Outside Michael’s house in Westminster they encountered Adrian, who had telephoned to Hilary and been informed of their changed destination. Having ascertained that Fleur could put the girls up, he left them; but Dinny, smitten by the look on his face, ran after him. He was walking towards the river, and she joined him at the corner of the Square.
‘Would you rather be alone, Uncle?’
‘I’m glad of you, Dinny. Come along.’
They went at a good pace westward along the Embankment, Dinny slipping her hand within his arm. She did not talk, however, leaving him to begin if he wished.
‘You know I’ve been down to that Home several times,’ he said, presently, ‘to see how things were with Ferse, and make sure they were treating him properly. It serves me right for not having been these last months. But I always dreaded it. I’ve been talking to them now on the ’phone. They wanted to come up, but I’ve told them not to. What good can it do? They admit he’s been quite normal for the last two weeks. In such cases it seems they wait a month at least before reporting. Ferse himself says he’s been normal for three months.’
‘What sort of place is it?’
‘A largish country house – only about ten patients; each has his own rooms and his own attendant. It’s as good a place, I suppose, as you could find. But it always gave me the horrors with its spiky wall round the grounds and general air of something hidden away. Either I’m over-sensitive, Dinny, or this particular affliction does seem to me too dreadful.’
Dinny squeezed his arm. ‘So it does to me. How did he get away?’
‘He’d been so normal that they weren’t at all on their guard – he seems to have said he was going to lie down, and slipped out during lunch time. He must have noticed that some tradesman came at a certain time every day, for he slid out when the lodge-keeper was taking in parcels; he walked to the station and took the first train. It’s only twenty miles. He’ll have been in town before they found out he was gone. I’m going down there tomorrow.’
‘Poor Uncle!’ said Dinny, softly.
‘Well, my dear, so things go in this life. But to be torn between two horrors is not my dream.’
‘Was it in his family?’
Adrian nodded. ‘His grandfather died raving. But for the war it might never have developed in Ferse, but you can’t tell. Hereditary madness? Is it fair? No, Dinny, I’m not a believer in divine mercy in any form that we humans can understand, or in any way that we would exercise it ourselves. An all-embracing creativity and power of design without beginning and without end – obviously. But – tie it to our apron strings we can’t. Think of a mad-house! One simply daren’t. And see what the fact that one daren’t means for those poor creatures. The sensitive recoil and that leaves them mainly to the insensitive, and God help them!’
‘According to you, God won’t.’
‘God is the helping of man by man, somebody once said; at all events that’s all the working version we can make of Him.’
‘And the Devil?’
‘The harming of man by man, only I’d throw in animals.’
‘Pure Shelley, Uncle.’
‘Might be a lot worse. But I become a wicked Uncle, corrupting the orthodoxy of Youth.’
‘You can’t corrupt what is not, dear. Here’s Oakley Street. Would you like me to go and ask Diana if she wants anything?’
‘Wouldn’t I? I’ll wait for you at this corner, Dinny; and thank you ever so.’
Dinny walked swiftly, looking neither to right nor left, and rang the bell. The same maid answered it.
‘I don’t want to come in, but could you find out for me quietly from Mrs Ferse whether she’s all right, or whether she wants anything. And will you tell her that I’m at Mrs Michael Mont’s, and am ready to come at any moment, and to stay if she’d like me.’
While the maid was gone upstairs she strained her ears, but no sound reached them till the maid came back.
‘Mrs Ferse says, Miss, to thank you very heartily, and to say she won’t fail to send for you if she needs you. She’s all right at present, Miss; but, oh dear! we are put about, hoping for the best. And she sends her love, Miss; and Mr Cherrell’s not to worry.’
‘Thank you,’ said Dinny: ‘Give her our love and say there we are – all ready.’
Then, swiftly, looking neither to left nor right, she returned to Adrian. The message repeated, they walked on.
‘Hanging in the wind,’ said Adrian, ‘is there anything more dreadful? And how long – oh, Lord! How long? But as she says, we mustn’t worry,’ and he uttered an unhappy little laugh. It began to grow dusk, and in that comfortless light, neither day nor night, the ragged ends of the streets and bridges seemed bleak and unmeaning. Twilight passed, and with the lamps form began again and contours softened.