Eugenia paid no attention. ‘I have just been to see Union Jackshirt Foster and was obliged to speak to him about his association with Mrs Lace. It may, of course, be perfectly innocent, but it causes much talk in the village, so my Comrades tell me. It must come to an end therefore; at best it gives the Pacifists a peg on which they may hang libellous statements about the party to which Union Jackshirt Foster belongs, at worst he may be luring her away from her duty as the wife and mother of Aryans.’
‘Well, well, what a governessy little thing it is,’ said Jasper. ‘So what had Union Jackshirt Foster to say for himself?’
‘His statement was neither satisfactory nor convincing,’ replied Eugenia, ‘in fact, I shall be obliged to write a request for his formal resignation from the Movement tonight.’
‘I don’t know which is the worse, you or T.P.O.F.’
‘This country must be purged of petty vice before it can be fit to rule the world,’ cried Eugenia. She remounted Vivian Jackson and galloped away.
‘That’s a fine girl,’ said Jasper. ‘If she had been born twenty years sooner she would have been a suffragette.’
15
Jasper and Noel sat in the bar, deserted by their womenkind who were at Comberry Manor trying on dresses for the pageant. They drank quantities of beer and talked about themselves, the conversation having opened in a tone of extreme cordiality. It appeared that Noel was now rather uncomfortably involved in the affair Lace; Anne-Marie, having abandoned that philosophical serenity which he had found so unusual and so admirable, had recently embarked upon a series of painful scenes. Major Lace, too, according to his wife, was both jealous and suspicious, and trouble was to be anticipated from that quarter.
‘Of course I was a fool to imagine it,’ Noel said drearily, ‘but she honestly did seem a bit different from other girls. I must try and remember another time that they are all the same in the end.’
‘The great thing about women,’ said Jasper, ‘is that they have a passion for getting relationships cut and dried. It seems to be their first object in life. If they are having an ordinary love affair they can’t be happy until they have turned it into a romance of the till-death-us-do-part description, while matrimony, even in these days, is never as far as it might be from the back of their minds. They are wonderfully adept at herding chaps into that particular pen, no method is too dishonest which achieves that end. If they are themselves unmarried they pretend that their mother has forbidden them to see one, if married that the husband is getting jealous, until, maddened by all these restrictions, one ends by proposing. Of course neither mother nor husband would have the smallest idea that anything unusual was going on if the little darlings weren’t continually dropping dark hints. Oh! what maddening creatures. I do envy people whose tastes lie in any other direction. All the same,’ he added, ‘I’m bound to say that my Miss Smith seems exceptional in that respect.’
‘Don’t you believe it,’ said Noel, cheerfully, ‘she’s just leaving a side door open in case she can persuade that husband of hers to take her back.’
‘Blast you,’ said Jasper gloomily. He had long suspected as much himself.
‘Anyway,’ continued Noel, ‘she has one great advantage – she does at least realize that you can’t afford to marry. I wish to goodness I could convince Anne-Marie the same about me – that ring was a bad tactical error on my part, ever since I gave it to her she seems to suppose that I am vastly rich. Why, what on earth do you think she suggested this morning? That I should buy a villa for her in the south of France, if you please, and install her there as my mistress! The girl must be wrong in the head.’
Jasper giggled. ‘I think that’s funny.’
‘It’s not funny for me,’ said Noel, ‘I’m getting too much tied up altogether and it’s damned tiresome I can tell you. As soon as this pageant is over I’m jolly well going to cut and run.’
‘Where to?’
‘Back to my old job at Fruel’s again, I suppose,’ said Noel drearily, ‘as I seem to have ratted all these heiresses I shall be obliged to go on working for my living.’ As he said these words a horrid vision rose before his eyes of Miss Brisket the plain typist, Miss Clumps the pretty one, and the ferret eyes and astute nose of Mr Farmer the head clerk. They were framed in olde oake and stained glass, and looked like demons in hell waiting to torment him.
Jasper’s voice recalled him to earth. ‘Actually,’ it was saying, ‘I don’t think you’ll be going back to Fruel’s.’
‘Oh? Why not?’
‘Because when I was up in London the other day I went round to New Broad Street and had a chat with Sir Percy. I explained to him that I am really in many ways more suited to that particular line of business than you are, and do you know he quite saw my point – quite. Charming and intelligent man, Sir Percy. He told me that you had left for good this time. I begin work on the first of next month.’
Noel paled. The vision which had seemed so devilish a moment ago recurred to him with a strangely altered aspect. Miss Brisket, Miss Clumps and Mr Farmer, in their old-world setting, now appeared as angels of light, singing to welcome the pilgrims of the night.
‘Jasper,’ he said bitterly, ‘I always knew you were the biggest swine I knew, but I never knew quite what a swine you were until now.’
‘My dear old boy,’ said Jasper, in pained surprise, raising his eyebrows very high, ‘now don’t let’s have any ill feeling about this, please. You
