‘What do you think I ought to do about it?’
‘Have your instincts out. I can’t imagine anything more ageing than what you’re doing now. As for Diana, she’s of the same sort – the Montjoys have a kind of Condaford up in Dumfriesshire – I admire her for sticking to Ferse, but I think it’s quite crazy of her. It can only end one way, and that’ll be the more unpleasant the longer it’s put off.’
‘Yes; I feel she’s riding for a bad fall, but I hope I should do the same.’
‘I know I shouldn’t,’ said Fleur, cheerfully.
‘I don’t believe that anybody knows what they’ll do about anything until it comes to the point.’
‘The thing is never to let anything come to a point.’
Fleur spoke with a tang in her voice, and Dinny saw her lips harden. She always found Fleur attractive, because mystifying.
‘You haven’t seen Ferse,’ she said, ‘and without seeing him you can’t appreciate how pathetic he is.’
‘That’s sentiment, my dear. I’m not sentimental.’
‘I’m sure you’ve had a past, Fleur; and you can’t have had that without being sentimental.’
Fleur gave her a quick look, and trod on the accelerator.
‘Time I turned on my lights,’ she said.
For the rest of the journey she talked on Art, Letters, and other unimportant themes. It was nearly eight o’clock when she dropped Dinny at Oakley Street.
Diana was in, already dressed for dinner.
‘Dinny,’ she said, ‘he’s out.’
Chapter Twenty-five
PORTENTOUS – those simple words!
‘After you’d gone this morning he was in a great state – seemed to think we were all in a conspiracy to keep things from him.’
‘As we were,’ murmured Dinny.
‘Mademoiselle’s going upset him again. Soon after, I heard the front door bang – he hasn’t been back since. I didn’t tell you, but last night was dreadful. Suppose he doesn’t come back?’
‘Oh! Diana, I wish he wouldn’t.’
‘But where has he gone? What can he do? Whom can he go to? O God! It’s awful!’
Dinny looked at her in silent distress.
‘Sorry, Dinny! You must be tired and hungry. We won’t wait dinner.’
In Ferse’s ‘lair’, that charming room panelled in green shot with a golden look, they sat through an anxious meal. The shaded light fell pleasantly on their bare necks and arms, on the fruit, the flowers, the silver; and until the maid was gone they spoke of indifferent things.
‘Has he a key?’ asked Dinny.
‘Yes.’
‘Shall I ring up Uncle Adrian?’
‘What can he do? If Ronald does come in, it will be more dangerous if Adrian is here.’
‘Alan Tasburgh told me he would come any time if anyone was wanted.’
‘No, let’s keep it to ourselves tonight. Tomorrow we can see.’
Dinny nodded. She was scared, and more scared of showing it, for she was there to strengthen Diana by keeping cool and steady.
‘Come upstairs and sing to me,’ she said, at last.
Up in the drawing-room Diana sang ‘The Sprig of Thyme’, ‘Waley, Waley’, ‘The Bens of Jura’, ‘Mowing the Barley’, ‘The Castle of Dromore’, and the beauty of the room, of the songs, of the singer, brought to Dinny a sense of unreality. She had gone into a drowsy dream, when, suddenly, Diana stopped.
‘I heard the front door.’
Dinny got up and stood beside the piano.
‘Go on, don’t say anything, don’t show anything.’
Diana began again to play, and sing the Irish song ‘Must I go bound and you go free.’ Then the door was opened, and, in a mirror at the end of the room, Dinny saw Ferse come in and stand listening.
‘Sing on,’ she whispered.
‘Must I go bound, and you go free?
Must I love a lass that couldn’t love me?
Oh! was I taught so poor a wit
As love a lass would break my heart.’
And Ferse stood there listening. He looked like a man excessively tired or overcome with drink; his hair was disordered and his lips drawn back so that his teeth showed. Then he moved. He seemed trying to make no noise. He passed round to a sofa on the far side and sank down on it. Diana stopped singing. Dinny, whose hand was on her shoulder, felt her trembling with the effort to control her voice.
‘Have you had dinner, Ronald?’
Ferse did not answer, staring across the room with that queer and ghostly grin.
‘Play on,’ whispered Dinny.
Diana played the Red Sarafan; she played the fine simple tune over and over, as if making hypnotic passes towards that mute figure. When, at last, she stopped, there followed the strangest silence. Then Dinny’s nerve snapped and she said, almost sharply: