‘I must say, Cedric,’ Paul muttered when the old butler had gone, ‘that I don’t think your line of comedy with Barker is screamingly funny.’
‘Dear Paul! Don’t you? I’m completely shattered.’
‘Well, he’s old,’ said Fenella quickly, ‘and he’s a great friend.’
Cedric darted an extraordinarily malicious glance at his cousins. ‘How very feudal,’ he said. ‘Noblesse oblige. Dear me!’
At this juncture, rather to Troy’s relief, a stout smiling woman came in from one of the side doors. Behind her, Troy caught a glimpse of a vast formal drawing-room.
‘This is my Mama,’ Cedric explained, faintly waving his hand.
Mrs. Henry Ancred was a firmly built, white-skinned woman. Her faded hair was scrupulously groomed into a rather wig-like coiffure. She looked, Troy thought, a little as if she managed some quiet but extremely expensive boarding-house or perhaps a school. Her voice was unusually deep, and her hands and feet unusually large. Unlike her son, she had a wide mouth, but there was a resemblance to Cedric about the eyes and chin. She wore a sensible blouse, a cardigan, and a dark skirt, and she shook hands heartily with Troy. A capable woman.
‘So glad you’ve decided to come,’ she said. ‘My father-in-law’s quite excited. It will take him out of himself and fill in his day nicely.’
Cedric gave a little shriek: ‘Milly, darling!’ he cried. ‘How – you can!’ He made an agonised face at Troy.
‘Have I said something I shouldn’t?’ asked his mother. ‘So like me!’ And she laughed heartily.
‘Of course you haven’t,’ Troy said hurriedly, ignoring Cedric. ‘I only hope the sittings won’t tire Sir Henry.’
‘Oh, he’ll tell you at once if he’s tired,’ Millamant Ancred assured her, and Troy had an unpleasant picture of a canvas six by four feet, to be completed in a fortnight, with a sitter who had no hesitation in telling her when he felt tired.
‘Well, anyway,’ Cedric cried shrilly. ‘Drinks!’
They sat round the fire, Paul and Fenella on a sofa, Troy opposite them, and Millamant Ancred, squarely, on a high chair. Cedric pulled a humpty up to his mother, curled himself on it, and rested an arm on her knees. Paul and Fenella glanced at him with ill-concealed distaste.
‘What have you been doing, dear?’ Millamant asked her son, and put her square white hand on his shoulder.
‘Such a lot of tiresome jobs,’ he sighed, rubbing his cheek on the hand. ‘Tell us what’s going to happen here. I want something gay and exciting. A party for Mrs. Alleyn. Please! You’d like a party, wouldn’t you?’ he persisted, appealing to Troy. ‘Say you would.’
‘But I’ve come to work,’ said Troy, and because he made her feel uncomfortable she spoke abruptly. ‘Damn!’ she thought. ‘Even that sounds as if I expected her to take him seriously.’
But Millamant laughed indulgently. ‘Mrs. Alleyn will be with us for The Birthday,’ she said, ‘and so will you, dear, if you really can stay for ten days. Can you?’
‘Oh, yes,’ he said fretfully. ‘The office-place is being tatted up. I’ve brought my dreary work with me. But The Birthday! How abysmally depressing! Darling Milly, I don’t think, really, that I can face another Birthday.’
‘Don’t be naughty,’ said Millamant in her gruff voice.
‘Let’s have another drink,’ said Paul loudly.
‘Is somebody talking about drink?’ cried a disembodied voice in the minstrels’ gallery. ‘Goody! Goody! Goody!’
‘Oh, God!’ Cedric whispered. ‘Sonia!’
III
It had grown dark in the hall, and Troy’s first impression of Miss Sonia Orrincourt was of a whitish apparition that fluttered down the stairs from the far side of the gallery. Her progress was accompanied by a number of chirruping noises. As she reached the hall and crossed it, Troy saw that she wore a garment which even in the second act of a musical extravaganza would still have been remarkable. Troy supposed it was a negligée.
‘Well, for heaven’s sake,’ squeaked Miss Orrincourt, ‘look who’s here! Ceddie!’ She held out both her hands and Cedric took them.
‘You look too marvellous, Sonia,’ he cried. ‘Where did it come from?’
‘Darling, it’s a million years old. Oh, pardon me,’ said Miss Orrincourt, inclining towards Troy, ‘I didn’t see –’
Millamant stonily introduced her. Fenella and Paul, having moved away from the sofa, Miss Orrincourt sank into it. She extended her arms and wriggled her fingers. ‘Quick! Quick! Quick!’ she cried babyishly. ‘Sonia wants a d’ink.’
Her hair was almost white. It fell in a fringe across her forehead and in a silk curtain to her shoulders, and reminded Troy vaguely of the inside of an aquarium. Her eyes were as round as saucers, with curving black lashes. When she smiled, her short upper lip flattened, the corners of her mouth turned down, and the shadow of grooves-to-come ran away to her chin. Her skin was white and thick like the petals of a camellia. She was a startling young woman to look at, and she made Troy feel exceedingly dumb. ‘But she’d probably be pretty good to paint in the nude,’ she reflected. ‘I wonder if she’s ever been a model. She looks like it.’
Miss Orrincourt and Cedric were conducting an extraordinarily unreal little conversation. Fenella and Paul had moved away, and Troy was left with Millamant Ancred, who began to talk about the difficulties of housekeeping. As she talked, she stitched at an enormous piece of embroidery, which hypnotised Troy by its monstrous colour scheme and tortuous design. Intricate worms and scrolls strangled each other in Millamant’s fancy work. No area was left undecorated, no motive was uninterrupted. At times she would pause and eye it with complacency. Her voice was monotonous.
‘I suppose I’m lucky,’ she said. ‘I’ve got a cook and five maids and Barker, but they’re all very old, and have been collected from different branches of the family. My sister-in-law, Pauline, Mrs. Claude Ancred, you know, gave up her own house in the evacuation time and has recently joined us with two of her maids. Desdemona did the same thing, and she makes Ancreton her headquarters now. She brought her old Nanny. Barker and the others have always been with us. But even with the West Wing turned into a school it’s difficult. In the old days of course,’ said Millamant with a certain air of complacency, ‘there was a swarm.’
‘Do they get on together?’ Troy asked vaguely. She was watching Cedric and Miss Orrincourt. Evidently he had decided to adopt ingratiating tactics, and a lively but completely synthetic flirtation had developed. They whispered together.
‘Oh, no,’ Millamant was saying. ‘They fight.’ And most unexpectedly she added: ‘Like master like man, they say, don’t they?’ Troy looked at her. She was smiling broadly and blankly. It is a characteristic of these people, Troy reflected, that they constantly make remarks to which there is no answer.
Pauline Ancred came in and joined her son and Fenella. She did this with a certain air of determination, and the smile she gave Fenella was a dismissal. ‘Darling,’ she
