Ngaio Marsh - Death And The Dancing Footman

Evidently Jonathan had chosen a round table with the object of keeping the conversation general and in this project he was successful. However angry Hersey may have been with her cousin, she must have decided to pull her weight in the role of hostess for which he had obviously cast her. Mandrake, Madame Lisse, and Nicholas all did their share, and presently there appeared a kind of gaiety at the table. “It’s merely going to turn into a party that is precariously successful in the teeth of extraordinary obstacles,” Mandrake told himself. “We have made a fuss about nothing.” But this opinion was checked when he saw Dr. Hart stare at Nicholas; when, on turning to William, he found him enraged in what appeared to be some whispered expostulation with Chloris; and when, turning away in discomfort, he saw Mrs. Compline, with shaking hands, hide an infinitesimal helping under her knife and fork. He emptied his glass and gave his attention to Hersey Amblington who seemed to be talking about him to Jonathan.

“Mr. Mandrake sniffs at my suggestion,” Hersey was saying. “Don’t you, Mr. Mandrake?”

“Do I?” Mandrake rejoined uneasily. “What suggestion, Lady Hersey?”

“There! He hasn’t even heard me, Jo. Why, the suggestion I made before dinner, for a surrealist play.”

Before Mandrake could find an answer Nicholas Compline suddenly struck into the conversation.

“You mustn’t be flippant with Mr. Mandrake, Hersey,” he said. “He’s looking very austere. I’m sure he’s long ago given up footling.”

Mandrake experienced the sensation of a violent descent in some abandoned lift. His inside seemed to turn over and the tips of his fingers went cold. “God!” he thought. “They know! In a moment they will speak playfully of Dulwich.” And he sat with his fork held in suspended animation, half-way to his mouth. “This atrocious woman,” he thought, “this atrocious woman! This loathsome grinning young man!” He turned to Hersey and found her staring at him with an expression that he interpreted as knowing. Mandrake shied away and looking wildly round the table, encountered the thick-lensed glasses of his host. Jonathan’s lips were pursed and in the faint creases at the corners of his mouth Mandrake read complacency and amusement. “So that’s it,” thought Mandrake furiously. “He knows and he’s told them. It’s the sort of thing that would delight him. My vulnerable spot. He’s having a tweak at it and he and his cousin and his bloody friend will laugh delicately and tell each other they were very naughty with poor Mr. Stanley Footling.” But Jonathan was speaking to him, gently carrying forward the theme of Hersey’s suggestion for a play.

“I have noticed, Aubrey, that the layman is always eager to provide the artist with ideas. Do you imagine, Hersey darling, that Aubrey is a sort of aesthetic scavenger?”

“But mine was such a good idea.”

“You must excuse her, Aubrey. No sense of proportion, I’m afraid, poor woman.”

“Mr. Mandrake does excuse me,” said Hersey, and her smile held such a warmth of friendliness that it dispelled Mandrake’s panic. “I was mistaken,” he thought, “another false alarm. Why must I be so absurdly sensitive? Other people have changed their names without experiencing these terrors.” The relief was so great that for a time he was lost in it and heard only the gradual quieting of his own heart-beats. But presently he became aware of a lull in the general conversation. They had reached dessert. Jonathan’s voice alone was heard speaking and Mandrake thought that he must have been speaking for some little time.

“No one person,” Jonathan was saying, “is the same individual to more than one other person. That is to say the reality of individuals is not absolute. Each individual has as many exterior realities as the number of encounters he makes.”

“Ah,” said Dr. Hart, “this is a pet theory of my own. The actual ‘he’ is known to nobody.”

“Does the actual ‘he’ even exist?” Jonathan returned. “May it not be argued that ‘he’ has no intrinsic reality since different selfs arise out of a conglomeration of selfs to meet different events?”

“I don’t see what you mean,” said William, with his air of worried bafflement.

“Nor do I, William,” said Hersey. “One knows how people will react to certain events, Jo. We say: ‘Oh So-and-so is no good when it comes to such-and-such a situation!’ ”

“My contention is that this is exactly what we do not know.”

“But Mr. Royal,” cried Chloris, “we do know. We know, for instance, that some people will refuse to listen to gossip.”

“We know,” said Nicholas, “that one man will keep his head in a crisis where another will go jitterbug. This war—”

“Oh, don’t let’s talk about this war,” said Chloris.

“There are some men in my company—” William began, but Jonathan raised his hand and William stopped short.

“Well, I concede,” said Jonathan, “that the same ‘he’ may make so many appearances that we may gamble on his turning up under certain circumstances, but I contend that it is a gamble and that though under these familiar circumstances we may agree on the probability of certain reactions, we should quarrel about theoretical behaviour under some unforeseen, hitherto unexperienced circumstances.”

“For example?” asked Madame Lisse.

“Parachute invasion—” began William, but his mother said quickly: “No, William, not the war.” It was the first time since dinner that Mandrake had heard her speak without being addressed.

“I agree,” said Jonathan, “let us not draw our examples from the war. Let us suppose that — what shall I say—”

“That the Archangel Gabriel popped down the chimney,” suggested Hersey, ”and blasted his trump in your ear.”

“Or that Jonathan told us,” said Nicholas, “that this was a Borgia party and the champagne was lethal and we had but twelve minutes to live.”

“ Not the Barrie touch, I implore you,” said Mandrake, rallying a little.

“Or,” said Jonathan, peering into the shadows beyond the candle-lit table, “that my new footman, who is not present at the moment, suddenly developed homicidal mania and was possessed of a lethal weapon. Let us, at any rate, suppose ourselves shut up with some great and impending menace.” He paused, and for a moment complete silence fell upon the company.

The new footman returned. He and Caper moved round the table again. “So he’s keeping the champagne going,” thought Mandrake, “in case the women won’t have brandy or liqueurs. Caper’s being very judicious. Nobody’s tight unless it’s William or Hart. I’m not sure of them. Everybody else is nicely thank you.”

“Well,” said Jonathan, “under some such disastrous circumstance, how does each of you believe I would behave? Come now, I assure you I shan’t cavil at the strictest censure. Sandra, what do you think I would do?”

Mrs. Compline raised her disfigured face. “What you would do?” she repeated. “I think you would talk, Jonathan.” And for the first time that evening there was a burst of spontaneous laughter. Jonathan uttered his high-pitched giggle.

“ Touché ,” he said. “And you, Madame Lisse?”

“I believe that for perhaps the first time in your life you would lose your temper, Mr. Royal.”

“Nick?”

“I don’t know. I think—”

“Come on, now, Nick. You can’t insult me. Fill Mr. Compline’s glass, Caper. Now, Nick?”

“I think you might be rather flattened out.”

“I don’t agree,” said Chloris, quickly. “I think he’d take us all in hand and tell us what to do.”