Death and the Dancing Footman. Ngaio Marsh

the task beyond him. The warring elements could be separated, but any such arrangement seemed only to emphasize friendships that were in themselves infuriating to one or another of the guests. It did not enter his head that Jonathan, with reckless bravado, would choose the most aggravating and provocative arrangement possible. But this was what he did. The long dining-table had been replaced by a round one. Madame Lisse sat between Jonathan and Nicholas, Chloris between Nicholas and William. Sandra Compline was on Jonathan’s right, and had Dr Hart for her other partner. Hersey Amblington was next to Dr Hart, and Mandrake himself, the odd man, sat between Hersey and William. From the moment when they found their places it was obvious to Mandrake that the success of the dinner-party was most endangered by Mrs Compline and Dr Hart. These two had been the last to arrive, Mrs Compline appearing after Caper had announced dinner. Both were extremely pale and, when they found their place-cards, seemed to flinch all over: ‘Like agitated horses,’ thought Mandrake. When they were all seated, Dr Hart darted a strange glance across the table at Madame Lisse. She looked steadily at him for a moment. Jonathan was talking to Mrs Compline; Dr Hart, with an obvious effort, turned to Hersey Amblington. Nicholas, who had the air of a professional diner-out, embarked upon a series of phrases directed equally, Mandrake thought, at Madame Lisse and Chloris Wynne. They were empty little phrases, but Nicholas delivered them with many inclinations of his head, this way and that, with archly masculine glances, punctual shouts of laughter, and frequent movements of his hand to his blond moustache. ‘In the nineties,’ Mandrake thought, ‘Nicholas would have been known as a masher. There is no modern word to describe his gallantries.’ They were successful gallantries, however, for both Chloris and Madame Lisse began to look alert and sleek. William preserved a mulish silence, and Dr Hart, while he spoke to Hersey, glanced from time to time at Madame Lisse.

      Evidently Jonathan had chosen a round table with the object of keeping the conversation general, and in this project he was successful. However angry Hersey may have been with her cousin, she must have decided to pull her weight in the rôle of hostess for which he had obviously cast her. Mandrake, Madame Lisse, and Nicholas all did their share, and presently there appeared a kind of gaiety at the table. ‘It’s merely going to turn into a party that is precariously successful in the teeth of extraordinary obstacles,’ Mandrake told himself. ‘We have made a fuss about nothing.’ But this opinion was checked when he saw Dr Hart stare at Nicholas, when on turning to William he found him engaged in what appeared to be some whispered expostulation with Chloris, and when, turning away in discomfort, he saw Mrs Compline with shaking hands hide an infinitesimal helping under her knife and fork. He emptied his glass and gave his attention to Hersey Amblington, who seemed to be talking about him to Jonathan.

      ‘Mr Mandrake sniffs at my suggestion,’ Hersey was saying. ‘Don’t you, Mr Mandrake?’

      ‘Do I?’ Mandrake rejoined uneasily. ‘What suggestion, Lady Hersey?’

      ‘There! He hasn’t even heard me, Jo. Why, the suggestion I made before dinner for a surrealist play.’

      Before Mandrake could find an answer Nicholas Compline suddenly struck into the conversation.

      ‘You mustn’t be flippant with Mr Mandrake, Hersey,’ he said. ‘He’s looking very austere. I’m sure he’s long ago given up footling.’

      Mandrake experienced the sensation of a violent descent in some abandoned lift. His inside seemed to turn over, and the tips of his fingers went cold. ‘God!’ he thought. ‘They know. In a moment they will speak playfully of Dulwich.’ And he sat with his fork held in suspended animation, halfway to his mouth. ‘This atrocious woman,’ he thought, ‘this atrocious woman. This loathsome, grinning young man.’ He turned to Hersey and found her staring at him with an expression that he interpreted as knowing. Mandrake shied away and, looking wildly round the table, encountered the thick-lensed glasses of his host. Jonathan’s lips were pursed, and in the faint creases at the corners of his mouth Mandrake read complacency and amusement. ‘So that’s it,’ thought Mandrake furiously. ‘He knows and he’s told them. It’s the sort of thing that would delight him. My vulnerable spot. He’s having a tweak at it, and he and his cousin and his bloody friend will laugh delicately and tell each other they were very naughty with poor Mr Stanley Footling.’ But Jonathan was speaking to him, gently carrying forward the theme of Hersey’s suggestion for a play.

      ‘I have noticed, Aubrey, that the layman is always eager to provide the artist with ideas. Do you imagine, Hersey darling, that Aubrey is a sort of æsthetic scavenger?’

      ‘But mine was such a good idea.’

      ‘You must excuse her, Aubrey. No sense of proportion, I’m afraid, poor woman.’

      ‘Mr Mandrake does excuse me,’ said Hersey, and her smile held such a warmth of friendliness that it dispelled Mandrake’s panic. ‘I was mistaken,’ he thought. ‘Another false alarm. Why must I be so absurdly sensitive? Other people have changed their names without experiencing these terrors.’ The relief was so great that for a time he was lost in it, and heard only the gradual quieting of his own heartbeats. But presently he became aware of a lull in the general conversation. They had reached dessert. Jonathan’s voice alone was heard, and Mandrake thought that he must have been speaking for some little time.

      II

      ‘No one person,’ Jonathan was saying, ‘is the same individual to more than one other person. That is to say, the reality of individuals is not absolute. Each individual has as many exterior realities as the number of encounters he makes.’

      ‘Ah,’ said Dr Hart, ‘this is a pet theory of my own. The actual “he” is known to nobody.’

      ‘Does the actual “he” even exist?’ Jonathan returned. ‘May it not be argued that “he” has no intrinsic reality since different selves arise out of a conglomeration of selves to meet different events?’

      ‘I don’t see what you mean,’ said William, with his air of worried bafflement.

      ‘Nor do I, William,’ said Hersey. ‘One knows how people will react to certain events, Jo. We say: “Oh, so-and-so is no go when it comes to such-and-such a situation.”’

      ‘My contention is that this is exactly what we do not know.’

      ‘But, Mr Royal,’ cried Chloris, ‘we do know. We know, for instance, that some people will refuse to listen to gossip.’

      ‘We know,’ said Nicholas, ‘that one man will keep his head in a crisis where another will go jitterbug. This war –’

      ‘Oh, don’t let’s talk about this war,’ said Chloris.

      ‘There are some men in my company –’ William began, but Jonathan raised his hand and William stopped short.

      ‘Well, I concede,’ said Jonathan, ‘that the same “he” may make so many appearances that we may gamble on his turning up under certain circumstances, but I contend that it is a gamble and that though under these familiar circumstances we may agree on the probability of certain reactions, we should quarrel about theoretical behaviour under some unforeseen, hitherto un-experienced circumstances.’

      ‘For example?’ asked Madame Lisse.

      ‘Parachute invasion –’ began William, but his mother said quickly: ‘No, William, not the war.’ It was the first time since dinner that Mandrake had heard her speak without being addressed.

      ‘I agree,’ said Jonathan. ‘Let us not draw our examples from the war. Let us suppose that – what shall I say –’

      ‘That the Archangel Gabriel popped down the chimney,’ suggested Hersey, ‘and blasted his trumpet in your ear.’

      ‘Or that Jonathan told us,’ said Nicholas, ‘that this was a Borgia party and the champagne was lethal and we had but twelve minutes to live.’

      ‘Not the Barrie touch, I implore you,’ said Mandrake, rallying a little.

      ‘Or,’