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“Polite!” said Jean. “Men are absurd. They want a thing, and when it’s offered they carry on like old women. Who is Uncle Hilary?”
“Vicar of St. Augustine’s-inthe-Meads; he has no sense of propriety to speak of.”
“Good! You go up tomorrow, Hubert, and get the licence. We’ll come after you. Where can we stay, Di
“Diana would have us, I think.”
“That settles it. We’ll have to go round by Lippinghall, for me to get some clothes, and see Dad. I can cut his hair while I’m talking to him; there won’t be any trouble. Alan can come too; we shall want a best man. Di
“She’s a wonderful girl, Hubert, and far from cracked, really. It’s breathless, but terribly good sense. She’s always been poor, so it won’t make any difference to her in that way.”
“It isn’t that. It’s the feeling of something hanging over me, that’ll hang over her too.”
“It’ll hang over her worse, if you don’t. I really should, dear boy. Father won’t mind. He likes her, and he’d rather you married a girl of breeding and spirit than any amount of money.”
“It doesn’t seem decent—a special licence,” muttered Hubert.
“It’s romantic, and people won’t have a chance to discuss whether you ought to or not; when it’s done they’ll accept it, as they always do.”
“What about Mother?”
“I’ll tell Mother, if you like. I’m sure she won’t really mind—you’re not being fashionable, marrying a chorus girl or anything of that sort. She admires Jean. So do Aunt Em and Uncle Lawrence.”
Hubert’s face cleared.
“I’ll do it. It’s too wonderful. After all, I’ve nothing to be ashamed of.”
He walked up to Di
Lady Cherrell was in her sanctum next to her bedroom, making muslin bags for the leaves of the scented verbena which grew against the house.
“Darling,” said Di
“Di
“They’re going to be married offhand by special licence.”
“But—”
“Exactly, darling. So we go up tomorrow, and Jean and I stay with Diana till it’s over. Hubert will tell Father.”
“But, Di
Di
“I feel exactly like you,” she said, “only different, because after all I didn’t produce him; but, Mother darling, it is all right. Jean is a marvellous creature, and Hubert’s head over ears. It’s done him a lot of good already, and she’ll see to it that he goes ahead, you know.”
“But, Di
“They’re not expecting Dad to do anything. They’ll just be able to manage, and they needn’t have children, you know, till later.”
“I suppose not. It’s terribly sudden. Why a special licence?”
“Intuition,” and, with a squeeze of her mother’s slender body, she added: “Jean has them. Hubert’s position IS awkward, Mother.”
“Yes; I’m scared about it, and I know your father is, though he’s not said much.”
This was as far as either of them would go in disclosure of their uneasiness, and they went into committee on the question of a perch for the adventuring couple.
“But why shouldn’t they live here until things are settled?” said Lady Cherrell.
“They’ll find it more exciting if they have to do their own washing up. The great thing is to keep Hubert’s mind active just now.”
Lady Cherrell sighed. Correspondence, gardening, giving household orders, and sitting on village committees were certainly not exciting, and Condaford would be even less exciting if, like the young, one had none of these distractions.
“Things ARE quiet here,” she admitted.
“And thank God for it,” murmured Di
Next morning the conspirators were early afoot, Hubert looking, so Jean put it, as though he were ‘riding at a bullfinch’; Di
“Di
“Reduction on taking a quantity. Behave yourself. You will go to sea and forget all about me in a month.”
“Do I look like that?”
Di
“Well, in spots.”
“Do be serious!”
“I can’t; I keep seeing Jean snipping a lock and saying: ‘Now Dad, bless me or I’ll tonsure you!’ and the Rector answering ‘I—er—nevah—!’ and Jean snipping another lock and saying: ‘That’s all right then, and I must have a hundred a year or off go your eyebrows!’”
“Jean’s a holy terror. Promise me anyway, Di
“But suppose I met someone I liked terribly, would you wish to blight my young life?”
“Yes.”
“Not so do they answer on the ‘screen.’”
“You’d make a saint swear.”
“But not a naval lieutenant. Which reminds me: Those texts at the head of the fourth column of the ‘Times.’ It struck me this morning what a splendid secret code could be made out of ‘The Song of Solomon,’ or that Psalm about the Leviathan. ‘My beloved is like a young roe’ might mean ‘Eight German battleships in Dover harbour. Come quickly.’ ‘And there is that Leviathan that takes his pastime therein’ could be ‘Tirpirz in command,’ and so on. No one could possibly decipher it unless they had a copy of the code.”
“I’m going to speed,” said Jean, looking back. The speedometer rose rapidly: Forty—forty-five—fifty—fifty-five—!
The sailor’s hand slipped under Di
“This can’t last, the car will bust. But it’s a tempting bit of road.”
Di
“Jean, I have a nineteenth century inside.”
At Folwell she leaned forward again: “I don’t want them to see me at Lippinghall. Please go straight to the Rectory and hide me somewhere while you deal with your parent.”
Refuged in the dining-room opposite the portrait of which Jean had spoken, Di
Above the ruff encircling the long neck, that time-yellowed face might truly have been Jean fifteen years hence, the same tapering from the broad cheek-bones to the chin, the same long dark-lashed luring eyes; even the hands, crossed on the stomacher, were the very spit of Jean’s. What had been the history of that strange prototype; did they know it, and would it be repeated by her descendant?