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have compromised on ‘Lord Robert’, a solecism which would no doubt horrify the scribes at Debrett. He is, it transpires, a Bolshevist. (!) He plans, upon the death of his father, the Earl, to open Maplewhite to what he calls ‘the toiling masses,’ although where he will find toiling masses in the Devon countryside I cannot imagine. Perhaps he’ll have them freighted in by train from Birmingham.
    Lady Purleigh is charming, a lovely woman with a natural, effortless kindness and grace. I like her enormously.
    If Lady Purleigh is lovely, her daughter, the Honourable Cecily Fitzwilliam, is dazzling. She is poised and perfect. Her “bobbed” blond hair is immaculate, Her clothes are Parisian. (An opalescent silk frock this afternoon, low waisted, with a hem that fell to her knees and not an inch farther.) Her figure is slim and suave and flawless and uncluttered by the disagreeable hillocks and mounds that decorate the clumsy form of, say, a typical paid companion. Someone less compassionate than your correspondent might be tempted to suggest that her elocution is perhaps a shade or two more arch than is absolutely necessary. Or that her thought processes are not perhaps sufficiently evolved for any behaviour more complicated than breathing. But breathing, I expect, is all that the Honourable Cecily will ever be required to do.
    The Allardyce has at last emerged from her bath. Aphrodite arising from the foaming sea. I’ve only just managed to unpack the luggage (hers and mine). There is a box for the guests’ post in the hallway. I have time enough to dress for dinner. I’ll drop this into it and I’ll write again as soon as I can.
    Much love,
    Jane

Chapter Three
    AS WE CROSSED the Oriental carpet, walking toward the trestle table, the Great Man asked Lord Bob, “And the medium? She has arrived?”
    “Tomorrow sometime,” said Lord Bob. “With Conan Doyle. You know Doyle?”
    “Yes, certainly. We are close friends. We correspond frequently.”    -
    Lord Bob nodded. “Beyond me how he invents those stories of his. Ah, there you are, my darlings.”
    Two women were standing before the table. They turned, saw Lord Bob, and they smiled. The older woman’s smile was friendly and open. The younger woman’s was thin and bored, and then it was gone.
    “Look what I’ve bagged,” announced Lord Bob. “The famous Mr. Harry Houdini himself. And this is his assistant, Mr. Phil Beaumont, also from America. His first time in England. Gentleman, my wife, Alice, and my daughter, Cecily.”
    They were obviously mother and daughter. They were the same height, about five feet six inches, and they had the same fine coloring and the same fine bones. In her fifties somewhere, the mother had aged nicely. Her hair was pale blond, shoulder length, its soft waves threaded with silver. She wore a pearl necklace and a black dress that would have been simple if it hadn’t been made of silk.
    Unlike most of the aristocrats I’d met since we arrived in England, she actually looked like one. Regal without being cold, composed without being stiff. But according to the Great Man, she hadn’t been born one. She came from a family that had made its money, a lot of money, in publishing, here in England and on the Continent.
    Her daughter looked aristocratic, too, but there was no silver in her blond hair. The hair was straight and neatly bobbed just below her ears, cut longer in front to emphasize her slender neck. The gauzy scarlet scarf loosely wrapped around her throat helped with this. So did the scooped neckline of her pale gray dress, also silk.
    She was maybe a bit too aristocratic. She held a champagne glass in her left hand. Her right hand hovered just to the side of her face. Between her extended first and second fingers, she held a lighted cigarette. When she decided that she wanted a puff, all she had to do was swivel her head a few inches. You got the impression that even this would be a terrible chore.
    “Hello,” she