“Otto has real genius,” said Mrs. Beste-Chetwynde. “You must be sweet to him, Peter. There’s a whole lot of people coming down tomorrow for the weekend, and, my dear, that Maltravers has invited himself again. You wouldn’t like him for a stepfather, would you, darling?”
“No,” said Peter. “If you must marry again do choose someone young and quiet.”
“Peter, you’re an angel. I will. But now I’m going to bed. I had to wait to see you both. Show Mr. Pennyfeather the way about, darling.”
The aluminium lift shot up, and Paul came down to earth.
“That’s an odd thing to ask me in a totally strange house,” said Peter Beste-Chetwynde. “Anyway, let’s have some luncheon.”
It was three days before Paul next saw Mrs. Beste-Chetwynde.
“Don’t you think that she’s the most wonderful woman in the world?” said Paul.
“Wonderful? In what way?”
He and Professor Silenus were standing on the terrace after dinner. The half-finished mosaics at their feet were covered with planks and sacking; the great colonnade of black glass pillars shone in the moonlight; beyond the polished aluminium balustrade the park stretched silent and illimitable.
“The most beautiful and the most free. She almost seems like the creature of a different species. Don’t you feel that?”
“No,” said the Professor after a few moments’ consideration. “I can’t say that I do. If you compare her with other women of her age you will see that the particulars in which she differs from them are infinitesimal compared with the points of similarity. A few millimetres here and a few millimetres there, such variations are inevitable in the human reproductive system; but in all her essential functions—her digestion, for example—she conforms to type.”
“You might say that about anybody.”
“Yes, I do. But it’s Margot’s variations that I dislike so much. They are small, but obtrusive, like the teeth of a saw. Otherwise I might marry her.”
“Why do you think she would marry you?”
“Because, as I said, all her essential functions are normal. Anyway, she asked me to twice. The first time I said I would think it over, and the second time I refused. I’m sure I was right. She would interrupt me terribly. Besides, she’s getting old. In ten years she will be almost worn out.”
Professor Silenus looked at his watch—a platinum disc from Cartier, the gift of Mrs. Beste-Chetwynde. “Quarter to ten,” he said. “I must go to bed.” He threw the end of his cigar clear of the terrace in a glowing parabola. “What do you take to make you sleep?”
“I sleep quite easily,” said Paul, “except on trains.”
“You’re lucky. Margot takes veronal. I haven’t been to sleep for over a year. That’s why I go to bed early. One needs more rest if one doesn’t sleep.”
That night as Paul marked his place in The Golden Bough, and, switching off his light, turned over to sleep he thought of the young man a few bedrooms away, lying motionless in the darkness, his hands at his sides, his legs stretched out, his eyes closed and his brain turning regularly all the night through, drawing in more and more power, storing it away like honey in its intricate cells and galleries, till the atmosphere about it became exhausted and vitiated and only the brain remained turning and turning in the darkness.
So Margot Beste-Chetwynde wanted to marry Otto Silenus, and in another corner of this extraordinary house she lay in a drugged trance, her lovely body cool and fragrant and scarcely stirring beneath the bedclothes; and outside in the park a thousand creatures were asleep; and beyond that, again, were Arthur Potts, and Mr. Prendergast, and the Llanabba stationmaster. Quite soon Paul fell asleep. Downstairs Peter Beste-Chetwynde mixed himself another brandy and soda and turned a page in Havelock Ellis, which, next to The Wind in the Willows, was his favourite book.
The aluminium blinds shot up, and the sun poured in through the vita-glass, filling the room with beneficent rays. Another day had begun at King’s Thursday.
From his bathroom-window Paul looked down on to the terrace. The coverings had been removed, revealing the half-finished pavement of silver and scarlet. Professor Silenus was already out there directing two workmen with the aid of a chart.
The weekend party arrived at various times in the course of the day, but Mrs. Beste-Chetwynde kept to her room while Peter received them in the prettiest way possible. Paul never learned all their names, nor was he ever sure how many of them there were. He supposed about eight or nine, but as they all wore so many different clothes of identically the same kind, and spoke in the same voice, and appeared so irregularly at meals, there may have been several more or several less.
The first to come were The Hon. Miles Malpractice and David Lennox, the photographer. They emerged with little shrieks from an Edwardian electric brougham and made straight for the nearest looking-glass.
In a minute the panatrope was playing, David and Miles were dancing, and Peter was making cocktails. The party had begun. Throughout the afternoon new guests arrived, drifting in vaguely or running in with cries of welcome just as they thought suited them best.
Pamela Popham, square-jawed and resolute as a big game-huntress, stared round the room through her spectacles, drank three cocktails, said: “My God!” twice, cut two or three of her friends, and stalked off to bed.
“Tell Olivia I’ve arrived when she comes,” she said to Peter.
After dinner they went to a whist drive and dance in the village hall. By half-past two the house was quiet; at half-past three Lord Parakeet arrived, slightly drunk and in evening clothes, having “just escaped less than one second ago” from Alastair Trumpington’s twenty-first birthday party in London.
“Alastair was with me some of the way,” he said, “but I think he must have fallen
