Uneasy and silent, the two girls drove towards St. Augustine’s-inthe-Meads.
“I don’t know which I’m most sorry for,” said Dinny, suddenly: “I never thought about insanity before. People either make a joke of it or hide it away. But it seems to me more pitiful than anything in the world; especially when it’s partial like this.”
Jean turned on her a surprised look — Dinny with the mask of humour off was new.
“Which way now?”
“Up here; we have to cross the Euston Road. Personally, I don’t believe Aunt May can put us up. She’s sure to have people learning to slum. Well, if she can’t, we’ll telephone to Fleur. I wish I’d thought of that before.”
Her prediction was verified — the Vicarage was full, her aunt out, her uncle at home.
“While we’re here, we’d better find out whether Uncle Hilary will do you in,” whispered Dinny.
Hilary was spending the first free hour of three days in his shirt sleeves, carving the model of a Viking ship. For the production of obsolete ships in miniature was the favourite recreation now of one who had no longer leisure or muscle for mountain climbing. The fact that they took more time to complete than anything else, and that he had perhaps less time than anybody else to give to their completion, had not yet weighed with him. After shaking hands with Jean, he excused himself for proceeding with his job.
“Uncle Hilary,” began Dinny, abruptly, “Jean is going to marry Hubert, and they want it to be by special licence; so we’ve come to ask if you would marry them.”
Hilary halted his gouging instrument, narrowed his eyes till they were just shrewd slits, and said:
“Afraid of changing your minds?”
“Not at all,” said Jean.
Hilary regarded her attentively. In three words and one look she had made it clear to him that she was a young woman of character.
“I’ve met your father,” he said, “he always takes plenty of time.”
“Dad is perfectly docile about this.”
“That’s true,” said Dinny; “I’ve seen him.”
“And YOUR father, my dear?”
“He WILL be.”
“If he is,” said Hilary, again gouging at the stern of his ship, “I’ll do it. No point in delay if you really know your minds.” He turned to Jean. “You ought to be good at mountains; the season’s over, or I’d recommend that to you for your honeymoon. But why not a trawler in the North Sea?”
“Uncle Hilary,” said Dinny, “refused a Deanship. He is noted for his asceticism.”
“The hat ropes did it, Dinny, and let me tell you that the grapes have been sour ever since. I cannot think why I declined a life of some ease with time to model all the ships in the world, the run of the newspapers, and the charms of an increasing stomach. Your Aunt never ceases to throw them in my teeth. When I think of what Uncle Cuffs did with his dignity, and how he looked when he came to the end, I see my wasted life roll out behind me, and visions of falling down when they take me out of the shafts. How strenuous is your father, Miss Tasburgh?”
“Oh, he just marks time,” said Jean; “but that’s the country.”
“Not entirely! To mark time and to think you’re not — there never was a more universal title than ‘The Man who was.’”
“Unless,” said Dinny, “it’s ‘The Man who never was’. Oh! Uncle, Captain Ferse suddenly turned up today at Diana’s.”
Hilary’s face became very grave.
“Ferse! That’s either most terrible, or most merciful. Does your Uncle Adrian know?”
“Yes; I fetched him. He’s there now with Captain Ferse. Diana wasn’t in.”
“Did you see Ferse?”
“I went in and had a talk with him,” said Jean; “he seemed perfectly sane except that he locked me in.”
Hilary continued to stand very still.
“We’ll say good-bye now, Uncle; we’re going to Michael’s.”
“Good-bye; and thank you very much, Mr. Cherrell.”
“Yes,” said Hilary, absently, “we must hope for the best.”
The two girls, mounting the car, set out for Westminster.
“He evidently expects the worst,” said Jean.
“Not difficult, when both alternatives are so horrible.”
“Thank you!”
“No, no!” murmured Dinny: “I wasn’t thinking of you.” And she thought how remarkably Jean could keep to a track when she was on it!
Outside Michael’s house in Westminster they encountered Adrian, who had telephoned to Hilary and been informed of their changed destination. Having ascertained that Fleur could put the girls up, he left them; but Dinny, smitten by the look on his face, ran after him. He was walking towards the river, and she joined him at the corner of the Square.
“Would you rather be alone, Uncle?”
“I’m glad of YOU, Dinny. Come along.”
They went at a good pace westward along the Embankment, Dinny slipping her hand within his arm. She did not talk, however, leaving him to begin if he wished.
“You know I’ve been down to that Home several times,” he said, presently, “to see how things were with Ferse, and make sure they were treating him properly. It serves me right for not having been these last months. But I always dreaded it. I’ve been talking to them now on the ‘phone. They wanted to come up, but I’ve told them not to. What good can it do? They admit he’s been quite normal for the last two weeks. In such cases it seems they wait a month at least before reporting. Ferse himself says he’s been normal for three months.”
“What sort of place is it?”
“A largish country house — only about ten patients; each has his own rooms and his own attendant. It’s as good a place, I suppose, as you could find. But it always gave me the horrors with its spikey wall round the grounds and general air of something hidden away. Either I’m over-sensitive, Dinny, or this particular affliction does seem to me too dreadful.”
Dinny squeezed his arm. “So it does to me. How did he get away?”
“He’d been so normal that they weren’t at all on their guard — he seems to have said he was going to lie down, and slipped out during lunch time. He must have noticed that some tradesman came at a certain time every day, for he slid out when the lodge-keeper was taking in parcels; he walked to the station and took the first train. It’s only twenty miles. He’ll have been in town before they found out he was gone. I’m going down there tomorrow.”
“Poor Uncle!” said Dinny, softly.
“Well, my dear, so things go in this life. But to be torn between two horrors is not my dream.”
“Was it in his family?”
Adrian nodded. “His grandfather died raving. But for the war it might never have developed in Ferse, but you can’t tell. Hereditary madness? Is it fair? No, Dinny, I’m not a believer in divine mercy in any form that we humans can understand, or in any way that we would exercise it ourselves. An all-embracing creativity and power of design without beginning and without end — obviously. But — tie it to our apron-strings we can’t. Think of a mad-house! One simply daren’t. And see what the fact that one daren’t means for those poor creatures. The sensitive recoil and that leaves them mainly to the insensitive, and God help them!”
“According to you, God won’t.”
“God is the helping of man by man, somebody once said; at all events that’s all the working version we can make of Him.”
“And the Devil?”
“The harming of man by man, only I’d throw in animals.”
“Pure Shelley, Uncle.”
“Might be a lot worse. But I become a wicked Uncle, corrupting the orthodoxy of Youth.”
“You can’t corrupt what is not, dear. Here’s Oakley Street. Would you like me to go and ask Diana if she wants anything?”
“Wouldn’t I? I’ll wait for you at this corner, Dinny; and thank you ever so.”
Dinny walked swiftly, looking neither to right nor left, and rang the bell. The same maid answered it.
“I don’t want to come in, but could you find out for me quietly from Mrs. Ferse whether she’s all right, or whether she wants anything. And will you tell her that I’m at Mrs. Michael Mont’s, and am ready to come at any moment, and to stay if she’d like me.”
While the maid was gone upstairs she strained her ears, but no sound reached them till the maid came back.
“Mrs. Ferse says, Miss, to thank you very heartily, and to say she won’t fail to send for you if she needs you. She’s all right at present, Miss; but, oh dear! we ARE put about, hoping for the best. And she sends her love, Miss; and Mr. Cherrell’s not to worry.”
“Thank you,” said Dinny: “Give her our love and say there we are — all ready.”
Then, swiftly, looking neither to left nor right, she returned to Adrian. The message repeated, they walked on.
“Hanging in the wind,” said Adrian, “is there anything more dreadful? And how long — oh, Lord! How long? But as she says, we mustn’t worry,” and he uttered an unhappy little laugh. It began to grow dusk, and in that comfortless light, neither day nor night, the ragged ends of the streets and bridges seemed bleak and unmeaning. Twilight passed, and with the lamps form began again and contours softened.
“Dinny, my dear,” said Adrian, “I’m not fit to walk with; we’d better get back.”
“Come and dine at Michael’s then, Uncle — do!”
Adrian shook his head.
“Skeletons should not be at feasts. I don’t know how to abide myself, as your Nurse used to say, I’m sure.”
“She did not; she was Scotch. Is Ferse a Scottish name?”
“May have been originally. But Ferse came from West Sussex, somewhere in the Downs — an old family.”
“Do you think old families are queer?”
“I don’t see why. When there’s a case of queerness in an old family, it’s conspicuous of course, instead of just passing without notice. Old families are not inbred like village folk.” By instinct for what might distract him, Dinny went on:
“Do you think age in families has any points to it at all, Uncle?”
“What is age? All families are equally old, in one sense. But if you’re thinking of quality due to mating for generations within a certain caste, well, I don’t know — there’s certainly ‘good breeding’ in the sense that you’d apply it to dogs or horses, but you can get that in any favourable physical circumstances — in the dales, by the sea; wherever conditions are good. Sound stock breeds sound stock — that’s obvious. I know villages in the very North of Italy where there isn’t a person of rank, and yet not one without beauty and a look of breeding. But when you come to breeding from people with genius or those exceptional qualities which bring men to the front, I’m very doubtful whether you don’t get distortion rather than symmetry. Families with military or naval origin and tradition have the best chance, perhaps — good physique and not too much brain; but Science and the Law and Business are very distorting. No! where I think ‘old’ families may have a pull is in the more definite sense of direction their children get in growing up, a set tradition, a set objective; also perhaps to a better chance in the marriage market; and in most cases to more country life, and more encouragement to taking their own line and more practice in taking it. What’s talked of as ‘breeding’ in humans is an attribute of mind rather than of body. What one thinks and feels is mainly due to tradition, habit and education. But I’m boring you, my dear.”
“No, no, Uncle; I’m terribly interested. You believe then in the passing on of an attitude to life rather than in blood.”
“Yes, but the two are very mixed.”
“And do you think ‘oldness’ is going out and soon nothing will be handed on?”
“I wonder. Tradition is extraordinarily strong, and in this country there’s a lot of machinery to keep it alive. You see, there are such a tremendous lot of directive jobs to be done; and the people most fit for such jobs are those who, as children, have had most practice in taking their own line, been taught not to gas about themselves, and to do things because it’s their duty. It’s they, for instance, who run the Services, and they’ll go on running them, I expect. But privilege is only justified nowadays by running till you drop.”
“A good many,” said Dinny, “seem to drop first, and then do the running. Well, here we are again, at Fleur’s. Now do come in, Uncle! If Diana did want anything you’d be on the spot.”
“Very well, my dear, and bless you — you got me on a subject I often think about. Serpent!”
By pertinacious use of the telephone, Jean had discovered Hubert at ‘The Coffee House’ and learned his news. She passed Dinny and Adrian as they were coming in.
“Whither away?”
“Shan’t be long,” said Jean, and walked round the corner.
Her knowledge of London was small, and she hailed the first cab. Arriving in Eaton Square before a mansion of large and dreary appearance, she dismissed the cab and rang the bell.
“Lord Saxenden in Town?”
“Yes, my lady, but he’s not in.”
“When will he be in?”
“His lordship will be in to dinner, but —”
“Then I’ll wait.”
“Excuse me — my lady —”
“Not my lady,” said Jean, handing him a card; “but he’ll see me, all the same.”
The man struggled a moment, received a look straight between the eyes, and said:
“Will you come in here, my — Miss?”
Jean went. The little room was barren except for gilt-edged chairs of the Empire period, a chandelier, and two marble-topped console tables.
“Please give him my card the moment he comes in.”
The man seemed to rally.
“His Lordship will be pressed for time, Miss.”
“Not more than I am, don’t worry about that.” And on a gilt-edged chair she sat down. The man withdrew. With her eyes now on the darkening Square, now on a marble and gilt clock, she sat slim, trim, vigorous, interlacing the long fingers of browned hands from which she had removed her gloves. The man came in again and drew the curtains.
“You wouldn’t,” he said, “like to leave a message, Miss, or write a note?”
“Thank you, no.”
He stood a moment, looking at her as if debating whether she was armed.
“Miss Tasburgh?” he said.
“Tasborough,” answered Jean. “Lord Saxenden knows me,” and raised her eyes.
“Quite so, Miss,” said the man, hastily, and again withdrew.
The clock’s hands crept on to seven before she heard voices in the hall. A moment later the door was opened and Lord Saxenden came in with her card in his hand, and a face on which his past, present, and future seemed to agree.
“Pleasure!” he said: “A pleasure.”
Jean raised her eyes, and the thought went through her: ‘Purring stockfish.’ She extended her hand.
“It’s terribly nice of you to see me.”
“Not at all.”
“I wanted to tell you of my engagement to Hubert Cherrell — you remember his sister at the Monts’. Have you heard of this absurd request for his extradition? It’s too silly for words — the shooting was in pure self-defence — he’s got a most terrible scar he could show you at any time.”
Lord Saxenden murmured something inaudible. His eyes had become somewhat frosted.
“So you see, I wanted to ask you to put a stop to it. I know you have the power.”
“Power? Not a bit — none at all.”
Jean smiled.
“Of course you have the power. Everybody knows that. This means such a lot to me.”
“But you weren’t engaged, were you, the other night?”
“No.”
“Very sudden!”
“Aren’t all engagements sudden?” She could not perhaps realise the impact of her news on a man over fifty who had entered the room with at all events vague hopes of having made an impression on Youth; but she did realise that she was not all that he had thought her, and that he was not all that she had thought him. A wary and polite look had come over his face.
‘More hard-boiled than I imagined,’ was her reflection. And changing her tone, she said coldly: “After all, Captain Cherrell is a D.S.O. and one of you. Englishmen don’t let each other down, do they? Especially when they’ve been to the same school.”
This remarkably astute utterance, at that disillusioned moment, impressed him who had been ‘Snubby Bantham.’
“Oh!” he said: “Was he there, too?”
“Yes. And you know what a time he had on that expedition. Dinny read you some of his diary.”
The colour deepened in his face, and he said with sudden exasperation: “You young ladies seem to think I’ve nothing to do but meddle in things that don’t concern me. Extradition is a legal job.”
Jean looked up through her lashes, and the unhappy peer moved as if to duck his head.
“What can I do?” he said, gruffly. “They wouldn’t listen to me.”
“Try,” said Jean. “Some men are always listened to.”
Lord Saxenden’s eyes bulged slightly.
“You say he’s got a scar. Where?”
Jean pushed up the sleeve on her left arm.
“From here to here. He shot as the man came on again.”
“H’m!”
Looking intently at the arm, he repeated that profound remark, and there was silence, till Jean said suddenly: “Would YOU like to be extradited, Lord Saxenden?”
He made an impatient movement.
“But this is an official matter, young lady.”
Jean looked at him again.
“Is it really true that no influence is ever brought to bear on anybody about anything?”
He laughed.
“Come and lunch with me at the Piedmont Grill the day after tomorrow — no, the day after that, and I’ll let you know if I’ve been able to do anything.”
Jean knew well when to stop; never in parish meetings did she talk on. She held out her hand: “Thank you ever so. One-thirty?”
Lord Saxenden gave her an astonished nod. This young woman had a directness which appealed to one whose life was passed among public matters conspicuous for the lack of it.
“Good-bye!” she said.
“Good-bye, Miss Tasburgh; congratulations.”
“Thank you. That will depend on you, won’t it?” And before he could answer she was through the door. She walked back, her mind not in a whirl. She thought clearly and quickly, with a natural distrust of leaving things to others. She must see Hubert that very night; and, on getting in, she went at once to the telephone again and rang up ‘The Coffee House.’
“Is that you, Hubert? Jean speaking.”
“Yes, darling.”
“Come here after dinner. I must see you.”
“About nine?”
“Yes. My love to you. That’s all.” And she cut off.
She stood for a moment before going up to dress, as if to endorse that simile of ‘leopardess.’ She looked, indeed, like Youth stalking its own future — lithe, intent, not to be deviated, in Fleur’s finished and stylistic drawing-room as much at home and yet as foreign to its atmosphere as a cat might be.
Dinner, when any of the diners have cause for really serious anxiety and the others know of it, is conspicuous for avoidance of all but quick-fire conversation. Nobody touched on the Ferse topic, and Adrian left as soon as he had drunk his coffee. Dinny saw him out.
“Good-night, Uncle dear. I shall sleep with my emergency suit-case; one can always get a taxi here at a moment’s notice. Promise me not to worry.”
Adrian smiled, but he looked haggard. Jean met her coming from the door and told her the fresh news of Hubert. Her first feeling, of complete dismay, was succeeded by burning indignation.
“What utter ruffianism!”
“Yes,” said Jean. “Hubert’s coming in a minute or two and I want him to myself.”
“Take him up to Michael’s study, then. I’ll go and tell Michael. Parliament ought to know; only,” she added, “it’s not sitting. It only seems to sit when it oughtn’t to.”
Jean waited in the hall to let Hubert in. When he had gone up with her to that room whose walls were covered with the graven witticisms of the last three generations, she put him into Michael’s most comfortable chair, and sat down on his knee. Thus, with her arm round his neck, and her lips more or less to his, she stayed for some minutes.
“That’ll do,” she said, rising, and lighting cigarettes. “This extradition business isn’t going to come to anything, Hubert.”
“But suppose it does.”
“It won’t. But if it does — all the more reason for our being married at once.”
“My darling girl, I can’t possibly.”
“You must. You don’t suppose that if you WERE extradited — which is absurd — I shouldn’t go too. Of course I should, and by the same boat — married or not.”
Hubert looked at her.
“You’re a marvel,” he said, “but —”
“Oh! yes, I know. Your father, and your chivalry, and your desire to make me unhappy for my own good, and all that. I’ve seen your uncle Hilary. He’s ready to do it; he’s a padre and a man of real experience. Now, look here — we’ll tell him of this development, and if he’ll still do it, we’ll be done. We’ll go to him together tomorrow morning.”
“But —”
“But! Surely you can trust him; he strikes me as a real person.”
“He is,” said Hubert; “no one more so.”
“Very well then; that’s settled. Now you can kiss me again.” And she resumed her position on his knee. So, but for her acute sense of hearing, they would have been surprised. She was, however, examining the White Monkey on the wall, and Hubert was taking out his cigarette case, when Dinny opened the door.
“This monkey is frightfully good,” said Jean. “We’re going to be married, Dinny, in spite of this new nonsense — that is, if your Uncle Hilary still will. You can come with us to him again tomorrow morning, if you like.”
Dinny looked at Hubert, who had risen.
“She’s hopeless,” he said: “I can’t do anything with her.”
“And you can’t do anything without her. Imagine! He thought, if the worst came to the worst and he was sent out to be tried, that I shouldn’t be going too. Men really are terribly like babies. Well, Dinny?”
“I’m glad.”
“It depends on Uncle Hilary,” said Hubert; “you understand that, Jean.”
“Yes. He’s in touch with real life, and what he says shall go. Come for us at ten tomorrow. Turn your back, Dinny. I’ll give him one kiss, and then he must be off.”
Dinny turned her back.
“Now,” said Jean. They went down; and soon after, the girls went up to bed. Their rooms were next each other, and furnished with all Fleur’s taste. They talked a little, embraced and parted. Dinny dawdled over her undressing.
The quiet Square, inhabited for the most part by Members of Parliament away on holiday, had few lights in the windows of its houses; no wind stirred the dark branches of the trees; through her open window came air that had no night sweetness; and rumbling noises of the Town kept alive in her the tingling sensations of that long day.
‘I couldn’t live with Jean,’ she thought, ‘but,’ she added with the greater justice, ‘Hubert could. He needs that sort of thing.’ And she smiled wryly, mocking her sense of having been supplanted. Once in bed she lay, thinking of Adrian’s fear and dismay, of Diana, and that poor wretch, her husband — longing for her — shut off from her — shut off from everyone. In the darkness she seemed to see his eyes flickering, burning and intense; the eyes of a being that yearned to be at home, at rest, and could not be. She drew the bedclothes up to her own eyes, and over and over, for comfort, repeated to herself the nursery rhyme:
“Mary, Mary, quite contrary,
How does your garden grow?
Silver bells and cockle shells
And pretty girls all of a row!”
If you had examined Hilary Cherrell, Vicar of St. Augustine’s-inthe-Meads, in the privacy that lies behind all appearance, all spoken words, even all human gesture, you would have found that he did not really believe his faithful activity was leading anywhere. But to ‘serve’ was bred into his blood and bone, as they serve, that is, who lead and direct. As a setter dog, untrained, taken for a walk, will instantly begin to range, as a Dalmatian dog, taken out riding, will follow from the first under the heels of the horse, so was it bred into Hilary, coming of families who for generations had manned the Services, to wear himself out, leading, directing and doing things for the people round him, without conviction that in his leadership or ministrations he was more than marking the time of his own duty. In an age when doubt obscured everything and the temptation to sneer at caste and tradition was irresistible, he illustrated an ‘order’ bred to go on doing its job, not because it saw benefit to others, not because it sighted advantage to self, but because to turn tail on the job was equivalent to desertion. Hilary never dreamed of justifying his ‘order’ or explaining the servitude to which his father the diplomat, his uncle the Bishop, his brothers the soldier, the ‘curator,’ and the judge (for Lionel had just been appointed) were, in their different ways, committed. He thought of them and himself as just ‘plugging along.’ Besides, each of his activities had some specious advantage which he could point to, but which, in his heart, he suspected of being graven on paper rather than on stone.
He had dealt with a manifold correspondence when, at nine-thirty on the morning after the reappearance of Ferse, Adrian entered his somewhat threadbare study. Among Adrian’s numerous male friends Hilary alone understood and appreciated his brother’s feelings and position. There were but two years between them in age, they had been fast chums as boys; were both mountaineers, accustomed in pre-war days to each other’s company in awkward ascents and descents still more awkward; had both been to the war, Hilary as Padre in France, Adrian, who spoke Arabic, on liaison work in the East; and they had very different temperaments, always an advantage to abiding comradeship. There was no need of spiritual discovery between them, and they went at once into Committee of Ways and Means.
“Any news this morning?” asked Hilary.
“Dinny reports all quiet; but sooner or later the strain of being in the same house is bound to break down his control. For the moment the feeling of being home and free may be enough; but I don’t give that more than a week. I’m going down to the Home, but they’ll know no more than we.”
“Forgive me, old man, but normal life with her would be best.”
Adrian’s face quivered.
“It’s beyond human power, Hilary. There’s something about such a relationship too cruel for words. It shouldn’t be asked of a woman.”
“Unless the poor fellow’s going to stay sane.”
“The decision’s not for you, or me, or him — it’s for her; it’s more than anyone ought to have to bear. Don’t forget what she went through before he went into the Home. He ought to be got out of the house, Hilary.”
“It would be simpler if she took asylum.”
“Who would give it her, except myself, and that would send him over the edge again for a certainty.”
“If she could put up with the conditions here, we could take her,” said Hilary.
“But the children?”
“We could squeeze them in. But to leave him alone and idle wouldn’t help him to stay sane. Could he do any work?”
“I don’t suppose he could. Four years of that would rot any man. And who’d give him a job? If I could get him to come to me!”
“Dinny and that other young woman said that he looks and talks all right.”
“In a way he does. Those people down there may have some suggestion.”
Hilary took his brother’s arm.
“Old boy, it’s ghastly for you. But ten to one it won’t be so bad as we think. I’ll talk to May, and if, after you’ve seen those people, you think asylum here is the best thing for Diana — offer it.”
Adrian pressed the hand within his arm.
“I’ll get off now and catch my train.”
Left to himself Hilary stood frowning. He had seen in his time so much of the inscrutability of Providence that he had given up classing it as benevolent even in his sermons. On the other hand he had seen many people by sheer tenacity defeat many misfortunes, and many other people, defeated by their misfortunes, live well enough on them afterwards; he was convinced, therefore, that misery was over-rated, and that what was lost was usually won. The thing was to keep going and not worry. At this moment he received his second visitor, the girl Millicent Pole, who, though acquitted, had lost her job at Petter and Poplin’s; notoriety not being dispelled by legal innocence.
She came, by appointment, in a neat blue dress, and all her money, as it were, in her stockings, and stood waiting to be catechised.
“Well, Millie, how’s your sister?”
“She went back yesterday, Mr. Cherrell.”
“Was she fit to go?”
“I don’t think so, but she said if she didn’t, she’d likely lose her job, too.”
“I don’t see that.”
“She said if she stayed away any longer they’d think we was in THAT together.”
“Well, and what about YOU? Would you like to go into the country?”
“Oh, no.”
Hilary contemplated her. A pretty girl, with a pretty figure and ankles, and an easy-going mouth; it looked to him, frankly, as if she ought to be married.
“Got a young man, Millie?”
The girl smiled.
“Not very special, Sir.”
“Not special enough to get married?”
“He don’t want to, so far as I can see.”
“Do you?”
“I’m not in a hurry.”
“Well, have you any views?”
“I’d like — well, I’d like to be a mannykin.”
“I daresay. Have Petters given you a reference?”
“Yes, and they said they were sorry I had to go; but being so much in the papers the other girls —”
“Yes. Now Millie, you got yourself into that scrape, you know. I stood up for you because you were hard pressed, but I’m not blind. You’ve got to promise me that you won’t do that again; it’s the first step to blue ruin.”
The girl made just the answer he expected — none.
“I’m going to turn you over to my wife now. Consult with her, and if you can’t get a job like your old one, we might give you some quick training, and get you a post as a waitress. How would that suit you?”
“I wouldn’t mind that.”
She gave him a look half-shy, half-smiling; and Hilary thought: ‘Faces like that ought to be endowed by the State; there’s no other way to keep them safe.’
“Shake hands, Millie, and remember what I said. Your mother and father were friends of mine, and you’re going to remain a credit to them.”
“Yes, Mr. Cherrell.”
‘You bet!’ thought Hilary, and led her into the dining-room opposite, where his wife was working a typing machine. Back in his study he pulled out a drawer of his bureau and prepared to wrestle with accounts, for if there were a place where money was of more importance than in this slum centre of a Christendom whose religion scorns money, Hilary had yet to meet with it.
‘The lilies of the field,’ he thought, ‘toil not, neither do they spin, but they beg all right. How the deuce am I going to get enough to keep the Institute going over the year?’ The problem had not been solved when the maid said:
“Captain and Miss Cherrell, and Miss Tasburgh.”
‘Phew!’ he thought: ‘THEY don’t let grass grow.’
He had not seen his nephew since his return from the Hallorsen Expedition, and was struck by the darkened and aged look of his face.
“Congratulations, old man,” he said. “I heard something of your aspiration, yesterday.”
“Uncle,” said Dinny, “prepare for the role of Solomon.”
“Solomon’s reputation for wisdom, my irreverent niece, is perhaps the thinnest in history. Consider the number of his wives. Well?”
“Uncle Hilary,” said Hubert: “I’ve had news that a warrant may be issued for my extradition, over that muleteer I shot. Jean wants the marriage at once in spite of that —”
“Because of that,” put in Jean.
“I say it’s too chancey altogether; and not fair to her. But we agreed to put it to you, and abide by your judgment.”
“Thank you,” murmured Hilary; “and why to me?”
“Because,” said Dinny, “you have to make more decisions-while-they-wait than anybody, except police magistrates.”
Hilary grimaced. “With your knowledge of Scripture, Dinny, you might have remembered the camel and the last straw. However —!” And he looked from Jean to Hubert and back again.
“Nothing can possibly be gained by waiting,” said Jean; “because if they took him I should go out too, anyway.”
“You would?”
“Of course.”
“Could you prevent that, Hubert?”
“No, I don’t suppose I could.”
“Am I dealing, young people, with a case of love at first sight?”
Neither of them answered, but Dinny said:
“Very much so; I could see it from the croquet lawn at Lippinghall.”
Hilary nodded. “Well, that’s not against you; it happened to me and I’ve never regretted it. Is your extradition really likely, Hubert?”
“No,” said Jean.
“Hubert?”
“I don’t know; Father’s worried, but various people are doing their best. I’ve got this scar, you know,” and he drew up his sleeve.
Hilary nodded. “That’s a mercy.”
Hubert grinned. “It wasn’t at the time, in that climate, I can tell you.”
“Have you got the licence?”
“Not yet.”
“Get it, then. I’ll turn you off.”
“Really?”
“Yes, I may be wrong, but I don’t think so.”
“You aren’t.” And Jean seized his hand. “Will tomorrow at two o’clock be all right for you, Mr. Cherrell?”
“Let me look at my book.” He looked at it and nodded.
“Splendid!” cried Jean. “Now Hubert, you and I will go and get it.”
“I’m frightfully obliged to you, Uncle,” said Hubert; “if you really think it’s not rotten of me.”
“My dear boy,” said Hilary, “when you take up with a young woman like Jean here, you must expect this sort of thing. Au revoir, and God bless you both!”
When they had gone out, he turned to Dinny: “I’m much touched, Dinny. That was a charming compliment. Who thought of it?”
“Jean.”
“Then she’s either a very good or a very bad judge of character. I wonder which. That was quick work. It was ten five when you came in, it’s now ten fourteen; I don’t know when I’ve disposed of two lives in a shorter time. There’s nothing wrong about the Tasburghs, is there?”
“No, they seem rather sudden, that’s all.”
“On the whole,” said Hilary, “I like them sudden. It generally means sand.”
“The Zeebrugge touch.”
“Ah! Yes, there’s a sailor brother, isn’t there?”
Dinny’s eyelids fluttered.
“Has he laid himself alongside yet?”
“Several times.”
“And?”
“I’M not sudden, Uncle.”
“Backer and filler?”
“Especially backer.”
Hilary smiled affectionately at his favourite niece: “Blue eye true eye. I’ll marry you off yet, Dinny. Excuse me now, I have to see a man who’s in trouble with the hire-purchase system. He’s got in and he can’t get out — goes swimming about like a dog in a pond with a high bank. By the way, the girl you saw in Court the other day is in there with your Aunt. Like another look at her? She is, I fear, what we call an insoluble problem, which being interpreted means a bit of human nature. Have a shot at solving her.”
“I should love to, but she wouldn’t.”
“I don’t know that. As young woman to young woman you might get quite a lot of change out of her, and most of it bad, I shouldn’t wonder. That,” he added, “is cynical. Cynicism’s a relief.”
“It must be, Uncle.”
“It’s where the Roman Catholics have a pull over us. Well, good-bye, my dear. See you tomorrow at the execution.”
Locking up his accounts, Hilary followed her into the hall; opening the door of the dining-room, he said: “My Love, here’s Dinny! I’ll be back to lunch,” and went out, hatless.
Towards South Square, where Fleur was to be asked to give another reference, the girls left the Vicarage together.
“I’m afraid,” said Dinny, overcoming her shyness, “that I should want to take it out of somebody, if I were you. I can’t see why you should have lost your place.” She could see the girl scrutinizing her askance, as if trying to make up her mind whether or no to say what was in it.
“I got meself talked about,” she said, at last.
“Yes, I happened to come into the Court the day you were acquitted. I thought it brutal to make you stand there.”
“I reely did speak to a man,” said the girl, surprisingly, “I wouldn’t tell Mr. Cherrell, but I did. I was just fed-up with wanting money. D’you think it was bad of me?”
“Well, personally, I should have to want more than money before I did it.”
“You never have wanted money — not reely.”
“I suppose you’re right, although I’ve never had much.”
“It’s better than stealin’,” said the girl, grimly: “after all, what is it? You can forget about it. At least, that’s what I thought. Nobody thinks the worse of a man or does anything to him for it. But you won’t tell Mrs. Mont what I’m telling you?’
“Of course not. Had things been going very badly?”
“Shockin’. Me and my sister make just enough when we’re in full work. But she was ill five weeks, and on the top of that I lost my purse one day, with thirty bob in it. That wasn’t my fault, anyway.”
“Wretched luck.”
“Rotten! If I’d been a reel one d’you think they’d have spotted me — it was just my being green. I bet girls in high life have no trouble that way when they’re hard up.”
“Well,” said Dinny, “I suppose there are girls not above helping out their incomes in all sorts of ways. All the same, I think that kind of thing ought only to go with affection; but I expect I’m old-fashioned.”
The girl turned another long and this time almost admiring look on her.
“You’re a lady, Miss. I must say I should like to be one meself, but what you’re born you stay.”
Dinny wriggled. “Oh! Bother that word! The best ladies I’ve known are old cottage women in the country.”
“Reely?”
“Yes. And I think some of the girls in London shops are the equal of anyone.”
“Well, there is some awful nice girls, I must say. My sister is much better than me. She’d never ‘ave done a thing like that. Your uncle said something I shall remember, but I can’t never depend on meself. I’m one to like pleasure if I can get it; and why not?”
“The point is rather: What is pleasure? A casual man can’t possibly be pleasure. He’d be the very opposite.”
The girl nodded.
“That’s true enough. But when you’re bein’ chivied about for want of money you’re willin’ to put up with things you wouldn’t otherwise. You take my word for that.”
It was Dinny’s turn to nod.
“My uncle’s a nice man, don’t you think?”
“He’s a gentleman — never comes religion over you. And he’ll always put his hand in his pocket, if there’s anything there.”
“That’s not often, I should think,” said Dinny; “my family is pretty poor.”
“It isn’t money makes the gentleman.”
Dinny heard the remark without enthusiasm; she seemed, indeed, to have heard it before. “We’d better take a ‘bus now,” she said.
The day was sunny, and they got on the top. “D’you like this new Regent Street?” asked Dinny.
“Oh yes! I think it’s fine.”
“Didn’t you like the old street better?”
“No. It was so dull and yellow, and all the same.”
“But unlike any other street, and the regularity suited the curve.”
The girl seemed to perceive that a question of taste was concerned; she hesitated, then said assertively:
“It’s much brighter now, I think. Things seem to move more — not so formal-like.”
“Ah!”
“I do like the top of a ‘bus,” continued the girl; “you can see such a lot. Life does go on, don’t it?”
In the girl’s cockney-fied voice, those words hit Dinny a sort of blow. What was her own life but a cut-and-dried affair? What risks or adventure did it contain? Life for people who depended on their jobs was vastly more adventurous. Her own job so far had been to have no job. And, thinking of Jean, she said: “I’m afraid I live a very humdrum life. I always seem to be waiting for things.”
The girl again stole a sideway look.
“Why, you must have lots of fun, pretty like you are!”
“Pretty? My nose turns up.”
“Ah! but you’ve got style. Style’s everything. I always think you may have looks, but it’s style that gets you there.”
“I’d rather have looks.”
“Oh! no. Anyone can be a good-looker.”
“But not many are,” and with a glance at the girl’s profile Dinny added: “You’re lucky, yourself.”
The girl bridled.
“I told Mr. Cherrell I’d like to be a mannykin, but he didn’t seem to fall for it.”
“I’m afraid I think that of all inane pursuits that’s the worst. Dressing up for a lot of disgruntled women!”
“Someone’s got to do it,” said the girl, defiantly; “I like wearing clothes meself. But you need interest to get a thing like that. Perhaps Mrs. Mont’ll speak for me. My! Wouldn’t you make a mannykin, with your style, Miss, and slim.”
Dinny laughed. The ‘bus had halted at the Westminster end of Whitehall.
“We get off here. Ever been in Westminster Abbey?”
“No.”
“Perhaps you’d like a look before they pull it down and put up flats or a Cinema.”
“Are they reely goin’ to?”
“I fancy it’s only in the back of their minds so far. At present they talk about restoring it.”
“It’s a big place,” said the girl, but under the walls a silence fell on her, which remained unbroken when they passed within. Dinny watched her, as with chin uplifted she contemplated the statue to Chatham and its neighbour.
“Who’s the old beaver with no clothes on?”
“Neptune. He’s a symbol. Britannia rules the waves, you know.”
“Oh!” And they moved on till the full proportions of the old Museum were better disclosed.
“My! Isn’t it full of things?”
“It IS rather an Old Curiosity Shop. They’ve got all English history here, you know.”
“It’s awful dark. The pillars look dirty, don’t they?”
“Shall we just have a look at the Poets’ Corner?” said Dinny.
“What’s that?”
“Where they bury great writers.”
“Because they wrote rhymes?” said the girl. “Isn’t that funny?”
Dinny did not answer. She knew some of the rhymes and was uncertain. Having scrutinized a number of effigies and names which had for her a certain limited interest, and for the girl apparently none, they moved slowly down the aisle to where between two red wreaths lay the black and gold tablet to the Unknown Warrior.
“I wonder whether ‘e knows,” said the girl, “but I shouldn’t think ‘e cares, anyway; nobody knows ‘is name, so ‘e gets nothin’ out of it.”
“No. It’s we who get something out of it,” said Dinny, feeling the sensation in her throat with which the world rewards the Unknown Warrior.
Out in the street again the girl asked suddenly:
“Are you religious, Miss?”
“In a sort of way, I think,” said Dinny, doubtingly.
“I never was taught any — Dad and Mother liked Mr. Cherrell, but they thought it was a mistake; my Dad was a Socialist, you see, and he used to say religion was part of the capitalist system. Of course we don’t go to Church, in our class. We haven’t time, for one thing. You’ve got to keep so still in Church, too. I must say I like more movement. And then, if there’s a God, why is he called He? It puts me against Him, I know. Callin’ God He gets girls treated as they are, I think. Since my case I’ve thought about that a good deal after what the Court missionary said. A he can’t get on with creation without a she, anyway.”
Dinny stared.
“You should have said that to my uncle. It’s quite a thought.”
“They say women are the equal of men now,” the girl went on, “but they aren’t, you know. There wasn’t a girl at my place that wasn’t scared of the boss. Where the money is, there’s the power. And all the magistrates and judges and clergy are he’s, and all the generals. They’ve got the whip, you see, and yet they can’t do nothin’ without us; and if I was Woman as a whole, I’d show ’em.”
Dinny was silent. This girl was bitter from her experience, no doubt, but there was truth behind what she was saying. The Creator was bi-sexual, or the whole process would have ended at the start. In that was a primal equality, which she had never before quite realised. If the girl had been of her own order she would have answered, but it was impossible to be unreserved with her; and feeling herself snobbish, she fell back on irony.
“Some rebel! — as the Americans would say!”
“Of course I’m a rebel,” said the girl, “after that.”
“Well, here we are at Mrs. Mont’s. I’ve got one or two things to see to, so I’ll leave you with her. I hope we shall meet again.” She held out her hand, the girl took it and said simply: “I’ve enjoyed it.”
“So have I. Good luck!”
Leaving her in the hall, Dinny walked towards Oakley Street, and her mood was that of one who has failed to go as far as she has wished. She had touched on the uncharted, and recoiled. Her thoughts and feelings were like the twittering of Spring birds who have not yet shaped out their songs. That girl had roused in her some queer desire to be at grips with Life, without supplying the slightest notion of how to do it. It would be a relief even to be in love. How nice to know one’s mind, as Jean and Hubert seemed at once to have known it; as Hallorsen and Alan Tasburgh had declared they knew it. Existence seemed like a Shadow Show rather than Reality. And, greatly dissatisfied, she leaned her elbows on the river parapet, above the tide that was flowing up. Religious? In a sort of way. But what way? A passage in Hubert’s diary came back to her. “Anyone who believes he’s going to Heaven has a pull on chaps like me. He’s got a pension dangled.” Was religion belief in reward? If so, it seemed vulgar. Belief in goodness for the sake of goodness, because goodness was beautiful, like a perfect flower, a starry night, a lovely tune! Uncle Hilary did a difficult job well for the sake of doing it well. Was he religious? She must ask him. A voice at her side said:
“Dinny!”
She turned with a start, to see Alan Tasburgh standing there with a broad grin on his face.
“I went to Oakley Street to ask for you and Jean; they told me you were at the Monts’. I was on my way there, and here you are, stupendous luck!”
“I was wondering,” said Dinny, “whether I’m religious.”
“How queer! So was I!”
“D’you mean whether YOU were or whether I was?”
“As a matter of fact I look on us as one person.”
“Do you? Well, is one religious?”
“At a pinch.”
“Did you hear the news at Oakley Street?”
“No.”
“Captain Ferse is back there.”
“Cripes!”
“Precisely what everybody is saying! Did you see Diana?”
“No; only the maid — seemed a bit flustered. Is the poor chap still cracked?”
“No; but it’s awful for Diana.”
“She ought to be got away.”
“I’m going to stay there,” said Dinny, suddenly, “if she’ll have me.”
“I don’t like the idea of that.”
“I daresay not; but I’m going to.”
“Why? You don’t know her so very well.”
“I’m sick of scrimshanking.”
Young Tasburgh stared.
“I don’t understand.”
“The sheltered life has not come your way. I want to begin to earn my corn.”
“Then marry me.”
“Really, Alan, I never met anyone with so few ideas.”
“Better to have good ideas than many.”
Dinny walked on. “I’m going to Oakley Street now.”
They went along in silence till young Tasburgh said gravely:
“What’s biting you, my very dear?”
“My own nature; it doesn’t seem able to make trouble enough for me.”
“I could do that for you perfectly.”
“I am serious, Alan.”
“That’s good. Until you are serious you will never marry me. But why do you want to be bitten?”
Dinny shrugged. “I seem to have an attack of Longfellow: ‘Life is real, life is earnest’; I suppose you can’t realise that being a daughter in the country doesn’t amount to very much.”
“I won’t say what I was going to say.”
“Oh, do!”
“That’s easily cured. Become a mother in a town.”
“This is where they used to blush,” sighed Dinny. “I don’t want to turn everything into a joke, but it seems I do.”
Young Tasburgh slipped his hand through her arm.
“If you can turn being the wife of a sailor into a joke, you will be the first.”
Dinny smiled. “I’m not going to marry anyone till it hurts not to. I know myself well enough for that.”
“All right, Dinny; I won’t worry you.”
They moved on in silence; at the corner of Oakley Street she stopped.
“Now, Alan, don’t come any further.”
“I shall turn up at the Monts’ this evening and discover what’s happened to you. And if you want anything done — mind, anything — about Ferse, you’ve only to ‘phone me at the Club. Here’s the number.” He pencilled it on a card and handed it to her.
“Shall you be at Jean’s wedding tomorrow?”
“Sure thing! I give her away. I only wish —”
“Good-bye!” said Dinny.
She had parted from the young man lightly, but she stood on the doorstep with nerves taut as fiddlestrings. Never having come into contact with mental trouble, her thought of it was the more scaring. The same elderly maid admitted her. Mrs. Ferse was with Captain Ferse, and would Miss Cherrell come up to the drawing-room? Where Jean had been locked in Dinny waited some time. Sheila came in, said: “Hallo! Are you waiting for Muvver?” and went out again. When Diana did appear her face wore an expression as if she were trying to collect the evidence of her own feelings.
“Forgive me, my dear, I was going through papers. I’m trying my best to treat him as if nothing had happened.” Dinny went up to her and stood stroking her arm.
“But it can’t last, Dinny; it won’t last. I can see it won’t last.”
“Let me come and stay. You can put it that it was arranged before.”
“But, Dinny, it may be rather horrible. I don’t know what to do with him. He dreads going out, or meeting people. And yet he won’t hear of going away where nobody knows; and he won’t see a doctor, or take any advice. He won’t see anyone.”
“He’ll see me, and that’ll accustom him. I expect it’s only the first few days. Shall I go off now and get my things?”
“If you ARE going to be an angel, do!”
“I’ll let Uncle Adrian know before I come back; he went down to the Home this morning.”
Diana crossed to the window and stood there with her back to Dinny. Suddenly she turned:
“I’ve made up my mind, Dinny: I won’t let him down in any way. If there’s anything I can do to give him a chance, I’m going to do it.”
“Bless you!” said Dinny. “I’ll help!” And, not trusting either Diana or herself further, she went out and down the stairs. Outside, in passing the dining-room window, she was again conscious of a face with eyes, burningly alive, watching her go by. A feeling of tragic unfairness was with her all the way back to South Square.
Fleur said at lunch:
“It’s no good fashing yourself till something happens, Dinny. It’s lucky that Adrian’s been such a saint. But this is a very good instance of how little the Law can help. Suppose Diana could have got free, it wouldn’t have prevented Ferse coming straight back to her, or her feeling about him as she does. The Law can’t touch the human side of anything. Is Diana in love with Adrian?”
“I don’t think so.”
“Are you sure?”
“No, I’m not. I find it difficult enough to know what goes on inside myself.”
“Which reminds me that your American rang up. He wants to call.”
“Well, he can. But I shall be at Oakley Street.”
Fleur gave her a shrewd look.
“Am I to back the sailor, then?”
“No. Put your money on Old Maid.”
“My dear! Unthinkable!”
“I don’t see what one gains by marriage.”
Fleur answered with a little hard smile:
“We can’t stand still, you know, Dinny. At least, we don’t; it’s too dull.”
“You’re modern, Fleur; I’m medi?val.”
“Well, you ARE rather early Italian in face. But the early Italians never escaped. Entertain no flattering hopes. Sooner or later you’ll be fed up with yourself, and then!”
Dinny looked at her, startled by this flash of discernment in her disillusioned cousin-inlaw.
“What have YOU gained, Fleur?”
“I at least am the complete woman, my dear,” Fleur answered, drily.
“Children, you mean?”
“They are possible without marriage, or so I am told, but improbable. For you, Dinny, impossible; you’re controlled by an ancestral complex, really old families have an inherited tendency towards legitimacy. Without it they can’t be really old, you see.”
Dinny wrinkled her forehead.
“I never thought of it before, but I SHOULD strongly object to having an illegitimate child. By the way, did you give that girl a reference?”
“Yes. I don’t see at all why she shouldn’t be a mannequin. She’s narrow enough. I give the boyish figure another year, at least. After that, mark my words, skirts will lengthen, and we shall go in for curves again.”
“Rather degrading, isn’t it?”
“How?”
“Chopping and changing shape and hair and all that.”
“Good for trade. We consent to be in the hands of men in order that they may be in ours. Philosophy of vamping.”
“That girl won’t have much chance of keeping straight as a mannequin, will she?”
“More, I should say. She might even marry. But I always refuse to worry about my neighbour’s morals. I suppose you have to keep up the pretence at Condaford, having been there since the Conquest. By the way, has your father made provision against Death Duties?”
“He’s not old, Fleur.”
“No, but people do die. Has he got anything besides the estate?”
“Only his pension.”
“Is there plenty of timber?”
“I loathe the idea of cutting down trees. Two hundred years of shape and energy all gone in half an hour. It’s revolting.”
“My dear, there’s generally nothing else for it, except selling, and clearing out.”
“We shall manage somehow,” said Dinny shortly; “we’d never let Condaford go.”
“Don’t forget Jean.”
Dinny sat up very straight.
“She’d never, either. The Tasburghs are just as old as we are.”
“Admitted; but that’s a young woman of infinite variety and go. She’ll never vegetate.”
“Condaford is not vegetation.”
“Don’t get ruffled, Dinny; I’m only thinking for the best. I don’t want to see you outed, any more than I want Kit to lose Lippinghall. Michael is thoroughly unsound. He says that if he’s one of the country’s roots he’s sorry for the country, which is silly of course. No one,” added Fleur, with a sudden queer depth, “will ever know from me what pure gold Michael is.” Then, seeming to notice Dinny’s surprised eyes, she added: “So, I can wash out the American?”
“You can. Three thousand miles between me and Condaford — no, Ma’am!”
“Then I think you should put the poor brute out of his misery, for he confided to me that you were what he called his ‘ideal.’”
“Not that again!” cried Dinny.
“Yes, indeed; and he further said that he was crazy about you.”
“That means nothing.”
“From a man who goes to the ends of the earth to discover the roots of civilisation it probably does. Most people would go to the ends of the earth to avoid discovering them.”
“The moment this thing of Hubert’s is over,” said Dinny, “I will put an end to him.”
“I think you’ll have to take the veil to do it. You’ll look very nice in the veil, Dinny, walking down the village aisle with the sailor, in a feudal atmosphere, to a German tune. May I be there to see!”
“I’m not going to marry anyone.”
“Well, in the meantime shall we ring up Adrian?”
From Adrian’s rooms came the message that he was expected back at four o’clock. He was asked to come on to South Square, and Dinny went up to put her things together. Coming down again at half past three, she saw on the coat ‘sarcophagus’ a hat whose brim she seemed to recognize. She was slinking back towards the stairs when a voice said:
“Why! This is fine! I was scared I’d missed you.”
Dinny gave him her hand, and together they entered Fleur’s ‘parlour’; where, among the Louis Quinze furniture, he seemed absurdly male.
“I wanted to tell you, Miss Cherrell, what I’ve done about your brother. I’ve fixed it for our Consul in La Paz to get that boy Manuel to cable his sworn testimony that the Captain was attacked with a knife. If your folk here are anyway sensible, that should clear him. This fool game’s got to stop if I have to go back to Bolivia myself.”
“Thank you ever so, Professor.”
“Why! There’s nothing I wouldn’t do for your brother, now. I’ve come to like him as if he were my own.”
Those ominous words had a large simplicity, a generous warmth, which caused her to feel small and thin.
“You aren’t looking all that well,” he said, suddenly. “If there’s anything worrying you, tell me and I’ll fix it.”
Dinny told him of Ferse’s return.
“That lovely lady! Too bad! But maybe she’s fond of him, so it’ll be a relief to her mind after a time.”
“I am going to stay with her.”
“That’s bully of you! Is this Captain Ferse dangerous?”
“We don’t know yet.”
He put his hand into a hip pocket and brought out a tiny automatic.
“Put that in your bag. It’s the smallest made. I bought it for this country, seeing you don’t go about with guns here.”
Dinny laughed.
“Thank you, Professor, but it would only go off in the wrong place. And, even if there were danger, it wouldn’t be fair.”
“That’s so! It didn’t occur to me, but that’s so. A man afflicted that way has every consideration due to him. But I don’t like to think of you going into danger.”
Remembering Fleur’s exhortation, Dinny said hardily:
“Why not?”
“Because you are very precious to me.”
“That’s frightfully nice of you; but I think you ought to know, Professor, that I’m not in the market.”
“Surely every woman’s in the market till she marries.”
“Some think that’s when she begins to be.”
“Well,” said Hallorsen gravely, “I’ve no use for adultery myself. I want a straight deal in sex as in everything else.”
“I hope you will get it.”
He drew himself up. “And I want it from you. I have the honour to ask you to become Mrs. Hallorsen, and please don’t say ‘No’ right away.”
“If you want a straight deal, Professor, I must.”
She saw his blue eyes film as if with pain, and felt sorry. He came a little closer, looking, as it seemed to her, enormous, and she gave a shiver.
“Is it my nationality?”
“I don’t know what it is.”
“Or the grouch you had against me over your brother?”
“I don’t know.”
“Can’t I hope?”
“No. I am flattered, and grateful, believe me. But no.”
“Pardon me! Is there another man?”
Dinny shook her head.
Hallorsen stood very still; his face wore a puzzled expression, then cleared suddenly.
“I judge,” he said, “I haven’t done enough for you. I’ll have to serve a bit.”
“I’m not worth service. It’s simply that I don’t feel like that towards you.”
“I have clean hands and a clean heart.”
“I’m sure you have; I admire you, Professor, but I should never love you.”
Hallorsen drew back again to his original distance, as if distrusting his impulses. He gave her a grave bow. He looked really splendid standing there, full of simple dignity. There was a long silence, then he said:
“Well, I judge there’s no use crying over spilt milk. Command me in any way. I am your very faithful servant.” And, turning round, he went out.
Dinny heard the front door close with a slight choke in her throat. She felt pain at having caused him pain, but relief, too, the relief one feels when something very large, simple, primitive — the sea, a thunderstorm, a bull — is no longer imminent. In front of one of Fleur’s mirrors she stood despitefully, as though she had just discovered the over-refinement of her nerves. How could that great handsome, healthy creature care for one so spindly and rarefied as she looked reflected there? He could snap her off with his hands. Was that why she recoiled? The great open spaces of which he seemed a part, with his height, strength, colour, and the boom of his voice! Funny, silly perhaps — but very real recoil! She belonged where she belonged — not to such as them, to such as him. About such juxtapositions there was even something comic. She was still standing there with a wry smile when Adrian was ushered in.
She turned to him impulsively. Sallow and worn and lined, subtle, gentle, harassed, no greater contrast could have appeared, not any that could have better soothed her jangled nerves. Kissing him, she said:
“I waited to see you before going to stay at Diana’s!”
“You ARE going, Dinny?”
“Yes. I don’t believe you’ve had lunch or tea or anything,” and she rang the bell. “Coaker, Mr. Adrian would like —”
“A brandy and soda, Coaker, thank you!”
“Now, Uncle?” she said, when he had drunk it.
“I’m afraid, Dinny, one can’t set much store by what they say down there. According to them Ferse ought to go back. But why he should, so long as he acts sanely, I don’t know. They query the idea of his recovery, but they can bring nothing abnormal against him for some weeks past. I got hold of his personal attendant and questioned him. He seems a decent chap, and he thinks Ferse at the moment is as sane as himself. But — and the whole trouble lies there — he says he was like this once before for three weeks, and suddenly lapsed again. If anything really upsets him — opposition or what not — he thinks Ferse will be just as bad again as ever, perhaps worse. It’s a really terrible position.”
“When he’s in mania is he violent?”
“Yes; a kind of gloomy violence, more against himself than anyone else.”
“They’re not going to do anything to get him back?”
“They can’t. He went there voluntarily; I told you he hasn’t been certified. How is Diana?”
“She looks tired, but lovely. She says she is going to do everything she can to give him a chance.”
Adrian nodded.
“That’s like her; she has wonderful pluck. And so have you, my dear. It’s a great comfort to know you’ll be with her. Hilary is ready to take Diana and the children if she’d go, but she won’t, you say.”
“Not at present, I’m sure.”
Adrian sighed.
“Well, we must chance it.”
“Oh! Uncle,” said Dinny. “I AM so sorry for you.”
“My dear, what happens to the fifth wheel doesn’t matter so long as the car runs. Don’t let me keep you. You can get at me any time either at the Museum or my rooms. Good-bye and bless you! My love to her, and tell her all I’ve told you.”
Dinny kissed him again, and soon after in a cab set forth with her things to Oakley Street.
Bobbie Ferrar had one of those faces which look on tempests and are never shaken; in other words, he was an ideal permanent official — so permanent that one could not conceive of the Foreign Office functioning without him. Secretaries of State might come, might go, Bobbie Ferrar remained, bland, inscrutable, and with lovely teeth. Nobody knew whether there was anything in him except an incalculable number of secrets. Of an age which refused to declare itself, short and square, with a deep soft voice, he had an appearance of complete detachment. In a dark suit with a little light line, and wearing a flower, he existed in a large ante-room wherein was almost nothing except those who came to see the Foreign Minister and instead saw Bobbie Ferrar. In fact the perfect buffer. His weakness was criminology. No murder trial of importance ever took place without the appearance, if only for half-an-hour, of Bobbie Ferrar in a seat more or less kept for him. And he preserved the records of all those trials in a specially bound edition. Perhaps the greatest testimony to his character, whatever that might be, lay in the fact that no one ever threw his acquaintanceship with nearly everybody up against him. People came to Bobbie Ferrar, not he to them. Yet why? What had he ever done that he should be ‘Bobbie’ Ferrar to all and sundry? Not even ‘the honourable,’ merely the son of a courtesy lord, affable, unfathomable, always about, he was unquestionably a last word. Without him, his flower, and his faint grin, Whitehall would have been shorn of something that made it almost human. He had been there since before the war, from which he had been retrieved just in time, some said, to prevent the whole place from losing its character, just in time, too, to stand, as it were, between England and herself. She could not become the shrill edgy hurried harridan the war had tried to make her while his square, leisurely, beflowered, inscrutable figure passed daily up and down between those pale considerable buildings.
He was turning over a Bulb Catalogue, on the morning of Hubert’s wedding day, when the card of Sir Lawrence Mont was brought to him, followed by its owner, who said at once:
“You know what I’ve come about, Bobbie?”
“Completely,” said Bobbie Ferrar, his eyes round, his head thrown back, his voice deep.
“Has the Marquess seen you?”
“I had breakfast with him yesterday. Isn’t he amazing?”
“Our finest old boy,” said Sir Lawrence. “What are you going to do about it? Old Sir Conway Cherrell was the best Ambassador to Spain you ever turned out of the shop, and this is his grandson.”
“Has he really got a scar?” asked Bobbie Ferrar, through a faint grin.
“Of course he has.”
“Did he really get it over that?”
“Sceptical image! Of course he did.”
“Amazing!”
“Why?”
Bobbie Ferrar showed his teeth. “Who can prove it?”
“Hallorsen is getting evidence.”
“It’s not in our department, you know.”
“No? But you can get at the Home Secretary.”
“Um!” said Bobbie Ferrar, deeply.
“You can see the Bolivians about it, anyway.”
“Um!” said Bobbie Ferrar still more deeply, and handed him the catalogue. “Do you know this new tulip? Complete, isn’t it?”
“Now, look you, Bobbie,” said Sir Lawrence, “this is my nephew; emphatically a ‘good egg,’ as you say, and it won’t do! See!”
“The age is democratic,” said Bobbie Ferrar cryptically; “it came up in the House, didn’t it — flogging?”
“We can pull out the national stop if there’s any more fuss there. Hallorsen has taken back his criticism. Well, I’ll leave it to you; you won’t commit yourself if I stay here all the morning. But you’ll do your best because it really is a scandalous charge.”
“Completely,” said Bobbie Ferrar. “Would you like to see the Croydon murder trial? It’s amazing. I’ve got two seats; I offered one to my Uncle. But he won’t go to any trial until they bring in electrocution.”
“Did the fellow do it?”
Bobbie Ferrar nodded.
“The evidence is very shaky,” he added.
“Well, good-bye, Bobbie; I rely on you.”
Bobbie Ferrar grinned faintly, and held out his hand.
“Good-bye,” he said, through his teeth.
Sir Lawrence went westward to the Coffee House where the porter handed him a telegram: “Am marrying Jean Tasburgh two o’clock today St. Augustine’s-inthe-Meads delighted to see you and Aunt Em Hubert.”
Passing into the coffee-room, Sir Lawrence said to the Chief Steward: “Butts, I am about to see a nephew turned off. Fortify me quickly.”
Twenty minutes later he was on his way to St. Augustine’s, in a cab. He arrived a few minutes before two o’clock and met Dinny going up the steps.
“You look pale and interesting, Dinny.”
“I AM pale and interesting, Uncle Lawrence.”
“This proceeding appears to be somewhat sudden.”
“That’s Jean. I’m feeling terribly responsible. I found her for him, you see.”
They entered the church and moved up to the front pews. Apart from the General, Lady Cherrell, Mrs. Hilary and Hubert there was no one except two sightseers and a verger. Someone’s fingers were wandering on the organ. Sir Lawrence and Dinny took a pew to themselves.
“I’m not sorry Em isn’t here,” he whispered; “she still gives way. When you marry, Dinny, have ‘No tears by request’ on your invitation cards. What is it produces moisture at weddings? Even bailiffs weep.”
“It’s the veil,” said Dinny; “nobody will cry today because there is none. Look! Fleur and Michael!”
Sir Lawrence turned his monocle on them as they came up the aisle.
“Eight years since we saw them married. Take it all round, they haven’t done so badly.”
“No,” whispered Dinny; “Fleur told me yesterday that Michael was pure gold.”
“Did she? That’s good. There have been times, Dinny, when I’ve had my doubts.”
“Not about Michael.”
“No, no; he’s a first-rate fellow. But Fleur has fluttered their dovecote once or twice; since her father’s death, however, she’s been exemplary. Here they come!”
The organ had broken into annunciation. Alan Tasburgh with Jean on his arm was coming up the aisle. Dinny admired his square and steady look. As for Jean, she seemed the very image of colour and vitality. Hubert, standing, hands behind him, as if at ease, turned as she came up, and Dinny saw his face, lined and dark, brighten as if the sun had shone on it. A choky feeling gripped her throat. Then she saw that Hilary in his surplice had come quietly and was standing on the step.
‘I do like Uncle Hilary,’ she thought.
Hilary had begun to speak.
Contrary to her habit in church, Dinny listened. She waited for the word ‘obey’— it did not come; she waited for the sexual allusions — they were omitted. Now Hilary was asking for the ring. Now it was on. Now he was praying. Now it was the Lord’s Prayer, and they were going to the vestry. How strangely short!
She rose from her knees.
“Amazingly complete,” whispered Sir Lawrence, “as Bobbie Ferrar would say. Where are they going after?”
“To the theatre. Jean wants to stay in Town. She’s found a workman’s flat.”
“Calm before the storm. I wish that affair of Hubert’s were over, Dinny.”
They were coming back from the vestry now, and the organ had begun to play the Mendelssohn march. Looking at those two passing down the aisle Dinny had feelings of elation and of loss, of jealousy and of satisfaction. Then, seeing that Alan looked as if he, too, had feelings, she moved out of her pew to join Fleur and Michael; but, catching sight of Adrian near the entrance, went to him instead.
“What news, Dinny?”
“All right so far, Uncle. I am going straight back now.”
With the popular instinct for experiencing emotion at secondhand a little crowd of Hilary’s parishioners had gathered outside, and a squeaky cheer rose from them as Jean and Hubert got into the brown roadster, and drove away.
“Come in this cab with me, Uncle,” said Dinny.
“Does Ferse seem to mind your being there?” asked Adrian, in the cab.
“He’s quite polite, just silent; his eyes are always on Diana. I’m terribly sorry for him.”
Adrian nodded. “And she?”
“Wonderful; as if nothing were out of the ordinary. He won’t go out, though; just stays in the dining-room — watches from there all the time.”
“The world must seem to him a conspiracy. If he remains sane long enough he’ll lose that feeling.”
“Need he ever become insane again? Surely there are cases of complete recovery?”
“So far as I can gather, my dear, his case is not likely to be one of them. Heredity is against him, and temperament.”
“I could have liked him, it’s such a daring face; but his eyes ARE frightening.”
“Have you seen him with the children?”
“Not yet; but they speak quite nicely and naturally about him; so he hasn’t scared them, you see.”
“At the Home they talked jargon to me about complexes, obsessions, repressions, dissociation — all that sort of thing, but I gathered that his case is one where fits of great gloom alternate with fits of great excitement. Lately, both have grown so much milder that he has become practically normal. What has to be watched for is the recrudescence of one or of the other. He always had a streak of revolt in him; he was up against the leadership in the war, up against democracy after the war. He’ll almost certainly get up against something now he’s back. If he does it will ungear him again in no time. If there’s any weapon in the house, Dinny, it ought to be removed.”
“I’ll tell Diana.”
The cab turned into the King’s Road.
“I suppose I’d better not come to the house,” said Adrian, sadly.
Dinny got out, too. She stood a moment watching him, tall and rather stooping, walk away, then turned down Oakley Street, and let herself in. Ferse was in the dining-room doorway.
“Come in here,” he said; “I want a talk.”
In that panelled room, painted a greenish-gold, lunch had been cleared away, and on the narrow refectory table were a newspaper, a tobacco jar, and several books. Ferse drew up a chair for her and stood with his back to a fire which simulated flames. He was not looking at her, so she was able to study him as she had not yet had the chance of doing. His handsome face was uncomfortable to look on. The high cheek-bones, stiff jaw, and crisp grizzled hair set off those thirsty burning steel-blue eyes. Even his attitude, square and a-kimbo, with head thrust forward, set off those eyes. Dinny leaned back, scared and faintly smiling. He turned to her and said:
“What are people saying about me?”
“I’ve not heard anything; I’ve only been to my brother’s wedding.”
“Your brother Hubert? Whom has he married?”
“A girl called Jean Tasburgh. You saw her the day before yesterday.”
“Oh! Ah! I locked her in.”
“Yes, why?”
“She looked dangerous to me. I consented to go into that place, you know. I wasn’t put there.”
“Oh! I know; I knew you were there of your own accord.”
“It wasn’t such a bad place, but — well! How do I look?”
Dinny said softly: “You see, I never saw you before, except at a distance, but I think you look very well.”
“I am well. I kept my muscles up. The fellow that looked after me saw to that.”
“Did you read much?”
“Lately — yes. What do they think about me?”
At the repetition of this question Dinny looked up into his face.
“How can they think about you without having seen you?”
“You mean I ought to see people?”
“I don’t know anything about it, Captain Ferse. But I don’t see why not. You’re seeing me.”
“I like YOU.”
Dinny put out her hand.
“Don’t say you’re sorry for me,” Ferse said, quickly.
“Why should I? You’re perfectly all right, I’m sure.”
He covered his eyes with his hand.
“I am, but how long shall I be?”
“Why not always?”
Ferse turned to the fire.
Dinny said, timidly: “If you don’t worry, nothing will happen again.”
Ferse spun round to her. “Have you seen much of my children?”
“Not very much.”
“Any likeness to me in them?”
“No; they take after Diana.”
“Thank God for that! What does Diana think about me?” This time his eyes searched hers, and Dinny realised that on her answer everything might depend.
“Diana is just glad.”
He shook his head violently. “Not possible.”
“The truth is often not possible.”
“She doesn’t hate me?”
“Why should she?”
“Your Uncle Adrian — what’s between them? Don’t just say: Nothing.”
“My uncle worships her,” said Dinny, quietly, “that’s why they are just friends.”
“Just friends?”
“Just friends.”
“That’s all you know, I suppose.”
“I know for certain.”
Ferse sighed, “You’re a good sort. What would you do if you were me?”
Again Dinny felt her ruthless responsibility.
“I think I should do what Diana wanted.”
“What is that?”
“I don’t know. I don’t think she does yet.”
Ferse strode to the window and back.
“I’ve got to do something for poor devils like myself.”
“Oh!” said Dinny, dismayed.
“I’ve had luck. Most people like me would have been certified, and stuck away against their will. If I’d been poor we couldn’t have afforded that place. To be there was bad enough, but it was miles better than the usual run of places. I used to make my man talk. He’d seen two or three of them.”
He stood silent, and Dinny thought of her uncle’s words: “He’ll get up against something, and that will ungear him again in no time.”
Ferse went on suddenly: “If you had any other kind of job possible, would YOU take on the care of the insane? Not you, nor anyone with nerves or sensibility. A saint might, here and there, but there aren’t saints enough to go round by a long chalk. No! To look after us you’ve got to shed the bowels of compassion, you must be made of iron, you must have a hide like leather; and no nerves. With nerves you’d be worse than the thick-skinned because you’d be jumpy, and that falls on us. It’s an impasse. My God! Haven’t I thought about it? And — money. No one with money ought to be sent to one of those places. Never, never! Give him his prison at home somehow — somewhere. If I hadn’t known that I could come away at any time — if I hadn’t hung on to that knowledge even at my worst, I wouldn’t be here now — I’d be raving. God! I’d be raving! Money! And how many have money? Perhaps five in a hundred! And the other ninety-five poor devils are stuck away, willy-nilly, stuck away! I don’t care how scientific, how good those places may be, as asylums go — they mean death in life. They must. People outside think we’re as good as dead already — so who cares? Behind all the pretence of scientific treatment that’s what they really feel. We’re obscene — no longer human — the old idea of madness clings, Miss Cherrell; we’re a disgrace, we’ve failed. Hide us away, put us underground. Do it humanely — twentieth century! Humanely! Try! You can’t! Cover it all up with varnish then — varnish — that’s all it is. What else can it be? Take my word for that. Take my man’s word for it. He knew.”
Dinny was listening, without movement. Suddenly Ferse laughed. “But we’re not dead; that’s the misfortune, we’re not dead. If only we were! All those poor brutes — not dead — as capable of suffering in their own way as anyone else — more capable. Don’t I know? And what’s the remedy?” He put his hands to his head.
“To find a remedy,” said Dinny, softly, “wouldn’t it be wonderful?”
He stared at her.
“Thicken the varnish — that’s all we do, all we shall do.”
“Then why worry yourself?” sprang to Dinny’s lips, but she held the words back.
“Perhaps,” she said, “you will find the remedy, only that will need patience and calm.”
Ferse laughed.
“You must be bored to death.” And he turned away to the window.
Dinny slipped quietly out.
In that resort of those who know — the Piedmont Grill — the knowing were in various stages of repletion, bending towards each other as if in food they had found the link between their souls. They sat, two by two, and here and there four by five, and here and there a hermit, moody or observant over a cigar, and between the tables moved trippingly the lean and nimble waiters with faces unlike their own, because they were harassed by their memories. Lord Saxenden and Jean, in a corner at the near end, had already consumed a lobster, drunk half a bottle of hock, and talked of nothing in particular, before she raised her eyes slowly from an empty claw and said:
“Well, Lord Saxenden?”
His blue stare goggled slightly at that thick-lashed glance.
“Good lobster?” he said.
“Amazing.”
“I always come here when I want to be well fed. Is that partridge coming, waiter?”
“Yes, milord.”
“Well, hurry with it. Try this hock, Miss Tasburgh; you’re not drinking.”
Jean raised her greenish glass. “I became Mrs. Hubert Cherrell yesterday. It’s in the paper.”
Lord Saxenden’s cheeks expanded slightly with the thought: ‘Now, how does that affect me? Is this young lady more amusing single or more amusing married?’
“You don’t waste time,” he said, his eyes exploring her, as though seeking confirmation of her changed condition. “If I’d known, I shouldn’t have had the cheek to ask you to lunch without him.”
“Thank you,” said Jean; “he’s coming along presently.” And, through her lashes, she looked at him draining his glass thoughtfully.
“Have you any news for me?”
“I’ve seen Walter.”
“Walter?”
“The Home Secretary.”
“How terribly nice of you!”
“It was. Can’t bear the fellow. Got a head like an egg, except for his hair.”
“What did he say?”
“Young lady, nobody in any official department ever SAYS anything. He always ‘thinks it over.’ Administration has to be like that.”
“But of course he’ll pay attention to what YOU said. What DID you say?”
Lord Saxenden’s iced eyes seemed to answer: ‘Really, you know, really!’
But Jean smiled; and the eyes thawed gradually.
“You’re the most direct young woman I’ve ever come across. As a matter of fact I said: ‘Stop it, Walter.’”
“How splendid!”
“He didn’t like it. He’s a ‘just beast’.”
“Could I see him?”
Lord Saxenden began to laugh. He laughed like a man who has come across the priceless.
Jean waited for him to finish, and said:
“Then I shall.”
The partridge filled the ensuing gap.
“Look here!” said Lord Saxenden, suddenly: “If you really mean that, there’s one man who might wangle you an interview — Bobble Ferrar. He used to be with Walter when he was Foreign Secretary. I’ll give you a chit to Bobbie. Have a sweet?”
“No, thank you. But I SHOULD like some coffee, please. There’s Hubert!”
Just free of the revolving cage, which formed the door, was Hubert, evidently in search of his wife.
“Bring him over here!”
Jean looked intently at her husband. His face cleared, and he came towards them.
“You’ve got the eye all right,” murmured Lord Saxenden, rising. “How de do? You’ve married a remarkable wife. Have some coffee? The brandy’s good here.” And taking out a card he wrote on it in a hand both neat and clear:
“Robert Ferrar, Esq., P.O., Whitehall. Dear Bobbie, do see my young friend Mrs. Hubert Charwell and get her an interview with Walter if at all possible. Saxenden.”
Then, handing it to Jean, he asked the waiter for his bill.
“Hubert,” said Jean, “show Lord Saxenden your scar,” and, undoing the link of his cuff, she pushed up his sleeve. That livid streak stared queer and sinister above the tablecloth.
“H’m!” said Lord Saxenden: “useful wipe, that.”
Hubert wriggled his arm back under cover. “She still takes liberties,” he said.
Lord Saxenden paid his bill and handed Hubert a cigar.
“Forgive me if I run off now. Stay and finish your coffee. Good-bye and good luck to you both!” And, shaking their hands, he threaded his way out among the tables. The two young people gazed after him.
“Such delicacy,” said Hubert, “is not his known weakness, I believe. Well, Jean?”
Jean looked up.
“What does F.O. mean?”
“Foreign Office, my country girl.”
“Finish your brandy, and we’ll go and see this man.”
But in the courtyard a voice behind them said:
“Why! Captain! Miss Tasburgh!”
“My wife, Professor.”
Hallorsen seized their hands.
“Isn’t that just wonderful? I’ve a cablegram in my pocket, Captain, that’s as good as a wedding present.”
Over Hubert’s shoulder, Jean read out: “‘Exonerating statement sworn by Manuel mailed stop American Consulate La Paz.’ That’s splendid, Professor. Will you come with us and see a man at the Foreign Office about this?”
“Surely. I don’t want any grass to grow. Let’s take an automobile.”
Opposite to them in the cab he radiated surprised benevolence.
“You were mighty quick off the mark, Captain.”
“That was Jean.”
“Yes,” said Hallorsen, as if she were not present, “when I met her at Lippinghall I thought she could move. Is your sister pleased?”
“Is she, Jean?”
“Rather!”
“A wonderful young lady. There’s something good in low buildings. This Whitehall of yours makes me feel fine. The more sun and stars you can see from a street the more moral sense there is to the people. Were you married in a stovepipe hat, Captain?”
“No; just as I am now.”
“I’m sorry about that. They seem to me so cunning; like carrying a lost cause about on your head. I believe you are of an old family, too, Mrs. Cherrell. Your habit over here of families that serve their country from father to son is inspiring, Captain.”
“I hadn’t thought about that.”
“I had a talk with your brother, Ma’am, at Lippinghall, he informed me you’d had a sailor in your family for centuries. And I’m told that in yours, Captain, there’s always been a soldier. I believe in heredity. Is this the Foreign Office?” He looked at his watch. “I’m just wondering whether that guy will be in? I’ve a kind of impression they do most of their business over food. We should do well to go and look at the ducks in the Park till three o’clock.”
“I’ll leave this card for him,” said Jean.
She rejoined them quickly. “He’s expected in at any minute.”
“That’ll be half an hour,” said Hallorsen. “There’s one duck here I’d like your opinion of, Captain.”
Crossing the wide road to the water they were nearly run down by the sudden convergence of two cars embarrassed by unwonted space. Hubert clutched Jean convulsively. He had gone livid under his tan. The cars cleared away to right and left. Hallorsen, who had taken Jean’s other arm, said with an exaggeration of his drawl:
“That just about took our paint off.”
Jean said nothing.
“I sometimes wonder,” continued Hallorsen, as they reached the ducks, “whether we get our money’s worth out of speed. What do you say, Captain?”
Hubert shrugged. “The hours lost in going by car instead of by train are just about as many as the hours saved, anyway.”
“That is so,” said Hallorsen. “But flying’s a real saver of time.”
“Better wait for the full bill before we boast about flying.”
“You’re right, Captain. We’re surely headed for hell. The next war will mean a pretty thin time for those who take part in it. Suppose France and Italy came to blows, there’d be no Rome, no Paris, no Florence, no Venice, no Lyons, no Milan, no Marseilles within a fortnight. They’d just be poisoned deserts. And the ships and armies maybe wouldn’t have fired a shot.”
“Yes. And all governments know it. I’m a soldier, but I can’t see why they go on spending hundreds of millions on soldiers and sailors who’ll probably never be used. You can’t run armies and navies when the nerve centres have been destroyed. How long could France and Italy function if their big towns were gassed? England or Germany certainly couldn’t function a week.”
“Your Uncle the Curator was saying to me that at the rate Man was going he would soon be back in the fish state.”
“How?”
“Why! Surely! Reversing the process of evolution — fishes, reptiles, birds, mammals. We’re becoming birds again, and the result of that will soon be that we shall creep and crawl, and end up in the sea when land’s uninhabitable.”
“Why can’t we all bar the air for war?”
“How can we bar the air?” said Jean. “Countries never trust each other. Besides, America and Russia are outside the League of Nations.”
“We Americans would agree. But maybe not our Senate.”
“That Senate of yours,” muttered Hubert, “seems to be a pretty hard proposition.”
“Why! It’s like your House of Lords before a whip was taken to it in 1910. That’s the duck,” and Hallorsen pointed to a peculiar bird. Hubert stared at it.
“I’ve shot that chap in India. It’s a — I’ve forgotten the name. We can get it from one of these boards — I shall remember if I see.”
“No!” said Jean; “it’s a quarter past three. He must be in by now.” And, without allocating the duck, they returned to the Foreign Office.
Bobbie Ferrar’s handshake was renowned. It pulled his adversary’s hand up and left it there. When Jean had restored her hand, she came at once to the point. “You know about this extradition business, Mr. Ferrar?”
Bobbie Ferrar nodded.
“This is Professor Hallorsen, who was head of the expedition. Would you like to see the scar my husband has?”
“Very much,” murmured Bobbie Ferrar, through his teeth.
“Show him, Hubert.”
Unhappily Hubert bared his arm again.
“Amazing!” said Bobbie Ferrar: “I told Walter.”
“You’ve seen him?”
“Sir Lawrence asked me to.”
“What did Wal — the Home Secretary say?”
“Nothing. He’d seen Snubby; he doesn’t like Snubby, so he’s issued the order to Bow Street.”
“Oh! Does that mean there will be a warrant?”
Bobbie Ferrar nodded, examining his nails.
The two young people stared at each other.
Hallorsen said, gravely:
“Can no one stop this gang?”
Bobbie Ferrar shook his head, his eyes looked very round.
Hubert rose.
“I’m sorry that I let anyone bother himself in the matter. Come along, Jean!” and with a slight bow he turned and went out. Jean followed him.
Hallorsen and Bobbie Ferrar were left confronted.
“I don’t understand this country,” said Hallorsen. “What ought to have been done?”
“Nothing,” answered Bobbie Ferrar. “When it comes before the magistrate, bring all the evidence you can.”
“We surely will. Mr. Ferrar, I am glad to have met you!”
Bobbie Ferrar grinned. His eyes looked even rounder.
In the due course of justice, Hubert was brought up at Bow Street on a warrant issued by one of its magistrates. Attending, in common with other members of the family, Dinny sat through the proceedings in a state of passive protest. The sworn evidence of six Bolivian muleteers, testifying to the shooting and to its being unprovoked; Hubert’s countering statement, the exhibition of his scar, his record, and the evidence of Hallorsen, formed the material on which the magistrate was invited to come to his decision. He came to it. ‘Remanded’ till the arrival of the defendant’s supporting evidence. That principle of British law, ‘A prisoner is presumed innocent till he is proved guilty,’ so constantly refuted by its practice, was then debated in regard to bail, and Dinny held her breath. The idea of Hubert, just married, being presumed innocent in a cell, while his evidence crossed the Atlantic, was unbearable. The considerable bail offered by Sir Conway and Sir Lawrence, however, was finally accepted, and with a sigh of relief she walked out, her head held high. Sir Lawrence joined her outside.
“It’s lucky,” he said, “that Hubert looks so unaccustomed to lying.”
“I suppose,” murmured Dinny, “this will be in the papers.”
“On that, my nymph, you may bet the buttoned boots you haven’t got.”
“How will it affect Hubert’s career?”
“I think it will be good for him. The House of Commons questions were damaging. But ‘British Officer versus Bolivian Half-Castes,’ will rally the prejudice we all have for our kith and kin.”
“I’m more sorry for Dad than for anybody. His hair is distinctly greyer since this began.”
“There’s nothing dishonourable about it, Dinny.”
Dinny’s head tilted up.
“No, indeed!”
“You remind me of a two-year-old, Dinny — one of those whipcordy chestnuts that kick up their heels in the paddock, get left at the post, and come in first after all. Here’s your American bearing down on us. Shall we wait for him? He gave very useful evidence.”
Dinny shrugged her shoulders, and almost instantly Hallorsen’s voice said:
“Miss Cherrell!”
Dinny turned.
“Thank you very much, Professor, for what you said.”
“I wish I could have lied for you, but I had no occasion. How is that sick gentleman?”
“All right so far.”
“I am glad to hear that. I have been worried thinking of you.”
“What you said, Professor,” put in Sir Lawrence, “about not being seen dead with any of those muleteers hit the magistrate plumb centre.”
“To be seen alive with them was bad enough. I’ve an automobile here, can I take you and Miss Cherrell anywhere?”
“You might take us to the borders of civilisation, if you’re going West.”
“Well, Professor,” continued Sir Lawrence, when they were seated, “what do you think of London? Is it the most barbarous or the most civilised town on earth?”
“I just love it,” said Hallorsen, without ever taking his eyes off Dinny.
“I don’t,” murmured Dinny; “I hate the contrasts and the smell of petrol.”
“Well, a stranger can’t tell why he loves London, unless it’s the variety and the way you’ve gotten freedom and order all mixed up; or maybe it’s because it’s so different from our towns over there. New York is more wonderful and more exciting, but not so homey.”
“New York,” said Sir Lawrence, “is like strychnine. It perks you up until it lays you out.”
“I certainly couldn’t live in New York. The West for me.”
“The great open spaces,” murmured Dinny.
“Why yes, Miss Cherrell; you would love them.”
Dinny smiled wanly. “No one can be pulled up by the roots, Professor.”
“Ah!” said Sir Lawrence, “my son once took up the question of Emigration in Parliament. He found that people’s roots were so strong that he had to drop it like a hot potato.”
“Is that so?” said Hallorsen. “When I look at your town folk, undersized and pale and kind of disillusioned, I can’t help wondering what roots they can have.”
“The townier the type, the more stubborn its roots — no open spaces for them; the streets, fried fish, and the pictures. Would you put me down here, Professor? Dinny, where are you bound for?”
“Oakley Street.”
Hallorsen stopped the car and Sir Lawrence got out.
“Miss Cherrell, may I have the great pleasure of taking you as far as Oakley Street?”
Dinny bowed.
Seated thus side by side with him in the closed car, she wondered uneasily what use he would make of his opportunity. Presently, without looking at her, he said:
“As soon as your brother is fixed up I shall be sailing. I’m going to take an expedition to New Mexico. I shall always count it a privilege to have known you, Miss Cherrell.”
His ungloved hands were gripping each other between his knees; and the sight moved her.
“I am very sorry for misjudging you at first, Professor, just as my brother did.”
“It was natural. I shall be glad to think I have your good will when all’s been said and done.”
Dinny put out her hand impulsively.
“You have.”
He took the hand with gravity, raised it to his lips, and returned it to her gently. Dinny felt extremely unhappy. She said, timidly: “You’ve made me think quite differently about Americans, Professor.”
Hallorsen smiled.
“That is something, anyway.”
“I’m afraid I was very crude in my ideas. You see, I haven’t really known any.”
“That is the little trouble between us; we don’t really know each other. We get on each other’s nerves, with little things, and there it ends. But I shall always remember you as the smile on the face of this country.”
“That,” said Dinny, “is very pretty, and I wish it were true.”
“If I could have a picture of you, I should treasure it.”
“Of course you shall! I don’t know if I have a decent one, but I’ll send you the best.”
“I thank you. I think if you will allow me I will get out here; I am just not too sure of myself. The car will take you on.” He tapped on the glass and spoke to the chauffeur.
“Good-bye!” he said, and took her hand again, looked at it rather long, pressed it hard, and slid his long frame through the doorway.
“Good-bye!” murmured Dinny, sitting back, with rather a choky feeling in her throat.
Five minutes later the car pulled up before Diana’s house, and, very subdued, she went in.
Diana, whom she had not seen that morning, opened the door of her room as she was passing.
“Come in here, Dinny.” Her voice was stealthy, and a little shudder went through Dinny. They sat down side by side on the four-poster bed, and Diana spoke low and hurriedly:
“He came in here last night and insisted on staying. I didn’t dare refuse. There’s a change; I have a feeling that it’s the beginning of the end, again. His self-control is weakening, all round. I think I ought to send the children somewhere. Would Hilary take them?”
“I’m sure he would; or Mother would certainly.”
“Perhaps that would be better.”
“Don’t you think you ought to go, yourself?”
Diana sighed and shook her head.
“That would only precipitate things. Could you take the children down for me?”
“Of course. But do you really think he —?”
“Yes. I’m sure he’s working up again. I know the signs so well. Haven’t you noticed, Dinny, he’s been drinking more each evening? It’s all of a piece.”
“If he’d get over his horror of going out.”
“I don’t believe that would help. Here at all events we know what there is to know, and the worst at once if it comes. I dread something happening with strangers, and our hands being forced.”
Dinny squeezed her arm.
“When would you like the children taken down?”
“As soon as possible. I can’t say anything to him. You must just go off as quietly as you can. Mademoiselle can go down separately, if your mother will have her too.”
“I shall come back at once, of course.”
“Dinny, it isn’t fair on you. I’ve got the maids. It’s really too bad to bother you with my troubles.”
“But of course I shall come back. I’ll borrow Fleur’s car. Will he mind the children going?”
“Only if he connects it with our feeling about his state. I can say it’s an old invitation.”
“Diana,” said Dinny, suddenly, “have you any love for him left?”
“Love? No!”
“Just pity?”
Diana shook her head.
“I can’t explain; it’s the past and a feeling that if I desert him I help the fates against him. That’s a horrible thought!”
“I understand. I’m so sorry for you both, and for Uncle Adrian.”
Diana smoothed her face with her hands, as if wiping off the marks of trouble.
“I don’t know what’s coming, but it’s no good going to meet it. As to you, my dear, don’t for God’s sake let me spoil your time.”
“That’s all right. I’m wanting something to take me out of myself. Spinsters, you know, should be well shaken before being taken.”
“Ah! When ARE you going to be taken, Dinny?”
“I have just rejected the great open spaces, and I feel a beast.”
“Between the great open spaces and the deep sea — are you?”
“And likely to remain so. The love of a good man — and all that, seems to leave me frost-bitten.”
“Wait! Your hair is the wrong colour for the cloister.”
“I’ll have it dyed and sail in my true colours. Icebergs are sea-green.”
“As I said before — wait!”
“I will,” said Dinny . . . .
Fleur herself drove the South Square car to the door two days later. The children and some luggage were placed in it without incident, and they started.
That somewhat hectic drive, for the children were little used to cars, to Dinny was pure relief. She had not realised how much the tragic atmosphere of Oakley Street was on her nerves; and yet it was but ten days since she had come up from Condaford. The colours of ‘the fall’ were deepening already on the trees. The day had the soft and sober glow of fine October; the air, as the country deepened and grew remote, had again its beloved tang; wood smoke rose from cottage chimneys, and rooks from the bared fields.
They arrived in time for lunch, and, leaving the children with Mademoiselle, who had come down by train, Dinny went forth with the dogs alone. She stopped at an old cottage high above the sunken road. The door opened straight into the living-room, where an old woman was sitting by a thin fire of wood.
“Oh! Miss Dinny,” she said, “I am that glad. I haven’t seen you not all this month.”
“No, Betty; I’ve been away. How are you?”
The little old woman, for she was of pocket size, crossed her hands solemnly on her middle.
“My stummick’s bad again. I ‘aven’t nothin’ else the matter — the doctor says I’m wonderful. Just my stummick. ‘E says I ought to eat more; and I’ve such an appetite, Miss Dinny. But I can’t eat ‘ardly nothin’ without I’m sick, and that’s the truth.”
“Dear Betty, I’m so sorry. Tummies are a dreadful nuisance. Tummies and teeth. I can’t think why we have them. If you haven’t teeth you can’t digest; and if you have teeth you can’t digest either.”
The old lady cackled thinly.
“‘E du say I ought to ‘ave the rest of my teeth out, but I don’t like to part with ’em, Miss Dinny. Father ‘e’s got none, and ‘e can bite an apple, ‘e can. But at my age I can’t expect to live to ‘arden up like that.”
“But you could have some lovely false ones, Betty.”
“Oh! I don’t want to ‘ave no false teeth — so pretenshus. You wouldn’t never wear false teeth, would you, Miss Dinny?”
“Of course I would, Betty. Nearly all the best people have them nowadays.”
“You will ‘ave your joke. No, I shouldn’t like it. I’d as soon wear a wig. But my ‘air’s as thick as ever. I’m wonderful for my age. I’ve got a lot to be thankful for; it’s only my stummick, an’ that’s like as if there was somethin’ there.”
Dinny saw the pain and darkness in her eyes.
“How is Benjamin, Betty?”
The eyes changed, became amused and yet judgmatic, as if she were considering a child.
“Oh! Father’s all right, Miss; ‘e never ‘as anything the matter except ‘is rheumatiz; ‘e’s out now doin’ a bit o’ diggin’.”
“And how’s Goldie?” said Dinny, looking lugubriously at a goldfinch in a cage. She hated to see birds in cages, but had never been able to bring herself to say so to these old people with their small bright imprisoned pet. Besides, didn’t they say that if you released a tame goldfinch, it would soon be pecked to death?
“Oh!” said the old lady, “‘e thinks ‘e’s someone since you give him that bigger cage.” Her eyes brightened. “Fancy the Captain married, Miss Dinny, and that dreadful case against him an’ all — whatever are they thinkin’ about? I never ‘eard of such a thing in all my life. One of the Cherrell’s to be put in Court like that. It’s out of all knowledge.”
“It is, Betty.”
“I’m told she’s a fine young lady. And where’ll they be goin’ to live?”
“Nobody knows yet; we have to wait for this case to be over. Perhaps down here, or perhaps he’ll get a post abroad. They’ll be very poor, of course.”
“Dreadful; it never was like that in old days. The way they put upon the gentry now — oh, dear! I remember your great-grandfather, Miss Dinny, drivin’ four-inhand when I was a little bit of a thing. Such a nice old gentleman — curtly, as you might say.”
Such references to the gentry never ceased to make Dinny feel uneasy, only too well aware that this old lady had been one of eight children brought up by a farm worker whose wages had been eleven shillings a week, and that she and her husband now existed on their Old Age pensions, after bringing up a family of seven.
“Well, Betty dear, what CAN you digest, so that I can tell cook?”
“Thank you kindly, Miss Dinny; a nice bit of lean pork do seem to lie quiet sometimes.” Again her eyes grew dark and troubled. “I ‘ave such dreadful pain; really sometimes I feel I’d be glad to go ‘ome.”
“Oh! no, Betty dear. With a little proper feeding I know you’re going to feel better.”
The old lady smiled below her eyes.
“I’m wonderful for my age, so it’d never do to complain. And when are the bells goin’ to ring for you, Miss Dinny?”
“Don’t mention them, Betty. They won’t ring of their own accord — that’s certain.”
“Ah! People don’t marry young, and ‘ave the families they did in my young days. My old Aunt ‘ad eighteen an’ reared eleven.”
“There doesn’t seem room or work for them now, does there?”
“Aye! The country’s changed.”
“Less down here than in most places, thank goodness.” And Dinny’s eyes wandered over the room where these two old people had spent some fifty years of life; from brick floor to raftered ceiling it was scrupulously clean and had a look of homely habit.
“Well, Betty, I must go. I’m staying in London just now with a friend, and have to get back there this evening. I’ll tell cook to send some little things that’ll be better for you than pork even. Don’t get up!”
But the little old woman was on her feet, her eyes looking out from her very soul.
“I am that glad to ‘ave seen you, Miss Dinny. God bless you! And I do ‘ope the Captain won’t ‘ave any trouble with those dreadful people.”
“Good-bye, Betty dear, and remember me to Benjamin,” and pressing the old lady’s hand Dinny went out to where the dogs were waiting for her on the flagged pathway. As always after such visits she felt humble and inclined to cry. Roots! That was what she missed in London, what she would miss in the ‘great open spaces.’ She walked to the bottom of a narrow straggling beechwood, and entered it through a tattered gate that she did not even have to open. She mounted over the damp beech mast which smelled sweetly as of husks; to the left a grey-blue sky was rifted by the turning beeches, and to her right stretched fallow ground where a squatting hare turned and raced for the hedgerow; a pheasant rose squawking before one of the dogs and rocketed over the wood. She emerged from the trees at the top, and stood looking down at the house, long and stone-coloured, broken by magnolias and the trees on the lawn; smoke was rising from two chimneys, and the fantails speckled with white one gable. She breathed deeply, and for full ten minutes stood there, like a watered plant drawing up the food of its vitality. The scent was of leaves and turned earth and of rain not far away; the last time she had stood there had been at the end of May, and she had inhaled that scent of summer which is at once a memory and a promise, an aching and a draught of delight . . . .
After an early tea she started back, in the now closed car, sitting beside Fleur.
“I must say,” said that shrewd young woman, “Condaford is the most peaceful place I was ever in. I should die of it, Dinny. The rurality of Lippinghall is nothing thereto.”
“Old and mouldering, um?”
“Well, I always tell Michael that your side of his family is one of the least expressed and most interesting phenomena left in England. You’re wholly unvocal, utterly out of the limelight. Too unsensational for the novelists, and yet you’re there, and go on being there, and I don’t quite know how. Every mortal thing’s against you, from Death Duties down to gramophones. But you persist generally at the ends of the earth, doing things that nobody knows or cares anything about. Most of your sort haven’t even got Condafords now to come home and die in; and yet you still have roots, and a sense of duty. I’ve got neither, you know, I suppose that comes of being half French. My father’s family — the Forsytes — may have roots, but they haven’t a sense of duty — not in the same way; or perhaps it’s a sense of service that I mean. I admire it, you know, Dinny, but it bores me stiff. It’s making you go and blight your young life over this Ferse business. Duty’s a disease, Dinny; an admirable disease.”
“What do you think I ought to do about it?”
“Have your instincts out. I can’t imagine anything more ageing than what you’re doing now. As for Diana, she’s of the same sort — the Montjoys have a kind of Condaford up in Dumfriesshire — I admire her for sticking to Ferse, but I think it’s quite crazy of her. It can only end one way, and that’ll be the more unpleasant the longer it’s put off.”
“Yes; I feel she’s riding for a bad fall, but I hope I should do the same.”
“I know I shouldn’t,” said Fleur, cheerfully.
“I don’t believe that anybody knows what they’ll do about anything until it comes to the point.”
“The thing is never to let anything come to a point.”
Fleur spoke with a tang in her voice, and Dinny saw her lips harden. She always found Fleur attractive, because mystifying.
“You haven’t seen Ferse,” she said, “and without seeing him you can’t appreciate how pathetic he is.”
“That’s sentiment, my dear. I’m not sentimental.”
“I’m sure you’ve had a past, Fleur; and you can’t have had that without being sentimental.”
Fleur gave her a quick look, and trod on the accelerator.
“Time I turned on my lights,” she said.
For the rest of the journey she talked on Art, Letters, and other unimportant themes. It was nearly eight o’clock when she dropped Dinny at Oakley Street.
Diana was in, already dressed for dinner.
“Dinny,” she said, “he’s out.”