The Forsyte Saga, Volume 3(130)

‘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.’