“Quite an idea. It’s queer about the horse—he’s coming in as he goes out. I’ll talk to my cousin Jack Muskham—he breeds bloodstock. And he’s got a bee in his bonnet about the re-introduction of Arab blood into the English thoroughbred. In fact he’s got some Arab mares coming over. Just possibly he might want someone.”
Young Croom flushed and smiled.
“That would be frightfully kind of you, sir. It sounds ideal. I’ve had Arab polo ponies.”
“Well,” murmured Sir Lawrence thoughtfully, “I don’t know that anything excites my sympathy more than a man who really wants a job and can’t find one. We must get this election over first, though. Unless the socialists are routed horse-breeders will have to turn their stock into potted meat. Imagine having the dam of a Derby winner between brown bread and butter for your tea—real ‘Gentleman’s Relish!’”
He got up.
“I’ll say good-night, now. My cigar will just last me home.”
Young Croom rose too, and remained standing till that spare and active figure had vanished.
‘Frightfully nice old boy!’ he thought, and in the depths of his armchair he resigned himself to hope and to Clare’s face wreathed by the fumes of his pipe.
CHAPTER 5
On that cold and misty evening, which all the newspapers had agreed was to ‘make history,’ the Charwells sat in the drawing-room at Condaford round the portable wireless, a present from Fleur. Would the voice breathe o’er Eden, or would it be the striking of Fate’s clock? Not one of those five but was solemnly convinced that the future of Great Britain hung in the balance; convinced, too, that their conviction was detached from class or party. Patriotism divorced from thought of vested interest governed, as they supposed, their mood. And if they made a mistake in so thinking, quite a number of other Britons were making it too. Across Dinny’s mind, indeed, did flit the thought: ‘Does anyone know what will save the country and what won’t?’ But, even by her, time and tide, incalculably rolling, swaying and moulding the lives of nations, was ungauged. Newspapers and politicians had done their work and stamped the moment for her as a turning point. In a sea-green dress, she sat, close to the ‘present from Fleur,’ waiting to turn it on at ten o’clock, and regulate its stridency. Aunt Em was working at a new piece of French tapestry, her slight aquilinity emphasised by tortoise-shell spectacles. The General nervously turned and re-turned The Times and kept taking out his watch. Lady Charwell sat still and a little forward, like a child in Sunday School before she has become convinced that she is going to be bored. And Clare lay on the sofa, with the dog Foch on her feet.
“Time, Dinny,” said the General; “turn the thing on.”
Dinny fingered a screw, and ‘the thing’ burst into music. “‘Rings on our fingers and bells on our toes,’” she murmured, “‘We have got music wherever we goes.’”
The music stopped, and the voice spoke:
“This is the first election result: Hornsey… Conservative, no change.”
The General added: “H’m!” and the music began again.
Aunt Em, looking at the portable, said: “Coax it, Dinny. That burrin’!”
“It always has that, Auntie.”
“Blore does something to ours with a penny. Where is Hornsey—Isle of Wight?”
“Middlesex, darling.”
“Oh! yes! I was thinkin’ of Southsea. There he goes again.”
“These are some more election results… Conservative, gain from Labour… Conservative, no change… Conservative, gain from Labour.”
The General added: “Ha!” and the music began again.
“What nice large majorities!” said Lady Mont: “Gratifyin’!”
Clare got off the sofa and squatted on a footstool against her mother’s knees. The General had dropped The Times. The ‘voice’ spoke again:
“… Liberal National, gain from Labour… Conservative, no change… Conservative, gain from Labour.”
Again and again the music spurted up and died away; and the voice spoke.
Clare’s face grew more and more vivid, and above her Lady Charwell’s pale and gentle face wore one long smile. From time to time the General said: “By George!” and “This is something like!”
And Dinny thought: ‘Poor Labour!’
On and on and on the voice breathed o’er Eden.
“Crushin’,” said Lady Mont: “I’m gettin’ sleepy.”
“Go to bed, Auntie. I’ll put a slip under your door when I come up.”
Lady Charwell, too, got up. When they were gone, Clare went back to the sofa and seemed to fall asleep. The General sat on, hypnotised by the chant of victory. Dinny, with knees crossed and eyes closed, was thinking: ‘Will it really make a difference; and, if it does, shall I care? Where is HE? Listening as we are? Where? Where?’ Not so often now, but quite often enough, that sense of groping for Wilfrid returned to her. In all these sixteen months since he left her she had found no means of hearing of him. For all she knew he might be dead. Once—only once—she had broken her resolve never to speak of her disaster, and had asked Michael. Compson Grice, his publisher, had, it seemed received a letter from him written in Bangkok, which said he was well and had begun to write. That was nine months ago. The veil, so little lifted, had dropped again. Heartache—well, she was used to it.
“Dad, it’s two o’clock. It’ll be like this all the time now. Clare’s asleep.”
“I’m not,” said Clare.
“You ought to be. I’ll let Foch out for his run, and we’ll all go up.”
The General rose.
“Enough’s as good as a feast. I suppose we’d better.”
Dinny opened the French window and watched the dog Foch trotting out in semblance of enthusiasm. It was cold, with a ground mist, and she shut the window. If she didn’t he would neglect his ritual and with more than the semblance of enthusiasm trot in again. Having kissed her father and Clare, she turned out the lights and waited in the hall. The wood fire had almost died. She stood with her foot on the stone hearth, thinking. Clare had spoken of trying to get a secretaryship to some new Member of Parliament. Judging by the returns that were coming in, there would be plenty of them. Why not to their own new member? He had dined with them, and she had sat next him. A nice man, well read, not bigoted. He even sympathised with Labour, but did not think they knew their way about as yet. In fact he was rather notably what the drunken youth in the play called: ‘A Tory Socialist.’ He had opened out to her and been very frank and pleasant. An attractive man, with his crisp dark hair, brown complexion, little dark moustache and rather high soft voice; a good sort, energetic and upright-looking. But probably he already had a secretary. However, if Clare was in earnest, one could ask. She crossed the hall to the garden door. There was a seat in the porch outside, and under it Foch would be crouched, waiting to be let in. Sure enough, he emerged, fluttering his tail, and padded towards the dogs’ communal water-bowl. How cold and silent! Nothing on the road; even the owls quiet; the garden and the fields frozen, moonlit, still, away up to that long line of covert! England silvered and indifferent to her fate, disbelieving in the Voice o’er Eden; old and permanent and beautiful, even though the pound had gone off gold. Dinny gazed at the unfeverish night. Men and their policies—how little they mattered, how soon they passed, a dissolving dew on the crystal immensity of God’s toy! How queer—the passionate intensity of one’s heart, and the incalculable cold callousness of Time and Space! To join, to reconcile?…
She shivered and shut the door.
At breakfast the next morning she said to Clare:
“Shall we strike while the iron’s hot, and go and see Mr. Dornford?”
“Why?”
“In case he wants a secretary, now he’s in.”