'I played rugger for my school,' I said. 'And cricket. I'm a pretty decent fast bowler.'
She stopped pacing and gave me a long look.
At that point a tiny little warning-bell began tinkling somewhere inside my head. I ignored it. Whatever happened, I must not anta
gonize this woman.
'I'm afraid I don't play rugger,' she said. 'Or cricket.'
'My tennis is all right, too,' I said. 'But I haven't brought my racquet.' I took another sandwich. I loved the taste of anchovies. 'My father says anchovies destroy the palate,' I said, chewing away. 'He won't have Gentleman's Relish in the house. But I adore it.'
She took a great big deep breath and her breasts blew up like two gigantic balloons. 'I'll tell you what I want,' she whispered softly. 'I want you to ravish me and ravish me and ravish me! I want you to ravish me to death! I want you to do it now! Now! Quickly!'
By golly, I thought. Here we go again.
'Don't be shocked, dear boy.'
'I' not shocked.'
'Oh yes you are. I can see it on your face. I should never have asked you. You are so young. You are far too young. How old are you? No, don't tell me. I don't want to know. You are very delicious, but schoolboys are forbidden fruit. What a pity. It's quite obvious you have not yet entered the fiery world of women. I don't suppose you've ever even touched one.'
That nettled me. 'You are mistaken, Lady Makepiece,' I said. 'I have frolicked with females on both sides of the Channel. Also on ships at sea.'
'Why, you naughty boy! I don't believe it!'
I was still on the sofa. She was standing above me. Her big red mouth was open and she was beginning to pant. 'You do understand I would never have mentioned it if Charles hadn't been... sort of past it, don't you?'
'Of course I understand,' I said, wriggling a bit. 'I understand very well. I am full of sympathy. I don't blame you in the least.'
'You really mean that?'
'Of course.'
'Oh, you gorgeous boy!' she cried and she came at me like a tigress.
There is nothing particularly illuminating to report about the barney that followed, except perhaps to mention that her Ladyship astounded me with her sofa-work. Up until then, I had always regarded the sofa as a rotten romping-ground, though heaven knows I had been forced to use it often enough with the London debutantes while the parents were snoring away upstairs. The sofa to me was a beastly uncomfortable thing surrounded on three sides by padded walls and with a horizontal area that was so narrow one was continually rolling off it onto the floor. But Lady Makepiece was a sofa-wizard. For her, the sofa was a kind of gymnastic horse upon which one vaulted and bounced and flipped and rolled and achieved the most remarkable contortions.
'Were you ever a gym teacher?' I asked her.
'Shut up and concentrate,' she said, rolling me around like a lump of puff-pastry.
It was lucky for me I was young and pliable otherwise I'm quite sure I would have suffered a fracture. And that got me thinking about poor old Sir Charles and what he must have gone through in his time. Small wonder he had chosen to go into mothballs. But just wait, I thought, until he swallows the old Blister Beetle! Then it'll be her that starts blowing the whistle for time out, not him.
Lady Makepiece was a quick-change artist. A couple of minutes after our little caper had ended, there she was, seated at her small Louis Quinze desk, looking as well-groomed and as unruffled as when I had first met her. The steam had gone out of her now, and she had the sleepy contented expression of a boa constrictor that has just swallowed a live rat.
'Look here,' she said, studying a piece of paper. 'Tomorrow we're giving a rather grand dinner-party because it's Mafeking Day.'
'But Mafeking was relieved twelve years ago,' I said.
'We still celebrate it,' she said. 'What I'm saying is that Admiral Joubert has dropped out. He's reviewing his fleet in the Mediterranean. How would you like to take his place?'
I only just stopped myself from shouting hooray. It was exactly what I wanted. 'I would be honoured,' I said.
'Most of the Government Ministers will be there,' she said. 'And all the senior Ambassadors. Do you have a white tie?'
'I do,' I said. In those days, one never travelled anywhere without taking full evening-dress, even at my age.
'Good,' she said, writing my name on the guest-list. 'Eight o'clock tomorrow evening then. Good afternoon, my little man. It was nice meeting you.' Already she had gone back to studying the guest-list, so I found my own way out.