Death in a White Tie

Bridget called him Bart, which he rather liked, but he occasionally surprised a look of irony in her eyes and that he did not at all enjoy.

This morning he had The Times under his arm and an expression of forbearance on his face. He kissed his wife, greeted Miss Harris with precisely the correct shade of cordiality, and raised his eyebrows at his stepdaughter.

‘Good morning, Bridget. I thought you were still in bed.’

‘Good morning, Bart,’ said Bridget. ‘Why?’

‘You were not at breakfast. Don’t you think perhaps it would be more considerate to the servants if you breakfasted before you started making plans?’

‘I expect it would,’ agreed Bridget and went as far as the door.

‘What are your plans for today, darling?’ continued Sir Herbert, smiling at his wife.

‘Oh—everything. Bridget’s dance. Miss Harris and I are—are going into expense, Herbert.’

‘Ah, yes?’ murmured Sir Herbert. ‘I’m sure Miss Harris is a perfect dragon with figures. What’s the total, Miss Harris?’

‘For the ball, Sir Herbert?’ Miss Harris glanced at Lady Carrados who nodded a little nervously. ‘It’s about a thousand pounds.’

‘Good God!’ exclaimed Sir Herbert and let his eyeglass fall.

‘You see, darling,’ began his wife in a hurry, ‘it just won’t come down to less. Even with Arthur’s house. And if we have champagne at the buffet—’

‘I cannot see the smallest necessity for champagne at the buffet, Evelyn. If these young cubs can’t get enough to drink in the supper-room all I can say is, they drink a great deal too much. I must say,’ continued Sir Herbert with an air of discovery, ‘that I do not understand the mentality of modern youths. Gambling too much, drinking too much, no object in life—look at that young Potter.’

‘If you mean Donald Potter,’ said Bridget dangerously, ‘ I must—’

‘Bridgie!’ said her mother.

‘You’re wandering from the point, Bridget,’ said her step-father.

‘Me!’

‘My point is,’ said Sir Herbert with a martyred glance at his wife, ‘that the young people expect a great deal too much nowadays. Champagne at every table—’

‘It’s not that—’ began Bridget from the door.

‘It’s only that it saves—’ interrupted her mother.

‘However,’ continued Sir Herbert with an air of patient courtesy, ‘if you feel that you can afford to spend a thousand pounds on an evening, my dear—’

‘But it isn’t all Donna’s money,’ objected Bridget. ‘It’s half mine. Daddy left—’

‘Bridget, darling,’ said Lady Carrados, ‘breakfast.’

‘Sorry, Donna,’ said Bridget. ‘All right.’ She went out.

Miss Harris wondered if she too had better go, but nobody seemed to remember she was in the room and she did not quite like to remind them of her presence by making a move. Lady Carrados with an odd mixture of nervousness and determination was talking rapidly.

‘I know Paddy would have meant some of Bridgie’s money to be used for her coming out, Herbert. It isn’t as if—’

‘My dear,’ said Sir Herbert with an ineffable air of tactful reproach, and a glance at Miss Harris. ‘Of course. It’s entirely for you and Bridget to decide. Naturally. I wouldn’t dream of interfering. I’m just rather an old fool and like to give any help I can. Don’t pay any attention.’

Lady Carrados was saved the necessity of making any reply to this embarrassing speech by the entrance of the maid.

‘Lord Robert Gospell has called, m’lady, and wonders if—’

‘’Morning, Evelyn,’ said an extraordinarily high-pitched voice outside the door. ‘I’ve come up. Do let me in.’

‘Bunchy!’ cried Lady Carrados in delight. ‘How lovely! Come in!’

And Lord Robert Gospell, panting a little under the burden of an enormous bunch of daffodils, toddled into the room.

III

On the same day that Lord Robert Gospell called on Lady Carrados, Lady Carrados herself called on Sir Daniel Davidson in his consulting-rooms in Harley Street. She talked to him for a long time and at the end of half an hour sat staring rather desperately across the desk into his large black eyes.

‘I’m frightfully anxious, naturally, that Bridgie shouldn’t get the idea that there’s anything the matter with me,’ she said.

‘There is nothing specifically wrong with you,’ said Davidson, spreading out his long hands. ‘Nothing, I mean, in the sense of your heart being overworked or your lungs at all unsound or any nonsense of that sort. I don’t think you are anaemic. The blood test will clear all that up. But’—and he leant forward and pointed a finger at her—‘ but you are very tired. You’re altogether too tired. If I was an honest physician I’d tell you to go into a nursing-home and lead the life of a placid cow for three weeks.’

‘I can’t do that.’

‘Can’t your daughter come out next year? What about the little season?’

‘Oh, no, it’s impossible. Really. My uncle has lent us his house for the dance. She’s planned everything. It would be almost as much trouble to put things off as it is to go on with them. I’ll be all right, only I do rather feel as if I’ve got a jellyfish instead of a brain. A wobbly jellyfish. I get these curious giddy attacks. And I simply can’t stop bothering about things.’

‘I know. What about this ball? I suppose you’re hard at it over that?’

‘I’m handing it all over to my secretary and Dimitri. I hope you’re coming. You’ll get a card.’

‘I shall be delighted, but I wish you’d give it up.’

‘Truly I can’t.’

‘Have you got any particular worry?’

There was a long pause.

‘Yes,’ said Evelyn Carrados, ‘but I can’t tell you about that.’

‘Ah, well,’ said Sir Daniel, shrugging his shoulders. ‘Les maladies suspendent nos vertus et nos vices.’

She rose and he at once leapt to his feet as if she was royalty.

‘You will get that prescription made up at once,’ he said, glaring down at her. ‘And, if you please, I should like to see you again. I suppose I had better not call?’

‘No, please. I’ll come here.’