“What’s become of her brother?” And again he looked at Dinny.
“Alan? He’s out on the China station.”
“Your aunt never ceases to bemoan your not clicking there.”
“Dear Uncle, almost anything to oblige Aunt Em; but, feeling like a sister to him, the prayer-book was against me.”
“I don’t want you to marry,” said Sir Lawrence, “and go out to some Barbary or other.”
Through Dinny flashed the thought: ‘Uncle Lawrence is uncanny,’ and her eyes became more limpid than ever.
“This confounded officialism,” he continued, “seems to absorb all our kith and kin. My two daughters, Celia in China, Flora in India; your brother Hubert in the Soudan; your sister Clare off as soon as she’s spliced—Jerry Corven’s been given a post in Ceylon. I hear Charlie Muskham’s got attached to Government House, Cape Town; Hilary’s eldest boy’s going into the Indian Civil, and his youngest into the Navy. Dash it all, Dinny, you and Jack Muskham seem to be the only pelicans in my wilderness. Of course there’s Michael.”
“Do you see much of Mr. Muskham, then, Uncle?”
“Quite a lot at ‘Burton’s,’ and he comes to me at ‘The Coffee House’; we play piquet—we’re the only two left. That’s in the illegitimate season—from now on I shall hardly see him till after the Cambridgeshire.”
“Is he a terribly good judge of a horse?”
“Yes. Of anything else, Dinny—no. They seldom are. The horse is an animal that seems to close the pores of the spirit. He makes you too watchful. You don’t only have to watch him, but everybody connected with him. How was young Desert looking?”
“Oh!” said Dinny, almost taken aback: “a sort of dark yellow.”
“That’s the glare of the sand. He’s a kind of Bedouin, you know. His father’s a recluse, so it’s a bit in his blood. The best thing I know about him is that Michael likes him, in spite of that business.”
“His poetry?” said Dinny.
“Disharmonic stuff, he destroys with one hand what he gives with the other.”
“Perhaps he’s never found his home. His eyes are rather beautiful, don’t you think?”
“It’s his mouth I remember best, sensitive and bitter.”
“One’s eyes are what one is, one’s mouth what one becomes.”
“That and the stomach.”
“He hasn’t any,” said Dinny. “I noticed.”
“The handful of dates and cup of coffee habit. Not that the Arabs drink coffee—green tea is their weakness, with mint in it. My God! Here’s your aunt. When I said ‘My God!’ I was referring to the tea with mint.”
Lady Mont had removed her paper headdress and recovered her breath.
“Darling,” said Dinny, “I DID forget your birthday, and I haven’t got anything for you.”
“Then give me a kiss, Dinny. I always say your kisses are the best. Where have you sprung from?”
“I came up to shop for Clare at the Stores.”
“Have you got your night things with you?”
“No.”
“That doesn’t matter. You can have one of mine. Do you still wear nightdresses?”
“Yes,” said Dinny.
“Good girl! I don’t like pyjamas for women—your uncle doesn’t either. It’s below the waist, you know. You can’t get over it– you try to, but you can’t. Michael and Fleur will be stayin’ on to dinner.”
“Thank you, Aunt Em; I do want to stay up. I couldn’t get half the things Clare needs today.”
“I don’t like Clare marryin’ before you, Dinny.”
“But she naturally would, Auntie.”
“Fiddle! Clare’s brilliant—they don’t as a rule. I married at twenty-one.”
“You see, dear!”
“You’re laughin’ at me. I was only brilliant once. You remember, Lawrence—about that elephant—I wanted it to sit, and it would kneel. All their legs bend one way, Dinny. And I said it WOULD follow its bent.”
“Aunt Em! Except for that one occasion you’re easily the most brilliant woman I know. Women are so much too consecutive.”
“Your nose is a comfort, Dinny, I get so tired of beaks, your Aunt Wilmet’s, and Hen Bentworth’s, and my own.”
“Yours is only faintly aquiline, darling.”
“I was terrified of its gettin’ worse, as a child. I used to stand with the tip pressed up against a wardrobe.”
“I’ve tried that too, Auntie, only the other way.”
“Once while I was doin’ it your father was lyin’ concealed on the top, like a leopard, you know, and he hopped over me and bit through his lip. He bled all down my neck.”
“How nasty!”
“Yes. Lawrence, what are you thinking about?”
“I was thinking that Dinny has probably had no lunch. Have you, Dinny?”
“I was going to have it tomorrow, Uncle.”
“There you are!” said Lady Mont. “Ring for Blore. You’ll never have enough body until you’re married.”
“Let’s get Clare over first, Aunt Em.”
“St. George’s. I suppose Hilary’s doin’ them?”
“Of course!”
“I shall cry.”
“Why, exactly, do you cry at weddings, Auntie?”
“She’ll look like an angel; and the man’ll be in black tails and a toothbrush moustache, and not feelin’ what she thinks he is. Saddenin’!”
“But perhaps he’s feeling more. I’m sure Michael was about Fleur, or Uncle Adrian when he married Diana.”
“Adrian’s fifty-three and he’s got a beard. Besides, he’s Adrian.”
“I admit that makes a difference. But I think we ought rather to cry over the man. The woman’s having the hour of her life and the man’s waistcoat is almost certain to be too tight.”
“Lawrence’s wasn’t. He was always a thread-paper, and I was as slim as you, Dinny.”
“You must have looked lovely in a veil, Aunt Em. Didn’t she, Uncle?” The whimsically wistful look on both those mature faces stopped her, and she added: “Where did you first meet?”
“Out huntin’, Dinny. I was in a ditch, and your uncle didn’t like it, he came and pulled me out.”
“I think that’s ideal.”
“Too much mud. We didn’t speak to each other all the rest of the day.”
“Then what brought you together?”
“One thing and another. I was stayin’ with Hen’s people, the Corderoys, and your uncle called to see some puppies. What are you catechisin’ me for?”
“I only just wanted to know how it was done in those days.”
“Go and find out for yourself how it’s done in these days.”
“Uncle Lawrence doesn’t want to get rid of me.”
“All men are selfish, except Michael and Adrian.”
“Besides, I should hate to make you cry.”
“Blore, a cocktail and a sandwich for Miss Dinny, she’s had no lunch. And, Blore, Mr. and Mrs. Adrian and Mr. and Mrs. Michael to dinner. And, Blore, tell Laura to put one of my nightdresses and the other things in the blue spare room. Miss Dinny’ll stay the night. Those children!” And, swaying slightly, Lady Mont preceded her butler through the doorway.
“What a darling, Uncle!”
“I’ve never denied it, Dinny.”
“I always feel better after her. Was she ever out of temper?”
“She can begin to be, but she always goes on to something else before she’s finished.”
“What saving grace… !”
At dinner that evening, Dinny listened for any allusion by her uncle to Wilfred Desert’s return. There was none.
After dinner, she seated herself by Fleur in her habitual, slightly mystified admiration of this cousin by marriage, whose pretty poise was so assured, whose face and figure so beautifully turned out, whose clear eyes were so seeing, whose knowledge of self was so disillusioned, and whose attitude to Michael seemed at once that of one looking up and looking down.
‘If I ever married,’ thought Dinny, ‘I could never be like that to him. I would have to look him straight in the face as one sinner to another.’
“Do you remember your wedding, Fleur?” she said.
“I do, my dear. A distressing ceremony!”
“I saw your best man today.”