nineveh_uk | Random DLS ponderings

Leafing through some DLS for dialogue help in the course of drafting some fic, a couple of paragraphs struck me.

The first is from the short stories. I don't read them much - they're not particularly good short stories - but I ought to read them more, as they have some interesting little passages in them. Like this one from The Unprincipled Affair of the Practical Joker.

[Peter is staying in a grand hotel somewhere-or-other that liners dock from Africa (Southampton?), and Mrs Ruyslaender has spotted his name on the register and, desperate, come to his suite at 11 pm to try to get his help on a case. Bunter admits her to the sitting room.]

The man stepped noiselessly to the bedroom door and passed, shutting it behind him. The lock, however, failed to catch, and Mrs Ruyslaender caught the conversation.

"Pardon me, my lord, a lady has called. She mentioned no appointment, so I considered it better to acquaint your lordship."

"Excellent discretion," said a voice. It had a slow, sarcastic intonation, which brought a painful flush to Mrs Ruyslaender's cheek. "I never make appointments. Do I know the lady?"

"No, my lord. But - hem - I know her by sight, my lord. It is Mrs Ruyslaender."

"Oh, the diamond merchant's wife. Well, find out tactfully what it's all about, and, unless it's urgent, ask her to call tomorrow."

The valet's remark was inaudible, but the reply was:

"Don't be coarse, Bunter."

*

I assume that Peter is still being sarcastic here, and not actually ticking Bunter off in the final sentence - it would be a bit much if he were, given that he started it. There are other passages of what Peter and Bunter and Peter and Parker talking about women/sex within the books, but I think that this is the most obviously blokish one.

*

Second, Busman's Honeymoon.

[Chapter 4, Bunter and Peter the morning after, not quite a page after Bunter's "I trust your lordship found everything satisfactory?"]

"Then buzz off and get breakfast before I get like the Duke of Wellington, nearly reduced to a skellington.... I say, Bunter."

"My lord?"

"I'm damned sorry you're having all this trouble."

"Don't mention it, my lord. So long as your lordship is satisfied - "

"Yes. All right, Bunter. Thanks."

He dropped his hand lightly on the servant's shoulder in what might have been a gesture of affection or dismissal as you chose to take it, and stood looking thoughtfully into the fireplace till his wife rejoined him.

*

All things considered, perhaps it's a good thing that the body turned up in a cellar and gave them all something to talk about...

Just spell it out for a moment. There's Bunter coming in, asking in code if Peter had a good night's not-sleep, and Peter giving a "you cannot seriously think I'm going to answer that" response and changing the subject. Then they waffle on about business (a bit awkwardly? A little excessively normal?) before Peter appears to feel guilty, calls Bunter back, apologises, ostensibly for the trouble (this the man who in the past has booked a holiday cottage with no indoor plumbing at all without remorse), Bunter brings up - something - again, gets an answer, and the final ambiguous gesture of reassurance/don't need you anymore, and Peter stares at the fireplace Bunter has just relaid mulling over - something - the options being presumably (1) yes, that was a highly satisfactory night, or (2) Oh God, is this about to be a bit difficult?

All of which I've thought before, and tended to assume that Peter is intending to be sympathetic if abstracted. What I haven't thought about before is the implication of Bunter potentially taking it seriously as a dismissal. It certainly makes Peter's laughing about the morning's Humorous Soot/Sink Incident an awful lot harsher from Bunter's POV, and adds greater force to his being off-kilter over the next few days and the absolute triumph when he beats Harriet to be the one wanted once again. No wonder the Duchess wonders how things are going after talking to him.

***

And yet people still think that Bunter fantasises about racehorses. Well, I suppose they have big noses and are famously well-endowed. (Do you think I'd get away on the Yahoo list with "Bunter has a dirty night out in the Denver stables" on the grounds that it if you don't accept anything at all is going on re. Peter then something must be going on re. Equus caballus?)

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That was an interesting exegesis of some interesting lines (I especially like, "Oh God, is this about to be a bit difficult?")

if you don't accept anything at all is going on re. Peter

It's the naked-dousing-under-the-scullery-pump that makes me think that DLS intended us to see something "re. Peter". Well, that and the "savage libido" line. When you consider that Sir Impey Biggs's sub-text is established on the basis of a lot less, one wonders why she felt impelled to include those particular scenes, if not to make the young fangirl's fancy idly turn to thoughts of slash.

I find myself really not knowing what Peter's thinking at this point.

the naked-dousing-under-the-scullery-pump

Thinking of which draws me back to Peter's line about revenge. What, precisely, is he being revenged for? The obvious conclusion, if we're assuming that all is tolerably right in the world, is the water being very cold and the scrubbing vigorous, in which case Crutchley and Ruddle are fair play and Bunter's stifled response is a humorous furious "You bastard". But if either P or B is not quite easy in mind here, then it's more complicated. Bunter has not, we trust, been scrubbed naked, but he has potentially been humilated - is that in play? Mrs Ruddle will be sexualised in a Bunterian context later (when Peter declines her for a double-date, but says Harriet have Bunter if she wants, with a hark back to her original "I wish I could have married him"). What does Bunter think Peter is thinking?

I'm sure there is more that could be dragged out about the pump, too. It's a putting-the-groom-to-bed thing, and a horseplay male-bonding thing, and, well, it's a pump. Why not just a decent sink and a scrubbing brush and leave him to it?

DLS is far too good an author - and no-where near naive enough a woman - for this not to be intentional.

well, it's a pump.

Exactly. Couldn't have put it better myself.

I suppose I shall have to go back and re-read the relevant bits if I'm to say anything intelligent about what either Peter or Bunter is thinking. The trouble is, I really don't like BH. However, combing through it looking for examples of "these attached people" being "rather difficult" shoud be an antidote to all that saccharine, at least.

There's a short Bunter's POV version of the pump scene, full of double-entrendre, just begging to be written.

As you may have guessed, I do like BH, possibly because I am quite soppy at heart, and because I enjoy unpicking it. And the end. And though I know what you mean about "these attached people can be rather difficult", how, what else is the DD supposed to put it ;-)

how, what else is the DD supposed to put it

It's one of those moments of Class Divide because, of course, from her point of view it's entirely reasonable. But it always makes me think of that poor old man who had looked after General Fentiman for years and cried when he died, but still didn't count in any way that mattered.

but still didn't count in any way that mattered

And though a "very attached and superior fellow" only gets £50 in the Will.

Isn't that all Bunter gets in Ali Baba as well? Admittedly it was only a fake will, and therefore presumably reflected other people's expectations rather than what Peter was actually planning to leave Bunter, but it's noticeable that it's about what he spends on one set of chessmen for Harriet.

Au contraire, Bunter does rather well in Ali Baba - an annuity of £500 a year, and the lease of the flat (which either must mean the leasehold OR the rent must cost an awful lot less, given that his continuing to live there not being really weird is a requirement of the plot).

Question: had the chessmen not been smashed, and Harriet turned Peter down, would she have felt obliged to return them? Or is asking for them essentially saying that she's not, ultimately, going to turn him down?

Harriet's accepting his advice on Wilfred is her saying she's not ultimately going to turn him down and that's what makes him risk proposing, when at the start of that conversation he was only asking leave to go back to the beginning and start again properly. So the chessmen have to be earlier in the thawing process and not as decisive IMO.

As asking for them at all was a gift from her to him, maybe the rules of etiquette have to go into reverse and she gets to keep them, as throwing them back at him would be even more insulting than turning him down.

Or is asking for them essentially saying that she's not, ultimately, going to turn him down?

I don't know that it's a definite commitment, as such, but I don't think Harriet would have felt able to ask for them if she hadn't been willing to accept that this was raising his hopes, so in that sense, yes, it's a sign that she will ultimately accept him.

I'm not sure about returning them - what a complex question of etiquette, fraught with dangers! I don't suppose she would have wanted to keep them if she'd turned Peter down. And it would certainly feel - at least to me - like having accepted a gift under false pretences. Perhaps she could give them to a charity shop :-)

Random DLS ponderings

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