Dance to Your Daddy

Dame Beatrice, who did not contribute to the discussion, but who listened with interest to it, realised that one thing which she had been told was, on the face of things, completely untrue. There was no family feud between the Lestranges and the Provosts. There was a running skirmish between Humphrey and Tancred, but it was a private fight, not a family matter. She wondered whether the appearance of the brothers Hubert and Willoughby would prove to be the match which might be applied to the gunpowder, but she could not, at that point, detect any presence of explosives. In the early afternoon, however, more drama, this time of a rather ridiculous sort, was suddenly introduced by Rosamund.

Lunch was over. The last two of the guests, Willoughby and Hubert Lestrange, still had not put in an appearance. The others, with Romilly, Judith and Dame Beatrice, were taking coffee in the drawing-room when Rosamund put in this dramatic and disordered appearance. She was wearing a white nylon nightdress and had a cock-eyed wreath of dripping wet hazel-catkins on her hair. She said:

'Look! I'm Ophelia, all wet from the river.' Then, in a tuneless voice, she began to sing.

'My God!' exclaimed Humphrey. 'What on earth is this?'

'And will he not come again?' mouthed Rosamund, continuing her caterwauling.

'Who?' interpolated Binnie, obviously interested.

'No, no he is dead,

Go to thy death-bed,

He never will come again,' sang Rosamund.

'Who won't?' demanded Binnie, in a louder tone.

'So excellent a king; that was, to this,

Hyperion to a satyr,' replied Rosamund obligingly, in a clear, elocutionist voice.

'Beatrice!' cried Romilly, putting down his cup. 'For God's sake help me out with her!' But it was Tancred who rose from his seat on the settee where he was partnering Binnie.

'Come on, girl,' he said. 'You can tell me all about it upstairs, and, if you're good, I'll read you my poems.'

'Don't believe it,' said Rosamund sulkily. 'You don't want me to sing, that's all.'

'There's one poem I know you'll like,' said Tancred persuasively. 'It's all about you. Come along.'

'I want one about me,' said Binnie. 'You promised one about me. And that's my nightie she's got on!'

Tancred took Rosamund by an unresisting arm, and led her from the room. Dame Beatrice rose in leisurely fashion, placed her empty cup on a small table, and followed them out. After a moment, Binnie followed, too.

'Don't see why she should pinch my nightie,' she said. 'I'm going to get it back. It's not that I grudge it her, but she can't just go about sneaking things. It's not right.'

'She's worse than you told us in your letter, then,' said Humphrey to his uncle. Romilly looked gloomy. Dame Beatrice, who had not gone upstairs in the wake of Rosamund and Tancred, but who had stepped aside to allow Binnie to pass her, noticed this from her vantage point at the side of the archway which did duty for a door. She heard Romilly answer:

'Well, it's bound to be progressive, I suppose, although she's been a little calmer of late.' Dame Beatrice came back into the room.

'She will be calmer again in a minute or two,' she said. 'I warned you that this influx of guests might excite her.' She settled herself composedly in the chair she had previously occupied and looked across at him.

'I can't help that,' he said. 'I had to call the family together for a very good reason, and, as you are an interested party, I had to get you to come along, too. There is nothing you can do for Trilby. She's naughty, not deranged. I expect you have found that out by now. Well, now seems as good a time as any for me to hold the business meeting which is the prime reason for this pleasant little get-together.'

'I don't see how you can,' said Corin. 'We're short of four members of the group. Don't we wait until Binnie and Tancred come down, and Hubert and Willoughby get here?'

'I don't know why all the rest of us should wait,' said his twin sister. Those other two can hear all about it later on. Don't forget we've got a rehearsal at ten tomorrow morning, and we must run over our programme before dinner tonight.'

'The meeting need not take long,' Romilly insisted. 'I have enticed you here on various pretexts. None of my offers was genuine. I had better confess that at once. You, my dear Humphrey, were led to believe that I could obtain for you a House at a minor public school. I am not in a position to do so. Tancred has been told that a publisher is prepared to put out his poems and guarantee him a respectable advance and a scale of royalties. This is untrue. Binnie-I wrote to her separately, Humphrey, and had the letter delivered by special messenger at a time when I knew you would be at school-thinks that I can get her a job modelling clothes. Giles has been promised...'

'Oh, cut it out!' said Giles. The belligerent words were expressed in a quiet voice, but with a degree of menace which encouraged Humphrey, who, so far, had responded only with a red face and a bristling attitude, to put his face almost into Romilly's and exclaim:

'You rotten, lying, oily swine!'

'Just a moment, Humphrey,' said Judith. 'Let Uncle Romilly finish what he has to say.'

'I had to find the means to get you all together,' went on Romilly, 'and to pretend to offer each of you something to his advantage seemed by far the best way. Hubert expects me to get him ecclesiastical preferment, and Willoughby wants to...'

'Knock your block off, I should think,' said Giles. 'Have you forgotten that he has been out of a job for