I could not but demur.
“Those references to myself—”
“Those were what I liked next best. I thought they were fine. Is it true that you cheated when you won that Scripture-knowledge prize?”
“Certainly not. My victory was the outcome of the most strenuous and unremitting efforts.”
“And how about this pessimism we hear of? Are you a pessimist, Bertie?”
I could have told her that what was occurring in this house was rapidly making me one, but I said no, I wasn’t.
“That’s right. Never be a pessimist. Everything is for the best in this best of all possible worlds. It’s a long lane that has no turning. It’s always darkest before the dawn. Have patience and all will come right. The sun will shine, although the day’s a grey one. … Try some of this salad.”
I followed her advice, but even as I plied the spoon my thoughts were elsewhere. I was perplexed. It may have been the fact that I had recently been hobnobbing with so many bowed-down hearts that made this cheeriness of hers seem so bizarre, but bizarre was certainly what I found it.
“I thought you might have been a trifle peeved,” I said.
“Peeved?”
“By Gussie’s manoeuvres on the platform this afternoon. I confess that I had rather expected the tapping foot and the drawn brow.”
“Nonsense. What was there to be peeved about? I took the whole thing as a great compliment, proud to feel that any drink from my cellars could have produced such a majestic jag. It restores one’s faith in postwar whisky. Besides, I couldn’t be peeved at anything tonight. I am like a little child clapping its hands and dancing in the sunshine. For though it has been some time getting a move on, Bertie, the sun has at last broken through the clouds. Ring out those joy bells. Anatole has withdrawn his notice.”
“What? Oh, very hearty congratulations.”
“Thanks. Yes, I worked on him like a beaver after I got back this afternoon, and finally, vowing he would ne’er consent, he consented. He stays on, praises be, and the way I look at it now is that God’s in His heaven and all’s right with—”
She broke off. The door had opened, and we were plus a butler.
“Hullo, Seppings,” said Aunt Dahlia. “I thought you had gone.”
“Not yet, madam.”
“Well, I hope you will all have a good time.”
“Thank you, madam.”
“Was there something you wanted to see me about?”
“Yes, madam. It is with reference to Monsieur Anatole. Is it by your wish, madam, that Mr. Fink-Nottle is making faces at Monsieur Anatole through the skylight of his bedroom?”
XX
There was one of those long silences. Pregnant, I believe, is what they’re generally called. Aunt looked at butler. Butler looked at aunt. I looked at both of them. An eerie stillness seemed to envelop the room like a linseed poultice. I happened to be biting on a slice of apple in my fruit salad at the moment, and it sounded as if Carnera had jumped off the top of the Eiffel Tower on to a cucumber frame.
Aunt Dahlia steadied herself against the sideboard, and spoke in a low, husky voice:
“Faces?”
“Yes, madam.”
“Through the skylight?”
“Yes, madam.”
“You mean he’s sitting on the roof?”
“Yes, madam. It has upset Monsieur Anatole very much.”
I suppose it was that word “upset” that touched Aunt Dahlia off. Experience had taught her what happened when Anatole got upset. I had always known her as a woman who was quite active on her pins, but I had never suspected her of being capable of the magnificent burst of speed which she now showed. Pausing merely to get a rich hunting-field expletive off her chest, she was out of the room and making for the stairs before I could swallow a sliver of—I think—banana. And feeling, as I had felt when I got that telegram of hers about Angela and Tuppy, that my place was by her side, I put down my plate and hastened after her, Seppings following at a loping gallop.
I say that my place was by her side, but it was not so dashed easy to get there, for she was setting a cracking pace. At the top of the first flight she must have led by a matter of half a dozen lengths, and was still shaking off my challenge when she rounded into the second. At the next landing, however, the gruelling going appeared to tell on her, for she slackened off a trifle and showed symptoms of roaring, and by the time we were in the straight we were running practically neck and neck. Our entry into Anatole’s room was as close a finish as you could have wished to see.
Result:
1. Aunt Dahlia.
2. Bertram.
3. Seppings.
Won by a short head. Half a staircase separated second and third.
The first thing that met the eye on entering was Anatole. This wizard of the cooking-stove is a tubby little man with a moustache of the outsize or soup-strainer type, and you can generally take a line through it as to the state of his emotions. When all is well, it turns up at the ends like a sergeant-major’s. When the soul is bruised, it droops.
It was drooping now, striking a sinister note. And if any shadow of doubt had remained as to how he was feeling, the way he was carrying on would have dispelled it. He was standing by the bed in pink pyjamas, waving his fists at the skylight. Through the glass, Gussie was staring down. His eyes were bulging and his mouth was open, giving him so striking a resemblance to some rare fish in an aquarium that one’s primary impulse was to offer him an ant’s egg.
Watching this fist-waving cook and this goggling guest, I must say that my sympathies were completely with the former. I considered him thoroughly justified in waving all the fists he wanted to.
Review the facts, I mean
