When, very much later than usual, Mrs St Julien retired to her own room, she was slightly startled to notice a figure tucked up comfortably in her bed. It was Jasper’s.
‘Quite all right,’ he said. ‘Those boys saw me go into Lady Marjorie’s room – I went in there first and then climbed round by the window. Pathetically easy to deceive, dicks are, and as it’s you they’re after it can’t matter to her.’
Poppy St Julien sat down on the chair in front of her dressing-table and looked at him severely. ‘Now I wonder how you happen to know it’s me they’re after – it almost looks as though you must have been listening to my conversation with Marge just now.’
‘That’s right,’ said Jasper, rearranging the pillows so that his head should be on a higher level.
‘You appear very ignorant of ordinary social conventions.’
‘Perhaps I prefer to ignore them.’
Poppy began to brush her hair.
‘I thought,’ said Jasper, ‘by your tone of voice just now, that you seemed to be upset by Anthony St Julien’s behaviour. I am sorry.’
Poppy continued to brush her hair.
‘He also prefers to ignore social conventions, it seems.’
‘He does,’ said Poppy gloomily; ‘but there’s some excuse for him, poor sweet. He’s in love.’
‘So am I in love.’
‘So you say. But you are such a liar, aren’t you? And I wish you wouldn’t drop cigarette ash into my bed.’
‘Give me an ash-tray then would you, darling Miss Smith? That soap-dish would do. Thanks awfully. Will you marry me?’
‘Don’t be silly.’
‘Silly’s my middle name. I asked you a question, however, and should like an answer.’
‘Please leave my room.’
‘Don’t be governessy.’
‘I want to undress.’
‘Undress then.’
‘Oh! damn you,’ said Poppy.
‘Now look here, Miss Smith darling,’ said Jasper, ‘do be sensible and listen to me for a minute. Anthony St Julien is an eel and he doesn’t want you any more because he lusts after strange débutantes, I am not an eel and I do want you, and I will never leave you for anybody else as long as I live. Now if you marry me everyone will be pleased, Anthony St Julien, his débutante, the detectives, and me. Doesn’t it seem an easy way to give pleasure all round?’
‘You can’t keep me,’ said Poppy, ‘in the comfort to which I have been accustomed.’
‘Same to you, my angel.’
‘I dare say, but wives aren’t expected to keep their husbands.’
‘I never could see why not. It seems so unfair.’
‘Not at all. The least the chaps can do is to provide for us financially when you consider that we women have all the trouble of pregnancy and so on.’
‘Well, us boys have hang overs don’t we? Comes to the same thing in the end.’
‘Anyway, the fact remains that I can’t keep you and you can’t keep me. You ought to be marrying Marge.’
‘I know. I would like a shot if I thought there was the smallest chance. Is there?’
‘None whatever.’
‘There you are. I knew there wasn’t. Why raise my hopes? You see, looks like it’ll have to be you after all, darling Miss Smith. I can’t say I mind much. You are most awfully pretty you know.’
‘Jolly kind of you to say so,’ said Poppy, yawning. She began to undress.
9
The opening ceremony of Chalford head-quarters happened to fall upon the same day as that of a cocktail party for which Mrs Lace had sent out invitations. As the one entertainment was billed to take place at 3.30 p.m. and the other not until six o’clock, it was evident that both could easily be attended. Anne-Marie’s party was ostensibly inaugurated to set in motion the machinery of the pageant. An organizing committee was to be elected and the allocation of minor rôles to be considered (the chief parts, those of George III and Queen Charlotte, had already been snapped up by Mrs Lace for herself and Noel). Actually all this was unnecessary. Jasper and Eugenia between them were getting on perfectly well with the arrangements, but it provided that for which Mrs Lace had been longing, namely, an excuse to show off to the neighbourhood her newly acquired friends and lover.
It was, of course, rather annoying to her that she would be obliged to preserve Marjorie’s incognito, and to refrain from whispered conjectures as to the identity of Noel; on the other hand, she considered that not even the assumed names of Foster and Jones entirely hid their intrinsic presentability, while Mr Aspect and Mrs St Julien were good fat fishes for her net. Besides, could she not look forward to that glorious day when she would be in the superior position of having ‘known all along’? When Chalford learnt at last what greatness it had been harbouring in the shape of Noel, Chalford would see Mrs Lace in a dramatic light. People would be saying to each other: ‘You remember, last summer. He was staying at the Jolly Roger and called himself Noel Foster, and that was when he fell in love with her. And now, only think of it, they have eloped together. Of course one always knew she wouldn’t stay for long in this out-of-the-way place, the amazing thing is that she should ever have married such a dull bore –’
Even supposing that this dream of elopement which now filled her days should never come true, it would be known that Mrs Lace had been the love of Noel’s life, and that although, for political or other reasons, he was unable to marry her, he still sent her a dried rose-leaf in a crested box once a year.
She decided that she would always thereafter dress
