“I sometimes think I’m getting rather bored with coloured people,” Mrs. Beste-Chetwynde said to Lady Circumference. “Are you?”
“I have never had the opportunity.”
“I daresay you’d be good with them. They take a lot of living up to; they are so earnest. Who’s that dear, dim, drunk little man?”
“That is the person who shot my son.”
“My dear, how too shattering for you. Not dead, I hope? Chokey shot a man at a party the other night. He gets gay at times, you know. It’s only when he’s on his best behaviour that he’s so class-conscious. I must go and rescue the Vicar.”
The stationmaster came into the tent, crab-like and obsequious.
“Well, my good man?” said the Doctor.
“The young lady I have been telling that no other tunes can we play whatever with the lady smoking at her cigarette look you.”
“God bless my soul! Why not?”
“The other tunes are all holy tunes look you. Blasphemy, it would be to play the songs of Zion while the lady at a cigarette smokes whatever. ‘Men of Harlech’ is good music look you.”
“This is most unfortunate. I can hardly ask Mrs. Beste-Chetwynde to stop smoking. Frankly, I regard this as impertinence.”
“But no man can you ask against his Maker to blaspheme whatever unless him to pay more you were. Three pounds for the music is good and one for the blasphemy look you.”
Dr. Fagan gave him another pound. The stationmaster retired, and in a few minutes the silver band began a singularly emotional rendering of “In Thy courts no more are needed Sun by day and Moon by night.”
X
Post Mortem
As the last car drove away the Doctor and his daughters and Paul and Grimes walked up the drive together towards the Castle.
“Frankly the day has been rather a disappointment to me,” said the Doctor. “Nothing seemed to go quite right in spite of all our preparations.”
“And expense,” said Dingy.
“I am sorry, too, that Mr. Prendergast should have had that unfortunate disagreement with Mrs. Beste-Chetwynde’s coloured friend. In all the ten years during which we have worked together I have never known Mr. Prendergast so self-assertive. It was not becoming of him. Nor was it Philbrick’s place to join in. I was seriously alarmed. They seemed so angry, and all about some minor point of ecclesiastical architecture.”
“Mr. Cholmondley was very sensitive,” said Flossie.
“Yes, he seemed to think that Mr. Prendergast’s insistence on the late development of the rood-screen was in some way connected with colour-prejudice. I wonder why that was? To my mind it showed a very confused line of thought. Still, it would have been more seemly if Mr. Prendergast had let the matter drop, and what could Philbrick know of the matter?”
“Philbrick is not an ordinary butler,” said Dingy.
“No, indeed not,” said the Doctor. “I heartily deplore his jewellery.”
“I didn’t like Lady Circumference’s speech,” said Flossie. “Did you?”
“I did not,” said the Doctor, “nor, I think, did Mrs. Clutterbuck. I thought her reference to the Five Furlong race positively brutal. I was glad Clutterbuck had done so well in the jumping yesterday.”
“She rather wanders from the point, doesn’t she?” said Dingy. “All that about hunting, I mean.”
“I don’t think Lady Circumference is conscious of any definite divisions in the various branches of sport. I have often observed in women of her type a tendency to regard all athletics as inferior forms of foxhunting. It is not logical. Besides, she was nettled at some remark of Mr. Cholmondley’s about cruelty to animals. As you say, it was irrelevant and rather unfortunate. I also resented the references to the Liberal party. Mr. Clutterbuck has stood three times, you know. Taken as a whole, it was not a happy speech. I was quite glad when I saw her drive away.”
“What a pretty car Mrs. Beste-Chetwynde has got!” said Flossie, “but how ostentatious of her to bring a footman.”
“I can forgive the footman,” said Dingy, “but I can’t forgive Mr. Cholmondley. He asked me whether I had ever heard of a writer called Thomas Hardy.”
“He asked me to go to Reigate with him for the weekend,” said Flossie, “… in rather a sweet way, too.”
“Florence, I trust you refused?”
“Oh yes,” said Flossie sadly, “I refused.”
They went on up the drive in silence. Presently Dingy asked: “What are we going to do about those fireworks you insisted on buying? Everyone has gone away.”
“I don’t feel in a mood for fireworks,” said the Doctor. “Perhaps another time, but not now.”
Back in the Common Room, Paul and Grimes subsided moodily into the two easy-chairs. The fire, unattended since luncheon, had sunk to a handful of warm ashes.
“Well, old boy,” said Grimes, “so that’s over.”
“Yes,” said Paul.
“All the gay throng melted away?”
“Yes,” said Paul.
“Back to the daily round and cloistral calm?”
“Yes,” said Paul.
“As a beano,” said Grimes, “I have known better.”
“Yes,” said Paul.
“Lady C.’s hardly what you might call bonhomous.”
“Hardly.”
“Old Prendy made rather an ass of himself?”
“Yes.”
“Hullo, old boy! You sound a bit flat. Feeling the strain of the social vortex, a bit giddy after the gay wheel, eh?”
“I say, Grimes,” said Paul, “what d’you suppose the relationship is between Mrs. Beste-Chetwynde and that nigger?”
“Well, I don’t suppose she trots round with him just for the uplift of his conversation, do you?”
“No, I suppose not.”
“In fact, I don’t mind diagnosing a simple case of good old sex.”
“Yes, I suppose you’re right.”
“I’m sure of it. Great Scott, what’s that noise?”
It was Mr. Prendergast.
“Prendy, old man,” said Grimes, “you’ve let down the morale of the Common Room a pretty good wallop.”
“Damn the Common Room!” said Mr. Prendergast. “What does the Common Room know about rood-screens?”
“That’s all right, old boy. We’re all friends here. What you say about rood-screens goes.”
“They’ll be questioning the efficacy of infant baptism next. The Church has never countenanced lay opinion on spiritual matters. Now if it were a question of food and drink,” said Mr. Prendergast, “if it were a question of drink—But not infant baptism. Just drink.” And
