No Wind of Blame Read online

  Suddenly Hugh realised that Wally was outside this scene, thrust into the negligible background. Neither Steel nor the Prince had a look or a thought to spare for him; it was as though they considered him contemptible, or non-existent. Hugh had a lively sense of humour, but this situation, though verging upon farce, failed to amuse him. He felt uncomfortable, and recalled Mary’s mention of bottled passions with a grimace of distaste. Nasty emotions about, he reflected, and let it go at that.

  Mary was heartily glad when the luncheon-party broke up. Far more acutely than Hugh, she was aware of these emotions. She talked to Wally, for he seemed pathetic to her understanding, a puppet less than life-size, cruelly set up to provide a contrast to the animal vigour of Steel, and the glitter of the Prince. Ermyntrude became monstrous in her eyes, a great purring cat, sleeking herself between two males. For a distorted moment, Mary saw Steel as a figure of lust, and the Prince one of cold calculation. Ermyntrude, smiling and enjoying herself between them, seemed grotesque in her inability to see these men as they were. She dragged her eyes away from them with an effort, and encountered the doctor’s level gaze. He said nothing then, but presently, when the party was over, and he strolled with Mary to where the car waited, he said in his measured way: ‘You mustn’t let your good sense get swamped by that kind of nonsense, Mary.’

  Startled, she countered by saying defensively: ‘I don’t know what you mean!’

  ‘Yes, I think you do. Don’t be disgusted with Ermyntrude. People of intellect – that’s you, my dear – are always inclined to be a little less than just to quite simple women.’

  She gave a constrained laugh. ‘I’m sorry if my face gave me away so badly. I don’t like farmyard imitations.’

  He smiled, but shook his head. She added contritely: ‘That was abominably coarse of me. I didn’t mean to be rude about Aunt Ermy. I’m really very fond of her. You are, too, aren’t you?’

  He looked a little surprised, but replied at once: ‘Yes, I’m fond of her. She was very good to me once.’

  ‘Oh! I didn’t know,’ said Mary, feeling that she had stepped on to thin ice.

  They had reached the car by this time. Mary got in beside Ermyntrude, and they were driven slowly back to Palings. Ermyntrude, commenting on the sultriness of the weather, lost her resemblance to a purring cat; but when she began presently to discuss the circumstances of Wally’s having been shot at, Mary was again conscious of a vague disquiet. She accused herself of distorting Ermyntrude’s remarks until they seemed to express an unacknowledged sense of frustration, and made haste to introduce another topic of conversation.

  She was surprised to find that Vicky had returned to Palings before them, and was lying in a hammock slung in the shade of a great elm tree on the south lawn. Ermyntrude had gone up to her bedroom to rest before tea, and so did not encounter her daughter, but Mary saw her from the drawing-room window, and went out to ask what had brought the picnic to such an early end.

  Vicky, who apparently considered the weather hot enough to make the wearing of a beach-suit desirable, crossed her arms under her honey-coloured head, and said in an exhausted voice: ‘Oh, darling, I found he was going to read to me, and it seemed to me as though there would probably be ants, or anyway thistles, because there always are whenever I lie on the ground. I do think all this healing-Mother-Earth racket is too utterly spurious, don’t you? And it was definitely not one of my primeval days, so I said we’d go home.’

  Mary was amused. ‘Poor Alan! Was he fed up?’

  ‘Yes, but I do feel that he ought to be rather crushed by adversity,’ said Vicky seriously. ‘I mean, major poets have to be, don’t they? And it turned out that I’d done the proper thing, anyway, because you were quite right about that man.’

  ‘What man?’

  ‘Oh, Percy! The one who wrote Wally the funny letter.’

  ‘What you found funny in it I fail to see. What are you talking about, anyway? How was I right?’

  ‘About his calling here, darling, of course. I mean, he did.’

  ‘Vicky! Good Lord, when?’

  ‘Oh, about half an hour ago! Apparently he doesn’t live at Fritton at all, but at Burntside, and so poor darling Ermyntrude was a frightful blow to him.’

  ‘Do you mean to say he didn’t know Uncle was married?’

  ‘No, because Gladys didn’t tell him that. He said it wasn’t a thing he could mention to me, which I must say I thought was rather dear and old-world of him, and made me wish I’d gone all Early Victorian instead of River Girl. However, it didn’t really matter, because by the time he’d absorbed Ermyntrude’s rich-looking décor, he got rather fierce about plutocrats, and the Red Flag, and things, and I rather lost interest, because I’ve heard all about the lovely time everyone will have when we’re all Communists from Alan; and though I do utterly agree that it’s practically incumbent on one to go Red, I don’t somehow think that I shall, because I don’t feel as though I should enjoy it much.’

  ‘Look here, Vicky, did you actually take it upon yourself to interview this young man?’

  ‘Yes, of course, and I do think I may have done a lot of good, because I told him that Wally isn’t rich at all, which made him talk about deceivers seducing innocent girls, though as a matter of fact I don’t myself think that it makes it any better to seduce girls when you’re rich, do you? Percy got more like Alan than ever when I said so, though, and I got bored, and gave it up.’

  ‘Vicky, I wish you’d pull yourself together, and talk sense! It all sounds too garish to be believed so far. Of course, you oughtn’t to have seen him at all, and I’m glad he had enough decency not to discuss it with you. But what’s he going to do? Did you gather that he meant to make himself unpleasant?’

  ‘Well, I wouldn’t know,’ replied Vicky, considering this. ‘He said it was no good Wally’s hiding himself, because he was going to see him sooner or later, but I shouldn’t at all wonder if he cooled off. Because if Gladys really did tell him she thought Wally was a bachelor, he must see that she couldn’t have thought anything of the kind, once he’s thought it over, on account of her being the ticket-office girl at the Regal Cinema, and having seen Ermyntrude with Wally hundreds of times.’

  ‘The cashier at the Regal!’ ejaculated Mary. ‘That nice girl with the freckles! Oh, I don’t believe it!’

  ‘Darling-sweet, you’re thinking of the Odeon-girl. Gladys is the thin one with red finger-nails that click, and that sort of wobbly figure which looks pretty lewd in tight black satin.’

  ‘O God!’ said Mary blankly. ‘And he’s coming back?’

  ‘I should think he probably will. He said so, anyway. It does rather look as though Ermyntrude will have to buy him off, which seems to me frightfully rotten for her, really, because though I quite like Percy, it’s utterly common knowledge that Gladys is quite too phoney for words.’

  ‘She won’t do it,’ Mary said. ‘I know she won’t do it. It’s the wrong moment. Oh Lord, what a week-end!’

  Four

  Neither Vicky nor Mary mentioned the circumstance of Mr Baker’s visit to Ermyntrude when she came downstairs to tea; and although Vicky’s sense of propriety would not have deterred her from giving her stepfather an account of it, the shooting-party returned to Palings too late to allow her the opportunity of seeking any private conversation with Wally.

  The dinner guests began to assemble at a quarter-to-eight, the Bawtrys being the first people to arrive, and the Prince coming downstairs a few minutes later.

  Ermyntrude, who had been persuaded by Mary’s tactful flattery to wear black, was looking a good deal less startling than usual, though rather overloaded with jewellery. She knew, for she had been told, that it was not considered good form to wear rings upon her first and second fingers, but whenever she opened her jewel-box and saw the row of fat, sparkling gems she could not resist the temptation to push as