‘Oh, I hate Mr White!’ agreed Vicky.
‘Well, ducky, I can’t ask Alan and Janet without their father, now can I? I mean, you know what he is, and this being a dinner-party, and him a sort of connection of Wally’s. It isn’t like asking the young people over to tennis, when he wouldn’t expect to be invited.’
‘That’s right!’ said Wally. ‘Crab poor old Harold! I thought it wouldn’t be long before you started on him. I’d like to know what harm he’s ever done you.’
‘I don’t like him,’ said Ermyntrude. ‘Some people might say he’s done me plenty of harm leading you into ways we won’t discuss at the breakfast-table, let alone planting himself down in the Dower House.’
‘You never made any bones about letting it to him, did you?’
‘No, I didn’t, not with you asking me to let him rent the place, and saying he was a relation of yours. But if I’d known what sort of an influence he was going to be on you, and no more related to you than the man in the moon—’
‘Well, that’s where you’re wrong, because he is related to me,’ interrupted Wally. ‘I forget just how it goes, but I know we’ve got the same great-great-grandfather. Or am I wrong? There may have been three greats, not that it matters.’
‘Ancestors,’ said Vicky.
Ermyntrude refused to follow a false trail she quite clearly perceived. ‘It’s no relationship at all to my way of thinking, and you know very well that isn’t what I’ve got against Harold White, however hard you may try to turn the subject.’
‘The Bawtrys are stuffy,’ said Vicky suddenly.
‘Well, they are a bit,’ confessed her mother. ‘But it’s something to get the best people to come just for a friendly dinner-party, and I don’t mind telling you, lovey, that they never have before.’
‘And the Derings are stuffy.’
‘Not Lady Dering. She’s a good sort, and always was, and she’s behaved to me more like a lady than a lot of others I could name.’
‘And Hugh Dering is stuffy,’ said Vicky obstinately. ‘It’s going to be a lousy party.’
‘Not with the Prince,’ said Ermyntrude.
‘If anyone wants to know what I think, which I don’t suppose they do,’ interpolated Wally, ‘this Prince of yours will just about put the finishing touch to it. However, it’s nothing to do with me, and all I say is, don’t expect me to entertain him!’
Ermyntrude looked a little perturbed. ‘But, Wally, you’ll have to help entertain him! Now, don’t be tiresome, there’s a dear! You know we arranged it all weeks ago, and honestly I know you’ll like Alexis. Besides, you won’t have to do much, except take him out shooting, like we said.’
Wally rose from the table, tucking the newspaper under his arm. ‘There you go again! If I’ve told you once, I’ve told you a dozen times that I don’t like shooting. And now I come to think of it, I lent my gun to Harold, and he hasn’t returned it yet, so I can’t shoot even if I wanted to.’
This was too much, even for a woman of Ermyntrude’s kindly disposition. She said hotly: ‘Then you’ll tell Harold White to return it, Wally, and if you don’t, I will! The idea of your lending poor Geoffrey’s gun without so much as by your leave!’
‘I suppose I ought to have sat down with a planchette, or something,’ said Wally.
Ermyntrude flushed, and said in a tearful voice: ‘How dare you talk like that? Sometimes I think you don’t care how much you hurt my feelings!’
‘Oh, I do think you’re quite too brutal and awful!’ exclaimed Vicky.
‘All right, all right!’ Wally said, retreating to the door. ‘There’s no need for you to start! If a man can’t make a perfectly innocent remark without creating a scene – now, stop it, Ermy! There’s nothing for you to cry about. Anyone would think Harold was going to hurt the gun!’
‘Do get it back!’ said Vicky. ‘You’re upsetting mother simply dreadfully!’
‘Oh, all right!’ replied Wally, goaded. ‘Anything for a quiet life!’
As soon as he had left the room, Vicky abandoned the protective pose she had assumed, and went on eating her breakfast. Ermyntrude glanced apologetically at Mary, and said: ‘I’m sorry, Mary, but what with that White, and him being so tiresome, and then my poor first husband’s gun on top of everything, I just couldn’t help bursting out.’
‘No, he’s in one of his annoying moods,’ agreed Mary. ‘I shouldn’t worry, though. He’ll get over it.’
‘It’s all that Harold White,’ insisted Ermyntrude. ‘He’s been worse ever since he got under his influence.’
‘I don’t think he has, really,’ said Mary, always fair-minded. ‘I’m afraid it’s just natural deterioration.’
‘Well, all I can say is that I wish the Whites would go and live somewhere else. They’ve spoiled the place for me.’
‘One does seem to feel White’s influence,’ said Vicky, with an artistic shiver.
Mary got up, ‘Don’t mix your roles!’ she advised. ‘That one doesn’t go with the Sports-Girl outfit.’
‘Oh, I’d forgotten I was wearing slacks!’ said Vicky, quite unoffended. ‘I think I’ve had enough of the Sports Girl. I’ll change.’
Mary felt disinclined to enter into Vicky’s vagaries at such an early hour of the morning, and, with a rather perfunctory smile, she gathered up her letters, and left the room.
It was part of her self-imposed duty to interview the very competent cook-housekeeper each morning, but before penetrating beyond the baize door to the servants’ quarters, she collected a basket and some scissors, and went out into the gardens to cut fresh flowers for the house.
It was an extremely fine morning, and although Palings, as Ermyntrude had said, was best seen in springtime, when its rhododendrons and azaleas were in bloom, neither the sombre foliage of these shrubs, covering the long fall of ground to the stream at its foot, nor the glimpse of Harold White’s house upon the opposite slope, detracted, in Mary’s eyes, from its beauty. Ermyntrude employed a large staff of gardeners, and besides lawns where few weeds dared show their heads, and acres of kitchen-gardens and glass-houses, there was a sunk Italian garden, a rose-garden, a rock-garden, with a lily-pond in the centre, and broad herbaceous borders in which Ermyntrude’s own taste for set-effects had never been allowed to run riot.
Mary reflected, with a wry smile, that Ermyntrude was the best-natured woman imaginable. Even in her own house she allowed herself to be overruled on all matters of taste, and not only did she acquiesce in the decisions made for her, but she quite seriously endeavoured to school her eye to appreciate what she believed to be good taste. But although she felt a certain pride in her slopes of rhododendrons (which were, indeed, one of the sights of the county), Mary knew quite well that in her heart of hearts she thought this wild part of her garden rather untidy, and very much preferred the view of formal beds, and clipped yews, and impeccably raked carriage-drive, which was to be obtained from the front windows of the house. From these windows, moreover, no disturbing glimpse of the Dower House could be caught.
There was nothing intrinsically objectionable about the Dower House, but its temporary inmate, Harold White, had, during the course of two years, invested it, in Ermyntrude’s eyes, with such disagreeable attributes, that she had not only been known to shudder at the sight of its grey roof, visible through the trees, but had lately carried her dislike of it to such a pitch that she would sometimes refuse even to stroll down the winding path that led through the rhododendron thickets to the rustic bridge that crossed the stream at the foot of the garden. It was a charming walk, but it was spoiled for Ermyntrude by the fact that from the little bridge an uninterrupted view of the Dower House, situated half-way up the farther slope, smote the eye. The bridge had been thrown across the stream to provide an easy way of communication between the two houses, a circumstance which, however convenient it migh
t have been to the original owner of Palings, filled Ermyntrude with annoyance. She had more than once contemplated having the bridge removed, and had compromised, a few months previously, by erecting a wicket-gate on the Palings side of the stream. But although this might, as she confided to Mary, have seemed pointed enough, it had no apparent effect on Harold White, who continued to stroll across the bridge to call on Wally whenever he chose, or had opportunity to do so.
Fortunately, this was not often. Unlike Wally, White was not a gentleman of leisure, but the manager of a small group of collieries in the district. His daughter, Janet, kept house for him; and he had one son, a few years younger than Janet, who lived at home, and was articled to a solicitor in the neighbouring town of Fritton. Before Wally’s marriage to the rich Mrs Fanshawe, White, whose salary never seemed to cover his expenses, had lived rather uncomfortably in a small villa in the town itself; but when Wally came to live at Palings, it had not taken Harold White long to discover that he was remotely related to him. The rest had been easy. Wally had found a kindred spirit in his connection, and had had very little difficulty in persuading Ermyntrude to lease the Dower House, which happened, providentially, to be unoccupied, to White, at a reduced rental. From this time, insisted Ermyntrude, Wally’s increasing predilection for strong drink, and, his flights into the realms of even less respectable pursuits, might fairly be said to date. Harold White encouraged him to drink more than was good for him, prompted him to back horses, and introduced him to undesirable acquaintances.
Mary, who disliked White, yet could not agree with Ermyntrude that he was Wally’s âme damné. Having lived with Wally for many more years than had Ermyntrude, she suffered from fewer illusions, and had long since realised that his character lacked moral fibre. He gravitated naturally into low society, and could be trusted upon all occasions to take the line of least resistance. While giving him due credit for having behaved to her with great kindness during the years of his guardianship, Mary knew him too well to allow herself to be blinded to the fact that the small income, advanced quarterly by her trustees to pay for her upkeep and education, had been extremely useful to Wally. Nor could she help regretting sometimes that her father, Wally’s uncle, had not chosen to leave her a ward in Chancery rather than the ward of his one surviving relative.
This slightly shamefaced thought was in Mary’s mind as she carried her basket of roses into the house. Wally had been a handicap to her during her schooldays; now that she was grown up, and marriageable, he was proving a still greater handicap.
She had denied that any understanding existed between herself and Mr Hugh Dering, but, although this was strictly true, she could not help feeling that Hugh’s interest in her sprang from something more than long-standing acquaintance. There was a bond of very real sympathy between them, and although Dering’s residence was in London, where he might be presumed to encounter girls prettier, more attractive, and certainly more eligible than Mary Cliffe, none of these unknown damsels seemed to have captivated his fancy, and whenever he came to stay with his parents, one of his first actions was to seek Mary out. What his mother, who was notoriously easy-going, thought about his predilection for her society, Mary did not know, but that Sir William Dering regarded Wally Carter with disfavour she was well aware. She had been surprised to hear of the Derings’ acceptance of Ermyntrude’s invitation, for although they were, like everyone else in the neighbourhood, on calling-terms with the Carters, they had never until now accepted nor extended invitations to dinner-parties. Mary wondered whether Hugh was indeed at the bottom of it, for she could not suppose that the presence of a Georgian prince would prove as tempting a bait as Ermyntrude so firmly believed. In this, she slightly misjudged Lady Dering.
Two
Sir William Dering, whom no one had ever called Bill, was quite as astonished as Mary Cliffe when he discovered that he was to dine at Palings in the immediate future. He bent a stare upon his wife, which was rendered all the more alarming by his bushy eyebrows, and desired to know whether she had taken leave of her senses.
‘Not only sane, but sober,’ replied Lady Dering, quite unimpressed by the martial note in Sir William’s voice. ‘I wouldn’t miss it for worlds! The amazing Ermyntrude has dug up a Russian prince!’
‘Good God!’ ejaculated Sir William. ‘You’re not going to tell me, I trust, that you accepted that invitation for the sake of meeting some wretched foreign prince?’
His wife considered this, a humorous gleam in her pleasant grey eyes. ‘Well, not quite entirely. I mean, not for the Prince alone. But a Russian prince in that setting! You couldn’t expect me to miss anything as rich as that!’
This response, so far from mollifying Sir William, made him look even more shocked than before. ‘My dear Ruth, aren’t you letting your sense of humour carry you too far? Dash it, you can’t accept people’s hospitality just to make fun of them!’
‘Dear old silly!’ said Lady Dering affectionately, ‘I wasn’t going to.’
‘You said—’
‘No, darling, far from it. I never make fun of anyone except you. I am just going to be gloriously entertained.’
‘Well, I don’t like it at all. I haven’t anything against Mrs Carter, beyond the fact of her being a damned common woman, made up to the eyes, and reeking of scent, but that fellow, Carter, I bar. We’ve always kept them at arm’s-length, and now Heaven knows what you’ve let us in for!’
‘An occasional invitation to them to dine.’
‘But why?’ demanded Sir William. ‘Don’t tell me it’s because of a Russian prince! I never heard such nonsense!’
‘Dear William, I like you so much when you’re stupid! The amazing Ermyntrude is going to build the hospital for us.’
‘What?’
‘Not with her own fair hands, dearest. She’s going to give us a really big cheque, though. I don’t call a few dinner-parties much of a price to pay.’
‘I call it disgusting!’ said Sir William strongly.
‘You may call it what you please, my dear, but you know as well as I do that that’s how these things are done. Ermyntrude’s a kind soul, but she’s no fool, and she has a daughter to launch. I don’t in the least mind being useful to her if she’ll make our hospital possible.’
‘Do you mean to tell me you’re going to drive some sordid bargain with the woman?’
‘Dear me, no! Nothing of the kind. I shall merely tell her how much we all want her to join the committee, and how we hope she and her husband will be free to dine with us next month, to meet Charles and Pussy, when they come to stay. Not a breath of sordidness, I promise you!’
‘It makes me sick!’ declared Sir William. ‘You had better go a step further while you are about it, and tell Carter how delighted we should be to welcome his ward into our family.’
‘That would be excessive,’ replied Lady Dering calmly. ‘Besides, I don’t know that I should be altogether delighted.’
‘You surprise me!’ said her lord, with awful sarcasm.
The arrival upon the scene of their son and heir put an end to this particular topic of discussion. Hugh Dering, in grey flannel trousers, and an aged tweed coat, came strolling across the lawn towards them, and sat down beside his mother on the wooden garden seat.
He was a large, and sufficiently good-looking young man, not quite thirty years old, who was engaged in building up a practice at the Chancery Bar. He had his mother’s eyes, but his father’s stern mouth, and could look extremely pleasant, or equally forbidding, according to the mood of the moment.
Just now, he was looking pleasant. He began to fill a pipe, remarking cheerfully: ‘Well, Ma? Secret conclave?’
‘No, not a bit. Your father and I were just discussing tomorrow’s party.’
Hugh grinned appreciatively. ‘Ought to be pretty good value, I should think. Were you asked to shoot as well, sir?’
‘No, I was not,’ replied Sir William. ‘And if I had been I should have refused!’
‘I wasn’t nearly so proud,’ said Hugh, gently pressing the tobacco down into the bowl of his pipe.
‘Are you telling me that you’re going to shoot there tomorrow?’
‘Rather! Why not?’
‘If I’d known you wanted to shoot, you could have taken my place,’ said Sir William, who belonged to a syndicate. ‘You’d have had better company and better sport. The way the Palings’ shoot has been allowed to deteriorate since Fanshawe’s death is a scandal. You’ll find the birds as wild as be – damned – if you see any birds at all.’
‘Then I shan’t shoot anything,’ responded Hugh fatalistically. ‘I’m not good enough for your crowd, in any case, sir. You’re all so grand, with your loaders and your second guns. I can’t cope at all.’
Sir William relapsed into silence. His wife, who knew him to be brooding over the changed times that had made it impossible for him any longer to run his own shoot, and thus see to it that his son was not flustered by two guns and a loader, diverted his attention by asking Hugh if he had yet met Vicky Fanshawe.
‘No, that’s a pleasure to come. Mary tells me she has to be seen to be believed.’
‘I saw her in Fritton the other day,’ said Lady Dering. ‘Very pretty, rather what one imagines her mother might have been like at the same age. Why did Mary say she had to be seen to be believed?’
‘I gather that she’s a turn in herself. Full of histrionic talent.’
‘She looked rather sweet. They tell me that all the young men in the neighbourhood are wild about her.’
‘Gentlemen prefer blondes, in fact,’ said Hugh, striking a match. ‘Is the Russian prince one of the more eligible suitors?’
‘Good gracious, I don’t know! What an engaging idea, though! We shall have fun tomorrow!’