These Delights (12 page)

“Yes, very smart of you,” he said, “but quite beside the point. I can’t possibly accept him, my dear.”

“Father!” Diana turned to Sir Harry, who had been listening quietly. “Did you ever know anything so stubborn? Make him see that it’s perfectly normal to make one’s
fiancé
a present, and a wedding present at that.”

S
ir Harry hesitated.

“Well, Diana, I don’t know. There are ways and ways of doing things. Perhaps Luke feels that a horse of that calibre is an extravagant luxury.”

“I’m afraid I do—for me,” said Luke.

F
rank
Tregenna joined them, rubbing his hands.

“Well, have you broken the news, Miss Diana?” he asked. “You’re a lucky chap, Merrit. I wouldn’t have parted with the horse so easily if it hadn’t been for this clever young lady’s charming persuasions.”

Diana gave a short laugh.

“My gift isn’t exactly the success I expected,” she said.

Tregenna regarded Luke with amazement.

“Isn’t the horse good enough for you?” He did not mean to sound offensive, but Luke was suddenly irritated by the whole business.

“On the contrary,” he said, trying to be polite, “he is much too good. I was just trying to explain to my
fiancée
that a valuable show hunter is not suitable for my work.”

“Certainly not if you’re going to hack him round the farm,” Tregenna agreed, looking horrified. “But surely you’ll show
him
? Miss Diana could win with that horse anywhere. I’ve been wishing all the afternoon, I’d refused to sell but asked her to show him for me this season, instead.”

“Well, if you want to keep the horse, don’t let me stand in your way,” said Luke. “I’m afraid I can’t afford to have anything in my stable that needs nursing and getting up for show. Diana knows that.”

“My
fiancé
, Frank, has odd ideas about money,” Diana said with a slight drawl. “He doesn’t care for me to pay for things until we are married, but I imagine it will be different then.”

Tregenna looked embarrassed. Pauline began to say: “I don’t see why
—”
but was told to be quiet by Vicky,
who was scoffing one toe in the grass, and Luke said quite quietly:

“I think we’ll discuss this later, Diana—in private. The jumping has started. We may as well watch for a bit.”

“Come on,” whispered Vicky, tugging at her sister. “Let’s go to the tent.”

They woke
u
p Lou and slipped away.

“I can’t see why Luke made such a fuss about a present,” Pauline said.

“It was the way she did it,” Vicky explained. “Do you not understand that he is sensitive about money? Diana is stupid—she throws it at him. She embarrassed him in front of that stranger with the teeth and the
ogling
eye.
I’
m afraid Diana is very stupid, but Sir Harry said this morning that so much in life is governed by stupidity. He is not a fool, that one, but his wife and his daughter—Pauline, stupid people are dangerous. They frighten me.” The refreshment tent was not so full now. Luke had given them a pound between them to spend that morning, and they were resolved to sample well the
ci
der which Tom Bowden had spoken of so highly.

“It’s good,” said Lou, drinking thirstily. He was still sleepy and he had paid little attention to his sisters’ conversation.

The tent was very
stuffy
, and soon it began to grow noticeably darker. Pauline went outside, carrying her glass, and shouted excitedly:

“Look, Vicky! Look at the sky!”

The sun had vanished and a lurid light had spread over the country meeting the leaden sky. A gust of wind
ca
ught the canvas of the marquee and sent it billowing inwards, and, even as they looked, a sudden flash seemed to cut the sky in two.

“The storm!” cried Vicky, stopping up her ears against the answering crash of thunder. “We must get back to the others, qui
ck
! Pauline! Lou! Come, before we are struck.”

She began to run, not looking to see if they followed, and as she ran, the old, unreasoning panic grew. The squeals of horses, and the crowd hurrying this way and that for shelter confused her so that she ran the wrong way and found herself in the collecting ring. A rearing horse narrowly missed striking her, and she turned and went blindly in the opposite direction, not seeing Luke and the others as she met them going for shelter.

“Hey, Vicky! Where are you going?” he called, and she flung herself into his arms, almost sobbing with relief.

“Oh, Luke, I lost you,” she cried incoherently. “The storm terrifies me and I was nearly killed by a horse.” She hid her face in his coat as another burst of thunder cracked almost directly overhead, and he held her to him, half laughing, half concerned.

“It’s all right, child, it’ll be over directly,” he soothed her. “Look, here comes the rain. We shall get soaked if we don’t get into the tents.”

“Not the tents—they will blow down and smother us,” she cried.

“All right, we’ll go to the car. Where are Pauline and Lou?”

“I’m here,” said Pauline. “I think Lou is still in the tent. Vicky can’t help being afraid, Luke. She’s terrified of thunder.”

“Well, follow the others and find Lou. We’ll all meet here when the storm’s over. Come along, Vicky.”

He took her to the car, and they sat in the back, she with her face still hidden from the storm, but soon the first sharpness passed, and they sat listening to the torrent of rain beating on the roof of the car and watched the stragglers hurrying for cover.

“Better now?” asked Luke as he felt her begin to relax beside him.

“Yes. I’m sorry, Luke, for behaving so foolishly, but I couldn’t find you, and the storm seemed to beat me down and pursue me. Do you think I am a great coward?”

“No, of course not. One can’t explain one’s fears. Look, it’s getting lighter. When the rain stops we’ll collect the others and go home.”

“Diana will despise me; she is afraid of nothing,” said Vicky humbly, then added with more assurance, “But then
that is stupid, to be afraid of nothing. Me, I have imagination.”

“Well, don’t get smug about it,” said Luke with a laugh. “Come, the rain’s stopped. We’ll go and find the others.”

They met Diana and her father walking back from the marquee. Diana flicked some raindrops off her sleeve and looked at Vicky with distaste.

“What an exhibition!” she remarked. “Do you have to fling yourself into Luke’s arms in public just because it thunders?”

“I’m sorry, Diana, I couldn’t help it,” said Vicky apologetically.

“Then you should try and learn more self-control,” Diana retorted. “What would you have done if something had really happened, I should like to know?”

V
icky made no reply and Luke said quietly:

“
Vicky lived for some time in the middle of the Algerian trouble, Diana. It’s not surprising her nerves aren’t too good.”

She flushed slightly and turned to her father.

“I think I’d like to go home,” she said. “Noakes should be back with Comet by now.”

Sir Harry regarded her pensively. Today, it would seem, the storm had not been entirely confined to the weather. He was not the sort of man to interfere, but he thought he would have a word with his daughter on the way home regarding Frank Tregenna’s hunter, and possibly other things. She was handling Luke all wrong.

“Very well,” was all he said.

Pauline came running towards them.

“Vicky, do come,” she shouted urgently. “Lou is still in the tent and I can’t get him out. I think he’s
drunk
!”

“What!” exclaimed Luke. “Surely not! What’s he been drinking?”

“Only cider,” said Pauline. “Can you get drunk on cider,
Luke?”

“You certainly can,” he replied a little grimly. “We
’
d better go and see.”

“Well,” said Diana, catching the twinkle in her father’s eye and not liking it, “a perfect end to a perfect day. Come on, Father, let’s leave them to it.”

It was a subdued party that returned to Monk’s Farm. Lou was undoubtedly tipsy. He had sat in a corner of the tent drinking cider all through the storm, and no one ever discovered how he had managed to get served with so much, but as Vicky told Luke with a certain pride, Lou was ingenious when he had set his mind on a thing.

Luke carried him, half asleep, to the car, trusting, without much faith, that he would not be sick before they got home, and, telling Vicky rather curtly to put him to bed and administer black coffee, he went to find his sister on the loggia.

“Quite an eventful day one way and another,” she remarked when she had heard his account of the proceedings. “I hope that child won’t be ill.”

“I shouldn’t think so. He seems used to some odd potions, according to Vicky, but I’ll certainly leave him behind next time. In fact, I’m not sure I won’t leave them all behind.”

She raised enquiring eyebrows.

“Did the girls misbehave themselves, too?”

“Oh, no, they were very well behaved, except that Vicky lost her head in the storm. Poor little scrap, she was really frightened.”

He did not enlarge on the episode, and Hester wondered if Vicky had been upsetting Diana again.

“Well, anyhow, Diana had a good day,” she observed. “What a lucky thing the storm held off until the judging was over.”

“Yes.” He sounded cryptic, and she wondered if there had been other, more unaccountable disturbances than the weather. She thought Luke looked tired and a little despondent, and asked, non-committally: “Was Diana pleased with her success?”

“Oh, I think so, though naturally she would have liked Comet to have been higher.”

“Mr. Tregenna must have been pleased at getting the championship. I don’t imagine he will sell the horse now.”

“He
has sold him,
”
said Luke briefly, “to Diana.”

“Oh, I see,” said Hester quietly, and sighed. Really, Luke had
made
a very d
iffi
cult situation for himself. Diana was curiously insensitive where her money was concerned, and Luke, perhaps, unduly proud. “And she wants to give you the horse?”

“Yes. I thought I’d made it clear the other night that an animal of that kind was quite outside my scope.”

“You’ve refused?”

“Of course. I will not be bludgeoned into a gift in public like that. Diana must learn that she can’t use her money as a whip in front of people like Frank Tregenna.”

Hester gave him a quick glance but said nothing. She had seldom heard him talk like this. Diana must have been exceedingly clumsy and tactless, but then, of course, she was, in a naive, uncomprehending fashion.

He turned to look at her as she made no reply, and said slowly:

“Hester, do you think I’m wrong about this? Am I merely being ungracious and difficult, which is the obvious conclusion most people would come to?”

She hesitated. He so seldom asked her for advice, and she was afraid of saying the wrong thing.

“I think you have to do as your instinct tells you in these matters,” she said carefully. “It’s always a difficult situation when the wife of a marriage has a great deal mo
r
e money than her husband, and calls for much tact on both sides. A gift, after all, is a very personal matter, and oughtn’t to cause friction if it’s offered and accepted in the right spirit, but whether you were right to refuse in this case, Luke, I really don’t know.”

He was silent for a moment, then said reflectively: “Perhaps I was boorish and a prig, and spoilt her day, but you see, Hester, it isn’t only that. It’s the whole way this money question is approached. Sometimes I feel as if
I’m being made over as well as the farm. What I can contribute in the future, whether it’s a gift or a new farm implement, won’t count beside Diana’s conception of how things sho
u
ld be run.”

Hester could not keep the worry out of her eyes.

“If you’ve any doubts, Luke
—”
she said, and did not
continue. She could not possibly influence him over a subject of which she knew so little.

“My principal doubt,” he replied, “is whether I can really make her happy. Sometimes I think she needs someone harder, more ambitious than I am.”

“Don’t you ever consider,” she asked quietly, “if she will make
you
happy? It cuts both ways, you know.”

He smiled.

“Well, I’m a contented person, as a rule, you know. I’m not at
all complicated.”

“Aren’t you, my dear?”

He looked surprised.

“No, I don’t think so. Would you say I was?”

She smiled in her turn.

“I’m only your sister, I haven’t got inside knowledge. But all men and women, too, are complicated when they’re in love.”

“Well, perhaps I can’t be in love,” he said jokingly.

“Perhaps you aren’t,” she retorted, and a strained little silence fell between them.

“I think I’ll run over this evening after supper,” he said then. “It’s easier to discuss these things in her own setting. I’m afraid the children get on her nerves.”

“They have different values,” Hester murmured. “People with different values always get on your nerves.”

He looked uneasy.

“Do they, Hester? Yes, I suppose so.” He laughed. “Do you know that queer child, Vicky, actually told me she thought I was marrying Diana for her money?”

“Vicky did?”

“Yes. She assured me they all quite understood and it was a very practical arrangement. I’m afraid I jumped on her and reduced her to tears, funny, emotional little creature.”

Hester raised her eyes to his for a brief moment “Vicky is not a child, Luke,” she said gently.

He frowned.

“No, I suppose she isn’t
,
” he replied slowly. “I’m afraid I’m apt to think of them collectively.”

The Sales were
finishing t
heir coffee when Luke arrived. It was cooler after the storm and they sat in the long drawing
room with its pale damask hangings and the great bowls of flowers arranged with the art of a florist’s window. Lady Sale extended a cool hand and said:

“This is an unexpected surprise, Luke. Will you have some coffee? It’s still reasonably hot.”

Diana, in her long dinner dress, lay in her chair and seemed a little languid. He bent and kissed her.

“Did you get your inebriated young charge home safely?” asked Sir Harry. “Brandy?”

“Thank you. Yes, Lou’s safely in bed and none the worse.”

A
A child of that age getting tipsy!” said Lady Sale “I must say it sounds a little unconventional. But they are unconventional—the French, I mean, aren’t they?
”

Luke smiled.

“No, Lady Sale, quite the reverse,” he said. “But my cousins aren’t French, you know.”

“Oh, of course not—I always forget. Diana, dear, would you
ring
for some more coffee? This is cold after all.”

“Oh, please don’t bother,” said Luke quickly. “This will do me perfectly well.”

“Nonsense!” she replied. “If we’d known you were coming we would have waited for you.”

Luke, sipping his brandy while Diana and her mother exchanged small talk, felt himself to be an intruder. He wondered vaguely if, when they were married, Diana would change for dinner and subdue Corky to an automaton, and the last thought made him smile. Corky, he felt sure,
would remain
himself
whatever influences were brought to bear.

“Like a stroll round the garden?” asked Sir Ha
rry
, watching him. “Everything looks rather good after the rain.”

“Harry, don’t be so tactless,” laughed his wife. “I imagine Luke would much prefer to stroll round the garden with Diana, wouldn’t you, Luke?”

“Well, I’d hoped for a few moments with her before I left,” Luke said a little awkwardly.

“Of course you did. Diana, take him away and keep
him
amused. He looks tired, poor man.”

Diana got to her feet slowly, pulled a chiffon scarf from the back of her chair and threw it over her shoulders.

“The grass will be damp,” was all she said. “We had better stick to the paths.
”

They went down the straight, paved walk which led to the rose-garden, and stood admiring Sir Harry’s roses, making desultory conversation until Luke said:

“Diana, about Royal Crown. I didn’t mean to appear ungracious. Would it please you if I said I’d have the horse?”

Her face was averted from him, and the pure serene line of her profile was untroubled as she bent over a white Frau Carl Drushki.

“I don’t want to force a gift on you that you don’t want Luke,” she said.

“You make me seem very childish, darling.”

“Well, weren’t you, rather?”

“Perhaps, without meaning it. It was the way you did it, I think. You take it so much for granted that money can buy everything.”

“So you’ve told me before. Have you an inferiority complex, my dear?”

“I don’t think so. I have very few complexes at all, as I was telling Hester after tea.”

She broke a dead head off the tree with a neat twist of her fingers.

“Have you been discussing me with Hester?” she asked.

“Not directly. I think I was mostly discussing myself.”

She turned then to look at him.

“Luke—I’ve often wanted to ask you—what will Hester do when we’re married?”

He was taken by surprise and answered a little stupidly: “Do? What should she do?”

“Well, does she intend to live with us?”

“I’ve never thought about it,” he replied, genuinely bewildered, “Monk’s Farm has been her h
o
me for nearly twelve years. I could hardly ask her to go. Besides, she put money into the place. She has a right to live there.”

“
Yes,” she said carefully. “I can see it’s a difficult situation. But if you bought her out, with a good bonus, of course, she would have enough to buy a little home of her own.”

“Let’s not make another issue,” he said, wanting to shake the calmness out of her. “I came here this evening to talk about Tregenna’s horse.”

“
Yes?”

“If it will make you happier,
I’ll
accept him and apologize for my ungraciousness in the first place.”

“No,” she said. “Perhaps you were right. Frank is going to keep him and I shall show him for him.”

He was a little nonplussed by her capitulation, and wondered what Tregenna had thought about the affair.

“That sounds more sensible,” was all he could think of to say. “But thank you all the same for your generosity. I wouldn’t want you to think I was ungrateful.”

They had walked round to the front of the house, and Diana asked
him
if he would come in for a nightcap.

“I don’t think I will tonight, thanks.”

He wanted to get away. The evening, although it had passed smoothly enough on the whole, had been unsatisfactory.

“I think I shall go to bed myself,” she said. “It’s been quite a day.”

He stooped to kiss her.

“You looked magnificent, as always,” he said. “Better luck with Comet at Chullard. Are you riding Royal Crown there?”

“Yes. Good night, Lu
k
e. I’ll come over and help you with the hay one day.”

“
Yes
,
do that,” he said, smiling. “We can do with some extra hands. Good night, darling.”

She watched his car out of sight down the drive, then turned and went unhurriedly into the house.