These Delights (15 page)

CHAPTER EIGHT

T
he
rest of July was inclined to be wet. There were three days of steady rain, when mist, rolling down from the moor, blotted out the fields and farm buildings, so that Vicky, reading in the ba
rn
, seemed to be on a little island of her own. Fog, like thunder, frightened her, and Luke made a habit on such days of fetching her back to the house when it was time, so that she need not make the short journey alone. Often it was too dark in the
barn
to read, and he would find her lying in the hay, sometimes asleep, sometimes just staring up at the rafters while she waited for him.

“What do you
think
about when you lie in the hay for so long?” he asked her once.

“Oh, many things,” she answered. “Things that used to happen to us in France, Lou’s future, what becomes of us when we die, like Bibi and your poor sow, what the men were like who built this ba
rn
hundreds of years ago—and you.”

He laughed and said that should be enough to be going on with.

“And what do you think when you think about me?” he asked idly.

She wrinkled her nose.

“Oh, what you were like when you knew Maman and were a shy young man, how you and Cousin Hester started the farm, and why—” she had been going to add without
thinking
—“and why you got engaged to Diana.”

“Why what?”

“Why are you going to marry her?”

But his eyes were guarded as he readied out a hand and gently pulled her hair.

“One doesn’t ask those sort of questions,” he said.
“One takes it for granted the reasons are the usual ones.”

She drew one leg up to her chin and inspected her bare knee with
care.

“Now you’re being stuffy and cousinly,” she said calmly. “You told me I was always to be natural with you. Well, it’s natural to want to understand why you’re
doing s
omething that puzzles me.”

“Is it so puzzling to imagine a man in love with Diana?” he asked lazily.

“No, not all men,” she replied. “But when it’s you—yes, then it puzzles me, and I don’t quite believe it
.
”

He raised his eyebrows.

“Why me, especially?”

“You’re not her sort.” She grinned suddenly. “And
she’s
not the sort to let the male think he’s superior.”

“Good gracious!” exclaimed Luke, looking amused. “Do you imagine I want to feel superior?”

“Yes,” she said. “All men do.”

He rolled her over in the hay and administered a sharp slap.

“And that’s being cousinly, too,” he
laughed.
“You cheeky young monkey! What a lot of nonsense you can talk.”

“Yes, Luke,” she said meekly, then leant over and bit his ear. “That’s in exchange for the slap.”

“You
little
devil!” He caught and held her, and, laughing, she flung her arms round his neck.

“Oh, Luke, you are so funny,” she said with great fondness. “When I talk nonsense you think it is sense, and when I talk sense you call it nonsense, but I love you just the same.”

He pulled her suddenly to him and kissed her, and as he felt the instant warm response of her pliant young body, the quality of his embrace changed. He held her
close
against him, and she slowly turned her mouth from his and pressed her cheek against the hard line of his jaw.

“Oh, Luke, you must be happy,” she whispered. “I want so very much that you should be happy.”

He could feel her lashes suddenly wet on his cheek, and he gently released her. Hester was right
. V
icky was not a child.

“Come,” he said, getting up, and brushing the hay from his coat. “It must be past tea-time, and the others will have started without us.”

The weather cleared for a few days and Luke was busy again about the farm. The
Jordan
s took picnics to the river, now running full again, and bathed an
d
played games amongst the Druid stones on Scaw Down. Diana was away for odd days, going further afield to show, sharing a horsebox with Tregenna’s bay, which was a convenient arrangement for both, and they saw little of her for days at a time. She seemed well pleased with life when she did come to see them. Both her own and Tregenna’s horses were doing a great deal of winning and she was now talking of buying a show jumper to compete against one of his.

“Frank has some fine stock, but I can do as well. I have a better eye than he has, and almost as much money to spend,” she told Luke.

He reflected that in their different ways, she and Tregenna were very alike. They both liked competition and they both liked to win.

“Well, it looks as if you’ll be busy this summer,” he said.

“It gives me an interest, since you won’t let me start on the farm,” she smiled. “Next year we mean to fly higher. We might put in for Richmond and the White City.”

“Next year?” His eyebrows were enquiring. “I don’t think I’d care for my wife running off to Richmond and the White City with Frank Tregenna, and I imagine you will be my wife by then?”

“Oh, don’t be so absurd!” she laughed. “What could be more respectable than a partnership in horses?”

“Partnership?”

“Yes. We thought we might own a couple jointly and buy the best. After all, it doesn’t look as if you are going to take much interest in the show world.”

He looked amused.

“I’m a farmer
,
not a horse coper. I thought your idea’ was to turn Monk’s Farm into a kind of model show piece.”

“
So it is, if you and Tom Bowden don’t obstruct me too much. But that’s no reason why I shouldn’t go in for showing in a bigger way. Frank combines both.”

“No, darling, it’s your money.”

“You mustn’t be old-fashioned—about Frank, I mean. He can be of great help to us.”

“But then, you tell me I’m old-fashioned about so many things, it must surely include Frank.” He was laughing at her gently, and she flushed.

“Do you mind my going to shows with
him
now, then?” she asked a little doubtfully.

He smiled.

“I don’t think so. Should I mind?”

She was puzzled.

“I don’t know,” she said. “I suppose you should really. Mother doesn’t approve. Frank admires me quite a lot, you know?
”

“I’m sure your mother wouldn’t approve. I expect she’ll try to tell me I shouldn’t either, when we next meet. But your mother’s disapproval and mine would have different reasons, I imagine.”

Diana laughed.

“Oh, Mother’s a snob, I know. She doesn’t consider Frank a gentleman.”

“And Frank not being a gentleman makes impropriety much more possible.”

She looked a little annoyed.

“You’re beginning to talk like Vicky,” she said. “If you don’t like me going about with Frank, Luke, then say so, and I’ll explain to you just how groundless your objections would be.”

He gave her an odd look.

“No, my dear, I’d trust you with any man,” he said, but did not make it sound like a compliment.

She kissed him perfunctorily and straightened his tie. “That’s right,” she said, as if he was a child. “You can be a very sensible person when you like, Luke, dear.”

“Can I?” His lips twitched again. “Well, I keep on trying.”

“When are you going to send the children home? It’s nearly August
.
”

His eyes were guarded.

“We have no plans as yet and at present they haven’t got a home. The news from France is still not very good,” he said vaguely. “Lou might go back before the others and stay with Louis Dalcroix, who is anxious not to have too long a gap in his lessons, but we shall have to see.”

“Perhaps Dalcroix would take them all in.”

He smiled.

“Hardly. He has a small studio with bed, bath and kitchen, I gather, so would scarcely have accommodation for three besides himself.”

“Oh, well, I think it’s very good of you and Hester to put up with them for so long. Once we’re married, darling, I’ll see that you’re safeguarded from such an invasion again.”

In August the hot weather returned, and at the beginning of the month, Diana and her mother went away on a round of visits, to return only in time for the fete. It was a pleasant fortnight, with picnics and bathing parties, and no obligation to attend horse shows, and in the evenings there was leisure for reading or strolling up to Monkstor to watch the sunset and wander home in the gentle dusk, discussing the day’s small happenings.

Hester thought Luke looked less tired, and somehow younger and happier, but, although he treated the children much alike, she saw the way he sometimes looked at Vicky, and her old disquiet returned. Then, one morning a letter came for Luke from Louis Dalcroix which made him look grave, and he sent the children off on some errand as soon as they had finished their breakfast.

“Bad news?” asked Hester quietly.

“Not too good,” he replied, and shook his head.

Dalcroix usually wrote to the
Jordan
s, and since he wrote in French, it had taken Luke some time to absorb the gist of his letter. He had written, he said, to warn the children’s good cousin that the latest reports on their father were discouraging and that his stay at the hospice might be very much longer than they had thought. It might become necessary to make other arrangements for the children for next winter, since Dennis
Jordan
was unlikely to be fit enough to be brought back to the small apartment in Douai, which should be let to bring in a little money to assist with the heavy doctors’ bills. Dalcroix himself was willing and anxious to take Lou as a guest and pupil, and he suggested that the two girls should live with Marthe at her parents’ home, where, possibly, work could be found for Vicky until such time when they could all return to Douai. The contingency might not arise, he added, should there be any marked improvement in the next two months, but it was as well to be prepared. He trusted that Monsieur and his amiable sister were in good health and
signed
himself, with many felicitations, Louis Dalcroix.

“Yes, it’s a bit of a problem,” Hester said.

Luke filled a pipe and lit it.

“Well, not really,” he said. “If Dennis does have to stop in the clinic thr
o
ugh the winter, it would be much better if the girls remained here. I don’t like to
think
of them dumped on a couple of old peasants and Vicky taking any job that comes along.”

Hester said nothing for a moment, then she asked quie
tl
y:

“Luke, have you ever thought what would become of those children if anything happens to Dennis?”

He looked thoroughly startled.

“No, I can’t say I have,” he replied. “They can usually cure T.B. these days, can’t they?”

“
Yes. But one never knows. It’s difficult to discover how bad he is, but one has to consider the possibility that he may not recover.”

“In that case,” he said with decision, “we should have to make ourselves responsible. We’re, practically speaking, the only relatives they have, and I imagine Dennis would leave a little money—enough for education at least.
”

She said in her impersonal way:

“You will have to consider your own life as well. After
all
the children have no real claim on you, and it would be a little too much to expect Diana to accept a readymade family.”

He was silent and the old weariness was back in his face. She said calmly:

“They could live with me, of course.”

He looked up quickly.

“What do you mean?”

“
Well, I don’t think I shall stay on at the farm once you’re married, Luke dear, that wouldn’t work, either.”

He frowned.

“Has Diana been talking to you?” he said.

“No, but she doesn’t have to do that.”

He looked harassed.

“Oh, lord, Hester! I don’t know what to say to you. We’ve been partners in the farm—without you I couldn’t have started at all. I took it for granted, when Diana and I first got engaged, that it wouldn’t make any difference
.
”

She smiled.

“I know, my dear. You can take too much f
o
r granted. It doesn’t do, you know. You can buy me out, when the time comes, if you can find the money, and with that
I’ll find
a cottage somewhere and start another garden.”

He glanced at her shrewdly.

“Are you sure Diana hasn’t been talking to you?” he
asked.

She laughed
.

“No, but I can see that she has to you,” she replied. “Tell her she needn’t be apprehensive—she won’t be expected to share a house with her sister-in-law.”

His pipe had gone out and he did not trouble to relight
it.

“Tell me, Hester,” he said, “if I had been marrying
someone e
lse—someone different in temperament, I mean
—
would you still have decided to go?”