Читать книгу The Passionate Year - James Hilton - Страница 9

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He went round to the front entrance of the Headmaster's house and rang the bell. It was a curious house, the result of repeated architectural patchings and additions; its ultimate incongruity had been softened and mellowed by ivy and creeper of various sorts, so that it bore the sad air of a muffled-up invalid. Potter opened the door and admitted him with stealthy precision. While he was standing in the hall and being relieved of his hat and gloves he had time to notice the Asiatic and African bric-a-brac which, scattered about the walls and tables, bore testimony to Doctor Ervine's years as a missionary in foreign fields. Then, with the same feline grace, Potter showed him into the drawing-room.

It was a moderate-sized apartment lit by heavy old-fashioned gas chandeliers, whose peculiar and continuous hissing sound emphasised the awkwardness of any gap in the conversation. A baby-grand piano, with its sound-board closed and littered with music and ornaments, and various cabinets of china and curios, were the only large articles of furniture; chairs and settees were sprinkled haphazard over the central area round the screened fireplace. As Speed entered, with Potter opening the door for him and intoning sepulchrally: "Mr. Speed," an answering creak of several of the chairs betrayed the fact that the room was occupied.

Then the Head rose out of his armchair, book of some sort in hand, and came forward with a large easy smile.

"Um, yes—Mr. Speed—so glad—um, yes—may I introduce you to my wife?—Lydia, this is Mr. Speed!"

At first glance Speed was struck with the magnificent appropriateness of the name Lydia. She was a pert little woman, obviously competent; the sort of woman who is always suspected of twisting her husband round her little finger. She was fifty if she was a day, yet she dressed with a dash of the young university blue-stocking; an imitation so insolent that one assumed either that she was younger than she looked or that some enormous brain development justified the eccentricity. She had rather sharp blue eyes that were shrewd rather than far-seeing, and her hair, energetically dyed, left one in doubt as to what colour nature had ever accorded it. At present it was a dull brown that had streaks of black and grey.

She said, in voice that though sharp was not unpretty: "I'm delighted to meet you, Mr. Speed. You must make yourself at home here, you know."

The Head murmured: "Um, yes, most certainly. At home—um, yes...Now let me introduce you to my daughter...Helen, this is—um—Mr. Speed." A girl was staring at him, and he did not then notice much more than the extreme size and brightness of her blue eyes; that, and some astonishingly vague quality that cannot be more simply described than as a sense of continually restrained movement, so that, looking with his mind's eye at everybody else in the world, he saw them suddenly grown old and decrepit. Her bright golden hair hung down her back in a rebellious cascade; that, however, gave no clue to her age. The curious serene look in her eyes was a woman's (her mother's, no doubt), while the pretty half-mocking curve of her lips was still that of a young and fantastically mischievous child. In reality she was twenty, though she looked both older and younger.

She said, in a voice so deep and sombre that Speed recoiled suddenly as though faced with something uncanny: "How are you, Mr. Speed?"

He bowed to her and said, gallantly: "Delighted to be in Millstead, Miss Ervine."

The Head murmured semi-consciously: "Um, yes, delightful place—especially in summer weather—trees, you know—beautiful to sit out on the cricket ground—um, yes, very, very beautiful indeed..."

Potter opened the door to announce that dinner was served.