England -- Social life and customs -- 20th century -- Fiction; Spiritualism -- Fiction
Till now Archie, with the ordinary impulse of a disappointed man, had
tried to banish from his mind (with certain exterior aids) the picture
of the face and the form that he loved. But now he not only need not,
but he must not, do that any longer: he had to cling to love. And while
he waited for his father he kept recalling certain poignant moments in
the growth of Helena's bewitchment of him. One was the night when they
sat together for the last time in the dark garden at Silorno, and he
wondered whether the suggestion of a cousinly kiss would disturb her.
What had kept him back was the knowledge that it would not be quite a
cousinly kiss on his part... Then there was the moment when he had
caught sight of her on the platform at Charing Cross: she had come to
meet his train on his arrival from abroad... Best of all, perhaps, for
there his passion had most been fed with the fuel of her touch, had been
the dance at his aunt's that same night, when the rhythm of the waltz
and the melodious command of the music had welded their two young bodies
into one. It was not "he and she" who had danced: it was just one
perfect and complete individual. Here, on this quiet Sunday morning, the
thought of that made him tingle and throb. It was that sort of memory
which Martin told him he must keep alive... It was his resentment, his
anger, that must die, not that. Helena had chosen somebody else, but he
must long for her still.
Lord Tintagel appeared, unusually white and shaky, and, as lunch-time
was approaching, he rang for the apparatus of cocktails.
"I sat up late last night, Archie," he said, "bothering myself over
those Russian shares. It's really of you and your mother I am thinking.
It won't be long before all the mines in Russia will matter nothing to
me, for a few feet of earth will be all I shall require. But, before I
went to bed, I came to the conclusion that I was wrong to worry. I think
the scare will soon pass, and the shares recover. Indeed, I think the
wisest thing would be not to sell, and cut my loss, but to buy more, at
the lower price. I shall telegraph to my broker to-morrow. But I got
into no end of a perplexity about it, and I feel all to bits this
morning."
He mixed himself a cocktail with a shaking hand, and shuffled back to
his chair.
"Help yourself, Archie," he said. "Let me see, we were going to have a
talk about something this morning. What was it? That worry about my
Russians has put everything out of my head."
Once again, as last night, it struck Archie as immensely comical that
this white-faced, shaky man, who was his father, should be pulling
himself together with a strong cocktail in order to discuss the virtues
of temperance, and make the necessary resolutions whereby to acquire
them. He felt neither pity nor sympathy with him, nor yet disgust; it
was only the humour of the situation, the farcical absurdity of it, that
appealed to him.
"We were going to make good resolutions not to drink quite so much," he
said.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account