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‘What happened?’ she demanded.
Wally eyed her uneasily. ‘What are you talking about?’
‘You might just as well come clean,’ said Vicky. ‘I know all about Gladys and Percy. In fact, we all know.’
Wally was pardonably affronted, and animadverted bitterly upon the licence permitted to the young in these unregenerate days. ‘Nosing into my affairs!’ he said. ‘Nice behaviour for a girl just home from school, I must say!’
‘Well, you’re wrong. I didn’t do any nosing. Ermyntrude found Percy’s letter in your pocket, and was so upset that she told Mary and me.’
‘Which pocket?’ inquired Wally, with a kind of hazy interest.
‘Oh, one of your coats! What on earth does it matter?’
‘Well, it’s nice to know, because as a matter of fact I couldn’t for the life of me remember where I’d put the thing. However, I thought it would turn up sooner or later. Not that there’s anything in it,’ he added.
‘You’re pretty well bound to say that,’ replied Vicky. ‘The point is, we don’t want Ermyntrude to be worried by a rancid scandal.’
‘Nothing of the sort!’ said Wally, with a lordly wave of one hand. ‘It’s just a slight mistake, that’s all.’
‘But what about Percy?’ insisted Vicky. ‘Is he going to make trouble?’
‘Certainly not!’ said Wally. ‘The whole affair was absurd.’
‘Oh!’ said Vicky doubtfully. ‘Did you get Percy to see that?’
‘Naturally. Just a few minutes plain talk, and I was able to put the whole thing straight.’
‘That means that you’ve promised to pay,’ said Vicky. ‘Or else you’ve fobbed him off for the moment, and he’ll come back.’
‘It seems to me,’ said Wally, with a good deal of asperity, ‘that all you learned at that precious finishing-school of yours was to snoop round listening at keyholes. You may think that a smart thing to do, but let me tell you that it isn’t at all the clean potato. In fact, it’s very dishonourable, that’s what it is.’
Upon which austere pronouncement he strayed away grandly, but a little uncertainly, in the direction of his bedroom.
Five
If Wally hoped that his wife was going to turn a blind eye to his latest peccadillo, he was soon undeceived. Though the night might have brought little counsel and less repose to Ermyntrude, it did strengthen her determination to ‘have it out’ with Wally. Mary and Vicky, and probably the Prince too, knew that a highly dramatic scene had been staged in Ermyntrude’s bedroom before breakfast on the following morning, for when Ermyntrude succumbed to her emotions she became not only hysterical, but extremely shrill. Anyone at Palings on that Sunday morning would have had to have been very deaf indeed not to have been disturbed by the sound of its mistress’s voice, rising higher and higher, and finally breaking into gusty sobs.
When Ermyntrude did not appear to take her place behind the coffee-cups, Mary began to feel uneasy, for although Ermyntrude often indulged in hearty quarrels with Wally, they usually relieved her feelings so much that she was able to face her family, ten minutes later, with all her customary good-humour. When the sinister message was delivered to her that Ermyntrude would not be requiring any breakfast, her spirits sank to their lowest level. It was with an effort that she summoned up a smile to greet the Prince. She told him, in what she hoped was a careless tone, that Ermyntrude had a headache, and was breakfasting in her room. He accepted this information with all the polite concern of one who had not sipped his early tea to the accompaniment of an unleashed female voice reciting, in ruthless crescendo, every sin his host had committed since his marriage.
Mary could not but applaud the correctness of his attitude, and was just beginning to accuse herself of having been unjust to the Prince, when he once more alienated her sympathy by leading their conversation into a channel whither she refused to follow him. Gracefully, delicately, but none the less obviously, Prince Varasashvili was attempting to discover from Miss Cliffe the terms of the late Mr Fanshawe’s will. The Prince, in fact, wanted to know whether Geoffrey Fanshawe’s fortune had been left unconditionally to his relict, or whether it was tied up in his daughter.
Restraining an impulse to inform the Prince that the outlay of a small sum at Somerset House would place at his disposal the information that was so necessary to him, Mary returned no sort of reply to his adroit conversational feelers, but offered him instead a second cup of coffee. He spoke of what he must suppose to be Vicky’s large expectations, adding with a smile which Mary thought brazen: ‘She is at all times enchanting, but when it is known that she will have also a fortune when she comes of age – is it not so? – one is astonished that she is not already betrothed! It is very well, however: she should make what you call a good match, do you not agree?’
‘Yes, Vicky’s very attractive,’ responded Mary woodenly.
‘You also, Miss Cliffe, are one of the lucky ones, I understand,’ he continued. ‘I hear that you, too, are an heiress.’
For a startled moment, Mary wondered whether he were considering her as a possible bride, but came to the conclusion, after a glance at his face, that he was merely sliding by not too obvious stages away from a subject which he had been quick to see she disliked.
‘An heiress!’ she said. ‘I’m afraid you’ve been listening to Uncle Wally, Prince.’
‘Certainly, yes. It’s not true? Alas, then! I understood that there is an aunt who leaves all her money to your guardian, and that you are his heiress.’
‘You’ve got it wrong,’ replied Mary. ‘My guardian’s Aunt Clara hasn’t made a will at all, and isn’t likely to, because, to tell you the truth, she’s mad. Has been, for years and years.’
‘Yes, and a good job too,’ said Wally, who had just come into the room. ‘I’ve no doubt if she were sane she’d go and leave every penny to a Home for Lost Cats, because that’s just the sort of thing that happens to me. In fact, it would be just my luck if the old girl recovered, instead of kicking the bucket, which is what she ought to have done years ago.’ He sat down, and shook out his napkin. ‘And yet you’ll hear people arguing that euthanasia’s all wrong!’ he added bitterly. ‘The end of it’ll be that I shall die first, and the only person who’ll benefit will be Mary. Not that I don’t want you to benefit, my dear, because I do, but it’s a bit thick if I don’t benefit first, if you see what I mean.’
Mary had finished her breakfast by this time, and now got up, adjuring Wally to look after his guest.
