Mr Buggins was walking with a tall, oldish man in a kilt, whom he introduced as Sir Alexander McDougal.
‘Sir Alexander,’ he said, ‘is the convener of the games this year. He has just been judging the piping competition.’
‘In other words, I suppose,’ said Albert, ‘the producer. Well, sir, I must congratulate you. Seen as a sort of outdoor ballet these games must command the highest praise. The music, too, although at first unmelodious, seems now a very fitting background to these fantastic gestures. Charming! Charming!’
Sir Alexander walked quickly away, followed by Mr Buggins.
‘Why did you say that,’ asked Jane (a truthful girl), ‘when you know how bored you are feeling?’
‘Well, darling, I always think that any artistic endeavour, however unsuccessful, should be encouraged. These games do show a certain amount of enterprise; when looked at impartially there is a sort of pattern to be discerned in them. In time they might become most interesting and unique. Meanwhile, they are, of course, far too monotonous.’
‘And do you realize,’ said Walter, who, with Sally, now joined them, ‘that they are still doing the very things that they were doing at ten o’clock this morning?’
‘The same people?’
‘The same, or others so similar to them as to be indistinguishable.’
‘Don’t you think,’ said Sally wearily, ‘that we might go home, as we’re all here?’
This suggestion was felt to meet the situation quite admirably, and Walter was sent off to find Mr Buggins, while the others waited in the car.
‘Sicker,’ said Albert, as they finally bowled off towards Dalloch Castle, ‘I have never felt.’
After dinner that evening the party assembled in the hall to take leave of Captain and Lady Brenda Chadlington, who, to nobody’s very great regret, were leaving the castle for the jolly cosy little lodge where Lord Alfred Sprott and others made such a cheery crowd. When they had gone the butler came up to Lady Prague and informed her that the picnic basket had just been brought back by a rough man.
‘Most peculiar,’ said Lady Prague; but she let the matter rest at that.
15
Jane sat talking to Sally in her bedroom after tea. Poor Sally had spent most of the day being sick. Morris (or Minerva) was beginning to make his (or her) presence felt in no uncertain way.
‘What is so unfair,’ she said, ‘is that I’m not only sick in the morning, which one expects to be, but sick in the afternoon and evening as well. However, I’m quite pleased we’re going to have him, you know. I think a little squawking baby will be great fun, and Walter’s been divine about it.’
‘Albert and I are going to have four, all boys. One thing I’m not looking forward to is telling my family about Albert. Think of their feelings when they hear that he’s an artist, who lives abroad and was sent down from Oxford. They’ll blow up, that’s all. Oh, how I dread it!’
Sally, who knew that Jane enjoyed nothing so much as a scene with her parents, murmured words of sympathy.
‘I expect they’ll be delighted when they see him. Albert gets on very well with older people. Look at Mr Buggins.’
‘Yes, and look at General Murgatroyd,’ said Jane quickly, frowning at the idea that they might approve of Albert. ‘He’s much more like Daddy than Mr Buggins is.’
‘My dear Jane, how absurd you are! Two people couldn’t be more different than Sir Hurbert and General Murgatroyd. Your father has a great sense of humour, for one thing, and then he’s a very cultivated man. Anyhow, you shouldn’t talk like that: you get all your brains from him.’
‘No, indeed, I don’t. I get them from my maternal grandmother, Judith Trevor. Brains often skip a generation, you know, and come out in the grandchildren. Poor Mummy and Daddy are both terribly stupid: darlings, of course, but narrow-minded and completely unintellectual.’
‘I simply don’t understand your attitude towards your parents, and, what’s more, I believe the whole thing is a pose. Why, when you’re at home you always seem to be so fond of them, and anyone can see that they adore you.’
‘Think what you like, my dear Sally, you won’t alter the truth. Of course, I know how charming they are and how grateful I ought to be for everything they’ve done, and so on, and in a way I am fond of them. We have a different outlook and that’s all there is to it.’
The door opened and Walter came in with a telegram in his hand.
‘Too extraordinary,’ he said. ‘Here’s a wire from Ralph to say that he and Mrs Fairfax are coming to dinner. Can you understand it?’
Sally read it out loud:
‘May Loudie and I come to dinner today? Will arrive about eight on chance of finding you.
‘Ralph
‘How very mysterious! Why are they in Scotland?’
‘I know, so peculiar and why together? However, we shall hear all about it this evening. How pleased Albert will be to see Ralph. Do you imagine they’ll be wanting to stay the night?’
‘Certainly, I should think. We’ll get rooms ready in case. Anyway, it’s very exciting. I’m always pleased to see Ralph, myself, and Mrs Fairfax is such heaven. But I’m longing to know what it all means, aren’t you?’
‘What will the Murgatroyds think of Mrs Fairfax?’
‘I expect they probably know her already. But I imagine that Ralph will be a bit of a shock to them.’
‘Oh, this is going to be fun!’ said Jane, and she ran off to tell Albert.
Dinner was well advanced before there was any sign of the newcomers.
As Sally had conjectured, Mrs Fairfax was well-known to all the Murgatroyds. A much-married lady, she had in turn been the wife of an English duke, an American millionaire and an Italian prince; and now, in theory, if not in fact, shared the bed of a rather depressing Colonel Fairfax. Lady Prague, in common with many of her contemporaries, still remained on bowing terms
