“Well, thank you very much, perhaps it would be a good plan; though it’s difficult to tear oneself away from this lovely garden—How you must love it!” and she turned to Teresa; then again to the Doña: “I have been envying you your delphiniums—they’re much finer than ours, ain’t they, Roger? Do you cinder them in the spring?” and they began walking towards the house, talking about gardens; but all the time they were watching each other, wary, alert, hostile.
“What a delicious room! And such roses!” Lady Cust exclaimed when they reached her bedroom.
Her maid had already unpacked; and on her dressing-table was unfurled one of these folding series of leather photograph frames, and each one contained a photograph of Francis, her eldest son, who had been killed in the War. There were several of him in the uniform of the Rifle Brigade; one of him in cricket flannels, one on a horse, two or three in khaki; a little caricature of him had also been unpacked, done by a girl in their neighbourhood, when he was a Sandhurst cadet; at the bottom of it was scrawled in a large, unsophisticated feminine hand: Wishing you a ripping Xmas, and then two or three marks of exclamation.
It belonged, that little inscription, to the good old days of the reign of King Edward, when girls wore sailor hats in the country, and shirts with stiff collars and ties, when every one, or so it seemed to Lady Cust, was normal and simple and comfortable, and had the same ambitions, namely, to hit hard at tennis, and to ride straight to hounds.
“Were you at Ascot this year?” “Have you been much to the Opera this season?” “What do you think of the mallet for this year? Seems to me it would take a crane to lift it!”
Such, in those days, had been the sensible conversational openings; while, recently, the man who had taken her into dinner had begun by asking her the name of her butcher; another by asking her if she liked string. Mad! Quite mad!
Of course, there were cultured people in those days too, but they were just as easy to talk to as the others. “Do you sing Guy d’Hardelot’s ‘I know a Lovely Garden?’ There’s really nothing to touch his songs.” “Have you been to the Academy yet? And oh, did you see that picture next to Sargeant’s portrait of Lady ——? It’s of Androcles taking a thorn out of such a jolly lion’s paw.” “Oh yes, of course, that’s from dear old Omar, isn’t it? There’s no one like him, is there? You know, I like the Rubaiyat really better than Tennyson.”
And now—there were strikes, and nearly all their neighbours had either let or sold their places; and Guy had the most idiotic ideas and the most extraordinary friends; and Francis....
The Doña’s eyes rested for a moment on the photographs; she was too short-sighted to be able to distinguish any details; but she could see that they were of a young man, and guessed that he was the son who had been killed.