Ivy Compton-Burnett - Dolores

A step on the staircase brought an end to the yielding to emotion. She closed her book, and pushed the lamp to the middle of the table. There was a sound as though of groping at the door; and the playwright entered, wearing his working garb — a ragged coat of some fabric that looked like canvas, — and bearing a pile of papers in his hands.

“Is Soulsby coming to-night?” he said, as he set the manuscript down.

“To supper at eight o’clock. It is the hour now,” said his mother, in guttural aged tones, which a German accent made curious.

Claverhouse took the seat that was nearest, and rested his elbows on the table, pushing his hands through his hair, and glancing at the clock.

“It is finished,” he said. “I can read it to him to-night. He is long, is he not? I am in the vein for reading. He is very long.”

“He is coming to supper,” said Janet, resting her eyes on the disordering of the table, but taking no further heed. “We must have supper first, Sigismund. You have eaten nothing since midday.”

“I want nothing,” said Claverhouse, rising and moving excitedly. “I need nothing. Is he not coming? The last scene — it has lived so long with me. He is very late.”

“Well, but what of your old mother, Sigismund? There are not so many suppers before a woman of ninety, that she should waste the chance of one,” said Janet, with a laugh that was deep but pleasant-toned.

“Ah! we will have supper, my little mother,” said the son, with a smile that brought a sudden difference to his face. “But Soulsby is long. He prevents our beginning.”

Mrs Claverhouse laid her hand on the worn little volume at her side.

“I have been reading again the play, which I call my own play,” she said. “I wept again over it, my son. You have given the father you never saw, to me again, if not to the world. It needs something to bring tears at ninety — at the fiftieth reading.”

“Ah! it is a good play,” said Claverhouse. “But I was a boy when I wrote it. It is different now. There is the knocker!”

He hastened from the room and went to the outer door; but on reaching it paused and fumbled.

“The door will not open,” he called. “It is fastened.”

“Turn the key,” said the guttural tones from within. “It is locked on the inside. It does not keep together else; it needs to be mended. You have only to turn the key.”

“The key?” said Claverhouse, stooping and fumbling, and finally clutching it, as though his hands had found it, and not his eyes. “Ah, Soulsby! you are late. Come in, come in.”

A rapid, nervous utterance responded, as a tall figure stepped into the passage.

“I am sorry — I am sorry; I had no idea — no idea at all that I was late. I hope — I hope it is of no matter.”

“No matter, no matter,” said Claverhouse, standing aside, and not heeding that his friend was at trouble in the discarding of his outer garment. “You are good to come. The play is written to the end. I wrote the last scene to-night. It is different from all the rest. You shall hear it in a moment. Come in.”

As the guest entered the lamp-lit sitting-room, he was a contrast to the figure he followed. Tall and well-moulded, with large, sensitive features, tended waves of glossy grey hair, and a manner marked by the nervousness of over-culture, he looked what he was, a type of the university don. He was the tutor of one of the colleges — a large — hearted pedant, to his finger — tips gently academic; with the tastes and talents rather of the scholar than the man. of letters; but an instinctive knowledge of the genius that lived unsought, amid the many grey walls that stood in the sanctity of genius dead. The bonds that bound him alone of men to the dramatist, were too subtle for disentwining. They were not less strong that they were subtle.

“I am afraid — I am afraid I have kept you waiting,” he said in his quick, hesitating manner, as he greeted Janet. “Pray — pray do not rise — pray do not. I had no idea — no idea I was behind the time.”

“You are very little behind the time,” said Janet, as she lifted the manuscript from the spread table, and placed it elsewhere. “And for Sigismund to take any one to task on exactness in time, is a case of the pot calling the kettle black. Sit down, Sigismund; and let William have his meal in peace.”

It was a habit of Janet’s to address Soulsby, though she had not known him till his youth was past, by his baptismal name. It was one of her few evincements of greatness of age; and Soulsby accepted it with the unnoticing courtesy, with which he accepted all that was unwonted in the genius’ home.

The three now seated themselves at the table. A dish was brought in by a bent old servant, and set before Janet; who dispensed it with perfect precision of movement; paying covert heed to the fancies of her son, and attending to Soulsby with pretty courtliness. The servant knew her duties well. She was ready to the moment with a supporting touch, if Janet’s hands showed signs of faltering; the extras of the meal were set with unobtrusive closeness under her master’s dim-sighted eyes; some wonted attentions, with which Janet and her son dispensed, were paid to the guest; and all was done with a silent evenness of movement, which covered the actions. It was clear to which member of the household her devotion was given. She watched her master through every unoccupied moment; lingered over the supplying of his needs; and observed the extent of his justice to her culinary skill, with eyes that were almost jealous. He had spoken truth when he disclaimed desire for food; but when he was brought to settle to a meal, other things, as Julia knew with rejoicing, had their turn of being forgotten.

When he had finished, he threw himself back in his seat, pushed his hands through his hair, and looked at her with a smile.

“That was good, Julia,” he said.

Julia’s face illumined, and relapsed at once into its usual neutral alertness.

“Ah, Julia,” went on Claverhouse, who always had a word with his old dependent once in the day; “you are a clever housewoman. You will make a good wife some time.”

Julia’s face assumed the conscious smile of sixty-three years of unwooed maidenhood. The jest was an old friend; and as such she loved and welcomed it.

“Ah, Julia!” continued Claverhouse, “you are coy, I am afraid; you are coy. Where did you learn those naughty proud airs? It is time you grew out of them. Is it not, Soulsby?”

Soulsby looked up in some uneasiness. Supper in the playwright’s household was an old experience; but it was a case where custom had wrought little. He had sat, as was his wont, in apparent discomfiture — though no eyes saw it but Julia’s, — fidgeting with his nervous hands; and glancing from his hostess to her son, as if reluctant to thrust his voice on the silence. He was grateful that the talkative spirit had come on his friend; but this appeal to himself was not of a kind he would have chosen.

“Ah — yes — yes, yes,” he replied; “yes, very possibly.”

“You talk too much nonsense, Sigismund,” said Janet, in her deep tones. “Let us move from the table, so that Julia may clear it.”

“Ah, my little mother? Yes, you are right; you are right. You are always right to me,” said Claverhouse, perceiving that Janet’s jealousy was touched.

“How about the reading of the play, my son? “said the mother. “It is growing late; and William will be leaving us.”

“Ah!” said Claverhouse, with a world of remembrance and emotion. “Late, is it? It is of no matter. Take some seat, Soulsby — no, no; not there, not there. There — where I can see your face. Sit here, little mother — here; so that the ear that is not deaf is turned to me. Quiet, Julia; or go, go. Now, Soulsby, find what you think.”