by Martin Boyd
A little more than twenty years ago, where John and Josie were now standing, she had been married to Wolfie. Because of the way she had defended him against Harry, and because of her expression when he rejoined her in the pew, he thought that he was now quite forgiven for Mrs Montaubyn, and Diana realized that when he held the book out to her, he intended their sharing it to be a kind of re-marriage service. After a few minutes she turned away from it, as if she wanted to watch Josie at the altar.
She felt again a touch of the same kind of panic she had when she was waiting for Russell, before John and Josie arrived. In this church, the first she had ever attended, where she and her children had been christened, where most of her relatives and friends had been married, from where her parents had been carried to the grave, she was the victim of more enduring and potent influences even than those of her own house at Brighton. She could not keep her reserved attitude towards her own flesh and blood, who were all around her. She did not want to become an outcast from them, and she wished that the service would soon end.
When it did, and they went with the Caves and the Wendales to sign the register, she looked down the church for a glimpse of Russell, to feel the reassurance which the sight of him might give her, but she could not see him.
At last they came out into the sunlight, and with all the liveliness and laughter she recovered her composure. Russell had not come to the wedding, and she believed that he had stayed away so that he would not embarrass her. She thought the only thing to do was to pigeon-hole him in her mind. She could no longer try to think of her intentions and her immediate situation at the same time.
Soon she was standing again where she had stood eight months earlier, at the end of the arcaded lobby leading to Elsie’s drawing-room, but now with John and Josie and the Wendales, who were in loco parentis to John, as the Governors were not allowed to visit private houses since Lord Brassey had gone to the wrong people. Everyone was lively and charming and she could not help responding without reserve to the flattery and affection showered on herself as well as on Josie. The present was the only reality, and all her plans and problems were a half-forgotten dream. She was speaking to Arthur who was admiring the lace of Josie’s veil, when suddenly she heard behind her the loud announcement of Russell’s name. She turned with a start, and saw him standing before her, holding out his hand. She did not immediately offer her own.
“Oh,” she said, almost with a note of accusation. “I thought you weren’t coming.”
“I couldn’t get to the church,” he explained. “The car didn’t arrive.” He passed on, leaving Diana dismayed by the sharp tone in which she had spoken. She thought that she had been like a child which repudiates a new friend when it meets its normal associates. She had acted from herd instinct. For the last hour she had been completely caught up in the atmosphere of the herd, and though it might be said that Russell was one of them, he was like that captive seagull which escaped and returned to its fellows, only to be destroyed by them because it bore the taint of humanity.
She was desperate now to speak to him and to have the opportunity to wipe out the effect of her involuntary rudeness. She sat by Lord Wendale at the wedding breakfast, and she hoped that he would put down her distracted manner to the natural feelings of a mother at her daughter’s marriage. She could see Russell across the room, sitting at a table with Miss Rockingham and the Radcliffes. She found it hard not to look often in his direction.
There were speeches and John replied to the toast of the bride and bridegroom. “When I was young,” he began, and everyone laughed, as in spite of his uniform he looked so very young. “Well, I am a married man,” he protested, which made them laugh more. He went on: “When I was a small boy and wanted to do something and was prevented by the weather, our governess would say, it wasn’t ‘meant’. I first saw Josie in this house, and I am glad the wedding party is here, because it shows that it was ‘meant’, and I think the same about her today as I did then, or the other way round, and more so. I hope you see what I mean; thank you.”
There was a great deal of laughter and clapping. After some more speeches Wolfie rose to reply to the toast of the bride’s parents. He said:
“Today I am sad, because my daughter is taken from me across the ocean many miles. But I am happy because she is Eva who has found her Walther, and my smile is larger than my tears. Now all our little sparrows are flown away and my dear wife and I shall be alone in our empty nest, where there will be quiet and wistfulness. But today, in the same holy place where we were married together twenty-three years ago, my wife and I were, as it may seem, married again. Then we were married for our children. Today we are married for ourselves. Then we knew that before us were troubles, for man is a wayward horse which must sometimes kick the fence. Now we know that before us is calm and trust.” He turned to John. “If you kick a hole in the fence, be careful you do not give your wife sorrow, for then you will be sad too. And you,” he said to Josie, “if sometimes he gallops in another field, do not grieve, for he will come back to you who are beautiful and kind, like your mother, my dear wife.”
If this speech had been delivered in plain English it would have horrified the listeners, but in Wolfie’s idiom it merely struck them as quaintly sentimental and amusing. Shortly after this John and Josie left the table to change into their travelling clothes. Diana went up to help Josie and to say good-bye to her alone. When she came down again Freddie was tying an old shoe to the back of their car. He had with great ingenuity smuggled it all the way from Government House without John seeing it. He was very proud of this, and it was his chief topic of conversation for some weeks ahead. Diana contrasted the picture of Josie whom she had just left, tremulous and happy, with this traditional oafishness, but she knew that it would be thought outrageous if she interfered.
Someone said: “Here they come!” and John and Josie, sheltering their faces, made a dash from the door to the car. Freddie thrust a handful of confetti down John’s neck, and Clara Bumpus, shrieking: “Keep him in the home paddock!” flung another handful in Josie’s face. The car door slammed and in a minute they were out of sight.
Diana murmured: “Bless them,” and walked slowly into the house. Her responsibilities were over. She did not now mind much what happened and when she saw Russell in the hall she went up to him and said:
“It’s over.”
“Everything went perfectly.”
“Yes, I think it did.” They spoke a little about the details of the wedding, and went to the billiard room to look again at the presents. There was no one there except a detective eating foie gras sandwiches. They went to a seat at the far end of the room.
“It’s been rather a strain,” said Diana. “I hope I didn’t show it.”
“Not at all. You looked wonderful.”
“When you arrived I wasn’t expecting to see you.” She was trying to apologize for her instinctive recoil, without admitting that it had happened.
“You looked a bit startled,” he said.
“I was all strung up. Wolfie’s speech was dreadful.”
“He doesn’t want to lose you, Diana.”
“He goes into a cloud of emotion and rains down beautiful thought which evaporates in five minutes. He was using Josie to blackmail me. And to say that about kicking the fence! Thank Heaven no one understood clearly what he meant. Oh, I shall be glad when the next fortnight is over. How wonderful it will be. Did you notice what John said about this house, and it being ‘meant’? Isn’t he a dear?”
“It rather applies to us, too.”
“Yes, the whole thing seems to be working out in a sort of pattern. I wish John hadn’t been in uniform. He looked very nice, but it was a reminder of all the war in the air.”
“Don’t worry. It may not happen. The Kaiser has gone off on a yachting holiday, and he wouldn’t do that if he were going to declare war.”
“You say such sensible things, Russell. The other day I had to listen to Owen Dell, who, because he’s
a colonel in the Australian Army, thinks he must be accepted as an authority on European diplomacy. He’s delighted at the prospect of war. He thinks he’d be made a general.”
“I think one of the things that are tiresome here is that no one seems to know how much he doesn’t know.”
“Yes, I suppose so,” said Diana. “I must go back to the hall. People will be looking for me to say good-bye.”
Harry was in the hall, and Diana said: “That is my son. Shall I introduce him?”
Russell hesitated. He wanted to gain Josie’s friendship so that it would be easier for Diana when they were in Europe, but he saw no point in making the acquaintance of a young man whom he would be unlikely to meet again, and who from his appearance, would almost certainly in the near future be going about saying that he would “like to shoot Lockwood”.
Diana felt his hesitation and said: “Perhaps there’s no point.”
George and Baba passed through the hall. George stopped, congratulated Diana on everything, and said good-bye. Baba gave her a blank stare and walked on. Although Baba was consistently rude to her “in-laws”, she had never before gone so far as to cut her hostess, and for a minute or two after this Diana had a curious feeling of puzzled anger.
Most of the people began to leave. They said the wedding had been “fun”, “beautiful”, “so nice, all our own sort”, and one or two almost tearfully pressed her hand and said how sad she must feel at losing her daughter. While she thanked them she could not help wondering what they would be saying about her in a few months’ time.
At last all had gone, except for a few relatives and old family friends who had lingered on to gossip, among them Steven and Laura. There was a Gilbert and Sullivan opera season opening in Melbourne, and as the sixth of August was Mildy’s birthday, Steven thought that they might give her a theatre party on that day, partly in recognition of her kindness to me. They asked George and Baba, but Baba refused as she did not think it would be smart to be seen in public with Mildy, and as she was now a master of that underbred insolence, those tricks which any ill-natured person can pick up in a week, and which many people in society imagine are aristocratic, she gave as her excuse: “the plumber is coming in that day.”
When Steven was leaving he also invited Diana and Wolfie. Diana hesitated and said: “That is only two days before I sail for England.”
“Then it can also be a farewell party for you,” said Laura.
She thought a moment and said: “Thank you. Very well, I’ll come.” She had an affection for Steven and Laura, and she did not think that they would blame her for leaving Wolfie. She was pleased at the idea of this friendly family meeting before she left.
Steven and Laura, with countrified simplicity, imagined that Cynthia might be “out of things” now that Anthea was away, though actually Cynthia, as well as her own, had Anthea’s share of the “and Miss Langton” invitations. They invited her to the party—a birthday dinner at the Oriental Hotel, and then Patience at Her Majesty’s.
Diana was going to find Elsie to thank her for lending the house, and also she hoped to secure from her, she didn’t know how, some promise that nothing that happened should ever break their friendship, or at any rate convince her that whatever she did, it would not show any weakening of her affection and gratitude to her. She felt more tranquil than at any time in recent weeks.
She was preoccupied with her thoughts of what she would say, when in the little arcaded gallery leading to the drawing-room, she was stopped by Mildy in a state of agitation.
“Diana, I must speak to you,” she said.
“What about?”
“Everyone is talking about you. You mustn’t be seen talking to Russell Lockwood. Baba saw you with him in a hansom going up Swanston Street, and Miss Bath said you had supper alone together. I know you would never do anything unbecoming, but you ought to be discreet.”
“What impertinence!” exclaimed Diana.
“You don’t want to be talked about.”
“By Baba and Miss Bath? They’ll talk about me whatever I do, so I may as well give them some reason.”
“You wouldn’t do anything!” said Mildy, round-eyed with admiration.
“I wouldn’t allow Miss Bath to influence me. Where is she? I didn’t see her.”
“She didn’t come.”
“That’s a good thing,” said Diana, and she went on to look for Elsie. But Mildy had disturbed her mood of calm acceptance. Could it be true that people were talking about her, all those people who had been so flattering and affectionate this afternoon? Was that simply manner, and had they come with no friendliness towards her, but only because it was a grand wedding? She could not believe it, and yet she could not entirely put it from her mind. She remembered Baba, staring at her without saying good-bye. That, instead of disturbing her, reassured her a little. The others did not behave like that. But they were “ladies”. Miss Bath, in spite of her repulsive magnetism, was also a lady. She did not approve so she stayed away. Only Baba would go to a party and cut her hostess, because although Elsie had lent the house, Diana had been responsible for everything else.
When she found Elsie she did not try to say what she had intended. Her mood was changed and was touched with bitterness. She felt that any attempt to retain the friendship of those whom she loved would be misunderstood. She thought that perhaps she ought not to go to Mildy’s birthday party, but she did not see what excuse she could give.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Harry went back to Queensland three days after the wedding, and Diana was ashamed to feel relieved that he was gone. It was unpleasant to feel a faint dislike for one of her children, even if, perhaps, it was not much deeper than Harry’s ridiculous “public school” manner which was partly responsible for it. Also, his presence had made her attitude to Wolfie more difficult. She continually felt the impulse to compensate him for Harry’s rudeness.
She saw Harry off on the Sydney train and went to have tea with Russell.
“The situation is simplifying,” she said. “You must think I’m rather like a potato that you’ve dug up with too much earth attached to it. But I’m gradually shedding it.”
He laughed and said: “You’re not like a potato at all. A rather graceful stick of celery, perhaps.”
“Well, I’m not going to let the earth worry you any more. Perhaps it’s been a good thing because it’s shown me how I can rely on you. And it has eased me from my native soil. It’s given me time to know what I’m doing. You’ve been so patient and understanding. No other condition might have shown me that. So often one finds vulgar people who are kind, and people with taste and culture who are insolent to harmless nonentities.”
“Or vulgar people who are insolent to harmless nonentities.”
“Like Baba,” said Diana. She paused. “Russell, people have begun to talk about us. At least, Baba has.”
“Oh.” He looked serious. “How much does that matter, I wonder? For you, I mean. It doesn’t matter for me at all.”
“It doesn’t matter for me, only for Josie. It may be nothing. Mildred told me, and she loves any excitement. I wish I hadn’t mentioned it. Anyhow, there’s really nothing she can say. Apparently she saw us that day when it was raining and we drove up to the Gallery in a hansom.”
“It doesn’t sound terribly vicious,” said Russell.
“Baba cut me yesterday at the wedding.”
“What! She couldn’t!” he exclaimed.
“You’ve no idea what that type can do.”
“It’s inconceivable. You know I don’t believe that you have the faintest conception of what you are. You talk about a potato with earth on it. You’re a diamond or something better. If you could have seen yourself at the wedding, you couldn’t imagine that that pathetic arriviste could ‘cut’ you. You looked superb, like someone who had stepped out of her place in history into our commonplace world. You had such a look of detachment and tolerance, and pride and kindness, and that with the bones of your face ga
ve you a look of tremendous distinction, the look your mother had sometimes, especially when she was a little angry. I expect that every glance you give Baba unconsciously blots her off the earth, and she simply can’t bear it.”
“I was a little angry,” said Diana.
“Not with me I hope.”
“No, of course not. How could I be?” She hoped that this would wipe out her involuntary withdrawal when he was announced. “From what I’ve seen of you, I don’t believe you could ever make me angry.”
“I’ve tried to show you my best side.”
“What’s your worst side?”
“I don’t forgive injuries.”
“Oh! Not ever?”
“I wouldn’t say that.”
“You make me a little frightened. I might do you an involuntary injury—perhaps you might find that I’d done so by coming with you.”
“That’s absurd. You don’t know how proud I shall be of you. And I don’t mean accidental injuries. I mean those done deliberately—in cold blood. If I were Wolfie, I’m afraid I wouldn’t forgive you.”
“Are you blaming me?” asked Diana uneasily.
“Good Heavens, no. He did you the first injury, and I don’t expect you to forgive that.”
“But I have forgiven him,” said Diana. “I wish him well. I’m very anxious about his future, but I don’t want to share it.”
“I’m not sure that’s not a little immoral,” said Russell, but he was smiling, and she tried to think that he had not meant what he said.
They talked about their arrangements. It was only a week till Josie and John returned, and a fortnight till Russell sailed. “It’s easy for me now,” said Diana. “There are only two things which I may find slightly upsetting. We’re to dine at Government House on the night Josie returns, and there’s a family birthday party only two nights before I sail. It’s when I have to appear in public with Wolfie, as a dutiful wife, that I find it difficult, and feel a humbug.”
