"But how do you ever find out that a waiter has got lumbago?"
"I ask him, of course."
"Well, for goodness' sake," said Freddie, "if you feel the impulse to do that sort of thing to-night, try and restrain it. I mean to say, if you're curious to know anything about Barker's chilblains, for instance, don't enquire after them while he's handing Lady Underhill the potatoes! She wouldn't like it."
Jill uttered an exclamation.
"I knew there was something! Being so cold and wanting to rush in and crouch over a fire put it clean out of my head. He must be thinking me a perfect beast!" She ran to the door. "Barker! Barker!"
Barker appeared from nowhere.
"Yes, miss?"
"I'm so sorry I forgot to ask before. How are your chilblains?"
"A good deal better miss, thank you."
"Did you try the stuff I recommended?"
"Yes, miss. It did them a world of good."
"Splendid!"
Jill went back into the sitting-room.
"It's all right," she said reassuringly. "They're better."
She wandered restlessly about the room, looking at the photographs, then sat down at the piano and touched the keys. The clock on the mantelpiece chimed the half-hour. "I wish to goodness they would arrive," she said.
"They'll be here pretty soon, I expect."
"It's rather awful," said Jill, "to think of Lady Underhill racing all the way from Mentone to Paris and from Paris to Calais and from Calais to Dover and from Dover to London simply to inspect me. You can't wonder I'm nervous, Freddie."
The eye-glass dropped from Freddie's eye.
"Are you nervous?" he asked, astonished.
"Of course I'm nervous. Wouldn't you be in my place?"
"Well, I should never have thought it."
"Why do you suppose I've been talking such a lot? Why do you imagine I snapped your poor, innocent head off just now! I'm terrified inside, terrified!"
"You don't look it, by Jove!"
"No, I'm trying to be a little warrior. That's what Uncle Chris always used to call me. It started the day when he took me to have a tooth out, when I was ten. 'Be a little warrior, Jill!' he kept saying. 'Be a little warrior!' And I was." She looked at the clock. "But I shan't be if they don't get here soon. The suspense is awful." She strummed the keys. "Suppose she doesn't like me, Freddie! You see how you've scared me."
"I didn't say she wouldn't. I only said you'd got to watch out a bit."
"Something tells me she won't. My nerve is oozing out of me." Jill shook her head impatiently. "It's all so vulgar! I thought this sort of thing only happened in the comic papers and in music-hall songs. Why, it's just like that song somebody used to sing." She laughed. "Do you remember? I don't know how the verse went, but ...
John took me round to see his mother, his mother, his mother! And when he'd introduced us to each other, She sized up everything that I had on. She put me through a cross-examination: I fairly boiled with aggravation: Then she shook her head, Looked at me and said: 'Poor John! Poor John!'
Chorus, Freddie! Let's cheer ourselves up! We need it!"
John took me round to see his mother...!
"His m-o-o-other!" croaked Freddie. Curiously enough, this ballad was one of Freddie's favourites. He had rendered it with a good deal of success on three separate occasions at village entertainments down in Worcestershire, and he rather flattered himself that he could get about as much out of it as the next man. He proceeded to abet Jill heartily with gruff sounds which he was under the impression constituted what is known in musical circles as "singing seconds."
"His mo-o-other!" he growled with frightful scorn.
"And when he'd introduced us to each other...."
"O-o-o-other!"
"She sized up everything that I had on!"
"Pom-pom-pom!"
"She put me through a cross-examination...."
Jill had thrown her head back, and was singing jubilantly at the top of her voice. The appositeness of the song had cheered her up. It seemed somehow to make her forebodings rather ridiculous, to reduce them to absurdity, to turn into farce the gathering tragedy which had been weighing upon her nerves.
Then she shook her head, Looked at me and said: 'Poor John!'....
"Jill," said a voice at the door. "I want you to meet my mother!"
"Poo-oo-oor John!" bleated the hapless Freddie, unable to check himself.
"Dinner," said Barker the valet, appearing at the door and breaking a silence that seemed to fill the room like a tangible presence, "is served!"
CHAPTER II
THE FIRST NIGHT AT THE LEICESTER
I
The front-door closed softly behind the theatre-party. Dinner was over, and Barker had just been assisting the expedition out of the place. Sensitive to atmosphere, he had found his share in the dinner a little trying. It had been a strained meal, and what he liked was a clatter of conversation and everybody having a good time and enjoying themselves.
"Ellen!" called Barker, as he proceeded down the passage to the empty dining-room. "Ellen!"
Mrs. Barker appeared out of the kitchen, wiping her hands. Her work for the evening, like her husband's, was over. Presently what is technically called a "useful girl" would come in to wash up the dishes, leaving the evening free for social intercourse. Mrs. Barker had done well by her patrons that night, and now she wanted a quiet chat with Barker over a glass of Freddie Rooke's port.
"Have they gone, Horace?" she asked, following him into the dining-room.
Barker selected a cigar from Freddie's humidor, crackled it against his ear, smelt it, clipped off the end, and lit it. He took the decanter and filled his wife's glass, then mixed himself a whisky-and-soda.
"Happy days!" said Barker. "Yes, they've gone!"
"I didn't see her ladyship."
"You didn't miss much! A nasty, dangerous specimen, she is! 'Always merry and bright,' I don't think. I wish you'd have had my job of waiting on 'em, Ellen, and me been the one to stay in the kitchen safe out of it all. That's all I say! It's no treat to me to 'and the dishes when the atmosphere's what you might call electric. I didn't envy them that vol-au-vent of yours, Ellen, good as it smelt. Better a dinner of 'erbs where love is than a stalled ox and 'atred therewith," said Barker, helping himself to a walnut.
"Did they have words?"
Barker shook his head impatiently.
"That sort don't have words, Ellen. They just sit and goggle."
"How did her ladyship seem to hit it off with Miss Mariner, Horace?"
Barker uttered a dry laugh.
"Ever seen a couple of strange dogs watching each other sort of wary? That was them! Not that Miss Mariner wasn't all that was pleasant and nice-spoken. She's all right, Miss Mariner is. She's a little queen. It wasn't her fault the dinner you'd took so much trouble over was more like an evening in the Morgue than a Christian dinner-party. She tried to help things along best she could. But what with Sir Derek chewing his lip 'alf the time and his mother acting about as matey as a pennorth of ice-cream, she didn't have a chance. As for the guv'nor—well, I wish you could have seen him, that's all. You know, Ellen, sometimes I'm not altogether easy in my mind about the guv'nor's mental balance. He knows how to buy cigars, and you tell me his port is good—I never touch it myself—but sometimes he seems to me to go right off his onion. Just sat there, he did, all through dinner, looking as if he expected the good food to rise up and bite him in the face, and jumping nervous when I spoke to him. It's not my fault," said Barker, aggrieved. "I can't give gentlemen warning before I ask 'em if they'll have sherry or hock. I can't ring a bell or toot a horn to show 'em I'm coming. It's my place to bend over and whisper in their ear, and they've no right to leap about in their seats and make me spill good wine. (You'll see the spot close by where you're sitting, Ellen. Jogged my wrist, he did!) I'd like to know why people in the spear of life which these people are in can't behave themselves rational, same as we do. When we were walking out and I took you to have tea with my mother, it was one of the pleasantest meals I ever ate. Talk about 'armony! It was a love-feast!"