Sir Lawrence wriggled.
‘You’re confusing national with individual reputation. The things are totally distinct. The individual Englishman in the East is looked up to as a man who isn’t to be rattled, who keeps his word, and sticks by his own breed.’
Dinny flushed. The implication was not lost on her.
‘In the East,’ Sir Lawrence went on, the Englishman, or rather the Briton, because as often as not he’s a Scot or a Welshman or a North Irishman, is generally isolated: traveller, archaeologist, soldier, official, civilian, planter, doctor, engineer, or missionary, he’s almost always head man of a small separate show; he maintains himself against odds on the strength of the Englishman’s reputation. If a single Englishman is found wanting, down goes the stock of all those other isolated Englishmen. People know that and recognize its importance. That’s what you’re up against, and it’s no use under-estimating. You can’t expect Orientals, to whom religion means something, to understand that to some of us it means nothing. An Englishman to them is a believing Christian, and if he recants, he’s understood as recanting his most precious belief.’
Dinny said drily: ‘In fact, then, Wilfrid has no case in the eyes of our world.’
‘In the eyes of the world that runs the Empire, I’m afraid – none, Dinny. Could it be otherwise? Unless there were complete mutual confidence between these isolated beings that none of them will submit to dictation, take a dare, or let the others down, the thing wouldn’t work at all. Now would it?’
‘I never thought about it.’
‘Well, you can take it from me. Michael has explained to me how Desert’s mind worked; and from the point of view of a disbeliever like myself, there’s a lot to be said. I should intensely dislike being wiped out over such an issue. But it wasn’t the real issue; and if you say: “He didn’t see that”, then I’m afraid my answer is he didn’t because he has too much spiritual pride. And that won’t help him as a defence, because spiritual pride is anathema to the Services, and indeed to the world generally. It’s the quality, you remember, that got Lucifer into trouble.’
Dinny, who had listened with her eyes fixed on her uncle’s twisting features, said:
‘It’s extraordinary the things one can do without.’
Sir Lawrence screwed in a puzzled eyeglass.
‘Have you caught the jumping habit from your aunt?’
‘If one can’t have the world’s approval, one can do without it.’
‘ “The world well lost for love” sounds gallant, Dinny, but it’s been tried out and found wanting. Sacrifice on one side is the worst foundation for partnership, because the other side comes to resent it.’
‘I don’t expect more happiness than most people get.’
‘That’s not as much as I want for you, Dinny.’
‘Dinner!’ said Lady Mont, in the doorway: ‘Have you a vacuum, Dinny? They use those cleaners,’ she went on, as they went towards the dining-room, ‘for horses now.’
‘Why not for human beings,’ murmured Dinny, ‘and clear out their fears and superstitions? Uncle wouldn’t approve, though.’
‘You’ve been talkin’, then. Blore, go away!’
When he had gone, she added: ‘I’m thinkin’ of your father, Dinny.’
‘So am I.’
‘I used to get over him. But daughters! Still, he must.’
‘Em!’ said Sir Lawrence, warningly, as Blore came back.
‘Well,’ said Lady Mont, ‘beliefs and that – too fatiguin’. I never liked christenin’s – so unfeelin’ to the baby; and puttin’ it upon other people; only they don’t bother, except for cups and Bibles. Why do they put fern-leaves on cups? Or is that archery? Uncle Cuffs won a cup at archery when he was a curate. They used. It’s all very agitatin’.’
‘Aunt Em,’ said Dinny, ‘all I hope and want is that no one will agitate themselves over me and my small affair. If people won’t agitate we can be happy.’
‘So wise! Lawrence, tell Michael that. Blore! Give Miss Dinny some sherry.’
Dinny, putting her lips to the sherry, looked across at her aunt’s face. It was comforting – slightly raised in the eyebrows, drooped in the lids, curved in the nose, and as if powdered in the hair above the comely neck, shoulders and bust.
In the taxi for Paddington she had such a vivid vision of Wilfrid, alone, with this hanging over him, that she very nearly leaned out to say: ‘Cork Street.’ The cab turned a corner. Praed Street? Yes, it would be! All the worry in the world came from the conflict of love against love. If only her people didn’t love her, and she them, how simple things would be!