Well, what about us? Vanderbanks tone encouraged the courtesy of the reference. Im not so young moreover as that comes to.
How old are you then, pray?
Why Im thirty-four.
What do you call that? Im a hundred and three! Mr. Longdon at all events took out his watch. Its only a quarter past eleven. Then with a quick change of interest, What did you say is your public office? he enquired.
The General Audit. Im Deputy Chairman.
Dear! Mr. Longdon looked at him as if he had had fifty windows. What a head you must have!
Oh yesour heads Sir Digby Dence.
And what do we do for you?
Well, you gild the pillthough not perhaps very thick. But its a decent berth.
A thing a good many fellows would give a pound of their flesh for?
Vanderbanks visitor appeared so to deprecate too faint a picture that he dropped all scruples. Im the most envied man I knowso that if I were a shade less amiable I should be one of the most hated.
Mr. Longdon laughed, yet not quite as if they were joking. I see. Your pleasant way carries it off.
Vanderbank was, however, not serious. Wouldnt it carry off anything?
Again his friend, through the pince-nez, appeared to crown him with a Whitehall cornice. I think I ought to let you know Im studying you. Its really fair to tell you, he continued with an earnestness not discomposed by the indulgence in Vanderbanks face. Its all rightall right! he reassuringly added, having meanwhile stopped before a photograph suspended on the wall. Thats your mother! he brought out with something of the elation of a child making a discovery or guessing a riddle. I dont make you out in her yetin my recollection of her, which, as I told you, is perfect; but I dare say I soon shall.
Vanderbank was more and more aware that the kind of amusement he excited would never in the least be a bar to affection. Please take all your time.
Mr. Longdon looked at his watch again. Do you think I HAD better keep it?
The cab? Vanderbank liked him so, found in him such a promise of pleasant things, that he was almost tempted to say: Dear and delightful sir, dont weigh that question; Ill pay, myself, for the mans whole night! His approval at all events was complete.
Most certainly. Thats the only way not to think of it.
Oh you young men, you young men! his guest again murmured. He had passed on to the photographVanderbank had many, too many photographsof some other relation, and stood wiping the gold-mounted glasses through which he had been darting admirations and catching side-lights for shocks. Dont talk nonsense, he continued as his friend attempted once more to throw in a protest; I belong to a different period of history. There have been things this evening that have made me feel as if I had been disinterredliterally dug up from a long sleep. I assure you there have!he really pressed the point.
Vanderbank wondered a moment what things in particular these might be; he found himself wanting to get at everything his visitor represented, to enter into his consciousness and feel, as it were, on his side. He glanced with an intention freely sarcastic at an easy possibility. The extraordinary vitality of Brookenham?
Mr. Longdon, with nippers in place again, fixed on him a gravity that failed to prevent his discovering in the eyes behind them a shy reflexion of his irony. Oh Brookenham! You must tell me all about Brookenham.
I see thats not what you mean.
Mr. Longdon forbore to deny it. I wonder if youll understand what I mean. Vanderbank bristled with the wish to be put to the test, but was checked before he could say so. And whats HIS placeBrookenhams?
Oh Rivers and Lakesan awfully good thing. He got it last year.
Mr. Longdonbut not too grosslywondered. How did he get it?
Vanderbank laughed. Well, SHE got it.
His friend remained grave. And about how much now?
Oh twelve hundredand lots of allowances and boats and things. To do the work! Vanderbank, still with a certain levity, added.
And what IS the work?
The young man had a pause. Ask HIM. Hell like to tell you.
Yet he seemed to have but little to say. Mr. Longdon exactly measured it again.
Ah not about that. Try him.
He looked more sharply at his host, as if vaguely suspicious of a trap; then not less vaguely he sighed. Well, its what I came up forto try you all. But do they live on that? he continued.
Vanderbank once more debated. One doesnt quite know what they live on. But theyve meansfor it was just that fact, I remember, that showed Brookenhams getting the place wasnt a job. It was given, I mean, not to his mere domestic need, but to his notorious efficiency. He has a propertyan ugly little place in Gloucestershirewhich they sometimes let. His elder brother has the better one, but they make up an income.
Mr. Longdon for an instant lost himself. Yes, I rememberone heard of those things at the time. And SHE must have had something.
Yes indeed, she had somethingand she always has her intense cleverness. She knows thoroughly how. They do it tremendously well.
Tremendously well, Mr. Longdon intelligently echoed. But a house in Buckingham Crescent, with the way they seem to have built through to all sorts of other places?
Oh theyre all right, Vanderbank soothingly dropped.
One likes to feel that of people with whom one has dined. There are four children? his friend went on.
The older boy, whom you saw and who in his way is a wonder, the older girl, whom you must see, and two youngsters, male and female, whom you mustnt.
There might by this time, in the growing interest of their talk, have been almost nothing too uncanny for Mr. Longdon to fear it. You mean the youngsters areunfortunate?
Notheyre only, like all the modern young, I think, mysteries, terrible little baffling mysteries. Vanderbank had found amusement againit flickered so from his friends face that, really at moments to the point of alarm, his explanations deepened darkness. Then with more interest he harked back. I know the thing you just mentionedthe thing that strikes you as odd. He produced his knowledge quite with elation. The talk. Mr. Longdon on this only looked at him in silence and harder, but he went on with assurance: Yes, the talkfor we do talk, I think. Still his guest left him without relief, only fixing him and his suggestion with a suspended judgement. Whatever the old man was on the point of saying, however, he disposed of in a curtailed murmur; he had already turned afresh to the series of portraits, and as he glanced at another Vanderbank spoke afresh.
It was very interesting to me to hear from you there, when the ladies had left us, how many old threads you were prepared to pick up.
Mr. Longdon had paused. Im an old boy who remembers the mothers, he at last replied.
Yes, you told me how well you remember Mrs. Brookenhams.
Oh, oh!and he arrived at a new subject. This must be your sister Mary.
Yes; its very bad, but as shes dead
Dead? Dear, dear!
Oh long agoVanderbank eased him off. Its delightful of you, this informant went on, to have known also such a lot of MY people.
Mr. Longdon turned from his contemplation with a visible effort. I feel obliged to you for taking it so; it mightntone never knowshave amused you. As I told you there, the first thing I did was to ask Fernanda about the company; and when she mentioned your name I immediately said: Would he like me to speak to him?