The Last September Part 17

"Not as I understand love."

"But so long," said Gerald, with the particular urbanity of an approach to rudeness, "so long as she and I both mean the same thing-"

"But you don't," said his friend in her kind, social voice. "That is what I am trying to make you see. With her temperament-"

"I haven't noticed her temperament," said Gerald loyally, as if a temperament were a hump.

"Now that alone," exclaimed Lady Naylor, waving her gloves in a rapid gesticulation, "would make a marriage quite fatal ... Mr. Lesworth, I don't want to have to imagine you miserable. I have no sons of my own, you know, and Laurence being so intellectual- And there is another thing ..." She paused, and with unusual nervousness, with a movement almost of Francie's, touched her boa, her jabot, two carnations pinned into the lace. She had now to tilt straight at indecency. There was this question of money-a subject the English made free with, as free with as what was below their diaphragms, but from which her whole modesty shrank. "You may think me dreadful," she said, "but there are things in life one must face. After all, I am Lois's aunt... ."

Gerald, blushing, stood agonised to attention.

"There is money," she brought out at last. "I mean, you haven't any, have you? Of course, I don't see why you should have. But two people must live, though it's all rather sordid. However, this need not arise. But I just want to show you-"

"I know she's got a beautiful home," he said glumly.

"However ... You see it's impossible every way. But first and last, she does not love you."

He was forced into the position, which he would have described to a friend as b.l.o.o.d.y, of a.s.serting she did. "Though I cannot think why."

"Oh, but so many girls would" she cried earnestly. "But for Lois I do think-we all think-a school of art. She cares for her drawing intensely."

"She never speaks of it."

"Ah, that just shows ... Lack of sympathy!" said the aunt with mournful complacency. "And it isn't simply your age; it would be the same thing if you were a captain or even a major. Now I do think you ought to be sensible. It can all pa.s.s off so quietly. n.o.body knows except me. Now what I suggest-"

"-She might have told me she'd told you!" He stared round the changed room bitterly.

"That was just what I didn't encourage, to tell you the truth. Oh, the child was most honest. But I thought you and I should approach this quite fresh and unprejudiced."

"Did we have to?"

"Oh, Mr. Lesworth!" she cried, disconcerted. She resumed, firmly but with inspiration, something between a hospital nurse and a prophetess: "The less talk, the less indirect discussion round and about things the better, I always think."

While she considered her gloves and with gathering satisfaction prepared to put one of them on, he stood half turned away from her, stubborn but indecisive. An unusual pendulum swung in him, he was ruined- resolute-ruined. He was dark with perplexed anger, from which his invincible "niceness" stood, in deprecation, aside. She blasphemed, and yet he had to admire her four-square propriety, her sound sense, the price she set on his Lois. And love, meanwhile, did not so much lie bleeding as sit back stunned, bruised, a little craven from shock. Gerald drew in his chin, swallowed, put a finger inside his collar as though to loosen it.

"Then I understand you don't like this: you're going to stop it?"

"-Now, my dear Mr. Lesworth, do think: would I ever 'stop' anything?"

"-You're going to stop it because I'm too young and too poor, and not 'county' enough-or whatever I ought to be?"

"You have entirely misunderstood me," cried Lady Naylor, hurt.

"You don't have to tell me I'm not good enough: that's what I've battered my head against ever since-"

"We all think you're charming-the Montmorencys, everyone! You know we're delighted to see you-"

"Oh, I'm all right for tennis," said Gerald without rancour.

"There is no one I'd rather-as far as that goes-" began Lady Naylor warmly.

"You feel it's up to you to stop it," he summed up. "And I can see that from your point of view you're quite right. But there are some things you can't stop. G.o.d knows, I've got little enough for Lois, and she ought to have everything, straight off, now. But I swear I'll see that she gets it. I'll give up the Army, anything. I know I'm going to work things out. If it were only what I want- But she loves me-I daresay she's pretty mad but she does love me; I've looked at her eyes, I know. If she hadn't seemed-if I hadn't felt-if it hadn't been just the only thing for us both, I'd never have said a word-I swear-I'd have died sooner."

"But she agrees with everyone," said Lady Naylor, taking off the glove again in despair. "She is extremely keen to go to this school of art."

"Where?" he said violently.

"Some good school."

"Do you expect me not to trust her?"

"I should have a straightforward, sensible talk."

"You're not going to stop my seeing her?"

"I don't know what sort of girls' mothers and aunts you're accustomed to," she said, nettled, "but how could you expect me to do such a preposterous thing? It would be not only unkind but exceedingly foolish. To begin with, she is not my own niece at all. It would be for her uncle to decide. But Sir Richard is very easily worried; I particularly do not wish- You know we are always delighted to see you at any time."

She paused. "It's most awfully kind of you," said he, by reflex action.

"In these days of frank unsentimental friendship between young people, I do not see why you two should not have a perfectly friendly, sensible talk. Of course there must be no ... I mean, I know I can trust you ... I mean, you do quite understand you are not engaged, and not being engaged there can be no question of-?"

"I promise I won't kiss her."

Lady Naylor was much embarra.s.sed. She laughed impersonally and arranged her boa. She expressed some envy of this generation, its frank friendships.

"I don't think I am very modern," said Gerald flatly.

"Now Laurence is too modern: he does not seem to care about girls at all ... For the present, I'd leave love out of the question-"

"But I thought that was the question!"

A shadow went past the window. "Here comes Mrs. Montmorency," said Gerald. And he touched his moustache and blinked and looked round, wondering which chair to offer.

"That is too bad! I sent her up to the rectory."

"Perhaps they were out."

"I told her to wait; there would be plenty to read in the drawing-room- Well, you do understand, don't you?"

"I'm afraid I-"

Francie was shown in. "Oh!" she cried. "What a lot of cushions! Kittens! Fancy sitting on them; I should feel like a cannibal. No, I don't mean-Mr. Lesworth! Isn't this nice? Are those photographs of your regiment? I had no idea there were so many officers ... Myra, I remembered a little something I had to get at the chemist's, so I thought I'd call in here and save you that climb up the hill. They were all out."

"Well, that was very sweet of you, Francie," said Lady Naylor.

"Oh, how patriotic!" cried Francie, knocking two cushions covered with Union Jacks off the sofa. "She's a Catholic, isn't she? Oh Mr. Lesworth, don't bother; I'm so clumsy ... I had no idea we were going to meet you. Isn't it a pity now that we didn't bring Lois? Myra, isn't it too bad Lois didn't come too!"

"Yes, it does seem a pity," said Lady Naylor. Still looking faintly regretful she got up, looked at herself in a mirror, arranged her boa and pulled down the brim of her hat. Then shook hands with Gerald warmly, saying how much she had enjoyed their talk.

CHAPTER SIX.

I SHALL never forget," continued Francie, through the open dressing-room door, "the way he picked up those cushions."

"Which?" said Hugo, searching irritably among his collars. The feudal system was weak at some points, he reflected-this Danielstown laundry. The laundress's father had helped to defend the house in the troubled 'sixties. Nostalgic, he thought of these neat democratic blue vans labelled "hygienic" that called on Mondays. "Well, really," said he, "I may just as well go to bed. I haven't a collar left fit to dine in ... Which cushions?"

"Oh, horrors. But then they say the Fogartys are so kind- Never mind, Hugo; Richard's and Laurence's collars are just the same- You know how alive he is generally: well, that was all gone. It was like seeing a waterfall stand still. You know, Hugo, it may be horrid, but I don't trust Myra sometimes. She says things aren't, and then she turns and makes these curious little dabs at them. She dislikes the Clonmore rectory people, she says they are breath-y, she knows I don't know them and yet she insisted on my going up.

And when I came down again she was charming: I knew I must have annoyed her."

"My dear Francie, life is too short for all this." (Though that was not the matter with life, really; life was too long.) Hugo frowned, chin up in front of his gla.s.s. "It's a good thing the evenings are drawing in," he said, with reference to his collar.

"Now what I should have said," resumed Francie, "though ideally, really, I shouldn't have said anything... ."

"Talking of evenings," said Hugo, "where do we go next? We've got to fit in the Fitzgeralds before October. Oughtn't you to be writing to somebody? And oh, Francie, you might post some of these collars off to the Terenure laundry, if you can get the parcel out of the house quietly."

"I shall miss here," sighed Francie, looking out at the trees.

"You miss everywhere." They both thought of the bungalow which, an eternal present for them, would be never able to shine in retrospect. Throughout dinner, Francie was distrait. She was making out in her mind a little letter to Gerald. But, of course, that would never do.

"Hullo," said Laurence, earlier, looking at the letters put out for next morning's post on the hall table. "Lois has written to Marda. I thought no one knew her address."

"She heard from Marda this morning," explained his uncle, bending to study the envelope with melancholy interest. "I understand that it was about a dog. I shall be relieved when Marda is married. I wonder will the young man be able to look after luggage?"

"I ran into Mr. Lesworth this afternoon," Lady Naylor told Lois. "He came into the Fogartys' while I was resting there. Really, she keeps quite a home for those young men-though nothing would ever take the gloss off those cushions. He seemed very cheerful, he was on his way up to the tennis."

"He never goes to the tennis on Club days."

"Oh well, he seemed to be on his way up to the tennis. He told me of that young Armstrong's engagement to Livvy Thompson. It seems quite a fait accompli, though secret, of course. How things do get round in a garrison town. You knew, I suppose?"

"Well, Livvy did tell me."

"What a bother for you," said Lady Naylor. "It is a comfort to have outgrown one's friends' engagements. I suppose you couldn't very well tell her it was preposterous?"

"Well, I ..."

"Mr. Lesworth thought it a pity, in view of the young man's future. He expects Mr. Armstrong will not stand well over this with their colonel at all. I think he can't understand his friend's not being keener on his career. I suppose it will end by their just going out to one of those coffee or orange places in Africa. But, of course Livvy is used to a dull life."

"But I don't see ..."

"And there isn't much else for her. I can't see poor Livvy at a school of art, though she might typewrite."

"She would do for a model," said Laurence, who had been listening with interest to this conversation from his side of the table. "They should be either voluminous or very spiky."

At this point, the candles were brought in-Lady Naylor had been delayed in Clonmore, they were dining late. The sharp flames shivered, everyone blinked; the dahlias became theatrical.

"Autumn," p.r.o.nounced Sir Richard. "There should be less of this ambushing and skirmishing and hey-fidaddling now that the days are drawing in."

"But as an English friend of mine pointed out," said Hugo, "this Irish fighting is not cricket."

Laurence maintained that this way of fighting was consistent, efficient and very natural. Why, he asked, be high-toned about a war?

"Oh dear," said Francie, "you sound just like a pacifist."

What else did Gerald say? Lois wanted to know.

"I really cannot remember," said Lady Naylor, "he was as pleasant as ever, but of course not original. He seemed in a hurry to be getting up to the tennis."

Lois, dissatisfied, blinked gloomily in the candlelight.

About half-past ten, Francie-having been taken up to her room by Myra, with a suggestion of being put away for the night-crept out again to the anteroom, listening. Her candlestick, wobbling with indecision, brushed the ceiling with shadows. Wires tw.a.n.ged where some cattle rubbed on a fence in the damp darkness. Francie went across and tapped on Lois's door.

Lois turned in alarm from the dark window where she stood holding her elbows, not quite thinking. Her heart thumped as the crack of the door widened, letting in foreign light. "d.a.m.n," she thought with annoyance. She had been up here for more than an hour and had not begun to undress. To look more natural, she undid her frock and stepped quickly out of it.

Mrs. Montmorency, yellow under the chin, appeared deprecatingly. She had just thought, she said, of a little chat. She looked round hopelessly; she could not think where to put down her candle. This decided-a little table presented itself-her difficulties seemed to be over. She said at once: "The young man, Lois, seems so unhappy."

"But we're engaged," said Lois, tying her dressing-gown firmly round her hips.

"Oh. Are you certain? Because ..."

"What did he say?" asked Lois, at once defensive.

"My dear, I was up at the rectory. I am sure your aunt meant everything for the best."

Lois went to the gla.s.s and took down her hair distractedly. Shaking it over her face she said, m.u.f.fled: "You mean, she has interfered?"

"Well, I say she'd done that. But it seems a pity ..."

"Really," cried Lois, glad of the hair because her anger did sound to herself faintly academic, "she is as designing as ... as a cardinal."

"As I said to Hugo, you have enough sense, you are so modern ... and after all you will only be young once."

"Oh. Were you all there?"

"My dear, I tell you, I was up at the rectory. But from the way he picked up the cushions ... I can't bear lives to go wrong!"

This came out so vehemently, with such an effect of pa.s.sion that Lois, surprised, said: "Neither can I, really." And looking round, she found the shadows exaggerated with solemnity, the thin candle-flames stretched up anxiously: a predicament must have become noticeable, even to the room. Impressed by strangeness, by this pressure of emergency, Lois plaited her hair in two plaits instead of one and felt herself a different woman.

"What they never see," she said rapidly, "is, that I must do something."

"I should write at once," said Francie. "I'm not sure that I shouldn't even telegraph, if it were not for the postmistress. I should say- Well, I don't know really: I do wish Marda were here!"

"If I learn German, they say, why not Italian? And when I learn Italian they take no interest."