she saw an aged dowager, a
kind of Mayfair equivalent of Mrs. Poulteney, whom she knew would be as
congenial to Charles as castor oil to a healthy child. She went up to him.
"Shall you not go converse
with Lady Fairwether?"
"I should rather converse
with you."
"I will present you. And
then you can have an eyewitness account of the goings-on in the Early Cretaceous
era."
He smiled. "The Early Cretaceous
is a period. Not an era."
"Never mind. I am sure it
is sufficiently old. And I know how bored you are by anything that has
happened in the last ninety million years. Come."
So they began to cross the
room together; but halfway to the Early Cretaceous lady, she stopped, laid
her
hand a moment on his arm,
and looked him in the eyes.
"If you are determined to
be a sour old bachelor, Mr. Smithson, you must practice for your part."
She had moved on before he
could answer; and what she had said might have sounded no more than a continuation
of her teasing. But her eyes had for the briefest moment made it clear
that she made an offer; as unmistakable, in its way, as those made by the
women who in the London of the time haunted the doorways round the Haymarket.
What she did not know was
that she had touched an increasingly sensitive place in Charles's innermost
soul; his feeling that he was growing like his uncle at Winsyatt, that
life was passing him by, that he was being, as in so many other things,
overfastidious, lazy, selfish ... and worse. He had not traveled abroad
those last two years; and he had realized that previously traveling had
been a substitute for not having a wife. It took his mind off domestic
affairs; it also allowed him to take an occasional woman into his bed,
a pleasure he strictly forbade himself, perhaps remembering the black night
of the soul his first essay in that field had caused, in England.
Traveling no longer attracted
him; but women did, and he was therefore in a state of extreme sexual frustration,
since his moral delicacy had not allowed him to try the simple expedient
of a week in Ostend or Paris. He could never have allowed such a purpose
to dictate the reason for a journey. He passed a very thoughtful week.
Then one morning he woke up.
Everything had become simple.
He loved Ernestina. He thought of the pleasure of waking up on just such
a morning, cold, gray, with a powder of snow on the ground, and seeing
that demure, sweetly dry little face asleep beside him--and by heavens
(this fact struck Charles with a sort of amazement) legitimately in the
eyes of both God and man beside him. A few minutes later he startled the
sleepy Sam, who had crept up from downstairs at his urgent ringing, by
saying: "Sam! I am an absolute one hundred per cent heaven forgive me damned
fool!"
A day or two afterwards the
unadulterated fool had an interview with Ernestina's father. It was brief,
and very satisfactory. He went down to the drawing room, where Ernestina's
mother sat in a state of the most poignant trepidation. She could not bring
herself to speak to Charles, but pointed uncertainly in the direction of
the conservatory. Charles opened the white doors to it and stood in the
waft of the hot, fragrant air. He had to search for Ernestina, but at last
he found her in one of the farthest corners, half screened behind 'a bower
of stephanotis. He saw her glance at him, and then look hastily down and
away. She held a pair of silver scissors, and was pretending to snip off
some of the dead blooms of the heavily scented plant. Charles stood close
behind her; coughed.
"I have come to bid my adieux."
The agonized look she flashed at him he pretended, by the simple trick
of staring at the ground, not to notice. "I have decided to leave England.
For the rest of my life I shall travel. How else can a sour old bachelor
divert his days?"
He was ready to go on in
this vein. But then he saw that Ernestina's head was bowed and that her
knuckles were drained white by the force with which she was gripping the
table. He
kind of Mayfair equivalent of Mrs. Poulteney, whom she knew would be as
congenial to Charles as castor oil to a healthy child. She went up to him.
"Shall you not go converse
with Lady Fairwether?"
"I should rather converse
with you."
"I will present you. And
then you can have an eyewitness account of the goings-on in the Early Cretaceous
era."
He smiled. "The Early Cretaceous
is a period. Not an era."
"Never mind. I am sure it
is sufficiently old. And I know how bored you are by anything that has
happened in the last ninety million years. Come."
So they began to cross the
room together; but halfway to the Early Cretaceous lady, she stopped, laid
her
hand a moment on his arm,
and looked him in the eyes.
"If you are determined to
be a sour old bachelor, Mr. Smithson, you must practice for your part."
She had moved on before he
could answer; and what she had said might have sounded no more than a continuation
of her teasing. But her eyes had for the briefest moment made it clear
that she made an offer; as unmistakable, in its way, as those made by the
women who in the London of the time haunted the doorways round the Haymarket.
What she did not know was
that she had touched an increasingly sensitive place in Charles's innermost
soul; his feeling that he was growing like his uncle at Winsyatt, that
life was passing him by, that he was being, as in so many other things,
overfastidious, lazy, selfish ... and worse. He had not traveled abroad
those last two years; and he had realized that previously traveling had
been a substitute for not having a wife. It took his mind off domestic
affairs; it also allowed him to take an occasional woman into his bed,
a pleasure he strictly forbade himself, perhaps remembering the black night
of the soul his first essay in that field had caused, in England.
Traveling no longer attracted
him; but women did, and he was therefore in a state of extreme sexual frustration,
since his moral delicacy had not allowed him to try the simple expedient
of a week in Ostend or Paris. He could never have allowed such a purpose
to dictate the reason for a journey. He passed a very thoughtful week.
Then one morning he woke up.
Everything had become simple.
He loved Ernestina. He thought of the pleasure of waking up on just such
a morning, cold, gray, with a powder of snow on the ground, and seeing
that demure, sweetly dry little face asleep beside him--and by heavens
(this fact struck Charles with a sort of amazement) legitimately in the
eyes of both God and man beside him. A few minutes later he startled the
sleepy Sam, who had crept up from downstairs at his urgent ringing, by
saying: "Sam! I am an absolute one hundred per cent heaven forgive me damned
fool!"
A day or two afterwards the
unadulterated fool had an interview with Ernestina's father. It was brief,
and very satisfactory. He went down to the drawing room, where Ernestina's
mother sat in a state of the most poignant trepidation. She could not bring
herself to speak to Charles, but pointed uncertainly in the direction of
the conservatory. Charles opened the white doors to it and stood in the
waft of the hot, fragrant air. He had to search for Ernestina, but at last
he found her in one of the farthest corners, half screened behind 'a bower
of stephanotis. He saw her glance at him, and then look hastily down and
away. She held a pair of silver scissors, and was pretending to snip off
some of the dead blooms of the heavily scented plant. Charles stood close
behind her; coughed.
"I have come to bid my adieux."
The agonized look she flashed at him he pretended, by the simple trick
of staring at the ground, not to notice. "I have decided to leave England.
For the rest of my life I shall travel. How else can a sour old bachelor
divert his days?"
He was ready to go on in
this vein. But then he saw that Ernestina's head was bowed and that her
knuckles were drained white by the force with which she was gripping the
table. He
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