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These words, which were spoken in an unguarded tone, reached Mary’s ears. At that moment, Janet, taking painstaking aim, miscued, and it became White’s turn to play. As he walked over to the table, Mary caught Steel’s eye, and realised, with a curious sinking of her spirits, that he also had overheard Wally’s last speech. He was standing beside Mary, and asked in an abrupt undertone whether Wally had lent money to White.
‘I don’t know,’ Mary replied repressively.
Steel’s hard gaze travelled to Ermyntrude’s unconscious profile. He muttered: ‘Exploiting her! By God, I—’ He checked himself, remembering to whom he spoke, and said briefly: ‘Sorry!’
Mary thought it wisest to disregard his outburst, and began to talk of something else, but she was privately a good deal perturbed by what she had heard, and contrived, soon after the departure of the Whites, to get a word with Wally alone. Knowing that evasive methods would not answer, she asked him bluntly whether he had lent money to White, and refused to be satisfied with his easy assurance that it was quite all right.
Questioned more strictly, Wally said bitterly that things were coming to a pretty pass now that his own ward spied upon him.
‘You know I don’t spy on you. I couldn’t help hearing what you said to Mr White tonight. You spoke quite loudly. Robert Steel heard you as plainly as I did.’
Wally looked a little discomposed at this. ‘I wish that fellow would stop poking his nose into my business! It’s my belief he’d like nothing better than to see me knocked down by a tram, or something.’
‘Nonsense!’ said Mary.
‘It isn’t nonsense. Any fool can see with half an eye that he’s after Ermy. He wants her money, you mark my words.’
‘It’s Aunt Ermy’s money that I want to speak about,’ said Mary. ‘You’ve no right to get money out of her to lend to Harold White.’
Wally looked offended. ‘That’s a nice way to talk to your guardian!’
‘I know, but I must. I can’t bear to see Aunt Ermy cheated. If she were mean I mightn’t mind so much, but she gives you whatever you ask for without a murmur, and to be frank with you, Uncle, it makes me sick to hear the lies you tell her about what you want money for. What’s more, she’s beginning to realise – things.’
‘I must say, I didn’t much like that crack of hers at breakfast today,’ agreed Wally. ‘Think she meant anything in particular?’
‘I don’t know, but I’ll tell you this: if she finds out that you’re lending her money to White, there’ll be trouble. She’ll stand a lot, but not that.’
‘Well, all right, all right, don’t make such a song and dance about it!’ said Wally, irritated. ‘As a matter of fact, I was a bit on at the time, or naturally I wouldn’t have been such a fool. Lending money is a thing I never have believed in. However, there’s nothing to worry about, because Harold’s going to pay it back next week.’
‘What if he doesn’t?’
‘Don’t you fret, he’s got to, because I’ve got his bill for it.’
Mary sighed. ‘You’re so hopeless, Uncle: if he tries to get out of it, you’ll let him talk you over.’
‘Well, that’s where you’re wrong. I may be easy-going, but if it comes to parting brass-rags with Harold, or getting under Ermy’s skin, I’ll part with Harold.’
‘I wish you would part with him,’ said Mary.
‘Yes, I dare say you do, but the trouble with you is that you’ve got a down on poor old Harold. But as a matter of fact he can be very useful to me. You’ll sing a different tune if you wake up one morning and find I’ve made a packet, all through Harold White.’
‘I should still hate your ha
ving anything to do with him,’ said Mary uncompromisingly.
Three
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 front-door, 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 things 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.
