Читать книгу Hans Frost - Hugh Walpole - Страница 4
ОглавлениеTHE HOUSE
She had been told that there would be someone to meet her, and at once after leaving her carriage she saw a plump, rosy-cheeked, young chauffeur coming toward her.
'Miss Swan?' he asked, touching his cap.
'Yes,' she said shyly. She was comforted a little, because he looked as though he were from the country. Smart, though, but strong and sturdy. She knew that he would not smile at her box for being shabby or turn up his nose at her timid air.
The box was found. The car, very large, dark blue, waited scornfully quite close to the platform, sniffing at the taxis that were quivering with anxiety lest they should miss their fares. The station glittered with glass, screamed with naughty impatience, choked in its own smoke and was gone. Nathalie slipped into London.
She found that her terror did not diminish. Argue with it, talk to it like a mother, scold it--nothing did it any good. It just sat there in its dark corner, refusing to be exorcised. It did not make things better to observe that London was indifferent, that the lights flashing now about the streets displayed the world with its head up, and that what the world was wise enough to disregard Nathalie might disregard also. The world had not seen Aunt Ruth as Nathalie had seen her; there was only one Aunt Ruth for one Nathalie, and to change her into a common denominator helped not at all.
Antagonisms are made up of personal furniture, and there is no pincushion in one's wardrobe that has not its share in one's hatred of Caesar.
They rolled into silence. The roar of London was checked as though a hand had been laid on its bawling mouth. Water gleamed beneath lamp-light. As the door opened, trees rustled into the car: autumn leaves lay underfoot.
Nathalie stood, alone and defenceless, on the steps of what seemed in the shadowed starlight a huge house. Yes, water was over the way and dark spaces. A shrill scream broke the shadows.
'Oh, what's that?' she cried.
'That's the Zoo, Miss,' said the chauffeur, waiting beside her for the opening door.
The bell of some clock struck five as the heavy door opened. A large, stout and flat-faced man received her. She disliked him at once, because he was so ugly. His face looked as though it had been trodden on in childhood. Afterwards she was to wonder whether he had ever known that savage and innocent state. His name was Bigges. Later on she would know him for the laziest man in England.
She waited, standing, as it seemed to her, in the middle of endless lighted space, while Bigges brought in her meagre luggage and very officially closed the door. The nice rosy-faced young man was shut out.
She didn't know that Bigges was saying to himself: 'Yes, you would be arriving just at the busiest time, when everyone's got their 'ands full. You're going to be a nuisance, you are.'
Before they moved on, however, she was comforted by seeing a large, splendid portrait of Uncle Hans hanging over the big stone fireplace. Head and shoulders. Such a picture, so strong and so kindly and so humorous! It was as though, after all, he had been there to greet her and wish her well. . . .
'Mrs. Frost would like to see you at once, Miss.'
She followed.
The house in Polchester had been one of the small ones under the shadow of the Cathedral--bright small crooked rooms overcrowded with ancient treasure, garden in front and garden behind, all colour and comfort, but tiny beside the clang and echo of the Cathedral bells.
How vast and grand and empty, then, this House, the passages endless, the rooms stiff and splendid, one's feet silent on the thick carpets, no voices anywhere! Oh! had she no pride, no self-defence? There was nothing of which she need be ashamed. She was as good as another.
But, arriving at last in the drawing-room, so huge to her country eye, so rich in brown and gold, so stiff in its icy distance between sofas and chairs, Nathalie lost the last remnant of her pluck. She looked, as she went to meet Mrs. Frost and her two lady friends, like a beautiful, rather shabby and sulky child.
Mrs. Frost, clad in golden armour, introduced her to the two ladies--one sheathed in silver like a mermaid, Lady Thingumety, and the other in black silk like a bathing dress, Mrs. Whatyoumayplease.
Mrs. Frost was very kind. She kissed Nathalie twice. She seemed to be glad indeed to see her. Nathalie, gazing at her glorious bobbed amber-coloured hair, wondered how her aunt, who must be fifty at least, could be bobbed and have a figure so straight and not seem in any way absurd. Mrs. Proudie, who was not a day more than forty, if bobbed rather than bunned . . .!
Through her wonderment came Aunt Ruth's explanation: 'And so, darling, if you won't mind just for a night . . . I really should have wired and asked you to come on Wednesday, but I couldn't bear to put you off. . . . You see it's rather an occasion. It's going on at this very moment upstairs, and then there's the dinner-party. Besides I expect you're as tired as anything after your journey and would rather have something on a tray in your own room. And then you can go to bed as early as ever you like. Ask Elsie for anything you want. We'll have such a talk in the morning. Your kind friends quite well? That's good. I'm so glad. . . . So good-night and happy dreams.'
Nathalie found herself moving out just as she had moved in, as though under the command of some inexorable law. She didn't want to stay, but at the same time . . .
A thin starched woman was waiting for her in the passage.
'I'm Elsie, Miss. If there's anything . . .'
