So Disdained by Nevil Shute

She wanted to know what he had come for; I wanted to know that, too, but with the best will in the world I couldn't tell her. She said that Arner had had a very heavy day in Town, from which I inferred that things were none too bright at the Foreign Office.
    And then, till the others came, we talked about her garden—the one subject of which she never tired. She was a great gardener. She used to spend all the summer grubbing about in an old skirt, and an old straw hat, and a pair of gloves, with Watson, our head gardener, in attendance. I can remember winter evenings when she would sit from half-past eight till eleven before the fire in the drawing-room, pencil in hand, with catalogues from Carter, Sutton, and Bunyard on her knee. Dreaming and, as often as not, falling asleep. She didn't go to London much.
    Arner came down at last, with Dermott, and we went in to dinner. Dermott was a younger-looking man than I had expected; he must have been about six foot two in height, and thin. He was clean-shaven, with thin fair hair, blue eyes, and long, young face. He looked very little over thirty. I was introduced to him.
    He greeted me frankly. "Good evening, Mr. Moran," he said. "I've been hearing about you from Lord Arner. He tells me that you were in the R.F.C. in the war." He had a pleasant, quiet voice.
    "That's a good long time ago," I replied. "I've pretty well forgotten all about it."
    He smiled, a little anxiously. "You haven't kept up with flying?"
    I laughed. "Lord, no," I said. "Give me pigs." And we sat down to table.
    Dinner was a constrained meal. Arner sat at the head of the table, a sombre little figure with rather untidy thin grey hair, and a monocle on the end of a black silk ribbon. This [Pg 68] evening he was evidently tired, and seemed in some way to have grown smaller and older. Things must have been going very badly up in Town that day. He spoke very little. There was some understanding between him and his guest; both were preoccupied, though Dermott was talking rather at random to Lady Arner. Clearly there was business to be done, and both of them were only waiting till the ladies had left the room.
    That happened at last. I got up to open the door for them to pass out, and closed it softly behind them. Sanders placed the port convenient to Lord Arner, and disappeared into the gloom. I came back to the table and sat down.
    Arner motioned us to the cigars, but did not take one himself immediately. Instead he leaned a little forward with his elbows on the table and put both hands to his forehead, raising his head and drawing his hands down his face till he was staring straight ahead of him again. I knew that motion.
    I took a cigar. "Things bad in Town, sir?"
    He dropped his hands on to the table. "Middling," he said rustically. "Middling. Remind me to order the Studio for Curzon Street, Moran."
    I nodded. "I'll see about it to-morrow," I replied.
    I knew what he meant by that. He had in the library at Under all the bound volumes of the Studio since the beginning. When he was worried or upset over anything he used to go in there and sit down beside the fire, and turn these volumes over slowly. When he came to a picture that he liked he would sit staring at it for a long time without moving. He liked water-colour reproductions best, I think, and especially garden sketches, water-colours of herbaceous borders, and paintings with delicate, bright colours. Sometimes he would pass the heavy volume across to me when he had found a drawing that he particularly admired.
    He roused himself. "Look here, Moran," he said. "I've brought Wing-Commander Dermott down from London to have a talk with you. He's in the Intelligence Service of the Royal Air Force."
    He dropped his head into his hands again. "You know the [Pg 69] trouble with Russia," he said wearily. "It's been going on for years now—been brewing for the last eighteen months. I had a long talk with Faulkner to-day. Well, it's come to a head at last, I think.