“Oh, yes,” he said fretfully. “The office-place is being tatted up. I’ve brought my dreary work with me. But The Birthday! How abysmally depressing! Darling Milly, I don’t think, really, that I can face another Birthday.”
“Don’t be naughty,” said Millamant in her gruff voice.
“Let’s have another drink,” said Paul loudly.
“Is somebody talking about drink?” cried a disembodied voice in the minstrels’ gallery “Goody! Goody! Goody!”
“Oh, God!” Cedric whispered. “Sonia!”
iii
It had grown dark in the hall, and Troy’s first impression of Miss Sonia Orrincourt was of a whitish apparition that fluttered down the stairs from the far side of the gallery. Her progress was accompanied by a number of chirruping noises. As she reached the hall and crossed it, Troy saw that she wore a garment which even in the second act of a musical extravaganza would still have been remarkable. Troy supposed it was a négligée.
“Well, for heaven’s sake,” squeaked Miss Orrincourt, “look who’s here! Ceddie!” She held out both her hands and Cedric took them.
“You look too marvellous, Sonia,” he cried. “Where did it come from?”
“Darling, it’s a million years old. Oh, pardon me,” said Miss Orrincourt, inclining towards Troy, “I didn’t see—”
Millamant stonily introduced her. Fenella and Paul having moved away from the sofa, Miss Orrincourt sank into it. She extended her arms and wriggled her fingers. “Quick! Quick! Quick!” she cried babyishly. “Sonia wants a d’ink.”
Her hair was almost white. It fell in a fringe across her forehead and in a silk curtain to her shoulders, and reminded Troy vaguely of the inside of an aquarium. Her eyes were as round as saucers, with curving black lashes. When she smiled, her short upper lip flattened, the corners of her mouth turned down, and the shadow of grooves-to-come ran away to her chin. Her skin was white and thick like the petals of a camellia. She was a startling young woman to look at, and she made Troy feel exceedingly dumb.
“But she’d probably be pretty good to paint in the nude,” she reflected. “I wonder if she’s ever been a model. She looks like it.”
Miss Orrincourt and Cedric were conducting an extraordinarily unreal little conversation. Fenella and Paul had moved away, and Troy was left with Millamant Ancred, who began to talk about the difficulties of housekeeping. As she talked, she stitched at an enormous piece of embroidery, which hypnotised Troy by its monstrous colour scheme and tortuous design. Intricate worms and scrolls strangled each other in Millamant’s fancy work. No area was left undecorated, no motive was uninterrupted. At times she would pause and eye it with complacency. Her voice was monotonous.
“I suppose I’m lucky,” she said. “I’ve got a cook and five maids and Barker, but they’re all very old and have been collected from different branches of the family. My sister-in-law, Pauline, Mrs. Claude Ancred, you know, gave up her own house in the evacuation time and has recently joined us with two of her maids. Desdemona did the same thing, and she makes Ancreton her headquarters now. She brought her old Nanny. Barker and the others have always been with us. But even with the West Wing turned into a school it’s difficult. In the old days of course,” said Millamant with a certain air of complacency, “there was a swarm.”
“Do they get on together?” Troy asked vaguely. She was watching Cedric and Miss Orrincourt. Evidently he had decided to adopt ingratiating tactics, and a lively but completely synthetic flirtation had developed. They whispered together.
“Oh, no,” Millamant was saying. “They fight.” And most unexpectedly she added: “Like master like man, they say, don’t they?” Troy looked at her. She was smiling broadly and blankly. It is a characteristic of these people, Troy reflected, that they constantly make remarks to which there is no answer.
Pauline Ancred came in and joined her son and Fenella. She did this with a certain air of determination, and the smile she gave Fenella was a dismissal. “Darling,” she said to Paul, “I’ve been looking for you.” Fenella at once moved away. Pauline, using a gesture that was Congrevian in its accomplishment, raised a pair of lorgnettes and stared through them at Miss Orrincourt, who now reclined at full length on the sofa. Cedric was perched on the arm at her feet.
“I’ll get you a chair, Mother,” said Paul hastily.
“Thank you, dear,” she said, exchanging a glance with her sister-in-law. “I should like to sit down. No, please, Mrs. Alleyn, don’t move. So sweet of you. Thank you, Paul.”
“Noddy and I,” said Miss Orrincourt brightly, “have been having such fun. We’ve been looking at some of that old jewellery.” She stretched her arms above her head and yawned delicately.
“Noddy!” Troy wondered. “But who is Noddy?” Miss Orrincourt’s remark was followed by a rather deadly little pause. “He’s all burnt up about having his picture taken,” Miss Orrincourt added. “Isn’t it killing?”
Pauline Ancred, with a dignified shifting of her torso, brought her sister-in-law into her field of vision. “Have you seen Papa this afternoon, Millamant?” she asked, not quite cordially, but with an air of joining forces against a common enemy.
“I went up as usual at four o’clock,” Millamant rejoined, “to see if there was anything I could do for him.” She glanced at Miss Orrincourt. “He was engaged, however.”
“T’uh!” said Pauline lightly, and she began to revolve her thumbs one around the other. Millamant gave the merest sketch of a significant laugh and turned to Troy.
“We don’t quite know,” she said cheerfully, “if Thomas explained about my father-in-law’s portrait. He wishes to be painted in his own little theatre here. The backcloth has been hung and Paul knows about the lights. Papa would like to begin at eleven tomorrow morning, and if he is feeling up to it he will sit for an hour every morning and afternoon.”
“I thought,” said Miss Orrincourt, “it would be ever so thrilling if Noddy was on a horse in the picture.”
“Sir Henry,” said Millamant, without looking at her, “will, of course, have decided on the pose.”
“But Aunt Milly,” said Paul, very red in the face, “Mrs. Alleyn might like — I mean — don’t you think—”
“Yes, Aunt Milly,” said Fenella.
“Yes, indeed, Milly,” said Cedric. “I so agree. Please, please Milly and Aunt Pauline, and please Sonia, angel, do consider that Mrs. Alleyn is the one to — oh, my goodness,” Cedric implored them, “pray do consider.”
“I shall be very interested,” said Troy, “to hear about Sir Henry’s plans.”
“That,” said Pauline, “will be very nice. I forgot to tell you, Millamant, that I heard from Dessy. She’s coming for The Birthday.”
“I’m glad you let me know,” said Millamant, looking rather put out.
“And so’s Mummy, Aunt Milly,” said Fenella. “I forgot to say.”
“Well,” said Millamant, with a short laugh, “I am learning about things, aren’t I?”
“Jenetta coming? Fancy!” said Pauline. “It must be two years since Jenetta was at Ancreton. I hope she’ll be able to put up with our rough and ready ways.”
“Considering she’s been living in a two-roomed flat,” Fenella began rather hotly and checked herself. “She asked me to say she hoped it wouldn’t be too many.”
“I’ll move out of Bernhardt into Bracegirdle,” Pauline offered. “Of course.”
“You’ll do nothing of the sort, Pauline,” said Millamant. “Bracegirdle is piercingly cold, the ceiling leaks, and there are rats. Desdemona complained bitterly about the rats last time she was here. I asked Barker to lay poison for them, but he’s lost the poison. Until he finds it, Bracegirdle is uninhabitable.”