Portentous — those simple words!
“After you’d gone this morning he was in a great state — seemed to think we were all in a conspiracy to keep things from him.”
“As we were,” murmured Dinny.
“Mademoiselle’s going upset him again. Soon after, I heard the front door bang — he hasn’t been back since. I didn’t tell you, but last night was dreadful. Suppose he doesn’t come back?”
“Oh! Diana, I wish he wouldn’t.”
“But where has he gone? What can he do? Whom can he go to? O God! It’s awful!”
Dinny looked at her in silent distress.
“Sorry, Dinny! You must be tired and hungry. We won’t wait dinner.”
In Ferse’s ‘lair,’ that charming room panelled in green shot with a golden look, they sat through an anxious meal. The shaded light fell pleasantly on their bare necks and arms, on the fruit, the flowers, the silver; and until the maid was gone they spoke of indifferent things.
“Has he a key?” asked Dinny.
“Yes.”
“Shall I ring up Uncle Adrian?”
“What can he do? If Ronald does come in, it will be more dangerous if Adrian is here.”
“Alan Tasburgh told me he would come any time if anyone was wanted.”
“No, let’s keep it to ourselves to-night. To-morrow we can see.”
Dinny nodded. She was scared, and more scared of showing it, for she was there to strengthen Diana by keeping cool and steady.
“Come upstairs and sing to me,” she said, at last.
Up in the drawing-room Diana sang ‘The Sprig of Thyme,’ ‘Waley, Waley,’ ‘The Bens of Jura,’ ‘Mowing the Barley,’ ‘The Castle of Dromore,’ and the beauty of the room, of the songs, of the singer, brought to Dinny a sense of unreality. She had gone into a drowsy dream, when, suddenly, Diana stopped.
“I heard the front door.”
Dinny got up and stood beside the piano.
“Go on, don’t say anything, don’t show anything.”
Diana began again to play, and sing the Irish song ‘Must I go bound and you go free.’ Then the door was opened, and, in a mirror at the end of the room, Dinny saw Ferse come in and stand listening.
“Sing on,” she whispered.
“‘Must I go bound, and you go free?
Must I love a lass that couldn’t love me?
Oh! was I taught so poor a wit
As love a lass would break my heart.’”
And Ferse stood there listening. He looked like a man excessively tired or overcome with drink; his hair was disordered and his lips drawn back so that his teeth showed. Then he moved. He seemed trying to make no noise. He passed round to a sofa on the far side and sank down on it. Diana stopped singing. Dinny, whose hand was on her shoulder, felt her trembling with the effort to control her voice.
“Have you had dinner, Ronald?”
Ferse did not answer, staring across the room with that queer and ghostly grin.
“Play on,” whispered Dinny.
Diana played the Red Sarafan; she played the fine simple tune over and over, as if making hypnotic passes towards that mute figure. When, at last, she stopped, there followed the strangest silence. Then Dinny’s nerve snapped and she said, almost sharply:
“Is it raining, Captain Ferse?”
Ferse passed his hand down his trouser, and nodded.
“Hadn’t you better go up and change them, Ronald?”
He put his elbows on his knees, and rested his head on his hands.
“You must be tired, dear; won’t you go to bed? Shall I bring you something up?”
And still he did not move. The grin had faded off his lips; his eyes were closed. He looked like a man suddenly asleep, as some overdriven beast of burden might drop off between the shafts.
“Shut the piano,” whispered Dinny; “let’s go up.”
Diana closed the piano without noise and rose. With their arms linked they waited, but he did not stir.
“Is he really asleep?” whispered Dinny.
Ferse started up. “Sleep! I’m for it. I’m for it again. And I won’t stand it. By God! I won’t stand it!”
He stood a moment transfigured with a sort of fury; then, seeing them shrink, sank back on the sofa and buried his face in his hands. Impulsively Diana moved towards him.
Ferse looked up. His eyes were wild.
“Don’t!” he growled out. “Leave me alone! Go away!”
At the door Diana turned and said:
“Ronald, won’t you see someone? Just to make you sleep — just for that.”
Ferse sprang up again. “I’ll see no one. Go away!”
They shrank out of the room, and up in Dinny’s bedroom stood with their arms round each other, quivering.
“Have the maids gone to bed?”
“They always go early, unless one of them is out.”
“I think I ought to go down and telephone, Diana.”
“No, Dinny, I will. Only to whom?”
That was, indeed, the question. They debated it in whispers. Diana thought her doctor; Dinny thought Adrian or Michael should be asked to go round to the doctor and bring him.
“Was it like this before the last attack?”
“No. He didn’t know then what was before him. I feel he might kill himself, Dinny.”
“Has he a weapon?”
“I gave his Service revolver to Adrian to keep for me.”
“Razors?”
“Only safety ones; and there’s nothing poisonous in the house.”
Dinny moved to the door.
“I MUST go and telephone.”
“Dinny, I can’t have you —”
“He wouldn’t touch ME. It’s you that are in danger. Lock the door while I’m gone.”
And before Diana could stop her, she slid out. The lights still burned, and she stood a moment. Her room was on the second floor, facing the street. Diana’s bedroom and that of Ferse were on the drawing-room floor below. She must pass them to reach the hall and the little study where the telephone was kept. No sound came up. Diana had opened the door again and was standing there; and, conscious that at any moment she might slip past her and go down, Dinny ran forward and began descending the stairs. They creaked and she stopped to take off her shoes. Holding them in her hand she crept on past the drawing-room door. No sound came thence; and she sped down to the hall. She noticed Ferse’s hat and coat thrown across a chair, and, passing into the study, closed the door behind her. She stood a moment to recover breath, then, turning on the light, took up the directory. She found Adrian’s number and was stretching out her hand for the receiver when her wrist was seized, and with a gasp she turned to face Ferse. He twisted her round and stood pointing to the shoes still in her hand.
“Going to give me away,” he said, and, still holding her, took a knife out of his side pocket. Back, at the full length of her arm, Dinny looked him in the face. Somehow she was not so scared as she had been; her chief feeling was a sort of shame at having her shoes in her hand.
“That’s silly, Captain Ferse,” she said, icily. “You know we’d neither of us do you any harm.”
Ferse flung her hand from him, opened the knife, and with a violent effort severed the telephone wire. The receiver dropped on the floor. He closed the knife and put it back into his pocket. Dinny had the impression that with action he had become less unbalanced.
“Put on your shoes,” he said.
She did so.
“Understand me, I’m not going to be interfered with, or messed about. I shall do what I like with myself.”
Dinny remained silent. Her heart was beating furiously, and she did not want her voice to betray it.
“Did you hear?”
“Yes. No one wants to interfere with you, or do anything you don’t like. We only want your good.”
“I know that good,” said Ferse. “No more of that for me.” He went across to the window, tore a curtain aside, and looked out. “It’s raining like hell,” he said, then turned and stood looking at her. His face began to twitch, his hands to clench. He moved his head from side to side. Suddenly he shouted: “Get out of this room, quick! Get out, get out!”
As swiftly as she could without running Dinny slid to the door, closed it behind her and flew upstairs. Diana was still standing in the bedroom doorway. Dinny pushed her in, locked the door, and sank down breathless.
“He came out after me,” she gasped, “and cut the wire. He’s got a knife; I’m afraid there’s mania coming on. Will that door hold if he tries to break it down? Shall we put the bed against it?”
“If we do we should never sleep.”
“We shall never sleep, anyway,” and she began dragging at the bed. They moved it square against the door.
“Do the maids lock their doors?”
“They have, since he’s been back.”
Dinny sighed with relief. The idea of going out again to warn them made her shudder. She sat on the bed looking at Diana, who was standing by the window.
“What are you thinking of, Diana?”
“I was thinking what I should be feeling if the children were still here.”
“Yes, thank heaven, they’re not.”
Diana came back to the bed and took Dinny’s hand. Grip and answering grip tightened till they were almost painful.
“Is there nothing we can do, Dinny?”
“Perhaps he’ll sleep, and be much better in the morning. Now there’s danger I don’t feel half so sorry for him.”
Diana said stonily: “I’m past feeling. I wonder if he knows yet that I’m not in my own room? Perhaps I ought to go down and face it.”
“You shan’t!” And taking the key from the lock Dinny thrust it into the top of her stocking: its cold hardness rallied her nerves.
“Now,” she said, “we’ll lie down with our feet to the door. It’s no good getting worn out for nothing.”
A sort of apathy had come over both of them, and they lay a long time thus, close together under the eiderdown, neither of them sleeping, neither of them quite awake. Dinny had dozed off at last when a stealthy sound awakened her. She looked at Diana. She was asleep, really asleep, dead asleep. A streak of light from outside showed at the top of the door, which fitted loosely. Leaning on her elbow she strained her ears. The handle of the door was turned, and softly shaken. There was a gentle knocking.
“Yes,” said Dinny, very low, “what is it?”
“Diana,” said Ferse’s voice, but quite subdued: “I want her.”
Dinny crouched forward close to the keyhole.
“Diana’s not well,” she said. “She’s asleep now, don’t disturb her.”
There was silence. And then to her horror she heard a long moaning sigh; a sound so miserable, and as it were so final that she was on the point of taking out the key. The sight of Diana’s face, white and worn, stopped her. No good! Whatever that sound meant — no good! And crouching back on the bed, she listened. No more sound! Diana slept on, but Dinny could not get to sleep again. ‘If he kills himself,’ she thought, ‘shall I be to blame?’ Would that not be best for everyone, for Diana and his children, for himself? But that long sighing moan went on echoing through her nerves. Poor man, poor man! She felt nothing now but a dreadful sore pity, a sort of resentment at the inexorability of Nature that did such things to human creatures. Accept the mysterious ways of Providence? Who could? Insensate and cruel! Beside the worn-out sleeper she lay, quivering. What had they done that they ought not to have done? Could they have helped him more than they had tried to? What could they do when morning came? Diana stirred. Was she going to wake? But she just turned and sank back into her heavy slumber. And slowly a drowsy feeling stole on Dinny herself and she slept.
A knocking on the door awakened her. It was daylight. Diana was still sleeping. She looked at her wrist watch. Eight o’clock. She was being called.
“All right, Mary!” she answered, softly: “Mrs. Ferse is here.”
Diana sat up, her eyes on Dinny’s half-clothed figure.
“What is it?”
“It’s all right, Diana. Eight o’clock! We’d better get up and put the bed back. You’ve had a real good sleep. The maids are up.”
They put on wrappers, and pulled the bed into place. Dinny took the key from its queer hiding nook, and unlocked the door.
“No good craning at it. Let’s go down!”
They stood a moment at the top of the stairs listening, and then descended. Diana’s room was untouched. The maid had evidently been in and pulled aside the curtains. They stood at the door that led from it to Ferse’s room. No sound came from there. They went out to the other door. Still no sound!
“We’d better go down,” whispered Dinny. “What shall you say to Mary?”
“Nothing. She’ll understand.”
The dining room and study doors were open. The telephone receiver still lay severed on the floor; there was no other sign of last night’s terrors.
Suddenly, Dinny said: “Diana, his hat and coat are gone. They were on that chair.”
Diana went into the dining room and rang the bell. The elderly maid, coming from the basement stairs, had a scared and anxious look.
“Have you seen Captain Ferse’s hat and coat this morning Mary?”
“No, Ma’am.”
“What time did you come down?”
“Seven o’clock.”
“You haven’t been to his room?”
“Not yet, Ma’am.”
“I was not well last night; I slept upstairs with Miss Dinny.”
“Yes, Ma’am.”
They all three went upstairs.
“Knock on his door.”
The maid knocked. Dinny and Diana stood close by. There was no answer.
“Knock again, Mary, louder.”
Again and again the maid knocked. No answer. Diana put her aside and turned the handle. The door came open. Ferse was not there. The room was in disorder, as if someone had tramped and wrestled in it. The water bottle was empty, and tobacco ash was strewn about. The bed had been lain on, but not slept in. There was no sign of packing or of anything having been taken from the drawers. The three women looked at each other. Then Diana said:
“Get breakfast quick, Mary. We must go out.”
“Yes, Ma’am — I saw the telephone.”
“Hide that up, and get it mended; and don’t tell the others anything. Just say: ‘He’s away for a night or two.’ Make things here look like that. We’ll dress quickly, Dinny.”
The maid went downstairs again.
Dinny said: “Has he any money?”
“I don’t know. I can see if his cheque book has gone.”
She ran down again, and Dinny waited. Diana came back into the hall.
“No; it’s on the bureau in the dining-room. Quick, Dinny, dress!”
That meant . . . What did it mean? A strange conflict of hopes and fears raged within Dinny. She flew upstairs.
Over a hasty breakfast they consulted. To whom should they go?
“Not to the police,” said Dinny.
“No, indeed.”
“I think we should go to Uncle Adrian first.”
They sent the maid for a taxi, and set out for Adrian’s rooms. It was not quite nine o’clock. They found him over tea and one of those fishes which cover the more ground when eaten, and explain the miracle of the seven baskets full.
Seeming to have grown greyer in these few days he listened to them, filling his pipe, and at last said:
“You must leave it to me now. Dinny, can you take Diana down to Condaford?”
“Of course.”
“Before you go, could you get young Alan Tasburgh to go down to that Home and ask if Ferse is there, without letting them know that he’s gone off on his own? Here’s the address.”
Dinny nodded.
Adrian raised Diana’s hand to his lips.
“My dear, you look worn out. Don’t worry; just rest down there with the children. We’ll keep in touch with you.”
“Will there be publicity, Adrian?”
“Not if we can prevent it. I shall consult Hilary; we’ll try everything first. Do you know how much money he had?”
“The last cheque cashed was for five pounds two days ago, but all yesterday he was out.”
“How was he dressed?”
“Blue overcoat, blue suit, bowler hat.”
“And you don’t know where he went yesterday?”
“No. Until yesterday he was never out at all.”
“Does he still belong to any Club?”
“No.”
“Has any old friend been told of his return?”
“No.”
“And he took no cheque book? How soon can you get hold of that young man, Dinny?”
“Now, if I could telephone, Uncle; he’s sleeping at his Club.”
“Try, then.”
Dinny went out to the telephone. She soon reported that Alan would go down at once, and let Adrian know. He would ask as an old friend, with no knowledge that Ferse had ever left. He would beg them to let him know if Ferse came back, so that he might come and see him.
“Good,” said Adrian; “you have a head, my child. And now go off and look after Diana. Give me your number at Condaford.”
Having jotted it down, he saw them back into their cab.
“Uncle Adrian is the best man in the world,” said Dinny.
“No one should know that better than I, Dinny.”
Back in Oakley Street, they went upstairs to pack. Dinny was afraid that at the last minute Diana might refuse to go. But she had given her word to Adrian, and they were soon on the way to the station. They spent a very silent hour and a half on the journey, leaning back in their corners, tired out. Dinny, indeed, was only now realising the strain she had been through. And yet, what had it amounted to? No violence, no attack, not even a great scene. How uncannily disturbing was insanity! What fear it inspired; what nerve-racking emotions! Now that she was free from chance of contact with Ferse he again seemed to her just pitiful. She pictured him wandering and distraught, with nowhere to lay his head and no one to take him by the hand; on the edge, perhaps already over that edge! The worst tragedies were always connected with fear. Criminality, leprosy, insanity, anything that inspired fear in other people — the victims of such were hopelessly alone in a frightened world. Since last night she understood far better Ferse’s outburst about the vicious circle in which insanity moved. She knew now that her own nerves were not strong enough, her own skin not thick enough, to bear contact with the insane; she understood the terrible treatment of the insane in old days. It was like the way dogs had, of setting on an hysterical dog, their own nerves jolted beyond bearing. The contempt lavished on the imbecile, the cruelty and contempt had been defensive — defensive revenge on something which outraged the nerves. All the more pitiable, all the more horrible to think about. And, while the train bore her nearer to her peaceful home, she was more and more torn between the wish to shut away all thought of the unhappy outcast and feelings of pity for him. She looked across at Diana lying back in the corner opposite with closed eyes. What must she be feeling, bound to Ferse by memory, by law, by children of whom he was the father? The face under the close casque hat had the chiselling of prolonged trial — fine-lined and rather hard. By the faint movement of the lips she was not asleep. ‘What keeps her going?’ thought Dinny. ‘She’s not religious; she doesn’t believe much in anything. If I were she I should throw everything up and rush to the ends of the earth — or should I?’ Was there perhaps something inside one, some sense of what was due to oneself, that kept one unyielding and unbroken?
There was nothing to meet them at the station, so, leaving their things, they set forth for the Grange on foot, taking a path across the fields.
“I wonder,” said Dinny, suddenly, “how little excitement one could do with in these days? Should I be happy if I lived down here all my time, like the old cottage folk? Clare is never happy here. She has to be on the go all the time. There IS a kind of jack-inthe-box inside one.”
“I’ve never seen it popping out of you, Dinny.”
“I wish I’d been older during the war. I was only fourteen when it stopped.”
“You were lucky.”
“I don’t know. You must have had a terribly exciting time, Diana.”
“I was your present age when the war began.”
“Married?”
“Just.”
“I suppose he was right through it?”
“Yes.”
“Was that the cause?”
“An aggravation, perhaps.”
“Uncle Adrian spoke of heredity.”
“Yes.”
Dinny pointed to a thatched cottage.
“In that cottage an old pet couple of mine have lived fifty years. Could you do that, Diana?”
“I could now; I want peace, Dinny.”
They reached the house in silence. A message had come through from Adrian: Ferse was not back at the Home: but he and Hilary believed they were on the right track.
After seeing the children Diana went to her bedroom to lie down, and Dinny to her Mother’s sitting-room.
“Mother, I must say it to someone — I am praying for his death.”
“Dinny!”
“For his own sake, for Diana’s, for the children’s, for everybody’s; even my own.”
“Of course, if it’s hopeless —”
“Hopeless or not, I don’t care. It’s too dreadful. Providence is a wash-out, Mother.”
“My dear!”
“It’s too remote. I suppose there is an eternal Plan — but we’re like gnats for all the care it has for us as individuals.”
“You want a good sleep, darling.”
“Yes. But that won’t make any difference.”
“Don’t encourage such feelings, Dinny; they affect one’s character.”
“I don’t see the connection between beliefs and character. I’m not going to behave any worse because I cease to believe in Providence or an after life.”
“Surely, Dinny —”
“No; I’m going to behave BETTER; if I’m decent it’s because decency’s the decent thing; and not because I’m going to get anything by it.”
“But why is decency the decent thing, Dinny, if there’s no God?”
“O subtle and dear mother, I didn’t say there wasn’t God. I only said his Plan was too remote. Can’t you hear God saying: ‘By the way, is that ball the Earth still rolling?’ And an angel answering: ‘Oh! Yes, Sir, quite nicely.’ ‘Let’s see, it must be fungused over by now. Wasn’t there some particularly busy little parasite —’”
“Dinny!”
“‘Oh! Yes, Sir, you mean man!’ ‘Quite! I remember we called it that.’”
“Dinny, how dreadful!”
“No, mother, if I’m decent, it will be because decency is devised by humans for the benefit of humans; just as beauty is devised by humans for the delight of humans. Am I looking awful, darling? I feel as if I had no eyes. I think I’ll go and lie down. I don’t know why I’ve got so worked up about this, Mother. I think it must be looking at his face.” And with suspicious swiftness Dinny turned and went away.
Ferse’s disappearance was a holiday to the feelings of one who had suffered greatly since his return. That he had engaged to end that holiday by finding him was not enough to spoil Adrian’s relief. Almost with zest he set out for Hilary’s in a taxi, applying his wits to the problem. Fear of publicity cut him off from those normal and direct resorts — Police, Radio, and Press. Such agencies would bring on Ferse too fierce a light. And in considering what means were left he felt as when confronted with a cross-word puzzle, many of which he had solved in his time, like other men of noted intellect. From Dinny’s account he could not tell within several hours at what time Ferse had gone out, and the longer he left enquiry in the neighbourhood of the house, the less chance one would have of stumbling on anyone who had seen him. Should he, then, stop the cab and go back to Chelsea? In holding on towards the Meads, he yielded to instinct rather than to reason. To turn to Hilary was second nature with him — and, surely, in such a task two heads were better than one! He reached the Vicarage without forming any plan save that of enquiring vaguely along the Embankment and the King’s Road. It was not yet half past nine, and Hilary was still at his correspondence. On hearing the news, he called his wife into the study.
“Let’s think for three minutes,” he said, “and pool the result.”
The three stood in a triangle before the fire, the two men smoking, and the woman sniffing at an October rose.
“Well?” said Hilary at last: “Any light, May?”
“Only,” said Mrs. Hilary, wrinkling her forehead, “if the poor man was as Dinny describes, you can’t leave out the hospitals. I could telephone to the three or four where there was most chance of his having been taken in, if he’s made an accident for himself. It’s so early still, they can hardly have had anybody in.”
“Very sweet of you, my dear; and we can trust your wits to keep his name out of it.”
Mrs. Hilary went out.
“Adrian?”
“I’ve got a hunch, but I’d rather hear you first.”
“Well,” said Hilary, “two things occur to me: It’s obvious we must find out from the Police if anyone’s been taken from the river. The other contingency, and I think it’s the more likely, is drink.”
“But he couldn’t get drink so early.”
“Hotels. He had money.”
“I agree, we must try them, unless you think my idea any good.”
“Well?”
“I’ve been trying to put myself in poor Ferse’s shoes. I think, Hilary, if I had a doom over me, I might run for Condaford; not the place itself, perhaps, but round about, where we haunted as boys; where I’d been, in fact, before Fate got hold of me at all. A wounded animal goes home.”
Hilary nodded.
“Where WAS his home?”
“West Sussex — just under the Downs to the north. Petworth was the station.”
“Oh! I know that country. Before the war May and I used to stay a lot at Bignor and walk. We could have a shot at Victoria station, and see if anyone like him has taken train. But I think I’ll try the Police about the river first. I can say a parishioner is missing. What height is Ferse?”
“About five feet ten, square, broad head and cheek-bones, strong jaw, darkish hair, steel-blue eyes, a blue suit and overcoat.”
“Right!” said Hilary: “I’ll get on to them as soon as May is through.”
Left to himself before the fire, Adrian brooded. A reader of detective novels, he knew that he was following the French, inductive method of a psychological shot in the blue, Hilary and May following the English model of narrowing the issue by elimination — excellent, but was there time for excellence? One vanished in London as a needle vanishes in hay; and they were so handicapped by the need for avoiding publicity. He waited in anxiety for Hilary’s report. Curiously ironical that he — HE— should dread to hear of poor Ferse being found drowned or run over, and Diana free!
From Hilary’s table he took up an A.B.C. There had been a train to Petworth at 8.50, another went at 9.56. A near thing! And he waited again, his eyes on the door. Useless to hurry Hilary, a past-master in saving time.
“Well?” he said when the door was opened.
Hilary shook his head.
“No go! Neither hospitals nor Police. No one received or heard of anywhere.”
“Then,” said Adrian, “let’s try Victoria — there’s a train in twenty minutes. Can you come rightaway?”
Hilary glanced at his table. “I oughtn’t to, but I will. There’s something unholy in the way a search gets hold of you. Hold on, old man, I’ll tell May and nick my hat. You might look for a taxi. Go St. Pancras way and wait for me.”
Adrian strode along looking for a taxi. He found one issuing from the Euston Road, turned it round, and stood waiting. Soon Hilary’s thin dark figure came hurrying into view.
“Not in the training I was,” he said, and got in.
Adrian leaned through the window.
“Victoria, quick as you can!”
Hilary’s hand slipped through his arm.
“I haven’t had a jaunt with you, old man, since we went up the Carmarthen Van in that fog the year after the war. Remember?”
Adrain had taken out his watch.
“We just shan’t do it, I’m afraid. The traffic’s awful.” And they sat, silent, jerked back and forth by the spasmodic efforts of the taxi.
“I’ll never forget,” said Adrian, suddenly, “in France once, passing a ‘maison d’aliénés,’ as they call it — a great place back from the railway with a long iron grille in front. There was a poor devil standing upright with his arms raised and his legs apart, clutching at the grille, like an orang-outang. What’s death compared with that? Good clean earth, and the sky over you. I wish now they’d found him in the river.”
“They may still; this is a bit of a wild-goose chase.”
“Three minutes more,” muttered Adrian; “we shan’t do it.”
But as if animated by its national character the taxi gathered unnatural speed, and the traffic seemed to melt before it. They pulled up at the station with a jerk.
“You ask at the first class, I’ll go for the third,” said Hilary as they ran. “A parson gets more show.”
“No,” said Adrian; “if he’s gone, he’ll have gone first class; YOU ask there. If there’s any doubt — HIS EYES.”
He watched Hilary’s lean face thrust into the opening and quickly drawn back.
“He HAS!” he said; “this train. Petworth! Rush!”
The brothers ran, but as they reached the barrier the train began to move. Adrian would have run on, but Hilary grabbed his arm.
“Steady, old man, we shall never get in; he’ll only see us, and that’ll spill it.”
They walked back to the entrance with their heads down.
“That was an amazing shot of yours, old boy,” said Hilary: “What time does that train get down?”
“Twelve twenty-three.”
“Then we can do it in a car. Have you any money?”
Adrian felt in his pockets. “Only eight and six,” he said ruefully.
“I’ve got just eleven bob. Awkward! I know! We’ll take a cab to young Fleur’s: if her car’s not out, she’d let us have it, and she or Michael would drive us. We must both be free of the car at the other end.”
Adrian nodded, rather dazed at the success of his induction.
At South Square Michael was out, but Fleur in. Adrian, who did not know her so well as Hilary, was surprised by the quickness with which she grasped the situation and produced the car. Within ten minutes, indeed, they were on the road with Fleur at the wheel.
“I shall go through Dorking and Pulborough,” she said, leaning back. “I can speed all the way after Dorking on that road. But, Uncle Hilary, what are you going to do if you get him?”
At that simple but necessary question the brothers looked at each other. Fleur seemed to feel their indecision through the back of her head, for she stopped with a jerk in front of an imperilled dog, and, turning, said:
“Would you like to think it over before we start?”
Gazing from her short clear-cut face, the very spit of hard, calm, confident youth, to his brother’s long, shrewd face, wrinkled, and worn by the experiences of others and yet not hard, Adrian left it to Hilary to answer.
“Let’s get on,” said Hilary; “it’s a case of making the best of what turns up.”
“When we pass a post-office,” added Adrian, “please stop. I want to send a wire to Dinny.”
Fleur nodded. “There’s one in the King’s Road, I must fill up, too, somewhere.”
And the car slid on among the traffic.
“What shall I say in the wire?” asked Adrian. “Anything about Petworth?”
Hilary shook his head.
“Just that we think we’re on the right track.”
When they had sent the wire there were only two hours left before the train arrived.
“It’s fifty miles to Pulborough,” said Fleur, “and I suppose about five on. I wonder if I can risk my petrol. I’ll see at Dorking.” From that moment on she was lost to them, though the car was a closed saloon, giving all her attention to her driving.
The two brothers sat silent with their eyes on the clock and speedometer.
“I don’t often go joy-riding,” said Hilary, softly: “What are you thinking of, old man?”
“Of what on earth we’re going to do.”
“If I were to think of that beforehand, in my job, I should be dead in a month. In a slum parish one lives, as in a jungle, surrounded by wild cats; one grows a sort of instinct and has to trust to it.”
“Oh!” said Adrian, “I live among the dead, and get no practice.”
“Our niece drives well,” said Hilary in a low voice. “Look at her neck. Isn’t that capability personified?”
The neck, white, round and shingled, was held beautifully erect and gave a remarkable impression of quick close control of the body by the brain.
For several miles after that they drove in silence.
“Box Hill,” said Hilary: “a thing once happened to me hereabouts I’ve never told you and never forgotten, it shows how awfully near the edge of mania we live.” He sunk his voice and went on: “Remember that jolly parson Durcott we used to know? When I was at Beaker’s before I went to Harrow, he was a master there; he took me a walk one Sunday over Box Hill. Coming back in the train we were alone. We were ragging a little, when all of a sudden he seemed to go into a sort of frenzy, his eyes all greedy and wild. I hadn’t the least notion what he was after and was awfully scared. Then, suddenly, he seemed to get hold of himself again. Right out of the blue! Repressed sex, of course — regular mania for the moment — pretty horrible. A very nice fellow, too. There are forces, Adrian.”
“Daemonic. And when they break the shell for good . . . Poor Ferse!”
Fleur’s voice came back to them.
“She’s beginning to go a bit wonky; I must fill up, Uncle Hilary. There’s a station close here.”
“Right-o!”
The car drew up before the filling station.
“It’s always slow work to Dorking,” said Fleur, stretching: “we can get along now. Only thirty-two miles, and a good hour still. Have you thought?”
“No,” said Hilary, “we’ve avoided it like poison.”
Fleur’s eyes, whose whites were so clear, flashed on him one of those direct glances which so convinced people of her intelligence.
“Are you going to take him back in this? I wouldn’t, if I were you.” And, taking out her case, she repaired her lips slightly, and powdered her short straight nose.
Adrian watched her with a sort of awe. Youth, up to date, did not come very much his way. Not her few words, but the implications in them impressed him. What she meant was crudely this: Let him dree his weird — you can do nothing. Was she right? Were he and Hilary just pandering to the human instinct for interference; attempting to lay a blasphemous hand on Nature? And yet for Diana’s sake they must know what Ferse did, what he was going to do. For Ferse’s sake they must see, at least, that he did not fall into the wrong hands. On his brother’s face was a faint smile. He at least, thought Adrian, knew youth, had a brood of his own, and could tell how far the clear hard philosophy of youth would carry.
They started again, trailing through the traffic of Dorking’s long and busy street.
“Clear at last,” said Fleur, turning her head, “if you really want to catch him, you shall;” and she opened out to full speed. For the next quarter of an hour they flew along, past yellowing spinneys, fields and bits of furzy common dotted with geese and old horses, past village greens and village streets, and all the other evidences of a country life trying to retain its soul. And then the car, which had been travelling very smoothly, began to grate and bump.
“Tyre gone!” said Fleur, turning her head: “That’s torn it.” She brought the car to a standstill, and they all got out. The off hind tyre was right down.
“Pipe to!” said Hilary, taking his coat off. “Jack her up, Adrian. I’ll get the spare wheel off.”
Fleur’s head was lost in the tool-box, but her voice was heard saying: “Too many cooks, better let me!”
Adrian’s knowledge of cars was nil, his attitude to machinery helpless; he stood willingly aside, and watched them with admiration. They were cool, quick, efficient, but something was wrong with the jack.
“Always like that,” said Fleur, “when you’re in a hurry.”
Twenty minutes was lost before they were again in motion.
“I can’t possibly do it now,” she said, “but you’ll be able to pick up his tracks easily, if you really want to. The station’s right out beyond the town.”
Through Billingshurst and Pulborough and over Stopham bridge, they travelled at full speed.
“Better go for Petworth itself,” said Hilary, “if he’s heading back for the town, we shall meet him.”
“Am I to stop if we meet him?”
“No, carry straight on past and then turn.”
But they passed through Petworth and on for the mile and a half to the station without meeting him.
“The train’s been in a good twenty minutes,” said Adrian, “let’s ask.”
A porter had taken the ticket of a gentleman in a blue overcoat and black hat. No! He had no luggage. He had gone off, towards the Downs. How long ago? Half an hour, maybe.
Regaining the car hastily they made towards the Downs.
“I remember,” said Hilary, “a little further on there’s a turn to Sutton. The point will be whether he’s taken that or gone on up. There are some houses there somewhere. We’ll ask, they may have seen him.”
Just beyond the turning was a little post-office, and a postman was cycling towards it from the Sutton road.
Fleur pulled the car to a walk alongside.
“Have you seen a gentleman in a blue coat and bowler hat making towards Sutton?”
“No, Miss, ‘aven’t passed a soul.”
“Thank you. Shall I carry on for the Downs, Uncle Hilary?”
Hilary consulted his watch.
“If I remember, it’s a mile about to the top of the Down close to Duncton Beacon. We’ve come a mile and a half from the station; and he had, say, twenty-five minutes’ start, so by the time we get to the top we should have about caught him. From the top we shall see the road ahead and be able to make sure. If we don’t come on him, it’ll mean he’s taken to the Down — but which way?”
Adrian said under his breath: “Homewards.”
“To the East?” said Hilary. “On then, Fleur, not too fast.”
Fleur headed the car up the Downs road.
“Feel in my coat, you’ll find three apples,” she said. “I caught them up.”
“What a head!” said Hilary. “But you’ll want them yourself.”
“No. I’m slimming. You can leave me one.”
The brothers, munching each an apple, kept their eyes fixed on the woods on either side of the car.
“Too thick,” said Hilary; “he’ll be carrying on to the open. If you sight him, Fleur, stop dead.”
But they did not sight him, and, mounting slower and slower, reached the top. To their right was the round beech tree clump of Duncton, to the left the open Down; no figure was on the road in front.
“Not ahead,” said Hilary. “We’ve got to decide, old man.”
“Take my advice, and let me drive you home, Uncle Hilary.”
“Shall we, Adrian?”
Adrian shook his head.
“I shall go on.”
“All right, I’m with you.”
“Look!” said Fleur suddenly, and pointed.
Some fifty yards in, along a rough track leaving the road to the left, lay a dark object.
“It’s a coat, I think.”
Adrian jumped out and ran towards it. He returned with a blue overcoat over his arm.
“No doubt now,” he said. “Either he was sitting there and left it by mistake, or he tired of carrying it. It’s a bad sign, whichever it was. Come along, Hilary!”
He dropped the coat in the car.
“What orders for me, Uncle Hilary?”
“You’ve been a brick, my dear. Would you be still more of a brick and wait here another hour? If we’re not back by then, go down and keep close along under the Downs slowly by way of Sutton Bignor and West Burton, then if there’s no sign of us anywhere along that way, take the main road through Pulborough back to London. If you’ve any money to spare, you might lend us some.”
Fleur took out her bag.
“Three pounds. Shall I give you two?”
“Gratefully received,” said Hilary. “Adrian and I never have any money. We’re the poorest family in England, I do believe. Good-bye, my dear, and thank you! Now, old man!”
Waving their hands to where Fleur stood by her car with the remaining apple raised to her lips, the two brothers took the track on to the Down.
“You lead,” said Hilary; “you’ve got the best eyes, and your clothes are less conspicuous. If you sight him, we’ll consult.”
They came almost at once on a long stretch of high wire fence running across the Down.
“It ends there to the left,” said Adrian; “we’ll go round it above the woods; the lower we keep the better.”
They kept round it on the hillside over grass rougher and more uneven, falling into a climber’s loping stride as if once more they were off on some long and difficult ascent. The doubt whether they would catch up with Ferse, what they could do if they did, and the knowledge that it might be a maniac with whom they had to deal, brought to both their faces a look that soldiers have, and sailors, and men climbing mountains, of out-staring what was before them.
They had crossed an old and shallow chalk working and were mounting the few feet to the level on its far side, when Adrian dropped back and pulled Hilary down.
“He’s there,” he whispered; “about seventy yards ahead!”
“See you?”
“No. He looks wild. His hat’s gone, and he’s gesticulating. What shall we do?”
“Put your head up through that bush.”
Adrian knelt, watching. Ferse had ceased to gesticulate, he was standing with arms crossed and his bare head bent. His back was to Adrian, and, but for that still, square, wrapped-in attitude, there was nothing to judge from. He suddenly uncrossed his arms, shook his head from side to side and began to walk rapidly on. Adrian waited till he had disappeared among the bushes on the slope, and beckoned Hilary to follow.
“We mustn’t let him get too far ahead,” muttered Hilary, “or we shan’t know whether he’s taken to the wood.”
“He’ll keep to the open, he wants air, poor devil. Look out!” He pulled Hilary down again. The ground had suddenly begun to dip. It sloped right down to a grassy hollow, and halfway down the slope they could see Ferse plainly. He was walking slowly, clearly unconscious of pursuit. Every now and then his hands would go up to his bare head, as if to clear away something that entangled it.
“God!” murmured Adrian: “I hate to see him.”
Hilary nodded.
They lay watching. Part of the weald was visible, rich with colour on that sunny autumn day. The grass, after heavy morning dew, was scented still; the sky of the dim spiritual blue that runs almost to white above the chalky downs. And the day was silent well-nigh to breathlessness. The brothers waited without speaking.
Ferse had reached the level at the bottom; they could see him dejectedly moving across a rough field towards a spinney. A pheasant rose just in front of him; they saw him start, as if wakened from a dream, and stand watching its rising flight.
“I expect he knows every foot round here,” said Adrian: “he was a keen sportsman.” And just then Ferse threw up his hands as if they held a gun. There was something oddly reassuring in that action.
“Now,” said Hilary, as Ferse disappeared in the spinney, “run!” They dashed down the hill, and hurried along over rough ground.
“Suppose,” gasped Adrian, “that he’s stopped in the spinney.”
“Risk it! Gently now, till we can see the rise.”
About a hundred yards beyond the spinney, Ferse was plodding slowly up the hill.
“All right so far,” murmured Hilary, “we must wait till that rise flattens out and we lose sight of him. This is a queer business, old boy, for you and me. And at the end of it, as Fleur said: What?”
“We MUST KNOW,” said Adrian.
“We’re just losing him now. Let’s give him five minutes. I’ll time it.”
That five minutes seemed interminable. A jay squawked from the wooded hillside, a rabbit stole out and squatted in front of them; faint shiverings of air passed through the spinney.
“Now!” said Hilary. They rose, and breasted the grass rise at a good pace. “If he comes back on his tracks, here —”
“The sooner it’s face to face the better,” said Adrian, “but if he sees us following he’ll run, and we shall lose him.”
“Go slow, old man. It’s beginning to flatten.”
Cautiously they topped the rise. The Down now dipped a little to where a chalky track ran above a beech wood to their left. There was no sign of Ferse.
“Either he’s gone into the wood or he’s through that next thicket, and on the rise again. We’d better hurry and make sure.”
They ran along the track between deep banks, and were turning into the brush, when the sound of a voice not twenty yards ahead jerked them to a standstill. They dropped back behind the bank and lay breathless. Somewhere in the thicket Ferse was muttering to himself. They could hear no words, but the voice gave them both a miserable feeling.
“Poor chap!” whispered Hilary: “shall we go on, and try to comfort him?”
“Listen!”
There was the sound as of a branch cracking underfoot, a muttered oath, and then with appalling suddenness a huntsman’s scream. It had a quality that froze the blood. Adrian said:
“Pretty ghastly! But he’s broken covert.”
Cautiously they moved into the thicket; Ferse was running for the Down that rose from the end of it.
“He didn’t see us, did he?”
“No, or he’d be looking back. Wait till we lose sight of him again.”
“This is poor work,” said Hilary, suddenly, “but I agree with you it’s got to be done. That was a horrible sound! But we must know exactly what we’re going to do, old man.”
“I was thinking,” said Adrian, “if we could induce him to come back to Chelsea, we’d keep Diana and the children away, dismiss the maids, and get him special attendants. I’d stay there with him till it was properly fixed. It seems to me that his own house is the only chance.”
“I don’t believe he’ll come of his free will.”
“In that case, God knows! I won’t have a hand in caging him.”
“What if he tries to kill himself?”
“That’s up to you, Hilary.”
Hilary was silent.
“Don’t bet on my cloth,” he said, suddenly; “a slum parson is pretty hard-boiled.”
Adrian gripped his hand. “He’s out of sight now.”
“Come on, then!”
They crossed the level at a sharp pace and began mounting the rise. Up there the character of the ground changed, the hill was covered sparsely by hawthorn bushes, and yew trees, and bramble, with here and there a young beech. It gave good cover, and they moved more freely.
“We’re coming to the cross roads above Bignor,” murmured Hilary. “He might take the track down from there. We could easily lose him!”
They ran, but suddenly stood still behind a yew tree.
“He’s not going down,” said Hilary: “Look!”
On the grassy open rise beyond the cross tracks, where a signpost stood, Ferse was running towards the north side of the hill.
“A second track goes down there, I remember.”
“It’s all chance, but we can’t stop now.”
Ferse had ceased to run, he was walking slowly with stooped head up the rise. They watched him from behind their yew tree till he vanished over the hill’s shoulder.
“Now!” said Hilary.
It was a full half mile, and both of them were over fifty.
“Not too fast, old man,” panted Hilary; “we mustn’t bust our bellows.”
They kept to a dogged jog, reached the shoulder, over which Ferse had vanished, and found a grass track trailing down.
“Slowly does it now,” gasped Hilary.
Here too the hillside was dotted with bushes and young trees, and they made good use of them till they came to a shallow chalk pit.
“Let’s lie up here a minute, and get our wind. He’s not going off the Down or we’d have seen him. Listen!”
From below them came a chanting sound. Adrian raised his head above the pit side and looked over. A little way down by the side of the track lay Ferse on his back. The words of the song he was droning out came up quite clearly:
“Must I go bound, and you go free?
Must I love a lass that couldn’t love me?
Was e’er I taught so poor a wit
As love a lass, would break my heart.”
He ceased and lay perfectly still; then, to Adrian’s horror, his face became distorted; he flung his fists up in the air, cried out: “I won’t — I won’t be mad!” and rolled over on his face.
Adrian dropped back.
“It’s terrible! I must go down and speak to him.”
“We’ll both go — round by the track — slow — don’t startle him.”
They took the track which wound round the chalk pit. Ferse was no longer there.
“Quietly on, old son,” said Hilary.
They walked on in a curious calm, as if they had abandoned the chase.
“Who can believe in God?” said Adrian.
A wry smile contorted Hilary’s long face.
“In God I believe, but not a merciful one as we understand the word. On this hillside, I remember, they trap. Hundreds of rabbits suffer the tortures of the damned. We used to let them out and knock them on the head. If my beliefs were known, I should be unfrocked. That wouldn’t help. My job’s a concrete one. Look! A fox!”
They stood a moment watching his low fulvous body steal across the track.
“Marvellous beast, a fox! Great places for wild life, these wooded chines; so steep, you can’t disturb them — pigeons, jays, woodpeckers, rabbits, foxes, hares, pheasants — every mortal thing.”
The track had begun to drop, and Hilary pointed.
Ahead, beyond the dip into the chine they could see Ferse walking along a wire fence.
They watched till he vanished then reappeared on the side of the hill, having rounded the corner of the fence.
“What now?”
“He can’t see us from there. To speak to him, we must somehow get near before we try, otherwise he’ll just run.”
They crossed the dip and went up along and round the corner of the fence under cover of the hawthorns. On the uneven hillside Ferse had again vanished.
“This is wired for sheep,” said Hilary, “Look! they’re all over the hill — Southdowns.”
They reached a top. There was no sign of him.
They kept along the wire, and reaching the crest of the next rise, stood looking. Away to the left the hill dropped steeply into another chine; in front of them was open grass dipping to a wood. On their right was still the wire fencing and rough pasture. Suddenly Adrian gripped his brother’s arm. Not seventy yards away on the other side of the wire Ferse was lying face to the grass, with sheep grazing close to him. The brothers crawled to the shelter of a bush. From there, unseen, they could see him quite well, and they watched him in silence. He lay so still that the sheep were paying him no attention. Round-bodied, short-legged, snub-nosed, of a greyish white, and with the essential cosiness of the Southdown breed, they grazed on, undisturbed.
“Is he asleep, d’you think?”
Adrian shook his head. “Peaceful, though.”
There was something in his attitude that went straight to the heart; something that recalled a small boy hiding his head in his mother’s lap; it was as if the feel of the grass beneath his body, his face, his outstretched hands, were bringing him comfort; as if he were groping his way back into the quiet security of Mother Earth. While he lay like that it was impossible to disturb him.
The sun, in the west, fell on their backs, and Adrian turned his face to receive it on his cheek. All the nature-lover and country man in him responded to that warmth, to the scent of the grass, the song of the larks, the blue of the sky; and he noticed that Hilary too had turned his face to the sun. It was so still that, but for the larks’ song and the muffled sound of the sheep cropping, one might have said Nature was dumb. No voice of man or beast, no whirr of traffic came up from the weald.
“Three o’clock. Have a nap, old man,” he whispered to Hilary; “I’ll watch.”
Ferse seemed asleep now. Surely his brain would rest from its disorder here. If there were healing in air, in form, in colour, it was upon this green cool hill for a thousand years and more undwelt on and freed from the restlessness of men. The men of old, indeed, had lived up there; but since then nothing had touched it but the winds and the shadows of the clouds. And today there was no wind, no cloud to throw soft and moving darkness on the grass.
So profound a pity for the poor devil, lying there as if he would never move again, stirred Adrian that he could not think of himself, nor even feel for Diana. Ferse, so lying, awakened in him a sensation quite impersonal, the deep herding kinship men have for each other in the face of Fortune’s strokes which seem to them unfair. Yes! He was sleeping now, grasping at the earth for refuge; to grasp for eternal refuge in the earth was all that was left him. And for those two quiet hours of watching that prostrate figure among the sheep, Adrian was filled not with futile rebellion and bitterness but with a strange unhappy wonder. The old Greek dramatists had understood the tragic plaything which the gods make of man; such understanding had been overlaid by the Christian doctrine of a merciful God. Merciful? — No! Hilary was right! Faced by Ferse’s fate — what would one do? What — while the gleam of sanity remained? When a man’s life was so spun that no longer he could do his job, be no more to his fellows than a poor distraught and frightening devil, the hour of eternal rest in quiet earth had surely come. Hilary had seemed to think so too; yet he was not sure what his brother would do if it came to the point. His job was with the living, a man who died was lost to him, so much chance of service gone! And Adrian felt a sort of thankfulness that his own job was with the dead, classifying the bones of men — the only part of men that did not suffer, and endured, age on age, to afford evidence of a marvellous animal. So he lay, and watched, plucking blade after blade of grass and rubbing the sweetness of them out between his palms.
The sun wore on due west, till it was almost level with his eyes; the sheep had ceased cropping and were moving slowly together over the hill, as if waiting to be folded. Rabbits had stolen out and were nibbling the grass; and the larks, one by one, had dropped from the sky. A chill was creeping on the air; the trees down in the weald had darkened and solidified; and the whitening sky seemed waiting for the sunset glow. The grass too had lost its scent; there was no dew as yet.
Adrian shivered. In ten minutes now the sun would be off the hill, and then it would be cold. When Ferse awoke, would he be better or worse? They must risk it. He touched Hilary, who lay with his knees drawn up, still sleeping. He woke instantly.
“Hallo, old man!”
“Hssh! He’s still asleep. What are we to do when he wakes? Shall we go up to him now and wait for it?”
Hilary jerked his brother’s sleeve. Ferse was on his feet. From behind their bush they could see him wildly looking round, as some animal warned of danger might stand gazing before he takes to flight. It was clear that he could not see them, but that he had heard or sensed some presence. He began walking towards the wire, crawled through and stood upright, turned towards the reddening sun balanced now like a fiery globe on the far wooded hill. With the glow from it on his face, bareheaded and so still that he might have been dead on his feet, he stood till the sun vanished.
“Now,” whispered Hilary, and stood up. Adrian saw Ferse come suddenly to life, fling out his arm with a wild defiance, and turn to run.
Hilary said, aghast: “He’s desperate. There’s a chalk pit just above the main road. Come on, old man, come on!”
They ran, but stiffened as they were, had no chance with Ferse, who gained with every stride. He ran like a maniac, flinging his arms out, and they could hear him shout. Hilary gasped out:
“Stop! He’s not going for that pit after all. It’s away to the right. He’s making for the wood down there. Better let him think we’ve given up.”
They watched him running down the slope, and lost him as, still running, he entered the wood.
“Now!” said Hilary.
They laboured on down to the wood and entered it as near to the point of his disappearance as they could. It was of beech and except at the edge there was no undergrowth. They stopped to listen, but there was no sound. The light in there was already dim, but the wood was narrow and they were soon at its far edge. Below they could see some cottages and farm buildings.
“Let’s get down to the road.”
They hurried on, came suddenly to the edge of a high chalk pit, and stopped aghast.
“I didn’t know of this,” said Hilary. “Go that way and I’ll go this along the edge.”
Adrian went upwards till he reached the top. Below, at the bottom some sixty steep feet down, he could see a dark thing lying. Whatever it was, it did not move, and no sound came up. Was this the end then, a headlong dive into the half dark? A choking sensation seized him by the throat, and for a moment he stood unable to call out or move. Then hastily he ran along the edge till he came to where Hilary was standing.
“Well?”
Adrian pointed back into the pit. They went on along the edge through undergrowth till they could scramble down, and make their way over the grassed floor of the old pit to the farther corner below the highest point.
The dark thing was Ferse. Adrian knelt and raised his head. His neck was broken; he was dead.
Whether he had dived deliberately to that end, or in his mad rush fallen over, they could not tell. Neither of them spoke, but Hilary put his hand on his brother’s shoulder.
At last he said: “There’s a cart shed a little way along the road, but perhaps we ought not to move him. Stay with him, while I go on to the village and ‘phone. It’s a matter for the police, I suppose.”
Adrian nodded, still on his knees beside the broken figure.
“There’s a post office quite near, I shan’t be long.” Hilary hurried away.
Alone in the silent darkening pit Adrian sat cross-legged, with the dead man’s head resting against him. He had closed the eyes and covered the face with his handkerchief. In the wood above birds rustled and chirped, on their way to bed. The dew had begun to fall, and into the blue twilight the ground mist of autumn was creeping. Shape was all softened, but the tall chalk pit face still showed white. Though not fifty yards from a road on which cars were passing, this spot where Ferse had leapt to his rest seemed to Adrian desolate, remote, and full of ghostliness. Though he knew that he ought to be thankful for Ferse, for Diana, for himself, he could feel nothing but that profound pity for a fellow man so tortured and broken in his prime — profound pity, and a sort of creeping identification with the mystery of Nature enwrapping the dead man and this his resting-place.
A voice roused him from that strange coma. An old whiskered countryman was standing there with a glass in his hand.
“So there been an accident, I year,” he was saying; “a parson gentleman sent me with this. ’Tis brandy, sir.” He handed the glass to Adrian. “Did ‘e fall over yere, or what?”
“Yes, he fell over.”
“I allus said as they should put a fence up there. The gentleman said I was to tell you as the doctor and the police was comin’.”
“Thank you,” said Adrian, handing back the emptied glass.
“There be a nice cosy cartshed a little ways along the road maybe we could carry ’im along there.”
“We mustn’t move him till they come.”
“Ah!” said the old countryman: “I’ve read as there was a law about that, in case as ’twas murder or sooicide.” He peered down. “He do look quiet, don’t ‘e? D’e know ‘oo ‘e is, Sir?”
“Yes. A Captain Ferse. He came from round here.”
“What, one of the Ferses o’ Burton Rise? Why, I worked there as a boy; born in that parish I were.” He peered closer: “This’d never be Mr. Ronald, would it?”
Adrian nodded.
“Yeou don’ say! There’s none of ’em there neow. His grandfather died mad, so ‘e did. Yeou don’ say! Mr. Ronald! I knew ’im as a young lad.” He stooped to look at the face in the last of the light, then stood, moving his whiskered head mournfully from side to side. To him — Adrian could see — it made all the difference that here was no ‘foreigner.’
The sudden sputtering of a motor cycle broke the stillness; it came with gleaming headlight down the cart track into the pit, and two figures got off. A young man and a girl. They came gingerly towards the group disclosed by the beam from the headlight, and stood, peering down.
“We heard there’s been an accident.”
“Ah!” said the old countryman.
“Can we do anything?”
“No, thank you,” said Adrian; “the doctor and the police are coming. We must just wait.”
He could see the young man open his mouth as if to ask more, close it without speaking, and put his arm round the girl, then, like the old countryman, they stood silent with their eyes fixed on the figure with the broken neck lying against Adrian’s knee. The cycle’s engine, still running, throbbed in the silence, and its light made even more ghostly the old pit and the little group of the living around the dead.
At Condaford, the telegram came just before dinner. It ran: ‘Poor F dead Fell down chalk pit here Removed to Chichester Adrian and I going with him Inquest will be there. Hilary.’
Dinny was in her room when it was brought to her, and she sat down on her bed with that feeling of constriction in the chest which comes when relief and sorrow struggle together for expression. Here was what she had prayed for, and all she could think of was the last sound she had heard him utter, and the look on his face, when he was standing in the doorway listening to Diana singing. She said to the maid who had brought in the telegram:
“Amy, find Scaramouch.”
When the Scotch terrier came with his bright eyes and his air of knowing that he was of value, she clasped him so tight that he became uneasy. With that warm and stiffly hairy body in her arms, she regained the power of feeling; relief covered the background of her being, but pity forced tears into her eyes. It was a curious state, and beyond the comprehension of her dog. He licked her nose and wriggled till she set him down. She finished dressing hurriedly and went to her mother’s room.
Lady Cherrell, dressed for dinner, was moving between open wardrobe and open chest of drawers, considering what she could best part with for the approaching jumble sale which must keep the village nursing fund going over the year’s end. Dinny put the telegram into her hand without a word. Having read it, she said quietly:
“That’s what you prayed for, dear.”
“Does it mean suicide?”
“I think so.”
“Ought I to tell Diana now, or wait till she’s had a night’s sleep?”
“Now, I think. I will, if you like.”
“No, no, darling. It’s up to me. She’ll like dinner upstairs, I expect. To-morrow, I suppose, we shall have to go to Chichester.”
“This is all very dreadful for you, Dinny.”
“It’s good for me.” She took back the telegram and went out.
Diana was with the children, who were giving as long as possible to the process of going to bed, not having reached the age when to do such a thing has become desirable. Dinny beckoned her out into her own room, and, once more without a word, handed over the telegram. Though she had been so close to Diana these last days, there were sixteen years between them, and she made no consoling gesture as she might have to one of her own age. She had, indeed, a feeling of never quite knowing how Diana would take things. She took this stonily. It might have been no news at all. Her beautiful face, fine and worn as that on a coin, expressed nothing. Her eyes fixed on Dinny’s, remained dry and clear. All she said was: “I won’t come down. To-morrow — Chichester?”
Checking all impulse, Dinny nodded and went out. Alone with her mother after dinner, she said:
“I wish I had Diana’s self-control.”
“Self-control like hers is the result of all she’s been through.”
“There’s the Vere de Vere touch about it, too.”
“That’s no bad thing, Dinny.”
“What will this inquest mean?”
“She’ll need all her self-control there, I’m afraid.”
“Mother, shall I have to give evidence?”
“You were the last person who spoke to him so far as is known, weren’t you?”
“Yes. Must I speak of his coming to the door last night?”
“I suppose you ought to tell everything you know, if you’re asked.”
A flush stained Dinny’s cheeks.
“I don’t think I will. I never even told Diana that. And I don’t see what it has to do with outsiders.”
“No, I don’t see either; but we’re not supposed to exercise our own judgments as to that.”
“Well, I shall; I’m not going to pander to people’s beastly curiosity, and give Diana pain.”
“Suppose one of the maids heard him?”
“They can’t prove that I did.”
Lady Cherrell smiled. “I wish your father were here.”
“You are not to tell Dad what I told you, Mother. I can’t have the male conscience fussing around; the female’s is bad enough, but one has it in hand.”
“Very well.”
“I shan’t have the faintest scruple,” said Dinny, fresh from her recollection of London Police Courts, “about keeping a thing dark, if I can safely. What do they want an inquest for, anyway? He’s dead. It’s just morbidity.”
“I oughtn’t to aid and abet you, Dinny.”
“Yes, you ought, Mother. You know you agree at heart.”
Lady Cherrell said no more. She did . . . .
The General and Alan Tasburgh came down next morning by the first train, and half an hour later they all started in the open car; Alan driving, the General beside him, and in the back seat Lady Cherrell, Dinny and Diana wedged together. It was a long and gloomy drive. Leaning back with her nose just visible above her fur, Dinny pondered. It was dawning on her gradually that she was in some sort the hub of the approaching inquest. She it was to whom Ferse had opened his heart; she who had taken the children away; she who had gone down in the night to telephone; she who had heard what she did not mean to tell; and, lastly but much the most importantly, it must be she who had called in Adrian and Hilary. Only behind her, their niece, who had caused Diana to turn to them for assistance when Ferse vanished, could Adrian’s friendship for Diana be masked. Like everybody else, Dinny read, and even enjoyed, the troubles and scandals of others, retailed in the papers; like everybody else, she revolted against the papers having anything that could be made into scandal to retail about her family or her friends. If it came out crudely that her uncle had been applied to as an old and intimate friend of Diana’s, he and she would be asked all sorts of questions, leading to all sorts of suspicions in the sex-ridden minds of the Public. Her roused imagination roamed freely. If Adrian’s long and close friendship with Diana became known, what would there be to prevent the Public from suspecting even that her uncle had pushed Ferse over the edge of that chalk pit, unless, of course, Hilary were with him — for as yet they knew no details. Her mind, in fact, began running before the hounds. A lurid explanation of anything was so much more acceptable than a dull and true one! And there hardened within her an almost vicious determination to cheat the Public of the thrills it would be seeking.
Adrian met them in the hall of the hotel at Chichester, and she took her chance to say: “Uncle, can I speak to you and Uncle Hilary privately?”
“Hilary had to go back to Town, my dear, but he’ll be down the last thing this evening; we can have a talk then. The inquest’s tomorrow.”
With that she had to be content.
When he had finished his story, determined that Adrian should not take Diana to see Ferse, she said: “If you’ll tell us where to go, Uncle, I’LL go with Diana.”
Adrian nodded. He had understood.
When they reached the mortuary, Diana went in alone, and Dinny waited in a corridor which smelled of disinfectant and looked out on to a back street. A fly, disenchanted by the approach of winter, was crawling dejectedly up the pane. Gazing out into that colourless back alley, under a sky drained of all warmth and light, she felt very miserable. Life seemed exceptionally bleak, and heavy with sinister issues. This inquest, Hubert’s impending fate — no light or sweetness anywhere! Not even the thought of Alan’s palpable devotion gave her comfort.
She turned to see Diana again beside her, and, suddenly forgetting her own woe, threw an arm round her and kissed her cold cheek. They went back to the hotel without speaking, except for Diana’s: “He looked marvellously calm.”
She went early to her room after dinner, and sat there with a book, waiting for her uncles. It was ten o’clock before Hilary’s cab drew up, and a few minutes later they came. She noted how shadowy and worn they both looked; but there was something reassuring in their faces. They were the sort who ran till they dropped, anyway. They both kissed her with unexpected warmth, and sat down sideways, one on each side of her bed. Dinny stood between them at the foot and addressed Hilary.
“It’s about Uncle Adrian, Uncle. I’ve been thinking. This inquest is going to be horrid if we don’t take care.”
“It is, Dinny. I came down with a couple of journalists who didn’t suspect my connection. They’ve got hold of the mental home, and are all agog. I’ve a great respect for journalists, they do their job very thoroughly.”
Dinny addressed Adrian.
“You won’t mind my talking freely, will you, Uncle?”
Adrian smiled. “No, Dinny. You’re a loyal baggage; go ahead!”
“It seems to me, then,” she went on, plaiting her fingers on the bed-rail, “that the chief point is to keep Uncle Adrian’s friendship for Diana out of it, and I thought that the asking of you two to find him ought to be put entirely on to me. You see, I was the last person known to speak to him, when he cut the telephone wire, you know, so, when I’m called, I could get it into their minds that you were entirely my suggestion, as a couple of Uncles who were clever and good at crossword puzzles. Otherwise, why did we go to Uncle Adrian? Because he was SUCH A FRIEND, and then you’d get at once all that they may think that means, especially when they hear that Captain Ferse was away four years.”
There was silence before Hilary said:
“She’s wise, old boy. Four years’ friendship with a beautiful woman in a husband’s absence means only one thing with a jury, and many things with the Public.”
Adrian nodded. “But I don’t see how the fact that I’ve known them both so long can be concealed.”
“First impressions,” said Dinny eagerly, “will be everything. I can say that Diana suggested going to her doctor and Michael, but that I overruled her, knowing that you were marvellous at tracing things out because of your job, and could get at Uncle Hilary, who was so good at human nature. If we START them right, I don’t believe the mere fact that you knew both of them would matter. It seems to me awfully important that I should be called as early as possible.”
“It’s putting a lot on you, my dear.”
“Oh! no. If I’m not called before you and Uncle Hilary, will you both say that it was I who came and asked you, and I can rub it in afterwards?”
“After the doctor and the police, Diana will be the first witness.”
“Yes, but I can speak to her, so that we shall all be saying the same thing.”
Hilary smiled. “I don’t see why not, it’s very white lying. I can put in that I’ve known them as long as you, Adrian. We both met Diana first at that picnic Lawrence gave near the Land’s End, when she was a flapper, and we both met Ferse first at her wedding. Family friendship, um?”
“My visits to the Mental Home will come out,” said Adrian, “the Doctor’s been summoned as witness.”
“Oh! well,” said Dinny, “you went there as his friend, and specially interested in mental derangement. After all, you’re supposed to be scientific, Uncle.”
Both smiled, and Hilary said: “All right, Dinny, we’ll speak to the Sergeant, he’s a very decent chap, and get you called early, if possible.” He went to the door.
“Good-night, little serpent,” said Adrian.
“Good-night, dear Uncle; you look terribly tired. Have you got a hot water-bottle?”
Adrian shook his head. “I’ve nothing but a tooth-brush which I bought today.”
Dinny hauled her bottle out of her bed, and forced it on him. “Shall I speak to Diana, then, about what we’ve been saying?”
“If you will, Dinny.”
“After tomorrow the sun will shine.”
“Will it?” said Adrian.
As the door closed, Dinny sighed. Would it? Diana seemed as if dead to feeling. And — there was Hubert’s business!
The reflections of Adrian and his niece, when together they entered the Coroner’s Court on the following day, might have been pooled as follows:
A coroner’s inquest was like roast beef and Yorkshire pudding on Sundays, devised for other times. When Sunday afternoons were devoted to games, murders infrequent, and suicides no longer buried at cross-roads, neither custom had its initial wisdom. In old days, Justice and its emissaries were regarded as the foes of mankind, so it was natural to interpose a civilian arbiter between death and the Law. In an age in which one called the police ‘a splendid force’ was there not something unnatural in supposing them incapable of judging when it was necessary for them to take action? Their incompetence, therefore, could not well be considered the reason for the preservation of these rites. The cause was, surely, in one’s dread of being deprived of knowledge. Every reader of a newspaper felt that the more he or she heard about what was doubtful, sensational, and unsavoury, the better for his or her soul. One knew that, without coroners’ inquests, there would often be no published enquiry at all into sensational death; and never two enquiries. If, then, in place of no enquiry one could always have one enquiry, and in place of one enquiry sometimes have two enquiries, how much pleasanter! The dislike which one had for being nosy disappeared the moment one got into a crowd. The nosier one could be in a crowd the happier one felt. And the oftener one could find room in a Coroner’s Court, the greater the thankfulness to Heaven. “Praise God from whom all blessings flow” could never go up more fervently than from the hearts of such as had been privileged to find seats at an enquiry about death. For an enquiry about death nearly always meant the torture of the living, and than that was anything more calculated to give pleasure?
The fact that the Court was full confirmed these reflections and they passed on into a little room to wait. Adrian saying: “You go in fifth wicket down, Dinny, both Hilary and I are taken before you. If we keep out of Court till we’re wanted they can’t say we copied each other.”
They sat very silent in the little bare room. The police, the doctor, Diana and Hilary had all to be examined first.
“It’s like the ten little nigger boys,” murmured Dinny. Her eyes were fixed on a calendar on the wall opposite; she could not read it, but it seemed necessary.
“See, my dear,” said Adrian, and drew a little bottle from his breast pocket, “take a sip or two of this — not more — it’s fifty-fifty sal volatile and water; it’ll steady you no end. Be careful!”
Dinny took a little gulp. It burned her throat, but not too badly.
“You too, Uncle.”
Adrian also took a cautious gulp.
“No finer dope,” he said, “before going in to bat, or anything like that.”
And they again sat silent, assimilating the fumes. Presently Adrian said:
“If spirits survive, as I don’t believe, what is poor Ferse thinking of this farce? We’re still barbarians. There’s a story of Maupassant’s about a Suicide Club that provided a pleasant form of death to those who felt they had to go. I don’t believe in suicide for the sane, except in very rare cases. We’ve got to stick things out; but for the insane, or those threatened with it, I wish we had that Club, Dinny. Has that stuff steadied you?”
Dinny nodded.
“It’ll last pretty well an hour.” He got up. “My turn, I see. Good-bye, my dear, good luck! Stick in a ‘Sir,’ to the Coroner, now and then.”
Watching him straighten himself as he passed through the door, Dinny felt a sort of inspiration. Uncle Adrian was the man she admired most of any she had ever seen. And she sent up a little illogical prayer for him. Certainly that stuff had steadied her; the sinking, fluttering feeling she had been having was all gone. She took out her pocket mirror and powder-puff. She could go to the stake, anyway, with a nose that did not shine.
Another quarter of an hour, however, passed before she was called, and she spent it, with her eyes still fixed on that calendar, thinking of Condaford and recalling all her pleasantest times there. The old days of its unrestored state, when she was very small, hayfield days, and picnics in the woods; pulling lavender, riding on the retriever, promotion to the pony when Hubert was at school; days of pure delight in a new, fixed home, for, though she had been born there, she had been nomadic till she was four — at Aldershot, and Gibraltar. She remembered with special pleasure winding the golden silk off the cocoons of her silkworms, how they had made her think of creeping, crawling elephants, and how peculiar had been their smell.
“Elizabeth Charwell.”
Nuisance to have a name that everyone pronounced wrong as a matter of course! And she rose, murmuring to herself:
“One little nigger, walking all alone,
Up came a coroner, and then there was none.”
Someone took charge of her on her entry, and, taking her across the Court, placed her in a sort of pen. It was fortunate that she had been in such places lately, for it all felt rather familiar, and even faintly comic. The jury in front of her looked as it were disused, the coroner had a funny importance. Down there, not far to her left, were the other little niggers; and, behind them, stretching to the blank wall, dozens and dozens and dozens of faces in rows, as of sardines set up on their tails in a huge sardine box. Then aware that she was being addressed, she concentrated on the coroner’s face.
“Your name is Elizabeth Cherrell. You are the daughter, I believe, of Lieutenant-General Sir Conway Cherrell, K.C.B., C.M.G., and Lady Cherrell?”
Dinny bowed. ‘I believe he likes me for that,’ she thought.
“And you live with them at Condaford Grange in Oxfordshire?”
“Yes.”
“I believe, Miss Cherrell, that you were staying with Captain and Mrs. Ferse up to the morning on which Captain Ferse left his house?”
“I was.”
“Are you a close friend of theirs?”
“Of Mrs. Ferse. I had seen Captain Ferse only once, I think, before his return.”
“Ah! his return. Were you staying with Mrs. Ferse when he returned?”
“I had come up to stay with her on that very afternoon.”
“The afternoon of his return from the Mental Home?”
“Yes. I actually went to stay at their house the following day.”
“And were you there until Captain Ferse left his house?”
“I was.”
“During that time what was his demeanour?”
At this question for the first time Dinny realised the full disadvantage of not knowing what has been said already. It almost looked as if she must say what she really knew and felt.
“He seemed to me quite normal, except that he would not go out or see anybody. He looked quite healthy, only his eyes made one feel unhappy.”
“How do you mean exactly?”
“They — they looked like a fire behind bars, they seemed to flicker.”
And, at those words, she noticed that the jury for a moment looked a trifle less disused.
“He would not go out, you say? Was that during the whole time you were there?”
“No; he went out on the day before he left his home. He was out all that day, I believe.”
“You believe? Were you not there?”
“No; that morning I took the two children down to my mother’s at Condaford Grange, and returned in the evening just before dinner. Captain Ferse was not in then.”
“What made you take the children down?”
“Mrs. Ferse asked me to. She had noticed some change in Captain Ferse, and she thought the children would be better away.”
“Could you say that you had noticed a change?”
“Yes. I thought he seemed more restless, and, perhaps, suspicious; and he was drinking more at dinner.”
“Nothing very striking?”
“No. I—”
“Yes, Miss Cherrell?”
“I was going to say something that I don’t know of my own knowledge.”
“Something that Mrs. Ferse had told you?”
“Yes.”
“Well, you needn’t tell us that.”
“Thank you, Sir.”
“Coming back to when you returned from taking the children to your home, Captain Ferse was not in, you say; was Mrs. Ferse in?”
“Yes, she was dressed for dinner. I dressed quickly and we dined alone together. We were very anxious about him.”
“And then?”
“After dinner we went up to the drawing-room, and to distract her I made Mrs. Ferse sing, she was so nervous and anxious. After a little we heard the front door, and Captain Ferse came in and sat down.”
“Did he say anything?”
“No.”
“How was he looking?”
“Dreadful, I thought. Very strange and strained, as if under the power of some terrible thought.”
“Yes?”
“Mrs. Ferse asked him if he had had dinner, and if he would like to go to bed; and if he would see a doctor; but he wouldn’t speak — he sat with his eyes closed, almost as if he might be asleep, until at last I whispered: ‘Is he asleep, d’you think?’ Then suddenly he cried out: ‘Sleep! I’m for it again, and I won’t stand it. By God! I won’t stand it.’”
When she had repeated those words of Ferse, Dinny understood better than hitherto what is meant by the expression ‘sensation in Court’; in some mysterious way she had supplied what had been lacking to the conviction carried by the witnesses who had preceded her. Whether she had been wise in this, she was utterly unable to decide; and her eyes sought Adrian’s face. He gave her an almost imperceptible nod.
“Yes, Miss Cherrell?”
“Mrs. Ferse went towards him, and he cried out: ‘Leave me alone. Go away!’ I think she said: ‘Ronald, won’t you see someone just to give you something to make you sleep?’ but he sprang up and cried out violently: ‘Go away! I’ll see no one — no one!’”
“Yes, Miss Cherrell, what then?”
“We were frightened. We went up to my room and consulted, and I said we ought to telephone.”
“To whom?”
“To Mrs. Ferse’s doctor. She wanted to go, but I prevented her and ran down. The telephone was in the little study on the ground floor, and I was just getting the number when I felt my hand seized, and there was Captain Ferse behind me. He cut the wire with a knife. Then he stood holding my arm, and I said: ‘That’s silly, Captain Ferse; you know we wouldn’t hurt you.’ He let me go, and put his knife away, and told me to put on my shoes, because I had them in my other hand.”
“You mean you had taken them off?”
“Yes, to run down quietly. I put them on. He said: ‘I’m not going to be messed about. I shall do what I like with myself.’ I said: ‘You know we only want your good.’ And he said: ‘I know that good — no more of that for me.’ And then he looked out of the window and said: ‘It’s raining like hell,’ and turned to me and cried: ‘Get out of this room, quick. Get out!’ and I flew back upstairs again.”
Dinny paused and took a long breath. This second living through those moments was making her heart beat. She closed her eyes.
“Yes, Miss Cherrell, what then?”
She opened her eyes. There was the coroner still, and there the jury with their mouths a little open, as it seemed.
“I told Mrs. Ferse. We didn’t know what to do or what was coming — we didn’t see what we could do, and I suggested that we should drag the bed against the door and try to sleep.”
“And did you?”
“Yes; but we were awake a long time. Mrs. Ferse was so exhausted that she did sleep at last, and I think I did towards morning. Anyway the maid woke me by knocking.”
“Did you hear nothing further of Captain Ferse during the night?”
The old school-boy saying ‘If you tell a lie, tell a good ’un,’ shot through her mind, and she said firmly: “No, nothing.”
“What time was it when you were called?”
“Eight o’clock. I woke Mrs. Ferse and we went down at once. Captain Ferse’s dressing-room was in disorder, and he seemed to have lain upon the bed; but he was nowhere in the house; and his hat and overcoat were gone from the chair where he had thrown them down in the hall.”
“What did you do then?”
“We consulted, and Mrs. Ferse wanted to go to her doctor and to her cousin and mine, Mr. Michael Mont, the Member of Parliament; but I thought if I could get my uncles they would be better able to trace Captain Ferse; so I persuaded her to come with me to my Uncle Adrian and ask him to get my Uncle Hilary and see if they could find Captain Ferse. I knew they were both very clever men and very tactful,” Dinny saw the coroner bow slightly towards her uncles, and hurried on, “and they were old family friends; I thought if they couldn’t manage to find him without publicity, nobody could. So we went to my Uncle Adrian, and he agreed to get my Uncle Hilary to help him and try; then I took Mrs. Ferse down with me to the children at Condaford, and that’s all I know, Sir.”
The coroner bowed quite low towards her and said: “Thank you, Miss Cherrell. You have given your evidence admirably.” The jury moved uneasily as if trying to bow too, and Dinny, with an effort, stepped down from the pen and took her seat beside Hilary, who put his hand on hers. She sat very still, and then was conscious that a tear, as it were the last of the sal volatile, was moving slowly down her cheek. Listening dully to what followed, the evidence of the Doctor in charge of the Mental Home, and the coroner’s address, then waiting dumbly for the jury’s verdict, she suffered from the feeling that in her loyalty to the living she had been disloyal to the dead. It was a horrid sensation, that: of having borne evidence of mania against one who could not defend or explain himself; and it was with a fearful interest that she watched the jury file back into their seats, and the foreman stand up in answer to the demand for their verdict.
“We find that the deceased died from falling down a chalk pit.”
“That,” said the coroner, “is death from misadventure.”
“We wish to express our sympathy with the widow.”
Dinny almost clapped her hands. So! They had given him the benefit of the doubt — those disused men! And with a sudden, almost personal, warmth she tilted her head up and smiled at them.
When she had come to from smiling, Dinny perceived that her uncle was looking at her quizzically.
“Can we go now, Uncle Hilary?”
“It would be as well, Dinny, before you’ve quite vamped the foreman.”
Outside, in the damp October air, for the day was English autumn personified, she said:
“Let’s go for a little breather, Uncle, and get the smell of that Court out of us.”
They turned down towards the distant sea, walking at a good pace.
“I’m frightfully anxious to know what went before me, Uncle; did I say anything contradictory?”
“No. It came out at once in Diana’s evidence that Ferse had come back from the Home, and the coroner treated her tenderly. It was lucky they called me before Adrian, so that his evidence was only a repetition of mine, and he was no way conspicuous. I feel quite sorry for the journalists. Juries avoid suicide and unsound mind when they can, and, after all, we don’t know what happened to poor Ferse at that last minute. He may quite easily have run on over the edge, it was pretty blind there and the light was failing.”
“Do you really think that, Uncle?”
Hilary shook his head. “No, Dinny. I think he meant to do it all along, and that was the nearest place to his old home. And, though I say it that shouldn’t, thank God he did, and is at rest.”
“Yes, oh! yes! What will happen to Diana and Uncle Adrian, now?”
Hilary filled his pipe and stopped to light it. “Well, my dear, I’ve given Adrian some advice. I don’t know whether he’ll take it, but you might back it up if you get a chance. He’s waited all these years. He’d better wait another.”
“Uncle, I agree terribly.”
“Oh!” said Hilary, surprised.
“Yes. Diana is simply not fit to think even of him. She ought to be left to herself and the children.”
“I’m wondering,” said Hilary, “whether one couldn’t wangle some ‘bones’ expedition that would take him out of England for a year.”
“Hallorsen!” said Dinny, clasping her hands: “He’s going again. And he loves Uncle Adrian.”
“Good! But would he take him?”
“If I asked him,” said Dinny, simply.
Hilary again gave her a quizzical look. “What a dangerous young woman you are! I daresay the Trustees would give Adrian leave. I can set old Shropshire and Lawrence on to it. We must go back now, Dinny. I’ve got to catch a train. It’s distressing, because this air smells good; but the Meads are pining for me.”
Dinny slipped her hand through his arm.
“I do admire you, Uncle Hilary.”
Hilary stared. “I doubt if I follow you, my dear.”
“Oh! you know what I mean: you’ve got all the old ‘I serve’ tradition, and that kind of thing; and yet you’re so frightfully up-to-date, and tolerant, and free-thinking.”
“H’m!” said Hilary, emitting a cloud of smoke.
“I’m sure you believe in birth control?”
“Well,” said Hilary, “the position there is ironical for us parsons. It used to be considered unpatriotic to believe in limiting our population. But now that flying and poison gas have made food for powder unnecessary, and unemployment is rampant, I’m afraid there’s no question but that it’s unpatriotic NOT to believe in limiting our population. As for our Christian principles; being patriots, we didn’t apply the Christian principle ‘Thou shalt not kill’ during the war, so, being patriots, we can’t logically apply the Christian principle ‘Thou shalt not limit’ now. Birth control is essential for the slums anyway.”
“And you don’t believe in hell.”
“I do, they’ve got it.”
“You support games on Sundays, don’t you?” Hilary nodded. “And sun bathing with nothing on?”
“I might, if there were any sun.”
“And pyjamas and smoking for women.”
“Not stinkers; emphatically not stinkers.”
“I call that undemocratic.”
“I can’t help it, Dinny. Sniff!” And he puffed some smoke at her.
Dinny sniffed. “There’s latakia in that, it does smell good; but women can’t smoke pipes. I suppose we all have a blind spot somewhere, and yours is: ‘No stinkers.’ Apart from that you’re amazingly modern, Uncle. When I was in that Court looking at all those people, it seemed to me that yours was the only really modern face.”
“It’s a Cathedral town, my dear.”
“Well, I think the amount of modernity is awfully overestimated.”
“You don’t live in London, Dinny. All the same, you’re right in a way. Frankness about things is not change. The difference between the days of my youth and today is only the difference of expression. We had doubts, we had curiosity, we had desires; but we didn’t express them. Now they do. I see a lot of young ‘Varsity men — they come and work in the Meads, you know. Well, from their cradles they’ve been brought up to say whatever comes into their heads, and just don’t they? We didn’t, you know; but the same things came into our heads. That’s all the difference. That and cars.”
“Then I’m still old-fashioned. I’m not a bit good at expressing things.”
“That’s your sense of humour, Dinny. It acts as a restraint, and keeps you self-conscious. Few young people nowadays seem to have much sense of humour; they often have wit — it isn’t the same thing. Our young writers, and painters and musicians, could they carry on as they do if they could see a joke against themselves? Because that’s the real test of humour.”
“I’ll think that over.”
“Yes, but don’t lose your sense of humour, Dinny. It’s the scent to the rose. Are you going back to Condaford now?”
“I expect so, Hubert’s remand won’t be till after that mail boat comes in, and that’s not for ten days yet.”
“Well, give my love to Condaford. I don’t suppose I’ll ever have days again quite so good as when we were children there.”
“That’s what I was thinking, Uncle, when I was waiting to be the last little nigger boy.”
“You’re a bit young for that conclusion, Dinny. Wait till you’re in love.”
“I am.”
“What, in love?”
“No, in waiting.”
“Fearsome process, being in love,” said Hilary. “Still, I never regretted it.”
Dinny gazed at him sideways, and her teeth showed.
“What if you took it again, Uncle?”
“Ah! there,” said Hilary, knocking his pipe out on a pillar box, “I’m definitely out of it. In my profession we can’t run to it. Besides, I’ve never really got over my first attack.”
“No,” said Dinny, with compunction, “Aunt May’s such a duck.”
“You’ve said a mouthful. Here’s the station. Good-bye, and bless you! I sent my bag down this morning.” He waved his hand and was gone.
On reaching the hotel Dinny sought Adrian. He was not in, and, rather disconsolate, she wandered out again into the Cathedral. She was just about to sit down and take its restful beauty in, when she saw her Uncle standing against a column with his eyes fixed on the rose window. Going up she slid her arm through his. He squeezed it, but said nothing.
“Fond of glass, Uncle?”
“Terribly fond of good glass, Dinny. Ever see York Minster?”
Dinny shook her head; then, conscious that nothing she could say would lead up to what she wanted to say, she asked directly: “What are you going to do now, Uncle dear?”
“Have you been talking to Hilary?”
“Yes.”
“He wants me to keep away for a year.”
“So do I.”
“It’s a long time, Dinny; I’m getting on.”
“Would you go on Professor Hallorsen’s expedition if he wanted you?”
“He wouldn’t want me.”
“Yes, he would.”
“I could only go if I were certain that Diana wished it.”
“She would never say so, but I’m quite sure she wants complete rest for a long time.”
“When you worship the sun,” said Adrian, very low, “it is hard to go where the sun never shines.”
Dinny squeezed his arm. “I know; but you’d have it to look forward to. And it’s a nice healthy expedition this time, only to New Mexico. You’d come back very young, with hair all down the outsides of your legs. They do in the films. You’d be irresistible, Uncle; and I do want you to be irresistible. All that’s wanted is to let the tumult and the shouting die.”
“And my job?”
“Oh! that can be wangled all right. If Diana doesn’t have to think of anything for a year, she’ll be a different creature, and you will seem like the promised land. I do feel I know what I’m talking about.”
“You’re an endearing little serpent,” said Adrian, with his shadowy smile.
“Diana is pretty badly wounded.”
“I sometimes think it’s a mortal wound, Dinny.”
“No, no!”
“Why should she think of me again, if I once go away?”
“Because women are like that.”
“What do you know about women, at your age? I went away long ago, and she thought of Ferse. I fancy I’m made of the wrong stuff.”
“If you are, New Mexico’s the very place. You’ll come back a ‘he-man’. Think of that! I promise to watch over her, and the children will keep you to the fore. They’re always talking of you. And I’ll see that they go on doing it.”
“It’s certainly curious,” said Adrian, impersonally, “but I feel she’s further from me now than when Ferse was alive.”
“For the moment, and it’ll be a long moment. But I know it’ll dry straight in the long run. Really, Uncle.”
Adrian was silent a long time. Then he said:
“I’ll go, Dinny, if Hallorsen will take me.”
“He shall. Bend down, Uncle. I MUST kiss you.”
Adrian bent down. The kiss lighted on his nose. A verger coughed . . . .
The return to Condaford was made by car that afternoon in precisely the same order, young Tasburgh driving. He had been extremely tactful during these twenty-four hours, had not proposed at all, and Dinny was proportionately grateful. If Diana wanted peace, so did she. Alan left that same evening, Diana and the children the following day, and Clare came back from her long stay in Scotland, so that none but her own family were at the Grange. Yet had she no peace. For now that the preoccupation with poor Ferse was gone, she was oppressed and worried by the thought of Hubert. Extraordinary what power of disturbance was in that overhanging issue! He and Jean wrote cheerfully from the East Coast. According to themselves they were not worrying. Dinny was. And she knew that her mother, and even more her father, were. Clare was more angry than worried, and the effect of anger on her was to stimulate her energy, so that she went out ‘cubbing’ with her father; and in the afternoons would disappear with the car to neighbouring houses, where she would often stay till after dinner. The festive member of the family, she was always in great request. Dinny had her anxiety to herself. She had written to Hallorsen about her uncle, sending him the promised photograph, which depicted her in her presentation frock of two years back, when she and Clare had been economically presented together. Hallorsen answered promptly: “The picture is just too lovely. Nothing will please me more than to take your uncle, I am getting in touch with him rightaway”: he signed himself “Always your devoted servant.”
She read the letter gratefully, but without a tremor, and called herself a hard-hearted beast. Her mind thus set at rest about Adrian, for she knew his year of leave could be safely left to Hilary, she thought all the time of Hubert with a growing presentiment of evil. She tried to persuade herself that this came from having nothing particular to do, from the reaction after Ferse, and the habit of nerves into which he had thrown her; but such excuses were unconvincing. If they did not believe Hubert sufficiently here to refuse his extradition, what chance would he have out there? She spent surreptitious minutes staring at the map of Bolivia, as if its conformation could give her insight into the psychology of its people. She had never loved Condaford more passionately than during these uneasy days. The place was entailed, and if Hubert were sent out there and condemned, or died in prison, or was murdered by one of those muleteers, and if Jean had no son, it would pass away to Hilary’s eldest boy — a cousin she had barely seen, a boy at school; in the family, yes, but as good as lost. With Hubert’s fate was wrapped up the fate of her beloved home. And, though astonished that she could think of herself at all, when it meant so terribly much more to Hubert, she never quite lost the thought.
One morning she got Clare to run her over to Lippinghall. Dinny hated driving, and not without reason, for her peculiar way of seeing the humours of what she was passing had often nearly brought her to grief. They arrived at lunch time. Lady Mont was just sitting down, and greeted them with:
“My dears, but how provokin’! Unless you can eat carrots — your Uncle’s away — so purifyin’. Blore, see if Augustine has a cooked bird somewhere. Oh! and, Blore, ask her to make those nice pancakes with jam, that I can’t eat.”
“Oh! but, Aunt Em, nothing that you can’t eat, please.”
“I can’t eat anythin’ just now. Your Uncle’s fattin’, so I’m slimmin’. And, Blore, cheese ramequins, and a nice wine — and coffee.”
“But this is awful, Aunt Em.”
“Grapes, Blore. And those cigarettes up in Mr. Michael’s room. Your Uncle doesn’t smoke them, and I smoke gaspers, so we run low. And, Blore.”
“Yes, my lady?”
“Cocktails, Blore.”
“Aunt Em, we never drink cocktails.”
“You do; I’ve seen you. Clare, you’re lookin’ thin; are you slimmin’ too?”
“No. I’ve been in Scotland, Aunt Em.”
“Followin’ the guns, and fishin’. Now run about the house. I’ll wait for you.”
When they were running about the house, Clare said to Dinny:
“Where on earth did Aunt Em learn to drop her g’s?”
“Father told me once that she was at a school where an undropped ‘g’ was worse than a dropped ‘h’. They were bringin’ in a county fashion then, huntin’ people, you know. Isn’t she a dear?”
Clare nodded, slightly brightening her lips.
Re-entering the dining-room, they heard Lady Mont say:
“James’s trousers, Blore.”
“Yes, my lady.”
“They look as if they were comin’ down. Can somethin’ be done about it?”
“Yes, my lady.”
“Here you are! Your Aunt Wilmet’s gone to stay with Hen, Dinny. They’ll be differin’ all over the place. You’ve got a cold bird each. Dinny, what have you been doin’ with Alan? He’s lookin’ so interestin’, and his leave’s up tomorrow.”
“I’ve not been doing anything with him, Aunt Em.”
“That’s it, then. No. Give me my carrots, Blore. Aren’t you goin’ to marry him? I know he has prospects in Chancery — somewhere — Wiltshire, is it? He comes and puts his head in my hand about you.”
Under Clare’s gaze Dinny sat with fork suspended.
“If you don’t take care, he’ll be gettin’ transferred to China and marryin’ a purser’s daughter. They say Hong Kong’s full of them. Oh! And my portulaca’s dead, Dinny. Boswell and Johnson went and watered it with liquid manure. They’ve no sense of smell. D’you know what they did once?”
“No, Aunt Em.”
“Had hay fever all over my pedigree rabbit — sneezin’ about the hutch, and the poor thing died. I gave them notice, but they didn’t go. They don’t, you know. Your Uncle pets them. Are you to wed, Clare?”
“To ‘wed!’ Aunt Em!”
“I think it’s rather sweet, the uneducated papers use it. But are you?”
“Of course not.”
“Why? Haven’t you the time? I don’t like carrots really — so depressin’. But your Uncle’s gettin’ to a time of life — I have to be careful. I don’t know why men have a time of life. By rights he ought to be over it.”
“He is, Aunt Em. Uncle Lawrence is sixty-nine; didn’t you know?”
“Well, he’s never shown any signs yet. Blore!”
“Yes, my lady.”
“Go away!”
“Yes, my lady.”
“There are some things,” said Lady Mont, as the door closed, “that you can’t talk about before Blore — birth control, and your uncle, and that. Poor Pussy!”
She rose, went to the window, and dropped a cat into a flower bed.
“How perfectly sweet Blore is with her!” murmured Dinny.
“They stray,” she said, as she came back, “at forty-five, and they stray at sixty-five, and I don’t know when after that. I never strayed. But I’m thinkin’ of it with the Rector.”
“Is he very lonely now, Auntie?”
“No,” said Lady Mont, “he’s enjoyin’ himself. He comes up here a lot.”
“It would be delicious if you could work up a scandal.”
“Dinny!”
“Uncle Lawrence would love it.”
Lady Mont seemed to go into a sort of coma.
“Where’s Blore?” she said: “I want one of those pancakes after all.”
“You sent him away.”
“Oh! yes.”
“Shall I tread on the gas, Aunt Em?” said Clare; “it’s under my chair.”
“I had it put there for your Uncle. He’s been readin’ me Gulliver’s Travels, Dinny. The man was coarse, you know.”
“Not so coarse as Rabelais, or even as Voltaire.”
“Do you read coarse books?”
“Oh! well, those are classics.”
“They say there was a book — Achilles, or something; your Uncle bought it in Paris; and they took it away from him at Dover. Have you read that?”
“No,” said Dinny.
“I have,” said Clare.
“From what your Uncle tells me, you oughtn’t to.”
“Oh! one reads anything now, Auntie, it never makes any difference.”
Lady Mont looked from one niece to the other.
“Well,” she said, cryptically, “there’s the Bible. Blore!”
“Yes, my lady.”
“Coffee in the hall on the tiger. And put a sniff on the fire, Blore. My Vichy.”
When she had drunk her glass of Vichy they all rose.
“Marvellous!” whispered Clare in Dinny’s ear.
“What are you doin’ about Hubert?” said Lady Mont, in front of the hall fire.
“Sweating in our shoes, Auntie.”
“I told Wilmet to speak to Hen. She sees Royalty, you know. Then there’s flyin’. Couldn’t he fly somewhere?”
“Uncle Lawrence went bail for him.”
“He wouldn’t mind. We could do without James, he’s got adenoids; and we could have one man instead of Boswell and Johnson.”
“Hubert would mind, though.”
“I’m fond of Hubert,” said Lady Mont: “and bein’ married — it’s too soon. Here’s the sniff.”
Blore, bearing coffee and cigarettes, was followed by James bearing a cedar log; and a religious silence ensued while Lady Mont made coffee.
“Sugar, Dinny?”
“Two spoonfuls, please.”
“Three for me. I know it’s fattenin’. Clare?”
“One, please.”
The girls sipped, and Clare sighed out:
“Amazing!”
“Yes. Why is your coffee so much better than anybody else’s, Aunt Em?”
“I agree,” said her aunt. “About that poor man, Dinny: I was so relieved that he didn’t bite either of you after all. Adrian will get her now. Such a comfort.”
“Not for some time, Aunt Em: Uncle Adrian’s going to America.”
“But why?”
“We all thought it best. Even he did.”
“When he goes to Heaven,” said Lady Mont, “someone will have to go with him, or he won’t get in.”
“Surely he’ll have a seat reserved!”
“You never know. The Rector was preachin’ on that last Sunday.”
“Does he preach well?”
“Well, cosy.”
“I expect Jean wrote his sermons.”
“Yes, they used to have more zip. Where did I get that word, Dinny?”
“From Michael, I expect.”
“He always caught everythin’. The rector said we were to deny ourselves; he came here to lunch.”
“And had a whacking good feed.”
“Yes.”
“What does he weigh, Aunt Em?”
“Without his clothes — I don’t know.”
“But with?”
“Oh! quite a lot. He’s goin’ to write a book.”
“What about?”
“The Tasburghs. There was that one that was buried, and lived in France afterwards, only she was a Fitzherbert by birth. Then there was the one that fought the battle of — not Spaghetti — the other word, Augustine gives it us sometimes.”
“Navarino? But did he?”
“Yes, but they said he didn’t. The rector’s goin’ to put that right. Then there was the Tasburgh that got beheaded, and forgot to put it down anywhere. The rector’s nosed that out.”
“In what reign?”
“I never can be bothered with reigns, Dinny. Edward the Sixth — or Fourth, was it? He was a red rose. Then there was the one that married into us. Roland his name was — or was it? But he did somethin’ strikin’— and they took away his land. Recusancy — what is that?”
“It means he was a Catholic, Auntie, in a Protestant reign.”
“They burnt his house first. He’s in Mercurius Rusticus, or some book. The rector says he was greatly beloved. They burnt his house twice, I think, and then robbed it — or was it the other way? It had a moat. And there’s a list of what they took.”
“How entrancing!”
“Jam, and silver, and chickens, and linen, and I think his umbrella, or something funny.”
“When was all this, Auntie?”
“In the Civil War. He was a Royalist. Now I remember his name wasn’t Roland, and she was Elizabeth after you, Dinny. History repeatin’ itself.”
Dinny looked at the log.
“Then there was the last Admiral — under William the Fourth — he died drunk, not William. The Rector says he didn’t, so he’s writin’ to prove it. He says he caught cold and took rum for it; and it didn’t click — where did I get THAT word?”
“I sometimes use it, Auntie.”
“Yes. So there’s quite a lot, you see, besides all the dull ones, right away back to Edward the Confessor or somebody. He’s tryin’ to make out they’re older than we are. So unreasonable.”
“My Aunt!” murmured Clare. “Who would read a book like that?”
“I shouldn’t think so. But he’ll simply love snobbin’ into it: and it’ll keep him awake. Here’s Alan! Clare, you haven’t seen where my portulaca was. Shall we take a turn?”
“Aunt Em, you’re shameless,” said Dinny in her ear; “and it’s no good.”
“‘If at first you don’t succeed’— d’you remember every mornin’ when we were little? Wait till I get my hat, Clare.”
They passed away.
“So your leave’s up, Alan?” said Dinny, alone with the young man. “Where shall you be?”
“Portsmouth.”
“Is that nice?”
“Might be worse. Dinny, I want to talk to you about Hubert. If things go wrong at the Court next time, what’s going to happen?”
All ‘bubble and squeak’ left Dinny, she sank down on a fireside cushion, and gazed up with troubled eyes.
“I’ve been enquiring,” said young Tasburgh; “they leave it two or three weeks for the Home Secretary to go into, and then, if he confirms, cart them off as soon as they can. From Southampton it would be, I expect.”
“You don’t really think it will come to that, do you?”
He said gloomily: “I don’t know. Suppose a Bolivian had killed somebody, here, and gone back, we should want him rather badly, shouldn’t we, and put the screw on to get him?”
“But it’s fantastic!”
The young man looked at her with an extremely resolute compassion.
“We’ll hope for the best; but if it goes wrong something’s got to be done about it. I’m not going to stand for it, nor is Jean.”
“But what could be done?”
Young Tasburgh walked round the hall looking at the doors; then, leaning above her, he said:
“Hubert can fly, and I’ve been up every day since Chichester. Jean and I are working the thing out — in case.”
Dinny caught his hand.
“My dear boy, that’s crazy!”
“No crazier than thousands of things done in the war.”
“But it would ruin your career.”
“Blast my career! Look on and see you and Jean miserable for years, perhaps, and a man like Hubert broken rottenly like that — what d’you think?”
Dinny squeezed his hand convulsively and let it go.
“It can’t, it shan’t come to that. Besides, how could you get Hubert? He’d be under arrest.”
“I don’t know, but I shall know all right if and when the time comes. What’s certain is that if they once get him over there, he’ll have a damned thin chance.”
“Have you spoken to Hubert?”
“No. It’s all perfectly vague as yet.”
“I’m sure he wouldn’t consent.”
“Jean will see to that.”
Dinny shook her head. “You don’t know Hubert; he would never let you.”
Alan grinned, and she suddenly recognised that in him there was something formidably determined.
“Does Professor Hallorsen know?”
“No, and he won’t, unless it’s absolutely necessary. But he’s a good egg, I admit.”
She smiled faintly. “Yes, he’s a good egg; but an outsize.”
“Dinny, you’re not gone on him, are you?”
“No, my dear.”
“Well, thank God for that! You see,” he went on, “they’re not likely to treat Hubert as an ordinary criminal. That will make things easier perhaps.”
Dinny gazed at him, thrilled to her very marrow. Somehow that last remark convinced her of the reality of his purpose. “I’m beginning to understand Zeebrugge. But —”
“No buts, and buck up! That boat arrives the day after tomorrow, and then the case will be on again. I shall see you in Court, Dinny. I must go now — got my daily flight. I just thought I’d like you to know that if the worst comes to the worst, we aren’t going to take it lying down. Give my love to Lady Mont; shan’t be seeing her again. Good-bye, and bless you!” And, kissing her hand, he was out of the hall before she could speak.
Dinny sat on beside the cedar log, very still, and strangely moved. The idea of defiance had not before occurred to her, mainly perhaps because she had never really believed that Hubert would be committed for trial. She did not really believe it now, and that made this ‘crazy’ idea the more thrilling; for it has often been noticed that the less actual a risk, the more thrilling it seems. And to the thrill was joined a warmer feeling for Alan. The fact that he had not even proposed added to the conviction that he was in dead earnest. And on that tiger-skin, which had provided very little thrill to the eighth baronet, who from an elephant had shot its owner while it was trying to avoid notice, Dinny sat, warming her body in the glow from the cedar log, and her spirit in the sense of being closer to the fires of life than she had ever yet been. Her Uncle’s old black and white spaniel dog, Quince, who in his master’s absences, which were frequent, took little interest in human beings, came slowly across the hall and, lying down four-square, put his head on his fore-paws and looked up at her with eyes that showed red rims beneath them. “It may be all that, and it may not,” he seemed to say. The log hissed faintly, and a grandfather clock on the far side of the hall struck three with its special slowness.
Over any impending issue, whether test match, ultimatum, the Cambridgeshire, or the hanging of a man, excitement beats up in the last few hours, and the feeling of suspense in the Cherrell family became painful when the day of Hubert’s remand was reached. As some Highland clan of old, without summons issued, assembled when one of its number was threatened, so were Hubert’s relatives collected in the Police Court. Except Lionel, who was in session, and his and Hilary’s children, who were at school, they were all there. It might have been a wedding or a funeral, but for the grimness of their faces, and the sense of unmerited persecution at the back of every mind. Dinny and Clare sat between their father and mother, with Jean, Alan, Hallorsen and Adrian next them; just behind them were Hilary and his wife, Fleur and Michael and Aunt Wilmet; behind them again sat Sir Lawrence and Lady Mont, and in the extreme rear the Rector formed the spear tail of an inverted phalanx.
Coming in with his lawyer, Hubert gave them a clansman’s smile.
Now that she was actually in Court, Dinny felt almost apathetic. Her brother was innocent of all save self-defence. If they committed him, he would still be innocent. And, after she had answered Hubert’s smile, her attention was given to Jean’s face. If ever the girl looked like a leopardess, it was now; her strange, deep-set eyes kept sliding from her ‘cub’ to him who threatened to deprive her of it.
The evidence from the first hearing having been read over, the new evidence — Manuel’s affidavit — was produced by Hubert’s lawyer. But then Dinny’s apathy gave way, for this affidavit was countered by the prosecution with another, sworn by four muleteers, to the effect that Manuel had not been present at the shooting.
That was a moment of real horror.
Four half-castes against one!
Dinny saw a disconcerted look flit across the magistrate’s face.
“Who procured this second affidavit, Mr. Buttall?”
“The lawyer in charge of the case in La Paz, Your Honour. It became known to him that the boy Manuel was being asked to give evidence.”
“I see. What do you say now on the question of the scar shown us by the accused?”
“Beyond the accused’s own statement there is no evidence whatever before you, Sir, or before me, as to how or when that scar was inflicted.”
“That is so. You are not suggesting that this scar could have been inflicted by the dead man after he was shot?”
“If Castro, having drawn a knife, had fallen forward after he was shot, it is conceivable, I suppose.”
“Not likely, I think, Mr. Buttall.”
“No. But my evidence, of course, is that the shooting was deliberate, cold-blooded, and at a distance of some yards. I know nothing of Castro’s having drawn a knife.”
“It comes to this, then: Either your six witnesses are lying, or the accused and the boy Manuel are.”
“That would appear to be the position, Your Honour. It is for you to judge whether the sworn words of six citizens are to be taken, or the sworn words of two.”
Dinny saw the magistrate wriggle.
“I am perfectly aware of that, Mr. Buttall. What do you say, Captain Cherrell, to this affidavit that has been put in as to the absence of the boy Manuel?”
Dinny’s eyes leaped to her brother’s face. It was impassive, even slightly ironic.
“Nothing, Sir. I don’t know where Manuel was. I was too occupied in saving my life. All I know is that he came up to me almost immediately afterwards.”
“Almost? How long afterwards?”
“I really don’t know, Sir — perhaps a minute. I was trying to stop the bleeding; I fainted just as he came.”
During the speeches of the two lawyers which followed, Dinny’s apathy returned. It fled again during the five minutes of silence which succeeded them. In all the Court the magistrate alone seemed occupied; and it was as if he would never be done. Through her lowered lashes she could see him consulting this paper, consulting that; he had a red face, a long nose, a pointed chin, and eyes which she liked whenever she could see them. Instinctively she knew that he was not at ease. At last he spoke.
“In this case,” he said, “I have to ask myself not whether a crime has been committed, or whether the accused has committed it; I have only to ask myself whether the evidence brought before me is such as to satisfy me that the alleged crime is an extraditable offence, that the foreign warrant is duly authenticated, and that such evidence has been produced as would in this country justify me in committing the accused to take his trial.” He paused a moment and then added: “There is no question but that the crime alleged is an extraditable offence, and that the foreign warrant is duly authenticated.” He paused again, and in the dead silence Dinny heard a long sigh, as if from a spirit, so lonely and disembodied was the sound. The Magistrate’s eyes passed to Hubert’s face, and he resumed:
“I have come to the conclusion reluctantly that it is my duty on the evidence adduced to commit the accused to prison to await surrender to the foreign State on a warrant from the Secretary of State, if he sees fit to issue it. I have heard the accused’s evidence to the effect that he had an antecedent justification removing the act complained of from the category of crime, supported by the affidavit of a witness which is contradicted by the affidavit of four others. I have no means of judging between the conflicting evidence of these two affidavits except in so far that it is in the proportion of four to one, and I must therefore dismiss it from my mind. In face of the sworn testimony of six witnesses that the shooting was deliberate, I do not think that the unsupported word of the accused to the contrary would justify me in the case of an offence committed in this country in refusing to commit for trial; and I am therefore unable to accept it as justification for a refusal to commit for trial in respect of an offence committed in another country. I make no hesitation in confessing my reluctance to come to this conclusion, but I consider that I have no other course open to me. The question, I repeat, is not whether the accused is guilty or innocent, it is a question of whether or not there should be a trial. I am not able to take on myself the responsibility of saying that there should not. The final word in cases of this nature rests with the Secretary of State, who issues the surrender warrant. I commit you, therefore, to prison to await the issue of such a warrant. You will not be surrendered until after fifteen days, and you have the right to apply for a writ of habeas corpus in regard to the lawfulness of your custody. I have not the power to grant you any further bail; but it may be that you may secure it, if you so desire, by application to the King’s Bench Division.”
Dinny’s horrified eyes saw Hubert, standing very straight, make the magistrate a little bow, and leave the dock, walking slowly and without a look back. Behind him his lawyer, too, passed out of Court.
She herself sat as if stunned, and her only impression of those next minutes was the sight of Jean’s stony face, and of Alan’s brown hands gripping each other on the handle of his stick.
She came to herself conscious that tears were stealing down her mother’s face, and that her father was standing up.
“Come!” he said: “Let’s get out of here!”
At that moment she was more sorry for her father than for any other of them all. Since this thing began he had said so little and had felt so much. It was ghastly for him! Dinny understood very well his simple feelings. To him, in the refusal of Hubert’s word, an insult had been flung not merely in his son’s face, and his own as Hubert’s father, but in the face of what they stood for and believed in; in the face of all soldiers and all gentlemen! Whatever happened now, he would never quite get over this. Between justice and what was just, what inexorable incompatibility! Were there men more honourable than her father and her brother, or than that magistrate, perhaps? Following him out into that dishevelled backwater of life and traffic, Bow Street, she noted that they were all there except Jean, Alan and Hallorsen. Sir Lawrence said:
“We must just ‘take cabs and go about!’ Better come to Mount Street and consult what we can each best do.”
When half an hour later they assembled in Aunt Em’s drawing-room, those three were still absent.
“What’s happened to them?” asked Sir Lawrence.
“I expect they went after Hubert’s lawyer,” answered Dinny; but she knew better. Some desperate plan was being hatched, and she brought but a distracted mind to council.
In Sir Lawrence’s opinion Bobbie Ferrar was still their man. If he could do nothing with ‘Walter,’ nothing could be done. He proposed to go again to him and to the Marquess.
The General said nothing. He stood a little apart, staring at one of his brother-inlaw’s pictures, evidently without seeing it. Dinny realised that he did not join in because he could not. She wondered of what he was thinking. Of when he was young like his son, just married; of long field-days under burning sun among the sands and stones of India and South Africa; of longer days of administrative routine; of strenuous poring over maps with his eyes on the clock and his ear to the telephone; of his wounds and his son’s long sickness; of two lives given to service and this strange reward at the end?
She herself stood close to Fleur, with the instinctive feeling that from that clear, quick brain might come a suggestion of real value.
“The Squire carries weight with the Government; I might go to Bentworth,” she heard Hilary say, and the Rector add:
“Ah! I knew him at Eton, I’ll come with you.”
She heard her Aunt Wilmet’s gruff: “I’ll go to Hen again about Royalty.” And Michael’s:
“In a fortnight the House will be sitting”; and Fleur’s impatient:
“No good, Michael. The Press is no use either. I’ve got a hunch.”
‘Ah!’ she thought, and moved closer.
“We haven’t gone deep enough. What’s at the back of it? Why should the Bolivian Government care about a half-caste Indian? It’s not the actual shooting, it’s the slur on their country. Floggings and shootings by foreigners! What’s wanted is something done to the Bolivian Minister that will make him tell ‘Walter’ that they don’t really care.”
“We can’t kidnap him,” muttered Michael; “it’s not done in the best circles.”
A faint smile came on Dinny’s lips; she was not so sure.
“I’ll see,” said Fleur, as if to herself. “Dinny, you must come to us. They’ll get no further here.” And her eyes roved swiftly over the nine elders. “I shall go to Uncle Lionel and Alison. He won’t dare move, being a new judge, but she will, and she knows all the Legation people. Will you come, Dinny?”
“I ought to be with mother and father.”
“They’ll be here, Em’s just asked them. Well, if you stay here too, come round as much as you can; you might help.”
Dinny nodded, relieved at staying in town; for the thought of Condaford during this suspense oppressed her.
“We’ll go now,” said Fleur, “and I’ll get on to Alison at once.”
Michael lingered to squeeze Dinny’s arm.
“Buck up, Dinny! We’ll get him out of it somehow. If only it wasn’t ‘Walter!’ He’s the worst kind of egg. To fancy yourself ‘just’ is simply to addle.”
When all except her own people had gone, Dinny went up to her father. He was still standing before a picture, but not the same one. Slipping her hand under his arm, she said:
“It’s going to be all right, Dad dear. You could see the magistrate was really sorry. He hadn’t the power, but the Home Secretary must have.”
“I was thinking,” said the General, “what the people of this country would do if we didn’t sweat and risk our lives for them.” He spoke without bitterness, or even emphasis: “I was thinking why we should go on doing our jobs, if our words aren’t to be believed. I was wondering where that magistrate would be — oh! I dare say he’s all right according to his lights — if boys like Hubert hadn’t gone off before their time. I was wondering why we’ve chosen lives that have landed me on the verge of bankruptcy, and Hubert in this mess, when we might have been snug and comfortable in the City or the Law. Isn’t a man’s whole career to weigh a snap when a thing like this happens? I feel the insult to the Service, Dinny.”
She watched the convulsive movement of his thin brown hands, clasped as if he were standing at ease, and her whole heart went out to him, though she could perfectly well see the unreason of the exemption he was claiming. “It is easier for Heaven and Earth to pass than for one tittle of the Law to fail.” Wasn’t that the text she had just read in what she had suggested might be made into a secret naval code?
“Well,” he said, “I must go out now with Lawrence. See to your mother, Dinny, her head’s bad.”
When she had darkened her mother’s bedroom, applied the usual remedies, and left her to try and sleep, she went downstairs again. Clare had gone out, and the drawing-room, just now so full, seemed deserted. She passed down its length and opened the piano. A voice said:
“No, Polly, you must go to bed, I feel too sad”; and she became aware of her Aunt in the alcove at the end placing her parakeet in its cage.
“Can we be sad together, Aunt Em?”
Lady Mont turned round.
“Put your cheek against mine, Dinny.”
Dinny did so. The cheek was pink and round and smooth and gave her a sense of relaxation.
“From the first I knew what he would say,” said Lady Mont, “his nose was so long. In ten years’ time it’ll touch his chin. Why they allow them, I don’t know. You can do nothing with a man like that. Let’s cry, Dinny. You sit there, and I’ll sit here.”
“Do you cry high or low, Aunt Em?”
“Either. You begin. A man who can’t take a responsibility. I could have taken that responsibility perfectly, Dinny. Why didn’t he just say to Hubert ‘Go and sin no more’?”
“But Hubert hasn’t sinned.”
“It makes it all the worse. Payin’ attention to foreigners! The other day I was sittin’ in the window at Lippin’hall, and there were three starlin’s on the terrace, and I sneezed twice. D’you think they paid any attention? Where is Bolivia?”
“In South America, Aunt Em.”
“I never could learn geography. My maps were the worst ever made at my school, Dinny. Once they asked me where Livin’stone kissed Stanley, and I answered? ‘Niagara Falls.’ And it wasn’t.”
“You were only a continent wrong there, Auntie.”
“Yes. I’ve never seen anybody laugh as my schoolmistress laughed when I said that. Excessive — she was fat. I thought Hubert lookin’ thin.”
“He’s always thin, but he’s looking much less ‘tucked up’ since his marriage.”
“Jean’s fatter, that’s natural. You ought, Dinny, you know.”
“You never used to be so keen on people getting married, Auntie.”
“What happened on the tiger the other day?”
“I can’t possibly tell you that, Aunt Em.”
“It must have been pretty bad, then.”
“Or do you mean good?”
“You’re laughin’ at me.”
“Did you ever know me disrespectful, Auntie?”
“Yes. I perfectly well remember you writin’ a poem about me:
‘I do not care for Auntie Em,
She says I cannot sew or hem.
Does she? Well! I can sew a dem
Sight better than my Auntie Em.’
I kept it. I thought it showed character.”
“Was I such a little demon?”
“Yes. There’s no way, is there, of shortenin’ dogs?” And she pointed to the golden retriever lying on a rug. “Bonzo’s middle is really too long.”
“I told you that, Aunt Em, when he was a puppy.”
“Yes, but I didn’t notice it till he began to scratch for rabbits. He can’t get over the hole properly. It makes him look so weak. Well! If we’re not goin’ to cry, Dinny, what shall we do?”
“Laugh?” murmured Dinny.