[The Summons by A.E.W. Mason]@TWC D-Link bookThe Summons CHAPTER IX 1/26
ENTER THE HEROINE IN ANYTHING BUT WHITE SATIN Goodwood in the year nineteen hundred and fourteen! There were some, throwers of stones, searchers after a new thing on which to build a reputation, who have been preaching these many years past that the temper of England had changed, its solidity all dissolved into froth, and that a new race of neurotics was born on Mafeking night.
Just ninety-nine years before this Goodwood meeting, when Napoleon and the veterans of the Imperial Guard were knocking at the gates of Brussels, a famous ball was given.
Goodwood of the year nineteen-fourteen, _mutatis mutandis_, did but repeat that scene, the same phlegmatic enjoyment of the festival, the same light-heartedness and sure confidence under the great shadow, and the same ending. The whispered word went round so that there should be no panic or alarm, and of a sudden every officer was gone.
Goodwood of nineteen fourteen and a July so perfect with sunlight and summer that it seemed some bird at last must break the silence of the famed beech-grove! All the world went to it.
The motor-cars and the coaches streamed up over Duncton Hill and wound down the Midhurst Road to pleasant Charlton, with its cottages and gardens of flowers.
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