Beau gave the arm she was holding a small reassuring squeeze. She too was in boy's clothes, and looked radiant; even the quenching of her bright hair had not diminished the glow and vivacity of her beauty.
"That is the last of the Junior's efforts-don't they look gay against that green background? — and now Innes and I and the rest of our put-upon set will entertain you with some English antics, and then you shall have tea to sustain you against the real dancing to come."
And they went away together.
"Ah, well," said Mrs Nash, watching her daughter go, "I suppose it is better than being seized with a desire to reform natives in Darkest Africa or something. But I wish she would have just stayed at home and been one's daughter."
Lucy thought that it was to Mrs Nash's credit that, looking as young as she did, she wanted a daughter at home.
"Pam was always mad on gym. and games," Mr Nash said. "There was no holding her. There never was any holding her, come to that."
"Miss Pym," said The Nut Tart, appearing at Lucy's elbow, "do you mind if Rick sits with you while I go through this rigmarole with the Seniors?" She indicated Gillespie, who was standing behind her clutching a chair, and wearing his habitual expression of grave amusement.
The wide flat hat planked slightly to the back of her head on top of her wimple-Wife of Bath fashion-gave her an air of innocent astonishment that was delightful. Lucy and Rick exchanged a glance of mutual appreciation, and he smiled at her as he sat down on her other side.
"Isn't she lovely in that get-up," he said, watching Desterro disappear behind the rhododendrons.
"I take it that a rigmarole doesn't count as dancing."
"Is she good?"
"I don't know. I have never seen her, but I understand she is."
"I've never even danced ballroom stuff with her. Odd, isn't it. I didn't even know she existed until last Easter. It maddens me to think she has been a whole year in England and I didn't know about it. Three months of odd moments isn't very long to make any effect on a person like Teresa."
"Do you want to make an effect?"
"Yes." The monosyllable was sufficient.
The Seniors, in the guise of the English Middle Ages, ran out on to the lawn, and conversation lapsed. Lucy tried to find distraction in identifying legs and in marvelling over the energy with which those legs ran about after an hour of strenuous exercise. She said to herself: "Look, you have to go to Henrietta with the little rosette tonight. All right. That is settled. There is nothing you can do, either about the going or the result of the going. So put it out of your mind. This is the afternoon you have been looking forward to. It is a lovely sunny day, and everyone is pleased to see you, and you should be having a grand time. So relax. Even if-if anything awful happens about the rosette, it has nothing to do with you. A fortnight ago you didn't know any of these people, and after you go away you will never see any of them again. It can't matter to you what happens or does not happen to them."
All of which excellent advice left her just where she was before. When she saw Miss Joliffe and the maids busy about the tea-table in the rear she was glad to get up and find some use for her hands and some occupation for her mind.
Rick, unexpectedly, came with her. "I'm a push-over for passing plates. It must be the gigolo in me."
Lucy said that he ought to be watching his lady-love's rigmaroles.
"It is the last dance. And if I know anything of my Teresa her appetite will take more appeasing than her vanity, considerable as it is."
He seemed to know his Teresa very well, Lucy thought.
"Are you worried about something, Miss Pym?"
The question took her by surprise.
"Why should you think that?"
"I don't know. I just got the impression. Is there anything I can do?"
Lucy remembered how on Sunday evening when she had nearly cried into the Bidlington rarebit he had known about her tiredness and tacitly helped her. She wished that she had met someone as understanding and as young and as beautiful as The Nut Tart's follower when she was twenty, instead of Alan and his Adam's apple and his holey socks.
"I have to do something that is right," she said slowly, "and I'm afraid of the consequences."
"Consequences to you?"
"No. To other people."
"Never mind; do it."
Miss Pym put plates of cakes on a tray. "You see, the proper thing is not necessarily the right thing. Or do I mean the opposite?"
"I'm not sure that I know what you mean at all."
"Well-there are those awful dilemmas about whom would you save. You know. If you knew that by saving a person from the top of a snow slide you would start an avalanche that would destroy a village, would you do it? That sort of thing."
"Of course I would do it."
"You would?"
"The avalanche might bury a village without killing a cat-shall I put some sandwiches on that tray? — so you would be one life to the good."
"You would always do the right thing, and let the consequences take care of themselves?"
"That's about it."
"It is certainly the simplest. In fact I think it's too simple."
"Unless you plan to play God, one has to take the simple way."
"Play God? You've got two lots of tongue sandwiches there, do you know?"
"Unless you are clever enough to 'see before and after' like the Deity, it's best to stick to rules. Wow! The music has stopped and here comes my young woman like a hunting leopard." He watched Desterro come with a smile in his eyes. "Isn't that hat a knock-out!" He looked down at Lucy for a moment. "Do the obvious right thing, Miss Pym, and let God dispose."
"Weren't you watching, Rick?" she heard Desterro ask, and then she and Rick and The Nut Tart were overwhelmed by a wave of Juniors come to do their duty and serve tea. Lucy extricated herself from the crush of white caps and Swedish embroidery, and found herself face to face with Edward Adrian, alone and looking forlorn.
"Miss Pym! You are just the person I wanted to see. Have you heard that-"
A Junior thrust a cup of tea into his hand, and he gave her one of his best smiles which she did not wait to see. At the same moment little Miss Morris, faithful even in the throes of a Dem., came up with tea and a tray of cakes for Lucy.
"Let us sit down, shall we?" Lucy said.
"Have you heard of the frightful thing that has happened?"
"Yes. It isn't very often, I understand, that a serious accident happens. It is just bad luck that it should be Demonstration Day."
"Oh, the accident, yes. But do you know that Catherine says she can't come to Larborough tonight? This has upset things, she says. She must stay here. But that is absurd. Did you ever hear anything more absurd? If there has been some kind of upset that is all the more reason why she should be taken out of herself for a little. I have arranged everything. I even got special flowers for our table tonight. And a birthday cake. It's her birthday next Wednesday."
Lucy wondered if any other person within the bounds of Leys knew when Catherine Lux's birthday was.
Lucy did her best to sympathise, but said gently that she saw Miss Lux's point of view. After all, the girl was seriously injured, and it was all very worrying, and it would no doubt seem to her a little callous to go merrymaking in Larborough.
"But it isn't merrymaking! It is just a quiet supper with an old friend. I really can't see why because some student has had an accident she should desert an old friend. You talk to her, Miss Pym. You make her see reason."
Lucy said she would do her best but could offer no hope of success since she rather shared Miss Lux's ideas on the subject.
"You, too! Oh, my God!"