The Hunter's Moon (Timeless Classics Collection) Read online

  ‘I’ll get your dinner sent up to you.’

  ‘But supposing John rings up?’

  ‘Well, supposing he does? I’ve answered him before, and can again. I’ll cope! You just be thankful that fate opened another door for you, and said “This way, madam”. You’re the luckiest girl in all the world and do not seem to know it. God bless Aunt Chrissie!’

  Diana went out of the room with those words ringing in her ears. She slipped into bed knowing that now she had come to the end of her tether. She had hated today, and everything that had gone with it, and as she fell half asleep there came to her the distant sound of Aunt Chrissie laughing. She had always had the most attractive and infectious laugh, like a schoolgirl’s, and the echo of it brought with it the memory of a night which she had spent at Tall Trees, and the two of them had talked together. The old lady had been unbelievably modern; she had spoken of the tinker father as the one who had bequeathed a strange personality to her.

  ‘You know that I had a tinker father, a man of the road, your Dad must have impressed it on you scores of times. He has always loathed it. My father gave a lot of himself to me.’

  ‘Daddy has mentioned it.’

  The old woman had clutched with her time-traced hands at the girl’s unlined wrist, and her fingers were more like bird claws than fingers, the skin puckered on them like creased silk, and here and there spotted with the dark freckles of the years. She said, ‘I’m different, and that is what annoys your father so much. He does not understand me, because there is in me something which only the tinker could give me,’ and she chuckled as she said it; then, in a voice grown tender with sentimental longing, ‘Maybe it lies in the poem of Gerald Gould’s, which I have always loved so much:

  Beyond the west the sunset, beyond the east the sea,

  And east and west the wander thirst which will not let me be.’

  She paused for a second, then added, ‘There is none of that same blood in you, my dear, but at the same time you do respond to the impression that it leaves behind. What is it?’

  Quickly Diana had replied, ‘Old Cook always said that it was the hunter’s moon.’

  The old lady had listened with her dark eyes brightening, then she had flung back her head and about her there was the charm of girlhood, the rapture for life, and the desire to travel far.

  ‘You knew it,’ she exclaimed, ‘you recognised it. Thank God for old Cook! Bless you, my own darling, I wish I had been your mother. Oh well, maybe I should have been too old, and the end cannot be far away.’

  The girl had clasped the old lady to her, and about her was the autumnal scent of dying leaves, and of naked branches in the wind of chance. ‘Don’t say that, for it scares me. Don’t ever say that,’ she begged her.

  Instantly the brave old lady conquered what had been a moment of sentimental weakness. ‘Don’t worry, sweetie. It is not as bad as all that. One thing is quite certain, one never goes to one’s own funeral, and that is something for which many say “the Lord make us truly thankful”,’ and she kissed the girl’s red mouth.

  ‘But we have a bond more than being relatives. I have my father and you have the moon. God bless you.’

  Chapter Four

  AFTERMATH

  Now Aunt Chrissie was laid to rest, and the house and the wherewithal with which to keep it up, all belonged to Diana, which meant that her own father had returned to Solihull in a violent temper which would last him for weeks. She had come back to Pont Street, frightened of everything, feeling that too much had happened and somehow she would never get her world into perspective again. She knew one thing, which was that she was going to miss the old lady who had had a tinker father, far more than she would ever have thought to be possible.

  She spent a couple of days in bed, with Dr Christian James seeing after her, and very good he was. Sarah had met him originally at a cheese-and-wine party, the wrong end of the King’s Road, and had taken to him. She had been wanting to change her doctor for ages, and was attracted to the tall, slender young man with the kind eyes. She had never regretted this, for in addition to being handsome and discreet, Christian was a very good doctor.

  Every day John tried to get in touch with Diana, rang up, or sent her an urgent letter. He must see her. What had happened, and why was she behaving in this very extraordinary manner? Diana herself was in no mood to see him, for she had the sensation that she was standing on some tremendous height, staring down at her own world. A fortune! A fresh home, and a child! All of these things had come flashing into her life out of the blue. When she tried to analyse her own feelings about it all, she failed utterly, not yet sufficiently recovered from the shock to do it.

  ‘Give yourself time,’ Sarah advised.

  ‘Yes, I know, but there is all this baby business, and the baby won’t give me time. It is John’s child, and the awful part is that I do not feel the way I did about him.’ Rather helplessly her dark eyes sought those of her girl friend, praying for help. ‘This is the moment in my life when it is awfully difficult to go back, even more so to go ahead.’

  ‘Don’t rush your hurdles.’

  ‘No, but I must see him.’

  Later on in the week she had managed to sum up her own emotions somewhat and to realise the valid fact that the first tumult of impetuous love had died. Devonshire had been the backcloth to the sparkling passion which had bubbled upon the theory that only today matters; this had passed into the dim haze of distance. Today she could do what she wished, marry, or stay single, and she was afraid in her eagerness lest she made a mess of everything.

  ‘Don’t you marry him,’ Sarah advised her.

  This was the day when Diana had consented to see him (wearing the little black frock out of deference to her great-aunt, because somehow she felt that she must), when day had died, and the night had come in. Inside the house there was the glow of lights, the softness of carpets which muted footfalls, nothing entirely real save herself, she felt, and maybe she felt too real and, tormented.

  ‘I feel awful,’ she said.

  At this moment she heard the front door bell ring, then the sedate steps of the manservant, one of those people who never hurry, and he prided himself on it. She knew that John had arrived.

  ‘This is where I fade out.’ Sarah spoke quickly. ‘You stick to your guns, dear, up socks, and play the game as that awful Miss Winston used to say at school. It’s the only way,’ and she disappeared out of the far door.

  I’m alone in this, thought Diana, maybe every woman is horribly alone in having a baby, but I mustn’t be sorry for myself.

  The manservant ushered the guest in. John wore his best suit, instantly she recognised it, and realised that he had taken quite a lot of trouble over it. He had the tie which he knew she liked best, and a matching handkerchief, which went straight to her heart. He had that attractive smile of his, a bequest from the R.A.F., she had always thought, that courageous man who was gay at heart, who laughed at danger. As the door shut behind him, he came quickly towards her, both arms affectionately outstretched towards her.

  ‘Darling, all this has gone on a sight too long, and far too much has happened.’ He kissed her happily, and half of her wanted to shrink back from him, whilst the other half wanted him, desperately, more than she had ever thought possible after the experience of coming to London to tell him what had happened. In this moment she did not know which of the two emotions was the stronger. But then she saw that his mouth was lined, his eyes anxious, and she asked herself, could it be that even in these brief days, fifteen of them at the most, he had already changed?

  He sat down on the sofa beside her, and took her hand. ‘You look fairly worn out. Tired? You’ve been doing far too much, of course, and then all this worry.’

  ‘You look tired, too.’ Until the moment he had entered the room, she had, or so she had told herself, been quite sure that she knew exactly what to say, but now contradictorily she was undone. She was no longer so sure.

  He talked on. ‘You
know, your friend Sarah is not so hot, she would not let me have a word with you. I had only the letters, and I’m not good at writing; besides, you never answered a single one of them.’ He said it not angrily, but with a certain touch of reproach.

  ‘I’ve been ill. Too much happened too fast.’

  ‘You’re telling me! But all the same you have been lucky. You did not have to fight Sarah on the ’phone; and look what your old aunt has left you!’

  ‘I know. Sarah was only doing what she thought to be right.’

  ‘She’s got a damned funny idea of what is right, I must say!’ and then, ‘What’s Newbury like?’

  ‘The house is lovely, the moment I am better I am going down there to live. Miss Howland was my aunt’s housekeeper-companion, and knows the lot; she is staying on to help me, and is such a dear! I don’t think I shall ever go back to Solihull.’

  ‘There is always something for which to thank God. Do you mind if I smoke?’

  ‘No, of course not. How stupid I am! Here’s the box.’

  He took one, methodically tapping it on his hand. ‘Thanks. Now look here, we have got to come to the point about all this. We have got to get married, you and I, and the sooner you get accustomed to the idea, the better it will be for everybody.’

  ‘Got?’ she echoed.

  He glanced sharply at her, in a moment of scared dismay. ‘Well, what else can we possibly do?’

  When she spoke again, Diana was almost surprised at the cold candour of her voice. ‘I have been thinking about this for hours, I’ve had lots of time, and I have come to one big conclusion. I am quite prepared to go through with this alone, and I mean it, John. I’ve made up my mind.’

  She saw by his startled look that this was something which John had never anticipated. At that moment she had the unreal feeling that Aunt Chrissie was somewhere near, and laughing. On her side, of course, very much on her side, and whatever happened she simply must curb her own too vigorous imagination.

  John said, ‘Look here, I know that we are in something of a mess, but this is my child, too, and I have some rights.’

  ‘It is something which happened to both of us, a dream which we never foresaw. You and I are to blame in the same way …’ There was a certain sadness in her voice. ‘Maybe this is something which happens to lots of people, and everyone has to make their own reply to it. I ‒ I am asking for time …’

  He turned on her, gripping her wrists with those very strong fingers of his. ‘Time is the one thing that we have not got. The baby knows the exact moment to make its entrance into the world, and you can’t face that alone.’

  ‘I am going down to Tall Trees to live. Miss Howland will see after me there, and I shall call myself Mrs Hatherley.’

  ‘Mrs Hatherley? Whatever for?’

  ‘Because I think it is easier for the baby if I do that, and the world will think that I am widowed.’

  He stared at her for a moment, and she knew that his eyes had become uncomfortable. Diana remembered somebody once telling her that he had obviously been a spoilt child, and of course did not like it when he could not get his own way. ‘I say, isn’t all this a wee bit ridiculous, when I have got a perfectly legal name to give you, and the one which belongs to the baby too? I want to be the husband who comes down to Newbury with you. You’re unnerved, awfully upset, and who wouldn’t be? Now, for heaven’s sake be wise enough to take proper advice.’

  ‘We ‒ we were both to blame.’

  ‘If blame there was! Damn it all, it happens to thousands of young lovers, and now just because your aunt has left you some money, you want to chuck me out, and clear off down to Newbury to live there with Miss something-or-other seeing after you.’

  ‘And that is exactly what I am going to do.’

  He must have recognised the sudden change in her tone, and the determination behind it, for he cooled down. He paused and then said, ‘In small towns people talk. They’ve got nothing better to do, and every stranger who comes to live there is suspect. You know what they’ll say, and even if you think you can fob them off by pretending to be widowed, it won’t work. Small towns find things out, and then talk about them. Do have some sense. We’ll get married and appear down there together.’ He was eager now, his hand still holding onto hers, his eyes brightening as he believed that he was talking her round. ‘The moment you put a husband into the picture, then you win game and set. I’ll give up my rotten old job in the city (it’s foul anyway) and take up something in Newbury, that would make it sound all the more reasonable.’

  In life there are ever moments when one passes through a gate, or over the top of a hill, into a new phase. It had happened to Diana now, and she recognised it.

  ‘I’m sorry, but I won’t do it.’

  ‘But we were engaged! You can’t smash the whole thing up just because you’ve come into a fortune.’

  Yet the second he had said it, John knew that he had said the wrong thing. Perhaps money had always held a fairly important position in his life, but it must do that for everyone, he told himself, seeing that money is the means by which we live. He had always suffered a sense of rebellion against the formidable restraint which lack of money forced upon him. Now it was actually grinding its heel into him.

  Diana took her hand away, and reached out for the green cigarette case, selecting one from it. Over-casually she lit it. As she did it, John realised that already she had gone a long way from him; she was not the same girl whom he had adored in that crazy week in Devonshire. His personal apprehension now obsessed him. She said, ‘I have the means now with which to bring up the child, the house is mine to live in, and whatever you say this is exactly what I am going to do.’

  A stranger! he thought, I never thought that Diana could do this to me; hard as stone, and a stranger.

  ‘I have made up my own mind,’ she went on.

  ‘But … darling …?’

  ‘I’m not feeling too awfully well, John.’

  ‘My poor sweet!’ He drew his arms about her, and somehow contact with him made the girl see the picture with an even more emphasised reality. She had loved him because he was all she had, and maybe that was the crude truth, about which she was horribly ashamed. She had overlooked the mannerisms which grated, just because he was her only contact with youth and freedom, but it had ended now.

  ‘It’s no good,’ she said, and she had the strength of mind to draw off the little ring with the agate in it which he had given her the day they had got engaged. It had been raining, and they were in St Paul’s churchyard at the time; for a second it flashed like a cinema film through her mind, then died again, and she had the premonition that from now on she would entirely forget it; she would go all the way alone. Tall Trees was her sanctuary.

  ‘You can’t do this to me,’ said John at last, his voice hoarse with both anger and despair.

  That was when Diana fainted.

  John had to call Sarah, who, rushing in, took command. She packed John off, rang up Christian James who had been bolting through a snack supper with the idea of going afterwards to the Albert Hall for some Brahms, when the call came. He responded immediately.

  In the hall Sarah gave him her impression of the whole situation, and she was not in the mood to be nice about it. That damned man had come round to kick up a fuss, and Diana had refused to marry him. Possibly she had already had too much, and could not stand any more. Sarah gave a picture of John, late R.A.F. pilot, now in a rotten job and looking for luck to come his way. He had taken Diana down to Devonshire on the sort of escapist holiday which she had never known before, and that was where all this had started. Sarah excused nobody. She had her own direct view on life, and formed her own judgment; she did not believe in trimmings.

  Christian James went to Diana’s room, and saw after her. She liked him. He was attracted to her, sorry for her story, and wanted to help her. He felt, as he often did about women, that they were ever the brave sex.

  ‘We’ll get you well and strong again,’
he promised her.

  He was used to the pregnant girl who always pretended that she had no idea how it could have happened, or protested that never to her knowledge had it happened. This girl did not lie. She lay there, her face blanched of all its colour, and her dark eyes watching him. She had sufficient courage to face the situation and did not wish for help in that. He watched her as she talked, then prepared a draught for her to take which should calm things down.

  She turned to him. ‘What do you think I ought to do?’ she asked.

  ‘For the moment, get better. The other worry can wait.’

  ‘Is John still here?’

  ‘Who is John?’

  ‘The ‒ the father,’ and as she said it, he knew that the very word agitated her.

  ‘A young man was leaving as I arrived, and I imagine that Sarah would be pretty brisk about getting rid of him. Don’t worry about the father, for the child is far more important. Forget everything else. A spot of first-class forgetfulness can be of tremendous value to you now.’

  She did what he said. He was quietly orderly. She liked the perfect suit, John’s had always been so distressingly worrying, so bitty-and-piecy, but this was admirable.

  ‘You’ll be all right,’ he said.

  ‘It’s just that I am scared of doing the wrong thing. I have perhaps been over-protected, with a stern father and a frightened mother, not a good combination. They made it rather more difficult to grow up, of course.’

  ‘Of course.’

  The world dimmed slightly. She was not sure what happened save that she drifted happily away, and slept the clock round. When she woke, she felt worlds better for it. Sarah was with her. The room was lit by daylight, but she was not sure if it was yesterday or tomorrow, for everything had blurred. It had left her with a delicious content in her heart, so that suddenly she did not care.

  ‘Sarah, I must have slept a dickens of a time?’

  ‘Yes. Dr James said you would. Like him?’

  ‘Dr James?’