No Wind of Blame Read online

Ermyntrude had now to present him to the Prince. They made a sufficiently odd contrast, the one so thin, and handsome, and smiling, the other stocky, and rugged, and a little grim. Mary, who knew, and was sorry for, Steel’s silent adoration of Ermyntrude, was not surprised to see him look more uncompromising than usual, for Ermyntrude was hanging on the Prince’s lips. To make matters worse, Wally, although he had not lingered over the port, had fortified himself with a good many drinks before dinner, and was now looking a little blear-eyed. Steel’s lips had tightened when his glance had first fallen on him, and beyond giving him a curt good-evening he had not again addressed him.

  If Vicky’s aim had been to provoke an atmosphere of constraint, she had succeeded admirably, Mary reflected. Nor, having introduced Steel into the party, did she show the least disposition to try to ease the tension. She remained standing backed against the amber-silk curtains, beside the radio, which she had turned down until the music became a faint undercurrent, a murmur behind the voices. It was left to the Prince to set the party at its ease, which outwardly he did, to Ermyntrude’s satisfaction, and Steel’s silent annoyance.

  ‘Well, Bob, how are the crops and things?’ inquired Ermyntrude kindly. ‘Mr Steel,’ she added, turning to the Prince, ‘farms his own land, you know.’

  ‘I’m a farmer,’ stated Steel, somewhat pugnaciously disclaiming the implied suggestion that he toiled for his pleasure.

  ‘Ah, perfectly!’ smiled the Prince. ‘Alas, I find myself wholly ignorant of the art!’

  ‘Precious little art about it,’ said Steel. ‘Hard work’s more like it.’

  From her stance beyond the group, Vicky spoke thoughtfully. ‘I think there’s something rather frightening about farming.’

  ‘Frightening?’ repeated Steel.

  ‘Primordial,’ murmured Vicky. ‘The struggle against Nature, savagery of the soil.’

  ‘What on earth are you talking about?’ Steel demanded. ‘I never heard such rot!’

  ‘But no, one sees exactly what she means!’ the Prince exclaimed.

  ‘I’m afraid I don’t,’ replied Steel. ‘Struggle against Nature! I assure you, I don’t, young lady!’

  ‘Oh yes! Rain. And weeds,’ sighed Vicky.

  ‘That’s right,’ said Wally, entering unexpectedly into the conversation. ‘Getting earth under your nails, too. Oh, it’s one long struggle!’

  ‘It’s a good life,’ said Steel.

  ‘It may be your idea of a good life. All I know is that it isn’t mine. Fancy getting up in the middle of the night to help a sheep have a lamb! Well, I ask you!’

  ‘That’ll do!’ said Ermyntrude. ‘There’s no need to get coarse.’

  It was generally felt that the possibilities of farming as a topic for conversation had been exhausted. An uneasy silence fell. The Prince began to recall to Ermyntrude memories of Antibes. As Steel had not been there, he was unable to join in. He said that his own country was good enough for him, to which the Prince replied with suave courtesy that it might well be good enough for anyone.

  A diversion was created by the sound of footsteps on the flagged terrace outside. The evening was so warm that the long windows had been left open behind the curtains. These parted suddenly, and a face looked in. ‘Hallo! Anyone at home?’ inquired Harold White with ill-timed playfulness.

  Only Wally greeted this invasion with any semblance of delight. He got up and invited his friend to come in, and upon discovering that White was accompanied by his son and daughter, said the more the merrier.

  Neither White nor his son had changed for dinner, a circumstance which still further prejudiced Ermyntrude against them. Janet White, a somewhat insignificant young woman, whose skirts had a way of dipping in the wrong places, was wearing a garment which she designated as semi-evening dress. It was she who first addressed Ermyntrude, saying with an anxious smile: ‘I do hope you don’t mind us dropping in like this, Mrs Carter? Father wanted to see Mr Carter, you see, so I thought probably you wouldn’t mind if Alan and I came too. But if you do mind – I mean, if you’d rather we didn’t—’

  Ermyntrude broke in on this indeterminate speech, her natural kindliness prompting her to say with as much heartiness as she could assume: ‘Now, you know I’m always pleased to see you and Alan, dear. This is Prince Alexis Varasashvili.’

  Any fears that Ermyntrude might have nourished that Janet would try to monopolise her exalted guest were soon dispersed. Janet looked flustered, and retreated as soon as she could to Mary’s side. Janet was engaged to be married to a tea-planter, living in Ceylon; and although she had so far been unable to reconcile it with her conscience to abandon her father and brother, she was a constant young woman, and found every other man than her tea-planter supremely uninteresting. The Prince alarmed her a little, for she was a simple creature, quite unused to cosmopolitan circles, and instead of listening to his conversation, she began to give Mary an account, in a tiresome undertone, of the tea-planter’s adventures, as exemplified in his last letter to her.

  Her brother, however, a willowy youth, who cultivated an errant lock of hair, took up a determined position on the sofa beside the Prince, and proclaimed himself to be a fervent admirer of the Russian School.

  ‘And what school might that be?’ asked Ermyntrude, bent on putting him in his place.

  ‘My dear Mrs Carter!’ said Alan with a superior smile. ‘Literature!’

  ‘Oh literature!’ said Ermyntrude. ‘Is that all!’

  ‘All! Yes, I am inclined to think that it is indeed all!’

  White, who was waiting by a side-table while Wally mixed a drink for him, overheard this, and said, with a laugh: ‘That young cub of mine getting astride his hobby-horse? You snub him, Mrs Carter, that’s my advice to you! If he read less and worked more, he’d do well.’

  ‘Oh well!’ said Wally tolerantly. ‘I’m very fond of reading myself. Not in the summer, of course.’

  Alan apparently considered this remark beneath contempt, for he turned his shoulder to the rest of the room, and fixing the Prince with a stern and penetrating gaze, uttered one word: ‘Tchekhov!’

  Vicky, who thought she had been out of the limelight for long enough, and had once seen The Cherry Orchard, said thrillingly: ‘The psychology of humanity! Too, too marvellous!’

  ‘Oh, Vicky, you’re doing your hair a new way!’ exclaimed Janet, suddenly noticing it.

  ‘Yes,’ said Vicky, firmly putting the conversation back on to an elevated plane. ‘It’s an expression of mood. Tonight I felt as though some other, stranger soul had entered into me. I had to fit myself to it. Had to!’

  ‘You look beautiful!’ Alan said, in a low voice. ‘I sometimes think there must be Russian blood in you. You’re so sensitive, if you know what I mean.’

  ‘Storm-tossed,’ said Vicky unhappily.

  ‘No, no, duchinka!’ said the Prince, amused. ‘I find instead that you are youth-tossed.’

  ‘One must believe in youth,’ said Alan intensely.

  With the exception of Vicky, none of his audience showed much sign of agreeing with this dictum. White told him that he talked too much, and Steel said that, speaking for himself, he had no use for Tchekhov.

  ‘Good God!’ exclaimed Alan, profoundly disgusted. ‘That mastery of under-statement! That fluid style! When I saw The Three Sisters, for instance, it absolutely shattered me!’

  ‘Well, if it comes to that, it pretty well shattered me,’ said Wally. ‘In fact, had anyone told me what sort of a show it was, I wouldn’t have gone.’

  ‘I must say, that was a dreary piece,’ admitted Ermyntrude. ‘I dare say it was all very clever, but it wasn’t my idea of a cheery evening.’

  ‘To my mind, The Seagull was yet finer,’ said Alan. ‘There one had the crushing weight of cumulative gloom pressing on one until it became almost an agony!’

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