Busman’s Honeymoon by Dorothy L. Sayers

Beatrice was seen to be at her last expiring blue glimmer.
      ‘You must see what you can do with the bedroom fire,’ was Harriet’s suggestion.
      ‘Very good, my lady.’
      ‘At any rate,’ said Peter, lighting the cigarettes, ‘the matches still seem to strike on the box; all the laws of Nature have not been suspended for our confusion. We will muffle ourselves in overcoats and proceed to keep each other warm in the accepted manner of benighted travellers in a snow-bound country. “If I were on Greenland’s coast,” and all that. Not that I see any prospect of a six-months’ night; I wish I did; it is already past midnight.’
      Bunter vanished upstairs, kettle in hand.
      ‘If,’ said her ladyship, a few minutes later, ‘you would remove that contraption from your eye, I could clean the bridge of your nose. Are you sorry we didn’t go to Paris or Mentone after all?’
      ‘No, definitely not. There is a solid reality about this. It’s convincing, somehow.’
      ‘It’s beginning to convince me, Peter. Such a series of domestic accidents could only happen to married people. There’s none of that artificial honeymoon glitter that prevents people from discovering each other’s real characters. You stand the test of tribulation remarkably well. It’s very encouraging.’
      ‘Thank you—but I really don’t know that there’s a great deal to complain of. I’ve got you, that’s the chief thing, and food and fire of sorts, and a roof over my head. What more could any man want?—Besides, I should hate to have missed Bunter’s speech and Mrs Ruddle’s conversation—and even Miss Twitterton’s parsnip wine adds a distinct flavour to life. I might, perhaps, have preferred rather more hot water and less oil about my person. Not that there is anything essentially effeminate about paraffin—but I disapprove on principle of perfumes for men.’
      ‘It’s a nice, clean smell.’ said his wife, soothingly, ‘much more original than all the powders of the merchant. And I expect Bunter will manage to get it off you.’
      ‘I hope so,’ said Peter. He remembered that it had once been said of ‘ ce blond cadet de famille ducale anglaise ’—said, too, by a lady who had every opportunity of judging—that ‘ il prenait son lit en Grand Monarque et s’y démenait en Grand Turc. ’ The Fates, it seemed, had determined to strip him of every vanity save one. Let them. He could fight this battle naked. He laughed suddenly.
      ‘ Enfin, du courage! Embrasse-moi, chérie. Je trouverai quand même le moyen de te faire plaisir. Hein? tu veux? dis donc!’
      ‘ Je veux bien. ’
      ‘Dearest!’
      ‘Oh, Peter!’
      ‘I’m sorry—did I hurt you?’
      ‘No. Yes. Kiss me again.’
      It was at some point during the next five minutes that Peter was heard to murmur, ‘Not faint Canaries but ambrosial’; and it is symptomatic of Harriet’s state of mind that at the time she vaguely connected the faint canaries with the shabby tigers—only tracing the quotation to its source some ten days later.
     
    *****
     
      Bunter came downstairs. In one hand he held a small and steaming jug, and in the other a case of razors and a spongebag. A bath-towel and a pair of pyjamas hung from his arm, together with a silk dressing-gown.
      ‘The fire in the bedroom is drawing satisfactorily. I have contrived to heat a small quantity of water for your ladyship’s use.’
      His master looked apprehensively.
      ‘But what to me, my love, but what to me?’
      Bunter made no verbal reply, but his glance in the direction of the kitchen was eloquent. Peter looked thoughtfully at his own finger-nails and shuddered.
      ‘Lady,’ said he, ‘get you to bed and leave me to my destiny.’
     
    *****
     
      The wood upon the hearth was flaring cheerfully, and the water, what there was of it, was boiling. The two brass candlesticks bore their flaming ministers bravely, one