[Mrs Bradley 55] - Nest of Vipers

opportunity for so doing, she amused herself by studying the company, chatting with this one and that and noting the by-plays and interrelationships which, under the influence of the blushful Hippocrene, gradually began to manifest themselves. Particularly she became aware that her hostess was keeping not only a watchful eye but also an alert and suspicious ear (difficult though it must have been to do so amid the clack of almost a dozen shrill or booming literary voices, each aggressively eager to assert itself against all comers) upon her husband (or whatever he might be). The tall, handsome, debonair Polly Hempseed seemed to combine the attitudes and easy self-assurance of a man of the world with the equally easy charm and unsophisticated attractiveness of a well-mannered under-graduate, and it was not at all difficult to see why the homely, downright, superficially unglamorous Cassie had not only chosen him for a life-partner, but was accustomed to keep eye and ear on him.

It was almost impossible to conjecture why he had selected her to live with, thought Dame Beatrice.

'She's up to his weight,' said Latimer Targe, as though he had read her thoughts. 'You're wondering about our host and hostess, aren't you? So did I when I first met them. It's the old story of the immovable whatever it is and the irresistible something else. They are for ever locked in a useless and exhausting struggle for supremacy. They can't overcome one another and that means they can't get away from one another. We see a lot of it in our business, you know.'

'In your business?'

'The literary battle ground. Passionate friends who'd give anything for a chance to part but are held together as a magnet holds a collection of iron filings; deadly enemies whose raison d'être would dissolve like the dew on the grass if they ceased to have one another to contend with. The whole world of art and letters is a seething cauldron, Mrs Farintosh. You may well regret having entered it.'

'I wonder whether Miss Minnie regretted having entered it?' said Dame Beatrice.

'I believe she was already in it. She edited some esoteric journal for some off-beat religious community, you know. It wouldn't surprise me in the least if one of the congregation did her in for expressing subversive views in her editorials. These off-beat sects are a pretty weird lot, in my opinion.'

'You have attended the meetings of Miss Minnie's particular group, perhaps?'

'Once and only once. Shard took me. He said (having a bee in his bonnet, poor little runt) that they were a ring of spies. My impression was that they could be a gang of crooks and that Minnie was their stool-pigeon and had been sent here to case the joint and see who was worth robbing.'

'Dear me! What bizarre ideas appear to be current in the literary world!'

'Oh, we're all mad nor' nor' west, I expect,' said Latimer, 'and, of course, the Pans may not be criminals at all; just a collection of dim-witted freaks with a proselytising mission and no sense of humour.'

'Oh, they make converts, do they?'

'Not so's you notice. At any rate they didn't make a convert of me. I don't know whether Shard ever went again, but I don't suppose he did.'

Another lynx-eyed member of the assemblage (not surprisingly in view of her disclosures) was Constance Kent, for although Elysée Barnes was not at the party, the lovely, doll-like, brilliant, tiny Sumatra was. Sumatra was like a butterfly, Dame Beatrice thought. She was flitting from one person or group to another, smiling, bowing, chattering.

When he could manage it, the taciturn, scowling, black-a-vised, jealous Irelath, who had been watching her every movement, gathered her up at last and planted her on his knee where, without any self-consciousness, as contented as a child who knows she is loved, she snuggled up against him and only raised her head from his shoulder to be given sips out of his glass.

'That relationship is at least normal,' said Constance Kent.

At seven-fifteen, as the party showed no sign whatever of breaking up and Cassie brought in more refreshments and Polly poured out more drinks, Dame Beatrice said goodnight and went to her room to change for dinner. There had been one slightly disconcerting moment at the party. Introduced to her at its beginning, Irelath Moore had stared, scowled, stared harder, smiled with infinite charm and then said:

'Mrs Farintosh? Married again, have you?'

Chapter 7

Personal Questions

(1)

'IT may turn out to be rather a nuisance, George, if Mr Moore has recognised me,' she said, as George waited on her at table that same evening. 'I may have to take him into my confidence, and that is the last thing I want to do with anybody in that house, with the exception, I think, of Mr Evesham Evans.'

'Would a face of brass and a policy of stout denial meet the case of Mr Moore, madam?'

'I doubt it. He may be a poet in his own right, but he is also the son of a business man who went to Canada with almost nothing and now is a cattle baron. I do not think it would be easy to hoodwink him, and it might lead to unnecessary complications if I did.'

As it chanced, she had no need to contact Irelath, for he tapped at her door on the following morning and said:

'Excuse the early call, but I knew you were up. I saw you go down to the hall for your letters. You wouldn't care to put me wise, would you?'

'I think you had better come in, Mr Moore,' said Dame Beatrice. When she had admitted him, she added, 'As you appear to surmise, there are reasons why we should not converse upon landings. There is also a good reason for keeping our voices low and for our seating ourselves as far as possible from the door.'

'I get you,' said Irelath, relaxing his long frame in the armchair which she indicated and his habitual expression to a grin of tolerant understanding.