These Delights (19 page)

“From all I hear,” Luke replied tolerantly, “he doesn’t spend much time farming himself. He leaves everything to his ba
i
liff.”

“Well, that’s as it should be if you want to concentrate on other things besides. Frank admits his bailiff knows more than he does, but he pays him handsomely and gets fine results. I wish you’d have a talk with him some time. I should like to have this place run on the same lines.
”

“It’s a little different for Tregenna,
”
Sir Harry said, avoiding Luke’s eyes. “He’s out for prize dairy herds, and, as with his horses, is more concerned with the show side of the business.”

“I’m afraid we’re more concerned with crops at Monk’s Farm than blood stock,” Luke said. “Hester and I have never wanted a model farm, have we, Hester? We simply want a living and a reasonable amount of comfort, as, I think, I’ve often told you, Diana.”

“But there’s no reason why
—”
Diana began impatiently, then, catching her father’s expression, said easily: “Oh, well, darling, I’ll convert you once we’re married. You don’t really see me as the typical farmer’s wife, do you?”

He looked at her, cool and elegant in her deck-chair,
smiling
at him over the rim of her sherry glass.

“No,” he said with a twinkle. “But there’s no reason why you should be, even at Monk’s Farm. I won’t expect you to bake and make preserves, or get up at dawn to milk the cows, you know.”

“I should rather enjoy milking the cows,” remarked Vicky complacently. “Ned Smale says I have the right touch.”

“Ned Smale would say anything to keep a pretty girl hanging round his shippon,” retorted Luke, and Diana said a little coldly:

“The cows will be milked by machinery, in any case. But seriously, Luke, Frank knows of an excellent man who might come to us as bailiff and run the place on the proper lines.”

“And what about poor old Tom?
”

“Well, of course, you would keep Bowden on, but he’d take orders from the other man. He’s getting on now, anyhow, and he knows his methods are old-fashioned.”

“Tom Bowden takes orders from me,” said Luke, speaking a little sharply for the first time. “No, Diana, you can play about with the farm within reasonable limits, but I don’t intend to have the place completely made over to methods I don’t agree with or want.”

He had never spoken to her so definitely in front of other people before, and she looked surprised and a little hurt.

“I think,” said Vicky’s clear voice in the little silence which followed, “I will go and put my roses in water.”

She began to get out of the
chaise-lounge
,
and Luke jumped up and put a steadying hand under her elbow.

“Take it easy,” he said. “Can’t Pauline do the roses for you?”

“No, I want to do them myself. Ow!” she said as her bruised back gave her a stab, “I feel about a hundred years old.”

He ruffled her hair affectionately.

“Yes, you look it! Well, don’t stand about too much.” She smiled at him, and he watched her walking carefully back to the house, Sir Harry’s roses held to her breast.

“Hester,” said
Diana
, “Mother wondered if you could spare us a little cream for lunch.”

“
Yes, I think so,” Hester said, getting up. “Come along to the dairy and we’ll see what there is.”

“Don’t be long, Diana,” Sir Harry called after her. “We must be getting back.”

“More beer?” asked Luke.

“Thanks.” Sir Harry accepted the tankard absently. He seemed a little silent and preoccupied and Luke said: “I hope you don’t consider me as a pig-headed and reactionary as I’m afraid Diana does.”

“No
...
no
...
” said Sir Harry reflectively. “I used, you know, to think you would be content to let my daughter run you, Luke, but lately—
”
He shook his head.

“But lately you’ve been disappointed?”

“I? Oh, no. A man must r
u
n his own life. But, you see, when he has to run it in opposition to his partner, so to speak, things are not easy.”

Luke was silent. He had always liked Diana’s father. He was so much wiser and shrewder than his wife or daughter ever gave him credit for.

“Sir Harry
—”
he began, but the older man finished
his beer and got up.

“No, Luke, don’t ask my advice—if you were going to,” he said. “But there’s one thing I’d like to ask
you
.
Are you prepared to compromise?”

Luke smiled a little sadly.

“Isn’t all life really a matter of compromise “ he said gently.

Sir Harry looked away to the dark line of moorland, already
changing
color at the approach of autumn.

“No—I don’t think it need
b
e,” he said slowly. “Have you made any further plans yet for little Vicky—and her sister?”

“No. A lot will depend on the next bulletins from France.”

“I see. Yes, well
—”
Sir Harry sighed, then turned
and gave Luke a singularly sweet smile. “I’ve always liked you very much, Luke—remember that. Ah, here are Hester and Diana back with the cream, and we really must be going. Goodbye, my dear chap, and thanks for the beer.”

“What a nice creature he is,” said Hester, as they watched the car drive away. “He deserved a better wife than that managing woman.”

“Yes,” Luke said thoughtfully, “I think he did. And she, perhaps, deserved someone more up to her weight.” She gave him a quick glance, then turned as Corky came out to ring the outside bell.

“All right, Corky, we’re here,” she said. “Have the children come in?”

“Miss Vicky’s reading in the living-room, but them other two are somewhere round the farm. I’d best give the bell a tinkle,” said Corky, and set up a deafening clangor which drove them all indoors.

CHAPTER TEN

W
ith
September came the first break in the weather since July. There were golden days, with the first autumn tints painting the leaves and the bracken a riot of copper, but for the most part it was a wet month. Hester bought gum boots for the children, and wood fires burned every evening in the living-rooms. The last hot days of summer had gone, not, Tom said, to return again this year. He and Luke were busy with the ploughing, Sir Harry was still in Scotland, and Diana and her mother in London, and life at Monk’s Farm was quiet and uneventful. Vicky’s back was strong again, although she still liked Luke to rub it for her, when she could persuade him, and the old parlor had been turned into a sitting-room for the
children
where Vicky and Pauline frequently repaired for private discussions, undeterred by the sound of Lou’s scales.

Their immediate plans were now decided. It was definite that Dennis
Jordan
was unfit to leave the hospice yet, so Vicky and Pauline were to remain at Monk’s Farm for the winter and Lou would return to France in October. When the term began in a week or so, Pauline was to start school in Plymouth, where she would go daily by train, and Vicky was already planning her reading for the winter, when she hoped to persuade Luke to read aloud to her on the long, dark evenings.

“Diana will not be pleased,
”
she said to him doubtfully when he first told her of his arrangements for them. “She does not like me, Luke, and”—with sudden shrewdnes
s—“
she will not marry you while I am still in the house. Then it is perhaps a good thing that we stay, yes?”

“Why should you want to postpone my marriage, Vicky?” He asked the question idly, but when she did not reply, he repeated it more seriously.

Her eyes fell before his.

“No,” she said. “You told me once I was never to talk to you or anyone else like that again.”

“That was when you had wrong and foolish ideas about my reasons for marrying.”

“Then,” she said stubbornly, “my reasons are still wrong and foolish, for I haven’t changed.”

He looked surprised and a little exasperated.

“
You still think I’m making what you call the practical marriage?”

“No. But you do not love her, and you needn’t look at me like that, Luke, because it’s true. And also, I do not
think
she loves you.”

“Well, we won’t discuss it,” he said wearily. “Sometimes I think, Vi
ck
y, that it would be better if I didn’t keep you here.”

“Because of Diana?”

“No, not entirely because of Diana. I don’t want to do anything that might hurt you, my child.”

Her eyes filled with tears, and she reached up at once to kiss
him.

“Dear Luke
...
dearest Luke
...
you, of all people, could never do anything to hurt me,” she said.

He rested his cheek for a moment against her hair. “Couldn’t I, Vicky?” he said. “I hope you’ll always think so.”

It was Diana herself who forced the issue. The day after she had returned from London with her mother, she rang up Monk’s Farm and asked Luke if he would come over to see her after lunch. She would be alone, she said; her mother had a committee meeting, and her father was not expected back from Scotland until the evening. There was a matter she particularly wanted to discuss with him.

She was waiting for him today in her own sitting-room on the first floor and he glanced round it with fresh eyes. It was charmingly furnished and decorated, but the walls were still hung with photographs of school groups, framed certificates of merit in numerous subjects and old emblems and symbols of the days when the power of the Sixth Form was absolute. He reflected for the first time that in some ways Diana had not grown up at all. She was still the prefect, admired and respected, wanting to manage and make efficient plans for everyone, and because this new perception made him understand her better, he greeted her with tenderness.

“Let’s sit by the fire and talk,” she said, glancing at the window against which the rain was driving. “Luke, I
—
I feel I’ve behaved foolishly sometimes since we became engaged. I’ve put you off, and shilly-shallied—we’ve been engaged eight months, haven’t we? Luke, I’m tired of waiting. Let’s get married.”

He glanced at her quickly. He had come prepared for some new foible about farming, but not for t
h
is. She had evaded him for so long that he had lost the habit of impatience.

“Isn’t this rather a sudden decision of yours?” he asked.

“Not really. I wanted to talk to you last month, but you were busy with harvesting and one thing and another. I know I’ve been in no hurry, but now—well,
I’
d like to get married before Christmas.”

“Are you willing to share the house with Vicky and Pauline for a time?” he asked curiously.

Anger flashed into her face.

“Always Vicky!” she exclaimed. “No, I’m not prepared to share the house with Vicky and Pauline. Why should
I?”

“Well, if you want to marry me before the spring, I’m afraid it will mean that,” he said, filling his pipe. “Dennis will definitely have to remain in the clinic for the winter, and I’ve made all arrangements with Dalcroix. Lou will go to him next month, and the girls are
remaining
here, as I warned you they might have to.”

She got up and began to walk about the room.

“So you’ve made your arrangements without consulting me—and while I was away,” she said in a hard little voice.

“Well, my dear, I didn’t really think it concerned anyone but myself and Hester and the children,” he replied. “I did warn you this might happen, and I hadn’t really a great deal of choice in the matter.”

“We could have thought of something else,” she said. “I could have found someone to take them in—Mother has plenty of badly-off but most respectable
protégées
who would have been glad of P.G.s.”

“But,” said Luke with humor, “the girls mightn’t have liked that.”

“Who cares what they like?” she flashed. “Beggars can’t be choosers, and why should you be saddled with them?”

“I don’t think they would care to be called beggars,” he said quietly. “And I, for one, think their wishes are important.”

“Oh, you’re besotted with them!” she exclaimed impatiently. “But I must say I didn’t think, when it came to the point, that you’d prefer to have your precious cousins than marry me.”

He puffed out a lazy cloud of smoke.

“Oh, now, darling, you’re being silly and unreasonable. There’s no reason, you know, why we shouldn’t get married before Christmas if you really want to. There’s plenty of room for us all.”

“If you
think
I’m going to start my married life with Vicky constantly hanging around, you’re very much mistaken,” she said. “You’ve made a perfect fool of yourself over her ever since she fell off the swing—yes, and before
that,
and I don’t propose to share my home with her.”

“I think we had better not discuss Vicky, don’t you?” said Luke a little wearily. “I’m sorry if my arrangements for the children have upset your plans, Diana, but I think you’re perfectly right not to want Vicky to live with us. We shall have to wait till the spring, my dear, and I don’t suppose you’ll really mind another few months of freedom.”

She did not answer, and looking up he saw that she was crying. It was the first time since he had known her that he had ever seen her in tears, and even now, he knew they were tears of frustration rather than those of unhappiness.

“Oh, come now, Diana,” he said reasonably. “You’re just being like a spoilt child. You could have married me
any
time
you chose during the past eight months. I’m only
asking
you to postpone things for another six.”

“You were the one,” she said, “who didn’t want to
wait.”

“Yes, that’s true, but sometimes one can wait too long. It becomes a habit. You see, darling, you’ve never cared for my love-making much, so I’ve learnt to be patient.”

“Just because I don’t let you paw me about
—”
she
began, but he interrupted with his crooked smile:

“
You have a most unromantic way of describing a lover’s embraces at times. Come and sit down, and let’s stop these recriminations.”

She sat down opposite him and her eyes were already bright and tearless.

“If you really cared,” she said, “you would send Vicky
away. I told you Mother could easily find someone
—”

He knocked out his pipe and put it in his pocket.

“We won’t go into that again,” he said. “You have your choice. Marry me and put up with an inconvenience for a little while, or wait until the situation is more to your
liking.”

“There’s another alternative,” she said slowly.

“Yes?”

“
Not to get married at all.”

“That, too,” he said steadily. “It’s up to you.”

“Wouldn’t you mind if I broke our engagement?”

He was silent for a moment, then he said:

“
To be frank, lately I’ve sometimes wondered if it wasn’t a mistake.”

She looked at him incredulously. She had scarcely been serious when she had suggested a third alternative; she had merely been trying to break down his stubbornness. “Luke!”

He looked up, surprised.

“Haven’t you felt it, too? Quite honestly, Diana, what do you get out of being engaged to me? You don’t like being made love to, you don’t agree with my ideas on farming, and, from your point of view, I must seem a very unenterprising, stick-in-the-mud kind of chap.”

She was out of her depth, for she had never been given to analyzing her own reactions.

“Well, I—I love you, of course.”

“Do you? In what way?”

“I—I’m very fond of you. You’re kind, well bred, reliable, and don’t expect too much.”

“No, and that, I think, has been my mistake. You’ve no means of knowing how much I do expect—or how little I’ve had to accept. You’re blind and deaf, Diana. One day, some man may wake you up, but I doubt if it will be me.”