第74章

His second-to feel that he would look a fool if they refused.He reined his horse in behind a tree,then perceived that it was equally impossible to spy on them.Nothing for it but to go home and await her coming!Sneaking out with that young bounder!He could not consult with June,because she had gone up that morning in the train of Eric Cobbley and his lot.And his father was still in 'that rotten Paris.'He felt that this was emphatically one of those moments for which he had trained himself,assiduously,at school,where he and a boy called Brent had frequently set fire to newspapers and placed them in the centre of their studies to accustom them to coolness in moments of danger.He did not feel at all cool waiting in the stable-yard,idly stroking the dog Balthasar,who queasy as an old fat monk,and sad in the absence of his master,turned up his face,panting with gratitude for this attention.It was half an hour before Holly came,flushed and ever so much prettier than she had any right to look.He saw her look at him quickly--guiltily of course--then followed her in,and,taking her arm,conducted her into what had been their grand-father's study.The room,not much used now,was still vaguely haunted for them both by a presence with which they associated tenderness,large drooping white moustaches,the scent of cigar smoke,and laughter.Here Jolly,in the prime of his youth,before he went to school at all,had been wont to wrestle with his grand-father,who even at eighty had an irresistible habit of crooking his leg.Here Holly,perched on the arm of the great leather chair,had stroked hair curving silvery over an ear into which she would whisper secrets.Through that window they had all three sallied times without number to cricket on the lawn,and a mysterious game called 'Wopsy-doozle,'not to be understood by outsiders,which made old Jolyon very hot.Here once on a warm night Holly had appeared in her 'nighty,'having had a bad dream,to have the clutch of it released.And here Jolly,having begun the day badly by introducing fizzy magnesia into Mademoiselle Beauce's new-laid egg,and gone on to worse,had been sent down (in the absence of his father)to the ensuing dialogue:

"Now,my boy,you mustn't go on like this."

"Well,she boxed my ears,Gran,so I only boxed hers,and then she boxed mine again.""Strike a lady?That'll never do!Have you begged her pardon?""Not yet."

"Then you must go and do it at once.Come along.""But she began it,Gran;and she had two to my one.""My dear,it was an outrageous thing to do."

"Well,she lost her temper;and I didn't lose mine.""Come along."

"You come too,then,Gran."

"Well--this time only."

And they had gone hand in hand.

Here--where the Waverley novels and Byron's works and Gibbon's Roman Empire and Humboldt's Cosmos,and the bronzes on the mantelpiece,and that masterpiece of the oily school,'Dutch Fishing-Boats at Sunset,'were fixed as fate,and for all sign of change old Jolyon might have been sitting there still,with legs crossed,in the arm chair,and domed forehead and deep eyes grave above The Times--here they came,those two grandchildren.And Jolly said:

"I saw you and that fellow in the Park."

The sight of blood rushing into her cheeks gave him some satisfaction;she ought to be ashamed!

"Well?"she said.

Jolly was surprised;he had expected more,or less.

"Do you know,"he said weightily,"that he called me a pro-Boer last term?And I had to fight him.""Who won?"

Jolly wished to answer:'I should have,'but it seemed beneath him.

"Look here!"he said,"what's the meaning of it?Without telling anybody!""Why should I?Dad isn't here;why shouldn't I ride with him?""You've got me to ride with.I think he's an awful young rotter."Holly went pale with anger.

"He isn't.It's your own fault for not liking him."And slipping past her brother she went out,leaving him staring at the bronze Venus sitting on a tortoise,which had been shielded from him so far by his sister's dark head under her soft felt riding hat.He felt queerly disturbed,shaken to his young foundations.A lifelong domination lay shattered round his feet.

He went up to the Venus and mechanically inspected the tortoise.

Why didn't he like Val Dartie?He could not tell.Ignorant of family history,barely aware of that vague feud which had started thirteen years before with Bosinney's defection from June in favour of Soames'wife,knowing really almost nothing about Val he was at sea.He just did dislike him.The question,however,was:What should he do?Val Dartie,it was true,was a second-cousin,but it was not the thing for Holly to go about with him.And yet to 'tell'of what he had chanced on was against his creed.In this dilemma he went and sat in the old leather chair and crossed his legs.It grew dark while he sat there staring out through the long window at the old oak-tree,ample yet bare of leaves,becoming slowly just a shape of deeper dark printed on the dusk.

'Grandfather!'he thought without sequence,and took out his watch.

He could not see the hands,but he set the repeater going.'Five o'clock!'His grandfather's first gold hunter watch,butter-smooth with age--all the milling worn from it,and dented with the mark of many a fall.The chime was like a little voice from out of that golden age,when they first came from St.John's Wood,London,to this house--came driving with grandfather in his carriage,and almost instantly took to the trees.Trees to climb,and grand-father watering the geranium-beds below!What was to be done?

Tell Dad he must come home?Confide in June?--only she was so--so sudden!Do nothing and trust to luck?After all,the Vac.would soon be over.Go up and see Val and warn him off?But how get his address?Holly wouldn't give it him!A maze of paths,a cloud of possibilities!He lit a cigarette.When he had smoked it halfway through his brow relaxed,almost as if some thin old hand had been passed gently over it;and in his ear something seemed to whisper:

'Do nothing;be nice to Holly,be nice to her,my dear!'And Jolly heaved a sigh of contentment,blowing smoke through his,nostrils.

But up in her room,divested of her habit,Holly was still frowning.'He is not--he is not!'were the words which kept forming on her lips.