to draw everybody’s attention. Or is that only if you are a mason? At any rate we needn’t dwell on it because it’s almost the only thing that is not likely to happen to us.’
‘But, Charlot, you’ve got over other fences.’
‘Nothing like this. This isn’t a fence; it’s a mountain.’
‘How did it all happen?’
‘My dear, how does one run into debt? It simply occurs, bit by bit. And you know, Robin, I have made such enormous efforts. We’ve lived like anchorites and put down one thing after another. The children have been wonderful about it. The twins and Henry have answered any number of advertisements and have never given up the idea that they must get a job. And they’ve been so good about their fun, enjoying quite cheap things like driving about England and staying at second-rate hotels and going to Ostend for a little cheap gamble instead of the Riviera where all their friends are. And Frid was so good-natured about her coming-out. No ball; only dinner and cocktail parties which we ran on sixpence. And now she’s going to this drama school and working so hard with the most appalling people. Of course the whole thing is the business of Charlie and the jewels. Don’t ask me to tell you the complete story, it’s too grim and involved for words to convey. The gist of it is that poor Charlie was to have this office in the City with buyers in the East and at places like the Galle Face Hotel at Colombo. He was in partnership with a Sir David Stein, who seemed a rather nice second-rate little man, we thought. Well, it appears that they had a great orgy of paper-signing and no sooner was that over than Sir David blew out his brains.’
‘Why?’
‘It seems he was in deep water and one of his chief interests had crashed quite suddenly. It turned out that Charlie had to meet a frightful lot of bills because he was Sir David’s partner. So many, that we hadn’t any money left to pay our own bills which had been mounting up a bit, anyhow. And there’s no more coming in for six months. So there you are. Well, we must simply keep our heads and take the right line with Gabriel. Charlie wrote him a really charming telegram, just right, do you know? We took great trouble with it. Gabriel is at Deepacres and he hates coming up to London so we rather hoped he’d simply realize he couldn’t let Charlie go bust and would send him a cheque. However, he telegraphed back: “Arriving Friday, six o’clock. Wutherwood,” which has thrown us all into rather a fever.’
‘Do you think it’ll be all right?’ asked Roberta.
‘Well, it’s simply so crucial that we’re not thinking at all. Never jump your fences till you meet them. But I’m terribly anxious that we should take the right line with Gabriel. It’s a bore that Charlie loathes him so whole-heartedly.’
‘I didn’t think he ever loathed anybody,’ said Roberta.
‘Well, as far as he can, he hates Gabriel. Gabriel has always been rather beastly to him and thinks he’s extravagant. Gabriel himself is a miser.’
‘Oh dear!’
‘I know. Still he’s a snob and I really don’t believe he’ll allow his brother to go bankrupt. He’d crawl with horror at the publicity. What we’ve got to do is decide on the line to take with Gabriel when he gets here. I thought the first thing was to consider his comfort. He likes a special kind of sherry, almost unprocurable, I understand, but Baskett is going to hunt for it. And he likes early Chinese pottery. Deepacres is full of leering goddesses and dragons. Well, by a great stroke of luck, one of the things poor Charlie bought with an eye to business is a small blue pot which was most frightfully expensive and which, in a mad moment, he paid for. I had the really brilliant idea of letting Mike give it to Gabriel. Mike has quite charming manners when he tries.’
‘But, Charlot, if this pot is so valuable, couldn’t you sell it?’
‘I suppose we could, but how? And, anyway, my cunning tells me that it’s much better to invest it as a sweetener for Gabriel. We’ve got to be diplomatic. Suppose the pot is worth a hundred pounds? My dear, we want two thousand. Why not use the pot as a sprat to catch a mackerel?’
‘Yes,’ said Roberta dubiously, ‘but may he not think it looks a bit lavish to be giving away valuable pots?’
‘Oh, no,’ said Lady Charles with an air of dismissal, ‘he’ll be delighted. And anyway if he flings it back in poor little Mike’s face, we’ve still got the pot.’
‘True,’ said Roberta, but she felt that there was a flaw somewhere in Lady Charles’s logic.
‘We’ll all be in the drawing-room when he comes,’ continued Lady Charles, ‘and I thought perhaps we might have some charades.’
‘What!’
‘I know it sounds mad, Robin, but you see he knows we’re rather mad and it’s no good pretending we’re not. And we’re all good at charades, you can’t deny it.’
Roberta remembered the charades in New Zealand, particularly one that presented the Garden of Eden. Lord Charles, with his glass in his eye, and an umbrella over his head to suggest the heat of the day, had enacted Adam. Henry was the serpent and the twins, angels. Frid had entered into the spirit of the part of Eve and had worn almost nothing but a brassière and a brown paper fig-leaf. Lady Charles had found one of the false beards that the Lampreys could always be depended upon to produce and had made a particularly irritable Deity. Patch had been the apple tree.
‘Does he like charades?’ asked Roberta.
‘I don’t suppose he ever sees any, which is all to the good. We’ll make him feel gay. That’s poor Gabriel’s trouble. He’s never gay enough.’
There was a tap at the door and Henry looked in.
‘I thought you might like a good laugh,’ said Henry. ‘The bum has come up the back stairs and caught poor old Daddy. He’s sitting in the kitchen with Baskett and the maids.’
‘Oh, no!’ said his mother.
‘His name is Mr Grumble,’ said Henry.
III
During lunch Lady Charles developed her theory of the way in which Lord Wutherwood – and Rune – was to be received and entertained. The family, with the exception of Henry, entered warmly into the discussion. Henry seemed to be more than usually vague and rather dispirited. Roberta, to her discomfiture, repeatedly caught his eye. Henry stared at her with an expression which she was unable to interpret until it occurred to her that he looked not at but through her. Roberta became less self-conscious and listened more attentively to the rest of the family. With every turn of their preposterous conversation her four years of separation from them seemed to diminish and Roberta felt herself slip, as of old, into an attitude of mind that half-accepted the mad logic of their scheming. They discussed the suitability of a charade, Lady Charles and her children with passionate enthusiasm. Lord Charles with an air of critical detachment. Roberta wondered what Lord Charles really felt about the crisis and whether she merely imagined that he wore a faintly troubled air. His face was at no time an expressive one. It was a pale oval face. Short-sighted eyes that looked dimly friendly, a colourless moustache and an oddly youthful mouth added nothing to its distinction, and yet it had distinction of a gentle kind. His voice was pitched rather high and he had a trick of letting his sentences die away while he opened his eyes widely and stroked the top of his head. Roberts realized that though she liked him very
