Эрнест Хорнунг - A Bride from The Bush

"But," said Alfred, as soon as he could get a word in, which was not immediately, "you go on as though this was the first real, genuine English village you'd seen; whereas nothing could be more entirely and typically English than Twickenham itself."

"Ah, but this seems miles and miles away from Twickenham, and all the other villages round about that I've seen. I think I would rather live here, where it is so quiet and still, like a Bush township. I like Twickenham; but on one side there's nothing but people going up and down in boats, and on the other side the same thing, only coaches instead of boats. And I hate the sound of those coaches, with their jingle and rattle and horn–blowing; though I shouldn't hate it if I were on one."

"Would you so very much like to fizz around on a coach, then?"

"Would I not !" said Gladys.

The first person they saw, on getting home, was Granville, who was lounging in the little veranda where they had taken tea on the afternoon of their arrival, smoking cigarettes over a book. It was the first volume of a novel, which he was scanning for review. He seemed disposed to be agreeable.

"Gladys," he said, "this book's about Australia; what's a 'new chum,' please? I may as well know, as, so far, the hero's one."

"A 'new chum,'" his sister–in–law answered him readily, "is some fellow newly out from home, who goes up the Bush; and he's generally a fool."

"Thank you," said Granville; "the hero of this story answers in every particular to your definition."

Granville went on with his skimming. On a slip of paper lying handy were the skeletons of some of the smart epigrammatic sentences with which the book would presently be pulverised. Husband and wife had gone through into the house, leaving him to his congenial task; when the Tempter, in humorous mood, put it into the head of his good friend Granville to call back the Bride for a moment's sport.

"I say"—the young man assumed the air of the innocent interlocutor—"is it true that every one out there wears a big black beard, and a red shirt, and jack–boots and revolvers?"

"No, it is not; who says so?"

"Well, this fellow gives me that impression. In point of fact, it always was my impression. Isn't it a fact, however, that most of your legislators (I meant to ask you this last night, but our friend the senator gave me no chance)—that most of your legislators are convicts?"

"Does your book give you that impression too?" the Bride inquired coolly.

"No; that's original, more or less."

"Then it's wrong, altogether. But, see here, Gran: you ought to go out there."

"Why, pray?"

"You remember what I said a 'new chum' was?"

"Yes; among other things a fool."

"Very good. You ought to go out there, because there are the makings of such a splendid 'new chum' in you . You're thrown away in England."

Granville dropped his book and put up his eyeglass. But the Bride was gone. She had already overtaken her husband, and seized him by the arm.

"Oh, Alfred," she cried, "I have done it! I have broken my promise! I have had words with Gran! Oh, my poor boy—I'm beginning to make you wish to goodness you'd never seen me—I feel I am!"

All men may be vain, but the vanity of Granville Bligh was, so to speak, of a special brand. In the bandying of words (which, after all, was his profession) his vanity was not too easily satisfied by his own performances. This made him strong in attack, through setting up a high standard, of the kind; but it left his defence somewhat weak for want of practice. His war was always within the enemy's lines. He paid too much attention to his attack. Thus, though seldom touched by an adversary, when touched he was wounded; and, what was likely to militate against his professional chances, when wounded he was generally winged. His own skin was too thin; he had not yet learned to take without a twinge what he gave without a qualm: for a smart and aggressive young man he was simply absurdly sensitive.

But, though weaker in defence than might have been expected, Granville was no mean hand at retaliation. He neither forgot nor forgave; and he paid on old scores and new ones with the heavy interest demanded by his exorbitant vanity. Here again his vanity was very fastidious. First or last, by fair means or foul, Granville was to finish a winner. Until he did, his vanity and he were not on speaking terms.

There were occasions, of course, when he was not in a position either to riposte at once or to whet his blade and pray for the next merry meeting. Such cases occurred sometimes in court, when the bench would stand no nonsense, and brusquely said as much, if not rather more. Incredible as it may seem, however, Granville felt his impotency hardly less in the public streets, when he happened to be unusually well dressed and gutter–chaff rose to the occasion. In fact, probably the worst half–hour he ever spent in his life was one fine morning when unaccountable energy actuated him to walk to Richmond, and take the train there, instead of getting in at Twickenham; for, encountering a motley and interminable string of vehicles en route to Kempton Park, he ran a gauntlet of plebeian satire during that half–hour, such as he never entirely could forget.

To these abominable experiences, the Bride's piece of rudeness unrefined (which she had the bad taste to perpetrate at the very moment when he was being rude to her, but in a gentlemanlike way) was indeed a mere trifle; but Granville, it will now be seen, thought more of trifles than the ordinary rational animal; and this one completely altered his attitude towards Gladys.

If, hitherto, he had ridiculed her, delicately, to her face, and disparaged her—with less delicacy—behind her back, he had been merely pursuing a species of intellectual sport, without much malicious intent. He was not aware that he had ever made the poor thing uncomfortable. He had not inquired into that. He was only aware that he had more than once had his joke out of her, and enjoyed it, and felt pleased with himself. But his sentiment towards her was no longer so devoid of animosity. She had scored off him; he had felt it sufficiently at the moment; but he felt it much more when it had rankled a little. And he despised and detested himself for having been scored off, even without witnesses, by a creature so coarse and contemptible. He was too vain to satisfy himself with the comfortable, elastic, and deservedly popular principle that certain unpleasantnesses and certain unpleasant people are "beneath notice." Nobody was beneath Granville's notice; he would have punished with his own boot the young blackguards of the gutter, could he have been sure of catching them, and equally sure of not being seen; and he punished Gladys in a fashion that precluded detection—even Gladys herself never knew that she was under the lash.

On the contrary, she ceased to dislike her brother–in–law. He was become more polite to her than he had ever been before; more affable and friendly in every way. Quite suddenly, they were brother and sister together.

"How well those two get on!" Lady Bligh would whisper to her husband, during the solemn game of bezique which was an institution of their quieter evenings; and, indeed, the Bride and her brother–in–law had taken to talking and laughing a good deal in the twilight by the open window. But, sooner or later, Granville was sure to come over to the card–table with Gladys's latest story or saying, with which he would appear to be hugely amused: and the same he delighted to repeat in its original vernacular, and with its original slips of grammar, but with his own faultless accent—which emphasised those peculiarities, making Lady Bligh sigh sadly and Sir James look as though he did not hear. And Alfred was too well pleased that his wife had come to like Granville at last, to listen to what they were talking about; and the poor girl herself never once suspected the unkindness; far from it, indeed, for she liked Granville now.