“These b——y Victorians!” she muttered, rising from the step. “G——d, it’s too d——d quiet for me here. H——g it, I’m for bed. Night, Gav.”
A soupçon of Peau d’Espagne, and the modern Circe was gone.
Throughout that week-end the amazing pair tested each the other’s strength, vying from dawn to eve in the audacity of their wit and the originality of their whimsies. If Lady Blandula resolved to sleep on the roof, Gaveston asked for his bed to be made on the lawn. Did Gaveston swim in the river? Lady Blandula was quick to organize a motor-trip to bathe in the sea! If Lady Blandula danced on the dinner-table when the wine was brought, Gaveston slid down the great staircase on a silver tea-tray, whooping and tally-hoing to his heart’s content.
The very footmen, of whom there were ten, entered into the spirit of this breathless competition. All through Sunday the stables rang with “Three to two on Mr. Fooliss!” or “Even bobs on the filly!”
Gav and Bladge—the duet of the day! The thought gave Lady Jordan a comforting sense of security as she lay awake in bed in the early hours of Monday morning, listening to the tea-trays racing in the moonlight down the West terrace steps. Was she not their entremettrice and impresaria? It had cost her years of effort, but it could only be counted a triumph for her diligence. To improve her status, had she not diligently taken a house in Chelsea (a part of London she particularly disliked, having been brought up to believe that it lay low)? Had she not organized endless concerts there (she was unhappily tone-deaf)? Had she not brought numberless cubist pictures (her real taste was for Marcus Stone)? She had.
But now she had achieved! And she fell asleep deliciously, to dream of living once more on the salubrious heights to the North of the Park, of buying another Farquharson, of playing vingt-et-un in the evening. She was secure at last: no post-card of invitation but would evoke enthusiastic acceptance, no satire but would add to her reputation. After many years, Lady Jordan was entering the Promised Land.
And by the time of his departure on Monday afternoon (he travelled to London with Sir Nicholas and the inevitable Miss Tropes) Gaveston knew that Fate had thrown his lines with Lady Blandula’s. Coûte que coûte, he must get her to Oxford next term! What a challenge of emancipation to fling at the callowness of the hidebound university! Lady Blandula Merris! A name to conjure with! Everyone knew it. Everyone knew her fame and her infame. But only he knew her au fond—how mad-a-cap she was!
Bladge!