There was a little curious silence. As we calculate time it endured, perhaps, not longer than two or three seconds, yet to John it seemed interminable. It was broken by Antony’s voice, pursuing his reminiscences the while he was busy with roast chicken and bread sauce.
“He talked quite a lot,” pursued Antony, cheerfully reflective. “He asked me how old I was, an’ how long I’d lived here, an’ if I liked it. An’ he wanted to know why we had a chapel built on to the Castle, an’ he said he hadn’t been inside a church for years, ’cos there weren’t any churches where he lived, an’ when he came into a town he felt like a fish out of water if he went inside one. An’ he lives in a house that hasn’t got any stairs, an’ there’s mountains round it, an’ there’s baboons what come down from the mountains to steal the mealies. Mealies are Indian corn, he says. An’ he says lilies grow in the ditches in his country, an’ great tall flowers grow in his garden,—I don’t remember the name,—an’ wild canaries fly about among them. An’ he says the sunshine out there is all hot an’ gold, an’ the shadows are blue as blue. An’ he says we don’t know what sunshine is in England, ’cos even when it’s sunny it’s like a gauze veil hung over the sun. An’ he’s shot leopards, an’ little tiny deer, an’ killed big snakes. An’ he asked me honest injun what I thought about him, an’ I said I liked him. An’ he said perhaps I wouldn’t like him very long. An’ I said ‘Why?’ An’ he laughed, an’ shook hands, an’ went away. An’ that,” concluded Antony with satisfaction, “is all.”
Again there fell a little silence. It was probably infinitely more poignant to John than to the other members of the luncheon table. That is the worst of being possessed of a sensitive and imaginative temperament. Your suffering is invariably duplex. You suffer for yourself and the other, or others, as the case may be. And, in suffering for others, your imagination, as often as not, passes the bounds of actualities, for the very excellent reason that you possess no real knowledge to bring it to a halt.
Corin, though certainly less imaginative, felt the slight tension. He leaped to break it, in a manner highly praiseworthy, if slightly abrupt. What his remark was precisely, John did not fully grasp, but it certainly had his work in the church for a foundation. The leap taken, he burbled joyously, expounding, theorizing. There was no egotistical note in his expounding. After all, as he assured them, the work was not his. He was, in a manner of speaking, but a digger, a scraper. The fact left him free to be enthusiastic at will, and enthusiastic he veritably was.
Possibly mere politeness first urged three of the elder members of the party to suitable rejoinders. I omit John from the number. Later they may have been fired by Corin’s exceeding enthusiasm. Be that as it may, the tension was distinctly relieved. Conversation flowed easily, smoothly. Dessert had been reached before it was suddenly jerked back to dangerous quarters.
“I wonder,” said Antony, surveying a bunch of raisins on his plate, “who he is?” There was, you can guess, no need for a more detailed explanation.
“I think,” said Lady Mary quietly, “it was Sir David Delancey.”
It was out now. The words were spoken. To John, they somehow struck the last nail in the coffin of his hopes.
“Same name as us?” queried an astonished Antony.
“Yes,” said Lady Mary.