No doubt you think that I should never have started bargaining with the butler in the first place, and perhaps you are right. But being a liberal-minded person, I always try my best to be affable with the lower classes. Apart from that, the more I thought about it, the more I had to admit to myself that it was an offer no sportsman had the right to reject.
‘All right then, Jelks. As you wish.’
‘Thank you, sir.’ He moved towards the door, walking slowly sideways like a crab; but once more he hesitated, a hand on the knob. ‘If I may give you a little advice, sir – may I?’
‘Yes?’
‘It’s simply that her ladyship tends to overbid her hand.’
Now this was going too far. I was so startled I dropped my sock. After all, it’s one thing to have a harmless little sporting arrangement with the butler about tipping, but when he begins conniving with you to take money away from the hostess then it’s time to call a halt.
‘All right Jelks. Now that’ll do.’
‘No offence, sir, I hope. All I mean is you’re bound to be playing against her ladyship. She always partners Major Haddock.’
‘Major Haddock? You mean Major Jack Haddock?’
‘Yes, sir.’
I noticed there was the trace of a sneer around the corners of Jelks’s nose when he spoke about this man. And it was worse with Lady Turton. Each time he said ‘her ladyship’ he spoke the words with the outsides of his lips as though he were nibbling a lemon, and there was a subtle, mocking inflexion in his voice.
‘You’ll excuse me now, sir. Her ladyship will be down at seven o’clock. So will Major Haddock and the others.’ He slipped out of the door leaving behind him a certain dampness in the room and a faint smell of embrocation.
Shortly after seven, I found my way to the main drawing-room, and Lady Turton, as beautiful as ever, got up to greet me.
‘I wasn’t even sure you were coming,’ she said in that peculiar lilting voice. ‘What’s your name again?’
‘I’m afraid I took you at your word, Lady Turton. I hope it’s all right.’
‘Why not?’ she said. ‘There’s forty-seven bedrooms in the house. This is my husband.’
A small man came around the back of her and said, ‘You know, I’m so glad you were able to come.’ He had a lovely warm smile and when he took my hand I felt instantly a touch of friendship in his fingers.
‘And Carmen La Rosa,’ Lady Turton said.
This was a powerfully built woman who looked as though she might have something to do with horses. She nodded at me, and although my hand was already half-way out she didn’t give me hers, thus forcing me to convert the movement into a noseblow.
‘You have a cold?’ she said. ‘I’m sorry.’
I did not like Miss Carmen La Rosa.
‘And this is Jack Haddock.’
I knew this man slightly. He was a director of companies (whatever that may mean), and a well-known member of society. I had used his name a few times in my column, but I had never liked him, and this I think was mainly because I have a deep suspicion of all people who carry their military titles back with them into private life – especially majors and colonels. Standing there in his dinner-jacket with his full-blooded animal face and black eyebrows and large white teeth, he looked so handsome there was almost something indecent about it. He had a way of raising his upper lip when he smiled, baring the teeth, and he was smiling now as he gave me a hairy brown hand.
‘I hope you’re going to say some nice things about us in your column.’
‘He better had,’ Lady Turton said, ‘or I’ll say some nasty ones about him on my front page.’
I laughed, but the three of them, Lady Turton, Major Haddock, and Carmen La Rosa had already turned away and were settling themselves back on the sofa. Jelks gave me a drink, and Sir Basil drew me gently aside for a quiet chat at the other end of the room. Every now and again Lady Turton would call her husband to fetch her something – another Martini, a cigarette, an ashtray, a handkerchief – and he, half rising from his chair, would be forestalled by the watchful Jelks who fetched it for him.
Clearly, Jelks loved his master; and just as clearly he hated the wife. Each time he did something for her he made a little sneer with his nose and drew his lips together so they puckered like a turkey’s bottom.
At dinner, our hostess sat her two friends, Haddock and La Rosa, on either side of her. This unconventional arrangement left Sir Basil and me at the other end of the table where we were able to continue our pleasant talk about painting and sculpture. Of course it was obvious to me by now that the Major was infatuated with her ladyship. And again, although I hate to say it, it seemed as though the La Rosa woman was hunting the same bird.
All this foolishness appeared to delight the hostess. But it did not delight her husband. I could see that he was conscious of the little scene all the time we were talking; and often his mind would wander from our subject and he would stop short in mid-sentence, his eyes travelling down to the other end of the table to settle pathetically for a moment on that lovely head with the black hair and the curiously flaring nostrils. He must have noticed then how exhilarated she was, how the hand that gestured as she spoke rested every now and again on the Major’s arm, and how the other woman, the one who perhaps had something to do with horses, kept saying, ‘Nata-li-a! Now Nata-li-a, listen to me!’
‘Tomorrow,’ I said, ‘you must take me round and show me the sculptures you’ve put up in the garden.’