The Painted Veil / Узорный покров. Уильям Сомерсет МоэмЧитать онлайн книгу.
to dine at her house because she liked him. She gave large dinner parties at regular intervals. But parsimony was as strong in her as ambition. She hated to spend money. She could never persuade herself that people when they were eating and talking knew what they drank. She wrapped cheap sparkling wine in a napkin and thought her guests took it for champagne.
Bernard Garstin had a fair though not a large practice. Mrs. Garstin made him stand for parliament. The expense of the election was covered by the party, but she could not make herself spend enough money to nurse the voters. So Bernard Garstin was beaten. Though Mrs. Garstin wanted to be a member’s wife she bore her disappointment with courage. She had made contact with a number of prominent persons and she appreciated the addition to her social importance.
But he was still a junior and many younger men than he had already taken silk[10]. It was necessary that he should too, because it insulted her to go in to dinner after women ten years younger than herself. But here she encountered in her husband a stubbornness which she had not for years been accustomed to. He was afraid that as а К. C. he would get no work. A bird in the hand was worth two in the bush[11], he told her, to which she replied that a proverb was the last refuge of the weak-minded. He said that his income would be halved. She would not listen. She gave him no peace and at last, as always, he gave up. He applied for silk and it was promptly awarded him.
His doubts were justified. He made no carrier and his briefs were few. But he concealed any disappointment, and if he reproached his wife it was in his heart. He grew perhaps a little more silent, but he had always been silent at home, and no one in his family noticed a change in him. His daughters had never looked upon him as anything but a source of income; and now, understanding that through his fault money was less plentiful, the indifference they had felt for him was mixed with contempt. It never occurred to them to ask themselves what were the feelings of the little man who went out early in the morning and came home at night. He was a stranger to them, but because he was their father they took it for granted that he should love and cherish them.
VIII
But there was a quality of courage in Mrs. Garstin which was admirable. She let no one in her immediate circle, which to her was the world, see how embarrassed she was by the failure of her hopes. She made no change in her style of living. By careful management she was able to give as showy dinners as she had done before, and she met her friends with the same bright cheerfulness which she had so long cultivated. She was a useful guest among persons to whom small talk[12] did not come easily, for she was never at a loss with a new topic and could be trusted immediately to break an awkward silence with a suitable observation.
It was unlikely now that Bernard Garstin would ever become a judge of the High Court, but he might still hope for a County Court judgeship or at the worst an appointment in the Colonies. Meanwhile she had the satisfaction of seeing him appointed Recorder[13] of a Welsh town.
Then Mrs. Garstin set her hopes on her daughters. By arranging good marriages for them she expected to compensate all the disappointments of her career. There were two, Kitty and Doris. Doris gave no sign of good looks, her nose was too long and her figure was lumpy. But Kitty was a beauty. When she was still a child she had large, dark eyes, brown, curling hair, exquisite teeth and a lovely skin. Her features would never be very good, for her chin was too square and her nose, though not so long as Doris’s, too big. Her beauty depended a lot on her youth, and Mrs. Garstin realized that she must marry in the first flush of her maidenhood. Kitty had a charming cheerfulness and the desire to please. Mrs. Garstin gave her all the affection, a competent, calculating affection, of which she was capable; she dreamed ambitious dreams; it was not a good marriage she aimed at for her daughter, but a brilliant one.
Kitty had been brought up with the knowledge that she was going to be a beautiful woman and she suspected her mother’s ambition. It accorded with her own desires. She was launched upon the world and she was a success. Very soon she had a dozen men in love with her. But none was suitable. Kitty was prepared to flirt with them, but when they proposed to her, she refused them with tact but decision.
Her first season passed without the perfect suitor presenting himself, and the second also; but she was young and could afford to wait. Mrs. Garstin told her friends that she thought it a pity for a girl to marry till she was twenty-one. But a third year passed and then a fourth. Kitty still danced a great deal; but still no one whose position and income were satisfactory asked her to marry him. Mrs. Garstin began to grow uneasy. She noticed that Kitty was beginning to attract men of forty and over. She reminded her that she would not be any longer so pretty in a year or two and that young girls were coming out all the time. Mrs Garstin warned her daughter that she would miss her market. Kitty shrugged her shoulders. She thought herself as pretty as ever, prettier perhaps, for she had learnt how to dress in the last four years, and she had plenty of time. If she wanted to marry just to be married there were a dozen boys who would jump at the chance. Surely the right man would come along sooner or later. But Mrs. Garstin judged the situation more shrewdly: with anger in her heart for the beautiful daughter who had missed her chances she set her standard a little lower. She looked about for a young lawyer or a business man whose future inspired her with confidence.
Kitty reached the age of twenty-five and was still unmarried. Mrs. Garstin was maddened. She asked her how much longer she expected her father to support her. She put down Kitty’s failure to stupidity. Then Doris came out. She had a long nose still, and a poor figure, and she danced badly. In her first season she became engaged to Geoffrey Dennison. He was the only son of a prosperous surgeon who had been given a baronetcy during the war. Geoffrey would inherit a title – it is not very grand to be a medical baronet, but a title, thank God, is still a title – and a very comfortable fortune.
Kitty in a panic married Walter Fane.
IX
She had known him but a little while. She had no idea when or where they had first met till after their engagement he told her that it was at a dance to which some friends had brought him. She certainly paid no attention to him then and if she danced with him it was because she was good-natured and was glad to dance with any one who asked her. She didn’t recognize him when a day or two later at another dance he came up and spoke to her. Then she remarked that he was at every dance she went to.
“You know, I’ve danced with you at least a dozen times now and you must tell me your name,” she said to him at last in her laughing way.
He was obviously taken aback.
“Do you mean to say you don’t know it? I was introduced to you.”
“Oh, but people always mumble. I shouldn’t be at all surprised if you hadn’t an idea what my name was.”
He smiled at her. His face was serious, but his smile was very sweet.
“Of course I know it.” He was silent for a moment or two. “Have you no curiosity?” he asked then.
“As much as most women.”
“It didn’t occur to you to ask somebody or other what my name was?”
“Well, what is it?”
“Walter Fane.”
She did not know why he came to dances, he did not dance very well, and he seemed to know few people. He certainly did not behave like any of the other youths who had been in love with her. Most of them told her so frankly and wanted to kiss her: a good many did. But Walter Fane never talked of her and very little of himself. He was rather silent; she did not mind that because she had plenty to say and it pleased her to see him laugh when she made a funny remark; but when he talked it was not stupidly. He was evidently shy. It appeared that he lived in the East and was home on leave.
One Sunday afternoon he appeared at their house in South Kensington. There were a dozen people there, and he sat for some time, feeling a bit uncomfortable, and then went away. Her mother asked her later who he was.
“I haven’t an idea. Did you ask him to come here?”
“Yes,
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