I don’t know what happened to end that conversation, or if it had an
end. I remember talking to one of the clergy for a time rather
awkwardly, and being given a sort of topographical history of
Beckenham, which he assured me time after time was “Quite an old place.
_Quite_ an old place.” As though I had treated it as new and he meant
to be very patient but very convincing. Then we hung up in a distinct
pause, and my aunt rescued me. “George,” she said in a confidential
undertone, “keep the pot a-boiling.” And then audibly, “I say, will you
both old trot about with tea a bit?”
“Only too delighted to _trot_ for you, Mrs. Ponderevo,” said the
clergyman, becoming fearfully expert and in his elements; “only too
delighted.”
I found we were near a rustic table, and that the housemaid was behind
us in a suitable position to catch us on the rebound with the tea
things.
“Trot!” repeated the clergyman to me, much amused; “excellent
expression!” And I just saved him from the tray as he turned about.
We handed tea for a while....
“Give ’em cakes,” said my aunt, flushed, but well in hand. “Helps ’em
to talk, George. Always talk best after a little nourishment. Like
throwing a bit of turf down an old geyser.”
She surveyed the gathering with a predominant blue eye and helped
herself to tea.
“They keep on going stiff,” she said in an undertone.... “I’ve done my
best.”
“It’s been a huge success,” I said encouragingly.
“That boy has had his legs crossed in that position and hasn’t spoken
for ten minutes. Stiffer and stiffer. Brittle. He’s beginning a dry
cough—always a bad sign, George.... Walk ’em about, shall I?—rub their
noses with snow?”
Happily she didn’t. I got myself involved with the gentlewoman from
next door, a pensive, languid-looking little woman with a low voice,
and fell talking; our topic, Cats and Dogs, and which it was we liked
best.
“I always feel,” said the pensive little woman, “that there’s something
about a dog—A cat hasn’t got it.”
“Yes,” I found myself admitting with great enthusiasm, “there is
something. And yet again—”
“Oh! I know there’s something about a cat, too. But it isn’t the same.”
“Not quite the same,” I admitted; “but still it’s something.”
“Ah! But such a different something!”
“More sinuous.”
“Much more.”
“Ever so much more.”
“It makes all the difference, don’t you think?”
“Yes,” I said, “_all_.”
She glanced at me gravely and sighed a long, deeply felt “_Yes_.”
A long pause.
The thing seemed to me to amount to a stale-mate. Fear came into my
heart and much perplexity.
“The—er—Roses,” I said. I felt like a drowning man. “Those roses—don’t
you think they are—very beautiful flowers?”
“Aren’t they!” she agreed gently. “There seems to be something in
roses—something—I don’t know how to express it.”
“Something,” I said helpfully.
“Yes,” she said, “something. Isn’t there?”
“So few people see it,” I said; “more’s the pity!”
She sighed and said again very softly, “_Yes_.”...
There was another long pause. I looked at her and she was thinking
dreamily. The drowning sensation returned, the fear and enfeeblement. I
perceived by a sort of inspiration that her tea-cup was empty.
“Let me take your cup,” I said abruptly, and, that secured, made for
the table by the summer-house. I had no intention then of deserting my
aunt. But close at hand the big French window of the drawing-room
yawned inviting and suggestive. I can feel all that temptation now, and
particularly the provocation of my collar. In an instant I was lost. I
would—Just for a moment!
I dashed in, put down the cup on the keys of the grand piano and fled
upstairs, softly, swiftly, three steps at a time, to the sanctuary of
my uncle’s study, his snuggery. I arrived there breathless, convinced
there was no return for me. I was very glad and ashamed of myself, and
desperate. By means of a penknife I contrived to break open his cabinet
of cigars, drew a chair to the window, took off my coat, collar and
tie, and remained smoking guiltily and rebelliously, and peeping
through the blind at the assembly on the lawn until it was altogether
gone....
The clergymen, I thought, were wonderful.