Adrian could not conceive of any set of circumstances that would render Lady Fenneltree speechless.
“But when she finds out who I am,” he protested, “and when she finds out about Rosy . . . and . . . and . . . when she finds out about the fruit and the peacocks’ tails . . .” His voice trailed away. He was overcome by the mental image of Lady Fenneltree finding out all these things simultaneously.
“Dear boy,” said his lordship, “don’t worry. You are a natural worrier. I’ve noticed it before. It’s terribly fatiguing for the nerves. Why, when that elephant enters the ballroom my wife—who is, as you will have noticed, perceptive to a degree—will realise instantly that no other ball in the district has ever had an elephant I tell you, dear boy, it will make her evening.”
It did make Lady Fenneltree’s evening, but not quite in the way that he had intended.
So the great day dawned and the whole house hummed with activity. The ballroom into which Rosy was to make her entrance was a hundred and fifty feet long and fifty feet wide. At one end were two massive carved oak doors that led out on to the stone flagged terrace. It was through these that Rosy was to appear. Above the doors, like a swallow’s nest on the wall, was the gallery in which the musicians were to foregather. The whole setting was lit by twenty-four gigantic chandeliers that hung in two rows down the length of the ballroom, shimmering and glittering like upside-down Christmas trees. The floor of the ballroom had been polished and waxed so that it gleamed like a brown lake, and at the end of the room, opposite the great doors, there were long trestle tables covered with snow-white cloths. On them were great silver bowls of fruit; haunches of cold venison; lobster tails in aspic, gleaming like gigantic red flies in amber; enormous cold pies with autumn coloured crusts, stuffed with grouse, pheasant and quail; smoked eels crouching on beds of parsley and watercress; gigantic smoked salmon, each wearing a carefully embossed coat of mayonnaise studded with black pearls of caviar; and in the centre, the pièce de résistance, a whole roast pig, beautifully decorated, with a rosy apple in its mouth. Surrounding these snacks were great glass bowls of punch, silver buckets full of champagne, stately rows of claret and port to keep the gentlemen happy, and fresh orange juice, lemon juice, peach juice and pink and white ice-creams with which to revive the ladies after the rigours of the waltz or the valeta. As the day wore on the activity grew more and more feverish, and Adrian spent his time either in the stables, lecturing Rosy on the part the was to play, or wandering into the ballroom and gazing at the vast expanse of shining parquet with a feeling of dread in the pit of his stomach.
Presently, up the moonlit drive, clopped and tinkled the first of the carriages, carrying bevies of handsome, be-whiskered men and great colourful scented clouds of women. The band had taken up its position in the minstrels’ gallery and was playing soft, soothing arrival music. Adrian, morosely drinking punch, was mentally cursing his uncle, Lord Fenneltree and Rosy for having inveigled him into this situation. But his second glass had a warming effect, and so he had a third. He had just made up his mind to go and ask Jonquil to dance when a large, be-whiskered individual came striding up, calling loudly for a drink. For a moment Adrian did not recognise him in his finery and then, suddenly, went cold all over. The man standing next to him was the Master of the Monkspepper Hunt—fortunately too preoccupied in swilling down punch to take much notice of his surroundings. Adrian, with a handkerchief held over his face, crept out of the ballroom undetected and started to search frantically for Lord Fenneltree. Eventually he managed to find him and, with some difficulty, prise him away from his guests.
“What is it . . . what’s the matter?” asked his lordship irritably.
“Look here,” hissed Adrian frantically, “You’ve got to call this off. D’you realise who’s here?”
“Who?” asked his lordship.
“The Master of the Monkspepper Hunt, that’s who,” said Adrian.
“Well, I knew that,” said his lordship, surprised. “I invited him.”
“You invited him?” asked Adrian incredulously. “But what do you think he’s going to say when he sees Rosy?”
“Ha, ha,” said his lordship. “That’s why I invited him, dear boy, to see what he would say.”
“You must be mad,” said Adrian desperately. “Don’t you realise that the last time he met Rosy she picked him up in her trunk and hurled him to the ground? What d’you think he’s going to say when he sees her here?”
“I think it will be very diverting,” said his lordship.
“But he threatened to imprison me,” said Adrian.
“Oh, don’t you worry about old Darcey,” said his lordship airily, “I’ll soon smooth him down.”
Having seen his lordship’s complete inability to smooth Lady Fenneltree down, Adrian could imagine how effective his intervention with the Master of the Hunt would be.
“Now, now, my dear boy,” said his lordship, you’re starting to worry again. Desist, I implore you. We shall need cool heads for the job ahead of us, cool, sober heads. I’ll call you in half an hour and we’ll get changed. I can hardly wait to see the effect.”
He drifted away before Adrian, panic-stricken and incoherent, could stop him.
The party was in full swing now, and the ballroom looked like a great, moving flowerbed as the couples danced to and fro over its gleaming surface. The wine and the punch were flowing freely, so that many of those gentlemen who had arrived with pale uninteresting complexions were now flushed and rosy, and those who had arrived flushed and rosy were now congested to a phenomenal degree. Ladies drooped exhausted in corners, fanning themselves vigorously and calling plaintively, like baby birds, for ice-creams or lemon squash. Moodily Adrian sent a footman for champagne, and spent the next half hour endeavouring to forget what was about to take place. But the champagne settled in his stomach like a cold, leaden bolt of doom, He was just wondering whether to try the punch again, when Lord Fenneltree materialised unnervingly at his elbow.
“The hour has come,” said his lordship. “Now is our great moment of triumph!”
“I wish I could agree with you,” said Adrian bitterly, as he followed Lord Fenneltree up the stairs.
In his lordship’s bedroom their costumes lay resplendent on the four-poster bed, and the butler and a footman, twittering with excitement, were ready to help them on with their things. Half an hour later Lord Fenneltree, looking as Asiatic as he was ever likely to look with auburn side-whiskers and violet eyes, crept down the back stain followed by Adrian. They reached the stable — where all Rosy’s accoutrements were laid out, gleaming in the light of the oil lamps.
“Now,” said Lord Fenneltree excited, “now to dress our star and then to make our grand entrance. I can’t wait to see their faces.”
Adrian went to the great barn and threw open the doors He noticed, as he did so, that mingling with the sweet smell of hay there was another, more pungent scent. He frowned and wrinkled his nose: the smell was very familiar, but he could not place it.
“Rosy?” he called. There was silence in the darkened barn. He was not greeted by the shrill squeal of pleasure that Rosy always gave at the sound of his voice.
“Rosy?” he called again anxiously. “Rosy, are you there?”
The silence was suddenly broken by a loud but extremely dignified hiccup. A terrible suspicion entered Adrian’s mind, and at the same moment he realised what the fragrant odour was: it was rum. Picking up a lantern he hurried into the barn, and there he found Rosy. She was leaning elegantly against the wall, hiccupping gently to herself and pensively rolling a small but empty bottle to and fro with her foot. Adrian stared at her aghast. How she had obtained the rum he could not think, but while gaiety and conviviality were reigning in the house, Rosy in her lonely barn had undoubtedly been consoling herself with a quiet nip. To say that she was in no condition to appear in public would have been an understatement. She was as satisfactorily drunk as any human being Adrian had ever seen. As he watched her she picked up a wisp of hay and, after one or two abortive attempts, managed to stuff it into her mouth. She chewed meditatively, and then uttered a small lady-like belch. Suddenly a great feeling of relief flooded over Adrian. Of course! This was the answer! Dear, kind, sweet Rosy—Rosy the inimitable—had saved him at the eleventh hour! If it had occurred to him, he thought, he would have given her the rum himself. He hurried out of the barn to where Lord Fenneltree was waiting.
“You’ll have to give it up now,” said Adrian in triumph. “She’s tight.”
“Tight?” said his lordship, bewildered. “What d’you mean, tight?”
“Tight . . . drunk . . . pickled . . . stewed,” said Adrian. “She’s got a bottle of rum from somewhere and she’s drunk the lot.”
“My dear chap,” gasped his lordship, “what a catastrophe. You mean she can’t appear?”
“No,” said Adrian bluntly. “She can’t even stand.”
“Ruination, ruination, after all our hard work,” moaned his lordship. “Couldn’t we sort of prop her up a bit, if I got the gardeners on each side of her?”
“No,” said Adrian. “I tell you she can’t even walk.”
At that moment Rosy lumbered casually out of the barn, kicking the bottle in front of her.
“By Jove!” said his lordship, “she’s recovered!”
Rosy was undergoing one of those strange, momentary flashes of semi-sobriety that come to people who are deep in their cups, but Adrian found it impossible to persuade Lord Fenneltree of this. While they were arguing acrimoniously Rosy spotted her costume and with a pleased—if slightly off-key—squeak shambled over to it and lay down to be dressed.
“There you are,” said his lordship triumphantly. “What did I tell you? She’s perfectly all right. I told you, dear boy, you worry too much.”
“I tell you,” Adrian said savagely, “she’s as tight as a tick. If you take her into that ballroom I won’t be responsible.”
Lord Fenneltree approached Rosy and patted her affectionately on the head.
“Good old Rosy,” he said. “You’ll do it, won’t you?”
Rosy hiccupped in reply. In spite of Adrian’s protests the great sequined cloth was draped over Rosy’s back, and the howdah hauled up and fastened in position. Then his lordship climbed up the ladder and settled himself comfortably inside.
“Come on, dear boy, don’t dawdle,” he said to Adrian. “This is the great moment.”
Feeling as if he were mounting the scaffold, Adrian took up his position on Rosy’s neck. There was just the faintest chance, he thought, that he might be able to steer Rosy rapidly in and out of the ballroom, thus satisfying his lordship and removing Rosy from the scene with the utmost dispatch. It was fortunate that Rosy was a good-natured drunk. In response to Adrian’s cries of encouragement she clambered heavily to her feet and stood swaying pensively for a moment or so. Then they set off down the drive that led round the house to the terrace outside the ballroom. Rosy’s tendency to stagger created havoc in several flowerbeds as she passed, but they eventually reached the great doors where the butler and the footman waited, their hands on the latches.
“Now, my lord?” enquired the butler in a hushed voice.
“Now,” said Lord Fenneltree, adjusting his turban and lying back regally in the howdah. The butler and the footman pushed open the doors and, at this signal, the band stopped playing. The couples, who had been waltzing merrily around, came to a standstill. Looking down the great room they saw, framed in the doorway, a splendid, if slightly inebriated, spectacle of eastern pomp. With admiring cries they left the floor and formed two lines along the walls, clapping their hands and chattering excitedly.
“Well, go on,” hissed Lord Fenneltree. “Take her in.” Offering up a brief prayer Adrian tapped Rosy smartly with his heels and awaited results. It had taken Rosy a moment or two to adjust her eyes to the glare of the huge chandeliers, but now, through a haze of rum, she saw a vast and colourful conglomeration of people who were forming what she imagined to be a ring in which she could perform. Rosy was not an old trouper for nothing. She uttered a pleased squeal gathered herself together and entered the ballroom at a smart trot. This was her undoing.