Bildungsromans; Psychological fiction; Young women -- Fiction
‘No wonder you’re a bookworm, Judy,’ said Roddy, searching the shelves
with absorbed eyes. ‘I’d be myself if I had this always round me.’
He could hardly tear himself away from browsing and gazing.
In the hall hung a water-color portrait of Judith at the age of six.
‘Ah!’ said Roddy. ‘I remember you like this.’
He looked from her to the portrait, and then at her again, as if
remembering and comparing, and dwelling on the face she smilingly lifted
to him until she had to drop her eyes.
They had tea in the drawing-room,--exquisite China tea in the precious
Nankin cups which always appeared for visitors. Everything in the house
was precious and exquisite: she had never realized it before; and she
thought:
‘Now that they have seen me in my beautiful home, against my own
background, the only daughter of such richness, they will think more of
me.’
It certainly seemed so. Conversation flowed happily about nothing. She
was, for the first time, completely at her ease; and they listened with
interest,--even with a sort of deference, as if they thought her rather
a special person.
After tea they went down to the river. The westering sun spread on the
water as far as eye could see in a full embrace of shining light.
‘Let’s bathe,’ said Martin.
They ran next door for their bathing suits while she undressed in the
boathouse. Then they returned and undressed behind the boathouse; and
they all plunged into the water together.
Judith and Roddy stood on the raft, watching Martin diving sideways, and
backwards and forwards, always perfectly, his magnificent muscle
swelling and rippling as he moved. He swam and dived with a faultless
ease of technique, as if he could never tire.
But Roddy would not exert himself. After two swift arrow-like dives he
stood on the raft looking funny and boyish, with his hair plastered
close over his head and his too-slender body shivering slightly. She
noticed how delicately he was made in spite of his height. He had the
look of a cat, graceful, narrow and lazy; and his skin was almost as
smooth as her own.
When she dived he watched her body and all her movements closely; and
she wondered whether his artist’s eye were detecting the faults and
virtues of her form and if she compared at all favorably with his models
in Paris.
She swam a little and talked to Martin, and came back to the raft.
‘Have you had enough, Roddy?’
‘Soon.’
‘Do you prefer watching?’
‘I always prefer watching.’
It was true. He would watch with deep concentration while others moved
and took exercise, as if he were drawing them in his mind or getting
them by heart; but his own impulses towards physical activity were rare
and of brief duration.
‘I like swimming,’ said Judith; careful not to say she adored it.
‘You do it very nicely.’
‘But this is dull compared with swimming at night.’
‘Ah!’
‘Have you ever done that?’
‘No, never.’
‘You don’t need to wear a bathing-suit then. It’s far more delicious
with nothing on.’
‘I suppose it is.’
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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