‘DEAR Mrs. DARTIE,
‘Awfully sorry. Engaged two deep.
‘Yours,
‘AUGUSTUS FLIPPARD.’
It was late to send into the by-ways and hedges to remedy this misfortune. With the promptitude and conduct of a mother, Winifred fell back on her husband. She had, indeed, the decided but tolerant temperament that goes with a good deal of profile, fair hair, and greenish eyes. She was seldom or never at a loss; or if at a loss, was always able to convert it into a gain.
Dartie, too, was in good feather. Erotic had failed to win the Lancashire Cup. Indeed, that celebrated animal, owned as he was by a pillar of the turf, who had secretly laid many thousands against him, had not even started. The forty-eight hours that followed his scratching were among the darkest in Dartie’s life.
Visions of James haunted him day and night. Black thoughts about Soames mingled with the faintest hopes. On the Friday night he got drunk, so greatly was he affected. But on Saturday morning the true Stock Exchange instinct triumphed within him. Owing some hundreds, which by no possibility could he pay, he went into town and put them all on Concertina for the Saltown Borough Handicap.
As he said to Major Scrotton, with whom he lunched at the Iseeum: “That little Jew boy, Nathans, had given him the tip. He didn’t care a cursh. He wash in — a mucker. If it didn’t come up — well then, damme, the old man would have to pay!”
A bottle of Pol Roger to his own cheek had given him a new contempt for James.
It came up. Concertina was squeezed home by her neck — a terrible squeak! But, as Dartie said: There was nothing like pluck!
He was by no means averse to the expedition to Richmond. He would ‘stand’ it himself! He cherished an admiration for Irene, and wished to be on more playful terms with her.
At half-past five the Park Lane footman came round to say: Mrs. Forsyte was very sorry, but one of the horses was coughing!
Undaunted by this further blow, Winifred at once despatched little Publius (now aged seven) with the nursery governess to Montpellier Square.
They would go down in hansoms and meet at the Crown and Sceptre at 7.45.
Dartie, on being told, was pleased enough. It was better than going down with your back to the horses! He had no objection to driving down with Irene. He supposed they would pick up the others at Montpellier Square, and swop hansoms there?
Informed that the meet was at the Crown and Sceptre, and that he would have to drive with his wife, he turned sulky, and said it was d — d slow!
At seven o’clock they started, Dartie offering to bet the driver half-a-crown he didn’t do it in the three-quarters of an hour.
Twice only did husband and wife exchange remarks on the way.
Dartie said: “It’ll put Master Soames’s nose out of joint to hear his wife’s been drivin’ in a hansom with Master Bosinney!”
Winifred replied: “Don’t talk such nonsense, Monty!”
“Nonsense!” repeated Dartie. “You don’t know women, my fine lady!”
On the other occasion he merely asked: “How am I looking? A bit puffy about the gills? That fizz old George is so fond of is a windy wine!”
He had been lunching with George Forsyte at the Haversnake.
Bosinney and Irene had arrived before them. They were standing in one of the long French windows overlooking the river.
Windows that summer were open all day long, and all night too, and day and night the scents of flowers and trees came in, the hot scent of parching grass, and the cool scent of the heavy dews.
To the eye of the observant Dartie his two guests did not appear to be making much running, standing there close together, without a word. Bosinney was a hungry-looking creature — not much go about him.
He left them to Winifred, however, and busied himself to order the dinner.
A Forsyte will require good, if not delicate feeding, but a Dartie will tax the resources of a Crown and Sceptre. Living as he does, from hand to mouth, nothing is too good for him to eat; and he will eat it. His drink, too, will need to be carefully provided; there is much drink in this country ‘not good enough’ for a Dartie; he will have the best. Paying for things vicariously, there is no reason why he should stint himself. To stint yourself is the mark of a fool, not of a Dartie.
The best of everything! No sounder principle on which a man can base his life, whose father-in-law has a very considerable income, and a partiality for his grandchildren.
With his not unable eye Dartie had spotted this weakness in James the very first year after little Publius’s arrival (an error); he had profited by his perspicacity. Four little Darties were now a sort of perpetual insurance.
The feature of the feast was unquestionably the red mullet. This delectable fish, brought from a considerable distance in a state of almost perfect preservation, was first fried, then boned, then served in ice, with Madeira punch in place of sauce, according to a recipe known to a few men of the world.
Nothing else calls for remark except the payment of the bill by Dartie.
He had made himself extremely agreeable throughout the meal; his bold, admiring stare seldom abandoning Irene’s face and figure. As he was obliged to confess to himself, he got no change out of her — she was cool enough, as cool as her shoulders looked under their veil of creamy lace. He expected to have caught her out in some little game with Bosinney; but not a bit of it, she kept up her end remarkably well. As for that architect chap, he was as glum as a bear with a sore head — Winifred could barely get a word out of him; he ate nothing, but he certainly took his liquor, and his face kept getting whiter, and his eyes looked queer.
It was all very amusing.
For Dartie himself was in capital form, and talked freely, with a certain poignancy, being no fool. He told two or three stories verging on the improper, a concession to the company, for his stories were not used to verging. He proposed Irene’s health in a mock speech. Nobody drank it, and Winifred said: “Don’t be such a clown, Monty!”
At her suggestion they went after dinner to the public terrace overlooking the river.
“I should like to see the common people making love,” she said, “it’s such fun!”
There were numbers of them walking in the cool, after the day’s heat, and the air was alive with the sound of voices, coarse and loud, or soft as though murmuring secrets.
It was not long before Winifred’s better sense — she was the only Forsyte present — secured them an empty bench. They sat down in a row. A heavy tree spread a thick canopy above their heads, and the haze darkened slowly over the river.
Dartie sat at the end, next to him Irene, then Bosinney, then Winifred. There was hardly room for four, and the man of the world could feel Irene’s arm crushed against his own; he knew that she could not withdraw it without seeming rude, and this amused him; he devised every now and again a movement that would bring her closer still. He thought: ‘That Buccaneer Johnny shan’t have it all to himself! It’s a pretty tight fit, certainly!’
From far down below on the dark river came drifting the tinkle of a mandoline, and voices singing the old round:
‘A boat, a boat, unto the ferry, For we’ll go over and be merry; And laugh, and quaff, and drink brown sherry!’
And suddenly the moon appeared, young and tender, floating up on her back from behind a tree; and as though she had breathed, the air was cooler, but down that cooler air came always the warm odour of the limes.
Over