‘Supper will be ready in a few minutes, Mrs. Waverton,’ said a harsh voice at her elbow. This was that long bony creature, Mr. Femm. She had forgotten his existence, but now she looked at him with a new and rather creepy interest. ‘We have very little to offer you, I am afraid,’ he went on, ‘but you will understand that we were not expecting company. We have to live very simply here.’ He moved forward to help Morgan, who had just entered, to unload a tray. Morgan too she had almost forgotten, and now she looked curiously at his bearded sullen face and gigantic bulk. For one moment he raised his heavy head and his eyes met hers and some kind of intelligence seemed to dawn in them. Then, from behind him, a third figure appeared, to busy itself at the table. It was Miss Femm.
Philip was asking her if she was hungry. ‘I am; just about ready for anything,’ he added. ‘And by the way, we’re probably entirely cut off by this time. It’s just possible, I understand, that soon we couldn’t get out of the house even if we wanted to do. Not that it matters, of course, for a few hours, an odd night. We’re not too badly off here, though probably there won’t be much sleep for us.’ It was just the kind of thing she had wanted to avoid doing, but somehow it was done before she could think. She had slipped a hand through his arm and was now pressing it close.
CHAPTER IV
Penderel left his chair, and the three of them, making a little group in front of the fire, talked in whispers. Margaret had released Philip’s arm and was now feeling rather foolish. She had just caught sight of a loaf of bread and a large piece of cheese, and the solid ordinariness of them had suggested to her that she was in danger of behaving like a tired hysterical woman.
‘It’s absurd,’ said Penderel, ‘that we should have to be so secretive about food. Why should we have to pretend it isn’t there until our hosts point it out to us? I’d like to live in a country where all guests gathered round the table and were expected to make comments as each dish appeared. They’d say: “What’s this you’re putting on the table? Oh, yes, splendid! We all like that”; or “Don’t bring that cabbage in for us. We never touch it.” What do you think?’
‘It would suit me,’ said Philip. ‘But I don’t know how hostesses would like it.’
‘They wouldn’t,’ Margaret replied for them. ‘It would be beastly.’ She liked the glance that Philip had given her; it wasn’t so blank; there was friendliness, a hint of long intimacy, in it. She smiled at him.
Philip returned the smile. ‘You don’t understand hostesses, Penderel. I suspect you’ve never really been behind the scenes.’ But his thoughts were with Margaret. She was different somehow. She was thawing. He wished there was time and opportunity to talk, really to talk, with all cards quietly set out on the table. Perhaps there would be, later. This would be just the place for it, so remote, so strange, where, so to speak, you couldn’t hide any cards as you could at home.
Penderel thought he would keep on, though really he had nothing to say. He was like a hostess himself. But they seemed to like it, and it eased the situation. ‘Now that’s not true,’ he cried. ‘I have imagination, and we imaginative fellows are always behind the scenes, and so we suffer with all our hosts and hostesses but must only smile and smile, like true guests. Women don’t suffer like that, do they, Mrs. Waverton, because though they know what’s going on when they are guests, they don’t identify themselves with it, but stand on their dignity as guests and are as aloof as High Court judges.’
‘No, they don’t, Mr. Penderel.’ She was sharp but very friendly. She liked him much better here than she had done in the outside world, in civilisation. ‘They only appear to do. It’s no use: you can’t deceive us. You don’t understand women at all. You don’t know anything about them.’