“Geraniums! Oom. You’ve got awfully good taste. What a frightfully good effect. Bright red and bright white. Clean. Go on, Nan.”
“Killing,” pursued Nan. “Tom said at breakfast with his mouth absolutely full of sweetbread, ‘it’ll rain’—growled, you know, with his mouth crammed full. ‘Never mind, Tommy,’ said Ella with the utmost promptitude, ‘they’re sure to have the alcoves.’ ‘Oomph,’ growled Tommy, pretending not to care. Naughty Tommy, naughty, naughty Tommy!”
“Any cake left?” sighed Miriam, sinking back amongst her petals and hoping that Nan’s voice would go on.
“You girls are the most adorable individuals I ever met. … Did anybody see Pearlie going home this afternoon?”
Everyone chuckled and waited.
“My dears! My dears!! Bevan dragged me along to the end of the pavilion to see him enter up the handicaps with his new automatic pen—awfully smashing—and I was just hobbling the last few yards past the apple trees when we saw Pearlie hand-in-hand with the Botterford boys, prancing along the asphalt court—prancing, my dears!”
Miriam and Harriett dragged themselves up to see. Nan bridled and swayed from listener to listener, her wide throat gleaming as she sang out her words.
“Prancing—with straggles of grey hair sticking out and that tiny sailor hat cocked almost on to her nose. My dear, you sh’d’ve seen Bevan! He put up his eyeglass, my dears, for a fraction of a second,” Nan’s head went up—“Madame Pompadour,” thought Miriam—and her slanting eyes glanced down her nose, “and dropped it, clickety-click. You sh’d’ve seen the expression on his angelic countenance.”
“I say, she is an awful little creature, isn’t she?” said Miriam, watching Eve bend a crimson face over the tea-tray on the hearthrug. “She put her boots on the pavilion table this afternoon when all those men were there—about a mile high they are—with tassels. Why does she go on like that?”
“Men like that sort of thing,” said Sarah lightly.
“Sally!”
“They do. … I believe she drinks.”
“Sally! My dear!”
“I believe she does. She’s always having shandygaff with the men.”
“Oh, well, perhaps she doesn’t,” murmured Eve.
“Chuck me a lump of sugar, Eve.”
Miriam subsided once more amongst the rose petals.
“Bevvy thinks I oughtn’t to dance.”
“Did he say so?”
“Of course, my dear. But old Wyman said I could, every third, except the Lancers.”
“You sh’d’ve seen Bevvy’s face. ‘Brother Tommy doesn’t object,’ I said. ‘He’s going to look after me!’ ‘Is he?’ said Bevvy in his most superior manner.”
“What a fearful scrunching you’re making,” said Harriett, pinching Miriam’s nose.
“Let’s go and dress,” said Miriam, rolling off the table.
“How many times has she met him?” asked Miriam as they went through the hall.
“I dunno. Not many.”
“I think it’s simply hateful.”
“Mimmy!” It was Nan’s insinuating voice.
“Coming,” called Miriam. “And, you know, Tommy needn’t think he can carry on with Meg in an alcove.”
“What would she think? Let’s go and tell Meg she must dress.”
“Mimmy!”
Miriam went back and put her head round the breakfast-room door.
“Let me see you when you’re dressed.”
“Why?”
“I want to kiss the back of your neck, my dear; love kissing people’s necks.”
Miriam smiled herself vaguely out of the room, putting away the unpleasant suggestion.
“I wish I’d got a dress like Nan’s,” she said, joining Harriett in the dark lobby.
“I say, somebody’s been using the ‘Financial Times’ to cut up flowers on. It’s all wet.” Harriett lifted the limp newspaper from the marble-topped coil of pipes and shook it.
“Hang it up somewhere.”
“Where? Everything’s cleared up.”
“Stick it out of the lavatory window and pull the window down on it.”
“Awri, you hold the door open.”
Miriam laughed as Harriett fell into the room.
“Blooming bootjack.”
“Is it all right in there? Are all the pegs clear? Is the washing-basin all right?”
A faint light came in as Harriett pushed up the frosted pane.
“Here’s a pair of boots all over the floor and your old Zulu hat hanging on a peg. The basin’s all right except a perfectly foul smell of nicotine. It’s pater’s old feather.”
“That doesn’t matter. The men won’t mind that. My old hat can stay. There are ten pegs out here and all the slab, and there’s hardly anything on the hall stand. That’s it. Don’t cram the window down so as to cut the paper. That’ll do. Come on.”
“I wish I had a really stunning dress,” remarked Miriam, as they tapped across the wide hall.
“You needn’t.”
The drawing-room door was open. They surveyed the sea of drugget, dark grey in the fading light. “Pong-pong-pong de doodle, pong-pong-pong de doodle,” murmured Miriam as they stood swaying on tiptoe in the doorway.
“Let’s have the gas and two candlesticks, Harry, on the dressing-table under the gas.”
“All right,” mouthed Harriett in a stage whisper, making for the stairs as the breakfast-room door opened.
It was Eve. “I say, Eve, I’m scared,” said Miriam, meeting her.
Eve giggled triumphantly.
“Look here. I shan’t come down at first. I’ll play the first dance. I’ll get them all started with ‘Bittersweet.’ ”
“Don’t worry, Mim.”
“My dear, I simply don’t know how to face the evening.”
“You do,” murmured Eve. “You are proud.”
“What of?”
“You know quite well.”
“What?”
“He’s the nicest boy we know.”
“But he’s not my boy. Of course not. You’re insane. Besides, I don’t know who you’re talking about.”
“Oh, well, we won’t talk. We’ll go and arrange your chignon.”
“I’m going to have simply twists and perhaps a hair ornament.”
Miriam reached the conservatory from the garden door and set about opening the lid of the grand piano. She could see at the far end of the almost empty drawing-room a little ruddy thickset bearded man with a roll of music under his arm talking to her mother. He was standing very near to her, surrounding her with his eager presence. “Mother’s wonderful,” thought Miriam, with a moment’s adoration for Mrs. Henderson’s softly-smiling girlish tremulousness. Listening to the man’s hilarious expostulating narrative voice she fumbled hastily for her waltz amongst the scattered piles of music on the lid of the piano.
As she struck her opening chords she watched her mother gently quell the narrative and steer the sturdy form towards a group of people hesitating in
