Читать книгу Exile - Warwick Deeping - Страница 28
I
ОглавлениеBilly was taken unawares.
“Excuse me, I suppose you are in charge?”
Julia Lord had one of her headaches, and Maria had brought a message from the Villa Vesta. “Please carry on.” Less than a minute ago Billy had unlocked the library door, and taken Miss Lord’s chair and had opened the library ledgers, and had imagined herself alone. She had not heard anyone enter, nor had she been conscious of a presence.
She turned in her chair. Slade was standing slightly behind her, his hat in his hand, looking down at her with an air of amusement, and for the first time she saw him close. She had the impression of a very brown face, of light blue eyes that stared rather disconcertingly, of a purple tie and a blue linen collar. His hair had a waviness; it was complacent hair.
She met the stealth and the suddenness of him with a frank abruptness.
“I didn’t hear you. Yes, I’m in charge.”
He showed his teeth. The texture of him was velvet. His brownness had an almost golden gloss. When he smiled faint wrinkles showed at the outer angles of his eyes. Her young abruptness seemed to amuse him.
“Sorry. These things are sneaky but comfortable. Good for mule paths and Italian roads. I apologize.”
He carried his little stick, and he tapped one of his crepe-soled shoes with it.
“Tried them?”
Billy had the air of a solemn, watchful child.
“No—I haven’t.”
“Let me recommend them. My name’s Slade. I’m only an occasional visitor.”
She pushed her chair back and stood up, feeling that she wanted to be more on a level with him, and able to look him straight in the face. And like a child she rather resented his air of talking down to her, his quizzical and half-familiar playfulness.
“You want a book?”
He turned to the shelves and pointed with his stick.
“Well—obviously. Have you read all those?”
“No.”
“What an escape. A library makes me feel that I’m in an old clothes shop——”
Her abruptness continued.
“What is the name of the book——?”
He stood poised, ironically considering the interruption. Was it that she did or would not understand playfulness?
“I retract about the old clothes. Miss Lord is the most hygienic person——”
“You haven’t told me the name of the book.”
There was a pause between them. He walked up the room, looking at the shelves, and tapping the tiled floor softly with his stick. He stooped slightly. In spite of his alert and restless movements he had the figure of a man who sat about a good deal, and took no active exercise. He was both lean and soft. Billy observed him. To her he was unusual, an original type, and she felt the touch of his strangeness, the slight tension of an interested expectancy.
He turned about and glanced at the bowl of violets on the table. His face showed the beginnings of a smile. He put down his hat and stick, and raising the bowl, smelt the flowers.
“No, not old clothes.”
His glance was friendly, mischievous. The solemnity of her firm young face appeared to relax.
“No. And the book?”
He replaced the bowl.
“Your attention to business is—admirable. I want a book on alchemy.”
“Alchemy?”
She was posed. She had the air of repeating to herself, “Alchemy, alchemy.” She frowned. Her seriousness had a charm.
“Non est?”
His white and brown smile was challenging.
“I don’t think we have one.”
“Probably not. I chanced it. Scribblers have to poke their noses into strange places. Not all violets.”
He had made her smile.
“I’ll try the catalogue.”
She drew the catalogue towards her, and bending over the table, turned up the A’s. The point of a finger travelled down the page. And Slade observed her. Undoubtedly she had a very comely neck. The hair suggested strength, a crisp independence.
“No luck?”
“Afraid not.”
“Well, I shall have to bluff or send to England. I suppose you can supply no information with regard to Hermes Trismegistus or Nicholas Flamel?”
She smiled just a little derisively.
“Hardly. I’m not——But of course, what idiots! We have forgotten the ‘Encyclopædia Britannica.’ ”
He gave her a little, humorous bow.
“Idiots! I agree—in one respect. But you are exempted.”
“Thanks.”
“You’ll find the encyclopædia over there in that case.”
“And the fee?”
“Are you a subscriber?”
“No—I pay by the piece.”
“I see. I think you might be allowed a free look.”
“That’s gracious. I will. But I don’t like encyclopædias.”
“O?”
“They make me feel so abominably illiterate. That I have wasted my time, slacked.”
“I don’t think that has worried me—ever.”
“Wise woman.”
Other people arrived, and Billy returned to her chair, and the business of the morning. People brought her the books which they had read, and she had to mark them off, and take down the names of the new books that had been chosen. The long and rather narrow room grew crowded, but her view of Slade was not obscured, for he had taken a chair at the other end of the table, and opened the first volume of the encyclopedia. She was aware of the contrasted browns of his hair and face, and the sudden blueness of his eyes when they looked at her. They were as of the same blue as his collar.
For the library was not empty of humour. Old ladies came and asked Billy questions, the most naïve questions. And they crowded in front of the cases, and got in each other’s way, and gave each other polite and irritable glances. “Excuse me, do you mind——” “Oh, not at all. I’m afraid I’m in the way.” Some of them would discuss books with the serene sureness of those who had never written anything but a letter. “Nice” was the prevailing adjective. A book was either nice or not nice.
Billy caught Slade’s wicked eye. Almost he winked at her. He did not appear to be taking the encyclopædia with proper seriousness.
Someone laid a book on the table.
“Not a nice book—at all.”
“O,” said Billy.
“The first one I have read of Oscar Slade’s. It will be the last. Quite disgusting.”
Billy looked at the book, and then at the face of the lady who had returned it. She dared not look at Slade.
“I suppose it is considered clever——”
“Have you a book of complaints?”
“No.”
“I suggest that you ought to keep one. One has a right to express one’s opinion.”
“Of course,” said Billy, “but need you do it on paper?”
The lady gave her a sharp glance, the kind of glance sixty bestows upon flippant youth, and went her way in search of another book. Billy felt the table gently shaken. She looked instinctively at Slade, and met his ironic, laughing eyes. His lips moved slightly, and she could imagine him saying “How priceless! I’ve succeeded. I love shocking these people.”
She lowered her head and tried to appear absorbed in her ledger. She had a sudden sense of intimate, laughing nearness to him. Something had passed, a flash of mischievous sympathy, and realizing it, she felt suddenly serious. She was sure now—without quite knowing how she knew it, that alchemy was so much moonshine, and that his coming had been deliberate and planned.
She felt suddenly hot. She did not look at him again. She attended to business.
But she could not ignore him when he came and stood beside her for a moment.
“Thanks—so much. Sorry you have such a shocking person on your shelves.”
Their eyes met. He smiled, put on his broad-brimmed hat, and left her wondering. He perplexed her.
