"I was only wondering," said Mary, "because there"s a very good train at 3.27, and it would be nice if you could catch it, wouldn"t it?"
"Awfully nice," he agreed weakly. He felt as though he were making arrangements for his own funeral. Train leaves Waterloo 3.27. No flowers...Mary was gone. No, he was blowed if he"d let himself be hurried down to the Necropolis like this. He was blowed. The sight of Mr. Scogan looking out, with a hungry expression, from the drawing-room window made him precipitately hoist the "Times" once more. For a long while he kept it hoisted. Lowering it at last to take another cautious peep at his surroundings, he found himself, with what astonishment!
confronted by Anne"s faint, amused, malicious smile. She was standing before him,--the woman who was a tree,--the swaying grace of her movement arrested in a pose that seemed itself a movement.
"How long have you been standing there?" he asked, when he had done gaping at her.
"Oh, about half an hour, I suppose," she said airily. "You were so very deep in your paper--head over ears--I didn"t like to disturb you."
"You look lovely this morning," Denis exclaimed. It was the first time he had ever had the courage to utter a personal remark of the kind.
Anne held up her hand as though to ward off a blow. "Don"t bludgeon me, please." She sat down on the bench beside him. He was a nice boy, she thought, quite charming; and Gombauld"s violent insistences were really becoming rather tiresome. "Why don"t you wear white trousers?" she asked. "I like you so much in white trousers."
"They"re at the wash," Denis replied rather curtly. This white-trouser business was all in the wrong spirit. He was just preparing a scheme to manoeuvre the conversation back to the proper path, when Mr. Scogan suddenly darted out of the house, crossed the terrace with clockwork rapidity, and came to a halt in front of the bench on which they were seated.
"To go on with our interesting conversation about the cosmos," he began, "I become more and more convinced that the various parts of the concern are fundamentally discrete...But would you mind, Denis, moving a shade to your right?" He wedged himself between them on the bench. "And if you would shift a few inches to the left, my dear Anne...Thank you.
Discrete, I think, was what I was saying."
"You were," said Anne. Denis was speechless.
They were taking their after luncheon coffee in the library when the telegram arrived. Denis blushed guiltily as he took the orange envelope from the salver and tore it open. "Return at once. Urgent family business." It was too ridiculous. As if he had any family business!
Wouldn"t it be best just to crumple the thing up and put it in his pocket without saying anything about it? He looked up; Mary"s large blue china eyes were fixed upon him, seriously, penetratingly. He blushed more deeply than ever, hesitated in a horrible uncertainty.
"What"s your telegram about?" Mary asked significantly.
He lost his head, "I"m afraid," he mumbled, "I"m afraid this means I shall have to go back to town at once." He frowned at the telegram ferociously.
"But that"s absurd, impossible," cried Anne. She had been standing by the window talking to Gombauld; but at Denis"s words she came swaying across the room towards him.
"It"s urgent," he repeated desperately.
"But you"ve only been here such a short time," Anne protested.
"I know," he said, utterly miserable. Oh, if only she could understand!
Women were supposed to have intuition.
"If he must go, he must," put in Mary firmly.
"Yes, I must." He looked at the telegram again for inspiration. "You see, it"s urgent family business," he explained.
Priscilla got up from her chair in some excitement. "I had a distinct presentiment of this last night," she said. "A distinct presentiment."
"A mere coincidence, no doubt," said Mary, brushing Mrs. Wimbush out of the conversation. "There"s a very good train at 3.27." She looked at the clock on the mantelpiece. "You"ll have nice time to pack."
"I"ll order the motor at once." Henry Wimbush rang the bell. The funeral was well under way. It was awful, awful.
"I am wretched you should be going," said Anne.
Denis turned towards her; she really did look wretched. He abandoned himself hopelessly, fatalistically to his destiny. This was what came of action, of doing something decisive. If only he"d just let things drift!
If only...
"I shall miss your conversation," said Mr. Scogan.
Mary looked at the clock again. "I think perhaps you ought to go and pack," she said.
Obediently Denis left the room. Never again, he said to himself, never again would he do anything decisive. Camlet, West Bowlby, Knipswich for Timpany, Spavin Delawarr; and then all the other stations; and then, finally, London. The thought of the journey appalled him. And what on earth was he going to do in London when he got there? He climbed wearily up the stairs. It was time for him to lay himself in his coffin.
The car was at the door--the hea.r.s.e. The whole party had a.s.sembled to see him go. Good-bye, good-bye. Mechanically he tapped the barometer that hung in the porch; the needle stirred perceptibly to the left. A sudden smile lighted up his lugubrious face.
""It sinks and I am ready to depart,"" he said, quoting Landor with an exquisite aptness. He looked quickly round from face to face. n.o.body had noticed. He climbed into the hea.r.s.e.