"When you least expect it, you near the dreadrul click which is driving trie world mad… Wherever you he, on land and sea, you near tkat awrul click or the amateur photographer, Click!
Click! Click!"
My dear Kate," Eleanor said, blotting her lips delicately with a damask napkin, "it was a lovely luncheon."
Kate smiled. She was grateful that her guests could not see into the kitchen, where the upsets of the morning had created turmoil and confusion. It was a marvel that the luncheon dishes-asparagus soup, sole in lemon sauce, fricasseed chicken, and the love apples that Mrs. Pratt disdainfully called "tommytoes"-were indeed tasty, and that the serving had gone as smoothly as it had.
"Our compliments," Bradford said, "to your cook." He looked around at the blooming garden, appearing to have recovered somewhat from the dark humor from which he had suffered upon his arrival. "And such a splendid setting, too. I had not realized that the gardens of Bishop's Keep were so fine. Lovely roses, Miss Ardleigh."
"I only regret," Eleanor said with a slightly questioning look, "that your aunts are indisposed. Please let them know that we are sorry they could not be with us."
Kate inclined her head. "I shall," she said, refusing to give
in to Eleanor's inquisitiveness and tell her why they were indisposed. "I shall convey your message." She smiled around the table. "I understand that the British often play croquet after luncheon."
"To be sure!" Eleanor cried, clapping her hands. "And isn't it lucky that there are four of us? We are evenly matched-the women against the men."
"But that would hardly be fair," Bradford objected. "You two would be soundly trounced." He smiled at Kate. "Shall we, Miss Ardleigh, test the strength of the Anglo-American alliance?''
"Agreed," Kate said, "if Sir Charles will promise to put away his camera for the duration of the game. I have no intention of allowing him to take my picture while someone is savaging my croquet ball."
"Put away his camera?" Eleanor repeated blankly. "Why, he brought no camera with him."
"Yes, he did," Kate said. "It is in his pocket." Sir Charles's eyes met hers. She was foolishly glad that she was wearing her best white lawn and a wide-brimmed straw hat trimmed with silk flowers. "Show them, Sir Charles," she said lightly, "how you have been toying with us."
Sir Charles bowed his head. "You have caught me out, Miss Ardleigh." He reached into the pocket of his loose tweed Norfolk jacket and brought out a small shiny metal box, a little larger than a double deck of playing cards.
"That is a camera?" Eleanor asked disbelievingly. "But it is much too tiny!"
"It is something quite new," Charles replied, putting it on the table. "An American invention, actually."
Bradford leaned forward to examine the camera. "Ingenious, these Yankees."
"It is a Kombi camera," Charles said. "Patented two years ago. The first detective camera to take roll film instead of plates."
Kate looked at the camera curiously, thinking that Beryl Bardwell might use such a device to provide the telling clue in her mystery. "Detective camera?" she asked.
"That is the name often given to miniature cameras," Sir
Charles said. He held it up to demonstrate. "It has a very basic shutter, worked by this lever. This model is rather primitive-the lens is marginally acceptable and it has no view-finder, so that composition and focus are a matter of chance. But I expect the basic concept to influence the design of future cameras. The Americans seem to have taken the lead in this technology, as in many others," he added regretfully.
"But one would require a magnifying glass to look at the photographs," Bradford objected.
"The negatives are an inch-and-a-half-wide," Charles replied. "Twenty-five to a roll. They can be developed as positives and viewed through the camera lens, giving them a three to one enlargement. Or, thanks to the new gaslight paper, the negatives can be printed in a larger size."
"You have been taking surreptitious snapshots ever since you arrived?" Eleanor accused. She gave him a mock frown. "What a naughty man!"
Sir Charles made a small gesture of apology. "Only a few. Several of the three of you. One or two of a groom in the back courtyard, currying a horse. And the cook, doing business with an ill-clothed boy selling produce at the kitchen door."
"Gypsies," Eleanor said with a grimace. "One sees so many of them nowadays, lighting fires of sticks beside the road to boil a dirty tea can. And the children, so ragged. Sleeping under ricks and in ditches." Her tone hardened so that it was, Kate thought, remarkably similar to Aunt Jag-gers's. "It's disgraceful."
Kate looked at her, thinking that it might not be possible to disagree without offending. But Sir Charles, unexpectedly, showed her that it was.
"Pitiful, rather than disgraceful, I should say." He spoke with a sympathy that Kate found surprising. "I doubt they are gypsies, Eleanor. Mostly decent, hardworking folk who find that the times have turned against them-their cottages taken back by the landlords, employment vanished, workhouse full. Life has been hard of late, for some."
Eleanor, to her credit, looked abashed. "Perhaps I do not see all I should."
Sir Charles smiled, his look lightening, and Kate admired the easy, natural way he turned the subject. "I should have liked to see more of our young vendor," he said. "But the lad took to his heels when I made an unwary move and showed my camera. Some still think it unlucky, you know, to have their pictures taken."
"But not us," Bradford said. Mudd came back to the table just then and Bradford picked up the camera and handed it to him. "Will you oblige us, my good man, by taking our photograph? We should commemorate this happy occasion."
Mudd backed away, looking apprehensive. "Me, sir? Oh, no, sir. I couldn't at all. I don't know how."
"It is very easy," Sir Charles said. "Just aim, hold steady, and push the lever."
Kate had to laugh at the sight of Mudd, holding the camera as if it were the Queen's crown. She laid aside her hat and she and Eleanor leaned close together, while Bradford and Sir Charles stood behind. Mudd operated the lever with a trembling thumb. There was a faintly audible click. With a look of relief mixed with pride at having successfully carried out the complicated task, he handed back the camera.
"And now," Eleanor said, standing up, "no more photographs. Come, Sir Charles, you and I shall show this pair the spirit that has led the British Empire to govern the globe."
"Ah, yes," Sir Charles said dryly. " 'And upon this charge cry 'God for Harry! England and Saint George!' " He looked at Kate. "Henry V, Act Three."
Kate lifted her chin. " 'England shall repent his folly.' Henry V, Act Four." She was immensely gratified to see the look of surprise that crossed Sir Charles's face. Did he think that only the English read and remembered Shakespeare?
As it turned out, the Anglo-American team split wins with the British, so that when two rounds of croquet were completed, both sides claimed victory. After the match, they toured the ruins on the other side of the lake. It was the first time Kate had seen them, although they were not much to remark on-just the remnants of old stone enclosures, fallen
to rubble and populated by rabbits and robins. After their walk, the guests departed, Eleanor insisting that Kate and her aunts must come to tea as soon as possible.
Reluctantly, Kate went back inside. The afternoon had been unexpectedly pleasant. Eleanor had lighted the gathering with her usual vivacity. Bradford had finally come around to a gay but rather nervous and uncertain amiability. Even Sir Charles had unbent enough to laugh over the mock battles on the croquet field, between mock-serious lectures on the effect of grass height and moisture on the velocity of the croquet ball. He had even promised to give her copies of the photographs he had taken earlier that day. Kate now knew that an ironic playfulness lurked under his serious facade, and she found herself liking him a great deal.
At teatime Kate went to the kitchen. Mrs. Pratt was steaming something savory in preparation for dinner. Kate lifted the lid and sniffed it appreciatively, then busied herself making a tea tray for Aunt Sabrina. She left it with a knock outside the door and had a solitary tea for herself, with the latest copy of Longman's Magazine in front of her, open to the third installment of "The Matchmaker," which she was studying for plot development.
The aunts appeared downstairs only after dinner was called, and when they met at the dining table they averted their eyes and did not speak to one another. Aunt Sabrina engaged Kate in bursts of animated conversation punctuated by gloomy silences, while Aunt Jaggers sat opposite, glowering and snappish. Aunt Sabrina, as if to make a show of naturalness, allowed Mudd to serve her a large portion of the savory mushroom pudding that Cook had prepared, talking gaily to Kate all the while. Served next, Aunt Jaggers seized on the remainder, taking it spitefully so that none was left for Kate. Tired as she was and depressed by the disharmony, Kate ate only a little soup and the fricassee remaining from luncheon. Mudd, for his part, was no more silent than usual, but there was an unveiled grimness in his face that reminded Kate that he and Mrs. Pratt held little good feeling toward Aunt Sabrina and none at all to Aunt Jaggers. She felt a real
relief when the awful dinner was over and she could escape to her room.
It was a meal that Kate was to mull over for a long time to come.