“The hour has come,” said his lordship. “Now is our great moment of triumph!”
“I wish I could agree with you,” said Adrian bitterly, as he followed Lord Fenneltree up the stairs.
In his lordship’s bedroom their costumes lay resplendent on the four-poster bed, and the butler and a footman, twittering with excitement, were ready to help them on with their things. Half an hour later Lord Fenneltree, looking as Asiatic as he was ever likely to look with auburn side-whiskers and violet eyes, crept down the back stain followed by Adrian. They reached the stable — where all Rosy’s accoutrements were laid out, gleaming in the light of the oil lamps.
“Now,” said Lord Fenneltree excited, “now to dress our star and then to make our grand entrance. I can’t wait to see their faces.”
8. THE PARTY
Adrian went to the great barn and threw open the doors He noticed, as he did so, that mingling with the sweet smell of hay there was another, more pungent scent. He frowned and wrinkled his nose: the smell was very familiar, but he could not place it.
“Rosy?” he called. There was silence in the darkened barn. He was not greeted by the shrill squeal of pleasure that Rosy always gave at the sound of his voice.
“Rosy?” he called again anxiously. “Rosy, are you there?”
The silence was suddenly broken by a loud but extremely dignified hiccup. A terrible suspicion entered Adrian’s mind, and at the same moment he realised what the fragrant odour was: it was rum. Picking up a lantern he hurried into the barn, and there he found Rosy. She was leaning elegantly against the wall, hiccupping gently to herself and pensively rolling a small but empty bottle to and fro with her foot. Adrian stared at her aghast. How she had obtained the rum he could not think, but while gaiety and conviviality were reigning in the house, Rosy in her lonely barn had undoubtedly been consoling herself with a quiet nip. To say that she was in no condition to appear in public would have been an understatement. She was as satisfactorily drunk as any human being Adrian had ever seen. As he watched her she picked up a wisp of hay and, after one or two abortive attempts, managed to stuff it into her mouth. She chewed meditatively, and then uttered a small lady-like belch. Suddenly a great feeling of relief flooded over Adrian. Of course! This was the answer! Dear, kind, sweet Rosy—Rosy the inimitable—had saved him at the eleventh hour! If it had occurred to him, he thought, he would have given her the rum himself. He hurried out of the barn to where Lord Fenneltree was waiting.
“You’ll have to give it up now,” said Adrian in triumph. “She’s tight.”
“Tight?” said his lordship, bewildered. “What d’you mean, tight?”
“Tight . . . drunk . . . pickled . . . stewed,” said Adrian. “She’s got a bottle of rum from somewhere and she’s drunk the lot.”
“My dear chap,” gasped his lordship, “what a catastrophe. You mean she can’t appear?”
“No,” said Adrian bluntly. “She can’t even stand.”
“Ruination, ruination, after all our hard work,” moaned his lordship. “Couldn’t we sort of prop her up a bit, if I got the gardeners on each side of her?”
“No,” said Adrian. “I tell you she can’t even walk.”
At that moment Rosy lumbered casually out of the barn, kicking the bottle in front of her.
“By Jove!” said his lordship, “she’s recovered!”
Rosy was undergoing one of those strange, momentary flashes of semi-sobriety that come to people who are deep in their cups, but Adrian found it impossible to persuade Lord Fenneltree of this. While they were arguing acrimoniously Rosy spotted her costume and with a pleased—if slightly off-key—squeak shambled over to it and lay down to be dressed.
“There you are,” said his lordship triumphantly. “What did I tell you? She’s perfectly all right. I told you, dear boy, you worry too much.”
“I tell you,” Adrian said savagely, “she’s as tight as a tick. If you take her into that ballroom I won’t be responsible.”
Lord Fenneltree approached Rosy and patted her affectionately on the head.
“Good old Rosy,” he said. “You’ll do it, won’t you?”
Rosy hiccupped in reply. In spite of Adrian’s protests the great sequined cloth was draped over Rosy’s back, and the howdah hauled up and fastened in position. Then his lordship climbed up the ladder and settled himself comfortably inside.
“Come on, dear boy, don’t dawdle,” he said to Adrian. “This is the great moment.”
Feeling as if he were mounting the scaffold, Adrian took up his position on Rosy’s neck. There was just the faintest chance, he thought, that he might be able to steer Rosy rapidly in and out of the ballroom, thus satisfying his lordship and removing Rosy from the scene with the utmost dispatch. It was fortunate that Rosy was a good-natured drunk. In response to Adrian’s cries of encouragement she clambered heavily to her feet and stood swaying pensively for a moment or so. Then they set off down the drive that led round the house to the terrace outside the ballroom. Rosy’s tendency to stagger created havoc in several flowerbeds as she passed, but they eventually reached the great doors where the butler and the footman waited, their hands on the latches.
“Now, my lord?” enquired the butler in a hushed voice.
“Now,” said Lord Fenneltree, adjusting his turban and lying back regally in the howdah. The butler and the footman pushed open the doors and, at this signal, the band stopped playing. The couples, who had been waltzing merrily around, came to a standstill. Looking down the great room they saw, framed in the doorway, a splendid, if slightly inebriated, spectacle of eastern pomp. With admiring cries they left the floor and formed two lines along the walls, clapping their hands and chattering excitedly.
“Well, go on,” hissed Lord Fenneltree. “Take her in.” Offering up a brief prayer Adrian tapped Rosy smartly with his heels and awaited results. It had taken Rosy a moment or two to adjust her eyes to the glare of the huge chandeliers, but now, through a haze of rum, she saw a vast and colourful conglomeration of people who were forming what she imagined to be a ring in which she could perform. Rosy was not an old trouper for nothing. She uttered a pleased squeal gathered herself together and entered the ballroom at a smart trot. This was her undoing.
The surface of the ballroom, polished to a mirror-like gloss, would not have offered much of a foothold to a sober elephant, let alone one in Rosy’s condition. Her hind legs (not under the best of control) swept from under her and she sat down suddenly and startlingly on her bottom. All would have been well, even at this Juncture, if it had not been for the speed with which she had entered the ballroom, for she proceeded to toboggan forward over the smooth parquet, while Adrian clutched at her ears and pulled frantically in a vain endeavour to stop her headlong progress. Lord Fenneltree, almost upside down in the howdah, was shouting inarticulate instructions, but there was nothing that anyone could do. The screams of the ladies and the cries of alarm from the gentlemen filled the ballroom as Rosy, glittering like a great pile of diamonds, roared with ever increasing speed down the room on her bottom and hit the long trestle tables at the far end of the room. The floor was awash with punch, champagne and eight different vintages of wine. Haunches of venison bespattered with ice-cream were scattered over the parquet, together with fruit, lobster, eels and salmon. The splintering crash of Rosy coming to a standstill shook the very house to its foundations. Then there was a long, shocked silence, only broken by Rosy, who hiccupped gently to herself.
Lady Fenneltree was indeed, for possibly the only time in her life, bereft of speech. Her husband had promised her something original, but a large, jewel-bedecked elephant sliding out of control down the ballroom accompanied by two Asiatic gentlemen was something that she had never imagined, even in her wildest dreams. The shock of Rosy’s impact had snapped the lashings that secured the howdah to her back, and it had fallen to the floor. Lord Fenneltree struggled from the interior, looking rather like a brilliant butterfly emerging from a cocoon. With a sudden shock Lady Fenneltree recognised him, and immediately her powers of speech came flooding back.