“I know nobody to speak of.”
“Our point of contact, then, is only Michael.”
“I don’t believe in contacts through other people. Where do you live, Miss Cherrell?”
Dinny smiled.
“A short biographical note seems to be indicated. Since the umpteenth century, my family has been ‘seated’ at Condaford Grange in Oxfordshire. My father is a retired General; I am one of two daughters; and my only brother is a married soldier just coming back from the Soudan on leave.”
“Oh!” said Desert, and again his face had that morose look.
“I am twenty-six, unmarried but with no children as yet. My hobby seems to be attending to other people’s business. I don’t know why I have it. When in Town I stay at Lady Mont’s in Mount Street. With a simple upbringing I have expensive instincts and no means of gratifying them. I believe I can see a joke. Now you?”
Desert smiled and shook his head.
“Shall I?” said Dinny. “You are the second son of Lord Mullyon, you had too much war; you write poetry; you have nomadic instincts and are your own enemy; the last item has the only news value. Here we are in Mount Street; do come in and see Aunt Em.”
“Thank you—no. But will you lunch with me tomorrow and go to a matinée?”
“I will. Where?”
“Dumourieux’s, one-thirty.”
They exchanged hand-grips and parted, but as Dinny went into her aunt’s house she was tingling all over, and she stood still outside the drawing-room to smile at the sensation.
CHAPTER 2
The smile faded off her lips under the fire of noises coming through the closed door.
‘My goodness!’ she thought: ‘Aunt Em’s birthday “pawty,” and I’d forgotten.’
Someone playing the piano stopped, there was a rush, a scuffle, the scraping of chairs on the floor, two or three squeals, silence, and the piano-playing began again.
‘Musical chairs!’ she thought, and opened the door quietly. She who had been Diana Ferse was sitting at the piano. To eight assorted chairs, facing alternatively east and west, were clinging one large and eight small beings in bright paper hats, of whom seven were just rising to their feet and two still sitting on one chair. Dinny saw from left to right: Ronald Ferse; a small Chinese boy; Aunt Alison’s youngest, little Anne; Uncle Hilary’s youngest, Tony; Celia and Dingo (children of Michael’s married sister Celia Moriston); Sheila Ferse; and on the single chair Uncle Adrian and Kit Mont. She was further conscious of Aunt Em panting slightly against the fireplace in a large headpiece of purple paper, and of Fleur pulling a chair from Ronald’s end of the row.
“Kit, get up! You were out.”
Kit sat firm and Adrian rose.
“All right, old man, you’re up against your equals now. Fire away!”
“Keep your hands off the backs,” cried Fleur. “Wu Fing, you mustn’t sit till the music stops. Dingo, don’t stick at the end chair like that.”
The music stopped. Scurry, hustle, squeals, and the smallest figure, little Anne, was left standing.
“All right, darling,” said Dinny, “come here and beat this drum. Stop when the music stops, that’s right. Now again. Watch Auntie Di!”
Again, and again, and again, till Sheila and Dingo and Kit only were left.
‘I back Kit,’ thought Dinny.
Sheila out! Off with a chair! Dingo, so Scotch-looking, and Kit, so bright-haired, having lost his paper cap, were left padding round and round the last chair. Both were down; both up and on again, Diana carefully averting her eyes, Fleur standing back now with a little smile; Aunt Em’s face very pink. The music stopped, Dingo was down again; and Kit left standing, his face flushed and frowning.
“Kit,” said Fleur’s voice, “play the game!”
Kit’s head was thrown up and he rammed his hands into his pockets.
‘Good for Fleur!’ thought Dinny.
A voice behind her said:
“Your aunt’s purple passion for the young, Dinny, leads us into strange riots. What about a spot of quiet in my study?”
Dinny looked round at Sir Lawrence Mont’s thin, dry, twisting face, whose little moustache had gone quite white, while his hair was still only sprinkled.
“I haven’t done my bit, Uncle Lawrence.”
“Time you learned not to. Let the heathen rage. Come down and have a quiet Christian talk.”
Subduing her instinct for service with the thought: ‘I SHOULD like to talk about Wilfrid Desert!’ Dinny went.
“What are you working on now, Uncle?”
“Resting for the minute and reading the Memoirs of Harriette Wilson—a remarkable young woman, Dinny. In the days of the Regency there were no reputations in high life to destroy; but she did her best. If you don’t know about her, I may tell you that she believed in love and had a great many lovers, only one of whom she loved.”
“And yet she believed in love?”
“Well, she was a kind-hearted baggage, and the others loved her. All the difference in the world between her and Ninon de l’Enclos, who loved them all; both vivid creatures. A duologue between those two on ‘virtue’? It’s to be thought of. Sit down!”
“While I was looking at Foch’s statue this afternoon, Uncle Lawrence, I met a cousin of yours, Mr. Muskham.”
“Jack?”
“Yes.”
“Last of the dandies. All the difference in the world, Dinny, between the ‘buck,’ the ‘dandy,’ the ‘swell,’ the ‘masher,’ the ‘blood,’ the ‘knut,’ and what’s the last variety called?—I never know. There’s been a steady decrescendo. By his age Jack belongs to the ‘masher’ period, but his cut was always pure dandy—a dyed-inthe-wool Whyte Melville type. How did he strike you?”
“Horses, piquet and imperturbability.”
“Take your hat off, my dear. I like to see your hair.”
Dinny removed her hat.
“I met someone else there, too; Michael’s best man.”
“What! Young Desert? He back again?” And Sir Lawrence’s loose-eyebrow mounted.
A slight colour had stained Dinny’s cheeks.
“Yes,” she said.
“Queer bird, Dinny.”
Within her rose a feeling rather different from any she had ever experienced. She could not have described it, but it reminded her of a piece of porcelain she had given to her father on his birthday, two weeks ago; a little china group, beautifully modelled, of a vixen and four fox cubs tucked in under her. The look on the vixen’s face, soft yet watchful, so completely expressed her own feeling at this moment.
“Why queer?”
“Tales out of school, Dinny. Still, to YOU—There’s no doubt in my mind that that young man made up to Fleur a year or two after her marriage. That’s what started him as a rolling stone.”
Was that, then, what he had meant when he mentioned Esau? No! By the look of his face when he spoke of Fleur, she did not think so.
“But that was ages ago,” she said.
“Oh, yes! Ancient story; but one’s heard other things. Clubs are the mother of all uncharitableness.”
The softness of Dinny’s feeling diminished, the watchfulness increased.
“What other things?”
Sir Lawrence shook his head.
“I rather like the young man; and not even to you, Dinny, do I repeat what I really know nothing of. Let a man live an unusual life, and there’s no limit to what people invent about him. He looked at her rather suddenly; but Dinny’s eyes were limpid.
“Who’s the little Chinese boy upstairs?”
“Son of a former Mandarin, who left his family here because of the ructions out there—quaint little image. A likeable people, the Chinese. When does Hubert arrive?”
“Next week. They’re flying from Italy. Jean flies a lot, you know.”
“What’s become of her brother?” And again he looked at Dinny.
“Alan? He’s out on the China station.”
“Your aunt never ceases to bemoan your not clicking there.”
“Dear Uncle, almost anything to oblige Aunt Em; but, feeling like a sister to him, the prayer-book was against me.”
“I don’t want you to marry,” said Sir Lawrence, “and go out to some Barbary or other.”