Читать книгу Mr Weston's Good Wine - T. F. Powys - Страница 11

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Mr. Weston looked up at the sky. He could never admire enough the ingenious electric contrivance, invented by a member of the firm of Messrs. Weston and Company, that could write so ably his name and business upon the dull blackness above.

Mr. Weston regarded the sky for some moments in silence, but some thoughts that evidently amused him were passing in his mind, for now and again he chuckled, and once he nodded, and once he shook his head. In a few moments, however, the subject of his contemplation became known.

‘Michael,’ he said, with a smile, ‘you have awakened in me a rather surprising and altogether unexpected interest in women.’

Michael bowed.

‘I fear that I haven’t given to them, and especially to the younger and more beautiful, all the study that they deserve. I have always considered women—and I am afraid that I make this only too clear in my book—as being very far inferior to man in purchasing power. But since I saw Miss Gipps go by our car at Maidenbridge and read the name upon it, I have felt that even besides Miss Gipps, there may be others who would spend their means upon good wine if their worldly fortunes allowed of it.

‘As you well know, the kind of visit that we are now paying we may be excused for regarding as a little holiday from our more strenuous affairs, and ever since you have begun to tell me so many things of interest about one young woman in Folly Down, you have made me extremely desirous to know more. The surprising ignorance, in the matter of taste and tasting, that some of our men whom we employ upon the road blame women for must be exaggerated, and it may still be possible to teach some of the younger ones the right and proper use of our good wine.

‘Most of the ignorance and foolish behaviour no doubt comes from the fact that, only a little time ago, all women were merely the slaves to the cooking-pots. Under such culinary conditions, it is most natural that a true and proper taste for the best should be wanting, and that their only pleasure in life, poor creatures, was to spice the broth, out of which a few hulking brothers or husbands might wish to drink, with a lovely little fungus, like a red blood-drop. I believe’—Mr. Weston smiled—‘my poetry has improved the female intelligence, but even now they hardly understand the importance of a cool cellar.’

‘They like the oak-tree bed better,’ said Michael.

‘And we mustn’t blame them,’ remarked Mr. Weston. ‘But the tree reminds me—— You mentioned Jenny Bunce. I should consider it a kindness if you would tell me a little about her.’

‘Jenny is a true country maiden,’ said Michael. ‘She is seventeen years old. She is just the girl for an honest man to desire, and our best wine is not more delicious than she.’

‘Hush, Michael,’ whispered Mr. Weston; ‘you must not say so.’

‘Her young body,’ said Michael, who was no way abashed by the reproof, ‘is as plump as a robin’s, and her eyes look so naughtily into yours when you meet her that it’s near impossible to refuse their asking. She has a delightfully soft skin, golden-brown hair, and she always sleeps hidden under the bed-clothes. But even though her eyes are so merry, Jenny Bunce is no wanton, and her whole idea of happiness in this life, and in the life to come, is to have a cottage of her own and to be married to a good man.’

‘And against this charming girl,’ said Mr. Weston, ‘an evil plot has been laid.’

‘Yes; Mrs. Vosper has laid the snare,’ replied Michael. ‘This woman has so often seen the Kiddles used in a natural manner—and, indeed, these maids have ever been a little too willing—that she is satisfied that all is over with them, and now has a mind to see a girl forced, and Mr. Grunter, the supposed lover of Folly Down, blamed for the deed. Mrs. Vosper has the greatest dislike—an inherent dislike—of her own sex, until they grow old enough to be as vindictive as she. Her jealousy has charged her heart with a bitter cruelty, and she goes the way of her kind in having her revenge. Could she see a young girl’s beauty clawed and rifled by a company of baboons she would be completely happy, but still she has the good fortune to see that her labours, undertaken in such a good cause, are not altogether in vain.

‘She has much on her side, for country men have often grosser manners and less feeling than any orang-outang in an African forest, and Mrs. Vosper believes that a girl’s unchastity is the shortest road to despair. She enjoys herself very finely in this manner, being regarded by her husband as a very notable woman, and he, good man—while her front-room doings give her all the sport she wishes for—remains munching his bread and cheese, in all peace and happiness, in the wood-shed, resting himself upon a bag of rotten potatoes.’

‘Has Jane Vosper,’ enquired Mr. Weston, with a sigh, ‘always ministered to the needs of the young in this generous manner?’

‘As a young girl,’ said Michael, ‘she would walk of an evening demurely round the green, holding her head modestly and looking down at the daisies. But, if any man saw her, she would wander on, taking a turn or two more, and then, with perfect frankness of demeanour, lie down in the oak-tree bed.’

‘Country manners,’ said Mr. Weston, laughing.

‘She lay down under the tree once too often, and had it not been for John Vosper, honest man! who took her to church, unpleasant things might have been said.

‘She is now too old for such amusements, and is most anxious that from what she got gain by—for she caught a man—others should receive only woe. Mrs. Vosper is now a matron in years, and she never speaks to any young girl without introducing into the conversation a certain subject that always causes the young creature that she talks with to become eagerly inquisitive and very thirsty.’

‘Ha!’ exclaimed Mr. Weston. ‘We supply a wine that will quench that thirst.’

‘Some are nervous,’ said Michael, ‘in such matters, and some are almost too eager; and, if you will believe me, sir, there is no pleasant drink that is more hampered with all kinds of difficulties—and even with serious dangers—than this particular wine that you have mentioned as being very suitable to cool a young girl’s desire.

‘All about the world there are a large number of men paid to preach—though, to do them justice, they hardly ever heed their own words—against the use of this wine. Indeed, they say that it is no better than poison. It is sneered at, and its effects scorned, so that it brings the victim to contempt and degradation. Mrs. Vosper’s idea that this wine is the road to ruin is justified by fact. And, indeed, if this were not so, the good lady would hardly recommend it so kindly to the girls.’

Mr. Weston meditated in silence for some moments. He raised both his hands and moved them before him, as if he covered all Folly Down with them.

‘Many have belied our good wine,’ he said slowly, ‘and it is certainly strange that even those who should know my book the best have the poorest opinion of what we sell. I could give you, Michael, a few quotations—But you’re cold, Michael! then I will not trouble you.—I will content myself by saying that, in all the careful process of the making of our wine, from the moving of the sods in our great vineyard, no plan has been overlooked, no new and improved system left untried, no expense or labour spared, to perfect its qualities, so that our wine may be a suitable drink for all conditions of men.’

‘And women,’ murmured Michael.

‘But,’ said Mr. Weston, who, being an honest tradesman, really believed in his own wares, ‘although we are very glad to see so many take an interest in, and wish to taste, our light and less heady vintages, that are fittest to drink—and there are many who know this—in any gentle and green valley about the time of evening, yet there is still a lack of those who order our strongest and oldest wine that brings to the buyer a lasting contentment, and eases his heart for ever from all care and torment.’

Mr. Weston touched his forehead. He was trying to recollect something that his last remark had partly brought to his mind.

‘Michael,’ he said tenderly, ‘did we not once sell a bottle of our rarest wine, that never sees the light of day, to a young creature called Ada, who used to live in Folly Down?’

‘We did indeed,’ said Michael, ‘though I am surprised that you should have remembered her. Ada was the eldest of the Kiddles. A smiling and a happy girl, she could dance and leap like a fawn; her eyes were a deep blue, and her hair as shining as gold. Ada always had a great love for babies. She went out one night in a snowstorm and brought home a lost lamb that had strayed to the downs and was caught in a thicket—but Ada didn’t escape Mrs. Vosper.’

‘Ha!’ exclaimed Mr. Weston, ‘I never expected Mrs. Vosper to help us to sell our wine.’

‘She certainly gave us her aid in the matter of this bottle,’ said Michael coolly, ‘for when, one fine day, Mrs. Vosper was helping to turn the hay in the Kiddles’ meadow, Ada worked with her and listened to her conversation.

‘Ada worked merrily, and chattered too, and as her frock was unfastened and disclosed her growing maidenhood, Mrs. Vosper was given the opportunity of watching her, and wishing her ravished and dead.

‘ “And which of the Mumbys do you like best?” asked Ada, as they worked.

‘ “Martin be the one for I,” Mrs. Vosper made answer, “for I did once see ’e bathing naked in a little brook; ’is skin be white, and ’e ’ave fine strong legs”—Mrs. Vosper sniggered and looked knowingly at Ada.

‘The fair midsummer day turned to evening; the swallows had fed their second batch of hungry, open mouths, and were tired of flying in and out of Mr. Mumby’s cart-shed; the evening gnats hung in the air as if painted upon it, and Mrs. Vosper and Ada Kiddle stood with a young man under the oak tree.

‘They stood near to one another, there in the slow-dying and coloured light of a summer’s evening. At this time and season, more than any other, a vision of living beauty, a fair being of delight moves in the twilight. This presence can only be known and loved—for it casts a deep peace around it—by those minds’—(‘inspired by our wine,’ suggested Mr. Weston)—‘that are freed from all gross and carnal thoughts and imaginings, and that can merge and deliver themselves into the hand of eternal beauty. Upon such an evening even the Creator of the universe can wish to forget Himself for a season and be born again, in the exquisite loveliness of one lonely daisy.’

‘And would that He might so forget Himself!’ said Mr. Weston sadly.

‘Mrs. Vosper told some merry tales,’ observed Michael. ‘And soon Martin, who wore riding-breeches, took Ada, whose white frock had pleased him, upon his knees. Mrs. Vosper pretended to leave them. Ada escaped, too, for the moment, and the summer stars shone out....’

‘And what happened next?’ asked Mr. Weston.

‘Why, you yourself recollected what happened,’ replied Michael, ‘for no sooner had the fierce winter gales shaken off the last of the leaves from the Folly Down oak, and laid a dead bough across the mossy bed, than Ada Kiddle forwarded to us her request for a bottle of our blackest and strongest wine.’

‘I hope she enclosed the price of the bottle with her order?’ asked Mr. Weston anxiously.

‘She certainly did,’ replied Michael, ‘she sent more than she need have done; and when they took her out of Mr. Mumby’s pond—Ada had been missing three days—she had our receipted bill upon her, as well as the freedom of our hidden cellar, that we always enclose with a bottle of this wine; so we can demand no more of her.’

‘We will visit Ada’s grave,’ said Mr. Weston gravely, ‘for I always remember a good customer.’