Highland Fling (17 page)

‘Yes, darling, you did, indeed,’ she replied, with her mouth full.

‘To continue: It was even more horrible than I had anticipated. The scenery – my dear Albert – forgive me if I say that the scenery made one feel physically sick whenever the eye strayed out of the porthole. I kept my curtain drawn all day and even then I couldn’t help seeing those mountains sometimes – they haunted me. To make matters worse, Linda, it appears, is madly in love with a monster of a Scotsman, who came to dinner last night in his kilt. Those hairy old knees decided us. “The mountains I can bear,” said Loudie. “Natives in the seminude at dinner-time is another matter. I leave tomorrow.” Luckily the angel had her Austro-Daimler sitting at Oban, so here we are! But I tell you –’

At this moment there was a piercing shriek from Lady Prague. The Pekinese was seen to have his teeth firmly embedded in her right ankle.

‘Doglet!’ said Mrs Fairfax in a gently reproving voice, ‘
what
do I see you doing, my own? Somebody give him a piece of grouse and he’ll leave go at once.’

General Murgatroyd, however, seized the dog roughly by its tail, whereupon it turned round and bit him in the hand. The general shook it off and, crimson with rage, demanded that it should instantly be destroyed.

‘My little Doglet destroyed? Oh, what a dreadful idea! Such a horrid word, too. You cruel old general! Besides, a dog is always allowed his first bite, by law, isn’t he?’

‘First fiddlesticks! Anyhow, it’s had two bites this evening – Florence and myself. The animal is not safe, I tell you.’

‘ “The animal,” indeed! Fancy calling my Doglet “the animal”! Come here, my precious. The general isn’t safe: he wants to
destroy
you. Ralph dear, be an angel and put Doglet in the car, will you, till after dinner? Thank you so much. I do hope you’re not hurt, Florence?’

‘Yes, Louisa, the skin
is
broken and he has torn my stocking rather badly. A new pair! Of course it doesn’t signify. I must go and paint it with iodine. I only trust the animal has not got hydrophobia.’

She left the room angrily, General Murgatroyd opening the door for her with a gesture of exaggerated chivalry. Lord Prague, who had noticed nothing, went on eating.

‘I’m so sorry that Doglet should have caused all this commotion,’ said Mrs Fairfax. ‘The angel! So unlike him! I’ve never known him really to lose his temper before, but you wouldn’t believe how sensitive he is to dress. I ought to have remembered that pink georgette is the one material he simply cannot abide. In fact, all georgette is inclined to upset him; and dear Florence’s shoes, with those long pointed toes, would drive him distracted. Poor little sweet! He’ll be utterly miserable after this, I’m afraid.’

‘And he’d have reason to be if I had anything to do with him,’ muttered the general.

‘You must find this house very interesting, Albert,’ said Ralph, returning from his mission. ‘So exactly your period.’

‘Indeed, yes, I do,’ replied Albert earnestly. ‘And I would love to show you the wonderful things I have found here and collected together.’

‘No, dear Albert, I think I have suffered enough during the last few days from Victorian taste crystallized by the Almighty into the extraordinary scenery with which I have recently been surrounded. Not at all my period, dear. Corbusier, now –’

Here Sally gave the signal, as they say in books, for the ladies to leave the table, and presently took Mrs Fairfax upstairs to powder her nose.

‘You’ll stay the night, of course?’ she said.

‘Alas! no, my dear. Very sweet of you, but we’ve taken rooms at Gleneagles for tonight. I really must push on. I should like to reach London, if possible, tomorrow, as my husband is passing through for one day on his way to America and I want to see him about being divorced, you know.’

Sally’s murmured sympathy was waved aside.

‘It’s not been too successful, really – our marriage, I mean. I’m getting rather old for all the fuss and worry of having a husband, that’s the truth. And how’s yours getting on, my dear: still happy, are you? Has Walter settled down at all? I know you were rather worried about him at one time.’

‘We’re divinely happy,’ said Sally, ‘and it’s wonderful being here. He hasn’t a chance to spend any money and he’s been working harder than I’ve ever known him. You know, people are too hard on Walter. Of course he gives the impression of being all over the place, but that’s only because of his high spirits. And then, poor darling, he has
no
idea of the value of money, which is sometimes very annoying for me as I’m by nature rather stingy.’

‘I’ve hardly ever met a man who has any idea of the value of
money,’ said Mrs Fairfax. ‘It’s one of the nice things about them. Now, women are nearly always mercenary creatures.’

‘Oh! And, by the way, of course, I’d quite forgotten it – I’m going to have a baby.’

‘Are you, Sally? Well, it does happen. Torture, my dear, but one looks lovely afterwards, which is a great consolation. I’ve had three, you know, and they all cut each other dead now; but they’re devoted to me, specially dear Bellingham. By the way, I’m told that Potts (my second husband) has taken a house near here – Castle Bane. Dreary creature, Potts, but Heloïse is a dream. She’s at the Lido now. I’m going out there really to see her. How lovely Jane was looking at dinner!’

‘Yes, wasn’t she? It’s a great secret, so don’t say I told you, but she’s engaged to Albert.’

‘My dear, you amaze me! Will that be a success?’

‘I really don’t know. They are very much in love at present; but Jane is terribly sensitive, and Albert so much wrapped up in his work that I can’t help feeling there will be trouble. So long as she understands his temperament – but I’m not sure how much she does. However, even if they’re happy for a year or two it’s more than lots of people get out of life.’

‘Yes, you’re perfectly right. I’ve lived through it and I know. I had two years of complete happiness with Cosmo, and about eighteen months with Campo Santo, and I can tell you that it makes all the rest of one’s life worthwhile. But I don’t really advise too much chopping and changing for most people: gets one into such restless habits. I couldn’t have stayed with Cosmo after.… Well, never mind. So I thought if I can’t be happy I might as well be rich, and made off with Potts. Then, of course, I was bowled over by Campo Santo in ten minutes. Well, I always think that would have lasted, only the angel died on me quite suddenly: and there he was – Campo Santo in good earnest. It was dreadfully depressing. Still, there was little Bobs to cheer me up: quite the nicest of my children. Have you seen
him? He’s still at Eton, the precious. He’s meeting me in Venice, too, when Heloïse leaves. They can’t endure each other. Not frightened about this baby, are you?’

‘Well, no, not really.’

‘You needn’t be; nobody dies in childbirth now, my dear. It’s considered quite
vieux jeu
. And it may be a consolation to you to hear that the medical profession makes an almost invariable rule of saving the mother’s life in preference to that of the child if there’s any doubt about it. Sick much?’

‘Yes, a whole lot.’

‘Excellent! A very good sign. Now can we go and collect Ralph? I think we should soon be making off.’

They found the others standing round the drawing-room fire, the ‘grown-ups’ having taken themselves off to the study to hear a talk on Timbuctoo. Walter had happened to be passing the door when it began, and declared that the opening words, delivered by the evidently nervous speaker in a sort of screech, had been;

‘People who take their holidays abroad seldom think of Timbuctoo.…’

‘Very seldom, I should imagine,’ said Albert. ‘Loudie dear, I wonder if you would sing us this little song which I found in an album here? The words are by Selina Lady Craigdalloch (the genius who collected in this house so many art treasures), and the music is “By my dear friend, Lord Francis Watt”. It has been my greatest wish to hear it sung by somebody ever since I found it.’

‘I have often noticed,’ said Ralph languidly, ‘that all accompaniments between the years 1850 and 1890 were invariably written by the younger sons of dukes and marquesses. They seem to have had the monopoly – most peculiar.’

‘I should love to sing it,’ said Mrs Fairfax, settling herself at the piano, ‘and then we must go. Where is it – here? Oh, yes.…’

She began to sing in a small, pretty voice:

‘Beautiful!’ cried Albert. ‘And beautifully sung!’

‘Well,’ said Mrs Fairfax, ‘a very pretty little song. You know, Ralph dear, I think that we shall
have
to be going. Unfortunately we are still in the realm of night and morrow, and if we don’t soon push on to Gleneagles we shall get no rest at all.’

There was a perfect chorus of dismay, but Mrs Fairfax was adamant.

‘Your figure is a dream, Ralph!’ said Albert, as they followed her into the hall. ‘Are you on a diet?’

‘Yes, dear, most depressing. I got muscles from dancing too much, they turned into fat –
et voilà!…
’

‘Do muscles turn into fat?’

‘Of course they do. Haven’t you noticed that all athletes become immense in their old age?’

‘But this is very serious!’ cried Albert, in a voice of horror. ‘It should be brought to the notice of public schoolmasters. I myself shall give up walking and buy a little car. I sometimes walk quite a distance in Paris.’

‘Nothing,’ said Ralph mournfully, ‘develops the muscles so much as driving. Goodbye, Albert. I hope to see you in London, dear.’

That night Jane found herself unable to go to sleep. Her brain was in a particularly lively condition and she tossed and turned thinking first of one thing and then of another until she felt she would go mad. ‘Albert! Albert! Albert!’ was the refrain.

‘Shall I be happy with him in Paris? Will he be the same after we’re married? Shall I interfere with his work? That, never,’ she thought; ‘I am far more ambitious even than he is and will help him in every possible way to achieve fame.

‘If I lie quite still and breathe deeply I might manage to drop off to sleep. What shall I put on tomorrow? Not that jumper suit again. I wasn’t looking so pretty today. I shan’t look pretty tomorrow if I have no sleep. Perhaps if I get out of bed and walk up and down.… Yes, now I’m feeling quite drowsy. I must write to mamma tomorrow, I haven’t written for over a week. What shall I tell her? Oh, yes! the games would amuse her.’

Jane began to compose a letter in her head and was soon even more wide-awake than before. She had hardly ever in her life experienced any difficulty in going to sleep and it made her furious.

‘I’ll stay in bed till lunch-time tomorrow to make up for this,’ she thought.

After about two hours of painful wakefulness she at last fell asleep, soothed, as it were, by a delicious smell of burning which was floating in at her bedroom window and of which she was only half conscious.

Hardly, it seemed to her, had she been dozing for five minutes when she was suddenly awakened by a tremendous banging on her door, which opened a moment afterwards. The electric light blazed into her eyes as she was struggling to open them.

‘What is it?’ she said, very angry at being awakened in this abrupt manner when she had only just gone to sleep with so much difficulty.

The butler was standing just inside the room.

‘House on fire, miss. Will you please come downstairs immediately?’

Jane sat up in bed and collected her wits about her.

‘Have I time to dress?’ she asked.

‘No, I think not, miss; the flames are spreading very rapidly to this part of the house, and Mr Buggins wants everyone in the hall at once; he is holding a roll-call there.’

Jane leapt out of bed, put on some shoes and a coat, and taking her jewel-case from the dressing-table she ran along to Albert’s room. She noticed that it was just after five o’clock.

The butler was still talking to Walter as she passed and Albert had not yet been awakened. Jane put on the light and looked at him for a moment as he lay asleep, his head on one arm, his hair in his eyes.