This sanguine mood persisted to the very gateway of Anchorstone Hall; survived the crossing of the moat and the opening of the great door; endured while they walked across the courtyard, framed by unfamiliar buildings that looked down on them with critical eyes, and did not fail when the door opened to reveal the impassive Crosby flanked by his two aides in their silver buttons.
Crosby had begun to talk to Antony in low and solemn tones about the disposal of their luggage, a question which would have driven any competing thought from Eustace’s head. But Antony brushed it aside with rapid gestures and torrents of incoherent speech, and this method seemed effective, for the man inclined his head, as if satisfied, and, his demeanour imperceptibly changing gear, led the way with slow steps in a diagonal direction across the hall. Hilda and Eustace followed at a distance, but Antony crowded on to Crosby and, barely waiting for the door to open, glided rapidly round a screen and into the room. Before they were half-way across he had reached the fireplace, where four or five people were standing in attitudes, as it seemed to Eustace, of critical expectancy; and he flung up his arms with the movement of a bird learning to fly and cried, “Here we are!”
Thus the ice was broken. There were many questions that Eustace still wanted to ask Antony, but he had disappeared. Finding he had arrived without a black tie, he had rung the bell, in his own room and then in Eustace’s, but there was no answer to either summons.
“I don’t like it,” said Antony. “Dick has arranged for us to be isolated here like the Princes in the Tower, beyond the reach of help and where our screams can’t be heard. He might do anything to us.”
Warning shadows gathered on Antony’s face; Eustace began to feel nervous. “I think we had better look behind the arras,” said Antony. He gave the blue-green tapestry, which Eustace thought must be priceless, a disrespectful tug and peered behind it.
“No, that plan would be too obvious for him,” he said. “I expect defenestration is what he has in mind.”
Eustace followed him to the window. Below them in the moat, dark clusters of lily leaves stood out from the brown water. The park lay in front of them. Stunted and gnarled and silver-green from exposure to North Sea weather, the trees looked very ancient, rising from the long shadows in their gold-washed carpet. Many were out at elbows and none seemed to have their full complement of leaves. They only came half-way up the church tower, which looked out serenely over them. To the left, along the wall, was the oriel window of Antony’s bedroom.
“I expect that’s the one he’ll choose,” Antony said. “But I must die in a black tie. I’ll go and borrow one from him; I’ll beard him in his den while you are having your bath.”
“Do you know where he is?” Eustace asked.
“No,” said Antony, “but by the system of trial and error I shall find out. You must pray for my safe return.”
The bath-room was hardly more than a cupboard between their two rooms, and smelt strongly of steam. The window was too high up, Eustace noticed with relief, to lend itself to defenestration. He wondered if Hilda had a bath-room to herself, or whether she was sharing one, as he was—perhaps with Anne, perhaps with Monica whose other name he hadn’t caught. He hoped she wasn’t feeling lonely.
When they suddenly decided it was time to go and dress and the party broke up, he hadn’t noticed how she was looking, he had felt so pleased to be going off with Antony. Anne had taken charge of her, perhaps a little with the air of finding it a duty. At any rate, not quite with the look he liked to see directed at Hilda.
Eustace would have gone to her room, but he wasn’t sure that it would be correct, and he was anxious, as always, not to do anything that was not correct. Besides, he did not know which her room was, and the passages might not be well lit, and he might find himself in some one’s room by mistake. She was somewhere in the main building, her door guarded perhaps by red fire-buckets with Anchorstone Hall on them, as his was, and printed instructions what to do in case of fire. Perhaps a maid would have unpacked for her, and she might be feeling that her things were not as good as other people’s and the maid would smile at them and tell the other maids. She had very little jewellery, only one or two brooches of their mother’s, and her garnet engagement ring; and the necklaces that he had given her, of an antique and arty kind. He had liked them at the time, but didn’t feel so sure of them now. Hilda didn’t care in the least for such things, and never wore them.
But at any rate she would have his watch. Her birthday had been in May, and he had insisted on presenting her with a wristwatch set in diamonds. It had cost a great deal, but Eustace’s pleasure in making a gift mounted in direct ratio with the price: the satisfaction of the donee counted with him much less. Hilda had shown remarkably little satisfaction, and would gladly have refused the gift. Indeed he had only persuaded her to take it by saying that he ought to share the expenses of her wardrobe.
Actually, with her salary, her income was larger than his, but she might be hard up if, in spite of Stephen’s opposition, she had contributed to the buying of the chicken-run. It made Eustace uncomfortable to think that her preparations for this visit should have put her out of pocket. To the last she had protested against going; even on the station platform she had protested: he might have been leading a sheep to the slaughter. It would have been a dismal journey but for Antony. If she had guessed that he got the watch partly with the idea that she might wear it here, she would never have accepted it. Perhaps she wouldn’t wear it after all. Perhaps she was wondering whether she should or not, and meanwhile wishing herself back at the clinic. Did women wear wrist-watches at dinner? Eustace couldn’t remember, and Hilda wouldn’t know. If only he could have seen her face as she was led away! His imagination still seemed unable to get into touch with her.
But he must get out and leave the bath-room ready for Antony, who had so little idea of time and would almost certainly be late for dinner—a prospect Eustace dreaded. He pulled the plug out, wrapped himself in the ample bath-towel, and was just examining the mat to see whether Antony’s statement about the family tree being embroidered on it was correct, when the door opened and Antony burst in.
“I’ve got it!” he cried, waving a black tie. “But I’m sure there is something odd about it—it feels so peculiar. Do you imagine it could be a keepsake from a dying Arab? Perhaps it’s poisoned, like the shirt of Nessus; perhaps it’ll turn into a snake, a Black Mamba or the Speckled Band, and throttle me half-way through dinner. I’d better try it on.”
He pulled off his own tie and threw it down, narrowly missing the bath, then put Dick’s on under his soft collar.
“What huge wings it has—like a vampire bat. Just the kind of tie Dick would have.”
With Eustace’s sponge he wiped the perspiring looking-glass.
“It’s much too long,” he lamented. “I shall look like Mr. Gladstone.”
“Tie a knot in the middle,” suggested Eustace. “It won’t show under your coat.”
“What a good idea—how inventive you are. Do you suppose Dick’ll mind?”
“I shouldn’t think so,” said Eustace doubtfully.
“He might make it an excuse to hang me with it,” said Antony. “Would you have thought he had such a thick neck?”
“I suppose he’s fairly big all round,” said Eustace.
“He is,” said Antony. “When I went into his room he was stark naked, and his skin fits him like armour-plating—it’s almost disgusting. His body is like a lethal weapon. There’s something repellent in sheer masculinity.”
“No doubt he didn’t expect you to find him like that,” said Eustace, drawing his bath-towel round him.
“I don’t know who he was expecting, but he didn’t seem surprised. He just pointed at the chest of drawers with his long, hairy arm, and said, ‘At the top on the left.’” Antony began to tear his clothes off, flinging them on to whatever ledges the bath-room provided. “Don’t go away,” he said, “or if you do, leave the door open so that we can talk.
”
There was silence for a moment, broken only by the sound of swishing and splashing, then Eustace, who had begun to dress, heard Antony say:
“What do you think of Monica?”
“I hardly had time to take her in,” said Eustace.
“She’s a nice girl, a good, useful girl. You won’t have any difficulty with her. She’s ready to talk about anything. She’s not brilliant or even clever, but she bowls a good length.”
Eustace was surprised to hear this sporting metaphor from Antony’s lips.
“She’s an orphan, you know,” Antony went on, “and being rather well off she goes about a good deal. She’s almost a bachelor-girl, I think you might say she was a bachelor-girl, but she’s not at all hard-boiled. She plays golf and lawn tennis very well. She’s not quite the Staveley’s type.”
“Why not?”
“She’s not old-fashioned enough. But I dare say they think she could stand up to Dick.”
Eustace digested this in silence. Then he said, “Do you think she could?”
“I doubt it,” said Antony. “She’d put up a good show, but I fancy he’s looking for something more exotic, more like a butterfly on the wheel. He wouldn’t get a kick out of breaking Monica. She’d stay on for a few revolutions, longer than anyone else has, and say, ‘What fun this is,’ and then she’d get off in good order, only a little damaged.”
“But you think she might take him on?” said Eustace, pleased with himself for being able to keep up the worldly tone of the conversation.
“She might think it worth while,” said Antony.
Eustace felt his spirits go down. How little he knew about the rules of this world which he had crashed against so casually, like a moth bumping against a light! Monday morning would soon be here and the whole experience over, leaving at Anchorstone Hall not so much as a ripple on the moat or a faint displacement of the leaves of the water-lilies, to show he had been there.
“Tell me about the other man,” he said, “I scarcely spoke to him.”
“Victor Trumpington?” said Antony. There was a tremendous commotion and upheaval in the bath-room—a sound of tides in conflict such as might have accompanied Archimedes’ famous experiment. “Victor Trumpington?” he repeated, appearing at the door in his bath-towel, his hair standing on end. “Oh, he’s just a man in the Foreign Office whom everyone likes. No party is complete without him. He’s a tame cat par excellence.”
Ignoring the rest of his body, Antony bent down and dried a little toe with extreme thoroughness. He could not, Eustace remembered, establish the smallest routine in anything he did, however mechanical. Now he was rubbing his left wrist—the delicate bone whitened under his assault.
“But there’s another reason for his being here,” Antony went on. “He and Anne have been trying to marry each other for years. It seems so obvious—perhaps that’s why they don’t do it. Or perhaps they’re both waiting in case they meet somebody they like better.”
“She seemed rather nice, I thought,” said Eustace.
“She is, but she’s so dull, poor girl,” said Antony, gazing reflectively at his right knee, without, however, doing anything to it. “How could she be anything else? When they were in London, she was never allowed to take a step alone—someone always went with her, even for a walk. And I suppose Dick’s being rather wild made them feel they must be all the more careful with her. She never saw the flash of a latch-key or any token of freedom. She was absolutely immured.”
“Couldn’t Lady Nelly Staveley do anything to help her?” asked Eustace.
“Oh, but she only went to Lady Nelly’s (when she came out, I mean) under the strictest guard, the most lynx-eyed supervision. Sir John and Cousin Edie never approved of Lady Nelly. They even blamed her for not having children. She longed for them; but with Freddie what could you expect? I mean, you couldn’t expect.... In spite of his toping, he was much more agreeable and popular than they were, which I suppose was a grievance; and of course she was adored. Outside Anchorstone the name Staveley just means Lady Nelly.”
“I look forward to seeing her,” said Eustace.
“I envy you,” said Antony. He began to rub his hair with tremendous vigour, though there was no sign that it had ever been wet. “Someone once said, ‘Oh, that I could meet her again for the first time.’ Double-edged, like most compliments.”
A clock on the chimney-piece struck the half-hour.
“Good heavens!” cried Eustace, “it’s half-past eight. We really must hurry.”
Dread of a scolding was one of the few motives strong enough to make Eustace overcome his inveterate dislike of telling anyone to do anything. But Antony was unmoved.
“I believe that all the clocks in this house except the big one are kept ten minutes fast,” he said. “ ‘Always in time, but never in tune,’ should be the motto of the Staveleys. They ought to write it up everywhere.”
When Eustace looked round from tying his tie, Antony was gone.
8. BILLIARD-FIVES
THE DRAWING-ROOM proclaimed its Victorian origin. The ceiling was decorated with a pattern of diamond-shaped parterres, outlined in a light-coloured wood, each lozenge framing a representation of the arms of the Staveleys or of some allied family. By a discreet rolling of the eyes Antony had drawn Eustace’s attention to this feature when they first arrived, but it was much more in evidence now, because the top lights—unshaded bulbs hanging at the intersections of the lozenges—had been turned on, directing a hard glare on the heads of those below. Hilda had her back to Eustace—an unfamiliar back because much of it was bare—but she turned round when he and Antony came in and her look said, ‘You’ve got me into this mess, now you must get me out.’
Victor Trumpington, a tall, rather willowy man of about thirty with a fair moustache, was standing a pace or two from her, with the air of having been beaten off, and wondering whether to re-new the attack. Everyone—it seemed to Eustace—looked as though they had tried conclusions with Hilda and been worsted, so separate from each other did they seem, so absorbed in chewing a private cud, so enclosed and islanded in themselves. Eustace’s eyes dropped before Hilda’s, he could think of nothing to say to her, so he sought out Lady Staveley, who was standing by the fireplace. In her black velvet dress and diamond necklace, she looked smaller and less approachable than she had in her rather thick, purplish tweeds.
“I hope your room is comfortable?” she asked, and Eustace said it was a lovely room.
Her eyes made him a slight acknowledgement of this politesse, then switched to Hilda, who was now in conversation with Antony—though conversation was not quite the word, for each was staring at the floor as though the other had made a remark too profound to be answered. Eustace did not remember having seen Antony nonplussed before. His tie was working round to one side, soon the bow would begin tickling his ear. Involuntarily Eustace turned to Dick. The charge of bull-neckedness did not seem to be justified, but Dick had such a good figure, and wore his clothes so well, that he seemed smaller than he really was. After what Antony had said, Eustace half expected to see him with horns and a tail, and was almost disappointed that he looked so ordinary, and, like the others, not quite at his ease.
“Your tie seems restless on Antony,” he said, and Dick smiled and said, “It’s a wise tie and knows its own master,” but his eye, too, wandered to Hilda.
It was not that she was exactly overdressed in her stiff blue silk, which shimmered silvery white on top where the light caught it; her appearance was so striking that she hardly could be. And the dress, which Eustace had helped her to choose, only looked a little more expensive than a dress ought to look. But Hilda had not come to terms with it; it covered her, up to a point, but did not clothe her. Anne and Monica seemed to have grown into their simpler dresses; Hilda’s stuck out from her in every sense. They had damped down their personalities to a discreet glow, whereas Hilda wore hers like a headlight. It shone from her eyes, her mouth, which he had prevailed on her to redden, he
r skin, which was a revelation to him, and her expression, which registered everything she thought. She proclaimed herself; she stood out from the others almost as much as if she had suddenly shouted.
In his imaginings of her début at Anchorstone, this was how Eustace had wanted her to look. He could see now that it was a mistake. But she wasn’t a lamp that could be turned down, she had to blaze, and the more uneasy she felt, the more she clashed with her surroundings, imparting, as it seemed to Eustace, her discomfort to everyone else. When the butler offered her sherry she first refused, and then at Antony’s instigation, awkwardly took a glass. The unaccustomed wine flew to her face and flamed there; it was a conflagration, and Eustace had no idea how to put it out.
Sir John Staveley looked at his watch.
“It’s a quarter to nine,” he said, shattering the silence; “shall we wait for Nelly, or shall we go in?”
Almost as he spoke the door opened and Lady Nelly advanced into the room. You could not call it walking, for she seemed to get nearer without moving. She was a tall woman and upright, except that her head drooped slightly in perpetual acknowledgement (it seemed afterwards to Eustace) of the qualities she had which made people love her, and of the qualities she loved in them. Her smile seemed to have arrived at no special moment, it was there; and as she came towards them it moved from face to face, changing its nature in a way that was perceptible to each recipient, but perhaps to no one else. She paused beside Hilda, half turning her head, and then went on.