Читать книгу Cressage - A. C. Benson - Страница 6

Table of Contents

After two or three days at the Manor, Norton began to wonder how long he could support the conversation of Mr. Garnet. The Squire spoke as a rule, whenever he was in the room, in one continuous harangue, and at meals, if he desisted in order to swallow a little food, Mrs. Garnet took up the tale. It seemed to Norton that Mr. Garnet was a very vain and pompous old man, whose only form of idealism was to repose lusciously in the glory and antiquity of the Garnet family. He was full of stories of his old prowess in the hunting-field, and as a game shot, and of the respect and deference which he enjoyed in the county. The food and appointments of the house were costly even to extravagance, and Mr. Garnet had evidently lavished large sums of money on the buildings. On the other hand, the farms and cottages on the estate seemed in the last stage of dilapidation. Yet, in a conversation which Norton had with him, he spoke as though Walter's prospects were of the most glowing kind. "I want my dear boy," he said, "to have every advantage. My own life has been mainly devoted to securing for him a far ampler provision than it was my fortune to inherit. You see how simply we live! My wife and I deny ourselves travel, we deny ourselves the London season, we entertain little. It is no sacrifice to myself--I am content with my books, my communing with nature, my good tenants' concerns, my county duties. I am a philosopher, Mr. Norton, though not in the more technical significance that you would attach to the word--but for my dear wife, whose only preoccupation is the pleasure of those around her, it is a sacrifice, though cheerfully made. I desire then that my dearest boy should have every advantage--that he should see the world, that he should be equipped to mingle on equal terms with the best and highest society. We ask for your co-operation in effecting this."

Norton was bored to desperation by harangues of this nature, which made him feel as though Mr. Garnet were translating aloud from an eighteenth-century German book on education. These considerations were all, as the Squire said, preparatory to Norton's advice being requested; but this actual point was never reached. Mrs. Garnet was better. Norton could not acquit her of a distinct degree of fatuity, and her talk was a series of leisurely divergences from the main theme, or, in her husband's presence, a mere chorus of Hosannas. The Squire was fond of relating instances of his adroit manipulation of troublesome or important people, and Mrs. Garnet's function evidently was to supply the ample credit which the Squire could not avowedly claim.

"The Duke said to me," Mr. Garnet would say, "'And how would Mr. Garnet advise us to proceed? There is no one on the bench'--you will forgive my quoting the Duke's words, but they are essential to the comprehension of my story--'no one on the bench, who can so perfectly interpret and even anticipate the instinctive processes of our humbler neighbours, and we should all repose entire confidence in his judgment.' 'Well, Duke,' I said, 'though I can hardly claim to deserve your commendation, it seems to me to be a case where leniency would do more to conciliate than severity to deter.' 'An admirable maxim,' said the Duke, 'and no less admirably phrased! Gentlemen, we may dismiss the case.'"

"Well, dear," joined in Mrs. Garnet, "Mr. Norton will forgive me if I call that beautiful. Not that I trust the Duke's judgment very far in these cases. He is very hasty--the Duke is decidedly hasty, and in his own circle, they tell me, quite shockingly profane. But with Mr. Garnet at his elbow, I have heard people say, the Duke cannot go very far wrong!"

"The Duke is an unassuming man," said Mr. Garnet, with a little bow and smirk to his wife. "You may observe, Mr. Norton, that I address him as 'Duke.' Some of our magistrates prefer to say 'Your Grace.' But there was a Garnet at Cressage when the Duke's ancestor--no doubt a very worthy man--was a wool-stapler at Shrewsbury, and I feel myself entitled to address him on a footing of perfect equality. He has no reason to be ashamed of being a Duke--I do not blame him--but these titles are mushroom growths. I may say that I regard it as a greater distinction to give my name to a place than to take a title from a place!"

The worst of Mr. Garnet's stories was that everyone, whether Duke or gamekeeper, always seemed to speak in the same measured and antithetical clauses, which deprived the narrative of any dramatic force. Norton noticed too that it did not seem to be expected that Walter should ever contribute to the talk. He was still regarded by his father and mother in the light of an unfledged boy. But one thing Norton could not fail to notice, namely that the three were united by a bond of very real and deep affection. Neither his father nor mother ever addressed each other or Walter in any but the language of affection and compliment. Walter was himself always on the watch to do any small service for his father and mother, and these little offices of tenderness were always eagerly and gratefully acknowledged. In fact, Norton was torn between his admiration of the extraordinary harmony which existed between the three, and his consciousness of the absurd complacency of the Squire backed by the copious adulation of Mrs. Garnet. The servants, too, were obviously devoted to the old couple, and even the tenants seemed to hold them in high honour, though the Squire always managed to evade any request that involved the smallest expenditure. It was certainly a very odd mixture!

Fortunately the Squire always excused himself after breakfast on the plea of business, though his correspondence seemed to consist mainly of advertisements; and Norton took long rambles with Walter, who carried a gun, and occasionally shot a rabbit or a pigeon.

"I'm afraid you find my father's talk a little lengthy!" said Walter one day to him.

"He has got into the habit, no doubt, of thinking aloud," said Norton. "Though I prefer it very much to a grumpy taciturnity which seems to be the other alternative; but what I really do admire and envy," he went on, "is the extraordinary courtesy and affection of your father and mother. My own home is a country vicarage, where I am afraid we consider it a virtue not to speak unless one has anything to say, and then to say it in the frankest manner possible; but that's very uncivilized, you know."

"I don't believe," said Walter, "that I have ever heard my father or mother say a sharp word to anyone in my life; they certainly never have done so to each other--nor to me. I was rather a tiresome little boy, but my severest punishment was to be told by my mother that she must tell my father--'which will make him miserable for a day or a week or a fortnight,' she used to add, according to the heinousness of the offence. She used to take me to the study and say to my father, 'Henry, I am going to make you very unhappy,' and when she had told her story, she used to slip away, and my father used to put his arm round me and say, 'Now you are going to tell papa all about it; I can see you are sorry already!' It all sounds very sentimental, but it worked well. It wasn't as if I was pampered. He used to take me out riding in all weathers, and send me to the meets, and make me go out with the keeper, 'to get mamma a dinner, and a few birds to send to her friends.' It sounds very silly to you, perhaps; but the result is that I would do anything in the world for either of them, and could ask them anything or tell them anything; and I believe that the wish not to have anything hateful to tell them has really kept me clear of no end of mischief."

"Well, if you care to know," said Norton, "I think it quite irrational and perfectly indefensible, and yet entirely beautiful. The wisdom of the ages is all against it, and yet I expect it is the solution which is staring us in the face all the time."

"I am not sure about that," said Walter. "I think there is something missing; but perhaps, considering everything, it is ungrateful for me to say so."

"Not ungrateful," said Norton, "but if you had known the other kind of bringing up, as I have, you would see that what you have missed is a very small thing compared with what you have gained."