And still Basil sat steady, unmoved by any tremor of that volcanic senility which a fortnight ago would have exploded in scalding, blinding showers. He was doing badly in this first encounter which he had too lightly provoked. He must take thought and plan. He was not at the height of his powers. He had been prostrate yesterday. Today he was finding his strength. Tomorrow experience would conquer. This was a worthy antagonist and he felt something of the exultation which a brave of the sixteenth century might have felt when in a brawl he suddenly recognized in the clash of blades a worthy swordsman.

“Barbara’s mother has the best financial advice,” he said.

“By the way, where is Barbara? She arranged to meet me here.”

“She’s having a bath in Claridges.”

“I ought to go over and see her. I’m taking her out to lunch. You couldn’t lend me a fiver, could you?”

“Yes,” said Basil. “Certainly.”

If Albright had known him better he would have taken alarm at this urbanity. All he thought was: “Old crusty’s a much softer job than anyone told me.” And Basil thought: “I hope he spends it all on luncheon. That banknote is all he will ever get. He deserved better.”

Sonia Trumpington had never remarried. She shared a flat with her son Robin but saw little of him. Mostly she spent her day alone with her needlework and in correspondence connected with one or two charitable organizations with which, in age, she had become involved. She was sewing when Basil sought her out after luncheon (oysters again, two dozen this time with a pint of champagne—his strength waxed hourly) and she continued to stitch at the framed grospoint while he confided his problem to her.

“Yes, I’ve met Charles Albright. He’s rather a friend of Robin’s.”

“Then perhaps you can tell me what Barbara sees in him.”

“Why, you, of course,” said Sonia. “Haven’t you noticed? He’s the dead spit—looks, character, manner, everything.”

“Looks? Character? Manner? Sonia, you’re raving.”

“Oh, not as you are now, not even after your cure. Don’t you remember at all what you were like at his age?”

“But he’s a monster.”

“So were you, darling. Have you quite forgotten? It’s all as clear as clear to me. You Seals are so incestuous. Why do you suppose you got keen on Barbara? Because she’s just like Barbara Sothill. Why is Barbara keen on Charles? Because he’s you.”

Basil considered this proposition with his newly resharpened wits.

“That beard.”

“I’ve seen you with a beard.”

“That was after I came back from the Arctic and I never played the guitar in my life,” he said.

“Does Charles play the guitar? First I’ve heard of it. He does all sorts of things—just as you did.”

“I wish you wouldn’t keep bringing me into it.”

“Have you quite forgotten what you were like? Have a look at some of my old albums.”

Like most of her generation Sonia had in youth filled large volumes with press-cuttings and photographs of herself and her friends. They lay now in a shabby heap in a corner of the room.

“That’s Peter’s twenty-firster at King’s Thursday. First time I met you, I think. Certainly the first time I met Alastair. He was Margot’s boyfriend then, remember? She was jolly glad to be rid of him….. That’s my marriage. I bet you were there.” She turned the pages from the posed groups of bride, bridegroom and bridesmaids to the snapshots taken at the gates of St. Margaret’s. “Yes, here you are.”

“No beard. Perfectly properly dressed.”

“Yes, there are more incriminating ones later. Look at that… and that.”

They opened successive volumes. Basil appeared often.

“I don’t think any of them very good likenesses,” said Basil stiffly. “I’d just come back from the Spanish front there—of course I look a bit untidy.”

“It’s not clothes we’re talking about. Look at your expression.”

“Light in my eyes,” said Basil.

“1937. That’s another party at King’s Thursday.”

“What a ghastly thing facetious photographs are. What on earth am I doing with that girl?”

“Throwing her in the lake. I remember the incident now. I took the photograph.”

“Who?”

“I’ve no idea. Perhaps it says on the back. Just ‘Basil and Betty.’ She must have been much younger than us, not our kind at all. I’ve got an idea she was the daughter of some duke or other. The Stayles—that’s who she was.”

Basil studied the picture and shuddered. “What can have induced me to behave like that?”

“Youthful high spirits.”

“I was thirty-four, God help me. She’s very plain.”

“I’ll tell you who she is—was. Charles Albright’s mother. That’s an odd coincidence if you like. Let’s look her up and make sure.”

She found a Peerage and read: “Here we are. Fifth daughter of the late duke. Elizabeth Ermyntrude Alexandra, for whom H.R.H. The Duke of Connaught stood sponsor. Born 1920. Married 194 °Clarence Albright, killed in action 1943. Leaving issue. Died 1956. I remember hearing about it—cancer, very young. That’s Charles, that issue.”

Basil gazed long at the photograph. The girl was plump and, it seemed, wriggling; annoyed rather than amused by the horseplay. “How one forgets. I suppose she was quite a friend of mine once.”

“No, no. She was just someone Margot produced for Peter.”

Basil’s imagination, once so fertile of mischief, lately so dormant, began now, in his hour of need, to quicken and stir.

“That photograph has given me an idea.”

“Basil, you’ve got that old villainous look. What are you up to?”

“Just an idea.”

“You’re not going to throw Barbara into the Serpentine.”

“Something not unlike it,” he said.

“Let us go and sit by the Serpentine,” said Basil to his daughter that afternoon.

“Won’t it be rather cold?”

“It will be quiet. Wrap up well. I have to talk to you seriously.”

“Good temper?”

“Never better.”

“Why not talk here?”

“Your mother may come in. What I have to say doesn’t concern her.”

“It’s about me and Charles, I bet.”

“Certainly.”

“Not a scolding?”

“Far from it. Warm fatherly sympathy.”

“It’s worth being frozen for that.”

They did not speak in the car. Basil sent it away, saying they would find their own way back. At that chilly tea time, with the leaves dry and falling, there was no difficulty in finding an empty seat. The light was soft; it was one of the days when London seems like Dublin.

“Charles said he’d talked to you. He wasn’t sure you loved him.”

“I love him.”

“Oh, Pobble.”

“He did not play the guitar but I recognized his genius.”

“Oh, Pobble, what are you up to?”

“Just what Sonia asked.” Basil leaned his chin on the knob of his cane. “You know, Babs, that all I want is your happiness.”

“This doesn’t sound at all like you. You’ve got some sly scheme.”

“Far from it. You must never tell him or your mother what I am about to say. Charles’s parents are dead so they are not affected. I knew his mother very well; perhaps he doesn’t know how well. People often wondered why she married Albright. It was a blitz marriage, you know, while he was on leave and there were air raids every night. It was when I was first out of hospital, before I married your mother.”

“Darling Pobble, it’s very cold here and I don’t quite see what all this past history has to do with me and Charles.”

“It began,” said Basil inexorably, “when—what was her name? — Betty was younger than you are now. I threw her into the lake at King’s Thursday.”

“What began?”

“Betty’s passion for me. Funny what excites a young girl—with you a guitar, with Betty a ducking.”

“Well, I think that’s rather romantic. It sort of brings you and Charles closer.”

“Very close indeed. It was more than romantic. She was too young at the beginning—just a girlish crush. I thought she would get over it. Then, when I was wounded, she took to visiting me every day in hospital and the first day I came out—you won’t be able to understand the sort of exhilaration a man feels at a time like that, or the appeal lameness has for some women, or the sense of general irresponsibility we all had during the blitz—I’m not trying to excuse myself. I was not the first man. She had grown up since the splash in the lake. It only lasted a week. Strictly perhaps I should have married her, but I was less strict in those days. I married your mother instead. You can’t complain about that. If I hadn’t, you wouldn’t exist. Betty had to look elsewhere and fortunately that ass Albright turned up in the nick. Yes, Charles is your brother, so how could I help loving him?”