‘Where,’ he thought, ‘can I take Em at this time in the morning? The Zoo she doesn’t like; I’m sick of the Wallace. Madame Tussaud’s! Gaiety will break through. Madame Tussaud’s!’

CHAPTER 37

At Condaford Jean went straight from the telephone to find her mother-inlaw, and repeated Sir Lawrence’s words with her usual decision. The gentle rather timid expression on Lady Cherrell’s face changed to a startled concern.

“Oh!”

“Shall I tell the General?”

“Please, dear.”

Alone again with her accounts, Lady Cherrell sat thinking. The only one of the family, except Hubert, who had never seen Wilfrid Desert, she had tried to keep an open mind, and had no definite opposition on her conscience. She felt now only a troubled sympathy. What could one do? And, as is customary in the case of another’s bereavement, she could only think of flowers.

She slipped out into the garden and went to the rose beds, which, flanked by tall yew hedges, clustered round the old sundial. She plucked a basket full of the best blossoms, took them up to Dinny’s narrow and conventual bedroom, and disposed them in bowls by the bedside and on the window-sill. Then, opening the door and mullioned window wide, she rang for the room to be dusted and the bed made. The Medici prints on the walls she carefully set exactly straight, and said:

“I’ve dusted the pictures, Annie. Keep the window and door open. I want it all to smell sweet. Can you do the room now?”

“Yes, m’lady.”

“Then I think you’d better, I don’t know what time Miss Dinny will be here.”

Back with her accounts, she could not settle to them, and, pushing them into a drawer, went to find her husband. He, too, was seated before bills and papers without sign of animation. She went up to him and pressed his head against her.

“Jean’s told you, Con?”

“Yes. It’s the only thing, of course; but I hate Dinny to be sad.”

They were silent till Lady Cherrell said:

“I’d tell Dinny about our being so hard up. It would take her mind off.”

The General ruffled his hair. “I shall be three hundred down on the year. I might get a couple of hundred for the horses, the rest must come out of trees. I don’t know which I dislike more. Do you think she could suggest something?”

“No, but she would worry, and that would prevent her troubling so much over the other thing.”

“I see. Well, Jean or you tell her, then. I don’t like to. It looks like hinting that I want to reduce her allowance. It’s a pittance as it is. Make it plain there’s no question of that. Travel would have been the thing for her, but where’s the money to come from?”

Lady Cherrell did not know, and the conversation lapsed.

Into that old house, which for so many centuries human hopes, fears, births, deaths, and all the medley of everyday emotions had stamped with a look of wary age, had come an uneasiness which showed in every word and action, even of the maids. What attitude to adopt? How to show sympathy, and yet not show it? How to welcome, and yet make it clear that welcome did not carry rejoicing? Even Jean was infected. She brushed and combed the dogs, and insisted on taking the car to meet every afternoon train.

Dinny came by the third. Leading Foch, she stepped out of the carriage almost into Jean’s arms.

“Hallo, my dear,” said Jean, “here you are! New dog?”

“Yes; a darling.”

“What have you got?”

“Only these things. It’s no use looking for a porter, they’re always trundling bicycles.”

“I’ll get them out.”

“Indeed you won’t! Hold Foch.”

When, carrying her suitcase and dressing-bag, she reached the car, Dinny said:

“Would you mind if I walk up by the fields, Jean? It’s good for Foch; and the train was stuffy; I should like a sniff of the hay.”

“Yes, there’s some down still. I’ll take these along, and have fresh tea ready.”

She left Dinny standing with a smile on her face. And all the way to the Grange she thought of that smile and swore under her breath…

Entering the field path, Dinny let Foch off his lead. By the way he rushed to the hedgerow, she realised how he had missed all this. A country dog! For a moment his busy joy took up her attention; then the sore and bitter aching came back again. She called him and walked on. In the first of their own fields the hay was still lying out, and she flung herself down. When she once got home she must watch every word and look, must smile and smile, and show nothing! She wanted desperately these few minutes of abandonment. She didn’t cry, but pressed herself against the hay-covered earth, and the sun burned her neck. She turned on her back and gazed up at the blue. She framed no thoughts, dissolved in aching for what was lost and could never be found now. And the hum of summer beat drowsily above her from the wings of insects drunk on heat and honey. She crossed her arms on her chest to compress the pain within her. If she could die, there, now, in full summer with its hum and the singing of the larks; die and ache no more! So she lay motionless, until the dog came and licked her cheek. And, ashamed, she got up and stood brushing the hay-seeds and stalks from her dress and stockings.

Past old Kismet in the next field she came to the thread of stream and crossed it into the disenchanted orchard, smelling of nettles and old trees; then on, to the garden and the flagstones of the terrace. One magnolia flower was out, but she dared not stop and sniff, lest its lemon-honey scent should upset her again; and, coming to the French window, she looked in.

Her mother was sitting with the look on her face that Dinny called ‘waiting for Father.’ Her father was standing with the look on his face that she called ‘waiting for Mother.’ Jean seemed expecting her cub to come round the corner.

‘And I’m the cub,’ thought Dinny, and stepped over the threshold, saying:

“Well, Mother darling, can I have some tea?…”

That evening, after good-night had been said, she came down again and went to her father’s study. He was at his bureau, poring, with a pencil, over something he had written. She stole up, and read over his shoulder:

“Hunters for sale: Bay gelding, fifteen three, rising ten, sound, good-looking, plenty of bone, fine jumper. Mare: blue roan: fifteen one, rising nine, very clever, carries lady, show jumper, sound wind and limb. Apply Owner, Condaford Grange, Oxon.”

“H’m!” he muttered, and crossed out the ‘wind and limb.’

Dinny reached down and took the paper.

The General started and looked round.

“No,” she said. And tore the sheet.

“Here! You mustn’t do that. It took me—”

“No, Dad, you can’t sell the horses, you’d be lost.”

“But I MUST sell the horses, Dinny.”

“I know. Mother told me. But it isn’t necessary. I happen to have quite a lot.” She put the notes she had been carrying about so long on his bureau.

The General got up.

“Impossible!” he said. “Very good of you, Dinny, but quite impossible!”

“You mustn’t refuse me, Dad. Let me do something for Condaford. I’ve no use for it, and it happens to be just the three hundred Mother says you want.”

“No use for it? Nonsense, my dear! Why! With that you could have a good long travel.”

“I don’t want a good long travel. I want to stay at home and help you both.”

The General looked hard into her face.

“I should be ashamed to take it,” he said. “It’s my own fault that I’ve got behind.”

“Dad! You never spend anything on yourself.”

“Well, I don’t know how it is—one little thing and another, it piles up.”

“You and I will go into it. There must be things we could do without.”

“The worst is having no capital. Something comes along and I have to meet it out of income; insurance is heavy, and with rates and taxes always going up, income gets smaller all the time.”