These Delights (10 page)

After tea, Vicky had suddenly decided to wash her hair, and Hester could hear her now in the kitchen where she was getting in Corky’s way, drying her head by the range, while they both conversed on the many subjects that seemed to interest them. Hester smiled. Corky had certainly taken the
Jordan
s to his heart and it was more difficult than ever now to keep him out of the conversation at meal times. Lou was practising again, with Bibi in a basket beside and she went to the parlour to tell him to get ready for supper. She watched his rigid little back for some moments before she spoke to him, marvelling at the earnest concentration which still seemed to her so unnatural in a boy of eleven. Next door in the study, she could hear Pauline teaching herself to type on Luke’s old Remington. She had announced that Lou would need a secretary when he started his career and she might as well be it.

“You’ve done quite enough for today, my dear,” Hester said, touching him on the shoulder. “Go and get ready for supper. Diana will be here soon.”

He carefully finished the chromatic scale he was in the middle of, then obediently closed the piano.

“Tell Pauline, will you?” said Hester, going into the kitchen to round up Vicky.

She found Vicky and
C
orky in the middle of an earnest discussion about cooking. Vicky, her head almost in the oven, was saying:

“And then you add the butter and the spice and simmer
very
gently, you understand, or it will catch and blow up—pouff! And at the very last minute you add the brandy.”

“Vicky, is your hair dry yet?” interrupted Hester. “You really must get yourself tidy now and leave Corky to get on with the supper. Diana will be here any minute and Tom won’t be long after.”

Vicky jumped up, shaking the wild tangle of hair out of her eyes.

“I fly!” she cried. “It’s dry, yes, but the knots! Goodness! The knots are formidable!”

Diana had arrived by the time Hester got back to the living-room and was discussing with Luke her project for knocking down the wall between this room and the study.

“It would make a charming room, then,” she was saying. ‘Don’t you agree, Hester?”

“Well, I don’t know.” Hester was doubtful. “We’ve always liked it as it was.”

“Yes, but then you’ve always used it as a general living-
r
oom. I should make it a drawing-room and have some good period pieces and a new parquet floor, and perhaps color-washed walls, or better still, oil-paint.”

“And what am I going to do for a study?” asked Luke humorously.

“We can turn another room into a study—the old parlour probably. It’s never used.”

“And when we all come in with muddy shoes and wet clothes, where do we relax without ruining the decorations?”

She laughed, but it was an impatient laugh.

“
Oh, you just make difficulties,” she said. “I’ve got great plans for this house and you mustn’t pour cold water on them.”

“Well, said Luke tolerantly, “we’ll all have to live in it; so we’ll all have to be consulted.”

Diana was silent. The question of Hester had never been broached between them, and she knew that Luke took it for granted that she would remain. He had often told her that Hester had put money into the farm and, without her, he could not have carried on in the early days. Of Hester’s own plans she knew nothing, but she supposed Luke’s sister could be bought out if it was managed delicately enough.

“Where are the children?” she asked, changing the subject.

“They’ll be down in a minute,” Hester answered absently. “Vicky washed her hair at the last minute and is trying to get the knots out.”

“She should let it grow long altogether, or cut it shorter,” Diana remarked critically. “It’s always so untidy. Is there any fresh news of your cousin, Luke?”

“The children hear from time to time, and Louis Dalcroix writes, but there doesn’t seem to be much improvement so far,” Luke replied. “But I understand it’s a long business.”

“How long?”

He shrugged, reminiscent for a moment of Vicky.

“One can’t say. Years sometimes, certainly months.”

“Years?” She looked startled.

“Not necessarily years in a sanatorium
.
I think Dennis hopes to come out by the autumn, and, if it’s still necessary, continue treatment at home.”

“Oh, I see.” She sounded relieved, and welcomed the arrival of Tom Bowden with more than usual warmth.

“Good evening, Miss Hester, Mr. Luke. Good evening, Miss Sale,” he murmured, and Vicky burst into the room.

“How be doin’, Tom, m’dear?” she greeted him in the rich Devon she had recen
tl
y picked up.

“Proper fine, proper fine, m’dear,” he replied with a broad grin.

Diana frowned. Luke or Hester ought to tell the child that it was bad manners to mimic a man to his face.

A shriek from outside brought them all to the door. Lou was
standing
in the hall, with an ashy face, holding his rabbit high above his head, while Diana’s spaniel leapt, yapping and snapping round him.

“Take him away! Take him away!” he screamed. “He’s trying to eat Bibi.”

Diana ordered the dog outside and shut the front door. “It’s you
r
own fault,” she said unsympathetically. “I’ve told you before to keep your rabbit out of his way.”

“I was only
showing
him Bibi,” said Lou with a sob. “I th-thought they would like to play.”

“Then that was very silly of you,” retorted Diana, “Snipe’s trained to rabbit.”

“Trained to eat rabbits?”

“
Trained to hunt them. All gun-dogs are.
”

Vicky and Pauline were examining Bibi anxiously. “He’s not hurt,” said Vicky soothingly. “Just frightened, Lou. We will give him some milk and he will forget.”

“Put
him
in his hutch where he’s supposed to be,” said Hester quietly. “I thought I told you some time ago to get ready for supper.”

“I
am
ready,” said Lou. “I was only just showing Bibi to
Snipe before
—”

“All right, all right,” said Luke hurriedly. “We know. Just go and put Bibi in his hutch, like a good child, and then come straight back. Come along, everyone—we’ve time for a drink before Corky brings the food in.”

“One day,” remarked Diana, taking a glass of sherry from Luke, “there’ll be a disaster if you don’t look after that rabbit better, Vicky.”

“Lou doesn’t understand,” Vicky replied. “He thinks Bibi is like a dog.”

“Well, Snipe certainly won’t think he’s a dog if he ever catches him.” Diana’s eyebrows went up. “Drinking, Vicky? Aren’t you rather young?”

“Oh, no, Diana. In France all children drink wine from an early age. It is customary,” said Vicky seriously.

“But not in England,” retorted Diana. “Aren’t you starting her rather young, Luke?”

“Oh, I don’t think an occasional glass of sherry will hurt her,” said Luke. “She’s nineteen.”

“In France,” said Pauline in an injured voice, “I too would have been given sherry.”

“But not here,” replied Luke good-naturedly. “As Diana says, children don’t drink in England.”

“It would seem a pity,” said Pauline, sighing. “Don’t you think so, Tom?”

“Time enough, time enough,” said Tom. “Though a good glass of cider wouldn’t hurt ‘e. That’s what we drink hereabouts—that and beer.” He held up his b
rimming
tankard to toast her, and she watched him, with respectful eyes, swallow his beer in one long draught. “Are you showing at Lychcombe next Saturday, Miss Sale?”

“Yes. I’ve put Comet in for two classes, and I’m riding Mr. Tregenna’s bay in heavyweight hunters.”

“Ah, you should get best in show with him. He’s a rare fine horse, that, and so much quality for a heavyweight.”

“
Yes, hasn’t he? He’s the sort of horse you ought to have for next season, Luke. I believe Tregenna would sell, too.”

“My dear girl, Tregenna’s price would be far beyond me,” said Luke tolerantly. “Besides, old Goldfinch is good enough for me. I don’t get time to do much hunting or showing.”

“You’d make time if you had a decent horse.” Diana turned to him earnestly. “You
ought
to be better mounted, Luke. If you think you would like Tregenna’s bay, don’t let the price worry you.”

There was a little silence. Hester felt uncomfortable, and Tom Bowden looked steadily into the bottom of his empty mug.

“That’s nice of you, Diana,” Luke said, then, “but I’m quite content with Goldfinch. Perhaps I’ll pick up something useful one of these days for a second string, but it won’t be blood stock.”

Diana said with a charming smile:

“When we’re married, Luke, I’ll only have blood stock on the place. The same with cattle—don’t you agree, Tom?”

“Well—” Tom scratched his head and avoided her eyes—“farming’s pretty much what you can run to. Blood stock’s all very well, but there’s a lot to be said for the old-fashioned workaday crossbred that doesn’t have to be pampered.”

“Perfectly true, Tom,” said Luke before Diana could speak. “I think Corky is ready for us, Hester. Shall we go in?”

After supper they sat indoors with the windows open, for the midges were biting too badly to remain outside. Hester suggested that they should all play a game and Vicky cried:

“Let’s do a charade!”

Pauline and Lou clamoured at once for a charade, and Hester said, looking at Tom and Diana a little doubtfully:

“All right, as long as I don’t have to perform. Tom and I will be audience.”

“But we must
all
play,” insisted Vicky. “There are seven of us. We will choose sides, four on one and three on the other and one person can act twice over.”

Diana looked uneasy and Luke said quickly:

“No, Diana and I will be audience, and Tom too, if he likes.”

They tried to persuade
him
but he was adamant, guessing that Diana did not want to act, and Hester, and even Tom, were led protestingly away, and there were the sounds of much giggling and whispering from the hall.

“I’
m afraid this isn’t quite your cup of tea, darling,” Luke said, offering her a cigarette.

“I don’t
mind a
s long
a
s I don’t have to perform. It always makes me feel a fool,” she said, and smiled as she bent her head to his lighted match.

All at once she was human, and he reflected that it was the first time he had ever heard her admit to feeling a fool.

“It’s an acquired taste, like oysters or making a speech,” he said gaily. “Now
I
should feel a fool parading in the showring but you do it as to the manner born.”

They were sitting together on the sofa, and she leant against his shoulder, relaxed and in tune with him again, “I suppose it simply amounts to what you’re good at,” she said lazily. “If you know you’re good at something you can’t feel a fool doing it. It was nice of you to get me off, Luke. Would you like to be joining in the fun?”

“Not a bit. I’d much rather be sitting quietly here with you.” He slipped an arm round her shoulders, but did not kiss her until she turned a passively inviting face up to his.

“Couldn’t we slip away?” she asked unexpectedly. “Go for a stroll outside while it’s still light—just the two of us?”

“
Darling,
I’m afraid we can’t leave them with no audience,” he said regretfully. “But when this is over, we’ll slip off.”

“I suppose so. You seem so swamped in family these days
that
I hardly ever get you alone.”

“It won’t be for long, and they’re
n
ice children, really. They have a great admiration for you.”

“Have they? I wouldn’t be so sure about Vicky.
”

He smiled.

“Vicky’s at an age when she likes to fix labels on people. I think she is a little in awe of you, and she treats me like a kind of favourite god-father.”

“Does she?” said Diana politely, then Vicky’s fair head appeared round the door, and she pulled hurriedly away from Luke.

“It’s a word of three syllables and this is the first,” Vicky announced and disappeared again.

The
charade
lasted for over half an hour. The
Jordan
s flung themselves whole-heartedly into drama. Tom Bowden distinguished
himself
as a Roman emp
e
r
o
r, and Luke and Diana completely failed to guess the word.

“Well,” Luke said, dispensing beer to the perspiring Tom, “it was a very fine performance, wasn’t it, Diana?”

“But you didn’t
guess
it,” accused Pauline.

“That,” said Luke, “was because you were all acting so brilliantly we couldn’t concentrate on the word. Tom, you must be exhausted.”

“Oh, I enjoyed myself, Mr. L
u
ke,” insisted Tom. “Sent me back to when we were children and we used to go playacting up at the Rectory at Christmas-time. Rare games we had, with jellies and cakes and tea afterwards. Miss Vicky is a proper little mimic and no mistake. Made me forget me part sometimes, watching her.”

“Oh, thank you, Tom.” Vicky, flushed and tousled, flung herself on the floor at Luke’s feet. “Pauline and I used to think we would be actresses when we grew up, but now
Pauline’s going to be a secretary
—”

“Only Lou’s,” said Pauline.

“And me—I shall end up just looking after the others till we marry, I expect.”

Diana smiled tolerantly.

“So you all mean to marry?” she said idly.

Vicky screwed up her face.

“Well, not Lou perhaps—it is bad for artistes to marry, but for Pauline and me it is only practical, yes?”

“Absurd children!” said Luke, but Diana answered quite seriously:

“Yes, I suppose it is.”

It was nearly dark now and moths fluttered in at the open window, attracted by the lamp, and flopped softly on the ceiling. In the coppice behind Tom’s cottage a nightingale began to sing.

“Listen
—
” said Vicky, and they fell silent, watching
the night descend and listening to those liquid, piercing notes. Vicky leaned her head against Luke’s knee, and the lamplight fell slanting on her young, rapt face.

Diana looked at her leaning against Luke’s knee, natural, unaware, and she knew dislike and a vague, stirring uneasiness.

“I always
think
a nightingale is a very over-rated bird,” she said coolly.

Vicky did not move but Pauline said quickly: “Over-rated? Oh, Diana, how can you?”

“A thrush or a blackbird is just as sweet,” Diana said, “only you don’t hear them at night, so everyone gets sentimental about a nightingale.”

“But that,” said Vicky softly, “doesn’t make it any less beautiful. It is the strangeness of that night song which makes it different. Lou, play for us. Leave the doors open and play Debussy’s
Clair de lune
.”

“It’
s Lou’s bedtime,” said Hester from her place in the shadows.

“Just once,” begged Vicky. “Just
Clair de lune
.”

“Very well. Then come back and say good night, Lou.” Lou played for them and Hester moved uneasily. She, too, had been watching Vicky’s face in the lamplight. Luke’s face was in shadow but she could see his hand idly twisting a strand of her fair hair round his finger.

The last phrase of Debussy lingered for a moment, then that other
Claire de lune
by Faur
e
, so much less
w
ell-known, so
m
uch more unearthly, drifted through the open doors. How well the French understand these things, thought Hester with surprise, and she looked away from Vicky and to the dark square of night outside the window. Lou stopped abruptly, and they could hear him going upstairs to bed. He did not come
back
to say good night.

“I had forgotten the Faur
e
,” said Vicky drowsily. “It is better.”

Diana put a
ci
garette between her lips and leaned towards Luke.

“Will you give me a light, please?” she said. “Vicky, my child, how you do sprawl. It
’
s not becoming.”

Vicky sat up and blinked, and Tom got awkwardly to his feet and said he must be going. Hester rose with relief to see him off; it was time the evening broke up.

“Shall we slip away by ourselves now?” murmured Luke, and Diana replied indifferently:

“If you like.” She did not want to go any longer.

They wandered down to the first field of co
rn
, young still, and stirring gently in the moonlight. The spell of the night and the music had been unbroken for Luke. He felt a great tenderness towards Diana and a desire for unity between them. In the coppice the nightingales still sang.

“On such a night as this
—”
Luke murmured.

Luke would have finished the quotation but Diana said, her eyes on the young co
rn
:

“The corn is ripening well. What do you reckon to get from this field, Luke?”

He looked at her serious profile. She was like a black-and-white etching in the moonlight, he thought; no, more blurred than that; rather, a drawing in charcoal.

“How lovely you look with the moon lighting you,” he said.

Her smile was a little impatient “You aren’t listening,” she said. “I asked you how much you thought this field would yield.”

“I heard you. Look at me, darling.”

She turned and regarded him with her full, serene eyes, and as she saw the expression on his face, she sighed. “What do you want of me, Luke?” she asked.

He cupped a hand under her chin.

“Do you have to ask me that?” he said gently. “Haven’t you, too, been moved by the music and the night? Can I never stir your blood, Diana, even when the stage is set so perfectly, or do you have to watch a pair of fighting stallions to make you come alive?”

So he remembered. Her eyes fell before his.

“I—I
—”
She stammered a little and finished clumsily:
“If you want to kiss me, Luke, you can.”

Smiling a little wryly, he b
ent
his head to hers, then his arms closed round her and his lips were suddenly insistent. For a moment she was quiescent, then he could feel the resistance of her body through the thin silk of her frock, and her mouth was hard under his as she started to pull away from him.

“Don’t
...
don’t
...
” she murmured, and her hands came up against his chest, trying to push him from her.

He let her go abruptly and his voice was harsh with disappointment.

“I sometimes wonder what you’re made of,” he said.

Her eyes were apologetic.

“I’m sorry,” she said a little breathlessly. “You took me by surprise—you—so seldom kiss me like that
.
”

“Because I learnt long ago you didn’t like it. I’ve been very patient, Diana. Is there never going to come a time when you will want me as I often want you?”

“I don’t know.” She sounded embarrassed, and she put up her hands to her disordered hair. “I suppose I’m made differently. I—I can’t help it, Luke.”

“No, leave it,” he said, and brushing aside her hands he gently ruffled her hair. “Forget being tidy for a moment; forget yourself.” He tried to speak lightly. “I told you once before I like my girls tousled, once in a while.”

“Then you should admire Vicky,” she retorted tartly. “She’s perpetually tousled.”

“What’s Vicky got to do with it?”

“Nothing, I hope, except that you seem to prefer obvious ingenuousness to—to dignity.”

He smiled involuntarily.

“What lovers want to be dignified all the time? Why don’t you like Vicky?”

“She shows off.”

He looked surprised.

“Oh, I don’t think so. She’s just perfectly natural and rather refreshing in consequence.”

“Meaning that I compare unfavourably in that respect?”

“Of course not. But what’s Vicky got to do with us? You’re surely not jealous, are you, darling?”

Her eyebrows rose.

“Of that child? Hardly. I think perhaps I’d better go home, Luke. You seem in an odd mood.”

He touched her cheek with gentle fingers.

“Do you love me, Diana?” he asked softly.

She looked startled.

“Of course. I’m very fond of you.”

“Very fond,” he repeated slowly, lingering pensively over the words. “Yes, I suppose we are each very fond of the other.”