Francis Wilmot believed that they were going in for Holsteins now.
‘Holsteins!’ repeated Soames. ‘They’re new since my young days. What’s their colour?’
‘Parti-coloured,’ said Francis Wilmot. ‘The English grass is just wonderful.’
‘Too damp, with us,’ said Soames. ‘We’re on the river.’
‘The river Thames? What size will that be, where it hasn’t a tide?’
‘Just there – not more than a hundred yards.’
‘Will it have fish?’
‘Plenty.’
‘And it’ll run clear – not red; our Southern rivers have a red colour. And your trees will be willows, and poplars, and elms.’
Soames was a good deal puzzled. He had never been in America. The inhabitants were human, of course, but peculiar and all alike, with more face than feature, heads fastened upright on their backs, and shoulders too square to be real. Their voices clanged in their mouths; they pronounced the words ‘very’ and ‘America’ in a way that he tried to imitate without success; their dollar was too high, and they all had motor-cars; they despised Europe, came over in great quantities, and took back all they could; they talked all the time, and were not allowed to drink. This young man cut across all these preconceptions. He drank sherry and only spoke when he was spoken to. His shoulders looked natural; he had more feature than face; and his voice was soft. Perhaps, at least, he despised Europe.
‘I suppose,’ he said, ‘you find England very small.’
‘No, sir. I find London very large; and you certainly have the loveliest kind of a countryside.’
Soames looked down one side of his nose. ‘Pretty enough !’ he said.
Then came turbot and a silence, broken, low down, behind his chair.
‘That dog!’ said Soames, impaling a morsel of fish he had set aside as uneatable.
‘No, no, Dad! He just wants to know you’ve seen him!’
Soames stretched down a finger, and the Dandie fell on his side.
‘He never eats,’ said Fleur; ‘but he has to be noticed.’
A small covey of partridges came in, cooked.
‘Is there any particular thing you want to see over here, Mr Wilmot?’ said Michael. ‘There’s nothing very un-American left. You’re just too late for Regent Street.’
‘I want to see the Beefeaters; and Cruft’s Dog Show; and your blood horses; and the Derby.’
‘Darby!’ Soames corrected. ‘You can’t stay for that – it’s not till next June.’
‘My cousin Val will show you race-horses,’ said Fleur. ‘He married Jon’s sister, you know.’
A ‘bombe’ appeared. ‘You have more of this in America, I believe,’ said Soames.
‘We don’t have much ice-cream in the South, sir, but we have special cooking – very tasty.’
‘I’ve heard of terrapin.’
‘Well, I don’t get frills like that. I live away back, and have to work pretty hard. My place is kind of homey; but I’ve got some mighty nice darkies that can cook fine – old folk that knew my grannies. The old-time darky is getting scarce, but he’s the real thing.’
A Southerner!
Soames had been told that the Southerner was a gentleman. He remembered the ‘Alabama’, too; and his father, James, saying: ‘I told you so’ when the Government ate humble pie over that business.
In the savoury silence that accompanied soft roes on toast, the patter of the Dandie’s feet on the parquet floor could be plainly heard.
‘This is the only thing he likes,’ said Fleur. ‘Dan! go to your master. Give him a little bit, Michael.’ And she stole a look at Michael, but he did not answer it.
On their Italian holiday, with Fleur in the throes of novelty, sun and wine warmed, disposed to junketing, amenable to his caresses, he had been having his real honeymoon, enjoying, for the first time since his marriage, a sense of being the chosen companion of his adored. And now had come this stranger, bringing reminder that one played but second fiddle to that young second cousin and first lover; and he couldn’t help feeling the cup withdrawn again from his lips. She had invited this young man because he came from that past of hers whose tune one could not play. And, without looking up, he fed the Dandie with tid-bits of his favourite edible.
Soames broke the silence.
‘Take some nutmeg, Mr Wilmot. Melon without nutmeg –’
When Fleur rose, Soames followed her to the drawing-room; while Michael led the young American to his study.
‘You knew Jon?’ said Francis Wilmot.
‘No; I never met him.’
‘He’s a great little fellow; and some poet. He’s growing dandy peaches.’