No Wind of Blame

This speech seemed to Mary altogether too fulsome to be stomached, but Ermyntrude was visibly soothed by it, and volunteered the information that she had always been one of the deep ones.

‘Oh, you are so awfully right, Ermyntrude, darling pet!’ agreed Vicky. ‘In fact, I think you’re rather like one of those mysterious mountain tarns, and quite, quite wonderful!’

Ermyntrude was gratified by being thought to resemble a mountain tarn, but it was evident that Wally’s latest misdemeanour had seriously upset her. Her colour remained alarmingly high, and her eyes very bright and sparkling. Nor was Mary reassured by her rising abruptly to her feet, and announcing with unaccustomed curtness that the subject would not bear further discussion. It was not Ermyntrude’s way to bottle up her grievances, and the studied cheerfulness of her voice, when she began immediately to talk about the prospective dinner-party, had the effect of disturbing Mary more than a lively display of hysterics would have done.

Vicky seemed to feel this too, for, following Mary out of the room presently, she said rather unhappily that the atmosphere was thickening too fast. ‘Volcanoes; sulphurous smoke,’ she added, in somewhat vague explanation. ‘I don’t think it would be nice for her to have a divorce, do you?’

‘It may not be true.’

‘Oh, I feel sure it is! Poor sweet, I wish she could have got it off her chest to us, because now I think quite probably she’ll tell Robert Steel.’

‘She mustn’t do that!’ Mary said quickly.

‘No, but I dare say she will,’ said Vicky, accepting it with exasperating nonchalance.

When Mary rejoined Ermyntrude, it was with the intention of reopening the discussion, but Ermyntrude said, still in that unnaturally repressed voice, that the least said the soonest mended. Rather to Mary’s surprise, she soon made it plain that she meant to join the shooting-party for a picnic lunch, just as she had originally planned.

Accordingly, they both set out, a little before one o’clock, in Ermyntrude’s ponderous car, and were driven rather grandly to the appointed rendezvous. Here the men soon joined them, and Ermyntrude’s bitter thoughts were a little distracted by the discovery that the morning’s sport had been enlivened by a slight mishap.

‘In fact, Trudinka, almost we have added our good host’s hat to the bag!’ the Prince said, with a gaiety that failed to lighten the scowl on Steel’s brow, or the look of long-suffering on Wally’s face.

‘Yes, you can laugh,’ Wally said. ‘Very funny for you, I’ve no doubt. Ha-ha!’

‘But what happened?’ asked Mary.

Hugh, to whom her question seemed to be principally addressed, smiled, and shook his head. ‘Not guilty!’

‘Don’t be so absurd! There hasn’t been an accident, has there?’

‘Of course there hasn’t been an accident!’ said Steel testily.

‘Oh no, of course there hasn’t!’ said Wally. ‘I’ve only had a couple of barrels fired at me.’

‘If a man’s fool enough to move from his stand, he’s asking to be shot!’ said Steel.

‘Yes, that’s what you say, and I’ve no doubt you’ll go on saying it however many times I tell you I didn’t do any such thing.’

Dr Chester, a quiet-voiced man of about forty, interposed before Steel could reply. ‘My dear Carter, you must have moved. Why go on arguing about it? Happily, there’s no harm done.’

Wally was greatly offended by this, and demanded to be told whether he could have moved without having been aware of it.

‘Obviously, if you are unaware of it,’ said the doctor calmly. ‘How are you, Mary? Where’s that young baggage, Vicky? Not coming?’

‘No, she’s gone out with Alan White.’ Mary drew him a little away from the group. ‘What really happened, Maurice?’

‘Nothing much. Without wishing to offend you, your cousin is about the most unsafe man on a shoot I’ve ever encountered. Instead of staying where he was posted, he seems to have wandered along the hedge, and nearly got shot.’

‘Who by?’ Mary asked, a vague, unacknowledged fear prompting the sharp question.

The level grey eyes scann

ed her face for one enigmatic moment. ‘Probably by Steel, or Varasashvili. Why?’

‘Oh, no reason!’ Mary said. ‘I only wondered. It sounds just like Wally to drift aimlessly about. He probably didn’t know he was doing it. Is the Prince a good shot?’

‘Yes, very.’

He seemed to be in a more than usually uncommunicative mood. Mary moved away from him to mingle with the rest of the party, and found Wally being voluble on the subject of what seemed, in his mind, to have become a deliberate attack upon him. He threw out so many dark hints about those who would be glad to see him underground that even the Prince’s smile grew to be a little forced, while Steel could only control his rising anger by starting a determined conversation with his hostess.