Джеймс Хилтон - Morning Journey

And of course she had proved to be a mixture of everything he remembered and much that he could now so pleasantly discover for himself, once the plunge had been taken; she still looked unhappy, yet she was good company, and certainly hard to put out of his mind when the trip was over.

During dinner on that first evening at home he had said to Dunne, his butler: “I suppose you got Miss Arundel through the customs all right?”

“Yes, sir. And she asked me to thank you. A very charming lady… and I MEAN a lady.” (Dunne, a Scotsman, was careful to avoid the behaviour of the stereotyped English butler—he was not obsequious, and he never used the phrase ‘if I may say so’.)

“Oh, and what makes you so sure of that?”

“She knew better than to tip me.”

Austen laughed—which did not mean that he failed to take the diagnosis seriously. He had a very high regard for Dunne’s social assessments; there was something professional about them, as if he himself were to offer an opinion of Portuguese Fours. Indeed, he had a high regard for the man altogether. As his father’s butler Dunne had been his boyhood friend, had taught him chess, and to ride a bicycle, and how to identify different birds in Central Park; Dunne had taken him for vagrant walks along Madison Avenue, explaining the difference between real and sham antiques in the shops; Dunne had lent him money when he had overspent his schoolboy allowance, had visited him at Harvard after his father’s death to break the news that his mother was seriously ill. And Dunne, after Fran’s death, though no one knew about this, had helped him through the worst crisis of bereavement. Austen had sometimes wondered if in an improved world, where there would doubtless be no master and servant, any other framework for such a relationship would be devised. If not, he would consider the improvement overrated.

When Carey telephoned, he felt a stab of pleasure as he heard her voice. After the long interval he had ceased to expect her to call; he assumed she must regard their acquaintance as a mere shipboard freak. He had a genuine modesty that made him consider himself dull by the standards that professional entertainers might set, and that an actress should seek his company must mean either that she liked him or that she was coldly appraising his social and financial eligibility. All his instinct was to believe Carey incapable of the latter.

He invited her to dine with him the following evening at his house, and her prompt acceptance sounded so much like that of an old friend that he let himself forget that they knew each other so slightly. Their telephone conversation was short, and that too pleased him; she could not, he reflected, have known how he disliked telephoning and how rarely he gave anyone his private number. Then he asked himself why he had, since the postal address would have sufficed, and the reason he fastened on was that he had wished to give her a better chance to act on impulse. After all, it was impulse that had made him speak to her on the Berengaria, and impulse, having begun so well, might claim a right to be encouraged. For him it was at least a novelty in a life so largely reasoned and reasonable. He sat in his favourite chair in the dark panelled library and meditated long after he had spoken to her. Only once did he have a flash of misgiving—when he wondered again if she would find an evening with him pretty dull—if, for instance, she would expect a lively party, or even for that matter a tęte-ŕ-tęte—for of course his old aunt would be present, he would observe all the proprieties, at any rate until friendship had become established. And he must tell her, he decided, why it was that he hadn’t invited her to a restaurant.

He told her while they drank sherry together in that same room the next evening. He noted her dress—black and gold, very becoming, and also tactfully suitable to whatever he or others might have been wearing, for in the brevity of his invitation he had given her no clues. He noticed also her grey-blue eyes and the little gap between one side tooth and its neighbour, a gap too small for a dentist to fill, yet a pleasing imperfection, especially when she gave the slightly twisting smile that matched her prevalent mood.

He was saying: “I hope you wouldn’t have preferred going to a restaurant, but the fact is, as long as Prohibition’s the law of the land I don’t care to break it publicly.” He smiled. “You can judge how moral that attitude is from the way I’m willing to transgress in private.”

“I think it could still be a moral attitude,” she answered. “They’re apt to be stronger than morals—or rather, they can hang on long after morals give up.”

Wondering what was in her mind, he went on lightly: “It also happens that I hate noise and commotion and sitting amongst strangers—except, of course, when it’s all made worth while by a good play. Tell me, how’s the new one coming along?”

He saw a shadow cross her face till she made the effort of dismissal. “Oh, pretty well. I’ve read it and signed the contracts, but we don’t begin rehearsing till August, so there’s nothing much to do just yet.”

“No learning of lines?”

“Not till after the first readings—the stage-readings, I mean, with the cast and the director. So many changes are made then, as a rule —it wouldn’t help much to be word perfect in the play as it is… But learning lines isn’t hard once you get the real feel of the play. If you’re absorbed you seem to memorize even when you read it privately.”

“Is that happening to you with this play?”

“Well, no—not so much.”

“Then the play hasn’t absorbed you—yet?”

“Not altogether… which means that Paul might be right—Paul, my husband.”

“Yes, I know. What did he say?”

“He hasn’t read the play, of course—he’s in Germany—but when we met recently he said it was time I was bored with comedy.”

“And are you?”

“Oh dear, I’d better not be. He just put the idea into my head. I suppose I ought to be used to that by now—he’s so full of ideas—they shoot out like sparks when he’s directing.”

“And the director of the new play doesn’t have any sparks?”

“I haven’t experienced them yet. Maybe he will. Or maybe it’ll be my fault for not being electrified. I hope all this doesn’t sound too occult.”

“No more than my own work would sound to you if I talked about it.”

“But you don’t—and you set me a good example.”

“No, no—that wasn’t what I meant. I’m really interested in the theatre—not only as a playgoer but—well, for one reason —-because of you. So please go on. I wish I knew more about it— what rehearsals are like, how the director functions, and so on.”

“Come along and see, some day, if you think you’d enjoy the experience.”

“To a rehearsal?”

“Yes. I dare say I could sneak you in.” She laughed a little and his questioning look made her add: “I’m laughing to think how impossible that would have been if Paul had been here. One of his inflexible rules—no strangers at rehearsals.”

“I can’t say I blame him.”

“You would, if you’d ever seen him turn somebody out.”

“From the look on your face I can see you don’t blame him either.”

“Not with my heart, because I think I understand him, but with my mind I’ve called him all kinds of names.”

The way she said that made him catch his breath, for the words had a beauty that seemed to belong out of their context, as if she were speaking some kind of benediction on a vastly larger matter. Then his aunt came into the room and introductions broke the spell. Aunt Mildred was in her late sixties, obviously though not slavishly devoted to her nephew, a serene good-humoured woman. She had developed the technique of being an unobtrusive hostess without ever accepting the role of mere chaperon, and she and Carey liked each other in an instant way that neither of them took any trouble to conceal.