Free Death and the Dancing Footman by Ngaio Marsh Page B

woman! This loathsome grinning young man!” He turned to Hersey and found her staring at him with an expression that he interpreted as knowing. Mandrake shied away and looking wildly round the table, encountered the thick-lensed glasses of his host. Jonathan’s lips were pursed and in the faint creases at the corners of his mouth Mandrake read complacency and amusement. “So that’s it,” thought Mandrake furiously. “He knows and he’s told them. It’s the sort of thing that would delight him. My vulnerable spot. He’s having a tweak at it and he and his cousin and his bloody friend will laugh delicately and tell each other they were very naughty with poor Mr. Stanley Footling.” But Jonathan was speaking to him, gently carrying forward the theme of Hersey’s suggestion for a play.
    “I have noticed, Aubrey, that the layman is always eager to provide the artist with ideas. Do you imagine, Hersey darling, that Aubrey is a sort of aesthetic scavenger?”
    “But mine was such a
good
idea.”
    “You must excuse her, Aubrey. No sense of proportion, I’m afraid, poor woman.”
    “Mr. Mandrake
does
excuse me,” said Hersey, and her smile held such a warmth of friendliness that it dispelled Mandrake’s panic. “I was mistaken,” he thought, “another false alarm. Why must I be so absurdly sensitive? Other people have changed their names without experiencing these terrors.” The relief was so great that for a time he was lost in it and heard only the gradual quieting of his own heart-beats. But presently he became aware of a lull in the general conversation. They had reached dessert. Jonathan’s voice alone was heard speaking and Mandrake thought that he must have been speaking for some little time.
    “No one person,” Jonathan was saying, “is the same individual to more than one other person. That is to say the reality of individuals is not absolute. Each individual has as many exterior realities as the number of encounters he makes.”
    “Ah,” said Dr. Hart, “this is a pet theory of my own. The actual ‘he’ is known to nobody.”
    “Does the actual ‘he’ even exist?” Jonathan returned. “May it not be argued that ‘he’ has no intrinsic reality since different selfs arise out of a conglomeration of selfs to meet different events?”
    “I don’t see what you mean,” said William, with his air of worried bafflement.
    “Nor do I, William,” said Hersey. “One knows how people will react to certain events, Jo. We say: ‘Oh So-and-so is no good when it comes to such-and-such a situation!’ ”
    “My contention is that this is exactly what we do
not
know.”
    “But Mr. Royal,” cried Chloris, “we
do
know. We know, for instance, that some people will refuse to listen to gossip.”
    “We know,” said Nicholas, “that one man will keep his head in a crisis where another will go jitterbug. This war—”
    “Oh, don’t let’s talk about this war,” said Chloris.
    “There are some men in my company—” William began, but Jonathan raised his hand and William stopped short.
    “Well, I concede,” said Jonathan, “that the same ‘he’ may make so many appearances that we may gamble on his turning up under certain circumstances, but I contend that it
is
a gamble and that though under these familiar circumstances we may agree on the probability of certain reactions, we should quarrel about theoretical behaviour under some unforeseen, hitherto unexperienced circumstances.”
    “For example?” asked Madame Lisse.
    “Parachute invasion—” began William, but his mother said quickly: “No, William, not the war.” It was the first time since dinner that Mandrake had heard her speak without being addressed.
    “I agree,” said Jonathan, “let us not draw our examples from the war. Let us suppose that — what shall I say—”
    “That the Archangel Gabriel popped down the chimney,” suggested Hersey, ”and blasted his trump in your ear.”
    “Or that Jonathan told us,”