“Dad! Haven’t you had my wire? It’s all right, Hubert’s free.”
The General’s hands shot up and grasped her wrists, colour came into his face, his lips relaxed, he looked suddenly ten years younger.
“Is it—is it certain, Dinny?”
Dinny nodded. She was smiling, but tears stood in her eyes.
“My God! That’s news! Come in! I must go up and tell your Mother!” He was out of the room before she was in it.
In this room, which had resisted her mother’s and her own attempts to introduce aestheticism, and retained an office-like barrenness, Dinny stood staring at this and at that evidence of Art’s defeat, with the smile that was becoming chronic. Dad with his papers, his military books, his ancient photographs, his relics of India and South Africa, and the old-style picture of his favourite charger, his map of the estate; his skin of the leopard that had mauled him, and the two fox masks—happy again! Bless him!
She had the feeling that her mother and he would rather be left alone to rejoice, and slipped upstairs to Clare’s room. That vivid member of the family was asleep with one pyjama-d arm outside the sheet and her cheek resting on the back of the hand. Dinny looked amiably at the dark shingled head and went out again. No good spoiling beauty sleep! She stood at her opened bedroom window, gazing between the nearly bare elm-trees, at the moonlit rise of fields and the wood beyond. She stood and tried hard not to believe in God. It seemed mean and petty to have more belief in God when things were going well than when they were instinct with tragedy; just as it seemed mean and petty to pray to God when you wanted something badly, and not pray when you didn’t. But after all God was Eternal Mind that you couldn’t understand; God was not a loving Father that you could. The less she thought about all that the better. She was home like a ship after storm; it was enough! She swayed, standing there, and realised that she was nearly asleep. Her bed was not made ready; but getting out an old, thick dressing-gown, she slipped off shoes, dress, and corset belt, put on the gown and curled up under the eiderdown. In two minutes, still with that smile on her lips, she was sleeping…
A telegram from Hubert, received at breakfast next morning, said that he and Jean would be down in time for dinner.
“‘The Young Squire Returns!’” murmured Dinny. “‘Brings Bride!’ Thank goodness it’ll be after dark, and we can kill the fatted calf in private. Is the fatted calf ready, Dad?”
“I’ve got two bottles of your great-grandfather’s Chambertin 1865 left. We’ll have that, and the old brandy.”
“Hubert likes woodcock best, if there are any to be had, Mother, and pancakes. And how about the inland oyster? He loves oysters.”
“I’ll see, Dinny.”
“And mushrooms,” added Clare.
“You’ll have to scour the country, I’m afraid, Mother.”
Lady Cherrell smiled, she looked quite young.
“It’s ‘a mild hunting day,’” said the Generaclass="underline" “What about it, Clare? The meet’s at Wyvell’s Cross, eleven.”
“Rather!”
Returning from the stables after seeing her father and Clare depart, Dinny and the dogs lingered. The relief from that long waiting, the feeling of nothing to worry about, was so delicious that she did not resent the singular similarity in the present state of Hubert’s career to the state which had given her so much chagrin two months back. He was in precisely the same position, only worse, because married; and yet she felt as blithe as a ‘sandboy.’ It proved that Einstein was right, and everything relative!
She was singing ‘The Lincolnshire Poacher’ on her way to the raised garden when the sound of a motor-cycle on the drive caused her to turn. Someone in the guise of a cyclist waved his hand, and shooting the cycle into a rhododendron bush came towards her, removing his hood.
Alan, of course! And she experienced at once the sensation of one about to be asked in marriage. Nothing—she felt—could prevent him this morning, for he had not even succeeded in doing the dangerous and heroic thing which might have made the asking for reward too obvious.
‘But perhaps,’ she thought, ‘he still has a beard—that might stop him.’ Alas! He had only a jaw rather paler than the rest of his brown face.
He came up holding out both hands and she gave him hers. Thus grappled, they stood looking at each other.
“Well,” said Dinny, at last, “tell your tale. You’ve been frightening us out of our wits, young man.”
“Let’s go and sit down up there, Dinny.”
“Very well. Mind Scaramouch, he’s under your foot, and the foot large.”
“Not so very. Dinny, you look—”
“No,” said Dinny; “rather worn than otherwise. I know all about the Professor and the special case for his Bolivian bones, and the projected substitution of Hubert on the ship.”
“What!”
“We’re not half-wits, Alan. What was YOUR special lay, beard and all? We can’t sit on this seat without something between us and the stone.”
“I couldn’t be the something?”
“Certainly not. Put your overall there. Now!”
“Well,” he said, looking with disfavour at his boot, “if you really want to know. There’s nothing certain, of course, because it all depended on the way they were going to export Hubert. We had to have alternatives. If there was a port of call, Spanish or Portuguese, we WERE going to use the box trick. Hallorsen was to be on the ship, and Jean and I at the port with a machine and the real bones. Jean was to be the pilot when we got him—she’s a natural flier; and they were to make for Turkey.”
“Yes,” said Dinny; “we guessed all that.”
“How?”
“Never mind. What about the alternative?”
“If there was no port of call it wasn’t going to be easy; we’d thought of a faked telegram to the chaps in charge of Hubert when the train arrived at Southampton or whatever the port was, telling them to take him to the Police Station and await further instructions. On the way there Hallorsen on a cycle would have bumped into the taxi on one side, and I should have bumped in on the other; and Hubert was to slip out into my car and be nipped off to where the machine was ready.”
“Mm!” said Dinny. “Very nice on the screen; but are they so confiding in real life?”
“Well, we really hadn’t got that worked out. We were betting on the other.”
“Has all that money gone?”
“No; only about two hundred, and we can re-sell the machine.” Dinny heaved a long sigh, and her eyes rested on him.
“Well,” she said, “if you ask me, you’re jolly well out of it.”
He grinned. “I suppose so; especially as if it had come off I couldn’t very well have bothered you. Dinny, I’ve got to rejoin today. Won’t you—?”
Dinny said softly: “Absence makes the heart grow fonder, Alan. When you come back next time, I really will see.”
“May I have one kiss?”
“Yes.” She tilted her cheek towards him.
‘Now,’ she thought, ‘is when they kiss you masterfully full on the lips. He hasn’t! He must almost respect me!’ And she got up.
“Come along, dear boy; and thank you ever so for all you luckily didn’t have to do. I really will try and become less virginal.”
He looked at her ruefully, as though repenting of his self-control, then smiled at her smile. And soon the splutter of his motor-cycle faded into the faintly sighing silence of the day.
Still with the smile on her lips Dinny went back to the house. He was a dear! But really one must have time! Such a lot of repenting at leisure could be done even in these days!
After their slight and early lunch Lady Cherrell departed in the Ford driven by the groom in search of the fatted calf. Dinny was preparing to hunt the garden for whatever flowers November might yield when a card was brought to her:
“Mr. Neil Wintney,
Ferdinand Studios,
Orchard Street,
Chelsea.”
‘Help!’ she thought; ‘Uncle Lawrence’s young man!’ “Where is he, Amy?”