“Awfully like Jean, isn’t she?” said young Tasburgh: “She was a corker, from all accounts; they say she staged her own funeral, and got out of the country when Elizabeth set about the Catholics in the fifteen-sixties. D’you know what was the fate of anyone who celebrated Mass just then? Ripping up was a mere incident in it. The Christian religion! What oh! That lady had a hand in most pies, I fancy. I bet she speeded when she could.”

“Any news from the front?”

“Jean went into the study with an old ‘Times,’ a towel, and a pair of scissors. The rest is silence.”

“Isn’t there anywhere from which we can see them when they come out?”

“We could sit on the stairs. They wouldn’t notice us, there, unless they happen to go up.”

They went out and sat in a dark corner of the stairway, whence through the bannisters they could see the study door. With some of the thrill of childhood Dinny watched for it to open. Suddenly Jean came forth, with a sheet of newspaper folded as a receptacle in one hand, and in the other a pair of scissors. They heard her say:

“Remember, dear, you’re not to go out without a hat today.”

An inarticulate answer was shut off by the closing of the door. Dinny rose above the bannisters: “Well?”

“It’s all right. He’s a bit grumpy—doesn’t know who’ll cut his hair and that; thinks a special licence a waste of money; but he’s going to give me the hundred a year. I left him filling his pipe.” She stood still, looking into the sheet of newspaper. “There was an awful lot to come away. We’ll have lunch in a minute, Dinny, and then be off again.”

The Rector’s manner at lunch was still courtly, and Dinny observed him with admiring attention. Here was a widower well on in years, about to be deprived of his only daughter, who did everything about the house and parish, even to the cutting of his hair, yet he was apparently unmoved. Not a murmur escaped his lips. Was it breeding, benevolence, or unholy relief? She could not be sure; and her heart quailed a little. Hubert would soon be in his shoes. She stared at Jean. Little doubt but that she could stage her own funeral, if not other people’s; still, there would be nothing ungraceful or raucous about her dominations; no vulgar domesticity in the way she stirred her pies. If only she and Hubert had enough sense of humour!

After lunch the Rector took her apart.

“My deah Dinny—if I may call you that—how do you feel about it? And how does your Mothah feel?”

“We both feel it’s a little bit like ‘The Owl and the Pussycat went to sea!’”

“‘In a beautiful pea-green boat.’ Yes, indeed, but not ‘with plenty of money’ I feah. Still,” he added, dreamily, “Jean is a good girl; very—ah—capable. I am glad our families are to be—er—reunited. I shall miss her, but one must not be—ah—selfish.”

“‘What we lose on the swings we gain on the roundabouts,’” murmured Dinny.

The Rector’s blue eyes twinkled.

“Ah!” he said, “yes, indeed; the rough with the smooth. Jean refuses to let me give her away. Here is her birth certificate in case of—ah—questions. She is of age.”

He produced a long yellowed slip. “Deah me!” he added, sincerely: “Deah me!”

Dinny continued to feel doubtful whether she was sorry for him: and, directly after, they resumed their journey.

CHAPTER 14

Dropping Alan Tasburgh at his Club, the two girls headed the car for Chelsea. Dinny had sent no telegram, trusting to luck. On reaching the house in Oakley Street she got out and rang the bell. An elderly maid, with a frightened expression on her face, opened the door.

“Mrs. Ferse in?”

“No, Miss; Captain Ferse.”

“Captain Ferse?”

The maid, looking to right and left, spoke in a low and hurried voice.

“Yes, Miss; we’re dreadfully put about, we don’t know what to do. Captain Ferse came in sudden at lunch time, and we never knew nothing of it, beforehand. The Mistress was out. There’s been a telegram for her, but Captain Ferse took it; and someone’s been on the ‘phone for her twice but wouldn’t give a message.” Dinny sought for words in which to discover the worst.

“How—how does he seem?”

“Well, Miss, I couldn’t say. He never said nothing but ‘Where’s your mistress?’ He LOOKS all right, but not having heard anything, we’re afraid; the children are in and we don’t know where the Mistress is.”

“Wait a minute,” and Dinny went back to the car.

“What’s the matter?” asked Jean, getting out.

The two girls stood consulting on the pavement, while from the doorway the maid watched them.

“I ought to get hold of Uncle Adrian,” said Dinny. “There are the children.”

“You do that, and I’ll go in and wait for you. That maid looks scared.”

“I believe he used to be violent, Jean; he may have escaped, you know.”

“Take the car. I shall be all right.” Dinny squeezed her hand.

“I’ll take a taxi; then you’ll have the car if you want to get away.”

“Right! Tell the maid who I am, and then buzz off. It’s four o’clock.”

Dinny looked up at the house; and, suddenly, saw a face in the window of the dining-room. Though she had only twice seen Ferse, she recognised him at once. His face was not to be forgotten, it gave the impression of fire behind bars: A cut, hard face with a tooth-brush moustache, broad cheek-bones, strong-growing dark slightly-grizzled hair, and those steel-bright flickering eyes. They stared out at her now with a kind of dancing intensity that was painful, and she looked away.

“Don’t look up! He’s in there!” she said to Jean: “But for his eyes he looks quite normal—well-dressed and that. Let’s both go, Jean, or both stay.”

“No; I shall be quite all right; you go,” and she went into the house.

Dinny hurried away. This sudden reappearance of one whom all had assumed to be hopelessly unhinged was staggering. Ignorant of the circumstances of Ferse’s incarceration, ignorant of everything except that he had given Diana a terrible time before his break-down, she thought of Adrian as the only person likely to know enough. It was a long anxious drive. She found her uncle on the point of leaving the Museum, and told him hurriedly, while he stood looking at her with horror.

“Do you know where Diana is?” she finished.

“She was dining to-night with Fleur and Michael. I was going too, but till then I don’t know. Let’s get on back to Oakley Street. This is a thunderbolt.”

They got into the cab.

“Couldn’t you telephone to that Mental Home, Uncle?”

“Without seeing Diana, I daren’t. You say he looked normal?”

“Yes. Only his eyes—but they always were like that, I remember.”

Adrian put his hands up to his head. “It’s too horrible! My poor girl!”

Dinny’s heart began to ache—as much for him as for Diana.

“Horrible too,” said Adrian, “to be feeling like this because that poor devil has come back. Ah, me! This is a bad business, Dinny; a bad business.” Dinny squeezed his arm.

“What is the law about it, Uncle?”

“God knows! He never was certified. Diana wouldn’t have that. They took him as a private patient.”

“But surely he couldn’t come away just when he liked, without any notice being given?”

“Who knows what’s happened? He may be as crazy as ever and have got away in a flash of sanity. But whatever we do,” and Dinny felt moved by the expression on his face, “we must think of him as well as of ourselves. We mustn’t make it harder for him. Poor Ferse! Talk about trouble, Dinny—illness, poverty, vice, crime—none of them can touch mental derangement for sheer tragedy to all concerned.”

“Uncle,” said Dinny, “the night?”

Adrian groaned. “That we must save her from somehow.”

At the end of Oakley Street they dismissed the cab and walked to the door…

On going in Jean had said to the maid: “I’m Miss Tasburgh. Miss Dinny has gone for Mr. Cherrell. Drawing-room upstairs? I’ll wait there. Has he seen the children?”