“Evelyn!” cried Lady Alleyn. “Come and sit down, my dear, in all your triumph. My granddaughter has just told me this is the very pinnacle of all balls. Everybody is saying so.”
“I’m so thankful. It’s such a toss-up nowadays. One never knows.”
“Of course one doesn’t. Last Tuesday at the Gainscotts’ by one o’clock there were only the three Gainscott girls, a few desperate couples who hadn’t the heart to escape, and my Sarah and her partner whom I had kept there by sheer terrorism. Of course, they didn’t have Dimitri, and I must say I think he is a perfect magician. Dear me,” said Lady Alleyn, “I am enjoying myself.”
“I’m so glad.”
“I hope you are enjoying yourself, too, Evelyn. They say the secret of being a good hostess is to enjoy yourself at your own parties. I have never believed it. Mine always were a nightmare to me and I refuse to admit they were failures. But they are so exhausting. I suppose you wouldn’t come down to Danes Court with me and turn yourself into an amiable cow for the week-end?”
“Oh,” said Lady Carrados, “I wish I could.”
“Do.”
“That’s what Sir Daniel Davidson said I should do — lead the life of a placid cow for a bit.”
“It’s settled, then.”
“But—”
“Nonsense. There is Davidson, isn’t it? That dark flamboyant-looking man talking to Lucy Lorrimer. On my left.”
“Yes.”
“Is he clever? Everyone seems to go to him. I might show him my leg one of these days. If you don’t promise to come, Evelyn, I shall call him over here and make a scene. Here comes Bunchy Gospell,” continued Lady Alleyn with a quick glance at her hostess’s trembling fingers, “and I feel sure he’s going to ask you to sup with him. Why, if that isn’t Agatha Troy with him!”
“The painter?” said Lady Carrados faintly. “Yes. Bridgie knows her. She’s going to paint Bridgie.”
“She did a sketch portrait of my son Roderick. It’s amazingly good.”
Lord Robert, looking, with so large an expanse of white under his chin, rather like Mr Pickwick, came beaming towards them with Troy at his side. Lady Alleyn held out her hand and drew Troy down to a stool beside her. She looked at the short dark hair, the long neck and the spare grace that was Troy’s and wished, not for the first time, that it was her daughter-in-law that sat at her feet. Troy was the very wife she would have chosen for her son, and, so she believed, the wife that he would have chosen for himself. She rubbed her nose vexedly. “If it hadn’t been for that wretched case!” she thought. And she said:
“I’m so pleased to see you, my dear. I hear the exhibition is the greatest success.”
Troy gave her a sideways smile.
“I wonder,” continued Lady Alleyn, “which of us is the most surprised at seeing the other. I have bounced out of retirement to launch my granddaughter.”
“I was brought by Bunchy Gospell,” said Troy. “I’m so seldom smart and gay that I’m rather enjoying it.”
“Roderick had actually consented to come but he’s got a tricky case on his hands and has to go away again tomorrow at the crack of dawn.”
“Oh,” said Troy.
Lord Robert began to talk excitedly to Lady Carrados.
“Gorgeous!” he cried, pitching his voice very high in order to top the band which had suddenly begun to make a terrific din. “Gorgeous, Evelyn! Haven’t enjoyed anything — ages — superb!” He bent his knees and placed his face rather close to Lady Carrados’s. “Supper!” he squeaked. “Do say you will! In half an hour or so. Will you?”
She smiled and nodded. He sat down between Lady Carrados and Lady Alleyn and gave them each a little pat. His hand alighted on Lady Carrados’s bag. She moved it quickly. He was beaming out into the ballroom and seemed lost in a mild ecstasy.
“Champagne!” he said. “Can’t beat it! I’m not inebriated, my dears, but I am, I proudly confess, a little exalted. What I believe is nowadays called nicely thank you. How-de-do? Gorgeous, ain’t it?”
General and Mrs Halcut-Hackett bowed. Their smiling lips moved in a soundless assent. They sat down between Lady Alleyn and Sir Daniel Davidson and his partner, Lady Lorrimer.
Lucy, Dowager Marchioness of Lorrimer, was a woman of eighty. She dressed almost entirely in veils and untidy jewellery. She was enormously rich and not a little eccentric. Sir Daniel attended to her lumbago. She was now talking to him earnestly and confusedly and he listened with an air of enraptured attention. Lord Robert turned with a small bounce and made two bobs in their direction.
“There’s Davidson,” he said delightedly, “and Lucy Lorrimer. How are you, Lucy?”
“What?” shouted Lucy Lorrimer.
“How are yer?”
“Busy. I thought you were in Australia.”
“Why?”
“What?”
“Why?”
“Don’t interrupt,” shouted Lucy Lorrimer. “I’m talking.”
“Never been there,” said Lord Robert; “the woman’s mad.”
The Halcut-Hacketts smiled uncomfortably. Lucy Lorrimer leant across Davidson and bawled: “Don’t forget tomorrow night!”
“Who? Me?” asked Lord Robert. “Of course not.”
“Eight-thirty sharp.”
“I know. Though how you could think I was in Australia—”
“I didn’t see it was you,” screamed Lucy Lorrimer. “Don’t forget now.” The band stopped as abruptly as it had begun and her voice rang out piercingly. “It wouldn’t be the first night you had disappointed me.”
She leant back chuckling and fanning herself. Lord Robert took the rest of the party in with a comical glance.
“Honestly, Lucy!” said Lady Alleyn.
“He’s the most absent-minded creature in the world,” added Lucy Lorrimer.
“Now to that,” said Lord Robert, “I do take exception. I am above all things a creature of habit, upon my honour. I could tell you, if it wasn’t a very boring sort of story, exactly to the minute what I shall do with myself tomorrow evening and how I shall ensure my punctual arrival at Lucy Lorrimer’s party.”
“Suddenly remember it at a quarter to nine and take a cab,” said Lucy Lorrimer.
“Not a bit of it.”
Mrs Halcut-Hackett suddenly joined in the conversation.
“I can vouch for Lord Robert’s punctuality,” she said loudly. “He always keeps his appointments.” She laughed a little too shrilly and for some unaccountable reason created an uncomfortable atmosphere. Lady Alleyn glanced sharply at her. Lucy Lorrimer stopped short in the middle of a hopelessly involved sentence; Davidson put up his glass and stared. General Halcut-Hackett said, “What!” loudly and uneasily. Lord Robert examined his fat little hands with an air of complacent astonishment. The inexplicable tension was relieved by the arrival of Sir Herbert Carrados with the plain protégée of the Halcut-Hacketts. She held her long chiffon handkerchief to her face and she looked a little desperately at her chaperone. Carrados who had her by the elbow was the very picture of British chivalry.
“A casualty!” he said archly. “Mrs Halcut-Hackett, I’m afraid you are going to be very angry with me!”