The elderly castle owner and the future film maker said nothing.
And so the meal was served. Geri noticed that Frances was constantly moving her hair from behind her ears to in front, twice she took out her lipstick and once even a powder compact. Her eyes never left her own reflection. She heard nothing of what was being said.
The film man frowned at himself darkly, held up his chin with his hand, sucked in his cheeks and kept bringing the conversation around to liposuction, laser therapy and the unfairness that it should only be women who had a little nip and tuck under the eyes .
The old castle owner sunk into an ever deeper despair and asked for neat whiskey. "I had absolutely no idea I looked like this," she told Geri four times.
"I'm a perfect fright. I shouldn't be allowed out, what a depressing depressing discovery."
The young diplomat couldn't see himself, but he was so alarmed by the way everyone opposite him was looking over his shoulder that he kept turning around to see what was behind him. His wife said to him that he'd better stop acting so nervy if they were ever to land that plum post.
Sean just talked on good-naturedly, smiling at her proudly from time to time, and noticing nothing of the disarray. Geri had never known such failure and let-down.
Perhaps it was just too dark, the whole thing, she must light more candles. As she stood to do so, she saw her son Shay reflected in the mirror. He had worn a collar and tie, part of the exorbitant price she was paying him for his good behaviour. She noticed that for every glass of wine he poured he was drinking one himself.
Her eyes hardened as she sat down. "Perhaps you could just leave the decanters on the table," she said in a voice of a steel. One of the candles was dripping wax, so Geri went to sort it out. Again she looked in the mirror to see how what she had fondly believed to be the most elegant dinner party in Ireland was progressing.
This time she saw Marian, who had worn a rather shorter black skirt than Geri would have liked, being fondled by the lecherous film maker. And Marian was not running away from him. She was smiling in a very upsettingly knowing way. Geri sat down abruptly. Nothing was going right.
Her aunt had been right. Nobody should have a mirror in their dining-room, it was a disaster. Why had she not understood?
Frances had momentarily stopped pouting at herself in the mirror. She was smiling at Sean. A very fetching smile.
"Sean, will you please come and pour my wine for me, now that Shay has stopped being wine waiter," she said. Sean stood up obligingly.
This was the moment that the silk flowers on the mantelpiece caught fire, and Geri leaped to her feet. Everyone's eyes and attention were on the activity. Tears of rage and humiliation were in her eyes. And as she doused the candles and rescued the charred silk stems she saw Frances smiling at Sean and reaching out her hand for his. Geri had thought there was nothing else that could go wrong, she believed that she had seen as much upset as was possible for one human to see in this terrible mirror.
Geri looked down at her square practical hands. She wished they were long and narrow and white, and had long dark pink nails. She wished her watch looked too heavy for the fragile wrist as Frances's did. But Sean had managed to move away from the perfectly groomed long white fingers, and he was sitting back in his place.
"Well done, Geri, fire fighter," he said. It wasn't exactly the role she had wanted to play, nor the words she had wanted to hear, even though he spoke them with praise and love.
"And the mirror didn't get burned at all?" He was cheering her up.
Please may he not mention the awful mirror, and that it was valuable. Please let him understand that she had totally changed her view. There was so much she had to sort out, like Shay drinking, Marian's sexual awareness, the fact that her admired neighbour Frances was coming on strong to Sean, the two other guests were still staring at themselves gloomily in the damn mirror, and the would-be diplomats were in the middle of a major row.
"Geri took this mirror from her aunt's estate," Sean said proudly.
Geri closed her eyes.
"How very kind of you," Frances said patronisingly.
"Geri is the kindest person in the world," Sean said.
Geri opened her eyes. She stood up slowly and walked to her aunt's mirror, which she was going to sell tomorrow. She looked deep into it, and she saw the wreckage of what had seemed an important dinner party. She was a better informed person, a better armed person.
She knew much more than she had known four hours ago. She knew that whatever old fool had said you shouldn't have a mirror in a dining-room was right. She knew that you could never impress James and Frances, no matter how you tried. She knew the old trout with the castle was self-obsessed and would be of interest to no one. She knew that the film maker was a pathetic old lech driven to groping teenagers to prove he wasn't over the hill. She knew that the future diplomats wouldn't get to first base with the Foreign Service or with each other.
She knew that Frances, elegant Frances, fancied Sean, her Sean, and that she couldn't have him.
Because Sean loved Geri.
Geri hated to make a bad investment, and maybe the mirror had been a poor choice. If the sewing table hadn't made its reserve at Aunt Nora's auction she would take that.
Sean was helping the guests into their coats, and waving them goodbye. He came back in and stood behind her as she looked in the mirror. He put his arms around her shoulders. "The mirror was a mistake, Sean," she admitted in a small voice.
He smiled into her hair.
"Maybe, but it wasn't a total mistake," he said to her, and held her tighter.
"I don't know." She wasn't convinced. "Well, don't the pair of us look fine in it," he said. "Doesn't that make it the bargain of the century?"