To-day as he finished the perusal12 of these most satisfactory renderings13 of last month’s accounts, Keeling felt that he had arrived at a stage, at a plateau on the high upland of his financial prosperity. It stretched all round him sunny and spacious14, and he had no doubt in his own mind as to whether it had not been worth while to devote thirty years of a busy life in order to attain15 it. The reward of his efforts, namely, the establishment of this large and remunerative16 business, and the enjoyment17 of an income of which a fifth part provided him with all that he could want in the way of material comfort and complete ease in living, seemed to him a perfectly18 satisfactory return for his industry. But as far as he could see, there was no further expansion possible in Bracebridge: he had attained19 the limits of commercial prosperity there, and if he was to devote his energies, now still in their zenith to a further increase of fortune, he knew that this expansion must take the form of establishing fresh branches of business in other towns. He did not for a moment doubt his ability to succeed elsewhere as he had succeeded here, for he had not in the course of his sober industrious20 life arrived at any abatement21 of the forces that drive an enterprise to success. But to-day the doubt assailed22 him as to whether it was worth while.
He asked himself for what reason he should{66} continue to rise early and late take rest, and he could not give himself an adequate answer. In material affluence23 he had all and more than he could possibly need, his family was already amply provided for, and the spur of another ten thousand a year had not, so it appeared now that the time for its application had arrived, a rowel that stimulated24 him. He had often foreseen the coming of this day, and in imagination had seen himself answer to its call, but now that the day had definitely come he had but a dull ear for its summons. The big manufacturing town of Nalesborough, thirty miles off, was, as he knew, an admirable centre for the establishment of another branch of his business, and he had already secured a two years’ option on a suitable site there. There was no reason why he should not instantly exercise this option and get plans prepared at once. True, there was another year of the option still to run, and during that time the site was still potentially his, but he knew well, as he sat and debated with himself, that it was not through such hesitancy as this that his terra-cotta cupolas aspired25 so high. There was waiting for him, if he chose to put out the energy and capacity that were undoubtedly26 his, a vast increase of income. But though an increase of income was that which had been the central purpose of his last thirty years, he was still uncertain as to his future course. He was conscious (or some part of him, that{67} perhaps which dwelt in his secret garden, was conscious) that he really did not want any more money, though for years he had so much taken for granted that he did, that the acquisition of it had become a habit as natural to him as breathing.
He folded and docketed the sheets that showed the monthly profits, and most unusually for him at this busy hour of the morning, sat idly at his desk. The business of his stores here whirled along its course automatically, with Hugh who had been so sedulously27 trained in his father’s thorough-going school to look after it, and no longer needed his daily supervision28. With the income which came to him from years of prudent29 investment he wanted no more, and he wondered whether the time was come to turn the business into a company. As vendor30 he would receive a considerable block of shares and yet leave the company with an excellent return for their money. Hugh would probably become general director, and he himself, secure in an ample fortune, would have all his time at his own disposal. Next year, it is true, he would be Mayor of Bracebridge, which would leave him but little leisure, for he had no notion of being anything but a hard-worked head of the town’s municipal affairs, but after that he could retire from active life altogether, as far as offices and superintendence went. But he by no means looked forward to a life of well-fed,{68} well-housed idleness; the secret garden should spread its groves31, he would live permanently32 in the busy cultivation33 of it. But it must spread itself considerably34: he must be immersed in its atmosphere and lawns and thickets35 as thoroughly36 as, hitherto, he had been immersed in the fortunes of the Stores.
Of a sudden vistas37 not wholly new to him, but at present very vaguely39 contemplated40, rushed into focus. Some three years ago when, at the age of fourteen, John would naturally have taken his place in the Stores, beginning at the bottom even as Hugh had done, Keeling had determined41 his destiny otherwise, and had sent him to a public school. In taking this step, he had contemplated the vista38 that now was growing distinct and imminent42. John was to enter a sphere of life which had not opened its gate to his father. The public school should be succeeded by the University, the University by some profession in which a perfectly different standard of person from that to which his father belonged made honourable43 careers. Putting it more bluntly, John was to be a gentleman. Though there was no one less of a snob44 than Keeling, he knew the difference between what John had already begun to be and himself perfectly well. Already John walked, talked, entered a room, sat down, got up in a manner quite different from that of the rest of his family. Even his mother, the daughter of the{69} P. & O. captain, even Alice, for all the French, German, and music lessons with which her girlhood had been made so laborious45 a time, had not—Keeling found it hard to define his thought to himself—a certain unobtrusive certainty of themselves which after three years only of a public school was as much a personal possession of John’s as his brown eyes and his white teeth. That quality had grown even as John’s stature46 had grown each time he came back for his holidays, and it was produced apparently47 by mere48 association with gentlemen. Little as Keeling thought of Mr Silverdale, he was aware that Mr Silverdale had that quality too. He might be silly and affected49 and unmanly, but when he and John ten days ago had sat opposite each other on Sunday evening, John sick and disgusted, Silverdale familiar and self-advertising, though he appeared to talk about drunkards, it was easy to see that they both belonged to a different class from the rest of them. Keeling admired and envied the quality, whatever it was, which produced the difference, and, since association with those who had it produced it, he saw no reason to suppose that it was out of his reach.
There were plenty of people in Bracebridge who possessed50 it, but except at meetings and on official occasions he did not come in contact with them. As ex-fishmonger, as proprietor and managing director of the Stores, he moved in a society quite{70} distinct from those to whom John was learning so quickly to belong. But he could see them tellingly contrasted with each other if he cared to walk along Alfred Street, past the church where he was so regular an attendant on Sunday, to where there stood side by side the two social clubs of Bracebridge, namely the Bracebridge Club to which he himself and other business men belonged, and next door, the County Club from which those of his own social standing51 were excluded. The Bracebridge Club was far the more flourishing of the two: its bow-windows were always full of sleek52 and prosperous merchants, having their glass of sherry before lunch, or reading the papers when they arrived in the pleasant hour after offices and shops were shut in the evening. These premises53 were always crowded at the sociable54 hours of the business day, and at the last committee meeting the subject of an extension of accommodation had been discussed. There was no such congestion55 next door, where retired56 colonels, and occasional canons of the cathedral, and county magnates in Bracebridge for the day spoke57 softly to each other, or sought the isolation58 of a screening newspaper in a leather arm-chair. But the quality which Keeling found so hard to define and so easy to recognize, and which to him was perfectly distinct from any snobbish59 appreciation60 of position or title, brooded over those portals of the County{71} Club. In the families of those who frequented it the produce of his own secret garden grew wild, as it were: the culture, the education of which it was the fruit were indigenous61 to the soil. He did not suppose that Colonel Crawshaw, or Canon Arbuthnot, or Lord Inverbroom discussed Omar Khayyam or the Morte d’Arthur any more than did Alderman James, or Town-Councillor Phillips, but there was the soil from which culture sprang, just as from it sprang that indefinable air of breeding which already he observed in John. One day he had seen John standing in the window there with Colonel Crawshaw and his son, who was a schoolfellow of John’s, and Keeling’s heart had swelled62 with a strange mixture of admiration63 and envy to see how much John was at ease, sitting on the arm of a big chair, and with a nameless insouciance64 of respect refusing a cigarette which Colonel Crawshaw had offered him. Lord Inverbroom stood by John; and John was perfectly at ease in these surroundings. That was a tiny instance, but none could have been more typical. Keeling wanted, with the want of a thirsty man, not so much to belong to the County Club, as to feel himself at ease there if he did belong.
He was roused from this quarter of an hour’s reverie, most unusual to him in the middle of the morning, by the entrance of one of the porters with a card on a tray.
‘His lordship is waiting, sir’ he said, ‘and{72} wants to know if you can see him for ten minutes.’
Keeling took the card which he found to concern the man of whom he had this moment been thinking. Lord Inverbroom was Lord Lieutenant65 of the County, who lived some six miles outside Bracebridge in a house famed for its library and pictures. Its owner had held office in the last Conservative Cabinet, and was now an indefatigable66 promoter of county interests. Keeling met him with tolerable frequency on various boards, and there was no one in the world for whom he entertained a profounder respect.
‘I’ll see him,’ he said. ‘Show him up.’
Next moment Lord Inverbroom entered. He was small and spare and highly finished in face, and wore extraordinarily67 shabby clothes, of which no one, least of all himself, was conscious.
‘Good-morning, Mr Keeling,’ he said, with great cordiality. ‘I owe you a thousand apologies for intruding68, but I have quite a decent excuse.’
‘No excuse necessary, my lord,’ said Keeling. ‘Please take a chair.’
‘Thanks. Now I won’t occupy your time more than I can help. I have come to consult you about the County Hospital, of which, as you know, I am chairman. We have a meeting in half an hour from now, the notice of which, by some mistake, never reached me till this morning. That’s my excuse for descending69 on you like this.{73}’
He paused a moment.
‘There’s a very serious state of affairs,’ he said. ‘We have a heavy deficit70 this last year, and unless we can find some means of raising money, we shall have to abandon the building of that new wing, which we began in the spring. I’m glad to say that was not my fault, else I shouldn’t have ventured to come to you, for I only became chairman a couple of months ago. Now we are going to have the honour of having you for our Mayor next year, and I wanted to consult you as to whether you thought it possible that the town would lend us a sum of money to enable us to complete this new wing, which, in my opinion, is essential for the proper establishment of the hospital. Would such a scheme have your support? The Committee is meeting, as I said, in half an hour, and, if possible, I should like to be able to tell them that some such project is, or will be, under consideration.’
‘What sum do you require?’ asked Keeling.
‘Eighteen thousand pounds.’
‘That means twenty,’ said Keeling.
‘It probably means twenty,’ assented71 Lord Inverbroom. ‘We should pay, I suppose, four or five per cent. on the loan.’
Keeling tapped the table impatiently with his fingers. This was business, and in his opinion rotten business.
‘And considering that last year there was a{74} deficit,’ he said, ‘where would you get your money to pay the interest?’
‘That could be managed. I think I may say I could guarantee that.’
‘And how about the repayment72 of the loan itself?’ asked Keeling. ‘How will that be guaranteed? The hospital is working at a loss. I don’t mind that so much: appeals can be made to wipe off small deficits73 on working expenses. But an institution that is working at a loss can’t get a further loan from a public body without giving some security for its repayment. At least, if I was on that public body, I would resign my place rather than consent to it. What sort of balance sheet would we have to show the taxpayers74? No, my lord, that’s quite out of the question.’
Secretly he wondered at the obtuseness75 of this man, who had thought such a scheme within the wildest range of possibilities. For himself he would not have lent a sixpence either of his own or of public money on such an enterprise. Yet he knew that Lord Inverbroom had been a Foreign Secretary of outstanding eminence76, diplomatic, large-viewed, one who had earned the well-merited confidence of the public. Without doubt he had great qualities, but they did not appear to embrace the smallest perception on the subject of business.
Lord Inverbroom nodded to him, and rose.
‘I quite see your point, Mr Keeling,’ he said. ‘Now you put it to me so plainly, I only wonder{75} that I did not think of it before. I am afraid we shall have a melancholy77 meeting.’
As he spoke he became aware that Keeling was not paying the smallest attention to him; he appeared unconscious of him. His finger still tapped his desk, and he was frowning at his ink-bottle. Then he dismissed, as if settled, whatever was occupying his mind.
‘How much has been spent on the new wing already?’ he asked.
‘Approximately eight thousand pounds.’
‘And that will be thrown away unless you raise twenty thousand more?’
‘Not permanently thrown away, I hope. But it will give us no return in the way of hospital accommodation.’
‘And the new wing, on your guarantee, is urgently needed?’ asked Keeling.
‘I can assure you of that.’
Keeling sat silent for a moment longer. Then he rose too.
‘I will present your committee with the entire new wing,’ he said. ‘It will be called after me, the Keeling wing. I do not wish my gift to be made public as yet. I should like that done as soon as it is complete, at the opening in fact. That should take place during my year of office as Mayor.’
Lord Inverbroom held out his hand.
‘I won’t keep you any longer, Mr Keeling,’ he{76} said. ‘And any words of thanks on my part are superfluous78. May I just tell my committee that an anonymous79 donor80 has come forward, and that we can proceed with the work?’
‘Yes, that will do.’
‘I envy you your munificence81,’ said Lord Inverbroom.
As soon as his visitor was gone, Keeling went straight on with his morning’s work. There were a couple of heads of departments to see, and after that, consulting his memoranda82, he found he had made an appointment to interview a new private type-writer, in place of one whom he had lately been obliged to dismiss.
Opposite the entry was the word ‘Propert,’ and he recollected83 that this was the Miss Propert who had lately come to live with her brother. Presently, in answer to his summons, she came in, and, as his custom was with his employees, he remained seated while she stood.
‘I have looked through your testimonials, Miss Propert,’ he said, ‘and they seem satisfactory. Your work will be to take down my correspondence in the morning, in shorthand, and bring it back typewritten for signature after luncheon84. The hours will be from nine till five, with an hour’s interval85, Saturday half day. Your salary will be twenty-five shillings a week.’
‘Thank you very much, sir,’ said she.{77}
‘You will do the typewriting in that small room off this. You have a machine of your own?’
‘Yes, sir. I brought it down this morning.’
‘Very well. I engage you from to-day. There is a good deal to do this morning. If you are ready we will begin at once.’
In five minutes Norah Propert had deposited her typewriter in the next room, and was sitting opposite her employer with the breadth of the big table between them. As she had stood in front of him, Keeling noticed that she was tall: now as she sat with her eyes bent86 on her work, he hardly noticed that she was good-looking, with her light hair, dark eyebrows87, and firm full-lipped mouth. What was of far greater importance was that she tore the sheets off her writing-pad very swiftly and noiselessly as each page was filled, and that when she came to some proper name, she spelled it aloud for confirmation88. Occasionally when a letter was finished he told her to read it aloud, and there again he noticed not the charming quality of her voice so much as the distinctness with which she read.
For some hour and a half this dictation went on, with interruption when heads of departments brought in reports, or when Keeling had to send for information as to some point in his correspondence. He noticed that on these occasions she sat with her pencil in her hand, so as to be ready to proceed as soon as he began again. Once she{78} corrected him about a date that had occurred previously89 in a letter, and was right.
‘That is all,’ he said, at the end. ‘I will read them over and sign them, as soon as they are done.’
She had her hands full of the sheets, and he walked with her as far as the door of the very small room where the typewriting was to be done, and opened it for her. It was built out under the tiles, and was excessively hot and stuffy90 on this warm September morning.
‘I shall be here till half-past one, if you want to ask me anything,’ he said, and shut the door between her little cabin and his big cool room. This door was heavily padded at the edges, so that the clack of the typewriter hardly reached him.
It was not Keeling’s usage to take any step concerning finance or business without considering where that step would take him, though that consideration could often be condensed into a moment’s insight. The thought of his sudden munificence with regard to the hospital occupied his mind, when he settled down to work again, as little as did the thought of his new typist whom he had just shut up in the stuffy little chamber91 adjoining his own. Momentary92 as had been the time required for his offer, his determination to make it was but the logical next step in the secret ambition{79} which had so long been growing in his mind. Indeed his interview with Lord Inverbroom had been his opportunity no less than the hospital’s, and it would have been very unlike him not to take advantage of it. But he was not going to snatch at the fruit which it would help to bring within his reach: he had no wish that the Committee or the town generally should learn the identity of the benefactor93 until at the opening the name of the new wing should flash on the assembled gathering94. That opening must be a day of pomp and magnificence: in course of time he would talk over that with Lord Inverbroom. At present he had plenty of occupations to concern himself with. And noticing the very fluent clacking that came faintly from behind the padded door, he filed the accounts which he had found so satisfactory, and buried himself in business again.
It was barely four o’clock when Miss Propert came in with her sheaf of typewritten correspondence for his inspection95 and signature. He had thought that this would occupy her for at least an hour longer, and as he read it over he looked for signs of carelessness that should betray haste rather than speed. But none such revealed themselves: all she had done was exceedingly accurate and neat, and showed no trace of hurry. He passed each sheet over to her, when he had read and signed it, for her to place it in its envelope, and looking across the table without raising his{80} eyes he noticed the decision and swiftness of her fingers as she folded the paper with sharp, accurate creases96. He liked seeing things handled like that: that was the way to do a job, whether that job was the giving of a wing to the hospital or the insertion of a letter into its envelope. You knew what you meant to do and did it. And though it was not his habit to praise work when it was well done (for he paid for its being well done), but only to find fault with work badly done (since work badly done was not worth the hire of the labourer), he felt moved to give a word of commendation.
‘I see you can work quickly as well as carefully,’ he said.
‘I will do my best to satisfy you, sir,’ she answered.
He looked at her, and saw that her face seemed flushed. That, no doubt, was owing to the heat of the room where she had been working. He pushed a ledger97 and a pile of typewritten sheets towards her.
‘I want those entered by hand in the ledger,’ he said. ‘You can use that table over there in the window. When that is finished you can go.’
For another half-hour the two worked on at their separate tables. The girl never once raised her eyes from her task, but sat with one hand following down the list of names and figures, while with the other she entered them in their{81} due places in the ledger. But her employer more than once looked up at her, and noted98, as he had noted before, the decision and quickness of her hands, and, as he had not noted before, the distinction of her profile. She was remarkably99 like her handsome brother; she was also like the picture of one of the Rhine-maidens in an illustrated100 edition of the Rheinegold. But he gave less thought to that than to the fact that he had evidently secured an efficient secretary.
He came to the end of his day’s work before her, and rose to go.
‘You can leave the ledger on this table when you have finished,’ he said.
She raised her eyes for a half-second.
‘Yes, sir,’ she said.
‘Your brother tells me you are as devoted101 to books as he,’ said Keeling.
This time she did not look up.
‘Yes, sir, I am very fond of them,’ she said, finishing an entry.
Keeling went out through his book department, where he nodded to Propert, into the bustle102 of the square, noticing, with a satisfaction that never failed him, as he walked by the various doors of his block of building, how busy was the traffic in and out of the Stores. It was still an hour to sunset: on the left the municipal offices and town-hall rose pretentious103 and hideous104 against the blue of the southern sky, while in front to{82} the west the gray Gothic glories of the Cathedral, separated from the square by a line of canonical105 houses, aspired high above the house-roofs and leaf-laden elm-towers in the Close. The fact struck him that the front of the town-hall, with its wealth of fussy106 adornment107, its meaningless rows of polished marble pilasters, its foolish little pinnacles108 and finials, was somehow strangely like the drawing-room in his own house, with its decorations selected by the amazingly futile109 taste of his wife. There was a very similar confusion of detail about the two, a kindred ostentation110 of unnecessary objects. There was waste in them both, expense that was not represented on the other side of the ledger by a credit balance of efficiency. No one took pleasure in the little pink granite111 pilasters between the lights of the windows in the town-hall, and certainly they were entirely112 useless. The money spent on them was thrown away: whereas money spent ought to yield its dividend113, producing either something that was useful or something that gave pleasure. If you liked a thing it was worth paying for it, if it was directly useful it was worth paying for it. But where was the return on the money spent on pink pilasters or on the lilies painted on the huge looking-glass above his wife’s drawing-room chimney-piece? Those lilies certainly were not useful, since they prevented the mirror exercising its proper function of reflecting what stood in front of it. Or did they yield{83} a dividend in pleasure to Emmeline? He did not believe that they did: he felt sure that she had just bought No. 1 drawing-room suite dining-room suite with extras, as set forth114 in his catalogue. He knew the catalogues well: with extras No. 1 suite came to ￡117. It had much in common with the front of the town-hall. So, too, if you came to consider it, had the crocodile with the calling-cards in the abominable115 hall.
The day, as Miss Propert had already discovered in her little stuffy den9, was exceedingly hot and airless, and Keeling, when he had passed through the reverberating116 square and under the arch leading into the Cathedral Close, found it pleasant to sit down on one of the benches below the elm-trees, which soared loftily among the tombs of the disused graveyard117 facing the west front of the Cathedral. Owing to Miss Propert’s rapidity in typewriting he had left the Stores half an hour earlier than usual, and here, thanks to her, was half an hour of leisure gained, for which he had no imperative118 employment. The quiet gray graves with head-stones standing out from the smooth mown grass formed his foreground: behind them sprang the flying buttresses119 of the nave120. They were intensely different from the decorations of the town-hall; they had, as he for all his ignorance in architecture could see, an obvious purpose to serve. Like the arm of a strong man akimbo, they gave the sense of strength, like the legs of{84} a strong man they propped121 that glorious trunk. They were decorated, it is true, and the decoration served no useful purpose, but somehow the carved stone-work appeared a work of love, a fantasy done for the pleasure of its performance, an ecstasy122 of the hammer and chisel123 and of him who wielded124 them. They were like flames on the edge of a smouldering log of wood. He felt sure that the man who had executed them had enjoyed the work, or at the least the man who had planned them had planned them, you might say, ‘for fun.’ Elsewhere on the battlemented angles of the nave were grotesque125 gargoyles126 of devils and bats and nameless winged things with lead spouts127 in their mouths to carry off the rain-water from the roof. Commercially they might perhaps have been omitted, and a more economical device of piping have served the same purpose, but they had about them a certain joy of execution. There was imagination in them, something that justified128 them for all their nightmare hideousness129. The people who made them laughed in their hearts, they executed some strange dream, and put it up there to glorify130 God. But the man who perpetrated the little pink granite pilasters on the town-hall, and the man who painted the lilies on the looking-glass above Mrs Keeling’s drawing-room chimney-piece had nothing to justify131 them. The lilies and the pilasters were no manner of good: there was a difference between them{85} the flying buttresses and the gargoyles. But the latter gave pleasure: they paid their dividends132 to any one who looked at them. So did the verses in Omar Khayyam to those who cared to read them. They were justified, too, in a way that No. 1 drawing-room suite was not justified for the ￡117 that, with extras, it cost the purchaser.
Dimly, like the moving of an unborn child, the sense of beauty, that profitless thing, without which there is no profit in all the concerns of the world, began to trouble Keeling with a livelier indication of life than any that he had yet experienced from it. In some disconnected way it was connected with John’s education and Lord Inverbroom’s manner, and the denizens133 of the windows of the County Club as opposed to those who more numerously gathered in the windows of the Town Club next door. Propert, his salesman in the book department, had a cousinship to these men who made gargoyles and beautiful books, whereas Emmeline was only cousin to the pilasters in the Town Hall and the No. 1 drawing-room suite. Propert’s sister, according to her brother’s account, had the same type of relationship as himself. But the main point about her was her swiftness in shorthand writing and the accuracy of her transcription on to the typewriting machine. Keeling had never had a secretary who finished a heavy day’s work in so short a time. He owed her the extra half-hour’s leisure, which had led{86} to this appreciation of the gargoyles and buttresses of the Cathedral. For thirty years he had passed this way almost daily, but until to-day he had never seen them before in the sense that seeing means a digestion134 of sight.
Behind him, where he sat, ran a thick-set hedge of clipped hornbeams, bordering the asphalt walk that led through the graveyard. It was still in full leaf, and completely screened him from passengers going through the Close. There had been many passengers going along the path there, and he had heard a score of sentences spoken as they passed within a yard of him behind the hornbeam hedge. Sentence after sentence had entered his ears without being really conveyed to his brain. Then suddenly close behind him he heard a voice speaking very distinctly. It said this:—
‘It’s so horrid135 to work for a cad, Charles. I haven’t done it before. Oh, I know he was awfully136 kind to you——’
The voice merged137 into the buzz of autumn noises, and footsteps and other conversation, but it had stood apart and distinct. Keeling knew he recognised the voice, but for the moment could not put a name to its owner; it was a woman’s voice, very distinct and pleasant in tone. And in order to satisfy a sudden, unreasonable138 curiosity, he got up from his seat and, looking out down the path over the hornbeam hedge, saw but a few yards down the path the head of his book{87} department and his sister, the very efficient secretary and typewriter whom he had engaged that morning. Their heads were turned to each other and there was no doubt whatever about their identity.
Well, nothing could possibly matter less to him, so it seemed at that moment, than what his typewriter thought about him. All that mattered was what he thought about his typewriter, whom he considered a very efficient young woman, who got through her work with extraordinary accuracy and speed. He did not care two straws whether she considered him a cad, for what signified the opinion of a girl whose sole connection with you was the nimbleness of her fingers, employed at twenty-five shillings a week? As long as she did her work well, she might take any view she chose about her employer who, for his part, had no views about her except those concerned with the speed and accuracy of her transcriptions.... And then, even as he assured himself that he was as indifferent to her opinion as the moon, he found himself hating the fact that she thought him a cad. Why had she thought that, he asked himself. He had been perfectly polite to her with the icy aloofness139 of the employer; he had even melted a little from that, for he had opened the door for her to go into her typewriting den, because her hands were full of the papers that composed her work. Why a cad then?{88}
He gave orders to his mind to dismiss the matter, and with his long-striding, sauntering walk that carried him so quickly over the ground, continued his way homewards. But despite his determination, he found that his thoughts went hovering140 back to that unfortunate and unintentional piece of eavesdropping141. He wondered whether Charles Propert agreed with his sister (as if that mattered either!) and quite strongly hoped that he did not. Certainly Keeling had been kind enough and generous enough to him.... Then, more decidedly still, he pished the whole subject away: there were other things in the world to think about.
For the next week Miss Propert continued to display a galaxy142 of unvarying excellence143 in her duties, and Keeling, though he told himself that he had dismissed her overheard criticism from his mind altogether, and perhaps believed that he had done so, acted towards her in sundry144 little ways, as if he consciously deprecated her opinion and sought to change it. The weather, for instance, continuing very hot, he ordered an electric fan to be placed in the small stuffy den where she did her work, saying nothing about it to her, but setting it going while she was absent for her hour’s interval in the middle of the day. On another occasion when he was sitting at his table with his hat on, he took it off as she entered, on a third he{89} cleared a space for her to write at when she came to receive his dictation for the morning. In part, though he would have denied it, his dislike of her verdict on him prompted these infinitesimal courtesies, but in part another incentive145 dictated146 them. Vaguely and distantly she was beginning to mean something to him personally, she was acquiring a significance apart from her duties. He began to notice not only the speed and efficiency of her fingers, but the comely147 shape of her hand: he began to heed148 not only the distinctness of her voice as she read over her shorthand transcripts149 to him, but its quality. It reminded him rather of John’s voice.... And oftener and oftener as he dictated his correspondence he looked up with his gray eyes set deep below their bushy eyebrows at that quiet, handsome face, which hardly ever raised its eyes to his. Somehow her perfect fulfilment of the complete duties of the secretary, devoid150 of any other human relationship to him whatever, began to pique151 him. She treated him as if he had no existence apart from his function as her employer. He had never before had so ideal a secretary, so intelligent and accurate a piece of office-furniture, and now, having got it, he was inconsistent enough to harbour a smothered152 wish that she was a shade more human in her dealings with him. He wished that she would not call him ‘sir’ so invariably, whenever {90}she spoke to him: he looked out for the smallest indication on her part of being conscious of him in some human manner. But no such indication appeared, and the complete absence of it vexed153 him, though as often as it vexed him (the vexation was the smallest of annoyances) he strenuously154 denied to himself that such a feeling existed at all in his mind.
He had made an engagement with her brother that he should come up one Sunday afternoon some fortnight after Miss Propert had entered his employment, to spend a couple of hours among the herbage of the secret garden. The young man had come into his room just before midday closing time on Saturday, with the weekly returns of the lending library that had just been added to the book department, when a sudden idea struck Keeling.
‘I shall see you to-morrow afternoon, then,’ he said. ‘Perhaps you will bring your sister with you, as you tell me she is a book-lover too.’
She was at the moment in the little typewriting den adjoining, the door of which was open. Through it he could just see her hands arranging the papers on her table; the rest of her was invisible. But as he spoke in a voice loud enough to be heard by her, he observed that her hands paused in the deft155 speed of their tidying and remained quite motionless for a second or two. And he knew as well as if some flawless telegraphic communication had been set up between{91} her brain and his that she was debating in her mind whether she should come or not. ‘She thought him a cad, but no doubt she wanted to see his books;’ that was the message that came to him from her.
Keeling nodded towards the room where the hands had become busy again. He knew she had heard, overheard if you will, and since she did not choose to give her answer herself, he did not choose to convey the invitation to her again. Some faint stirrings of human relationship began at that moment to enter into living existence, for each set up their little screen of pride. Neither would have done that had there not been something, ever so small, to screen.
‘Will you ask her?’ he said to her brother. ‘She is in there.’
He waited, hat and stick in hand, while a couple of sentences passed between them. Then Charles came out.
‘She is very much obliged to you, sir,’ he said. ‘She will be very much pleased to come.’
‘Damned condescending156 of her,’ thought Keeling to himself. What right had a secretary at twenty-five shillings a week to send him messages through her brother? But if a message was to be sent, he was glad it was that one.
Keeling received the two next afternoon in his secret garden, and had taken the trouble to bring{92} in a couple of more comfortable chairs. For the first time he looked at his secretary without the sundering157 spectacles of the employer, and on the instant became aware that she, on her side, had, so to speak, taken off the blinkers of the employed. She was here as his guest, asked by him personally because he wished to welcome her and show her his books, and her eyes, instead of being glued to her work, met his with a frank cordiality. He was not accustomed to shake hands with her brother on his Sunday visits here, but the girl advanced to him with her hand out, presupposing his welcome. Whatever hesitancy she might have had in accepting his invitation, she had, by the fact of her accepting it, put her indecision completely away, and for the first time she smiled at him.
‘It was so good of you to let me come and see your books, Mr Keeling,’ she said. ‘My brother has often told me what delightful158 Sunday afternoons he has passed with you here.’
He did not fail to notice that he was ‘sir’ no longer, but ‘Mr Keeling,’ nor did he fail to grasp the significance. He was ‘sir’ in his office, he was Mr Keeling in his house. Somehow that pleased him: it was like a mot juste in a comedy.
‘Your brother has often been very useful to me in my collecting,’ he said, with a hint of{93} ‘employer’ still lingering in his attitude towards him.
She sat down in one of the big chairs that Keeling had brought in. That was the purpose for which he had fetched them, but for the moment he put on his employer-spectacles again to observe the unusual sight of his secretary sitting unbidden while he stood. Then the girl’s complete and unconscious certainty that she knew how to behave herself, whisked them from in front of his eyes again, and he saw only his guest sitting there, to whom were due his powers of entertaining and interesting her.
‘Charles tells me you go in for beautiful books rather than rare ones,’ she said. ‘Charles, have you told Mr Keeling about the official Italian book on Leonardo?’
‘No; I was going to mention it to you to-day, sir,’ he said.
‘Leonardo?’ asked Keeling.
‘Yes, Leonardo da Vinci....’
Immediately she saw that he had never heard of him, and without pause conveyed incidental information.
‘It will reproduce all pictures certainly by him,’ she said, ‘and a quantity of his sketches159, with his drawings of flying machines, the Venice ones, you know. It will be published to subscribers only.’
Keeling nodded to Charles.{94}
‘Will you see to that for me?’ he asked.
‘Yes, sir. It’s published at ￡25, isn’t it, Norah?’
‘Yes, or is it ￡30? Ah, there’s the Singleton Press Morte d’Arthur. May I look at that? It is one I have never seen. Ah, what a page! What type!’
For the next hour the three burrowed160 into or nibbled161 at Keeling’s volumes, now losing themselves completely in the interest which was in common between them, now for a moment conscious of their mutual162 relations as employer and employed. But those intervals163 grew rarer, and in Keeling’s mind were replaced by the new consciousness of his secretary with her mask off. She, on her part, found no difficulty in separating her employer from Mr Keeling with this really wonderful collection of beautiful modern books, and indeed there was little in common between them. The hobby was like a thawing164 sun of February that uncongealed the ice of the office, and, as long as it shone on them, the melting seemed not less than a complete break up of the frost.
‘Lord Inverbroom lives near, does he not?’ she asked. ‘That’s a wonderful library. Is the public allowed to see it? I suppose not. I would not trust Charles within arm’s length of a Caxton if I had one.’
‘Kind of you,’ remarked Charles. ‘My{95} sister designed and cut a book-plate for him, sir.’
Keeling saw her out of the corner of his eye just shake her head at her brother, and she instantly changed the subject. The reason seemed clear enough in the midst of these walls of books that had no such decoration. But she need not have shown such delicacy165, he thought to himself, for he had no notion of ordering a plate from her. And very soon she rose.
‘We must be off, Charles,’ she said, ‘if we are to have our walk. Thank you so much, Mr Keeling, for showing me your treasures.’
He was sorry she was going, but made no attempt to detain her, and presently she was walking back along the still sunny road with her brother.
‘I’m sorry I called him a cad,’ she said. ‘He’s only a cad in his office perhaps. My dear, did you see the crocodile holding a tray for cards? What an awful house.’
‘Nice books,’ said Charles.
‘Very. He’s worthy166 of them too: he really likes them. Perhaps they’ll civilise him. Do you know, I feel rather a brute167 for having gone there.’
‘Why?’
‘Because I don’t like him. But he’s kind; and that makes it worse. What does he think about apart from his books? Just money, I suppose. I won’t go there again anyhow.{96}’
‘Until he gets the Leonardo book.’
She sighed.
‘I shall have to then, if he asks me,’ she said. ‘Or couldn’t you manage to steal it?’
Charles made no definite promise on this point, and they walked on for a little in silence.
‘I’m not even quite certain if I do dislike him,’ she said.
‘Have you been thinking about that all this time?’ he asked.
‘I suppose I must have been. Let’s think about something else.’
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1
proprietor
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| n.所有人；业主；经营者 | |
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haven
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| n.安全的地方，避难所，庇护所 | |
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villa
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| n.别墅，城郊小屋 | |
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villas
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| 别墅，公馆( villa的名词复数 )； （城郊）住宅 | |
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simultaneously
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| adv.同时发生地，同时进行地 | |
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dwellings
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| n.住处，处所( dwelling的名词复数 ) | |
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sufficiently
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| adv.足够地，充分地 | |
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drowsy
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| adj.昏昏欲睡的，令人发困的 | |
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den
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| n.兽穴；秘密地方；安静的小房间，私室 | |
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catering
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| n. 给养 | |
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suite
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| n.一套(家具)；套房；随从人员 | |
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12
perusal
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| n.细读，熟读；目测 | |
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13
renderings
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| n.（戏剧或乐曲的）演奏( rendering的名词复数 )；扮演；表演；翻译作品 | |
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14
spacious
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| adj.广阔的，宽敞的 | |
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15
attain
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| vt.达到，获得，完成 | |
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16
remunerative
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| adj.有报酬的 | |
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17
enjoyment
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| n.乐趣；享有；享用 | |
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18
perfectly
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| adv.完美地，无可非议地，彻底地 | |
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19
attained
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| （通常经过努力）实现( attain的过去式和过去分词 )； 达到； 获得； 达到（某年龄、水平、状况） | |
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industrious
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| adj.勤劳的，刻苦的，奋发的 | |
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21
abatement
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| n.减(免)税，打折扣，冲销 | |
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22
assailed
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| v.攻击( assail的过去式和过去分词 )；困扰；质问；毅然应对 | |
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23
affluence
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| n.充裕，富足 | |
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24
stimulated
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| a.刺激的 | |
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aspired
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| v.渴望，追求( aspire的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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undoubtedly
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| adv.确实地，无疑地 | |
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27
sedulously
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| ad.孜孜不倦地 | |
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28
supervision
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| n.监督，管理 | |
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29
prudent
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| adj.谨慎的，有远见的，精打细算的 | |
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30
vendor
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| n.卖主；小贩 | |
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31
groves
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| 树丛，小树林( grove的名词复数 ) | |
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32
permanently
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| adv.永恒地，永久地，固定不变地 | |
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33
cultivation
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| n.耕作，培养，栽培（法），养成 | |
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34
considerably
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| adv.极大地；相当大地；在很大程度上 | |
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35
thickets
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| n.灌木丛( thicket的名词复数 )；丛状物 | |
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36
thoroughly
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| adv.完全地，彻底地，十足地 | |
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37
vistas
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| 长条形景色( vista的名词复数 )； 回顾； 展望； （未来可能发生的）一系列情景 | |
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38
vista
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| n.远景，深景，展望，回想 | |
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39
vaguely
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| adv.含糊地，暖昧地 | |
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40
contemplated
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| adj. 预期的 动词contemplate的过去分词形式 | |
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41
determined
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| adj.坚定的；有决心的 | |
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42
imminent
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| adj.即将发生的，临近的，逼近的 | |
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43
honourable
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| adj.可敬的；荣誉的，光荣的 | |
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44
snob
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| n.势利小人，自以为高雅、有学问的人 | |
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45
laborious
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| adj.吃力的，努力的，不流畅 | |
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46
stature
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| n.（高度）水平，（高度）境界，身高，身材 | |
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47
apparently
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| adv.显然地；表面上，似乎 | |
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48
mere
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| adj.纯粹的；仅仅，只不过 | |
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49
affected
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| adj.不自然的，假装的 | |
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50
possessed
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| adj.疯狂的；拥有的，占有的 | |
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51
standing
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| n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的 | |
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52
sleek
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| adj.光滑的，井然有序的；v.使光滑，梳拢 | |
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premises
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| n.建筑物，房屋 | |
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54
sociable
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| adj.好交际的，友好的，合群的 | |
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55
congestion
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| n.阻塞，消化不良 | |
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56
retired
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| adj.隐退的，退休的，退役的 | |
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57
spoke
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| n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说 | |
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58
isolation
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| n.隔离，孤立，分解，分离 | |
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59
snobbish
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| adj.势利的，谄上欺下的 | |
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60
appreciation
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| n.评价；欣赏；感谢；领会，理解；价格上涨 | |
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61
indigenous
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| adj.土产的，土生土长的，本地的 | |
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62
swelled
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| 增强( swell的过去式和过去分词 )； 肿胀； （使）凸出； 充满（激情） | |
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63
admiration
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| n.钦佩，赞美，羡慕 | |
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64
insouciance
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| n.漠不关心 | |
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65
lieutenant
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| n.陆军中尉，海军上尉；代理官员，副职官员 | |
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66
indefatigable
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| adj.不知疲倦的，不屈不挠的 | |
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67
extraordinarily
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| adv.格外地；极端地 | |
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68
intruding
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| v.侵入，侵扰，打扰( intrude的现在分词)；把…强加于 | |
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69
descending
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| n. 下行 adj. 下降的 | |
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70
deficit
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| n.亏空，亏损；赤字，逆差 | |
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71
assented
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| 同意，赞成( assent的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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72
repayment
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| n.偿还，偿还款；报酬 | |
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73
deficits
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| n.不足额( deficit的名词复数 )；赤字；亏空；亏损 | |
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74
taxpayers
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| 纳税人，纳税的机构( taxpayer的名词复数 ) | |
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75
obtuseness
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| 感觉迟钝 | |
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76
eminence
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| n.卓越，显赫；高地，高处；名家 | |
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77
melancholy
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| n.忧郁，愁思；adj.令人感伤（沮丧）的，忧郁的 | |
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78
superfluous
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| adj.过多的，过剩的，多余的 | |
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anonymous
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| adj.无名的；匿名的；无特色的 | |
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donor
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| n.捐献者；赠送人；(组织、器官等的)供体 | |
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81
munificence
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| n.宽宏大量，慷慨给与 | |
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82
memoranda
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| n. 备忘录, 便条 名词memorandum的复数形式 | |
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83
recollected
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| adj.冷静的；镇定的；被回忆起的；沉思默想的v.记起，想起( recollect的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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84
luncheon
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| n.午宴，午餐，便宴 | |
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85
interval
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| n.间隔，间距；幕间休息，中场休息 | |
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86
bent
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| n.爱好，癖好；adj.弯的；决心的，一心的 | |
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87
eyebrows
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| 眉毛( eyebrow的名词复数 ) | |
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88
confirmation
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| n.证实，确认，批准 | |
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previously
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| adv.以前，先前（地） | |
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90
stuffy
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| adj.不透气的，闷热的 | |
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91
chamber
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| n.房间，寝室；会议厅；议院；会所 | |
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92
momentary
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| adj.片刻的，瞬息的；短暂的 | |
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93
benefactor
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| n. 恩人，行善的人，捐助人 | |
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94
gathering
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| n.集会，聚会，聚集 | |
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95
inspection
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| n.检查，审查，检阅 | |
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96
creases
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| （使…）起折痕，弄皱( crease的第三人称单数 )； （皮肤）皱起，使起皱纹 | |
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97
ledger
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| n.总帐，分类帐；帐簿 | |
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98
noted
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| adj.著名的，知名的 | |
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99
remarkably
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| ad.不同寻常地，相当地 | |
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100
illustrated
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| adj. 有插图的，列举的 动词illustrate的过去式和过去分词 | |
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101
devoted
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| adj.忠诚的，忠实的，热心的，献身于...的 | |
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102
bustle
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| v.喧扰地忙乱，匆忙，奔忙；n.忙碌；喧闹 | |
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103
pretentious
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| adj.自命不凡的，自负的，炫耀的 | |
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104
hideous
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| adj.丑陋的，可憎的，可怕的，恐怖的 | |
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105
canonical
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| n.权威的；典型的 | |
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106
fussy
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| adj.为琐事担忧的，过分装饰的，爱挑剔的 | |
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107
adornment
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| n.装饰；装饰品 | |
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108
pinnacles
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| 顶峰( pinnacle的名词复数 )； 顶点； 尖顶； 小尖塔 | |
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109
futile
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| adj.无效的，无用的，无希望的 | |
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110
ostentation
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| n.夸耀，卖弄 | |
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111
granite
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| adj.花岗岩，花岗石 | |
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112
entirely
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| ad.全部地，完整地；完全地，彻底地 | |
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113
dividend
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| n.红利，股息；回报，效益 | |
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114
forth
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| adv.向前；向外，往外 | |
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115
abominable
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| adj.可厌的，令人憎恶的 | |
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116
reverberating
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| 回响，回荡( reverberate的现在分词 )； 使反响，使回荡，使反射 | |
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117
graveyard
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| n.坟场 | |
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imperative
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| n.命令，需要；规则；祈使语气；adj.强制的；紧急的 | |
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119
buttresses
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| n.扶壁，扶垛( buttress的名词复数 )v.用扶壁支撑，加固( buttress的第三人称单数 ) | |
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120
nave
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| n.教堂的中部；本堂 | |
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121
propped
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| 支撑，支持，维持( prop的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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122
ecstasy
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| n.狂喜，心醉神怡，入迷 | |
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123
chisel
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| n.凿子；v.用凿子刻，雕，凿 | |
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124
wielded
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| 手持着使用（武器、工具等）( wield的过去式和过去分词 )； 具有； 运用（权力）； 施加（影响） | |
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125
grotesque
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| adj.怪诞的，丑陋的；n.怪诞的图案，怪人（物） | |
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126
gargoyles
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| n.怪兽状滴水嘴( gargoyle的名词复数 ) | |
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127
spouts
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| n.管口( spout的名词复数 )；（喷出的）水柱；（容器的）嘴；在困难中v.（指液体）喷出( spout的第三人称单数 )；滔滔不绝地讲；喋喋不休地说；喷水 | |
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justified
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| a.正当的，有理的 | |
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129
hideousness
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130
glorify
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| vt.颂扬，赞美，使增光，美化 | |
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131
justify
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| vt.证明…正当(或有理)，为…辩护 | |
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132
dividends
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| 红利( dividend的名词复数 )； 股息； 被除数； （足球彩票的）彩金 | |
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133
denizens
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| n.居民，住户( denizen的名词复数 ) | |
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134
digestion
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| n.消化，吸收 | |
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135
horrid
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| adj.可怕的；令人惊恐的；恐怖的；极讨厌的 | |
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awfully
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| adv.可怕地，非常地，极端地 | |
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137
merged
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| （使）混合( merge的过去式和过去分词 )； 相融； 融入； 渐渐消失在某物中 | |
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138
unreasonable
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| adj.不讲道理的，不合情理的，过度的 | |
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aloofness
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| 超然态度 | |
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140
hovering
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| 鸟( hover的现在分词 )； 靠近（某事物）； （人）徘徊； 犹豫 | |
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eavesdropping
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| n. 偷听 | |
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142
galaxy
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| n.星系；银河系；一群(杰出或著名的人物) | |
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excellence
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| n.优秀，杰出，(pl.)优点，美德 | |
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sundry
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| adj.各式各样的，种种的 | |
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incentive
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| n.刺激；动力；鼓励；诱因；动机 | |
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dictated
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| v.大声讲或读( dictate的过去式和过去分词 )；口授；支配；摆布 | |
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comely
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| adj.漂亮的，合宜的 | |
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heed
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| v.注意，留意；n.注意，留心 | |
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transcripts
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| n.抄本（ transcript的名词复数 ）；转写本；文字本；副本 | |
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150
devoid
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| adj.全无的，缺乏的 | |
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151
pique
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| v.伤害…的自尊心，使生气 n.不满，生气 | |
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152
smothered
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| （使）窒息， （使）透不过气( smother的过去式和过去分词 )； 覆盖； 忍住； 抑制 | |
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153
vexed
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| adj.争论不休的；（指问题等）棘手的；争论不休的问题；烦恼的v.使烦恼( vex的过去式和过去分词 )；使苦恼；使生气；详细讨论 | |
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154
strenuously
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| adv.奋发地，费力地 | |
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155
deft
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| adj.灵巧的，熟练的（a deft hand 能手） | |
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156
condescending
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| adj.谦逊的,故意屈尊的 | |
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157
sundering
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| v.隔开，分开( sunder的现在分词 ) | |
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158
delightful
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| adj.令人高兴的，使人快乐的 | |
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159
sketches
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| n.草图( sketch的名词复数 )；素描；速写；梗概 | |
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burrowed
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| v.挖掘（洞穴），挖洞( burrow的过去式和过去分词 )；翻寻 | |
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nibbled
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| v.啃，一点一点地咬（吃）( nibble的过去式和过去分词 )；啃出（洞），一点一点咬出（洞）；慢慢减少；小口咬 | |
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mutual
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| adj.相互的，彼此的；共同的，共有的 | |
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163
intervals
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| n.[军事]间隔( interval的名词复数 )；间隔时间；[数学]区间；（戏剧、电影或音乐会的）幕间休息 | |
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164
thawing
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| n.熔化，融化v.（气候）解冻( thaw的现在分词 )；（态度、感情等）缓和；（冰、雪及冷冻食物）溶化；软化 | |
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165
delicacy
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| n.精致，细微，微妙，精良；美味，佳肴 | |
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166
worthy
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| adj.(of)值得的，配得上的；有价值的 | |
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167
brute
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| n.野兽，兽性 | |
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