"You will forgive me, won"t you?" said Lady Peggy, "but I so wanted to know you. You see Peter has the reputation of being invulnerable.
We"re all quite breathless from our fruitless endeavours to entangle him, and I wanted to see what you were like."
"I"m afraid you"ll find I"m quite common-place," said Patricia, smiling. It was impossible to be annoyed with Lady Peggy. Her frankness was disarming, and her curiosity that of a child.
"I always say," bubbled Lady Peggy, "that there are only two men in London worth marrying, and they neither of them will have me, although I"ve worked most terribly hard."
"Who are they?" enquired Patricia.
"Oh! G.o.ddy"s one," she said, indicating Elton with a nod, "and Peter"s the other. They are both prepared to be brothers to me; but they"re not sufficiently generous to save me from dying an old maid."
"I must apologise for inflicting Peggy upon you, Miss Brent," said Elton; "but when you get to know her you may even like her."
"I"m not going to wait until I know her," said Patricia.
"Bravo!" cried Lady Peggy, clapping her hands. "That"s a snub for you, G.o.ddy," she said, then turning again to Patricia, "I know we"re going to be friends, and you can afford to be generous to a defeated rival."
"I must warn you against Lady Peggy," said Elton quietly. "She"s a most dangerous young woman."
"And now, Patricia," said Lady Peggy, "I"m going to call you Patricia, and you must call me Peggy. I want you to do me a very great favour."
Patricia looked at the girl, rather bewildered and breathless by the precipitancy with which she made friends. "I"m sure I will if I possibly can," she replied.
"I want you to come and lunch with us," said Lady Peggy.
"It"s very kind of you, I shall be delighted some day," replied Patricia conventionally.
"No, now!" said Lady Peggy. "This very day that ever is. I want you to meet Daddy. He"s such a dear. G.o.ddy will come, so you won"t be lonely," she added.
"I"m afraid I"ve got----" began Patricia.
"Please don"t be afraid you"ve got anything," pleaded Lady Peggy. "If you"ve got an engagement throw it over. Everybody throws over engagements for me."
"But----" began Patricia.
"Oh, please don"t be tiresome," said Lady Peggy, s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g up her eyebrows. "I shall have all I can do to persuade G.o.ddy to come, and it"s so exhausting."
"I will come with pleasure," said Elton, "if only to protect Miss Brent from your overwhelming friendliness."
"Oh, you odious creature!" cried Lady Peggy, then turning to Patricia she added with mock tragedy in her voice, "Oh! the love I"ve languished on that man, the gladness of the eyes I have turned upon him, the pressures of the hand I"ve been willing to bestow on him, and this is how he treats me." Then with a sudden change she added, "But you will come, won"t you? I do so want you to meet Daddy."
"If the truth must be told," said Elton, "Peggy merely wants to be able to exploit you, as everybody is wanting to know about you and what you are like. Now she will be a celebrity, and able to describe you in detail to all her many men friends and to her women enemies."
Lady Peggy deliberately turned her back upon Elton.
"Now we are going to have another little walk and then we"ll go and get our nosebags on," she announced. "No, you"re not going to walk between us"--this to Elton--"I want to be next to Patricia," she announced.
Patricia felt bewildered by the suddenness with which Lady Peggy had descended upon her. She scarcely listened to the flow of small talk she kept up. She was conscious that Elton"s hand was constantly at the salute, and that Lady Peggy seemed to be indulging in a series of continuous bows.
"Oh! do let"s get away somewhere," cried Lady Peggy at length. "My neck aches, and I feel my mouth will set in a silly grin. Why on earth do we know so many people, G.o.ddy? Do you know," she added mischievously, "I"d love to have a big megaphone and stand on a chair and cry out who you are. Then everybody would flock round, because they all want to know who it is that has captured Peter the Hermit, as we call him." She looked at Patricia appraisingly. "I think I can understand now," she said.
"Understand what?" said Patricia.
"What it is in you that attracts Peter."
Patricia gasped. "Really," she began.
"Yes, we girls have all been trying to make love to Peter and fuss over him, whereas you would rather snub him, and that"s very good for Peter.
It"s just the sort of thing that would attract him." Then with another sudden change she turned to Elton and said, "G.o.ddy, in future I"m going to snub you, then perhaps you"ll love me."
Patricia laughed outright. She felt strongly drawn to this inconsequent child-girl. She found herself wondering what would be the impression she would create upon the Galvin House coterie, who would find all their social and moral virtues inverted by such directness of speech. She could see Miss w.a.n.gle"s internal struggle, disapproval of Lady Peggy"s personality mingling with respect for her rank.
"Oh, there"s Tan!" Lady Peggy broke in upon Patricia"s thoughts "G.o.ddy, call to her, shout, wave your hat. Haven"t you got a whistle?"
But Lady Tanagra had seen the party, and was coming towards them accompanied by Mr. Triggs.
Lady Peggy danced towards Lady Tanagra. "Oh, Tan, I"ve found her!" she cried, nodding to Mr. Triggs, whom she appeared to know.
"Found whom?" enquired Lady Tanagra.
"Patricia. The captor of St. Anthony, and we"re going to be friends, and she"s coming to lunch with me to meet Daddy, and G.o.ddy"s coming too, so don"t you dare to carry him off. Oh, Mr. Triggs! isn"t it a lovely day," she cried, turning to Mr. Triggs, who, hat in hand, was mopping his brow.
"Beautiful, me dear, beautiful," he exclaimed, beaming upon her and turning to shake hands with Patricia. "Well, me dear, how goes it?" he enquired. Then looking at her keenly he added, "Why, you"re looking much better."
Patricia smiled, conscious that the improvement in her looks was not a little due to Lady Peggy and her bright chatter.
"You"ve become such a gad-about, Mr. Triggs, that you forget poor me,"
she said.
"Oh no, he doesn"t!" broke in Lady Peggy, "he"s always talking about you. Whenever I try to make love to him he always drags you in. I"ve really come to hate you, Patricia, because you seem to come between me and all my love affairs. Oh! I wish we could find Peter," cried Lady Peggy suddenly, "that would complete the party."
Patricia hoped fervently that they would not come across Bowen. She saw that it would make the situation extremely awkward.
"And now we must dash off for lunch," cried Lady Peggy, "or we shall be late and Daddy will be cross." She shook hands with Mr. Triggs, blew a kiss at Lady Tanagra and, before Patricia knew it, she was walking with Lady Peggy and Elton in the direction of Curzon Street.
Patricia was in some awe of meeting the Duke of Gayton. Hitherto she had encountered only the smaller political fry, friends and acquaintances of Mr. Bonsor, who had always treated her as a secretary.
The Duke had been in the first Coalition Ministry, but had been forced to retire on account of a serious illness.
"Look whom I"ve caught!" cried Lady Peggy as she bubbled into the dining-room, where some twelve or fourteen guests were in process of seating themselves at the table. "Look whom I"ve caught! Daddy," she addressed herself to a small clean-shaven man, with beetling eyebrows and a broad, intellectual head. "It"s the captor of Peter the Hermit."
The Duke smiled and shook hands with Patricia.
"You must come and sit by me," he said in particularly sweet and well-modulated voice, which seemed to give the lie to the somewhat stern and searching appearance of his eyes. "Peter is a great friend of mine."
Patricia was conscious of flushed cheeks as she took her seat next to the Duke. Later she discovered that these Sunday luncheons were always strictly informal, no order of precedence being observed. Young and old were invited, grave and gay. The talk was sometimes frivolous, sometimes serious. Sunday was, in the Duke"s eyes, a day of rest, and conversation must follow the path of least resistance.
Whilst the other guests were seating themselves, Patricia looked round the table with interest. She recognised a well-known Cabinet Minister and a bishop. Next to her on the other side was a man with hungry, searching eyes, whose fair hair was cropped so closely to his head as to be almost invisible. Later she learned that he was a Serbian patriot, who had prepared a wonderful map of New Serbia, which he always carried with him. Elton had described it as "the map that pa.s.seth all understanding."
It embraced Bulgaria, Roumania, Transylvania, Montenegro, Greece, Albania, Bessarabia, and portions of other countries.