CHAPTER XI
DUNDRANNANIZATION
THE family history during the rest of the war—up to the Armistice, that is—will go into a brief summary. Waldo was discharged from the army, as permanently unfit for service, early in 1917. His wedding took place in February of that year. It was solemnized not at St. George’s, Hanover Square, but in the country, from the bride’s seat of Briarmount. I was not present, as I went abroad again almost directly after my Christmas visit to Cragsfoot, the salient features of which have already been indicated. All good fortune waited on the happy pair (here I rely on Aunt Bertha’s information, not having had the means of personal observation), and Nina became the mother of a fine baby in December. The child was a girl; a little bit of a disappointment, perhaps; the special remainder did not, of course, go beyond the present Baroness herself, and a prospective Lord Dundrannan was naturally desired. However, there was no need to pull a long face over that; plenty of time yet, as Aunt Bertha consolingly observed.
Finally, Captain Godfrey Frost—who must, I suppose, now be considered a member of the Rillington-cum-Dundrannan family and was certainly treated as one—made such a to-do in the influential quarters to which he had access, that at last he was restored to active service, sent to the Near East, and made the Palestine campaign with great credit. The moment that its decisive hour was over, however, he was haled back again. It may be remembered that there was a Ministry of Reconstruction, and it appeared (from Aunt Bertha again) that no Reconstruction worth mentioning could be undertaken, or at all events make substantial progress, without the help of Captain Frost. If that view be correct, it may help to explain some puzzles; because Captain Frost got malaria on his way home, and had to knock off all work, public and private, for two or three months—just at the time that was critical for Reconstruction, no doubt.
That is really all there is to say, though it may be worth while to let a letter to me from Sir Paget throw a little sidelight on the progress of affairs:
“Our married couple seem in complete tune with one another. Congreve says somewhere—in The Double Dealer, if I remember rightly—‘Though marriage makes man and wife one flesh, it leaves them still two fools.’ Agreed; but he might have added (if he hadn’t known his business too well to spoil an epigram by qualifications) that it doesn’t leave them quite the same two fools. I have generally observed (I would say always, except that a diplomatist of seventy has learnt never to say always) that when Mr. Black marries Miss White, either she darkens or he pales. The stronger infuse its color into the weaker—or, if you like to vary the metaphor, there is a partial absorption of the weaker by the stronger. Excuse this prosing; there is really nothing to do in the country, you know! And perhaps you will guess how I came by this train of reflection. In fact, I think that Waldo—about the happiest fellow in the world, and how good that he should be, after all he has gone through!—is experiencing a partial process of Dundrannanization. There’s a word for you! I made it this morning, and it pleased me! I should like to have suggested it to old Jonathan Frost himself. Don’t think it too formidable for what it represents. Not, of course, that the process will ever be complete with Waldo; there will remain a stratum of Christian weakness which it will not reach. But it may go far with him; the Frost (forgive me, Julius!) may be inches deep over his nature! And I am quite convinced that I have acquired a daughter, but not quite sure that I haven’t lost a son. No, not lost; half lost, perhaps. Briarmount overpowers Cragsfoot: I suppose it was bound to be so; of course it was; Aunt Bertha says so. She is an admirable herald of the coming day. He loves me no less, thank God; but the control of him has passed into other hands. He is, quite dignifiedly, henpecked; his admiration for her stops only short of idolatry. I don’t know that it ought to stop much sooner, for she is a notable girl. I’m very fond of her; if I ever saw her burst into tears, or have hysterics, or do anything really weak and silly, I believe I should love her even more.”
Quite so. It was what might have been expected. And Sir Paget’s assessment of his daughter-in-law was precisely in accord with all that he had had the opportunity of observing in that young woman. That she could burst into tears, could have something very like hysterics, could behave in a way that might be termed weak and silly, was a piece of knowledge confined, as I believed, to three persons besides herself. She thought it was confined to two. She had married one of them; did he think of it, did he remember? As for the other—it has been seen how she felt about the other. I was glad that she did not know about the third; if I could help it, she never should. I did not believe that she would forgive my knowledge any more than she forgave Lucinda’s. I don’t blame her; such knowledge about oneself is not easy to pardon.
There was a postscript to Sir Paget’s letter. “By the way, Mrs. Knyvett is dead—a month ago, at Torquay. Aunt Bertha saw it in the Times. An insignificant woman; but by virtue of the late Knyvett, or by some freak of nature, she endowed the world with a beautiful creature. Hallo, high treason, Julius! But somehow I think that you won’t hang me for it. I hope that poor child is not paying too dearly for her folly.”
I remember that, when I had read the postscript, I exclaimed, “Thank God!” Not of course, because Mrs. Knyvett had died a month before at Torquay; the event was not such as to wring exclamations from one. It was the last few words that evoked mine. Lucinda had a friend more in the world than she knew. If I ever met her again, I would tell her. She had loved Sir Paget. If his heart still yearned ever so little after her, if her face ever came before his eyes, it would, I thought, be something to her. The words brought her face back before my eyes, whence time and preoccupation had banished it. Did the face ever—at rare moments—appear to Waldo? Probably not. He would be too much Dundrannanized!