Читать книгу The Duchess of Wrexe, Her Decline and Death - Hugh Walpole - Страница 13

No. 24 had three floors: the ground floor was occupied by the Rands, the first floor by Breton and the second floor by an old decrepit invalid called Cæsar and his son, who was a bank clerk.

Down in the basement lived Mr. and Mrs. Tweed, owners of the whole house; he had been a butler and she a housekeeper, and exceedingly respectable they were. Every floor had its own kitchen and every lodger found his own servants, but the hall was common for all the three floors, and if young Mr. Cæsar came in at two in the morning and banged the front door everybody knew about it.

It must have been a fine old house in its day, No. 24, and there were still fine carvings, good fireplaces and ceilings, high broad windows and thick solid walls. Mrs. Rand liked to think that her drawing-room had once seen fine eighteenth-century ladies reflected in its mirrors, heard the tapping of high-heeled shoes on its polished floors. The thought of those glorious days gave her own rather faded furniture a colour and a touch of poetry. Sometimes, Lizzie thought with a sigh, if her mother had inhabited a plain nineteenth-century house living within a small income would have been easier for her.

Lizzie, entering the drawing-room, knew at once that Mr. Breton was still there. She saw that he was tall and spare, that he had no left arm, that he had a rather small pointed brown beard and eyes that struck her as fierce and protesting. She did not know whether it were the beard or the eyes or the absence of the arm, but at her first vision of him she said to herself: "He's too dramatic; it's not quite real," and her second thought was: "He's just what mother will like him to be!"

He was standing against the window, and he wore a black suit, a little faded. The blinds had not been drawn, and the square beyond the window was elephant grey, with the lamps at each corner a dim yellow; there was a thin rather ragged garden in the middle of the square, and in the garden was a statue of a nymph, old and deserted, and some trees now faintly green. Over it all was a sky so pale that it was more nearly white than blue.

Although the curtains had not been drawn a lamp in the middle of the room was lit and the fire burnt merrily. The furniture had once been good and was now respectable. There were several photographs, a copy of "The Fighting Téméraire," and a water-colour sketch of "Lodore Falls." There was a book-case with the works of Tennyson, Longfellow, and Miss Braddon, and on one of the tables two French novels, one by Gyp and one by Zola.

Mrs. Rand would have been handsome had her grey hair been less untidy and her clothes more uniform in design and colour. Her blouse was cut too low and she wore too many rings; her eyes always wore a lying-in-wait expression, as though she might be called on to be excited at any moment and didn't wish to miss the opportunity.

Daisy Rand was pretty and pink with light fluffy hair. All her clothes looked as though their chief purpose were to reveal other clothes. The impression that she left on a casual observer was that she must be cold in such thin things.

Lizzie, looking at Frank Breton, could not tell what impression her sister and mother had made upon him. "At any rate," she thought, "he's stayed a long time. That looks as though he had been entertained." She was introduced to him and liked the cool, firm grasp of his hand. She saw that her mother and Daisy were quiet and subdued—that was a good thing. She caught, before she sat down, his instinctive look of surprise. She knew that he had not expected her to be like that.

"We've been telling Mr. Breton, Lizzie," said Mrs. Rand, "all about the theatres. He's been away so long that he's quite out of touch with things."

Lizzie always knew when her mother was finding conversation difficult by the amount of enthusiasm and surprise that she put into her sentences.

"So terrible it must be to have missed so many splendid things."

"I assure you, Mrs. Rand," said Breton, "that I've been seeing other splendid things in other countries. Now I'm ready for this one again."

Mrs. Rand was silent and at a loss. Lizzie knew the explanation of this. Her mother had been trying to venture on to the subject of Breton's family and had found unexpected difficulty. Perhaps there had been something in Breton's attitude that had warned her.

They talked for a little while, but disjointedly. Then suddenly there was a knock at the door, and young Mr. Cæsar, a bony youth with a high collar and an unsuccessful moustache, came in. He had not very much to say, but the result of his coming was that Lizzie found herself standing at the window with Breton; they looked at the square now sinking into dusk.

He spoke; his voice was lowered: "I understand that you are secretary to my aunt, Miss Rand?"

"Yes," she said.

"They haven't heard of my return with any great delight, I'm afraid?"

She noticed that he was trying to steady his voice, but that it shook a little in spite of his efforts.

"I don't know," she said, looking up and smiling. "I'm far too busy to think of things that are not my concern."

"They are giving a ball to-morrow night for my cousin?"

"Yes."

"Do you see much of her?"

"No—nothing at all. She's been abroad, you know."

"Yes, so I heard. But I saw her driving yesterday. She looks different from the rest of them."

All this time, as he spoke to her, she was conscious of his eyes; if only she could have been sure that the protest in them was genuine she would have been moved by them.

She did not help him in any way, and perhaps her silence made him feel that he had done wrong to speak to her about his affairs. They looked at the square for a little time in silence. At last, speaking without any implied fierceness, he said:

"You know, Miss Rand, I'm a wanderer by nature, and sometimes I find cities very hard to bear. Do you know what I do?"

"No," she said.

"Turn them into other things. Now here in London, do you never think of streets as waterways? Portland Place, for instance, is like ever so many rivers I've seen, broad and shining. And some of those high thin streets beside it are like canals; Oxford Circus is a whirlpool, and so on–"

He laughed. "I get no end of relief from thinking of things like that."

"You hate cities?" she asked him.

"No—not really. But it depends how they receive you. If they're hostile–" He shrugged his shoulders.

"And this square?" she said. "What's this square?"

"A pool. All the houses hang over it as though they were hiding it. It's restful like a pool. There's no noise–"

The statue of the nymph had disappeared. The trees were a black splash against the lamp-lit walls. Lights were in the windows.

He seemed suddenly conscious that it was late. When he had gone Lizzie stood, for some time, looking into the square and thinking how right he had been.

All that evening Daisy was out of temper.