Chapter Thirteen
ONE who gazes at the Temple’s smooth green turt, fine trees, stone-silled buildings, and pouter pigeons, feels dithyrambic, till on him intrudes the vision of countless bundles of papers tied round with pink tape, unending clerks in little outer chambers sucking thumbs and waiting for solicitors, calf-bound tomes stored with reports of innumerable cases so closely argued that the light-minded sigh at sight of them and think of the Café Royal. Who shall deny that the Temple harbours the human mind in excelsis, the human body in chairs; who shall gainsay that the human spirit is taken off at its entrances and left outside like the shoes of those who enter a mosque? Not even to its Grand Nights is the human spirit admitted, for the legal mind must not ‘slop over,’ and warning is given by the word ‘Decorations’ on the invitation cards. On those few autumn mornings when the sun shines, the inhabitant of the Temple who faces East may possibly feel in his midriff as a man feels on a hilltop, or after hearing a Brahms symphony, or even when seeing first daffodils in spring; if so, he will hastily remember where he is, and turn to: Collister v. Daverday: Popdick intervening.
And yet, strangely, Eustace Dornford, verging on middle age, was continually being visited, whether the sun shone or not, by the feeling of one who sits on a low wall in the first spring warmth, seeing life as a Botticellian figure advancing towards him through an orchard of orange trees and spring flowers. At less expenditure of words, he was ‘in love’ with Dinny. Each morning when he saw Clare he was visited by a longing not to dictate on parliamentary subjects, but rather to lead her to talk about her sister. Self-controlled, however, and with a sense of humour, he bowed to his professional inhibitions, merely asking Clare whether she and her sister would dine with him, ‘on Saturday – here, or at the Café Royal?’
‘Here would be more original.’
‘Would you care to ask a man to make a fourth?’
‘But won’t you, Mr Dornford?’
‘You might like someone special.’
‘Well, there’s young Tony Croom, who was on the boat with me. He’s a nice boy.’
‘Good! Saturday, then. And you’ll ask your sister?’
Clare did not say: ‘She’s probably on the doorstep,’ for, as a fact, she was. Every evening that week she was coming at half-past six to accompany Clare back to Melton Mews. There were still chances, and the sisters were not taking them.
On hearing of the invitation Dinny said: ‘When I left you late that night I ran into Tony Croom, and we walked back to Mount Street together.’
‘You didn’t tell him about Jerry’s visit to me?’
‘Of course not!’
‘It’s hard on him, as it is. He really is a nice boy, Dinny.’
‘So I saw. And I wish he weren’t in London.’
Clare smiled. ‘Well, he won’t be for long; he’s to take charge of some Arab mares for Mr Muskham down at Bablock Hythe.’
‘Jack Muskham lives at Royston.’
‘The mares are to have a separate establishment in a milder climate.’
Dinny roused herself from memories with an effort.
‘Well, darling, shall we strap-hang on the Tube, or go a bust in a taxi?’
‘I want air. Are you up to walking?’
‘Rather! We’ll go by the Embankment and the Parks.’
They walked quickly, for it was cold. Lamplit and star-covered, that broad free segment of the Town had a memorable dark beauty; even on the buildings, their daylight features abolished, was stamped a certain grandeur.
Dinny murmured: ‘London at night is beautiful.’
‘Yes, you go to bed with a beauty and wake up with a barmaid. And, what’s it all for? A clotted mass of energy like an ant-heap.’
‘ “So fatiguin’,” as Aunt Em would say.’
‘But what is it all for, Dinny?’
‘A workshop trying to turn out perfect specimens; a million failures to each success.’
‘Is that worth while?’
‘Why not?’
‘Well, what is there to believe in?’
‘Character.’
‘How do you mean?’
‘Character’s our way of showing the desire for perfection. Nursing the best that’s in one.’
‘Hum!’ said Clare. ‘Who’s to decide what’s best within one?’
‘You have me, my dear.’
‘Well, I’m too young for it, anyway.’
Dinny hooked her arm within her sister’s.
‘You’re older than I am, Clare.’
‘No, I’ve had more experience perhaps, but I haven’t communed with my own spirit and been still. I feel in my bones that Jerry’s hanging round the Mews.’