He went off down the drive and I went inside. Patrick, the butler, was reporting when I got back. He looked old, tired, and disapproving. He said there was a hole burned in the Aubusson carpet in the Reynolds room, and someone had spilled a cocktail in the piano. Luckily he had got rid of the drunken waiter without trouble. What he meant, I gathered, was that he hadn’t been so lucky with some of the guests.

Like Alma, he seemed exhausted. After all he has been with Mother for thirty years, from birth to brawl, as Larry put it, and he was fully seventy. But his dignity was unimpaired. He looked around at the wreckage of the big drawing room, much as Williams, the head gardener, had looked at his lawns after the circus, and he said much the same thing.

“After all, madam, with a crowd of people like that …”

Only Williams had said animals.

I sat down on the edge of the pool. I was a casualty too. Someone had stepped on the skirt of my white chiffon and torn it. But I didn’t mention it. What was the use? For months I had been trying to get into the WAACS or the WAVES and I was expecting to be called anytime. I supposed there would be hell to pay, but at least I was through with evening clothes. I looked at Mother. She was tired, but she somehow seemed even more complacent than usual. After Patrick had gone she spoke to me.

“I have something to tell you, Judy,” she said. “And Alma too. I hope you agree with me. I think you will. The fact is—”

She never finished that sentence. Patrick had left the front door open to air the hall, and we all heard someone running up the drive. It was Larry. When he got to the top of the steps he was staggering, and had to clutch the side of the doorway for support. He looked at us as if he had never seen us before.

“What is it, Larry?” Mother said. “Is something wrong?”

“Isabel!” he said. “She’s dead.”

Mother stood still. She was quite white under the liquid powder and rouge she insists on using, but her voice was calm.

“I’m sure you’re wrong,” she said. “She may have fainted. Get him a chair, Judy. And Alma, bring some brandy.”

She asked no questions. She simply stood by Larry and waited until he had had the brandy. Even then she was calm, except that her plump small body was quivering. Then she said, “Can you tell me about it, son?”

“She’s dead. That’s all I can tell you.” He got up, and looked around himself wildly. “I’ve got to call the police.”

“The police?”

“She’s been murdered,” he said, and staggered toward the library.

II

I thought I had seen Mother in action before. The time the boxing kangaroo she had brought for a children’s party got excited and began knocking the kids over one by one, for instance. I was one of the kids, so I remember. Before I could speak she told Alma to look after him. Then she was out the front door and running down the driveway in her stocking feet. She almost beat me to Larry’s house. I caught up to her finally and yelped at her to remember her blood pressure, and we entered the house together.