The Forsyte Saga, Volume 3(218)

‘They talk of “completing their work”; but at present they don’t tell us how.’

‘I suppose they’ll quarrel among themselves the moment a constructive scheme is put up to them. It’s all beyond me. But I can go round saying “Vote for Dornford.” How’s Aunt Em?’

‘She’s coming to stay tomorrow. She suddenly wrote that she hadn’t seen the baby; says she’s feeling romantic – wants to have the priest’s room, and will I see that “no one bothers to do her up behind, and that.” She’s exactly the same.’

‘I often thought about her,’ said Clare. ‘Extraordinarily restful.’

After that there was a long silence, Dinny thinking about Clare and Clare thinking about herself. Presently, she grew tired of that and looked across at her sister. Had Dinny really got over that affair of hers with Wilfrid Desert of which Hubert had written with such concern when it was on, and such relief when it was off? She had asked that her affair should never be spoken of, Hubert had said, but that was over a year ago. Could one venture, or would she curl up like a hedgehog? ‘Poor Dinny!’ she thought: ‘I’m twenty-four, so she’s twenty-seven!’ And she sat very still looking at her sister’s profile. It was charming, the more so for that slight tip-tilt of the nose which gave to the face a touch of adventurousness. Her eyes were as pretty as ever – that cornflower blue wore well; and their fringing was unexpectedly dark with such chestnut hair. Still, the face was thinner, and had lost what Uncle Lawrence used to call its ‘bubble and squeak.’ ‘I should fall in love with her if I were a man,’ thought Clare, ‘she’s good. But it’s rather a sad face, now, except when she’s talking.’ And Clare drooped her lids, spying through her lashes: No! one could not ask! The face she spied on had a sort of hard-won privacy that it would be unpardonable to disturb.

‘Darling,’ said Dinny, ‘would you like your old room? I’m afraid the fantails have multiplied exceedingly – they coo a lot just under it.’

‘I shan’t mind that.’

‘And what do you do about breakfast? Will you have it in your room?’

‘My dear, don’t bother about me in any way. If anybody does, I shall feel dreadful. England again on a day like this! Grass is really lovely stuff, and the elm trees, and that blue look!’

‘Just one thing, Clare. Would you like me to tell Dad and Mother, or would you rather I said nothing?’

Clare’s lips tightened.

‘I suppose they’ll have to know that I’m not going back.’

‘Yes; and something of the reason.’

‘Just general impossibility, then.’

Dinny nodded. ‘I don’t want them to think you in the wrong. We’ll let other people think that you’re home for your health.’

‘Aunt Em?’ said Clare.

‘I’ll see to her. She’ll be absorbed in the baby, anyway. Here we are, very nearly.’

Condaford Church came into view, and the little group of houses, mostly thatched, which formed the nucleus of that scattered parish. The home-farm buildings could be seen, but not the Grange, for, situated on the lowly level dear to ancestors, it was wrapped from the sight in trees.

Clare, flattening her nose against the window, said:

‘It gives you a thrill. Are you as fond of home as ever, Dinny?’

‘Fonder.’

‘It’s funny. I love it, but I can’t live in it.’

‘Very English – hence America and the Dominions. Take your dressing-case, and I’ll take the suitcase.’

The drive up through the lanes, where the elms were flecked by little golden patches of turned leaves, was short and sweet in the lowered sunlight, and ended with the usual rush of dogs from the dark hall.

‘This one’s new,’ said Clare, of the black spaniel sniffing at her stockings.

‘Yes, Foch. Scaramouch and he have signed the Kellogg Pact, so they don’t observe it. I’m a sort of Manchuria.’ And Dinny threw open the drawing-room door.

‘Here she is, Mother.’

Advancing towards her mother, who stood smiling, pale and tremulous, Clare felt choky for the first time. To have to come back like this and disturb their peace!

‘Well, Mother darling,’ she said, ‘here’s your bad penny! You look just the same, bless you!’

Emerging from that warm embrace, Lady Cherrell looked at her daughter shyly and said:

‘Dad’s in his study.’

‘I’ll fetch him,’ said Dinny.

In that barren abode, which still had its military and austere air, the General was fidgeting with a gadget he had designed to save time in the putting on of riding boots and breeches.