“Three for me. I know it’s fattenin’. Clare?”
“One, please.”
The girls sipped, and Clare sighed out:
“Amazing!”
“Yes. Why is your coffee so much better than anybody else’s, Aunt Em?”
“I agree,” said her aunt. “About that poor man, Dinny: I was so relieved that he didn’t bite either of you after all. Adrian will get her now. Such a comfort.”
“Not for some time, Aunt Em: Uncle Adrian’s going to America.”
“But why?”
“We all thought it best. Even he did.”
“When he goes to Heaven,” said Lady Mont, “someone will have to go with him, or he won’t get in.”
“Surely he’ll have a seat reserved!”
“You never know. The Rector was preachin’ on that last Sunday.”
“Does he preach well?”
“Well, cosy.”
“I expect Jean wrote his sermons.”
“Yes, they used to have more zip. Where did I get that word, Dinny?”
“From Michael, I expect.”
“He always caught everythin’. The rector said we were to deny ourselves; he came here to lunch.”
“And had a whacking good feed.”
“Yes.”
“What does he weigh, Aunt Em?”
“Without his clothes—I don’t know.”
“But with?”
“Oh! quite a lot. He’s goin’ to write a book.”
“What about?”
“The Tasburghs. There was that one that was buried, and lived in France afterwards, only she was a Fitzherbert by birth. Then there was the one that fought the battle of—not Spaghetti—the other word, Augustine gives it us sometimes.”
“Navarino? But did he?”
“Yes, but they said he didn’t. The rector’s goin’ to put that right. Then there was the Tasburgh that got beheaded, and forgot to put it down anywhere. The rector’s nosed that out.”
“In what reign?”
“I never can be bothered with reigns, Dinny. Edward the Sixth—or Fourth, was it? He was a red rose. Then there was the one that married into us. Roland his name was—or was it? But he did somethin’ strikin’—and they took away his land. Recusancy—what is that?”
“It means he was a Catholic, Auntie, in a Protestant reign.”
“They burnt his house first. He’s in Mercurius Rusticus, or some book. The rector says he was greatly beloved. They burnt his house twice, I think, and then robbed it—or was it the other way? It had a moat. And there’s a list of what they took.”
“How entrancing!”
“Jam, and silver, and chickens, and linen, and I think his umbrella, or something funny.”
“When was all this, Auntie?”
“In the Civil War. He was a Royalist. Now I remember his name wasn’t Roland, and she was Elizabeth after you, Dinny. History repeatin’ itself.”
Dinny looked at the log.
“Then there was the last Admiral—under William the Fourth—he died drunk, not William. The Rector says he didn’t, so he’s writin’ to prove it. He says he caught cold and took rum for it; and it didn’t click—where did I get THAT word?”
“I sometimes use it, Auntie.”
“Yes. So there’s quite a lot, you see, besides all the dull ones, right away back to Edward the Confessor or somebody. He’s tryin’ to make out they’re older than we are. So unreasonable.”
“My Aunt!” murmured Clare. “Who would read a book like that?”
“I shouldn’t think so. But he’ll simply love snobbin’ into it: and it’ll keep him awake. Here’s Alan! Clare, you haven’t seen where my portulaca was. Shall we take a turn?”
“Aunt Em, you’re shameless,” said Dinny in her ear; “and it’s no good.”
“‘If at first you don’t succeed’—d’you remember every mornin’ when we were little? Wait till I get my hat, Clare.”
They passed away.
“So your leave’s up, Alan?” said Dinny, alone with the young man. “Where shall you be?”
“Portsmouth.”
“Is that nice?”
“Might be worse. Dinny, I want to talk to you about Hubert. If things go wrong at the Court next time, what’s going to happen?”
All ‘bubble and squeak’ left Dinny, she sank down on a fireside cushion, and gazed up with troubled eyes.
“I’ve been enquiring,” said young Tasburgh; “they leave it two or three weeks for the Home Secretary to go into, and then, if he confirms, cart them off as soon as they can. From Southampton it would be, I expect.”
“You don’t really think it will come to that, do you?”
He said gloomily: “I don’t know. Suppose a Bolivian had killed somebody, here, and gone back, we should want him rather badly, shouldn’t we, and put the screw on to get him?”
“But it’s fantastic!”
The young man looked at her with an extremely resolute compassion.
“We’ll hope for the best; but if it goes wrong something’s got to be done about it. I’m not going to stand for it, nor is Jean.”
“But what could be done?”
Young Tasburgh walked round the hall looking at the doors; then, leaning above her, he said:
“Hubert can fly, and I’ve been up every day since Chichester. Jean and I are working the thing out—in case.”
Dinny caught his hand.
“My dear boy, that’s crazy!”
“No crazier than thousands of things done in the war.”
“But it would ruin your career.”
“Blast my career! Look on and see you and Jean miserable for years, perhaps, and a man like Hubert broken rottenly like that—what d’you think?”
Dinny squeezed his hand convulsively and let it go.
“It can’t, it shan’t come to that. Besides, how could you get Hubert? He’d be under arrest.”
“I don’t know, but I shall know all right if and when the time comes. What’s certain is that if they once get him over there, he’ll have a damned thin chance.”
“Have you spoken to Hubert?”
“No. It’s all perfectly vague as yet.”
“I’m sure he wouldn’t consent.”
“Jean will see to that.”
Dinny shook her head. “You don’t know Hubert; he would never let you.”
Alan grinned, and she suddenly recognised that in him there was something formidably determined.
“Does Professor Hallorsen know?”
“No, and he won’t, unless it’s absolutely necessary. But he’s a good egg, I admit.”
She smiled faintly. “Yes, he’s a good egg; but an outsize.”
“Dinny, you’re not gone on him, are you?”
“No, my dear.”
“Well, thank God for that! You see,” he went on, “they’re not likely to treat Hubert as an ordinary criminal. That will make things easier perhaps.”
Dinny gazed at him, thrilled to her very marrow. Somehow that last remark convinced her of the reality of his purpose. “I’m beginning to understand Zeebrugge. But—”
“No buts, and buck up! That boat arrives the day after tomorrow, and then the case will be on again. I shall see you in Court, Dinny. I must go now—got my daily flight. I just thought I’d like you to know that if the worst comes to the worst, we aren’t going to take it lying down. Give my love to Lady Mont; shan’t be seeing her again. Good-bye, and bless you!” And, kissing her hand, he was out of the hall before she could speak.
Dinny sat on beside the cedar log, very still, and strangely moved. The idea of defiance had not before occurred to her, mainly perhaps because she had never really believed that Hubert would be committed for trial. She did not really believe it now, and that made this ‘crazy’ idea the more thrilling; for it has often been noticed that the less actual a risk, the more thrilling it seems. And to the thrill was joined a warmer feeling for Alan. The fact that he had not even proposed added to the conviction that he was in dead earnest. And on that tiger-skin, which had provided very little thrill to the eighth baronet, who from an elephant had shot its owner while it was trying to avoid notice, Dinny sat, warming her body in the glow from the cedar log, and her spirit in the sense of being closer to the fires of life than she had ever yet been. Her Uncle’s old black and white spaniel dog, Quince, who in his master’s absences, which were frequent, took little interest in human beings, came slowly across the hall and, lying down four-square, put his head on his fore-paws and looked up at her with eyes that showed red rims beneath them. “It may be all that, and it may not,” he seemed to say. The log hissed faintly, and a grandfather clock on the far side of the hall struck three with its special slowness.