Читать книгу Memoirs of a Fox-hunting Man - Siegfried Sassoon - Страница 17

Table of Contents

As a rule I was inclined to be stand-offish about children’s parties, though there weren’t many in our part of the world. There was to be a dance at Mrs. Shotney’s the next Friday, and I wasn’t looking forward to it much until my aunt told me that she had heard from Mrs. Cofferdam that Lady Dumborough was going to be there with a large party of jolly young people. “So perhaps you’ll see your little hunting friend again,” she added.

“He’s not little; he looks about two years older than me,” I retorted huffily, and at once regretted my stupidity. ‘My hunting friend!’ I had been allowing her to assume that we had ‘made friends’ out hunting. And when we were at the party she would be sure to find out that he didn’t know me. But perhaps he wouldn’t be there after all. Whereupon I realized that I should be bitterly disappointed if he wasn’t.

At seven o’clock on Friday we set off in the village fly. While we jolted along in that musty smelling vehicle with its incessantly rattling windows I was anxious and excited. These feelings were augmented by shyness and gawkiness by the time I had entered the ballroom, which was full of antlers and old armour. Standing by myself in a corner I fidgetted with my gloves. Now and again I glanced nervously round the room. Sleek-haired little boys in Eton jackets were engaging themselves for future dances with pert little girls in short frocks. Shyness was being artificially dispelled by solicitous ladies, one of whom now swooped down on me and led me away to be introduced to equally unenterprising partners. The room was filling up, and I was soon jostling and bumping round with a demure little girl in a pink dress, while the local schoolmaster, a solemn man with a walrus moustache, thrummed out ‘The Blue Danube’ on an elderly upright piano, reinforced by a squeaky violinist who could also play the cornet; he often did it at village concerts, so my partner informed me, biting her lip as someone trod on her foot. Steering my clumsy course round the room, I wondered whether Lady Dumborough had arrived yet.

There was Aunt Evelyn, talking to Mrs. Shotney. She certainly didn’t look half bad when you compared her with other people. And old Squire Maundle, nodding and smiling by the door, as he watched his little grand-daughter twirling round and round with a yellow ribbon in her hair. And General FitzAlan with his eyeglass—he looked a jolly decent old chap.... He’d been in the Indian Mutiny.... The music stopped and the dancers disappeared in quest of claret-cup and lemonade. “I wonder what sort of ices there are,” speculated my partner. There was a note of intensity in her voice which was new to me.