Author's note: I hope I haven't done too heinous a job with the Parkers' accents and smattering of dialect. I've never been to Barrow-in-Furness but have learned the accent and speech patterns are more similar to those of Lancashire than typical of those of Cumbria, so I've based this on the way my Grandad (from Lancashire) used to speak.
Dulcie Parker gave the fire in the parlour a final brisk stoke, and straightened up to replace the poker, a hand pressed to her lower back, as if to placate the twinge of pain she'd begun to feel there from bending in recent years. She was about to pass into the kitchen to set the kettle on the stove for tea when she paused by her mother's chair. He mother was perfectly still, expressionless, her eyes still on the letter in her hand.
"What's up, mother? Is there owt wrong with Charles?". In fact Dulcie was less inclined to worry that something was amiss with her brother, who after all had been successfully keeping himself alive in London for almost twenty years, than that her mother was having some kind of turn, but knew better than to offend Mrs Parker by suggesting that she might be showing any signs of age or infirmity.
"Mother?" Dulcie repeated, a little more anxiously, a few seconds later. Her mother silently passed her the letter to read for herself. Bewildered, Dulcie scanned it, muttering key phrases aloud as she did so.
"Hope you are keeping well...icy winds in London but so far no snow... interesting new case ... money laundering..."
Dulcie came to the end of the first paragraph and looked over the letter at her mother.
"Keep reading, lass." There was an undefinable note in Mrs Parker's voice which caused Dulcie to turn back to the letter with renewed enthusiasm.
"I've some wonderful news, though I know it's bound to come as a great surprise... Engaged to be married to Lady Mary Wimsey, whom you may have heard me mention before... the kindest, sweetest and most beautiful woman in the world ... says she very much looks forward to meeting you both...Hope to be married in the early spring."
Dulcie looked up and met her mother's eyes. They held each other's gaze for a few seconds before the corner of Mrs Parker's eyes started to crinkle and the smile crept onto her face. It was Dulcie who first started to laugh - a gentle chuckle which rolled into an out and out hearty guffaw - and then both of them were laughing so hard that they clutched their sides. Dulcie collapsed into the chair opposite her mother's, spluttering "Come as a great surprise, indeed!"
When she had sufficient breath, her mother replied between rasping peals of laughter "May have heard me mention before! God love the lad."
They continued to laugh for a long time - the loud un self-conscious laughter of women unobserved. Much of the laughter was affectionate amusement that Charles so obviously thought he was the only one in the family with the ability to minutely observe and analyse people, but there was also delight in it, and relief that at last the man they so seldom saw but who made up the crucial third in their family trio would have the thing for which he had so clearly been pining so many long years. They beamed at each other and Dulcie wiped her eyes.
"Best make a cup of tea to steady us, eh, Mother," she said, getting up at last. When she came back with the teapot into the cosy and scrupulously clean parlour and they sat down at the table to drink their tea, they began to discuss the matter more sensibly. But ever after, one only had to react to some piece of entirely predictable news by saying to the other "Well, that comes as a great surprise" in a certain tone and with a certain raise of an eyebrow for the two of them to fall about laughing in a way that was quite incomprehensible to anyone else.
Amongst questions of the logistics and expense of the two of them going all the way to Denver for the wedding (made more complicated by Mrs Parker's age and inability to travel a long distance in one day, but Dulcie was firm. "I'll not leave you here and have you miss your only son's wedding, Mother, and that's flat") was the matter of Charles's prospective wife's character. A note of doubt crept into Mrs Parker's voice as she contemplated the likely approach to the serious matter of being a good wife from a girl of whom they knew almost nothing but what the papers had reported. Given that the bulk of that information had related to the scandalous ribbleslade shooting and the fact that Lady Mary had admitted to having decided upon, in quick succession, both a marriage of convenience and running away - unmarried, mark you - with a Bolshevik, it wasn't exactly encouraging to a respectable woman's way of thinking.
"There may well be different standards for the aristocracy," Mrs Parker said, in the tones of one being extremely open-minded. "I dare say there are, though I see no reason there should be. But when a person takes to marrying a respectable ordinary man, well, will they know they have to give up that kind of thing?"
"That was years ago," Dulcie pointed out, putting her hands around her tea-cup to soak up its warmth. "We know Charles has seen her many times since then" - and the women exchanged knowing glances, smiling affectionately as they thought of the countless times Charles had slipped Lady Mary's name into a letter or conversation, an unquenchable note of pride beneath his elaborately casual tone. "He must know her well enough by now to see whether they'd suit each other."
"Hmmmm. He wouldn't be the first man to lose his wits over a pretty woman and throw common sense out the window."
"Well, but not for five years, surely. Besides, if we can't rely on Charles's judgement, I think we can rely on hers. All that money and beauty and she chooses to marry Charles! That's not the act of a flibbertigibbet." There was a pause whilst the women each pondered on what kind of woman instead it was the act of - whilst they both inclined to think him perfect, they could see that he had neither glamour nor wealth to attract someone like Lady Mary.
"I expect you're right," Mrs Parker said at last, and they fell to discussing the more practical question of what on earth would be a suitable wedding present.
If Mrs Parker could have seen her prospective daughter-in-law at that very moment, the experience would have been unlikely to contribute very much to her high opinion of Lady Mary's character. Counties away in the dimming light of a a winter afternoon, Lady Mary was at Charles's flat, in a partial state of undress, pressing herself into him and sighing Charles's name into his mouth as he kissed her. Unseemly and even wanton as Mrs Parker would surely have considered this behaviour before the holy bonds of matrimony had been entered into, her censure might have softened at least a little had her eye fallen on the expression of pure bliss on her beloved son's face.
When Charles looked back at the short period of his engagement in the many happy years that followed, he remembered it as a dream-like time of wondrous fulfilment and anticipation where he and Mary started to truly know each other for the first time, and to develop a shared world and private jokes. At the time, though, he experienced it all in a state of intense sexual frustration. It was as though all the desire pent up over the years of restraint had been unleashed by their first kiss. Any time that he was not with Mary he longed only to touch her, to brush the back of her pale slender hand with his as they walked, or to worshipfully stroke her cheek as he gently kissed her forehead. But as soon as he did touch her, he was driven mad by a frantic need to possess her. Like his mother, his respect for the holy institution of marriage was deep and genuine, and his respect for Lady Mary was still greater. Not fully trusting to his own famous self-discipline, he did his best to meet her in public places. But on this occasion, Lord Peter and Lady Mary had come to tea at 12 Great Ormond Street together and Lord Peter had left unrepentantly early, having had about as much as he could take of his companions' long lingering glances and transparent reasons to touch each other's arms or hands. Almost certainly anyone but Peter would have missed the very subtle kiss bestowed by Charles on Mary's hand as it lay on the table as he leant down to pick up the napkin he had let fall to the ground, and the pale pink flush which appeared on her cheeks immediately afterwards. "Pray don't think this is chagrin occasioned by my own personal circumstances, my good children," Peter had said airily as he took his leave. "I can stand a good deal, but such an overwhelming display of goopiness from a man who once so delicately accused me of going goopy is an indulgence too far." And he had put on his hat and coat and left.
"Oh dear," Mary had said happily as the door closed. "I hope he doesn't feel de trop."
"I should be sending your brother a case of the finest champagne every morning for the rest of his life, if I had the money, for being the means by which you and I came together at last", Charles had replied seriously, "but he most certainly is de trop."
And he had pushed aside the tea things and taken Mary into his arms. As always, his body burned with a desire in which love and lust intermingled and each was increased by the other. Mary's response, though eager, included just enough hesitation to remind him continually of the responsibility that came from being so much larger and stronger than she was, and he frequently pulled back his head from his kisses and his hands from wherever they happened to be on her body - and he was frequently quite surprised to see that they had made their way to places he had not intended - and looked at her with a timid expression of eager questioning. It was an expression she had never seen in him, a boyish overlay on top of the masculine power to which her body responded of its own accord. She loved it so much that tears welled in her eyes. She nodded shyly and leant to kiss him again, running her hand along the stubble which had already begun to prickle his cheeks. It was at this point, on that cold and rainy January afternoon with the chill winter sun setting quietly outside that Charles emitted a groan of both triumph and defeat, gathered her into his arms, carried her into his bedroom, and kicked the door shut behind him.
There was no fire lit in the bedroom and it was very cold, but neither of them noticed it. He lowered her reverently onto the bed, and kissed her slowly and tenderly. He carefully undid her blouse and his ears were ringing and his senses reeling as she half sat to help him with the complicated apparatus of her brassiere. His nervous laughter at the clumsiness of his large fingers on the tiny clasps died in his throat as he looked at her. He gazed at her in dazed silence for a long while, and hesitantly placed a shaking hand on her left breast. Her breathing was ragged and her chest rose and fell beneath his hands. He fell upon her again, frantically and avidly, kissing her mouth and her neck and every inch of each breast murmuring "God, Mary. Oh God, oh God, oh God." She reflected fondly later that it was hardly surprising that he proved to be a man for religious utterances when making love, but at the time she was in no state of mind for coherent thought, or indeed any conscious thought at all. He pulled open his own shirt with a rough disregard wildly contrasting with the way he had treated her clothes, scattering buttons to every corner of the room, and equally swiftly pulled his vest over his head. Mary gingerly ran her hand up and down the broad expanse of his chest, ruffling the fine dark hairs as she did so, and he shook as her hand approached the waistband of his trousers. One of his own hands was underneath her rumpled skirt, making its way up the inside of a long slender leg. An inch from the top, he stopped and pulled back again.
"Mary," he said, and even through the tumult of his passion he felt the joy of saying her name so simply and so naturally. "If we don't stop this now, I don't think I'll be able to stop at all. Do you understand me?"
Mary understood it as a last interrogation as to her own readiness, tender and desperately selfless from a man carried so far by desire. Her body tried to respond for her, her legs parting of their own accord, but she paused before replying. Her own religious beliefs, such as they were, certainly weren't the type to prohibit a woman giving herself to the man she adored, and to whom she was in any event so nearly married. But she loved and admired Charles for his convictions, and a small voice somewhere in a distant part of her mind which stood unshaken by her own waves of desire, asked her if she wanted to contribute to him failing to live up to his own ideals.
"Charles", she began, and her voice came out as a whisper. "I think we should -"
There was a sharp, officious rap on the door. The noise Charles made was not intelligible as human speech, but Mrs Munns seemed to interpret it correctly as a furious request to know why she was interrupting them instead of washing up in the kitchen as, to the extent they had thought of her at all, they had supposed her to be.
Her voice was unbearably smug as she replied "Sorry to disturb, I'm sure, Mr Parker." It was hard to imagine anyone sounding less sorry about anything. "But didn't you 'ear the telephone? It's been ringing off the 'ook so I saw fit to answer it. It was Detective Inspector Dorridge, Sir, and 'e says sorry to interrupt you but somethings 'appened and 'e thinks you'd better get down to the Yard." Mrs Munns enjoyed a sense of mystery and importance from coming daily to do domestic work for a Chief Inspector at Scotland Yard, and she said the final words with relish. Charles sat back on the bed and put his head in his hands.
"Right. Thank you, Mrs Munns." Mary started to laugh at bathos of the situation, and at the forlorn expression on Charles's face, as they listened to Mrs Munns' noisy and self-important footsteps retreat down the hall and to the kitchen. Suddenly cold, she hurriedly dressed.
"Oh Charles! Your poor shirt," she said, stepping onto a button. She gathered the dispersed buttons from their various corners as Charles, red in the face, rummaged in his wardrobe for a new shirt. Respectably dressed again, he turned to her. "I'm sorry, Mary," he said, earnestly, taking her hand. "I should never have put you in a compromising position, much less have taken advantage of your kindness by -"
"Kindness, indeed!" She reproved him, gently. Blushing fiercely,she added, "Kindness? If your hand had gone any further you would have realised how very much I wanted you to - to- that I want you as badly as you want me."
She laughed again as Charles raised a sceptical eyebrow and followed his rueful glance down at his trousers. "Yes, just as much," she insisted. "But I never want you to regret things we've done together - apart from the wasted years, of course."
He kissed her briefly but fervently. "I couldn't regret anything I do with you. But you're right, of course, and it's so little time to wait now. I'll control myself better in future. Thank you." He looked into her clear blue eyes and saw in them all that was good and beautiful and true. "I'm sorry about Mrs Munns, though."
"Good gracious! I really couldn't care less what Mrs Munns thinks of me."
"Well, we shan't need to see her much longer, anyway," Charles said in a low voice, holding the door for her as they left the bedroom and went down the hall to retrieve their outdoor things. "Of course we'll engage new servants at our house - wherever it is."
They both felt the familiar jolt of excitement when their hands touched as Charles helped Mary into her trim fur-lined magenta coat, and they diligently avoided looking at each other so as not to fan the flames.
"I've been meaning to talk to you about that," Mary replied as they clattered down the stairs to the dim and now slightly rainy street. They set off to hail a taxi, and the cold air was sobering enough that Charles felt he could safely take Mary's arm. "Why can't we just live at your flat? I haven't any furniture or anything, you know. Mostly I shall simply be bringing you lots and lots of my clothes as a dowry." They both laughed at this. But Charles couldn't fathom that her suggestion could be serious.
"But you'll want to live in a much more fashionable part of London, Mary", he objected, "and have bigger rooms to entertain your friends in. Besides, we'll need room for more servants, servants who live in the house. I was thinking we should have two."
In fact two was the maximum number Charles could afford, and as they had yet to discuss the matter with the Duke of Denver, he didn't know if they could assume that they would have any additional income. So he was as relieved as he was astonished when Mary said "What on earth would we need so many servants for? And how much entertaining do you imagine I plan to do?"
Their conversation was interrupted as they found a taxi and directed the driver to the Yard. Mary was grateful for the darkness which now surrounded them as she shyly confessed that every morning since their engagement she had spent her time with Lady Sybil's bemused but obliging cook and housekeeper, each only too glad to show their mistress's eccentric guest the basics of cooking and cleaning respectively.
"I'm very much enjoying the cooking part," she added, "though I can certainly see the benefits of having someone to do a great deal of the washing up. I made some scones yesterday morning which Mrs Jellis - Sybil's cook, you know - said were fine. They didn't look quite right, because they didn't rise the way hers did, but apparently that's mostly a question of knowing one's oven. And she's writing down lots of simple useful recipes for me."
They were stuck in a brief traffic jam close to a street lamp and she could see the expression of dismay on Charles's face. "I'm sure they were delicious," he assured her, "and I'd gladly dine on bread and cheese every evening, anyway, if it made you happy. But I don't want you to marry me only to live a life of drudgery! I waited until I could offer you a better life than that, even if it's nothing like what you're used to."
"A better life!" Mary took his hand. "Charles, don't you see that I've hated being surrounded by people doing things for me that I don't know how to do myself, feeling that my only purpose is to be decorative and not cause trouble? It's different for Gerald because he's got his estates, and for Peter because he's got all his funny old books and detecting and things, and for Helen because she's got the full time job of being superior and annoyed with everyone all the time. But I've hated it."
"But Mary -" Charles didn't in fact have a good rejoinder to this, but his belief that Lady Mary Wimsey should be treated like priceless porcelain and never expected to lift a hand to help herself was so entrenched that he couldn't free himself of it in mere moments. Mary saw this and said appealingly, "Well, listen, then. Why don't we start off at Great Ormond Street, at least? There's nothing to stop us if we want to move later, and it has the great advantage that we needn't waste time looking at houses and signing leases and all that."
Charles considered. With a self-deprecating twinkle in his eye he said "Well, I can hardly deny that anything which hastens the day I make you my wife is a sizeable advantage." He kissed her hand lightly, reflecting that he would also feel decidedly easier in the conversation he was due to have with the Duke when he paid a much-dreaded visit to Denver next weekend if he knew that Mary genuinely didn't care whether her brother would agree to bestow any of her money upon them. He didn't fancy justifying himself to the Duke, or beseeching him to apportion Mary a certain amount of the fortune that the infuriating terms of her Father's will meant she could only obtain upon her marriage with her brother's consent, but still less did he propose to let his pride be an impediment to his wife's happiness.
"But I" - he began, but Mary shook her head and pointed out of the window. Through the dark and drizzle he discerned that they were approaching Scotland Yard. He sighed. "I hate to have to leave you," he said. Mary was returning to Denver the next morning and they wouldn't see each other until he followed a week later.
"Yes. But remember how recently we would have to say goodbye and weeks or even months would pass before we'd see each other again?" she said stoically.
He smiled. "I don't know how I lived then." He kissed her deeply. "Please give my best to your mother." He kissed her again. "I'll write tomorrow." He kissed her again, stiffened his resolve and got out of the taxi to pay the driver for both this and Mary's onward journey. He stood at the side entrance to the Yard and watched the taxi drive into the darkness, before heading inside to find out what had gone wrong - or perhaps right - with his money laundering investigation .