Enter Mr. Pim
I
BRYMER drove his friend Carraway Pim down to the village, and helped him safely out of the dog-cart.
‘You’re sure you’ll be all right?’ he said anxiously.
‘Yes, thank you, I shall be all right now,’ said Mr. Pim in his clear gentle voice.
‘I go down this way.’ He waved his whip. ‘I’d take you on to the gates, if——’
‘No, no, pray don’t trouble. I shall like the little walk on this beautiful morning.’
‘You’ve got the letter for George?’
Mr. Pim looked vague.
‘George Marden. I gave it to you.’
‘Yes, yes, to be sure. You gave it to me. I remember your giving it to me.’
‘What’s that in your hand?’
Mr. Pim looked reproachfully at the letter which he held in his hand, as if it had been trying to escape him. Then he put it close to his eyes.
‘George Marden, Esq., Marden House,’ he read, and looked up at Brymer. ‘This is the letter,’ he explained courteously. ‘I have it in my hand.’
‘That’s right. It’s the first gate on the right, about a couple of hundred yards up the hill. He’ll put you on to this man, Fanshawe, that you want. His brother Roger used to know him well—the one that died.’
‘Dear, dear,’ said Mr. Pim gently, emerging from his own thoughts to the distressing fact that somebody had died.
‘Let me see, that must have been fifteen years ago. Clever fellow, Roger. The girl’s there now. Well, we shall see you at tea, eh? You’re lunching with the Trevors.’
‘With the Trevors, yes,’ said Mr. Pim, seizing eagerly upon a name which he knew. All this about—what did he call him?—Roger?—was very confusing.
‘Good. George will show you your way to the Trevors. Well, I must be getting on. Come on, Polly. See you at dinner anyhow.’ He waved his whip, and as Polly came on, Mr. Pim raised his Panama hat in a gentle farewell to his friend.
Then he looked again at the letter in his hand.
‘George Marden, Esq., Marden House,’ he read, and gazed up at heaven with a puzzled expression. ‘Dear me, I thought somebody said that his name was Roger. Evidently a mistake. It is George. It says so here distinctly.’
He went on his way. It was such a beautiful morning that as he walked he hummed to himself a succession of vaguely remembered phrases from what had once been tunes, and his mind wandered pleasantly in that between-land of the wonderful things one seems to have done and the wonderful things one hopes to do, as indeed it often wandered; for he was old now, old in body and mind, but young still in spirit, as young, or as old, as he had ever been. A funny little old gentleman he seemed to the two village boys who were kicking their boots at the side of the road as he passed, so funny that they had almost decided to tell him to get his hair cut, or to ask him where he had got that hat; not that these were the outstanding marks of his oddity, but that they lacked other words in which to express their sense of his difference from the rest of their world. Something, however, kept them silent as he passed them, something in his face, a sort of ethereal gentleness, so that they looked down sheepishly, and then up open-mouthed at his back for a moment, before they returned to their kicking.
Presently Mr. Pim came to the gates of Marden House, and so passed in.
II
‘Mr. George Marden?’
‘Yes, sir,’ said Anne with interest, wondering what it was all about.
‘Would you be so kind as to give him this letter?’ He held it out to her. ‘I expect that he will want to see me for a moment.’
‘Yes, sir. Will you come this way, please.’
‘Thank you. My name is Pim—Carraway Pim.’
‘Yes, sir.’
She led the way through the big hall into the morning-room, Mr. Pim following slowly behind, and stopping now and then in an absent-minded way to look at a picture or piece of furniture which came suddenly into his horizon. However, they got there at last.
‘I’ll tell Mr. Marden you’re here, sir. Mr. Pim, didn’t you say?’
‘Yes. Carraway Pim. He doesn’t know me, you understand, but if he could just see me for a moment——’ He was feeling in his pockets as he spoke, and looked up to say anxiously, ‘I gave you that letter?’
‘Yes, sir. I’ll give it to him.’
But he was still feeling in his pockets, and now brought out another letter, at which he looked helplessly.
‘Dear me!’ he said at last.
‘Yes, sir?’
‘I ought to have posted this yesterday,’ said Mr. Pim, and there was just a suggestion in his voice that he forgave Anne, however, for not reminding him of it before.
‘Oh, I’m sorry, sir.’
‘Yes. Well, I must send a telegram on my way back. You have a telegraph office in the village?’
‘Oh yes, sir. If you turn to the left when you get outside the gates, it isn’t more than a hundred yards down the hill.’ She went through the open French windows on to the terrace, and indicated the way.
‘Thank you, thank you. Very stupid of me to have forgotten. I can’t think how I can have been so stupid. Turn to the left and down the hill. Yes, I must certainly send a telegram.’
He wandered round the room, singing a happy little song to himself of which the refrain was ‘Turn to the left and down the hill,’ interrupting it for a moment in order to look more closely at this or that which had caught his eye, and then carrying it on again from the point where he had left it. He was looking out over the terrace at George’s spreading lawns when Dinah entered suddenly by the door and came upon his back view.
Dinah had remained on her seat in the garden, imagining the great scene in the library to herself, until she could bear it no longer. So she went in and (let us admit it defiantly) listened for a moment outside the library door . . . Silence . . . . Were they both overcome by emotion?—Or had they merely adjourned to the morning-room? Silence also in the morning-room. She opened the door and went bravely in.
‘Hallo!’
At the greeting Mr. Pim turned round and collected himself as quickly as he could.
‘Good morning, Mrs.—er—Marden,’ he said, giving her a little bow. ‘You must forgive——’
‘Oh I say, I’m not Mrs. Marden,’ said Dinah with a frank smile. ‘I’m Dinah.’
With another little bow and a smile Mr. Pim explained that in that case he would say ‘Good morning, Miss Diana.’
Dinah shook her head reproachfully at him.
‘Now, look here, if you and I are going to be friends, you mustn’t do that. Dinah, not Diana. Do remember it, there’s a good man, because I get so tired of correcting people. Have you come to stay with us?’
‘Well, no, Miss—er—Dinah.’
She nodded at him in approval.
‘That’s right. I can see I shan’t have to speak to you again. Now tell me your name, and I bet you I get it right first time. And do sit down, won’t you?’
‘Thank you.’ He sat down gently on the sofa. ‘My name is Pim. Carraway Pim.’
‘Pim—that’s easy.’ She perched herself on the back of the sofa.
‘And I have a letter of introduction to your father——’
Dinah interrupted with a shake of the head.
‘Oh no, now you’re going wrong again, Mr. Pim. George isn’t my father, he’s my uncle. Uncle George—he doesn’t like me calling him George. Olivia doesn’t mind—I mean she doesn’t mind being called Olivia—but George is rather touchy. You see, he’s been my guardian since I was about two, and then about five years ago he married a widow called Mrs. Telworthy—that’s Olivia—so she became my Aunt Olivia, only she lets me drop the aunt. Got that?’
Mr. Pim started at the sudden question and then said doubtfully, ‘I—I think so, Miss Marden.’
Dinah looked at him in admiration.
‘I say, you are quick, Mr. Pim. Well, if you take my advice, when you’ve finished your business with George, you’ll hang about a bit and see if you can’t see Olivia. She’s simply—devastating. I don’t wonder George fell in love with her.’
Mr. Pim felt that the time had come for a clear statement of his position. This was all intensely embarrassing. Evidently she mistook him for an old friend of the family.
‘It is only the merest matter of business, my dear Miss—er——’
‘Dinah.’
‘Miss Dinah. Just a few minutes with your uncle. I am afraid I shall hardly——’
‘Well, you must please yourself, Mr. Pim. I’m just giving you a friendly word of advice. Naturally I was awfully glad to get such a magnificent aunt, because, of course, marriage is rather a toss-up, isn’t it, and George might have gone off with anybody.’
Mr. Pim began to explain that he had had no experience of marriage, but that he would really have to be getting along now; at least, he would have explained all this if Dinah had given him a moment in which to say it. But she was sweeping on again.
‘Of course, it’s different on the stage,’ she said, ‘where guardians always marry their wards in the third act, but George couldn’t very well marry me because I’m his niece. Mind you, I don’t say that I should have had him, because between ourselves he is a little bit old-fashioned.’
‘So he married Mrs.—er—Marden instead,’ said Mr. Pim feebly.
‘Mrs. Telworthy. Don’t say you’ve forgotten already just when you were getting so good at names. Mrs. Telworthy.’ She swung herself over the back of the sofa and was sitting beside him. ‘You see,’ she went on earnestly, ‘Olivia married the Telworthy man and went to Australia with him, and he drank himself to death in the bush—or wherever you drink yourself to death out there—and Olivia came back to England, and met my uncle—that’s George—and he fell in love with her and proposed to her, and he came into my room that night, I was about fourteen, and turned on the light and said in his heaviest voice, “Dinah, how would you like to have a beautiful aunt of your own?” and I said, “Congratulations, George,” because, of course, I’d seen it coming for weeks. That was the first time I called him George. Telworthy—isn’t it a funny name?’
‘Very singular,’ said Mr. Pim revolving the story in his mind, but feeling strongly that he ought not to be listening to it. ‘From Australia, you say?’ He knew Australia, parts of Australia, well. Certainly a very curious name.
‘Yes, Australia,’ said Dinah. ‘At least that’s where he went. I always say that he’s probably still alive, and will turn up here one morning and annoy George—like they do sometimes, you know.’ She sighed and added, ‘But I’m afraid there’s not much chance.’
Mr. Pim was horrified.
‘Really, Miss Marden!’ he exclaimed. ‘Really!’ and he held up a protesting hand.
Dinah laughed.
‘Well, of course, I don’t really want it to happen,’ she said, and then added wistfully, ‘but it would be rather exciting, wouldn’t it?’ She shook her head sadly at the impossibility of it. ‘You know, things like that never seem to occur down here. There was a hay-rick burnt down about a mile away last year, but that isn’t quite the same thing, is it?’
Mr. Pim admitted that that was certainly different. Really this was a very embarrassing young lady. She had no business at all to be telling him all these family secrets. Why didn’t somebody come and take her away?
Dinah looked round the room to make sure that they were alone, and then put her head close to his.
‘Of course,’ she began in a mysterious voice, ‘something very, very wonderful did happen this morning, but I’m not sure if I know you well enough——’
Mr. Pim recoiled in horror.
‘Really, Miss Marden,’ he protested, ‘I am only a—a passer-by. Here to-day and gone to-morrow. You really mustn’t——’
‘And yet there’s something about you,’ said Dinah, looking at him lovingly, ‘which inspires confidence. The fact is’—she was whispering in his ear now—‘I got engaged before breakfast!’
The announcement relieved Mr. Pim. Here was news which the whole world would know directly; the engagement anyhow—even if not the fact that it happened before breakfast. He beamed at her.
‘Dear me. I do congratulate you,’ he said.
‘I expect that’s why George is keeping you such a long time. Brian, my young man, the well-known painter’—she paused and added with a sigh, ‘only nobody has ever heard of him—he’s smoking a pipe with George in the library, and asking for his niece’s hand.’ She jumped up and seized his hands. ‘Oh, Mr. Pim, isn’t it exciting?’
She pulled him out of his seat. He was excited too; she was so young, so delightfully young and happy. She seemed to want him to dance with her. For a moment he wondered whether it mightn’t come to that, as he stood there beaming at her and nodding his head. Then her next words woke him up.
‘You’re really rather lucky, Mr. Pim. I mean being told so soon. Even Olivia doesn’t know yet.’
And he was a perfect stranger, a passer-by! Really, she shouldn’t do these things!
‘Yes, yes,’ he said, looking at his watch, and moving towards the door. ‘I congratulate you, Miss Marden. Perhaps now it would be better if I——’
But at that moment Anne came in.
‘Mr. Marden is out at the moment, sir,’ she began.
‘I think he must be down at the farm. If you—Oh, I didn’t see you, Miss Dinah.’
‘It’s all right, Anne,’ said Dinah cheerily. ‘I’m looking after Mr. Pim.’
‘Yes, miss.’ She went out again.
Excitement in her eyes, Dinah came up to Mr. Pim and clutched him by the arm.
‘That’s me!’ she said, nodding at him.
Mr. Pim looked startled.
‘They can’t discuss me in the library without breaking down, so they’re walking up and down outside, blowing their noses and slashing at the thistles, so as to conceal their emotion. You know. I expect Brian——’
Mr. Pim decided that he must really be firm.
‘Yes, I think, Miss Marden,’ he said timidly, ‘I had better go now and return a little later. I have a telegram which I require to send, and perhaps by the time I come back——’
‘Oh, but how disappointing of you when we were getting on together so nicely! And it was just going to be your turn to tell me all about yourself.’
‘I have really nothing to tell, Miss Marden. I have a letter of introduction to Mr. Marden, who in turn, I hope, will give me a letter to a certain distinguished man whom it is necessary for me to meet. That is all. That is really all.’ He held out his hand to her with a kindly smile. ‘And now, Miss Marden, I will say good-bye.’
‘Oh, I’ll start you on your way to the post office,’ said Dinah. She laughed suddenly, and taking his arm, went on. ‘I want to know if you’re married, and all that sort of thing.’
‘No, no, I’m not married,’ he protested hastily.
‘Well, I expect you’ve got heaps to tell me. We’ll go out this way, shall we? It’s quicker. Got your hat?’
‘Yes, yes, I’ve got my hat,’ said Mr. Pim, and he showed it to her proudly.
‘That’s right.’ She gave his arm a squeeze. ‘Isn’t it fun, Mr. Pim? I mean everything.’
He chuckled happily. He was feeling more comfortable now that the revelations were over; and she was so very young and fresh and innocent. They went out of the French windows together and on to the terrace—quite old friends.
III
‘What a life!’ said Brian, as he walked back to the house, leaving George and Lumsden to the pigs.
What a life was George’s, what a life was Lumsden’s? What a life, if it comes to that, is the Archbishop of Canterbury’s, or the Prime Minister’s, or the Attorney-General’s! Such lives are necessary, no doubt; we must have bacon and bishops, laws and the keeping of laws; but let us thank Heaven that it is not we who are living them. Above all, let us thank Heaven that we can feel this gratitude for our own lives. Happy was Brian in that he envied no man, and felt sorry for most. What a life they lived, these others!
They would have to get Olivia to help them. George and he didn’t talk the same language. Even if he said to George quite slowly, ‘I want to marry your niece, Dinah,’ George wouldn’t know what he meant. They could only converse by signs. But how different was Olivia. ‘What a life!’ he murmured to himself again, meaning this time, ‘What a life to be tied to George!’ Most of us have felt like this about our married friends, as they, no doubt, about us; but to Brian the Marden ménage seemed peculiarly sad. What a life for a woman like Olivia!
He had made his first bow to her at Mrs. Parkinson’s. Parkinson amassed money in the City, where, we may assume, he was something of a figure. He was less of a figure in his wife’s drawing-room, but frequently recognizable. ‘Oh, is that Parkinson?’ you said to your neighbour. All London met in Mrs. Parkinson’s drawing-room—Mayfair and Chelsea, Westminster and Threadneedle Street. The lions were there, of course, but there was no need to be a full-grown lion; the faintest indication of a roar was enough to admit you. And if nothing came of it, if, as the years went on, the roar faded slowly into a gentle bleat, Mrs. Parkinson would still give you a smile of welcome. She liked you for yourself, by then; or she was sorry for you; or perhaps she felt that it was more interesting to have a representative drawing-room than an exclusive one. Certainly a bleat is a most representative noise.
She knew the George Mardens, of course; that was inevitable. She knew Poole. Poole, who was progressing towards his theatre, asked her if she knew young Marshall. The fact that she could be asked a question like that, and had (for once) to answer it in the negative, meant that Marshall was worth knowing. Marshall, when collected, naturally babbled about his recent adventures, whereof ‘The World’s End: Saturday Night’ was still the most splendid. Here it seemed was a neglected genius; what was he doing outside Mrs. Parkinson’s drawing-room? She got to work. A week later Brian Strange was inside, lunching gloriously, and (as it happened) Olivia was lunching too. They sat next to each other.
Even while they talked—Brian dashing off a hasty impression of his life, Olivia listening with that friendly, amused smile of hers—he wondered what this fellow Marden could be like. Did he understand his luck? And who was he, anyway? Chelsea had never heard of him.
‘Do you ever come and see people?’ asked Olivia, as they were saying good-bye.
‘I haven’t got a top-hat,’ said Brian with a smile.
‘That’s awkward,’ agreed Olivia gravely.
‘I sold a picture the other day.’
‘Another one?’
‘No, the same one, the one I was telling you about. What I mean is that I could look really beautiful for the money, and buy a lot of top-hats, if you would let me come and see you.’
‘Baker’s Hotel in Dover Street,’ she said, holding out her hand. ‘Come to tea on Tuesday, and meet Dinah. Never mind about the top-hat. We aren’t hatty people. Good-bye. I liked my lunch.’
Smoking a last pipe that night, Brian let his thoughts wander into an impossible future, in which terrible unsuspected things happened to this man Marden: diseases and drownings and motor accidents; and wonderful things happened to himself and Olivia, whereby they remained for ever young, possibly on a tropical island lapped by blue seas, possibly not, but in any case together and alone. Not that he was in love with her, of course, but it made a pleasant dream to which to return every evening—until Tuesday. After Tuesday, the dream took a different shape, no longer impossible. Just Dinah. And now, behold! it had come true. Dinah loved him!
‘Di-nah!’ he called out to the glint of her dress on the terrace.
She nodded eagerly at Mr. Pim.
‘That’s Brian,’ she said.
Just for a moment Mr. Pim wondered where he had heard the name ‘Brian’ before. Then he remembered.
‘Indeed!’ he said politely.
Brian was racing up the steps. He stopped suddenly on seeing Mr. Pim. Who on earth——But Dinah dashed across to him.
‘Brian,’ she said excitedly, ‘this is Mr. Pim. Mr. Carraway Pim.’ She smiled lovingly at the visitor. ‘He’s been telling me all about himself. It’s so interesting. He’s just going to send a telegram and then he’s coming back again. Mr. Pim, this is Brian—you know.’
‘How do you do,’ said Brian in his pleasant way.
Dinah had left him, and was hooked into Mr. Pim’s arm again.
‘You won’t mind going to the post office by yourself now?’ she pleaded. ‘Will you? Because, you see, Brian and I——’ She looked across at her lover, shyly, tenderly, and then back with a disarming little smile at Mr. Pim; and perhaps a memory came back to him of somebody who had once looked like that, how many years ago; or perhaps there were no such memories for him now, but only the sudden realization that they were very, very young. For he took off his hat and gave them a little bow, and then in his gentle voice he said:
‘Miss Diana and Mr.—er—Brian. I have only come into your lives for a moment, and it is probable that I shall now pass out of them for ever, but you will allow an old man——’
‘Oh, not old!’ said Dinah impetuously.
Mr. Pim chuckled happily and nodded to himself. ‘Not old! Not old! Well, shall we say middle-aged? And shall I ask you to allow a middle-aged man to wish you both every happiness in the years that you have before you? Good-bye! Goodbye!’
He gave them another bow, and ambled gently off. They stood watching him, both a little moved, for it was the first blessing which they had shared together, and when they had waved him safely into the drive, and there was no danger now of his getting lost, they turned away with a little sigh.
‘Rum old bird,’ said Brian.
IV
Mr. Pim drifted down the avenue of tall limes, picking up the patches of sunlight in odd little jerks as he moved.
‘A curious name,’ he murmured aloud, ‘a very curious name. Tel—something . . . Now what was it? I shall get it directly. From Australia. Youth, youth! A clean, happy young couple. But she talked too much, the girl. Tel—something. She had no business to tell me all that. Telworthy—that was it! Remarkable how things always come back to me if I give them time. Turn to the left and down the hill. There, you see; there’s another example. I forget nothing. Well, here we are. I will turn to the left.’
He passed through the gate and turned to the left, down the hill, under the impression that he was on his way to have lunch with the Trevors. The sudden appearance of the post office reminded him. A telegram, and then he must go back to Marden House again. A charming house. A charming young couple. Ah, youth, youth!
V
‘A rum old bird!’ said Brian, and he led the way through the open windows into the morning-room. ‘Who is he?’
Dinah did not demean herself by answering. She just gave him one long dignified reproachful look.
‘Darling,’ she explained, ‘you haven’t kissed me yet. When two people become engaged to each other, they always kiss each other every time they go away from each other or come back to each other. Doesn’t it sound stupid,’ she added, ‘keeping on saying “each other” like that? Ee-chuther. Silly.’
Brian put his arms round her suddenly.
‘But I oughtn’t to,’ he said as he kissed her. ‘Only then one never ought to do the nice things.’
‘Why oughtn’t you?’ said Dinah gently.
He took her hand and went with her to the sofa.
‘Well, we said we wouldn’t again. I mean until your uncle and aunt knew all about it. You see, being a guest in their house, I can’t very well——’
Dinah flopped on to the sofa, and looked at him open-mouthed.
‘But, darling child,’ she said at last, ‘what have you been doing, all this time except telling George?’
‘Trying to tell George.’
‘Yes, of course, there’s a difference,’ she agreed with a nod. ‘I tried to tell him once that—what’s the opposite to a surplus?’
‘A cassock,’ said Brian, playing with her fingers. ‘Or a biretta. I forget which.’
‘I mean a financial one.’
‘Oh, I see. A sur-minus I should think.’
‘Well, I told him that my budget was going to show a surminus for the quarter if something wasn’t done about it. It was Olivia’s birthday and I’d rather let myself go. But he never grasped the situation properly. We always seemed to be talking about something else. So I had to borrow from Olivia. Go on telling me.’
‘Well, that’s just how it was. I think he guessed something was up, because he suggested that we should go down and see the pigs. He said he simply had to see the pigs at once—I don’t know why—an appointment, perhaps. And we talked about pigs ail the way down, and I couldn’t say, “Oh, talking about pigs, George, I want to marry your niece——”’
‘Of course you couldn’t,’ said Dinah with mock indignation.
‘No. Well, you see how it was. And then when we’d finished talking about the pigs, we started talking to the pigs, and——’
Dinah interrupted breathlessly.
‘Oh, how is Arnold?’
‘Arnold?’ said Brian. ‘Arnold? Oh, the little black-and-white one? He’s very jolly, I believe, but naturally I wasn’t thinking about him much. I was wondering how to begin. Well, and then Lumsden came up and started to talk pig-food, and the atmosphere grew less and less romantic and—and I gradually drifted away.’
‘Poor darling!’
‘Yes. What an absurd little hand you have! Yes, well, there we are.
‘Well, there’s only one thing for it,’ said Dinah decisively. ‘We shall have to approach him through Olivia.’
‘Don’t say it as if it were a wonderful discovery of your own. I always wanted to tell her first. She’s so much easier. Only you wouldn’t let me.’
‘That’s your fault, Brian. You would tell her that she ought to have orange-and-black curtains in here.’
‘But she wants orange-and-black curtains. She’s bought them. She’s going to have them.’
‘Yes, but George says’—and at this Dinah stood up, so as to allow herself more room for a hasty impression of George—’ George says that he’s not going to have any futuristic nonsense in an honest English country house which has been good enough for his father—what?—and his grandfather—what, what?—and his great-grandfather—what, what, what?—and all the rest of them. So there’s a sort of strained feeling between George and Olivia just now, and if Olivia were to sort of recommend you, well, it wouldn’t do you much good.’
Brian, lying back on the sofa, looked at her lazily with half-closed eyes.
‘Yes, I know what you want, Dinah.’
‘What do I want?’ said Dinah, coming to him eagerly.
‘You want a secret engagement——’
She gave an ecstatic little shudder.
‘—and notes left under doormats——’
‘Oh!’ she breathed happily.
‘—and meetings by the withered thorn when all the household is asleep. I know you.’
‘Oh, but it is such fun! I love meeting people by withered thorns.’
Her mind hurried on to the first meeting. There was a withered thorn by the pond. Well, it wasn’t a thorn exactly, it was an oak, but it certainly had a withered look because the caterpillars had got at it, as at all the other oaks this year, much to George’s annoyance, who felt that this was probably the beginning of Socialism. She would be there as the stable clock was striking midnight. It hadn’t struck lately, but it could easily be put right; because otherwise Brian, who would be hanging about outside the park walls, wouldn’t know when to climb over and force his way through the dense undergrowth to where his love stood waiting. And then with only the moon for witness——
‘Yes,’ said Brian, breaking in tactlessly at the critical moment. ‘Well, I’m not going to have any of that.’
Dinah’s happy enjoyment of these romantic goings-on changed suddenly into the sort of expression you wore in church when you accidentally caught the vicar’s eye in the Litany.
‘Oh, George,’ she said primly, ‘look at us being husbandy!’
She sat very meek and straight, knees together, hands folded on lap, waiting for further pronouncements from the Head of the House.
‘You babe,’ said Brian, picking up her hands and kissing them suddenly. ‘I adore you. You know, the more I look at you, the more I feel that you are throwing yourself away on me. Has there ever been anybody like you since the world began?’
‘Only Queen Elizabeth,’ said Dinah, ‘and her hair was redder.’
‘You don’t mind only marrying me?’
‘Oh, but I’m proud, I’m proud!’
‘We shall never be rich, but we shall have lots of fun and meet interesting people and feel we are doing something worth doing, and not getting paid nearly enough for it. And when they won’t buy our pictures——’
‘Will it be our pictures?’ said Dinah softly.
‘Why, of course it will.’
She nodded to herself. ‘Go on,’ she whispered.
‘Well, then, we can curse the British Public together and tell each other that on the whole we prefer not to sell our pictures to them, and we can curse the critics, and—oh, it’s an exciting life.’
‘I shall love it,’ said Dinah, seeing it all.
‘I’ll make you love it. You shan’t be sorry, Dinah.’
‘You shan’t be sorry either, Brian.’
‘Good Lord, of course I shan’t.’
‘Ah, don’t say that,’ said Dinah, suddenly serious. ‘As if it were an easy thing to be a wife, and I only had to look pretty and talk nicely, and you would always be glad of me. It’s much more difficult than that, Brian. You could so easily be sorry. And when I say you shan’t be sorry, I really do mean it because—because I love you so much.’
‘Oh, Dinah!’
He put out his hand and she took it, and they sat in silence for a little.
But Dinah could never be silent for long.
‘However, the immediate question,’ she said, ‘is whether George will be sorry. Olivia will be glad because she loves people being in love.’ She stood up. ‘Come on, let’s go and tell her.’
Brian stood up too.
‘Righto. I say, I wonder if she really has guessed.’
‘Sure to. She always seems to think of things about a week before they happen. George just begins to get hold of them about a week after they’ve happened.’ She inspected him carefully, pulling his tie straight, brushing back a stray piece of hair from his forehead, and exposing another square inch of handkerchief from his pocket. ‘After all, there’s no reason why George shouldn’t like you, darling.’
‘Yes, that’s improved me a good deal, but I shall never be his sort, you know.’
‘You’re Olivia’s sort—and mine. Well, come along, let’s go and tell Olivia——’
‘And what,’ said a cool fresh voice from the windows, ‘are you going to tell Olivia?’ And then with an understanding little laugh for all of them—for the lovers, for herself and for all that George would say about it—she added: ‘Oh, well, I think I can guess.’