“Can’t promise, so don’t send. If we’re not at the main entrance at one, you’ll know that Providence has intervened. And now, what about you? Adrian has told me.”
“I don’t want to bother you, Uncle.”
Hilary’s shrewd blue eyes almost disappeared. He expelled a cloud of smoke.
“Nothing that concerns you will bother me, my dear, except in so far as it’s going to hurt you. I suppose you MUST, Dinny?”
“Yes, I must.”
Hilary sighed.
“In that case it remains to make the best of it. But the world loves the martyrdom of others. I’m afraid he’ll have a bad Press, as they say.”
“I’m sure he will.”
“I can only just remember him, as a rather tall, scornful young man in a buff waistcoat. Has he lost the scorn?”
Dinny smiled.
“It’s not the side I see much of at present.”
“I sincerely trust,” said Hilary, “that he has not what they call devouring passions.”
“Not so far as I have observed.”
“I mean, Dinny, that once that type has eaten its cake, it shows all the old Adam with a special virulence. Do you get me?”
“Yes. But I believe it’s a ‘marriage of true minds’ with us.”
“Then, my dear, good luck! Only, when people begin to throw bricks, don’t resent it. You’re doing this with your eyes open, and you’ll have no right to. Harder to bear than having your own toe trodden on is seeing one you love batted over the head. So catch hold of yourself hard at the start, and go on catching hold, or you’ll make it worse for him. If I’m not wrong, Dinny, you can get very hot about things.”
“I’ll try not to. When Wilfrid’s book of poems comes out, I want you to read one called ‘The Leopard’; it gives his state of mind about the whole thing.”
“Oh!” said Hilary blankly. “Justification? That’s a mistake.”
“That’s what Michael says. I don’t know whether it is or not; I think in the end—not. Anyway, it’s coming out.”
“There beginneth a real dog-fight. ‘Turn the other cheek’ and ‘too proud to fight’ would have been better left unsaid. All the same, it’s asking for trouble, and that’s all about it.”
“I can’t help it, Uncle.”
“I realise that, Dinny; it’s when I think of the number of things you won’t be able to help that I feel so blue. And what about Condaford? Is it going to cut you off from that?”
“People do come round, except in novels; and even there they have to in the end, or else die, so that the heroine may be happy. Will you say a word for us to Father if you see him, Uncle?”
“No, Dinny. An elder brother never forgets how superior he was to you when he was big and you were not.”
Dinny rose.
“Well, Uncle; thank you ever so for not believing in damnation, and even more for not saying so. I shall remember all you’ve said. Tuesday, one o’clock at the main entrance; and don’t forget to eat something first; it’s a very tiring business.”
When she had gone Hilary refilled his pipe.
‘“And even more for not saying so!”’ he repeated in thought. ‘That young woman can be caustic. I wonder how often I say things I don’t mean in the course of my professional duties.’ And, seeing his wife in the doorway, he added:
“May, would you say I was a humbug—professionally?”
“Yes, dear. How could it be otherwise?”
“You mean, the forms a parson uses aren’t broad enough to cover the variations of human nature? But I don’t see how they could be. Would you like to go to the Chelsea Flower Show on Tuesday?”
Mrs. Hilary, thinking: ‘Dinny might have asked ME,’ replied cheerfully: “Very much.”
“Let’s try and arrange so that we can get there at one o’clock.”
“Did you talk to her about her affair?”
“Yes.”
“Is she immovable?”
“Quite.”
Mrs. Hilary sighed. “It’s an awful pity. Do you think a man could ever live that down?”
“Twenty years ago I should have said ‘No.’ Now I’m not sure. It seems a queer thing to say, but it’s not the really religious people who’ll matter.”
“Why?”
“Because they won’t come across them. It’s the army, and Empire people, and Englishmen overseas, whom they will come across continually. The hub of unforgiveness is in her own family to start with. It’s the yellow label. The gum they use putting that on is worse than the patent brand of any hotel that wants to advertise itself.”
“I wonder,” said Mrs. Hilary, “what the children would say about it?”
“Queer that we don’t know.”
“We know less about our children than any of their friends do. Were we like that to our own elders, I wonder?”
“Our elders looked on us as biological specimens; they had us at an angle, and knew quite a lot about us. WE’VE tried to put ourselves on a level with our youngsters, elder brother and sister business, and we don’t know a thing. We’ve missed the one knowledge, and haven’t got the other. A bit humiliating, but they’re a decent crowd. It’s not the young people I’m afraid of in Dinny’s business, it’s those who’ve had experience of the value of English prestige, and they’ll be justified; and those who like to think he’s done a thing they wouldn’t have done themselves—and they won’t be justified a bit.”
“I think Dinny’s over-estimating her strength, Hilary.”
“No woman really in love could do otherwise. To find out whether she is or not will be her job. Well, she won’t rust.”
“You speak as if you rather liked it.”
“The milk is spilled, and it’s no good worrying. Let’s get down to the wording of that new appeal. There’s going to be a bad trade slump. Just our luck! All the people who’ve got money will be sticking to it.”
“I wish people wouldn’t be less extravagant when times are bad. It only means less work still. The shopkeepers are moaning about that already.”
Hilary reached for a notebook and began writing. His wife looked over his shoulder presently and read:
“To all whom it may concern:
“And whom does it not concern that there should be in our midst thousands of people so destitute from birth to death of the bare necessities of life that they don’t know what real cleanliness, real health, real fresh air, real good food are?”
“One ‘real’ will cover the lot, dear.”
CHAPTER 17
Arriving at the Chelsea Flower Show, Lady Mont said thoughtfully: “I’m meetin’ Boswell and Johnson at the calceolarias, Dinny. What a crowd!”
“Yes, and all plain. Do they come, Auntie, because they’re yearning for beauty they haven’t got?”
“I can’t get Boswell and Johnson to yearn. There’s Hilary! He’s had that suit ten years. Take this and run for tickets, or he’ll try and pay.”
With a five-pound note Dinny slid towards the wicket, avoiding her uncle’s eyes. She secured four tickets, and turned smiling.
“I saw you being a serpent,” he said. “Where are we going first? Azaleas? I like to be thoroughly sensual at a flower show.”
Lady Mont’s deliberate presence caused a little swirl in the traffic, while her eyes from under slightly drooped lids took in the appearance of people selected, as it were, to show off flowers.
The tent they entered was warm with humanity and perfume, though the day was damp and cool. The ingenious beauty of each group of blossoms was being digested by variegated types of human being linked only through that mysterious air of kinship which comes from attachment to the same pursuit. This was the great army of flower-raisers—growers of primulas in pots, of nasturtiums, gladioli and flags in London back gardens, of stocks, hollyhocks and sweet-williams in little provincial plots; the gardeners of larger grounds; the owners of hothouses and places where experiments are made—but not many of these, for they had already passed through or would come later. All moved with a prying air, as if marking down their own next ventures; and alongside the nurserymen would stop and engage as if making bets. And the subdued murmur of voices, cockneyfied, countrified, cultivated, all commenting on flowers, formed a hum like that of bees, if not so pleasing. This subdued expression of a national passion, walled-in by canvas, together with the scent of the flowers, exercised on Dinny an hypnotic effect, so that she moved from one brilliant planted posy to another, silent and with her slightly upturned nose twitching delicately.