A faint clink came from a sheepfold to the East.
“Listen, Auntie!”
Lady Mont thrust her arm within her niece’s.
“I’ve often thought,” she said, “that I should like to be a goat.”
“Not in England, tied to a stake and grazing in a mangy little circle.”
“No, with a bell on a mountain. A he-goat, I think, so as not to be milked.”
“Come and see our new cutting bed, Auntie. There’s nothing now, of course, but dahlias, godetias, chrysanthemums, Michaelmas daisies, and a few pentstemons and cosmias.”
“Dinny,” said Lady Mont, from among the dahlias, “about Clare? They say divorce is very easy now.”
“Until you try for it, I expect.”
“There’s desertion and that.”
“But you have to BE deserted.”
“Well, you said he made her.”
“It’s not the same thing, dear.”
“Lawyers are so fussy about the law. There was that magistrate with the long nose in Hubert’s extradition.”
“Oh! but he turned out quite human.”
“How was that?”
“Telling the Home Secretary that Hubert was speaking the truth.”
“A dreadful business,” murmured Lady Mont, “but nice to remember.”
“It had a happy ending,” said Dinny quickly.
Lady Mont stood, ruefully regarding her.
And Dinny, staring at the flowers, said suddenly: “Aunt Em, somehow there must be a happy ending for Clare.”
CHAPTER 4
The custom known as canvassing, more peculiar even than its name, was in full blast round Condaford. Every villager had been invited to observe how appropriate it would be if they voted for Dornford, and how equally appropriate it would be if they voted for Stringer. They had been exhorted publicly and vociferously, by ladies in cars, by ladies out of cars, and in the privacy of their homes by voices speaking out of trumpets. By newspaper and by leaflet they had been urged to perceive that they alone could save the country. They had been asked to vote early, and only just not asked to vote often. To their attention had been brought the startling dilemma that whichever way they voted the country would be saved. They had been exhorted by people who knew everything, it seemed, except how it would be saved. Neither the candidates nor their ladies, neither the mysterious disembodied voices, nor the still more incorporeal print, had made the faintest attempt to tell them that. It was better not; for, in the first place, no one knew. And, in the second place, why mention the particular when the general would serve? Why draw attention, even, to the fact that the general is made up of the particular; or to the political certainty that promise is never performance? Better, far better, to make large loose assertion, abuse the other side, and call the electors the sanest and soundest body of people in the world.
Dinny was not canvassing. She was ‘no good at it,’ she said; and, perhaps, secretly she perceived the peculiarity of the custom. Clare, if she noticed any irony about the business, was too anxious to be doing something to abstain. She was greatly helped by the way everybody took it. They had always been ‘canvassed,’ and they always would be. It was a harmless enough diversion to their ears, rather like the buzzing of gnats that did not bite. As to their votes, they would record them for quite other reasons—because their fathers had voted this or that before them, because of something connected with their occupation, because of their landlords, their churches, or their trades unions; because they wanted a change, while not expecting anything much from it; and not a few because of their common sense.
Clare, dreading questions, pattered as little as possible and came quickly to their babies or their health. She generally ended by asking what time they would like to be fetched. Noting the hour in a little book, she would come out not much the wiser. Being a Charwell—that is to say, no ‘foreigner’—she was taken as a matter of course; and though not, like Dinny, personally known to them all, she was part of an institution, Condaford without Charwells being still almost inconceivable.
She was driving back from this dutiful pastime towards the Grange about four o’clock on the Saturday before the election, when a voice from an overtaking two-seater called her name, and she saw young Tony Croom.
“What on earth are you doing here, Tony?”
“I couldn’t go any longer without a glimpse of you.”
“But, my dear boy, to come down here is too terribly pointed.”
“I know, but I’ve seen you.”
“You weren’t going to call, were you?”
“If I didn’t see you otherwise. Clare, you look so lovely!”
“That, if true, is not a reason for queering my pitch at home.”
“The last thing I want to do; but I’ve got to see you now and then, otherwise I shall go batty.”
His face was so earnest and his voice so moved, that Clare felt for the first time stirred in that hackneyed region, the heart.
“That’s bad,” she said; “because I’ve got to find my feet, and I can’t have complications.”
“Let me kiss you just once. Then I should go back happy.”
Still more stirred, Clare thrust forward her cheek.
“Well, quick!” she said.
He glued his lips to her cheek, but when he tried to reach her lips she drew back.
“No. Now Tony, you must go. If you’re to see me, it must be in Town. But what is the good of seeing me? It’ll only make us unhappy.”
“Bless you for that ‘us.’”
Clare’s brown eyes smiled; their colour was like that of a glass of Malaga wine held up to the light.
“Have you found a job?”
“There are none.”
“It’ll be better when the election’s over. I’M thinking of trying to get with a milliner.”
“You!”
“I must do something. My people here are as hard pressed as everybody else. Now, Tony, you said you’d go.”
“Promise to let me know the first day you come up.”
Clare nodded, and re-started her engine. As the car slid forward gently, she turned her face and gave him another smile.
He continued to stand with his hands to his head till the car rounded a bend and she was gone.
Turning the car into the stable yard, she was thinking ‘Poor boy!’ and feeling the better for it. Whatever her position in the eyes of the law, or according to morality, a young and pretty woman breathes more easily when inhaling the incense of devotion. She may have strict intentions, but she has also a sense of what is due to her, and a dislike of waste. Clare looked the prettier and felt the happier all that evening. But the night was ridden by the moon; nearly full, it soared up in front of her window, discouraging sleep. She got up and parted the curtains. Huddling into her fur coat, she stood at the window. There was evidently a frost, and a ground mist stretched like fleece over the fields. The tall elms, ragged-edged, seemed to be sailing slowly along over the white vapour. The earth out there was unknown by her, as if it had dropped from that moon. She shivered. It might be beautiful, but it was cold, uncanny; a frozen glamour. She thought of the nights in the Red Sea, when she lay with bedclothes thrown off, and the very moon seemed hot. On board that ship people had ‘talked’ about her and Tony—she had seen many signs of it, and hadn’t cared. Why should she? He had not even kissed her all those days. Not even the evening he came to her state-room and she had shown him photographs, and they had talked. A nice boy, modest and a gentleman! And if he was in love, now, she couldn’t help it—she hadn’t tried to ‘vamp’ him. As to what would happen, life always tripped one up, it seemed, whatever one did! Things must take care of themselves. To make resolutions, plans, lay down what was called ‘a line of conduct,’ was not the slightest use! She had tried that with Jerry. She shivered, then laughed, then went rigid with a sort of fury. No! If Tony expected her to rush into his arms he was very much mistaken. Sensual love! She knew it inside out. No, thank you! As that moonlight, now, she was cold! Impossible to speak of it even to her Mother, whatever she and Dad might be thinking.