—
Agatha Kent had promised herself that on this particular evening she would keep her opinions to herself. It was important to Colonel Wheaton and Lady Emily that they appear entirely nonchalant about entertaining an earl, and they were consequently wound as tightly as Swiss clocks and would have held their chins at an uncomfortably raised angle even if they had not been both attired in collars of the highest and stiffest appearance. Lady Emily’s high-collared dress of thick black lace was decorated with a simple diamond pin. It was the size of a quail egg but did not sparkle, which indicated that it was the best kind of discreet old family jewel. Colonel Wheaton appeared in the dress uniform of his previous service, to which he had added a small armband with the insignia of his new Sussex Reserves. It appeared tight, but, thought Agatha, Colonel Wheaton would have been just as fidgety in a dressing gown given the importance of the occasion.
Lord North, who seemed to hold several military commissions as well as Ministry portfolios, strolled into the sitting room in a short dinner jacket and soft shoes. His wife wore plain black silk and a string of pearls long enough to wrap her throat several times. They were shorter than Agatha had expected and both built square across the shoulders. They might have been a pair of school inspectors or a brewer and his wife as they marched across the carpet to shake hands.
“On the road, you see,” said Lord North, by way of apology as to his dress. “Just the necessities and not a box more, I say.”
“We try to avoid any affair too formal while we are inspecting,” said his wife. “In case it sends the wrong message to the people working so hard to prepare the country.”
“I quite agree with you,” said Lady Emily, and Agatha could see her mentally whisking away the menu cards and getting rid of the smoked oyster course and perhaps the second pudding. “We shall be quite informal tonight. Just a small party. May I introduce Mr. Kent from the Foreign Office and his wife?”
She might have pulled off this sudden change in tone, for Agatha and John had both dressed with the proper sense of deference, John in a black tailcoat and Agatha suitably demure in her dark blue, but just then the butler announced the Mayor and his wife, and any sense of nonchalance was destroyed by their magnificence.
The Mayor’s fur-trimmed scarlet robes and chain of office were a resplendent backdrop for Mrs. Fothergill’s dress of gold thread with an overlay of transparent silk crepe de chine. Diamonds sparkled at her throat, waist, and wrists, while a tall hair ornament of peacock and burnt ostrich feathers threatened to dust the chandelier as she traversed the room.
“So delighted to be invited, dear Emily,” said Bettina, kissing Emily Wheaton on the cheek with her plumes bobbing like swords. “Agatha, how nice you look. So appropriate.” As she kissed Agatha, she whispered, “Where is the Earl? Are they making a formal entrance?”
“Lord North, Lady North—may I introduce to you our Mayor, Mr. Frederick Fothergill, and his dear wife,” said Colonel Wheaton. “You had most particularly requested to meet our local officials, and here he is.”
“Good, we’ve got the Ministry, the army, and the local view, so now maybe we can have a frank talk about the need for urgency and the Hun practically at our door,” said Lord North.
“Now do let us have dinner before you start stealing the cruet to make maps of sea defenses,” said his wife. “You will get indigestion again if you start lecturing while you eat.”
“Small price to pay. Must keep moving,” he said, turning to Lady Emily. “How many more stand between us and the dinner table, dear lady, only it doesn’t do to tax the eager stomach with waiting.”
“Just Mr. Tillingham and the Professor,” said Lady Emily. “Here they come.”
“Tillingham? Tillingham?” asked Lord North. “I know that name…”
“He’s that writer chap, American. He agitates for the Belgian refugees,” said his wife, sotto voce. “Wrote that piece in The Times that gave you hiccups.”
“Writers,” he said, loudly. “Always writing instead of doing. And then they have the most extraordinary opinions.”
“A man of action is always to be preferred,” said Mr. Tillingham. “Of course all such heroes require a scribe to record their great deeds, and I am your humble servant, Lord North.”
If he was offended by the comment, he did not show it, and his response seemed to soften the Earl, who shook his hand quite vigorously and said, “I think we met you at the Duchess’s fundraising dinner in Belgrave Square?”
“Horrible crush, but some of the best minds in the country sat around the port that night,” said Tillingham. “I believe you were the heart of that discussion, Lord North?”
“And Mr. Tillingham comes with his own darling refugee,” interrupted Bettina. “The Professor is quite a marvelous addition to the cultural life of our town, and we are all perfectly fond of him.” She took the Professor’s hand in both of hers and thrust it towards Lord North.
“How d’you do?” said Lord North. He shook the Professor’s hand and raised his voice. “Do you speak English?”
“I am delighted to meet you and your lovely wife,” said the Professor. “Enchanté, madame.” He kissed Lady North’s hand.
“Only it’s difficult to get any organization going when these chaps insist on speaking some other language,” said Lord North. “Hard enough running a war in English.”
“How ever did we defeat the Boers?” said Agatha. The words escaped before she could think, and she tried hard to look serene and hoped John would not step on her foot.
“How indeed, Mrs. Kent, you are quite right to ask,” said Lord North. “If you ask me, we could have been in Mafeking six months earlier if we hadn’t had to translate all the signposts and work with different railway gauges.”
“Our refugees are so simple and so contented when they can have a good dinner and a pipe,” interrupted Bettina. Agatha bit her tongue not to bring up the departure of Bettina’s own refugees, the accountant and his wife, who had removed themselves to a hotel in Bexhill after just a week of her overbearing hospitality. “They are taking to knitting as if they were simple English peasants,” Bettina added.
Agatha felt her mouth begin to twitch, and she lowered her eyes in an attempt to hide her amusement.
“Mrs. Fothergill has such an admirable grasp of the essential nature of our refugee guests,” said John, lofting his brows in an expression of utmost innocence. “If you had to sum them up for Lord North, in a word or two, Mrs. Fothergill?” He let the question trail off as Bettina blushed for pleasure.
“Why, I would call them simple, Mr. Kent,” she answered, and Agatha was forced to press her gloved hand to her lips and pretend to cough.
“I am sure the lady does not mean to call us simpletons?” said the Professor.
“Of course not, Professor,” said Bettina, her feathers quivering. “I only meant—” She broke off in confusion as to what she might say next.
“Well, I hope the desire for a simple life around one’s own hearth, with a good dinner and a good wife, might just as easily describe us English,” said Colonel Wheaton.
“And I can only hope we would be half as grateful were we driven from our land,” said Agatha.
“The English spirit will not stand to be driven out of its land,” said Mr. Tillingham, in the rapturous way he spoke when trying on a phrase for possible posterity. “But will surely stand to its defenses to the last man and boy.”
“First we need the defenses to which we can stand,” said Lord North. “So far I’ve seen more Boy Scouts on patrol than soldiers, and we are weeks behind in gathering sandbags and building defensive positions.”
“As the Rye Voluntary Aid Detachment President, I can assure you my ladies are quite ready to be called into action,” said Bettina. “We are ready to serve at a moment’s notice.”