Captain Nicholas E-Book

Hugh Walpole

• Herausgeber: Ktoczyta.pl
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2019

Beschreibung

Captain Nicolas is the author’s most recognizable character. One for which it’s immediately clear whose story it is. Hugh Walpole tells the story of a family conflict. This is an ideal family, an example for everyone, but an evil and dissatisfied brother breaks into this idyll. The story is about an evil brother who is returning to visit his family, and about the destruction that he is reaping with his activity.

Leseprobe

Contents

PART I

THE SPRING EVENING

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

13

14

15

16

17

PART II

FANNY’S HOUSE

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

PART III

THE LETTER

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

13

14

PART IV

BATTLE FOR THE SPRING EVENING

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

PART I

THE SPRING EVENING

1

“What a beautiful evening!” Fanny Carlisle said to the little lady who was standing beside her.

It was one of her impetuous moments and, as was always the case, she instantly regretted her impetuosity. How odd the lady must think her, speaking to her thus in the middle of Bordon’s, without any reason at all!

And yet she did not appear to mind.

“Yes, is it not?” she said, looking up and smiling. “So early in April, and so warm.”

The room where the glass was had a beautifully remote air, and from the large window the late afternoon sun streamed in upon the glass, transmuting it, transforming the ruby and orange and blue into glittering, trembling flames of colour. The tall glasses, the round bowls, the tumblers twinkled, shone, and sparkled. They almost, if you were very romantic, appeared themselves to glory in the sun, which, perhaps, did not too often caress them. It was clever of Mr. Bordon to place the glass near the window and leave the rest of the room to the china. He had known that there would be these sunny days; he had even, Fanny Carlisle considered, arranged the large thin vases and the faint blue bowls on the highest points of vantage, for their hunger for light must be passionate....

“It must be lovely for them–a sunny day,” she said.

But the little lady could not follow her so far.

“It’s too tiresome. My maid broke a blue bowl yesterday that my husband gave me five Christmases ago. I was greatly attached to it. My husband’s away, you know, in Scotland, and I want to replace it before he returns. In fact I must replace it. He notices things. I felt sure that Bordon would have one like it. The man’s gone to enquire, but I could see from his face–” She broke off to look again at the blue bowls. Poor things! They had been so happy in the sun and now they were worthless, valueless, might all be smashed into atoms and the little lady would not care.

“I was so certain that Bordon...” she murmured.

“What about this one?” Fanny asked, pointing to a pale blue bowl so thin and delicate that a breath would blow it like a bubble into the sky.

“Oh, no!” said the little lady, quite crossly. “That isn’t in the least like it,” and she looked at Fanny Carlisle as though it were most stupid of her not to have known.

“She’s irritated by my height,” Fanny thought. This often occurred to her when she was with strangers. She was tall and broad, felt herself to be clumsier than she really was, and this was because so often in her childhood she had heard the words: “Now, Fanny, do be careful! You’ll knock that chair over!” or “Fanny–mind the table. Look where you are going!”

But the little lady was pleased with what she saw. She liked this tall straight woman with the dark hair and the kindly humorous face. She was not smart, but most certainly a lady–not one of these modern know-all women who gave themselves airs and thought they knew everything, although Heaven alone could tell whence they came–for the little lady was something of a snob and as sensitive on occasion about her small stature as Fanny was of her height.

“He’s a long time,” she complained. “And I know it’s all no use. It’s so very irritating when they go off saying, “I’ll see what we can do, madam,’ when you know that they know that there’s nothing to be done at all.”

“Well, I don’t think that I can wait,” Fanny said cheerfully. “I promised to be back by five, and it’s half-past four now. My boy’s at Westminster and he likes me to be there at tea time.”

“Oh, you have a boy at Westminster, have you? My husband’s brother went to Westminster. How small the world is!”

“Yes, we’re a large family,” Fanny said, smiling, impetuous again. “There are eight of us altogether!”

“Eight!” said the little lady. “Dear me! In these days! That does seem a lot!”

“Yes–there’s my mother-in-law, my husband, my sister, my brother, and I have two boys and a girl.”

“And you all live together, always?”

“Yes; we’re a very attached family. At least I suppose we are. We all get along very well together.”

“That’s not at all the modern idea.”

“No. I suppose it isn’t. But I think we’d all be very sorry if the family was broken up. I always think it so odd in the newspapers and novels when they say that family life doesn’t exist any more. But of course they have to write about something.”

But the little lady shook her head. “Your case is very exceptional,” she said. “All living together, I mean. Of course relations visit one another and so on, but staying in the same house...! Don’t you quarrel frightfully?”

Fanny laughed, shaking her head.

“No. Why should we? Of course we don’t always agree, but that makes things more interesting.”

“Well, I should be afraid if I were you. It’s too good to last.”

“Oh, I don’t think so,” said Fanny. “Nothing is.”

This again she at once regretted, for it was platitudinous and, as her family often told her, the platitude was her danger. Only why, when a thing was true, was it silly to mention it? This would lead her too far, so she said:

“Those orange bowls are charming. With spring flowers they would be delightful.”

“But it isn’t an orange bowl that I want,” said the little lady. “And I’ve been here half an hour. And I’m keeping you, too. What a shame! Really, in these big stores you’d think they–”

“Oh, it doesn’t matter,” said Fanny. “It wasn’t important. Only some quite ordinary tumblers. I can get them anywhere.”

At this moment the assistant, holding a blue bowl in each hand, appeared. He was a very thin man with a small pale yellow moustache, but his manner was so confident and superior that Fanny could not feel sorry for him.

“I think I’ve found the very thing, madam,” he said triumphantly.

“Indeed, you have not!” said the little lady. “Neither of those is the least like it.”

“I’m very sorry, madam,” he remarked with polite indifference, as though he said: “I have excellent manners, but if you dropped dead at my feet this very moment I shouldn’t much care.” “Perhaps we can get you–if Madam isn’t in a hurry–”

“Of course I’m in a hurry,” the little lady, almost in tears, replied. “And now I don’t know what I shall do. It’s too provoking. I thought Bordon’s had everything....”

“I’m extremely sorry, madam,” said the assistant, pulling his primrose moustache. “Of course this blue bowl is very charming. We–”

But the little lady had gone, exactly as though the floor had swallowed her or the sun absorbed her into its splendour.

He turned to Fanny. “And what–?” he asked.

“Oh, it’s only some tumblers,” Fanny answered. “Quite ordinary ones. Half a dozen.”

Very quickly she was supplied.

“Isn’t it a lovely evening?” she said.

“Very fine indeed, madam. Has Madam an account or–”

“Oh, no, thank you. I’ll pay now.”

He went to wrap them up, still with his air of pleasant disdain which only his shoes, a little worn and wrinkled, belied. While he was gone Fanny looked again at the glass.

The sun now struck the room with its full power. The air sparkled and was shot with the trembling colour of the glass–pale as green sea water, rosy as evening cloud, frosty with the shimmer of ice on the windowpane, clear with the silver whiteness of crystal, these lovely things quietly surrendered to the evening. One tall vase of a blue as faint as a young hyacinth seemed to be part of the sun, to be withdrawn into outer air and lose itself in the evening sky.

“There’s a smell of lilac,” Fanny thought. “White lilac would look lovely in that vase.”

2

Safely outside she climbed onto the upper part of an omnibus. Gazing through the window at her side, she marvelled that the world could be so beautiful. It was one of those hours when by a trick of light and sun London appears to be surely the queen of the world. She is not, of course, and we all know how, at the bidding of a tiny cloud, she can sink into primeval slime, but this afternoon she thought that she would let herself go. Through the window Fanny saw the spring evening at liberty. Carried through a rosy air, everything below her was unsubstantial, veiled in a mist that was primrose-coloured, and then deep in violet shadow–mists and shadows that seized messenger boys and ladies shopping and butchers at their reeking doors and antique shops with here a Persian rug and there a bowl of crimson, and newspaper placards, murderous and sporting–all these things were as whimsical as a play by a Scotsman or a children’s poem by a member of the Athenæum. Somewhere around the chimneys the shadows failed, and above them the sky was as pale as the feathers of young canaries. Was it blue or white like a sea shell?

“If you wouldn’t mind,” said the lady in the seat with her. “You are sitting on my coat.”

Fanny was never comfortable on the outside of one of those seats that are ironically designed for the sensitive egotism of ordinary-sized persons. Fanny was too large, and she could not see from the window as she would, so that it was delightful when the lady (who held herself stiffly as though Fanny had the plague or the chicken pox at least) departed and allowed her to command the scene. And command it she did! For now she could see all the humours of the street as though they were directed by her. She had only to move a finger and that lady with the parcels stayed where she was, imprisoned in the sunny haze, or the stout man trying to hail a taxi (he had a flower in his buttonhole) remained for ever hailing, an eternal figure in a master’s landscape. And now they were in Piccadilly Circus where Eros, temporarily restored, caught the sunlight in his wings, and below the ground people dropped pennies into machines and slid down mechanical stairways. Here there was a hush. Everything moved softly, and the sky was exposed, a whole square piece of it, lit into infinity with one star quietly inquisitive. Then they went down the hill, saw people already on chairs outside His Majesty’s Theatre, looked at the Trafalgar Square lions, considered the pictures separated from the spray of the fountains by that grimy wall of stone, down the hill again into a world of bells and legislators, of policemen and trees and hidden streets and small boys wearing top hats....

Into Fanny’s world, for she lived with her family in Smith Square.

“I’m sure I smell lilac somewhere,” she said as she climbed down from her omnibus.

3

The face of the house where she, her sister, her two brothers, her three children had all been born always delighted her with every fresh vision of it. It was a tall thin house, the stone pearl-coloured, the windows high and rather narrow, the chimney pots a little twisted, four white steps to the door, and above the door a stone teapot that had been carved there when the house began its history somewhere about 1710. In a changing world–“and what a changing world!”–thought Fanny–the beautiful pale colours, the dignity and quietness of this house meant something. And then when you considered all the life that had flourished inside it–the brocades and patches, the sedan chairs that had waited outside the door, the teapot serenely watching them, and, later, the crinolines, the wickedly narrow waists, the young men with whiskers, the beards, the barrel organs, the screens covered with pictures from the Illustrateds, the births, the deaths, the quarrels and reconciliations–“and now!” thought Fanny. But at that she could wait no longer, but must, at once, let herself in with her key to see whether Edward was hungry for his tea, what Nell had done about the Frobishers, and whether Romney had sold the French picture to the rich American (now becoming in London so rare a bird!) as this morning he had hoped to do.

Then, inside the hall, these surmises were as though they had never been, for Janet was coming down the stairs and, at sight of her mistress, stopped dead and, in that husky would-be-indifferent whisper that was so especially hers, said: “Oh, what do you think? The Captain is here!”

Janet, who had been present when Fanny was brought into the world, whose whole life had been spent in one long determination never in any circumstances to allow a thought of emotion, pleasure, pain, or interest to colour her words, was on this occasion defeated. For her voice trembled as she spoke, and into her grey eyes there came that shadow of anxiety, of tenderness even, for her mistress, child, and friend.

“The Captain!... Nicholas!” and Fanny stayed where she was, almost dropping the parcel that held the tumblers.

“Yes. He’s in the drawing room. And with his little girl. Them’s his boxes.”

She came down the stairs and stood beside Fanny, her tall gaunt figure drawn stiffly up as though she would defy the world.

They continued to whisper.

“But he never sent a line. He hasn’t written for ten years.”

“He’s here, waiting for you, with his little girl!”

“He’s come to stay?”

“It looks like it.”

“Is no one there?”

“No, Mr. Matthew’s out walking and Miss Grace is in her room and–”

But Fanny waited for no more. Thrusting the tumblers into Janet’s hand she hurried upstairs, threw open the drawing-room door. There, in front of the fire, his legs extended, perfectly at home, waited her brother Captain Nicholas Coventry. Beside him a little girl in a rather shabby black frock was standing.

“Oh, Nicholas!” Fanny cried, and she rushed at him, almost knocking over a small table, threw her arms round him and kissed him as though she would never let him go.

“Well, Fanny!” he cried, when he was at last released. “This is fine! This is splendid!”

She was near to tears, her cheeks were flushed, her hair tumbled with the embrace.

“Nicholas!... And without a word! And after all this time! Oh, dear–but I was never so surprised in my life! Why didn’t you write? Why didn’t you telegraph? What does this mean? Have you come to stay?”

“Yes–Lizzie and I have come to stay if you will have us.”

“Have you? Why, of course we will! And this is Lizzie! Why, she was scarcely born when I saw her last. You remember–that Christmas at Caroline’s!” and she embraced the little girl, who was thin and pale and had large, round, dark eyes.

The Captain laughed, and his laugh was one of the jolliest in the world. He was a handsome man with as slight a figure now at forty-four as he had had at twenty, short, cropped grey hair, a little curly, a fresh rosy complexion, a short toothbrush moustache, and clothes that, if a little worn, fitted him quite perfectly. He was smart, he was neat, and he had small blue eyes. He patted her shoulder.

“Dear Fanny–this is a welcome. I didn’t know how you’d take it. I said to Lizzie–”We’ll leave our boxes in the hall, for they may not want us–it may not be convenient.’ ”

“Want you! Convenient!” cried Fanny. “Why, it’s the most wonderful thing! But where have you been? Where have you come from? I haven’t had a line for ten years, you know–”

“I know. I wonder I had the cheek to turn up at all. I said to Lizzie: “If they do take us in, it will be the most marvellous charity, because nobody has behaved worse than I have. It’s only,’ I told Lizzie, “because your Aunt Fanny is the best-natured, kindest creature in the world that I’ve any hope.’... We’ve come from Italy, from San Remo.”

“From San Remo? Oh, but you must be famished!” She rushed across the room and rang a bell. She turned back towards them, her eyes shining, her hands outstretched.

“But it’s wonderful to see you, Nick. And not a bit altered, just the same. A little greyer perhaps...!”

“And you’re the same, too.”

“Oh, no! I’m getting an old, old woman. Ten years!” She stood looking at them, smiling, tears in her eyes. It was too wonderful! Too...!

And then she was practical.

“But you’ll want to wash. And they must take up your bags. Let me see! The Brown spare room. That’ll be the thing. It gets the sun. I’ll tell them to light a fire. And you’ll like Lizzie near you. There’s a small bedroom quite close that Edward used to have–”

Nicholas laughed. “It doesn’t matter where you put us. We’re regular gipsies, aren’t we, Lizzie? Don’t you bother about us, Fanny.”

“Bother about you! Of course I’ll bother about you.” She then realized that Lizzie had not spoken a word, but continued to regard her with steady, unblinking eyes.

“You poor little thing!” She went up to her and kissed her. The child’s cheek was very cold. “You must be worn out and ravenous.”

Rose the parlourmaid came in. Instructions were given. Fanny led the two travellers upstairs, into the Brown room (which wasn’t brown at all, but had a wall paper with robins), and then Lizzie was shown the small room, and the boxes were brought in and the fires were lit.

After all this Fanny said:

“And now I’ll leave you. Come straight down to the drawing room as soon as you’ve washed. The others will be all there in a moment. They’ll be so excited!”

She went up to Nicholas and kissed him again. “Dear Nicholas! I hope you’re going to stay for ever so long. You owe it us, you know, after the way you’ve behaved.”

He patted her cheek.

“As long as you’ll have us, Fanny dear.”

As soon as she had left him she hurried up to the schoolroom to see that Edward had his tea. Here, in this room with its picture-covered screens, its shelves with the old books, a worn rocking-horse without a tail, the children had lived, and now that Nell and Romney had grown up it remained with Edward as its only master. He regarded it now as entirely his, loved it with a passion, and resented intensely if anyone tried to alter even the smallest detail in it. Here he had his tea, his boiled egg, his toast and his jam. Here he pursued his own secret and mysterious life, and here he insisted that his mother should watch him cut the top off his egg.

He was waiting for her now, his school books piled on the table, his top hat thrown onto a chair, and his bright birdlike eyes watching the door. His features were plain, his complexion sallow, and his mouth large, but he was not unattractive, for he had energy, he had curiosity, and he was able to run his life (which seemed to him an extraordinary, adventurous, and most unusual life) by himself.

“I thought you weren’t coming,” he said to her gravely.

“I’m sorry, darling.” She sat down beside him and poured out his tea. “But what do you think has happened? Your Uncle Nicholas has come with his little girl.”

“Uncle Nicholas?” he said, with his eyes on the jam (he had expected for some reason that it would be apricot, and very disappointingly it was plum). “That’s the wicked one, isn’t it?”

“Wicked! No, darling. Wherever did you get such an idea from?”

“I heard Father call him a ne’er-do-well once, and I asked Mr. Foster what a ne’er-do-well was and he said someone who wasn’t any good.”

“Oh, that only means” (she watched him while he cut off the top of his egg, an operation that he performed with the most perfect dexterity) “someone who moves about. Ever since your uncle left the army he’s been moving about. You see, after his wife died he felt lonely–and then he hasn’t very much money. And he has a little girl to support.”

“A little girl?” asked Edward. “What’s her name?”

“Lizzie.”

“Lizzie. Well, I don’t think much of that for a name. Mother, all my algebra was right this morning. Paunchy seemed quite pleased for once, and, Mother, can Bond Minor come to tea on Saturday? He’s not a bad sort if you know him, and he’s been very decent about hockey. You see...”

And he entered into a long history. While he talked, her mind wandered. As a rule every detail of Edward’s day (of Nell’s and Romney’s also) was absorbing to her. But now the consciousness that Nicholas was in the house, that he was, at this very moment, washing his hands on the floor below, that he had arrived and intended to remain–this great surprise drove for the moment even the family from her mind. She had always been a little shy of Nicholas, shy of him and adoring him both at the same time. He had been (and was still, no doubt) by far the cleverest of the family. It had seemed always that there was nothing he could not do if he cared to do it. That he had not cared had been astonishing to her. When, at the outbreak of war, he had at once joined up, that was part of his general courage and enterprise, but when, at the end of it, he had remained in the army she had been sorry. The army was not the place for his gifts. He read, he painted charming pictures, he was most modern in all his views. He has always been ahead of the others in his attitude to life–bold, audacious, Fanny often thought him. He had so much charm that people fell down before him like ninepins, and yet with all this, with his charm, his looks, his brains, he had not–as Fanny was compelled to admit–done very much with his life. What indeed he had done in the last ten years she did not know. He had married, towards the end of the war, Essie Lawrence, an odd, quiet, reserved little thing, and when Lizzie was a year old Essie had died of pneumonia in Paris. They had all written letters of sympathy, but not a word had been received in reply. The others had ceased to write: only Fanny had persisted, sending long family letters twice or thrice a year to the address of his bankers in Paris. He had never answered: she had expected never to hear again, and now here he was, as alive and charming and affectionate as he had ever been, here without a word, without even a telegram!

But the very sight of him had made her happy. Poor Nicholas–without a home, widowed so soon, with that sad, pale, silent little girl. She sighed.

“... so I said, “Well, keep it yourself–I don’t want your silly old watch,’ and he said...”

“Yes, darling. Is your egg all right?”

“Top hole.”

“I must go down now and give Uncle Nicholas some tea.”

Edward said nothing to that. When he was disappointed he said nothing. His mother always stayed with him for at least half an hour. He had lots more to tell her. So he said nothing and helped himself to jam.

She went down to the drawing room to find her mother-in-law and her husband and the tea all waiting.

Mrs. Carlisle was seventy-three years of age and a spare, fine old lady with white hair, a long nose, and a small determined mouth. When her son Charles had married Fanny Coventry she had lamented his fate as though he had lost an arm or leg. But that was quite natural, for so passionately did she love her son–her only child–that no woman on earth could ever be good enough for him. For twenty-three years she had maintained this attitude, and neither Charles’s married happiness nor Fanny’s good nature could modify it. Her commiseration, however, had been enlarged by her worship of Charles’s children, who never, so perfect were they, could have a mother worthy of them. Apart from this, she liked Fanny. If Charles had to have a wife, and Romney, Nell, and Edward a mother, why, then Fanny was a good woman who did her best, and it was not her fault, poor dear, that she was placed in a situation altogether above her talents. That was old Mrs. Carlisle’s domestic attitude. She paid an annual sum towards the upkeep of the house and, although what she paid was a great deal less than what she received, this gave her a right to interfere when she thought it proper–and she thought it proper quite frequently.

The other thing about her was that until the last two years she had “enjoyed” perfect health. Enjoyed was not perhaps the word because she had accepted this same health as her absolute right and had scorned her fellow human beings for their physical weakness. When, therefore, last year a little rheumatism had visited her legs, and her heart had begun once and again to trouble her, she had been greatly surprised and indignant, rather as though someone had been rude to her in the street or a man pinched her leg in an omnibus.

As to Charles, he was a square-shouldered, jolly-faced man with grey hair, a short sturdy body, and amused, tolerant eyes. He was, in fact, like five hundred and fifty thousand other men except to his mother and wife, who thought him extraordinary, and his children, who thought him an old dear.

He had been in the Stock Exchange all his life, like his father before him, and had retired three years ago. In these difficult times–it was the spring of 1932–his investments were not so flourishing, and he worried, sometimes, in the silence of the night about the future. At the top of the house he had a large room where he did wood-carving. Except for finance and one secret he had no troubles. He loved his wife and his children. His home was more to him than anything else in the world.

When Fanny came in she saw at once that they had not heard the news.

“Charles! Mother! Nicholas has arrived!”

She saw at once that neither of them was very glad. The old lady shut her mouth tightly and said not a word.

Charles said: “Nicholas! But why?”

“Why?” said Fanny, exasperated as in her impetuosity she so often was with Charles’s slowness. “Why? Because he’s come to stay–with his little girl.”

“Come to stay?” said Charles. “For how long?”

“As long as he likes,” said Fanny, wishing for a moment, as so many loving wives so often do, that she had married someone different.

“Where’s he come from?”

“From San Remo.”

“What’s he been doing there?”

“Oh, I don’t know. I’ve had no time to ask him anything. He’s upstairs washing his hands–”

“Well, I’m damned!” Charles planted his hands on his stout knees. “What do you say to that, Mother?”

“What do I say?” The old lady tossed her head. “It’s Fanny’s house and it’s Fanny’s brother.”

Just here, fortunately, Matthew came in. Matthew Coventry, who was forty-five, two years older than his sister Fanny and one year older than Nicholas, was a little man, oddly short beside his brother and two sisters, who were all tall. He was scrupulously neat in a dark suit and a blue bow tie with white spots. His round face was kindly and humorous and bore a striking resemblance to Fanny’s, although his colour was pale beside Fanny’s brilliance.

The trouble with Matthew was, as Mrs. Carlisle often pointed out to her son, that he did nothing. He had been once, years ago, a solicitor, but having some means of his own he had put some of it into the upkeep of the Smith Square house and taken up his abode there. He was perfectly happy. His most striking characteristic, at first sight, was his tranquillity. He brought with him, wherever he was, an air of rest and peace. Even Mrs. Carlisle admitted this: “I like Matthew about the house. He quiets you down, and that’s the stranger, Charles, because he’s undoubtedly mad.”

“No, not mad,” Charles would say, smiling. “Religious.”

“Same thing,” said old Mrs. Carlisle, who was, I’m sorry to admit, a complete pagan.

He came in very quietly now, and when Fanny said: “Matthew–Nicholas has come,” he smiled and remarked:

“How nice! We haven’t seen him for ages!”

He sat down, crossed his legs, and smiled at the old lady, of whom he was very fond. In her heart she liked him, too, but now, looking at him, she thought: “Really, it’s terrible of Matthew–doing nothing with his life whatever and looking so contented. His religion ought to tell him that it isn’t right.” And she never reflected for a single moment that her beloved Charles also did nothing.

Matthew said: “Where’s he come from?”

“From San Remo,” said Fanny, pleased that someone had come in who would be glad about Nicholas. “And he’s brought his little girl.”

“Is he going to stay with us?”

“Of course.”

“That’s good.”

At that moment Nicholas and his daughter Lizzie came in. Nicholas had looked spruce enough when he had arrived, but now he was as elegant, as slim, as straight-backed as an officer on parade. Lizzie was in her same little black dress. She held her father’s hand and looked directly in front of her. Nicholas took her up to the old lady. “Old Lady,” he said, “this is my beautiful daughter.”

He had always in the old days called her “Old Lady,” and for some reason she liked it, although in general she hated to be reminded of her age. She could not abide him, she despised him utterly, but nevertheless she liked him to call her “Old Lady.”

She paid no attention to him but drew the little girl to her.

“So you’re little Lizzie, are you?”

“Yes,” said Lizzie.

“How old are you?”

“Twelve.”

“Dear me, what a terrible age! You poor little thing, you look half starved. Nicholas, you haven’t been looking after her.”

He laughed, taking them all in with his merry eye. “Oh, she looks after me! Didn’t you know?... How are you, Charles? Getting fat, aren’t you? Hullo, Matthew! You haven’t changed a bit! By Jove, it’s grand to be here!” He sat down on the sofa, and Lizzie at once sat down beside him. “I don’t suppose you any of you want me, but Lizzie and I couldn’t help it. We just had to come. Didn’t we, Liz? And you can turn us out as soon as you like.”

“Had to come!” snorted Mrs. Carlisle. “When for ten years you haven’t been near us nor have you written to one of us.”

He pulled up his trousers a little, gave his moustache a pinch; his bright blue eyes seemed to sparkle in the firelight.

“Oh, but I’m no good at all! You’ve always known that. I never write to anyone–I’ve got no conscience about anything. Besides, who cares to hear from me? What have I got to tell anyone that’s of the slightest interest? But I’ve thought of you often–and talked about you. Haven’t I, Lizzie?”

Fanny noticed that he was always appealing to his daughter but never apparently expected an answer from her. He planted his hands on his knees.

“Be nice to us for a day or two. We really need some kindness shown us. And then we’ll move on again.”

Fanny went up to him and kissed him on the forehead.

“Of course we’ll be nice to you. We’re terribly pleased that you’ve come.”

He looked up at her, smiling, and touched her hand with his.

“We’ll be nice to you,” old Mrs. Carlisle said, smiling grimly. “If you’ll be good.”

“I can’t be good,” Nicholas answered. “It isn’t in my nature. But I’ll try to behave while I’m here.” Then he went on, looking about him: “Oh, it is nice to be here! Just the same room–not altered a bit. How often in exile I’ve thought of the Bonington and Wilson–you could get a pretty sum for them now, you know–and the screen with the dragons, and the glass-topped table with the seals and garnets and gold boxes. Thanks, Matthew–I will have some of that cake–the plum one–and plenty of it.”

The door opened again and Nell and Romney came in, so that all the family were now in the room save Edward, who was doing geography upstairs, and Aunt Grace.

Nell, who was twenty years of age, was very pretty, looking like so many of her age, half a boy with her short hair and slim figure. Her hair was fair and her face so youthful and so gentle in expression that the slight artificiality of the eyebrows and the carmined lips would have been masklike and unreal had they been at all exaggerated. She did not exaggerate, but painted and modelled just enough to be in line with her generation. She was wearing a little dark blue hat.

Romney, who was twenty-two, had a figure as slim as his sister’s, but he was as dark as she was fair. He looked distinguished and superior to the run of young men, which was what he wanted to look, but in his heart he was afraid that he was not superior to anybody. He was often unhappy because he felt superior and inferior both at the same time. Life seemed to him increasingly difficult, and then there was the awful question as to whether there was any point in any of it. All his clever friends thought that there was no point. He longed for affection but assumed an attitude of cold heartless indifference–except to his mother, whom he frankly and openly loved although he thought her sometimes absurd and always behind the times. Once and again, in the secrecy of his chambers, he wondered whether to be altogether behind the times mustn’t be rather comforting.

They were greatly surprised to see their Uncle Nicholas, whom they remembered scarcely at all. But they showed no surprise whatever and, after saying that they were glad to see him, devoted themselves to their tea. Soon they were all talking together and Fanny could sit quietly by and watch them.

4

This was often the favourite hour of the day for her because, unlike so many families, they enjoyed meeting once a day and spending an hour in one another’s company, removed from the rest of humanity if possible. Of course the outside world did come to tea at times, on occasion invited and on occasion because it had nothing better to do. Mrs. Frobisher, for example, was one of the latter kind. But, every week, there were days when no one came, and then they would sit, eat and drink, gossip, argue, and enjoy their hour. In this as in many other things they were an unusual family, and especially in the love that bound them all together. For though old Mrs. Carlisle might snort, Charles argue, Nell and Romney mock, and although they were not at all family-proud but regarded themselves as quite ordinary, nevertheless they cared for one another as they cared for no one outside.

Of course this couldn’t last, Fanny often assured herself. Nell would fall in love, Romney marry, someone surely one day would attack their defenses. How strong was this family bond? Could they keep it? Yes. Fanny believed that they could. There was some underlying fidelity, trust, devotion here that was stronger than the world.

She had long ago been sure that this outside modern restless, reckless world must be accepted and propitiated. She herself neither understood it nor liked it. It was not her world, but it was the world of Romney, Nell, and Edward, so she tried to read their books, understand their pictures, and listened (often with alarm and a secret consciousness that all her tastes–religious, moral, æsthetic–were affronted) to their opinions on morality, marriage, art. She could not change these things. Nothing that she could say would alter anything, only because she loved them with all her heart she could show them that she was behind them in whatever happened to them and would love them whatever they did. Nevertheless Nell and Romney were good. She was sure of that and, whatever they might say, their ideas of honour and fidelity and courage were her own ideas. She could trust them anywhere.

And now Nicholas had joined the family. As she looked at him, laughing, joking, indulging to the full his famous charm, she smiled. What an extraordinary man! For there he was as though he had never been away, drawing them all in! He must be aware that old Mrs. Carlisle and Charles disliked him and didn’t want him–but did that matter to him? Not in the least! He was confident, as he had always been, that he would succeed. And yet he had not succeeded–with more talents than any of them he was the failure. What, she suddenly wondered, was he living on? He had had years ago his share of their father’s money, but she knew that also years ago he had spent it. He could not be earning anything now unless he was selling his pictures. Perhaps he was.... Perhaps over there in Italy he had become a famous painter.

So she suddenly said:

“Nick–what about the painting? Probably you’re a famous painter now and we none of us know it.”

He had been joking with Nell. (It was plain that he greatly admired her.) He turned, smiling, to Fanny.

“Oh, my dear, didn’t you know? I’ve given it up long ago. I wasn’t good enough. It’s no use in these days being a second-rater. There are too many clever people about. Then this modern painting, which is all I care about, is so easy to do badly that if you admire it you simply daren’t try.”

“I sold the Matisse today,” Romney broke in. “I hooked the old boy at last. It was exactly like landing a salmon. But we got him. And at our price, too. All the same, he didn’t do so badly. The price was stiff, but it was a good Matisse. A girl in a lovely red hat and a white feather.”

“And what else?” asked Nell.

“Nothing at all except a silver garter. That was the trouble. He was frightened of what his wife would say. He brought her in finally, and the joke was that she admired it immensely.”

“Well,” began Nick, “I saw a Matisse the other day in Paris–”

But he was interrupted. Grace Coventry came in, flustered as usual. She was a large, stout, rosy woman, often smiling and generally bewildered. As she came forward she said:

“Isn’t that dreadful? I went fast asleep. I was reading such an interesting book, too! And now tea’s over. Well, never mind”–she smiled brightly on everyone–“I deserve it.”

“Of course tea isn’t over,” Fanny said. “Grace, here’s a surprise for you! Nicholas has come–”

“Nicholas!” Grace stood, confused, then she went rather timidly to him and kissed him. “Well, I never! I never did! How perfectly lovely!”

“How are you, Grace?” Nicholas said. “As blooming as ever, I see. This is Lizzie. This is your Aunt Grace, Lizzie, whom I’ve so often told you about. She’ll take you into the kitchen and give you jam, and she’ll bring you hot drinks at night, and if you ever have a cold she’ll sit up all night with you.”

Everyone laughed, and Grace tee-heed and laughed, too, and suddenly kissed Nicholas again and sat down on the sofa and took Lizzie’s hand.

There had come in with her a large black cat. This cat was known as Becky Sharp for many reasons. One was that it had most brilliant and piercing green eyes, another that it was entirely callous about its almost incredibly recurring offspring, another that it was a cat always out for its own advantage and would attach itself ruthlessly to anyone who had anything to offer. Becky Sharp was one of Fanny’s weaknesses. She knew all about its hard and grasping character, but she loved it, partly because she remembered the gay and enterprising kitten that it had once been. And the cat did appear to have an affection for Fanny. It followed her about the house, liked to settle on her lap, was distressed, apparently, when she was away.

It advanced now and stood beside her, looking up. Fanny poured its milk into a saucer.

“Yes, you know,” Grace was saying, smiling round upon everyone and especially on Granny Carlisle, whom she always persisted in regarding as a weak, delicate old lady who needed looking after and protecting–“there I was. I went fast asleep, and it was at one of the most interesting chapters in Warwick Deeping’s delightful book. I know you don’t read novels, Nicholas. Let me put your cup down. No, I insist.... Yes, and oh, Fanny” (here she opened a large red bag which she always carried with her everywhere), “I forgot to tell you I bought the small hand towels and the other things this morning as I said I would, and they were two pounds two shillings exactly–you gave me three pounds, you remember. Here is the change.”

“Oh, don’t bother just now, dear.”

“No, but I must. Or I shall certainly spend it myself.”

She laid the little pile of silver on a small table, looked at it with satisfaction, then said:

“Shall I get your sewing, Granny?” (She always called Mrs. Carlisle “Granny” because the children did.) “Or would you like your book?”

“I don’t want anything at all, Grace, thank you. Nothing whatever. I’m going to my room very shortly.”

Grace looked round to see what else she could do for anybody, and finding nothing she concentrated again upon Nicholas.

“But where have you been all this time, Nicholas? Where have you been? And never writing to one of us. Too bad. But there, I expect you’ve been so terribly busy. One’s always so busy abroad. Thank you, dear.” (For she had dropped her bag, which Nell picked up for her.) “And dear little Lizzie. We’ll have to see what we can do to make her happy while she’s here, won’t we, Fanny? You shall come for walks with me, and there are lots of books in the schoolroom that I’m sure you haven’t read. What do you like best to amuse yourself with, darling?”

Everyone waited for the answer, for until now the child had been quite silent. Only her father looked at her with ironical confidence.

“Thank you very much,” said Lizzie. “I think I like watching people best.”

“You see,” Nicholas explained, “she’s always with me, and I keep such very odd company that she has a good deal to watch altogether, don’t you, Lizzie?”

“And where’s she been to school?” asked Grace.

“She’s never been to school.”

“Never been to–! Never to school!” Grace raised her soft hands, which were small and beautiful. “Oh, but, Nicholas! What have you been about?”

“I don’t believe in schools. I never learnt anything at mine. Lizzie can read, write, and speak Italian, German, and French, and she knows more about human nature than I do–so her education’s all right.”

Grace was about to exclaim again, but Charles interrupted in his slow way. (This was the family fashion, so long acquired that it was now like second nature, of checking Grace.)

“It has been one of the grandest days I’ve ever seen. I walked through the Park to Marble Arch. I never saw such colours!”

Fanny looked at him with a little anxiety. There had been something the matter with Charles during the last week. He was not happy about something. He was worried, she was sure. But she said nothing. Only her eyes met his, and they both smiled.

The little gold clock on the mantelpiece struck six, and there was a general movement. A family that is much together forms habits, and one of the habits here was that at six o’clock the family session was over and everyone went about his or her own business.

Charles got up, yawned, stretched himself. “Yes,” he said. “One of the loveliest evenings I’ve ever seen. Spring. You could smell flowers everywhere. Now, Nick, make yourself at home. We dine at seven forty-five. Glad you’ve come.” He put his hand for a moment on Nicholas’s shoulder.

“Already,” Fanny thought happily, “he doesn’t dislike him as much as he did.” She went off to see how Edward was getting on.

They all went their several ways. Soon the large room, with its pleasant glow from the lamps and fire, its silver-shining tea things, the large white bowl with early spring flowers, the old warmly coloured pictures, the bookcases and the deep-red lacquer screen, had only Nicholas and Lizzie for its occupants.

“Well, Liz,” he remarked, “I don’t think we shall do so badly here for a bit. What do you think?”

“I like the old lady best,” she said. “I don’t like the one with the red bag at all.” Her words had a slight touch of foreign accent.

She waited quietly for her father’s next move.

She did not seem in the least astonished at it when it came. Nicholas looked, with a light glance, about the room, then with a little quick gesture swept the pile of silver that Grace had placed on the small table into his pocket.

Becky Sharp watched him with intent green eyes.

5

On the afternoon following Nicholas Coventry’s arrival Charles Carlisle set out to say good-bye to a lady.

He was not accustomed to such farewells. He had tumbled into his father’s business like a happy little duck into halcyon water. He was young enough when he fell in love with Fanny Coventry to be idealistic; he was still in love and idealistic. He adored his children and thought there were none like them anywhere. He considered the Smith Square house perfect, his club–the Atlas–the best in London, golf a wonderful game, and fooling about with a hammer and some nails and a piece of wood the most perfect of tranquil amusements. His health was excellent. But he was not such a fool as this sounds. His nature was cheerful and gay, but his heart was tender, and he had imagination. He also had common sense.

He had no very great opinion of himself, and it was one of his weaknesses that he was easily convinced of the great merits of his friends, but he had courage, he could be obstinate and, if need be, almost fanatically loyal.

He knew quite well that the major part of his happiness came from his wife. He loved and admired her with a devotion that had in it patience, courtesy, honour, and humour–the four great qualities for any husband who wishes to pay marriage the compliment that it deserves. Like any other man he admired a pretty woman, and his thoughts were not always in his control, but, with the exception of his wife and daughter, he preferred like most normal men the day-by-day company of men.

He had known no worry that deserved that name, since Fanny’s difficult delivery of Edward, until the last two years, when money suddenly began to behave eccentrically and the world, in general, turn towards madness.

But Romney was in a good business now, his family had no extravagant tastes; he could always, he was sure, find enough for them. Into this tranquillity, on January the Third of this present year, there had fallen the most astounding and troubling episode of his life. Its origin had been simple. On that evening Fanny was in bed with a cold, and he had gone alone to the theatre, a thing that he did sometimes, for he did not resent his own company and found that, when he was by himself, he noticed many interesting things that a friend’s presence obscured. He had taken a seat in the dress circle and, at the first interval, thought that he would buy himself a drink. There was the usual impatient multitude fighting at the usual inadequate bar. He turned aside and saw a girl by herself, leaning against the wall in the corridor. At the first sight of her it was as though he were struck in the chest. She was neither especially beautiful nor especially young. Her hair was so fair that under the bright light of the theatre it looked almost white. She was alone and, he thought, in some distress. He was quite unable to prevent himself from speaking to her–it was as though he acted under some strong command. He asked her whether he could do anything for her. She thanked him and asked him to get her some brandy: she felt faint; she thought it was the heat. He fought his way to the bar and got the brandy for her, and they then talked. He discovered that she was an assistant in a flower shop in Knightsbridge. A week later she became his mistress.

6

He had thought that by this time he knew his character pretty well. He was not lascivious, he was not light-minded, he hated to do anything that could bring unhappiness to others. But this, although he went over it again and again in his mind, recalling the minutest details, sparing himself no accusations, examining it from every conceivable angle, he could not understand at all.

He had never been unfaithful to his wife before, he had never conceived it possible that in any circumstances he could be unfaithful to her. He was not a prude and was exceedingly tolerant to his fellow men. He did not believe himself to be of any exceptional moral strength of character, but, because he loved and admired his wife so truly, it seemed to him incredible that he could ever have relations with any other woman.

Christine Bell was in no way an exceptional woman. She was thirty-two years of age and had had, he knew, other lovers before himself. She had an easy, agreeable, friendly nature, but she was not intelligent or cultured. She had certainly at first been physically in love with him, but after some six weeks of their intimacy he fancied that she considered him as an older genial friend who was kind to her because he had a fancy for her. He was indeed kind to her. For some while he was like a man submerged in fiery and tempestuous waters. It was like that, as though he were living under water in some strange world where nature was changed, where houses were temples of coral, streets were paved with mother-of-pearl, and a dim green light shivered always in front of his eyes. And with this a fiery heat, so that his eyes burnt, his throat was parched, his hands were dry. A pitiful state for a man of his age! But he did not feel it to be pitiful. For some while he was in a condition of eager and excited exaltation. He considered no consequences, he wrote her passionate and foolish letters, he gave her extravagant presents, for which, to do her justice, she appeared to care very little.

Looking back, it was extraordinary to him that no one, during those weeks, noticed anything, but it happened that, at the end of January, Fanny, who had not been well, went with Nell on a cruise to the West Indies. It was, indeed, the consciousness, early in March, that she would soon be returning that woke him from his dream.

It was as though an enchantment had been placed on him and then as suddenly withdrawn. One evening, talking to Christine quietly in the little flat in Chelsea where she lived, he saw her as she was. He saw that she was a kind, ordinary, good-natured, commonplace woman and that he was in love with her no longer.

She, of course, saw it as quickly as he did and bore him no kind of resentment. She also was not in love with him. It seemed to her quite natural that these episodes should be bright, swift, and ephemeral. She had had a pleasant time, she had given him everything that he wanted, but he was not a sensual man and the permanent things that he wanted from a woman she could not possibly give him. She did not want to give them to him, for his passion, while it lasted, had seemed to her rather ridiculous. She thought of him as his children did–that he was a dear old thing, but–on the whole, for a continued affair, she preferred someone younger. This episode had not appeared to her in any way extraordinary as it did to him. They had both enjoyed their hours together, and she wished him all the luck in the world.

This afternoon he was going to see her for the last time.

As he walked along the King’s Road–he had taken the underground from Westminster to Sloane Square–he was accompanied, it seemed, by a stranger, the man who had felt that crazy and fanatical obsession. He was on no terms any longer with that stranger, or on terms with him only enough to resent him.

This man whom he had once known was no companion of his any longer, but the effect of his company remained.

He turned down Manor Street by the Town Hall and, almost at the river end, arrived at a forbidding building with the appearance of a bishop whose countenance is noble but betrays private stomach trouble. There was grandeur everywhere, but it was a flaky, streaky grandeur; statues at intervals, but statues with peeling noses, wreaths of stone leaves and flowers soiled with bird droppings, and on the steps small fragments of newspaper that rustled and fluttered against the stone like live things.

He went inside, pushed the starting knob of the lift, and on the third floor found a door with a visiting card, a little grubby, inserted above the unpolished door handle. “Miss Christine Bell” it read.

She opened the door to him and, when the door was closed, they kissed as they always did, but he did not put his arms round her nor did she wish him to do so.

In the sitting room, which had a yellow wall paper, a large bright green pouf in front of the gas fire, and two very silent canaries in a cage by the window, they sat one on either side of the pettish little fire which went, every once and again, “Put–Put–Put” in accents of irritable discontent. The rain began to beat against the windowpane, and suddenly one of the canaries uttered an excited, emotional little chirp as though it said, “Well, here’s some life at last! Here’s something to be thankful for!”

Christine did not pretend to be anything but weary. She had had an awful morning in the shop. This was her half-day, and didn’t she need it! “The women were too frightful. All their nerves seemed to be on edge–especially that dreadful old Lady Hadden. She didn’t know what she wanted. The narcissus was faded, although I told her it had come straight up from the country that same morning, and the white lilac was monstrously dear, which it isn’t, and so on and so on. I could have smacked her old strawberry face, really I could, and there we have to stand, smiling and smiling. Oh, well, it’s all in the day’s work, I suppose.” She lifted her eyes to his. She was wearing a grey frock and was almost, except for a little rouge on her lips, a shadow against the wall with her pale hair, her thin form, her long slender hands.

She was, perhaps, a shadow. These last months had been a dream; he had been in love with a ghost. And she looked at him, thinking more than ever that he was “a dear old thing.” He was clumsy as a lover and absurd when he was passionate. She did not want him ever to touch her again, but she was very sorry that this was the last time that she would see his face, for he had one of the kindest, best-natured countenances in the world. It was his face really that she had fallen in love with, that she was even a little bit in love with still. She liked it when he was puzzled with something and wrinkled his eyebrows. She liked the good-natured crow’s-feet that were marked near his eyes when he laughed. She liked his direct and honest gaze. Oh, he was a good man, and really this kind of thing wasn’t his game at all. It was much better that it should end, especially as he loved his wife and his wife loved him. She wasn’t one for breaking up married happiness. There wasn’t so much of it about as all that.

She smiled at him and said:

“Here I am idling and you wanting your tea.”

“Let me help,” he said.

“Oh, no, you stay where you are.”

When she came back with the tea he thought: “How well she does this! She ought to be married! It’s a shame.”

They talked of anything but the real thing. He told her of Nicholas’s arrival.

“Not written to you for ten years!” she cried. “Looks as though he was making use of you, if you ask me.”

“I don’t know. He’s not like other men. He lives from hand to mouth–he always has. I wasn’t overpleased when I heard that he’d come, but now that he’s there he’s very charming, you know. He’s got endless stories and is always in a good temper. My wife’s delighted–” He stopped. He’d better come to the point, finish with it, and go.

“I’m terribly sorry this is the last visit,” he said.

“Yes,” she said. “So am I. I’m very fond of you–I didn’t know how much until today.”

She got up and kissed him on the forehead. Then she went to a shabby imitation Queen Anne writing desk and from a drawer produced a bundle of letters.

“Here they all are,” she said, giving them to him. “Every one of them. Every scrap. I’d like to keep them, of course–a sort of consolation in my old age.” She laughed. “But it’s wiser not. If you take my advice, Charlie, you’ll burn the lot.”

“I will.” He didn’t look at them.

She was an extremely honest woman. He knew that he could trust her.

“I haven’t kept them all. There was one–oh, well, you know–after we had known one another about a week. I thought that really was risky. I burnt it.”