These Delights (16 page)

She sounded a little ti
red as she answered. There were so many hidden
undercurrents this summer that she did
not understand.

“That’s a very difficult question. I think on the whole, yes. It is so much better for two people to start their married life on their own. I’m over forty, and whoever you married would have been many years younger. There would be bound to be divergences of opinion, and that’s not fair to a young girl.”

“It’s funny,
”
said Luke slowly, “but I never think of Diana as a young girl.
”

“Well, of course, Diana is twenty-eight,” said Hester briskly. “And most people would say that’s a suitable age for you.”

“Don’t you think so?”

“I don’t know. Someone younger might be more—pliable, but I don’t know that age really has much to do with these things.”

“ ‘
Let me not to the marriage of true minds admit impediments,’ in fact.”

“Perhaps. In any case, I’m only a poor spinster and not expected to have sensible views on such things.”

He got up and crossed behind her chair, resting his hands on her shoulders in a gesture of affection that was rare between them. Through the open window, he could see Vicky and Pauline, their arms entwined, their fair heads close together as they stood in the sunlight, sharing some private joke.

“You’re a very wise spinster,” he said gently, “and I shall miss you unbearably if you go.”

She covered his hands with hers for a moment, and her voice was not quite steady as she replied, as Vicky had done in the
barn
:
“You must be happy, Luke. I only want you to be happy.”
She gathered her morning’s mail together and went out of the room as the girls returned by the window.

“What does Louis say?” Pauline asked. “Is Papa better?”

“He writes to you, and not to us,” observed Vicky more shrewdly. “Is the news not so good?”

He looked at them, the letter in his hand, and they thought his eyes were sad.

“Not very good, I’m afraid, Vicky,” he said. “Yo
u
r father’s progress seems to be slower than they expected.”

“He is very ill—perhaps dying? We should go to him at once, yes?” Vicky, her leg half over the window-sill, remained there, her head thrown back, her wide eyes fixed on Luke.

“No, no,” he said quickly. “It’s not as bad as that
.
Here, you’d better read the letter for yourselves.”

They bent over the letter, their lips moving in rapid French, as they did not stop to translate.

“But this is not too bad,” said Pauline practically. “It is only reasonable that perhaps Papa should not winter in Douai. The apartment is not very comfortable or very convenient
.
But if we are to live with Marthe’s old parents, I too will get work, Vicky,
for it would be very dull to live among them all day, for Marthe, too, is no longer young.”

Luke smiled.

“That won’t arise,” he told them. “If, by any chance, your father has to remain in the clinic for the winter, you will both stop here until he is well enough for you to join him.
”

“Stop here?” Vicky’s eyes were questioning.

“
Yes—that is, if you would like to.”

Pauline threw her arms round his neck.

“But that is wonderful!” she cried, hugging him ecstatically. “We love it here, and if it were not for Papa, we would never want to return to France.”

“Well, that’s satisfactory,” he said, laughingly disengaging her arms. “And what about you, Vicky? Do you approve of the idea, too?”

She sat down on the window-sill and began picking a thread out of the hem of her frock, not looking at him. “We must do what is arranged for us,” she said.

“Well, that sounds admirably accommodating, but lacks your usual enthusiasm,” Luke teased.

“Are you not to be married yet, then?” she asked, still without looking up.

“What’s that got to do with it?”

“She means,” observed Pauline, ever frank, “that Diana wouldn’t like it, and I don’t expect she would.”

“I see
,”
said Lake. “Well, shall we leave the question of Diana’s opinions until the problem arises? It may not happen, you know. Dalcroix was only warning us.”

Vicky extracted the loose thread and at last looked up. Her eyes, as they met his, were troubled.

“We must not become a burden to you, Luke,” she said gravely, and got up.

He came and stood between them, putting an arm round each.

“You could never be that,” he told them. “We are cousins and have the right to make demands on one another, and I enjoy having you here very much. When you do go—I shall miss you.” He spoke to both of them, but his eyes rested on Vicky’s fair head so near his shoulder, and he brushed his lips for a moment against her hair. “Now, let’s forget about all this and plan something nice for today. Next week we shall be harvesting and there’ll be no time for picnics.”

Corky’s face peered round the door.

“Ain’t you ever going to get about your work, Mr. Luke, sir?” he demanded plaintively.
“I’ve
been trying to clear off this table for the last hour. Miss Vicky, you ain’t ‘arf left your room in a state again. I know it’s you, see, because Miss Pauline’s the tidy one. You go straight up and set it to rights afore Miss Hester sees it.”

“Darling Corky, I do love you,” cried Vicky, leaping from the room and blowing him a kiss in passing.

Corky winked at Luke.

“Thinks she can get round me with that talk, see? And wot’s more, so she blinkin’ well can.”

Diana and her mother returned a week before the f
e
te, but Luke did not see Diana immediately. He was busy with the preparations for the f
e
te, and it was several days before they met.

The children spent all day in the cornfield, listening to the reaper and watching t
he
stooks pile up in golden abundance. Poppies were rampant this year, and co
rn
flowers, and Vicky would sort the flowers tenderly from the straw and husks where they had fallen and take them home to Hester.

“
A fine harvest,” Tom said with satisfaction. “It’s like you said, Miss Vicky, richness and plenty and the earth fulfilled. The earth fulfilled
...
I’ve always remembered that.”

Yes, thought Vicky, watching the thresher at work, it was
complete
fulfilment. The
barn
slowly filled with grain for the winter, and she would plunge her brown arms deep in the cool shifting mass of it and experience a primitive desire to drown in the earth’s good fruits.

“
You’re a little pagan,” Luke told her. “I think you’d be more inclined to worship the earth than attend Harvest Thanksgiving.”

But he watched her with tenderness hold the handfuls of grain for a moment to her cheek before she let it trickle away through her fingers.

The day the harves
t
was finally gathered in, Diana rang
u
p and said she wanted to see Luke. Her voice over the wire sounded a little disturbed, and he asked her if anything was wrong.

“No,” she said, “but I want to have a talk with you. Father and mother are dining out tonight
.
Come over about eight
.
Don’t bother to change.”

He was tired after the long day, and disinclined to do other than relax over a book and perhaps doze, but he had not seen Diana since her return and there was probably plenty she wanted to discuss.

She was waiting for
him
in her mother’s
little
sitting-room which looked out on to the terrace. Her frock was new to
him,
and she looked very well.

“I thought we’d use this room as we’re alone,” she said, kissing him. “The drawing-room gets chilly without a fire, even these warm evenings. Have you missed me?”

“I’m very glad to see you
b
ack,” he said. “But just lately, I must own we’ve been too busy to relax much.”

“The harvest in without a drop of rain. That’s very satisfactory. I hear it’s a bumper one.”

“Yes, we shouldn’t have any worries next winter, whatever the weather.”

“Next winter—yes, that’s what I wanted to talk to you about.” She handed him a cocktail, and settled herself unhurriedly by the empty fireplace. “Father tells me there’s a possibility that the girls may stay on through the winter. Is that true?”

“A possibility, yes, but only a possibility. The last letter from the clinic was more encouraging.”

“That’s a good thing. I don’t think, anyway, it’s a very sound plan to keep them here indefinitely.”

“It’s the only possible plan if things don’t turn out well for Dennis,” he said patiently. “What’s wrong with it?”

She sipped her cocktail thoughtfully.

“Well, it’s rather a drain on you to have to keep them all this time, for one thing,” she said carefully, “and for another, it’s better for them that they should be permanently settled somewhere. Pauline should be at school, and Vicky either keeping house for them or looking for a job.”

“That’s nonsense,” he replied. “At any rate, as far as being a drain on my resources. I’m not rich by your standards, darling, but neither am I destitute.”

“Don’t be so touchy,” she said with a smile. ‘You know I didn’t mean it that way.”

“As to it being better for them to be settled permanently,” he went on, “I don’t doubt you’re right, but that isn’t possible until their father can make a home for them again.”

S
he reached for a cigarette from a box beside her and waited for him to light it.

“
Yes, I can see there are difficulties, but wasn’t there some suggestion that the girls should board with some old servant until their father was better?”

He flicked open his lighter and did not speak for a moment while he held it to her cigarette and then to his own. His face, as he bent over the little flame, was expressionless.

“Neither Hester nor I care for that idea,” he said then, and suddenly looked directly at her.

“Diana, dear,” he said gently, “you really must not interfere in my affairs. The children are my cousins—the only relations I’ve got—and I must be allowed to do what I think is best for them.”

She flushed a little.

“I’ve no wish to interfere,” she said.

“But you do. You’ve resented the children coming all along, and I’ve never understood why.”

She tried to be fair.

“Perhaps that was mainly selfish,” she admitted. “I thought they would take up too much of your time and spoil things for us. And they have, as it’s turned out.”

He smiled.

“Oh, darling, that’s ridiculous. They haven’t spoilt things for me—
q
uite the contrary—and we’ve managed to see plenty of each other without them
.
Please be reasonable.”

“I’m trying to be reasonable,” she replied. “I’ve admitted that my first reaction was mainly selfish, but since—I don’t
think
you realize, Luke, how much you’ve changed.”

“Have I?” He looked surprised. “Well, perhaps you’ve never seen me before in relation to other people—my own kind of people, I mean.”

“And Vicky is your kind of person?”

“
Yes, I
think
she is. She’s a wa
r
m-hearted child, and we like the same things. She has a most receptive mind and that’s always pleasing—and stimulating.”

“I see,” she said. “Well, be careful, my dear. She’s at the impressionable age, and we don’t want further complications on our hands.”

“I think you’re being rather silly,” he said gently.

“If it’s silly to use my common sense, then I’m silly,” she retorted sharply. “But don’t blame me or Vicky if you find you have a love-sick schoolgirl hanging round your neck. She does quite enough of that as it is.”

“Why do you resent Vicky’s affection for me?”

She poured out two more cocktails, spilling them a little. “I don’t resent her affection, but her way of expressing it. It’s undignified and—and extravagant, like everything else she does.”

He gave her a steady look.

“It wasn’t very kind to tell her so, was it?” he said quietly.

She gave a little la
u
gh.

“I might have known she’d pass the information on. I simply dropped her a friendly hint to stop her
making
a fool of herself—and you.”

“You know,” he said slowly, “anyone listening to you would say you were jealous of Vicky.”

She drained off her cocktail angrily and put down the empty glass.

“Now you’re being utterly ridiculous,” she said. “I would hardly be jealous of a raw little cousin who saw fit to make sheep’s eyes at you.”

“It might be better if you were,
”
he said, and putting down his glass, took her suddenly into his arms.
“
Diana, you say I’ve changed, but I think you have, too, or did I never realize what a cold person you are?
Can
you never be human? Be frankly jealous, be violent if you like, when I annoy you, be warm sometimes, and kiss me as if you really meant it
.
”

“I think,” she said calmly, quite passive between his hands, “you must
have taken leave of your senses.”

He let her go abruptly.

“Perhaps I have,” he said. “I’m sorry, Diana. You’ll never understand, will you?”

“Not that sort of outburst
.
You’re tired, aren’t you, Luke?”

“Yes, I’m tired
.
” He was very tired, and very unequal to this sort of evening. “Do you mind if I have another drink?”