Читать книгу The Vision Splendid (D. K. Broster) (Literary Thoughts Edition) - D. K. Broster - Страница 18

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Mr. Hungerford's little dinner-party had gone the way of all dinner-parties. The Rector had pronounced it, from his point of view, a decided success. "A most enjoyable evening, my dear," he said to Horatia, as they were driving home. "Whatever else that man Dormer of Oriel is or is not, he is a brilliant talker when he pleases. And I had a good talk with Edward Pusey afterwards in the drawing-room. The Arabic catalogue at the Bodleian is a colossal piece of work, but from what he told me I think his plans are too ambitious – not beyond his scholarship, mark you, but beyond his physical strength. He confessed to me that he sometimes almost envied the bricklayers whom he saw at work in the streets, the drudgery was so great."

"But Mr. Pusey is a young man, and he needn't make Arabic catalogues unless he wants to," Horatia had responded rather unsympathetically. For she had not found the party so delightful. She had been taken in by Mr. Pusey, and though Armand de la Roche-Guyon sat on her other hand, his partner, Miss Arabella Trenchard, had talked to him a great deal, and he had seemed to like it. It was quite natural, of course; he probably liked everybody, and Miss Trenchard was very pretty, much prettier than she herself; so that it was no wonder if M. de la Roche-Guyon had been by no means as bored as he had predicted. But, at all events, he had found his way straight to her in the drawing-room afterwards, and chatted to her ... till Mr. Dormer, showing a most unusual taste for her society, had come and made a third ... and, to be quite just, had talked so delightfully that she almost forgave him the intrusion, at the time. Afterwards, it rankled increasingly.

But now it was Monday morning, the morning of the dance, and Horatia, in the drawing-room putting some asters into a bowl, was aware of being in a state of causeless and febrile excitement. She could not but ask herself what there was in a dance so to excite her; she was not a young girl any more; she had been to many such. Yet she was conscious that this ball was clothed in her imagination with the glamour of an untasted pleasure, and that the thought of it was like some splendid palace built on the edge of a precipice, beyond which there was nothing.

She had just carried the bowl to the mantel-shelf when, without warning, M. de la Roche-Guyon was announced to her. Horatia was startled, almost discomposed, and the vessel, which was "Wheatsheaf" Bow, narrowly escaped destruction.

"Mr. Hungerford sent me with a note," said the young Frenchman apologetically. "That is my excuse for deranging you so early, Mademoiselle; you must forgive me. It is about to-night."

She took the letter and read:

"My dear Horatia, –

"I am obliged to go into Oxford this evening to meet Mr. Rose, a man from Cambridge, at Dormer's rooms, and cannot possibly return in time for the Charity Ball; in fact I shall have to spend the night in Oxford. Would you and the Rector be so kind as to consider M. de la Roche-Guyon as of your party? There is of course no need for him actually to accompany you. It is most unfortunate that this summons should have come just now, and that I must reluctantly forgo an evening to which I had looked forward with so much pleasure. I shall come to dinner, if I may, when I am at liberty, and make my apologies to you in person. – T.H."

Miss Grenville, on reading these lines, stamped her foot.

"How tiresome, O how tiresome! Why could not Tristram have gone to Oxford any other night!"

"You are sorry that Mr. Hungerford cannot come to the dance?" inquired the Comte, who seemed already acquainted with the purport of the note.

"Why, of course!" flashed Horatia, out of her burst of indignation. "Are you, then, glad of it, Monsieur?"

"In one sense, yes," replied M. de la Roche-Guyon coolly. "Because now I can ask for the dances of your kinsman as well as for my own."

Miss Grenville saw fit to take no notice of this sentiment, continuing along her own line of thought.

"How like Mr. Dormer! Everything must give way to what Mr. Dormer arranges and wishes. I have no patience with it – I am sure you do not like him either!"

"Mon Dieu, I should think I did not," replied the young man warmly, "considering that he spoilt my evening on Saturday! He might have left us that quarter of an hour in the drawing-room. I could almost believe that he did it on purpose.... No, Mr. Dormer does not amuse me."

"You have seen a good deal of him," said Horatia, restored to good humour, for she discerned a common feeling.

Armand made something of a grimace. "Mr. Hungerford has been kind enough to take me to see him twice. I do not like priests. They know too much."

"But Mr. Dormer is not a priest," returned Horatia, half amused.

"Well, perhaps not, mais il en a l'air, and he needs only the ... what is it, la soutane? – the cassock, yes, and the sash that the delusion should be complete. Besides, he has the book."

"What book?" asked Horatia, mystified.

"The priest's book, the breviary. It was lying open on his table when we went in to see him at the college of Oriel. Almost I fancied myself chez Monsignor de la Roche-Guyon, my cousin."

"Oh, I understand!" said Horatia. "He is translating some of the hymns from the Paris Breviary – why, I don't know. I think I remember Tristram telling me about it in the spring. Mr. Dormer and several of the other Fellows at Oriel are what is known as High Church, and they are always doing queer things."

"High Church?" queried the young Frenchman, "what is that? And what queer things is it that they do?"

"Oh, it's so boring," said Miss Grenville wearily. "They think the Church of England is in danger; I don't know why, for it has gone on comfortably enough all these years without them. So they meet and talk a great deal about it – in fact, that is no doubt why Tristram has so tiresomely to go into Oxford this evening – fresh alarums and excursions, I expect... Papa was very much shocked when he heard Mr. Froude say that the Reformation was a mistake, but when I told him afterwards that I thought they had better all turn Papists, and have done with it, he didn't like that either ... O forgive me! What have I said!" The colour rushed over her face. "I had forgotten for the moment; of course you are a Catholic yourself."

"But I had rather that you forgot it," exclaimed the young Frenchman, with an expressive gesture. "I am a Catholic, it is true, because – well, because one has to be. Royalism and the Church stand together; but I am not devout – pray do not think so!"

Horatia hastened to assure him that she had never suspected him of this, and they both laughed.

When he had gone she went upstairs and looked at the gown that she was to wear that night to dance in the palace which would crumble to ruins at daybreak.