‘Well, as long as the noise didn’t wake you…’ said Ermyntrude doubtfully.
Wally, when he put in a somewhat tardy appearance, was accompanied by the dog-Prince, and spent several minutes in explaining to the human-Prince that since the dog was necessary for the day’s sport, he would be obliged to include him in the party.
‘But of course!’ the Prince said.
‘I’m very glad you take it like that,’ said Wally. ‘In fact, I don’t mind telling you that this dog question has been worrying us a good deal, because there’s no denying it’s very confusing to have a dog and a man both answering to the same name.’
‘Ah, you fear that when you call “Heel, Prince!” I shall come running to you!’ smiled the Prince. ‘See, when you want me you should call “Varasashvili!” and then there will be no confusion.’
‘Er – yes,’ agreed Wally, ‘but to tell you the truth I’ve a shocking memory for names. Runs in the family.’
Ermyntrude, who had tried several times to catch her husband’s eye, interrupted him at this point, and began rather hastily to describe the rest of the shooting-party to the Prince. Besides himself and Wally, there would be Robert Steel, Hugh Dering, and Dr Chester.
‘He’s good,’ said Mary, looking up. ‘And Robert Steel’s quite useful. Hugh says he’s a rotten shot, but I dare say he isn’t as bad as he makes out. I expect you’re pretty good yourself, aren’t you?’
He disclaimed, but not in such a way as to lead her to believe him. She said with a faint smile: ‘I hope you’re not speaking the truth, because if you are the gamekeeper won’t be a bit pleased. However, Aunt Ermy told me that you shoot a good deal, so I’m not seriously alarmed.’
‘But I find that you are a most unexpected lady!’ he exclaimed. ‘Have you then arranged the shoot, and do you perhaps accompany us?’
‘No, I don’t shoot myself, though I did arrange it, I’ve counted you and Maurice Chester as the good ones, Robert Steel as the medium one, and Uncle and Hugh as the definitely poor ones.’
Vicky, who had drifted in through the long, open window in time to overhear this speech, said: ‘But I can shoot, and I think I might come too.’
‘No, dearest, that you most certainly will not!’ said Ermyntrude. ‘I shouldn’t have a quiet moment.’
Vicky became aware of the Prince, who had sprung up at her entrance, and smiled vaguely in his direction. ‘Oh, hullo! Now I come to think of it, I can’t shoot today. I’m going out with Alan.’
‘Whatever for?’ demanded Ermyntrude, not best pleased.
Vicky selected a peach from the dish on the sideboard, and sat down in the chair the Prince was gallantly holding for her. ‘Well, I thought it would be a kind thing to do, because Janet’s so very dim, and un-understanding about being miserable and squashed into a round hole.’
‘Well, if you want to know what I think, Alan’s very lucky these days to have got a job at all,’ said Ermyntrude roundly.
‘Lawyers are dusty,’ murmured Vicky.
‘It’s a very respectable calling, and if you take my advice you’ll tell Alan to stop talking a lot of nonsense, and get down to his work.’
‘Yes, but I shouldn’t like to be articled to a solicitor myself, so probably I won’t,’ replied Vicky with one of her pensive looks.
‘That is the young man who came last night?’ inquired the Prince. ‘Such a very earnest young man! Do you like him so much, Vicky? For me, a little dull.’
‘Oh no! he writes poetry,’ said Vicky seriously. ‘Not the rhyming sort, either. Can I have a picnic basket, Mummy?’
‘But, dearie, aren’t you going to join the shooting lunch?’ said Ermyntrude, quite distressed. ‘Mary and I are going.’
‘No, I think definitely not,’ replied Vicky. ‘I thought I’d like to shoot, and now I’ve decided that after all I feel frightfully unhearty, besides rather loathing game-pie and steak-and-kidney pudding.’
‘But, Vicky, this is cruel!’ protested the Prince. ‘You desert us for a poet!’
‘Yes, but I hope you have a lovely time, and lots of sport,’ she said kindly.
When Wally presently departed with his guest, Ermyntrude could not forbear to utter a few words of warning to her daughter. It seemed to her anxious eyes that Vicky was treating Alan White with quite unnecessary tolerance. ‘You don’t want to go putting ideas into his head,’ she said. ‘Not but what I’ve no doubt they’re there already, but what I mean is there’s no need for you to encourage him.’
‘I think you’re awfully right,’ agreed Vicky, wrinkling her brow. ‘Because, for one thing, I haven’t made up my mind yet whether I’m the managing sort or the only-a-little-woman sort.’
‘Did you ever?’ Ermyntrude exclaimed, appealing to Mary.
‘Vicky, you’re a goop,’ said Mary.
‘Well, if I really am,’ said Vicky hopefully, ‘it quite solves the problem, because then I wouldn’t be able to manage Alan at all.’
She drifted away, leaving Ermyntrude torn between diversion and doubt. Mary remarked soothingly that she thought there was no immediate need to worry over such a volatile damsel: ‘In fact, if I were you, I’d let her go on the stage, Aunt Ermy,’ she said. ‘I believe that’s what she’d really like best.’
‘Don’t you suggest such a thing!’ said Ermyntrude, quite horrified. ‘Why, her father would turn in his grave – well, as a matter of fact, he was cremated, but what I mean is, if he hadn’t been he would have.’
‘But why should he? You were on the stage, after all.’
‘Yes, my dear, and you take it from me that my girl’s not going to be. Not but what she’s a proper little actress, bless her!’
‘Well, anyway, don’t worry about Alan!’ begged Mary. ‘I’m perfectly certain there’s nothing in that!’
‘I hope you’re right, for I don’t mind telling you nothing would make me consent. Nothing! As though I hadn’t got enough to put up with without that being added!’
It transpired that Ermyntrude had more to put up with that morning than she had anticipated. Having noticed on the previous day that a button was missing from the sleeve of the coat Wally had been wearing, she went to his dressing-room to find the coat, and took it down to the morning-room for repair, and discovered, pushed carelessly into one of its pockets, a letter addressed to Wally in an illiterate and unknown hand. Ermyntrude, who had no scruples about inspecting her husband’s correspondence, drew the letter from its envelope, remarking idly that it was just like Wally to stuff letters into his pocket and forget all about them.
Mary, to whom this observation was addressed, made a vague sound of agreement, and went on adding up the Household Expenses. Her attention was jerked away from such mundane matters by a sudden exclamation from Ermyntrude.
‘Mary! Oh, my goodness! Oh, I never did in all my life!’
Mary turned in her chair, recognising in Ermyntrude’s voice a note of shock mingled with wrath. ‘What is it?’
‘Read it!’ said Ermyntrude dramatically. ‘It’s too much!’ She held the letter out with a shaking hand, but as Mary took it she seemed to recollect herself, and said: ‘Oh dear, whatever am I thinking about? Give it back, dearie: it isn’t fit for you to read, and you his ward!’
Mary made no attempt to read the letter, but said in her sensible way: ‘You know, Aunt Ermy, you really ought not to have looked at it. I don’t know what it’s about, but hadn’t you better pretend you haven’t seen it?’
The ready colour rose to Ermyntrude’s cheeks. ‘Pretend I haven’t seen it? Pretend I don’t know my husband’s got some wretched little tart into trouble? I’ll thank you to realise I’m made of flesh and blood, and not stone, my girl!’
Mary was accustomed to Wally’s gyrations, but this piece of information startled her. ‘You must be mistaken!’
‘Oh, I must, must I? Well, if that’s what you think, just you read that letter!’
‘But, honestly, Aunt Ermy, one doesn’t read other people’s letters!’
‘No, all one does is to be beholden to one’s wife for every penny one has, and then go round putting girls in the family way!’ said Ermyntrude bitterly.
Vicky entered the room in time to hear this dictum, and inquired with interest: ‘Who does?’
‘Your precious stepfather!’ snapped Ermyntrude.
Vicky opened her eyes very wide at this: ‘Does he? Oh, I do think that’s so wonderful of him! Poor sweet, I thought he was practically senile!’
‘Don’t be so disgusting!’ said Mary sharply.
‘Oh, I’m not! Darling Mummy, how did you find it out? Doesn’t it give you an absolutely new angle on Wally?’
By this time Mary had decided to suppress her scruples, and had read the fatal letter. It was signed by one Percy Baker, who appeared to be the brother of the girl in question. Mary had no experience of such letters, but being a young woman of intelligence she was easily able to recognise it as an attempt at blackmail. The writer used illiterate but forceful threats, and ended by promising himself a visit to Palings if he did not hear from Wally immediately. Long association with Wally led her to assume that when he thrust the letter carelessly into his pocket he also thrust the memory of it from his mind. She looked up. ‘This was written at the beginning of the week. Today’s Saturday. He’ll turn up.’
Vicky took the letter out of her hand. ‘Angel-Mary, I do think you’re dog-in-the-mangerish. Oh, I never knew anyone was actually called Gladys!’
‘It’s too much!’ Ermyntrude said, kneading her hands together in her lap. ‘It’s too much! No one ever called me narrow-minded, but to get a local girl into trouble is more than I’ll stand for. If it had been in London I wouldn’t have said a word – well, what I mean is, anyone knows what men are, and what the eye doesn’t see the heart won’t grieve over – but to have Wally’s by-blows absolutely under one’s nose – well, I shall never be able to hold up my head again, and that’s the truth!’
‘Oh, darling, I do think you’re so modern and marvellous!’ said Vicky. ‘If you were old-fashioned and feudal you wouldn’t mind a bit, because it was awfully the done thing for the squire to have lots and lots of bastards.’
‘I won’t have you use that nasty, coarse word!’ said Ermyntrude. ‘The idea! Besides, Wally isn’t the squire and never was.’
‘It may not be true,’ said Mary. She gave the letter back to Ermyntrude. ‘I don’t mean that Uncle hasn’t had an affair with this Gladys person: I suppose he must have had; but we don’t know that he’s the one who got her into trouble. If you think it over, it looks as though the girl must be a pretty bad lot. You can’t imagine a girl falling in love with Uncle, can you? Obviously, she thinks he’s a rich man, and this brother of hers is going to try and get money out of him. Honestly, Aunt Ermy, I wouldn’t let it upset you too much. It’s no use blinking facts, after all, and you’ve known for ages that Uncle is simply hopeless about flirting with pretty girls.’
‘It’s never been as bad as this,’ Ermyntrude said. ‘I’ve borne all the rest, but I won’t bear this. It’s an insult, that’s what you don’t seem to see! Other people don’t think I’m old and dull, and lost my looks, but not my own husband! Oh no! He has to get off with a girl from Fritton! On top of everything!’
‘Darling, you’re so rare and precious the poor sweet can’t live on your plane,’ said Vicky comfortingly. ‘Really, it’s all dreadfully sad, and rather like a Russian novel, and I wouldn’t wonder a bit if you were one of those terribly fated women who go through life never being understood or appreciated.’
This speech seemed to Mary altogether too fulsome to be stomached, but Ermyntrude was visibly soothed by it, and volunteered the information that she had always been one of the deep ones.
‘Oh, you are so awfully right, Ermyntrude, darling pet!’ agreed Vicky. ‘In fact, I think you’re rather like one of those mysterious mountain tarns, and quite, quite wonderful!’
Ermyntrude was gratified by being thought to resemble a mountain tarn, but it was evident that Wally’s latest misdemeanour had seriously upset her. Her colour remained alarmingly high, and her eyes very bright and sparkling. Nor was Mary reassured by her rising abruptly to her feet, and announcing with unaccustomed curtness that the subject would not bear further discussion. It was not Ermyntrude’s way to bottle up her grievances, and the studied cheerfulness of her voice, when she began immediately to talk about the prospective dinner-party, had the effect of disturbing Mary more than a lively display of hysterics would have done.
Vicky seemed to feel this too, for, following Mary out of the room presently, she said rather unhappily that the atmosphere was thickening too fast. ‘Volcanoes; sulphurous smoke,’ she added, in somewhat vague explanation. ‘I don’t think it would be nice for her to have a divorce, do you?’
‘It may not be true.’
‘Oh, I feel sure it is! Poor sweet, I wish she could have got it off her chest to us, because now I think quite probably she’ll tell Robert Steel.’
‘She mustn’t do that!’ Mary said quickly.
‘No, but I dare say she will,’ said Vicky, accepting it with exasperating nonchalance.
When Mary rejoined Ermyntrude, it was with the intention of reopening the discussion, but Ermyntrude said, still in that unnaturally repressed voice, that the least said the soonest mended. Rather to Mary’s surprise, she soon made it plain that she meant to join the shooting-party for a picnic lunch, just as she had originally planned.
Accordingly, they both set out, a little before one o’clock, in Ermyntrude’s ponderous car, and were driven rather grandly to the appointed rendezvous. Here the men soon joined them, and Ermyntrude’s bitter thoughts were a little distracted by the discovery that the morning’s sport had been enlivened by a slight mishap.
‘In fact, Trudinka, almost we have added our good host’s hat to the bag!’ the Prince said, with a gaiety that failed to lighten the scowl on Steel’s brow, or the look of long-suffering on Wally’s face.
‘Yes, you can laugh,’ Wally said. ‘Very funny for you, I’ve no doubt. Ha-ha!’
‘But what happened?’ asked Mary.
Hugh, to whom her question seemed to be principally addressed, smiled, and shook his head. ‘Not guilty!’
‘Don’t be so absurd! There hasn’t been an accident, has there?’
‘Of course there hasn’t been an accident!’ said Steel testily.
‘Oh no, of course there hasn’t!’ said Wally. ‘I’ve only had a couple of barrels fired at me.’
‘If a man’s fool enough to move from his stand, he’s asking to be shot!’ said Steel.
‘Yes, that’s what you say, and I’ve no doubt you’ll go on saying it however many times I tell you I didn’t do any such thing.’
Dr Chester, a quiet-voiced man of about forty, interposed before Steel could reply. ‘My dear Carter, you must have moved. Why go on arguing about it? Happily, there’s no harm done.’
Wally was greatly offended by this, and demanded to be told whether he could have moved without having been aware of it.
‘Obviously, if you are unaware of it,’ said the doctor calmly. ‘How are you, Mary? Where’s that young baggage, Vicky? Not coming?’
‘No, she’s gone out with Alan White.’ Mary drew him a little away from the group. ‘What really happened, Maurice?’
‘Nothing much. Without wishing to offend you, your cousin is about the most unsafe man on a shoot I’ve ever encountered. Instead of staying where he was posted, he seems to have wandered along the hedge, and nearly got shot.’
‘Who by?’ Mary asked, a vague, unacknowledged fear prompting the sharp question.
The level grey eyes scann
ed her face for one enigmatic moment. ‘Probably by Steel, or Varasashvili. Why?’
‘Oh, no reason!’ Mary said. ‘I only wondered. It sounds just like Wally to drift aimlessly about. He probably didn’t know he was doing it. Is the Prince a good shot?’
‘Yes, very.’
He seemed to be in a more than usually uncommunicative mood. Mary moved away from him to mingle with the rest of the party, and found Wally being voluble on the subject of what seemed, in his mind, to have become a deliberate attack upon him. He threw out so many dark hints about those who would be glad to see him underground that even the Prince’s smile grew to be a little forced, while Steel could only control his rising anger by starting a determined conversation with his hostess.
‘But this, in effect, is ridiculous!’ the Prince said at last. ‘Who should desire your death, my dear Carter?’
‘Ah, that’s the question!’ said Wally mysteriously, ‘Of course, I wouldn’t know! Oh no!’
Hugh, who was frankly enjoying the scene, removed his pipe from his mouth to remark softly to Mary: ‘I call this grand value. What’s eating your impossible relative?’
‘Oh, Hugh, isn’t he dreadful?’ said Mary, in rather despairing accents. ‘I don’t want to sound like Vicky, but things do seem to be getting a bit tense. I suppose he did move from his stand?’
‘Can’t say: I wasn’t near enough to see. Steel and this superb Prince of yours say he did, and they ought to know. Why no Vicky?’
‘She went off with Alan White. You’ll see her tonight.’
‘You sound a little below yourself,’ remarked Hugh. ‘What’s gone wrong?’
‘Nothing, really. Nerves, perhaps. Vicky’s been talking about bottled passions and things, and I’ve caught the infection.’
‘Good Lord! She must be a pretty good menace,’ said Hugh, partly amused and partly scornful.
Ermyntrude, meanwhile, had been subjecting the rest of the party to a searching cross-examination. Wally’s near escape put his misdemeanours temporarily out of her mind. She exclaimed a great deal over the misadventure, but disgusted Wally finally by giving it as her opinion that it had been all his own fault. He became very sarcastic over the affair, and Ermyntrude, who like most persons of limited education, was instantly antagonised by sarcasm, immediately recalled her discovery of Percy Baker’s letter, and let fall some hints on her own account, which were broad enough to make Wally feel seriously alarmed, and the rest of the party extremely uncomfortable. Even Hugh, who was not ordinarily sensitive to atmosphere, suffered from an impression of sitting precariously on the edge of a volcano. The antagonism between Steel and Wally had never been more apparent; while behind the Prince’s invincible smile lurked an expression hard to read, but oddly disquieting. The shooting lunch, to Hugh’s growing comprehension, developed into a duel, not between Wally and his wife’s admirers, but between those two men alone, Steel grimly possessive, the Prince flaunting his exotic charm, half in provocation of his rival, half too dazzle Ermyntrude.