‘Oh! thank you so much, you are kind,’ said Poppy sweetly. Jasper, envisaging a seed-pearl locket, merely scowled.
At this moment a slight commotion broke out the other side of the terrace. Two liveried attendants sprang forward and led away between them a young man of untidy appearance who was gesticulating wildly. The other peers seemed totally uninterested by this occurrence.
‘That’s Gunnersbury,’ said the duke, ‘dreadful fellow. A shocking Socialist you know.’
‘Poor thing, he seems to be in a great stew,’ said Poppy.
‘All the Labour peers are very much upset at the moment, it’s about a bill of theirs we flung out last week. They called it the Toll of the Roads or some such nonsense and they kept us up until four o’clock one morning talking the most utter gibberish you can possibly imagine. It appears that every year a few thousand totally unimportant persons are killed on the roads, and that lunatic Gunnersbury, supported by some squeamish asses on the Labour benches, brought in a bill to abolish all motor transport. These Socialists put a perfectly exaggerated value on human life, you know. Ridiculous. As I said in my speech, what on earth does it matter if a few people are killed, we’re not at war are we? We don’t need ’em for cannon fodder? Then what earthly good do they do to anybody? Kill ’em on the roads by all means, they come off the unemployment figures and nobody is likely to be any the wiser.’
‘I see your point,’ said Jasper. ‘So I suppose you had a fairly heated debate?’
‘Very heated indeed. However, we Tories won the day – we always do, of course, there’s some sense talked in this place let me tell you. All the same, these Labour fellows are a perfect curse, forever bringing in some ludicrous bill or other, and then making the dickens of a fuss because they are in the minority here. Damned good thing for the country if they are, I should say. That blasted fool Lord Williams now, red-hot Communist if you please, brought in a bill the other day to try and substitute dandelions for strawberry leaves on our coronets and rabbit skins for ermine on our robes. Anybody would think the poor chap wasn’t quite right in the head, the way he goes on.’
The duke then took them for a short stroll in the park, which was dank and gloomy. During the course of it, however, Jasper managed to obtain several promising snapshots of his grandfather as well as an interesting study of Lord Rousham, who, peeping over the edge of his nest as they passed, began to pelt them with orange-peel, chattering wildly to himself.
‘Wonderful fellow, Rousham,’ said the duke, hardly bothering even to look up, ‘he can turn his hand to anything, you know. That’s a first-class nest he has made. They tell me it is entirely lined with pieces of the India Report. Of course we miss him in the House just now, but I bet you he is doing good work up there all the same.’
Presently they were joined by the curator, who had come to inform Jasper that all visitors must be outside the park by six o’clock.
‘That’ll be in ten minutes’ time,’ he said. ‘Why don’t you come again and take the duke out? We always allow it in the case of the moderate ones. There is an excellent tuckshop in the village and they love to go there, it makes a nice change for them.’
‘I’ll do that one day,’ said Jasper. ‘I had thought of taking him over to see Lady Chalford as I know she would be pleased. And by the way, there is to be a garden party and pageant at Chalford House next Wednesday week, and she asked me to find out whether you would care to come over for it, and bring any of the peers with you?’
The curator accepted this invitation with pleasure, and so, when it was put to him, did the Duke of Driburgh. After this, Poppy and Jasper, feeling more exhausted than if they had spent the day with a small boy at his private school, mounted their Rolls-Royce and drove away.
13
The artistic young men of Rackenbridge found themselves a good deal inconvenienced by Mrs Lace’s preoccupation in her new love affair. Their hearts were perhaps less affected than their stomachs, the emotions of those young men had never been much shaken by any petticoat, but up to now they had always been able to count on Comberry Manor and its chatelaine for such agreeable amenities as free meals and pocket-money during the summer. This year a gloomy change had come about. The colony had already been at Rackenbridge for over a month, but as yet not one single picture, photograph, piece of pottery or hand-woven linen had been commissioned by their patroness, nor had she introduced to the studios, as she usually did, any gullible visitors. Almost worse than this trade depression was the fact that practically no invitations to meals at Comberry were now being issued. The artistic young men were getting tired of scrambled eggs and sardines eaten off studio floors, they longed to sit up to a table and attack a joint.
This state of affairs was rightly laid at Noel’s door. As well as providing a complete distraction from the ordinary routine of her life he had shaken Mrs Lace in the belief that her friends were geniuses. He assured her that in London they were perfectly unknown, and his attitude towards their work, too, was distressing. For instance, after glancing at Mr Forderen’s series of photographs entitled ‘Anne-Marie in some of her exquisite moods’ which, when they were first taken a year before had caused the greatest enthusiasm in Rackenbridge, he had remarked quite carelessly that she ought to have her photograph taken by some proper photographer.
‘Don’t
