“He is, Aunt Em. Uncle Lawrence is sixty-nine; didn’t you know?”

“Well, he’s never shown any signs yet. Blore!”

“Yes, my lady.”

“Go away!”

“Yes, my lady.”

“There are some things,” said Lady Mont, as the door closed, “that you can’t talk about before Blore—birth control, and your uncle, and that. Poor Pussy!”

She rose, went to the window, and dropped a cat into a flower bed.

“How perfectly sweet Blore is with her!” murmured Dinny.

“They stray,” she said, as she came back, “at forty-five, and they stray at sixty-five, and I don’t know when after that. I never strayed. But I’m thinkin’ of it with the Rector.”

“Is he very lonely now, Auntie?”

“No,” said Lady Mont, “he’s enjoyin’ himself. He comes up here a lot.”

“It would be delicious if you could work up a scandal.”

“Dinny!”

“Uncle Lawrence would love it.”

Lady Mont seemed to go into a sort of coma.

“Where’s Blore?” she said: “I want one of those pancakes after all.”

“You sent him away.”

“Oh! yes.”

“Shall I tread on the gas, Aunt Em?” said Clare; “it’s under my chair.”

“I had it put there for your Uncle. He’s been readin’ me Gulliver’s Travels, Dinny. The man was coarse, you know.”

“Not so coarse as Rabelais, or even as Voltaire.”

“Do you read coarse books?”

“Oh! well, those are classics.”

“They say there was a book—Achilles, or something; your Uncle bought it in Paris; and they took it away from him at Dover. Have you read that?”

“No,” said Dinny.

“I have,” said Clare.

“From what your Uncle tells me, you oughtn’t to.”

“Oh! one reads anything now, Auntie, it never makes any difference.”

Lady Mont looked from one niece to the other.

“Well,” she said, cryptically, “there’s the Bible. Blore!”

“Yes, my lady.”

“Coffee in the hall on the tiger. And put a sniff on the fire, Blore. My Vichy.”

When she had drunk her glass of Vichy they all rose.

“Marvellous!” whispered Clare in Dinny’s ear.

“What are you doin’ about Hubert?” said Lady Mont, in front of the hall fire.

“Sweating in our shoes, Auntie.”

“I told Wilmet to speak to Hen. She sees Royalty, you know. Then there’s flyin’. Couldn’t he fly somewhere?”

“Uncle Lawrence went bail for him.”

“He wouldn’t mind. We could do without James, he’s got adenoids; and we could have one man instead of Boswell and Johnson.”

“Hubert would mind, though.”

“I’m fond of Hubert,” said Lady Mont: “and bein’ married—it’s too soon. Here’s the sniff.”

Blore, bearing coffee and cigarettes, was followed by James bearing a cedar log; and a religious silence ensued while Lady Mont made coffee.

“Sugar, Dinny?”

“Two spoonfuls, please.”

“Three for me. I know it’s fattenin’. Clare?”

“One, please.”

The girls sipped, and Clare sighed out:

“Amazing!”

“Yes. Why is your coffee so much better than anybody else’s, Aunt Em?”

“I agree,” said her aunt. “About that poor man, Dinny: I was so relieved that he didn’t bite either of you after all. Adrian will get her now. Such a comfort.”

“Not for some time, Aunt Em: Uncle Adrian’s going to America.”

“But why?”

“We all thought it best. Even he did.”

“When he goes to Heaven,” said Lady Mont, “someone will have to go with him, or he won’t get in.”

“Surely he’ll have a seat reserved!”

“You never know. The Rector was preachin’ on that last Sunday.”

“Does he preach well?”

“Well, cosy.”

“I expect Jean wrote his sermons.”

“Yes, they used to have more zip. Where did I get that word, Dinny?”

“From Michael, I expect.”

“He always caught everythin’. The rector said we were to deny ourselves; he came here to lunch.”

“And had a whacking good feed.”

“Yes.”

“What does he weigh, Aunt Em?”

“Without his clothes—I don’t know.”

“But with?”

“Oh! quite a lot. He’s goin’ to write a book.”

“What about?”

“The Tasburghs. There was that one that was buried, and lived in France afterwards, only she was a Fitzherbert by birth. Then there was the one that fought the battle of—not Spaghetti—the other word, Augustine gives it us sometimes.”

“Navarino? But did he?”

“Yes, but they said he didn’t. The rector’s goin’ to put that right. Then there was the Tasburgh that got beheaded, and forgot to put it down anywhere. The rector’s nosed that out.”

“In what reign?”

“I never can be bothered with reigns, Dinny. Edward the Sixth—or Fourth, was it? He was a red rose. Then there was the one that married into us. Roland his name was—or was it? But he did somethin’ strikin’—and they took away his land. Recusancy—what is that?”

“It means he was a Catholic, Auntie, in a Protestant reign.”

“They burnt his house first. He’s in Mercurius Rusticus, or some book. The rector says he was greatly beloved. They burnt his house twice, I think, and then robbed it—or was it the other way? It had a moat. And there’s a list of what they took.”

“How entrancing!”

“Jam, and silver, and chickens, and linen, and I think his umbrella, or something funny.”

“When was all this, Auntie?”

“In the Civil War. He was a Royalist. Now I remember his name wasn’t Roland, and she was Elizabeth after you, Dinny. History repeatin’ itself.”

Dinny looked at the log.

“Then there was the last Admiral—under William the Fourth—he died drunk, not William. The Rector says he didn’t, so he’s writin’ to prove it. He says he caught cold and took rum for it; and it didn’t click—where did I get THAT word?”

“I sometimes use it, Auntie.”

“Yes. So there’s quite a lot, you see, besides all the dull ones, right away back to Edward the Confessor or somebody. He’s tryin’ to make out they’re older than we are. So unreasonable.”

“My Aunt!” murmured Clare. “Who would read a book like that?”

“I shouldn’t think so. But he’ll simply love snobbin’ into it: and it’ll keep him awake. Here’s Alan! Clare, you haven’t seen where my portulaca was. Shall we take a turn?”

“Aunt Em, you’re shameless,” said Dinny in her ear; “and it’s no good.”

“‘If at first you don’t succeed’—d’you remember every mornin’ when we were little? Wait till I get my hat, Clare.”

They passed away.

“So your leave’s up, Alan?” said Dinny, alone with the young man. “Where shall you be?”

“Portsmouth.”

“Is that nice?”

“Might be worse. Dinny, I want to talk to you about Hubert. If things go wrong at the Court next time, what’s going to happen?”

All ‘bubble and squeak’ left Dinny, she sank down on a fireside cushion, and gazed up with troubled eyes.

“I’ve been enquiring,” said young Tasburgh; “they leave it two or three weeks for the Home Secretary to go into, and then, if he confirms, cart them off as soon as they can. From Southampton it would be, I expect.”

“You don’t really think it will come to that, do you?”

He said gloomily: “I don’t know. Suppose a Bolivian had killed somebody, here, and gone back, we should want him rather badly, shouldn’t we, and put the screw on to get him?”

“But it’s fantastic!”

The young man looked at her with an extremely resolute compassion.

“We’ll hope for the best; but if it goes wrong something’s got to be done about it. I’m not going to stand for it, nor is Jean.”

“But what could be done?”

Young Tasburgh walked round the hall looking at the doors; then, leaning above her, he said:

“Hubert can fly, and I’ve been up every day since Chichester. Jean and I are working the thing out—in case.”

Dinny caught his hand.

“My dear boy, that’s crazy!”

“No crazier than thousands of things done in the war.”

“But it would ruin your career.”

“Blast my career! Look on and see you and Jean miserable for years, perhaps, and a man like Hubert broken rottenly like that—what d’you think?”