Read Ebook: The Green Mirror: A Quiet Story by Walpole Hugh

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Ebook has 2346 lines and 133638 words, and 47 pages

Henry blushed, swallowed in his throat, smiled idiotically. They were all, he thought, laughing at him, but the effect was very pleasant and genial....

Moreover he was interested. He was, of course, one of the young ones and it was his future that was under discussion. His mind hovered over the book that he had been reading that afternoon. Uncle Tim's words had very much the same effect upon Henry's mind that that book's words had had, although from a different angle so to speak.... Henry's eyes lingered about a little silver dish that contained sugared cherries.... He liked immensely sugared cherries. Encouraged by the genial atmosphere he stretched out his hand, took two cherries, and swallowed them, but, in his agitation, so swiftly that he did not taste them at all.

At this moment his father gave the command to move. Henry rose, very carefully, from his seat, steadied himself at the table for an instant, then, very, very gravely, with his eye upon his shirt-stud, followed his uncle from the room.

He retained, throughout the rest of that eventful evening, the slightly exaggerated vision of the world. It was not that, as he followed his father and uncle into the drawing-room, he did not know what he would see. He would find them sitting there--Grandfather in his chair, his feet on a stool, his bony hands pressed upon his thin knees with that fierce, protesting pressure that represented so much in his grandfather. There would be, also, his Great-Aunt Sarah with her high pyramid of white hair, her long black ear-trumpet and her hard sharp little eyes like faded blue pebbles, there would be his mother, square and broad and placid with her hands folded on her lap, there would be Aunt Aggie, with her pouting, fat little face, her cheeks quivering a little as she moved her head, her eyes searching about the room, nervously, uneasily, and there would be Aunt Betty, neat and tiny, with her little trembling smile and her quiet air of having something very important to do of which no one else in the family had the ghost of an idea! Oh! he knew them all so well that they appeared to him, now, to be part of himself and to exist only as his ideas of the world and life and his own destiny. They could not now do anything that would ever surprise or disconcert him, he knew their ideas, their schemes, their partialities, their disgusts, and he would not--so he thought now with the fire of life burning so brightly within him--have them changed, no, not in any tiniest atom of an alteration.

He knew that they would sit there, all of them, and talk quietly about nothing, and then when the gold clock was approaching half-past nine they would slip away,--save only grandfather and Aunt Sarah--and would slip up to their rooms and then they would slip down again with their parcels in their hands and at half-past nine the Ceremony would take place. So it had been for years and years and so it would continue to be until Grandfather's death, and, after that, Henry's father would take his place, and then, one day, perhaps, it would be the turn of Henry himself.

He paused for a moment and looked at the room--Katherine was not there. She was always until the very last moment, doing something to Grandfather's present, tying it up in some especial ribbon, writing something on the paper wrapping, making it, in some way, more perfect. He knew that, as he came in, his mother would look up and smile and say "Well, Henry," and then would resume her placidity, that Uncle Tim would sit down beside Aunt Betty and begin, very gently, to chaff her, which would please her immensely, and that Aunt Sarah would cry "What did you say, Timothy?" and that then he would shout down her ear-trumpet, with a good-humoured smile peeping down from his beard as though he were thinking "One must humour the old lady you know."

All these things occurred. Henry himself sat in a low chair by the fire and looked at his father, who was walking up and down the other end of the room, his hands deep in his pockets, his head back. Then he looked at his two aunts and wondered, as he had wondered so many times before, that they were not the sisters of his mother instead of his father. They were so small and fragile to be the sisters of such large-limbed, rough-and-tumble men as his father and Uncle Timothy. They would have, so naturally, taken their position in the world as the sisters of his mother.

Aunt Aggie, who thought that no one was paying her very much attention, said:

"I can't think why Katherine wouldn't let me get that silk for her at Liberty's this afternoon. I could have gone up Regent Street so easily--it wouldn't have been very much trouble--not very much, but Katherine always must do everything for herself."

Mrs. Trenchard said: "It was very kind of you, Aggie dear, to think of it--I'm sure it was very kind," and Aunt Betty said: "Katherine would appreciate your thinking of her."

"I wonder, with the fog, that any of you went out at all," said Uncle Tim, "I'm sure I was as nearly killed as nothing just coming back from the Strand."

Aunt Aggie moved her hands on her lap, looked at them, suspiciously, to see whether they meant what they said, and then sighed--and, to Henry, this all seemed to-night wonderful, magical, possessed of some thrilling, passionate quality; his heart was beating with furious, leaping bounds, his eyes were misty with sentimental happiness. He thought that this was life that he was realising now for the first time.... It was not--it was two glasses of Port.

He looked at his grandfather and thought of the wonderful old man that he was. His grandfather was very small and very thin and so delicate was the colour of his white hair, his face, and his hands that the light seemed to shine through him, as though he had been made of glass. He was a silent old man and everything about him was of a fine precious quality--his black shoes with the silver buckles, the gold signet ring on his finger, the black cord with the gold eye-glasses that lay across his shirt-front; when he spoke it was with a thin, silvery voice like a bell.

He did not seem, as he sat there, to be thinking about any of them or to be caring for anything that they might do.

His thoughts, perhaps, were shining and silver and precious like the rest of him, but no one knew because he said so little. Aunt Betty, with a glance at the clock, rose and slipped from the room. The moment had arrived....

Very soon, and, indeed, just as the clock, as though it were summoning them all back, struck the half-hour, there they all were again. They stood, in a group by the door and each one had, in his or her hand, his or her present. Grandfather, as silent as an ivory figure, sat in his chair, with Aunt Sarah in her chair beside him, and in front of him was a table, cleared of anything that was upon it, its mahogany shining in the firelight. All the Trenchard soldiers and the Trenchard Bishop looked down, with solemn approval, upon the scene.

"Come on, Henry, my boy, time to begin," said his father.

Henry, because he was the youngest, stepped forward, his present in his hand. His parcel was very ill-tied and the paper was creased and badly folded. He was greatly ashamed as he laid it upon the table. Blushing, he made his little speech, his lips together, speaking like an awkward schoolboy. "We're all very glad, Grandfather, that we're all--most of us--here to--to congratulate you on your birthday. We hope that you're enjoying your birthday and that--that there'll be lots more for you to enjoy."

"Bravo, Henry," came from the back of the room. Henry stepped back still blushing. Then Grandfather Trenchard, with trembling hands, slowly undid the parcel and revealed a purple leather blotting-book with silver edges.

"Thank you, my boy--very good of you. Thank you."

Then came Katherine. Katherine was neither very tall nor very short, neither fat nor thin. She had some of the grave placidity of her mother and, in her eyes and mouth, some of the humour of her father. She moved quietly and easily, very self-possessed; she bore herself as though she had many more important things to think about than anything that concerned herself. Her hair and her eyes were dark brown, and now as she went with her present, her smile was as quiet and unself-conscious as everything else about her.

"Thank you, my dear," he said. "Very charming. Thank you, my dear."

Then came Aunt Aggie, her eyes nervous and a little resentful as though she had been treated rather hardly but was making the best of difficult circumstances. "I'm afraid you won't like this, Father," she said. "I felt that you wouldn't when I got it. But I did my best. It's a silly thing to give you, I'm afraid."

She watched as the old man, very slowly, undid the parcel. She had given him a china ink-stand. It had been as though she had said: "Anything more foolish than to give an old man who ought to be thinking about the grave a china ink-stand I can't imagine."

"Thank 'ye--my dear Aggie--Thank 'ye."

Very different Aunt Betty. She came forward like a cheerful and happy sparrow, her head just on one side as though she wished to perceive the complete effect of everything that was going on.

"My present is handkerchiefs, Father. I worked the initials myself. I hope you will like them," and then she bent forward and took his hand in hers and held it for a moment. As he looked across at her, a little wave of colour crept up behind the white mask of his cheek. "Dear Betty--my dear. Thank 'ye--Thank 'ye."

Then followed Mrs. Trenchard, moving like some fragment of the old house that contained her, a fragment anxious to testify its allegiance to the head of the family--but anxious--as one must always remember with Mrs. Trenchard--with no very agitated anxiety. Her slow smile, her solid square figure that should have been fat but was only broad, her calm soft eyes--cow's eyes--from these characteristics many years of child-bearing and the company of a dreamy husband had not torn her.

Would something ever tear her?... Yes, there was something.

They surveyed one another calmly across the shining table. Mrs. Trenchard was a Faunder, but the Faunders were kin by breeding and tradition to the Trenchards--the same green pastures, the same rich, packed counties, the same mild skies and flowering Springs had seen the development of their convictions about the world and their place in it.

The Faunders.... The Trenchards ... it is as though you said Tweedledum and Tweedledee. Mrs. Trenchard looked at her father-in-law and smiled, then moved away.

Then came the men. Uncle Tim had a case of silver brushes to present and he mumbled something in his beard about them. George Trenchard had some old glass, he flung back his head and laughed, gripped his father by the hand, shouted something down Aunt Sarah's trumpet. Aunt Sarah herself had given, at an earlier hour, her offering because she was so deaf and her brother's voice so feeble that on earlier occasions, her presentation, protracted and embarrassing, had affected the whole evening. She sat there now, like an ancient Boadicea, looking down grimly upon the presents, as though they were so many spoils won by a raid.

It was time for the old man to make a Speech: It was--"Thank 'ye, Thank 'ye--very good of you all--very. It's pleasant, all of us together--very pleasant. I never felt better in my life and I hope you're all the same.... Thank 'ye, my dears. Thank 'ye."

The Ceremony was thus concluded; instantly they were all standing about, laughing, talking, soon they would be all in the hall and then they would separate, George and Timothy and Bob to talk, perhaps, until early hours in the morning.... Here is old Rocket to wheel grandfather's chair along to his bedroom.

"Well, Father, here's Rocket come for you."

"All right, my dear, I'm ready...."

But Rocket had not come for his master. Rocket, perplexity, dismay, upon his countenance, was plainly at a loss, and for Rocket to be at a loss!

"Hullo, Rocket, what is it?"

"There's a gentleman, sir--apologises profoundly for the lateness of the hour--wouldn't disturb you but the fog--his card...."

Until he passes away to join the glorious company of Trenchards who await him, will young Henry Trenchard remember everything that then occurred--exactly he will remember it and to its tiniest detail. It was past ten o'clock and never in the memory of anyone present had the Ceremony before been invaded.... Astonishing impertinence on the part of someone! Astonishing bravery also did he only realise it!

"It's the fog, you know," said Henry's mother.

"What's the matter!" screamed Aunt Sarah.

"Somebody lost in the fog."

"Somebody what?"

"Lost in the Fog."

"In the what?"

"IN THE FOG!"

"FOG!"

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