‘I’m sure he is.’ And through Dinny’s mind, in the jaunting bus, passed and passed four lines of verse:
‘The bank is steep and wide the river flows –
Are there fair pastures on the farther shore?
And shall the halting kine adventure those
Or wander barren pastures evermore?’
But on her face was that withdrawn expression which Clare knew better than to try and penetrate.
Waiting for an event, even when it primarily concerns others, is a process little desirable. For Dinny it had the advantage of taking her thoughts off her own existence and concentrating them on her people’s. The family name, for the first time in her experience, was confronted with a really besmirching publicity, and she the chief recipient of her clan’s reaction. She felt thankful that Hubert was not in England. He would have been so impatient and upset. In the publicity attendant on his own trouble, four years ago, there had been much more danger of disaster, but much less danger of disgrace. For however one might say that divorce was nothing in these days, a traditional stigma still clung to it in a country far from being as modern as it supposed itself to be. The Charwells of Condaford, at all events, had their pride and their prejudices, above all they loathed publicity.
When Dinny, for instance, went to lunch at St Augustine’s-in-the-Meads, she found a very peculiar atmosphere. It was as if her Uncle and Aunt had said to each other: ‘This thing has to be, we suppose, but we can’t pretend either to understand or to approve of it.’ With no bluff matter-of-fact condemnation, nor anything churchy or shocked about their attitude, they conveyed to Dinny the thought that Clare might have been better occupied than in getting into such a position.
Walking away with Hilary to see a party of youths off to Canada from Euston Station, Dinny was ill at ease, for she had true affection and regard for her overworked unparsonical Uncle. Of all the members of her duty-bound family, he most embodied the principle of uncomplaining service, and however she might doubt whether the people he worked for were not happier than he was himself, she instinctively believed that he lived a real life in a world where not very much was ‘real.’ Alone with her he voiced his feelings more precisely.
‘What I don’t like, Dinny, about this business of Clare’s is the way it will reduce her in the public eye to the level of the idle young woman who has nothing better to do than to get into matrimonial scrapes. Honestly, I’d prefer her passionately in love and flinging her cap over the windmill.’
‘Cheer up, Uncle,’ murmured Dinny, ‘and give her time. That may yet come.’
Hilary smiled.
‘Well! Well! But you see what I mean. The public eye is a mean, cold, parroty thing; it loves to see the worst of everything. Where there’s real love I can accept most things; but I don’t like messing about with sex. It’s unpleasant.’
‘I don’t think you’re being just to Clare,’ said Dinny with a sigh; ‘she cut loose for real reasons; and you ought to know, Uncle, that attractive young women can’t remain entirely un-followed.’
‘Well,’ said Hilary shrewdly, ‘I perceive that you’re sitting on a tale you could unfold. Here we are. If you knew the bother I’ve had to get these youths to consent to go, and the authorities to consent to take them, you’d realize why I wish I were a mushroom, springing up over-night and being eaten fresh for breakfast.’
Whereon, they entered the station, and proceeded towards the Liverpool train. A little party of seven youths in cloth caps, half in and half out of a third-class carriage, were keeping up their spirits in truly English fashion, by passing remarks on each other’s appearance and saying at intervals: ‘Are we daown’earted? Naoo!’
They greeted Hilary with the words:
‘’Ello, Padre! … Zero hour! Over the top! … ’ Ave a fag, sir?’
Hilary took the ‘fag’. And Dinny, who stood a little apart, admired the way in which he became at once an integral part of the group.
‘Wish you was comin’ too, sir!’
‘Wish I were, Jack.’
‘Leavin’ old England for ever!’
‘Good old England!’
‘Sir?’
‘Yes, Tommy?’
She lost the next remarks, slightly embarrassed by the obvious interest she was arousing.
‘Dinny!’
She moved up to the carriage.
‘Shake hands with these young men. My niece.’
In the midst of a queer hush she shook the seven hands of the seven capless youths, and seven times said: ‘Good luck!’
There was a rush to get into the carriage, a burst of noise from uncouth mouths, a ragged cheer, and the train moved. She stood by Hilary’s side, with a slight choke in her throat, waving her hand to the caps and faces stretched through the window.