“I’m very sorry, my lady, Mrs. Sparrow can’t understand it, but there are no eggs this morning. She thinks there must have been burglars.”
“Nonsense, Ambrose, who ever heard of burglars coming into a house to steal eggs?”
“The shells were all over the floor, my lady.”
“I see. That’s all, thank you, Ambrose. Well, Jane, has your guest eaten all our eggs too?”
“Well, I’m afraid she has … at least … I mean.”
At this moment Agatha Runcible came down to breakfast. She was not looking her best really in the morning light.
“Good morning, all,” she said in Cockney. “I’ve found the right room at last. D’you know, I popped into a study or something. There was a sweet old boy sitting at a desk. He did look surprised to see me. Was it your papa?”
“This is Mama,” said Jane.
“How are you?” said Miss Runcible. “I say, I think it’s quite too sweet of you to let me come down to breakfast like this.” (It must be remembered that she was still in Hawaiian costume.) “Are you sure you’re not furious with me? All this is really much more embarrassing for me, isn’t it, don’t you think … or don’t you?”
“Do you take tea or coffee?” at last Jane’s mother managed to say. “Jane, dear, give your friend some breakfast.” For in the course of a long public life she had formed the opinion that a judicious offer of food eased most social situations.
Then Jane’s father came in.
“Martha, the most extraordinary thing! … I think I must be losing my reason. I was in my study just now going over that speech for this afternoon, when suddenly the door opened and in came a sort of dancing Hottentot woman half-naked. It just said, ‘Oh, how shy-making,’ and then disappeared, and … oh …” For he had suddenly caught sight of Miss Runcible “… oh … how do you do? … How …”
“I don’t think you have met my husband before.”
“Only for a second,” said Miss Runcible.
“I hope you slept well,” said Jane’s father desperately.
“Martha never told me we had a guest. Forgive me if I appeared inhospitable … I—er … Oh, why doesn’t somebody else say something.”
Miss Runcible, too, was feeling the strain. She picked up the morning paper.
“Here’s something terribly funny,” she said, by way of making conversation. “Shall I read it to you?”
“ ‘Midnight Orgies at No. 10.
’ My dear, isn’t that divine? Listen, ‘What must be the most extraordinary party of the little season took place in the small hours of this morning at No. 10, Downing Street. At about 4 a.m. the policemen who are always posted outside the Prime Minister’s residence were surprised to witness
’—Isn’t this too amusing—‘the arrival of a fleet of taxis, from which emerged a gay throng in exotic fancy dress
’—How I should have loved to have seen it. Can’t you imagine what they were like?—‘the hostess of what was described by one of the guests as the brightest party the Bright Young People have yet given, was no other than Miss Jane Brown, the youngest of the Prime Minister’s four lovely daughters. The Honourable Agatha …
’ Why, what an extraordinary thing. … Oh, my God!”
Suddenly light came flooding in on Miss Runcible’s mind as once when, in her débutante days, she had gone behind the scenes at a charity matinée, and returning had stepped through the wrong door and found herself in a blaze of floodlights on the stage in the middle of the last act of Othello. “Oh, my God!” she said, looking round the Brown breakfast table. “Isn’t that just too bad of Vanburgh. He’s always doing that kind of thing. It really would serve him right if we complained and he lost his job, don’t you think so, Sir James … or … don’t you?”
Miss Runcible paused and met the eyes of the Brown family once more.
“Oh, dear,” she said, “this really is all too bogus.”
Then she turned round and, trailing garlands of equatorial flowers, fled out of the room and out of the house to the huge delight and profit of the crowd of reporters and Press photographers who were already massed round the historic front door.
V
Adam woke up feeling terribly ill. He rang his bell once or twice, but nobody came. Later he woke up again and rang the bell. The Italian waiter appeared, undulating slightly in the doorway. Adam ordered breakfast. Lottie came in and sat on his bed.
“Had a nice breakfast, dear?” she said.
“Not yet,” said Adam. “I’ve only just woken up.”
“That’s right,” said Lottie. “Nothing like a nice breakfast. There was a young lady for you on the phone, but I can’t remember what it was she said at the minute. We’ve all been upside down this morning. Such a fuss. Had the police in, we have, ever since I don’t know what time, drinking up my wine and asking questions and putting their noses where they’re not wanted. All because Flossie must needs go and swing on the chandelier. She never had any sense, Flossie. Well, she’s learned her lesson now, poor girl. Whoever heard of such a thing—swinging on a chandelier. Poor Judge What’s-his-name is in a terrible state about it. I said to him it’s not so much the price of the chandelier, I said. What money can make, money can mend, I said, and that’s the truth, isn’t it, dear? But what I mind, I said, is having a death in the house and all the fuss. It doesn’t do anyone any good having people killing theirselves in a house like Flossie did. Now what may you want, my Italian queen?” said Lottie as the waiter came in with a tray, the smell of kippers contending with nuit de Noel rather disagreeably.
“Gentleman’s breakfast,” said the waiter.
“And how many more breakfasts do you think he wants, I should like to know? He’s had his breakfast hours ago while you were powdering your nose downstairs, haven’t you, dear?”
“No,” said Adam, “as a matter of fact, no.”
“There, do you hear what the gentleman says? He doesn’t
