‘I know, and I feel futile. I did suggest divorce to her, but it didn’t go down very well.’
‘No, she wouldn’t like that.’
‘Well, what have you advised her to do? You may just as well tell me, for she will.’
‘Pay, and look pleasant.’
‘Maurice, you haven’t? But why should she? Really, that sticks in my throat!’
‘My dear girl, either she must pay, or face the very scandal she dreads. There’s nothing more to be said about that.’
‘What’s Baker demanding? Does anyone know?’
‘Five hundred.’
‘Maurice, it’s blackmail!’
He shrugged.
‘But, Maurice, it may not even be true!’
‘Apparently, Carter knows that equally it may be true.’
‘You can’t seriously approve of Aunt Ermy’s being made to pay a sum like that!’
‘I think it’s very hard luck on Ermyntrude, but I also think Gladys Baker has been grossly imposed upon.’
‘Yes, if she’d been a sheltered plant, but as far as I can make out she’s nothing of the sort, but perfectly able to take care of herself.’
‘You’re not in a position to be judge of that,’ he replied.
She said rather crossly: ‘I never thought you’d give advice like that to Aunt Ermy. As a matter of fact, I was afraid you’d wish her to get rid of Wally, and do nothing about this mess of his.’
He looked at her in faint surprise. ‘Why should I?’
‘Well, I know you’re fond of her, and you can’t pretend that you think Wally’s likely to improve with keeping.’
‘You’re quite right: I am fond of her, but I know very well that a divorce would only make her unhappy. As for your Cousin Wally, this episode may have taught him a lesson.’
‘You know perfectly well that nothing will ever teach him anything,’ sighed Mary.
He rose. ‘Well, whatever I may think, there’s nothing to be gained by discussing it,’ he said. ‘I’ve given Ermyntrude some cachets to take, but there’s nothing much wrong with her. Keep her fairly quiet today: she’ll be all right by tomorrow.’
‘It would be a lot easier to keep her quiet if this wretched Russian weren’t here,’ said Mary. ‘Vicky said an hour ago that the stage was all set for him to walk on and do his big act, and she’s about right. I don’t want Aunt Ermy to divorce Wally, though I think she has every right to, and I shall be very thankful if they agree to bury the hatchet. But he’s in one of his impossible moods, and what chance can there be of Aunt Ermy’s making it up with him while her precious Prince is beguiling her with his title and his flashing smile? What did he want with you just now?’
‘I really don’t know. Something that Bawtry said yesterday seems to have put him on the scent of my pet hobby-horse. I don’t think he’s really interested, though. He angled a little for an invitation to come over to my place and see my finds, but I’m afraid I wasn’t very responsive. Do you want a respite from him? Shall I ask him to come over this afternoon?’
‘Maurice, it would be an awfully Christian deed!’ said Mary gratefully. ‘But I don’t quite see why he should want to.’ Light dawned on her; the troubled crease vanished from between her brows; she gave a sudden ripple of laughter. ‘Oh, what a fool I am! Of course I see! He’s hoping to pump you about Aunt Ermy’s money! He wants to know whether it’s hers, or goes to Vicky when she comes of age! He tried me, but I snubbed him.’
‘Let him hope!’ said Chester, with rather a grim little smile.
Mary went with him downstairs, and out into the sunlit gardens. The tennis-court was within sight of the house, and they walked there together. Vicky was playing a single with Alan, while the Prince looked on from the side-line, but she left the court when she saw the doctor approaching, and ran to meet him, to know how her mother was. He returned a reassuring answer, and repeated it to the Prince, who came up a moment later to inquire solicitously after Ermyntrude. After that, he said easily that it had occurred to him that the Prince might be interested to see his small collection of prehistoric specimens, and invited him to call and take tea with him that afternoon.
The Prince was all smiles, but did not know whether perhaps his kind host and hostess had made other plans for him. However, Vicky promptly set that doubt to rest, by saying: ‘Oh no, because poor darling Ermyntrude will be feeling frightfully moth-eaten, and I happen to know that Wally’s going over to see Harold White at five. So do go! I’ll lend you my car.’
‘Then at about five, shall we say?’ suggested the Prince.
Chester, trying to infuse some enthusiasm into his voice, replied that he would be delighted. He then glanced at his watch, and announced that as he had several patients to visit before lunch he must be going.
Mary walked across the lawn with him to the front drive. She said in an exasperated tone: ‘How like Wally to trail his coat in front of Aunt Ermy like that! Why on earth he must choose this of all days to go and hob-nob with White, God alone knows!’
Chester did not make any reply to this outburst, and she said no more. As they reached the drive, Wally came out of the house. He stopped dead at sight of the doctor, and said with strong indignation: ‘Yes, I might have known you’d turn up. You needn’t tell me you were sent for, because I’d have bet any money you would be. And don’t start looking accusingly at me, as though it was my fault, because it wasn’t! Anyone would think I was Bluebeard from the way Ermy’s been behaving. And if you want my advice, don’t you ever marry an actress, unless you’re the kind of man that likes having a wife who carries on like Lady Macbeth and the second Mrs Tanqueray, and Mata Hari, all rolled into one! Before breakfast, too!’ he added bitterly. ‘If anyone’s got the right to call you in, it’s me! But if I took to my bed, and pulled down the blinds, and refused to eat any food, would I get any sympathy? Oh no! Oh dear me, no!’
‘Certainly not from me,’ said Chester, getting into his car, and switching on the engine. ‘I’ve given your wife some cachets to take, and provided she’s not agitated again, she should be all right in an hour or two. Good-bye!’
Wally watched the car move forward, and presently vanish from sight round a bend in the drive. ‘Given her some cachets to take! Yes, I’ve no doubt! The wonder is he didn’t give her a bottle of water with a bit of peppermint in it, and charge her three-and-sixpence for it! Cachets! Full of bread pellets, if we only knew!’
‘Uncle Wally, is it true that Baker’s trying to get five hundred out of you?’ Mary demanded.
He looked rather suspiciously at her. ‘What do you mean, is it true? You don’t suppose I’d give him five hundred because I’ve got a kind heart, do you?’
‘No, I don’t. But it seems a sum out of all reason! In fact, it looks to me like blackmail.’
‘You don’t know anything about it. These things cost a lot of money. Besides, five hundred doesn’t mean anything to Ermy.’
Mary struggled with herself. ‘Uncle, can’t you see how iniquitous it is that she should have to buy you out of this at all?’
‘It’s her own fault,’ replied Wally. ‘If she’d made a decent settlement on me at the outset, she wouldn’t have had to stump up now, because naturally I’d have seen to it myself. You’re very full of sympathy for her, but what do you suppose it’s like for me to have to borrow money from my wife to provide for poor little Gladys? Humiliating, that’s what it is, but I’m not lying in bed complaining of the way I’ve been treated.’
It was obviously hopeless to argue with him. Mary said coldly: ‘You haven’t a leg to stand on, and you know it. Is it true that you’ve arranged to go over to the Dower House this afternoon?’
‘That’s right! Now start to nag about that! Run up and tell Ermy! Then we can have another nice scene.’
‘Look here, Uncle, if you want Ermy
ntrude to forgive you, don’t annoy her again! It’s sheer folly, for you know what she feels about Harold White! Surely you needn’t go and see him today?’
‘Well, that’s where you’re wrong, because I’ve got a bit of business to discuss with him. There’s no need for Ermy to know anything about it, unless you go and give the show away to her.’
‘She’ll find out without any assistance from me,’ replied Mary curtly, and left him.
Dr Chester’s visit, or his cachets, seemed to have had a most beneficial effect upon Ermyntrude. Mary found her keeping body and soul together with a few delicate sandwiches and a glass of champagne, a diet which, however ill-advised it might have been for one in a high fever, apparently revived her considerably. She smiled sadly at Mary, and said: ‘Maurice made me promise to try to eat something. I always think there’s nothing like champagne if you’re feeling wretched. But, Mary dear, I don’t like this salt caviar. You oughtn’t to have bought it, ducky: I know the Prince prefers it fresh.’
‘It’s a bit difficult to get the fresh out here,’ explained Mary. ‘And it doesn’t keep.’
‘Well, we don’t want to keep it,’ said Ermyntrude reasonably. She finished what was left of her champagne, and felt so much restored by it that after silently considering the disadvantages of a prolonged sojourn in bed, she said that little though she might be equal to it, she ought to make an effort to come down to lunch.
So at twelve o’clock, accompanied by her personal maid, who carried her smelling-salts, handkerchief, and eau-de-Cologne, and leaning artistically on Mary’s arm, she came falteringly downstairs, and disposed herself on the sofa in the drawing-room. Though made quite faint by so much exertion, she was able to take an interest in the pleasing picture she presented, and to remark naïvely that the new tea-gown she was wearing might have been expressly designed for just such an occasion.
It seemed at first as though the new tea-gown was going to be wasted, for Mary had neglected to inform the Prince that his hostess proposed to come downstairs to luncheon, so that instead of being at hand to lead Ermyntrude to her couch, he was playing an extremely competent game of tennis against both Vicky and Alan.
Happily, just as Ermyntrude was beginning to feel herself miserably neglected, Robert Steel dropped in on his way back from church, and showed so much concern over her condition that her depression fell away from her, and she forgot about the Prince. For, as she had more than once confided to Mary, there was something very attractive about a masterful man.
Mary left her basking in the care of this particular masterful man. She knew that in all probability Ermyntrude would pour out her woes to him, but it hardly seemed worthwhile to try to avert this indiscretion, since sooner or later Ermyntrude would be bound to tell him the whole story.
He left the house just after one o’clock, and when Mary, encountering him in the hall, asked him if he would not stay to luncheon, he declined so roughly that she knew that Ermyntrude had made the most of her wrongs to him.
He seemed to repent of his brusqueness, and said in his blunt way: ‘Sorry, Mary, but if I had to sit down to table with Carter I’d choke! By God, I’d like to break his bloody neck!’
‘Don’t mind me, will you?’ said Mary wearily.
‘I’m damned sorry for you!’ retorted Steel. ‘You needn’t pretend you care tuppence about him, because I know you don’t.’
‘That doesn’t mean that I like having to listen to your strictures on him!’ said Mary, whose temper was wearing thin.
The muscles about his mouth seemed to stiffen. ‘All right, I apologise!’ he said in a carefully controlled voice. ‘No business to have said that to you. I’d better go before I run into him.’
She felt a little stir of pity for him, and said: ‘Robert, don’t take it too seriously! I know it’s pretty bad, but it isn’t your affair, and honestly it’s no use getting worked up about it.’
He looked down at her with an angry glow at the back of his eyes. ‘Look here, my girl!’ he said grimly, ‘I’ve loved Ermy ever since I first laid eyes on her, and you know damned well what I’ve always felt about her, so you can stop handing out pap about what’s my affair and what isn’t, because I’m not interested in your views on the matter!’
He did not wait to hear what she might have to say in answer to this, but strode out of the house to his car, and drove off with a furious jarring of gears slammed home, and the scud of gravel slipping under wheels wrenched roughly round.
‘An English Sunday at Home!’ said Mary, apparently addressing a huge bowl filled with auratum lilies.
Ermyntrude’s luncheon was carried into the drawing-room on a tray, an arrangement which met with Wally’s undisguised approval, but although she was clearly too unwell to attempt to take her place in the dining-room, she felt just strong enough, after she had disposed of a nourishing and varied repast, to welcome the Prince to a chair beside her sofa, and to hold him in sad, low-voiced converse for over an hour.
‘And I quite think that she’s doing her Great Renunciation scene,’ said Vicky, sprawling, all legs and arms, in the hammock. ‘She definitely had that look on her face, hadn’t she?’
‘I don’t know, and I think the way you talk about her is perfectly disgusting!’ replied Mary.
‘Oh, darling, do you? Are you feeling foul?’
‘I’m feeling utterly fed-up with the whole situation!’
‘Never mind, sweet! We’re getting rid of Alexis for tea,’ said Vicky.
‘If your mother lets him go.’
‘Well, if she does, it’ll be a pretty sure sign that she’s sacrificed him to Duty,’ said Vicky cheerfully.
Whether Ermyntrude had indeed done this, or not, she put no obstacle in the way of the Prince’s keeping his engagement with Dr Chester. When Mary interrupted her tête-à-tête with him, to suggest to her that she should rest on her bed until tea-time, she made no demur, but allowed herself to be supported upstairs to her room. She had had a disturbed night, an exhausting quarrel, and a large luncheon, and she felt extremely sleepy. She cherished no illusions about the appearance presented by middle-aged ladies overtaken by post-prandial slumber, and had no intention of sleeping anywhere but in the privacy of her bedroom. Moreover, she wanted to take off her corsets.
Mary waited to see her comfortably bestowed, and retired to her own apartment. She felt that she was entitled to a respite, and she did not emerge until it was nearly time for tea.
Vicky was still in the hammock, and the Prince, very natty in a grey-flannel suit and wash-leather gloves, was inquiring the way to Dr Chester’s house of his host.
‘You can’t miss it,’ said Wally. ‘It’s in the village. Ivy-covered place standing right on the road, with a lot of white posts in front of it.’
‘Ah, yes, I will remember. But the village, in effect, where is that?’
‘Turn to the right when you come out of the garage entrance, and left when you get to the T road, past the Dower House,’ said Wally, in the tone of one who found the subject tedious. ‘And it’s no good expecting anyone to drive you, because my wife’s got a lot of silly ideas about giving the chauffeur the day off every Sunday. Of course, if I weren’t going out myself I wouldn’t mind running you there,’ he added handsomely.
No amount of rudeness seemed to have the power of ruffling the Prince’s temper. He replied with his inevitable smile: ‘It is unnecessary, I assure you, for Vicky lends me her car. It is I who may perhaps drive you to this Dower House which you say I shall pass?’
‘Very good of you, but you needn’t bother. I always walk over by way of the bridge,’ said Wally. ‘Short cut through the garden,’ he explained.
‘Then I will say au revoir,’ bowed the Prince.
‘So long!’ replied Wally, adding when his guest was out of earshot: ‘And if you have a head-on collision with a steam-roller it�
�ll be all right with me!’
Six
Ermyntrude would have been extremely indignant had she known that her dislike of the intimacy prevailing between Wally and Harold White was shared by Janet White. Filial piety forbade Janet to ascribe her father’s vagaries to any inherent weakness of character. She said sadly that Mr Carter had led him into bad ways, a pronouncement that enraged her brother, who did not suffer from filial piety, and who had never shown the slightest hesitation to proclaim his undeviating dislike of his parent. This shocked Janet very much, for she was a girl who believed firmly in doing one’s duty, and what more certain duty could there be than that of loving one’s father? As it was clearly very difficult to love a father who showed only the most infrequent signs of reciprocating her affection, but more often wondered aloud why he should have been cursed with an unsatisfactory son, and a damned fool of a daughter, Janet was forced to weave round him a veil of her own imagination. She decided that her mother’s death had embittered him, conveniently forgetting the quarrels that had raged between the pair during the much-enduring Mrs White’s lifetime. It was more difficult to find excuses to account for Harold White’s predilection for low company, and Janet preferred not to think about this. When Alan spoke his mind on the subject of finding the house invaded by bookmakers and touts, she said that poor father had to mix with all sorts and conditions of men in the course of his duties at the colliery, and so had perhaps lost the power of discrimination. Her tea-planter, who privately considered that Harold White was what he called, tersely, ‘a wrong ’un’, was anxious to remove her from the sphere of his influence; but Janet, though generally indeterminate, was firm on one point: until Alan was earning money, and could thus escape from the parental roof, her duty was to remain at home, and to keep the peace between father and son.
She was well aware that White had more than once managed to borrow money from Wally, and that the two men very often entered together into schemes for getting-rich-quick which were, she suspected, as dubious as they were unsuccessful. The information, therefore, that Wally Carter and Samuel Jones, of Fritton, were both coming to tea at five o’clock on Sunday, made her feel vaguely disquieted, since it drew from Alan a highly libellous estimate of Mr Jones’s character and reputation.
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