‘And I shall do my very best to see that she gets both,’ said Bobby with one of his self-conscious smiles. ‘What a fund of common sense you are, darling. You’ve cheered me up enormously. What is my line for the moment, then?’
‘You must do all you can to keep this nonsense a secret from your mother. If she finds out it will be fatal. She’ll probably say a lot of bitter and unkind things to both of them and as likely as not drive them straight into an elopement. If it can be kept from her I give the whole thing three months at the most before it fizzles out.’
‘That ought to be easy. Paul goes away in less than a week now, when I trail back to the old col., and Mother is still out hunting most of the time. Besides, several people are coming to stay here over the week-end for this bogus dance she will insist on having. I dare say she won’t notice anything much; she’s been as blind as a bat so far.’
‘We can only hope for the best,’ said Amabelle, who was looking out of the window. ‘Hullo, here comes my fiancé – whatever is he carrying? Oh, I say, isn’t that rather sweet, d’you see; he’s bringing two dead hens for the kitchen; he always has some exquisite present for me, the angel.’
‘Well, I’ll be off,’ said Bobby, rather sourly; ‘and I don’t suppose, if you’re really going to London, that I shall see you again until after you’re married, which is too awful. Look here, darling, will you promise to go and choose yourself a present at Cartier? I’ve got an account there, so get something really nice, won’t you, not a diamond hen, though, if you don’t mind.’
20
The dance at Compton Bobbin was in no way a riot of joyous and abandoned merriment; it was, in fact, even more dreary an entertainment than might have been anticipated, and was long afterwards remembered by Cotswold beaux and belles as ‘that frightful party at the Bobbins’. When the guests arrived, cold and dazzled after a long motor drive, they found neither the cheering strains of Terpsichore nor the sustaining draught of Bacchus awaiting them. The young man from Woodford who had been engaged to provide the former came very late indeed, so that for quite half an hour the guests stood about in uncertain groups while Paul and Squibby struggled to make the wireless work. When finally he did arrive, breathless and apologetic, having left his car upside down in a ditch, his playing proved to be of that sort which induces sleep rather than revelry by night. Lady Bobbin had remained true to her resolution that in her house there should be no champagne during the national crisis, and on every hand could soon be heard the groans and curses with which British youth greets the absence of any alcohol more fortifying than beer at its parties. The rare and somewhat tipsy appearances downstairs of Bobby, the duchess, and such of their intimates as were secretly invited to the cocktail bar provided by Bobby in his bedroom, merely accentuated the wretched sobriety of the other guests.
The duchess and Héloïse were staying with Bunch for this occasion, as also were Squibby, Biggy and Maydew. The two latter, however, had most ungallantly refused to attend the dance, giving as their excuse that they always felt sick in motor cars. Everybody else was quite well aware that they really wished to stay at home in order to play Brahms on two pianos. As a result of this monstrous behaviour the girls who had been invited by Bunch solely on their behalf spent the greater part of the evening sitting drearily together in the hall. This fact appeared to weigh rather on the duchess, who, as their chaperone, felt that she ought to feel some responsibility for their amusement.
‘Those wretched girls,’ she kept saying, in the intervals of helping Bobby to mix the cocktails, ‘oughtn’t I to do something about them? Shall we have them up here, darling?’
‘Oh, don’t let’s. They look so gloomy, and there’s hardly enough drink to go round as it is. Anyways, I expect they enjoy being together down there.’
‘Of course they don’t; they look furious, and I don’t blame them either. I think it’s simply odious of Biggy and Maydew to get them asked down and then stay behind like that. If I were Lady Tarradale I should be quite furious, especially as they’re certain to keep her awake all night with their awful music, and she’s been so wretchedly ill lately. Those poor charming girls, looking so sweet in their pink and green, too. I do feel badly about them. Do go and see if they’re all right, Bobby, won’t you?’
‘Darling, you know they’re not all right, so why bother? Besides, they’re Bunch’s guests, not mine. Let him look after them.’
‘Bunch has got his own girl here, Sonia Beckett. You can’t expect him to do more than dance about once with each of the others. Hullo, Héloïse darling. Come here, sweetest, I want to whisper. Angel, is it quite necessary for you to wander about with four young men when poor Rosemary and Laetitia have no one at all to talk to them?’
‘I don’t think anyone wants to talk to them,’ said Héloïse; ‘they’re such cracking bores, aren’t they? Give me a cocktail, darling, quickly. This party is quite the bloodiest I’ve ever been to, personally. How right Biggy and Maydew were to stay behind. I do envy them, don’t you?’
‘Squibby dear,’ said the duchess, waving an empty glass at Bobby as she spoke, ‘just tell me something.
