Flowering Wilderness eotc-2 Read online

  “There’s where we differ. Look!” he said, and it seemed to her that excitement had crept into his voice: “What’s the use of our reasoning powers, our mental faculties? I take each problem as it comes, I do the sum, I return the answer, and so I act. I act according to a reasoned estimate of what is best.”

  “For whom?”

  “For myself and the world at large.”

  “Which first?”

  “It’s the same thing.”

  “Always? I wonder. And, anyway, that means doing so long a sum every time that I can’t think how you ever get to acting. And surely ethical rules are just the result of countless decisions on those same problems made by people in the past, so why not take them for granted?”

  “None of those decisions were made by people of my temperament or in my circumstances.”

  “No, I see that. You follow what they call case law, then. But how English!”

  “Sorry!” said Desert, abruptly: “I’m boring you. Have a sweet?”

  Dinny put her elbows on the table and, leaning her chin on her hands, looked at him earnestly.

  “You weren’t boring me. On the contrary, you’re interesting me frightfully. Only I suppose that women act much more instinctively; I suppose that really means they accept themselves as more like each other than men do, and are more ready to trust their instinctive sense of general experience.”

  “That HAS been women’s way; whether it will be much longer, I don’t know.”

  “I think it will,” said Dinny. “I don’t believe we shall ever much care for sums. I WILL have a sweet, please. Stewed prunes, I think.”

  Desert stared at her, and began to laugh.

  “You’re wonderful. We’ll both have them. Is your family a very formal one?”

  “Not exactly formal, but they do believe in tradition and the past.”

  “And do you?”

  “I don’t know. I definitely like old things, and old places, and old people. I like anything that’s stamped like a coin. I like to feel one has roots. I was always fond of history. All the same one can’t help laughing. There’s something very comic about the way we’re all tied—like a hen by a chalk mark to its beak.”

  Desert stretched out his hand and she put hers into it.

  “Shake hands on that saving grace.”

  “Some day,” said Dinny, “you’re going to tell me something. But at the moment what play are we going to?”

  “Is there anything by a man called Shakespeare?”

  With some difficulty they discovered that a work by the world’s greatest dramatist was being given in a theatre beyond the pale of the river. They went to it, and, when the show was over, Desert said, hesitating: “I wonder if you would come and have tea at my rooms?”

  Dinny smiled and nodded, and from that moment was conscious of a difference in his manner. It was at once more intimate yet more respectful, as if he had said to himself: ‘This is my equal.’

  That hour of tea, brought by Stack, a man with strange, understanding eyes and something monk-like in his look, seemed to her quite perfect. It was like no other hour she had ever spent, and at the end of it she knew she was in love. The tiny seed planted ten years before had flowered. This was such a marvel, so peculiar to one who at twenty-six had begun to think she would never be in love, that every now and then she drew in her breath and looked wonderingly at his face. Why on earth did she feel like this? It was absurd! And it was going to be painful, because he wasn’t going to love her. Why should he? And if he wasn’t, she mustn’t show, and how was she to help showing?

  “When am I going to see you again?” he said, when she stood up to go.

  “Do you want to?”

  “Extraordinarily.”

  “But why?”

  “Why not? You’re the first lady I’ve spoken to for ten years. I’m not at all sure you’re not the first lady I’ve ever spoken to.”

  “If we are going to see each other again, you mustn’t laugh at me.”

  “Laugh at you! One couldn’t. So when?”

  “Well! At present I’m sleeping in a foreign night-gown at Mount Street. By rights I ought to be at Condaford. But my sister’s going to be married in town next week, and my brother’s coming back from Egypt on Monday, so perhaps I’ll send for things and stay up. Where would you like to see me?”

  “Will you come for a drive tomorrow? I haven’t been to Richmond or Hampton Court for years.”

  “I’ve never been.”

  “All right! I’ll pick you up in front of Foch at two o’clock, wet or fine.”

  “I will be pleased to come, young sir.”

  “Splendid!” And, suddenly bending, he raised her hand and put his lips to it.

  “Highly courteous,” said Dinny. “Good-bye!”

  CHAPTER 4

  Preoccupied with this stupendous secret, Dinny’s first instinct was for solitude, but she was booked for dinner with the Adrian Cherrells. On her uncle’s marriage with Diana Ferse the house of painful memories in Oakley Street had been given up, and they were economically installed in one of those spacious Bloomsbury squares now successfully regaining the gentility lost in the eighteen-thirties and forties. The locality had been chosen for its proximity to Adrian’s ‘bones,’ for at his age he regarded as important every minute saved for the society of his wife. The robust virility which Dinny had predicted would accrue to her uncle from a year spent in the presence of Professor Hallorsen and New Mexico was represented by a somewhat deeper shade of brown in his creased cheeks, and a more frequent smile on his long face. It was a lasting pleasure to Dinny to think that she had given him the right advice, and that he had taken it. Diana, too, was fast regaining the sparkle which, before her marriage with poor Ferse, had made her a member of ‘Society.’ But the hopeless nature of Adrian’s occupation and the extra time he needed from her had precluded her from any return to that sacred ring. She inclined more and more, in fact, to be a wife and mother. And this seemed natural to one with Dinny’s partiality for her uncle. On her way there she debated whether or not to say what she had been doing. Having little liking for shifts and subterfuge, she decided to be frank. ‘Besides,’ she thought, ‘a maiden in love always likes to talk about the object of her affections.’ Again, if not to have a confidant became too wearing, Uncle Adrian was the obvious choice; partly because he knew at first hand something of the East, but chiefly because he was Uncle Adrian.

  The first topics at dinner, however, were naturally Clare’s marriage and Hubert’s return. Dinny was somewhat exercised over her sister’s choice. Sir Gerald (Jerry) Corven was forty, active and middle-sized, with a daring face. She recognised that he had great charm, and her fear was, rather, that he had too much. He was high in the Colonial service, one of those men who—people instinctively said—would go far. She wondered also whether Clare was not too like him, daring and brilliant, a bit of a gambler, and, of course, seventeen years younger. Diana, who had known him well, said:

  “The seventeen years’ difference is the best thing about it. Jerry wants steadying. If he can be a father to her as well, it may work. He’s had infinite experiences. I’m glad it’s Ceylon.”

  “Why?”

  “He won’t meet his past.”

  “Has he an awful lot of past?”

  “My dear, he’s very much in love at the moment; but with men like Jerry you never know; all that charm, and so much essential liking for thin ice.”

  “Marriage doth make cowards of us all,” murmured Adrian.

  “It won’t have that effect on Jerry Corven; he takes to risk as a goldfish takes to mosquito larvae. Is Clare very smitten, Dinny?”

  “Yes, but Clare loves thin ice, too.”

  “And yet,” said Adrian, “I shouldn’t call either of them really modern. They’ve both got brains and like using them.”

  “That’s quite true, uncle. Clare gets all she can out of life, but she believes in life terribly. She might become another Hester Stanhope.”
/>   “Good for you, Dinny! But to be that she’d have to get rid of Gerald Corven first. And if I read Clare, I think she might have scruples.”

  Dinny regarded her uncle with wide eyes.

  “Do you say that because you know Clare, or because you’re a Cherrell, Uncle?”

  “I think because SHE’S a Cherrell, my dear.”

  “Scruples,” murmured Dinny. “I don’t believe Aunt Em has them. Yet she’s as much of a Cherrell as any of us.”

  “Em,” said Adrian, “reminds me of nothing so much as a find of bones that won’t join up. You can’t say of what she’s the skeleton. Scruples are emphatically co-ordinate.”

  “No! Adrian,” murmured Diana, “not bones at dinner. When does Hubert arrive? I’m really anxious to see him and young Jean. After eighteen months of bliss in the Soudan which will be top dog?”

  “Jean, surely,” said Adrian.

  Dinny shook her head. “I don’t think so, Uncle.”

  “That’s your sisterly pride.”

  “No. Hubert’s got more continuity. Jean rushes at things and must handle them at once, but Hubert steers the course, I’m pretty sure. Uncle, where is a place called Darfur? And how do you spell it?”

  “With an ‘r’ or without. It’s west of the Soudan; much of it is desert and pretty inaccessible, I believe. Why?”

  “I was lunching today with Mr. Desert, Michael’s best man, you remember, and he mentioned it.”

  “Has he been there?”

  “I think he’s been everywhere in the Near East.”

  “I know his brother,” said Diana, “Charles Desert, one of the most provocative of the younger politicians. He’ll almost certainly be Minister of Education in the next Tory Government. That’ll put the finishing touch to Lord Mullyon’s retirement. I’ve never met Wilfrid. Is he nice?”

  “Well,” said Dinny, with what she believed to be detachment, “I only met him yesterday. He seems rather like a mince pie, you take a spoonful and hope. If you can eat the whole, you have a happy year.”

  “I should like to meet the young man,” said Adrian. “He did good things in the war, and I know his verse.”

  “Really, Uncle? I could arrange it; so far we are in daily communication.”

  “Oh!” said Adrian, and looked at her. “I’d like to discuss the Hittite type with him. I suppose you know that what we are accustomed to regard as the most definitely Jewish characteristics are pure Hittite according to ancient Hittite drawings?”

  “But weren’t they all the same stock, really?”

  “By no means, Dinny. The Israelites were Arabs. What the Hittites were we have yet to discover. The modern Jew in this country and in Germany is probably more Hittite than Semite.”

  “Do you know Mr. Jack Muskham, Uncle?”

  “Only by repute. He’s a cousin of Lawrence’s and an authority on bloodstock. I believe he advocates a reintroduction of Arab blood into our race-horses. There’s something in it if you could get the very best strain. Has young Desert been to Nejd? You can still only get it there, I believe.”

  “I don’t know. Where is Nejd?”

  “Centre of Arabia. But Muskham will never get his idea adopted, there’s no tighter mind than the pukka racing man’s. He’s a pretty pure specimen himself, I believe, except for this bee in his bonnet.”

  “Jack Muskham,” said Diana, “was once romantically in love with one of my sisters; it’s made him a misogynist.”

  “H’m! That’s a bit cryptic!”

  “He’s rather fine-looking, I think,” said Dinny.

  “Wears clothes wonderfully and has a reputation for hating everything modern. I haven’t met him for years, but I used to know him rather well. Why, Dinny?”

  “I just happened to see him the other day, and wondered.”

  “Talking of Hittites,” said Diana, “I’ve often thought those very old Cornish families, like the Deserts, have a streak of Phoenician in them. Look at Lord Mullyon. There’s a queer type!”

  “Fanciful, my love. You’d be more likely to find that streak in the simple folk. The Deserts must have married into non-Cornish stock for hundreds of years. The higher you go in the social scale, the less chance of preserving a primitive strain.”

  “ARE they a very old family?” said Dinny.

  “Hoary and pretty queer. But you know my views about old families, Dinny, so I won’t enlarge.”

  Dinny nodded. She remembered very well that nerve-racked walk along Chelsea Embankment just after Ferse returned. And she looked affectionately into his face. It WAS nice to think that he had come into his own at last…

  When she got back to Mount Street that night her uncle and aunt had gone up, but the butler was seated in the hall. He rose as she entered.

  “I didn’t know you had a key, Miss.”

  “I’m terribly sorry, Blore, you were having such a nice snooze.”

  “I was, Miss Dinny. After a certain age, as you’ll find out, one gets a liking for dropping off at improper moments. Now Sir Lawrence, he’s not a good sleeper, but, give you my word, if I go into his study almost any time when he’s at work, I’ll find him opening his eyes. And my Lady, she can do her eight hours, but I’ve known her to drop off when someone’s talking to her, especially the old Rector at Lippinghall, Mr. Tasburgh—a courtly old gentleman, but he has that effect. Even Mr. Michael—but then he’s in Parliament, and they get the ‘abit. Still, I do think, Miss, whether it was the war, or people not having any hope of anything, and running about so, that there’s a tendency, as the saying is, towards sleep. Well, it does you good. Give you my word, Miss; I was dead to the world before I had that forty winks, and now I could talk to you for hours.”

  “That would be lovely, Blore. Only I find, so far, that I’m sleepiest at bedtime.”

  “Wait till you’re married, Miss. Only I do hope you won’t be doing that yet awhile. I said to Mrs. Blore last night: ‘If Miss Dinny gets taken off, it’ll be the life and soul of the party gone!’ I’ve never seen much of Miss Clare, so that leaves me cold; but I heard my Lady yesterday telling you to go and find out for yourself how it was done, and, as I said to Mrs. Blore, ‘Miss Dinny’s like a daughter of the house, and’—well—you know my sentiments, Miss.”

  “Dear Blore! I’m afraid I must go up now, I’ve had rather a tiring day.”

  “Quite, Miss. Pleasant dreams!”

  “Good-night!”

  Pleasant dreams! Perhaps the dreams might be, but would reality? What uncharted country was she not entering with just a star to guide! And was it a fixed star, or some flaring comet? At least five men had wanted to marry her, all of whom she had felt she could sum up, so that a marriage would have been no great risk. And now she only wanted to marry one, but there he was, an absolutely uncertain quantity except that he could rouse in her a feeling she had never had before. Life was perverse. You dipped your finger in a lucky bag, and brought out—what? To-morrow she would walk with him. They would see trees and grass together; scenery and gardens, pictures, perhaps; the river, and fruit blossom. She would know at least how his spirit and her own agreed about many things she cared for. And yet, if she found they didn’t agree, would it make any difference to her feeling? It would not.

  ‘I understand now,’ she thought, ‘why we call lovers dotty. All I care about is that he should feel what I feel, and be dotty too. And of course he won’t—why should he?’

  CHAPTER 5

  The drive to Richmond Park, over Ham Common and Kingston Bridge to Hampton Court, and back through Twickenham and Kew, was remarkable for alternation between silence and volubility. Dinny was, as it were, the observer, and left to Wilfrid all the piloting. Her feelings made her shy, and it was apparent that he was only able to expand if left to his free will—the last person in the world to be drawn out. They duly lost themselves in the maze at Hampton Court, where, as Dinny said,

  “Only spiders who can spin threads out of themselves, or ghosts who can tails unfold, would have a chance.�
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  On the way back they got out at Kensington Gardens, dismissed the hired car, and walked to the tea kiosk. Over the pale beverage he asked her suddenly whether she would mind reading his new poems in manuscript.

  “Mind? I should love it.”

  “I want a candid opinion.”

  “You will get it,” said Dinny. “When can I have them?”

  “I’ll bring them round to Mount Street and drop them in your letter-box after dinner.”

  “Won’t you come in this time?”

  He shook his head.

  When he left her at Stanhope Gate, he said abruptly:

  “It’s been a simply lovely afternoon. Thank you!”

  “It is for me to thank you.”

  “You! You’ve got more friends than quills upon the fretful porpentine. It’s I who am the pelican.”

  “Adieu, pelican!”

  “Adieu, flowering wilderness!”

  The words seemed musical all the way down Mount Street.

  A fat unstamped envelope was brought in about half-past nine with the last post. Dinny took it from Blore, and slipping it under The Bridge of San Luis Rey, went on listening to her aunt.

  “When I was a girl I squeezed my own waist, Dinny. We suffered for a principle. They say it’s comin’ in again. I shan’t do it, so hot and worryin’; but you’ll have to.”

  “Not I.”

  “When the waist has settled down there’ll be a lot of squeezin’.”

  “The really tight waist will never come in again, Auntie.”

  “And hats. In 1900 we were like eggstands with explodin’ eggs in them. Cauliflowers and hydrangeas, and birds of a feather, enormous. They stuck out. The Parks were comparatively pure. Sea-green suits you, Dinny; you ought to be married in it.”

  “I think I’ll go up, Aunt Em. I’m rather tired.”

  “That’s eatin’ so little.”

  “I eat enormously. Good-night, dear.”

  Without undressing she sat down to the poems, nervously anxious to like them, for she knew that he would see through any falsity. To her relief they had the tone she remembered in his other volumes, but were less bitter and more concerned with beauty. When she had finished the main sheaf, she came on a much longer poem entitled ‘The Leopard,’ wrapped round in a blank sheet of paper. Was it so wrapped to keep her from reading it; why, then, had he enclosed it? She decided that he had been doubtful, and wanted her verdict. Below the title was written the line: