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has.’

      ‘Oh, Henry!’

      ‘That sounds as if you were setting a quotation. Yes, we had a grand interview. “What is this I hear, sir, of your attentions to Miss Dinah Copeland?” “Forgive me, sir, but I refuse to answer you.” “Do you defy me, Henry?” “With all respect, sir, I do!” “That sort of thing.”’

      ‘He doesn’t want it?’

      ‘Eleanor has told him he doesn’t, blast her goggling eyes!’

      ‘Why? Because I’m the poor parson’s daughter, or because I’m on the stage, or just because he hates the sight of me?’

      ‘I don’t think he hates the sight of you.’

      ‘I suppose he wants you to marry a proud heiress.’

      ‘I suppose he does. It doesn’t matter a tuppenny button, my sweet Dinah, what he thinks.’

      ‘But it does. You haven’t heard. Miss Prentice came to see Daddy last night.’

      Henry stopped dead and stared at her.

      ‘She said – she said –’

      ‘Go on.’

      ‘She told him we were meeting, and that you were keeping it from your father, but he’d found out and was terribly upset and felt we’d both been very underhand and – oh, she must have been absolutely foul! She must have sort of hinted that we were –’ Dinah boggled at this and fell silent.

      ‘That we were living in roaring sin?’ Henry suggested.

      ‘Yes.’

      ‘My God, the minds of these women! Surely the rector didn’t pay any attention.’

      ‘She’s so loathsomely plausible. Do you remember the autumn day, weeks ago, soon after I came back, when you drove me to Moorton Bridge and we picnicked and didn’t come back till the evening?’

      ‘Every second of it.’

      ‘She’d found out about that. There was no reason why the whole world shouldn’t know, but I hadn’t told Daddy about it. It had been such a glowing, marvellous day that I didn’t want to talk about it.’

      ‘Me, too.’

      ‘Well, now, you see, it looks all fishy and dubious, and Daddy feels I have been behaving in an underhand manner. When Miss Prentice had gone he took me into his study. He was wearing his beretta, a sure sign that he’s feeling his responsibilities. He spoke more in sorrow than in anger, which is always rather toxic, and worst of it is, he really was upset. He got more and more feudal and said we’d always been – I forget what – almost fiefs or vassals of this-man’s-man of the Jernighams, and had never done anything disloyal, and here I was behaving like a housemaid having clandestine assignations with you. On and on and on; and Henry, my darling, my dear darling, ridiculous though it sounds, I began to feel shabby and common.’

      ‘He didn’t believe –?’

      ‘No, of course he didn’t believe that. But all the same, you know he’s frightfully muddled about sex.’

      ‘They all are,’ said Henry, with youthful gloom. ‘And with Eleanor and Idris hurling their inhibitions in his teeth –’

      ‘I know. Well, anyway, the upshot was, he forbade me to see you alone. I said I wouldn’t promise. It was the first really deadly row we’ve ever had. I fancy he prayed about it for hours after I’d gone to bed. It’s very vexing to lie in bed knowing that somebody in the room below is praying away like mad about you. And, you see, I adore the man. At one moment I thought I would say my own prayers, but the only thing I could think of was the old Commination Service. You know: “Cursed is he that smiteth his neighbour secretly. Amen.”’

      ‘One for Eleanor,’ said Henry appreciatively.

      ‘That’s what I thought, but I didn’t say it. But what I’ve been trying to come to is this: I can’t bear to upset Daddy permanently, and I’m afraid that’s just what would happen. No, please wait, Henry. You see, I’m only nineteen, and he can forbid the banns – and, what’s more, he’d do it.’

      ‘But why?’ said Henry. ‘Why? Why? Why?’

      ‘Because he thinks that we shouldn’t oppose your father and because, secretly, he’s got a social inferiority complex. He’s a snob, poor sweet. He thinks if he smiled on us it would look as if he was all agog to make a grand match for me, and was going behind the squire’s back to do it.’

      ‘Absolutely drivelling bilge!’

      ‘I know, but that’s how it goes. It’s just one of those things. And it’s all due to Miss Prentice. Honestly, Henry I think she’s positively evil. Why should she mind about us?’

      ‘Jealousy,’ said Henry. ‘She’s starved and twisted and a bit dotty. I dare say it’s physiological as well as psychological. I imagine she thinks you’ll sort of dethrone her when you’re my wife. And, as likely, as not, she’s jealous of your father’s affection for you.’

      They shook their heads wisely.

      ‘Daddy’s terrified of her,’ said Dinah. ‘and of Miss Campanula. They will ask him to hear their confessions, and when they go away he’s a perfect wreck.’

      ‘I’m not surprised, if they tell the truth. I expect what they really do is to try to inform against the rest of the district. Listen to me, Dinah. I refuse to have our love for each other messed up by Eleanor. You’re mine. I’ll tell your father I’ve asked you to marry me, and I’ll tell mine. I’ll make them see reason: and if Eleanor comes creeping in – my God, I’ll, I’ll, I’ll –’

      ‘Henry,’ said Dinah, ‘how magnificent!’

      Henry grinned.

      ‘It’d be more magnificent,’ he said, ‘if she wasn’t just an unhappy, warped, middle-aged spinster.’

      ‘It must be awful to be like that,’ agreed Dinah. ‘I hope it never happens to me.’

      ‘You!’

      There was another halt.

      ‘Henry,’ said Dinah suddenly. ‘Let’s ask them to call an armistice until after the play.’

      ‘But we must see each other like this. Alone.’

      ‘I shall die if we can’t; but all the same I feel, somehow, if we said we’d wait until then, that Daddy might sort of begin to understand. Weil meet at rehearsals, and we won’t pretend we’re not in love, but I’ll promise him I won’t meet you alone. It’ll be – it’ll be kind of dignified. Henry, do you see?’

      ‘I suppose so,’ said Henry unwillingly.

      ‘It’d stop those hateful old women talking.’

      ‘My dear, nothing would stop them talking.’

      ‘Please, darling Henry.’

      ‘Oh, Dinah.’

      ‘Please.’

      ‘All right. It’s insufferable, though, that Eleanor should be able to spoil a really miraculous thing like Us.’

      ‘Insufferable.’

      ‘She’s so completely insignificant.’

      Dinah shook her head.

      ‘All the same,’ she said, ‘she’s a bad enemy. She creeps and creeps, and she’s simply brimful of poison. She’ll drop some of it into our cup of happiness if she can.’

      ‘Not if I know it,’ said Henry.

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