‘No, no, not at all boring, you know, really. Barrow digging is a fascinating occupation.’
‘Is that a car coming up the drive?’ said Amabelle languidly. It was getting dark, and the sidelights of a car flashed into the room.
‘Yes, it is. A huge Daimler, with Walter in it. Ha, ha, that’s funny; the old boy’s still in fancy dress.’
Walter came in rather sheepishly, still wearing his matelot clothes of the night before, and borrowed some money from Jerome to pay for the car, which was a Daimler hire. This done, he came back again, lit a cigarette and said in an exaggeratedly casual voice, ‘Sally all right?’
‘I suppose so; I don’t imagine she’s awake yet really. Did you have a good time?’
‘No, lousy. Why on earth did you go away like that without me?’ Walter flung himself out of the room.
‘Hity-tity,’ said Amabelle. ‘So that’s the tone, is it? Well, so long as one knows. How much did you lend him, Jerome darling?’
‘A fiver,’ said Jerome, who was now sitting up and reading The Times.
‘I’ll give it to you myself. It was rather a shame, I suppose, leaving him there. Still, half-past six, you know, and he hadn’t been seen by anyone since midnight.’
‘There are trains,’ said Jerome, pursuing his own line of thought, ‘and road coaches.’
‘In those clothes? I hardly think he could have.’
‘He had an overcoat. He must know he can’t afford Daimler hires. It would have been more honest.’
‘It would have been most unlike Walter. How goes the journal, Paul?’
‘Grand. I’m reading the first volume now. This morning I got to where “Dearest Mamma very kindly gave me permission to go a little way into the shrubbery with Sir Josiah Bobbin, and while there he said that it would make him very happy if I should become his wife. I replied in some agitation, due to the beatings of my poor heart, that my future must be decided by dearest Mamma and dear Papa; whereupon he told me, to my immeasurable joy, that he had already solicited and obtained their consent to our union. We then went back into the drawing-room, where I was embraced by dearest Mamma, dear Papa and all my dear brothers and sisters, also by poor Aunt Agatha, who all said that they hoped I should be very very happy. It was a most touching scene, and I felt quite faint from joy and emotion.” Isn’t it exquisite?’ said Paul enthusiastically. ‘The account of her wedding is too perfect; I can’t remember that exactly, but I’ll bring it along sometime. You know, Amabelle, I think I shall be able to write something unusually good after this, thanks entirely to you and Bobby, of course.’
‘Don’t mention it, old boy,’ said Bobby. ‘Just remember me in your dedication, though. “To my friend, Sir Roderick Bobbin, Bt., great-grandson of Lady Maria, without whose help, encouragement and never failing sympathy this book could hardly have been written.” Something on those lines, you know.’
Paul said nothing. He intended to dedicate the ‘Life’ to Philadelphia Bobbin.
15
Shortly after the New Year, foot and mouth disease vanished from the cowsheds of Gloucestershire, and the Bobbin hunt was able to resume its season. Lady Bobbin was now rarely to be seen between breakfast, at which meal she would appear booted and spurred to eat vast quantities of meaty foods, and tea-time, when she would loudly re-live the day for the benefit of Philadelphia, Paul and Michael. Her accounts of what had happened were always interspersed with bitter criticisms of the young female members of the hunt, who, according to her description of their appearance, might be supposed to come out hunting in full evening dress and with the sole idea of abstracting the attention of their men friends from the serious business on hand.
‘There was Maisie Critchley, in a pink shirt and a satin stock (I know you’ll hardly believe me), made up to the eyes and her hair all fuzzed out under her bowler. Perfectly disgusting. I can’t imagine why she bothers to get up on a horse at all; she can’t go for nuts and she spends her whole time coffee-housing with young Walters. Then, of course, he’s too busy holding her horse while she makes up her face and so on to think of anything else. I don’t know what the young people are coming to. Lucky thing my poor father is dead, that’s what I say. It would have broken his heart to see all these goings-on.’
Paul, hoping to see some painted sirens, went to one or two meets; but the women seemed to him, young and old, to be of a uniform plainness, with hard, weather-beaten faces entirely devoid of any artificial aids to beauty. He could only suppose that Lady Bobbin, in the delirium of the chase, was subject to hallucinations which took the form of satin stocks and pretty painted faces.
Bobby, who, rather against his will, admitted to a fondness for hunting, usually accompanied his mother and stayed out most of the day; but Philadelphia, since having as a child broken nearly every bone in her body when her pony fell at a stone wall out cubbing, had no nerve left. She and Paul now spent their time between Mulberrie Farm, both Sally and Amabelle having taken a great fancy to her, and the barrow, where Michael was busily conducting excavations with the aid of four members of the local unemployed.
‘That book you lent me,’ she said one morning as they were walking towards the barrow; ‘I finished it in bed last night. It’s very sad, isn’t it?’
Paul looked at her with positive rapture.
‘Did you really think so?’ he said incredulously.
‘Yes, of course. It is dreadful – I cried at the end.’
‘Oh, you didn’t, Philadelphia?’
‘Yes, I did. Why, don’t you think it’s very sad?’
‘I do. But nobody else does, you know. They don’t understand it; all the reviewers thought it was meant to be a funny book.’
‘How could they?
