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‘As far as I can see, he doesn’t need any looking after,’ said Wally outrageously. ‘Quite one of the family, aren’t you?’
The Prince refused to take offence, but replied smilingly: ‘Yes, indeed, you have made me feel so. It’s very pleasant! I assure you, I enjoy my stay enormously.’
‘Well, I’m glad someone’s pleased,’ retorted Wally, eyeing him with gloomy dislike.
Mary felt unequal to the task of coping with this situation, and left the room, preferring to perform another unpleasant duty. She went upstairs to visit Ermyntrude.
That afflicted lady was lying amorphously in the centre of a large rose-pink brocade bed. A strong aroma of scent filled the room, and the pink silk curtains were drawn to shut out the indiscreetly cheerful sunshine.
‘Is that you, dearie?’ she said faintly. ‘Oh, my head!’
Mary was fond of Ermyntrude, and although she might deprecate her flights into hysteria, she thought that Wally treated her abominably, and so was able to reply with genuine sympathy: ‘Poor Aunt Ermy! I’ll bathe your forehead with eau-de-Cologne, and you’ll soon feel more yourself.’
‘I’ve come to the end!’ announced Ermyntrude, in a voice that would have done credit to any tragedienne. ‘God knows I’ve tried my best, but this is the parting of the ways!’
Mary opened the window at the bottom, and began to soak a handkerchief with eau-de-Cologne. ‘Are you going to divorce Wally?’ she asked bluntly.
This swift descent from the realms of drama to the practical was rather ill-timed. Ermyntrude gave a moan, and turned her face into one of the lace-edged pillows that sprawled all over the head of the bed.
Realising that she had spoken out of turn, Mary said no more, but began to bathe Ermyntrude’s brow. After a slight pause, Ermyntrude said: ‘I oughtn’t to speak of such things to you. You being his ward and all, and so young and innocent!’
‘Never mind about that,’ replied Mary, speaking as mechanically as she felt any actress must in the two hundred and fiftieth performance of a successful drama. ‘What happened?’
‘Oh, don’t ask me!’ besought Ermyntrude, with a shudder.
It was indeed unnecessary; the history of the morning’s encounter with Wally came pouring out, a little garbled perhaps, and certainly incoherent, but graphic enough to present Mary with a comprehensive picture. Ermyntrude spoke in thrilling tones, working herself up to the moment when, starting up in bed, and flinging wide two plump arms, she demanded to be told why she should bear this humiliation, when a better and a nobler man asked nothing more of life than to be allowed to take her away from it all.
‘The Prince?’ asked Mary.
Ermyntrude sank back on to her pillows, and groped for the smelling-salts. ‘He couldn’t remain silent any longer,’ she said simply. ‘He has struggled, but when he saw – when he realised the life I lead, the way Wally treats me, flesh and blood wouldn’t stand it! He spoke! Oh, Mary dear, when I think that if things h
ad been different I might have been Princess Varasashvili, it seems as though I just can’t bear it!’
Mary was silent for a moment, but presently she said: ‘Well, why don’t you divorce Wally, Aunt Ermy?’
Ermyntrude had cast an anguished arm across her eyes, but she lowered it at this, and replied with a note of sound common sense in her voice: ‘Divorce Wally, on account of this Baker hussy? I’m not such a fool!’
‘You needn’t cite her as the co-respondent. It could be an unknown woman, couldn’t it?’
‘Catch Wally doing anything so obliging!’ said Ermyntrude caustically. ‘Of course he wouldn’t! And what would I look like, cut out by a cheap little— Well, we’ll leave it at that, for I’m sure I’ve no wish to soil my lips with what she is! Besides, look what harm it would do my Vicky, if I was to go and get a divorce!’
‘I don’t really see why it should.’
‘I dare say you don’t, but I wasn’t born yesterday, and I know what people are! Goodness knows the right people look down on me enough without my giving them something fresh to turn up their noses at!’
‘Oh!’ cried Mary, moved for the first time during this scene, ‘you mustn’t think that sort of thing, Aunt Ermy! If people look down on you, you can be sure they aren’t the right people, and send them to the devil!’
‘That’s all very well for you, dearie: you’ve had education,’ said Ermyntrude. ‘I can’t afford to send people to the devil, though I don’t deny I’ve often been tempted to. Funny, isn’t it, when you think how I could buy up the Derings and the Bawtrys, and all the rest of them, and never notice it? Oh well! there’s no use repining, as they say. But there’s one thing I’m determined on, and always have been, and that is that there’s never going to be any sneering at my Vicky. She’s been brought up a lady, and her father was a real gentleman, and whatever else I may have been, I’ve always been respectable, and no one can say different!’
‘But no one would think you less respectable for having divorced Wally,’ said Mary.
‘That’s all you know, dearie,’ replied Ermyntrude tartly. ‘There aren’t any flies on me, thanks! What with my having been on the stage, and having the kind of looks I have, I can just hear all the dirty-minded Nosey-Parkers saying it was all a put-up job, and Wally doing it to oblige me, just so as I could marry a prince!’ Mention of her exalted suitor, and the thoughts of splendour his title conjured up, proved too much for her. She abandoned herself to despair, moaning faintly that she would have to go on being a bird in a golden cage.
Mary could not help laughing at this. ‘Dear Aunt Ermy, at least the gold is your own! Has the Prince actually asked you to divorce Wally, and marry him?’
‘A woman,’ proclaimed Ermyntrude in throbbing accents, ‘doesn’t need to be told everything in black and white! The Prince is the soul of honour.’
‘Quite,’ said Mary dryly. ‘Does he know that you don’t approve of divorce?’
