Dame Beatrice had not the slightest intention of delivering her letter into his hands. She smiled her reptilian smile and said:
'My only object was to study the stars. It is a singularly clear and beautiful night, but, as late as this, there will be no collection of letters. It will do equally well in the morning. It is only a note to my secretary about some work I want her to do while I am away. Rosamund tells me that she has a birthday coming along. When would that be? I should wish to give her a present.'
'She didn't tell you when it was?'
'She merely mentioned that she would be twenty-five years old.'
'Oh? Well, it's on the twenty-ninth of May.'
'I must remember to wear an oak-apple in my hat,' said Dame Beatrice genially.
'I hope she has not been stuffing you up with any nonsense?'
'What kind of nonsense?'
'Well, she expects to come into this money of hers when she is twenty-five, and she seems to have some manifestly absurd idea that other people are after it, and will stick at very little in order to get hold of it. All part of her aberration, of course, but I just thought I'd warn you not to take her accusations seriously, particularly if they refer to Judith and myself.'
'Of course I shall not pay attention to her fears unless they are well-founded. The twenty-ninth of May? How interesting!' She gave him a little nod and went upstairs to her room, her letter still in her hand.
CHAPTER FOUR
PIEDS-EN-L'AIR-FAMILY GATHERING
'Oh, master, if you did but hear the pedlar at the door,
you would never dance again after a pipe and tabor.'
The Winter's Tale.
(1)
The first of the guests arrived on the following day. The morning was damp and misty. Dame Beatrice, returning from dropping her letter into the pillar-box, saw that the hills behind the house were shrouded in grey and that the clouds promised rain before noon.
She joined Romilly, as before, for breakfast, and remarked that it looked like becoming a wet day. She wondered, she added, whether he was going into Swanage for a morning paper.
'No,' he replied. 'I'm expecting Tancred and some others. No telling when they're likely to turn up, so I had better stay in, and there's nobody I can send, unless your man would like to go.'
'Tancred?'
'Yes. He's a ruddy poet. I can't stand him, but he had to be asked, you know. Can't leave anybody out. Matter of fact, I can't stand any of them. Hubert might be all right, but I don't know him as well as I know the others. In any case, I have very little use for clergymen.'
Tancred Provost turned up in a taxi which he had shared with his presumed cousins Humphrey and Binnie. Humphrey, as Judith had indicated, was a somewhat seedy schoolmaster and (Romilly explained to Dame Beatrice when the visitors had been shown to their rooms) must have married Binnie in a fit of scholarly absent-mindedness or in a state of mental aberration, for they were, in all respects, a notably ill-assorted couple, he thought.
Dame Beatrice herself thought it far more likely that the shabby, ineffectual, unprepossessing man had been tempted into marriage by his partner's flaxen head, characterless, innocent, half-open mouth and babyish blue eyes which she widened, as though in surprise, in response to every remark which was made to her.
Tancred was an attractive young man, and it was clear that he was prepared to champion Binnie against her husband's weak spitefulness, for Humphrey, like most of his kind, compensated for his own shortcomings by making a butt of his dim-witted spouse. What appeared to be a typical exchange between them occurred as soon as they appeared downstairs again.
'Well, Binnie, my dear,' said Romilly, 'I expect you are ready for your lunch.'
'I'm dieting, Uncle Romilly. What are we having?'
'Well, really!' exploded Humphrey. 'What a question to ask your host!'
'A perfectly proper question, if she's dieting,' said Tancred. 'What are we having for lunch, Uncle Romilly?'
Humphrey glared at him. Romilly replied, 'I've really no idea. It's Judith's pigeon.'
'I wish it could be pigeon,' said Binnie wistfully. 'Oh, boy! How I love pigeon pie!'
'I'm afraid it won't be that. How charming you look, my dear,' said Romilly. 'If that's the result of dieting, I must admit that the sacrifice is worth it.'
'Oh, do you like my legs? These minis do something for legs, don't they? I mean, if you've got nice legs, why shouldn't you show them off? And a mini does show them off.'
'At twenty-three that might, possibly, be desirable,' said Humphrey. At thirty-three, no! You seem to forget that you are almost middle-aged, my dear. I've told you before, and I tell you again...'
'"He said it very loud and clear; he went and shouted in her ear,"' said Tancred. 'Oh, come off it, Humphrey!' He turned to Binnie, rolled his dark eyes and declaimed:
'Ah, shall I have you only in my dreams,
And long for sleep, and loathe to be awake?'
'What are you babbling about?' snarled Humphrey.
'I am quoting the first two lines of a little thing of my own,' said Tancred. 'If you talked poetry to the poor girl instead of criticising her legs...'
'I'm not criticising her legs, damn your impudence! I merely stated...'
'We are none of us criticising her legs. We are admiring those, and talking about her diet,' said Romilly. 'Ah, here comes Judith. Judith, my dear, Binnie is on a diet. What are we having for lunch?'
'A diet? Oh, dear!' said Judith. 'I'm afraid it's not diet-y food. We're having Scotch broth, turbot and a saddle of mutton. Binnie could have the turbot, I suppose, but...'
'I shall have it all,' said Binnie. 'Heavenly, heavenly lunch! We never get a lunch like that at home, not even on Sundays. I suppose Humphrey doesn't earn enough money. Perhaps, if they made him a housemaster in a big public school-'
Humphrey's snort of fury at this remark was taken by Binnie as agreement, and she seemed about to enlarge upon her theme when Tancred took her by the arm.
'What you want,' he said, 'is to hear the rest of that smashing sonnet of mine. It's all about you. Come along into the hall. The acoustics are better in there. They suit my voice.'
During lunch the wrangling between the married couple went on. Dame Beatrice could not believe that Binnie's capacity for exasperating her husband was not the result of a careful study of his vanities and his weaknesses. On the other hand, when Binnie interpolated one of her banal and meaningless remarks, Humphrey contested it with a blunt cruelty which left her, more often than not, in tears, but which induced in Dame Beatrice some sympathy for both partners in such a mesalliance. Matters were not helped by Tancred, who, as though moved by a disposition of kindness towards Binnie, invariably criticised Humphrey's arguments and, having the better brain and a poniard of wit against which Humphrey's bludgeonings seemed always to come off second best, reduced his opponent to teeth-grinding fury. At this the imbecile Binnie would leap into the arena with, 'Oh, Tancred, you beast! Oh, leave him alone! He can't help it if he isn't rich and clever!'
Dame Beatrice wondered which of them Humphrey would murder first. She extricated herself from the unseemly exchanges as soon as she could, stating that she was ready for a session with her patient.
'But it isn't the right time,' said Romilly. 'It's after tea you are to have her, isn't it? I thought you said...'
'What's this about a patient?' asked Binnie, interrupting him. 'Can I help with the nursing? I love sick-beds.'
'Yes, you may help,' said Dame Beatrice, neatly circumventing Humphrey's comments. 'Come along up to my room.'
'Oh, but, really, Beatrice!' protested Romilly. 'I thought all your sessions were to be held in secret.'
'Yes, so did I,' she replied. 'Since, however, a certain picture in my room has indicated that they are not to be so held, I see no reason to refuse Mrs Provost's reasonable and helpful request.'