At breakfast they all behaved as if nothing had happened. So then, they all knew the worst!
‘Playing the angel!’ she thought.
When her father announced that he was going up to Town, she said she would come with him.
He looked at her, rather like a monkey questioning man’s right not to be a monkey too. Why had she never before noticed that his brown eyes could have that flickering mournfulness?
“Very well,” he said.
“Shall I drive you?” asked Jean.
“Thankfully accepted,” murmured Dinny.
Nobody said a word on the subject occupying all their thoughts.
In the opened car she sat beside her father. The may-blossom, rather late, was at its brightest, and its scent qualified the frequent drifts of petrol fume. The sky had the high brooding grey of rain withheld. Their road passed over the Chilterns, through Hampden, Great Missenden, Chalfont, and Chorley Wood; land so English that no one, suddenly awakened, could at any moment of the drive have believed he was in any other country. It was a drive Dinny never tired of; but today the spring green and brightness of the may and apple blossom, the windings and divings through old villages, could not deflect her attention from the impassive figure by whom she sat. She knew instinctively that he was going to try and see Wilfrid, and, if so—she was, too. But when he talked it was of India. And when she talked it was of birds. And Jean drove furiously and never looked behind her. Not till they were in the Finchley Road did the General say:
“Where d’you want to be set down, Dinny?”
“Mount Street.”
“You’re staying up, then?”
“Yes, till Friday.”
“We’ll drop you, and I’ll go on to my Club. You’ll drive me back this evening, Jean?”
Jean nodded without turning and slid between two vermilion-coloured buses, so that two drivers simultaneously used the same qualitative word.
Dinny was in a ferment of thought. Dared she telephone Stack to ring her up when her father came? If so, she could time her visit to the minute. Dinny was of those who at once establish liaison with ‘staff.’ She could not help herself to a potato without unconsciously conveying to the profferer that she was interested in his personality. She always said ‘Thank you,’ and rarely passed from the presence without having made some remark which betrayed common humanity. She had only seen Stack three times, but she knew he felt that she was a human being, even if she did not come from Barnstaple. She mentally reviewed his no longer youthful figure, his monastic face, black-haired and large-nosed, with eyes full of expression, his curly mouth, at once judgmatic and benevolent. He moved upright and almost at a trot. She had seen him look at her as if saying to himself: ‘If this is to be our fate, could I do with it? I could.’ He was, she felt, permanently devoted to Wilfrid. She determined to risk it. When they drove away from her at Mount Street, she thought: ‘I hope I shall never be a father!’
“Can I telephone, Blore?”
“Certainly, miss.”
She gave Wilfrid’s number.
“Is that Stack? Miss Cherrell speaking… Would you do me a little favour? My father is going to see Mr. Desert today, General Sir Conway Cherrell; I don’t know at what time, but I want to come myself while he’s there… Could you ring me up here as soon as he arrives? I’ll wait in… Thank you so very much… Is Mr. Desert well?… Don’t tell him or my father, please, that I’m coming. Thank you ever so!”
‘Now,’ she thought, ‘unless I’ve misread Dad! There’s a picture gallery opposite, I shall be able to see him leave from the window of it.’
No call came before lunch, which she had with her aunt.
“Your uncle has seen Jack Muskham,” said Lady Mont, in the middle of lunch; “Royston, you know; and he brought back the other one, just like a monkey—they won’t say anything. But Michael says he mustn’t, Dinny.”
“Mustn’t what, Aunt Em?”
“Publish that poem.”
“Oh! but he will.”
“Why? Is it good?”
“The best he has ever written.”
“So unnecessary.”
“Wilfrid isn’t ashamed, Aunt Em.”
“Such a bore for you, I do think. I suppose one of those companionable marriages wouldn’t do, would it?”
“I’ve offered it, dear.”
“I’m surprised at you, Dinny.”
“He didn’t accept it.”
“Thank God! I should hate you to get into the papers.
“Not more than I should myself, Auntie.”
“Fleur got into the papers, libellin’.”
“I remember.”
“What’s that thing that comes back and hits you by mistake?”
“A boomerang?”
“I knew it was Australian. Why do they have an accent like that?”
“Really I don’t know, darling.”
“And marsupials? Blore, Miss Dinny’s glass.”
“No more, thank you, Aunt Em. And may I get down?”
“Let’s both get down”; and, getting up, Lady Mont regarded her niece with her head on one side. “Deep breathin’ and carrots to cool the blood. Why Gulf Stream, Dinny? What gulf is that?”
“Mexico, dear.”
“The eels come from there, I was readin’. Are you goin’ out?”
“I’m waiting for a ‘phone call.”
“When they say tr-r-roubled, it hurts my teeth. Nice girls, I’m sure. Coffee?”
“Yes, PLEASE!”
“It does. One comes together like a puddin’ after it.”
Dinny thought: ‘Aunt Em always sees more than one thinks.’
“Bein’ in love,” continued Lady Mont, “is worse in the country– there’s the cuckoo. They don’t have it in America, somebody said. Perhaps they don’t fall in love there. Your Uncle’ll know. He came back with a story about a poppa at Nooport. But that was years and years ago. I feel other people’s insides,” continued her aunt, uncannily. “Where’s your father gone?”
“To his Club.”
“Did you tell him, Dinny?”
“Yes.”
“You’re his favourite.”
“Oh, no! Clare is.”
“Fiddle!”
“Did the course of your love run smooth, Aunt Em?”
“I had a good figure,” replied her aunt; “too much, perhaps; we had then. Lawrence was my first.”
“Really?”
“Except for choir-boys and our groom, and a soldier or two. There was a little captain with a black moustache. Inconsiderate, when one’s fourteen.”
“I suppose your ‘wooing’ was very decorous?”
“No; your uncle was passionate. ‘Ninety-one. There’d been no rain for thirty years.”
“No such rain?”
“No! No rain at all—I forget where. There’s the telephone!”
Dinny reached the ‘phone just in front of the butler.
“It’ll be for me, Blore, thank you.”
She took up the receiver with a shaking hand.
“Yes?… I see… thank you, Stack… thank you very much… Will you get me a taxi, Blore?”
She directed the taxi to the gallery opposite Wilfrid’s rooms, bought a catalogue, and went upstairs to the window. Here, under pretext of minutely examining Number 35, called ‘Rhythm,’ a misnomer so far as she could see, she kept watch on the door opposite. Her father could not already have left Wilfrid, for it was only seven minutes since the telephone call. Very soon, however, she saw him issuing from the door, and watched him down the street. His head was bent, and he shook it once or twice; she could not see his face, but she could picture its expression.
‘Gnawing his moustache,’ she thought; ‘poor lamb!’
The moment he rounded the corner she ran down, slipped across the street and up the first flight. Outside Wilfrid’s door she stood with her hand raised to the bell. Then she rang.
“Am I too late, Stack?”
“The General’s just gone, Miss.”
“Oh! May I see Mr. Desert? Don’t announce me.”
“No, miss,” said Stack. Had she ever seen eyes more full of understanding?