The Forsyte Saga, Volume 3(161)

‘Can I telephone, Blore?’

‘Certainly, miss.’

She gave Wilfrid’s number…

‘Is that Stack? Miss Cherrell speaking…. Would you do me a little favour? My father is going to see Mr Desert today, General Sir Conway Cherrell; I don’t know at what time, but I want to come myself while he’s there…. Could you ring me up here as soon as he arrives? I’ll wait in…. Thank you so very much…. Is Mr Desert well?… Don’t tell him or my father, please, that I’m coming. Thank you ever so!’

‘Now,’ she thought, ‘unless I’ve misread Dad! There’s a picture gallery opposite, I shall be able to see him leave from the window of it.’

No call came before lunch, which she had with her aunt.

‘Your uncle has seen Jack Muskham,’ said Lady Mont, in the middle of lunch; ‘Royston, you know; and he brought back the other one, just like a monkey – they won’t say anything. But Michael says he mustn’t, Dinny.’

‘Mustn’t what, Aunt Em?’

‘Publish that poem.’

‘Oh! but he will.’

‘Why? Is it good?’

‘The best he has ever written.’

‘So unnecessary.’

‘Wilfrid isn’t ashamed, Aunt Em.’

‘Such a bore for you, I do think. I suppose one of those companionable marriages wouldn’t do, would it?’

‘I’ve offered it, dear.’

‘I’m surprised at you, Dinny.’

‘He didn’t accept it.’

‘Thank God! I should hate you to get into the papers.’

‘Not more than I should myself, Auntie.’

‘Fleur got into the papers, libellin’.’

‘I remember.’

‘What’s that thing that comes back and hits you by mistake?’

‘A boomerang?’

‘I knew it was Australian. Why do they have an accent like that?’

‘Really I don’t know, darling.’

‘And marsupials? Blore, Miss Dinny’s glass.’

‘No more, thank you, Aunt Em. And may I get down?’

‘Let’s both get down’; and, getting up, Lady Mont regarded her niece with her head on one side. ‘Deep breathin’ and carrots to cool the blood. Why Gulf Stream, Dinny? What gulf is that?’

‘Mexico, dear.’

‘The eels come from there, I was readin’. Are you goin’ out?’

‘I’m waiting for a ’phone call.’

‘When they say tr-r-roubled, it hurts my teeth. Nice girls, I’m sure. Coffee?’

‘Yes, please!’

‘It does. One comes together like a puddin’ after it.’

Dinny thought: ‘Aunt Em always sees more than one thinks.’

‘Bein’ in love,’ continued Lady Mont, ‘is worse in the country – there’s the cuckoo. They don’t have it in America, somebody said. Perhaps they don’t fall in love there. Your Uncle’ll know. He came back with a story about a poppa at Nooport. But that was years and years ago. I feel other people’s insides,’ continued her aunt, uncannily. ‘Where’s your father gone?’

‘To his Club.’

‘Did you tell him, Dinny?’

‘Yes.’

‘You’re his favourite.’

‘Oh, no! Clare is.’

‘Fiddle!’

‘Did the course of your love run smooth, Aunt Em?’

‘I had a good figure,’ replied her aunt; ‘too much, perhaps; we had then. Lawrence was my first.’

‘Really?’

‘Except for choir-boys and our groom, and a soldier or two. There was a little captain with a black moustache. Inconsiderate, when one’s fourteen.’

‘I suppose your “wooing” was very decorous?’

‘No; your uncle was passionate. ’Ninety-one. There’d been no rain for thirty years.’

‘No such rain?’

‘No! No rain at all – I forget where. There’s the telephone!’

Dinny reached the ’phone just in front of the butler.

‘It’ll be for me, Blore, thank you.’

She took up the receiver with a shaking hand.

‘Yes?… I see… thank you, Stack… thank you very much…. Will you get me a taxi, Blore?’

She directed the taxi to the gallery opposite Wilfrid’s rooms, bought a catalogue, and went upstairs to the window. Here, under pretext of minutely examining Number 35, called ‘Rhythm’, a misnomer so far as she could see, she kept watch on the door opposite. Her father could not already have left Wilfrid, for it was only seven minutes since the telephone call. Very soon, however, she saw him issuing from the door, and watched him down the street. His head was bent, and he shook it once or twice; she could not see his face, but she could picture its expression.