They moved out of sight. There was a burst of conversation in the hall, in which Mr. Period’s voice could be heard, and a withdrawal (into the “with-drawing-room,” no doubt). Presently Andrew Bantling came into the library.

“Hullo,” he said. “I’m to bid you to drinks. I don’t mind telling you it’s a bum party. My bloody-minded stepfather, to whom I’m not speaking, his bully of a sister, her ghastly adopted what-not, and an unspeakable chum. Come on.”

“Do you think I might be excused and just creep in to lunch?”

“Not a hope. P.P. would be as cross as two sticks. He’s telling them all about you and how lucky he is to have you.”

“I don’t want a drink. I’ve been built up with sherry.”

“There’s tomato juice. Do come. You’d better.”

“In that case…” Nicola said, and put the cover on her typewriter.

“That’s right,” he said, and took her arm. “I’ve had such a stinker of a morning — you can’t think. How have you got on?”

“I hope, all right.”

“Is he writing a book?”

“I’m a confidential typist.”

“My face can’t get any redder than it’s been already,” Andrew said and ushered her into the hall. “Are you at all interested in painting?”

“Yes. You paint, don’t you?”

“How the hell did you know?”

“Your first fingernail. And anyway Mr. Period told me.”

“Talk, talk, talk!” Andrew said, but he smiled at her. “And what a sharp girl you are, to be sure. Oh, calamity, look who’s here!”

Alfred was at the front door, showing in a startling lady with tangerine hair, enormous eyes, pale orange lips and a general air of good-humoured raffishness. She was followed by an unremarkable, cagey-looking man, very much her junior.

“Hullo, Mum!” Andrew said. “Hullo, Bimbo.”

“Darling!” said Désirée Dodds or Lady Bantling. “How lovely!”

“Hi,” said her husband, Bimbo.

Nicola was introduced and they all went into the drawing-room.

Here Nicola encountered the group of persons with whom, on one hand disastrously and on the other to her greatest joy, she was about to become inextricably involved.

Mr. Pyke Period made much of Nicola. He took her round, introducing her to Mr. Cartell and all over again to “Lady Bantling” and Mr. Dodds; to Miss Connie Cartell; and, with a certain lack of enthusiasm, to the adopted niece, Mary or Moppett, and her friend, Mr. Leonard Leiss.

Miss Cartell shouted: “Been hearing all about you, ha, ha!”

Mr. Cartell said: “Afraid I disturbed you just now. Looking for P.P. So sorry.”

Moppett said: “Hullo. I suppose you do shorthand? I tried but my squiggles looked like rude drawings. So I gave up.” Young Mr. Leiss stared damply at Nicola and then shook hands — also damply. He was pallid and had large eyes, a full mouth and small chin. The sleeves of his violently checked jacket displayed an exotic amount of shirt-cuff and link. He smelt very strongly of hair oil. Apart from these features it would have been hard to say why he seemed untrustworthy.

Mr. Cartell was probably by nature a dry and pedantic man. At the moment he was evidently much put out. Not surprising, Nicola thought, when one looked at the company: his stepson with whom, presumably, he had just had a flaring row; his divorced wife and her husband; his noisy sister; her “niece,” whom he obviously disliked; and Mr. Leiss. He dodged about, fussily attending to drinks.

“May Leonard fix mine, Uncle Hal?” Moppett asked. “He knows my kind of wallop.”

Mr. Period, overhearing her, momentarily closed his eyes, and Mr. Cartell saw him do it.

Miss Cartell shouted uneasily: “The things these girls say, nowadays! Honestly!” and burst into her braying laugh. Nicola could see that she adored Moppett.

Leonard adroitly mixed two treble martinis.

Andrew had brought Nicola her tomato juice. He stayed beside her. They didn’t say very much but she found herself glad of his company.

Meanwhile, Mr. Period, who, it appeared, had recently had a birthday, was given a present by Lady Bantling. It was a large brass paperweight in the form of a fish rampant. He seemed to Nicola to be disproportionately enchanted with this trophy, and presently she discovered why.

“Dearest Désirée,” he exclaimed. “How wonderfully clever of you: my crest, you know! The form, the attitude, everything! Connie! Look! Hal, do look.”

The paperweight was passed from hand to hand and Andrew was finally sent to put it on Mr. Period’s desk.

When he returned Moppett bore down upon him. “Andrew!” she said. “You must tell Leonard about your painting. He knows quantities of potent dealers. Actually, he might be jolly useful to you. Come and talk to him.”

“I’m afraid I wouldn’t know what to say, Moppett.”

“I’ll tell you. Hi, Leonard! We want to talk to you.”

Leonard advanced with drinks. “All right, all right,” he said. “What about?”

“Which train are you going back by?” Andrew asked Nicola.

“I don’t know.”

“When do you stop typing?”

“Four o’clock, I think.”

“There’s a good train at twenty past. I’ll pick you up. May I?”

His mother had joined them. “We really ought to be going,” she said, smiling amiably at Nicola. “Lunch is early today, Andrew, on account we’re having a grand party tonight. You’re staying for it, by the way?”

“I don’t think I can.”

“I’m sure you can if you set your mind to it. We need you badly. I’d have warned you, but we only decided last night. It’s an April Fool party: that makes the excuse. Bimbo’s scarcely left the telephone since dawn.”

“We ought to go, darling,” said Bimbo over her shoulder.

“I know. Let’s. Good-bye.” She held out her hand to Nicola. “Are you coming lots of times to type for P.P.?”

“I think, fairly often.”

“Make him bring you to Baynesholme. We’re off, Harold. Thank you for our nice drinks. Good-bye, P.P. Don’t forget you’re dining, will you?”

“How could I?”

“Not possibly.”

“It was — I wondered, dearest Désirée, if you’d perhaps rather…? Still — I suppose…”

“My poorest sweet, what are you talking about?” said Lady Bantling and kissed him. She looked vaguely at Moppett and Leonard. “Good-bye. Come along, boys.”

Andrew muttered to Nicola: “I’ll ring you up about the train.” He said good-bye cordially to Mr. Period and very coldly to his stepfather.

Moppett said: “I had something fairly important to ask you, you gorgeous Guardee, you.”

“How awful never to know what it was,” Andrew replied and, with Bimbo, followed his mother out of the room.

Watching Désirée go, Nicola thought: “Moppett would probably like to acquire that manner, but she never will. She hasn’t got the style.”

Mr. Period, in a fluster, extended his hands. “Désirée can’t know!” he exclaimed. “Neither can he or Andrew! How extraordinary!”

“Know what?” asked Miss Cartell.

“About Ormsbury. Her brother. It was in the Telegraph.”

“If Désirée is giving one of her parties,” said Mr. Cartell, “she is not likely to put it off for her brother’s demise. She hasn’t heard of him since he went out to the Antipodes, where I understand he’d been drinking like a fish for the last twenty years.”

“Really, Hal!” Mr. Period exclaimed.

Moppett and Leonard Leiss giggled and retired into a corner with their drinks.

Miss Cartell was launched on an account of some local activity. “…So I said to the Rector: ‘We all know damn well what that means,’ and he said like lightning: ‘We may know but we don’t let on.’ He’s got quite a respectable sense of humour, that man.”

“Pause for laugh,” Moppett said very offensively.

Miss Cartell, who had in fact thrown back her head to laugh, blushed painfully and looked at her ward with such an air of baffled vulnerability that Nicola, who had been thinking how patronizing and arrogant she was, felt sorry for her and furious with Moppett.