‘You see he’s here in disguise really,’ said Bobby, unbending a little, ‘because he wants to write the life of Lady Maria. He asked Mother in a letter whether he could borrow the journal, and she wrote back awfully rudely, so then he got taken on as my tutor and ever since then he has been studying it for his book.’
‘Well I should think that will be a scream,’ said the duchess. ‘Delphie will be mad if she doesn’t marry him, but if she doesn’t I shall, that’s all. What I do adore is a really good sense of humour. The funny thing is that though I’ve liked Paul from the very beginning he never struck me as being so particularly amusing, but of course that must have been entirely my own fault. Shake up one more cocktail, won’t you, Bobby, my sweet – here’s Héloïse back again. Dear, what a pudding-faced young man she has got with her this time. Where can she have picked him up? Héloïse, what do you think, Philadelphia and Paul have been sitting out for more than two hours in the linen cupboard.’
‘Oh, where – can I see?’
‘No, certainly you can’t. It’s nothing whatever to do with you. I may say I’m surprised you’ve not been in there yourself.’
‘If Maydew had come I don’t doubt I should have been,’ said Héloïse, ‘but all the young men here seem to be so sexless. I honestly don’t think I’ve ever been to such an awful party as this in my life. Can I introduce Mr Wainscote to you, by the way. He has been to a lot of jolly shows lately in London, and I expect he’d like a cocktail, Bobby.’
‘As a matter of fact,’ said Mr Wainscote, blushing, ‘the rest of my party is very anxious to go home – I mean,’ he added hurriedly, looking at Bobby, ‘ready to leave. We have all enjoyed ourselves immensely, but we have a long cold drive before us, so I think that perhaps I should say good-bye,’ and he edged out of the room sideways like a crab.
‘My darling Héloïse, what an extraordinary young man,’ said the duchess.
‘He’s not at all extraordinary,’ said Héloïse, ‘unless you mean extraordinarily attractive. I’m rather in love with him myself,’ and she looked under long blue eyelashes at Bobby.
‘No cop, old girl, you can’t lead me on like that. I know you’re in a temper because I haven’t spoken to you the whole evening, but there’s no point in making a fool of yourself just the same. Have another cegocktegail?’
‘I degon’t megind egif egI dego,’ said Héloïse, happily settling herself on the edge of the bed. ‘Now run along downstairs, Mother, if you don’t mind, because I want to kiss Bobby.’
‘All right, I’ll go and see how Rosemary and Laetitia are getting on. Have a lovely time, and don’t be too long.’
Shortly after this, Bobby himself came downstairs, and revolted by the sights and sounds of cheerlessness which greeted his eyes, thoughtfully turned out the electric light at the main, thus breaking up the party. By the flickering rays of the only candle that Compton Bobbin possessed, coats were found, adieux were said, and, grumbling to the last, the flower of Gloucestershire man and maidenhood climbed into their Morris Cowleys and drove away.
This contretemps postponed but did not avert Lady Bobbin’s furious upbraiding of Bobby and Philadelphia, who, having disappeared at the first dance on the programme, had never been seen again mingling with their guests.
‘I know it’s all Louisa’s fault,’ she said angrily, ‘and I’m damned if I’ll go on having that woman to the house. I’m sick and tired of her rudeness, and as for that little— Héloïse, I’d much sooner neither of you had any more to do with her.’
Paul and Philadelphia parted the next day with tears and promises of eternal fidelity. Their farewells were rendered slightly more bearable than they would otherwise have been by the fact that Aunt Loudie, having given them the only moral support they had as yet received, had promised that she would invite Philadelphia to stay in London as soon as she herself should return from Switzerland.
‘See you very soon, my darling,’ said Paul, as they stood on Woodford platform waiting for his train.
‘Yes, darling. And mind you write to me.’
‘Of course I will, every day. And mind you do, too. Take care of yourself, my precious, and don’t worry too much. Everything will come all right in the end, you’ll see.’
‘I don’t know,’ said Philadelphia, miserably.
‘Now come on,’ said Bobby impatiently as the train came to a standstill, ‘jump in, Paul – good-bye, Delphie, come and see me at Eton some time, old girl. Don’t let them forget to send on my letters and parcels. Good-bye – good-bye.’
To Philadelphia, left alone on the cold, wet and empty platform, it seemed as though all happiness had come to an end. She cried so much that she could hardly see to drive her car home.
Paul and Bobby lounged luxuriously in their first-class carriage (it was one of Bobby’s talents that he could always travel first-class on a third-class ticket), and argued as to whether they should lunch at the Ritz or the Berkeley, and what film they should go to afterwards. At Oxford they got out and bought all the illustrated papers. Paul felt agreeably sentimental and wretched, but he was glad, on the whole, to be going back to London. The only drawback was that he had promised Philadelphia to look for work, a pastime that he detested, and worse still, to do work if he found it. Much would he have preferred to settle down in a desultory manner to his life of Lady Maria Bobbin. However, he put these unpleasant thoughts from him without any difficulty
