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‘For God’s s
ake, don’t encourage her!’ said Hugh.
‘Yes, I thought somehow you wouldn’t be wanting me any longer,’ said Hemingway. ‘Intuition, they call it. I’ll be saying good morning to you, sir. I dare say we’ll meet again sometime or another.’
Hugh nodded to him, and turned back to Vicky. ‘Come on, explain this act! What are you supposed to be doing?’
‘I’m buying a saddle of mutton. And talking of mutton—’
‘Yes, you can cut that bit. I know it. I remind you of a sheep. Your chauffeur seems to me to be buying the mutton. Did you swank into the village in that car just to play at being a wealthy widow?’
‘Or a notorious woman,’ said Vicky.
‘Well, did you?’
‘No,’ said Vicky softly. ‘I’m being driven to Fritton to pick up my car, not that it has anything to do with you, and I wasn’t anybody but me until I suddenly caught sight of you looking like a lawyer, or something that’s been stuffed, and then I thought I might just as well as not put on the sort of act you’d be bound to disapprove of.’
Hugh stood looking down at her, torn between a desire to laugh, and to box her ears. Finally, he laughed. ‘Vicky, you abominable brat! Tell your chauffeur to finish the shopping, and go home. I’ll run you into Fritton.’
‘How lovely of you!’ said Vicky, with wholly deceptive effusiveness. ‘I expect if I had to choose between that and walking, I’d go with you.’
‘Ha! a snub!’ said Hugh.
Vicky met his quizzical gaze with one of her blandest stares. Lady Dering walking briskly down the street with a shopping basket on her arm, had ample opportunity to observe her only son’s expression as he stood looking into the celestially blue eyes of the prettiest girl in the county. She came to a halt a few paces away from them, and said in her cheerful, matter-of-fact way: ‘You look like two cats, trying to stare one another out of countenance. What’s the matter?’
Hugh turned quickly. A tinge of colour stole into his cheeks; he said with a touch of awkwardness: ‘Hullo, Mother! I didn’t know you were coming into the village. I’d have given you a lift.’
‘I hate men who neglect their mothers,’ said Vicky, sotto voce.
‘Walking,’ said Ruth Dering, ‘is good for my figure. How are you, Vicky?’
Vicky looked piteously at her. ‘I was feeling quite extraordinarily well, but, if you don’t mind my saying so, I think your son is utterly loathsome, which makes me feel quite quite sick in my tummy.’
‘Oh, I don’t mind what you say about him!’ said Lady Dering cordially. ‘What’s he been doing?’
‘Exercising superhuman self-control,’ said Hugh. ‘Come on, Vicky, don’t be stuffy! are you going to let me drive you to Fritton, or are you not?’
Vicky glanced towards his car, and shook her head. ‘Oh no! I dressed specially for a Rolls-Royce, and I wouldn’t look right in an open tourer.’
Hugh grinned. ‘All right, Shylock! have your pound of flesh! I apologise for having spoilt your act. If there were any mud about, I’d eat it. Will that do?’
Vicky looked at Lady Dering. There was a naïve question in her eyes. Lady Dering said: ‘Really, you know, you couldn’t expect him to say more. You’d better go with him.’
‘Yes, but wouldn’t you like him to drive you home instead?’ asked Vicky.
‘No,’ said Lady Dering, wondering at the sound of her own voice. ‘No, my dear. I like walking.’
She was left standing outside the butcher’s shop, with her knees trembling a little under her. She went into the shop, and told the proprietor, to his bewilderment, that she wanted six pounds of granulated sugar. A jumble of thoughts seethed in her brain. What on earth have I done? she asked herself. What will William say? I quite thought it was going to be Mary Cliffe, but it’s obvious he means to marry Vicky. Of course that mother is impossible, but Geoffrey Fanshawe was all right. She’s an heiress, too, not that one ought to care tuppence about that, but in these days, what can one do? At any rate, William thinks she’s a beauty, and she isn’t any relation of that dreadful Wally Carter!
Rebuffed by the butcher, she had walked out of the shop, and was suddenly recalled to a sense of her surroundings by a strident motor-horn that made her jump. She found that she was in the road, with Dr Chester’s car swerving across the street to avoid her. ‘Oh dear!’ she said guiltily. ‘I’m so sorry! Oh, it’s you, Maurice!’
The doctor, pulling up with a jerk, leaned out to inquire with a note of considerable surprise in his voice whether she had joined a suicide club.
‘Dreadfully sorry!’ said Lady Dering. ‘So stupid of me!’
‘Can I give you a lift?’ he asked. ‘I saw Hugh going towards Fritton, a minute or two ago, with Vicky Fanshawe.’
‘Yes, I know. No, I don’t want a lift, thanks.’
