‘Ha!’ said Sir William. ‘Another of the hospital committee! Upon my soul, things have come to a pretty pass!’
‘Oh, is that the racket?’ said Hugh. ‘I rather wondered.’
‘That’s my racket,’ corrected his mother. ‘Not Connie Bawtry’s. At least, it is really, only she won’t own it.’
‘Then what the devil takes her to Palings?’ demanded Sir William.
‘God, apparently. It’s all right, dear; I’m not being profane. Connie’s been Changed. She’s got under God-Control, or something, and she says what the world needs is God-guided citizens, and if you learn Absolute Love you don’t mind about Ermyntrude’s accent, or Wally Carter’s habits.’
‘Gone Groupy, has she?’ said Hugh. ‘How rotten for Tom!’
‘Well, it is rather, because Connie’s started forgiving him for all sorts of things he never knew he’d done. We’re hoping that she’ll get over it quickly, because she’s president of the Women’s Conservative Association, besides running the Mothers, and the Village Club, and now that she’s a God-guided citizen she simply hasn’t a moment to attend to Good Works. I don’t know why it is, but when people get Changed they never seem to be as nice as they were before.’
‘Tomfoolery!’ said Sir William. ‘I thought she had more sense!’
‘It’s since Elizabeth got married, and went to India,’ explained his wife. ‘Poor dear, I expect she suddenly felt rather aimless, and that’s how it happened. Only I thought I’d better warn you both.’
‘Good God!’ said Sir William. ‘She won’t talk that stuff, will she?’
‘Oh yes, she’s bound to! As far as I can make out, you practically have to testify, if you’re God-controlled.’
‘At a dinner-party?’ said Sir William awfully.
‘Anywhere, dearest.’
‘But you don’t talk about God at dinner! Damme, it’s not decent!’
‘No, it does make it all seem rather cheap, doesn’t it?’ agreed Lady Dering. ‘However, they seem to think that a good thing, and after all, it’s nothing to do with us.’
‘I wish more than ever that you had not been misguided enough to accept that woman’s invitation!’
‘Oh, I don’t!’ said Hugh. ‘I’m definitely out to enjoy myself. What with a dizzy blonde, a Russian prince, and Connie Bawtry gone Groupy, I foresee a rare evening. Mary was rather dreading the Russian Prince when last I saw her, but she’s bound to appreciate a really farcical situation. I hope the Prince turns out to be up to standard. I suppose he’ll have arrived by now.’
The Prince had indeed arrived, and was at that moment bowing over his hostess’s plump hand. He was very dark, and of uncertain age, but extremely handsome, blessed with the slimmest of figures, very gleaming teeth, and the most elegant address. In fact, when he raised Ermyntrude’s hand to his lips, she could not refrain from casting a triumphant glance towards her husband and Mary.
‘Dear lady!’ murmured the Prince. ‘As radiant as ever! I am enchanted! And the little Vicky! But no! This is not the little Vicky!’
He had turned to Mary, with his well-manicured hand held out. She put hers into it, saying rather inadequately: ‘How do you do?’ He continued to hold her hand, but looked towards Ermyntrude with a question in his smiling, dark eyes.
‘No, this is my husband’s ward, Miss Cliffe,’ said Ermyntrude. ‘And here is my husband. Wally, this is Prince Varasashvili.’
‘Delighted!’ the Prince said, releasing Mary’s hand to clasp Wally’s. ‘Of you I have heard so much!’
Wally looked quite alarmed, but before he could demand to know who had been telling tales about him, Ermyntrude intervened with an offer to escort the Prince to his room.
Though perfectly well-meant, his remark had added considerably to Wally’s prejudice against him, and he had no sooner gone away upstairs in Ermyntrude’s wake, than Wally began to disparage his manners, tailoring, and general appearance. ‘A gigolo, that’s what he is,’ he told Mary. ‘Where does he get the money from to go about dressed up to the nines like that? Tell me that!’
Mary was quite unable to oblige him, but since she had not discovered from Ermyntrude that the Prince pursued any gainful occupation, she could not help feeling that there might be some truth in Wally’s guess. Having been brought up exclusively in England, she was charitably inclined to ascribe the Prince’s rather too smart attire to the fact of his being a foreigner. She thought that he looked out-of-place in the English countryside, and although willing to make every allowance for him, could not help hoping that his visit was not to be of long duration.
Ermyntrude, meanwhile, had led her guest upstairs to the best spare room, and had expressed an anxious hope that he would be comfortable there. As the apartment was extremely spacious, and furnished in the height of luxury, it seemed probable that he would be; but Ermyntrude, with purely British ideas about princes, could never see her Alexis without also perceiving an entirely apocryphal background of wealth, palaces, and royal purple.
He assured her that his comfort was a foregone conclusion, and she made haste to point out to him that a private bathroom led out of the apartment, and that if he wanted anything he had only to touch the bell.
He waved away the suggestion that he could want anything more than had been provided, and once more kissed her hand, saying, as he retained it in his clasp: ‘Now, at last, I see you in your own setting! You must let me tell you that it is charming. And you! so beautiful! so gracious!’
No one had ever talked to Ermyntrude in this way, not even the late Geoffrey Fanshawe, in the first flush of his infatuation for her. She had, in fact, been more used to listen to strictures upon her lack of breeding; and, being a very humble-minded woman, had always accepted her neighbours’ obvious valuation of her as the true one. It was, therefore, delightful to hear herself extolled, and by no less a person than a prince; and she made no attempt either to draw her hand away, or to discourage further flattery. She even blushed rather prettily under her rouge and her powder, and inquired artlessly whether Alexis thought that the setting became her.
‘You are so many-sided: everything becomes you! You would be beautiful in a garret,’ he replied earnestly. ‘Yet – I may say it? – always since I have first seen you, I have felt that something there is lacking in your life. I think you are not understood. You have never been understood. On the surface you are so gay that everyone says: “She has everything to make her happy, the beautiful Mrs Carter: a husband, a lovely daughter, much money, much beauty!” It is perhaps only I who have seen behind the sparkle in those eyes, something – how shall I express it? – of loneliness, of a soul that is not guessed at, even by those who stand nearest to you.’