Wilfrid’s words: “You can tell her family I’m going away,” and Dinny’s: “It’s finished,” had travelled, if not like wildfire, throughout the Cherrell family. There was no rejoicing as over a sinner that repenteth. All were too sorry for her, with a sorrow nigh unto dismay. Each wanted to show sympathy, none knew how. Sympathy smelling of sympathy was worse than none. Three days passed, during which not one member of the family succeeded in expressing anything. Then Adrian had a brainwave: He would ask her to eat something with him, though why food should be regarded as consolatory neither he nor anyone else had ever known. He appointed a café which had perhaps more repute than merit.
Since Dinny was not of those young women who make the ravages of life into an excuse for French-varnishing their surfaces, he had every opportunity to note her pallor. He forbore to comment. Indeed, he found it difficult to talk at all, for he knew that, though men, when enthralled by women, remain devoted to their mental mainsprings, women, less bodily enthralled, stay mentally wrapped up in the men they love. He began, however, to tell her how someone had tried to ‘sell him a pup.’
“He wanted five hundred pounds, Dinny, for a Cromagnon skull found in Suffolk. The whole thing looked extraordinarily genuine. But I happened to see the county archaeologist. ‘Oh!’ he said: ‘So he’s been trying to palm that off on you, has he? That’s the well-known “pup.” He’s dug it up at least three times. The man ought to be in gaol. He keeps it in a cupboard and every five or six years digs a hole, puts it in, takes it out, and tries to sell it. It possibly IS a Cromagnon skull, but he picked it up in France, about twenty years ago. It would be unique, of course as a British product.’ Thereon I went off to have another look at where it was found last time. And it was plain enough, when you already knew it, that he’d put the thing in. There’s something about antiques that saps what the Americans call one’s MORAL.”
“What sort of man was he, uncle?”
“An enthusiastic-looking chap, rather like my hairdresser.”
Dinny laughed. “You ought to do something, or he WILL sell it next time.”
“The depression is against him, my dear. Bones and first editions are extraordinarily sensitive. He’ll have to live a good ten years to get anything like a price.”
“Do many people try to palm things off on you?”
“Some succeed, Dinny. I regret that ‘pup,’ though; it was a lovely skull. There aren’t many as good nowadays.”
“We English certainly are getting uglier.”
“Don’t you believe it. Put the people we meet in drawing-rooms and shops into cassocks and cowls, armour and jerkins, and you’ll have just the faces of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries.”
“But we do despise beauty, Uncle. We connect it with softness and immorality.”
“Well, it makes people happy to despise what they haven’t got. We’re only about the third — no, the fourth — plainest people in Europe. But take away the Celtic infusions, and I admit we’d be the first.”
Dinny looked round the café. Her survey added nothing to her conclusions, partly because she took but little in, and partly because the lunchers were nearly all Jews or Americans.
Adrian watched her with an ache. She looked so bone-listless.
“Hubert’s gone, then?” he said.
“Yes.”
“And what are you going to do, my dear?”
Dinny sat looking at her plate. Suddenly she raised her head and said:
“I think I shall go abroad, Uncle.”
Adrian’s hand went to his goatee.
“I see,” he said, at last. “Money?”
“I have enough.”
“Where?”
“Anywhere.”
“By yourself?”
Dinny nodded.
“The drawback to going away,” murmured Adrian, “is the having to come back.”
“There doesn’t seem to be anything much for me to do just now. So I think I’ll cheer people up by not seeing them for a bit.”
Adrian debated within himself.
“Well, my dear, only you can decide what’s best for you. But if you felt like a long travel, it strikes me that Clare might be glad to see you in Ceylon.”
Seeing by the surprised movement of her hands that the idea was new to her, he went on:
“I have a feeling that she may not be finding life very easy.”
Her eyes met his.
“That’s what I thought at the wedding, Uncle; I didn’t like his face.”
“You have a special gift for helping others, Dinny; and whatever’s wrong about Christianity, it’s not the saying ‘To give is more blessed than to receive.’”
“Even the Son of Man liked His little joke, Uncle.”
Adrian looked at her hard, and said:
“Well, if you do go to Ceylon, mind you eat your mangoes over a basin.”
He parted from her a little later and, too much out of mood to go back to work, went to the Horse Show instead.
At South Square The Daily Phase was among those journals which politicians take lest they should miss reading correctly the temperature of Fleet Street. Michael pushed it over to Fleur at breakfast.
During the six days since Dinny’s arrival neither of them had said a word to her on the subject of Wilfrid; and it was Dinny who now said: “May I see that?”
Fleur handed her the paper. She read, gave a little shudder, and went on with her breakfast. Kit broke the ensuing hush by stating Hobbs’ average. Did Aunt Dinny think he was as great as W. G. Grace?
“I never saw either of them, Kit.”
“Didn’t you see W. G.?”
“I think he died before I was born.”
Kit scrutinised her doubtfully.
“Oh!”
“He died in 1915,” said Michael: “You’d have been eleven.”
“But haven’t you really seen Hobbs, Auntie?”
“No.”
“I’VE seen him three times. I’m practising his hook to leg. The Daily Phase says Bradman is the best batsman in the world now. Do you think he’s better than Hobbs?”
“Better news than Hobbs.”
Kit stared.
“What is ‘news’?”
“What newspapers are for.”
“Do they make it up?”
“Not always.”
“What news were you reading just now?”
“Nothing that would interest you.”
“How do you know?”
“Kit, don’t worry!” said Fleur.
“May I have an egg?”
“Yes.”
The hush began again, till Kit stopped his eggspoon in midair and isolated a finger:
“Look! The nail’s blacker than it was yesterday. Will it come off, Auntie?”
“How did you do that?”
“Pinched it in a drawer. I didn’t cry.”
“Don’t boast, Kit.”
Kit gave his mother a clear upward look and resumed his egg.
Half an hour later, when Michael was just settling down to his correspondence, Dinny came into his study.
“Busy, Michael?”
“No, my dear.”
“That paper! Why can’t they leave him alone?”
“You see The Leopard is selling like hot cakes. Dinny, how do things stand now?”
“I know he’s been having malaria, but I don’t even know where or how he is.”
Michael looked at her face, masked in its desperate little smile, and said, hesitatingly:
“Would you like me to find out?”
“If he wants me, he knows where I am.”
“I’ll see Compson Grice. I’m not lucky with Wilfrid himself.”
When she was gone he sat staring at the letters he had not begun to answer, half dismayed, half angered. Poor dear Dinny! What a shame! Pushing the letters aside, he went out.
Compson Grice’s office was near Covent Garden, which, for some reason still to be discovered, attracts literature. When Michael reached it, about noon, that young publisher was sitting in the only well-furnished room in the building, with a newspaper cutting in his hand and a smile on his lips. He rose and said: “Hallo, Mont! Seen this in The Phase?”
“Yes.”
“I sent it round to Desert, and he wrote that at the top and sent it back. Neat, eh!”
Michael read in Wilfrid’s writing:
“Whene’er the lord who rules his roosts
Says: ‘Bite!’ he bites, says: ‘Boost!’ he boosts.”
“He’s in town, then?”
“Was half an hour ago.”
“Have you seen him at all?”
“Not since the book came out.”
Michael looked shrewdly at that comely fattish face. “Satisfied with the sales?”
“We’re in the forty-first thousand, and going strong.”
“I suppose you don’t know whether Wilfrid is returning to the East?”
“Haven’t the least little idea.”
“He must be pretty sick with the whole thing.”
Compson Grice shrugged.
“How many poets have ever made a thousand pounds out of a hundred pages of verse?”
“Small price for a soul, Grice.”
“It’ll be two thousand before we’ve done.”
“I always thought it a mistake to print The Leopard. Since he did it I’ve defended it, but it was a fatal thing to do.”
“I don’t agree.”
“Obviously. It’s done you proud.”
“You can sneer,” said Grice, with some feeling, “but he wouldn’t have sent it to me if he hadn’t wished it to come out. I am not my brother’s keeper. The mere fact that it turns out a scoop is nothing to the point.”
Michael sighed.
“I suppose not; but this is no joke for him. It’s his whole life.”
“Again, I don’t agree. That happened when he recanted to save himself being shot. This is expiation, and damned good business into the bargain. His name is known to thousands who’d never heard of it.”
“Yes,” said Michael, brooding, “there is that, certainly. Nothing like persecution to keep a name alive. Grice, will you do something for me? Make an excuse to find out what Wilfrid’s intentions are. I’ve put my foot into it with him and can’t go myself, but I specially want to know.”
“H’m!” said Grice. “He bites.”
Michael grinned. “He won’t bite his benefactor. I’m serious. Will you?”
“I’ll try. By the way, there’s a book by that French Canadian I’ve just published. Top-hole! I’ll send you a copy — your wife will like it.” ‘And,’ he added to himself, ‘talk about it.’ He smoothed back his sleek dark hair and extended his hand. Michael shook it with a little more warmth than he really felt and went away.
‘After all,’ he thought, ‘what is it to Grice except business? Wilfrid’s nothing to him! In these days we have to take what the gods send.’ And he fell to considering what was really making the public buy a book not concerned with sex, memoirs, or murders. The Empire! The prestige of the English! He did not believe it. No! What was making them buy it was that fundamental interest which attached to the question how far a person might go to save his life without losing what was called his soul. In other words, the book was being sold by that little thing — believed in some quarters to be dead — called Conscience. A problem posed to each reader’s conscience, that he could not answer easily; and the fact that it had actually happened to the author brought it home to the reader that some awful alternative might at any moment be presented to himself. And what would he do then, poor thing? And Michael felt one of those sudden bursts of consideration and even respect for the public which often came over him and so affected his more intelligent friends that they alluded to him as ‘Poor Michael!’
So meditating, he reached his room at the House of Commons, and had settled down to the consideration of a private bill to preserve certain natural beauties when a card was brought to him:
General Sir Conway Cherrell
“Can you see me?”
Pencilling: “Delighted, sir!” he handed the card back to the attendant and got up. Of all his uncles he knew Dinny’s father least, and he waited with some trepidation.
The General came in, saying:
“Regular rabbit-warren this, Michael.”
He had the confirmed neatness of his profession, but his face looked worn and worried.
“Luckily we don’t breed here, Uncle Con.”
The General emitted a short laugh.
“No, there’s that. I hope I’m not interrupting you. It’s about Dinny. She still with you?”
“Yes, sir.”
The General hesitated, and then, crossing his hands on his stick, said firmly:
“You’re Desert’s best friend, aren’t you?”
“Was. What I am now, I really don’t know.”
“Is he still in town?”
“Yes; he’s been having a bout of malaria, I believe.”
“Dinny still seeing him?”
“No, sir.”
Again the General hesitated, and again seemed to firm himself by gripping his stick.
“Her mother and I, you know, only want what’s best for her. We want her happiness; the rest doesn’t matter. What do you think?”
“I really don’t believe it matters what any of us think.”
The General frowned.
“How do you mean?”
“It’s just between those two.”
“I understood that he was going away.”
“He said so to my father, but he hasn’t gone. His publisher told me just now that he was still at his rooms this morning.”
“How is Dinny?”
“Very low in her mind. But she keeps her end up.”
“He ought to do something.”
“What, sir?”
“It’s not fair to Dinny. He ought either to marry her or go right away.”
“Would you find it easy, in his place, to make up your mind?”
“Perhaps not.”
Michael made a restless tour of his little room.
“I think the whole thing is way below any question of just yes or no. It’s a case of wounded pride, and when you’ve got that, the other emotions don’t run straight. You ought to know that, sir. You must have had similar cases, when fellows have been court-martialled.”
The word seemed to strike the General with the force of a revelation. He stared at his nephew and did not answer.
“Wilfrid,” said Michael, “is being court-martialled, and it isn’t a short sharp business like a real court-martial — it’s a desperate long-drawn-out affair, with no end to it that I can grasp.”
“I see,” said the General, quietly: “But he should never have let Dinny in for it.”
Michael smiled. “Does love ever do what’s correct?”
“That’s the modern view, anyway.”
“According to report, the ancient one, too.”
The General went to the window and stood looking out.
“I don’t like to go and see Dinny,” he said, without turning round; “it seems like worrying her. Her mother feels the same. And there’s nothing we can do.”
His voice, troubled not for himself, touched Michael.
“I believe,” he said, “that in some way it’ll all be over very soon. And whichever way will be better for them and all of us than this.”
The General turned round.
“Let’s hope so. I wanted to ask you to keep in touch with us, and not let Dinny do anything without letting us know. It’s very hard waiting down there. I won’t keep you now; and thank you, it’s been a relief. Good-bye, Michael!”
He grasped his nephew’s hand, squeezed it firmly, and was gone.
Michael thought: ‘Hanging in the wind! There’s nothing worse. Poor old boy!’
Compson Grice, who had no mean disposition and a certain liking for Michael, went out to lunch mindful of his promise. A believer in the power of meals to solve difficulties, he would normally have issued an invitation and obtained his information over the second or third glass of really old brandy. But he was afraid of Wilfrid. Discussing his simple sole meunière and half-bottle of Chablis, he decided on a letter. He wrote it in the Club’s little green-panelled writing-room, with a cup of coffee by his side and a cigar in his mouth.
“The Hotch Potch Club.
“Friday.
“DEAR DESERT,—
“In view of the remarkable success of The Leopard and the probability of further large sales, I feel that I ought to know definitely what you would like me to do with the royalty cheques when they fall due. Perhaps you would be so good as to tell me whether you contemplate going back to the East, and if so when; and at the same time let me have an address to which I can remit with safety. Possibly you would prefer that I should simply pay your royalties into your bank, whatever that is, and take their receipt. Hitherto our financial transactions have been somewhat lean, but The Leopard will certainly have — indeed, is already having — an influence on the sales of your two previous books; and it will be advisable that you should keep me in touch with your whereabouts in future. Shall you be in Town much longer? I am always delighted to see you, if you care to look in.
“With hearty congratulations and best wishes,
“I am, sincerely yours,
“COMPSON GRICE.”
This letter, in his elegant and upright hand, he addressed to Cork Street and sent at once by the club messenger. The remains of his recess he spent sounding in his rather whispering voice the praises of his French Canadian product, and then took a taxi back to Covent Garden. A clerk met him in the lobby.
“Mr. Desert is waiting up in your room, sir.”
“Good!” said Compson Grice, subduing a tremor and thinking: ‘Quick work!’
Wilfrid was standing at a window which commanded a slanting view of Covent Garden market; and Grice was shocked when he turned round — the face was so dark and wasted and had such a bitter look: the hand, too, had an unpleasant dry heat in the feel of it.
“So you got my letter?” he said.
“Thanks. Here’s the address of my bank. Better pay all cheques into it and take their receipt.”
“You don’t look too fearfully well. Are you off again?”
“Probably. Well, good-bye, Grice. Thanks for all you’ve done.”
Compson Grice said, with real feeling: “I’m terribly sorry it’s hit you so hard.”
Wilfrid shrugged and turned to the door.
When he was gone his publisher stood, twisting the bank’s address, in his hands. Suddenly he said our loud: “I don’t like his looks; I absolutely don’t!” And he went to the telephone . . .
Wilfrid walked north; he had another visit to pay. He reached the museum just as Adrian was having his cup of ‘Dover’ tea and bun.
“Good!” said Adrian, rising. “I’m glad to see you. There’s a spare cup. Do sit down.”
He had experienced the same shock as Grice at the look on Desert’s face and the feel of his hand.
Wilfrid took a sip of tea. “May I smoke?” He lighted a cigarette, and sat, hunched in his chair. Adrian waited for him to speak.
“Sorry to butt in on you like this,” said Wilfrid, at last, “but I’m going back into the blue. I wanted to know which would hurt Dinny least — just to clear out or to write.”
Adrian lived through a wretched and bleak minute.
“You mean that if you see her you can’t trust yourself.” Desert gave a shivering shrug.
“It’s not that exactly. It sounds brutal, but I’m so fed up that I don’t feel anything. If I saw her — I might wound her. She’s been an angel. I don’t suppose you can understand what’s happened in me. I can’t myself. I only know that I want to get away from everything and everybody.”
Adrian nodded.
“I was told you’d been ill — you don’t think that accounts for your present feeling? For God’s sake don’t make a mistake in your feelings now!”
Wilfrid smiled.
“I’m used to malaria. It’s not that. You’ll laugh, but I feel like bleeding to death inside. I want to get to where nothing and nobody remind me. And Dinny reminds me more than anyone.”
“I see,” said Adrian gravely. And he was silent, passing his hand over his bearded chin. Then he got up and began to walk about.
“Do you think it’s fair to Dinny or yourself not to try what seeing her might do?”
Wilfrid answered, almost with violence: “I tell you, I should hurt her.”
“You’ll hurt her any way; her eggs are all in one basket. And look here, Desert! You published that poem deliberately. I always understood you did so as a form of expiation, even though you had asked Dinny to marry you. I’m not such a fool as to want you to go on with Dinny if your feelings have really changed; but are you sure they have?”
“My feelings haven’t changed. I simply have none. Being a pariah dog has killed them.”
“Do you realise what you’re saying?”
“Perfectly! I knew I was a pariah from the moment I recanted, and that whether people knew it or not didn’t matter. All the same — it HAS mattered.”
“I see,” said Adrian again, and came to a standstill. “I suppose that’s natural.”
“Whether it is to others, I don’t know; it is to me. I am out of the herd, and I’ll stay there. I don’t complain. I side against myself.” He spoke with desperate energy.
Adrian said, very gently: “Then you just want to know how to hurt Dinny least? I can’t tell you: I wish I could. I gave you the wrong advice when you came before. Advice is no good, anyway. We have to wrestle things out for ourselves.”
Wilfrid stood up. “Ironical, isn’t it? I was driven to Dinny by my loneliness. I’m driven away from her by it. Well, goodbye, sir; I don’t suppose I shall ever see you again. And thanks for trying to help me.”
“I wish to God I could.”
Wilfrid smiled the sudden smile that gave him his charm.
“I’ll try what one more walk will do. I may see some writing on the wall. Anyway, you’ll know I didn’t want to hurt her more than I could help. Good-bye!”
Adrian’s tea was cold and his bun uneaten. He pushed them away. He felt as if he had failed Dinny, and yet for the life of him could not see what he could have done. That young man looked very queer! ‘Bleeding to death inside!’ Gruesome phrase! And true, judging by his face! Fibre sensitive as his, and a consuming pride! “Going back into the blue.” To roam about in the East — a sort of Wandering Jew; become one of those mysterious Englishmen found in out-of-the-way places, with no origins that they would speak of, and no future but their present. He filled a pipe and tried his best to feel that, after all, in the long run Dinny would be happier unmarried to him. And he did not succeed. There was only one flowering of real love in a woman’s life, and this was hers. He had no doubt on that point. She would make shift — oh! yes; but she would have missed ‘the singing and the gold.’ And, grabbing his battered hat, he went out. He strode along in the direction of Hyde Park; then, yielding to a whim, diverged towards Mount Street.
When Blore announced him his sister was putting the last red stitches in the tongue of one of the dogs in her French tapestry. She held it up.
“It ought to drip. He’s looking at that bunny. Would blue drips be right?”
“Grey, Em, on that background.”
Lady Mont considered her brother sitting in a small chair with his long legs hunched up.
“You look like a war correspondent — camp stools, and no time to shave. I do want Dinny to be married, Adrian. She’s twenty-six. All that about bein’ yellow. They could go to Corsica.”
Adrian smiled. Em was so right, and yet so wrong!
“Con was here today,” resumed his sister, “he’d been seein’ Michael. Nobody knows anythin’. And Dinny just goes walks with Kit and Dandy, Fleur says, and nurses Catherine, and sits readin’ books without turnin’ the page.”
Adrian debated whether to tell her of Desert’s visit to him.
“And Con says,” went on Lady Mont, “that he can’t make two ends meet this year — Clare’s weddin’ and the Budget, and Jean expectin’— he’ll have to cut down some trees, and sell the horses. We’re hard up, too. It’s lucky Fleur’s got so much. Money is such a bore. What do you think?”
Adrian gave a start.
“Well, no one expects a good thing nowadays, but one wants enough to live on.”
“It’s havin’ dependants. Boswell’s got a sister that can only walk with one leg; and Johnson’s wife’s got cancer — poor thing! And everybody’s got somebody or somethin’. Dinny says at Condaford her mother does everythin’ in the village. So how it’s to go on, I don’t know. Lawrence doesn’t save a penny.”
“We’re falling between two stools, Em; and one fine day we shall reach the floor with a bump.”
“I suppose we shall live in almshouses.” And Lady Mont lifted her work up to the light. “No, I shan’t make it drip. Or else go to Kenya; they say there’s somethin’ that pays there.”
“What I hate,” said Adrian with sudden energy, “is the thought of Mr. Tom Noddy or somebody buying Condaford and using it for week-end cocktail parties.”
“I should go and be a Banshee in the woods. There couldn’t be Condaford without Cherrells.”
“There dashed well could, Em. There’s a confounded process called evolution; and England is its home.”
Lady Mont sighed, and, getting up, swayed over to her parakeet.
“Polly! You and I will go and live in an almshouse.”
When Compson Grice telephoned to Michael, or rather to Fleur, for Michael was not in, he sounded embarrassed.
“Is there any message I can give him, Mr. Grice?”
“Your husband asked me to find out Desert’s movements. Well, Desert’s just been in to see me, and practically said he was off again; but — er — I didn’t like his looks, and his hand was like a man’s in fever.”
“He’s been having malaria.”
“Oh! Ah! By the way, I’m sending you a book I’m sure you’ll like; it’s by that French Canadian.”
“Thank you, very much. I’ll tell Michael when he comes in.”
And Fleur stood thinking. Ought she to pass this on to Dinny? Without consulting Michael she did not like to, and he, tied tightly to the House just now, might not even be in to dinner. How like Wilfrid to keep one on tenterhooks! She always felt that she knew him better than either Dinny or Michael. They were convinced of a vein of pure gold in him. She, for whom he had once had such a pressing passion, could only assess that vein at nine carat. ‘That, I suppose,’ she thought, rather bitterly, ‘is because my nature is lower than theirs.’ People assessed others according to their own natures, didn’t they? Still, it was difficult to give high value to one whose mistress she had not become, and who had then fled into the blue. There was always extravagance in Michael’s likings; in Dinny — well, Dinny she did not really understand.
And so she went back to the letters she was writing. They were important, for she was rallying the best and brightest people to meet some high-caste Indian ladies who were over for the Conference. She had nearly finished when she was called to the telephone by Michael, asking if there were any message from Compson Grice. Having given him what news there was, she went on:
“Are you coming in to dinner? . . . Good! I dread dining alone with Dinny; she’s so marvellously cheerful, it gives me the creeps. Not worry other people and all that, of course; but if she showed her feelings more it would worry us less . . . Uncle Con! . . . That’s rather funny, the whole family seems to want now the exact opposite of what they wanted at first. I suppose it’s the result of watching her suffer . . . Yes, she went in the car to sail Kit’s boat on the Round Pond; they sent Dandy and the boat back in the car, and are walking home . . . All right dear boy. Eight o’clock; don’t be late if you can help it . . . Oh! here ARE Kit and Dinny. Good-bye!”
Kit had come into the room. His face was brown, his eyes blue, his sweater the same colour as his eyes, his shorts darker blue; his green stockings were gartered below his bare knees, and his brown shoes had brogues; he wore no cap on his bright head.
“Auntie Dinny has gone to lie down. She had to sit on the grass. She says she’ll be all right soon. D’you think she’s going to have measles? I’ve had them, Mummy, so when she’s isulated I can still see her. We saw a man who frightened her.”
“What sort of man?”
“He didn’t come near; a tall sort of man; he had his hat in his hand, and when he saw us, he almost ran.”
“How do you know he saw you?”
“Oh! he went like that, and scooted.”
“Was that in the Park?”
“Yes.”
“Which?”
“The Green Park.”
“Was he thin, and dark in the face?”
“Yes; do you know him too?”
“Why ‘too,’ Kit? Did Auntie Dinny know him?”
“I think so; she said: ‘Oh!’ like that, and put her hand here. And then she looked after him; and then she sat down on the grass. I fanned her with her scarf. I love Auntie Dinny. Has she a husband?”
“No.”
When he had gone up, Fleur debated. Dinny must have realised that Kit would describe everything. She decided only to send up a message and some sal volatile.
The answer came back: “I shall be all right by dinner.”
But at dinner-time a further message came to say she still felt rather faint: might she just go to bed and have a long night?
Thus it was that Michael and Fleur sat down alone.
“It was Wilfrid, of course.”
Michael nodded.
“I wish to God he’d go. It’s so wretched — the whole thing! D’you remember that passage in Turgenev, where Litvinov watches the train smoke curling away over the fields?”
“No. Why?”
“All Dinny’s tissue going up in smoke.”
“Yes,” said Fleur between tight lips. “But the fire will burn out.”
“And leave —?”
“Oh! She’ll be recognisable.”
Michael looked hard at the partner of his board. She was regarding the morsel of fish on her fork. With a little set smile on her lips she raised it to her mouth and began champing, as if chewing the cud of experience. Recognisable! Yes, SHE was as pretty as ever, though more firmly moulded, as if in tune with the revival of shape. He turned his eyes away, for he still squirmed when he thought of that business four years ago, of which he had known so little, suspected so much, and talked not at all. Smoke! Did all human passion burn away and drift in a blue film over the fields, obscure for a moment the sight of the sun and the shapes of the crops and the trees, then fade into air and leave the clear hard day; and no difference anywhere? Not quite! For smoke was burnt tissue, and where fire had raged there was alteration. Of the Dinny he had known from a small child up, the outline would be changed — hardened, sharpened, refined, withered? And he said:
“I must be back at the House by nine, the Chancellor’s speaking. Why one should listen to him, I don’t know, but one does.”
“Why you should listen to anyone will always be a mystery. Did you ever know any speaker in the House change anyone’s opinions?”
“No,” said Michael with a wry smile, “but one lives in hopes. We sit day after day talking of some blessed measure, and then take a vote, with the same result as if we’d taken it at the end of the first two speeches. And that’s gone on for hundreds of years.”
“So filial!” said Fleur. “Kit thinks Dinny is going to have measles. He’s asking, too, if she has a husband . . . Coaker, bring the coffee, please. Mr. Mont has to go.”
When he had kissed her and gone, Fleur went up to the nurseries. Catherine was the soundest of sleepers, and it was pleasant to watch her, a pretty child with hair that would probably be like her own and eyes so hesitating between grey and hazel that they gave promise of becoming ice-green. One small hand was crumpled against her cheek, and she breathed lightly as a flower. Nodding to the nurse, Fleur pushed open the door into the other nursery. To wake Kit was dangerous. He would demand biscuits, and, very likely, milk, want light conversation, and ask her to read to him. But in spite of the door’s faint creaking he did not wake. His bright head was thrust determinedly into the pillow from under which the butt of a pistol protruded. It was hot, and he had thrown back the clothes, so that, by the glimmer of the night-light his blue-pyjama’d figure was disclosed to the knees. His skin was brown and healthy, and he had a Forsyte’s chin. Fleur moved up and stood quite close. He looked ‘such a duck,’ thus determinedly asleep in face of the opposition put up by his quickening imagination. With feathered finger-tips she gripped the sheet, pulled it up, and gingerly let it down over him; then stood back with her hands on her hips, and one eyebrow raised. He was at the best age in life, and would be for another two years until he went to school. No sex to bother him as yet! Everybody kind to him; everything an adventure out of books. Books! Michael’s old books, her own, the few written since fit for children. He was at the wonderful age! She looked swiftly round the twilit room. His gun and sword lay ready on a chair! One supported disarmament, and armed children to the teeth! His other toys, mostly mechanised, would be in the schoolroom. No; there on the window-sill was the boat he had sailed with Dinny, its sails still set; and there on a cushion in the corner was ‘the silver dog,’ aware of her but too lazy to get up. She could see the slim feather of his tail cocked and waving gently at her. And, afraid lest she might disturb this admirable peace, she blew a kiss to both of them and stole back through the door. Nodding again to the nurse, she inspected Catherine’s eyelashes and went out. Down the stairs she tip-toed to the floor on which was Dinny’s room, above her own. Was it unfeeling not to look in and ask if there were anything she wanted? She moved closer to the door. Only half-past nine! She could not be asleep. Probably she would not sleep at all. It was hateful to think of her lying there silent and unhappy. Perhaps to talk would be a comfort, would take her mind off! She was raising her hand to knock when a sound came forth, smothered, yet unmistakable — the gasping sobs of one crying into her pillow. Fleur stood as if turned to stone. A noise she had not heard since she herself had made it nearly four years ago! It turned her sick with the force of memory — a horrible, but a sacred sound. Not for worlds would she go in! She covered her ears, drew back, and fled downstairs. For further protection from that searing sound she turned on the portable wireless. It gave forth from the second act of Madame Butterfly. She turned it off and sat down again at her bureau. She wrote rapidly a kind of formula: “Such a pleasure if, etc.— meet those very charming Indian ladies who, etc.— Yours, etc., Fleur Mont.” Over and over and over, and the sound of that sobbing in her ears! It was stuffy to-night! She drew the curtains aside and threw the window wider to let in what air there was. A hostile thing, life, full of silent menace and small annoyances. If you went towards and grasped life with both hands, it yielded, perhaps, then drew back to deal some ugly stroke. Half-past ten! What were they jabbering about now in Parliament? Some twopenny-ha’penny tax! She closed the window and drew the curtains again, stamped her letters, and stood looking round the room before turning out and going up. And, suddenly, came a memory — of Wilfrid’s face outside close to the glass of the window, on the night he fled from her to the East. If it were there now; if, for a second time in his strange life, he came like a disembodied spirit to that window, seeking now not her but Dinny? She switched off the light and groped her way to the window, cautiously drew the curtains apart a very little, and peered out. Nothing but the last of the artificially delayed daylight! Impatiently she dropped the curtain and went upstairs. Standing before her long mirror, she listened a moment, and then carefully did not. How like life, that! One shut eyes and ears to all that was painful — if one could. And who could blame one? Plenty, to which one could shut neither eyes nor ears, seeped-in even through closed lids and cotton-wool. She was just getting into bed when Michael came. She told him of the sobbing, and he in turn stood listening; but nothing penetrated the room’s solid roofing. He went into his dressing-room and came back presently in a dressing-gown she had given him, blue, with embroidered cuffs and collar, and began to walk up and down.
“Come to bed,” said Fleur; “you can’t help by doing that.”
They talked a little in bed. It was Michael who fell asleep. Fleur lay wakeful. Big Ben struck twelve. The town murmured on, but the house was very still. A little crack now and then, as though some board were settling down after the day’s pressure of feet; the snuffle, not loud, of Michael’s breathing — such, and the whispering, as it were, of her own thoughts, were its only noises. From the room above not a sound. She began to think of where they should go in the long vacation. Scotland had been spoken of, and Cornwall; she herself wanted the Riviera for a month at least. To come back brown all over; she had never been properly sun-browned yet! With Mademoiselle and Nanny the children would be safe! What was that? A door closing. Surely the creaking of stairs! She touched Michael.
“Yes?”
“Listen!”
Again that faint creaking.
“It began above,” whispered Fleur; “I think you ought to see.”
He got out of bed, put on his dressing-gown and slippers, and, opening the door quietly, looked out. Nothing on the landing, but the sound of someone moving in the hall! He slipped down the stairs.
There was a dim figure by the front door, and he said gently:
“Is that you, Dinny?”
“Yes.”
Michael moved forward. Her figure left the door, and he came on her sitting on the coat ‘sarcophagus.’ He could just see that her hand was raised, holding a scarf over her head and face.
“Is there anything I can get you?”
“No. I wanted some air.”
Michael checked his impulse to turn the light up. He moved forward, and in the darkness stroked her arm.
“I didn’t think you’d hear,” she said. “I’m sorry.”
Dared he speak of her trouble? Would she hate him for it or be grateful?
“My dear,” he said, “anything that’ll do you good.”
“It’s silly. I’ll go up again.”
Michael put his arm round her; he could feel that she was fully dressed. After a moment she relaxed against him, still holding the scarf so that it veiled her face and head. He rocked her gently — the least little movement side to side. Her body slipped till her head rested against his shoulder. Michael ceased to rock, ceased almost to breathe. As long as she would, let her rest there!
When Wilfrid left Adrian’s room at the Museum, he had no plan or direction in his mind, and walked along like a man in one of those dreams where the theme is repeated over and over, and the only end is awakening. He went down the Kingsway to the Embankment, came to Westminster Bridge, turned on to it, and stood leaning over the parapet. A jump, and he would be out of it! The tide was running down — English water escaping to the seas, nevermore to come back, glad to go! Escape! Escape from all those who made him think of himself. To be rid of this perpetual self-questioning and self-consciousness! To end this damned mawkish indecision, this puling concern as to whether one would hurt her too much! But of course one would not hurt her too much! She would cry and get over it. Sentiment had betrayed him once! Not again! By God! Not again!
He stood there a long time, leaning on the parapet, watching the bright water and the craft creeping by; and every now and then a passing Cockney would stand beside him, as if convinced that he was looking out at something of sensational interest. And he was! He was seeing his own life finally ‘in the blue,’ unmoored, careering like the Flying Dutchman on far waters to the far ends of the world. But at least without need for bravado, kowtowing, appeal, or pretence, under his own flag, and that not at half-mast.
“I’ve ‘eard,” said a voice, “that lookin’ at the water long enough will make ’em jump sometimes.”
Wilfrid shuddered and walked away. God! How raw and jagged one had got! He walked off the bridge past the end of Whitehall into St. James’s Park, skirted the long water up to the geraniums and the large stone males, females, and fruits in front of the Palace, passed into the Green Park, and threw himself down on the dry grass. He lay there perhaps an hour on his back with his hand over his eyes, grateful for the sun soaking into him. When he got up he felt dizzy, and had to stand some minutes to get his balance before moving towards Hyde Park Corner. He had gone but a little way when he started and swerved off to the right. Coming towards him, nearer the riding track, were a young woman and a little boy. Dinny! He had seen her gasp, her hand go to her heart. And he had swerved and walked away. It was brutal, horrible, but it was final. So a man, who had thrust a dagger home, would feel. Brutal, horrible, but final! No more indecision! Nothing now but to get away as quick as ever he could! He turned towards his rooms, striding along as if possessed, his lips drawn back in such a smile as a man has in a dentist’s chair. He had stricken down the only woman who had ever seemed to him worth marrying, the only woman for whom he had felt what was worthy to be called real love. Well! Better strike her down like that than kill her by living with her! He was as Esau, and as Ishmael, not fit for a daughter of Israel. And a messenger boy turned and stared after him — the pace at which he walked was so foreign to the youth’s habitual feelings. He crossed Piccadilly with no concern whatever for its traffic, and plunged into the narrow mouth of Bond Street. It suddenly struck him that he would never see Scott’s hats again. The shop had just been shut, but those hats rested in rows, super-conventional hats, tropical hats, ladies’ hats, and specimens of the newest Trilby or Homburg, or whatever they called it now. He strode on, rounded the scent of Atkinson’s, and came to his own door. There he had to sit down at the foot of the stairs before he could find strength to climb. The spasmodic energy which had followed the shock of seeing her had ebbed out in utter lassitude. He was just beginning to mount when Stack and the dog came down. Foch rushed at his legs and stood against him, reaching his head up. Wilfrid crumpled his ears. To leave him once more without a master!
“I’m off early tomorrow morning, Stack. To Siam. I probably shan’t be coming back.”
“Not at all, sir?”
“Not at all.”
“Would you like me to come too, sir?”
Wilfrid put his hand on the henchman’s shoulder.
“Jolly good of you, Stack; but you’d be bored to death.”
“Excuse me, sir, but you’re hardly fit to travel alone at present.”
“Perhaps not, but I’m going to.”
The henchman bent his eyes on Wilfrid’s face. It was a grave intent gaze, as if he were committing that face finally to heart.
“I’ve been with you a long time, sir.”
“You have, Stack; and nobody could have been nicer to me. I’ve made provision in case anything happens to me. You’d prefer to go on here, I expect, keeping the rooms for when my father wants them.”
“I should be sorry to leave here, if I can’t come with you. Are you sure about that, sir?”
Wilfrid nodded. “Quite sure, Stack. What about Foch?”
Stack hesitated, then said with a rush: “I think I ought to tell you, sir, that when Miss Cherrell was here last — the night you went off to Epping — she said that if you was to go away at any time, she would be glad to have the dog. He’s fond of her, sir.”
Wilfrid’s face became a mask.
“Take him his run,” he said, and went on up the stairs.
His mind was once again in turmoil. Murder! But it was done! One did not bring a corpse to life with longing or remorse. The dog, if she wanted him, was hers, of course! Why did women cling to memories, when all they should wish should be to forget? He sat down at his bureau and wrote:
“I am going away for good. Foch comes to you with this. He is yours if you care to have him. I am only fit to be alone. Forgive me if you can, and forget me.— WILFRID.”
He addressed it, and sat on at the bureau slowly turning his head and looking round the room. Under three months since the day he had come back. He felt as if he had lived a lifetime. Dinny over there at the hearth, after her father had been! Dinny on the divan looking up at him! Dinny here, Dinny there!
Her smile, her eyes, her hair! Dinny, and that memory in the Arab tent, pulling at each other, wrestling for him. Why had he not seen the end from the beginning? He might have known himself! He took a sheet of paper and wrote:
“MY DEAR FATHER,—
“England doesn’t seem to agree with me, and I am starting tomorrow for Siam. My bank will have my address from time to time. Stack will keep things going here as usual, so that the rooms will be ready whenever you want them. I hope you’ll take care of yourself. I’ll try and send you a coin for your collection now and then. Good-bye.
“Yours affectionately,
“WILFRID.”
His father would read it and say: “Dear me! Very sudden! Queer fellow!” And that was about all that anyone would think or say — except —!
He took another sheet of paper and wrote to his bank; then lay down, exhausted, on the divan.
Stack must pack, he hadn’t the strength. Luckily his passport was in order — that curious document which rendered one independent of one’s kind; that password to whatever loneliness one wanted. The room was very still, for at this hour of lull before dinner traffic began there was hardly any noise from the streets. The stuff which he took after attacks of malaria had opium in it, and a dreamy feeling came over him. He drew a long breath and relaxed. To his half-drugged senses scents kept coming — the scent of camels’ dung, of coffee roasting, carpets, spices, and humanity in the Suks, the sharp unscented air of the desert, and the foetid reek of some river village; and sounds — the whine of beggars, a camel’s coughing grunts, the cry of the jackal, Muezzin call, padding of donkeys’ feet, tapping of the silversmiths, the creaking and moaning of water being drawn. And before his half-closed eyes visions came floating; a sort of long dream-picture of the East as he had known it. Now it would be another East, further and more strange! . . . He slipped into a real dream. . . .
Seeing him turn away from her in the Green Park, Dinny had known for certain it was all over. The sight of his ravaged face had moved her to the depths. If only he could be happy again she could put up with it. For since the evening he left her in his rooms she had been steeling herself, never really believing in anything but this. After those moments with Michael in the dark hall she slept a little and had her coffee upstairs. A message was brought her about ten o’clock that a man with a dog was waiting to see her.
She finished dressing quickly, put on her hat, and went down.
It could only be Stack.
The henchman was standing beside the ‘sarcophagus,’ holding Foch on a lead. His face, full of understanding as ever, was lined and pale, as if he had been up all night.
“Mr. Desert sent this, miss.” He held out a note.
Dinny opened the door of the drawing-room.
“Come in here, please, Stack. Let’s sit down.”
He sat down and let go of the lead. The dog went to her and put his nose on her knee. Dinny read the note.
“Mr. Desert says that I may have Foch.”
Stack bent his gaze on his boots. “He’s gone, miss. Went by the early service to Paris and Marseilles.”
She could see moisture in the folds of his cheeks. He gave a loud sniff, and angrily brushed his hand over his face.
“I’ve been with him fourteen years, miss. It was bound to hit me. He talks of not coming back.”
“Where has he gone?”
“Siam.”
“A long way,” said Dinny with a smile. “The great thing is that he should be happy again.”
“That is so, miss. I don’t know if you’d care to hear about the dog’s food. He has a dry biscuit about nine, and shin of beef or sheep’s head, cooked, with crumbled hound-meal, between six and seven, and nothing else. A good quiet dog, he is, perfect gentleman in the house. He’ll sleep in your bedroom if you like.”
“Do you stay where you are, Stack?”
“Yes, miss. The rooms are his lordship’s. As I told you, Mr. Desert is sudden; but I think he means what he says. He never was happy in England.”
“I’m sure he means what he says. Is there anything I can do for you, Stack?”
The henchman shook his head, his eyes rested on Dinny’s face, and she knew he was debating whether he dared offer sympathy. She stood up.
“I think I’ll take Foch a walk and get him used to me.”
“Yes, miss. I don’t let him off the lead except in the parks. If there’s anything you want to know about him any time, you have the number.”
Dinny put out her hand.
“Well, good-bye, Stack, and best wishes.”
“The same to you, miss, I’m sure.” His eyes had what was more than understanding in them, and the grip of his hand had a spasmodic strength. Dinny continued to smile till he was gone and the door closed, then sat down on the sofa with her hands over her eyes. The dog, who had followed Stack to the door, whined once, and came back to her. She uncovered her eyes, took Wilfrid’s note from her lap, and tore it up.
“Well, Foch,” she said, “what shall we do? Nice walk?”
The tail moved; he again whined slightly.
“Come along, then, boy.”
She felt steady, but as if a spring had broken. With the dog on the lead she walked towards Victoria Station, and stopped before the statue. The leaves had thickened round it, and that was all the change. Man and horse, remote, active, and contained — ‘workmanlike’! A long time she stood there, her face raised, dry-eyed, thin and drawn; and the dog sat patiently beside her.
Then, with a shrug, she turned away and led him rapidly towards the Park. When she had walked some time, she went to Mount Street and asked for Sir Lawrence. He was in his study.
“Well, my dear,” he said, “that looks a nice dog; is he yours?”
“Yes. Uncle Lawrence, will you do something for me?”
“Surely.”
“Wilfrid has gone. He went this morning. He is not coming back. Would you be so very kind as to let my people know, and Michael, and Aunt Em, and Uncle Adrian. I don’t want ever to have to speak of it.”
Sir Lawrence inclined his head, took her hand and put it to his lips. “There was something I wanted to show you, Dinny.” He took from his table a little statuette of Voltaire. “I picked that up two days ago. Isn’t he a delightful old cynic? Why the French should be so much pleasanter as cynics than other people is mysterious, except, of course, that cynicism, to be tolerable, must have grace and wit; apart from those, it’s just bad manners. An English cynic is a man with a general grievance. A German cynic is a sort of wild boar. A Scandinavian cynic is a pestilence. An American jumps around too much to make a cynic, and a Russian’s state of mind is not constant enough. You might get a perfectly good cynic in Austria, perhaps, or northern China — possibly it’s a question of latitude.”
Dinny smiled.
“Give my love to Aunt Em, please. I’m going home this afternoon.”
“God bless you, my dear,” said Sir Lawrence. “Come here, or to Lippinghall, whenever you want; we love having you.” And he kissed her forehead.
When she had gone, he went to the telephone, and then sought his wife.
“Em, poor Dinny has just been here. She looks like a smiling ghost. It’s all over. Desert went off for good this morning. She doesn’t want ever to speak of it. Can you remember that?”
Lady Mont, who was arranging some flowers in a Chinese ginger jar, dropped them and turned round.
“Oh! dear!” she said. “Kiss me, Lawrence!”
They stood for a moment embraced. Poor Em! Her heart was soft as butter! She said into his shoulder: “Your collar’s all covered with hairs. You WILL brush your hair after you’ve put your coat on. Turn! I’ll pick them off.”
Sir Lawrence turned.
“I’ve telephoned to Condaford and Michael and Adrian. Remember, Em! The thing is as if it never was.”
“Of course I shall remember. Why did she come to you?”
Sir Lawrence shrugged. “She’s got a new dog, a black spaniel.”
“Very faithful, but they get fat. There! Did they say anything on the telephone?”
“Only: ‘Oh!’ and ‘I see,’ and ‘Of course.’”
“Lawrence, I want to cry; come back presently and take me somewhere.”
Sir Lawrence patted her shoulders and went out quickly. He, too, felt peculiar. Back in his study, he sat in thought. Desert’s flight was the only possible solution! Of all those affected by this incident, he had the clearest and most just insight into Wilfrid. True, probably, that the fellow had a vein of gold in him which his general nature did its best to hide! But to live with? Not on your life! Yellow? Of course he wasn’t that! The thing was not plain-sailing, as Jack Muskham and the pukka sahibs supposed, with their superstition that black was not white, and so on. No, no! Young Desert had been snared in a most peculiar way. Given his perverse nature, its revolts, humanitarianism, and want of belief, given his way of hob-nobbing with the Arabs, his case was as different from that of the ordinary Englishman as chalk from cheese. But, whatever his case, he was not a man to live with! Poor Dinny was well out of that! What pranks Fate played! Why should her choice have fallen there? If you came to that, why anything where love was concerned? It knew no laws, not even those of common sense. Some element in her had flown straight to its kindred element in him, disregarding all that was not kindred, and all outside circumstance. She might never get again the chance of that particular ‘nick,’ as Jack Muskham would call it. But — good Gad!— marriage was a lifelong business; yes, even in these days, no passing joke! For marriage you wanted all the luck and all the give and take that you could get. Not much give and take about Desert — restless, disharmonic, and a poet! And proud — with that inner self-depreciative pride which never let up on a man! A liaison, one of those leaping companionships young people went in for now — possibly; but that didn’t fit Dinny; even Desert must have felt so. In her the physical without the spiritual seemed out of place. Ah! Well! Another long heartache in the world — poor Dinny.
‘Where,’ he thought, ‘can I take Em at this time in the morning? The Zoo she doesn’t like; I’m sick of the Wallace. Madame Tussaud’s! Gaiety will break through. Madame Tussaud’s!’
At Condaford Jean went straight from the telephone to find her mother-inlaw, and repeated Sir Lawrence’s words with her usual decision. The gentle rather timid expression on Lady Cherrell’s face changed to a startled concern.
“Oh!”
“Shall I tell the General?”
“Please, dear.”
Alone again with her accounts, Lady Cherrell sat thinking. The only one of the family, except Hubert, who had never seen Wilfrid Desert, she had tried to keep an open mind, and had no definite opposition on her conscience. She felt now only a troubled sympathy. What could one do? And, as is customary in the case of another’s bereavement, she could only think of flowers.
She slipped out into the garden and went to the rose beds, which, flanked by tall yew hedges, clustered round the old sundial. She plucked a basket full of the best blossoms, took them up to Dinny’s narrow and conventual bedroom, and disposed them in bowls by the bedside and on the window-sill. Then, opening the door and mullioned window wide, she rang for the room to be dusted and the bed made. The Medici prints on the walls she carefully set exactly straight, and said:
“I’ve dusted the pictures, Annie. Keep the window and door open. I want it all to smell sweet. Can you do the room now?”
“Yes, m’lady.”
“Then I think you’d better, I don’t know what time Miss Dinny will be here.”
Back with her accounts, she could not settle to them, and, pushing them into a drawer, went to find her husband. He, too, was seated before bills and papers without sign of animation. She went up to him and pressed his head against her.
“Jean’s told you, Con?”
“Yes. It’s the only thing, of course; but I hate Dinny to be sad.”
They were silent till Lady Cherrell said:
“I’d tell Dinny about our being so hard up. It would take her mind off.”
The General ruffled his hair. “I shall be three hundred down on the year. I might get a couple of hundred for the horses, the rest must come out of trees. I don’t know which I dislike more. Do you think she could suggest something?”
“No, but she would worry, and that would prevent her troubling so much over the other thing.”
“I see. Well, Jean or you tell her, then. I don’t like to. It looks like hinting that I want to reduce her allowance. It’s a pittance as it is. Make it plain there’s no question of that. Travel would have been the thing for her, but where’s the money to come from?”
Lady Cherrell did not know, and the conversation lapsed.
Into that old house, which for so many centuries human hopes, fears, births, deaths, and all the medley of everyday emotions had stamped with a look of wary age, had come an uneasiness which showed in every word and action, even of the maids. What attitude to adopt? How to show sympathy, and yet not show it? How to welcome, and yet make it clear that welcome did not carry rejoicing? Even Jean was infected. She brushed and combed the dogs, and insisted on taking the car to meet every afternoon train.
Dinny came by the third. Leading Foch, she stepped out of the carriage almost into Jean’s arms.
“Hallo, my dear,” said Jean, “here you are! New dog?”
“Yes; a darling.”
“What have you got?”
“Only these things. It’s no use looking for a porter, they’re always trundling bicycles.”
“I’ll get them out.”
“Indeed you won’t! Hold Foch.”
When, carrying her suitcase and dressing-bag, she reached the car, Dinny said:
“Would you mind if I walk up by the fields, Jean? It’s good for Foch; and the train was stuffy; I should like a sniff of the hay.”
“Yes, there’s some down still. I’ll take these along, and have fresh tea ready.”
She left Dinny standing with a smile on her face. And all the way to the Grange she thought of that smile and swore under her breath . . . .
Entering the field path, Dinny let Foch off his lead. By the way he rushed to the hedgerow, she realised how he had missed all this. A country dog! For a moment his busy joy took up her attention; then the sore and bitter aching came back again. She called him and walked on. In the first of their own fields the hay was still lying out, and she flung herself down. When she once got home she must watch every word and look, must smile and smile, and show nothing! She wanted desperately these few minutes of abandonment. She didn’t cry, but pressed herself against the hay-covered earth, and the sun burned her neck. She turned on her back and gazed up at the blue. She framed no thoughts, dissolved in aching for what was lost and could never be found now. And the hum of summer beat drowsily above her from the wings of insects drunk on heat and honey. She crossed her arms on her chest to compress the pain within her. If she could die, there, now, in full summer with its hum and the singing of the larks; die and ache no more! So she lay motionless, until the dog came and licked her cheek. And, ashamed, she got up and stood brushing the hay-seeds and stalks from her dress and stockings.
Past old Kismet in the next field she came to the thread of stream and crossed it into the disenchanted orchard, smelling of nettles and old trees; then on, to the garden and the flagstones of the terrace. One magnolia flower was out, but she dared not stop and sniff, lest its lemon-honey scent should upset her again; and, coming to the French window, she looked in.
Her mother was sitting with the look on her face that Dinny called ‘waiting for Father.’ Her father was standing with the look on his face that she called ‘waiting for Mother.’ Jean seemed expecting her cub to come round the corner.
‘And I’m the cub,’ thought Dinny, and stepped over the threshold, saying:
“Well, Mother darling, can I have some tea? . . .”
That evening, after good-night had been said, she came down again and went to her father’s study. He was at his bureau, poring, with a pencil, over something he had written. She stole up, and read over his shoulder:
“Hunters for sale: Bay gelding, fifteen three, rising ten, sound, good-looking, plenty of bone, fine jumper. Mare: blue roan: fifteen one, rising nine, very clever, carries lady, show jumper, sound wind and limb. Apply Owner, Condaford Grange, Oxon.”
“H’m!” he muttered, and crossed out the ‘wind and limb.’
Dinny reached down and took the paper.
The General started and looked round.
“No,” she said. And tore the sheet.
“Here! You mustn’t do that. It took me —”
“No, Dad, you can’t sell the horses, you’d be lost.”
“But I MUST sell the horses, Dinny.”
“I know. Mother told me. But it isn’t necessary. I happen to have quite a lot.” She put the notes she had been carrying about so long on his bureau.
The General got up.
“Impossible!” he said. “Very good of you, Dinny, but quite impossible!”
“You mustn’t refuse me, Dad. Let me do something for Condaford. I’ve no use for it, and it happens to be just the three hundred Mother says you want.”
“No use for it? Nonsense, my dear! Why! With that you could have a good long travel.”
“I don’t want a good long travel. I want to stay at home and help you both.”
The General looked hard into her face.
“I should be ashamed to take it,” he said. “It’s my own fault that I’ve got behind.”
“Dad! You never spend anything on yourself.”
“Well, I don’t know how it is — one little thing and another, it piles up.”
“You and I will go into it. There must be things we could do without.”
“The worst is having no capital. Something comes along and I have to meet it out of income; insurance is heavy, and with rates and taxes always going up, income gets smaller all the time.”
“I know; it must be awful. Couldn’t one breed something?”
“Costs money to start. Of course we could do perfectly well in London or Cheltenham, or abroad. It’s keeping the place up, and the people dependent on it.”
“Leave Condaford! Oh! no! Besides, who would take it? In spite of all you’ve done, we’re not up to date, Dad.”
“We’re certainly not.”
“We could never put ‘this desirable residence’ without blushing. People won’t pay for other people’s ancestors.”
The General stared before him.
“I do frankly wish, Dinny, the thing wasn’t such a trust. I hate bothering about money, screwing here and screwing there, and always having to look forward to see if you can make do. But, as you say, to sell’s unthinkable. And who’d rent it? It wouldn’t make a boys’ school, or a country club, or an asylum. Those seem the only fates before country houses nowadays. Your Uncle Lionel’s the only one of us who’s got any money — I wonder if he’d like to take it on for his week-ends.”
“No, Dad! No! Let’s stick to it. I’m sure we can do it, somehow. Let me do the screwing and that. In the meantime you MUST take this. Then we shall start fair.”
“Dinny, I—”
“To please me, dear.”
The General drew her to him.
“That business of yours,” he muttered into her hair. “My God, I wish —!”
She shook her head.
“I’m going out for a few minutes now, just to wander round. It’s so nice and warm.”
And, winding a scarf round her neck, she was gone through the opened window.
The last dregs of the long daylight had drained down beyond the rim, but warmth abode, for no air stirred, and no dew fell — a still, dry, dark night, with swarming stars. From the moment she stepped out Dinny was lost in it. But the old house shrouded in its creepers lived for her eyes, a dim presence with four still-lighted windows. She stood under an elm tree leaning against its trunk, with her arms stretched back and her hands clasping it behind her. Night was a friend — no eye to see, no ear to listen. She stared into it, unmoving, drawing comfort from the solidity and breadth behind her. Moths flew by, almost touching her face. Insentient nature, warm, incurious, busy even in the darkness. Millions of little creatures burrowed and asleep, hundreds floating or creeping about, billions of blades of grass and flowers straightening up ever so slowly in the comparative coolness of the night. Nature! Pitiless and indifferent even to the only creatures who crowned and petted her with pretty words! Threads broke and hearts broke, or whatever really happened to the silly things — Nature twitched no lip, heaved no sigh! One twitch of Nature’s lip would have been more to her than all human sympathy. If, as in the ‘Birth of Venus,’ breezes could puff at her, waves like doves lap to her feet, bees fly round her seeking honey! If for one moment in this darkness she could feel at one with the starshine, the smell of earth, the twitter of that bat, the touch of a moth’s wing on her nose!
With her chin tilted up and all her body taut against the tree trunk she stood, breathless from the darkness and the silence and the stars. Ears of a weasel, nose of a fox to hear and scent out what was stirring! In the tree above her head a bird chirped once. The drone of the last train, still far away, began, swelled, resolved itself into the sound of wheels and the sound of steam, stopped, then began again and faded out in a far drumming. All hushed once more! Where she stood the moat had been, filled in so long that this great elm tree had grown. Slow, the lives of trees, and one long fight with the winds; slow and tenacious like the life of her family clinging to this spot.
‘I WILL not think of him,’ she thought, ‘I WILL not think of him!’ As a child that refuses to remember what has hurt it, so would she be! And, instantly, his face formed in the darkness — his eyes and his lips. She turned round to the trunk and leaned her forehead on its roughness. But his face came between. Recoiling, she walked away over the grass swiftly and without noise, invisible as a spirit. Up and down she walked, and the wheeling soothed her.
‘Well,’ she thought, ‘I have had my hour. It can’t be helped. I must go in.’
She stood for a moment looking up at the stars, so far, so many, bright and cold. And with a faint smile she thought:
‘I wonder which is my lucky star!’