These Delights (17 page)

“Help yourself. Not for me, thanks,
dinner
will be ready any minute. Luke—getting
back
to the subject of next winter. Even if other considerations don’t weigh with you in the matter of the girls, have you thought how they might affect our own plans?”

“I didn’t think we had any immediate plans,” he said wearily.

“Well,” she said thoughtfully, “perhaps it’s time we had. You’ve so often wanted to rush me, Luke, and I put
you off. We might talk about it now, don’t you think?”

He pressed his fingers against his tired eyelids.

“Not tonight, Diana,” he said. “I’m tired and my brain won’t coordinate. I’m afraid I should say all the wrong things.”

She looked at him a little curiously, but there was a certain relief in her own eyes as she replied impassively:

“Just as you like. There’s the gong. I’ll get Bennett to open a bottle of champagne. It will do you good. Shall we go in?”

CHAPTER NINE

T
he
fine weather held for the Manor f
e
te, and Luke drove his cousins there in the morning and dropped them at the gate. Vicky and Pauline wore their best frocks, made for them two years ago by Ma
r
the and now rather short, and at the last minute, Lou decided to return home with Luke and practise, and come back with him and Hester in the afternoon.

Lady Sale swept down on the girls and set them to work at once.

“No hats?” she observed, eyeing them critically.

“We haven’t any hats,” said Pauline. “We never wear them.”

“Well, it doesn’t matter, only I always think one looks more
dressed
at a garden party in a hat, don’t you? Still it’s the fashion for young people these days, and you look very nice. Vicky, my dear, pull your frock well over your knees when you sit down, won’t you? But then of course you won’t be doing much sitting down, will you? Now run along and get your stall ready, and remember, the great
thing
is to make people
buy
.
Whether they want to or whether they don’t, don’t be put
off. It’s
all for charity.” She hurried away to attend to something else, and Vicky and Pauline went and inspected their stall with a dubious eye.

“Whoever would want to buy this?” asked Pauline, holding up a crocheted hair-tidy.

“Or these,” said Vicky, pointing to two hideous china vases inscribed with the motto: ‘A present from Margate
.’

“This pot might be useful as a spittoon, but I can’t think what else,” said Pauline.

The fete was a success, like all Lady Sale’s ventures. The speeches were not too long, or the band too loud, the stalls were well patronized, and the gardens looked their best in the unbroken sunshine. Diana, looking charming
in flowered chiffon and a picture hat, was doing excellent business at the fruit and flower stall, and all down the line, Lady Sale and her indefatigable workers gathered in the money.

“We’ve been given the worst stall,” whispered Pauline. “I can’t sell anything much, can you?”

“Well, it’s difficult when half the time you don’t know what the things are meant to be,” Vicky complained. “Oh, there’s Luke and Cousin Hester—we’ll make them buy.”

“Hullo!” said Luke. “Are you making wads of money?”

“We haven’t sold much,” said Vicky. “But they are such awful things. Luke, please buy something, even if you throw it in the hedge going home.”

He bought something from the stall and then moved on to talk to Diana. Hester bought, and Tim Bowden, and old Mrs. Smale from the village, but Corky turned out to be their best customer.

“Now that’s what I call a tasteful bit of crock,” he said, picking up a violently painted tea-pot. “I’ll ‘ave that—and this—it’ll ‘ang nicely over me washstand—and that jug without the ‘andle—just wot I’ve been looking for to put me tea-leaves in.”

“You’re a darling, and we love you,” Vicky said, beaming on him. “What’s for supper?”

“Wot an idea!” he said, “thinking of your supper when you’ve only just had lunch.”

“We didn’t get much,” said Pauline. “It was slithers of chicken and sandwiches—the elegant kind.”

“
I
know, go
rn
in one suck. Well, I’m doing a nice bit o’ liver wot Bidder slipped me on the quiet, with onions, and blackberry pud to follow, and a savory for Mr. Luke because he likes ‘em. Well, I expect I’d better go and buy a lemon off of Miss Diana Sale, so I’ll be seein’ you.”

He wandered jauntily away, and Pauline said:

“I don’t think he likes Diana much. Didn’t he look sweet in his best suit?”

Sir Harry stopped to buy something and his eyes twinkled as he looked at the stall.

“What terrible rubbish people do collect, don’t they?” he remarked. “Now what shall I choose—that ashtray? No,
terrible! That plush footstool for my old age? No, it wouldn’t go with my wife’s decorations. Tell you what, I’ll just give you a pound for the stall, and let it go at that.”

“Oh, Sir Harry, you angel!” cried Vicky, nearly kissing
him.
“That will be a great help, because no one buys much from this stall, and can you wonder? Are you going to the concert?”

He looked guilty and said, “No,” in a loud whisper. “I’ll confess to you I’m going to sneak off in a
little
while and attend to my roses. I hate these do’s.”

Diana was too busy to talk to Luke for long, and he wandered off to the refreshment
tent to fetch two cups of tea for Vicky and Pauline. On his way he met Lady Sale hurrying
back
to her stall.

“You must take Diana to tea,” she said, waving a commanding hand. “I’ll find someone to relieve her.”

“She seems very busy just now,” Luke replied. “I was just going to fetch two cups for Vicky and Pauline.”

“Ah, yes, your
little
cousins. They look charming, but I’m afraid they’re not doing much business. I’ve hardly seen you since we got back, my dear man, but things have been such a rush preparing for the fete.”

“A great success, as one would expect,” he said courteously.

“Thank
you, everyone’s been very kind.” She tapped
him
on the arm.
“When are you and Diana going to set
tl
e your affairs?”

“Well, I
—”

“It’s time, you know. I’ll speak to Diana. Now I must fly, as Mrs. Walker must go and get
her
tea.”

Luke deposited the two cups of tea at Vicky’s stall, then went to look for Hester and Lou to take them to the refreshment tent. He met Diana, who had been relieved from her stall, and suggested that she join them.

“Not now, Luke,” she said. “I want to find Father and see if he’ll spare any more of his roses. They sell so fast
.
If I can get free later, we’ll slip away and find a drink.

He watched her move away, easy and elegant in her becoming frock, stopping to talk to people, assured and in
her element in such a setting, and he reflected that it was perhaps only when she was alone with him that she seemed to have that odd restraint and air of disquiet.

She found her father in the rose garden, ruefully inspecting his denuded trees.

“No, not another bloom,” he said firmly when she made her request.
“Y
our mother’s ruined the effect as it is with her demands, and I won’t part with any more.”

“Poor Father!” She laughed and linked her arm with his. “It’s a shame to take your prize blooms. Well, I won’t bully you, though you ought to be on the lawn talking to the vicar and our numerous patrons. Let’s sit down for a minute while I have a cigarette.”

They sat together on a painted garden seat, and Sir Harry surveyed his daughter approvingly.

“Never seen you look better,” he said. “That picture hat is most becoming. Had a word with Luke yet?”

“Only a word, I’ve been so busy. He’s gone off to give Hester and Lou some tea. The concert will start soon. You ought to attend that, Father.”

“Heaven forbid! I might have gone and listened to Lo
u
,
for he’s worth hearing, but the others
—
!”

“Oh, you’re as bad as everyone else.” She laughed. “Father, I want to start some of the work on the farm, but Luke’s stubborn about it. Do you think if you made him over some money—in advance of the marriage settlement,
I
mean—he’d pocket his pride if he paid the bills himself?”

Sir Harry was silent for a moment.

“No,” he said then, “I think it’s best to wait till you’re married, and even then, Diana, you must go carefully. Don’t talk about what you want to do with your money in front of other people.”

“What do you mean? That I try and throw it at Luke?”

“Well, a little. You don’t mean it, but, if I were you I should be a little more tactful. People notice.”

“Who?”

Sir Harry was not always tactful himself.

“Well, that little girl for one.”

“
Do you mean Vicky?” She spoke sharply. “Have you been discussing me with Vicky, Father?”

“No, no,” he said hastily. “Just something she said without thinking.”

She looked at him curiously.

“You like her, don’t you, Father? You like them all.”

“Yes, I find them refreshing.”

She looked thoughtful.

“That’s a word Luke frequently uses. I wonder what a
man means,
exactly, when he describes a woman as refreshing.”

His eyes twinkled.

“Are you by any chance promoting Vicky to the status of womanhood?” he asked.

“Of course not, she’s just a child.”

She got up.

“I must be getting back to my stall. And you won’t speak to Luke?”

“Speak to Luke?”

“About starting the work on the farm”

“No. How you do keep on at a thing, Diana. Let the feller run his own show.”

She hesitated, tapping her finger-nail against her teeth, seemed about to say something further, then turned and walked away down the path.

The fete was over, the usual vote of thanks had been made to Lady Sale, who had responded with one of her well-known little speeches, and she was now seeing off the last of her guests on the terrace. Diana had taken Luke and Hester and Frank Tregenna indoors for drinks, and the
Jordan
s amused themselves on the swing which had helped to entertain the village children all the afternoon.

“You must be exhausted, Diana,” said Hester. “So much running about and seeing to things.”

“I’m never tired,” Diana said, and certainly she looked as fresh as she had in the morning. Her creamy skin was scarcely even flushed.

“That’s your marvellous vitality, my dear.” Hester
smiled.
“You get it from your mother. Now I am very ready to sit down and relax over this pleasant cocktail.”

Diana glanced at her. Yes, Hester was beginning to look her age, she thought, and how dowdy and negative she was in her crumpled linen suit whi
ch
bagged at the knees.

“You should have come in a thin frock,” she said carelessly. “I always think linen is hot this weather.”

Hester’s eyes twinkled. She knew very well what Diana was
thinking,
and she supposed, without rancor, she was right.

“Who arranges the flowers—you?” she asked idly, looking round the big drawing-room.

“Usually,” Diana replied. “Do you like Mother’s new decorations? We’ll be having your farm living-room looking something like
this
on a smaller scale, in time, Hester.”

“The farm living-room?” said Vicky’s voice at the window. “Oh, no, Diana, it’s much nicer as it is.”

“Go away, Vicky, you shouldn’t listen at windows,” said Diana irritably.

“But I
wasn’t—
”
Vicky
began, but caught Hester’s eye and disappeared again.

Luke and Frank Tregenna were discussing farming, and Diana said to Hester:

“You won’t mind the alterations, will you?”

Hester put down her empty glass and got up.

“It’s entirely a matter for you and Luke,” she replied. “But you will have to remember, Diana, that Monk’s Farm is a simple farmstead, and not a manor house. I think we ought to be going. Corky will be getting supper.”

“I wish we could ask you to stay, but you know what it is these days, and everything’s been so disorganized with the fete,” said Diana, rising. “Frank’s staying. We can just manage one extra, and I knew Luke would have to drive you home.”

Hester called to Luke and they all went out on to the terrace. Vicky was on the swing now. She caught sight of Luke and shouted: