‘Are you enjoying having your portrait executed? Your aunts, the Misses Colwyn-Welch, seem quite excited about it.’
‘Oh, it’s not a painting, of course, but only a bit of plaster. I’ve given a couple of sittings. That chap who calls himself Albion is doing it. Not his real name, I imagine. Anyway, he’s hellishly expensive. The aunts are paupers, of course, but I should have thought that Grandma Binnen was far too sensible to cast her Dutch guilders upon the waters. She knows jolly well that they won’t return to her after many days. In other words, I don’t think Albion’s work is going to be worth a lot in times to come, but, of course, one never knows.’
‘You do not see your grandmother’s gesture as one of affection and pride — a determination to capture a likeness which, by the time you are fifty, will have vanished for ever?’
‘No, I don’t. Oh, she thinks well enough of my youth and my appearance, I dare say, but, in my opinion, she must also be cashing in on the chance that Albion’s work is going to bring in the guilders later on, although she’s wealthy enough not to need them, I should have thought.’
‘What else did you want to talk to me about?’ asked Dame Beatrice. The path broadened and they came out upon grass-land drained by dykes.
‘Talk to you about? Oh, I don’t really know. I expect I only needed my hand held about this awful mess of an entanglement that my sister seems to have got herself into. I keep asking myself whether there isn’t some way of getting her out of it, you know.’
‘What real cause have you to object to Mr Rose as your brother-in-law? He seems to be kindly, spirited, imperturbable and well-mannered. These adjectives cannot be applied to all prospective husbands, I fear.’
‘Oh, I don’t want my sister to marry him, that’s all.’
‘Are you certain that, quite simply, you do not wish your sister to marry?’
‘She’s far too young,’ said Florian.
The rest of the walk was taken in silence. They parted from the little river at a wooden foot-bridge which crossed a dyke and led to a lane. Florian showed the way by taking the lead, his head down and his hands in his trousers’ pockets. Dame Beatrice left him to brood. They were back at the house in time to hear Bernardo and Binnie laughing together in the hall and a certain amount of scuffling going on. Florian tore in through the garden door. Dame Beatrice seated herself upon the terrace and waited, serenely and philosophically, for what she felt certain would ensue.
She was right. She heard Florian yelling hysterically, then came Bernardo’s deeper tones punctuated by Binnie’s screams. There was a short interval and then Florian rushed out on to the terrace with a hand to his ribs and his hair in disorder. He tore down to the lake. There was a splash.
Dame Beatrice was prepared to wait. In a matter of seconds, however, she was joined by Binnie and Bernardo, the latter with a handkerchief wrapped around the knuckles of his left hand.
‘Mr Colwyn-Welch is in the lake,’ she said.
‘It’s nowhere more than three feet deep,’ said Binnie; who was half-crying now, and looking flushed and angry, ‘If anybody tries to interfere, Florian probably will drown himself but if nobody takes any notice he’ll just crawl out and go round by the stables to get back to his room. All the same,’ she added, turning suddenly on her swain, ‘you did hit him and you are bigger than he is. You’d better take back your ring. I don’t like bullies. You know he hurt his head when he slipped on the stairs that time.’
‘Well, well!’ exclaimed Bernardo, loosening the handkerchief and gazing at his knuckles. ‘He comes pelting in here like a maniac, interfering in a perfectly ordinary and, so far as I was concerned, a perfectly sporting and quite proper little jam-session, and then hauls off and takes a fair to middling slam at me! What could a man of spirit do?’
‘Hit somebody his own size!’ said Binnie.
‘Not possible, under the circumstances, dear girl. And I did remember his head. That’s why I forebore to slam at it. But he went for me first, for no earthly reason, so, naturally, he copped it. What did you expect?’
Binnie snatched off her engagement ring and flung it on to the stone floor of the terrace.
‘There!’ she said. ‘That’s what I think of you!’ From the library out shot old Rebekah Rose. She pounced upon the ring and snatched it up.
‘Damaged! I offer fifty pounds,’ she said briskly. Bernardo laughed and held out his hand for the ring.
‘It will do for Rachel Lomberg, darling,’ he said. ‘When I sell you a ring for fifty pounds it won’t be this one. Give it back, there’s a love. Bernie wants it. What’s more, Binnie will want it later on. You’ll see.’
Rebekah exclaimed in Yiddish and handed over the ring. Bernardo grinned at Binnie and put it in his pocket. Binnie smacked his face.
Dame Beatrice left the terrace and strolled towards the lake. There was no sign of Florian. She went round to the stables. They could be reached from the park by a well-screened path which wound its way through a small plantation of larches. There were reassuring marks of wet footprints. She returned to the house to find the terrace denuded of its late occupants. Pensively she went up to her room to get ready for lunch.
At table she noticed that Florian, dry and changed, although his self-inflicted ducking had darkened his golden brows and flattened his hair, had seated himself next to his sister, whose left hand was still without a ring. Bernardo sat next to his grandfather and engaged the old man charmingly in conversation, completely ignoring the strident remarks of his grandmother, who was telling Binnen, at the other end of the table, how to grow hyacinths. Binnen, with the stolid patience of her race, allowed the stream of useless advice to flow over her while she addressed herself to the business of getting on with her lunch.
Opal was being squired by Sweyn, who had her sister Ruby on the other side of him. Next to Ruby sat Petra, who should perhaps have been attended to by Bernardo, but, although (or perhaps because) she was one of his closest relatives, he took no notice of her, confining his efforts to making himself extremely agreeable to Bernard except when the old man drew Dame Beatrice (again seated on Bernard’s right) into the conversation. The place of honour, as was only natural, had been left for her by the family.
Derde was on her right and devoted himself to her except at such times as she was engaged in conversation with Bernard. At these times he talked to Florian’s and Binnie’s mother, who was seated between him and her husband. The hoteliers, Dame Beatrice had already noted, were a most devoted couple and (no doubt glad of a change from the bonhomie expected of them by their clients) kept themselves apart from the rest of the company. They were not, apparently, interested in their children. A joyous reunion, it was abundantly evident, had not taken place. Parents and offspring were strangers to one another.
There seemed a definite coolness, too, between Sigismund (who was seated next to her) and his loud-voiced mother. He ate in silence, except for addressing an occasional remark to Opal, an almost unnecessary courtesy, since Sweyn conversed with her most of the time. The only other member of the party was his wife, old Bernard’s daughter. As though in emulation of Binnen, she ate heartily and said not a single word (so far as Dame Beatrice was aware) to anyone.
When lunch was over, the company mounted the stairs to the magnificent drawing-room for coffee. Petra, to whom Dame Beatrice had scarcely spoken, either in Amsterdam or at Leyden Hall, seated herself beside her on a settee and plunged into speech.
‘Opal and Ruby and I are making a little expedition to the Point. If you would care to join us we could go in your car, perhaps, if you didn’t mind.’