“Dinny!”
She turned with a start, to see Alan Tasburgh standing there with a broad grin on his face.
“I went to Oakley Street to ask for you and Jean; they told me you were at the Monts’. I was on my way there, and here you are, stupendous luck!”
“I was wondering,” said Dinny, “whether I’m religious.”
“How queer! So was I!”
“D’you mean whether YOU were or whether I was?”
“As a matter of fact I look on us as one person.”
“Do you? Well, is one religious?”
“At a pinch.”
“Did you hear the news at Oakley Street?”
“No.”
“Captain Ferse is back there.”
“Cripes!”
“Precisely what everybody is saying! Did you see Diana?”
“No; only the maid—seemed a bit flustered. Is the poor chap still cracked?”
“No; but it’s awful for Diana.”
“She ought to be got away.”
“I’m going to stay there,” said Dinny, suddenly, “if she’ll have me.”
“I don’t like the idea of that.”
“I daresay not; but I’m going to.”
“Why? You don’t know her so very well.”
“I’m sick of scrimshanking.”
Young Tasburgh stared.
“I don’t understand.”
“The sheltered life has not come your way. I want to begin to earn my corn.”
“Then marry me.”
“Really, Alan, I never met anyone with so few ideas.”
“Better to have good ideas than many.”
Dinny walked on. “I’m going to Oakley Street now.”
They went along in silence till young Tasburgh said gravely:
“What’s biting you, my very dear?”
“My own nature; it doesn’t seem able to make trouble enough for me.”
“I could do that for you perfectly.”
“I am serious, Alan.”
“That’s good. Until you are serious you will never marry me. But why do you want to be bitten?”
Dinny shrugged. “I seem to have an attack of Longfellow: ‘Life is real, life is earnest’; I suppose you can’t realise that being a daughter in the country doesn’t amount to very much.”
“I won’t say what I was going to say.”
“Oh, do!”
“That’s easily cured. Become a mother in a town.”
“This is where they used to blush,” sighed Dinny. “I don’t want to turn everything into a joke, but it seems I do.”
Young Tasburgh slipped his hand through her arm.
“If you can turn being the wife of a sailor into a joke, you will be the first.”
Dinny smiled. “I’m not going to marry anyone till it hurts not to. I know myself well enough for that.”
“All right, Dinny; I won’t worry you.”
They moved on in silence; at the corner of Oakley Street she stopped.
“Now, Alan, don’t come any further.”
“I shall turn up at the Monts’ this evening and discover what’s happened to you. And if you want anything done—mind, anything—about Ferse, you’ve only to ‘phone me at the Club. Here’s the number.” He pencilled it on a card and handed it to her.
“Shall you be at Jean’s wedding tomorrow?”
“Sure thing! I give her away. I only wish—”
“Good-bye!” said Dinny.
CHAPTER 21
She had parted from the young man lightly, but she stood on the doorstep with nerves taut as fiddlestrings. Never having come into contact with mental trouble, her thought of it was the more scaring. The same elderly maid admitted her. Mrs. Ferse was with Captain Ferse, and would Miss Cherrell come up to the drawing-room? Where Jean had been locked in Dinny waited some time. Sheila came in, said: “Hallo! Are you waiting for Muvver?” and went out again. When Diana did appear her face wore an expression as if she were trying to collect the evidence of her own feelings.
“Forgive me, my dear, I was going through papers. I’m trying my best to treat him as if nothing had happened.” Dinny went up to her and stood stroking her arm.
“But it can’t last, Dinny; it won’t last. I can see it won’t last.”
“Let me come and stay. You can put it that it was arranged before.”
“But, Dinny, it may be rather horrible. I don’t know what to do with him. He dreads going out, or meeting people. And yet he won’t hear of going away where nobody knows; and he won’t see a doctor, or take any advice. He won’t see anyone.”
“He’ll see me, and that’ll accustom him. I expect it’s only the first few days. Shall I go off now and get my things?”
“If you ARE going to be an angel, do!”
“I’ll let Uncle Adrian know before I come back; he went down to the Home this morning.”
Diana crossed to the window and stood there with her back to Dinny. Suddenly she turned:
“I’ve made up my mind, Dinny: I won’t let him down in any way. If there’s anything I can do to give him a chance, I’m going to do it.”
“Bless you!” said Dinny. “I’ll help!” And, not trusting either Diana or herself further, she went out and down the stairs. Outside, in passing the dining-room window, she was again conscious of a face with eyes, burningly alive, watching her go by. A feeling of tragic unfairness was with her all the way back to South Square.
Fleur said at lunch:
“It’s no good fashing yourself till something happens, Dinny. It’s lucky that Adrian’s been such a saint. But this is a very good instance of how little the Law can help. Suppose Diana could have got free, it wouldn’t have prevented Ferse coming straight back to her, or her feeling about him as she does. The Law can’t touch the human side of anything. Is Diana in love with Adrian?”
“I don’t think so.”
“Are you sure?”
“No, I’m not. I find it difficult enough to know what goes on inside myself.”
“Which reminds me that your American rang up. He wants to call.”
“Well, he can. But I shall be at Oakley Street.”
Fleur gave her a shrewd look.
“Am I to back the sailor, then?”
“No. Put your money on Old Maid.”
“My dear! Unthinkable!”
“I don’t see what one gains by marriage.”
Fleur answered with a little hard smile:
“We can’t stand still, you know, Dinny. At least, we don’t; it’s too dull.”
“You’re modern, Fleur; I’m mediжval.”
“Well, you ARE rather early Italian in face. But the early Italians never escaped. Entertain no flattering hopes. Sooner or later you’ll be fed up with yourself, and then!”
Dinny looked at her, startled by this flash of discernment in her disillusioned cousin-inlaw.
“What have YOU gained, Fleur?”
“I at least am the complete woman, my dear,” Fleur answered, drily.
“Children, you mean?”
“They are possible without marriage, or so I am told, but improbable. For you, Dinny, impossible; you’re controlled by an ancestral complex, really old families have an inherited tendency towards legitimacy. Without it they can’t be really old, you see.”
Dinny wrinkled her forehead.
“I never thought of it before, but I SHOULD strongly object to having an illegitimate child. By the way, did you give that girl a reference?”
“Yes. I don’t see at all why she shouldn’t be a mannequin. She’s narrow enough. I give the boyish figure another year, at least. After that, mark my words, skirts will lengthen, and we shall go in for curves again.”
“Rather degrading, isn’t it?”
“How?”
“Chopping and changing shape and hair and all that.”