“Nicholas,” said Mandrake. “Of course, Nicholas.”
“Of course,” said Jonathan, and if he felt any disappointment he did not show it. “She dotes on Nicholas and takes William for granted. She’s spoilt Nicholas quite hopelessly from the day he was born. William went off to prep-school and Eton; Nick, if you please, was pronounced delicate, and led a series of tutors a fine dance until his mother decided he was old enough for the Grand Tour and sent him off with a bear-leader like some young Regency lordling. If she could have cut William out of the entail I promise you she’d have done it. As it is she can do nothing. William comes in for the whole packet, and Nick, like the hero of Victorian romance, must fend for himself. This, I believe, his mother fiercely resents. When war came, she moved heaven and earth to find a safe job for Nicholas and took it in her stride when William’s regiment went to the front. Nick has got some departmental job in Great Chipping. Looks very smart in uniform, and his duties seem to take him up to London pretty often. William, at the moment, as I have told you, is spending his leave with his Mama. The brothers haven’t met for some time.”
“Do they get on well?”
“No. Remember the necessary element of antagonism, Aubrey. It appears, splendidly to the fore, in the Compline family. William is engaged to Nicholas’ ex-fiancée.”
“Really? Well done, William.”
“I need scarcely tell you that the lady is the next of my characters, the ingénue in fact. She will arrive with William and his Mama, who detests her.”
“Honestly, my dear Jonathan—”
“She is a Miss Chloris Wynne. One of the white-haired kind.”
“A platinum blonde?”
“The colour of a light Chablis, and done up in plaster-like sausages. She resembles the chorus of my youth. I’m told that nowadays the chorus looks like the county. I find her appearance startling and her conversation difficult, but I have watched her with interest and I have formed the opinion that she is a very neat example of the woman scorned.”
“Did Nicholas scorn her?”
“Nicholas wished to marry her, but being in the habit of eating his cake in enormous mouthfuls, and keeping it, he did not allow his engagement to Miss Chloris to cramp his style as an accomplished philanderer. He continued to philander with the fifth item in our cast of characters — Madam Lisse.”
“Oh God!”
“More in anger than in sorrow, if Sandra Compline is to be believed, Miss Chloris broke off her engagement to Nicholas. After an interval so short that one suspects she acted on the ricochet, she accepted William who had previously courted her and been cut out by his brother. My private opinion is that when William returns to the front, Nicholas is quite capable of recapturing the lady, and what’s more I think she and William both know it. Nicholas and William had quarrelled in the best tradition of rival brothers and, as I say, have not met since the second engagement. I need not tell you that Mrs. Compline and William and his betrothed do not know I have invited Nicholas, nor does Nicholas know I have invited them. He knows, however, that Madam Lisse will be here. That, of course, is why he has accepted.”
“Go on,” said Mandrake, driving his fingers through his hair.
“Madame Lisse, the ambiguous and alluring woman of our cast, is an Austrian beauty specialist. I don’t suppose Lisse is her real name. She was among the earliest of the refugees, obtained naturalization papers, and established a salon at Great Chipping. She had letters to the Jerninghams at Pen Cuckoo, and to one or two other people in the county. Dinah Copeland at the rectory rather took her up. So, as you have gathered, did Nicholas Compline. She is markedly a dasher. Dark auburn hair, magnolia complexion, and eyes — whew! Very quiet and composed, but undoubtedly a dasher. Everybody got rather excited about Madame Lisse— everybody, that is, with the exception of my distant cousin Lady Hersey Amblington, who will arrive for dinner tomorrow evening.”
The spectacles glinted in Mandrake’s direction but he merely waved his hands.
“Hersey,” said Jonathan, “as you may know, is also a beauty specialist. She took it up when her husband died and left her almost penniless. She did the thing thoroughly and, being a courageous and capable creature, made a success of it. The mysteries of what I believe is called ‘beauty culture’ are as a sealed book to me but I understand that all the best complexions and coiffures of Great Chipping and the surrounding districts were, until the arrival of Madame Lisse, Hersey’s particular property. Madame Lisse immediately began to knock spots out of Hersey. Not, as Hersey explained, that she now has fewer customers, but that they are not quite so smart. The smart clientele has, with the exception of a faithful few, gone over to the enemy. Hersey considers that Madame used unscrupulous methods and always alludes to her as ‘the Pirate.’ You haven’t met my distant cousin, Hersey?”
“No.”
“No. She has her own somewhat direct methods of warfare, and I understand that she called on Madame Lisse with the intention of giving her fits. I’m afraid Hersey came off rather the worse in this encounter. Hersey is an old friend of the Complines and, as you may imagine, was not at all delighted by Nicholas’ attentions to her rival. So you see she is linked up in an extremely satisfactory manner to both sides. I have really been extraordinarily fortunate,” said Jonathan, rubbing his hands. “Nothing could be neater. And Dr. Hart fills out the cast to perfection. The ‘heavy,’ I think, is the professional term for his part.”
“Dr…?”
“Hart. The seventh and last character. He, too, is of foreign extraction, though he became a naturalized Briton sometime after the last war. I fancy he is a Viennese, though whether I deduce this conclusion subconsciously from his profession I cannot tell you.” Jonathan chuckled again and finished his sherry.
“What, in heaven’s name, is his profession?”
“My dear Aubrey,” said Jonathan, “he is a plastic surgeon. A beauty specialist par excellence. The male of the species.”
“It seems to me,” said Mandrake, “that you have invited stark murder to your house. Frankly, I can imagine nothing more terrifying than the prospect of this week-end. What do you propose to do with them?”
“Let them enact their drama.”
“It will more probably resemble some disastrous vaudeville show.”
“With myself as compère. Quite possibly.”
“My dear Jonathan, you will have no performance. The actors will either sulk in their dressing-rooms or leave the theatre.”
“That is where we come in.”
“We! I assure you—”
“It is where I come in, then. May I, without exhibiting too much complacency, claim that if I have a talent it lies in the direction of hospitality?”
“Certainly. You are a wonderful host.”
“Thank you,” said Jonathan, beaming at his guest. “It delights me to hear you say so. Now, in this party, I have set myself, I freely admit, a stiff task.”
“I’m glad you realize it,” said Mandrake. “The list of opposites is positively ghastly. I don’t know if I have altogether followed you, but it appears that you hope to reconcile a rejected lover both to his successor and to his late love; a business woman to her detested rival; a ruined beauty to an exponent of the profession that made an effigy of her face, and a mother to a prospective daughter-in-law who has rejected her favourite son for his brother.”
“There is another permutation that you have not yet heard. Local gossip rings with rumours of some secret understanding between Dr. Hart and Madame Lisse. It appears that Madame recommends Dr. Hart’s surgery to those of her clients who have passed the stage when Lisse creams and all the rest of it can improve their aging faces.”