Ladies and Gentlemen. Cobb Irvin Shrewsbury
what’s more, she’s going to give you a hard slap the first chance.” Over the line her voice took on an uncertain tone. “Of course I know you’re exaggerating frightfully but – ”
“As regards Launcelot, you couldn’t exaggerate. He confounds the powers of description. He baffles the most inventive imagination. He – ”
“Oh, do listen! All at once I’m beginning to worry about Norah. I hadn’t thought of her until right now.”
“What of Norah?”
“Well, from what you say and even making allowances for your romancing, this man must be very English. And Norah’s so – so Irish. Delia is, too, for that matter. But especially Norah.”
“Strange, but I had noticed that myself about our Norah.”
“Notice it? – I should say. She calls the English – what is it she calls them?”
“Black-and-Tans. Also Saxon oppressors. Also a name which is pronounced by hissing first and then gritting the teeth in a bitter manner. I think it’s an old Gaelic word signifying Oliver Cromwell. You may recall having heard that Norah has a brother who had some personal misunderstanding with the authorities in Dublin in the year 1916. He became at that time very seriously antagonized toward them. And it looks to me as though Norah was inclined to take sides in the controversy.”
“Naturally. But she may make trouble. I hadn’t thought of that before. And if he should happen to do anything or say anything to arouse her or if she should take one of her grudges against Mr. Boyce-Upchurch – oh, I’m scared, Oliver!”
“Prithee be blithe and gay. Norah and I understand each other. We have a bond between us or will have one as soon as I tell her privately that I’m contributing to a fund for financing an uprising on the part of those poor down-trodden Hindus. Immediately on my arrival this evening I’ll take Norah apart and – ”
“You’ll do what?”
“Don’t worry. I’m going to put her back together again, so you’d never notice it. But I’ll take her apart and beg her for my sake to remain calm, cool, and collected. You leave Norah to me.”
“I suppose I’ll have to; there’s nothing else to be done. And, Oliver, you may be a born idiot but just the same you’re a dear for going to all this trouble on my account and I do appreciate it. There – I’m throwing you a kiss by wire.”
“Kindly confine yourself to appreciating Launcelot – that, God wot, will be reward enough for me, fond heart. And in case either our butler or our guest, or both of them, should desire to call the tenants in from the estate, all to stand and join in singing the Royal Anthem, please remember how it goes – God Save the King until Norah’s Brother Can Get at Him!”
Ditto shifted from civilian garb and served dinner that evening. It became a meal that was more than a meal; it became a ceremonial. There was a formalism to it, there was pomp and circumstance. The passing of a dish was invested with a ritualistic essence. Under Ditto’s ministrations so simple a dessert as cold rice pudding took on a new meaning. One wondered what Ditto could have done with a fancy ice. One felt that merely with a loaf of bread and a jug of wine and none of the other ingredients of Old Omar’s recipe for a pleasant evening, he nevertheless could have fabricated the plausible illusion of a banquet of courses. Mrs. Gridley was thrilled to her marrows – possibly a trifle self-conscious but thrilled.
After dinner and a visit to the service wing, Mr. Braid sought out his sister on the veranda where she was doing what most of her sister-villagers of parched Ingleglade were doing at that same hour – wishing for rain.
“Well, Dumplings,” he said, “you may continue to be your own serene self. In me behold a special plenipotentiary doing plenipotenching by the day, week, or job, satisfaction guaranteed or money refunded. I’ve just had a little heart-to-heart chat with Norah and there isn’t a cloud in the sky as large as a man’s hand.”
“I wish there were – this terrible drought!” she said, her thoughts divided between the two concerns uppermost in her mind. “What did you say to her?”
“I approached the subject with my customary tact. With a significant glance toward the visiting nobleman I reminded Norah that blood was thicker than water, to which she piously responded by thanking God for three thousand miles of the water. Still, I think she’s going to keep the peace. For the moment, she’s impressed, or shall I say fascinated. Ditto is high-hatting her something scandalous, and she’s taking it. For all our Norah’s democratic principles she evidently carries in her blood the taint of a lurking admiration for those having an aristocratic bearing, and Ditto is satisfying the treasonable instinct which until now she has had no chance to gratify – at least, not while living with us. As for Delia, that shameless hussy is licking the spoon and begging for more. She’s a traitor to United Ireland and the memory of Daniel O’Connell.
“Mind you, I’m not predicting that the spell will endure. The ancient feud may blaze up. We may yet have a race war in our kitchen. For all you know, you may at this moment be sitting pretty on a seething volcano; but unless something unforeseen occurs I think I may safely promise you peace and harmony, during the great event which is about to ensue in our hitherto simple lives.
“For, as I said just now, Norah is under a thrall – temporary perhaps but a thrall just the same. Well, I confess to being all thralled-up myself. That certainly was a high-church dinner – that one tonight was. Several times I was almost overcome by a well-nigh irrepressible temptation to get up and ask Ditto to take my place and let me pass a few things to him.”
“I don’t believe there ever has been such a drought,” said Mrs. Gridley.
“Ho, hum, well, I suppose we’ll all get used to this grandeur in time,” said Mr. Braid. “I wonder if he is going to put on the full vestments every night no matter whether we have company or not? I wish on nights when we do have very special company he’d loan me his canonicals and wear mine. I expect he’d regard it as presuming if I asked for the address of his tailor? What do you think, Dumplings?”
“I wish it would rain,” said Mrs. Gridley. “And I hope and pray Norah doesn’t fly off into one of her tantrums. I wonder does Mr. Boyce-Upchurch like Thousand Islands dressing or the Russian better? What were you just saying, Ollie?”
Mr. Braid tapped his skull with his forefinger.
“Ah, the family failing,” he murmured, “that dread curse which afflicts our line! With some of the inmates it day by day grows worse. And there’s nothing to be done – it’s congenital.”
“I expect the best thing to do is just to take a chance on the Russian,” said Mrs. Gridley. “If he doesn’t like it, why he doesn’t like it and I can’t help myself, I didn’t catch what you said just then, Ollie?”
“Abstraction overcomes the victim; the mind wanders; the reason totters,” said Mr. Braid. “By the way, I wonder if Ditto would care to have his room brightened with a group view of the Royal Family – the King in shooting costume, the Queen wearing the sort of hat that the King would probably like to shoot; the lesser members grouped about? You know the kind of thing I mean.”
“Would you start off tomorrow night with clams or a melon?” asked Mrs. Gridley.
“Or perhaps he’d prefer an equestrian photograph of the Prince of Wales,” said Mr. Braid. “I know where I can pick up one second hand. I’ll stop by tomorrow and price it. It’s a very unusual pose. Shows the Prince on the horse.”
“Melon, I guess,” said Mrs. Gridley. “Most Englishmen like cantaloups, I hear. They’re not so common among them.”
“My duty being done I think I shall retire to my chamber to take a slight, not to say sketchy bath in a shaving mug,” said Mr. Braid.
“I wish it would rain,” said Mrs. Gridley.
Numbers of friendly persons met Mr. Boyce-Upchurch at the boat that Wednesday afternoon. Miss Titworthy inevitably was there and riding herd, so to speak, on a swaying flock of ewes of the Ingleglade