After that there was silence. Jack Muskham went back to the window. He sat on the sill and said:
‘Well, I don’t know what I can do?’
‘You needn’t take his job from him – that’s all.’
‘The man was in Ceylon and his wife here. It’s not –’
Dinny rose, took two steps towards him and stood very still.
‘Has it ever struck you, Mr Muskham, that you owe me anything? Do you remember that you took my lover from me? Do you know that he is dead out there, where he went because of you?’
‘Of me?’
‘You and what you stand for made him give me up. I ask you now, however this case goes, not to sack Tony Croom! Good-bye!’ And before he could answer she was gone.
She almost ran towards the Green Park. How far from what she had intended! How fatal – perhaps! But her feelings had been too strong – the old revolt against the dead wall of ‘form’ and those impalpable inexorable forces of tradition which had wrecked her love life! It could not have been otherwise. The sight of his long, dandified figure, the sound of his voice, had brought it all back too strongly. Ah, well! It was a relief; an escape of old bitterness pent within her spirit!
The next morning she received this note:
Ryder Street.
Sunday.
DEAR MISS CHARWELL, –
You may rely on me in that matter. With sincere regard,
Yours very faithfully,
JOHN MUSKHAM
Chapter Twenty-seven
WITH that promise to her credit she went back to Condaford the following day and gave herself to mitigation of the atmosphere she found there. Her father and mother, living their ordinary lives, were obviously haunted and harassed. Her mother, sensitive and secluded, was just shrinking from publicity discreditable to Clare. Her father seemed to feel that, however the case went, most people would think his daughter a light woman and a liar; young Croom would be excused more or less, but a woman who allowed circumstance to take such turns would find no one to excuse her. He was clearly feeling, too, a vindictive anger against Jerry Corven, and a determination that the fellow should not be successful if he could help it. Faintly amused at an attitude so male, Dinny felt a sort of admiration at the painful integrity with which he was grasping the shadow and letting the substance go. To her father’s generation divorce still seemed the outward and visible sign of inner and spiritual disgrace. To herself love was love and, when it became aversion, ceased to justify sexual relationship. She had, in fact, been more shocked by Clare’s yielding to Jerry Corven in her rooms than by her leaving him in Ceylon. The divorce suits she had occasionally followed in the papers had done nothing to help her believe that marriages were made in heaven. But she recognized the feelings of those brought up in an older atmosphere, and avoided adding to the confusion and trouble in her people’s minds. The line she took was more practical: The thing would soon be over one way or the other, and probably the other! People paid very little attention to other people’s affairs nowadays!
‘What!’ said the General sardonically. ‘ “Night in a car” – it’s the perfect headline. Sets everybody thinking at once how they themselves would have behaved.’
She had no answer, but: ‘They’ll make a symposium of it, darling: The Home Secretary, the Dean of St Paul’s, the Princess Elizabeth.’
She was disturbed when told that Dornford had been asked to Condaford for Easter.
‘I hope you don’t mind, Dinny; we didn’t know whether you’d be here or not.’
‘I can’t use the expression “I’m agreeable” even to you, Mother.’
‘Well, darling, one of these days you must go down into the battle again.’
Dinny bit her lip and did not answer. It was true, and the more disquieting. Coming from her gentle and unmanaging mother, the words stung.
Battle! Life, then, was like the war. It struck you down into hospital, turned you out therefrom into the ranks again. Her mother and father would hate ‘to lose her,’ but they clearly wanted her ‘to go.’ And this with Clare’s failure written on the wall!
Easter came with a wind ‘fresh to strong.’ Clare arrived by train on the Saturday morning, Dornford by car in the afternoon. He greeted Dinny as if doubtful of his welcome.
He had found himself a house. It was on Campden Hill. He had been terribly anxious to know Clare’s opinion of it, and she had spent a Sunday afternoon going over it with him.
‘ “Eminently desirable,” Dinny. “South aspect; garage and stabling for two horses; good garden; all the usual offices, centrally heated,” and otherwise well-bred. He thinks of going in towards the end of May. It has an old tiled roof, so I put him on to French grey for shutters. Really, it’s rather nice, and roomy.’