Betty would have said “boys,” Cynthia knew better, and reaped her reward in Miles’ wavering air.
“Couldn’t entertain a party for one minute, let alone ten.”
“We will go into partnership then, and do it together! Ten minutes instead of five. We’ll be confederates, and show them tricks. I know a lovely one about telling the time from the position of a poker—no! How silly I am, I always give away the secret! You tell a card, not the hour. It’s quite easy. You have an imaginary clock face on the hearthrug; twelve o’clock is the fire, and you lay the poker on the rug with the point on the number you want—one, two, three and so on, up to queen. For king, you simply hold it in your hand, which puzzles them more than ever.”
“What about the suits?”
“Oh, that’s quite easy. When the person outside comes in, he must notice first of all how his confederate is looking; to the left means hearts; to the right, diamonds; upwards, clubs; downward, spades. It’s really a lovely trick. We’ll rehearse it, and I’m sure you must know many more.”
“I know some balancing tips,—Georgia Magnet business. You might be the Magnetic Lady, and I’d be the showman.”
“Oh, lovely, lovely! Could you teach me really? Could I lift up a table with two or three men sitting on it, like you see in the advertisements?” cried Cynthia fervently, and though Miles replied, “Rather not!” he condescended to state one or two less strenuous feats which she might safely accomplish, and even to put her through a preliminary drilling on the spot.
The battle was won! For the next week Mrs Vanburgh’s party was the one subject of discussion with the Trevor sisters. Betty was agitated on the subject of her dress, and being denied a new sash, subsided into gloom for the space of ten minutes, when with a sudden turn of the wheel a mental picture was presented of a ship ploughing across the seas, bearing a lonely emigrant to his difficult task, when it became, all of a sudden, contemptible beyond words to fret oneself about—a ribbon! As she herself had said, having once come face to face with tragedy, her eyes were opened to the petty nature of her own trials. She ironed and pressed, and viewing the shabby bows and insufficient ends, said bravely: “Who cares? It will be all the same in a hundred years!”
Jill wished to know exactly how late the party would be kept up, and if there was to be a sit-down supper. “I loathe ‘light refreshments’ like we have at breaks up. Bitter lemonade and sangwidges—who wants sangwidges? I like to sit down, and have courses, and stay as long as you like, and crackers, with things in them.” When asked how she proposed to amuse the company when her turn came round, she shrugged her shoulders, and replied, “Haven’t the faintest idea! Shall think of something, I suppose,” in true Jill-like, happy-go-lucky fashion.
Pam sat glued to the window, and kept an unerring record of everything which entered the Vanburgh house for two days before the fray. Baskets from the fruiterer’s, trays from the confectioner’s; mysterious paper boxes from the Stores; flowers from the florist’s; they were all registered in her accurate little brain, and described at length to her sisters.