Changing Winds Part 75

"We might go into the country...."

"Or hire a furnished flat for a while...."

"Or do something.... Lordy G.o.d, Quinny, we're getting frightfully vague and loose-endy. We really must pull ourselves together. There's a bun-shop somewhere about. Suppose we have tea?"

10

They took a furnished flat in Buckingham Street, and lived there while Henry completed "Turbulence" and saw it through the press. Gilbert had finished another comedy soon after the production of "The Magic Cas.e.m.e.nt," and Sir Geoffrey Mundane had asked for a first option on it.

"The Magic Cas.e.m.e.nt" was not a great popular success, but it "paid its way," as Sir Geoffrey said. It was performed for a hundred and twenty times in England, and for three weeks in America, where it failed lamentably. "I never did think much of a republic!" Gilbert said when he heard of the play's failure.

Roger and Rachel had settled in their house in Hampstead soon after Gilbert and Henry had taken the furnished flat, and after a while, some of the old routine of their lives, except that part of it represented by Ninian, went on as before. Most of Ninian's leave was spent in quelling his mother's alarms about his journey to South America. "It's a splendid chance for me, mother!" he insisted. "It's jolly decent of old Hare to give it to me!"

"But it's so far away, Ninian, dear, and if anything were to happen to you!..."

"Nothing'll happen to me, mother ... nothing serious anyhow. Heaps of chaps go off to places like that without turning a hair!"

"But I've only got you, Ninian!" Mrs. Graham objected.

"You've got Mary, too, and I shall come back to you!"

One evening, as they walked along the road that leads to Sidmouth, she put her arm in his, and drew him near to her.

"Ninian, dear," she said very softly and hesitatingly as if she were afraid to say all that was in her mind.

"Yes, mother!"

"Ninian, I sometimes wish ..."

Again she hesitated, and again he said, "Yes, mother?"

Her speech took another direction. "There have been Grahams at Boveyhayne for four hundred years, dear, and there's only you left now."

He looked at her uncomprehendingly. "Well, mother!..."

"My dear, we can't let it go away from us. It's us, and we're it, and if anything were to happen to you, and a stranger were to come here!"

"But, my dear mother," he interrupted, "nothing's going to happen to me, and no one's going to get Boveyhayne away from us. Why should any one?..."

She put her free hand on his sleeve. "When Roger married Rachel," she said, "I wished ... I wished that you were Roger, Ninian!"

"You want me to get married, mother?"

She did not answer, but her clasp on his arm tightened.

"A chap can't marry a girl just for the sake of getting married, mother!..."

"No, dear, I know, but ..."

"I've not seen a girl yet that I wanted particularly. You see, I've been awfully busy at my job!... I know how you feel, mother, about Boveyhayne, and I feel like that myself sometimes. I used to think it was rather rot all this talk about Family and keeping on and ... and that kind of thing, but I can't help feeling proud of ... of all those old chaps who went before me, and ... all that, and I'd hate to break the line ... only I can't just go up to a girl and ... and say, 'We want some ... some babies in our house!' ..."

"No, dear, you can't say _that_, of course, but there are plenty of nice girls about, and if you would just ... just think of some of them, instead of always thinking of works and tunnels and things!... Of course, I know that tunnels are very interesting, Ninian, but ... but Boveyhayne!..."

She did not say any more. She stood by the gate of a field, looking over the valley of the Axe to the hilly country that separates Dorset from Devon, seeing nothing because her eyes were full of tears. He slipped his arm from hers and put it round her waist and drew her close to him.

"All right, mother!" he said.

"My dear!" she said, reaching up and kissing him.

11

They dined together on Ninian's last night in England. Rachel, with fine understanding, insisted that they should dine alone, although they urged her to join them.

"I say, you chaps," Ninian said to them, "you might go and see my mater sometimes. She'd be awfully glad. Quinny, you haven't been to Boveyhayne for centuries. ... If you'd go, now and then, you'd cheer the mater up.

She's awfully down in the mouth about me going!"

"Righto, Ninian!" said Gilbert.

"Mary was saying what a long time it was since you were there, Quinny,"

Ninian went on.

"Did she?" Henry answered.

"Yes. I hope you'll go down sometime."

"I will," he said.

THE SECOND CHAPTER

1

Mrs. Graham invited Gilbert and Henry to spend Christmas at Boveyhayne, and they gladly accepted her invitation, but a week before they were due to go to Devonshire, Mr. Quinn fell ill, and Henry, alarmed by the reports which were sent to him by Hannah, wrote to Mrs. Graham to say that he must travel to Ireland at once. He hurried home to Ballymartin, and found that his father was more ill even than Hannah had hinted.

"I wouldn't have let her send for you, Henry!" he said, apologetically, "only I was afraid ... I mightn't see you again!"

He tried to cheer his father by protesting that in a little while he would be astride his horse again, directing the farm experiments as vigorously as ever, but Mr. Quinn shook his head. "I don't think so, Henry!" he said. "I'll not be fit for much anyway. You'll have to lend a hand with the estate, my son."

"I'll help all I can, father, but I'm not much of an agriculturist!..."

"Well, you can't be everything. That new book of yours ... the one you sent me the other day!..."

"'Turbulence,' father?"

"Aye. It's a gran' book, that. I'd like well to be able to write a book of that sort. I'm proud of you. Henry!"