<p><span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_131" id="Page_131">[131]</SPAN></span></p>
<h2 class="p4">CHAPTER XI</h2>
<p class="pch">DUNDRANNANIZATION</p>
<p class="drop-cap04">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.</p>
<p>Finally, Captain Godfrey Frost—who must, I<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_132" id="Page_132">[132]</SPAN></span>
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.</p>
<p>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:</p>
<p>“Our married couple seem in complete tune with
one another. Congreve says somewhere—in <i>The
Double Dealer</i>, 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<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_133" id="Page_133">[133]</SPAN></span>
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.<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_134" id="Page_134">[134]</SPAN></span>
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.”</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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 <i>Times</i>. 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<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_135" id="Page_135">[135]</SPAN></span>
won’t hang me for it. I hope that poor child is not
paying too dearly for her folly.”</p>
<p>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!</p>
<p>The process for which Sir Paget’s reluctant
amusement found a nickname was a natural one in
the circumstances of the case. If the Dundrannan
personality was potent, so was the Dundrannan
property. Cragsfoot was a small affair compared
even to Briarmount alone; Waldo was not yet master
even of Cragsfoot, for Sir Paget was not the man
to take off his clothes before bedtime. Besides
Briarmount, there was Dundrannan Castle, with its
deer and its fishing; there was the Villa San Carlo
at Mentone; never mind what else there was, even
after “public objects” and Captain Frost had, between
them, shorn off so large a part of the Frost<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_136" id="Page_136">[136]</SPAN></span>
concerns and millions. Moreover, another process
set in, and was highly developed by the time I returned
to England in the autumn of 1918, when my
last foreign excursion on Government service ended.
Family solidarity, and an identity of business interests
in many matters, brought Nina, and, by consequence,
Waldo, into close and ever closer association
with Godfrey Frost. The young man was not
swallowed; he had too strong a brain and will of his
own for that; but he was attached. The three of
them came to form a triumvirate for dealing with
the Frost concerns, settling the policy of the Frost
family, defining the Frost attitude towards the world
outside. And everybody else was outside of that
inner circle, even though we of Cragsfoot might be
only just outside. So as Waldo, on his marriage,
had shifted his bodily presence from Cragsfoot to
Briarmount, his mind and his predominant interests
also centered there; and presently to his were added,
in great measure, Godfrey Frost’s. Nina presided
over this union of hearts and forces with a sure
tact; she did not seek to play the despot, but she
was the bond and the inspiration.</p>
<p>Naturally, then, if the three saw eye to eye in all
these great matters, they also saw eye to eye, and
felt heart to heart, on such a merely sentimental
subject as the view to take of Lucinda—of whom, of
course, Godfrey derived any idea that he had mainly
from Nina. Probably the idea thus derived was
that she was emphatically a person of whom the less<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_137" id="Page_137">[137]</SPAN></span>
said the better! Only—the curious fact crops up
again—she was not one of whom Nina was capable
of saying absolutely nothing, of giving no hints.
Her husband excepted, anybody really near to her
was sure to hear something of Lucinda. Besides,
there was the information, sketchy indeed, but significant,
which he had received from Aunt Bertha,
and perhaps that had made him question his cousin;
then either her answers or even her reluctance to
answer would have been enlightening to a man of
his intelligence.</p>
<p>He got home some time in October, and at his
request I went to see him in London, while he was
convalescent from that malaria which so seriously
impeded Reconstruction. From him I heard the
family plans. They were all three going shortly to
Nina’s villa at Mentone for the winter. For the
really rich it seemed that “the difficulties of the
times” presented no difficulty at all; a big motor
car was to take the party across France to their
destination.</p>
<p>“You see, we’re largely interested in works near
Marseilles, and I’m going out to have a look at
them; Waldo’s got doctor’s orders, Nina goes to
nurse him—and the kid can’t be left, of course. All
quite simple. Why don’t you come too?”</p>
<p>“Perhaps I will—if I’m asked and can get a holiday.
It sounds rather jolly.”</p>
<p>“Top-hole! Besides, the war’s going to end.
Nina’ll ask you all right; and, as for a holiday, you<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_138" id="Page_138">[138]</SPAN></span>
can’t do much at your game till the tonnage is released,
can you?”</p>
<p>He seemed about right there; on such questions
he had a habit of being right. At the back of my
mind, however, I was just faintly reluctant about
embracing the project, a little afraid of too thick a
Dundrannan atmosphere.</p>
<p>“Well, I must go to Cragsfoot first. After that
perhaps—if I am invited.”</p>
<p>“Jolly old place, Cragsfoot!” he observed. “I
don’t wonder you like to go there—even apart from
your people. It’s unlucky that Nina’s taken against
it, isn’t it?”</p>
<p>“I didn’t know she had.”</p>
<p>“Oh, yes. You’ll see that—when the time comes—I
hope it’s a long way off, of course—she won’t
live there.”</p>
<p>“Waldo’ll want to live there, I think.”</p>
<p>“No, he won’t. He’d want to now, if it fell in.
But by the time it does, he’ll have had his mind
altered.” He laughed good-humoredly.</p>
<p>I rather resented that, having a sentimental feeling
for Cragsfoot. But it would probably turn out
true, if Nina devoted her energies to bringing it
about.</p>
<p>“Regular old ‘country gentleman’ style of place—which
Briarmount isn’t. Sort of place I should like
myself. I suppose you’d take it on, if Waldo didn’t
mean to live there?”</p>
<p>“You look so far ahead,” I protested. “The<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_139" id="Page_139">[139]</SPAN></span>
idea’s quite new, I haven’t considered it. I’ve always
regarded it as a matter of course that Waldo
would succeed his father there—as the Rillingtons
have succeeded, son to father, for a good many
years.”</p>
<p>“Yes, I know, and I appreciate that feeling.
Don’t think I don’t. Still that sort of thing can’t
last forever, can it? Something breaks the line at
last.”</p>
<p>“I suppose so,” I admitted, rather sulkily. If
Waldo did not live at Cragsfoot, if I did not “take
it on,” I could not help perceiving that Godfrey had
fixed his eye—that far-seeing Frost eye—on our ancestral
residence. This was a further development
of the Dundrannan alliance, and not one to my taste.
Instinctively I stiffened against it. I felt angry with
Waldo, and irritated with Godfrey Frost—and with
Nina too. True, the idea of Cragsfoot’s falling to
me—without any harm having come to Waldo—was
not unpleasant. But everything was in Waldo’s
power, subject to Sir Paget’s life interest; I remembered
Sir Paget’s telling me that there had been no
resettlement of the property on Waldo’s marriage.
Could Waldo be trusted not to see with the Frost
eye and not to further the Frost ambitions?</p>
<p>“It seems queer,” Godfrey went on, smiling still
as he lit his cigarette, “but I believe that Nina’s dislike
of the place has something to do with that other
girl—Waldo’s old flame, you know. She once said
something about painful associations—of course,<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_140" id="Page_140">[140]</SPAN></span>
Waldo wasn’t in the room—and I don’t see what
else she could refer to, do you? She’s a bit sensitive
about that old affair, isn’t she? Funny thing—nothing’s
too big for a really clever woman, but, by
Jove, nothing’s too small either!”</p>
<p>“Like our old friend the elephant and the pin that
we were told about in childhood?”</p>
<p>“Exactly. Nina will hatch a big plan one minute,
and the next she’ll be measuring the length of the
feather on the scullery-maid’s hat.”</p>
<p>“Well, but—I mean—love affairs aren’t always
small things, are they?”</p>
<p>“N—no, perhaps not. But when it’s all over
like that!”</p>
<p>“Yes, it is rather funny,” I thought it best to
admit.</p>
<p>Certainly it would be funny—a queer turn of
events—if things worked out as I suspected my
young friend Godfrey of planning; if Nina persuaded
Waldo that he did not want to live at Cragsfoot,
and Waldo transferred his old home to his new
cousin. And if Nina’s reason were that Cragsfoot
had “painful associations” for her! Because then,
ultimately, if one went right back to the beginning,
it would be not Nina, but that other girl, Waldo’s
old flame, who would eject the Rillington family
from its ancestral estate! It was impossible not to
stand somewhat aghast (big words about that girl
again!) at such a trick of fate.</p>
<p>“The fact is, I suppose,” he went on, “that she’s<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_141" id="Page_141">[141]</SPAN></span>
been fond of Waldo longer than she can afford to
admit. Then the memory might rankle! And
Nina’s not over-fond of opposition at any time.
I’ve found that out. Oh, we’re the greatest pals,
as you know, but there’s no disguising that!” He
laughed indulgently. “Yes, that’s Nina. I often
think that I must choose a wife with a meek and
quiet spirit, Julius.”</p>
<p>“The Apostle says that it is woman’s ornament.”</p>
<p>“Nina certainly thinks that it’s other women’s.
Oh, must you go? Awfully kind of you to have
come. And, I say, think about Villa San Carlo! I
believe it’s a jolly place, and Nina’s having it fitted
up something gorgeous, she tells me.”</p>
<p>“Isn’t it rather difficult to get the work done just
now?” I asked.</p>
<p>“Oh, no, not particularly. You see, we’ve an interest
in——”</p>
<p>“Damn it all!” I cried, “have you Frosts interests
in everything?”</p>
<p>Godfrey’s good humor was imperturbable. He
nodded at me, smiling. “I suppose it must strike
people like that sometimes. We do bob up rather,
don’t we? Sorry I mentioned it, old fellow. Only
you see—it does account for Nina’s being able to get
the furniture for Villa San Carlo, and consequently
for her being in a position to entertain you and me
there in the way to which we are accustomed—in my
case, recently!”</p>
<p>“Your apology is accepted, Godfrey—if I go<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_142" id="Page_142">[142]</SPAN></span>
there! And I don’t seriously object to you Frosts
straddling the earth if you want to. Only I think
you might leave us Cragsfoot.”</p>
<p>“I wouldn’t get in your way for a minute, my dear
chap—really I wouldn’t. We might live there together,
perhaps. That’s an idea!” he laughed.</p>
<p>“With the wife of a meek and quiet spirit to look
after us!”</p>
<p>“Yes. But I’ve got to find her first.”</p>
<p>“Sir Paget is very well, thank you. There’s no
hurry.”</p>
<p>“But there’s never any harm in looking about.”</p>
<p>He came with me to the door, and bade me a
merry farewell. “You’ll get your invitation in a
few days. Mind you come. Perhaps we’ll find her
on the Riviera! It’s full of ladies of all sorts of
spirits, isn’t it? Mind you come, Julius.”</p>
<p>My little fit of irritation over what he represented
was not proof against his own cordiality and good
temper. I parted from him in a very friendly mood.
And, sure enough, in a few days I did get my invitation
to the Villa San Carlo at Mentone.</p>
<p>“If you’ve any difficulty about the journey,” wrote
Nina, “let us know, because we can pull a wire or
two, I expect.”</p>
<p>“Pull a wire or two!” I believe they control the
cords that hold the firmament of heaven in its place
above the earth!</p>
<p>Besides—so another current of my thoughts ran—if
wires had to be pulled, could not Ezekiel Coldston<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_143" id="Page_143">[143]</SPAN></span>
& Co., Ltd., pull them for themselves? Did
the Frosts engross the earth? I had no intention of
letting Nina Dundrannan graciously provide me
with “facilities”; that is the term which we used to
employ in H. M.’s Government service.</p>
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