The Kramer sisters, who seemed to like to take charge—he would wager they were on every committee ever devised by the local church—suggested music soon after everyone had arrived and even pulled their chairs and their mother’s into the small makings of a circle about the pianoforte that sat at one side of the drawing room. They would indeed have music, Mrs. Payne said with a graciousness that cut like a knife, after supper when it could make them mellow before they went home.
She directed the admiral to see that everyone had a drink—there was an impressive array of bottles and decanters on a long sideboard as well as a jug of lemonade and a large silver coffeepot and matching teapot covered with a plump cozy. She ushered some of the older guests into a smaller room that adjoined the drawing room and settled them about a few tables that had been set up for cards. She selected Sidney and Arnold as team leaders to pick teams for charades—a perfect choice of activity when a largish number of her guests were young people. And even some older folk enjoyed being silly once in a while. Miss Wenzel, almost bouncing with excitement on her chair, was particularly good at guessing even the most obtusely acted-out words, and Alton was an excellent actor and did not appear to mind making an ass of himself.
Before the excitement of the game could pall, Mrs. Payne summoned a group of servants to roll back the carpet and then took to the pianoforte herself to play a few vigorous country dances for the young people. Four couples might have stood up with ease, six at a bit of a squash. There were eight couples for every dance and a few bumped elbows and trodden toes and one slightly torn hem and a good deal of laughter. A ninth couple was a physical impossibility, however, Percy discovered during the third such dance when he tried to edge onto the end of the line with Lady Quentin. Mrs. Payne actually stopped playing in order to tell them so.
An excellent supper was served in a spacious dining room to the accompaniment of lively conversation. Afterward, as promised, a select few of the guests provided music until Mrs. Payne directed her butler to have the carriages brought up to the door. It was a little before half past eleven. They were home before midnight.
The female cousins and aunts and Percy’s mother all retired to bed after a lengthy bit of animated chatter in the hall. Most of the men did not go up with them but assembled instead in the library, where they laid siege to Percy’s liquor and ensconced themselves in all the most comfortable chairs. The menagerie was there too in force, someone having grown lax about seeing to it that they remained inside the second housekeeper’s room when they were not being exercised under supervision. Or perhaps it would be more accurate to say that someone had continued to be lax, since that particular rule had never been enforced with any strict regularity as far as Percy could see.
The strays included the new cat, which had been assigned the unlikely name of Pansy, though Percy suspected it was a male. It was curled up at the edge of the hearth next to the coal scuttle and glared ferociously at the newcomers as though expecting to find itself flying off the toe of someone’s boot at any moment. It was indescribably thin and scruffy.
The uncles and male cousins and friends settled into the sort of late-night conversation that would drone on for hours. After half an hour Percy looked hard at Hector, who was hiding beneath the desk, and the dog, bless its heart, came trotting out to stand before him and regard him fixedly with bulging eyes and lolling tongue and one and a half ears and three quarters of a tail all erect.
“You need to be taken outside, do you, Heck?” Percy asked with a sigh. “And you expect me to do the taking? Oh, very well. I need to stretch my legs anyway.”
Sidney Welby was not deceived for a moment. He favored Percy with a slow wink as the latter got to his feet, and said not a word.
“Good Lord, Percival,” Uncle Roderick said, sounding outraged, “there are servants to take dogs out to relieve themselves, if they need to be accompanied at all. I would count myself fortunate if I were to let that dog out and it never returned. It is the epitome of pathetic ugliness, if you will excuse my saying so. It is an affront to any lover of beauty.”
“But he has a grand name,” Percy said, “and is doing his mortal best to live up to it. Anyone with the name of Achilles had better watch his heels.”
And he sauntered out to get his coat and hat while Hector came trotting after him.
Sidney had voiced his thoughts earlier in the afternoon. “You and the merry widow, is it, then, Perce?” he had said. “She is handsome enough, by Jove. But a little more formidable than your usual sort, perhaps?”
“And to which merry widow do you refer?” Percy had asked. But it had been a weak retort, he had had to admit even to himself, though he had accompanied it by raising his quizzing glass.