‘It’s a poem, Jon.’
‘Slightly comic. When everything’s slightly comic, you don’t tire.’
‘I’d certainly never tire of this.’
‘We don’t grow tragedy in England, Anne.’
‘Why?’
‘Well, tragedy’s extreme; and we don’t like extremes. Tragedy’s dry and England’s damp.’
She was leaning her elbows on the wall at the bottom of the garden, and, turning her chin a little in her hand, she looked round and up at him.
‘Fleur Mont’s father lives on the river, doesn’t he? Is that far from here?’
‘Mapledurham? I should think about ten miles.’
‘I wonder if we shall see her at Ascot. I think she’s lovely.’
‘Yes,’ said Jon.
‘I wonder you didn’t fall in love with her, Jon.’
‘We were kids when I knew her.’
‘I think she fell in love with you.’
‘Why?’
‘By the way she looks at you…. She isn’t in love with Mr Mont; she just likes him.’
‘Oh!’ said Jon.
Since in the coppice at Robin Hill Fleur had said ‘Jon!’ in so strange a voice, he had known queer moments. There was that in him which could have caught her, balanced there on the log with her hands on his shoulders, and gone straight back into the past with her. There was that in him which abhorred the notion. There was that in him which sat apart and made a song about them both, and that in him which said: ‘Get to work and drop all these silly feelings!’ He was, in fact, confused. The past, it seemed, did not die, as he had thought, but lived on beside the present, and sometimes, perhaps, became the future. Did one live for what one had not got? There was wrinkling in his soul, and feverish draughts crept about within him. The whole thing was on his conscience – for if Jon had anything, he had a conscience.
‘When we get our place,’ he said, ‘we’ll have all these old-fashioned flowers. They’re much the sweetest!’
‘Ah! Yes, do let’s get a home, Jon. Only are you sure you want one? Wouldn’t you like to travel and write poetry?’
‘It’s not a job. Besides, my verse isn’t good enough. You want the mood of Hatteras J. Hopkins:
Now, severed from my kind by my contempt,
I live apart and beat my lonely drum.’
‘I wish you weren’t modest, Jon.’
‘It’s not modesty, Anne; it’s a sense of the comic.’
‘Couldn’t we get a swim before dinner? It would be fine.’
‘I don’t know what the regulations are here.’
‘Let’s bathe first and find out afterwards.’
‘All right. You go and change. I’ll get this gate open.’
A fish splashed, a long white cloud brushed the poplar tops beyond the water. Just such an evening, six years ago, he had walked the towing-path with Fleur, had separated from her, waited to see her look back and wave her hand. He could see her still – that special grace, which gave her movements a lingering solidity within the memory. And now – it was Anne! And Anne in water was a dream!…
Above the ‘Pouter Pigeon’ the sky was darkening; cars in their garages were still; no boats passed, only the water moved, and the river wind talked vaguely in the rushes and among the leaves. All within was cosy. On their backs lay Warmson and his Fifine, singing a little through their noses. By a bedside light Holly read The Worst Journey in the World, and beside her Val dreamed that he was trying to stroke a horse’s nose, shortening under his hand to the size of a leopard’s. And Anne slept with her eyes hidden against Jon’s shoulder, and Jon lay staring at the crannies through which the moonlight eddied.
And in his stable at Ascot the son of Sleeping Dove, from home for the first time, pondered on the mutability of equine affairs, closing and opening his eyes and breathing without sound in the strawy dark above the black cat he had brought to bear him company.
Chapter Two
SOAMES GOES RACING
To Winifred Dartie the début of her son’s Sleeping Dove colt on Ascot Cup Day seemed an occasion for the gathering of such members of her family as were permitted to go racing by the primary cauton in their blood; but it was almost a shock to her when Fleur telephoned: ‘Father’s coming; he’s never been to Ascot, and doesn’t know that he wants to go.’
‘Oh!’ she said, ‘it’s too late to get any more Enclosure tickets. But Jack can see to him. What about Michael?’
‘Michael can’t come; he’s deep in slums – got a new slogan: “Broader gutters!”’
‘He’s so good,’ said Winifred. ‘Let’s go down early enough to lunch before racing, dear. I think we’d better drive.’