Black Mischief (10 page)

‘Oh, of
course if he thinks that by lending me a’ few pounds he’s setting himself up
for life as a good fellow …‘

In the days when Sir
Christopher was Chief Whip, Lady Seal had entertained frequently and with
relish. Now, in her widowhood, with Barbara successfully married and her sons
dispersed, she limited herself to four or five dinner parties every year. There
was nothing elastic or informal about these occasions. Lady Metroland was a
comparatively rich woman and it was her habit when she was tired to say
casually to her butler at cocktail time, ‘I am not going out tonight. There
will be about twenty to dinner,’ and then to sit down to the telephone and
invite her guests, saying to each, ‘Oh, but you
must
chuck them tonight.
I’m all alone and feeling like death.’ Not so Lady Seal, who dispatched
engraved cards of invitation a month in advance, supplied defections from a
secondary list one week later, fidgeted with place cards and a leather board as
soon as the acceptances began to arrive, borrowed her sister’s chef and her
daughter’s footmen and on the morning of the party exhausted herself utterly by
trotting all over her house in Lowndes Square arranging flowers. Then at
half-past five when she was satisfied that all was ready she would retire to
bed and doze for two hours in her darkened room; her maid would call her with
cachet Faivre and clear China tea; a touch of ammonia in the bath; a touch of
rouge on the cheeks; lavender water behind the ears; half an hour before the
glass, fiddling with her jewel case while her hair was being done; final
conference with the butler; then a happy smile in the drawing-room for all who
were less than twenty minutes late. The menu always included lobster cream,
saddle of mutton and brown-bread ice, and there were silver-gilt dishes ranged
down the table holding a special kind of bonbon supplied to Lady Seal for
twenty years by a little French shop whose name she would sometimes coyly
disclose.

Basil
arrived among the first guests. There was carpet on the steps; the doors opened
with unusual promptness; the hall seemed full of chrysanthemums and footmen.

‘Hullo,
her ladyship got a party? I forgot all about it. I’d better change.’

‘Frank
couldn’t find your evening clothes, Mr Basil. I don’t think you can have
brought them back last time you went away. I don’t think her Ladyship is
expecting you to dinner.’

‘Anyone
asked for me?’

‘There
were
two persons, sir.’

‘Duns?’

‘I
couldn’t say, sir. I told them that we had no information about your
whereabouts.’

‘Quite
right.’

‘Mrs
Lyne rang up fifteen times, sir. She left no message.’

‘
If anyone else wants me, tell them I’ve gone to Azania.’

‘Sir?’

‘Azania.’

‘Abroad?’

‘Yes,
if you like.’

‘Excuse
me, Mr Basil….’

The
Duke and Duchess of Stayle had arrived. The Duchess said, ‘So you are not
dining with us tonight. You young men are all so busy nowadays. No time for
going out. I hear things are going very well up in your constituency.’ She was
often behindhand with her news. As they went up the Duke said, ‘Clever young
fellow that. Wonder if he’ll ever come to anything though.’

Basil went
into the dark little study next to the front door and rang up the Trumpingtons.

‘Sonia,
are you and Alastair doing anything tonight?’

‘We’re
at home. Basil, what have you been doing to Alastair? I’m furious with you. I
think he’s going to die.’

‘We had
rather a racket. Shall I come to dinner?’

‘Yes, do.
We’re in bed.’

He
drove to Montagu Square and was shown up to their room. They lay in a vast, low
bed, with a backgammon board between them. Each had a separate telephone, on
the tables at the side, and by the telephone a goblet of ‘black velvet’. A bull
terrier and chow flirted on their feet. There were other people in the room:
one playing the gramophone, one reading, one trying Sonia’s face things at the
dressing-table. Sonia said, ‘It’s such a waste not going out after dark. We
have to stay in all day because of duns.’

Alastair
said, ‘We can’t have dinner with these infernal dogs all over the place.’

Sonia:
‘You’re a cheerful chap to be in bed with, aren’t you?’ and to the dog, ‘Was oo
called infernal woggie by owid man? Oh God, he’s made a mess again.’

Alastair:
‘Are those chaps staying to dinner?’

‘We
asked one.’

‘
Which?’

‘Basil.’

‘Don’t
mind him, but all those others.’

‘I do
hope not.’

They
said: ‘Afraid we’ll have to. It’s so late to go anywhere else.’

Basil: ‘How
dirty the bed is, Sonia.’

‘I
know. It’s Alastair’s dog. Anyway, you’re a nice one to talk about dirt.’

‘Isn’t
London hell?’

Alastair:
‘I don’t, anyway, see why those chaps shouldn’t have dinner downstairs.’

They
said: ‘It
would
be more comfortable.’

‘What
are their names?’

‘One we
picked up last night. The other has been staying here for days.’

‘It’s
not only the expense I mind. They’re boring.’ They said: ‘We wouldn’t stay a
moment if we had anywhere else to go.’

‘Ring
for dinner, sweet. I forget what there is, but I know it’s rather good. I
ordered it myself.’

There
was whitebait, grilled kidneys and toasted cheese. Basil sat between them on
the bed and they ate from their knees. Sonia threw a kidney to the dogs and
they began ‘a fight.

Alastair:
‘It’s no good. I can’t eat anything.’ Sonia’s maid brought in the trays. She
asked her: ‘How are the gentlemen getting on downstairs?’

‘They
asked for champagne.’

‘I
suppose they’d better have it. It’s very bad.’

Alastair:
‘It’s very good.’

‘Well it
tasted awful to me. Basil, sweety, what’s your news?’

‘I’m
going to Azania.’

‘Can’t
say I know much about that. Is it far?’

‘Yes.’

‘Fun?’

‘Yes.’

‘Oh, Alastair,
why not us too?’

‘Hell,
now those dogs have upset everything again.’

‘How
pompous you’re being.’

After
dinner they all played happy families. ‘Have you got Miss Chips the Carpenter’s
daughter?’

‘Not
at home
but have
you
got Mr Chips the
Carpenter?
Thank you and
Mrs Chips the Carpenter’s wife?
Thank you
and
Basil have
you
got Miss Chips?
Thank you.
That’s the Chips
family.’

Basil
left early so as to see his mother before she went to bed.

Sonia
said, ‘Good-bye, darling. Write to me from where-ever it is. Only I don’t
expect we’ll be living here much longer.’

One of
the young men said: ‘Could you lend me a flyer? I’ve a date at the Café de
Paris.’

‘No,
you’d better ask Sonia.’

‘But
it’s so boring. I’m
always
borrowing money from
her.’

In the course of the
evening Lady Seal had found time to touch her old friend Sir Joseph Mannering
on the sleeve and say, ‘Don’t go at once, Jo. I’d like to talk to you afterwards.’
As the last guests left he came across to the fireplace, hands behind his
coat-tails and on his face an expression of wisdom, discretion, sympathy,
experience and contentment. He was a self-assured old booby who in the easy and
dignified role of family friend was invoked to aggravate most of the awkward
situations that occurred in the lives of his circle.

‘A
delightful evening, Cynthia, typically delightful. I sometimes think that yours
is the only house in London nowadays where I can be sure both of the claret
and the company. But you wanted to consult me. Not, I hope, that little
trouble of Barbara’s.’

‘No,
it’s nothing about Barbara. What’s the child been doing?’

‘Nothing,
nothing. It was just some idle bit of gossip I heard. I’m glad it isn’t
worrying you. I suppose Basil’s been up to some mischief again.’

‘Exactly,
Jo. I’m at my wits’ end with the boy. But what was it about Barbara?’

‘Come,
come, we can’t fuss about too many things. I
did
hear Basil had been up
to something. Of course there’s plenty of good in the boy. It only wants
bringing out.’

‘I
sometimes doubt it.’

‘Now,
Cynthia, you’re overwrought. Tell me exactly what has been happening.’

It took
Lady Seal some time to deliver herself of the tale of Basil’s misdemeanours.
‘…
if his father were alive … spent all the money his Aunt left him on that
idiotic expedition to Afghanistan … give him a very handsome allowance …
all and more than all that I can afford … paid his debts again and again …
no gratitude … no self-control … no longer a child, twenty-eight this year …
his father … the post kind Sir William secured him in the bank in Brazil …
great opening and such interesting work
…
never went to the office once
… never know where or whom he is with … most undesirable friends, Sonia
Trumpington, Peter Pastmaster, all sorts of people whose names I’ve never even
heard … of course I couldn’t really
approve of
his going about so much
with Mrs Lyne — though I dare say there was nothing
wrong
in it — but at
least I hoped she might steady him a little … stand for Parliament … his
father … behaved in the most irresponsible way in the heart of his
constituency … Prime Minister … Central Office … Sonia Trumpington threw
it at the mayor … Conservative ball … one of them actually arrested …
come to the end, Jo … I’ve made up my mind. I won’t do another thing for him
— it’s not fair on Tony that I should spend all the money on Basil that should
go to them equally … marry and settle down … if his father were alive …
it isn’t even as though he were the kind of man who would do in Kenya,’ she
concluded hopelessly.

Throughout
the narration Sir Joseph maintained his air of wisdom, discretion, sympathy,
experience and contentment; at suitable moments he nodded and uttered little
grunts of comprehension. At length he said: ‘My dear Cynthia. I had no idea it
was as bad as that. What a terrible time you have had and how brave you have
been. But you mustn’t let yourself worry. I dare say even this disagreeable
incident may turn to good. It may very likely be the turning-point in the boy’s
life … Learned his lesson. I shouldn’t wonder if the reason he hasn’t come
home is that he’s ashamed to face you. I tell you what, I think I’d better have
a talk to him. Send him round as soon as you get into touch with him. I’ll take
him to lunch at the club. He’ll probably take advice from a man he might resent
from a woman. Didn’t he begin reading for the Bar once? Well, let’s set him
going at that. Keep him at home. Don’t give him enough money to go about. Let
him bring his friends here. Then he’ll only be able to have friends he’s
willing to introduce to you. We’ll try and get him into a different set. He
didn’t go to any dances all last summer, 11 remember you telling me. Heaps of
jolly girls coming out he hasn’t had the chance of meeting yet. Keep him to his
work. The boy’s got brains, bound to find it interesting. Then when you’re
convinced he’s steadied up a bit, let him have chambers of his own in one of
the Inns of Court. ‘Let him feel you trust him. I’m sure he’ll respond …‘ For
nearly half an hour they planned Basil’s future, punctually rewarding each
stage of his moral recuperation. Presently Lady Seal said: ‘Oh Jo, what a help
you are. I don’t know what I should do without you.’

‘Dear
Cynthia, it is one of the privileges of maturity to bring new strength and
beauty to old friendships.’

‘I
shan’t forget how wonderful you’ve been tonight, Jo.’ The old boy bounced back
in his taxi-cab to St James’s and Lady Seal slowly ascended the stairs to her
room; both warm at heart and aglow from their fire-lit, nursery game of ‘let’s
pretend’. She sat before her bedroom fire, slipped off her dress and rang the
bell beside the chimney-piece.

‘I’ll
have my milk now, Bradshawe, and then go straight to bed.’

The
maid lifted the jug from the fender where it had been keeping warm and deftly
held back the skin with a silver apostle-spoon as she poured the hot milk into
a glass. Then she brought the jewel case and held it while wearily, one by one,
the rings, bracelet, necklace and earrings were slipped off and tumbled in.
Then she began taking the pins from her mistress’s hair. Lady Seal held the
glass in both hands and sipped.

‘Don’t
trouble to brush it very long tonight, I’m tired.’

‘I hope
the party was a success, my lady.’

‘I
suppose so. Yes, I’m sure it was. Captain Cruttwell is very silly, but it was
kind of him to come at all at such short notice.’