‘I see you’re looking at my things,’ said the owner of this pretty collection. ‘The work of a lifetime, young man! The work of a lifetime! My French novels I keep upstairs. But we won’t talk of them now! All the same I wish you’d make Mr Storm write something really amusing, Nelly. Something witty, for one to read at night when one goes to bed. I read a lot in bed. It’s the only place where I get a moment’s time.’
‘Oh, here’s a picture of your father when he was a young man. You’ve seen it before? Yes? It’s rather nice I think, don’t you?’
She replaced the object carefully in its former position and sighed deeply, looking at herself as she did so in one of her innumerable mirrors.
‘Poor dear John! He never minded my bad little ways. I’ve told him before now the most terrible stories. You’ve heard him laugh, haven’t you, love, when we’ve been together in his study? Well! he’s past laughing now, poor darling. Why don’t you ever laugh, Mr Storm? For I can see you never do, does he Nelly? He “grimly smiles”, as the novels say, and that’s all. I must confess I like a man who can laugh. You modern writers take life so horribly seriously. One would think you were always in pain. Are you in pain when you “smile grimly” like that, Mr Storm? I hope Nelly looks after your stomach. I always used to advise her father to take castor oil, didn’t I Nelly? It was quite a joke between us. And other things too. Heigh ho! And the dear, dear man is lying there all alone. Well! I see you’re anxious to be off and I won’t keep you. But what is your opinion of these modern authors, Mr Storm, and their spiritualistic nonsense? I say that when we are dead we’re in good society. In these days you have to die to be in good society. Oh my sweet little Nell, how I am rattling on! Well! you must excuse me. I am an old woman and hardly see anybody nowadays.’
‘It was very kind of you to bring us over,’ said Nelly, rising, ‘but really you mustn’t trouble about tomorrow. I’ve got several black dresses.’
‘Nonsense, child, nonsense. You talk in the way your mother used to. Black dresses indeed! I hope, Mr Storm, you won’t let her get silly and dowdy now she’s married. But I’m sure you won’t. I expect you’ll be getting her all sorts of things from Paris. That’s what she married you for, you know, not to hear sermons about art! And do let me hear you laugh sometimes. I suspect serious faces. I always have. I advise Nelly to watch you very carefully when you’re silent like that and looking out of the windows and into the bushes. You may try to make her believe you’re composing lives of the poets or something; but I know better! You bad sly man! You’re probably thinking of some naughty little girl in Paris! There! Don’t look so sad, Nelly. It does him good to be teased a bit. These modern clever men have no sense of humour. Well! goodbye my dear one. You will walk back, eh? I could easily get Thomas to drive you. Oh dear, dear! What a thing life is. Well! be a brave girl. That’s what’ll really please your father. I’m sure the dear man is safe in heaven by now. If he’s not there, the Lord may send Betty Shotover to the other place!
‘You will walk, then? Well, goodbye, and God bless you! I’ll be over tomorrow early.’
They shook hands with her at the door; and Richard threw up his arms and beat at the laurels with his stick as soon as they were out of her sight.
‘What an awful woman! What a perfectly horrible old woman!’ Then, as if to relieve his feelings, he proceeded to make a goblin-like grimace in the direction of Mrs Shotover’s drawing room,
‘Don’t, Richard,’ said Nelly. ‘You hurt my feelings; and it isn’t pretty of you. I don’t think it’s ever nice to despise people quite like that, when you’ve been enjoying their hospitality. Besides she was a friend of Father’s.’
‘Damn her hospitality!’ cried Storm, letting loose the stored-up venom of his outraged vanity. ‘She only asked me there to annoy me. She might just as well have had you by yourself. She has always hated me from the first time we met. Her Fixden Manor! Her aunt, Lady Gower! What a disgusting old snob. I expect she saw I saw through her from the very start. That’s why she loathes me. We know how to put people like that into their places in France.’
‘Perhaps she sees through you, Richard!’
‘What do you mean?’
‘I only mean that when it comes to seeing through people, we’re all at bottom much of a muchness.’
‘Don’t for God’s sake, Nelly, use those awful expressions. I know they’re supposed to be arch and debonair and genteel in England; but I detest them. We’re not living in Wonderland or Looking-Glass-land.’
‘I wish we were!’ cried Nelly looking at him with a little surprised tilt of her eyebrows. She was still in the dark as to what had really ruffled him; for it was inconceivable that a person of his intelligence could take poor dear Aunt Bet quite as seriously as that!
Had she possessed a little more insight into her husband’s character, she would have known that he was engaged in a secret and not very human struggle to exploit in the interests of his own scheme of life every one of the events which were now occurring, centred round that old dead man lying at rest. And into this vision of things, where the old man’s death and Nelly’s own grief fitted so beautifully, Mrs Shotover and her drawing room came as a bombshell of irrelevance.
He wanted to act the part of a wise and tender philosopher to his young wife just then. He wanted her to give him an opportunity to comfort her, to explain to her his views upon death, to soothe her mind by large and noble sentiments. He wanted her to remember to her dying day how beautifully he had said just the right thing with regard to her father, how tactfully, how spiritually, he had entered into her feelings!
And here she was, actually amused and diverted by the silly chatter of this old featherbrain, and even by her ridiculous rudeness to himself!
It was not a very cheerful walk that they had together, that afternoon, back to where the dead man awaited them.
The tension between them was relieved for Nelly — while it was increased for Richard — by their overtaking a young visitor who was on her way to leave her card at their place. This was an acquaintance of Nelly’s for whom, though he had only seen her twice, Richard had acquired almost as strong a dislike as he had towards Aunt Bet.
Their meeting in just that way seemed to Richard extraordinarily awkward and unfortunate. One surely, in reserved and discreet England, managed to avoid acquaintances and condolences when one’s father was still unburied?
What would the caller do now, since she had met them? Would she hand her card to her friend with a polite curtsey, and say, ‘I’m sorry your father’s dead,’ as one might say, ‘I’m sorry your potatoes are blighted’?
These little niceties of social intercourse always filled Richard with chilly embarrassment. His own feelings were so seldom simple or direct that it was a matter of terrible self-consciousness to him how he should behave where the conventions did not act as direct signposts.
As it happened on this occasion, whether conventionally or not, Olive Shelter walked with them as far as their gate and simply said goodbye. As far as Richard could make out, she didn’t so much as refer to the dead man. Their conversation as they crossed the cornfields was lively and interesting. Nelly was evidently challenging the girl about some male cousin of hers in whom gossip reported she was interested.
‘There’s absolutely nothing in it, my dear,’ Richard heard the girl saying, ‘and you know that there isn’t. How often must I tell you before you believe me that I’ve never been interested in anyone in my life? When my uncle dies I’m going to take a poultry farm and earn my own living. Perhaps when people see me in gaiters and knickers they’ll let me alone.’