The Collected Works of Algernon Blackwood (10 Novels & 80+ Short Stories in One Edition). Algernon Blackwood
Читать онлайн книгу.
She was as proud of her load of years as an old gentleman of his thick hair. 'Say exactly what you think. And don't guess too low, mind.' Her numerous stories were self-repeaters.
Miss Waghorn's memory was a source of worry and anxiety to all except the children, who mercilessly teased her. She loved the teasing, though but half aware of it. It was their evil game to extract as many of her familiar stories as possible, one after another. They knew all the clues. There was the Cornishman—she came from Cornwall—who had seen a fairy; his adventure never failed to thrill them, though she used the same words every time and they knew precisely what was coming. She was particularly strong on family reminiscences:—her father was bald at thirty, her brother's beard was so long that he tied it round his neck when playing cricket; her sister 'had the shortest arms you ever saw.' Always of youth she spoke; it was pathetic, so determined was she to be young at seventy. Her family seemed distinguished in this matter of extremes.
But the superiority of Cornish over Devonshire cream was her piece de resistance. Monkey need merely whisper—Miss Waghorn's acuteness of hearing was positively uncanny—'Devonshire cream is what I like,' to produce a spurt of explanation and defence that lasted a good ten minutes and must be listened to until the bitter end.
Jimbo would gravely inquire in a pause—of a stranger, if possible, if not, of the table in general—
'Have you ever seen a fairy?'
'No, but I've eaten Cornish cream—it's poison, you know,' Monkey would reply. And up would shoot the keen old face, preened for the fray.
'We haven't been introduced, I think'—forgetting the formal introduction of ten minutes ago—'but I overheard, if you'll forgive my interrupting, and I can tell you all about Cornish cream. I was born in '37'—with her eager smile—'and for years it was on our table. I have made quantities of it. The art was brought first by the Phoenicians——'
'Venetians,' said Monkey.
'No, Phoenicians, dear, when they came to Cornwall for tin——'
'To put the cream in,' from the same source.
'No, you silly child, to get tin from the mines, of course, and——'
Then Mother or Daddy, noting the drift of things, would interfere, and the youngsters would be obliterated—until next time. Miss Waghorn would finish her recital for the hundredth time, firmly believing it to be the first. She was a favourite with everybody, in spite of the anxiety she caused. She would go into town to pay her bill at the bootmaker's, and order another pair of boots instead, forgetting why she came. Her income was sixty pounds a year. She forgot in the afternoon the money she had received in the morning, till at last the Widow Jequier seized it for her the moment it arrived. And at night she would doze in her chair over the paper novel she had been "at" for a year and more, beginning it every night afresh, and rarely getting beyond the opening chapter. For it was ever new. All were anxious, though, what she would do next. She was so full of battle.
Everybody talked at once, but forced conversation did not flourish. Bourcelles was not fashionable; no one ever had appendicitis there. Yet ailments of a milder order were the staple, inexhaustible subjects at meals. Instead of the weather, mon estomac was the inexhaustible tale. The girl brought in the little Cantonal newspaper, and the widow read out selections in a high, shrill voice, regardless who listened. Misfortunes and accidents were her preference. Grand ciel and quelle horreur punctuated the selections. 'There's Tante Jeanne grand-cieling as usual,' Mother would say to her husband, who, being a little deaf, would answer, 'What?' and Tante Jeanne, overhearing him, would re-read the accident for his especial benefit, while the governesses recounted personal experiences among themselves, and Miss Waghorn made eager efforts to take part in it all, or tell her little tales of fairies and Cornish cream….
One by one the governesses rose to leave; each made a comprehensive bow that included the entire company. Daddy lit a cigarette or let Jimbo light it for him, too wumbled with his thoughts of afternoon work to notice the puff stolen surreptitiously on the way. Jane Anne folded her napkin carefully, talking with Mother in a low voice about the packing of the basket with provisions for tea. Tea was included in the Pension terms; in a small clothes-basket she carried bread, milk, sugar, and butter daily across to La Citadelle, except on Sundays when she wore gloves and left the duty to the younger children who were less particular.
The governesses, charged with life for another twenty-four hours at least, flocked down the creaking stairs. They nodded as they passed the Bureau window where the Postmaster pored over his collection of stamps, or examined a fretwork pattern of a boy on a bicycle—there was no heavy garden work that day—and went out into the street. They stood in knots a moment, discussing unfavourably the food just eaten, and declaring they would stand it no longer. 'Only where else can we go?' said one, feeling automatically at her velvet bag to make sure the orange was safely in it. Upstairs, at the open window, Madame Jequier overheard them as she filled the walnut shells with butter for the birds. She only smiled.
'I wish we could help her,' Mother was saying to her husband, as they watched her from the sofa in the room behind. 'A more generous creature never lived.' It was a daily statement that lacked force owing to repetition, yet the emotion prompting it was ever new and real.
'Or a more feckless,' was his reply. 'But if we ever come into our estates, we will. It shall be the first thing.' His mind always hovered after those distant estates when it was perplexed by immediate financial difficulty, and just now he was thinking of various bills and payments falling due. It was his own sympathetic link with the widow—ways and means, and the remorseless nature of sheets of paper with columns of figures underneath the horrible word doit.
'So Monsieur 'Enry Rogairs is coming,' she said excitedly, turning to them a moment on her way to the garden. 'And after all these years! He will find the house the same, and the garden better—oh, wonderfully improved. But us, helas! he will find old, oh, how old!' She did not really mean herself, however.
She began a long 'reminiscent' chapter, full of details of the days when he and Daddy had been boys together, but in the middle of it Daddy just got up and walked out, saying, 'I must get over to my work, you know.' There was no artificiality of manners at Bourcelles. Mother followed him, with a trifle more ceremony. 'Ah, c'est partir a l'anglaise!' sighed the widow, watching them go. She was accustomed to it. She went out into her garden, full of excitement at the prospect of the new arrival. Every arrival for her meant a possible chance of help. She was as young as her latest bulb really. Courage, hope, and generosity invariably go together.
CHAPTER XI
Take him and cut him out in little stars,
And he will make the face of heaven so fine
That all the world will be in love with night
And pay no worship to the garish sun!
Romeo and Juliet.
The announcement of Henry Rogers's coming was received—variously, for any new arrival into the Den circle was subjected to rigorous criticism. This criticism was not intentional; it was the instinctive judgment that children pass upon everything, object or person, likely to affect themselves. And there is no severer bar of judgment in the world.
'Who is Cousinenry? What a name! Is he stiff, I wonder?' came from Monkey, almost before the announcement had left her father's lips. 'What will he think of Tante Jeanne?' Her little torrent of questions that prejudged him thus never called for accurate answers as a rule, but this time she meant to have an answer. 'What is he exaccurately?' she added, using her own invention made up of 'exact' and 'accurate.'
Mother looked up from the typewritten letter to reply, but before she could say, 'He's your father's cousin, dear; they were here as boys twenty years ago to learn French,' Jinny burst in with an explosive interrogation. She had been reading La Bonne Menagere in a corner. Her eyes, dark with conjecture, searched the faces of both parents