Harold White redeemed his promise of returning the shot-gun early on the following morning by arriving with it in a hambone-case just as Ermyntrude was coming downstairs to breakfast. Following his usual custom, he walked in at the frontdoor, which was kept on the latch, without the formality of ringing the bell, and bade Ermyntrude a cheerful good morning. Ermyntrude said pointedly that her butler could not have heard the bell, but White was quite impervious to hints, and said heartily: "Oh, I didn't ring! I knew you wouldn't mind my just walking in. After all, we're practically relations, aren't we? You see, I've brought Wally's gun."
"As a matter of fact," said Ermyntrude, "it's not Wally's gun. It belonged to my first husband."
"Ah, sentimental value!" said White sympathetically. "Still, I've taken every care of it. Wally won't find his barrels dirty, for I cleaned them myself, and oiled them."
Ermyntrude thanked him frigidly. She was slightly mollified by the discovery that White had kept the gun in his hambone-case, but remarked with some bitterness that it was just like Wally not to have lent the gun in its own case. However, when White, who always made a point of agreeing with her, said that Wally was a careless chap, she remembered her loyalty, and remarking severely that Wally had more important thingss to think about, sailed into the breakfast-room, leaving White to restore the gun to its own case in the gun-room at the back of the house. "For since he makes so free with my house, I'm sure I don't see why I should dance attendance on him," she told Mary.
The entrance of the Prince into the room diverted her thoughts, and she at once asked solicitously how he had slept. It appeared that not only had he slept better than ever before in his life, but upon awakening he had been transported by the sound of a cock crowing in the distance. He knew then, perhaps for the first time, the magic of the English countryside. He gave Ermyntrude his word that he lay listening to cock answering cock in a sleepy trance of delight.
"Well, as long as the noise didn't wake you…' said Ermyntrude doubtfully.
Wally, when he put in a somewhat tardy appearance, was accompanied by the dog-Prince, and spent several minutes in explaining to the human-Prince that since the dog was necessary for the day's sport, he would be obliged to include him in the party.
"But of course!" the Prince said.
"I'm very glad you take it like that," said Wally. "In fact, I don't mind telling you that this dog question has been worrying us a good deal, because there's no denying it's very confusing to have a dog and a man both answering to the same name."
"Ah, you fear that when you call "Heel, Prince!" I shall come running to you!" smiled the Prince. "See, when you want me you should call "Varasashvili!" and then there will be no confusion."
"Er - yes," agreed Wally, "but to tell you the truth I've a shocking memory for names. Runs in the family."
Ermyntrude, who had tried several times to catch her husband's eye, interrupted him at this point, and began rather hastily to describe the rest of the shooting-party to the Prince. Besides himself and Wally, there would be Robert Steel, Hugh Dering, and Dr Chester.
"He's good," said Mary, looking up. "And Robert Steel's quite useful. Hugh says he's a rotten shot, but I dare say he isn't as bad as he makes out. I expect you're pretty good yourself, aren't you?"
He disclaimed, but not in such a way as to lead her to believe him. She said with a faint smile: "I hope you're not speaking the truth, because if you are the gamekeeper won't be a bit pleased. However, Aunt Ermy told me that you shoot a good deal, so I'm not seriously alarmed."
"But I find that you are a most unexpected lady!" he exclaimed. "Have you then arranged the shoot, and do you perhaps accompany us?"
"No, I don't shoot myself, though I did arrange it, I've counted you and Maurice Chester as the good ones, Robert Steel as the medium one, and Uncle and Hugh as the definitely poor ones."
Vicky, who had drifted in through the long, open window in time to overhear this speech, said: "But I can shoot, and I think I might come too."
"No, clearest, that you most certainly will not!" said F,nmw rucle. "I shouldn't have a quiet moment."
Vicky became aware of the Prince, who had sprung up at her entrance, and smiled vaguely in his direction. "Oh, hullo! Now I come to think of it, I can't shoot today. I'm going out with Alan."
"Whatever for?" demanded Ermyntrude, not best pleased.
Vicky selected a peach from the dish on the sideboard, and sat down in the chair the Prince was gallantly holding for her. "Well, I thought it would be a kind thing to do, because Janet's so very dim, and un-understanding about being miserable and squashed into a round hole."
"Well, if you want to know what I think, Alan's very lucky these days to have got a job at all," said Ermyntrude roundly.
"Lawyers are dusty," murmured Vicky.
"It's a very respectable calling, and if you take my advice you'll tell Alan to stop talking a lot of nonsense, and get down to his work."
"Yes, but I shouldn't like to be articled to a solicitor myself, so probably I won't," replied Vicky with one of her pensive looks.
"That is the young man who came last night?" inquired the Prince. "Such a very earnest young man! Do you like him so much, Vicky? For me, a little dull."
"Oh no! he writes poetry," said Vicky seriously. "Not the rhyming sort, either. Can I have a picnic basket, Mummy?"
"But, dearie, aren't you going to join the shooting lunch?" said Ermyntrude, quite distressed. "Mary and I are going.
"No, I think definitely not," replied Vicky. "I thought I'd like to shoot, and now I've decided that after all I feel frightfully unhearty, besides rather loathing game-pie and steak-and-kidney pudding."
"But, Vicky, this is cruel!" protested the Prince. "You desert us for a poet!"
"Yes, but I hope you have a lovely time, and lots of sport," she said kindly.
When Wally presently departed with his guest, Ermyntrude could not forbear to utter a few words of warning to her daughter. It seemed to her anxious eyes that Vicky was treating Alan White with quite unnecessary tolerance. "You don't want to go putting ideas into his head," she said. "Not but what I've no doubt they're there already, but what I mean is there's no need for you to encourage him."
"I think you're awfully right," agreed Vicky, wrinkling her brow. "Because, for one thing, I haven't made up my mind yet whether I'm the managing sort or the only-alittle-woman sort."
"Did you ever?" Ermyntrude exclaimed, appealing to Mary.
"Vicky, you're a goop," said Mary.
"Well, if I really am," said Vicky hopefully, "it quite solves the problem, because then I wouldn't be able to manage Alan at all."
She drifted away, leaving Ermyntrude torn between diversion and doubt. Mary remarked soothingly that she thought there was no immediate need to worry over such a volatile damsel: "In fact, if I were you, I'd let her go on the stage, Aunt Ermy," she said. "I believe that's what she'd really like best."
"Don't you suggest such a thing!" said Ermyntrude, quite horrified. "Why, her father would turn in his grave - well, as a matter of fact, he was cremated, but what I mean is, if he hadn't been he would have."
"But why should he? You were on the stage, after all'
"Yes, my dear, and you take it from me that my girl's not going to be. Not but what she's a proper little actress, bless her!"
"Well, anyway, don't worry about Alan!" begged Mary. "I'm perfectly certain there's nothing in that!"
"I hope you're right, for I don'tt mind telling you nothing would make me consent. Nothing! As though I hadn't got enough to put up with without that being added!"
It transpired that Ermyntrude had more to put up with that morning than she had anticipated. Having noticed on the previous day that a button was missing from the sleeve of the coat Wally had been wearing, she went to his dressing-room to find the coat, and took it down to the morning-room for repair, and discovered, pushed carelessly into one of its pockets, a letter addressed to Wally in an illiterate and unknown hand. Ermyntrude, who had no scruples about inspecting her husband's correspondence, drew the letter from its envelope, remarking idly that it was just like Wally to stuff letters into his pocket and forget all about them.
Mary, to whom this observation was addressed, made a vague sound of agreement, and went on adding up the Household Expenses. Her attention was jerked away from such mundane matters by a sudden exclamation from Ermyntrude.
"Mary! Oh, my goodness! Oh, I never did in all my life!"
Mary turned in herr chair, recognising in Ermyntrude's voice a note of shock mingled with wrath. "What is it?"
"Read it!" said Ermyntrude dramatically. "It's too much!" She held the letter out with a shaking hand, but as Mary took it she seemed to recollect herself, and said: "Oh dear, whatever am I thinking about? Give it back, dearie: it isn't fit for you to read, and you his ward!"
Mary made no attempt to read the letter, but said in her sensible way: "You know, Aunt Ermy, you really ought not to have looked at it. I don't know what it's about, but hadn't, you better pretend you haven't seen it?"
The ready colour rose to Ermyntrude's cheeks. "Pretend I haven't seen it? Pretend I don't know my husband's got some wretched little tart into trouble? I'll thank you to realise I'm made of flesh and blood, and not stone, my girl!"
Mary was accustomed to Wally's gyrations, but this piece of information startled her. "You must be mistaken!"
"Oh, I must, must I? Well, if that's what you think, just you read that letter!"
"But, honestly, Aunt Ermy, one doesn't read other people's letters!"
"No, all one does is to be beholden to one's wife for every penny one has, and then go round putting girls in the family way!" said Ermyntrude bitterly.
Vicky entered the room in. time to hear this dictum, and inquired with interest: "Who does?"
"Your precious stepfather!" snapped Ermyntrude.
Vicky opened her eyes very wide at this: "Does he? Oh, I do think thats so wonderful of him! Poor sweet, I thought he was practically senile!"
"Don't be so disgusting!" said Mary sharply.
"Oh, I'm not! Darling Mummy, how did you find it out? Doesn't it give you an absolutely new angle on Wally?"
By this time Mary had decided to suppress her scruples, and had read the fatal letter. It was signed by one Percy Baker, who appeared to be the brother of the girl in question. Mary had no experience of such letters, but being a young woman of intelligence she was easily able to recognise it as an attempt at blackmail. The writer used illiterate but forceful threats, and ended by promising himself a visit to Palings if he did not hear from Wally immediately. Long association with Wally led her to assume that when he thrust the letter carelessly into his pocket he also thrust the memory of it from his mind. She looked up. "This was written at the beginning of the week. Today's Saturday. He'll turn up."
Vicky took the letter out of her hand. "Angel-Mary, I do think you're dog-in-the-mangerish. Oh, I never knew anyone was actually called Gladys!"
"It's too much!" Ermyntrude said, kneading her hands together in her lap. "It's too much! No one ever called me narrow-minded, but to get a local girl into trouble is more than I'll stand for. If it had been in London I wouldn't have said a word - well, what I mean is, anyone knows what men are, and what the eye doesn't see the heart won't grieve over - but to have Wally's by-blows absolutely under one's nose - well, I shall never be able to hold up my head again, and that's the truth!"
"Oh, darling, I do think you're so modern and marvellous!" said Vicky. "If you were old-fashioned and feudal you wouldn't mind a bit, because it was awfully the done thing for the squire to have lots and lots of bastards."
"I won't have you use that nasty, coarse word!" said Ermyntrude. "The idea! Besides, Wally isn't the squire and never was."
"It may not be true," said Mary. She gave the letter back to Ermyntrude. "I don't mean that Uncle hasn't had an affair with this Gladys person: I suppose he must have had; but we don't know that he's the one who got her into trouble. If you think it over, it looks as though the girl must be a pretty bad lot. You can't imagine a girl falling in love with Uncle, can you? Obviously, she thinks he's a rich man, and this brother of hers is going to try and get money out of him. Honestly, Aunt Ermy, I wouldn't let it upset you too much. It's no use blinking facts, after all, and you've known for ages that Uncle is simply hopeless about flirting with pretty girls."
"It's never been as bad as this," Ermyntrude said. "I've borne all the rest, but I won't bear this. It's an insult, that's what you don't seem to see! Other people don't think I'm old and dull, and lost my looks, but not my own husband! Oh no! He has to get off with a girl from Fritton! On top of everything!"
"Darling, you're so rare and precious the poor sweet can't live on your plane," said Vicky comfortingly. "Really, it's all dreadfully sad, and rather like a Russian novel, and I wouldn't wonder a bit if you were one of those terribly fated women who go through life never being understood or appreciated."
This speech seemed to Mary altogether too fulsome to be stomached, but Ermyntrude was visibly soothed by it, and volunteered the information that she had always been one of the deep ones.
"Oh, you are so awfully right, Ermyntrude, darling pet!" agreed Vicky. "In fact, I think you're rather like one of those mysterious mountain tarns, and quite, quite wonderful!"
Ermyntrude was gratified by being thought to resemble a mountain tarp, but it was evident that Wally's latest misdemeanour had seriously upset her. Her colour remained alarmingly high, and her eyes very bright and sparkling. Nor was Mary reassured by her rising abruptly to her feet, and announcing with unaccustomed curtness that the subject would not bear further discussion. It was not Ermyntrude's way to bottle up her grievances, and the studied cheerfulness of her voice, when she began immediately to talk about the prospective dinner-party, had the effect of disturbing Mary more than a lively display of hysterics would have done.
Vicky seemed to feel this too, for, following Mary out of the room presently, she said rather unhappily that the atmosphere was thickening too fast. "Volcanoes; sulphurous smoke," she added, in somewhat vague explanation. "I don't think it would be nice for her to have a divorce, do you?"
"It may not be true."
"Oh, I feel sure it is! Poor sweet, I wish she could have got it off her chest to us, because now I think quite probably she'll tell Robert Steel."
"She mustn't do that!" Mary said quickly.
"No, but I dare say she will," said Vicky, accepting it with exasperating nonchalance.
When Mary rejoined Ermyntrude, it was with the intention of reopening the discussion, but Ermyntrude said, still in that unnaturally repressed voice, that the least said the soonest mended. Rather to Mary's surprise, she soon made it plain that she meant to join the shooting-party for a picnic lunch, just as she had originally planned.
Accordingly, they both set out, a little before one o'clock, in Ermyntrude's ponderous car, and were driven rather grandly to the appointed rendezvous. Here the men soon joined them, and Ermyntrude's bitter thoughts were a little distracted by the discovery that the morning's sport had been enlivened by a slight mishap.
"In fact, Trudinka, almost we have added our good host's hat to the bag!" the Prince said, with a gaiety that failed to lighten the scowl on Steel's brow, or the look of long-suffering on Wally's face.
"Yes, you can laugh," Wally said. "Very funny for you, I've no doubt. Ha-ha!"
"But what happened?" asked Mary,
Hugh, to whom her question seemed to be principally addressed, smiled, and shook his head. "Not guilty!"
"Don't be so absurd! There hasn't been an accident, has there?"
"Of course there hasn't been an accident!" said Steel testily.
"Oh no, of course there hasn't!" said Wally. "I've only had a couple of barrels fired at me."
"If a man's fool enough to move from his stand, he's asking to be shot!" said Steel.
"Yes, that's what you say, and I've no doubt you'll go saying it however many times I tell you I didn't do anything."
Dr Chester, a quiet-voiced man of about forty, interposed before Steel could reply. "My dear Carter, you must have moved. Why go on arguing about it? Happily, there's no harm done."
Wally was greatly offended by this, and demanded to be told whether he could have moved without having been aware of it.
"Obviously, if you are unaware of it," said the doctor calmly. "How are you, Mary? Where's that young baggage, Vicky? Not coming?"
"No, she's gone out with Alan White." Mary drew him a little away from the group. "What really happened, Maurice?"
"Nothing much. Without wishing to offend you, your cousin is about the most unsafe man on a shoot I've ever encountered. Instead of staying where he was posted, he seems to have wandered along the hedge, and nearly got shot."
"Who by?" Mary asked, a vague, unacknowledged fear prompting the sharp question.
The level grey eyes scanned her face for one enigmatic moment. "Probably by Steel, or Varasashvili. Why?"
"Oh, no reason!" Mary said. "I only wondered. It sounds just like Wally to drift aimlessly about. He probably didn't know he was doing it. Is the Prince a good shot?"
"Yes, very."
He seemed to be in a more than usually uncommunicative mood. Mary moved away from him to mingle with the rest of the party, and found Wally being voluble on the subject of what seemed, in his mind, to have become a deliberate attack upon him. He threw out so many dark hints about those who would be glad to see him underground that even the Prince's smile grew to be a little forced, while Steel could only control his rising anger by starting a determined conversation with his hostess.
"But this, in effect, is ridiculous!" the Prince said at last. "Who should desire your death, my dear Carter?"
"Ah, that's the question!" said Wally mysteriously, "Of course, I wouldn't know! Oh no!"
Hugh, who was frankly enjoying the scene, removed his pipe from his mouth to remark softly to Mary: "I call this grand value. What's eating your impossible relative?"
"Oh, Hugh, isn't he dreadful?" said Mary, in rather despairing accents. "I don't want to sound like Vicky, but things do seem to be getting a bit tense. I suppose he did move from his stand?"
"Can't say: I wasn't near enough to see. Steel and this superb Prince of yours say he did, and they ought to know. Why no Vicky?"
"She went off with Alan White. You'll see her tonight." "You sound a little below yourself," remarked Hugh. "What's gone wrong?"
"Nothing, really. Nerves, perhaps. Vicky's been talking about bottled passions and things, and I've caught the infection."
"Good Lord! She must be a pretty good menace," said Hugh, partly amused and partly scornful.
Ermyntrude, meanwhile, had been subjecting the rest of' the party to a searching cross-examination. Wally's near escape put his misdemeanours temporarily out of her mind. She exclaimed a great deal over the misadventure, hut disgusted Wally finally by giving it as her opinion that it had been all his own fault. He became very sarcastic over the affair, and Ermyntrude, who like most persons of limited education, was instantly antagonised by sarcasm, immediately recalled her discovery of Percy Baker's letter, and let fall some hints on her own account, which were broad enough to make Wally feel seriously alarmed, and the rest of the party extremely uncomfortable. Even Hugh, who was not ordinarily sensitive to atmosphere, suffered from an impression of sitting precariously on the edge of a volcano. The antagonism between Steel and Wally had never been more apparent; while behind the Prince's invincible smile lurked an expression hard to read, but oddly disquieting. The shooting lunch, to Hugh's growing comprehension, developed into a duel, not between Wally and his wife's admirers, but between those two men alone, Steel grimly possessive, the Prince flaunting his exotic charm, half in provocation of his rival, half too dazzle Ermyntrude.
Suddenly Hugh realised that Wally was outside this scene, thrust into the negligible background. Neither Steel nor the Prince had a look or a thought to spare for him; it was as though they considered him contemptible, or non-existent. Hugh had a lively sense of humour, but this situation, though verging upon farce, failed to amuse him. He felt uncomfortable, and recalled Mary's mention of bottled passions with a grimace of distaste. Nasty emotions about, he reflected, and let it go at that.
Mary was heartily glad when the luncheon-party broke up. Far more acutely than Hugh, she was aware of these emotions. She talked to Wally, for he seemed pathetic to her understanding, a puppet less than life-size, cruelly set up to provide a contrast to the animal vigour of Steel, and the glitter of the Prince. Ermyntrude became monstrous in her eyes, a great purring cat, sleeking herself between two males. For a distorted moment, Mary saw Steel as a figure of lust, and the Prince one of cold calculation. Ermyntrude, smiling and enjoying herself between them, seemed grotesque in her inability to see these men as they were. She dragged her eyes away from them with an effort, and encountered the doctor's level gaze. He said nothing then, but presently, when the party was over, and he strolled with Mary to where the car waited, he said in his measured way: "You mustn't let your good sense get swamped by that kind of nonsense, Mary."
Startled, she countered by saying defensively: "I don't know what you mean!"
"Yes, I think you do. Don't be disgusted with Ermyntrude. People of intellect - that's you, my dear - are always inclined to be a little less than just to quite simple women."
She gave a constrained laugh. "I'm sorry if my face gave me away so badly. I don't like farmyard imitations."
He smiled, but shook his head. She added contritely: "That was abominably coarse of me. I didn't mean to be rude about Aunt Ermy. I'm really very fond of her. You are, too, aren't you?"
He looked a little surprised, but replied at once: "Yes, I'm fond of her. She was very good to me once."
"Oh! I didn't know," said Mary, feeling that she had stepped on to thin ice.
They had reached the car by this time. Mary got in beside Ermyntrude, and they were driven slowly back to Palings. Ermyntrude, commenting on the sultriness of thc wcatlicr, lost her resemblance to a purring cat; but when she began presently to discuss the circumstances of Wally's having been shot at, Mary was again conscious of a vague disquiet. She accused herself of distorting Ermyntrude's remarks until they seemed to express an unacknowledged sense of frustration, and made haste to introduce another topic of conversation.
She was surprised to find that Vicky had returned to Palings before them, and was lying in a hammock slung in the shade of a great elm tree on the south lawn. Ermyntrude had gone up to her bedroom to rest before tea, and so did not encounter her daughter, but Mary saw her from the drawing-room window, and went out to ask what had brought the picnic to such an early end.
Vicky, who apparently considered the weather hot enough to make the wearing of a beach-suit desirable, crossed her arms under her honey-coloured head, and said in an exhausted voice: "Oh, darling, I found he was going to read to me, and it seemed to me as though there would probably be ants, or anyway thistles, because there always are whenever I lie on the ground. I do think all this healing-Mother-Earth racket is too utterly spurious, don't you? And it was definitely not one of my primeval days, so I said we'd go home."
Mary was amused. "Poor Alan! Was he fed up?"
"Yes, but I do feel that he ought to be rather crushed by adversity," said Vicky seriously. "I mean, major poets have to be, don't they? And it turned out that I'd done the proper thing, anyway, because you were quite right about that man."
"What man?"
"Oh, Percy! The one who wrote Wally the funny letter."
"What you found funny in it I fail to see. What are you talking about, anyway? How was I right?"
"About his calling here, darling, of course. I mean, he did."
"Vicky! Good Lord, when?"
"Oh, about half an hour ago! Apparently he doesn't live at Fritton at all, but at Burntside, and so poor darling Ermyntrude was a frightful blow to him."
"Do you mean to say he didn't know Uncle was married?"
"No, because Gladys didn't tell him that. He said it wasn't a thing he could mention to me, which I must say I thought was rather dear and old-world of him, and made me wish I'd gone all Early Victorian instead of River Girl. However, it didn't really matter, because by the time he'd absorbed Ermyntrude's rich-looking decor, he got rather fierce about plutocrats, and the Red Flag, and things, and I rather lost interest, because I've heard all about the lovely time everyone will have when we're all Communists from Alan; and though I do utterly agree that it's practically incumbent on one to go Red, I don't somehow think that I shall, because I don't feel as though I should enjoy it much."
"Look here, Vicky, did you actually take it upon yourself to interview this young man?"
"Yes, of course, and I do think I may have done a lot of good, because I told him that Wally isn't rich at all, which made him talk about deceivers seducing innocent girls, though as a matter of fact I don't myself think that it makes it any better to seduce girls when you're rich, do you? Percy got more like Alan than ever when I said so, though and I get bored, and gave it up."
"Vicky, I wish you'd pull yourself together, and talk sense! It all sounds too garish to be believed so far. Of course, you oughtn't to have seen him at all, and I'm glad he had enough decency not to discuss it with you. But what's he going to do? Did you gather that he meant to make himself unpleasant?"
"Well, I wouldn't know," replied Vicky, considering this. "He said it was no good Wally's hiding himself, because he was going to see him sooner or later, but I shouldn't at all wonder if he cooled off. Because if Gladys really did tell him she thought Wally was a bachelor, he must see that she couldn't have thought anything of the kind, once he's thought it over, on account of her being the ticket-office girl at the Regal Cinema, and having seen Ermyntrude with Wally hundreds of times."
"The cashier at the Regal!" ejaculated Mary. "That nice girl with the freckles! Oh, I don't believe it!"
"Darling-sweet, you're thinking of the Odeon-girl. Gladys is the thin one with red finger-nails that click, and that sort of wobbly figure which looks pretty lewd in tight black satin."
"O God!" said Mary blankly. "And he's coming back?"
"I should think he probably will. He said so, anyway. It does rather look as though Ermyntrude will have to buy him off, which seems to me frightfully rotten for her, really, because though I quite like Percy, it's utterly common knowledge that Gladys is quite too phoney for words."
"She won't do it," Mary said. "I know she won't do it. It's the wrong moment. Oh Lord, what a week-end!"