The dinner was elaborate and grand. Roy had set out to beat the apolaustic at their own game. And he had contrived that each person there should take special delight in at least one course — there were oysters for Lady Muriel, whitebait for me, quails for Lady Boscastle. Most of the party, even Lady Boscastle, ate with gusto. I should have been as enthusiastic as any of them, but I was only anxious that the courses should follow more quickly, that we could see the party break up in peace. Roy was not eating and drinking much; I told myself that he had a ball to attend when this was over. But I should have been more reassured to see him drink. His eyes were brighter and fuller than normal, and his voice had changed. It was louder, and without the inflections, the variety, the shades of different tone as he turned from one person to another. Usually his voice played round one. That night it was forced out, and had a brazen hardness.
He spoke little. He attended to his guests. He mimicked one or two people for Winslow’s benefit: it affected me that the imitations were nothing like as exact as usual. The courses dragged by; at last there was a chocolate mousse, to be followed by an ice. Both Lord Boscastle and Winslow, who had strongly masculine tastes, refused the sweet. Lady Muriel felt they should not be left unreproved.
“I am sorry to see that you’re missing this excellent pudding, Hugh,” she said.
“You ought to know by now, Muriel,” said Lord Boscastle, defensively, tiredly, “that I’m not much good at puddings.”
“It has always been considered a college speciality,” said Lady Muriel, clinching the argument. “I remember telling the Master that it should become recognised as the regular sweet at the Audit feast.”
“I’m very forgetful of these matters,” said Winslow, “but I should be slightly surprised if that happened, Lady Muriel. To the best of my belief, this admirable concoction has never appeared at a feast at all.”
He could not resist the gibe: for it was not a function of the Master to prescribe the menus for feasts, much less of Lady Muriel.
“Indeed,” said Lady Muriel. “I am astonished to hear it, Mr Winslow. I think you must be wrong. Let me see, when is the next audit?”
“November.”
“I hope you will pay particular attention.”
“If you please, Lady Muriel. If you please.”
“I think you will find I am right.”
They went on discussing feasts and college celebrations as though they were certain to happen, as though nothing could disturb them. There was a major college anniversary in 1941, two years ahead.
“I hope the college will begin its preparations in good time,” said Lady Muriel. “Two years is not long. You must be ready in two years’ time.”
Suddenly Roy laughed. They were all silent. They had heard that laugh. They did not understand it, but it was discomforting, like the sight of someone maimed. “Two years’ time,” he cried. He laughed again.
The laugh struck into the quiet air. Across the table, across the sumptuous dinner, Lady Boscastle looked at me; I was just going to try. But it was Lady Muriel who awkwardly, hesitatingly, did not shirk her duty.
“I know what you are feeling, Roy,” she said. “We all feel exactly as you do. But it is no use anticipating. One has to go on and trust that things will get better.”
Roy smiled at her.
“Just so, Lady Mu,” he said.
Perhaps it was best that she had spoken. Her very ineptness had gone through him. He became calmer, though his eyes remained fiercely bright.
With ineffable relief, even though it meant only a postponement, I saw the port go round, the sky darken through the open windows. We heard the faint sound of music from the college ball.
Mrs Eggar had to leave early because of her child. Roy escorted her and Mrs Seymour to their taxi and then came back. He was master of himself quite enough to seem unhurried; no one would have thought that he was waiting to go to a young woman. It was between eleven and twelve. Lord Boscastle and Winslow decided to stroll together in the direction of Winslow’s home; Lady Boscastle wished to stop in my rooms for a little; so Roy was free to take Lady Muriel to the hotel.
I helped Lady Boscastle into an armchair beside my fireplace.
“I haven’t had the chance to tell you before, my dear boy,” she said, “but you look almost respectable tonight.”
But she had not settled down into sarcastic badinage before Bidwell, who was on duty at the ball, tapped softly at the door and entered. “Lord Bevill is asking whether he can see Lady Boscastle, sir.” I nodded, and Bidwell showed Humphrey Bevill into the room.
Humphrey had been acting in an undergraduate performance, and there were still traces of paint on his face. He was exhilarated and a little drunk. “I didn’t really want to see you, Lewis,” he said.
“I’ve been trying to discover where my mother is hiding.” He went across to Lady Boscastle. “They’ve kept you from me ever since you arrived, mummy. I won’t let you disappear without saying goodnight.”
He adored her; he would have liked to stay, to have thrown a cushion on the floor and sat at her feet.
“This is very charming of you, Humphrey.” She smiled at him with her usual cool, amused indulgence. “I thought I had invited myself to tea in your rooms tomorrow — tête-à-tête?”
“You’ll come, won’t you, mummy?”
“How could I miss it?” Then she asked: “By the way, have you seen your father tonight?”
“No.”
“He’d like to see you, you know. He has probably got back to the hotel by now.”
“Must I?”
“I really think you should. He will like it so much.” Humphrey went obediently away. Lady Boscastle sighed. “The young are exceptionally tedious, Lewis, my dear. They are so preposterously uninformed. They never realise it, of course. They are very shocked if one tells them that they seem rather — unrewarding.”
She smiled.
“Poor Humphrey,” she said.
“He’s very young,” I said.
“Some men,” said Lady Boscastle, “stay innocent whatever happens to them. I have known some quite well-accredited rakes who were innocent all through their lives. They never knew what this world is like.”
“That can be true of women too,” I said.
“Most women are too stupid to count,” said Lady Boscastle indifferently. “No, Lewis, I’m afraid that Humphrey will always be innocent. He’s like his father. They’re quite unfit to cope with what will happen to them.”
“What will happen to them?”
“You know as well as I do. Their day is done. It will finish this time — if it didn’t in 1914, which I’m sometimes inclined to think. It will take someone much stronger than they are to live as they’ve been bred to live. It takes a very strong man nowadays to live according to his own pleasure. Hugh tried, but he hadn’t really the temperament, you see. I doubt whether he’s known much happiness.”
“And you?”
“Oh, I could always manage, my dear. Didn’t you once tell me that I was like a cat?”
She was scrutinising her husband and her son with an anthropologist’s detachment. And she was far more detached than the rest of them about the fate of their world. She liked it; it suited her; it had given her luxury, distinction and renown; now it was passing forever, and she took it without a moan. “I thought,” she said, “that your friend Roy was rather égaré tonight.”
“Yes.”
“What is the matter? Is my niece still refusing to let him go? Or am I out of date?”
She said it airily. She was not much worried or interested. If Roy had been exhibiting some new phase of a love affair, she would have been the first to observe, identify and dissect. As it was, her perception stopped short, and she was ready to ignore it.