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‘A wonderful instance,’ thought Adrian, ‘of how the life of man runs in cycles. For the last twenty thousand years or so we’ve been trying, as we thought, to improve on the principle which guides the life of these Indians, only to find it reintroduced as the perfect pattern.’
He sat for some time with a smile biting deep into the folds about his mouth. Doctrinaires, extremists! That Arab who put a pistol to young Desert’s head was a symbol of the most mischievous trait in human nature! Ideas and creeds—what were they but half-truths, only useful in so far as they helped to keep life balanced? The geographical magazine slipped off his knee.
He stopped on the way home in the garden of his square to feel the sun on his cheek and listen to a blackbird. He had all he wanted in life: the woman he loved, fair health, a fair salary—seven hundred a year and the prospect of a pension—two adorable children, not his own, so that he was free from the misgivings of more normal parents; an absorbing job, a love of nature, and another thirty years, perhaps, before him. ‘If at this moment,’ he thought, ‘someone put a pistol to my head and said: “Adrian Cherrell, renounce Christianity or out go your brains!” should I say with Clive in India: “Shoot and be damned!”?’ And he could not answer. The blackbird continued to sing, the young leaves to twitter in the breeze, the sun to warm his cheek, and life to be desirable in the quiet of that one-time fashionable square…
Di
Her Aunt May was in the act of dispensing tea to two young ex-Collegians before their departure to a club where they superintended the skittles, chess, draughts, and ping-pong of the neighbourhood.
“If you want Hilary, Di
“You and uncle know about me, I suppose?”
Mrs. Hilary nodded. She was looking very fresh in a sprigged dress.
“Would you mind telling me what uncle feels about it?”
“I’d rather leave that to him, Di
“People who don’t know him well will always misjudge him. But neither you nor uncle care what other people think.” She said this with a guileless expression which by no means deceived Mrs. Hilary, accustomed to Women’s Institutes.
“We’re neither of us very orthodox, as you know, Di
Di
“Is that more than gentleness and courage and self-sacrifice, and must one be a Christian to have those?”
“I’d rather not talk about it. I should be sorry to say anything that would put me in a position different from Hilary’s.”
“Auntie, how model of you!”
Mrs. Hilary smiled. And Di
She waited, talking of other things, till Hilary came in. He was looking pale and worried. Her aunt gave him tea, passed a hand over his forehead, and went out.
Hilary drank off his tea and filled his pipe with a knot of tobacco screwed up in a circular paper.
“Why corporations, Di
“Are you in trouble, Uncle?”
“Yes, gutting houses on an overdraft is ageing enough, without corporational red tape.”
Looking at his worn but smiling face, Di
“My goodness!” said Hilary, sticking one end of a match into the centre of the knob and lighting the knob with the other end, “how I would love to stand in a tent and smell azaleas!”
“We thought of going at one o’clock, so as to avoid the worst of the crush. Aunt Em would send for you.”
“Can’t promise, so don’t send. If we’re not at the main entrance at one, you’ll know that Providence has intervened. And now, what about you? Adrian has told me.”
“I don’t want to bother you, Uncle.”
Hilary’s shrewd blue eyes almost disappeared. He expelled a cloud of smoke.
“Nothing that concerns you will bother me, my dear, except in so far as it’s going to hurt you. I suppose you MUST, Di
“Yes, I must.”
Hilary sighed.
“In that case it remains to make the best of it. But the world loves the martyrdom of others. I’m afraid he’ll have a bad Press, as they say.”
“I’m sure he will.”
“I can only just remember him, as a rather tall, scornful young man in a buff waistcoat. Has he lost the scorn?”
Di
“It’s not the side I see much of at present.”
“I sincerely trust,” said Hilary, “that he has not what they call devouring passions.”
“Not so far as I have observed.”
“I mean, Di
“Yes. But I believe it’s a ‘marriage of true minds’ with us.”
“Then, my dear, good luck! Only, when people begin to throw bricks, don’t resent it. You’re doing this with your eyes open, and you’ll have no right to. Harder to bear than having your own toe trodden on is seeing one you love batted over the head. So catch hold of yourself hard at the start, and go on catching hold, or you’ll make it worse for him. If I’m not wrong, Di
“I’ll try not to. When Wilfrid’s book of poems comes out, I want you to read one called ‘The Leopard’; it gives his state of mind about the whole thing.”
“Oh!” said Hilary blankly. “Justification? That’s a mistake.”
“That’s what Michael says. I don’t know whether it is or not; I think in the end—not. Anyway, it’s coming out.”
“There begi
“I can’t help it, Uncle.”
“I realise that, Di
“People do come round, except in novels; and even there they have to in the end, or else die, so that the heroine may be happy. Will you say a word for us to Father if you see him, Uncle?”
“No, Di
Di
“Well, Uncle; thank you ever so for not believing in damnation, and even more for not saying so. I shall remember all you’ve said. Tuesday, one o’clock at the main entrance; and don’t forget to eat something first; it’s a very tiring business.”
When she had gone Hilary refilled his pipe.
‘“And even more for not saying so!”’ he repeated in thought. ‘That young woman can be caustic. I wonder how often I say things I don’t mean in the course of my professional duties.’ And, seeing his wife in the doorway, he added:
“May, would you say I was a humbug—professionally?”
“Yes, dear. How could it be otherwise?”
“You mean, the forms a parson uses aren’t broad enough to cover the variations of human nature? But I don’t see how they could be. Would you like to go to the Chelsea Flower Show on Tuesday?”
Mrs. Hilary, thinking: ‘Di
“Let’s try and arrange so that we can get there at one o’clock.”