§ 4

He was intensely worried that his sister and brother could take up such an attitude towards the family. They were young socialists, anarchists, bolsheviks, and he heartily disapproved of them. He brooded over Jenny’s words more than was strictly reasonable. She wasn’t going to let the family spoil her life, she said—she wasn’t going to sacrifice herself to the family—she wasn’t going to let the family come between her and the man she loved as he had let it come between him and Stella. She’d no right to say that—it wasn’t true. He couldn’t really have loved Stella or he wouldn’t have sacrificed her to Alard and Starvecrow. Yes, he would, though—yes, he had. He had loved her—he wouldn’t say he hadn’t, he wouldn’t deny the past. He had loved her, but he had deliberately let her go because to have kept her would have meant disloyalty to his family. So what Jenny had said was true.

This realisation did not soothe, though he never doubted the rightness of what he had done. He wondered how much he had hurt Stella by putting her aside ... poor little Stella—she had loved him truly, and she had loved Starvecrow. He had robbed her of both.... He remembered the last scene between them, their goodbye—in the office at Starvecrow, in the days of its pitch-pine and bamboo, before he had put in the Queen Anne bureau and the oak chests. He wondered what she would think of it now. She would have fitted into Starvecrow better than Vera ... bah! he’d always realised that, but it was just as well to remind himself that if he had married her, there would have been no Starvecrow for her to fit into. He hadn’t sacrificed her merely to Alard but also to Starvecrow—and she had understood that part of the sacrifice. He remembered her saying, “I understand your selfish reason much better than your unselfish one.”

Well, there was no good brooding over her now. If he had loved her once, he now loved her no longer ... and if she had loved him once, she now loved him no longer. She was consoling herself with Gervase. She might be Lady Alard yet, and save Starvecrow out of the wreck that her husband would make of the estate. Peter felt sick.

The next day he met her at tea at Conster Manor, whither he had been asked with Vera to meet George’s successor, the new Vicar of Leasan. She was sitting on the opposite side of the room beside the Vicar’s wife—a faded little woman, in scrappy finery, very different from her predecessor who was eating her up from her place by Lady Alard. Peter had met Stella fairly often in public, but had not studied her closely till today. Today for some reason he wanted to know a great deal about her—whether she was still attractive, whether she was happy, whether she was in love with Gervase, though this last was rather difficult to discover, as Gervase was not there. On the first two points he soon satisfied himself. She was certainly attractive—she did not look any older than when he had fallen in love with her during the last year of the war. Her round, warmly coloured face and her bright eyes held the double secret of youth and happiness—yes, he saw that she was happy. She carried her happiness about with her. After all, now he came to think of it, she did not lead a particularly happy life—dispensing for her father and driving his car, it was dull to say the least. He could not help respecting her for her happiness, just as he respected her for her bright neat clothes contrasting so favourably with the floppy fussiness of bits and ends that adorned the Vicar’s wife.

He could not get near her and he could not hear what she was saying. The floor was held by Mr. Williams, the new Vicar. The Parsonage couple were indeed the direct contrast of their predecessors—it was the husband who dominated, the wife who struggled. Mr. Williams had been a chaplain to the forces, and considered Christianity the finest sport going. A breezy, hefty shepherd, he would feed his flock on football and billiards, as George had fed them on blankets and Parochial Church Councils. It was inconceivable that anyone in Leasan should miss the way to heaven.

“I believe in being a man among men,” he blew over Sir John, who was beginning to hate him, though he had chosen him out of twenty-one applicants—“that’s what you learnt in France—no fuss, no frills, just playing the game.”

“You’d better have a few words with my youngest son,” said Sir John, resolving to give him a hard nut to crack—“he’s turned what used to be called a Puseyite in my young days, but is now called a Catholic, I believe.”

“A Zanzibarbarian—what? Oh, he’ll grow out of that. Boys often get it when they’re young.”

“And stay young all their lives if they keep it,” said Stella—“I’m glad Gervase will be always young.”

The Vicar gave her a look of breezy disapproval. Peter was vexed too—not because Stella had butted into the conversation and thrown her opinion across the room, but because she had gone out of her way to interfere on behalf of Gervase. It was really rather obvious ... one couldn’t help noticing ... and in bad taste, too, considering Peter was there.

“Here he is,” said Sir John, as the Ford back-fired a volley in the drive—“you can start on him now.”

But Gervase was hungry and wanted his tea. He sat down beside his mother and Rose, so that he could have a plate squarely set on the table instead of balancing precarious slices of cake in his saucer. Peter watched him in a manner which he hoped was guarded. There was no sign of any special intelligence between him and Stella—Gervase had included her in his general salutation, which he had specialised only in the case of the Vicar and his wife. At first this reassured Peter, but after a while he realised that it was not altogether a reassuring sign—Gervase should have greeted Stella more as a stranger, shaken hands with her as he had shaken hands with the strangers, instead of including her in the family wave and grin. They must be on very good terms—familiar terms....

Stella rose to go.

“Have you got the car?” asked Gervase.

“No—Father’s gone over to Dallington in her.”

“Let me drive you back—I’ve got Henry Ford outside.”

“But have you finished your tea? You’ve only eaten half the cake.”

“I’ll eat the other half when I come back—it won’t take me more than a few minutes to run you home.”

“Thanks very much, then,” said Stella.

She had never been one to refuse a kindness, or say “No, thanks,” when she meant “Yes, please.” None the less Peter was angry. He was angry with her for accepting Gervase’s offer and driving off in his disreputable lorry, and he was angry with her for that very same happiness which he had admired her for earlier in the afternoon. It was extremely creditable of her to be happy when she had nothing to make her so, when her happiness sprang only from the soil of her contented heart; but if she was happy because of Gervase....

“He’s an elegant fellow, that young son of mine,” said Sir John, as the lorry drove off amidst retchings and smoke—“No doubt the day will come when I shall see him drink out of his saucer.”