DUNDRANNANIZATION
THE family history during the rest of the war—up to the Armistice, that
is—will go into a brief summary. Waldo was discharged from the army, as
permanently unfit for service, early in 1917. His wedding took place in
February of that year. It was solemnized not at St. George’s, Hanover
Square, but in the country, from the bride’s seat of Briarmount. I was
not present, as I went abroad again almost directly after my Christmas
visit to Cragsfoot, the salient features of which have already been
indicated. All good fortune waited on the happy pair (here I rely
on Aunt Bertha’s information, not having had the means of personal
observation), and Nina became the mother of a fine baby in December.
The child was a girl; a little bit of a disappointment, perhaps; the
special remainder did not, of course, go beyond the present Baroness
herself, and a prospective Lord Dundrannan was naturally desired.
However, there was no need to pull a long face over that; plenty of
time yet, as Aunt Bertha consolingly observed.
Finally, Captain Godfrey Frost—who must, I suppose, now be considered
a member of the Rillington-cum-Dundrannan family and was certainly
treated as one—made such a to-do in the influential quarters to
which he had access, that at last he was restored to active service,
sent to the Near East, and made the Palestine campaign with great
credit. The moment that its decisive hour was over, however, he was
haled back again. It may be remembered that there was a Ministry of
Reconstruction, and it appeared (from Aunt Bertha again) that no
Reconstruction worth mentioning could be undertaken, or at all events
make substantial progress, without the help of Captain Frost. If that
view be correct, it may help to explain some puzzles; because Captain
Frost got malaria on his way home, and had to knock off all work,
public and private, for two or three months—just at the time that was
critical for Reconstruction, no doubt.
That is really all there is to say, though it may be worth while to let
a letter to me from Sir Paget throw a little sidelight on the progress
of affairs:
“Our married couple seem in complete tune with one another. Congreve
says somewhere—in _The Double Dealer_, if I remember rightly—‘Though
marriage makes man and wife one flesh, it leaves them still two fools.’
Agreed; but he might have added (if he hadn’t known his business too
well to spoil an epigram by qualifications) that it doesn’t leave
them quite the same two fools. I have generally observed (I would say
always, except that a diplomatist of seventy has learnt never to say
always) that when Mr. Black marries Miss White, either she darkens or
he pales. The stronger infuse its color into the weaker—or, if you like
to vary the metaphor, there is a partial absorption of the weaker by
the stronger. Excuse this prosing; there is really nothing to do in
the country, you know! And perhaps you will guess how I came by this
train of reflection. In fact, I think that Waldo—about the happiest
fellow in the world, and how good that he should be, after all he has
gone through!—is experiencing a partial process of Dundrannanization.
There’s a word for you! I made it this morning, and it pleased me! I
should like to have suggested it to old Jonathan Frost himself. Don’t
think it too formidable for what it represents. Not, of course, that
the process will ever be complete with Waldo; there will remain a
stratum of Christian weakness which it will not reach. But it may go
far with him; the Frost (forgive me, Julius!) may be inches deep over
his nature! And I am quite convinced that I have acquired a daughter,
but not quite sure that I haven’t lost a son. No, not lost; half lost,
perhaps. Briarmount overpowers Cragsfoot: I suppose it was bound to be
so; of course it was; Aunt Bertha says so. She is an admirable herald
of the coming day. He loves me no less, thank God; but the control of
him has passed into other hands. He is, quite dignifiedly, henpecked;
his admiration for her stops only short of idolatry. I don’t know that
it ought to stop much sooner, for she is a notable girl. I’m very fond
of her; if I ever saw her burst into tears, or have hysterics, or do
anything really weak and silly, I believe I should love her even more.”
Quite so. It was what might have been expected. And Sir Paget’s
assessment of his daughter-in-law was precisely in accord with all that
he had had the opportunity of observing in that young woman. That she
could burst into tears, could have something very like hysterics, could
behave in a way that might be termed weak and silly, was a piece of
knowledge confined, as I believed, to three persons besides herself.
She thought it was confined to two. She had married one of them; did he
think of it, did he remember? As for the other—it has been seen how she
felt about the other. I was glad that she did not know about the third;
if I could help it, she never should. I did not believe that she would
forgive my knowledge any more than she forgave Lucinda’s. I don’t blame
her; such knowledge about oneself is not easy to pardon.
There was a postscript to Sir Paget’s letter. “By the way, Mrs. Knyvett
is dead—a month ago, at Torquay. Aunt Bertha saw it in the _Times_.
An insignificant woman; but by virtue of the late Knyvett, or by some
freak of nature, she endowed the world with a beautiful creature.
Hallo, high treason, Julius! But somehow I think that you won’t hang
me for it. I hope that poor child is not paying too dearly for her
folly.”
I remember that, when I had read the postscript, I exclaimed, “Thank
God!” Not of course, because Mrs. Knyvett had died a month before at
Torquay; the event was not such as to wring exclamations from one. It
was the last few words that evoked mine. Lucinda had a friend more in
the world than she knew. If I ever met her again, I would tell her.
She had loved Sir Paget. If his heart still yearned ever so little
after her, if her face ever came before his eyes, it would, I thought,
be something to her. The words brought her face back before my eyes,
whence time and preoccupation had banished it. Did the face ever—at
rare moments—appear to Waldo? Probably not. He would be too much
Dundrannanized!
The process for which Sir Paget’s reluctant amusement found a nickname
was a natural one in the circumstances of the case. If the Dundrannan
personality was potent, so was the Dundrannan property. Cragsfoot was
a small affair compared even to Briarmount alone; Waldo was not yet
master even of Cragsfoot, for Sir Paget was not the man to take off
his clothes before bedtime. Besides Briarmount, there was Dundrannan
Castle, with its deer and its fishing; there was the Villa San Carlo at
Mentone; never mind what else there was, even after “public objects”
and Captain Frost had, between them, shorn off so large a part of the
Frost concerns and millions. Moreover, another process set in, and
was highly developed by the time I returned to England in the autumn
of 1918, when my last foreign excursion on Government service ended.
Family solidarity, and an identity of business interests in many
matters, brought Nina, and, by consequence, Waldo, into close and ever
closer association with Godfrey Frost. The young man was not swallowed;
he had too strong a brain and will of his own for that; but he was
attached. The three of them came to form a triumvirate for dealing with
the Frost concerns, settling the policy of the Frost family, defining
the Frost attitude towards the world outside. And everybody else was
outside of that inner circle, even though we of Cragsfoot might be only
just outside. So as Waldo, on his marriage, had shifted his bodily
presence from Cragsfoot to Briarmount, his mind and his predominant
interests also centered there; and presently to his were added, in
great measure, Godfrey Frost’s. Nina presided over this union of hearts
and forces with a sure tact; she did not seek to play the despot, but
she was the bond and the inspiration.
Naturally, then, if the three saw eye to eye in all these great
matters, they also saw eye to eye, and felt heart to heart, on such
a merely sentimental subject as the view to take of Lucinda—of whom,
of course, Godfrey derived any idea that he had mainly from Nina.
Probably the idea thus derived was that she was emphatically a person
of whom the less said the better! Only—the curious fact crops up
again—she was not one of whom Nina was capable of saying absolutely
nothing, of giving no hints. Her husband excepted, anybody really near
to her was sure to hear something of Lucinda. Besides, there was the
information, sketchy indeed, but significant, which he had received
from Aunt Bertha, and perhaps that had made him question his cousin;
then either her answers or even her reluctance to answer would have
been enlightening to a man of his intelligence.
He got home some time in October, and at his request I went to see
him in London, while he was convalescent from that malaria which so
seriously impeded Reconstruction. From him I heard the family plans.
They were all three going shortly to Nina’s villa at Mentone for the
winter. For the really rich it seemed that “the difficulties of the
times” presented no difficulty at all; a big motor car was to take the
party across France to their destination.
“You see, we’re largely interested in works near Marseilles, and I’m
going out to have a look at them; Waldo’s got doctor’s orders, Nina
goes to nurse him—and the kid can’t be left, of course. All quite
simple. Why don’t you come too?”
“Perhaps I will—if I’m asked and can get a holiday. It sounds rather
jolly.”
“Top-hole! Besides, the war’s going to end. Nina’ll ask you all right;
and, as for a holiday, you can’t do much at your game till the tonnage
is released, can you?”
He seemed about right there; on such questions he had a habit of being
right. At the back of my mind, however, I was just faintly reluctant
about embracing the project, a little afraid of too thick a Dundrannan
atmosphere.
“Well, I must go to Cragsfoot first. After that perhaps—if I am
invited.”
“Jolly old place, Cragsfoot!” he observed. “I don’t wonder you like to
go there—even apart from your people. It’s unlucky that Nina’s taken
against it, isn’t it?”
“I didn’t know she had.”
“Oh, yes. You’ll see that—when the time comes—I hope it’s a long way
off, of course—she won’t live there.”
“Waldo’ll want to live there, I think.”
“No, he won’t. He’d want to now, if it fell in. But by the time it
does, he’ll have had his mind altered.” He laughed good-humoredly.
I rather resented that, having a sentimental feeling for Cragsfoot.
But it would probably turn out true, if Nina devoted her energies to
bringing it about.
“Regular old ‘country gentleman’ style of place—which Briarmount isn’t.
Sort of place I should like myself. I suppose you’d take it on, if
Waldo didn’t mean to live there?”
“You look so far ahead,” I protested. “The idea’s quite new, I haven’t
considered it. I’ve always regarded it as a matter of course that Waldo
would succeed his father there—as the Rillingtons have succeeded, son
to father, for a good many years.”
“Yes, I know, and I appreciate that feeling. Don’t think I don’t. Still
that sort of thing can’t last forever, can it? Something breaks the
line at last.”
“I suppose so,” I admitted, rather sulkily. If Waldo did not live at
Cragsfoot, if I did not “take it on,” I could not help perceiving that
Godfrey had fixed his eye—that far-seeing Frost eye—on our ancestral
residence. This was a further development of the Dundrannan alliance,
and not one to my taste. Instinctively I stiffened against it. I felt
angry with Waldo, and irritated with Godfrey Frost—and with Nina too.
True, the idea of Cragsfoot’s falling to me—without any harm having
come to Waldo—was not unpleasant. But everything was in Waldo’s power,
subject to Sir Paget’s life interest; I remembered Sir Paget’s telling
me that there had been no resettlement of the property on Waldo’s
marriage. Could Waldo be trusted not to see with the Frost eye and not
to further the Frost ambitions?
“It seems queer,” Godfrey went on, smiling still as he lit his
cigarette, “but I believe that Nina’s dislike of the place has
something to do with that other girl—Waldo’s old flame, you know. She
once said something about painful associations—of course, Waldo wasn’t
in the room—and I don’t see what else she could refer to, do you? She’s
a bit sensitive about that old affair, isn’t she? Funny thing—nothing’s
too big for a really clever woman, but, by Jove, nothing’s too small
either!”
“Like our old friend the elephant and the pin that we were told about
in childhood?”
“Exactly. Nina will hatch a big plan one minute, and the next she’ll be
measuring the length of the feather on the scullery-maid’s hat.”
“Well, but—I mean—love affairs aren’t always small things, are they?”
“N—no, perhaps not. But when it’s all over like that!”
“Yes, it is rather funny,” I thought it best to admit.
Certainly it would be funny—a queer turn of events—if things worked out
as I suspected my young friend Godfrey of planning; if Nina persuaded
Waldo that he did not want to live at Cragsfoot, and Waldo transferred
his old home to his new cousin. And if Nina’s reason were that
Cragsfoot had “painful associations” for her! Because then, ultimately,
if one went right back to the beginning, it would be not Nina, but that
other girl, Waldo’s old flame, who would eject the Rillington family
from its ancestral estate! It was impossible not to stand somewhat
aghast (big words about that girl again!) at such a trick of fate.
“The fact is, I suppose,” he went on, “that she’s been fond of Waldo
longer than she can afford to admit. Then the memory might rankle! And
Nina’s not over-fond of opposition at any time. I’ve found that out.
Oh, we’re the greatest pals, as you know, but there’s no disguising
that!” He laughed indulgently. “Yes, that’s Nina. I often think that I
must choose a wife with a meek and quiet spirit, Julius.”
“The Apostle says that it is woman’s ornament.”
“Nina certainly thinks that it’s other women’s. Oh, must you go?
Awfully kind of you to have come. And, I say, think about Villa San
Carlo! I believe it’s a jolly place, and Nina’s having it fitted up
something gorgeous, she tells me.”
“Isn’t it rather difficult to get the work done just now?” I asked.
“Oh, no, not particularly. You see, we’ve an interest in——”
“Damn it all!” I cried, “have you Frosts interests in everything?”
Godfrey’s good humor was imperturbable. He nodded at me, smiling. “I
suppose it must strike people like that sometimes. We do bob up rather,
don’t we? Sorry I mentioned it, old fellow. Only you see—it does
account for Nina’s being able to get the furniture for Villa San Carlo,
and consequently for her being in a position to entertain you and me
there in the way to which we are accustomed—in my case, recently!”
“Your apology is accepted, Godfrey—if I go there! And I don’t
seriously object to you Frosts straddling the earth if you want to.
Only I think you might leave us Cragsfoot.”
“I wouldn’t get in your way for a minute, my dear chap—really I
wouldn’t. We might live there together, perhaps. That’s an idea!” he
laughed.
“With the wife of a meek and quiet spirit to look after us!”
“Yes. But I’ve got to find her first.”
“Sir Paget is very well, thank you. There’s no hurry.”
“But there’s never any harm in looking about.”
He came with me to the door, and bade me a merry farewell. “You’ll get
your invitation in a few days. Mind you come. Perhaps we’ll find her
on the Riviera! It’s full of ladies of all sorts of spirits, isn’t it?
Mind you come, Julius.”
My little fit of irritation over what he represented was not proof
against his own cordiality and good temper. I parted from him in a very
friendly mood. And, sure enough, in a few days I did get my invitation
to the Villa San Carlo at Mentone.
“If you’ve any difficulty about the journey,” wrote Nina, “let us know,
because we can pull a wire or two, I expect.”
“Pull a wire or two!” I believe they control the cords that hold the
firmament of heaven in its place above the earth!
Besides—so another current of my thoughts ran—if wires had to be
pulled, could not Ezekiel Coldston & Co., Ltd., pull them for
themselves? Did the Frosts engross the earth? I had no intention of
letting Nina Dundrannan graciously provide me with “facilities”; that
is the term which we used to employ in H. M.’s Government service.