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Page 62
"You were nearly making a bloomer!" said Miss Willoughby
brightly. "You must be absent-minded, Mr. Marson--like his
lordship."
"Is Lord Emsworth absent-minded?"
Miss Willoughby laughed.
"Why, he forgets his own name sometimes! If it wasn't for Mr.
Baxter, goodness knows what would happen to him."
"I don't think I know Mr. Baxter."
"You will if you stay here long. You can't get away from him if
you're in the same house. Don't tell anyone I said so; but he's
the real master here. His lordship's secretary he calls himself;
but he's really everything rolled into one--like the man in the
play."
Ashe, searching in his dramatic memories for such a person in a
play, inquired whether Miss Willoughby meant Pooh-Bah, in "The
Mikado," of which there had been a revival in London recently.
Miss Willoughby did mean Pooh-Bah.
"But Nosy Parker is what I call him," she said. "He minds
everybody's business as well as his own."
The last of the procession trickled into the steward's room.
Mr. Beach said grace somewhat patronizingly. The meal began.
"You've seen Miss Peters, of course, Mr. Marson?" said Miss
Willoughby, resuming conversation with the soup.
"Just for a few minutes at Paddington."
"Oh! You haven't been with Mr. Peters long, then?"
Ashe began to wonder whether everybody he met was going to ask
him this dangerous question.
"Only a day or so."
"Where were you before that?"
Ashe was conscious of a prickly sensation. A little more of this
and he might as well reveal his true mission at the castle and
have done with it.
"Oh, I was--that is to say----"
"How are you feeling after the journey, Mr. Marson?" said a voice
from the other side of the table; and Ashe, looking up
gratefully, found Joan's eyes looking into his with a curiously
amused expression.
He was too grateful for the interruption to try to account for
this. He replied that he was feeling very well, which was not the
case. Miss Willoughby's interest was diverted to a discussion of
the defects of the various railroad systems of Great Britain.
At the head of the table Mr. Beach had started an intimate
conversation with Mr. Ferris, the valet of Lord Stockheath, the
Honorable Freddie's "poor old Percy"--a cousin, Ashe had
gathered, of Aline Peters' husband-to-be. The butler spoke in
more measured tones even than usual, for he was speaking of
tragedy.
"We were all extremely sorry, Mr. Ferris, to read of your
misfortune."
Ashe wondered what had been happening to Mr. Ferris.
"Yes, Mr. Beach," replied the valet, "it's a fact we made a
pretty poor show." He took a sip from his glass. "There is no
concealing the fact--I have never tried to conceal it--that poor
Percy is not bright."
Miss Chester entered the conversation.
"I couldn't see where the girl--what's her name? was so very
pretty. All the papers had pieces where it said she was
attractive, and what not; but she didn't look anything special to
me from her photograph in the Mirror. What his lordship could see
in her I can't understand."
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