Gaudy Night

The following day, Harriet learns from the Dean that Jukes has been arrested for stealing. Several objects had gone missing at Shrewsbury, which Harriet had attributed to the Poison-Pen. They now know it was Jukes instead. Annie relocates her children to another home where they will be safer.

Harriet’s investigation is at a standstill. Because the vandal’s activities have dwindled, she takes a break to have a conversation with the pragmatic Miss de Vine. They talk about the conflicting impulses of head and heart. Harriet is in a quandary about her growing feelings for Wimsey and doesn’t know what to do. De Vine says, “If you are once sure what you do want, you find that everything else goes down before it like grass under a roller—all other interests, your own and other people’s” (221-22). Harriet still isn’t entirely sure what she does want and leaves the question open for another time.

Harriet receives an invitation from the viscount to have lunch with him the following Monday as an apology for his distracted behavior when they first met. She accepts. When she arrives to meet him, Harriet is informed that the viscount got into a car accident. He was speeding to get inside the college gates before curfew and managed to hit a telegraph pole. Harriet goes to the Infirmary, where she finds St. George with his arm in a sling and his head swathed in bandages. He’s very happy to see her and asks her to open and read a letter he’s just received from Wimsey.

Wimsey’s message is disapproving of his nephew’s extravagant habits, but he does agree to cover the young man’s debts. St. George manages to scribble a short thank you note with his injured arm and asks Harriet to send it on for him along with a letter of her own to plead his case. After five drafts, Harriet finally manages to write something appropriate. She wonders why she has so much difficulty penning a simple letter: “Her consciousness seemed to have become all one exposed nerve-center, sensitive to the lightest breath of innuendo in her own words” (236). She posts the letter and goes about her business.

That night, the students and faculty are alarmed when the lights go out in one building after another, leaving much of the college in total darkness. Everyone rushes outside in a panic, some claiming they have seen the culprit running through the quads. Afterward, Harriet assesses the damage: “The Poltergeist had passed through the college, breaking ink-bottles, flinging papers into the fire, smashing lamps and crockery and throwing books through the windowpanes” (240-41).

The next day, Harriet tries unsuccessfully to determine everyone’s whereabouts during the vandal’s rampage. The sheer number of students and teachers to be accounted for makes her task impossible. That same morning, the vandal scrawls “Ha, Ha” on the walls of the Senior Common Room, unnerving everyone who uses that space. Harriet observes, “The feeling in the Senior Common Room after this episode underwent a subtle alteration. Tongues were sharpened; the veneer of detachment began to wear thin; the uneasiness of suspicion began to make itself felt” (247-48). In the same day’s post, Harriet receives a letter from Wimsey thanking her for assisting his nephew. When she goes to the infirmary to check on St. George, he shows her another letter from Wimsey criticizing his foolish behavior. Harriet stays to help the viscount write checks for numerous bills, which he now has the means to pay. While performing this task, Harriet tells St. George about the vandal at the college.

He says that he encountered a strange woman some months earlier when he went over the Shrewsbury wall on a bet. He couldn’t see her features distinctly, though he thought she was young. She told him, “We murder beautiful boys like you and eat their hearts out” (258). Thoroughly repulsed and frightened, St. George left and never told anyone about the episode. When Harriet arrives back at her college, the caretaker shows her a newspaper with letter cutouts like those used in the poison-pen letters. It came from Miss de Vine’s fireplace. 

Harriet returns to London during spring break. She finds the interim dull and uninteresting. Grudgingly, she agrees to dinner and a show with Pomfret on April Fools’ Day. This is the day she anticipates a letter from Wimsey containing his annual marriage proposal, which she always declines. This year, she’s annoyed when the expected letter doesn’t arrive until after she returns from her evening out with Pomfret. In his letter, Wimsey makes his pro forma proposal but then goes on to discuss the case Harriet is pursuing. He doesn’t discourage her or suggest that he should return to protect her but merely wishes her well. Harriet is startled and pleased by his faith in her independent ability to solve the mystery. She thinks to herself:

That was an admission of equality, and she had not expected it of him. If he conceived of marriage along those lines, then the whole problem would have to be reviewed in that new light; but that seemed scarcely possible. To take such a line and stick to it, he would have to be, not a man but a miracle (273).

Harriet immediately replies to his letter and admits that she would welcome his help if his duties didn’t compel him to be elsewhere. For his part, Wimsey is stunned by her response. This is his first glimmer of hope that Harriet might actually return his affection. At the end of spring break, Harriet goes back to Shrewsbury, no closer to solving the problem of who is stalking the college. The issue loses importance as no new acts of vandalism occur. Unaccountably, Harriet finds herself beginning to write poetry again after having given up the practice in adolescence: “Great golden phrases, rising from nothing and leading to nothing, swam up out of her dreaming mind like the huge, sluggish carp in the cool waters of Mercury” (280).

The rest of the faculty returns with stories of their activities during the holiday. After one such conversation, a dispute breaks out among them regarding housing for married staff. Mrs. Goodwin, a secretary, is being given better accommodations than more senior staff because she has a child. Because all the faculty women are unmarried and many have faced prejudice for making this choice, some of them find this practice unacceptable. Miss Hillyard complains, “For all your talk about careers and independence, you all believe in your hearts that we ought to abase ourselves before any woman who has fulfilled her animal functions” (288). All the academics at Shrewsbury tend to view the life of the mind and the life of the body as either-or propositions.

As the season advances, everyone prepares for the Magdalen College May-Day ceremonies. Tickets are given to select individuals to climb to the top of the college tower, built in 1509. Bright and early on May-Day morning, Harriet makes the climb. As she’s contemplating the spectacular view below, she sees a young woman leaning dangerously far over a parapet. Harriet intercepts her, thinking she might be contemplating a suicidal jump. The girl says she only wanted to get a better view. Harriet shepherds her down the stairs, neglecting to get her name.