“A kiss means nothing nowadays, Auntie. I nearly kissed Bobbie Ferrar; only he saw it coming.”
“Dinny can’t be bothered to do all this kissing,” said Sir Lawrence; “she’s got to sit to my miniature painter. The young man will be at Condaford tomorrow, Dinny.”
“Your Uncle’s got a bee, Dinny; collectin’ the Lady. There aren’t any, you know. It’s extinct. We’re all females now.”
By the only late evening train Dinny embarked for Condaford. They had plied her with wine at dinner, and she sat in sleepy elation, grateful for everything—the motion, and the moon-ridden darkness flying past the windows. Her exhilaration kept breaking out in smiles. Hubert free! Condaford safe! Her father and mother at ease once more! Jean happy! Alan no longer threatened with disgrace! Her fellow-passengers, for she was travelling third-class, looked at her with the frank or furtive wonderment that so many smiles will induce in the minds of any taxpayers. Was she tipsy, weak-minded, or merely in love? Perhaps all three! And she looked back at them with a benevolent compassion because they were obviously not half-seas-over with happiness. The hour and a half seemed short, and she got out on to the dimly lighted platform, less sleepy, but as elated as when she had got into the train. She had forgotten to add in her telegram that she was coming, so she had to leave her things and walk. She took the main road; it was longer, but she wanted to swing along and breathe home air to the full. In the night, as always, things looked unfamiliar, and she seemed to pass houses, hedges, trees that she had never known. The road dipped through a wood. A car came with its headlights glaring luridly, and in that glare she saw a weasel slink across just in time—queer little low beast, snakily humping its long back. She stopped a moment on the bridge over their narrow twisting little river. That bridge was hundreds of years old, nearly as old as the oldest parts of the Grange, and still very strong. Just beyond it was their gate, and when the river flooded, in very wet years, it crept up the meadow almost to the shrubbery where the moat had once been. Dinny pushed through the gate and walked on the grass edging of the drive between the rhododendrons. She came to the front of the house, which was really its back—long, low, unlighted. They did not expect her, and it was getting on for midnight; and the idea came to her to steal round and see it all grey and ghostly, tree-and-creeper-covered in the moonlight. Past the yew trees, throwing short shadows under the raised garden, she came round on to the lawn, and stood breathing deeply, and turning her head this way and that, so as to miss nothing that she had grown up with. The moon flicked a ghostly radiance on to the windows, and shiny leaves of the magnolias; and secrets lurked all over the old stone face. Lovely! Only one window was lighted, that of her father’s study. It seemed strange that they had gone to bed already, with relief so bubbling in them. She stole from the lawn on to the terrace and stood looking in through the curtains not quite drawn. The General was at his desk with a lot of papers spread before him, sitting with his hands between his knees, and his head bent. She could see the hollow below his temple, the hair above it, much greyer of late, the set mouth, the almost beaten look on the face. The whole attitude was that of a man in patient silence, preparing to accept disaster. Up in Mount Street she had been reading of the American Civil War, and she thought that just so, but for his lack of beard, might some old Southern General have looked, the night before Lee’s surrender. And, suddenly, it came to her that by an evil chance they had not yet received her telegram. She tapped on the pane. Her father raised his head. His face was ashen grey in the moonlight, and it was evident that he mistook her apparition for confirmation of the worst; he opened the window. Dinny leaned in, and put her hands on his shoulders.
“Dad! Haven’t you had my wire? It’s all right, Hubert’s free.”
The General’s hands shot up and grasped her wrists, colour came into his face, his lips relaxed, he looked suddenly ten years younger.
“Is it—is it certain, Dinny?”
Dinny nodded. She was smiling, but tears stood in her eyes.
“My God! That’s news! Come in! I must go up and tell your Mother!” He was out of the room before she was in it.
In this room, which had resisted her mother’s and her own attempts to introduce aestheticism, and retained an office-like barrenness, Dinny stood staring at this and at that evidence of Art’s defeat, with the smile that was becoming chronic. Dad with his papers, his military books, his ancient photographs, his relics of India and South Africa, and the old-style picture of his favourite charger, his map of the estate; his skin of the leopard that had mauled him, and the two fox masks—happy again! Bless him!
She had the feeling that her mother and he would rather be left alone to rejoice, and slipped upstairs to Clare’s room. That vivid member of the family was asleep with one pyjama-d arm outside the sheet and her cheek resting on the back of the hand. Dinny looked amiably at the dark shingled head and went out again. No good spoiling beauty sleep! She stood at her opened bedroom window, gazing between the nearly bare elm-trees, at the moonlit rise of fields and the wood beyond. She stood and tried hard not to believe in God. It seemed mean and petty to have more belief in God when things were going well than when they were instinct with tragedy; just as it seemed mean and petty to pray to God when you wanted something badly, and not pray when you didn’t. But after all God was Eternal Mind that you couldn’t understand; God was not a loving Father that you could. The less she thought about all that the better. She was home like a ship after storm; it was enough! She swayed, standing there, and realised that she was nearly asleep. Her bed was not made ready; but getting out an old, thick dressing-gown, she slipped off shoes, dress, and corset belt, put on the gown and curled up under the eiderdown. In two minutes, still with that smile on her lips, she was sleeping…
A telegram from Hubert, received at breakfast next morning, said that he and Jean would be down in time for dinner.
“‘The Young Squire Returns!’” murmured Dinny. “‘Brings Bride!’ Thank goodness it’ll be after dark, and we can kill the fatted calf in private. Is the fatted calf ready, Dad?”
“I’ve got two bottles of your great-grandfather’s Chambertin 1865 left. We’ll have that, and the old brandy.”
“Hubert likes woodcock best, if there are any to be had, Mother, and pancakes. And how about the inland oyster? He loves oysters.”
“I’ll see, Dinny.”
“And mushrooms,” added Clare.
“You’ll have to scour the country, I’m afraid, Mother.”
Lady Cherrell smiled, she looked quite young.
“It’s ‘a mild hunting day,’” said the Generaclass="underline" “What about it, Clare? The meet’s at Wyvell’s Cross, eleven.”
“Rather!”
Returning from the stables after seeing her father and Clare depart, Dinny and the dogs lingered. The relief from that long waiting, the feeling of nothing to worry about, was so delicious that she did not resent the singular similarity in the present state of Hubert’s career to the state which had given her so much chagrin two months back. He was in precisely the same position, only worse, because married; and yet she felt as blithe as a ‘sandboy.’ It proved that Einstein was right, and everything relative!
She was singing ‘The Lincolnshire Poacher’ on her way to the raised garden when the sound of a motor-cycle on the drive caused her to turn. Someone in the guise of a cyclist waved his hand, and shooting the cycle into a rhododendron bush came towards her, removing his hood.
Alan, of course! And she experienced at once the sensation of one about to be asked in marriage. Nothing—she felt—could prevent him this morning, for he had not even succeeded in doing the dangerous and heroic thing which might have made the asking for reward too obvious.
‘But perhaps,’ she thought, ‘he still has a beard—that might stop him.’ Alas! He had only a jaw rather paler than the rest of his brown face.