‘Uncle Revel,’ said Wilfrid, taking the surprise more easily than his mother, ‘will you draw a brontosaurus?’
‘I’ll draw anything you like, darling,’ said Revel. ‘Though brontosauruses are rather hard.’ He came towards Daphne, who stood up, without quite wanting to, and felt his cheek and chin harsh against hers for a second. He said quietly, ‘I hope you don’t mind, I rang up Dud and he said just to come.’
‘No, of course,’ she said. ‘Did you see someone? Did you see the photographer?’ She felt somehow that Revel’s visit, if it had to happen, should be kept out of the papers – and of course, if the photographers saw him they’d want him: he seemed to her to come emphasized, transfigured, set apart by success in a light of his own that was subtly distinct from the general gleam of the April day. Everyone was talking about him, not as much perhaps as they were about Sebby and the Trade Unions, but a good deal more than about Dudley, or Mrs Riley, or of course herself! And now he’d had a frightful row with David, so the gleam about him was that of suffering as well as fame. Surely the last thing he needed was to see himself splashed all over the Sketch.
‘There was a chap in a greasy trilby I don’t think I’ve seen before,’ Revel said.
‘Hmm, that’ll be him,’ said Daphne.
‘And I think I spotted your brother and his wife.’
‘Oh, really?’ said Daphne, rather heavily.
‘Fair, balding, wire-framed glasses…?’
‘That sounds like Madeleine…’
‘But nice-looking,’ said Revel, with the little giggle she loved. ‘Madeleine more severe. Heavy tread, awful hat. If I may say so.’
‘Oh, say what you like,’ said Daphne. ‘Everyone does here.’
‘Is Uncle George here?’ said Wilfrid.
‘He is,’ said Revel. ‘I think they were going up to the High Ground.’
‘How perfectly obstreperous of him,’ said Corinna.
‘Don’t be an idiot,’ said Daphne.
‘How entirely preposterous,’ said Corinna.
‘Well, perhaps we should join them,’ Daphne said. And taking charge, she went out under the further rose arch, with the children eventually following, and Revel ambling between them and Daphne, speaking in the pointed way one did with other people’s children, to amuse them and amuse the listening parent in a different way. ‘Certainly I don’t think any brontosauruses have been spotted in Berkshire for several years now,’ he said. ‘But I’m told there are other wild beasts, some of them fiendishly disguised in smart white trousers…’ Daphne felt the magnetic disturbance of his presence just behind her, at the corner of her eye as she led them up the steps and passed through the white gate under the arch. You were wonderfully safe of course with a man like Revel; but then the safety itself had something elastic about it. There were George and Madeleine – so odd that they’d set straight off on a walk. Perhaps just so as to be doing something, since Madeleine was unable to relax; or possibly to put off seeing Dudley for as long as they decently could.
The High Ground was an immense lawn beyond the formal gardens, from which, though the climb to it seemed slight, you got ‘a remarkable view of nothing’, as Dudley put it: the house itself, of course, and the slowly dropping expanse of farmland towards the villages of Bampton and Brize Norton. It was an easy uncalculating view, with no undue excitement, small woods of beech and poplar greening up across the pasture-land. Somewhere a few miles off flowed the Thames, already wideish and winding, though from here you would never have guessed it. Today the High Ground was being mown, the first time of the year, the donkey in its queer rubber overshoes pulling the clattering mower, steered from behind by one of the men, who took off his cap to them as he approached. Really you didn’t mow at weekends, but Dudley had ordered it, doubtless so as to annoy his guests. George and Madeleine were strolling on the far side, avoiding the mowing, heads down in talk, perhaps enjoying themselves in their own way.
The children hastened, at a ragged march, towards their uncle and aunt – and seemed unsure themselves how much of their delight was real, how much good manners; Corinna by now took delight in good manners for their own sake. George stood his ground, in his dark suit and large brown shoes, and then squatted down with a wary cackle to inspect them for a moment on their own level. Madeleine, wrapped in a long mackintosh, held back, with a thin fixed smile, in which various doubts and questions were tightly hidden.
‘Aunt Madeleine, I’ve learned a new piece to play for you,’ said Corinna straight away.
‘Oh,’ said Madeleine, ‘what is it?’
‘It’s called “The Happy Wallaby”.’
‘Well, my dear,’ said Madeleine, as if seeing something faintly compromising in this, ‘we’ll have to see.’
‘She’s been practising, haven’t you, Corinna,’ said Daphne, and saw her glance at Wilfrid.
‘And Wilfie’s going to do his dance,’ Corinna said.
‘Oh, that will be capital,’ said George. ‘When will you do it? I don’t want to miss that,’ making up for his wife’s lack of warmth.
‘After nursery tea,’ said Daphne. ‘They’re allowed down.’ The thing about seeing George with Madeleine was that it made you fonder of George; he stood up, and they kissed with a noisy firmness that amused them both. ‘How’s Brum?’ said Daphne.
‘Brum’s all right,’ said George.
‘It’s a great deal of work,’ said Madeleine; ‘you don’t see us at our best, I fear!’
‘I don’t think you’ve met Revel Ralph, Madeleine… Revel, my brother George Sawle.’
George looked keenly at Revel as he shook his hand. ‘Madeleine and I have been reading a lot about your show… congratulations! Your designs sound marvellous.’
‘Oh, yes,’ said Madeleine uncertainly.
‘I wonder if we’ll get down,’ said George, now smiling rather anxiously at Revel. ‘I’d love to see it.’
‘Well, let me know, won’t you,’ said Revel.
‘You’ve been, Daph, of course?’ said George.
‘I’d have to stay with someone, wouldn’t I,’ said Daphne.
‘You ought to have a little place in Town,’ said Revel.
‘Well, we did have that very nice flat in Marylebone, but of course Louisa sold it,’ said Daphne, and changed the subject before it got going – ‘Watch out…’ The donkey was plodding rapidly towards them, and they set off to the mown side of the lawn, damp grass cuttings clinging to their shoes. ‘God knows why they’re mowing today,’ she said, though she took a kind of pleasure in it too, different from her husband’s – it was something to do with labour, and running a place with twenty servants.
‘How is Dudley?’ said George.
‘I think all right,’ said Daphne, with a quick glance at the children.
‘Book coming on?’
‘Oh, I find it best not to ask.’
George gave her a strange look. ‘You’ve not seen any of it?’
‘No, no.’ She took a bright, hard tone: ‘You know he’s very excited about boxing things in.’
‘Oh, yes, I want to see this,’ said George, with his taste for controversy as much as for design. ‘How far is he taking it?’
‘Oh, quite far.’
‘But you don’t mind,’ with a sideways smile at her.
‘Well, there are some things. You’ll see.’
‘What do you think, Ralph?’ said George. ‘For or against the egregious grotesqueries of the Victorians?’ And now Daphne saw they were back in common-room mode, after a brief spontaneous holiday. The children smirked.