“Well, as a matter of fact, I don’t think I did. Molly decided.”
“Yes, that’s usually the way. Now I suppose I shall have to do something friendly about that ass Emma Granchester.”
“I really know Lady Metroland very little,” said Lady Granchester. “But I suppose now I must invite her to luncheon. I’m afraid she’s far too smart for us.” And by “smart” Lady Granchester meant nothing at all complimentary.
But the mothers met and decided on an immediate marriage.
The news of Peter’s engagement was not unexpected and, even had it come as a surprise, would have been eclipsed in interest by the story of Angela Lyne’s uncharacteristic behaviour at the cinema. Peter and Molly, before parting that night, had resolved to tell no one of the incident; a renunciation from which each made certain implicit reservations. Peter told Margot because he thought she ought to do something about it, Basil because he was still dubious about the true explanation of the mystery and thought that Basil, if anyone could, would throw light on it, and three members of Bratt’s because he happened to run into them at the bar next morning when his mind was still full of the matter. Molly told her two sisters and Lady Sarah from long habit, because whenever she promised secrecy in any matter she meant, even at the time, to tell these three. These initiates in their turn told their cronies until it was widely known that the temperate, cynical, aloof, impeccably dressed, sharply dignified Mrs. Lyne ? Mrs. Lyne who never “went out” in a general sense but lived in a rarefied and enviable coterie ? Mrs. Lyne whose conversation was that of a highly intelligent man, who always cleverly kept out of the gossip columns and picture papers, who for fifteen years had set a high and wholly individual standard of all that Americans meant by “poise”; this almost proverbial lady had been picked up by Peter in the gutter where she had been thrown struggling by two bouncers from the cinema where she had created a drunken disturbance.
It could scarcely have been more surprising had it been Mrs. Stitch herself. It was indeed barely credible and many refused to believe it. Drugs possibly, they conceded, but Drink was out of the question. What Parsnip and Pimpernell were to the intelligentsia, Mrs. Lyne and the bottle became to the fashionable world: topic number one.
They were still topic number one three weeks later at Peter’s wedding. Basil persuaded Angela to come to the little party with which Lady Granchester honoured the occasion.
He had gone round to see her when Peter told him the news; not immediately, but within twenty-four hours of hearing it. He found her up and dressed, but indefinably raffish in appearance; her make-up was haphazard and rather garish, like a later Utrillo.
“Angela, you look awful.”
“Yes, darling, I feel awful. You’re in the Army!”
“No, the War Office.”
She began talking intensely and rather wildly about the French. Presently she said, “I must leave you for a minute,” and went into her bedroom. She came back half a minute later with an abstracted, little smile; the inwardly happy smile of a tired old nun ? almost. There was a difference.
“Angela,” said Basil, “if you want a drink you might drink fair with a chap.”
“I don’t know what you mean,” she said.
Basil was shocked. There had never been any humbug about Angela before, none where he was concerned anyway.
“Oh, come off it,” he said.
Angela came off it. She began to weep.
“Oh, for Christ’s sake,” said Basil.
He went into her bedroom and helped himself to whisky from the bottle by the bed.
“Peter was here the other evening with some girl. I suppose they’ve told everyone.”
“He told me. Why don’t you switch to rum? It’s much better for you.”
“Is it? I don’t think I’ve ever tasted it. Should I like it?”
“I’ll send you some round. When did you start on this bat?”
There was no humbug about Angela now. “Oh, weeks ago.”
“It’s not a bit like you.”
“Isn’t it, Basil? Isn’t it?”
“You were always bloody to me when I had a bat.”
“Yes, I suppose I was. I’m sorry. But then you see I was in love with you.”
“Was?”
“Oh, I don’t know. Fill up the glasses, Basil.”
“That’s the girl.”
“‘Was’ is wrong. I do love you, Basil.”
“Of course you do. Is that how you take it?” he asked, respectfully.
“That’s how I take it.”
“Good and strong.”
“Good and strong.”
“But I think we’d be better suited to rum.”
