic exploits at a gallop, and Harriet barely felt the hands of the clock go round. Eventually, however, Bunter touched Peter’s shoulder, he nodded, and they extricated themselves from the merriment, meandering towards the cloak room. This proved a slow process, as each of her companions was obliged to shake hands every few feet, but they persevered, and the glad sight of wintry sunset through the door by the cloakroom told them the way to the exit, and thence, home.
As they sought a taxi, Harriet felt a curious sensation. Flanked by Peter and Bunter, each in their dress uniforms and busied with peering into traffic, she found it difficult to tell them apart. It unsettled her, and she stepped forward to see Peter’s face before wrapping her arm through his.
He seemed to sense her unease, for he kissed her hair and drew her close. “Now then, my dear,” he said, “let us look from the past to the future. What shall we have for tea? Would you care to dine out? There’s a place just a street away that does quite a reliable roast duck.”
“Home,” Harriet said, feeling small. She insinuated herself further under Peter’s arm and pressed her face into the flap of his overcoat. “Please.”
“Sine mora,” Peter replied, at which moment Bunter’s hand appeared to help her into the taxi, and she took it.
Peter did not get his tea until some hours later, when the lady of the house had received what she required of him. Bunter served chicken in the sitting room; Peter nearly went to eat in his dressing gown, but Harriet made him dress, and then spent an anxious ten minutes fussing with her own clothes and disarrayed hair. Bunter, of course, made no remarks as to their appearance, and left them quietly reading sections of that day’s newspaper.
This fragile bubble of domestic life burst just after ten, when the bell rang, and Bunter admitted Chief Inspector Parker to the scene.
“Well, Charles, you can always be counted to turn up when there’s some of Bunter’s famous coq au vin to be had. Are you here in your capacity as fellow serviceman, to ask after the doings of the ball? Or as brother-in-law, to ensure the new member of the family made it through a society occasion intact?”
Parker’s face was grim. “Neither, I’m afraid. Mr. Bunter, I wish you would stay. This news chiefly concerns you, though you all should hear it.”
Harriet tensed. “Charles, what is it?”
Parker looked at Bunter as he said, “I’m afraid your friend Lieutenant Stephen Weir was found dead this evening.”