‘Ah! I knew him at Eton, I’ll come with you.’
She heard her Aunt Wilmet’s gruff: ‘I’ll go to Hen again about Royalty.’ And Michael’s:
‘In a fortnight the House will be sitting’; and Fleur’s impatient:
‘No good, Michael. The Press is no use either. I’ve got a hunch.’
‘Ah!’ she thought, and moved closer.
‘We haven’t gone deep enough. What’s at the back of it? Why should the Bolivian Government care about a half-caste Indian? It’s not the actual shooting, it’s the slur on their country. Floggings and shootings by foreigners! What’s wanted is something done to the Bolivian Minister that will make him tell “Walter” that they don’t really care.’
‘We can’t kidnap him,’ muttered Michael; ‘it’s not done in the best circles.’
A faint smile came on Dinny’s lips; she was not so sure.
‘I’ll see,’ said Fleur, as if to herself. ‘Dinny, you must come to us. They’ll get no further here.’ And her eyes roved swiftly over the nine elders. ‘I shall go to Uncle Lionel and Alison. He won’t dare move, being a new judge, but she will, and she knows all the Legation people. Will you come, Dinny?’
‘I ought to be with mother and father.’
‘They’ll be here, Em’s just asked them. Well, if you stay here too, come round as much as you can; you might help.’
Dinny nodded, relieved at staying in town; for the thought of Condaford during this suspense oppressed her.
‘We’ll go now,’ said Fleur, ‘and I’ll get on to Alison at once.’
Michael lingered to squeeze Dinny’s arm.
‘Buck up, Dinny! We’ll get him out of it somehow. If only it wasn’t “Walter!” He’s the worst kind of egg. To fancy yourself “just” is simply to addle.’
When all except her own people had gone, Dinny went up to her father. He was still standing before a picture, but not the same one. Slipping her hand under his arm, she said:
‘It’s going to be all right, Dad dear. You could see the magistrate was really sorry. He hadn’t the power, but the Home Secretary must have.’
‘I was thinking,’ said the General, ‘what the people of this country would do if we didn’t sweat and risk our lives for them.’ He spoke without bitterness, or even emphasis: ‘I was thinking why we should go on doing our jobs, if our words aren’t to be believed. I was wondering where that magistrate would be – oh! I dare say he’s all right according to his lights – if boys like Hubert hadn’t gone off before their time. I was wondering why we’ve chosen lives that have landed me on the verge of bankruptcy, and Hubert in this mess, when we might have been snug and comfortable in the City or the Law. Isn’t a man’s whole career to weigh a snap when a thing like this happens? I feel the insult to the Service, Dinny.’
She watched the convulsive movement of his thin brown hands, clasped as if he were standing at ease, and her whole heart went out to him, though she could perfectly well see the unreason of the exemption he was claiming. ‘It is easier for Heaven and Earth to pass than for one tittle of the Law to fail.’ Wasn’t that the text she had just read in what she had suggested might be made into a secret naval code?
‘Well,’ he said, ‘I must go out now with Lawrence. See to your mother, Dinny, her head’s bad.’
When she had darkened her mother’s bedroom, applied the usual remedies, and left her to try and sleep, she went downstairs again. Clare had gone out, and the drawing-room, just now so full, seemed deserted. She passed down its length and opened the piano. A voice said:
‘No, Polly, you must go to bed, I feel too sad’; and she became aware of her Aunt in the alcove at the end placing her parakeet in its cage.
‘Can we be sad together, Aunt Em?’
Lady Mont turned round.
‘Put your cheek against mine, Dinny.’
Dinny did so. The cheek was pink and round and smooth and gave her a sense of relaxation.
‘From the first I knew what he would say,’ said Lady Mont, ‘his nose was so long. In ten years’ time it’ll touch his chin. Why they allow them, I don’t know. You can do nothing with a man like that. Let’s cry, Dinny. You sit there, and I’ll sit here.’
‘Do you cry high or low, Aunt Em?’
‘Either. You begin. A man who can’t take a responsibility. I could have taken that responsibility perfectly, Dinny. Why didn’t he just say to Hubert “Go and sin no more”?’
‘But Hubert hasn’t sinned.’