Читать книгу Spinster of This Parish - W. B. Maxwell - Страница 5

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MISS VERINDER’S reasons were as follows: In the year 1895, when Queen Victoria still reigned upon the throne, when people still talked of the London season and described it as being good or bad, a brilliant season or a dull season, Emmeline Verinder was living very comfortably with her parents in one of the largest houses of Prince’s Gate. Then, unexpectedly and for the first time, she and love bowed, touched hands, and made acquaintance. The thing came upon her like a thunder-clap.

It began on a June evening just before midnight; and Mr. Verinder, her father, thinking afterwards of that summer night, used to feel a kind of warm prickly irritation, as though one of Destiny’s invisible imps was teasing the back of his stout neck with stinging nettles. It might have happened anyhow, but he could not banish the annoying recollection that he himself had assisted in getting it started. When his wife placidly asked whether the effort was worth while, it was he who had decided that, having accepted the invitation, they must certainly go to Mrs. Clutton’s musical party.

And he had said so not truly because he desired to go, but because of vague, almost organic sensations which told him that if you are a well-preserved man of sixty who is also a personage of a certain importance, who lives in Prince’s Gate, with plenty of money, horses, carriages, an ample ornate wife, one charming beautifully dressed single daughter, and another daughter, married, but now staying on a visit under your roof—when you find yourself so situated and so surrounded, there is something inadequate and unimpressive if you go to bed at eleven o’clock in the height of the London season.

They went, then, the four of them; he, Mrs. Verinder, Emmeline, and Margaret Pratt, her married sister—down the newly-named Exhibition Road, round the corner to one of the largest houses in the Cromwell Road. There would have been space in the closed landau for Eustace, the son and brother; he could have sat between Emmeline and Margaret; but he was attending a banquet as the guest of a city company.

There had been a dinner-party at Mrs. Clutton’s and the Verinders with many others were asked for the music. The concluding strains of Tosti’s Good-Bye floated down the staircase to meet them as they entered the inner hall, through which Mr. Verinder’s ladies swept onward to some library or boudoir at the back of the building, now organised as a place for depositing velvet coats and feathered wraps. Mr. Verinder, having been relieved of his coat and opera hat, stood waiting for them—large, grey-headed, dignified, and yet urbane, exchanging suave civilities with other prosperous ladies and gentlemen, who had arrived just before him. It was a typical evening party of the period—awning, drugget, and linkmen outside; inside, a full pressure on the electric light; large palms, together with masses of flowers brought in for the occasion; extraneous help also in the dining-room, now set as a brilliant supper scene; the servants of the house obliterated, or, at least, standing back behind the numerous grave hirelings in white waistcoats, who, but for their solemnity, might so easily have been mistaken for some of Mrs. Clutton’s visitors.

It should be noted that at this period the neighbourhood still had a distinct society of its own; not, of course, because the antiquated country custom of calling on one another merely as neighbours was practised by its residents, but because this modern spacious end of the town, with no traditions earlier than the Prince Consort, seemed to have been planned and constructed for a particular class of which the members were likely to foregather—fairly rich prosperous people, eminently respectable if somewhat colourless people; merchants, bankers, judges of the High Court, Queen’s counsel of the Parliamentary bar, heads of departments in the civil service; here and there a doctor who had been made a baronet, a successful recently knighted architect, a chartered accountant doing government work, and so on. These and their families meddled not at all, in the year 1895, with fashion and aristocracy; punctual in the regulation attendance at drawing-rooms and levées, but bringing no influence to bear in order to secure command for state concerts and balls; prompt with bouquet or curtsey when a princess opened one of their bazaars, but never fawning on the lady-in-waiting with hints that it would be a pleasure as well as an honour if her Royal Highness would come to luncheon one day, at number so-and-so Prince’s Gardens; they felt and were sufficient for themselves. Untempted by the lure of a vanishing Bohemia, they did not traffic either with artistic circles; they bought pictures and read books without desiring to know the creators of such amenities; they enjoyed the play, but thought a row of footlights a very sensible, useful barrier between comedians of both sexes and the rest of the world.

Thus Mr. Verinder found himself immediately among his friends, and soon learned of something a little unusual about to-night’s assembly. Anthony Dyke, the famous explorer, was here. He had dined here, and was now upstairs listening to the music.

“Oh, that fellow,” said Mr. Verinder. “What a fuss they’re making about him. You see his name everywhere. By the way, I rather thought he was booked to dine with the Salmon-Curers’ Company this evening. My son went there, quite expecting to have a peep at him.”

But old Sir Timothy Smith, given a knighthood last Christmas for designing the market-hall of a northern city, assured Mr. Verinder that the great man had dined with Mrs. Clutton and no one else.

“Refresh my memory about him,” said Mr. Verinder. “I remember the Antarctic voyages. But what’s his latest?”

“Well, nothing since that astounding performance in the Andes.”

“Some of that has been questioned, hasn’t it? Travellers’ tales, what!” said Mr. Verinder, with a large tolerant smile. “Ah, there you are, my dear.”

Mrs. Verinder, sailing forth splendidly from the cloak-room, was at his elbow.

“Dyke, the explorer, is here,” she said.

“Yes, so Sir Timothy was telling me. Lead on, my dear.”

And Mrs. Verinder led on, broad but splendid still in the back-view, carrying her train with a stout round forearm, followed by the grand young married lady and the slim demurely graceful girl, and lastly by Mr. Verinder. As they went upstairs, the music took a classical turn—a turn for the worse, Mr. Verinder considered.

After an ill-timed stentorian announcement, they were received in the midst of a few hushes, with silent cordiality by Mrs. Clutton. She was amiable and friendly as ever, leading Mrs. Verinder to a seat when the music stopped, but a little nervous or self-conscious by reason of the presence of the lion of the season.

“Yes, the big man leaning against the wall.”

It would have been impossible to make any mistake. You could not see him without recognising him—since his portrait had become so familiar in the illustrated newspapers, as well as on the cover of that remarkable book of his. And seeing him you could scarcely help struggling hard to form a clear conception of what the man really might be.

In size he was very big, but looking still bigger than the true iron frame of him because of his loose garments—and one thought at once that of course he hated all confinements and restrictions, even those entailed by well-cut neatly-fitting clothes; with dark hair, blue eyes, a reddish beard, and shoulders that seemed too heavy; of enormous energy, the fire or lust for effort that seems incomprehensibly to renew itself in the grossest excesses of gratification; explosive and uncontrollable, as men like him must always be, but with that curious streak of softness, even of sentimentality, which goes sometimes with such characters. Just as he looked bigger than his size, he looked older than his years; but this impression may have been derived less from the marks and tints left upon him by tempest and strife than from the known record of his achievements. It was difficult to believe that he had done so much and yet was only thirty-seven. Above all else, unavoidably confusing judgment and driving one back to intuitions, there was a glamour cast about him by the deeply proved quality of courage—a glamour, it should be remembered, very much more rare and therefore very much more potent and alluring then than now.

“Did you hear him laugh?”

Everybody was whispering about him, thinking of him, ostentatiously taking no notice of him—except the privileged few who from time to time were being presented to him.

After twenty minutes or so Mrs. Clutton introduced Mr. Verinder to him, and they seemed to get on well together. Mr. Verinder, pleased to show that he knew a good deal of geography, asked intelligent questions, and felt flattered by the adventurer’s eager expansive manner of giving full details in reply. Though he made you feel small physically, he did not make you feel small mentally. He said it was pleasant to be back in the old country, and agreed with Mr. Verinder that—all said and done—there was no place like London. Asked how long he intended to honour the metropolis with his presence, he laughed, and said it depended on circumstances, but he certainly should not stay more than a month or two. He was “taking the hat round,” as he explained with a laugh, trying to raise funds towards another Antarctic expedition. “The fact is, Mr. Verinder”—and Mr. Verinder was not ill-pleased to observe that his name had been picked up so quickly and correctly—“in my trade, capital is very necessary. The most successful ventures are those that are best fitted out. The more money you have behind you, the further you go.”

“I’m afraid,” said Mr. Verinder, laughing in his turn, “that that may be said of all other trades, Mr. Dyke, as well as yours; but I quite understand what you mean. Equipment. Equipment. And no doubt many risks could be minimized by foresight and wise outlay.”

Dyke became quite exuberant at finding Mr. Verinder so intelligent and sympathetic; his loud open-air voice could be heard throughout the length of Mrs. Clutton’s double drawing-room. He was giving Mr. Verinder more and more details, with a child-like enthusiasm, and he would not stop when the music began again. No one dared say hush to him, but the decorum of Mr. Verinder’s manner gradually restrained him. In regard to such interruptions, he pleased Mr. Verinder most of all by declaring that this music was incomprehensible to him—over his head; and at once concurring in Mr. Verinder’s opinion that a ballad concert at the Albert Hall was the real stuff, and laughing most heartily when Mr. Verinder said that a just finished arrangement of Bach for the violin and piano might, in the popular phrase, have been the tune the old cow died of. Then, their relations having reached this very cordial stage, Anthony Dyke said abruptly—“I’m a fish out of water here. I wonder if by chance you could tell me the name of that girl over there.”

“Which one?” asked Mr. Verinder.

“That one,” said Dyke, not of course pointing with his hand in an uncouth manner, but only making slight yet significant signs with his dark eyebrows and blue eyes. “Now—the one using her fan. I’d like to get somebody to introduce me to her.”

“I can supply the information, and gratify your wish,” said Mr. Verinder, in a tone so urbane that it was robbed of any pompousness. “She is my daughter.”

“Oh, really!” said Dyke, suddenly staring at him as if he didn’t believe it. Then he laughed once more, but not loudly, shyly. “I hope it didn’t sound odd my saying that. From living alone so much, I bang out whatever comes into my mind. You must look on me as the untutored savage and make excuses for me.”

“None are necessary,” said Mr. Verinder.

Emmeline, on the other side of the room, was engaged in conversation with their friend Mrs. Bell, whose house was one of the biggest in Queen’s Gate. Her father beckoned her; and as she did not observe the signal, went across to fetch her, bringing her back with him and feeling proud of her as something that belonged to him and did him credit. Indeed, the circumstance that in a room full of other well-dressed women she had drawn the attention of this simple middle-aged wanderer, seemed a compliment to the whole family.

He thought that she looked very nice as she stood there smiling, after Mr. Dyke shook hands; so modest and quiet, so essentially ladylike, so completely everything he would have wished; her eyes shining, and a little colour in her usually rather pale cheeks, brought there from the excitement caused by meeting a really celebrated person; but with no shyness or awkwardness perceptible in voice or manner—just a raising of the arched eyebrows above the straight well-cut nose and that frank smile about the sweetly gentle mouth in order to show courteous interest in everything that was being said. The cream satin dress, too, with the silver and pearl ornamentation straight across the bodice, the shoulder puffs, the long white gloves, and the enormous fan, were all exactly the right thing, all very becoming. Mr. Verinder liked also, now that he considered the matter, this method of arranging the dark hair—quite low on the forehead and ascending beneath bands of gold ribbon to a high crest, brushed up from the back of her neck, as you saw when she turned round, and secured by a broad jewelled comb. This, the very latest mode, suited Emmeline. She had plenty of hair. Her father felt well satisfied with Emmeline’s appearance.

They all three remained talking together, and Dyke would not relinquish the father and daughter when his hostess came and made further introductions. He drew the new people into the talk or let them slide altogether, but he hung on to the other two, moving with them if they moved. Mr. Verinder had a good-humoured gratified feeling that the lion had taken to him, and natural fierceness had disappeared in impulsive affection; it was, so to speak, a tame lion following him about, ready to eat out of his hand. But lionising, like everything else in a well-regulated world, must have its limits; you cannot neglect your duties at an evening party to gratify a stranger’s hunger for your society, however famous that stranger may be. Mr. Verinder wished to rejoin his wife, and, using tact, he extricated himself. Yet his tact was not sufficient to extricate Emmeline as well.

One saw them standing together on the staircase, and later they were sitting together in a remote corner of the supper-room; he still telling her wonderful things, so that one heard the boom of his eager tones and the sound of her pretty girlish voice chiming in—a flute helping, not interrupting the ’cello or the bigger reeds. “Oh, but how exciting that must have been! Did you really, Mr. Dyke? What presence of mind.”

When Mrs. Verinder with Margaret broke up the chat and said it was time to go, Emmeline gave a little start and looked at her as if for the moment she did not recognize her; then, as if remembering, she made the traveller known to her.

In the carriage, going up Exhibition Road, Mr. Verinder praised him. He said that he was a breezy, open hearted, engaging creature, and he would like to ask him to dinner. Get a few friends to meet him, what?

Mrs. Verinder said, “He has asked Margaret and Emmeline to tea to-morrow at Hurlingham. They could give him a message.”

“Oh,” said Mr. Verinder, “has he asked you two girls out for a little treat? Well, that’s very kind and friendly of him.”

At this date the dinner-party was still an unshaken British institution, a stately serious affair in any circumstances, like matrimony, not to be entered into lightly, and when conducted on the grand scale habitual to Prince’s Gate, all preliminaries needed thoughtful care. For the minute of time before the horses pulled up, Mr. and Mrs. Verinder were both turning things over in their minds.

To all of them, as they entered the hall, there came that vague and usually unanalysed sensation which most people experience on returning home from a party; it is a faint shock of surprise caused by the silence and tranquillity after the noise and commotion; as if, because you have been hearing music, chattering, drinking wine, getting warm in a crowd, you expect your house to show that it has also passed through slight agitation and excitement. For a moment you are consciously or unconsciously displeased that it should have been quite unconcerned in anything that concerned you so much; then the solidness of the fact seems to steady your nerves and bring you comfort. Home again!

In the wisely restricted lamp-light turned on for them by the butler, one saw pallid marble nymphs and gods with black caves of shadow behind them, the squat richly carved legs of heavy tables whose further ends were lost in gloom, the gilt balustrade of the staircase glittering, and the stairs themselves rising sharply and as sharply turning till they grew dim and faded out on a level with the first floor. Above that all was dark, and one had an impression of the house stretching upward in the darkness to a fantastic height. The butler moving ahead gave them of a sudden a doorway of yellow flames, so dazzling did it seem as he switched and switched, flooding a large inner room with vivid light. They went in after him.

This room had never been properly named; it was spoken of indifferently as the boudoir, the morning-room, and mother’s room—although Mrs. Verinder herself did not put forward any claim to proprietorial rights. Probably her title to it merely rested upon the circumstance that the portrait of her by Millais had been hung above its marble chimney-piece. Like every other room in the house, it displayed evidences of moderate wealth, painstaking care, and a docile adhesion to the prevailing standards of good taste. The walls were cream-coloured, with panels of red satin—two large patches of the satin being hidden by the Millais picture and another picture of similar size but strangely different subject by Leighton. There were more of those massive heavily carved tables, some big chairs with golden legs and tapestry backs, and here and there on the parquetry floor had been placed firmly secured mounds of velvet and brocade cushions, forming the easy backless seats then known as “poufs.” These poufs had been chosen by Mrs. Verinder, and, sinking voluminously upon one of them, she gave a sign of fatigue, and stared at Millais’ notion of her as she was once. A smaller pouf would have fitted her in that first year of her married life.

Margaret, fairer, shorter, plumper, altogether more bustling than her sister, went to one of the tables, where a silver tray with cut-glass bottles and tumblers waited for them, and poured out soda-water. Mr. Verinder at another table busied himself with the bed-rock detail of his dinner-party, consulting a gold-framed calendar and jotting down names on an ivory tablet. “The Cluttons,” he murmured, “and old Sir Timothy—and the Everard-Browns.”

“Don’t forget some young men for Emmeline,” said Mrs. Pratt gaily.

“I never do,” said Mr. Verinder. And that was true. Before his time in that respect, he liked to see a few fresh young faces even at his most ceremonious feasts; moreover, as the father of daughters, he knew that one must not think only of oneself. It was at a big dinner that Lionel Pratt first betrayed his inclination towards Margaret. “I am thinking now more of the day than the company,” he continued; and he ran his pencil down the calendar. “Seventeen days will bring us to the twelfth, and that’s a Thursday. At this time of year you can’t expect people to be free unless you give them adequate notice.”

“Emmeline,” said Mrs. Verinder, yawning, “would you like young What’s-his-name—that friend of Mrs. Pryce-Jones—Gerald Something—to be asked?”

Emmeline did not answer. She was standing at the corner of the chimney-piece, one arm stretched along the marble, her cloak thrown open. Her eyes seemed queerly large and black, her cheeks white, her breathing wearily rapid; so that she had the aspect worn by her when, in the maternal phrase, she had been “overdoing it”—playing too many sets at lawn tennis, riding too long in the Row, going to too many theatres in the same week.

“There’s no occasion for you to stay up,” said Mrs. Verinder, observing this look on her daughter’s face. “You go to bed, dear”; and she added the farewell words that she had first begun to utter when Emmeline was a child of fourteen. “Don’t read in bed.”

“No, I don’t want to read to-night,” said Emmeline, going out of the room.

No, she did not want to read: she wanted to think.