Читать книгу Period Piece - Gwendolyn Raverat - Страница 8

They were obliged to hurry back to Cambridge as they were dining out. 'There was a Mr Foster [afterwards Sir Michael Foster, the physiologist] who sat near me and "chaffed" (English word) me till I almost lost my patience. I did not understand that he was teasing me, but thought he had taken a little too much wine, which amused Aunt C. immensely. But he insisted and insisted in such a grave way that I really thought he did not know what he was talking about and that he was either a fool or a little out of his mind. If I meet him again won't I turn the tables and see if he "chaffs" me again!! Mr Verrall [Dr. Verrall, Greek scholar] took me out to dinner and proved very pleasant (married men or little men are generally the ones that I like, he was the former). I wore my lavender which Aunt C. thinks very becoming but an inartistic colour. I never saw Aunt Cara look better in my life. She really did not look over 30.' [She was then forty-three.]

The grain of this letter has been extracted out of many pages of details; on the other hand my mother could at times be admirably terse. She sums up her account of a visit to Ely Cathedral, by saying: 'The architecture was very good.' I don't see what more anybody could say after that.

Maud was a good deal puzzled by Cambridge habits when she first came to England. She had never learnt to dance, and was afraid that some of her family would be shocked, when they heard that she had been to a ball. She seems only to have been to one ball at King's that summer; and even later there is very little mention of dances. This is probably because she never learnt to dance well; certainly not because she disapproved of dancing. She writes that she has not 'yet' played games on Sunday; though she was able to enjoy very bad riddles on that day. 'Why are women like telegrams? Because they are in advance of the mails in intelligence.' 'Why are men like telescopes? Because women draw them out, look through them and shut them up.' This is characteristic, for all her life she loved puzzles and riddles. One Sunday she went to the Round Church, which was 'almost as old as the hills'; but 'the English service is so long; they repeat always two creeds and the Lord's Prayer three and often four times, and they never combine the Royal Family in one prayer, but always there is one for Victoria and then another for the Prince of Wales. And the sermon was rediculous [sic]. I think I shall go to the chapel hereafter. They have a short service, no sermon and good music. The college people never go to any of the churches. Aunt C. made G.D. go to chapel for the first time for a dozen years on Sunday. She says he is what they call an a r g o n a i s t [sic]. I think that is the word. [Agnostic?] But it means an infidel who does not try to make other people infidels. So many of the people here are that kind. They, or at least a few, go to chapel, but only for the music.' This does not seem to shock her at all.

The gaieties, dinners and tennis continue all the summer, till in mid-September Maud went with Aunt Cara to pay some visits in Scotland. But first she bought a new coat. 'After looking at lots of dowdy things, at last we were shown an exceedingly pretty brown brocaded velvet, a kind of coat and yet a mantle, trimmed with lovely fur—I think it was black fox which was brown. But the price was very extravagant—seven guineas. The fur cost a guinea a yard, the clerk said. There were about ten yards of fur on it.' This kind of arithmetical puzzle—ten yards of guinea-a-yard fur on a seven-guinea coat—would never have troubled my mother at all. Aunt Cara evidently pressed her to buy it, but my mother remained firm. It was 'too good'. So she bought a three-guinea coat, of 'mixed red and blue cloth in stripes' with 'a feather trimming' and 'capey sleeves', 'as stylish as can be.'

This was the period of the 'aesthetic' dresses—(Patience had appeared first in 1881)—but both Aunt Cara and Maud considered them affected and ridiculous. Maud writes: 'There were quite a number of aesthetic or ascetic [sic] costumes, at a Newnham Garden Party. Those she describes sound rather charming, though floppy. She says: 'Aunt C. has a simply perfect tea-gown; not aesthetic, but so graceful and lovely.' Her own favourite gown was 'my white albatross', whatever that may be.

At this time Uncle Dick's mother was very ill: 'In a selfish mood both Aunt C. and I hope that she will not die at once, for we should have to give up our tour to Scotland.' This danger was averted, and they went off to meet George at Edinburgh, where they had two days' sightseeing with him: 'The Scotch look sturdy, but their features are not at all good. Their noses so lumpy and their mouths big. George D. was very nice. In good spirits. I can see how nice he is as a brother and a friend, and he would make a good husband, but somehow the romantic view of a lover is left out of his disposition.'

My father was always at his best when travelling; he enjoyed it so much and was so full of enterprise and enthusiasm, that it was no wonder that Maud now began to find him more interesting. If not romantic as a lover (though I believe that she presently changed her mind even about that), he was extremely romantic as a sightseer and I can't think of anyone—except Sir Walter Scott himself—with whom I would rather have seen Edinburgh.

After their return to Cambridge at the end of September, the crisis of Mr. T.'s proposal occurs rather unexpectedly. There is a tremendously involved account of everything that happened for several days before the event, most of it quite irrelevant. It is contained in a letter to Dear Mamma, marked Private, with a list of only eight near relations to whom it may be shewn; 'and that is all, all.' 'Well, in the morning I was in my tub when Jennie came to my door and said, "Miss Maud, here is a note which I will put under the door." I easily got it and to my amazement it was a proposal!' She encloses the actual letter, which I expected to find marked with the bath-water; and also a photograph of Mr. T. He is rather handsome and looks intelligent and virtuous, but dull; his beard, however, was vast and flowing, a great attraction in those days. But alas, alas! he was forty-one and his legs were very short indeed.