The two ladies did their best with Mr Cameron, but he was not very attentive and looked often towards the garden. Finally he interrupted Mrs Stonor to ask if Daphne was coming over or if he would find her at home.
‘I really don’t know,’ said Mrs Stonor. ‘She was here, but then she went away. She isn’t very well. At least she is very well indeed but rather upset – I don’t mean upset so much as harassed, really about nothing at all and I must say she didn’t behave at all well, did she, Catherine?’
‘Lady Bond brought Mrs Palmer’s niece Betty Dean to tea,’ said Mrs Middleton, ‘and the two girls didn’t get on well. I think Daphne was a little rude and went away to get over it. I must say Betty is very trying.’
‘I’ll go and find her,’ said Mr Cameron. ‘I brought a new kind of film for her camera that she said she wanted to try.’
‘You have been warned,’ said Mrs Middleton, a little sadly, but Mr Cameron did not hear, or did not notice, and went over to the White House. The ladies said nothing and returned to their gardening, snipping off dead, dying, or even slightly faded heads with savage intensity, Mrs Stonor even going so far as to walk deliberately on a couple of small snails, a thing she would in calmer moments have shrunk from.
Poor Daphne went back to the White House with a swelling heart. Betty’s words, the ring on Betty’s finger, had told her only too clearly what had happened. It wasn’t that she loved Cedric in the least, in fact she looked upon him with indifference if not with hatred, but hypocrisy and deceit were what she could not bear, and of all the horrid, stuck-up, affected girls she had ever met, Betty Dean was the one. Betty would make a very good wife for such a stupid creature as Cedric and she hoped they would both be very unhappy, or be drowned on the way to America, or gored by bulls; and the more she thought of these delightful consummations the happier and more exulting she felt, till at last her happiness took the form of a prickling behind the nose, a gulping in the throat, a wish to tell everyone, especially the Honourable C. W. Bond and Miss Betty Dean, exactly what she thought of them, and such an uprising of hysterica passio that all she could do was to rush, blinded by tears, past the back door where Lou was sitting on a kitchen chair shelling peas into a colander, and bury herself in the darkest recesses of the garden. So it was that when Mr Cameron came to the front door and asked Palfrey if Miss Daphne was in, he was told that she had gone over to Mrs Middleton’s, but Mr Denis was at home. Denis was writing out a score.
‘Hullo, Alister,’ he said, ‘I say, I simply hate to behave as if it mattered, but if I don’t get this bit written down I’ll forget where the bassoon comes in. I shan’t be a minute.’
He plunged furiously into his notes again and Mr Cameron, not at all offended but slightly dashed, wandered out again, not even daring, such was his layman’s respect for the musician’s frenzy, to ask if he knew where Daphne was. Without thinking much where he was going he walked past the back door and seeing Lou shelling peas he said Good evening. Lou, whose young movie-struck mind viewed the world as little but a setting for love and who would willingly have laid her heart in a puddle that Mr Cameron might walk dry-shod, was suddenly visited by one of the most noble and entrancing thoughts ever vouchsafed to mortal. She had seen Miss Daphne go down the garden in tears. Now came Mr Cameron, looking anxious and moody. The inference was clear. They had had a lovers’ quarrel and had Broken Apart, Miss Daphne to cry herself into her grave, Mr Cameron (probably) to go with set face and reckless courage where the danger was hottest. Lou knew well, too well, that Mr Cameron could never be her Ideel Lover except in day-dreams, but here was an opportunity to display a nobility which even Greta or Norma could hardly hope to emulate. All in a flash she saw the lovers reunited by her help. Together they would visit the little grave marked by naught but a fresher turf where daisies sprang, together their tears would mingle as they thought of Little Lou who had given her life for their happiness. Tears of melancholy bliss welled to Lou’s eyes as she carefully put down the colander of peas, for even romance paled for a moment when she thought of her mother’s wrath if they were spilt, and followed her secret heart.
‘Please, Mr Cameron,’ she said.
‘What’s the matter, Lou?’ said Mr Cameron. ‘You’ve got a nasty cold, haven’t you?’
At these words Lou nearly died of maudlin bliss, but true to her ideal she sniffed and said,
‘It’s Miss Daphne. She went down the garden. She was crying. She’s in the pea-sticks, Mr Cameron.’
‘WHAT?’ said Mr Cameron. And without a word of thanks, he hastened towards the pea-sticks, leaving Lou literally gasping with excitement and romance. There, sure enough, was Daphne, standing between two rows of peas, shelling the youngest pea-pods and eating their crisp contents in a melancholy way, pausing every now and then to blow her nose violently.
‘Daphne!’ said Mr Cameron. ‘Darling, what is it?’
Daphne looked up. There was Alister looking as kind and nice as he always did, and the thought of a kind shoulder to cry on was too much for her. With a gulp she hurled herself against him and abandoned herself to the full luxury of grief, repeating amid her sobs how glad she was he had come. Mr Cameron, hardly able to believe his luck, patted her shoulders, kissed the top of her head, said everything was all right and gradually managed to restore her to sanity.
‘I am so glad you have come back,’ said Daphne. ‘Everyone was ghastly and I thought I’d die. Oh, Alister, I am so pleased to see you. How did you know I was here?’
‘Lou saw you go down the garden,’ said Mr Cameron. ‘Daphne, are you sure I’m not too old?’
‘For what?’ said Daphne.
‘Well, I am a good deal older than you are,’ said Mr Cameron, ‘but it’s better than being a good deal younger. After all, Jack Middleton is much older than Catherine and they are very happy.’
It then occurred to Daphne for the first time, like a thunderbolt, that she was now engaged to Mr Cameron. Being of a practical turn of mind she thought she had better get it clear.
‘You mean,’ she said, looking at him steadily, ‘that if we get married you will be older than I am.’
‘Just about that,’ said Mr Cameron.
At the bottom of her heart Daphne knew that though Alister was quite the nicest person in the world, she didn’t in the least want to marry him. But everyone else was ghastly and it would be too difficult to explain now that crying on a person’s shoulder wasn’t at all the same as being engaged, still less married, so like a soldier’s daughter she determined to make the best of a forlorn hope.
‘Well, I daresay by the time I’m about forty you won’t seem so much older,’ she said cheerfully. ‘One gets used to people. Oh, Alister, shall we have to tell everyone?’
‘I should like to sow the fact in mustard and cress all over the garden like the gentleman in the song,’ said Mr Cameron, ‘but we’ll do just as you like. Would you rather only tell your people and not have it in The Times just yet?’
‘The Times!’ said Daphne. ‘Oh no. It would look as if we were really going to get married.’
‘But we are,’ said Mr Cameron.
‘I know,’ said Daphne. ‘But people get broken off too. Oh, not The Times, Alister. I’d feel safer if we didn’t.’
Mr Cameron naturally found her folly the most delightful thing that he had ever seen and they walked back to the house, eating a handful of young peas with which Daphne had thoughtfully provided herself. At the back door Lou, who had finished the peas, was peeling far more potatoes than were wanted, hoping to see the result of her noble action before her mother called her. Her expression of open-mouthed rapture was such that the lovers stopped.
‘It’s all right, Lou,’ said Mr Cameron kindly. ‘I found Miss Daphne.’
‘They say finding’s keeping,’ said Lou, moved by her romantic spirit to literary flights which she had never suspected in herself.
‘So it is,’ said Mr Cameron. ‘Only don’t tell your mother, or Palfrey, or anyone else, becaus
e it’s a secret for the present.’
‘Won’t you have no ring, Miss Daphne?’ said Lou, who had somehow hoped that a ruby the size of a pigeon’s egg would materialize on Daphne’s finger.
‘Oh, Alister, I needn’t have a ring, need I?’ said Daphne, to whom the word ring brought back such searing memories of Betty Dean’s sapphire that she nearly went back to the pea-sticks.
‘Of course not,’ said Mr Cameron. ‘But I would like to give you one. Perhaps a little later, when it is in The Times.’
But at the word Times Daphne’s face began to crumple so suspiciously that he quickly said they must go and tell Lilian and Denis, and leaving Lou with their secret they went into the house, where Denis was still furiously scribbling spidery hieroglyphics on a huge sheet of scored paper.
‘Hullo, Alister,’ he said, ‘back again? Give him a cigarette, Daphne. I must get this thing off my chest,’ and he applied himself again to his music.
‘I’m not staying,’ said Mr Cameron, emboldened by love, ‘I only want to tell you that Daphne and I are engaged.’
Denis blinked himself into the daylight from the inner world where he had been furiously living and looked startled.
‘Everyone was ghastly,’ said Daphne, ‘and I went into the pea-sticks to cry, but we aren’t going to tell anyone yet except you and Lilian and Uncle Jack and Catherine. Oh, and we told Lou, but she promised not to tell.’
‘Well,’ said Denis, getting up and giving his sister a hug, ‘that’s very nice indeed. I really couldn’t think of anyone nicer for Daphne to marry. I can’t say that I feel like a brother to you, Alister, because never having had one I don’t know the feeling, but I am delighted. I shall give you a breakfast service and a very large Persian cat. Have a drink, Alister.’
Mr Cameron accepted some sherry and Denis toasted the bridal pair and expressed again and again his pleasure in the engagement, but it was rather uphill work. Something seemed wrong to him. Daphne looked happy, Alister looked happy, but he missed the rapture which in his mind should go with an engagement and then blamed himself for being so particular.
‘I shall have to go now,’ said Mr Cameron. ‘Will you be all right, darling?’
‘Quite all right,’ said Daphne. ‘And, Alister, if you see Lilian at Laverings you’d better tell her and Catherine. I don’t suppose Uncle Jack would notice if you told him or not.’
Mr Cameron laughed, put his arm round Daphne’s shoulders for a moment and went away. Denis arranged his music paper and his rough drafts with meticulous care.
‘You don’t mind, do you?’ said Daphne suddenly.
‘Of course I don’t mind, you goose,’ said Denis, his conscience pricking him for the want of enthusiasm he had shown. ‘Alister is a very good chap indeed, who would do anyone credit as a brother-in-law. And what’s more, though I don’t suppose it has occurred to you, he is what is known as quite a good match. You will be able to live in luxury, darling, which is more than any of the Stonors have ever done yet.’
‘Denis,’ said Daphne, and then stopped.
‘Out with it,’ said Denis. ‘Do you want me to forbid the banns? I’ve always dearly longed to see it happen and I can imagine no greater pleasure than to get up in church and say “I do”, and be invited to the vestry to explain while all the audience die of curiosity.’
Denis had rambled on simply to fill in time, because his sister had an inscrutable expression to which even he, who knew her so well and so fondly, had no clue.
‘It all sounds very nice,’ she said dolefully, ‘but oh! Denis, I’d much rather stay with you and Lilian.’
Upon which she went upstairs and could shortly be heard having a bath.
Denis tried to tell himself that girls often had a moment’s revulsion or fright at having committed themselves, but he was uneasy. If it were in his destiny, which he felt it never would be, to love and be loved, he could imagine a way of love quite different from what he had just seen. Probably Alister and Daphne’s matter of fact behaviour was the best and safest for life as it was now, but he had thought of half-lights, undertones, reticences, a hand that trembled when it brushed against his, silences that hung like perfume about him, quick answering glances.
‘Romantic fool,’ he said aloud to himself. And as there was no chance of getting at the bath till Daphne had finished, he applied himself once more to his ballet and was presently immersed in the music of his mind.
Mr Cameron found Mrs Middleton and Mrs Stonor still hard at work in the rose garden and stood about in so marked a way that they were in no doubt as to what had happened.
‘Did you find Daphne?’ asked Mrs Stonor, who had never yet been afraid to face a situation.
‘We found each other,’ said Mr Cameron in a terse voice.
Again both ladies knew quite well what he meant, but with a touch of vindictiveness towards the male sex in general each determined that he should jolly well explain himself and not leave them to take the trouble of extracting his meaning for him. So they remained silent, snipping off roses.
‘Lilian,’ said Mr Cameron, ‘could I say something to you?’
‘Certainly,’ said Mrs Stonor in a cheerful voice.
‘I do hope you won’t mind,’ said Mr Cameron, ‘but Daphne and I are engaged. I thought I’d better tell you.’
Mrs Stonor put down the basket of dead roses and came round the flower bed to him.
‘I am perfectly delighted, Alister,’ she said, ‘and I am sure her father would have been pleased. And I hope you will accept me as a very affectionate stepmother.’
As she said this she took both his hands.
‘And I am enchanted too,’ said Mrs Middleton. ‘I hope you will be as happy as Jack and I are and have dozens of children.’
‘It is all rather private for the present,’ said Mr Cameron uneasily. ‘Daphne didn’t like the idea of The Times.’
Mrs Middleton said she quite understood the feeling and when they had told her husband they would not let anyone else know. Mr Cameron, feeling vaguely that he ought to shelter Mrs Stonor, offered to see her home, but she preferred to go alone. When she got back to the White House she found Denis still at his work.
‘Well, darling, I see you have heard the news,’ said Denis. ‘I do like Alister and I do love Daphne, but – oh, I don’t know. Am I a beast not to feel very happy?’
‘If you are a beast, I am a beastess,’ said Mrs Stonor. ‘I’d like nothing more in the world than for Daphne to be happy – and Alister to be happy – but – oh, I don’t know either.’
She and Denis sat and looked at each other with concern, each longing to persuade the other that everything was all right, but quite unable to work up any conviction about it.
‘I’m being very silly,’ said Mrs Stonor firmly.
‘You are not, darling,’ said Denis. ‘Well, we will give Daphne a slap-up wedding and live on bread and cheese for a year and settle down together to a bachelor life. No one will ever want to be engaged to me, and just as well, and I shall be the prop of your declining years. In youth you sheltered me and I’ll protect you now.’
‘I wish you could, Denis,’ said his stepmother.
‘So do I,’ said Denis ruefully. ‘Never mind, you shall protect me, which will really give you much more satisfaction, being a motherly sort of woman. There is the water running off and I’ll rush and have my bath if you don’t mind.’
Dinner passed off peacefully. Daphne appeared to be quite herself again and though she went to bed early it was not to toss on a wakeful couch, but to sleep off in a very natural way the effect of so much excitement.
Dinner at Laverings fell alive into the hands of Mr Middleton, who read aloud to himself, from rough drafts visible to his inner eye, the various letters he had thought of sending or not sending to Sir Ogilvy Hibberd, calling occasionally upon his wife or his partner for their comments, to which he paid no attention at all. Under cover of this his hearers were able to think their own thoughts which were not altoget
her comfortable ones. Mrs Middleton had the doubtful pleasure of seeing some of her gloomier prognostications verified with every probability of the rest coming true; for anything less like her idea of a blissful engaged lover there could not be. Mr Cameron, after an instant of pure happiness when Daphne had cried in his arms, had experienced a peculiar sinking of the stomach which reason told him was excess of bliss but instinct defined as a mixture of terror at what he had done and irrevocable regret for something, not very clear to his mind, that he had not done.
‘So,’ said Mr Middleton when the dessert was on the table, ‘I shall send the letter, but not till after the Agricultural.’
‘Why put it off?’ said his wife.
‘My dear,’ said Mr Middleton, ‘when you live at Rome do as the Romans do. At this time of year every event in our Country Calendar is calculated from before or after the Agricultural. Probably a survival from the old Hiring Fair at Beliers which used to take place at about this time, but was unfortunately allowed to fall into disuse, together with the Abbey of Beliers, after the Reformation. As a loyal inhabitant of this part of the world it pleases me to conform.’
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