Over the River eotc-3 Page 10

  The two sisters settled down to bridge with their Uncle and Aunt, and at eleven o’clock went up to bed.

  “Armistice day,” said Clare, turning into her bedroom. “Did you realise?”

  “Yes.”

  “I was in a bus at eleven o’clock. I noticed two or three people looking funny. How can one be expected to feel anything? I was only ten when the war stopped.”

  “I remember the Armistice,” said Dinny, “because Mother cried. Uncle Hilary was with us at Condaford. He preached on: ‘They also serve who only stand and wait.’”

  “Who serves except for what he can get from it?”

  “Lots of people do hard jobs all their lives for mighty little return.”

  “Well, yes.”

  “Why do they?”

  “Dinny, I sometimes feel as if you might end up religious. Unless you marry, you will.”

  “‘Get thee to a nunnery, go!’”

  “Seriously, ducky, I wish I could see more of ‘the old Eve’ in you. In my opinion you ought to be a mother.”

  “When doctors find a way without preliminaries.”

  “You’re wasting yourself, my dear. At any moment that you liked to crook your little finger, old man Dornford would fall on his knees to you. Don’t you like him?”

  “As nice a man as I’ve seen for a long time.”

  “‘Murmured she coldly, turning towards the door.’ Give me a kiss.”

  “Darling,” said Dinny, “I do hope things are going to be all right. I shan’t pray for you, in spite of my look of decline; but I’ll dream that your ship comes home.”

  CHAPTER 14

  Young croom’s second visit to England’s Past at Drury Lane was the first visit of the other three members of Dornford’s little dinner party, and by some fatality, not unconnected with him who took the tickets, they were seated two by two; young Croom with Clare in the middle of the tenth row, Dornford and Dinny in returned stalls at the end of the third…

  “Penny for your thoughts, Miss Cherrell?”

  “I was thinking how the English face has changed since 1900.”

  “It’s the hair. Faces in pictures a hundred to a hundred and fifty years ago are much more like ours.”

  “Drooping moustaches and chignons do hide expression, but was there the expression?”

  “You don’t think the Victorians had as much character?”

  “Probably more, but surely they suppressed it; even in their dresses, always more stuff than was needed; frock-coats, high collars, cravats, bustles, button boots.”

  “The leg WAS on their nerves, but the neck wasn’t.”

  “I give you the woman’s necks. But look at their furniture: tassels, fringes, antimacassars, chandeliers, enormous sideboards. They DID play hide-and-seek with the soul, Mr. Dornford.”

  “And every now and then it popped out, like little Edward after unclothing himself under his mother’s dining-table at Windsor.”

  “He never did anything quite so perfect again.”

  “I don’t know. He was another Restoration in a mild way. Big opening of floodgates under him.”…

  “He HAS sailed, hasn’t he, Clare?”

  “Yes, he’s sailed all right. Look at Dornford! He’s fallen for Dinny completely. I wish she’d take to him.”

  “Why shouldn’t she?”

  “My dear young man, Dinny’s been in very deep waters. She’s in them even now.”

  “I don’t know anyone I’d like better for a sister-inlaw.”

  “Don’t you wish you may get her?”

  “God! Yes! Don’t I!”

  “What do YOU think of Dornford, Tony?”

  “Awfully decent, not a bit dry.”

  “If he were a doctor he’d have a wonderful bedside manner. He’s a Catholic.”

  “Wasn’t that against him in the election?”

  “It would have been, but his opponent was an atheist, so they cried quits.”

  “Terrible humbug, politics.”

  “But rather fun.”

  “Still, Dornford won that Bar point-to-point—he must have guts.”

  “Lots. I should say he’d face anything in his quiet way. I’m quite fond of him.”

  “Oh!”

  “No intention to incite you, Tony.”

  “This is like being on board ship, sitting side by side, and—stymied. Come out for a cigarette.”

  “People are coming back. Prepare yourself to point me the moral of the next act. At present I don’t see any.”

  “Wait!”…

  Dinny drew in her breath.

  “That’s terrible. I can just remember the Titanic. Awful, the waste in the world!”

  “You’re right.”

  “Waste of life, and waste of love.”

  “Have YOU come up against much waste?”

  “Yes.”

  “You don’t care to talk about it?”

  “No.”

  “I don’t believe that your sister’s going to be wasted. She’s too vivid.”

  “Yes, but her head’s in chancery.”

  “She’ll duck from under.”

  “I can’t bear to think of her life being spoiled. Isn’t there some legal dodge, Mr. Dornford; without publicity, I mean?”

  “If he would give cause, there need be very little of that.”

  “He won’t. He’s feeling vindictive.”

  “I see. Then I’m afraid there’s nothing for it but to wait. These things generally disentangle themselves. Catholics are not supposed to believe in divorce. But if YOU feel this is a case for one—”

  “Clare’s only twenty-four. She can’t live alone the rest of her life.”

  “Were YOU thinking of doing that?”

  “I! That’s different.”

  “Yes, you’re very unlike, but to have you wasted would be far worse. Just as much worse as wasting a lovely day in winter is than wasting one in summer.”

  “The curtain’s going up.”…

  “I wonder,” muttered Clare: “It didn’t look to me as if their love would have lasted long. They were eating each other like sugar.”

  “My God, if you and I on that boat had been—”

  “You’re very young, Tony.”

  “Two years older than you.”

  “And about ten years younger.”

  “Don’t you really believe in love lasting, Clare?”

  “Not passion. And after that generally the deluge. Only with those two on the Titanic it came too soon. A COLD sea! Ugh!”

  “Let me pull your cloak up.”

  “I don’t believe I like this show too frightfully, Tony. It digs into you, and I don’t want to be dug into.”

  “I liked it better the first time, certainly.”

  “Thank you!”

  “It’s being close to you, and not close enough. But the war part of the play’s the best.”

  “The whole thing makes me feel I don’t want to be alive.”

  “That’s ‘the satire.’”

  “One half of him is mocking the other. It gives me the fidgets. Too like oneself.”

  “I wish we’d gone to a movie, I could have held your hand.”

  “Dornford’s looking at Dinny as if she were the Madonna of the future that he wanted to make a Madonna of the past.”

  “So he does, you say.”

  “He really has a nice face. I wonder what he’ll think of the war part. ‘Weigh-hey! Up she rises!’”…

  Dinny sat with closed eyes, acutely feeling the remains of moisture on her cheeks.

  “But she never would have done that,” she said, huskily, “not waved a flag and cheered. Never! She might have mixed in the crowd, but never that!”

  “No, that’s a stage touch. Pity! But a jolly good act. Really good!”

  “Those poor gay raddled singing girls, getting more and more wretched and raddled, and that ‘Tipperary’ whistling! The war must have been AWFUL!”

  “One got sort of exalted.”

  “Did
that feeling last?”

  “In a way. Does that seem rather horrible to you?”

  “I never can judge what people ought to feel. I’ve heard my brother say something of the kind.”

  “It wasn’t the ‘Into Battle’ feeling either—I’m not the fighting man. It’s a cliché to say it was the biggest thing that will ever be in one’s life.”

  “You still feel that?”

  “It has been up to now. But—! I must tell you while I’ve a chance—I’m in love with you, Dinny. I know nothing about you, you know nothing about me. That doesn’t make any difference. I fell in love with you at once; it’s been getting deeper ever since. I don’t expect you to say anything, but you might think about it now and then…”

  Clare shrugged her shoulders.

  “Did people really go on like that at the Armistice? Tony! Did people—?”

  “What?”

  “Really go on like that?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Where were you?”

  “At Wellington, my first term. My father was killed in the war.”

  “Oh! I suppose mine might have been, and my brother. But even then! Dinny says my mother cried when the Armistice came.”

  “So did mine, I believe.”

  “The bit I liked best was that between the son and the girl. But the whole thing makes you feel too much. Take me out, I want a cigarette. No, we’d better not. One always meets people.”

  “Damn!”

  “Coming here with you was the limit. I’ve promised solemnly not to give offence for a whole year. Oh! cheer up! You’ll see lots of me…”

  “‘Greatness, and dignity, and peace,’” murmured Dinny, standing up, “and the greatest of these is ‘dignity.’”

  “The hardest to come by, anyway.”

  “That girl singing in the night club, and the jazzed sky! Thank you awfully, Mr. Dornford. I shan’t forget this play easily.”

  “Nor what I said to you?”

  “It was very sweet of you, but the aloe only blooms once in a hundred years.”

  “I can wait. It’s been a wonderful evening for me.”

  “Those two!”

  “We’ll pick them up in the hall.”

  “Do you think England ever had greatness and dignity and peace?”

  “No.”

  “But ‘There’s a green hill far away, without a city wall.’ Thank you—I’ve had this cloak three years.”

  “Charming it is!”

  “I suppose most of these people will go on to night clubs now.”

  “Not five per cent.”

  “I should like a sniff of home air to-night, and a long look at the stars…”

  Clare turned her head.

  “Don’t, Tony!”

  “How then?”

  “You’ve been with me all the evening.”

  “If only I could take you home!”

  “You can’t, my dear. Squeeze my little finger, and pull yourself together.”

  “Clare!”

  “Look! They’re just in front—now vanish! Get a good long drink at the Club and dream of horses. There! Was that close enough? Good-night, dear Tony!”

  “God! Good-night!”

  CHAPTER 15

  Time has been compared with a stream, but it differs—you cannot cross it, grey and even-flowing, wide as the world itself, having neither ford nor bridge; and though, according to philosophers, it may flow both up and down, the calendar as yet follows it but one way.

  November, then, became December, but December did not become November. Except for a cold snap or two the weather remained mild. Unemployment decreased; the adverse balance of trade increased; seven foxes escaped for every one killed; the papers fluttered from the storms in their tea-cups; a great deal of income tax was paid; still more was not; the question: “Why has prosperity gone to pot?” continued to bewilder every mind; the pound went up, the pound went down. In short, time flowed, but the conundrum of existence remained unsolved.

  At Condaford the bakery scheme was dropped. Every penny that could be raised was to be put into pigs, poultry and potatoes. Sir Lawrence and Michael were now deep in the ‘Three P. Plan,’ and Dinny had become infected. She and the General spent all their days preparing for the millennium which would follow its adoption. Eustace Dornford had expressed his adherence to the proposition. Figures had been prepared to show that in ten years one hundred millions a year could be knocked off Britain’s purchasing bill by graduated prohibition of the import of these three articles of food, without increasing the cost of living. With a little organisation, a fractional change in the nature of the Briton, and the increase of wheat offals, the thing was as good as done. In the meantime, the General borrowed slightly on his life assurance policy and paid his taxes.

  The new Member, visiting his constituency, spent Christmas at Condaford, talking almost exclusively of pigs, instinct telling him that they were just then the surest line of approach to Dinny’s heart. Clare, too, spent Christmas at home. How, apart from secretarial duties, she had spent the intervening time, was tacitly assumed. No letter had come from Jerry Corven, but it was known from the papers that he was back in Ceylon. During the days between Christmas and the New Year the habitable part of the old house was full: Hilary, his wife, and their daughter Monica; Adrian and Diana, with Sheila and Ronald, now recovered from the measles—no such family gathering had been held for years. Even Sir Lionel and Lady Alison drove down for lunch on New Year’s Eve. With such an overwhelming Conservative majority it was felt that 1932 would be important. Dinny was run off her legs. She gave no sign of it, but had less an air of living in the past. So much was she the party’s life and soul that no one could have told she had any of her own. Dornford gazed at her in speculation. What was behind that untiring cheerful selflessness? He went so far as to ask of Adrian, who seemed to be her favourite.

  “This house wouldn’t work without your niece, Mr. Cherrell.”

  “It wouldn’t. Dinny’s a wonder.”

  “Doesn’t she ever think of herself?”

  Adrian looked at him sideways. The pale-brown, rather hollow-cheeked face, with its dark hair, and hazel eyes, was sympathetic; for a lawyer and a politician, he looked sensitive. Inclined, however, to a sheepdog attitude where Dinny was concerned, he answered with caution:

  “Why no, no more than reason; indeed, not so much.”

  “She looks to me sometimes as if she’d been through something pretty bad.”

  Adrian shrugged. “She’s twenty-seven.”

  “Would you mind awfully telling me what it was? This isn’t curiosity. I’m—well, I’m in love with her, and terrified of butting in and hurting her through ignorance.”

  Adrian took a long gurgling pull at his pipe.

  “If you’re in dead earnest—”

  “Absolutely dead earnest.”

  “It might save her a pang or two. She was terribly in love, the year before last, and it came to a tragic end.”

  “Death?”

  “No. I can’t tell you the exact story, but the man had done something that placed him, in a sense—or at all events he thought so—outside the pale; and he put an end to their engagement rather than involve Dinny, and went off to the Far East. It was a complete cut. Dinny has never spoken of it since, but I’m afraid she’ll never forget.”

  “I see. Thank you very much. You’ve done me a great service.”

  “Sorry if it’s hurt,” murmured Adrian; “but better, perhaps, to have one’s eyes open.”

  “Much.”

  Resuming the tune on his pipe, Adrian stole several glances at his silent neighbour. That averted face wore an expression not exactly dashed or sad, but as if contending deeply with the future. ‘He’s the nearest approach,’ he thought, ‘to what I should like for her—sensitive, quiet, and plucky. But things are always so damnably perverse!’

  “She’s very different from her sister,” he said at last.

  Dornford smiled.

&nb
sp; “Ancient and modern.”

  “Clare’s a pretty creature, though.”

  “Oh, yes, and lots of qualities.”

  “They’ve both got grit. How does she do her work?”

  “Very well; quick in the uptak’, good memory, heaps of savoir-faire.”

  “Pity she’s in such a position. I don’t know why things went wrong, and I don’t see how they can come right.”

  “I’ve never met Corven.”

  “Quite nice to meet; but, by the look of him, a streak of cruelty.”

  “Dinny says he’s vindictive.”

  Adrian nodded. “I should think so. And that’s bad when it comes to divorce. But I hope it won’t—always a dirty business, and probably the wrong person tarred. I don’t remember a divorce in our family.”

  “Nor in mine, but we’re Catholics.”

  “Judging by your experience in the Courts, should you say English morality is going downhill?”

  “No. On the upgrade, if anything.”

  “But surely the standard is slacker?”

  “People are franker, not quite the same thing.”

  “You lawyers and judges, at all events,” said Adrian, “are exceptionally moral men.”

  “Oh! Where did you get that from?”

  “The papers.”

  Dornford laughed.

  “Well!” said Adrian, rising. “Let’s have a game of billiards…”

  On the Monday after New Year’s Day the party broke up. In the afternoon Dinny lay down on her bed and went to sleep. The grey light failed and darkness filled her room. She dreamed she was on the bank of a river. Wilfrid was holding her hand, pointing to the far side, and saying: “‘One more river, one more river to cross!’” Hand in hand they went down the bank. In the water all became dark! She lost touch of his hand and cried out in terror. Losing her foothold, she drifted, reaching her hands this way and that, and his voice, further and further away, “‘One more river—one more river,’” died to a sigh. She awoke agonised. Through the window opposite was the dark sky, the elm tree brushing at the stars—no sound, no scent, no colour. And she lay quite still, drawing deep breaths to get the better of her anguish. It was long since she had felt Wilfrid so close to her, or been so poignantly bereaved once more.