Читать книгу The Passionate Year - James Hilton - Страница 10

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As Mrs. Ervine and the girl preceded them out of the room Speed heard the latter say: "Clare's not come yet, mother." Mrs. Ervine replied, a trifle acidly: "Well, my dear, we can't wait for her. I suppose she knew it was at seven..."

The Head, taking Speed by the arm with an air of ponderous intimacy, was saying: "Don't know whether you've a good reading voice, Speed. If so, we must have you for the lessons in morning chapel."

Speed was mumbling something appropriate and the Head was piloting him into the dining-room when Potter appeared again, accompanied by a dark-haired girl, short in stature and rather pale-complexioned. She seemed quite unconcerned as she caught up the tail end of the procession into the dining-room and remarked casually: "How are you, Doctor Ervine?—So sorry I'm a trifle late. Friday, you know—rather a busy day for the shop."

The Head looked momentarily nonplussed, then smiled and said: "Oh, not at all...not at all...I must introduce you to our new recruit—Mr. Speed...This is Miss Harrington, a friend of my daughter's. She—um, yes, she manages—most successfully, I may say—the—er—the bookshop down in the town. Bookshop, you know."

He said that with the air of implying: Bookshops are not ordinary shops.

Speed bowed; the Head went on boomingly: "And she is, I think I may venture to say, my daughter's greatest friend. Eh?"

He addressed the monosyllable to the girl with a touch of shrewdness: she replied quietly: "I don't know." The three words were spoken in that rare tone in which they simply mean nothing but literally what they say.

In the dining-room they sat in the following formation: Dr. and Mrs. Ervine at the head and foot respectively; Helen and Clare together at one side and Speed opposite them at the other. The dining-room was a cold forlorn-looking apartment in which the dim incandescent light seemed to accomplish little more than to cast a dull glitter of obscurity on the oil-paintings that hung, ever so slightly askew, on the walls. A peculiar incongruity in it struck Speed at once, though the same might never have occurred to anybody else: the minute salt and pepper-boxes on the table possessed a pretty feminine daintiness which harmonised ill with the huge mahogany sideboard. The latter reminded Speed of the boardroom of a City banking-house. It was as if, he thought, the Doctor and his wife had impressed their personalities crudely and without compromise; and as if those personalities were so diametrically different that no fusing of the two into one was ever possible. Throughout the meal he kept looking first to his left, at Mrs. Ervine, and then to his right at the Doctor, and wondering at what he felt instinctively to be a fundamental strangeness in their life together.

Potter, assisted by a speckle-faced maid, hovered assiduously around, and the Doctor assisted occasionally by his wife, hovered no less assiduously around the conversation, preventing it from lapsing into such awkward silences as would throw into prominence the continual hissing of the gas and his own sibilant ingurgitation of soup. The Doctor talked rather loudly and ponderously, and with such careful and scrupulous qualifications of everything he said that one had the impressive sensation that incalculable and mysterious issues hung upon his words; Mrs. Ervine's remarks were short and pithy, sometimes a little cynical.

The Doctor seemed to fear that he had given Speed a wrong impression of Miss Harrington. "I'm sure Mr. Speed will be surprised when I tell him that he can have the honour of purchasing his Times from you each morning, Clare," he said, lapping up the final spoonful of soup and bestowing a satisfied wipe with his napkin on his broad wet lips.

Clare said: "I should think Mr. Speed would prefer to have it delivered."

Mrs. Ervine said: "Perhaps Mr. Speed doesn't take the Times, either."

Speed looked across to Clare with a humorous twist of the corners of the mouth and said: "You can book me an order for the Telegraph if you like, Miss Harrington."

"With pleasure, Mr. Speed. Any Sunday paper?"

"The Observer, if you will be so kind."

"Right."

Again the Doctor seemed to fear that he had given Speed a wrong impression of Miss Harrington. "I'm sure Mr. Speed will be interested to know that your father is a great littérateur, Clare."

Clare gave the Doctor a curious look, with one corner of her upper lip tilted at an audacious upward angle.

The Doctor went on, leaning his elbows on the table as soon as Potter had removed his soup-plate: "Mr. Harrington is the author of books on ethics."

All this time Helen had not spoken a word. Speed had been watching her, for she was already to him by far the most interesting member of the party. He noticed that her eyes were constantly shifting between Clare and anyone whom Clare was addressing; Clare seemed almost the centre of her world. When Clare smiled she smiled also, and when Clare was pensive there came into her eyes a look which held, besides pensiveness, a touch of sadness. She was an extremely beautiful girl and in the yellow light the coils of her hair shone like sheaves of golden corn on a summer's day. It was obvious that, conversationally at any rate, she was extremely shy.

Mrs. Ervine was saying: "You're going to take the music, Mr. Speed, are you not?"

Speed smiled and nodded.

She went on: "Then I suppose you're fond of music."

"Doesn't it follow?" Speed answered, with a laugh.

She replied pertly: "Not necessarily at all, Mr. Speed. Do you play an instrument?"

"The piano a little."

The Head interposed with: "Um, yes—a wonderful instrument. We must have some music after dinner, eh, Lydia?—Do you like Mendelssohn?" (He gave the word an exaggeratedly German pronunciation.) "My daughter plays some of the—um—the Lieder ohne Wörte—um, yes—the Songs Without Words, you know."

"I like some of Mendelssohn," said Speed.

He looked across at the girl. She was blushing furiously, with her eyes still furtively on Clare.