False Scent

Chapter three Birthday Honours

Mr. and Mrs. Charles Templeton stood just inside their drawing-room door. The guests, on their entry, encountered a bevy of press photographers, while a movie outfit was established at the foot of the stairs, completely blocking the first flight. New arrivals smiled or looked thoughtful as the flash lamps discovered them. Then, forwarded by the parlourmaid in the hall to Gracefield on the threshold, they were announced and, as it were, passed on to be neatly fielded by their hosts.

It was not an enormous party — perhaps fifty, all told. It embraced the elite of the theatre world and it differed in this respect from other functions of its size. It was a little as if the guests gave rattling good performances of themselves arriving at a cocktail party. They did this to music, for Miss Bellamy, in an alcove of her great saloon, had stationed a blameless instrumental trio.

Although, in the natural course of events, they met each other very often, there was a tendency among the guests to express astonishment, even rapture, at this particular encounter. Each congratulated Miss Bellamy on her birthday and her superb appearance. Some held her at arm’s length the better to admire. Some expressed bewilderment and others a sort of matey reverence. Then in turn they shook hands with Charles and by the particular pains the nice ones took with him, they somehow established the fact that he was not quite of their own world.

When Pinky and Bertie arrived, Miss Bellamy greeted them with magnanimity.

“So glad,” she said to both of them, “that you decided to come.” The kiss that accompanied this greeting was tinctured with forebearance and what passed with Miss Bellamy for charity. It also, in some ineffable manner, seemed to convey a threat. They were meant to receive it like a sacrament and (however reluctantly) they did so, progressing on the conveyor belt of hospitality to Charles, who was markedly cordial to both of them.

They passed on down the long drawing-room and were followed by two Dames, a Knight, three distinguished commoners, another Knight and his Lady, Montague Marchant and Timon Gantry.

Richard, filling his established role of a sort of unofficial son of the house, took over the guests as they came his way. He was expected to pilot them through the bottleneck of the intake and encourage them to move to the dining-room and conservatory. He also helped the hired barman and the housemaid with the drinks until Gracefield and the parlourmaid were able to carry on. He was profoundly uneasy. He had been out to lunch and late returning and had had no chance to speak to Mary before the first guests appeared. But he knew that all was not well. There were certain only too unmistakable signs, of which a slight twitch in Mary’s triangular smile was the most ominous. “There’s been another temperament,” Richard thought, and he fancied he saw confirmation of this in Charles, whose hands were not quite steady and whose face was unevenly patched.

The rooms filled up. He kept looking towards the door and thinking he saw Anelida.

Timon Gantry came up to him. “I’ve been talking to Monty,” he said. “Have you got a typescript for him?”

“Timmy, how kind of you! Yes, of course.”

“Here?”

“Yes. Mary’s got one. She said she’d leave it in my old room upstairs.”

“Mary! Why?”

“I always show her my things.”

Gantry looked at him for a moment, gave his little gasp and then said, “I see I must speak frankly. Will Mary think you wrote the part for her?”

Richard said, “I — that was not my intention…”

“Because you’d better understand at once, Dicky, that I wouldn’t dream of producing this play with Mary in the lead. Nor would I dream of advising the Management to back it with Mary in the lead. Nor could it be anything but a disastrous flop with Mary in the lead. Is that clear?”

“Abundantly,” Richard said.

“Moreover,” Gantry said, “I should be lacking in honesty and friendship if I didn’t tell you it was high time you cut loose from those particular apron strings. Thank you, I would prefer whisky and water.”

Richard, shaken, turned aside to get it. As he made his way back to Gantry he was aware of one of those unaccountable lulls that sometimes fall across the insistent din of a cocktail party. Gantry, inches taller than anyone else in the room, was looking across the other guests toward the door. Several of them also had turned in the same direction, so that it was past the backs of heads and through a gap between shoulders that Richard first saw Anelida and Octavius come in.

It was not until a long time afterwards that he realized his first reaction had been one of simple gratitude to Anelida for being, in addition to everything else, so very beautiful.

He heard Timon Gantry say, “Monty, look.” Montague Marchant had come up to them.

“I am looking,” he said. “Hard.”

And indeed they all three looked so hard at Anelida that none of them saw the smile dry out on Mary Bellamy’s face and then reappear as if it had been forcibly stamped there.

Anelida shook hands with her hostess, expected, perhaps, some brief return of the morning’s excessive cordiality, heard a voice say, “So kind of you to come,” and witnessed the phenomenon of the triangular smile. Followed by Octavius, she moved on to Charles. And then she was face to face with Richard, who, as quickly as he could, had made his way down the room to meet them.

“Well?” Timon Gantry said.

“Well,” Marchant repeated. “What is it?”

“It’s an actress.”

“Any good?”

“I’ll answer that one,” Gantry said, “a little later.”

“Are you up to something?”

“Yes.”

“What, for God’s sake?”

“Patience, patience.”

“I sometimes wonder, Timmy, why we put up with you.”

“You needn’t. You put up with me, dear boy, because I give the Management its particular brand of prestige.”

“So you say.”

“True?”

“I won’t afford you the ignoble satisfaction of saying so.”

“All the same, to oblige me, stay where you are.”

He moved towards the group of three that was slowly making its way down the drawing-room.

Marchant continued to look at Anelida.

When Richard met Anelida and took her hand he found, to his astonishment, he was unable to say to her any of the things that for the last ten years he had so readily said to lovely ladies at parties. The usual procedure would have been to kiss her neatly on the cheek, tell her she looked marvellous and then pilot her by the elbow about the room. If she was his lady of the moment, he would contrive to spend a good deal of time in her company and they would probably dine somewhere after the party. How the evening then proceeded would depend upon a number of circumstances, none of which seemed to be entirely appropriate to Anelida. Richard felt, unexpectedly, that his nine years seniority were more like nineteen.

Octavius had found a friend. This was Miss Bellamy’s physician, Dr. Harkness, a contemporary of Octavius’s Oxford days and up at the House with him. They could be left together, happily reminiscent, and Anelida could be given her dry Martini and introduced to Pinky and Bertie, who were tending to hunt together through the party.

Bertie said rapidly, “I do congratulate you. Do swear to me on your sacred word of honour, never to wear anything but white and always, but always with your clever hat. Ever!”

“You mustn’t take against Bertie,” Pinky said kindly. “It’s really a smashing compliment, coming from him.”

“I’ll bear it in mind,” Anelida said. It struck her that they were both behaving rather oddly. They kept looking over her shoulder as if somebody or something behind her exerted a strange attraction over them. They did this so often that she felt impelled to follow their gaze and did so. It was Mary Bellamy at whom they had been darting their glances. She had moved further into the room and stood quite close, surrounded by a noisy group of friends. She herself was talking. But to Anelida’s embarrassment she found Miss Bellamy’s eyes looked straight into her own, coldly and searchingly. It was not, she was sure, a casual or accidental affair. Miss Bellamy had been watching her and the effect was disconcerting. Anelida turned away only to meet another pair of eyes, Timon Gantry’s. And beside him yet another pair, Montague Marchant’s, speculative, observant. It was like an inversion of her ridiculous daydream and she found it disturbing. “The cynosure of all eyes indeed! With a difference,” thought Anelida.

But Richard was beside her, not looking at her, his arm scarcely touching hers, but there, to her great content. Pinky and Bertie talked with peculiar energy, making a friendly fuss over Anelida but conveying, nevertheless, a singular effect of nervous tension.

Presently Richard said, “Here’s somebody else who would like to meet you, Anelida.” She looked up at a brick-coloured Guardee face and a pair of surprised blue eyes. “Colonel Warrender,” Richard said.

After his bumpy fashion, Warrender made conversation. “Everybody always shouts at these things, isn’t it? Haven’t got up to pitch yet but will, of course. You’re on the stage, isn’t it?”

“Just.”

“Jolly good! What d’you think of Dicky’s plays?”

Anelida wasn’t yet accustomed to hearing Richard called Dicky or to being asked that sort of question in that sort of way.

She said, “Well — immensely successful, of course.”

“Oh!” he said. “Successful! Awfully successful! ’Course. And I like ’em, you know. I’m his typical audience — want something gay and ’musing, with a good part for Mary. Not up to intellectual drama. Point is, though, is he satisfied? What d’you think? Wasting himself or not? What?”

Anelida was greatly taken aback and much exercised in her mind. Did this elderly soldier know Richard very intimately or did all Richard’s friends plunge on first acquaintance into analyses of each other’s inward lives for the benefit of perfect strangers? And did Warrender know about Husbandry in Heaven?

Again she had the feeling of being closely watched.

She said, “I hope he’ll give us a serious play one of these days and I shouldn’t have thought he’ll be really satisfied until he does.”

“Ah!” Warrender exclaimed, as if she’d made a dynamic observation. “There you are! Jolly good! Keep him up to it. Will you?”

“I!” Anelida cried in a hurry. She was about to protest that she was in no position to keep Richard up to anything, when it occurred to her, surprisingly, that Warrender might consider any such disclaimer an affectation.

“But does he need ‘keeping up’?” she asked.

“Oh Lord, yes!” he said. “What with one thing and another. You must know all about that.”

Anelida reminded herself she had only drunk half a dry Martini, so she couldn’t possibly be under the influence of alcohol. Neither, she would have thought, was Colonel Warrender. Neither, apparently, was Miss Bellamy or Charles Templeton or Miss Kate Cavendish or Mr. Bertie Saracen. Nor, it would seem, was Mr. Timon Gantry to whom, suddenly, she was being introduced by Richard.

“Timmy,” Richard was saying. “Here is Anelida Lee.”

To Anelida it was like meeting a legend.

“Good evening,” the so-often mimicked voice was saying. “What is there for us to talk about? I know. You shall tell me precisely why you make that ‘throw-it-over-your-shoulder’ gesture in your final speech and whether it is your own invention or a bit of producer’s whimsy.”

“Is it wrong?” Anelida demanded. She then executed the mime that is know in her profession as a double-take. Her throat went dry, her eyes started and she crammed the knuckle of her gloved hand between her separated teeth. “You haven’t seen me!” she cried.

“But I have. With Dicky Dakers.”

“Oh my God!” whispered Anelida, and this was not an expression she was in the habit of using.

“Look out. You’ll spill your drink. Shall we remove a little from this barnyard cacophony? The conservatory seems at the moment to be unoccupied.”

Anelida disposed of her drink by distractedly swallowing it. “Come along,” Gantry said. He took her by the elbow and piloted her towards the conservatory. Richard, as if by sleight-of-hand, had disappeared. Octavius was lost to her.

“Good evening, Bunny. Good evening, my dear Paul. Good evening, Tony,” Gantry said with the omniscience of M. de Charlus. Celebrated faces responded to these greetings and drifted astern. They were in the conservatory and for the rest of her life the smell of freesias would carry Anelida back to it.

“There!” Gantry said, releasing her with a little pat. “Now then.”

“Richard didn’t tell me. Nobody said you were in front.”

“Nobody knew, dear. We came in during the first act and left before the curtain. I preferred it.”

She remembered, dimly, that this kind of behavior was part of his legend.

“Why are you fussed?” Gantry inquired. “Are you ashamed of your performance?”

“No,” Anelida said truthfully, and she added in a hurry, “I know it’s very bad in patches.”

“How old are you?”

“Nineteen.”

“What else have you played?”

“Only bits at the Bonaventure.”

“No dra-mat-ic ac-ad-emy?” he said, venomously spitting out the consonants. “No agonizing in devoted little groups? No depicting! No going to bed with Stanislavsky and rising with Method?”

Anelida, who was getting her second wind, grinned at him.

“I admire Stanislavsky,” she said. “Intensely.”

“Very well. Very well. Now, attend to me. I am going to tell you about your performance.”

He did so at some length and in considerable detail. He was waspish, didactic, devastating and overwhelmingly right. For the most part she listend avidly and in silence, but presently she ventured to ask for elucidation. He answered, and seemed to be pleased.

“Now,” he said, “those are all the things that were amiss with your performance. You will have concluded that I wouldn’t have told you about them if I didn’t think you were an actress. Most of your mistakes were technical. You will correct them. In the meantime I have a suggestion to make. Just that. No promises. It’s in reference to a play that may never go into production. I believe you have already read it. You will do so again, if you please, and to that end you will come to the Unicorn at ten o’clock next Thursday morning. Hi! Monty!”

Anelida was getting used to the dreamlike situation in which she found herself. It had, in its own right, a kind of authenticity. When the Management, that bourne to which all unknown actresses aspired, appeared before her in the person of Montague Marchant, she was able to make a reasonable response. How pale was Mr. Marchant, how matt his surface, how immense his aplomb! He talked of the spring weather, of the flowers in the conservatory and, through some imperceptible gradation, of the theatre. She was, he understood, an actress.

“She’s playing Eliza Doolittle,” Gantry remarked.

“Of course. Nice notices,” Marchant murmured and tidily smiled at her. She supposed he must have seen them.

“I’ve been bullying her about her performance,” Gantry continued.

“What a bad man!” Marchant said lightly. “Isn’t he?”

“I suggest you take a look at it.”

“Now, you see, Miss Lee, he’s trying to bully me.”

“You mustn’t let him,” Anelida said.

“Oh, I’m well up to his tricks. Are you liking Eliza?”

“Very much indeed. It’s a great stroke of luck for me to try my hand at her.”

“How long is your season?”

“Till Sunday. We change every three weeks.”

“God, yes. Club policy.”

“That’s it.”

“I see no good reason,” Gantry said, “for fiddling about with this conversation. You know the part I told you about in Dicky’s new play? She’s going to read it for me. In the meantime, Monty, my dear, you’re going to look at the piece and then pay a call on the Bonaventure.” He suddenly displayed the cockeyed charm for which he was famous. “No promises made, no bones broken. Just a certain amount of very kind trouble taken because you know I wouldn’t ask it idly. Come, Monty, do say you will.”

“I seem,” Marchant said, “to be cornered,” and it was impossible to tell whether he really minded.

Anelida said, “It’s asking altogether too much — please don’t be cornered.”

“I shall tell you quite brutally if I think you’ve wasted my time.”

“Yes, of course.”

“Ah, Dicky!” Marchant said. “May I inquire if you’re a party to this conspiracy?”

Richard was there again, beside her. “Conspiracy?” he said. “I’m up to my neck in it. Why?”

Gantry said, “The cloak-and-dagger business is all mine, however. Dicky’s a puppet.”

“Aren’t we all!” Marchant said. “I need another drink. So, I should suppose, do you.”

Richard had brought them. “Anelida,” he asked, “what have they been cooking?”

For the third time, Anelida listened to her own incredible and immediate future.

“I’ve turned bossy, Richard,” Gantry said. “I’ve gone ahead on my own. This child’s going to take a running jump at reading your wench in Heaven. Monty’s going to have a look at the play and see her Eliza. I tell him he’ll be pleased. Too bad if you think she can’t make it.” He looked at Anelida and a very pleasant smile broke over his face. He flipped the brim of her hat with a thumb and forefinger. “Nice hat,” he said.

Richard’s hand closed painfully about her arm. “Timmy!” he shouted. “You’re a splendid fellow! Timmy!”

“The author, at least,” Marchant said drily, “would appear to be pleased.”

“In that case,” Gantry proposed, “let’s drink to the unknown quantity. To your bright eyes, Miss Potential.”

“I may as well go down gracefully,” Marchant said. “To your Conspiracy, Timmy. In the person of Anelida Lee.”

They had raised their glasses to Anelida when a voice behind them said, “I don’t enjoy conspiracies in my own house, Monty, and I’m afraid I’m not mad about what I’ve heard of this one. Do let me in on it, won’t you?”

It was Miss Bellamy.

Miss Bellamy had not arrived in the conservatory unaccompanied. She had Colonel Warrender in attendance upon her. They had been followed by Charles Templeton, Pinky Cavendish and Bertie Saracen. These three had paused by Gracefield to replenish their glasses and then moved from the dining-room into the conservatory, leaving the door open. Gracefield, continuing his round, was about to follow them. The conglomerate of voices in the rooms behind had mounted to its extremity, but above it, high-pitched, edged with emotion, a single voice rang out: Mary Bellamy’s. There, in the conservatory she was, for all to see. She faced Anelida and leant slightly towards her.

“No, no, no, my dear. That really is not quite good enough.”

A sudden lull, comparable to that which follows the lowering of houselights in a crowded theatre, was broken by the more distant babble in the further room and by the inconsequent, hitherto inaudible, excursions of the musicians. Heads were turned towards the conservatory. Warrender came to the door. Gracefield found himself moved to one side; Octavius was there, face to face with Warrender. Gantry’s voice said:

“Mary. This won’t do.”

“I think,” Octavius said, “if I may, I would like to go to my niece.”

“Not yet,” Warrender said. “Do you mind?’ He shut the door and cut off the voices in the conservatory.

For a moment the picture beyond the glass walls was held. Mary Bellamy’s lips worked. Richard faced her and was speaking. So were Charles and Gantry. It was like a scene from a silent film. Then, with a concerted movement, the figures of Gantry, Charles, Richard and Warrender, their backs to their audience, hid Miss Bellamy and Anelida.

“Ah, there you are, Occy!” a jovial not quite sober voice exclaimed. “I was going to ask you, old boy. D’you remember…”

It was Octavius’s old acquaintance, Dr. Harkness, now rather tight. As if he had given a signal, everybody began to talk again very loudly indeed. Charles broke from the group and came through the glass door, shutting it quickly behind him. He put his hand on Octavius’s arm.

“It’s all right, Browne, I assure you,” he said. “It’s nothing. Dicky is taking care of her. Believe me, it’s all right.” He turned to Gracefield. “Tell them to get on with it,” he said. “At once.”

Gracefield gave his butler’s inclination and moved away.

Octavius said, “But all the same I would prefer to join Anelida.”

Charles looked at him. “How would you have liked,” he said, “to have spent the greater part of your life among aliens?”

Octavius blinked. “My dear Templeton,” he said, “I don’t know. But if you’ll forgive me I find myself in precisely that situation at the moment and I should still like to go to my niece.”

“Here she is now.”

The door had opened again and Anelida had come through with Richard. They were both very white. Again a single voice was heard. Miss Bellamy’s. “Do you suppose for one moment that I’m taken in…” and again Warrender shut the door.

“Well, Nelly darling,” Octavius said. “I promised to remind you that we must leave early. Are you ready?”

“Quite ready,” Anelida said. She turned to Charles Templeton and offered him her hand. “I’m so sorry,” she said. “We’ll slip out under our own steam.”

“I’m coming,” Richard announced grimly.

“So there’s nothing,” Charles said, “to be done?”

“I’m afraid we must go,” Octavius said.

“We’re running late as it is,” Anelida agreed. Her voice, to her own astonishment, was steady. “Good-bye,” she said, and to Richard, “No, don’t come.”

“I am coming.”

Octavius put his hand on her shoulder and turned her towards the end of the room.

As he did so a cascade of notes sounded from a tubular gong. The roar of voices again died down, the musicians stood up and began to play that inevitable, that supremely silly air.

Happy birthday to you,

Happy birthday to you…

The crowd in the far room surged discreetly through into the dining-room, completely blocking the exit. Richard muttered, “This way. Quick,” and propelled them towards a door into the hall. Before they could reach it, it opened to admit a procession: the maids, Gracefield with magnums of champagne, Florence, Cooky, in a white hat and carrying an enormously ornate birthday cake, and Old Ninn. They walked to the central table and moved ceremoniously to their appointed places. The cake was set down. Led by Dr. Harkness the assembly broke into applause.

“Now,” Richard said.

And at last they were out of the room and in the hall. Anelida was conscious for the first time of her own heartbeat. It thudded in her throat and ears. Her mouth was dry and she trembled.

Octavius, puzzled and disturbed, touched her arm. “Nelly, my love,” he said, “shall we go?”

“Yes,” Anelida said and turned to Richard. “Don’t come any further. Goodbye.”

“I’m coming with you. I’ve got to.”

“Please not.”

He held her by the wrist. “I don’t insult you with apologies, Anelida, but I do beg you to be generous and let me talk to you.”

“Not now. Please, Richard, not now.”

“Now. You’re cold and you’re trembling. Anelida!” He looked into her face and his own darkened. “Never again shall she speak to you like that. Do you hear me, Anelida? Never again.” She drew away from him.

The door opened. Pinky and Bertie came through. Pinky made a dramatic pounce at Anelida and laid her hand on her arm. “Darling!” she cried incoherently. “Forget it! Nothing! God, what a scene!” She turned distractedly to the stairs, found herself cut off by the cinema unit and doubled back into the drawing-room. The camera men began to move their equipment across the hall.

“Too much!” Bertie said. “No! Too much.” He disappeared in the direction of the men’s cloakroom.

Timon Gantry came out. “Dicky,” he said, “push off. I want a word with this girl. You won’t do any good while you’re in this frame of mind. Off!”

He took Anelida by the shoulders. “Listen to me,” he said. “You will rise above. You will not let this make the smallest difference. Go home, now, and sort yourself out. I shall judge you by this and I shall see you on Thursday. Understood?” He gave her a firm little shake and stood back.

Warrender appeared, shutting the door behind him. He glared wretchedly at Anelida and barked, “Anything I can do — realize how distressed… Isn’t it?”

Octavius said, “Very kind. I don’t think, however…”

Richard announced loudly, “I’ll never forgive her for this. Never.”

Anelida thought, “If I don’t go now I’ll break down.” She heard her own voice, “Don’t give it another thought. Come along, Unk.”

She turned and walked out of the house into the familiar square, and Octavius followed her.

“Richard,” Warrender said, “I must have a word with you, boy. Come in here.”

“No,” Richard said, and he too went out into the square.

Gantry stood for a moment looking after him.

“I find myself,” he observed, “unable, any longer, to tolerate Mary Bellamy.”

A ripple of applause broke out in the dining-room. Miss Bellamy was about to cut her birthday cake.

Miss Bellamy was a conscientious, able and experienced actress. Her public appearances were the result of hard work as well as considerable talent, and if one principle above all others could be said to govern them, it was that which is roughly indicated in the familiar slogan “The show must go on.” It was axiomatic with Miss Bellamy that whatever disrupting influences might attend her, even up to the moment when her hand was on the offstage doorknob, they would have no effect whatsoever upon her performance.

They had none on the evening of her fiftieth birthday. She remained true to type.

When the procession with the cake appeared in the dining-room beyond the glass wall of the conservatory, she turned upon the persons with whom she had been doing battle and uttered the single and strictly professional order: “Clear!”

They had done so. Pinky, Bertie, Warrender and Gantry had all left her. Charles had already gone. Only Marchant remained, according, as it were, to the script. It had been arranged that he escort Miss Bellamy and make the birthday speech. They stood together in the conservatory, watching. Gracefield opened the champagne. There was a great deal of laughter and discreet skirmishing among the guests. Glasses were distributed and filled. Gracefield and the maids returned to their appointed places. Everybody looked towards the conservatory.

“This,” Marchant said, “is it. You’d better bury the temperament, sweetie, for the time being.” He opened the door, adding blandly as he did so, “Bitch into them, dear.”

“The hell I will,” said Miss Bellamy. She shot one malevolent glance at him, stepped back, collected herself, parted her lips in their triangular smile and made her entrance.

The audience, naturally, applauded.

Marchant, who had his own line in smiles, fingered his bow-tie and then raised a deprecating hand.

“Mary, darling,” he said, pitching his voice, “and everybody! Please!”

A press photographer’s lamp flashed.

Marchant’s speech was short, graceful, bland, and for the most part, highly appreciated. He made the point, an acceptable one to his audience, that nobody really understood the people of their wonderful old profession but they themselves. The ancient classification of “rogues and vagabonds” was ironically recapitulated. The warmth, the dedication, the loyalties were reviewed and a brief but moving reference was made to “our wonderful Mary’s happy association with, he would not say Marchant and Company, but would use a more familiar and he hoped affectionate phrase — the ‘Management.’ ” He ended by asking them all to raise their glasses and drink “to Mary.”

Miss Bellamy’s behaviour throughout was perfect. She kept absolutely still and even the most unsympathetic observer would scarcely have noticed that she was anything but oblivious of her audience. She was, in point of fact, attentive to it and was very well aware of the absence of Richard, Pinky, Bertie, Warrender and Gantry — to say nothing of Anelida and Octavius. She also noticed that Charles, a late arrival in his supporting role of consort, looked pale and troubled. This irritated her. She saw that Old Ninn, well to the fore, was scarlet in the face, a sure sign of intemperance. No doubt there had been port-drinking parties with Florence and Gracefield and further noggins on her own account. Infuriating of Old Nina! Outrageous of Richard, Pinky, Bertie, Maurice and Timon to absent themselves from the speech! Intolerable, that on her birthday she should be subjected to slight after slight and deception after deception: culminating, my God, in their combined treachery over that boney girl from the bookshop! It was time to give Monty a look of misty gratitude. They were drinking her health.

She replied, as usual, very briefly. The suggestion was of thoughts too deep for words and the tone whimsical. She ended by making a special reference to the cake and said that on this occasion Cooky, if that were possible, had excelled herself and she called attention to the decorations.

There was a round of applause, during which Gantry, Pinky, Bertie and Warrender edged in through the far doorway. Miss Bellamy was about to utter her peroration, but before she could do so, Old Ninn loudly intervened. “What’s a cake without candles?” said Old Ninn.

A handful of guests laughed, nervously and indulgently. The servants looked scandalized and apprehensive.

“Fifty of them,” Old Ninn proclaimed. “Oh, wouldn’t they look lovely!” and broke into a disreputable chuckle.

Miss Bellamy took the only possible action. She topped Old Ninn’s lines by snatching up the ritual knife and plunging it into the heart of the cake. The gesture, which may have had something of the character of a catharsis, was loudly applauded.

The press photographer’s lamps flashed.

The ceremony followed its appointed course. The cake was cut up and distributed. Glasses were refilled and the guests began to talk again at the tops of their voices. It was time for her to open the presents, which had already been deposited on a conveniently placed table in the drawing-room. When that had been done they would go and the party would be over. But it would take a considerable time and all her resources. In the meantime, there was Old Ninn, purple-faced, not entirely steady on her pins and prepared to continue her unspeakable act for the benefit of anyone who would listen to her.

Miss Bellamy made a quick decision. She crossed to Old Ninn, put her arm about her shoulders and gaily laughing, led her towards the door into the hall. In doing so she passed Warrender, Pinky, Bertie, and Timon Gantry. She ignored them, but shouted to Monty Marchant that she was going to powder her nose. Charles was in the doorway. She was obliged to stop for a moment. He said under his breath, “You’ve done a terrible thing.” She looked at him with contempt.

“You’re in my way. I want to go out.”

“I can’t allow you to go on like this.”

“Get out!” she whispered and thrust towards him. In that overheated room her scent engulfed him like a fog.

He said loudly, “At least don’t use any more of that stuff. At least don’t do that. Mary, listen to me!”

“I think you must be mad.”

They stared at each other. He stood aside and she went out, taking Old Ninn with her. In the hall she said, “Ninn, go to your room and lie down. Do you hear me!”

Old Ninn looked her fully in the face, drew down the corners of her mouth, and keeping a firm hold on the banister, plodded upstairs.

Neither she nor Charles had noticed Florence, listening avidly, a pace or two behind them. She moved away down the hall and a moment later Richard came in by the front door. When he saw Miss Bellamy he stopped short.

“Where have you been?” she demanded.

“I’ve been trying, not very successfully, to apologize to my friends.”

“They’ve taken themselves off, it appears.”

“Would you have expected them to stay?”

“I should have thought them capable of anything.”

He looked at her with a sort of astonishment and said nothing.

“I’ve got to speak to you,” she said between her teeth.

“Have you? I wonder what you can find to say.”

“Now.”

“The sooner the better. But shouldn’t you—” he jerked his head at the sounds beyond the doors, “be in there?”

“Now.”

“Very well.”

“Not here.”

“Wherever you like, Mary.”

“In my room.”

She had turned to the stairs when a press photographer, all smiles, emerged from the dining-room.

“Miss Bellamy, could I have a shot? By the door? With Mr. Dakers perhaps? It’s an opportunity. Would you mind?”

For perhaps five seconds, she hesitated. Richard said something under his breath.

“It’s a bit crowded in there. We’d like to run a full-page spread,” said the photographer and named his paper.

“But of course,” said Miss Bellamy.

Richard watched her touch her hair and re-do her mouth. Accustomed though he was to her professional technique he was filled with amazement. She put away her compact and turned brilliantly to the photographer. “Where?” she asked him.

“In the entrance I thought. Meeting Mr. Dakers.”

She moved down the hall to the front door. The photographer dodged round her. “Not in full glare,” she said, and placed herself.

“Mr. Dakers?” said the photographer.

“Isn’t it better as it is?” Richard muttered.

“Don’t pay any attention to him,” she said with ferocious gaiety. “Come along, Dicky.”

“There’s a new play on the skids, isn’t there? If Mr. Dakers could be showing it to you, perhaps? I’ve brought something in case.”

He produced a paperbound quarto of typescript, opened it and put it in her hands.

“Just as if you’d come to one of those sure-fire laugh lines,” the photographer said. “Pointing it out to him, you know? Right, Mr. Dakers?”

Richard, nauseated, said, “I’m photocatastrophic. Leave me out.”

“No!” said Miss Bellamy. Richard shook his head.

“You’re too modest,” said the photographer. “Just a little this way. Grand.”

She pointed to the opened script. “And the great big smile,” he said. The bulb flashed. “Wonderful. Thank you,” and he moved away.

“And now,” she said through her teeth, “I’ll talk to you.”

Richard followed her upstairs. On the landing they passed Old Ninn, who watched them go into Miss Bellamy’s room. After the door had shut she stood outside and waited.

She was joined there by Florence, who had come up by the back stairway. They communicated in a series of restrained gestures and brief whispers.

“You all right, Mrs. Plumtree?”

“Why not!” Ninn countered austerely.

“You look flushed,” Florence observed drily.

“The heat in those rooms is disgraceful.”

“Has She come up?”

“In there.”

“Trouble?” Florence asked, listening. Ninn said nothing. “It’s him, isn’t it? Mr. Richard? What’s he been up to?”

“Nothing,” Ninn said, “that wouldn’t be a credit to him, Floy, and I’ll thank you to remember it.”

“Oh, dear,” Florence said rather acidly. “He’s a man like the rest of them.”

“He’s better than most.”

In the bedroom Miss Bellamy’s voice murmured, rose sharply and died. Richard’s, scarcely audible, sounded at intervals. Then both together, urgent and expostulatory, mounted to some climax and broke off. There followed a long silence during which the two women stared at each other, and then a brief unexpected sound.

“What was that!” Florence whispered.

“Was she laughing?”

“It’s left off now.”

Ninn said nothing. “Oh well,” Florence said, and had moved away when the door opened.

Richard came out, white to the lips. He walked past without seeing them, paused at the stairhead and pressed the palms of his hands against his eyes. They heard him fetch his breath with a harsh sound that might have been a sob. He stood there for some moments like a man who had lost his bearings and then struck his closed hand twice on the newel post and went quickly downstairs.

“What did I tell you,” Florence said. She stole nearer to the door. It was not quite shut. “Trouble,” she said.

“None of his making.”

“How do you know?”

“The same way,” Ninn said, “that I know how to mind my own business.”

Inside the room, perhaps beyond it, something crashed. They stood there, irresolute, listening.

At first Miss Bellamy had not been missed. Her party had reverted to its former style, a little more confused by the circulation of champagne. It spread through the two rooms and into the conservatory and became noisier and noiser. Everybody forgot the ceremony of opening the birthday presents. Nobody noticed that Richard, too, was absent.

Gantry edged his way towards Charles, who was in the drawing-room, and stooped to make himself heard.

“Dicky,” he said, “has made off.”

“Where to?”

“I imagine to do the best he can with the girl and her uncle.”

Charles looked at him with something like despair. “There’s nothing to be done,” he said, “nothing. It was shameful.”

“Where is she?”

“I don’t know. Isn’t she in the next room?”

“I don’t know,” Gantry said.

“I wish to God this show was over.”

“She ought to get on with the present-opening. They won’t go till she does.”

Pinky had come up. “Where’s Mary?” she said.

“We don’t know,” Charles said. “She ought to be opening her presents.”

“She won’t miss her cue, my dear, you may depend upon it. Don’t you feel it’s time?”

“I’ll find her,” Charles said. “Get them mustered if you can, Gantry, will you?”

Bertie Saracen joined them, flushed and carefree. “What goes on?” he inquired.

“We’re waiting for Mary.”

“She went upstairs for running repairs,” Bertie announced and giggled. “I am a poet and don’t I know it!” he added.

“Did you see her?” Gantry demanded.

“I heard her tell Monty. She’s not uttering to poor wee me.”

Monty Marchant edged towards them. “Monty, ducky,” Bertie cried, “your speech was too poignantly right. Live forever! Oh, I’m so tiddly.”

Marchant said, “Mary’s powdering her nose, Charles. Should we do a little shepherding?”

“I thought so.”

Gantry mounted a stool and used his director’s voice, “Attention, the cast!” It was a familiar summons and was followed by an obedient hush. “To the table, please, everybody, and clear an entrance. Last act, ladies and gentlemen. Last act, please!”

They did so at once. The table with its heaped array of parcels had already been moved forward by Gracefield and the maids. The guests ranged themselves at both sides like a chorus in grand opera, leaving a passage to the principal door.

Charles said, “I’ll just see…” and went into the hall. He called up the stairs, “Oh, Florence! Tell Miss Bellamy we’re ready, will you?” and came back. “Florence’ll tell her,” he said.

There was a longish, expectant pause. Gantry drew in his breath with a familiar hiss.

“I’ll tell her,” Charles said, and started off for the door.

Before he could reach it they all heard a door slam and running steps on the stairway. There was a relieved murmur and a little indulgent laughter.

“First time Mary’s ever missed an entrance,” someone said.

The steps ran across the hall. An irregular flutter of clapping broke out and stopped.

A figure appeared in the entrance and paused there.

It was not Mary Bellamy but Florence.

Charles said, “Florence! Where’s Miss Mary?”

Florence, breathless, mouthed at him. “Not coming.”

“Oh God!” Charles ejaculated. “Not now!”

As if to keep the scene relentlessly theatrical, Florence cried out in a shrill voice,

“A doctor. For Christ’s sake. Quick. Is there a doctor in the house!”