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“Certain to be. Jerry’s a public man.”
“Not her dress, I hope. Did you like the jury?”
Di
“Like dogs’ noses, when they feel hot and aren’t. What about that young man?”
“He’s the one I’m truly sorry for.”
“Yes,” said Lady Mont. “Every man commits adultery in his heart, but not in cars.”
“It’s not truth but appearances that matter, Aunt Em.”
“Circumstantial, Lawrence says—provin’ they did when they didn’t. More reliable that way, he thinks; otherwise, he says, when they didn’t you could prove they did. Is that right, Di
“No, dear.”
“Well, I must go home to your mother. She doesn’t eat a thing—sits and reads and looks pale. And Con won’t go near his Club. Fleur wants us and them to go to Monte Carlo in her car when it’s over. She says we shall be in our element, and that Riggs CAN drive on the right-hand side of the road when he remembers.”
Di
“Nothing like one’s own hole, Auntie.”
“I don’t like creepin’,” said Lady Mont. “Kiss me. And get married soon.”
When she had swayed out of the room, Di
How incorrigible was that prepossession! Aunt Em and Uncle Adrian, her father and her mother, Fleur, yes and even Clare herself—all anxious that she should marry Dornford and be done with it!
And what good would it do any of them? Whence came this instinct for pressing people into each other’s arms? If she had any use in the world, would that increase it? ‘For the procreation of children,’ went the words of the old order. The world had to be carried on! Why had the world to be carried on? Everybody used the word ‘hell’ in co
‘Or the Catholic church,’ she thought, ‘and I don’t believe in either.’
She opened the window, and leaned against its frame. A fly buzzed at her; she blew it away, and it instantly came back. Flies! They fulfilled a purpose. What purpose? While they were alive they were alive; when they were dead they were dead. ‘But not half-alive,’ she thought. She blew again, and this time the fly did not come back.
Fleur’s voice behind her said:
“Isn’t it cold enough for you in here, my dear? Did you ever know such a year? I say that every May. Come and have tea. Clare’s in her bath, and very nice she looks, with a cup of tea in one hand and a cigarette in the other. I suppose they’ll get to the end tomorrow?”
“Your cousin says so.”
“He’s coming to di
“Why ‘luckily’?”
“Oh! well, she’s a wife. If there’s anything he wants to say to Clare, I shall send him up to her; she’ll be out of her bath by then. But he can say it to you just as well. How do you think Clare will do in the box?”
“Can anyone do well in the box?”
“My father said I did, but he was partial; and the Coroner complimented you, didn’t he, at the Ferse inquest?”
“There was no cross-examination. Clare’s not patient, Fleur.”
“Tell her to count five before she answers, and lift her eyebrows. The thing is to get Brough rattled.”
“His voice would madden me,” said Di
“Yes, quite a common trick. The whole thing’s extraordinarily like the Inquisition. What do you think of Clare’s counsel?”
“I should hate him if I were on the other side.”
“Then he’s good. Well, Di
“Don’t marry.”
“Bit sweeping, till we can grow babies in bottles. Hasn’t it ever struck you that civilisation’s built on the maternal instinct?”
“I thought it was built on agriculture.”
“By ‘civilisation’ I meant everything that isn’t just force.”
Di
“You’re rather a darling.”
Di
“Extremely well-preserved,” concluded ‘very young’ Roger. “Do you know anything about bees, Fleur?”
“I once sat on one.”
“Do you, Miss Cherrell?”
“We keep them.”
“If you were me, would you go in for them?”
“Where do you live?”
“A little beyond Hatfield. There are some quite nice clover crops round. Bees appeal to me in theory. They feed on other people’s flowers and clover; and if you find a swarm you can stick to it. What are the drawbacks?”
“Well, if they swarm on other people’s ground, ten to one you lose them; and you have to feed them all the winter. Otherwise it’s only a question of the time, trouble, and stings.”
“I don’t know that I should mind that,” murmured ‘very young’ Roger; “my wife would take them on.” He cocked his eye slightly: “She has rheumatism. Apic acid, they say, is the best cure.”
“Better make sure first,” murmured Di
“You can always sit on them,” murmured Fleur.
“Seriously,” said ‘very young’ Roger, “half-a-dozen stings would be well worth it, poor thing.”
“What made you take up law, Forsyte?” struck in Michael.
“Well, I got a ‘blighty’ one in the war, and had to get something sedentary. I rather like it, you know, in a way, and in a way I think it’s—”
“Quite!” said Michael: “Hadn’t you an Uncle George?”
“Old George! Rather! Always gave me ten bob at school, and tipped me the name of a horse to put it on.”
“Did it ever win?”
“No.”
“Well, tell us, frankly: What’s going to win tomorrow?”
“Frankly,” said the solicitor, looking at Di
Di
“Well, then, it’s very much a case of the personal appeal. But there’s a prejudice against mice playing when the cat’s away.”
Di