Читать книгу The Strange Vanguard - Arnold Bennett - Страница 10

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Lord Furber instantly became one of nature’s gentlemen. From the sideboard, which seemed to contain all liqueurs and spirits (except rum), each decanter secure in a round socket, he took some 1821 brandy, and in ten seconds was holding, almost with tenderness, the glass to Harriet’s languid lips. She coughed. She sighed again, shut her eyes, and opened them.

“I’m saved,” she breathed.

His lordship beheld her with equal respect, humour and admiration. But she had terribly shocked the vanity of the autocrat in him and frightened the child in him. Not even Maidie, his wife, had ever, in the wildest moments of her red hair, handled him half as roughly as Harriet Perkins. Harriet had shown him to himself. He was too much of a realist to deny the truth of the picture she had drawn. He had always vaguely known, but never realized clearly, that he in fact was as she had painted him. He was too proud to sulk or to resent, and too proud to be ashamed. And in that moment he wanted more than anything to win her good opinion. He felt as though he was sitting for an examination. The ordeal occupied the whole of his brain; his millions were so useless in the test that they seemed to have been reduced to the equivalent of twopence. His sense of values was drastically altered. In sum, his emotions were unique, and such as he had never expected at the hands of destiny.

“Oh!” said Harriet. “I smell fire.”

The fire of the cigarette was steadily boring its way through the Persian carpet.

“Oh no!”

“I hope it isn’t your lovely carpet.”

They both looked calmly at the burning carpet.

“It’s nothing,” said Lord Furber. “These carpets are fire-proofed. Always have ’em like that on board, ye know.”

Then he stamped on the red glow, and with dignity picked up the siphon and the overthrown table.

“Have you forgiven my remarks?” she asked coyly.

“I’ve forgotten,” his lordship replied, and he had.

“You must excuse me nearly going off like that. But I’m not used to being spirited away in two-thousand-ton yachts and having to keep my end up against millionaires and barons and things.”

“What are ye used to?” asked the baron eagerly, standing near her with his hands in his pockets. “Tell me what your line is. I’m very interested, and I’d like to know something about ye.”

His interest was genuine, and violent. Indeed, he was coming to the conclusion previously reached by Mr. Sutherland—namely, that there was none like Harriet Perkins in the whole world. He had been dazzled, and he rejoiced in the exceeding novelty.

“I’m nothing. And you can’t tell something about nothing, can you?”

“See if ye can’t. Just try. And after ye’ve tried I’ll tell ye something.” His tone was very persuasive.

“About yourself?”

“No. About you. It’ll be my turn. Ye’ve been telling me quite a lot about myself.”

Harriet sat up.

“Have you ever been in a ladies’ club?” she asked.

“No. I don’t like clubs and clubs don’t like me. Why?”

“If you’d been in a woman’s club—London, I mean—you’d have seen in the dining-room at night a row of small tables and a solitary woman sitting at each table and horribly pretending to be jolly and self-sufficient. I’m one of those women. Younger than most of them, but in quite a short time I shall be older than most of them. I’m thirty, and I shall go on being thirty for years yet—only my face won’t go on being thirty. It’s a pleasant age while it lasts, and our business is to make it last as long as ever we can. I’ve no relatives, except distant ones—and the more distant they keep themselves the better I’m pleased. I’ve got just enough income to wear presentable frocks, but not enough to cover myself with jewels. I was never brought up to do anything: and I don’t like bridge, golf, or tennis. I like dancing, but if you don’t pursue bridge, golf or tennis, it isn’t easy to find partners for dancing. I get asked out—more often to lunch than to dinner—because I can be bright, if I haven’t got a headache. In fact, I have a tongue in my head. You may have noticed it. Sometimes I’m not asked twice to the same house because absurd persons think I have rather too much tongue in my head. I can produce wonderful silences at lunch-tables by some quite simple remark. Strange, isn’t it?

“People wonder why I don’t marry. So do I wonder. Because I can certainly arouse feeling in the male bosom. Only, the men I like don’t seem to get as far as a definite proposition—I expect they’re frightened of what I might say to them. And those who do get as far as a definite proposition somehow always leave me cold. And then that’s that.

“When I’m sick of my flat in London and my club, I go ‘abroad’—as they call it, and wander from hotel to hotel, and make heaps of acquaintances, mostly female, and I don’t care for any of them, and none of them care for me. There are thousands and thousands of us wanderers, particularly in Italy. When I’m sick of ‘abroad,’ I go back to London and begin to hope for the best again. Yes, and then more ‘abroad.’ For ever and ever, Amen. I’m not physically repulsive; and I’ve brains and brilliance—who’d deny it?—but I’m a thoroughly unsatisfactory creature, because I don’t fit in. And I’m growing worse every year ... You asked me to tell you, and I’ve told you—I don’t know why. And it’s heaven’s own truth that I never told anyone before.”

Lord Furber ceased to be one of nature’s gentlemen.

“There’s only one thing the matter with you,” he said, suddenly fierce. “Ye’re an idler before God. You ought to work. Ye’re taking from society everything ye need, and giving nowt in return.”

“And what about you?”

“That’s a different question. Let’s keep to the point.”

“How can I work? I was never taught to work. I don’t know how to work.”

“Anybody can learn to work.”

“I’m not strong. I have headaches and backaches.”

“Aches be blowed, miss. Bad health never yet stopped anybody from working that wanted to work. Think of Herbert Spencer, and Mussolini here. Bad health’s always the last refuge of the female waster.” The baron’s eyes blazed, and his hands, removed from his pockets, were gesticulating, and his feet restive.

“And there’s another thing,” Miss Perkins proceeded calmly. “Why should I take the bread out of other women’s mouths. Lots of them need work and can’t get it. I don’t need work.”

Lord Furber clinched his teeth together, and pulled a face, and seemed to dance about in fury.

“Great Scott!” he growled. “I thought those ideas were dead and buried and ’d begun to stink years ago. And here I have to stand and listen to ’em now! Of course ye need work. Work’s just what ye do need. And if ye do honest work at a fair price ye won’t be taking bread out of anybody’s mouth. On the contrary, ye’ll be putting it in. All work’s to the good. Look at ye! Look at yeself. Other people are keeping ye, making yer clothes and cooking yer food and cleaning yer room and washing yer fal-lals and playing music for ye. And ye do nothing yeself except sit around and complain of headaches and backaches. How’s that, Miss Perkins?”

Lord Furber felt quite happy.

“You’re rather a brutal baron, aren’t you?” Harriet fenced feebly.

“If I am, I’m taking lessons from you. I’m treating ye as an equal. Of course, if ye want me to treat ye like a doll again——”

“Again?”

“Yes, again. I said I’d tell ye something about yeself. Here it is. Ye were only pretending just now when ye nearly fainted. Ye’d got tired of fighting and ye wanted a rest. And so ye thought ye’d play up to me with a touch of the doll business. D’ye suppose I didn’t see through it? Ye thought ye were deceiving me, but I was deceiving you by pretending to be deceived. What about it?”

“What made you think I was only pretending?”

“Yer colour. It never changed. When a woman faints it’s because the blood’s leaving her head. So she goes pale.”

Miss Perkins laughed gaily.

“Five Towns again!” she said. “You’re still in them. Won’t you ever get away? Haven’t you ever heard of rouge? I expect not.”

Lord Furber turned his back, walked away, and returned. He was frowning. Then the frown vanished and he gave a loud laugh and lifted his arms.

“Kamerad!”

“Still, I was pretending,” said Harriet.

Lord Furber dropped his arms and stamped.

“Confound ye.”

“Now, as you’re so clever, tell me how to find work, and I’ll find it.”

Lord Furber wrestled with a wild, foolish impulse, and was thrown.

“Ye’ve found it.”

“What d’you mean—I’ve found it?”

“Be my secretary.”

There was a pause in which his lordship had a terrible fear that she would not refuse his offer.

“And take the bread out of Count Veruda’s mouth?” she smiled blandly.

“Yes. I couldn’t stick the two of ye.”

“You’re very adventurous, baron.”

“Well, perhaps I am.”

“But I don’t know shorthand or typewriting or filing or book-keeping. I did once try to learn typing, but I was beaten off with great loss.”

“I don’t want a clerk. I’ve got scores of ’em. I want a secretary.”

“What should I have to do?”

“I’m an idiot. I’m an idiot. And I canna help it,” said Lord Furber to himself. And aloud: “Oh! All kinds of odd jobs. Ye’d be very useful to me. Ye’re tempted?”

“Who wouldn’t be.”

“It’s agreed then. Salary doesn’t matter. Start to-morrow.”

“How like you!” observed Miss Perkins. “Do you imagine I’d take any post without knowing quite a lot about my employer? It’s employees who ought to ask for references, not employers.”

“Just listen, then. I’ll tell ye about yer employer.”