Surfeit of Lampreys (8 page)

“Mike'll break it,” said Patch.

“I won't,” shouted Mike indignantly.

“And remember,” continued his mother, “if I suggest a charade you're all to go out and come back quietly and do one. Then, when you've finished, go out again so that Daddy can talk to Uncle Gabriel. And remember—”

“Can't we listen?” asked Patch.

“We'll probably hear Uncle G. all over the flat,” said Henry.

“And remember not to mention witchcraft. Uncle G. hates it.”

“Ssh!”

“Can't we be talking?” Frid suggested. “You'd think there was a corpse in the flat.”

“If you can think of anything to say, say it,” said her father gloomily.

Frid began to speak in a high voice. “Aren't those flowers over there
too
marvellous?” she asked. Nobody answered her. In the distance a bell rang. Baskett was heard to walk across the hall.

“Lovely, darling,” said Lady Charles violently. She appealed mutely to the children who stared in apprehension at the door and grimaced at each other. Lady Charles turned to Roberta.

“Robin, darling, do tell us about your voyage Home. Did you have fun?”

“Yes,” said Roberta, whose heart was now thumping against her ribs. “Yes. We had a fancy-dress ball.”

Lady Charles and Frid laughed musically. The door opened and Baskett came in.

“Lady Katherine Lobe, m'lady,” said Baskett.

“Good God!” said Lord Charles.

Lady Katherine came in. She walked with short steps and peered amiably through the cigarette smoke.

“Imogen, darling,” she whispered.

“Aunt Kit!”

The Lampreys kept their heads admirably. They told Lady Katherine how delighted they were to see her and seated her by the fire. They introduced Roberta to her, teased her gently about her lame ducks and, with panic-stricken glances at each other, asked her to remove her raincoat.

“So nice to see you all,” whispered Lady Katherine. “Such luck for me to find the whole family. And there's Michael home for the holidays and grown enormously. Patricia too. And the twins. Don't speak, twins, and let me see if I can guess. This is Stephen, isn't it?”

“Yes, Aunt Kit,” said Colin.

“There! I knew I was right. You got my note, Imogen darling?”

“Yes, Aunt Kit. We're so pleased,” said Charlot.

“Yes I wondered if you had got it because you all looked quite surprised when I walked in. So I wondered.”

“We thought you were Uncle Gabriel,” shouted Mike.

“What, dear?”

“Uncle Gabriel.”

Lady Katherine passed a grey-fabric finger across her lips. “Is Gabriel coming, Charles?”

“Yes, Aunt Kit,” said Lord Charles. And as she merely gazed dimly at him he added loudly: “He's coming to see me on business.”

“We're going to have some charades,” bawled Mike.

“I'm very glad,” said Lady Katherine emphatically. “I wish to see Gabriel. I have written to him several times but no response did I get. It's about our Fresh Air Fund. A day in the country for a hundred children and a fortnight in private homes for twenty sickly mites. I want Gabriel to take six.”

“Six sickly mites?” asked Henry.

“What, dear?”

“Do you want Uncle Gabriel to take six sickly mites at Deepacres?”

“It's the least he can do. I'm afraid Gabriel is inclined to be too self-centred, Charles. He's a very wealthy man and he should think of other people more than he does. Your mama always said so. And I hear the most disquieting news of Violet. It appears that she has taken up spiritualism and sits in the dark with a set of very second-rate sort of people.”

“Not spiritualism, darling,” said Charlot. “Black magic.”

“What, dear?”

“Magic.”

“Oh. Oh, I see. That's entirely different. I suppose she does it to entertain their house-parties. But that doesn't alter the fact that both Violet and Gabriel are getting rather self-centred. It would be an excellent thing for both of them if they adopted two children.”

“For mercy's sake, Aunt Kit,” cried Charlot, “don't suggest that to Gabriel.”

“Don't suggest anything,” said Lord Charles. “I implore you, Aunt Kit, not to tackle Gabriel this afternoon. You see—” he peered anxiously at his watch and broke off. “Good God, Immy,” he whispered to his wife, “we must do something. She'll infuriate him. Take her to your room.”

“Under what pretext?” muttered Charlot.

“Think of something.”

“Aunt Kit, would you like to see my bedroom?”

“What, dear?”

“It's no good, Mummy,” said Frid. “Better tell her we're bust.”

“I think so,” said Lord Charles. He bent his legs and brought his face close to his aunt's.

“Aunt Kit,” he shouted, “I'm in difficulties.”

“Are you, dear?”

“I've no money.”

“What?”

“There's a bum in the house,” yelled Patch.

“Be quiet, Patch,” said Henry. His father continued. “I've asked Gabriel to lend me two thousand. If he doesn't I shall go bankrupt.”

“Charlie!”

“It's true.”

“I'll speak to Gabriel,” said Lady Katherine quite loudly.

“No, no!” cried the Lampreys.

“Lord and Lady Wutherwood, m'lady,” said Baskett in the doorway.

Roberta knew that the Lampreys had not reckoned on Lady Wutherwood's arrival with her husband, and she had time to admire their almost instant recovery from this second and formidable shock. Charlot met her brother and sister-in-law half-way across the room. Her manner held a miraculous balance between the over-cordial and the too-casual. Her children and her husband supported her wonderfully. Lady Katherine for the moment was too rattled by the Lampreys' news of impending disaster to make any disturbance. She sat quietly in her chair.

Roberta found herself shaking hands with an extremely odd couple. The Marquis of Wutherwood and Rune was sixty years of age but these years sat heavily upon him and he looked like an old man. His narrow head, sunken between high shoulders, poked forward with an air that was at once mean and aggressive. His face was colourless. The bridge of his nose was so narrow that his eyes appeared to be impossibly close-set. His mouth drooped querulously and the length of his chin, though prodigious, was singularly unexpressive of anything but obstinacy. His upper teeth projected over his under lip and hinted at a high and a narrow palate. These teeth gave him an unpleasingly feminine appearance increased by his chilly old-maidish manner, which suggested that he lived in a state of perpetual offence. Roberta found herself wondering if he could possibly be as disagreeable as he looked.

His wife was about fifty years of age. She was dark, extremely sallow, and fat. There was a musty falseness about the dank hair which she wore over her ears in sibylline coils. She painted her face, but with such inattention to detail that Roberta was reminded of a cheap print in which the colours had slipped to one side, showing the original structure of the drawing underneath. She had curious eyes, very pale, with tiny pupils, and muddy whites. They were so abnormally sunken that they seemed to reflect no light and this gave them a veiled appearance which Roberta found disconcerting, and oddly repellent. Her face had once been round but like her make-up it had slipped and now hung in folds and pockets about her lips, which were dragged down at the corners. Roberta saw that Lady Wutherwood had a trick of parting and closing her lips. It was a very slight movement but she did it continually with a faint click of sound. And in the corners of her lips there was a kind of whiteness that moved when they moved. “Henry is right,” thought Roberta. “She is disgusting.”

Lord Wutherwood greeted the Lampreys without much show of cordiality. When he saw Lady Katherine Lobe his attitude stiffened still further. He turned to his brother and in a muffled voice said: “We're in a hurry, Charles.”

“Oh,” said Lord Charles. “Are you? Oh—well—”

“Are you?” Charlot repeated. “Not too much of a hurry, I hope, Gabriel. We never see anything of you.”

“You never come to Deepacres when we ask you, Imogen.”

“I
know
. We'd adore to come, especially the children, but you know it's so frightfully
expensive
to travel, even in England. You see we can't all get into one car—”

“The fare, third-class return, is within the reach of most people.”

“
Miles
beyond us, I'm afraid,” said Charlot with a charming air of ruefulness. “We're cutting down
everything
. We never
budge
from where we are.”

Lord Wutherwood turned to Henry.

“Enjoy your trip to the Côte d'Azur?” he asked. “Saw your photograph in one of these papers. In my day we didn't strip ourselves naked and wallow in front of press photographers but I suppose you like that sort of thing.”

“Enormously, sir,” said Henry coldly.

There was a slight pause. Roberta felt uncomfortably that Charlot's plan should be amended and that they should leave the field to Lord Charles. She wondered if she herself should slip out of the room. Her thoughts must have appeared in her face for Henry caught her eye, smiled, and shook his head. The Wutherwoods were now seated side-by-side on the sofa. Baskett came in with the sherry.

“Ah, sherry,” said Lord Charles. Henry began to pour it out. Charlot made desperate efforts with her brother-in-law. Lady Katherine leant forward in her chair and addressed Lady Wutherwood.

“Well, Violet,” she said, “I hear you have taken up conjuring.”

“You couldn't be more mistaken,” said Lady Wutherwood in a deep voice. She spoke with a very slight accent, slurring her words together. After each phrase she rearranged her mouth with those clicking movements and stealthily touched away the white discs at the corners, but in a little while they reformed.

“Aunty Kit,” cried Frid, “will you have some sherry? Aunt Violet?”

“No thank you, my dear,” said Lady Katherine.

“Yes,” said Lady Wutherwood.

“You'd better not, V.,” said Lord Wutherwood. “You know what'll happen.”

Mike walked to the end of the sofa and stared fixedly at his aunt. Lord Charles turned to his brother with an air of cordiality. “It's a sherry that I think you rather like, Gabriel, don't you?” he said. “Corregio del Martez, '79.”

“If you can afford a sherry like that—” began Lord Wutherwood. Henry hurriedly placed a glass at his elbow.

“Aunt Violet,” asked Mike suddenly, “can you do the rope trick? I bet you can't. I bet you can't do that and I bet you can't saw a lady in half.”

“Don't be an idiot, Mike,” said Patch.

“Mikey,” said his mother, “run and find Baskett, darling, and ask him to take care of Uncle Gabriel's chauffeur. I suppose he's there, isn't he, Gabriel?”

“He'll do very well in the car. Your aunt's maid is there, too. Your aunt insists on cartin' her about with us. I strongly object, of course, but that makes no difference. She's a nasty type.”

Lady Wutherwood laughed rather madly. Her husband turned on her. “You know what I mean, V.,” he said. “Tinkerton's a bad lot. Put it bluntly, she's damn well debauched my chauffeur. It's been goin' on under your nose for years.”

Charlot evidently decided that it would be better not to have heard this embarrassing parenthesis. “Of course they must come up,” she said cheerfully. “Nanny will adore to see Tinkerton. Mikey, ask Baskett to bring Tinkerton and Giggle up to the Servants' sitting-room and give them a drink of tea or something. Ask politely, won't you?”

“O.K.,” said Mike. He hopped on one foot and turned to look at Lady Wutherwood.