Someone trod on her toe. She opened her eyes, and said: ‘I beg your pardon.’
‘Granted, I’m sure.’
Very polite! People were more polite every year!
The bus had stopped. Dinny hurried from it. She went down Conduit Street, passing her father’s tailors. Poor darling, he never went there now. Clothes were so dear; and, of course, he loathed new clothes! She came to Bond Street.
The traffic staggered to a standstill, the whole street seemed one long line of held-up cars. And England ruined! She crossed into Bruton Street. And then, in front of her, she saw a familiar figure, walking slowly with his head down! She came up with him.
‘Stack!’
He raised his head; tears were trickling down his cheeks. He blinked his large dark prominent eyes, and passed his hand over his face.
‘You miss? I was just coming to you.’ And he held out a telegram.
Holding it up in the dim light, she read:
Henry Stack, 50a Cork Street, London. Very sorry to inform you Honourable Wilfrid Desert drowned on expedition up-country some weeks ago. Body recovered and buried on spot. Report only just come in. No possible doubt. Condolences. British Consulate, Bangkok.
Stonily she stood, seeing nothing. Stack’s fingers came up and detached the telegram.
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Thank you. Show it to Mr Mont, Stack. Don’t grieve.’
‘Oh, miss!’
Dinny laid her fingers on his sleeve, gave it a little pull, and walked swiftly on.
Don’t grieve! Sleet was falling now. She raised her face to feel the tingling touch of those small flakes. No more dead to her than he had already been. But – dead! Away over there – utterly far! Lying in the earth by the river that had drowned him, in forest silence, where no one would ever see his grave. Every memory she had of him came to life with an intensity that seemed to take all strength from her limbs, so that she nearly collapsed in the snowy street. She stood for a minute with her gloved hand on the railing of a house. An evening postman stopped and looked round at her. Perhaps some tiny flame of hope – that some day he would come back – had flickered deep down within her; perhaps only the snowy cold was creeping into her bones; but she felt deadly cold and numb.
She reached Mount Street at last and let herself in. And there a sudden horror of betraying that anything had happened to awaken pity for her, interest in her, any sort of feeling, beset her, and she fled to her room. What was it to anyone but her? And pride so moved within her that even her heart felt cold as stone.
A hot bath revived her a little. She dressed for dinner early and went down.
The evening was one of silences more tolerable than the spasmodic spurts of conversation. Dinny felt ill. When she went up to bed her Aunt came to her room.
‘Dinny, you look like a ghost.’
‘I got chilled, Auntie.’
‘Lawyers! – they do. I’ve brought you a posset.’
‘Ah! I’ve always longed to know what a posset is.’
‘Well, drink it.’
Dinny drank, and gasped.
‘Frightfully strong.’
‘Yes. Your Uncle made it. Michael rang up.’ And taking the glass, Lady Mont bent forward and kissed her cheek. ‘That’s all,’ she said. ‘Now go to bed, or you’ll be ill.’
Dinny smiled. ‘I’m not going to be ill, Aunt Em.’
In pursuance of that resolve she went down to breakfast next morning.
The oracle, it seemed, had spoken in a typewritten letter signed Kingson, Cuthcott and Forsyte. It recommended putting in a defence, and had so advised Lady Corven and Mr Croom. When it had taken the necessary proceedings it would advise further.
And that coldness in the pit of the stomach which follows the receipt of lawyers’ letters was felt even by Dinny, the pit of whose stomach was already deadly cold.
She went back to Condaford with her father by the morning train, repeating to her Aunt the formula: ‘I’m not going to be ill.’
Chapter Twenty-four
BUT she was ill, and for a month in her conventual room at Condaford often wished she were dead and done with. She might, indeed, quite easily have died if such belief as she had in a future life had grown instead of declining as her strength ebbed. To rejoin Wilfrid, where this world’s pain and judgements were not, had fatal attraction. To fade out into the sleep of nothingness was not hard, but had no active enticement; and, as the tide of health turned back within her, seemed less and less natural. The solicitude of people had a subtle, pervasive healing influence. The village required a daily bulletin, her mother had been writing or ’phoning almost daily to a dozen people. Clare had been down every week-end, bringing flowers from Dornford. Aunt Em had been sending twice a week the products of Boswell and Johnson; Fleur bombarding her with the products of Piccadilly. Adrian had come down three times without warning. Hilary began sending funny little notes the moment she had turned the corner.