Читать книгу Tinker's Leave - Maurice Baring - Страница 3

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Although Miles Consterdine was twenty-seven, he had never been to Paris till this Easter. He had lived with his Aunt Fanny, in Regent’s Park, for half the year, with the exception of the Easter, summer and Christmas holidays, which were spent at the Manor House, Wheatham, in Norfolk.

His Aunt Fanny thought that Paris was a dangerous place for boys, and she still regarded Miles as a child.

Miles’ father, John Consterdine, had been a wine merchant. He used to spend the greater part of the year in Madeira, where he had considerable business interests. He visited a younger brother, Joseph, in England, every year in the summer, and stayed until the partridge-shooting was over. Joseph was his partner in the wine business.

John Consterdine was the embodiment of everything that is English and conservative: in politics a Liberal, a Free-Trader, and the rigid upholder of the traditions of many generations of Consterdines, who had carried on the wine business and handed it down from father to son from the eighteenth century.

He was a well-known figure in Madeira, and used to be pointed out to tourists as the leading English citizen. You noticed him at once, dressed in a grey frock-coat, a buff Holland waistcoat, and a Panama hat. There was something reassuring about his steady grey eyes, his white whiskers, his cool, firm hand, and his massive walking-stick.

He could speak with authority on timber, flowers (roses especially), claret, and Trafalgar sherry (pronounced by him Trafflegar). He quoted Horace. He never smoked; he was afraid of blunting his palate.

He had married the only daughter of a Norfolk squire. By this marriage the Consterdines, who were already prosperous, became still more so, as Euphemia Dene (called Effie for short) was an heiress. She was not beautiful, except on horseback, but she had a vague, detached fascination that nobody could account for.

She was killed in a hunting accident when Miles was four years old. Miles was the only son. He spent the first years of his childhood in Madeira; afterwards he retained the haziest memories of the place. When he went to school, he stayed in England for good, with his Uncle Joseph and his Aunt Fanny, and spent his holidays at his uncle’s comfortable Queen Anne country-house.

As soon as Miles was born, it was settled that he should go into the business, which he would eventually become the head of. His Uncle Joseph had no children; even if he had had sons, they would not have preceded Miles in the Consterdine business hierarchy.

John Consterdine died while Miles was still at a private school (at Worthing), and Joseph Consterdine became the head of the firm. Joseph was a more subdued edition of his elder brother. He had not needed the climate of Madeira to attenuate him and to increase his distaste for making a decision.

Fanny Consterdine (née Summerfield) was one of a large family. She came from Dorsetshire. She had fresh, healthy looks. She was sensible, practical, and full of energy. She held strong opinions on all subjects, and had no patience with people who disagreed with her. She was a Conservative, and she admitted a particular shade of High Church opinion, which was not ritualistic. She had no patience with ritualists; but she would not speak to a Nonconformist. She went to church on Saints’ Days as well as on Sundays. She allowed no card-playing nor theatre-going on Ascension Day and other festivals of the Church. In Lent she indulged in an orgy of extra services and sermons. She was fond of the country. She was an admirable housekeeper, and she made excellent jam. She had a breezy sense of humour. She was devoted to Miles, and she determined to manage his life for him and to see that he came to no harm. It was thought necessary that he should go to a public school. His uncle wanted to send him to Harrow, but Aunt Fanny thought the Headmaster’s views on Church matters were too broad. Eton was considered too sophisticated; Winchester too “rough.” “Miles,” Aunt Fanny said, “must learn French and German, as he will one day be head of the firm. He ought to go somewhere where there is a Modern side.” Aunt Fanny decided it should be Westminster. There was a Modern side there, but only the duffers belonged to it. He could thus live at home, and home influence would be maintained, while he would still enjoy all the advantages of school life.

Miles had been taught a little French in Madeira; his mother’s maid was Swiss; but he soon forgot it at school, although French was, of course, taught there. When he was eighteen, it was clear that he knew no French; and Aunt Fanny said that something must be done about it. It was one of the traditions of the Consterdine family that French, and if possible German, even Spanish, should be learnt in the interests not only of culture, but of business. There was a tradition in the family that Miles’ father could speak Portuguese, but he had never been heard to say a Portuguese word, even in Madeira, except once by accident, and that was Spanish, and would perhaps have been better unsaid.

Miles had just reached his eighteenth year when his uncle and aunt thought it necessary to migrate to Madeira for the winter. Aunt Fanny was concerned about Joseph’s bronchial catarrh. They went there, and the London branch of the firm was left in charge of Ernest Saxby, Joseph Consterdine’s junior partner.

Miles was the problem. He had to live in London. Saxby was married, and had a large family and a small house at Wimbledon. There was no room for Miles. Miles was a day-boarder at Westminster, and his aunt and uncle now wished to find a home for him in London, and to improve his French. The problem seemed likely to prove insoluble. Mrs. Consterdine thought she would consult Mr. Spark, the crammer who had passed generations of young men into the Foreign Office and the Diplomatic Service. Several of her cousins had passed through his hands.

Mr. Spark received Mrs. Consterdine with respect, and was relieved to find that she did not expect him to find an appointment for her nephew at one of the European Embassies, without further ado. He thought for a moment, and then he said he knew of something which would meet the case. His French lecturer—one of his French lecturers—M. Mourieux, lived with his wife permanently in London. They had a house in Delamere Terrace, and they took in one or two boarders, pupils who attended Mr. Spark’s establishment; candidates either for the Foreign Office or the Diplomatic Service, who wished to practise colloquial French, and have an opportunity for talking it at meals. M. Mourieux was a charming and cultivated man. The pupils liked him, and Madame Mourieux was a sensible woman who “looked after the boys.” Mr. Spark looked knowingly at Aunt Fanny as he said this.

M. Mourieux was in the building at the time, and Mr. Spark sent for him and introduced him to Mrs. Consterdine. Mrs. Consterdine’s French was untainted by any affectation about accent; it was—when you got used to it—intelligible. She was delighted with M. Mourieux, who was a frail, distinguished, bearded Frenchman, with a certain mouselike look, an elegant phraseology, and manners which soothed Mrs. Consterdine. Her accentuation distressed him; he couldn’t help—not a wince, but the shadow of a shiver, whenever she dealt with the diphthong “oi.”

M. Mourieux happened to have a vacancy. He had already two pupils in the house, but there was room for a third. He would be delighted to take in young M. Consterdine. The matter was settled, and Miles moved to Delamere Terrace as soon as his uncle and aunt went back to Madeira.

As soon as they reached Madeira, Joseph Consterdine found the climate suited him so well that he became disinclined to move, and he stayed in Madeira all through the summer. He seemed to be spell-bound by the place, and he lost all desire, not only of returning to England, but of doing anything at all, except entertaining visitors in the charming house that had belonged to his brother.

So Miles, during his eighteenth year, lived at M. Mourieux’ house and learnt a certain amount of French.

M. Mourieux shed rather than imparted the language; it was for you to pick it up or not, as you liked.

Besides Miles, there were in the house other pupils who were being coached for the Foreign Office and the Diplomatic Service examinations. They all went to Spark’s chambers in Gower Street every day, and they were engrossed in the life of that place. They looked upon Miles as stupid, and he, being shy, withdrew into his shell and led his own life. M. Mourieux was pleased with his work, which he said showed signs of promise.

When Miles was nineteen it was settled that he should not go to a University, but straight into the “House,” as all the other Consterdines had done before him. He was to begin in the London house as a clerk, at the lowest rung of the ladder. His commercial career had only lasted a year, and he was only just twenty, when his Uncle Joseph died in Madeira. His Aunt Fanny came home, and Miles moved from the Mourieux’ to Regent’s Park. During these two years Miles had lived en pension at the Mourieux’. Pupils had come and pupils had gone, all of them from Spark’s; some of them had passed into the Diplomatic Service or the Foreign Office; others had left London and gone to families in France or Germany. Miles had lived with them, met them most nights at dinner; but during this epoch he had only made one friend, a certain Geoffrey Haseltine, who was working for the Civil Service, and ultimately became a clerk in one of the Government offices. He walked every day to Spark’s, either alone or with Haseltine, and walked back every evening. On Sunday mornings he went to church with his Aunt Fanny, and did the acrostic in Saturday’s Vanity Fair.

His City life was no different. He did his work conscientiously. But he made no friends, although his fellow-clerks and his seniors were all of them prepared to like him. He was civil and considerate, and obviously without a shadow of pretension.

With the death of his uncle he became the head of the firm, but it was arranged that Saxby should have control until Miles came of age. Except that he lived with his Aunt Fanny, this made little difference to the tenour of Miles’ life. He went to the City every day by bus, and came back every evening by Underground. His only friends were M. and Madame Mourieux, whom he would occasionally visit, and Haseltine, whom he saw on Sundays.

It was suggested more than once by Saxby, his partner, that Miles should go to Madeira. Miles assented to the proposal, but nothing came of it, and life went on as before.

His affairs were managed entirely by his Aunt Fanny, who still treated him as a child.

Miles grew up to be tall. By the time he came of age—an event which made no difference in his mode of life—he looked slightly overgrown. He had inherited his father’s grey eyes—but in Miles they were softer and bluer, his mother’s delicate pink-and-white skin and her fair hair. He was bashful, and never spoke unless he was spoken to. He would blush scarlet if suddenly addressed. The society of girls made him speechless, and especially that of his cousins, who were invited every year by Aunt Fanny to spend Christmas at Wheatham. This would have been a period of misery for Miles, had he not somewhat ingeniously made for himself avenues of escape. He was fond of riding, and he had inherited his mother’s competent hands and easy horsemanship. He spent all his days in the saddle, and when he was not hunting, he would go out for long solitary rides. He thus managed to avoid, to a certain extent, the boisterous society of his numerous cousins. He had a den, too, at Wheatham, a sitting-room of his own, to which he would retire and read books. He was, in the matter of literature, entirely self-educated. By going on the Modern side at school, much against the advice of the headmaster, who in vain had tried to turn Aunt Fanny from her purpose, he had not learnt Greek, and he had not learnt German. He had picked up a considerable amount of French from M. Mourieux, and he had read a great many books, without system or plan, so that his education had bright spots of intensity and large gaps.

He read what he came across, and made no effort to search for new fields, to improve his mind or to widen his views. He took literature as he took life, as it came. Reading and books had played up to the present only a small part in his life. But he had one engrossing and all-absorbing hobby—photography. He had, so his Aunt Fanny said, a real talent for photography. And besides the pleasure it gave him to experiment, he thoroughly enjoyed the hours he would spend in the dark-room; for this was, too, an avenue of escape, and perhaps the best of all.

He was fond of his Aunt Fanny, and relied on her opinion absolutely. He took her views on people as gospel; he accepted her religion and her philosophy without inquiring into them—and, moreover, she amused him. She was sane, sensible, and shrewd; brisk too, and gay.

She, on her part, had determined eventually to steer Miles into the safe harbour of matrimony. But he was not, she decided, to marry until he was thirty. She would find him a wife. So their lives had passed uneventfully, regularly, pleasantly, and calmly. Miles had met several eligible girls at Wheatham and at Regent’s Park, but, although not unsusceptible, he had remained fancy-free. The only romantic dreams he had so far had centred round figures far removed from Aunt Fanny’s ken—stars of the stage, and stray brief encounters with lesser luminaries. But nothing permanent had come of such dreams or encounters.

Aunt Fanny was easy on that score. Nothing unexpected had marred the perfect smoothness of life at Regent’s Park and at Wheatham until Miles’ twenty-seventh birthday was about to be celebrated. It was then that Miles threw a bombshell into his Aunt Fanny’s life by announcing to her one morning at breakfast, without any preparation, just as he might have said he was going for a walk in the Zoological Gardens on Sunday, that he intended this year to spend his Easter holidays in Paris.

“By yourself?” asked Aunt Fanny, when she had recovered her breath.

“Yes,” said Miles, “by myself.”