Eugenia walked back to the Jolly Roger with her friends. Her animals came too.
Poppy said: ‘I think your grandmother is a perfect angel.’
‘She is,’ said Eugenia, ‘I’m fond of the poor old female myself, but I can never forget that she has treated me really very badly. She wouldn’t let me go to school, you see, and the result is that I hardly know any Greek at all. I did manage to learn Latin, with the clergyman at Rackenbridge but only after making the most fearful fuss. She never wanted me to.’
‘I doubt whether you would have learnt much Greek at school, judging by the perfect illiteracy of the schoolgirls I have met,’ said Jasper.
‘Then I wanted to go and study National Socialism in Germany, but she stopped me doing that too. She is a great trial to me, the poor old female.’
Poppy told them about the projected garden party, and Lady Chalford’s idea of having a pageant at the same time, upon which Eugenia flew into a state of excitement.
‘Don’t you see,’ she cried, ‘that this is a most wonderful opportunity for having a grand Social Unionist rally. All the comrades (the Union Jackshirt Comrades, I mean) for miles round, can act in the pageant and help us in every way; they’d love it. Then we will make the people pay to come in and like that will earn a lot of money for the funds.’
‘That wasn’t quite your grandmother’s idea, you know,’ said Poppy doubtfully.
‘No, of course not, but there’s no reason why T.P.O.F. should ever find out, she’s very easy to deceive in such ways. I say, the Comrades will be pleased. Union Jackshirt Aspect, I shall count on your support in this matter.’
‘You shall have it,’ said Jasper.
In the garden of the Jolly Roger they found Noel, who, accompanied by Mrs Lace, was gloomily awaiting their arrival. Noel would have preferred to keep his find to himself for a little longer, but Mrs Lace, having wheedled out of him the true identities of Miss Smith and Miss Jones, absolutely insisted upon meeting them. Lady Marjorie, however, was still reposing on her bed.
The introductions having been effected Mrs Lace became extremely gushing towards Poppy, and waved her hips at Jasper in a most inviting fashion, much to poor Noel’s apprehension. Eugenia she evidently regarded as a mere child, beneath her notice. Jasper took an immediate dislike to her, and rudely went on discussing the pageant with Poppy as though they were alone together.
‘A pageant?’ cried Mrs Lace, when after listening eagerly to them for a few minutes she had gathered what they were talking about. ‘In Chalford Park? But this is unheard of. Nobody in the neighbourhood has seen Chalford House since the div – for years and years,’ she emended, looking at Eugenia.
‘I have never seen it although I live so near. How too exciting. You must be sure and give me a good part in the pageant,’ she added archly, ‘because I studied acting in Paris, you know, under the great Bernhardt.’
‘The great Bottom,’ said Jasper, in a loud aside to Poppy.
The others felt that he had gone too far, and Poppy, who was a kind little person, quickly said that of course Mrs Lace must have the chief part.
‘You must let me help you with the clothes too,’ Mrs Lace went on, looking at Jasper from beneath her eyelashes, ‘my nanny and I between us could easily run them up on the sewing-machine, and at Rackenbridge there is a dressmaker who is quite competent. We might get her to help us cheap if it’s for charity. I am sure Mr Aspect would design some beautiful dresses for us.’
‘What on earth do you suppose I am?’ asked Jasper, highly indignant. ‘A pansy dress designer, eh?’ Jasper felt that in thus discouraging Mrs Lace he was, as far as Noel was concerned, singing for his supper; he did not perhaps yet quite realize that she was the kind of woman who thrives on kicks and blows.
‘If you want actors for crowd scenes and so on I can round up the Women’s Institute and put you in touch with every sort of person,’ she went on, perfectly unmoved.
It was by now apparent that Mrs Lace was one of those people whose energies, whilst often boring, are occasionally indispensable. Poppy and Jasper recognized though they deplored this fact. Noel sat in a kind of admiring trance.
‘Now,’ said Mrs Lace briskly, ‘we must all lay our heads together and decide what period this pageant is to be.’
‘A Pageant of Social Unionism,’ said Eugenia at once, ‘the March on Rome, the Death of Horst Wessel, the Burning of the Reichstag, the Presidential Election of Roosevelt.’
‘Very nice, but don’t you think perhaps a trifle esoteric?’ said Jasper.
Mrs Lace looked scornfully at Eugenia. ‘Pageants,’ she said, ‘must be historical. Now I suggest Charles I and Henrietta Maria’s visit to Chalford – it actually happened, you know. They came to Chalford Old Manor, a perfect little Tudor ruin on the edge of the park.’
Jasper observed that a perfect ruin was a contradiction in terms.
Eugenia vetoed the suggestion of Charles I. ‘You can’t have Charles and Henrietta Maria at a Social Unionist rally,’ she said. ‘Cromwell and Mrs Cromwell, if you like – the first Englishman to have the right political outlook.’
‘Nobody ever heard of Mrs Cromwell appearing in a pageant,’ said Noel. ‘It would be simply absurd. Do for goodness’ sake stick to the ordinary pageant characters – Edward I, Florence Nightingale, Good Queen Bess, Hengist and Horsa, the Orange Girl of Old Drury, William Rufus, Sir Philip Sidney, or Rowena, otherwise you’ll find yourselves getting into a fearful muddle.’
‘Oh! I don’t agree with you at all,’ said Mrs Lace, thinking thus to curry favour with Jasper. ‘Do let’s be original, whatever happens.’
Poppy, seeing that the discussion was about to become acrimonious, put an end to it by reminding the
