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‘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, but 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 the weather, 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?’
