THE DEANERY AND THE HALL.
Eddy was met at the station by his sister Daphne, driving the dog-cart.
Daphne was twenty; a small, neat person in tailor-made tweeds,
bright-haired, with an attractive brown-tanned face, and alert blue
eyes, and a decisively-cut mouth, and long, straight chin. Daphne was
off-hand, quick-witted, intensely practical, spoilt, rather selfish,
very sure of herself, and with an unveiled youthful contempt for manners
and people that failed to meet with her approval. Either people were
“all right,” and “pretty decent,” or they were cursorily dismissed as
“queer,” “messy,” or “stodgy.” She was very good at all games requiring
activity, speed, and dexterity of hand, and more at home out of doors
than in. She had quite enough sense of humour, a sharp tongue, some
cleverness, and very little imagination indeed. A confident young
person, determined to get and keep the best out of life. With none of
Eddy’s knack of seeing a number of things at once, she saw a few things
very clearly, and went straight towards them.
“Hullo, young Daffy,” Eddy called out to her, as he came out of the
station.
She waved her whip at him.
“Hullo. I’ve brought the new pony along. Come and try him. He shies at
cats and small children, so look out through the streets. How are you,
Tedders? Pretty fit?”
“Yes, rather. How’s everyone?”
“Going strong, as usual. Father talks Prayer Book revision every night
at dinner till I drop asleep. He’s got it fearfully hot and strong just
now; meetings about it twice a week, and letters to the _Guardian_ in
between. I wish they’d hurry up and get it revised and have done. Oh, by
the way, he says you’ll want to fight him about that now--because you’ll
be too High to want it touched, or something. _Are_ you High?”
“Oh, I think so. But I should like the Prayer Book to be revised, too.”
Daphne sighed. “It’s a bore if you’re High. Father’ll want to argue at
meals. I do hope you don’t want to keep the Athanasian Creed, anyhow.”
“Yes, rather. I like it, except the bits slanging other people.”
“Oh, well,” Daphne looked relieved. “As long as you don’t like those
bits, I daresay it’ll be all right. Canon Jackson came to lunch
yesterday, and he liked it, slanging and all, and oh, my word, how tired
I got of him and father! What can it matter whether one has it or not?
It’s only a few times a year, anyhow. Oh, and father’s keen on a new
translation of the Bible, too. I daresay you’ve seen about it; he keeps
writing articles in the _Spectator_ about it.... And the Bellairs have
got a new car, a Panhard; Molly’s learning to drive it. Nevill let me
the other day; it was ripping. I do wish father’d keep a car. I should
think he might now. It would be awfully useful for him for touring round
to committee meetings. Mind that corner; Timothy always funks it a bit.”
They turned into the drive. It may or may not have hitherto been
mentioned that Eddy’s home was a Deanery, because his father was a Dean.
The Cathedral under his care was in a midland county, in fine, rolling,
high-hedged country, suitable for hunting, and set with hard-working
squires. The midlands may not be picturesque or romantic, but they are
wonderfully healthy, and produce quite a number of sane, level-headed,
intelligent people.
Eddy’s father and mother were in the hall.
“You look a little tired, dear,” said his mother, after the greetings
that may be imagined. “I expect it will be good for you to get a rest at
home.”
“Trust Finch to keep his workers on the run,” said the Dean, who had
been at Cambridge with Finch, and hadn’t liked him particularly. Finch
had been too High Church for his taste even then; he himself had always
been Broad, which was, no doubt, why he was now a dean.
“Christmas is a busy time,” said Eddy, tritely.
The Dean shook his head. “They overdo it, you know, those people. Too
many services, and meetings, and guilds, and I don’t know what. They
spoil their own work by it.”
He was, naturally, anxious about Eddy. He didn’t want him to get
involved with the ritualist set and become that sort of parson; he
thought it foolish, obscurantist, childish, and unintelligent, not to
say a little unmanly.
They went into lunch. The Dean was rather vexed because Eddy, forgetting
where he was, crossed himself at grace. Eddy perceived this, and
registered a note not to do it again.
“And when have you to be back, dear?” said his mother. She, like many
deans’ wives, was a dignified, intelligent, and courteous lady, with
many social claims punctually and graciously fulfilled, and a great love
of breeding, nice manners, and suitable attire. She had many anxieties,
finely restrained. She was anxious lest the Dean should overwork himself
and get a bad throat; lest Daphne should get a tooth knocked out at
mixed hockey, or a leg broken in the hunting-field; lest Eddy should
choose an unsuitable career or an unsuitable wife, or very unsuitable
ideas. These were her negative anxieties. Her positive ones were that
the Dean should be recognised according to his merits; that Daphne
should marry the right man; that Eddy should be a success, and also
please his father; that the Prayer Book might be revised very soon.
One of her ambitions for Eddy was satisfied forthwith, for he pleased
his father.
“I’m not going back to St. Gregory’s at all.”
The Dean looked up quickly.
“Oh, you’ve given that up, have you? Well, it couldn’t go on always, of
course.” He wanted to ask, “What have you decided about Orders?” but, as
fathers go, he was fairly tactful. Besides, he knew Daphne would.
“Are you going into the Church, Tedders?”
Her mother, as always when she put it like that, corrected her. “You
know father hates you to say that, Daphne. Take Orders.”
“Well, take Orders, then. Are you, Tedders?”
“I think not,” said Eddy, good-tempered as brothers go. “At present I’ve
been offered a small reviewing job on the _Daily Post_. I was rather
lucky, because it’s awfully hard to get on the _Post_, and, of course,
I’ve had no experience except at Cambridge; but I know Maine, the
literary editor. I used to review a good deal for the _Cambridge Weekly_
when his brother ran it. I think it will be rather fun. You get such
lots of nice books to keep for your own if you review.”
“Nice and otherwise, no doubt,” said the Dean. “You’ll want to get rid
of most of them, I expect. Well, reviewing is an interesting side of
journalism, of course, if you are going to try journalism. You genuinely
feel you want to do this, do you?”
He still had hopes that Eddy, once free of the ritualistic set, would
become a Broad Church clergyman in time. But clergymen are the broader,
he believed, for knocking about the world a little first.
Eddy said he did genuinely feel he wanted to do it.
“I’m rather keen to do a little writing of my own as well,” he added,
“and it will leave me some time for that, as well as time for other
work. I want to go sometimes to work in the settlement of a man I know,
too.”
“What shall you write?” Daphne wanted to know.
“Oh, much what every one else writes, I suppose. I leave it to your
imagination.”
“H’m. Perhaps it will stay there,” Daphne speculated, which was
superfluously unkind, considering that Eddy used to write quite a lot at
Cambridge, in the _Review_, the _Magazine_, the _Granta_, the
_Basileon_, and even the _Tripod_.
“An able journalist,” said the Dean, “has a great power in his hands. He
can do more than the politicians to mould public opinion. It’s a great
responsibility. Look at the _Guardian_, now; and the _Times_.”
Eddy looked at them, where they lay on the table by the window. He
looked also at the _Spectator_, _Punch_, the _Morning Post_, the
_Saturday Westminster_, the _Quarterly_, the _Church Quarterly_, the
_Hibbert_, the _Cornhill_, the _Commonwealth_, the _Common Cause_, and
_Country Life_. These were among the periodicals taken in at the
Deanery. Among those not taken in were the _Clarion_, the _Eye-Witness_
(as it was called in those bygone days) the _Church Times_, _Poetry and
Drama_, the _Blue Review_, the _English Review_, the _Suffragette_,
_Further_, and all the halfpenny dailies. All the same, it was a
well-read home, and broad-minded, too, and liked to hear two sides (but
not more) of a question, as will be inferred from the above list of its
periodical literature.
They had coffee in the hall after lunch. Grace, ease, spaciousness, a
quiet, well-bred luxury, characterised the Deanery. It was a well-marked
change to Eddy, both from the asceticism of St. Gregory’s, and the
bohemianism (to use an idiotic, inevitable word) of many of his other
London friends. This was a true gentleman’s home, one of the stately
homes of England, how beautiful they stand.
Daphne proposed that they should visit another that afternoon. She had
to call at the Bellairs’ for a puppy. Colonel Bellairs was a land-owner
and J.P., whose home was two miles out of the town. His children and the
Dean’s children had been intimate friends since the Dean came to
Welchester from Ely, where he had been a Canon, five years ago. Molly
Bellairs was Daphne Oliver’s greatest friend. There were also several
boys, who flourished respectively in Parliament, the Army, Oxford, Eton,
and Dartmouth. They were fond of Eddy, but did not know why he did not
enter one of the Government services, which seems the obvious thing to
do.
Before starting on this expedition, Daphne and Eddy went round the
premises, as they always did on Eddy’s first day at home. They played a
round of bumble-puppy on the small lawn, inspected the new tennis court
that had just been laid, and was in danger of not lying quite flat, and
visited the kennels and the stables, where Eddy fed his horse with a
carrot and examined his legs, and discussed with the groom the prospects
of hunting weather next week, and Daphne petted the nervous Timothy, who
shied at children and cats.
These pleasing duties done, they set out briskly for the Hall, along the
field path. It was just not freezing. The air blew round them crisp and
cool and stinging, and sang in the bare beech woods that their path
skirted. Above them white clouds sailed about a blue sky. The brown
earth was full of a repressed yet vigorous joy. Eddy and Daphne swung
along quickly through fields and lanes. Eddy felt the exuberance of the
crisp weather and the splendid earth tingle through him. It was one of
the many things he loved, and felt utterly at home with, this motion
across open country, on foot or on horse-back. Daphne, too, felt and
looked at home, with her firm, light step, and her neat, useful stick,
and her fair hair blowing in strands under her tweed hat, and all the
competent, wholesome young grace of her. Daphne was rather charming,
there was no doubt about that. It sometimes occurred to Eddy when he met
her after an absence. There was a sort of a drawing-power about her
that was quite apart from beauty, and that made her a popular and
sought-after person, in spite of her casual manners and her frequent
selfishnesses. The young men of the neighbourhood all liked Daphne, and
consequently she had a very good time, and was decidedly spoilt, and, in
a cool, not unattractive way, rather conceited. She seldom had any
tumbles mortifying to her self-confidence, partly because she was in
general clever and competent at the things that came in her way to do,
and partly because she did not try to do those she would have been less
good at, not from any fear of failure, but simply because she was bored
by them. But a clergyman’s daughter, even a dean’s, has, unfortunately,
to do a few things that bore her. One is bazaars. Another is leaving
things at cottages. Mrs. Oliver had given them a brown paper parcel to
leave at a house in the lane. They left it, and Eddy stayed for a moment
to talk with the lady of the house. Master Eddy was generally beloved in
Welchester, because he always had plenty of attention to bestow even on
the poorest and dullest. Miss Daphne was beloved, too, and admired, but
was usually more in a hurry. She was in a hurry to-day, and wouldn’t let
Eddy stay long.
“If you let Mrs. Tom Clark start on Tom’s abscess, we should never get
to the Hall to-day,” she said, as they left the cottage. “Besides, I
hate abscesses.”
“But I like Tom and his wife,” said Eddy.
“Oh, they’re all right. The cottage is awfully stuffy, and always in a
mess. I should think she might keep it cleaner, with a little
perseverance and carbolic soap. Perhaps she doesn’t because Miss Harris
is always jawing to her about it. I wouldn’t tidy up, I must say, if
Miss Harris was on to me about my room. What do you think, she’s gone
and made mother promise I shall take the doll stall at the Assistant
Curates’ Bazaar. It’s too bad. I’d have dressed any number of dolls, but
I do bar selling them. It’s a hunting day, too. It’s an awful fate to be
a parson’s daughter. It’s all right for you; parsons’ sons don’t have to
sell dolls.”
“Look here,” said Eddy, “are we having people to stay after Christmas?”
“Don’t think so. Only casual droppers-in here and there; Aunt Maimie and
so on. Why?”
“Because, if we’ve room, I want to ask some people; friends of mine in
London. Denison’s one.”
Daphne, who knew Denison slightly, and did not like him, received this
without joy. They had met last year at Cambridge, and he had annoyed her
in several ways. One was his clothes; Daphne liked men to be neat.
Another was, that at the dance given by the college which he and Eddy
adorned, he had not asked her to dance, though introduced for that
purpose, but had stood at her side while she sat partnerless through her
favourite waltz, apparently under the delusion that what was required
of him was interesting conversation. Even that had failed before long,
as Daphne had neither found it interesting nor pretended to do so, and
they remained in silence together, she indignant and he unperturbed,
watching the festivities with an indulgent, if cynical, eye. A
disagreeable, useless, superfluous person, Daphne considered him. He
gathered this; it required no great subtlety to gather things from
Daphne; and accommodated himself to her idea of him, laying himself out
to provoke and tease. He was one of the few people who could sting
Daphne to real temper.
So she said, “Oh.”
“The others,” went on Eddy, hastily, “are two girls I know; they’ve been
over-working rather and are run down, and I thought it might be rather
good for them to come here. Besides, they’re great friends of mine, and
of Denison’s--(one of them’s his cousin)--and awfully nice. I’ve written
about them sometimes, I expect--Jane Dawn and Eileen Le Moine. Jane
draws extraordinarily nice things in pen and ink, and is altogether
rather a refreshing person. Eileen plays the violin--you must have heard
her name--Mrs. Le Moine. Everyone’s going to hear her just now; she’s
wonderful.”
“She’d better play at the bazaar, I should think,” suggested Daphne, who
didn’t see why parsons’ daughters should be the only ones involved in
this bazaar business. She wasn’t very fond of artists and musicians and
literary people, for the most part; so often their conversation was
about things that bored one.
“Are they pretty?” she inquired, wanting to know if Eddy was at all in
love with either of them. It might be amusing if he was.
Eddy considered. “I don’t know that you’d call Jane pretty, exactly.
Very nice to look at. Sweet-looking, and extraordinarily innocent.”
“I don’t like sweet innocent girls,” said Daphne. “They’re so inept, as
a rule.”
“Well, Jane’s very ept. She’s tremendously clever at her own things, you
know; in fact, clever all round, only clever’s not a bit the word as a
matter of fact. She’s a genius, I suppose--a sort of inspired child,
very simple about everything, and delightful to talk to. Not the least
conventional.”
“No; I didn’t suppose she’d be that. And what’s Mrs.--the other one
like?”
“Mrs. Le Moine. Oh, well--she’s--she’s very nice, too.”
“Pretty?”
“Rather beautiful, she is. Irish, and a little Hungarian, I believe. She
plays marvellously.”
“Yes, you said that.”
Daphne’s thoughts on Mrs. Le Moine produced the question, “Is she
married, or a widow?”
“Married. She’s quite friends with her husband.”
“Well, I suppose she would be. Ought to be, anyhow. Can we have her
without him, by the way?”
“Oh, they don’t live together. That’s why they’re friends. They weren’t
till they parted. Everyone asks them about separately of course. She
lives with a Miss Hogan, an awfully charming person. I’d love to ask
her, too, but there wouldn’t be room. I wonder if mother’ll mind my
asking those three?”
“You’d better find out,” advised Daphne. “They won’t rub father the
wrong way, I suppose, will they? He doesn’t like being surprised,
remember. You’d better warn Mr. Denison not to talk against religion or
anything.”
“Oh, Denison will be all right. He knows it’s a Deanery.”
“Will the others know it’s a Deanery, too?”
Eddy, to say the truth, had a shade of doubt as to that. They were both
so innocent. Arnold had learnt a little at Cambridge about the attitude
of the superior clergy, and what not to say to them, though he knew more
than he always practised. Jane had been at Somerville College, Oxford,
but this particular branch of learning is not taught there. Eileen had
never adorned any institution for the higher education. Her father was
an Irish poet, and the editor of a Nationalist paper, and did not like
any of the many Deans of his acquaintance. In Ireland, Deans and
Nationalists do not always see eye to eye. Eddy hoped that Eileen had
not any hereditary distaste for the profession.
“Father and mother’ll think it funny, Mrs. Le Moine not living with her
husband,” said Daphne, who had that insight into her parents’ minds
which comes of twenty years co-residence.
Eddy was afraid they would.
“But it’s not funny, really, and they’ll soon see it’s quite all right.
They’ll like her, I know. Everyone who knows her does.”
He remembered as he spoke that Hillier didn’t, and James Peters didn’t
much. But surely the Dean wouldn’t be found on any point in agreement
with Hillier, or even with the cheery, unthinking Peters, innocent of
the Higher Criticism. Perhaps it might be diplomatic to tell the Dean
that these two young clergymen didn’t much like Eileen Le Moine.
While Eddy ruminated on this question, they reached the Hall. The Hall
was that type of hall they erected in the days of our earlier Georges;
it had risen on the site of an Elizabethan house belonging to the same
family. This is mentioned in order to indicate that the Bellairs’ had
long been of solid worth in the country. In themselves, they were
pleasant, hospitable, clean-bred, active people, of a certain charm,
which those susceptible to all kinds of charm, like Eddy, felt keenly.
Finally, none of them were clever, all of them were nicely dressed, and
most of them were on the lawn, hitting at a captive golf-ball, which was
one of the many things they did well, though it is at best an
unsatisfactory occupation, achieving little in the way of showy
results. They left it readily to welcome Eddy and Daphne.
Dick (the Guards) said, “Hullo, old man, home for Christmas? Good for
you. Come and shoot on Wednesday, will you? Not a parson yet, then?”
Daphne said, “He’s off that just now.”
Eddy said, “I’m going on a paper for the present.”
Claude (Magdalen) said, “A _what_? What a funny game! Shall you have to
go to weddings and sit at the back and write about the bride’s clothes?
What a rag!”
Nevill (the House of Commons) said, “What paper?” in case it should be
one on the wrong side. It may here be mentioned (what may or may not
have been inferred) that the Bellairs’ belonged to the Conservative
party in the state. Nevill a little suspected Eddy’s soundness in this
matter (though he did not know that Eddy belonged to the Fabian Society
as well as to the Primrose League). Also he knew well the sad fact that
our Liberal organs are largely served by Conservative journalists, and
our great Tory press fed by Radicals from Balliol College, Oxford,
King’s College, Cambridge, and many other less refined homes of
sophistry. This fact Nevill rightly called disgusting. He did not think
these journalists honest or good men. So he asked, “What paper?” rather
suspiciously.
Eddy said, “The _Daily Post_,” which is a Conservative organ, and also
costs a penny, a highly respectable sum, so Nevill was relieved.
“Afraid you might be going on some Radical rag,” he said, quite
superfluously, as it had been obvious he had been afraid of that. “Some
Unionists do. Awfully unprincipled, I call it. I can’t see how they
square it with themselves.”
“I should think quite easily,” said Eddy; but added, to avert an
argument (he had tried arguing with Nevill often, and failed), “But my
paper’s politics won’t touch me. I’m going as literary reviewer,
entirely.”
“Oh, I see.” Nevill lost interest, because literature isn’t interesting,
like politics. “Novels and poetry, and all that.” Novels and poetry and
all that of course must be reviewed, if written; but neither the writing
of them nor the reviewing (perhaps not the reading either, only that
takes less time) seems quite a man’s work.
Molly (the girl) said, “_I_ think it’s an awfully interesting plan,
Eddy,” though she was a little sorry Eddy wasn’t going into the Church.
(The Bellairs were allowed to call it that, though Daphne wasn’t.)
Molly could be relied on always to be sympathetic and nice. She was a
sunny, round-faced person of twenty, with clear, amber-brown eyes and
curly brown hair, and a merry infectious laugh. People thought her a
dear little girl; she was so sweet-tempered, and unselfish, and
charmingly polite, and at the same time full of hilarious high spirits,
and happy, tomboyish energies. Though less magnetic, she was really much
nicer than Daphne. The two were very fond of one another. Everyone,
including her brothers and Eddy Oliver, was fond of Molly. Eddy and she
had become, in the last two years, since Molly grew up, close friends.
“Well, look here,” said Daphne, “we’ve come for the puppy,” and so they
all went to the yard, where the puppy lived.
The puppy was plump and playful and amber-eyed, and rather like Molly,
as Eddy remarked.
“The Diddums! I wish I _was_ like him,” Molly returned, hugging him,
while his brother and sister tumbled about her ankles. “He’s rather
fatter than Wasums, Daffy, but not _quite_ so tubby as Babs. I thought
you should have the middle one.”
“He’s an utter joy,” said Daphne, taking him.
“Perhaps I’d better walk down the lane with you when you go,” said
Molly, “so as to break the parting for him. But come in to tea now,
won’t you.”
“Shall we, Eddy?” said Daphne. “D’you think we should? There’ll be
canons’ wives at home.”
“That settles it,” said Eddy. “There won’t be us. Much as I like canons’
wives, it’s rather much on one’s very first day. I have to get used to
these things gradually, or I get upset. Come on, Molly, there’s time for
one go at bumble-puppy before tea.”
They went off together, and Daphne stayed about the stables and yard
with the boys and the dogs.
The Bellairs’ had that immensely preferable sort of tea which takes
place round a table, and has jam and knives. They didn’t have this at
the Deanery, because people do drop in so at Deaneries, and there
mightn’t be enough places laid, besides, drawing-room tea is politer to
canons and their wives. So that alone would have been a reason why
Daphne and Eddy liked tea with the Bellairs’. Also, the Bellairs’ _en
famille_ were a delightful and jolly party. Colonel Bellairs was
hospitable, genial, and entertaining; Mrs. Bellairs was most wonderfully
kind, and rather like Molly on a sobered, motherly, and considerably
filled-out scale. They were less enlightened than at the Deanery, but
quite prepared to admit that the Prayer Book ought to be revised, if the
Dean thought so, though for them, personally, it was good enough as it
stood. There were few people so kind-hearted, so genuinely courteous and
well-bred.
Colonel Bellairs, though a little sorry for the Dean because Eddy didn’t
seem to be settling down steadily into a sensible profession--(in his
own case the “What to do with our boys” problem had always been very
simple)--was fond of his friend’s son, and very kind to him, and thought
him a nice, attractive lad, even if he hadn’t yet found himself. He and
his wife both hoped that Eddy would make this discovery before long, for
a reason they had.
After tea Claude and Molly started back with the Olivers, to break the
parting for Diddums. Eddy wanted to tell Molly about his prospects, and
for her to tell him how interesting they were (Molly was always so
delightfully interested in anything one told her), so he and she walked
on ahead down the lane, in the pale light of the Christmas moon, that
rose soon after tea. (It was a year when this occurred).
“I expect,” he said, “you think it’s fairly feeble to have begun a thing
and be dropping it so soon. But I suppose one has to try round a little,
to find out what one’s job really is.”
“Why, of course. It would be absurd to stick on if it isn’t really what
you like to do.”
“I did like it, too. Only I found I didn’t want to give it quite all my
time and interest. I can’t be that sort of thorough, one-job man. The
men there are. Traherne, now--I wish you knew him; he’s splendid. He
simply throws himself into it body and soul, and says no to everything
else. I can’t. I don’t think I even want to. Life’s too many-sided for
that, it seems to me, and one wants to have it all--or lots of it,
anyhow. The consequence was that I was chucked out. Finch told me I was
to cut off those other things, or get out. So I got out. I quite see his
point of view, and that he was right in a way; but I couldn’t do it. He
wanted me to see less of my friends, for one thing; thought they got in
the way of work, which perhaps they may have sometimes; also he didn’t
much approve of all of them. That’s so funny. Why shouldn’t one be
friends with anyone one can, even if their point of view isn’t
altogether one’s own?”
“Of course.” Molly considered it for a moment, and added, “I believe I
could be friends with anyone, except a heathen.”
“A what?”
“A heathen. An unbeliever, you know.”
“Oh, I see. I thought you meant a black. Well, it partly depends on what
they don’t believe, of course. I think, personally, one should try to
believe as many things as one can, it’s more interesting; but I don’t
feel any barrier between me and those who believe much less. Nor would
you, if you got to know them and like them. One doesn’t like people for
what they believe, or dislike them for what they don’t believe. It
simply doesn’t come in at all.”
All the same, Molly did not think she could be real friends with a
heathen. The fact that Eddy did, very slightly worried her; she
preferred to agree with Eddy. But she was always staunch to her own
principles, and didn’t attempt to do so in this matter.
“I want you to meet some friends of mine who I hope are coming to stay
after Christmas,” went on Eddy, who knew he could rely on a much more
sympathetic welcome for his friends from Molly than from Daphne. “I’m
sure you’ll like them immensely. One’s Arnold Denison, whom I expect
you’ve heard of.” (Molly had, from Daphne.) “The others are girls--Jane
Dawn and Eileen Le Moine.” He talked a little about Jane Dawn and Eileen
Le Moine, as he had talked to Daphne, but more fully, because Molly was
a more gratifying listener.
“They sound awfully nice. So original and clever,” was her comment. “It
must be perfectly ripping to be able to do anything really well. I wish
I could.”
“So do I,” said Eddy. “I love the people who can. They’re so---- well,
alive, somehow. Even more than most people, I mean; if possible,” he
added, conscious of Molly’s intense aliveness, and Daphne’s, and his
own, and Diddums’. But the geniuses, he knew, had a sort of white-hot
flame of living beyond even that....
“We’d better wait here for the others,” said Molly, stopping at the
field gate, “and I’ll hand over Diddums to Daffy. He’ll feel it’s all
right if I put him in her arms and tell him to stay there.”
They waited, sitting on the stile. The silver light flooded the brown
fields, turning them grey and pale. It silvered Diddums’ absurd brown
body as he snuggled in Molly’s arms, and Molly’s curly, escaping waves
of hair and small sweet face, a little paled by its radiance. To Eddy
the grey fields and woods and Molly and Diddums beneath the moon made a
delightful home-like picture, of which he himself was very much part.
Eddy certainly had a convenient knack of fitting into any picture
without a jar, whether it was a Sunday School class at St. Gregory’s, a
Sunday Games Club in Chelsea, a canons’ tea at the Deanery, the stables
and kennels at the Hall, or a walk with a puppy over country fields. He
belonged to all of them, and they to him, so that no one ever said “What
is _he_ doing in that _galère_?” as is said from time to time of most of
us.
Eddy, as they waited for Claude and Daphne at the gate, was wondering a
little whether his new friends would fit easily into this picture. He
hoped so, very much.
The others came up, bickering as usual. Molly put Diddums into Daphne’s
arms and told him to stay there, and they parted.