The House by the River

by A. P. Herbert

"All these people," he explained, with a comprehensive gesture, "do pottery and engraving. They are The Chase. Give me one of your cocktails, Whittaker. No—give me two."

With two thin glasses of Whittaker's latest concoction he walked over to old Mrs. Ambrose, watching him from her distant corner and wishing she was less old and less deaf, so that she could command the attentions of pleasant and distinguished young men. When he came to her she glowed with contentment like the harvest moon emerging from a mist, and to her own intense astonishment and the horror of her daughter was prevailed upon by Stephen to accept and actually consume the cocktail he had brought her. So excited was she, and so excited was Mrs. Church, her daughter, that Mrs. Church's stutter became altogether unconquerable, and the old lady's lip-reading became more than ever an adventure in guess-work. This meant a complete breakdown in their system of communications, which made conversation difficult. But Stephen chattered and sparkled undeterred, and the old ladies chuckled and crooned with satisfaction. Mrs. Ambrose thought he was talking about domestic servants, because she had lip-read the word "cook." In fact, he was talking nonsense about the origin of the word cock-tail, as Mrs. Church kept trying to explain. But she never got further than, "He d—d—didn't say c—c—cook, Mother—he said c—c—c—" because the old lady always interrupted with "Housemaids, ah—yes," and wagged her white head with profound meaning.

The rumour travelled round the noisy room that Mr. Byrne had made Mrs. Ambrose have a cocktail, and they all said, "How like him! the naughty old thing! No one else would have done that." Margery Byrne was trying to make the dramatic critic talk about the drama, but he had come to the conclusion that no one in Hammerton liked to talk about anything but domestic worries. As he lived in a service flat and did not have any, it was far from easy for him, but he was doing his best, and had ascertained from Mrs. Byrne that she had just engaged a new maid, named Emily, who seemed likely to be satisfactory. When Mrs. Byrne heard of her husband's feat, she looked across at him fondly, but almost reproachfully. "That means he's had three himself," she said, with a gay laugh. The dramatic critic, who flattered himself that he had probed the depths of human nature, thought, "What a nice, easygoing wife!" But Mrs. Byrne was really thinking, "I wish he wouldn't drink so many—horrid, strong stuff."

And she saw that, though her husband was being so pleasant and kind to the two old ladies, he was looking most of the time at Muriel Tarrant, the pretty girl in the corner beyond him, who was talking to John Egerton, and blushing prettily about something.

Margery Byrne said to herself, "I am not jealous," and looked away.

An enormous chatter filled the room. The psychologist sat silent, noticing things. Mr. Whittaker fussed about with coffee and thin glasses. Odd corners of tables and mantelpieces and bookshelves became crowded with discarded coffee-cups and dissipated glasses, perilously poised. Mrs. Whittaker, talking busily to the Reverend Peter, listened anxiously, with both ears at the public pulse, as it were, and could detect no single murmur of domestic worries. Every one, it seemed, was being interesting and intelligent.

Then the carroty-haired Mrs. Vincent bustled up to her. "Won't you make them sing to us, Mrs. Whittaker?—Mr. Byrne's Choir, I mean. I've never heard them, you know."

The Reverend Peter roared across the room, "A song, Stephen—a song! Forward, the Choir!"

The Hammerton Choir was the unduly dignified title of the faintly flippant, faintly musical company of pleasant people which the Byrnes gathered periodically at their house along The Chase. They sang, indeed, informally and wholly impromptu, a wide range of quartettes and choruses and glees. But volume of sound rather than delicacy of execution was their strong point, and the prevailing tone was frivolous. Indeed, it was scarcely in keeping with the sonorous title they had assumed; and Mrs. Vincent and others of Mrs. Whittaker's guests, who had heard of the Hammerton Choir, but had not actually heard it, might be pardoned if they had formed too flattering an impression of its powers.

Some of the Choir showed a certain bashfulness at the proposal that they should sing so publicly. John Egerton at first definitely refused, partly perhaps because he was happily occupied with Miss Muriel Tarrant in an almost impregnable corner. She, however, not wishing the company to suppose that she had any such thought, urged him into the arena; and Stephen Byrne prevailed upon the rest of his following. He himself showed no signs of bashfulness.