Роберт Эйкман: The Late Breakfasters (Faber Finds)

He resumed.

‘But all I have been saying is of secondary importance. Quite secondary. What really matters is that the Atlas Mountains are entirely made of tin. You appreciate what that means in the modern world?’

George Goss nodded heavily, as painters do when interesting themselves in politics or sociology. Griselda looked bright and interested. Mrs Hatch looked from Pamela to Griselda, and back to Pamela. Doris Ditton continued looking into her empty teacup. Possibly she was reading her life’s pattern in the leaves.

‘The Sultan himself told me the inside story of the concessionaires. I won’t tell you the full details, but it comes down to a fight between Meyer Preyserling of Wall Street and a London firm of bankers whose name I can’t pass on. I’ve known Meyer for years, of course, and when I heard that he was interested, I at once flew over and had a talk with him. As a matter of fact, I stayed with him a week. To cut a long story short, he told me that Washington is behind him – secretly, of course, but up to the hilt; so that he has all the gold in Fort Knox to play with. Naturally the London people can’t compete with that. So you can take it that all the tin will go to America, as they can exchange it for gold. And that will mean new labour troubles in Bolivia, possibly even a revolution.’

George Goss nodded again. Mrs Hatch was lighting a cigarette. Pamela, Griselda noticed, was one of those girls whose mouth is seldom entirely closed.

‘So if you have any Bolivian investments, you’d better think carefully what to do. Of course, it may all blow over. The output from the Bolivian tin mines largely goes to Germany anyway, and I think the market may hold up for some time yet. But we must find out what the French are going to do about it all.’

‘Why the French?’ asked George Goss. His voice reminded Griselda of a porpoise.

‘Morocco.’

‘Oh yes,’ said George Goss like an undergraduate convicted of inattention. Noticing that his glass was empty, Mrs Hatch passed him a bottle, and added soda from a syphon behind him.

‘I’ve an engagement to talk matters over with Derriиre in Paris next week.’ Edwin’s French accent was incredibly good. ‘Derriиre is the one man who really counts in France at the moment, and, after all, the Moroccan business may easily end in a world war.’ He subsided affably.

‘Have some of our fruit cake, Griselda?’ said Mrs Hatch. ‘It’s one of our traditions. No other cake for tea but our very special fruit cake.’

‘Thank you very much.’

‘Have some more tea, Pamela?’

Pamela merely shook her head.

‘You’re not sulking are you?’

Pamela shook her head again.

‘What about you, Doris?’

‘Thanks, Mrs Hatch.’ Pamela looked at Doris scornfully; Griselda with some curiosity. Edwin handed her cup with precise courtesy.

‘You’ve had five cups already.’

‘I’m afraid I’d lost count, Mrs Hatch.’ Doris was a pale little creature, with intermediate hair and wearing a cotton frock, obviously her best but somewhat crumpled.

‘I just thought I’d tell you.’ Mrs Hatch had refilled the cup and Edwin returned it to Doris with pale hands.

‘The arranging must have made me thirsty.’

‘Doris has been helping with the preparations for tomorrow night,’ explained Mrs Hatch to Griselda. ‘The balloons haven’t been used for some time and a lot of dust had been allowed to collect. And that,’ she continued firmly, ‘reminds me.’

‘Must I?’ asked Griselda, rather charmingly, as she thought.

‘Would you believe it, Edwin? Griselda thought we could do without her at the dance.’

Pamela’s mouth opened another half-inch.

Edwin replied: ‘I do hope not.’

‘I can’t dance,’ cried Griselda a little desperately.

Pamela’s large eyes opened to their utmost.

‘Please permit me to teach you,’ said Edwin. ‘It would be delightful.’

‘Thank you. But, as I’ve explained to Mrs Hatch, I don’t really like dancing.’

‘Let me teach you,’ suddenly roared George Goss. ‘You’d like it well enough then.’

‘Neither of you will teach Griselda,’ said Mrs Hatch. ‘It’s much too important a thing to be left to amateurs. You’d be certain to start her on entirely the wrong lines. She’s a job for Kynaston.’

‘Who’s Kynaston?’ asked Griselda fearfully.

‘He’s a somewhat neurotic young man who none the less dances like a faun. He makes a living teaching dancing in Hodley.’

‘Only until he establishes himself as a poet,’ unexpectedly interjected Doris.

‘Doris is in love with Mr Kynaston,’ explained Mrs Hatch. ‘But it’s quite true that he writes poetry as well. Very good poetry too. If you spend the whole day with him tomorrow you should pass muster as a dancer by the evening.’

The project appalled Griselda, but to continue in her refusal seemed somehow gauche, and not only in the eyes of her hostess.

‘Doris will speak to Mr Kynaston to-night and you can go down in the car at ten o’clock tomorrow morning.’

‘And I very much hope,’ added Edwin as epilogue, ‘that when the time comes you will give your first dance to me.’

Griselda smiled at him rather uncertainly.

‘I wish Leech would come in. The tea’s cold.’

‘Let me go and look for him, Mrs Hatch.’ Edwin had sprung to his feet and was making for the door.

Pamela was staring at Griselda’s uncoloured finger nails.

‘And where’s Austin and the Ellensteins?’

Griselda supposed these to be the terrifying figures whose company she had evaded in the car from the station.

‘Send Monk upstairs,’ said George Goss. ‘Don’t look at me.’

‘Doris,’ said Mrs Hatch, ‘would you mind ringing for Monk?’

Doris rose and rang. The footman appeared who had shown Griselda to her room. Mrs Hatch despatched him to enquire after the missing guests. Soon he was back.

‘Mr Barnes asks you to excuse him, ma’am. He is lying down in his room. Their Highnesses are coming directly.’

‘Thank you. We’d better have some more hot water. I don’t imagine their Highnesses will require crumpets, or Mr Leech either. Though you never know.’

‘No ma’am.’ Monk departed with the vast kettle.

A fat elderly man was descending the stairs, followed by an equally fat woman of similar age. Both were immaculate; she in a dress younger than her years, in which, oddly enough, she looked much more attractive than she would have done in a more appropriate garment.

‘This is Griselda de Reptonville,’ said Mrs Hatch, ‘The Duke and Duchess of Ellenstein.’

The Duke clicked his heels and kissed Griselda’s hand; the Duchess, even more to her surprise, kissed her lips.

‘You two are late,’ said George Goss. ‘Tea’s over.’

‘For some time now it is during the afternoon that I make Odile mine,’ explained the Duke, in a high gentle voice with only the slightest of accents, and that adding greatly to his charm. ‘We both of us find it best at nights to sleep.’

‘I’ll look in tonight and see if Odile will change her mind.’

‘We make love while the sun shines, George,’ said the Duchess.

‘Only during the wretched war have we missed a single day,’ said the Duke, putting a piece of cake on his wife’s plate, and then taking a larger piece himself.

Monk returned with the recharged kettle, sustaining with difficulty his dignity and its weight.

‘Bring Miss Ditton’s bicycle round to the front door, will you. Monk?’ said Mrs Hatch. ‘Now Doris, don’t forget. Mr Kynaston is to set aside the whole of tomorrow for Miss de Reptonville’s tuition.’

‘Tuition?’ said the Duchess. ‘In what, my dear?’