Ngaio Marsh: Death in a White Tie

“I know Paddy would have meant some of Bridgie’s money to be used for her coming out, Herbert. It isn’t as if—”

“My dear,” said Sir Herbert with an ineffable air of tactful reproach, and a glance at Miss Harris. “Of course. It’s entirely for you and Bridget to decide. Naturally. I wouldn’t dream of interfering. I’m just rather an old fool and like to give any help I can. Don’t pay any attention.”

Lady Carrados was saved the necessity of making any reply to this embarrassing speech by the entrance of the maid.

“Lord Robert Gospell has called, m’lady, and wonders if—”

“ ’Morning, Evelyn,” said an extraordinarily high-pitched voice outside the door. “I’ve come up. Do let me in.”

“Bunchy!” cried Lady Carrados in delight. “How lovely! Come in!” And Lord Robert Gospell, panting a little under the burden of an enormous bunch of daffodils, toddled into the room.

On the same day that Lord Robert Gospell called on Lady Carrados, Lady Carrados herself called on Sir Daniel Davidson in his consulting-rooms in Harley Street. She talked to him for a long time and at the end of half an hour sat staring rather desperately across the desk into his large black eyes.

“I’m frightfully anxious, naturally, that Bridgie shouldn’t get the idea that there’s anything the matter with me,” she said.

“There is nothing specifically wrong with you,” said Davidson, spreading out his long hands. “Nothing, I mean, in the sense of your heart being overworked or your lungs at all unsound or any nonsense of that sort. I don’t think you are anaemic. The blood test will clear all that up. But”— and he leant forward and pointed a finger at her —“ but you are very tired. You’re altogether too tired. If I was an honest physician I’d tell you to go into a nursing-home and lead the life of a placid cow for three weeks.”

“I can’t do that.”

“Can’t your daughter come out next year? What about the little season?”

“Oh, no, it’s impossible. Really. My uncle has lent us his house for the dance. She’s planned everything. It would be almost as much trouble to put things off as it is to go on with them. I’ll be all right, only I do rather feel as if I’ve got a jellyfish instead of a brain. A wobbly jellyfish. I get these curious giddy attacks. And I simply can’t stop bothering about things.”

“I know. What about this ball? I suppose you’re hard at it over that?”

“I’m handing it all over to my secretary and Dimitri. I hope you’re coming. You’ll get a card.”

“I shall be delighted, but I wish you’d give it up.”

“Truly I can’t.”

“Have you got any particular worry?”

There was a long pause.

“Yes,” said Evelyn Carrados, “but I can’t tell you about that.”

“Ah, well,” said Sir Daniel, shrugging his shoulders. “ Les maladies suspendent nos vertus et nos vices .”

She rose and he at once leapt to his feet as if she was royalty.

“You will get that prescription made up at once,” he said, glaring down at her. “And, if you please, I should like to see you again. I suppose I had better not call?”

“No, please. I’ll come here.”

“ C’est entendu. ”

Lady Carrados left him, wishing vaguely that he was a little less florid and longing devoutly for her bed.

Agatha Troy hunched up her shoulders, pulled her smart new cap over one eye and walked into her one-man show at the Wiltshire Galleries in Bond Street. It always embarrassed her intensely to put in these duty appearances at her own exhibitions. People felt they had to say something to her about her pictures and they never knew what to say and she never knew how to reply. She became gruff with shyness and her incoherence was mistaken for intellectual snobbishness. Like most painters she was singularly inarticulate on the subject of her work. The careful phrases of literary appreciation showered upon her by highbrow critics threw Troy into an agony of embarrassment. She minded less the bland commonplaces of the philistines though for these also she had great difficulty in finding suitable replies.

She slipped in at the door, winked at the young man who sat at the reception desk and shied away as a large American woman bore down upon him with a white-gloved finger firmly planted on a price in her catalogue.

Troy hurriedly looked away and in a corner of the crowded room, sitting on a chair that was not big enough for him, she saw a smallish round gentleman whose head was aslant, his eyes closed and his mouth peacefully open. Troy made for him.

“Bunchy!” she said.

Lord Robert Gospell opened his eyes very wide and moved his lips like a rabbit.

“Hullo!” he said. “What a scrimmage, ain’t it? Pretty good.”

“You were asleep.”

“May have been having a nap.”

“That’s a pretty compliment,” said Troy without rancour.

“I had a good prowl first. Just thought I’d pop in,” explained Lord Robert. “Enjoyed myself.” He balanced his glasses across his nose, flung his head back and with an air of placid approval contemplated a large landscape. Without any of her usual embarrassment Troy looked with him.

“Pretty good,” repeated Bunchy. “Ain’t it?”

He had an odd trick of using Victorian colloquialisms; legacies, he would explain, from his distinguished father. “Lor’!” was his favourite ejaculation. He kept up little Victorian politenesses, always leaving cards after a ball and often sending flowers to the hostesses who dined him. His clothes were famous — a rather high, close-buttoned jacket and narrowish trousers by day, a soft wide hat and a cloak in the evening. Troy turned from her picture to her companion. He twinkled through his glasses and pointed a fat finger at the landscape.

“Nice and clean,” he said. “I like ’em clean. Come and have tea.”

“I’ve only just arrived,” said Troy, “but I’d love to.”

“I’ve got the Potters,” said Bunchy. “My sister and her boy. Wait a bit. I’ll fetch ’em.”

“Mildred and Donald?” asked Troy.

“Mildred and Donald. They live with me, you know, since poor Potter died. Donald’s just been sent down for some gambling scrape or other. Nice young scamp. No harm in him. Only don’t mention Oxford.”

“I’ll remember.”

“He’ll probably save you the trouble by talking about it himself. I like having young people about. Gay. Keeps one up to scratch. Can you see ’em anywhere? Mildred’s wearing a puce toque.”

“Not a toque , Bunchy,” said Troy. “There she is. It’s a very smart purple beret. She’s seen us. She’s coming.”

Lord Robert’s widowed sister came billowing through the crowd followed by her extremely good-looking son. She greeted Troy breathlessly but affectionately. Donald bowed, grinned and said: “We have been enjoying ourselves. Frightfully good!”

“Fat lot you know about it,” said Troy good-humouredly. “Mildred, Bunchy suggests tea.”

“I must say I should be glad of it,” said Lady Mildred Potter. “Looking at pictures is the most exhausting pastime, even when they are your pictures, dear.”

“There’s a restaurant down below,” squeaked Lord Robert. “Follow me.”

They worked their way through the crowd and downstairs. Donald who was separated from them by several strangers, shouted: “I say, Troy, did you hear I was sent down?” This had the effect of drawing everyone’s attention first to himself and then to Troy.

“Yes, I did,” said Troy severely.

“Wasn’t it awful?” continued Donald, coming alongside and speaking more quietly. “Uncle Bunch is furious and says I’m no longer The Heir. It’s not true, of course. He’s leaving me a princely fortune, aren’t you, Uncle Bunch, my dear?”