Dr Ackrington struck the table angrily with the flat of his hand. His sister leant back in her chair, Colonel Claire stared out through the windows, and Simon and Barbara, after the first two sentences, listened eagerly. When he had finished the letter, which he read in a rapid uninflected patter, Dr Ackrington dropped it on the table and looked about him with an air of complacency.

Barbara whistled. ‘I say,’ she said—‘Geoffrey Gaunt! I say.’

‘And a servant. And a secretary. I don’t quite know what to say, James,’ Mrs Claire murmured. ‘I’m quite bewildered. I really don’t think…

‘We can’t take on a chap like that,’ said Simon loudly.

‘And why not, pray?’ his uncle demanded.

‘He’ll be no good to us and we’d be no good to him. He’ll be used to posh hotels and slinging his weight about with a lot of English servants. What’d we do with a secretary and a manservant? What’s he do with them anyway?’ Simon went on with an extraordinary air of hostility. ‘Is he feeble-minded or what?’

‘Feeble-minded!’ cried Barbara. ‘He’s probably the greatest living actor.’

‘Well, he can have it for mine,’ said Simon.

‘For the love of heaven, Agnes, can’t you teach your son an intelligent form of speech?’

‘If the way I talk isn’t good enough for you, Uncle James…’

‘For pity’s sake let’s stick to the point,’ Barbara cried. ‘I’m for having Mr Gaunt and his staff, Sim’s against it, Mother’s hovering. You’re for it, Uncle, I suppose.’

‘I fondly imagined that three resident patients might be of some assistance to the exchequer. What does your father say?’ He turned to Colonel Claire. ‘What do you say, Edward?’

‘Eh?’ Colonel Claire opened his eyes and mouth and raised his eyebrows in a startled manner. ‘Is it about that paper you’ve got in your hand? I wasn’t listening. Read it again.’

‘Great God Almighty!’

‘Your steak,’ said Huia, and placed before Dr Ackrington a strip of ghastly pale and bloated meat from which blood coursed freely over the plate.

During the lively scene which followed, Barbara hooted with frightened laughter, Mrs Claire murmured conciliatory phrases, Simon shuffled his feet, and Huia in turn shook her head angrily, giggled, and uttered soft apologies. Finally she burst into tears and ran back with the steak to the kitchen, where a crash of breaking crockery suggested that she had hurled the dish to the floor. Colonel Claire, after staring in surprise at his brother-in-law for a few seconds, quietly took up Dr Forster’s letter and began to read it. This he continued to do until Dr Ackrington had been mollified with a helping of cold meat.

‘Who is this Geoffrey Gaunt?’ asked Colonel Claire after a long silence.