Читать книгу The Lonely Unicorn - Alec Waugh - Страница 6

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RALPH AND APRIL

Ralph Richmond was the son of an emotional woman and he had read too many novels. He took himself seriously: without being religious, he considered that it was the duty of every man to leave the world better than he found it. Such a philosophy may be natural to a man of thirty-six who sees small prospect of realising his own ambition, and resorts to the consolation of a collective enthusiasm, but it is abnormal in a boy of seventeen, an age which usually sees itself in the stalls of a theatre waiting for the curtain to rise and reveal a stage set with limitless opportunities for self-development and self-indulgence.

But Ralph had been brought up in an atmosphere of ideals; at the age of seven he gave a performance of Hamlet in the nursery, and in the same year he visited a lenten performance of Everyman. At his preparatory school he came under the influence of an empire builder, who used to appeal to the emotions of his form. "The future of the country is in your hands," he would say. "One day you will be at the helm. You must prepare yourselves for that time. You must never forget." And Ralph did not. He thought of himself as the arbiter of destinies. He felt that till that day his life must be a vigil. Like the knights of Arthurian romance, he would watch beside his armour in the chapel. In the process he became a prig, and on his last day at Rycroft Lodge he became a prude. His headmaster gave all the boys who were leaving a long and serious address on the various temptations of the flesh to which they would be subjected at their Public Schools. Ralph had no clear idea of what these temptations might be. Their results, however, seemed sufficient reason for abstention. If he yielded to them, he gathered that he would lose in a short time his powers of thought, his strength, his moral stamina; a slow poison would devour him; in a few years he would be mad and blind and probably, though of this he was not quite certain, deaf as well. At any rate he would be in a condition when the ability of detecting sound would be of slight value. These threats were alarming: their effect, however, would not have been lasting in the case of Ralph, who was no coward and also, being no fool, would have soon observed that this process of disintegration was not universal in its application. No; it was not the threat that did the damage: it was the romantic appeal of the headmaster's peroration.

"After all," he said, after a dramatic pause, "how can any one of you who has been a filthy beast at school dare to propose marriage to some pure, clean woman?"

That told; that sentiment was within the range of his comprehension; it was a beautiful idea, a chivalrous idea, worthy, he inappropriately imagined, of Sir Lancelot. He could understand that a knight should come to his lady with glittering armour and an unstained sword. At the time he did not fully appreciate the application of this image: he soon learnt, however, that a night spent on one's knees on the stone floor of a draughty chapel is a cold and lonely prelude to enchantment: a discovery that did not make him the more charitable to those who preferred clean linen and soft down.

It was only to be supposed, therefore, that he would receive Roland's confidences with disgust. He had always felt a little jealous of April's obvious preference for his friend, but he had regarded it as the fortune of war and had taken what pleasure he might in the part of confidant. To this vicarious excitant their intimacy indeed owed its strength. His indignation, therefore, when he learnt of Roland's rustic courtship was only exceeded by his positive fury when, on the first evening of the holidays, he went round to see the Curtises and found there Roland and his father. It was the height of hypocrisy. He had supposed that Roland would at least have the decency to keep away from her. It had been bad enough to give up a decent girl for a shop assistant, but to come back and carry on as though nothing had happened. … It was monstrous, cruel, unthinkable. And there was April, so clean and calm, with her thick brown hair gathered up in a loop across her forehead; her eyes, deep and gentle, with subdued colours, brown and a shade of green, and that delicate smile of simple trust and innocence, smiling at him, ignorant of how she had been deceived.

It must be set down, however, to Roland's credit that he had felt a few qualms about going round at once to see the Curtises. Less than twenty-four hours had passed since he had held Dolly's hand and protested to her an undying loyalty. He did not love her; the words meant nothing, and they both knew it; they were merely part of the convention of the game. Nor for that matter was he in love with April—at least he did not think he was. He owed nothing to either of them. But conscience told him that, in view of the understanding that was supposed to exist between them, it would be more proper to wait a day or two. After all, one did not go to a theatre the day after one's father's funeral, however eagerly one's imagination had anticipated the event.

Things had, however, turned out otherwise. At a quarter to six Mr. Whately returned from town. He was the manager of a bank, at a salary of seven hundred and fifty pounds a year, an income that allowed the family to visit the theatre, upper circle seats, at least once every holidays and provided Roland with as much pocket-money as he needed. Mr. Whately walked into the drawing-room, greeted his son with the conventional joke about a holiday task, handed his wife a copy of The Globe, sat down in front of the fire and began to take off his boots.

"Nothing much in the papers to-day, my dear. Not much happening anywhere as a matter of fact. I had lunch to-day with Robinson and he called it the lull before the storm. I shouldn't be a bit surprised if he wasn't right. You can't trust these Radicals."

He was a scrubby little man: for thirty years he had worked in the same house: there had been no friction and no excitement in his life: he had by now lost any independence of thought and action.

"I've just found a splendid place, my dear, where you can get a really first-class lunch for one-and-sixpence."

"Have you, dear?"

"Yes; in Soho, just behind the Palace. I went there to-day with Robinson. We had four courses, and cheese to finish up with. Something like."

"And was it well cooked, dear?"

"Rather; the plaice was beautifully fried. Just beginning to brown."

His face flushed with a genuine animation. Change of food was the only adventure that life brought to him. He rose slowly.

"Well, I must go up and change, I suppose. I've one or two other things to tell you, dear, later on."

He did not ask his wife what she had been doing during the day; it was indeed doubtful whether he appreciated the existence of any life at 105 Hammerton Villas, Hammerton, during the hours when he was away from them. Himself was the central point.

Five minutes later he came down stairs in a light suit.

"Well, who's coming out with me for a constitutional?"

Roland got up, walked into the hall, picked up his hat and stick.

"Right you are, father; I'm ready."

It was the same thing every day. At eight-thirty-five Mr. Whately caught a bus at the corner of the High Street. He had never been known to miss it. On the rare occasions when he was a few seconds late the driver would wait till he saw the panting little figure come running round the corner, trying to look dignified in spite of the top hat that bobbed from one side of his head to the other. From nine o'clock till a quarter-past five Mr. Whately worked at a desk, with an hour's interval for lunch. Every evening he went for an hour's walk; for half-an-hour before dinner he read the evening paper. After dinner he would play a game of patience and smoke his pipe. Occasionally a friend would drop in for a chat; very occasionally he would go out himself. At ten o'clock sharp he went to bed. Every Saturday afternoon he attended a public performance of either cricket or football according to the season. Roland often wondered how he could stand it. What had he to look forward to? What did he think about when he sat over the fire puffing at his pipe. And his mother. How monotonous her life appeared to him. Yet she seemed always happy enough: she never grumbled. Roland could not understand it. Whatever happened, he would take jolly good care that he never ran into a groove like that. They had loved each other well enough once, he supposed, but now—oh, well, love was the privilege of youth.

Father and son walked in silence. They were fond of each other; they liked being together; Mr. Whately was very proud of his son's achievements; but their affection was never expressed in words. After a while they began to talk of indifferent things, guessing at each other's thoughts: a relationship of intuitions. They passed along the High Street and, turning behind the shops, walked down a long street of small red-brick villas with stucco fronts.

"Don't you think we ought to go in and see the Curtises?" Mr. Whately asked.

"I don't know. I hadn't meant to. I thought. … "

"I think you ought to, you know, your first day; they'd be rather offended if you didn't. April asked me when you were coming back."

And so Roland was bound to abandon his virtuous resolution.

It was not a particularly jolly evening before Ralph arrived. Afterwards it was a good deal worse.

In the old days, when father and son had paid an evening visit, Roland had run straight up to the nursery and enjoyed himself, but now he had to sit in the drawing-room, which was a very different matter. He did not like Mrs. Curtis: he never had liked her, but she had not troubled him in the days when she had been a mere voice below the banisters. Now he had to sit in the small drawing-room, with its shut windows, and hear her voice cleave through the clammy atmosphere in languid, pathetic cadences; a sentimental voice, and under the sentiment a hard, cold cruelty. Her person was out of keeping with her voice; it should have been plump and comfortable-looking; instead it was tall, thin, angular, all over points, like a hat-rack in a restaurant: a terrible bedfellow. And she talked, heavens! how she talked. It was usually about her children.

"Dear Arthur, he's getting on so well at school. Do you know what his headmaster said about him in his report?"

"Oh, but, mother, please," Arthur would protest.

"No, dear, be quiet: I know Mr. Whately would like to hear. The headmaster said, Mr. Whately. … " Then it was her daughter's turn. "And April too, Mr. Whately, she's getting on so well with her drawing lessons. Mr. Hamilton was only saying to me yesterday. … "

It was not surprising that Roland was less keen now on going round there. It was little fun for him after all to sit and listen while she talked, to see his father so utterly complacent, with his "Yes, Mrs. Curtis," and his "Really, Mrs. Curtis," and to look at poor April huddled in the window-seat, so bored, so ashamed, her eyes meeting his with a look that said: "Don't worry about her, don't take any notice of what she says. I'm not like that." Once or twice he tried to talk to her, but it was no use: her mother would interrupt, would bring them back into the circle of her own egotism. In her own drawing-room she would tolerate nothing independent of herself.

"Yes, Roland; what was it you were saying? The Saundersons' dance? Of course April will be going. They're very old friends of ours, the Saundersons. Mr. Saunderson thinks such a lot of Arthur too. You know, Mr. Whately, I met him in the High Street the other afternoon and he said to me, 'How's that clever son of yours getting on, Mrs. Curtis?'"

"Really, Mrs. Curtis."

"Yes, really, Mr. Whately."

It was at this point that Ralph arrived.

His look of surprised displeasure was obvious to everyone. But knowing Ralph, they mistook it for awkwardness. He did not like company, and his shyness was apparent as he stood in the doorway in an ill-fitting suit, with trousers that bagged at the knees, and with the front part of his hair smarmed across his forehead with one hurried sweep of a damp brush, at right angles to the rest of his hair, that fell perpendicularly from the crown of his head.

"Come along, Ralph," said April, and made room for him in the window-seat. She treated him with an amused condescension. He was so clumsy; a dear fellow, so easy to rag. "And how did your exam. go?" she asked.

"All right."

"No; but really, tell me about it. What were the maths like?"

"Not so bad."

"And the geography? You were so nervous about that."

"I didn't do badly."

"And the Latin and the Greek? I want to know all about it."

"You don't, really?"

"Yes, but I do."

"No, you don't," he said impatiently. "You'd much rather hear about Roland and all the things he does at Fernhurst."

There was a moment of difficult silence, then April said quite quietly:

"You are quite right, Ralph; as a matter of fact I should"; and she turned towards Roland, but before she could say anything, Mrs. Curtis once more assumed her monopoly of the conversation.

"Yes, Roland, you've told us nothing about that, and how you got your firsts. We were so proud of you too. And you never wrote to tell us. If it hadn't been for your father we should never have known." And for the next half-hour her voice flowed on placidly, while Ralph sat in a frenzy of self-pity and self-contempt, and Roland longed for an opportunity to kick him, and April looked out between the half-drawn curtains towards the narrow line of sky that lay darkly over the long stretch of roofs and chimney-pots, happy that Roland's holidays had begun, regretting wistfully that childhood was finished for them, that they could no longer play their own games in the nursery, that they had become part of the ambitions of their parents.

When at last they rose to go, Ralph lingered for a moment in the doorway; he could not go home till April had forgiven him.

She stood on the top of the step, looking down the street to Roland, her heart still beating a little quickly, still disturbed by that pressure of the hand and that sudden uncomfortable meeting of the eyes when he had said "Good-bye." She did not notice Ralph till he began to speak to her.

"I am awfully sorry I was so rude to you, April. I'm rather tired. I didn't mean to offend you. I wouldn't have done it for worlds."

She turned to him with a quiet smile.

"Oh, don't worry about that," she said, "that's nothing."

And he could see that to her it was indeed nothing, that she had not thought twice about it. That nothing he said or did was of the least concern to her. He would much rather that she had been angry.

Next day Ralph came round to the Whatelys' soon after breakfast.

"Well, feeling more peaceful to-day, old friend?" Ralph looked at Roland in impotent annoyance. As he knew of old, Roland was an impossible person to have a row with. He simply would not fight. He either agreed to everything you said or else brushed away your arguments with a good-natured "All right, old man, all right!" On this occasion, however, he felt that he must make a stand.

"You're the limit," he said; "the absolute limit."

"I don't know about that, but I think you were last night."

"Oh, don't joke about it. You know what I mean. I think it's pretty rotten for a fellow like you to go about with a shop-assistant, but that's not really the thing. What's simply beastly is your coming back to April as though nothing had happened. What would she say if she knew?"

Roland refused to acknowledge omniscience. "I don't know," he said.

"She wouldn't be pleased, would she?" Ralph persisted.

"I don't suppose so."

"No; well then, there you are; you oughtn't to do anything you think she mightn't like."

Roland looked at him with a sad patience, as a preparatory schoolmaster at a refractory infant.

"But, my dear fellow, we're not married, and we're not engaged. Surely we can do more or less what we like."

"But would you be pleased if you learned that she'd been carrying on with someone else?"

Roland admitted that he would not.

"Then why should you think you owe nothing to her?"

"It's different, my dear Ralph; it's quite different."

"No, it isn't."

"Yes, it is. Boys can do things that girls can't. A flirtation means very little to a boy; it means a good deal to a girl—at least it ought to. If it doesn't, it means that she's had too much of it."

"But I don't see——" began Ralph.

"Come on, come on; don't let's go all over that again. We shall never agree. Let me go my way and you can go yours. We are too old friends to quarrel about a thing like this."

Most boys would have been annoyed by Ralph's attempt at interference, but it took a great deal to ruffle Roland's lazy, equable good nature. He did not believe in rows. He liked to keep things running smoothly. He could never understand the people who were always wanting to stir up trouble. He did not really care enough either way. His tolerance might have been called indifference, but it possessed, at any rate, a genuine charm. The other fellow always felt what a thundering good chap Roland was—so good-tempered, such a gentleman, never harbouring a grievance. People knew where they were with him; when he said a thing was over it was over.

"All right," said Ralph grudgingly. "I don't know that it's quite the game——"

"Don't worry. We're a long way from anything serious. A good deal's got to happen before we're come to the age when we can't do what we like."

And they talked of other things.