The driver stopped to examine a back tyre. From the hedge a drift of elder-flower scent made her close her eyes. Those flat white scented blossoms! The driver remounted and started the car with a jerk. Was life always going to jerk her away from love? Was she never to rest drugged and happy in its arms?
‘Morbid!’ she thought. ‘I ought to be keying my pitch to the Jockey Club.’
Royston began, and she said: ‘Stop at the post-office, please.’
‘Right, lady!’
There was no telegram for her, and she asked for Muskham’s house. The post-mistress looked at the clock.
‘Nearly opposite, miss; but if you want Mr Muskham, I saw him pass riding just now. He’ll be going to his stud farm – that’ll be through the town and off to the right.’
Dinny resumed her seat, and they drove slowly on.
Afterwards she did not know whether her instinct or the driver’s stopped the car. For when he turned round and said: ‘Appears like a bit of a mix-up, miss,’ she was already standing, to see over the heads of that ring of people in the road. She saw only too well the stained, blood-streaked faces, the rain of blows, the breathless, swaying struggle. She had opened the door, but with the sudden thought: ‘He’d never forgive me!’ banged it to again, and stood, with one hand shading her eyes, the other covering her lips, conscious that the driver, too, was standing.
‘Something like a scrap!’ she heard him say admiringly.
How strange and wild Wilfrid looked! But with only fists they could not kill each other! And mixed with her alarm was a sort of exultation. He had come down to seek battle! Yet every blow seemed falling on her flesh, each clutch and struggling movement seemed her own.
‘Not a blasted bobby!’ said her driver, carried away. ‘Go it! I back the young ’un.’
Dinny saw them fall apart, then Wilfrid rushing with outstretched hands; she heard the thump of Muskham’s fist on his chest, saw them clinch, stagger, and fall; then rise and stand gasping, glaring. She saw Muskham catch sight of her, then Wilfrid; saw them turn away; and all was over. The driver said: ‘Now, that’s a pity!’ Dinny sank down on the car seat, and said quietly:
‘Drive on, please.’
Away! Just away! Enough that they had seen her – more than enough, perhaps!
‘Drive on a little, then turn and go back to Town.’ They wouldn’t begin again!
‘Neither of ’em much good with is ’ands, miss, but a proper spirit.’
Dinny nodded. Her hand was still over her mouth, for her lips were trembling. The driver looked at her.
‘You’re a bit pale, miss – too much blood! Why not stop somewhere and ’ave a drop o’ brandy?’
‘Not here,’ said Dinny, ‘the next village.’
‘Baldock. Right-o!’ And he put the car to speed.
The crowd had disappeared as they repassed the hotel. Two dogs, a man cleaning windows, and a policeman were the only signs of life.
At Baldock she had some breakfast. Conscious that she ought to feel relieved, now that the explosion had occurred, she was surprised by the foreboding which oppressed her. Would he not resent her having come as if to shield him? Her accidental presence had stopped the fight, and she had seen them disfigured, blood-stained, devoid of their dignities. She decided to tell no one where she had been, or what she had seen – not even Stack or her uncle.
Such precautions are of small avail in a country so civilized. An able, if not too accurate, description of the ‘Encounter at Royston between that well-known breeder of bloodstock, Mr John Muskham – cousin to Sir Charles Muskham, Bart – and the Hon Wilfrid Desert, second son of Lord Mullyon, author of “The Leopard”, which has recently caused such a sensation,’ appeared in that day’s last edition of the Evening Sun, under the heading, ‘Fisticuffs in High Quarters’. It was written with spirit and imagination, and ended thus: ‘It is believed that the origin of the quarrel may be sought in the action which it is whispered was taken by Mr Muskham over Mr Desert’s membership of a certain Club. It seems that Mr Muskham took exception to Mr Desert continuing a member after his public acknowledgment that “The Leopard” was founded on his own experience. The affair, no doubt, was very high-spirited, if not likely to improve the plain man’s conception of a dignified aristocracy.’
This was laid before Dinny at dinner-time by her uncle without comment. It caused her to sit rigid, till his voice said: ‘Were you there, Dinny?’
‘Uncanny, as usual,’ she thought; but, though by now habituated to the manipulation of truth, she was not yet capable of the lie direct, and she nodded.