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‘Not with her own fair hands, dearest. She’s going to give us a really big cheque, though. I don’t call a few dinner-parties much of a price to pay.’
‘I call it disgusting!’ said Sir William strongly.
‘You may call it what you please, my dear, but you know as well as I do that that’s how these things are done. Ermyntrude’s a kind soul, but she’s no fool, and she has a daughter to launch. I don’t in the least mind being useful to her if she’ll make our hospital possible.’
‘Do you mean to tell me you’re going to drive some sordid bargain with the woman?’
‘Dear me, no! Nothing of the kind. I shall merely tell her how much we all want her to join the committee, and how we hope she and her husband will be free to dine with us next month, to meet Charles and Pussy, when they come to stay. Not a breath of sordidness, I promise you!’
‘It makes me sick!’ declared Sir William. ‘You had better go a step further while you are about it, and tell Carter how delighted we should be to welcome his ward into our family.’
‘That would be excessive,’ replied Lady Dering calmly. ‘Besides, I don’t know that I should be altogether delighted.’
‘You surprise me!’ said her lord, with awful sarcasm.
The arrival upon the scene of their son and heir put an end to this particular topic of discussion. Hugh Dering, in grey flannel trousers, and an aged tweed coat, came strolling across the lawn towards them, and sat down beside his mother on the wooden garden seat.
He was a large, and sufficiently good-looking young man, not quite thirty years old, who was engaged in building up a practice at the Chancery Bar. He had his mother’s eyes, but his father’s stern mouth, and could look extremely pleasant, or equally forbidding, according to the mood of the moment.
Just now, he was looking pleasant. He began to fill a pipe, remarking cheerfully: ‘Well, Ma? Secret conclave?’
‘No, not a bit. Your father and I were just discussing tomorrow’s party.’
Hugh grinned appreciatively. ‘Ought to be pretty good value, I should think. Were you asked to shoot as well, sir?’
‘No, I was not,’ replied Sir William. ‘And if I had been I should have refused!’
‘I wasn’t nearly so proud,’ said Hugh, gently pressing the tobacco down into the bowl of his pipe.
‘Are you telling me that you’re going to shoot there tomorrow?’
‘Rather! Why not?’
‘If I’d known you wanted to shoot, you could have taken my place,’ said Sir William, who belonged to a syndicate. ‘You’d have had better company and better sport. The way the Palings’ shoot has been allowed to deteriorate since Fanshawe’s death is a scandal. You’ll find the birds as wild as be – damned – if you see any birds at all.’
‘Then I shan’t shoot anything,’ responded Hugh fatalistically. ‘I’m not good enough for your crowd, in any case, sir. You’re all so grand, with your loaders and your second guns. I can’t cope at all.’
Sir William relapsed into silence. His wife, who knew him to be brooding over the changed times that had made it impossible for him any longer to run his own shoot, and thus see to it that his son was not flustered by two guns and a loader, diverted his attention by asking Hugh if he had yet met Vicky Fanshawe.
‘No, that’s a pleasure to come. Mary tells me she has to be seen to be believed.’
‘I saw her in Fritton the other day,’ said Lady Dering. ‘Very pretty, rather what one imagines her mother might have been like at the same age. Why did Mary say she had to be seen to be believed?’
‘I gather that she’s a turn in herself. Full of histrionic talent.’
‘She looked rather sweet. They tell me that all the young men in the neighbourhood are wild about her.’
‘Gentlemen prefer blondes, in fact,’ said Hugh, striking a match. ‘Is the Russian prince one of the more eligible suitors?’
‘Good gracious, I don’t know! What an engaging idea, though! We shall have fun tomorrow!’
Sir William snorted audibly, but his son only laughed, and inquired who else was to be of the party.
‘Well, I don’t know the extent of the party, but the Bawtrys are going,’ replied Lady Dering.
‘The Bawtrys?’ exclaimed Sir William, surprised out of his resolve to take no part in a conversation he found distasteful.
‘Ermyntrude is getting on, isn’t she?’ said Hugh. ‘I thought Connie Bawtry was stoutly Old Guard?’
