The Forsyte Saga, Volume 3(190)
‘What’s that?’ said Lady Mont.
Dinny pushed the paper over to her aunt, who read, screwing up her eyes, for she had long sight.
‘Which won, Dinny?’
‘Neither. They just stopped.’
‘Where is Royston?’
‘In Cambridgeshire.’
‘Why?’
Neither Dinny nor Sir Lawrence knew.
‘He didn’t take you on a pillion, Dinny?’
‘No, dear. I just happened to drive up.’
‘Religion is very inflamin’,’ murmured Lady Mont.
‘It is,’ said Dinny bitterly.
‘Did the sight of you stop them?’ said Sir Lawrence.
‘Yes.’
‘I don’t like that. It would have been better if a bobby or a knock-out blow – ’
‘I didn’t want them to see me.’
‘Have you seen him since?’
Dinny shook her head.
‘Men are vain,’ said her aunt.
That closed the conversation.
Stack telephoned after dinner that Wilfrid had returned; but instinct told her to make no attempt to see him.
After a restless night she took the morning train to Condaford. It was Sunday, and they were all at church. She seemed strangely divided from her family. Condaford smelled the same, looked the same, and the same people did the same things; yet all was different! Even the Scottish terrier and the spaniels sniffed her with doubting nostrils, as if uncertain whether she belonged to them any more.
‘And do I?’ she thought. ‘The scent is not there when the heart is away!’
Jean was the first to appear, Lady Cherrell having stayed to Communion , the General to count the offertory and Hubert to inspect the village cricket pitch. She found Dinny sitting by an old sundial in front of a bed of delphiniums. Having kissed her sister-in-law, she stood and looked at her for quite a minute, before saying: ‘Take a pull, my dear, or you’ll be going into a decline, whatever that is.’
‘I only want my lunch,’ said Dinny.
‘Same here. I thought my dad’s sermons were a trial even after I’d censored them; but your man here!’
‘Yes, one can “put him down”.’
Again Jean paused, and her eyes searched Dinny’s face.
‘Dinny, I’m all for you. Get married at once, and go off with him.’
Dinny smiled.
‘There are two parties to every marriage.’
‘Is that paragraph in this morning’s paper correct, about a fight at Royston?’
‘Probably not.’
‘I mean was there one?’
‘Yes.’
‘Who began it?’
‘I did. There’s no other woman in the case.’
‘Dinny, you’re very changed.’
‘No longer sweet and disinterested.’
‘Very well!’ said Jean. ‘If you want to play the love-lorn female, play it!’
Dinny caught her skirt. Jean knelt down and put her arms round her.
‘You were a brick to me when I was up against it.’
Dinny laughed.
‘What are my father and Hubert saying now?’
‘Your father says nothing and looks glum. Hubert either says: “Something must be done”, or “It’s the limit”.’
‘Not that it matters,’ said Dinny suddenly; ‘I’m past all that.’
‘You mean you’re not sure what he’ll do? But, of course, he must do what you want.’
Again Dinny laughed.
‘You’re afraid,’ said Jean, with startling comprehension, ‘that he might run off and leave you?’ And she subsided on to her hams the better to look up into Dinny’s face. ‘Of course he might. You know I went to see him?’
‘Oh?’
‘Yes; he got over me. I couldn’t say a word. Great charm, Dinny.’
‘Did Hubert send you?’
‘No. On my own. I was going to let him know what would be thought of him if he married you, but I couldn’t. I should have imagined he’d have told you about it. But I suppose he knew it would worry you.’
‘I don’t know,’ said Dinny; and did not. It seemed to her at that moment that she knew very little.
Jean sat silently pulling an early dandelion to pieces.
‘If I were you,’ she said at last, ‘I’d vamp him. If you’d once belonged to him, he couldn’t leave you.’
Dinny got up. ‘Let’s go round the gardens and see what’s out.’
Chapter Twenty-six
SINCE Dinny said no further word on the subject occupying every mind, no word was said by anyone; and for this she was truly thankful. She spent the next three days trying to hide the fact that she was very unhappy. No letter had come from Wilfrid, no message from Stack; surely, if anything had happened, he would have let her know. On the fourth day, feeling that she could bear the suspense no longer, she telephoned to Fleur and asked if she might come up to them.