Dinny went in search of Fleur and found her talking to the bridegroom.
As they went back to the door Fleur said: “I saw Wilfrid Desert in the church. How did he come there?”
Really Fleur was too sharp for anything!
“Here you are!” said Lady Mont. “Which of these three comin’ is the Duchess? The scraggy one. Ah!… How d’you do? Yes, charmin’. Such a bore, weddin’s! Fleur, take the Duchess to have some presents… How d’you do? No, my brother Hilary. He does it well, don’t you think? Lawrence says he keeps his eye on the ball. Do have an ice, they’re downstairs… Dinny, is this one after the presents, d’you think?—Oh! How d’you do, Lord Beevenham? My sister-inlaw ought to be doin’ this. She ratted. Jerry’s in there… Dinny, who was it said: ‘The drink, the drink!’ Hamlet? He said such a lot. Not Hamlet?… Oh! How d’you do?… How d’you do?… How d’you do, or don’t you? Such a crush!… Dinny, your hanky!”
“I’ve put some powder on it, Auntie.”
“There! Have I streaked?… How d’you do? Isn’t it silly, the whole thing? As if they wanted anybody but themselves, you know… Oh! Here’s Adrian! Your tie’s on one side, dear. Dinny, put it right. How d’you do? Yes, they are. I don’t like flowers at funerals—poor things, lyin’ there, and dyin’… How’s your dear dog? You haven’t one? Quite!… Dinny, you ought to have pinched me… How d’you do? How d’you do? I was tellin’ my niece she ought to pinch me. Do you get faces right? No. How nice! How d’you do? How d’you do? How d’you do?… That’s three! Dinny, who’s the throwback just comin’? Oh!… How d’you do? So you got here? I thought you were in China… Dinny, remind me to ask your uncle if it was China. He gave me such a dirty look. Could I give the rest a miss? Who is it’s always sayin’ that? Tell Blore ‘the drink,’ Dinny. Here’s a covey!… How d’you do?… How de do?… How do?… Do!… Do!… How?… So sweet!… Dinny, I want to say: Blast!”
On her errand to Blore Dinny passed Jean talking to Michael, and wondered how anyone so vivid and brown had patience to stand about in this crowd. Having found Blore, she came back. Michael’s queer face, which she thought grew pleasanter every year, as if from the deepening impress of good feeling, looked strained and unhappy.
“I don’t believe it, Jean,” she heard him say.
“Well,” said Jean, “the bazaars do buzz with rumour. Still, without fire of some sort there’s never smoke.”
“Oh! yes, there is—plenty. He’s back in England, anyway. Fleur saw him in the church today. I shall ask him.”
“I wouldn’t,” said Jean: “if it’s true he’ll probably tell you, and if it isn’t, it’ll only worry him for nothing.”
So! They were talking of Wilfrid. How find out why without appearing to take interest? And suddenly she thought: ‘Even if I could, I wouldn’t. Anything that matters he must tell me himself. I won’t hear it from anyone else.’ But she felt disturbed, for instinct was always warning her of something heavy and strange on his mind.
When that long holocaust of sincerity was over and the bride had gone, she subsided into a chair in her uncle’s study, the only room which showed no signs of trouble. Her father and mother had started back to Condaford, surprised that she wasn’t coming too. It was not like her to cling to London when the tulips were out at home, the lilacs coming on, the apple blossom thickening every day. But the thought of not seeing Wilfrid daily had become a positive pain.
‘I HAVE got it badly,’ she thought, ‘worse than I ever believed was possible. Whatever is going to happen to me?’
She was lying back with her eyes closed when her uncle’s voice said:
“Ah! Dinny, how pleasant after those hosts of Midian! The mandarin in full feather! Did you know a quarter of them? Why do people go to weddings? A registrar’s, or under the stars, there’s no other way of preserving decency. Your poor aunt has gone to bed. There’s a lot to be said for Mohammedanism, except that it’s the fashion now to limit it to one wife, and she not in Purdah. By the way, there’s a story going round that young Desert’s become a Moslem. Did he say anything to you about it?”
Dinny raised her startled head.
“I’ve only twice known it happen to fellows in the East, and they were Frenchmen and wanted harems.”
“Money’s the only essential for that, Uncle.”
“Dinny, you’re getting cynical. Men like to have the sanction of religion. But that wouldn’t be Desert’s reason; a fastidious creature, if I remember.”
“Does religion matter, Uncle, so long as people don’t interfere with each other?”
“Well, some Moslems’ notions of woman’s rights are a little primitive. He’s liable to wall her up if she’s unfaithful. There was a sheikh when I was in Marakesh—gruesome.”
Dinny shuddered.
“‘From time immemorial,’ as they say,” went on Sir Lawrence, “religion has been guilty of the most horrifying deeds that have happened on this earth. I wonder if young Desert has taken up with it to get him access to Mecca. I shouldn’t think he believes anything. But you never know—it’s a queer family.”
Dinny thought: ‘I can’t and won’t talk about him.’
“What proportion of people in these days do you think really have religion, Uncle?”
“In northern countries? Very difficult to say. In this country ten to fifteen per cent of the adults, perhaps. In France and southern countries, where there’s a peasantry, more, at least on the surface.”
“What about the people who came this afternoon?”
“Most of them would be shocked if you said they weren’t Christians, and most of them would be still more shocked if you asked them to give half their goods to the poor, and that would only make them well disposed Pharisees, or was it Sadducees?”
“Are you a Christian, Uncle Lawrence?”
“No, my dear; if anything a Confucian, who, as you know, was simply an ethical philosopher. Most of our caste in this country, if they only knew it, are Confucian rather than Christian. Belief in ancestors, and tradition, respect for parents, honesty, moderation of conduct, kind treatment of animals and dependents, absence of self-obtrusion, and stoicism in face of pain and death.”
“What more,” murmured Dinny, wrinkling her nose, “does one want except the love of beauty?”
“Beauty? That’s a matter of temperament.”
“But doesn’t it divide people more than anything?”
“Yes, but willy nilly. You can’t make yourself love a sunset.”
“‘You are wise, Uncle Lawrence, the young niece said.’ I shall go for a walk and shake the wedding-cake down.”
“And I shall stay here, Dinny, and sleep the champagne off.”
Dinny walked and walked. It seemed an odd thing to be doing alone. But the flowers in the Park were pleasing, and the waters of the Serpentine shone and were still, and the chestnut trees were coming alight. And she let herself go on her mood, and her mood was of love.
CHAPTER 7
Looking back on that second afternoon in Richmond Park, Dinny never knew whether she had betrayed herself before he said so abruptly:
“If you believe in it, Dinny, will you marry me?”
It had so taken her breath away that she sat growing paler and paler, then colour came to her face with a rush.
“I’m wondering why you ask me. You know nothing of me.”
“You’re like the East. One loves it at first sight, or not at all, and one never knows it any better.”
Dinny shook her head: “Oh! I am not mysterious.”
“I should never get to the end of you; no more than of one of those figures over the staircase in the Louvre. Please answer me, Dinny.”
She put her hand in his, nodded, and said: “That must be a record.”
At once his lips were on hers, and when they left her lips she fainted.
This was without exception the most singular action of her life so far, and, coming to almost at once, she said so.
“It’s the sweetest thing you could have done.”