This remarkably astute utterance, at that disillusioned moment, impressed him who had been ‘Snubby Bantham.’
“Oh!” he said: “Was he there, too?”
“Yes. And you know what a time he had on that expedition. Dinny read you some of his diary.”
The colour deepened in his face, and he said with sudden exasperation: “You young ladies seem to think I’ve nothing to do but meddle in things that don’t concern me. Extradition is a legal job.”
Jean looked up through her lashes, and the unhappy peer moved as if to duck his head.
“What can I do?” he said, gruffly. “They wouldn’t listen to me.”
“Try,” said Jean. “Some men are always listened to.”
Lord Saxenden’s eyes bulged slightly.
“You say he’s got a scar. Where?”
Jean pushed up the sleeve on her left arm.
“From here to here. He shot as the man came on again.”
“H’m!”
Looking intently at the arm, he repeated that profound remark, and there was silence, till Jean said suddenly: “Would YOU like to be extradited, Lord Saxenden?”
He made an impatient movement.
“But this is an official matter, young lady.”
Jean looked at him again.
“Is it really true that no influence is ever brought to bear on anybody about anything?”
He laughed.
“Come and lunch with me at the Piedmont Grill the day after tomorrow—no, the day after that, and I’ll let you know if I’ve been able to do anything.”
Jean knew well when to stop; never in parish meetings did she talk on. She held out her hand: “Thank you ever so. One-thirty?”
Lord Saxenden gave her an astonished nod. This young woman had a directness which appealed to one whose life was passed among public matters conspicuous for the lack of it.
“Good-bye!” she said.
“Good-bye, Miss Tasburgh; congratulations.”
“Thank you. That will depend on you, won’t it?” And before he could answer she was through the door. She walked back, her mind not in a whirl. She thought clearly and quickly, with a natural distrust of leaving things to others. She must see Hubert that very night; and, on getting in, she went at once to the telephone again and rang up ‘The Coffee House.’
“Is that you, Hubert? Jean speaking.”
“Yes, darling.”
“Come here after dinner. I must see you.”
“About nine?”
“Yes. My love to you. That’s all.” And she cut off.
She stood for a moment before going up to dress, as if to endorse that simile of ‘leopardess.’ She looked, indeed, like Youth stalking its own future—lithe, intent, not to be deviated, in Fleur’s finished and stylistic drawing-room as much at home and yet as foreign to its atmosphere as a cat might be.
Dinner, when any of the diners have cause for really serious anxiety and the others know of it, is conspicuous for avoidance of all but quick-fire conversation. Nobody touched on the Ferse topic, and Adrian left as soon as he had drunk his coffee. Dinny saw him out.
“Good-night, Uncle dear. I shall sleep with my emergency suit-case; one can always get a taxi here at a moment’s notice. Promise me not to worry.”
Adrian smiled, but he looked haggard. Jean met her coming from the door and told her the fresh news of Hubert. Her first feeling, of complete dismay, was succeeded by burning indignation.
“What utter ruffianism!”
“Yes,” said Jean. “Hubert’s coming in a minute or two and I want him to myself.”
“Take him up to Michael’s study, then. I’ll go and tell Michael. Parliament ought to know; only,” she added, “it’s not sitting. It only seems to sit when it oughtn’t to.”
Jean waited in the hall to let Hubert in. When he had gone up with her to that room whose walls were covered with the graven witticisms of the last three generations, she put him into Michael’s most comfortable chair, and sat down on his knee. Thus, with her arm round his neck, and her lips more or less to his, she stayed for some minutes.
“That’ll do,” she said, rising, and lighting cigarettes. “This extradition business isn’t going to come to anything, Hubert.”
“But suppose it does.”
“It won’t. But if it does—all the more reason for our being married at once.”
“My darling girl, I can’t possibly.”
“You must. You don’t suppose that if you WERE extradited—which is absurd—I shouldn’t go too. Of course I should, and by the same boat—married or not.”
Hubert looked at her.
“You’re a marvel,” he said, “but—”
“Oh! yes, I know. Your father, and your chivalry, and your desire to make me unhappy for my own good, and all that. I’ve seen your uncle Hilary. He’s ready to do it; he’s a padre and a man of real experience. Now, look here—we’ll tell him of this development, and if he’ll still do it, we’ll be done. We’ll go to him together tomorrow morning.”
“But—”
“But! Surely you can trust him; he strikes me as a real person.”
“He is,” said Hubert; “no one more so.”
“Very well then; that’s settled. Now you can kiss me again.” And she resumed her position on his knee. So, but for her acute sense of hearing, they would have been surprised. She was, however, examining the White Monkey on the wall, and Hubert was taking out his cigarette case, when Dinny opened the door.
“This monkey is frightfully good,” said Jean. “We’re going to be married, Dinny, in spite of this new nonsense—that is, if your Uncle Hilary still will. You can come with us to him again tomorrow morning, if you like.”
Dinny looked at Hubert, who had risen.
“She’s hopeless,” he said: “I can’t do anything with her.”
“And you can’t do anything without her. Imagine! He thought, if the worst came to the worst and he was sent out to be tried, that I shouldn’t be going too. Men really are terribly like babies. Well, Dinny?”
“I’m glad.”
“It depends on Uncle Hilary,” said Hubert; “you understand that, Jean.”
“Yes. He’s in touch with real life, and what he says shall go. Come for us at ten tomorrow. Turn your back, Dinny. I’ll give him one kiss, and then he must be off.”
Dinny turned her back.
“Now,” said Jean. They went down; and soon after, the girls went up to bed. Their rooms were next each other, and furnished with all Fleur’s taste. They talked a little, embraced and parted. Dinny dawdled over her undressing.
The quiet Square, inhabited for the most part by Members of Parliament away on holiday, had few lights in the windows of its houses; no wind stirred the dark branches of the trees; through her open window came air that had no night sweetness; and rumbling noises of the Town kept alive in her the tingling sensations of that long day.
‘I couldn’t live with Jean,’ she thought, ‘but,’ she added with the greater justice, ‘Hubert could. He needs that sort of thing.’ And she smiled wryly, mocking her sense of having been supplanted. Once in bed she lay, thinking of Adrian’s fear and dismay, of Diana, and that poor wretch, her husband—longing for her—shut off from her—shut off from everyone. In the darkness she seemed to see his eyes flickering, burning and intense; the eyes of a being that yearned to be at home, at rest, and could not be. She drew the bedclothes up to her own eyes, and over and over, for comfort, repeated to herself the nursery rhyme:
CHAPTER 19
If you had examined Hilary Cherrell, Vicar of St. Augustine’s-inthe-Meads, in the privacy that lies behind all appearance, all spoken words, even all human gesture, you would have found that he did not really believe his faithful activity was leading anywhere. But to ‘serve’ was bred into his blood and bone, as they serve, that is, who lead and direct. As a setter dog, untrained, taken for a walk, will instantly begin to range, as a Dalmatian dog, taken out riding, will follow from the first under the heels of the horse, so was it bred into Hilary, coming of families who for generations had manned the Services, to wear himself out, leading, directing and doing things for the people round him, without conviction that in his leadership or ministrations he was more than marking the time of his own duty. In an age when doubt obscured everything and the temptation to sneer at caste and tradition was irresistible, he illustrated an ‘order’ bred to go on doing its job, not because it saw benefit to others, not because it sighted advantage to self, but because to turn tail on the job was equivalent to desertion. Hilary never dreamed of justifying his ‘order’ or explaining the servitude to which his father the diplomat, his uncle the Bishop, his brothers the soldier, the ‘curator,’ and the judge (for Lionel had just been appointed) were, in their different ways, committed. He thought of them and himself as just ‘plugging along.’ Besides, each of his activities had some specious advantage which he could point to, but which, in his heart, he suspected of being graven on paper rather than on stone.