While Dinny dressed and skimmed along the nearly empty streets, she had been thinking hard. That letter brought last night by hand surely meant that Muskham was the cause of Wilfrid’s early sortie. Since he had slipped like a needle into a bundle of hay, her only chance was to work from the other end. No need to wait for her uncle to see Jack Muskham. She could see him alone just as well as, perhaps better. It was eight o’clock when she reached Cork Street, and she at once said: “Has Mr. Desert a revolver, Stack?”
“Yes, miss.”
“Has he taken it?”
“No.”
“I ask because he had a quarrel yesterday.”
Stack passed his hand over his unshaven chin. “Don’t know where you’re going, miss, but would you like me to come with you?”
“I think it would be better if you’d go and make sure he isn’t taking a boat train.”
“Certainly, miss. I’ll take the dog, and do that.”
“Is that car outside for me?”
“Yes, miss. Would you like it opened?”
“I would; the more air, the better.”
The henchman nodded, his eyes and nose seeming to Dinny unusually large and intelligent.
“If I run across Mr. Desert first, where shall I get in touch with you, miss?”
“I’ll call at Royston post-office for any telegram. I’m going to see a Mr. Muskham there. The quarrel was with him.”
“Have you had anything to eat, miss? Let me get you a cup of tea.”
“I’ve had one, thank you.” It saved time to say what was not true.
That drive, on an unknown road, seemed interminable to her, haunted by her uncle’s words: “If Jack didn’t date so, I shouldn’t worry . . . He’s a survival.” Suppose that, even now, in some enclosure — Richmond Park, Ken Wood, where not — they were playing the old-fashioned pranks, of honour! She conjured up the scene — Jack Muskham, tall, deliberate; Wilfrid, girt-in, defiant, trees around them, wood-pigeons calling, their hands slowly rising to the level —! Yes, but who would give the word? And pistols! People did not go about with duelling pistols nowadays. If that had been suggested, Wilfrid would surely have taken his revolver! What should she say if, indeed, she found Muskham at home? “Please don’t mind being called a cad and coward! They are really almost terms of endearment.” Wilfrid must never know that she had tried to mediate. It would but wound his pride still further. Wounded pride! Was there any older, deeper, more obstinate cause of human trouble, or any more natural and excusable! The consciousness of having failed oneself! Overmastered by the attraction that knows neither reason nor law, she loved Wilfrid none the less for having failed himself; but she was not blind to that failure. Ever since her father’s words “by any Englishman who’s threatened with a pistol” had touched some nerve in the background of her being, she had realised that she was divided by her love from her instinctive sense of what was due from Englishmen.
The driver stopped to examine a back tyre. From the hedge a drift of elder-flower scent made her close her eyes. Those flat white scented blossoms! The driver remounted and started the car with a jerk. Was life always going to jerk her away from love? Was she never to rest drugged and happy in its arms?
‘Morbid!’ she thought. ‘I ought to be keying my pitch to the Jockey Club.’
Royston began, and she said: “Stop at the post-office, please.”
“Right, lady!”
There was no telegram for her, and she asked for Muskham’s house. The post-mistress looked at the clock.
“Nearly opposite, miss; but if you want Mr. Muskham, I saw him pass riding just now. He’ll be going to his stud farm — that’ll be through the town and off to the right.”
Dinny resumed her seat, and they drove slowly on.
Afterwards she did not know whether her instinct or the driver’s stopped the car. For when he turned round and said: “Appears like a bit of a mix-up, miss,” she was already standing, to see over the heads of that ring of people in the road. She saw only too well the stained, blood-streaked faces, the rain of blows, the breathless, swaying struggle. She had opened the door, but with the sudden thought: ‘He’d never forgive me!’ banged it to again, and stood, with one hand shading her eyes, the other covering her lips, conscious that the driver, too, was standing.
“Something like a scrap!” she heard him say admiringly.
How strange and wild Wilfrid looked! But with only fists they could not kill each other! And mixed with her alarm was a sort of exultation. He had come down to seek battle! Yet every blow seemed falling on her flesh, each clutch and struggling movement seemed her own.
“Not a blasted bobby!” said her driver, carried away. “Go it! I back the young ’un.”
Dinny saw them fall apart, then Wilfrid rushing with outstretched hands; she heard the thump of Muskham’s fist on his chest, saw them clinch, stagger, and fall; then rise and stand gasping, glaring. She saw Muskham catch sight of her, then Wilfrid; saw them turn away; and all was over. The driver said: “Now, that’s a pity!” Dinny sank down on the car seat, and said quietly:
“Drive on, please.”
Away! Just away! Enough that they had seen her — more than enough, perhaps!
“Drive on a little, then turn and go back to Town.” They wouldn’t begin again!
“Neither of ’em much good with is ‘ands, miss, but a proper spirit.”
Dinny nodded. Her hand was still over her mouth, for her lips were trembling. The driver looked at her.
“You’re a bit pale, miss — too much blood! Why not stop somewhere and ‘ave a drop o’ brandy?”
“Not here,” said Dinny, “the next village.”
“Baldock. Right-o!” And he put the car to speed.
The crowd had disappeared as they repassed the hotel. Two dogs, a man cleaning windows, and a policeman were the only signs of life.
At Baldock she had some breakfast. Conscious that she ought to feel relieved, now that the explosion had occurred, she was surprised by the foreboding which oppressed her. Would he not resent her having come as if to shield him? Her accidental presence had stopped the fight, and she had seen them disfigured, blood-stained, devoid of their dignities. She decided to tell no one where she had been, or what she had seen — not even Stack or her uncle.
Such precautions are of small avail in a country so civilised. An able, if not too accurate, description of the “Encounter at Royston between that well-known breeder of bloodstock, Mr. John Muskham — cousin to Sir Charles Muskham, Bart — and the Hon. Wilfrid Desert, second son of Lord Mullyon, author of The Leopard, which has recently caused such a sensation,” appeared in that day’s last edition of the Evening Sun, under the heading, “Fisticuffs in High Quarters.” It was written with spirit and imagination, and ended thus: “It is believed that the origin of the quarrel may be sought in the action which it is whispered was taken by Mr. Muskham over Mr. Desert’s membership of a certain Club. It seems that Mr. Muskham took exception to Mr. Desert continuing a member after his public acknowledgment that The Leopard was founded on his own experience. The affair, no doubt, was very high-spirited, if not likely to improve the plain man’s conception of a dignified aristocracy.”
This was laid before Dinny at dinner-time by her uncle without comment. It caused her to sit rigid, till his voice said: “Were you there, Dinny?”
‘Uncanny, as usual,’ she thought; but, though by now habituated to the manipulation of truth, she was not yet capable of the lie direct, and she nodded.
“What’s that?” said Lady Mont.
Dinny pushed the paper over to her aunt, who read, screwing up her eyes, for she had long sight.
“Which won, Dinny?”
“Neither. They just stopped.”
“Where is Royston?”
“In Cambridgeshire.”
“Why?”
Neither Dinny nor Sir Lawrence knew.
“He didn’t take you on a pillion, Dinny?”
“No, dear. I just happened to drive up.”
“Religion is very inflamin’,” murmured Lady Mont.
“It is,” said Dinny bitterly.
“Did the sight of you stop them?” said Sir Lawrence.
“Yes.”
“I don’t like that. It would have been better if a bobby or a knock-out blow —”
“I didn’t want them to see me.”
“Have you seen him since?”
Dinny shook her head.
“Men are vain,” said her aunt.
That closed the conversation.
Stack telephoned after dinner that Wilfrid had returned; but instinct told her to make no attempt to see him.
After a restless night she took the morning train to Condaford. It was Sunday, and they were all at church. She seemed strangely divided from her family. Condaford smelled the same, looked the same, and the same people did the same things; yet all was different! Even the Scottish terrier and the spaniels sniffed her with doubting nostrils, as if uncertain whether she belonged to them any more.
‘And do I?’ she thought. ‘The scent is not there when the heart is away!’
Jean was the first to appear, Lady Cherrell having stayed to Communion, the General to count the offertory and Hubert to inspect the village cricket pitch. She found Dinny sitting by an old sundial in front of a bed of delphiniums. Having kissed her sister-inlaw, she stood and looked at her for quite a minute, before saying: “Take a pull, my dear, or you’ll be going into a decline, whatever that is.”
“I only want my lunch,” said Dinny.
“Same here. I thought my dad’s sermons were a trial even after I’d censored them; but your man here!”
“Yes, one CAN ‘put him down.’”
Again Jean paused, and her eyes searched Dinny’s face.
“Dinny, I’m all for you. Get married at once, and go off with him.”
Dinny smiled.
“There are two parties to every marriage.”
“Is that paragraph in this morning’s paper correct, about a fight at Royston?”
“Probably not.”
“I mean was there one?”
“Yes.”
“Who began it?”
“I did. There’s no other woman in the case.”
“Dinny, you’re very changed.”
“No longer sweet and disinterested.”
“Very well!” said Jean. “If you want to play the love-lorn female, play it!”
Dinny caught her skirt. Jean knelt down and put her arms round her.
“You were a brick to me when I was up against it.”
Dinny laughed.
“What are my father and Hubert saying now?”
“Your father says nothing and looks glum. Hubert either says: ‘Something must be done,’ or ‘It’s the limit.’”
“Not that it matters,” said Dinny suddenly; “I’m past all that.”
“You mean you’re not sure what HE’LL do? But, of course, he must do what you want.”
Again Dinny laughed.
“You’re afraid,” said Jean, with startling comprehension, “that he might run off and leave you?” And she subsided on to her hams the better to look up into Dinny’s face. “Of course he might. You know I went to see him?”
“Oh?”
“Yes; he got over me. I couldn’t say a word. Great charm Dinny.”
“Did Hubert send you?”
“No. On my own. I was going to let him know what would be thought of him if he married you, but I couldn’t. I should have imagined he’d have told you about it. But I suppose he knew it would worry you.”
“I don’t know,” said Dinny; and did not. It seemed to her at that moment that she knew very little.
Jean sat silently pulling an early dandelion to pieces.
“If I were you,” she said at last, “I’d vamp him. If you’d once belonged to him, he couldn’t leave you.”
Dinny got up. “Let’s go round the gardens and see what’s out.”
Since Dinny said no further word on the subject occupying every mind, no word was said by anyone; and for this she was truly thankful. She spent the next three days trying to hide the fact that she was very unhappy. No letter had come from Wilfrid, no message from Stack; surely, if anything had happened, HE would have let her know. On the fourth day, feeling that she could bear the suspense no longer, she telephoned to Fleur and asked if she might come up to them.
The expressions on her father’s and her mother’s faces when she said she was going affected her as do the eyes and tails of dogs whom one must leave. How much more potent was the pressure put by silent disturbance than by nagging!
Panic assailed her in the train. Had her instinct to wait for Wilfrid to make the first move been wrong? Ought she not to have gone straight to him? And on reaching London she told her driver: “Cork Street.”
But he was out, and Stack did not know when he would be in. The henchman’s demeanour seemed to her strangely different, as if he had retreated to a fence and were sitting on it. Was Mr. Desert well? Yes. And the dog? Yes, the dog was well. Dinny drove away disconsolate. At South Square again no one was in; it seemed as if the world were in conspiracy to make her feel deserted. She had forgotten Wimbledon, the Horse Show, and other activities of the time of year. All such demonstrations of interest in life were, indeed, so far from her present mood that she could not conceive people taking part in them.
She sat down in her bedroom to write to Wilfrid. There was no longer any reason for silence, for Stack would tell him she had called.
She wrote:
“South Square, Westminster.
“Ever since Saturday I’ve been tortured by the doubt whether to write, or wait for you to write to me. Darling, I never meant to interfere in any way. I had come down to see Mr. Muskham and tell him that it’s I only who was responsible for what he so absurdly called the limit. I never expected you to be there. I didn’t really much hope even to find him. Please let me see you.
“Your unhappy
“DINNY.”
She went out herself to post it. On the way back she came on Kit, with his governess, the dog, and the two youngest of her Aunt Alison’s children. They seemed entirely happy; she was ashamed not to seem so too, so they all went together to Kit’s schoolroom to have tea. Before it was over Michael came in. Dinny, who had seldom seen him with his little son, was fascinated by the easy excellence of their relationship. It was, perhaps, a little difficult to tell which was the elder, though a certain difference in size and the refusal of a second helping of strawberry jam seemed to favour Michael. That hour, in fact, brought her the nearest approach to happiness she had known since she left Wilfrid five days ago. After it was over she went with Michael to his study.
“Anything wrong, Dinny?”
Wilfrid’s best friend, and the easiest person in the world to confide in, and she did not know what to say! And then suddenly she began to talk, sitting in his armchair, her elbows on her knees, her chin in her hands, staring not at him, but at her future. And Michael sat on the window-sill, his face now rueful, now whimsical, making little soothing sounds. Nothing would matter, she said, neither public opinion, the Press, nor even her family, if only there were not in Wilfrid himself this deep bitter unease, this basic doubt of his own conduct, this permanent itch to prove to others, and, above all, to himself, that he was not ‘yellow.’ Now that she had given way, it poured out of her, all that bottled-up feeling that she was walking on a marsh, where at any moment she might sink in some deep, unlooked-for hole thinly covered by specious surface. She ceased and lay back in the chair exhausted.
“But, Dinny,” said Michael, gently, “isn’t he really fond of you?”
“I don’t know, Michael; I thought so — I don’t know. Why should he be? I’m an ordinary person, he’s not.”
“We all seem ordinary to ourselves. I don’t want to flatter you, but you seem to me less ordinary than Wilfrid.”
“Oh, no!”
“Poets,” said Michael gloomily, “give a lot of trouble. What are we going to do about it?”
That evening after dinner he went forth, ostensibly to the House, in fact to Cork Street.
Wilfrid was not in, so he asked Stack’s permission to wait. Sitting on the divan in that unconventional, dimly-lighted room, he twitted himself for having come. To imply that he came from Dinny would be worse than useless. Besides, he hadn’t. No! He had come to discover, if he could, whether Wilfrid really was in love with her. If not, then — well, then the sooner she was out of her misery the better. It might half break her heart, but that was better than pursuing a substance which wasn’t there. He knew, or thought he knew, that Wilfrid was the last person to endure a one-sided relationship. The worst of all disasters for Dinny would be to join herself to him under a misconception of his feelings for her. On a little table close to the divan, with the whisky, were the night’s letters — only two, one of them, he could see, from Dinny herself. The door was opened slightly and a dog came in. After sniffing at Michael’s trousers, it lay down with its head on its paws and its eyes fixed on the door. He spoke to it, but it took no notice — the right sort of dog. ‘I’ll give him till eleven,’ thought Michael. And almost immediately Wilfrid came. He had a bruise on one cheek and some plaster on his chin. The dog fluttered round his legs.
“Well, old man,” said Michael, “that must have been a hearty scrap.”
“It was. Whisky?”
“No, thanks.”
He watched Wilfrid take up the letters and turn his back to open them.
‘I ought to have known he’d do that,’ thought Michael; ‘there goes my chance! He’s bound to pretend to be in love with her!’
Before turning round again Wilfrid made himself a drink and finished it. Then, facing Michael, he said: “Well?”
Disconcerted by the abruptness of that word, and by the knowledge that he had come to pump his friend, Michael did not answer.
“What d’you want to know?”
Michael said abruptly: “Whether you’re in love with Dinny.”
Wilfrid laughed. “Really, Michael!”
“I know. But things can’t go on like this. Damn it! Wilfrid, you ought to think of her.”
“I do.” He said it with a face so withdrawn and unhappy that Michael thought: ‘He means that.’
“Then for God’s sake,” he said, “show it! Don’t let her eat her heart out like this!”
Wilfrid had turned to the window. Without looking round he said:
“You’ve never had occasion to try and prove yourself the opposite of yellow. Well, don’t! You won’t find the chance. It comes when you don’t want it, not when you do.”
“Naturally! But, my dear fellow, that’s not Dinny’s fault.”
“Her misfortune.”
“Well, then?”
Wilfrid wheeled round.
“Oh! damn you, Michael! Go away! No one can interfere in this. It’s much too intimate.”
Michael rose and clutched his hat. Wilfrid had said exactly what he himself had really been thinking ever since he came.
“You’re quite right,” he said humbly. “Good-night, old man! That’s a nice dog.”
“I’m sorry,” said Wilfrid; “you meant well, but you can’t help. No one can. Good-night!”
Michael got out, and all the way downstairs he looked for the tail between his legs.
When he reached home Dinny had gone up, but Fleur was waiting down for him. He had not meant to speak of his visit, but, after looking at him keenly, she said:
“You haven’t been to the House, Michael. You’ve been to see Wilfrid.”
Michael nodded.
“Well?”
“No go!”
“I could have told you that. If you come across a man and woman quarrelling in the street, what do you do?”
“Pass by on the other side, if you can get there in time.”
“Well?”
“They’re NOT quarrelling.”
“No, but they’ve got a special world no one else can enter.”
“That’s what Wilfrid said.”
“Naturally.”
Michael stared. Yes, of course. She had once had her special world, and not with — him!
“It was stupid of me. But I AM stupid.”
“No, not stupid; well-intentioned. Are you going up?”
“Yes.”
As he went upstairs he had the peculiar feeling that it was she who wanted to go to bed with him rather than he with her. And yet, once in bed, that would all change, for of such was the nature of man!
Dinny, in her room above theirs, through her open window could hear the faint murmur of their voices, and, bowing her face on her hands, gave way to a feeling of despair. The stars in their courses fought against her! External opposition one could cut through or get round; but this deep spiritual unease in the loved one’s soul, that — ah! that — one could not reach; and the unreachable could not be pushed away, cut through, or circumvented. She looked up at the stars that fought against her. Did the ancients really believe that, or was it, with them, as with her, just a manner of speaking? Did those bright wheeling jewels on the indigo velvet of all space really concern themselves with little men, the lives and loves of human insects, who, born from an embrace, met and clung and died and became dust? Those candescent worlds, circled by little offsplit planets — were their names taken in vain, or were they really in their motions and their relative positions the writing on the wall for men to read?
No! That was only human self-importance! To his small wheel man bound the Universe. Swing low, sweet chariots! But they didn’t! Man swung with them — in space . . . .
Two days later the Cherrell family met in conclave because of a sudden summons received by Hubert to rejoin his regiment in the Soudan. He wished to have something decided about Dinny before he left. The four Cherrell brothers, Sir Lawrence, Michael, and himself, gathered, therefore, in Adrian’s room at the Museum after Mr. Justice Charwell’s Court had risen. They all knew that the meeting might be futile, because, as even Governments find, to decide is useless if decision cannot be carried out.
Michael, Adrian, and the General, who had been in personal touch with Wilfrid, were the least vocal, Sir Lawrence and the Judge the most vocal; Hubert and Hilary were now vocal and now dumb.
Starting from the premise, which nobody denied, that the thing was a bad business, two schools of thought declared themselves — Adrian, Michael, and to some extent Hilary believed there was nothing to be done but wait and see; the rest thought there was much to be done, but what — they could not say.
Michael, who had never seen his four uncles so close together before, was struck by the resemblance in the shape and colouring of their faces, except that the eyes of Hilary and Lionel were blue and grey, and of the General and Adrian brown and hazel. They all, notably, lacked gesture, and had a lean activity of figure. In Hubert these characteristics were accentuated by youth, and his hazel eyes at times looked almost grey.
“If only,” Michael heard his father say, “you could injunct her, Lionel?” and Adrian’s impatient:
“We must let Dinny alone; trying to control her is absurd. She’s got a warm heart, an unselfish nature, and plenty of sense.” Then Hubert’s retort:
“We know all that, Uncle, but the thing will be such a disaster for her, we must do what we can.”
“Well, what CAN you do?”
‘Exactly!’ thought Michael, and said: “Just now she doesn’t know how she stands.”
“You couldn’t get her to go out with you to the Soudan, Hubert?” said the Judge.
“I’ve lost all touch with her.”
“If someone wanted her badly —” began the General, and did not finish.
“Even then,” murmured Adrian, “only if she were quite sure Desert didn’t want her more.”
Hilary took out his pipe. “Has anyone tried Desert?”
“I have,” said the General.
“And I, twice,” muttered Michael.
“Suppose,” said Hubert gloomily, “I had a shot.”
“Not, my dear fellow,” put in Sir Lawrence, “unless you can be quite certain of keeping your temper.”
“I never can be certain of that.”
“Then don’t!”
“Would YOU go, Dad?” asked Michael.
“I?”
“He used to respect you.”
“Not even a blood relation!”
“You might take a chance, Lawrence,” said Hilary.
“But why?”
“None of the rest of us can, for one reason or another.”
“Why shouldn’t YOU?”
“In a way I agree with Adrian; it’s best to leave it all alone.”
“What exactly is the objection to Dinny’s marrying him?” asked Adrian. The General turned to him abruptly.
“She’d be marked out for life.”
“So was that fellow who stuck to his wife when she was convicted. Everybody respected him the more.”
“There’s no such sharp hell,” said the Judge, “as seeing fingers pointed at your life’s partner.”
“Dinny would learn not to notice them.”
“Forgive me, but you’re missing the point,” muttered Michael. “The point is Wilfrid’s own feeling. If he remains bitter about himself and marries her — that’ll be hell for her, if you like. And the fonder she is of him, the worse it’ll be.”
“You’re right, Michael,” said Sir Lawrence unexpectedly. “I’d think it well worth while to go if I could make him see that.”
Michael sighed.
“Whichever way it goes, it’s hell for poor Dinny.”
“‘Joy cometh in the morning,’” murmured Hilary through a cloud of smoke.
“Do you believe that, Uncle Hilary?”
“Not too much.”
“Dinny’s twenty-six. This is her first love. If it goes wrong — what then?”
“Marriage.”
“With somebody else?”
Hilary nodded.
“Lively!”
“Life is lively.”
“Well, Lawrence?” asked the General, sharply: “You’ll go?”
Sir Lawrence studied him for a moment, and then replied: “Yes.”
“Thank you!”
It was not clear to any of them what purpose would be served, but it was a decision of sorts, and at least could be carried out . . . .
Wilfrid had lost most of his bruise and discarded the plaster on his chin when Sir Lawrence, encountering him on the stairs at Cork Street that same late afternoon, said:
“D’you mind if I walk a little way with you?”
“Not at all, sir.”
“Any particular direction?”
Wilfrid shrugged, and they walked side by side, till at last Sir Lawrence said:
“Nothing’s worse than not knowing where you’re going!”
“You’re right.”
“Then why go, especially if in doing it you take someone with you? Forgive my putting things crudely, but, except for Dinny, would you be caring a hang about all this business? What other ties have you got here?”
“None. I don’t want to discuss things. If you’ll forgive me, I’ll branch off.”
Sir Lawrence stopped. “Just one moment, and then I’ll do the branching. Have you realised that a man who has a quarrel with himself is not fit to live with until he’s got over it? That’s all I wanted to say; but it’s a good deal. Think it over!” And, raising his hat, Sir Lawrence turned on his heel. By George! He was well out of that! What an uncomfortable young man! And, after all, one had said all one had come to say! He walked towards Mount Street, reflecting on the limitations imposed by tradition. But for tradition, would Wilfrid mind being thought ‘yellow’? Would Dinny’s family care? Would Lyall have written his confounded poem? Would not the Corporal in the Buffs have kowtowed? Was a single one of the Cherrells, met in conclave, a real believing Christian? Not even Hilary — he would bet his boots! Yet not one of them could stomach this recantation. Not religion, but the refusal to take the ‘dare’! That was the rub to them. The imputation of cowardice, or at least of not caring for the good name of one’s country. Well! About a million British had died for that good name in the war; had they all died for a futility? Desert himself had nearly died for it, and got the M.C., or D.S.O., or something! All very contradictory! People cared for their country in a crowd, it seemed, but not in a desert; in France, but not in Darfur.
He heard hurrying footsteps, and, turning round, saw Desert behind him. Sir Lawrence had almost a shock looking at his face, dry, dark, with quivering lips and deep suffering eyes.
“You were quite right,” he said; “I thought I’d let you know. You can tell her family I’m going away.”
At this complete success of his mission Sir Lawrence experienced dismay.
“Be careful!” he said: “You might do her a great injury.”
“I shall do her that, anyway. Thank you for speaking to me. You’ve made me see. Good-bye!” He turned and was gone.
Sir Lawrence stood looking after him, impressed by his look of suffering. He turned in at his front door doubtful whether he had not made bad worse. While he was putting down his hat and stick, Lady Mont came down the stairs.
“I’m so bored, Lawrence. What have you been doin’?”
“Seeing young Desert; and, it seems, I’ve made him feel that until he can live on good terms with himself he won’t be fit to live with at all.”
“That’s wicked.”
“How?”
“He’ll go away. I always knew he’d go away. You must tell Dinny at once what you’ve done.” And she went to the telephone.
“Is that you, Fleur? . . . Oh! Dinny . . . This is Aunt Em! . . . Yes . . . Can you come round here? . . . Why not? . . . That’s not a reason . . . But you must! Lawrence wants to speak to you . . . At once? Yes. He’s done a very stupid thing . . . What? . . . No! . . . He wants to explain. In ten minutes . . . very well.”
‘My God!’ thought Sir Lawrence. He had suddenly realised that to deaden feeling on any subject one only needed to sit in conclave. Whenever the Government got into trouble, they appointed a Commission. Whenever a man did something wrong, he went into consultation with solicitor and counsel. If he himself hadn’t been sitting in conclave, would he ever have gone to see Desert and put the fat into the fire like this? The conclave had dulled his feelings. He had gone to Wilfrid as some juryman comes in to return his verdict after sitting in conclave on a case for days. And now he had to put himself right with Dinny, and how the deuce would he do that? He went into his study, conscious that his wife was following.
“Lawrence, you must tell her exactly what you’ve done, and how he took it. Otherwise it may be too late. And I shall stay until you’ve done it.”
“Considering, Em, that you don’t know what I said, or what he said, that seems superfluous.”
“No,” said Lady Mont, “nothing is, when a man’s done wrong.”
“I was charged to go and see him by your family.”
“You ought to have had more sense. If you treat poets like innkeepers, they blow up.”
“On the contrary, he thanked me.”
“That’s worse. I shall have Dinny’s taxi kept at the door.”
“Em,” said Sir Lawrence, “when you want to make your will, let me know.”
“Why?”
“Because of getting you consecutive before you start.”
“Anything I have,” said Lady Mont, “is to go to Michael, to be kept for Catherine. And if I’m dead when Kit goes to Harrow, he’s to have my grandfather’s ‘stirrup-cup’ that’s in the armoire in my sitting-room at Lippin’hall. But he’s not to take it to school with him, or they’ll melt it, or drink boiled peppermints out of it, or something. Is that clear?”
“Perfectly.”
“Then,” said Lady Mont, “get ready and begin at once when Dinny comes.”
“Quite!” said Sir Lawrence meekly. “But how the deuce am I to put it to Dinny?”
“Just put it, and don’t invent as you go along.”
Sir Lawrence played a tune with his fingers on the window-pane. His wife stared at the ceiling. They were like that when Dinny came.
“Keep Miss Dinny’s taxi, Blore.”
At the sight of his niece Sir Lawrence perceived that he had indeed lost touch with feeling. Her face, under its chestnut-coloured hair, was sharpened and blanched, and there was a look in her eyes that he did not like.
“Begin,” said Lady Mont.
Sir Lawrence raised one high thin shoulder as if in protection.
“My dear, your brother has been recalled, and I was asked whether I would go and see young Desert. I went. I told him that if he had a quarrel with himself he would not be fit to live with till he’d made it up. He said nothing and turned off. Afterwards he came up behind me in this street, and said that I was right. Would I tell your family that he was going away. He looked very queer and troubled. I said: ‘Be careful! You might do her a great injury.’ ‘I shall do her that, anyway,’ he said. And he went off. That was about twenty minutes ago.”
Dinny looked from one to the other, covered her lips with her hand, and went out.
A moment later they heard her cab move off.
Except for receiving a little note in answer to her letter, which relieved her not at all, Dinny had spent these last two days in distress of mind. When Sir Lawrence made his communication, she felt as if all depended on whether she could get to Cork Street before he was back there, and in her taxi she sat with hands screwed tight together in her lap and her eyes fixed on the driver’s back, a back, indeed, so broad that it was not easy to fix them elsewhere. Useless to think of what she was going to say — she must say whatever came into her head when she saw him. His face would give her a lead. She realised that if he once got away from England it would be as if she had never seen him. She stopped the cab in Burlington Street and walked swiftly to his door. If he had come straight home, he must be in! In these last two days she had realised that Stack had perceived some change in Wilfrid and was conforming to it, and when he opened the door she said:
“You mustn’t put me off, Stack, I MUST see Mr. Desert.” And, slipping past, she opened the door of the sitting-room. Wilfrid was pacing up and down.
“Dinny!”
She felt that if she said the wrong thing it might be, then and there, the end; and she only smiled. He put his hands over his eyes; and, while he stood thus blinded, she stole up and put her arms round his neck.
Was Jean right? Ought she to —?
Then, through the opened door Foch came in. He slid the velvet of his muzzle under her hand, and she sank on her knees to kiss him. When she looked up, Wilfrid had turned away. Instantly she scrambled up, and stood, as it were, lost. She did not know of what, if of anything, she thought, not even whether she were feeling. All seemed to go blank within her. He had thrown the window open and was leaning there holding his hands to his head. Was he going to throw himself out? She made a violent effort to control her nerves, and said very gently: “Wilfrid!” He turned and looked at her, and she thought: ‘My God! He hates me!’ Then his expression changed, and became the one she knew; and she was aware once more of how at sea one is with wounded pride — so multiple and violent and changing in its moods!
“Well?” she said. “What do you wish me to do?”
“I don’t know. The whole thing is mad. I ought to have buried myself in Siam by now.”
“Would you like me to stay here to-night?”
“Yes! No! I don’t know.”
“Wilfrid, why take it so hard? It’s as if love were nothing to you. Is it nothing?”
For answer he took out Jack Muskham’s letter.
“Read this!”
She read it. “I see. It was doubly unfortunate that I came down.”
He threw himself down again on the divan, and sat there looking up at her.
‘If I do go,’ thought Dinny, ‘I shall only begin tearing to get back again.’ And she said: “What are you doing for dinner?”
“Stack’s got something, I believe.”
“Would there be enough for me?”
“Too much, if you feel as I do.”
She rang the bell.
“I’m staying to dinner, Stack. I only want about a pin’s head of food.”
And, craving for a moment in which to recover her balance, she said: “May I have a wash, Wilfrid?”
While she was drying her face and hands, she took hold of herself with all her might, and then as suddenly relaxed. Whatever she decided would be wrong, painful, perhaps impossible. Let it go!
When she came back to the sitting-room he was not there. The door into his bedroom was open, but it was empty. Dinny rushed to the window. He was not in the street. Stack’s voice said.
“Excuse me, miss: Mr. Desert was called out. He told me to say he would write. Dinner will be ready in a minute.”
Dinny went straight up to him.
“Your first impression of me was the right one, Stack; not your second. I am going now. Mr. Desert need have no fear of me. Tell him that, please.”
“Miss,” said Stack, “I told you he was very sudden; but this is the most sudden thing I’ve ever known him do. I’m sorry, miss. But I’m afraid it’s a case of cutting your losses. If I can be of service to you, I will.”
“If he leaves England,” said Dinny, “I should like to have Foch.”
“If I know Mr. Desert, miss, he means to go. I’ve seen it coming on him ever since he had that letter the night before you came round in the early morning.”
“Well,” said Dinny, “shake hands, and remember what I said.”
They exchanged a hand-grip, and, still unnaturally steady, she went out and down the stairs. She walked fast, giddy and strange in her head, and nothing but the word: So! recurring in her mind. All that she had felt, all that she had meant to feel, compressed into that word of two letters. In her life she had never felt so withdrawn and tearless, so indifferent as to where she went, what she did, or whom she saw. The world might well be without end, for its end had come. She did not believe that he had designed this way of breaking from her. He had not enough insight into her for that. But, in fact, no way could have been more perfect, more complete. Drag after a man! Impossible! She did not even have to form that thought, it was instinctive.
She walked and walked for three hours about the London streets, and turned at last towards Westminster with the feeling that if she didn’t she would drop. When she went in at South Square, she summoned all that was left in her to a spurt of gaiety; but, when she had gone up to her room, Fleur said:
“Something very wrong, Michael.”
“Poor Dinny! What the hell has he done now?”
Going to the window, Fleur drew aside the curtain. It was not yet quite dark. Except for two cats, a taxi to the right, and a man on the pavement examining a small bunch of keys, there was nothing to be seen.
“Shall I go up and see if she’ll talk?”
“No. If Dinny wants us, she’ll let us know. If it’s as you think, she’ll want no one. She’s proud as the devil when her back’s to the wall.”
“I hate pride,” said Fleur; and, closing the curtain, she went towards the door. “It comes when you don’t want it, and does you down. If you want a career, don’t have pride.” She went out.
‘I don’t know,’ thought Michael, ‘if I have pride, but I haven’t got a career.’ He followed slowly upstairs, and for some little time stood in the doorway of his dressing-room. But no sound came from upstairs . . .
Dinny, indeed, was lying on her bed, face down. So this was the end! Why had the force called love exalted and tortured her, then thrown her, used and exhausted, quivering, longing, wounded, startled, to eat her heart out in silence and grief? Love and pride, and the greater of these is pride! So the saying seemed to go within her, and to be squeezed into her pillow. Her love against his pride! Her love against her own pride! And the victory with pride! Wasteful and bitter! Of all that evening only one moment now seemed to her real: when he had turned from the window, and she had thought: ‘He hates me!’ Of course he hated her, standing like the figure of his wounded self-esteem; the one thing that prevented him from crying out: ‘God damn you all! Good-bye!’
Well, now he could cry it and go! And she — suffer, suffer — and slowly get over it. No! Lie on it, keep it down, keep it silent, press it into her pillows. Make little of it, make nothing of it, while inside her it swelled and ravaged her. The expression of instinct is not so clear as that; but behind all formless throbbing there is meaning; and that was the meaning within Dinny’s silent and half-smothered struggle on her bed. How could she have acted differently? Not her fault that Muskham had sent the letter with that phrase about the protection of a woman! Not her fault that she had rushed down to Royston! What had she done wrong? The whole thing arbitrary, gratuitous! Perhaps love in its courses was always so! It seemed to her that the night ticked while she lay there; the rusty ticking of an old clock. Was it the night, or her own life, abandoned and lying on its face?
Wilfrid had obeyed impulse when he ran down into Cork Street. Ever since the sudden breaking off of that fierce undignified scuffle at Royston, and the sight of Dinny standing in the car covering her eyes with a hand, his feelings towards her had been terribly confused. Now at the sudden sight, sound, scent of her, warmth had rushed up in him and spent itself in kisses; but the moment she left him his insane feeling had returned and hurled him down into a London where at least one could walk and meet no one. He went south and became involved with a queue of people trying to get into ‘His Majesty’s.’ He stood among them thinking: ‘As well in here as anywhere.’ But, just as his turn came, he broke away and branched off eastward; passed through Covent Garden, desolate and smelling of garbage; and came out into Ludgate Hill. Hereabouts he was reminded by scent of fish that he had eaten nothing since breakfast. And, going into a restaurant, he drank a cocktail and ate some hors-d’oeuvre. Asking for a sheet of paper and envelope, he wrote:
“I had to go. If I had stayed, you and I would have been one. I don’t know what I’m going to do — I may finish in the river to-night, or go abroad, or come back to you. Whatever I do, forgive, and believe that I have loved you. Wilfrid.”
He addressed the envelope and thrust it into his pocket. But he did not post it. He felt he could never express what he was feeling. Again he walked east. Through the City zone, deserted as if it had been mustard-gassed, he was soon in the cheerier Whitechapel Road. He walked, trying to tire himself out and stop the whirling of his thoughts. He moved northwards now, and towards eleven was nearing Chingford. All was moonlit and still when he passed the hotel and went on towards the Forest. One car, a belated cyclist, a couple or two, and three tramps were all he met before he struck off the road in among the trees. Daylight was gone, and the moon was silvering the leaves and branches. Thoroughly exhausted, he lay down on the beech mast. The night was an unwritten poem — the gleam and drip of light like the play of an incoherent mind, fluttering, slipping in and out of reality; never at rest; never the firm silver of true metal; burnished and gone like a dream. Up there were the stars he had travelled by times without number, the Wain, and all the others that seemed meaningless, if not nameless, in this town world.
He turned over and lay on his face, pressing his forehead to the ground. And suddenly he heard the drone of a flying machine. But through the heavily-leafed boughs he could see no gliding, sky-scurrying shape. Some night-flier to Holland; some English airman pricking out the lighted shape of London, or practising flight between Hendon and an East Coast base. After flying in the war he had never wished to fly again. The very sound of it brought back still that sick, fed-up feeling from which the Armistice had delivered him. The drone passed on and away. A faint rumbling murmur came from London, but here the night was still and warm, with only a frog croaking, a bird cheeping feebly once, two owls hooting against each other. He turned again on to his face, and fell into an uneasy sleep.
When he woke light was just rifting the clear darkness. A heavy dew had fallen; he felt stiff and chilled, but his mind was clear. He got up and swung his arms, lit a cigarette, and drew the smoke deep in. He sat with his arms clasped round his knees, smoking his cigarette to its end without ever moving it from his lips, and spitting out the stub with its long ash just before it burned his mouth. Suddenly he began to shiver. He got up to walk back to the road. Stiff and sore, he made poor going. It was full dawn by the time he reached the road, and then, knowing that he ought to go towards London, he went in the opposite direction. He plodded on, and every now and then shivered violently. At last he sat down and, bowed over his knees, fell into a sort of coma. A voice saying: “Hi!” roused him. A fresh-faced young man in a small car had halted alongside. “Anything wrong?”
“Nothing,” muttered Wilfrid.
“You appear to be in poor shape, all the same. D’you know what time it is?”
“No.”
“Get in here, and I’ll run you to the hotel at Chingford. Got any money?”
Wilfrid looked at him grimly and laughed.
“Yes.”
“Don’t be touchy! What you want is a sleep and some strong coffee! Come on!”
Wilfrid got up. He could hardly stand. He lay back in the little car, huddled beside the young man, who said: “Now we shan’t be long.”
In ten minutes, which to a blurred and shivering consciousness might have been five hours, they were in front of the hotel.
“I know the ‘boots’ here,” said the young man; “I’ll put you in charge of him. What’s your name?”
“Hell!” muttered Wilfrid.
“Hi! George! I found this gentleman on the road. He seems to have gone a bit wonky. Put him into some decent bedroom. Heat him up a good hot bottle, and get him into bed with it. Brew him some strong coffee, and see that he drinks it.”
The boots grinned. “That all?”
“No; take his temperature, and send for a doctor. Look here, sir,” the young man turned to Wilfrid, “I recommend this chap. He can polish boots with the best. Just let him do for you, and don’t worry. I must get on. It’s six o’clock.” He waited a moment, watching Wilfrid stagger into the hotel on the arm of the ‘boots,’ then sped away.
The ‘boots’ assisted Wilfrid to a room. “Can you undress, governor?”
“Yes,” muttered Wilfrid.
“Then I’ll go and get you that bottle and the coffee. Don’t be afraid, we don’t ‘ave damp beds ’ere. Were you out all night?”
Wilfrid sat on the bed and did not answer.
“‘Ere!” said the ‘boots’: “give us your sleeves!” He pulled Wilfrid’s coat off, then his waistcoat and trousers. “You’ve got a proper chill, it seems to me. Your underthings are all damp. Can you stand?”
Wilfrid shook his head.
The ‘boots’ stripped the sheets off the bed, pulled Wilfrid’s shirt over his head; then with a struggle wrenched off vest and drawers, and wrapped him in a blanket.
“Now, governor, a good pull and a pull altogether.” He forced Wilfrid’s head on to the pillow, heaved his legs on to the bed, and covered him with two more blankets.
“You lie there; I won’t be gone ten minutes.”
Wilfrid lay, shivering so that his thoughts would not join up, nor his lips make consecutive sounds owing to the violent chattering of his teeth. He became conscious of a chambermaid, then of voices.
“His teeth’ll break it. Isn’t there another place?”
“I’ll try under his arm.”
A thermometer was pressed under his arm and held there.
“You haven’t got yellow fever, have you, sir?”
Wilfrid shook his head.
“Can you raise yourself, governor, and drink this?”
Robust arms raised him, and he drank.
“One ‘undred and four.”
“Gawd! ‘Ere, pop this bottle to his feet, I’ll ‘phone the Doc.”
Wilfrid could see the maid watching him, as if wondering what sort of fever she was going to catch.
“Malaria,” he said, suddenly, “not infectious. Give me a cigarette! In my waistcoat.”
The maid put a cigarette between his lips and lit it. Wilfrid took a long pull.
“A-again!” he said.
Again she put it between his lips, and again he took a pull.
“They say there’s mosquitoes in the forest. Did you find any last night, sir?”
“In the sys-system.”
Shivering a little less now, he watched her moving about the room, collecting his clothes, drawing the curtains so that they shaded the bed. Then she approached him, and he smiled up at her.
“Another nice drop of hot coffee?”
He shook his head, closed his eyes again, and shivered deep into the bed, conscious that she was still watching him, and then again of voices.
“Can’t find a name, but he’s some sort of nob. There’s money and this letter in his coat. The doctor’ll be here in five minutes.”
“Well, I’ll wait till then, but I’ve got my work to do.”
“Same ’ere. Tell the missus when you call her.”
He saw the maid stand looking at him with a sort of awe. A stranger and a nob, with a curious disease, interesting to a simple mind. Of his face, pressed into the pillow, she couldn’t see much — one dark cheek, one ear, some hair, the screwed-up eye under the brow. He felt her touch his forehead timidly with a finger. Burning hot, of course!
“Would you like your friends written to, sir?”
He shook his head.
“The doctor’ll be here in a minute.”
“I’ll be like this two days — nothing to be done — quinine — orange juice —” Seized by a violent fit of shivering, he was silent. He saw the doctor come in; and the maid still leaning against the chest of drawers, biting her little finger. She took it from her mouth, and he heard her say: “Shall I stay, sir?”
“Yes, you can stay.”
The doctor’s fingers closed on his pulse, raised his eyelid, pushed his lips apart.
“Well, sir? Had much of this?”
Wilfrid nodded.
“All right! You’ll stay where you are, and shove in quinine, and that’s all I can do for you. Pretty sharp bout.”
Wilfrid nodded.
“There are no cards on you. What’s your name?”
Wilfrid shook his head.
“All right! Don’t worry! Take this.”
Stepping from an omnibus, Dinny walked into the large of Wimbledon Common. After a nearly sleepless night, she had slipped out, leaving a note to say she would be away all day. She hurried over the grass into a birch grove, and lay down. The high moving clouds, the sunlight striking in and out of the birch-tree branches, the water wagtails, the little dry patches of sand, and that stout wood-pigeon, undismayed by her motionless figure, brought her neither peace nor the inclination to think of Nature. She lay on her back, quivering and dry-eyed, wondering for whose inscrutable delight she was thus suffering. The stricken do not look for outside help, they seek within. To go about exuding tragedy was abhorrent to her. She would not do that! But the sweetness of the wind, the moving clouds, the rustle of the breeze, the sound of children’s voices, brought no hint of how she was to disguise herself and face life afresh. The isolation in which she had been ever since the meeting with Wilfrid under Foch’s statue now showed nakedly. All her eggs had been in one basket, and the basket had fallen. She dug with her fingers at the sandy earth; and a dog, seeing a hole, came up and sniffed it. She had begun to live, and now she was dead. “No flowers by request!”
So sharp had been her realisation of finality yesterday evening that she did not even consider the possibility of tying up the broken thread. If he had pride, so had she! Not the same sort, but as deep in her marrow. No one had any real need of her! Why not go away? She had nearly three hundred pounds. The notion gave her neither exhilaration nor any real relief; but it would save her from making herself a nuisance to those who would expect her to be her old cheerful self. She thought of the hours she had spent with Wilfrid in places like this. So sharp was her memory that she had to cover her lips to prevent anguish welling out of them. Until she met him she had never felt alone. And now — she WAS alone! Chill, terrifying, endless! Remembering how she had found swift motion good for heartache, she got up and crossed the road where the Sunday stream of cars was already flowing out of town. Uncle Hilary had once exhorted her not to lose her sense of humour. But had she ever had one? At the end of Barnes Common she climbed on to a ‘bus and went back to London. She must have something to eat, or she would be fainting. She got down near Kensington Gardens and went into an hotel.
After lunch she sat some time in the Gardens, and then walked to Mount Street. No one was in, and she sank down on the sofa in the drawing-room. Thoroughly exhausted, she fell asleep. Her aunt’s entrance woke her, and, sitting up, she said:
“You can all be happy about me, Aunt Em. It’s finished.”
Lady Mont stared at her niece sitting there with such a ghostly little smile, and two tears, starting not quite together, ran down her cheeks.
“I didn’t know you cried at funerals, too, Aunt Em.”
She got up, went over to her aunt, and with her handkerchief removed the marks the tears had made.
“There!”
Lady Mont got up. “I MUST howl,” she said, “I simply must.” And she swayed rapidly out of the room.
Dinny sat on, that ghost of a smile still on her face. Blore brought in the tea-things, and she talked to him of Wimbledon, and his wife. He did not seem to know which of the two was in worse shape, but, as he was going out, he turned and said:
“And if I might suggest, Miss Dinny, a little sea air for you.”
“Yes, Blore, I was thinking of it.”
“I’m glad, miss; one overdoes it at this time of year.”
He, too, seemed to know that her course was run. And, feeling suddenly that she could not go on thus attending her own funeral, she stole to the door, listened for sounds, then slipped down the stairs and away.
But she was so physically exhausted that she could scarcely drag herself as far as St. James’s Park. There she sat down by the water. People, sunbeams, and ducks, shading leaves, spiky reeds, and this sirocco within her! A tall man walking from the Whitehall end made a little convulsive movement, as if to put his hand to his hat, corrected it at sight of her face, and lounged on. Realising what her face must be expressing, she got up, and, trailing on to Westminster Abbey, went in and sat down in a pew. There, bent forward, with her face resting on her arms, she stayed quite half an hour. She had not prayed, but she had rested, and the expression on her face had changed. She felt more fit to face people and not show so much.
It was past six, and she went on to South Square. Getting unseen to her room, she had a long hot bath, put on a dinner frock, and resolutely went down. Only Fleur and Michael were there, and neither of them asked her any questions. It was clear to her that they knew. She got through the evening somehow. When she was going up, both of them kissed her, and Fleur said:
“I’ve told them to put you a hot-water bottle; stuck against your back, it helps you to sleep. Good-night, bless you!”
Again Dinny had the feeling that Fleur had once suffered as she was suffering now. She slept better than she could have hoped.
With her early tea she received a letter with the heading of an hotel at Chingford.
“MADAM,—
“The enclosed letter addressed to you was found in the pocket of a gentleman who is lying here with a very sharp attack of malaria. I am posting it on to you, and am
“Truly yours,
“ROGER QUEAL, M.D.”
She read the letter . . . “Whatever I do, forgive, and believe that I have loved you. Wilfrid.” And he was ill! All the impulses which sprang up she instantly thrust back. Not a second time would she rush in where angels feared to tread! But, hurrying down, she telephoned to Stack the news that he was lying at the Chingford hotel with an attack of malaria.
“He’ll want his pyjamas and his razors, then, miss. I’ll take ’em down to him.”
Forcing back the words: “Give him my love,” she said instead, “He knows where I am if there is anything I can do.”
The blacker bitterness of her mood was gone; yet she was as cut off from him as ever! Unless he came or sent for her she could make no move; and deep down she seemed to know that he would neither come nor send. No! He would strike his tent and flit away from where he had felt too much.
Towards noon Hubert came to say good-bye. It was at once clear to her that he, too, knew. He was coming back for the rest of his leave in October, he said. Jean was to stay at Condaford till after her child was born in November. She had been ordered to be out of the summer heat. He seemed to Dinny that morning like the old Hubert again. He dwelt on the advantage of being born at Condaford. And, endeavouring to be sprightly, she said:
“Quaint to find you talking like that, Hubert. You never used to care about Condaford.”
“It makes a difference to have an heir.”
“Oh! It’ll be an heir, will it?”
“Yes, we’ve made up our minds to a boy.”
“And will there be a Condaford by the time he comes into it?”
Hubert shrugged. “We’ll have a try at keeping it. Things don’t last unless you set yourself to keep them.”
“And not always then,” murmured Dinny.