Albert Wilson voluntarily quarantined himself from his wife’s embrace when he had been abroad rubbing shoulders with the multitude and Ina, sitting all alone and very frosty-looking with the three of us facing her across twelve feet of gleaming floor, put one firmly in mind of one of those cross Hanoverian consorts holding reluctant court. It was hard to resist the idea that Lord Robin’s friendliness was designed only to annoy her even more.
‘It’s a joy to see you looking so well, Mrs Wilson,’ he said. ‘Quite an improvement.’
‘I didn’t know you knew one another,’ I said and immediately flushed; from whichever angle one looked at this remark it was a dropped brick. First of all, it was none of my business who knew whom, especially when I was sitting in the house of one of the parties, drinking their tea, and even I – no diplomat – should know better than to chip in when a well-known rake and seducer was teasing a married woman in front of her husband with an acquaintanceship she would clearly rather ignore. And speaking of the husband it was hardly polite to draw attention to his lowly rank by wondering aloud how his wife and the exalted guest could ever have crossed paths. On this last score, however, I need not have worried. Far from being offended, Albert Wilson was pleased to have the chance to explain.
‘Oh, certainly we all know each other, my dear… ahem,’ he said. ‘I couldn’t count on the fingers of my two hands the number of balls and parties we’ve been at with Lord Robin.’
In other words, Albert Wilson had glimpsed the back of Robin Laurie’s head a few times at the kind of large public levees and garden parties out of which the one could not always wriggle and into which the other, with good works, hefty donations and sheer persistence, had somehow scrambled himself. Perhaps at one of these gatherings Robin’s eye had happened to fall upon Ina and he had amused himself in the usual way. With a shudder I recalled a friend whose daughter had had her heart broken by Robin years ago chuckling most unmaternally about – as she put it – the scamp. This was far worse even than a ‘bad boy’; to describe even a puppy as a ‘scamp’ was cloying.
‘Then we found ourselves sitting in the same first-class carriage today,’ Wilson went on.
‘And of course Albert was in the mood for a chinwag,’ said Lord Robin. He was smiling at Wilson but I could not ignore the little tickle of mischief behind his words, and Ina’s face clouded more than ever. ‘When he found out I was on my way home to Buckie he told me all about what kind of weather you’ve been having and the forecast for Christmas – it sounds shocking, I must say – and asked after my family and friends most solicitously.’
Albert Wilson beamed.
‘And then of course I told our news, my love,’ he said. ‘I told Lord Robin we had a circus come to stay and nothing would do except he changed at Perth with me and came to see it.’ So happy was he in the triumph of snagging Robin Laurie he did not seem to be troubled by how unlikely this was.
‘You’re a great enthusiast for the circus then?’ I asked Robin.
‘Well, I was changing anyway,’ he said. ‘But, yes, I’m a fan of the absurd.’ He took care to include both Wilsons in his gaze as he spoke. ‘The outlandish, the exotic, the extreme.’
‘Not that Cooke’s Circus is that kind of outfit,’ said Albert Wilson. Something of Robin’s tone seemed, finally, to have penetrated his happy haze. ‘There are no freaks or bearded ladies.’ His smile was reasserting itself again. ‘No, I just told Lord Robin all about Ma and Pa and about Tiny Truman and Big Bad Bill Wolf, and the lovely little Topsy and Anastasia, of course.’
‘What,’ asked Laurie, ‘could be more charming?’
Was it perhaps the lovely little Topsy and Anastasia, then, who were the draw? Would Robin Laurie change trains and suffer the present company (as he would see it) for the chance to meet young ladies of certain beauty and possible easy virtue who might be bored already, camped in the woods? As unlikely as that might sound, it was the most sensible thought I had had yet.
‘So I think I shall saunter down there and have a peek after tea,’ said Laurie, sitting back in his seat and crossing his ankles with studied languor. He drew out his case and selected a cigarette but, before he could light it, Albert Wilson spoke up. At last, the guiding principle of his existence had got out from under his awe and was back at the tiller again.
‘No cigarettes in the house, Lord Robin, I implore you,’ he said. ‘My poor dear wife’s chest will not stand it, you know.’
‘Albert,’ said Ina mildly, although whether she was chiding him for officiousness or for dropping her chest into the conversation as though it were a blameless elbow I could not say.
‘As I explained to you on the train…’ Wilson went on, ignoring her, but Lord Robin was already snapping his case shut and sitting up straight, the picture of remorse.
‘Of course, of course,’ he said. ‘I cannot apologise enough for my thoughtlessness.’
‘I must seem a proper old fuss-budget, I know,’ said Albert, wavering again now that the point was won.
‘Far from it, my dear chap,’ said Lord Robin, looking solemn. ‘The well-being of Mrs Wilson is no less precious in my eyes than in yours. Why, if only we all had your tenderness and vigilance, think of the tragedies which might have been prevented. So, very far from it, my dear chap, not at all.’
Possibly, I thought to myself on the drive home, that was just more silliness and cheek, but there was a faint memory stirring somewhere. Was there some special reason that Albert Wilson had asked after Robin’s family? I have no taste for gossip and can never remember it in any detail, but thankfully there was a far more reliable recorder available at home.
‘Hugh,’ I said, ‘you’ll never guess who I met up with today at the Wilsons’.’ Hugh stared back at me. He never would guess; he would not even play I-spy with the children when they were small. ‘Robin Laurie of all people. On his way home.’
‘Vulture,’ said Hugh, which was a pretty clear indication that he must know something.
‘Now tell me,’ I went on, ‘what was the tale? I seem to have forgotten.’
‘Any number of tales,’ said Hugh, ‘none of them fit for your ears.’ He looked mournfully at the table beside his chair where a stack of papers was sitting. He would far rather pore over them than chat to me but the tea-table had still been out when I got back and I had sat down and had a biscuit, and now – according to our house rules – he was stuck with it.
‘No, not a conquest,’ I said. ‘I mean the story about his family.’
‘Nothing to tell,’ said Hugh. ‘Absolutely impeccable pedigree – unlike those Wilsons and, I must say, your taste in companions fails to improve with age.’
‘Wasn’t there some illness or something?’
‘Some illness?’ echoed Hugh. ‘My God, Dandy, one wouldn’t welcome an hysteric in one’s home, but sometimes your callousness knows no bounds.’ I refused to rise to this and eventually he went on. ‘Yes, there was “some illness”. Robin is the younger son, as you know, and Buckie – the elder – married that American girl for her millions. Very practical too. She was a Ramsay but not one of the Ramsays and to give him his due he never pretended that she was. Anyway she, having knuckled down to filling cradles, caught influenza in ’18 and died along with her children. A fair batch of them, as I recall.’