The Awkward Age Part 46

"I'm not struck only with what I'm talked to about. I don't know," she went on, "only what people tell me."

"Ah no--you're too much your mother's daughter for that!" Vanderbank leaned back and smoked, and though all his air seemed to say that when one was so at ease for gossip almost any subject would do, he kept jogging his foot with the same small nervous motion as during the half-hour at Mertle that this record has commemorated. "You're too much one of us all," he continued. "We've tremendous perceptions,"

he laughed. "Of course I SHOULD have come for him. But after all," he added, as if all sorts of nonsense would equally serve, "he mightn't, except for you, you know, have asked me."

Nanda so far accepted this view as to reply: "That's awfully weak. He's so modest that he might have been afraid of your boring yourself."

"That's just what I mean."

"Well, if you do," Nanda returned, "the explanation's a little conceited."

"Oh I only made it," Vanderbank said, "in reference to his modesty."

Beyond the lawn the house was before him, old, square, red-roofed, well a.s.sured of its right to the place it took up in the world. This was a considerable s.p.a.ce--in the little world at least of Suffolk--and the look of possession had everywhere mixed with it, in the form of old windows and doors, the tone of old red surfaces, the style of old white facings, the age of old high creepers, the long confirmation of time.

Suggestive of panelled rooms, of precious mahogany, of portraits of women dead, of coloured china glimmering through gla.s.s doors and delicate silver reflected on bared tables, the thing was one of those impressions of a particular period that it takes two centuries to produce. "Fancy," the young man incoherently exclaimed, "his caring to leave anything so loveable as all this to come up and live with US!"

The girl also for a little lost herself. "Oh you don't know what it is--the charm comes out so as one stays. Little by little it grows and grows. There are old things everywhere that are too delightful. He lets me explore so--he lets me rummage and rifle. Every day I make discoveries."

Vanderbank wondered as he smoked. "You mean he lets you take things--?"

"Oh yes--up to my room, to study or to copy. There are old patterns that are too dear for anything. It's when you live with them, you see, that you know. Everything in the place is such good company."

"Your mother ought to be here," Vanderbank presently suggested. "She's so fond of good company." Then as Nanda answered nothing he went on: "Was your grandmother ever?"

"Never," the girl promptly said. "Never," she repeated in a tone quite different. After which she added: "I'm the only one."

"Oh, and I 'me and you,' as they say," her companion amended.

"Yes, and Mr. Mitchy, who's to come down--please don't forget--this afternoon."

Vanderbank had another of his contemplative pauses. "Thank you for reminding me. I shall spread myself as much as possible before he comes--try to produce so much of my effect that I shall be safe. But what did Mr. Longdon ask him for?"

"Ah," said Nanda gaily, "what did he ask YOU for?"

"Why, for the reason you just now mentioned--that his interest in me is so uncontrollable."

"Then isn't his interest in Mitchy--"

"Of the same general order?" Vanderbank broke in. "Not in the least."

He seemed to look for a way to express the distinction--which suddenly occurred to him. "He wasn't in love with Mitchy's mother."

"No"--Nanda turned it over. "Mitchy's mother, it appears, was awful. Mr.

Cashmore knew her."

Vanderbank's smoke-puffs were profuse and his pauses frequent. "Awful to Mr. Cashmore? I'm glad to hear it--he must have deserved it. But I believe in her all the same. Mitchy's often awful himself," the young man rambled on. "Just so I believe in HIM."

"So do I," said Nanda--"and that's why I asked him."

"YOU asked him, my dear child? Have you the inviting?"

"Oh yes."

The eyes he turned on her seemed really to try if she jested or were serious. "So you arranged for me too?"

She turned over again a few leaves of his book and, closing it with something of a clap, transferred it to the bench beside him--a movement in which, as if through a drop into thought, he rendered her no a.s.sistance. "What I mean is that I proposed it to Mr. Longdon, I suggested he should be asked. I've a reason for seeing him--I want to talk to him. And do you know," the girl went on, "what Mr. Longdon said?"

"Something splendid of course."

"He asked if you wouldn't perhaps dislike his being here with you."

Vanderbank, throwing back his head, laughed, smoked, jogged his foot more than ever. "Awfully nice. Dear old Mitch! How little afraid of him you are!"

Nanda wondered. "Of Mitch?"

"Yes, of the tremendous pull he really has. It's all very well to talk--he HAS it. But of course I don't mean I don't know"--and as with the effect of his nervous sociability he s.h.i.+fted his position. "I perfectly see that you're NOT afraid. I perfectly know what you have in your head. I should never in the least dream of accusing you--as far as HE is concerned--of the least disposition to flirt; any more indeed,"

Vanderbank pleasantly pursued, "than even of any general tendency of that sort. No, my dear Nanda"--he kindly kept it up--"I WILL say for you that, though a girl, thank heaven, and awfully MUCH a girl, you're really not on the whole more of a flirt than a respectable social ideal prescribes."

"Thank you most tremendously," his companion quietly replied.

Something in the tone of it made him laugh out, and the particular sound went well with all the rest, with the August day and the charming spot and the young man's lounging figure and Nanda's own little hovering hospitality. "Of course I strike you as patronising you with unconscious sublimity. Well, that's all right, for what's the most natural thing to do in these conditions but the most luxurious? Won't Mitchy be wonderful for feeling and enjoying them? I a.s.sure you I'm delighted he's coming."

Then in a different tone a moment later, "Do you expect to be here long?" he asked.

It took Nanda some time to say. "As long as Mr. Longdon will keep me, I suppose--if that doesn't sound very horrible."

"Oh he'll keep you! Only won't he himself," Vanderbank went on, "be coming up to town in the course of the autumn?"

"Well, in that case I'd perfectly stay here without him."

"And leave him in London without YOU? Ah that's not what we want: he wouldn't be at all the same thing without you. Least of all for himself!" Vanderbank declared.

Nanda again thought. "Yes, that's what makes him funny, I suppose--his curious infatuation. I set him off--what do you call it?--show him off: by his going round and round me as the acrobat on the horse in the circus goes round the clown. He has said a great deal to me of your mother," she irrelevantly added.

"Ok everything that's kind of course, or you wouldn't mention it."

"That's what I mean," said Nanda.

"I see, I see--most charming of him." Vanderbank kept his high head thrown back as for the view, with a bright equal general interest, of everything that was before them, whether talked of or seen. "Who do you think I yesterday had a letter from? An extraordinary funny one from Harold. He gave me all the family news."

"And what IS the family news?" the girl after a minute enquired.

"Well, the first great item is that he himself--"

"Wanted," Nanda broke in, "to borrow five pounds of you? I say that,"

she added, "because if he wrote to you--"

"It couldn't have been in such a case for the simple pleasure of the intercourse?" Vanderbank hesitated, but continued not to look at her.

"What do you know, pray, of poor Harold's borrowings?"

"Oh I know as I know other things. Don't I know everything?"