Muriel, her full lips parted, her pansy-blue eyes fixed admiringly on the doctor’s blond head, sighed with satisfaction as he reiterated his well-remembered points. Everything made sense to her. There were people who, by physique and training, were somewhat superior and she would have been foolish not to recognize herself as one of them. That these people had a duty to the human race seemed to her clear. Muriel was serious about her beliefs and if Rupert had shown any flaws, mental or physical, or any insanity in the family, she would have set aside her inclinations and refused to become engaged. Fortunately, Rupert had in every way passed the test and as Countess of Westerholme it would be her privilege and duty to see that the doctor’s ideas were carried out.

Dr Lightbody was now drawing to a close.

‘All of us, ladies and gentlemen,’ declaimed the doctor, looking round to see if, among the sea of swelling bosoms, there were, in fact, any gentlemen, ‘have it in our power to acquire — by Right Diet, Right Living and the avoidance of lechery and vice — a body that is a flawless and an unsullied chalice, a hallowed temple for the human spirit. Can we doubt that, having acquired it, it is our duty to pass it on to our unborn children and make of this island race a nation of gods? Valhalla is in our grasp, ladies and gentlemen. Let us march towards it with confidence, unity and joy! Thank you.’

‘Get a taxi, Geraldine,’ said Muriel to her chaperone. ‘And buy some of those diet sheets on the way out, won’t you? They didn’t sell too well last time. I’m going backstage to congratulate the doctor and say goodbye.’

Dr Lightbody left the Conway Hall in an excellent frame of mind. The lecture had gone well; the audience had been appreciative and the diet sheets had sold better than usual. He had particularly enjoyed the visit of Miss Hardwicke afterwards. Now there was a disciple worth having! Other women had to strive to become a chalice, but not she! A few followers like that and he could make of this dispiriting country a Mecca and a place of joy. She had invited him down for the wedding. Might there be something for him there? A chance to work under a wealthy patroness? To set up an Institute of Eugenics at Mersham, free from the financial anxieties that plagued him? Yes, he’d have to keep that very much in mind.

His mood of elation lasted until he turned into the dingy street in Ealing where he rented lodgings. But as he let himself in it collapsed, pricked by a weary exhausted voice asking, in the appalling Midlands accent he had never been able to eradicate: ‘Ronnie? Is that you?’

‘Yes, Doreen, it is I,’ said Dr Lightbody in the careful voice, as of a teacher speaking to a backward child, that he always used when addressing his wife.

Doreen sat in a shabby armchair, her glasses on the end of her nose, darning one of his socks. She looked pale and exhausted, there was a spot on her chin and her shoulders were hunched in their usual pose of resigned weariness. Angrily, he waited for her to cough and, sure enough, after a short struggle to hold her breath, she began the dry, infuriating coughing that always seemed to assail her these days.

‘There’s some coffee on the stove,’ she said when she could speak again. ‘And a piece of chocolate cake, if you want it. It’s freshly baked.’

Dr Lightbody went through into the tiny kitchen. How had it happened that he, with his vision of what the human body could be, had been trapped into this appalling marriage? Why had he been so weak as to listen to his parents when they insisted he marry the girl and why, having done so, had he not left her two months later, when she miscarried? It wasn’t just that she was socially completely his inferior — a lowly clerk’s daughter in whose house he had lodged in his last year at college — it was that all along Doreen had been antagonistic to his ideas. First, she had not wanted to accompany him to Sweden and had produced some nonsense about sharing the fate of her countrymen. Then, when in the purity of the Swedish air and the freedom from conscription he had at last been able to formulate his ideas, Doreen had mutely and obstinately misunderstood everything he was trying to do. And when they returned to England and his teaching had at last begun to gain ground, had she been behind him, helping him, building up his image?

She had not. When he had suggested she come with him on a tour of the docks, to encourage the dock workers to marry only when there was healthy blood on both sides, Doreen had said she didn’t think it was any of her business. No wonder that when she had half-heartedly followed his diet sheets, it had done her so little good. One had to believe. Not only was Doreen’s body not a temple, Doreen’s body was a disaster. Lately he had not even asked her to come to his lectures. It was better for people not to know that he, to whom they turned for leadership and guidance, had to share his life with someone whose very appearance was a denial of all that he was working for.

And, deep in self-pity, Dr Lightbody bit into a large slice of Doreen’s feather-light chocolate cake and sighed.

5

Unlike Rupert, Muriel was spared the reception by massed servants on the grand staircase. This did not mean, however, that the servants did not watch her arrival. Perched on various strategic stepladders and in convenient look-out posts, Mersham’s staff gazed curiously at the Daimler and saw the earl hand out a tottery lady, whose motoring hat and swathed veils suggested high winds and the keeping of innumerable bees. But before despondency had taken root, the earl handed out a second lady, full-breasted and voluptuous, in a flesh-coloured duster coat tasselled with skunk tails.

And over Sid on a ladder in the west landing, over Louise and Mrs Park wobbling on stools in the store room, over everyone, there spread a look of pure satisfaction. Not only was the new countess beautiful, but there was also plenty of her and James, balancing Mr Sebastien’s telescope on a Roman urn, summed up the general feeling when he said simply and lustingly: ‘Cor!’

‘This is your room, dear,’ said the dowager, leading Muriel into Queen Caroline’s bedchamber. ‘We thought you’d like it, it has such a pretty view of the lake.’

Muriel looked with pleasure at the graceful, airy room, the low bowls of roses. ‘But it is delightful! Charming! I have never seen a lovelier room.’

The dowager smiled affectionately at her beautiful new daughter-in-law. ‘And this is Anna, who will wait on you till you have engaged a maid of your own.’

Anna curtsied. The depth and intensity of her curtsy, which had so disconcerted the earl and his butler, in no way troubled Muriel, who felt it to be only her due. She turned back to the dowager. ‘The guests are invited for eight o’clock, I believe you said?’

‘That’s right. It’s just a small party of our intimate friends to welcome you and drink your health. With the wedding so soon, we didn’t want to delay in introducing you to the neighbourhood. You have the whole afternoon to rest.’

‘Thank you, but I am seldom tired,’ said Muriel composedly.

The dowager could believe it. She had never seen a more magnificent creature. She turned to go, but at the door she paused and said to Anna: ‘The flowers are quite beautiful. You have a real feeling for this kind of work. Mrs Bassenthwaite told me how much trouble you took.’

A slight crease furrowed Muriel’s forehead. She had never heard a servant addressed in such familiar and affectionate terms.

‘You may unpack, Anna,’ she said. ‘You’ll find a picture in a silver frame in the crocodile-skin case. I want that on my bedside table.’

‘Yes, miss,’ said Anna, and set to work.

Hanging up a dance dress of green accordion-pleated chiffon, a tea gown of coffee-coloured lace, a magenta boucle suit with a fringed hobble skirt, she presently came on a silver-framed photograph. This turned out to be, not as Anna had expected a portrait of the earl, but of a fair man with sticking-up hair and visionary eyes. The signature: ‘From Dr Ronald Lightbody with kindest regards’, meant little to Anna but, obedient to her mistress’s instructions, she placed it on the bedside table.

‘I shall wear the orange crêpe de Chine tonight,’ said Muriel from the chaise-longue, where she was lying with closed eyes, drawing deep and systematic breaths of air into her lungs. ‘The one with the crystal beading. See that it is pressed. And with it the matching bandeau and ostrich feather fan…’

‘Well?’

Slipping into her seat in the servants’ hall for a quick meal before the party, Anna faced a battery of faces…

She did not fail them. Clasping her hands in her best annunciatory-angel manner, she said: ‘She is beautiful all over. I can tell you this absolutely because I have seen her in the bath.’

James put down his knife.

‘She wished, you see, that I should wash her back and also rub her with some cream of Dr Lightbody’s and I assure you she is like a goddess,’ said Anna, delighted to have such happy tidings for them all.

‘Who’s Dr Lightbody when he’s at home?’ enquired Louise.

‘He is a very important man whom Miss Hardwicke admires very much and wears his hair en brosse and is the president of the New Eugenics Society.’

‘The what?’ asked Sid.

‘Eugenics,’ said Proom in his most professional manner, ‘is the science of selective breeding. It is an extremely important field of study and Miss Hardwicke’s interest in the subject is entirely to her credit.’

‘Yes, I think so too,’ said Anna, her eyes ablaze with enthusiasm, ‘because in Russia, in the country, about twenty versts from us there lived a farmer who suffered very much with his chickens because when they were roasted they always had blisters on their breasts and…’