“There’ll be a row, of course – a healthy, blood-letting hell of a row, and we shall all be the better for it! But I don’t approve of firearms being let loose all over the place – it’s un-English. It only shows what the poor devils at Ulster must have suffered, and be afraid of suffering, to resort to it! That sort of thing is all very well in the Balkans. My son Winn’s been talking about the Balkans lately – kind of thing the army’s always getting gas off about! What I say is – let ’em fight! They got the Turk down once, all of ’em together, and he was the only person that could keep ’em in hand. Now I hear Austria wants to start trouble in Serbia because of that assassination in June. What they want to make a fuss about assassination in that family for I can’t think! I should look upon it as an hereditary disease and leave it at that! But don’t tell me it’s anything to worry about compared to Ulster. What’s the danger of a country that talks thirteen languages, has no non-commissioned officers, and always gets beat when it fights? Sarah! Sarah! Get the people in for tea. Can’t you see there’s a shower coming? Damn it all! And my second crop of hay’s not in yet! That’s what comes of giving garden parties. Of course I’m very glad to see you all, but you know what I mean. No shilly-shallying with the English climate’s my motto – it’s the only dangerous thing we’ve got!”
Lady Staines disregarded this admonition. The light clouds above the elms puffed idly in the heavy air. It was a hot bright day, murmurous with bees and the idle, half notes of midsummer birds.
Estelle, in the most diaphanous of blue muslins, held a little court under a gigantic mulberry tree. She had always intended marriage with a Staines to be like this.
Winn was nowhere to be seen, and his mother plodded patiently to and fro across the lawn, bringing a line of distinguished visitors to be introduced to her.
They were kind, curt people who looked at Estelle rather hard, and asked her absurd questions about Winn’s regiment, Sir Peter’s ships, and her baby. They had no general ideas, but however difficult they were to talk to, Estelle knew they were the right people to meet – she had seen their names in magazines. None of her own family were there; they had all been invited, but Estelle had preferred their remaining at home. She had once heard Sir Peter refer to her father as “Old Moneybags.” He had apologized afterwards, but he might do it again.
Lady Staines was the only person who noticed the arrival of two telegrams – they were taken to Charles and James, who were at that moment in the refreshment tent opposite the claret cup. The telegrams arrived simultaneously, and Charles said, “Good Lord!” and James said, “My hat!” when they read the contents, with every symptom of surprise and pleasure.
“I shouldn’t have supposed,” Lady Staines thought to herself, “that two of my boys would have backed the same horse. It must be a coincidence.”
They put the telegrams rather carefully away, and shortly afterwards she observed that they had set off together in the direction of the village sports.
The long golden twilight drew to a close, the swallows swooped and circled above the heavy, darkened elms. The flowers in the long herbaceous borders had a fragile look in the colorless soft air.
The garden party drifted slowly away.
Lady Staines stopped her daughter-in-law going into the house; but she was destined never to tell her what she thought of her. Estelle escaped Nemesis by the turn of a hair.
Sir Peter came out of the library prepared to inspect the lawn. “What’s up with those boys?” he demanded, struck by the unusual sight of his three sons advancing towards him from the river, their heads bent in talk, and not apparently quarreling.
Lady Staines followed the direction of his eyes; then she said to Estelle, “You’d better go in now, my dear; I’ll talk to you later.”
Sir Peter shouted in his stentorian voice an appeal to his sons to join him. Lady Staines, while she waited, took off her white kid gloves and her purple bonnet, and deposited them upon the balustrades.
“What are you up to,” demanded Sir Peter when they came within earshot, “sticking down there by the river with your heads glued together like a set of damned Guy Fawkeses – instead of saying good-by to your mother’s guests – who haven’t had the sense to get under way before seven o’clock – though I gave ’em a hint to be off an hour ago?”
“Helping villagers to climb greasy poles, and finishing a sack race,” Charles explained. “Lively time Winn’s been having down there – I had no idea our second housemaid was so pretty.”
“None of that! None of that!” said Sir Peter, sharply. “You keep to bar-maids, young Charles – and manicure girls, though there ought to be an act of Parliament against ’em! Still, I’ll admit you can’t do much harm here – three of you together, and your mother on the front doorstep!”
“Harm,” said James, winking in the direction of his mother; “what can poor chaps like us do – here to-day and gone to-morrow – Mother’d better keep her eye on those near home!”
“Off to-night you might as well say!” remarked Charles, glancing at James with a certain intentness.
“Why off to-night?” asked Lady Staines. “I thought you were staying over the week-end?”
“Winn’s put us on to something,” explained Charles. “Awfully good show, he says – on at the Oxford. Pretty hot stuff and the censor hasn’t smelt it out yet – we rather thought we’d run up to-night and have a look at it.”
Winn stuck his hands in his pockets, set his jaw, and looked at his mother. Lady Staines was regarding him with steady eyes.
“You didn’t get a telegram, too?” she asked.
“No,” said Winn. “Why should I?”
“Not likely,” said James, genially. “Always behindhand in the – ”
“Damn these midges!” said Charles, hurriedly. James stopped with his mouth open.
“Army, you were going to say, weren’t you?” asked his mother, suavely. “If you are my sons I must say you make uncommonly poor liars.”
Sir Peter, whose attention had wandered to tender places in the lawn, looked up sharply.
“What’s that? What’s that?” he asked. “Been telling lies, have they? A nice way you’ve brought ’em up, Sarah! What have they been lying about? A woman? Because if they have, I won’t hear a word about it! Lies about a woman are perfectly correct, though I’m hanged if I can see how they can all three be lying about one woman. That seems a bit thick, I must say.”
To Sir Peter’s surprise, nobody made any reply. Charles yawned, James whistled, and Winn kept his eyes steadily fixed on Lady Staines.
“Those were orders then,” Lady Staines observed in a dry quiet voice. “I thought it very likely. I suppose it’s Germany. I felt sure we should have trouble with that excitable young man sooner or later. He had too good an opinion of himself to be an emperor.”
“Not Ulster!” exclaimed Sir Peter. “God bless my soul – not Ulster!”
“Oh, we can take on Ulster afterwards,” said James reassuringly. “Now we’ll see what submarines can do; ’member the Japs?”
“Winn,” said Lady Staines, “before you’re off, say good-by to your wife.”
Winn frowned, and then he said, “All right, Mother,” and left them.
It was a very still evening, the scent of new mown hay and the mysterious sweetness of the starry white tobacco plant haunted the delicate air.
Winn found Estelle lying down by the open window. He had not been in her room for some time. He sat down by the sofa, and fingered the tassels at her waist.
“Is anything the matter?” she asked coldly.
He had only himself to thank that she was cold – he knew that. He saw so plainly now, all the mistakes he’d made, that the ones Estelle had made, receded into the distance. He’d never been gentle to her. Even when he thought he loved her, he wasn’t really gentle.