said. ‘Had her yesterday. Others’ll do. Write ’em down to a couple of
paragraphs. Suppose you didn’t notice what they were wearing?’
‘Yes,’ said Balcairn eagerly. ‘All of them.’
‘Well, you won’t have room to use it. We got to keep everything down for
Lady M.’s party. I’ve cut out the D. of Devonshire altogether. By the
way, the photograph you used yesterday wasn’t the present Countess of
Everyman. It’s an old one of the Dowager. We had ’em both on the ’phone
about it, going on something awful. That’s _you_, again. Got your invite
for to-night?’
‘Not yet.’
‘You better get it quick. I got to have a first-hand story before we go
to press, see? By the way, know anything about this? Lady R.’s maid sent
it in to-day.’ She picked up a slip of paper: ‘“Rumoured engagement
broken off between Adam Fenwick-Symes, only son of the late Professor
Oliver Fenwick-Symes, and Nina Blount, of Doubting Hall, Aylesbury.”
Never heard of either. Ain’t even been announced, so far as I’m aware
of.’
‘You’d better ask him. This is Adam Symes.’
‘Hullo, no offence meant, I’m sure. . . . What about it?’
‘It is neither announced nor broken off.’
‘N.B.G. in fact, eh? Then _that_ goes _there_.’ She put the slip into
the wastepaper basket. ‘That girl’s sent us a lot of bad stuff lately.
Well, I’m off for a bit of lunch. I’ll be over at the Garden Club if
anything urgent turns up. So long.’
The editress went out, banging the door labelled ‘Social’, and whistled
as she went down the passage.
‘You see how they treat me,’ said Lord Balcairn. ‘They were all over me
when I first arrived. I do so wish I were dead.’
‘Don’t cry,’ said Adam, ‘it’s too shy-making.’
‘I can’t help it . . . oh, do come in.’
The door marked ‘Social’ opened and a small boy came in.
‘Lord Circumference’s butler downstairs with some engagements and a
divorce.’
‘Tell him to leave them.’
‘Very good, my lord.’
‘That’s the only person in this office who’s ever polite to me,’ said
Balcairn as the messenger disappeared. ‘I wish I had something to leave
him in my will. . . . Do ring up Margot. Then I shall at any rate know
the worst. . . . Come in.’
‘Gentleman of the name of General Strapper downstairs. Wants to see you
very particular.’
‘What about?’
‘Couldn’t say, my lord, but he’s got a whip. Seems very put out about
something.’
‘Tell him the social editor is having luncheon. . . . Do ring up
Margot.’
Adam said, ‘Margot, may I bring some one with me to-night?’
‘Well, Adam, I really don’t think you can. I can’t imagine how
everyone’s going to get in as it is. I’m terribly sorry, who is it?’
‘Simon Balcairn. He’s particularly anxious to come.’
‘I dare say he is. I’m rather against that young man. He’s written
things about me in the papers.’
‘_Please_, Margot.’
‘Certainly not. I won’t have him inside my house. I’ve only asked Van on
the strictest understanding that he doesn’t write anything about it. I
don’t wish to have anything more to do with Simon Balcairn.’
‘My dear, how _rich_ you sound.’
‘I feel my full income when that young man is mentioned. Good-bye. See
you to-night.’
‘You needn’t tell me,’ said Balcairn. ‘I know what she’s said . . . it’s
no good, is it?’
‘I’m afraid not.’
‘Done for . . .’ said Balcairn. ‘. . . End of the tether. . . .’ He
turned over some slips of paper listlessly. ‘Would it interest you to
hear that Agatha and Archie are engaged?’
‘I don’t believe it.’
‘Neither do I. One of our people has just sent it in. Half of what they
send us is lies, and the other half libel . . . they sent us a long
story about Miles and Pamela Popham having spent last night at
Arundel. . . . But we couldn’t use it even if it were true, which it
obviously isn’t, knowing Miles. Thank you for doing what you could . . .
good-bye.’
Downstairs in the outer office there was an altercation in progress. A
large man of military appearance was shaking and stamping in front of a
middle-aged woman. Adam recognized the social editress.
‘Answer me, yes or no,’ the big man was saying. ‘Are you or are you not
responsible for this damnable lie about my daughter?’
(He had read in Simon Balcairn’s column that his daughter had been seen
at a night club. To any one better acquainted with Miss Strapper’s
habits of life the paragraph was particularly reticent.)
‘Yes, or no,’ cried the General, ‘or I’ll shake the life out of you.’
‘No.’
‘Then who is? Let me get hold of the cad who wrote it. Where is he?’
roared the General.
‘Upstairs,’ the social editress managed to say.
‘More trouble for Simon,’ thought Adam.
Adam went to pick Nina up at her flat. They had arranged to go to a
cinema together. She said, ‘You’re much later than you said. It’s so
boring to be late for a talkie.’
He said, ‘Talkies are boring, anyhow.’
They treated each other quite differently after their night’s
experiences. Adam was inclined to be egotistical and despondent; Nina
was rather grown-up and disillusioned and distinctly cross. Adam began
to say that as far as he could see he would have to live on at
Shepheard’s now for the rest of his life, or at any rate for the rest of
Lottie’s life, as it wouldn’t be fair to leave without paying the bill.
Then Nina said, ‘Do be amusing, Adam. I can’t bear you when you’re not
amusing.’
Then Adam began to tell her about Simon Balcairn and Margot’s party. He
described how he had seen Simon being horse-whipped in the middle of the
office.
Nina said, ‘Yes, that’s amusing. Go on like that.’
The story of Simon’s whipping lasted them all the way to the cinema.
They were very late for the film Nina wanted to see, and that set them
back again. They didn’t speak for a long time. Then Nina said _à propos_
of the film, ‘All this fuss about sleeping together. For physical
pleasure I’d sooner go to my dentist any day.’
Adam said, ‘You’ll enjoy it more next time.’
Nina said, ‘_Next time_,’ and told him that he took too much for
granted.
Adam said that was a phrase which only prostitutes used.
Then they started a real quarrel which lasted all through the film and
all the way to Nina’s flat and all the time she was cutting up a lemon
and making a cocktail, until Adam said that if she didn’t stop going on
he would ravish her there and then on her own hearthrug.
Then Nina went on.
But by the time that Adam went to dress she had climbed down enough to
admit that perhaps love was a thing one could grow to be fond of after a
time, like smoking a pipe. Still she maintained that it made one feel
very ill at first, and she doubted if it was worth it.
Then they began to argue at the top of the lift about whether acquired
tastes were ever worth acquiring. Adam said it was imitation, and that
it was natural to man to be imitative, so that acquired tastes were
natural.
But the presence of the lift boy stopped that argument coming to a
solution as the other had done.
‘My, ain’t this classy,’ said Divine Discontent.
‘It’s all right,’ said Chastity in a worldly voice. ‘Nothing to make a
song and dance about.’
‘Who’s making a song and dance? I just said it was classy—and it _is_
classy, ain’t it?’
‘I suppose everything’s classy to _some_ people.’
‘Now you two,’ said Temperance, who had been put in charge of the angels
for the evening, ‘don’t you start anything in here, not with your wings
on. Mrs Ape won’t stand for scrapping in wings, and you know it.’
‘Who’s starting anything?’
‘Well, you are then.’
‘Oh, it’s no use talking to Chastity. She’s too high and mighty to be an
angel now. Went out for a drive with Mrs Panrast in a Rolls Royce,’ said
Fortitude. ‘I saw her. I was so sorry it rained all the time, or it
might have been quite enjoyable, mightn’t it, Chastity?’
‘Well, you ought to be glad. Leaves the _men_ for you, Fortitude. Only
they don’t seem to want to take advantage, do they?’
Then they talked about men for some time. Divine Discontent thought the
second footman had nice eyes.
‘And he knows it,’ said Temperance.
They were all having supper together in what was still called the
schoolroom in Lady Metroland’s house. From the window they could see the
guests arriving for the party. In spite of the rain quite a large crowd
had collected on either side of the awning to criticize the cloaks with
appreciative ‘oohs’ and ‘ahs’ or contemptuous sniffs. Cars and taxis
drove up in close succession. Lady Circumference splashed up the street
in goloshes, wearing a high fender of diamonds under a tartan umbrella.
The Bright Young People came popping all together, out of some one’s
electric brougham like a litter of pigs, and ran squealing up the steps.
Some ‘gate-crashers’ who had made the mistake of coming in Victorian
fancy dress were detected and repulsed. They hurried home to change for
a second assault. No one wanted to miss Mrs Ape’s _début_.
But the angels were rather uneasy. They had been dressed ever since
seven o’clock in their white shifts, gold sashes and wings. It was now
past ten, and the strain was beginning to tell, for it was impossible to
sit back comfortably in wings.
‘Oh, I wish they’d hurry up so we could get it over,’ said Creative
Endeavour. ‘Mrs Ape said we could have some champagne afterwards if we
sang nice.’
‘I don’t mind betting _she’s_ doing herself pretty well, down there.’
‘_Chastity!_’
‘Oh, _all_ right.’
Then the footman with the nice eyes came to clear the table. He gave
them a friendly wink as he shut the door. ‘Pretty creatures,’ he
thought. ‘Blooming shame that they’re so religious . . . wasting the
best years of their lives.’
(There had been a grave debate in the servants’ hall about the exact
status of angels. Even Mr Blenkinsop, the butler, had been uncertain.
‘Angels are certainly not guests,’ he had said, ‘and I don’t think they
are deputations. Nor they ain’t governesses either, nor clergy not
strictly speaking; they’re not entertainers, because entertainers _dine_
nowadays, the more’s the pity.’
‘I believe they’re decorators,’ said Mrs Blouse, ‘or else charitable
workers.’
‘Charitable workers are governesses, Mrs Blouse. There is nothing to be
gained by multiplying social distinctions indefinitely. Decorators are
either guests or workmen.’
After further discussion the conclusion was reached that angels were
nurses, and that became the official ruling of the household. But the
second footman was of the opinion that they were ‘young persons’, pure
and simple, ‘and very nice too’, for nurses cannot, except in very rare
cases, be winked at, and clearly angels could.)
‘What we want to know, Chastity,’ said Creative Endeavour, ‘is how you
come to take up with Mrs Panrast at all.’
‘Yes,’ said the Angels, ‘yes. It’s not like _you_, Chastity, to go
riding in a motor car with a woman.’ They fluttered their feathers in a
menacing way. ‘Let’s third-degree her,’ said Humility with rather nasty
relish.
(There was a system of impromptu jurisdiction among the Angels which
began with innuendo, went on to crossexamination, pinches and slaps and
ended, as a rule, in tears and kisses.)
Faced by this circle of spiteful and haloed faces, Chastity began to
lose her air of superiority.
‘Why shouldn’t I ride with a friend,’ she asked plaintively, ‘without
all you girls pitching on me like this?’
‘_Friend_,’ said Creative Endeavour. ‘You never saw her before to-day,’
and she gave her a nasty pinch just above the elbow.
‘_Ooooh!_’ said Chastity. ‘_OOh, please_ . . . beast.’
Then they all pinched her all over, but precisely and judiciously, so as
not to disturb her wings or halo, for this was no orgy (sometimes in
their bedrooms, they gave way, but not here, in Lady Metroland’s
schoolroom, before an important first night).
‘Ooh,’ said Chastity, ‘_OOh, ow, ooh, ow. Please_, beasts, swine, cads
. . . _please_ . . . oh . . . well, if you must know, I thought she
_was_ a man.’
‘Thought she was a _man_, Chastity? That doesn’t sound right to me.’
‘Well, she looks like a man and—and she _goes on_ like a man. I saw her
sitting at a table in a tea-shop. She hadn’t got a hat on, and I
couldn’t see her skirt . . . ooh . . . how can I tell you if you keep
pinching . . . and she smiled and so, well, I went and had some tea with
her, and she said would I go out with her in her motor car, and I said
yes and, ooh, I wish I hadn’t now.’
‘What did she say in the motor car, Chastity?’
‘I forget—nothing much.’
‘Oh, what.’ ‘Do tell us.’ ‘We’ll never pinch you again if you tell us.’
‘I’m sorry if I hurt you, Chastity, do tell _me_.’ ‘You’d _better_ tell
us.’
‘No, I can’t, _really_—I don’t remember, I tell you.’
‘Give her another little nip, girls.’
‘Ooh, ooh, ooh, _stop_. I’ll tell you.’
Their heads were close together and they were so deeply engrossed in the
story that they did not hear Mrs Ape’s entry.
‘Smut again,’ said a terrible voice. ‘Girls, I’m sick ashamed of you.’
Mrs Ape looked magnificent in a gown of heavy gold brocade embroidered
with texts.
‘I’m sick ashamed of you,’ repeated Mrs Ape, ‘and you’ve made Chastity
cry again, just before the big act. If you must bully some one, _why_
choose Chastity? You all know by this time that crying always gives her
a red nose. How do _I_ look, I should like to know, standing up in front
of a lot of angels with red noses. You don’t ever think of nothing but
your own pleasures, do you? _Sluts._’ This last word was spoken with a
depth of expression that set the angels trembling. ‘There’ll be no
champagne for any one to-night, see. And if you don’t sing perfectly,
I’ll give the whole lot of you a good hiding, see. Now, come on, now,
and for the love of the Lamb, Chastity, _do something to your nose_.
They’ll think it’s a temperance meeting to see you like that.’
It was a brilliant scene into which the disconsolate angels trooped two
minutes later. Margot Metroland shook hands with each of them as they
came to the foot of the staircase, appraising them, one by one, with an
expert eye.
‘You don’t look happy, my dear,’ she found time to say to Chastity, as
she led them across the ballroom to their platform, banked in orchids at
the far end. ‘If you feel you want a change, let me know later, and I
can get you a job in South America. _I mean it._’
‘Oh, thank you,’ said Chastity, ‘but I could never leave Mrs Ape.’
‘Well, think it over, child. You’re far too pretty a girl to waste your
time singing hymns. Tell that other girl, the red-headed one, that I can
probably find a place for her, too.’
‘What, Humility? Don’t you have nothing to do with her. She’s a fiend.’
‘Well, some men like rough stuff, but I don’t want any one who makes
trouble with the other girls.’
‘She makes trouble all right. Look at that bruise.’
‘My dear!’
Margot Metroland and Mrs Ape led the angels up the steps between the
orchids and stood them at the back of the platform facing the room.
Chastity stood next to Creative Endeavour.
‘Please, Chastity, I’m sorry if we hurt you,’ said Creative Endeavour.
‘I didn’t pinch hard, did I?’
‘Yes,’ said Chastity. ‘Like hell you did.’
A slightly sticky hand tried to take hers, but she clenched her fist.
She would go to South America and work for Lady Metroland . . . and she
wouldn’t say anything about it to Humility either. She glared straight
in front of her, saw Mrs Panrast and dropped her eyes.
The ballroom was filled with little gilt chairs and the chairs with
people. Lord Vanburgh, conveniently seated near the door, through which
he could slip away to the telephone, was taking them all in. They were
almost all, in some way or another, notable. The motives for Margot
Metroland’s second marriage[B] had been mixed, but entirely worldly;
chief among them had been the desire to reestablish her somewhat shaken
social position, and her party that night testified to her success, for
while many people can entertain the Prime Minister and the Duchess of
Stayle and Lady Circumference, and anybody can, and often against her
will does, entertain Miles Malpractice and Agatha Runcible, it is only a
very confident hostess who will invite both these sets together at the
same time, differing, as they do, upon almost all questions of principle
and deportment. Standing near Vanburgh, by the door, was a figure who
seemed in himself to typify the change that had come over Pastmaster
House when Margot Beste-Chetwynd became Lady Metroland; an unobtrusive
man of rather less than average height, whose black beard, falling in
tight burnished curls, nearly concealed the order of St Michael and St
George which he wore round his neck; he wore a large signet ring on the
little finger of his left hand outside his white glove; there was an
orchid in his buttonhole. His eyes, youthful but grave, wandered among
the crowd; occasionally he bowed with grace and decision. Several people
were asking about him.
-----
[B] See _Decline and Fall_.
-----
‘See the beaver with the medal,’ said Humility to Faith.
‘Who is that _very_ important young man?’ asked Mrs Blackwater of Lady
Throbbing.
‘I don’t know, dear. He bowed to _you_.’
‘He bowed to _you_, dear.’
‘How very nice . . . I wasn’t quite sure. . . . He reminds me a little
of dear Prince Anrep.’
‘It’s so nice in these days, isn’t it, dearest, to see some one who
really looks . . . don’t you think?’
‘You mean the beard?’
‘_The beard among other things_, darling.’
Father Rothschild was conspiring with Mr Outrage and Lord Metroland. He
stopped short in the middle of his sentence.
‘Forgive me,’ he said, ‘but there are spies everywhere. That man with
the beard, do you know him?’
Lord Metroland thought vaguely he had something to do with the Foreign
Office; Mr Outrage seemed to remember having seen him before.
‘_Exactly_,’ said Father Rothschild. ‘I think it would be better if we
continued our conversation in private. I have been watching him. _He is
bowing across the room to empty places and to people whose backs are
turned to him._’ The Great Men withdrew to Lord Metroland’s study.
Father Rothschild closed the door silently and looked behind the
curtains.
‘Shall I lock the door?’ asked Lord Metroland.
‘No,’ said the Jesuit. ‘A lock does not prevent a spy from hearing; but
it does hinder us, inside, from catching the spy.’
‘Well, I should never have thought of that,’ said Mr Outrage in frank
admiration.
‘How pretty Nina Blount is,’ said Lady Throbbing, busy from the front
row with her lorgnette, ‘but don’t you think, a little changed; almost
as though . . .’
‘You notice everything, darling.’
‘When you get to our age, dear, there is so little left, but I do
believe Miss Blount must have had an _experience_ . . . she’s sitting
next to Miles. You know I heard from Edward to-night. He’s on his way
back. It will be a great blow for Miles because he’s been living in
Edward’s house all this time. To tell you the truth I’m a little glad
because from what I hear from Anne Opalthorpe, who lives opposite, the
things that go on . . . he’s got a friend staying there now. Such an odd
man—a dirt-track racer. But then it’s no use attempting to disguise the
fact, is there. . . . There’s Mrs Panrast . . . yes, dear, of course you
know her, she used to be Eleanor Balcairn . . . now _why_ does dear
Margot ask any one like that, do you think? . . . it is not as though
Margot was so innocent . . . and there’s Lord Monomark . . . yes, the
man who owns those _amusing_ papers . . . they say that he and Margot,
but _before_ her marriage, of course (her second marriage, I mean), but
you never know, do you, how things _crop_ up again? . . . I wonder where
Peter Pastmaster is? . . . he never stays to Margot’s parties . . . he
was at dinner, of course, and, my dear, _how_ he drank. . . . He can’t
be more than twenty-one. . . . Oh, so that is Mrs Ape. What a coarse
face . . . no dear, of course she can’t hear . . . she looks like a
_procureuse_ . . . but perhaps I shouldn’t say that _here_, should I?’
Adam came and sat next to Nina.
‘Hullo,’ they said to each other.
‘My dear, do look at Mary Mouse’s new young man,’ said Nina.
Adam looked and saw that Mary was sitting next to the Maharajah of
Pukkapore.
‘I call that a pretty pair,’ he said.
‘Oh, how bored I feel,’ said Nina.
Mr Benfleet was there talking to two poets. They said ‘. . . and I wrote
to tell William that I didn’t write the review, but it was true that
Tony did read me the review over the telephone when I was very sleepy
before he sent it in. I thought it was best to tell him the truth
because he would hear it from Tony anyway. Only I said I advised him not
to publish it just as I had advised William not to publish the book in
the first place. Well Tony rang up Michael and told him that I’d said
that William thought Michael had written the review because of the
reviews I had written of Michael’s book last November, though, as a
matter of fact, it was Tony himself who wrote it. . . .’
‘Too bad,’ said Mr Benfleet. ‘Too bad.’
‘. . . but is that any reason, even if I had written it, why Michael
should tell Tony that I had stolen five pounds from William?’
‘Certainly not,’ said Mr Benfleet. ‘Too bad.’
‘Of course, they’re _simply_ not _gentlemen_, either of them. That’s all
it is, only one’s shy of saying it nowadays.’
Mr Benfleet shook his head sadly and sympathetically.
Then Mrs Melrose Ape stood up to speak. A hush fell in the gilt ballroom
beginning at the back and spreading among the chairs until only Mrs
Blackwater’s voice was heard exquisitely articulating some details of
Lady Metroland’s past. Then she, too, was silent and Mrs Ape began her
oration about Hope.
‘Brothers and Sisters,’ she said in a hoarse, stirring voice. Then she
paused and allowed her eyes, renowned throughout three continents for
their magnetism, to travel among the gilded chairs. (It was one of her
favourite openings.) ‘_Just you look at yourselves_,’ she said.
Magically, self-doubt began to spread in the audience. Mrs Panrast
stirred uncomfortably; had that silly little girl been talking, she
wondered.
‘Darling,’ whispered Miss Runcible, ‘is my nose awful?’
Nina thought how once, only twenty-four hours ago, she had been in love.
Mr Benfleet thought should he have made it three per cent. on the tenth
thousand. The gate-crashers wondered whether it would not have been
better to have stayed at home. (Once in Kansas City Mrs Ape had got no
further than these opening words; there had been a tornado of emotion
and all the seats in the hall had been broken to splinters. It was there
that Humility had joined the Angels.) There were a thousand things in
Lady Throbbing’s past. . . . Every heart found something to bemoan.
‘She’s got ’em again,’ whispered Creative Endeavour. ‘Got ’em stiff.’
Lord Vanburgh slipped from the room to telephone through some racy
paragraphs about fashionable piety.
Mary Mouse shed two little tears and felt for the brown, bejewelled hand
of the Maharajah.
But suddenly on that silence vibrant with self-accusation broke the
organ voice of England, the hunting-cry of the _ancien régime_. Lady
Circumference gave a resounding snort of disapproval:
‘What a damned impudent woman,’ she said.
Adam and Nina and Miss Runcible began to giggle, and Margot Metroland
for the first time in her many parties was glad to realize that the
guest of the evening was going to be a failure. It had been an awkward
moment.
In the study Father Rothschild and Mr Outrage were plotting with
enthusiasm. Lord Metroland was smoking a cigar and wondering how soon he
could get away. He wanted to hear Mrs Ape and to have another look at
those Angels. There was one with red hair. . . . Besides all this
statesmanship and foreign policy had always bored him. In his years in
the Commons he had always liked a good scrap, and often thought a little
wistfully of those orgies of competitive dissimulation in which he had
risen to eminence. Even now, when some straightforward, easily
intelligible subject was under discussion, such as poor people’s wages
or public art, he enjoyed from time to time making a sonorous speech to
the Upper House. But this sort of thing was not at all in his line.
Suddenly Father Rothschild turned out the light.
‘There’s some one coming down the passage,’ he said.
‘Quick, get behind the curtains.’
‘Really, Rothschild . . .’ said Mr Outrage.
‘I say . . .’ said Lord Metroland.
‘_Quick_,’ said Father Rothschild.
The three statesmen hid themselves. Lord Metroland, still smoking, his
head thrown back and his cigar erect. They heard the door open. The
light was turned on. A match was struck. Then came the slight tinkle of
the telephone as someone lifted the receiver.
‘Central ten thousand,’ said a slightly muffled voice.
‘_Now_,’ said Father Rothschild, and stepped through the curtain.