‘Darling,’ said Dinny, ‘prepare for slight concussion. You remember my saying I wished we could find the perfect girl for Hubert. Well, she’s found; Jean has just proposed to him.’
‘Dinny!’
‘They’re going to be married offhand by special licence.’
‘But – ’
‘Exactly, darling. So we go up tomorrow, and Jean and I stay with Diana till it’s over. Hubert will tell Father.’
‘But, Dinny, really – !’
Dinny came through the barrage of muslin, knelt down and put her arm round her mother.
‘I feel exactly like you,’ she said, ‘only different, because after all I didn’t produce him; but, Mother darling, it is all right. Jean is a marvellous creature, and Hubert’s head over ears. It’s done him a lot of good already, and she’ll see to it that he goes ahead, you know.’
‘But, Dinny – money?’
‘They’re not expecting Dad to do anything. They’ll just be able to manage, and they needn’t have children, you know, till later.’
‘I suppose not. It’s terribly sudden. Why a special licence?’
‘Intuition,’ and, with a squeeze of her mother’s slender body, she added: ‘Jean has them. Hubert’s position is awkward, Mother.’
‘Yes; I’m scared about it, and I know your father is, though he’s not said much.’
This was as far as either of them would go in disclosure of their uneasiness, and they went into committee on the question of a perch for the adventuring couple.
‘But why shouldn’t they live here until things are settled?’ said Lady Cherrell.
‘They’ll find it more exciting if they have to do their own washing up. The great thing is to keep Hubert’s mind active just now.’
Lady Cherrell sighed. Correspondence, gardening, giving household orders, and sitting on village committees were certainly not exciting, and Condaford would be even less exciting if, like the young, one had none of these distractions.
‘Things are quiet here,’ she admitted.
‘And thank God for it,’ murmured Dinny; ‘but I feel Hubert wants the strenuous life just now, and he’ll get it with Jean in London. They might take a workman’s flat. It can’t be for long, you know. So, Mother dear, you’ll not seem to know anything about it this evening, and we shall all know you do. That’ll be so restful for everybody.’ And, kissing the rueful smile on her mother’s face, she went away.
Next morning the conspirators were early afoot, Hubert looking, so Jean put it, as though he were ‘riding at a bullfinch’; Dinny resolutely whimsical. Alan had the handy air of a best man in embryo; Jean alone appeared unmoved. They set forth in the Tasburghs’ brown roadster, dropping Hubert at the station and proceeding towards Lippinghall. Jean drove. The other two sat behind.
‘Dinny,’ said young Tasburgh, ‘couldn’t we have a special licence, too?’
‘Reduction on taking a quantity. Behave yourself. You will go to sea and forget all about me in a month.’
‘Do I look like that?’
Dinny regarded his brown face.
‘Well, in spots.’
‘Do be serious!’
‘I can’t; I keep seeing Jean snipping a lock and saying: “Now Dad, bless me or I’ll tonsure you!” and the Rector answering “I – er – nevah –!” and Jean snipping another lock and saying: “That’s all right then, and I must have a hundred a year or off go your eyebrows!” ’
‘Jean’s a holy terror. Promise me anyway, Dinny, not to marry anyone else?’
‘But suppose I met someone I liked terribly, would you wish to blight my young life?’
‘Yes.’
‘Not so do they answer on the “screen”.’
‘You’d make a saint swear.’
‘But not a naval lieutenant. Which reminds me: Those texts at the head of the fourth column of The Times. It struck me this morning what a splendid secret code could be made out of “The Song of Solomon”, or that Psalm about the Leviathan. “My beloved is like a young roe” might mean “Eight German battleships in Dover harbour. Come quickly.” “And there is that Leviathan that takes his pastime therein” could be “Tirpitz in command”, and so on. No one could possibly decipher it unless they had a copy of the code.’
‘I’m going to speed,’ said Jean, looking back. The speedometer rose rapidly: Forty – forty-five – fifty – fifty-five –! The sailor’s hand slipped under Dinny’s arm.
‘This can’t last, the car will bust. But it’s a tempting bit of road.’