‘Perfectly good strikes me as an euphemism. Besides, it’s quite obvious to any thinking man that you are heading for the divorce courts at present.’
‘That’s no reason for wanting to marry you,’ said Poppy, ‘and anyway I hope you always take very good care to come in through Marge’s room. You do, now don’t you, Jasper?’
‘I do when I remember. That sort of thing is so awfully easy to forget.’
‘I’d be very much obliged if you would bear it in mind all the same. After all, I’ve only got to hold out for long enough and Anthony St. Julien will be forced to let me divorce him. Then we shall be on clover.’
‘Only so-so. Remember what awful times the innocent party has before the absolute, with the King’s Proctor breathing down its neck every night. I often think one should look at every side of a question before settling upon a course of action. However, I see you are admitting our engagement; that’s always something.’
‘Indeed, I am not.’
‘Now I have thought out a very good scheme whereby we might yet be able to raise some money to live on. We will go and see my grandfather, who is binned-up in an asylum near here. He may fall for you (it seems to run in the family), and come across with the goods. You never know.’
‘If he’s binned-up he won’t have any goods to come across with, will he?’ said Poppy.
‘That’s just where you’re wrong, little Miss Know-all. You see, my grandfather is in a very special kind of bin, for lunatic peers only, and it has quite different rules from the ordinary sort. It was endowed by some rich old peeress in 1865 who was clearly insane herself; she had it built on the exact plans of the House of Lords, so that the boys should feel at home, and she made up the rules as she went along. I once got hold of a copy of them, feeling it might come in handy – here we are.’ He pulled a bundle of typescript out of his pocket. ‘I’ll read you out the bits that matter,’ he said. ‘First of all there’s a sort of preface, pointing out that madness is an infliction which can befall any one of us, from the most humble to the most noble, and that therefore it is quite possible even for peers of the realm to be attacked by this distressing malady. The old girl goes on to say that for too long it has been a disgraceful scandal, a blot on the name of England, that such quantities of these poor, good old men should, through no fault of their own, have been allowed to perish in the hateful and unrefined atmosphere of the common madhouse. This scandal apparently weighed on her mind to such a degree that she spent most of her time visiting the poor good old men and trying to ease their lot by reading to them, teaching them poker work and other useful and profitable occupations, and providing them, as far as the regulations of their bins permitted, with those little luxuries which do so much to make life worth living. “I feel,” she says, “and our dear Queen has been gracious enough to approve of my sentiments on this subject, that the most one can do for gentlemen who have so faithfully served their Sovereign and their Country, but who through the inscrutable visitation of Providence have been rendered unable, not only to continue such service, but to enjoy any of the amenities of life, and worse yet are cut off from the society of their loved ones and of those of their fellow peers upon whom the infliction has not yet fallen, can never be too much.” And so on and so forth. Now – are you listening, Miss Smith – here is the rule on which I build my hopes, Rule 6.
‘“In order that these unhappy noblemen should be enabled to preserve that measure of self-respect which their birth should guarantee, but of which circumstances too often conspire to rob them, the inhabitants of Peersmont shall be entitled, under this foundation, to the full and entire control of one half of their incomes during life, and to the full and entire disposal, by testament, of one half of their fortune after death.”
‘That’s quite plain, isn’t it? You see she made up all these rules for the place and they were ratified by Act of Parliament. Now I happen to know that the old boy, my grandfather, is worth over a million altogether, and he is a complete miser, so it stands to reason that if he has been controlling, say £25,000 a year for the thirty years that he has spent at Peersmont, he must now be worth a tidy penny. On the other hand, it is like squeezing blood out of a stone to get any of it. I know my poor mother has been going to see him for years and has never managed to extract a penny. Uncle Bradenham is a miser too, it’s a family trait.’
‘Doesn’t sound all that hopeful,’ said Poppy.
‘It’s pretty hopeless I can tell you, that’s why I’ve never bothered to go and see the old boy before. All the same, there can be no harm in trying, and it would be quite funny to see over Peersmont. Lady Chalford keeps on offering to lend me her car whenever I want it, so I vote we go over there one day this week and try our luck, eh?’
‘K.O.,’ said Poppy indifferently.
Jasper went to see Lady Chalford about the pageant, as indeed he did most days, and asked whether he could borrow the car. They were on very good terms; she thought him a delightful young man, and made no secret of her wish that he should ally himself to her family by marrying Eugenia; Jasper, on his side, was getting very much
