As for Colin, he had sat all through the meal in a bewilderment that, as it grew, as he felt himself more and more hopelessly out of it all, was mingled to an ever-increasing extent with exasperation and disapproval, until at last he was saying to himself (what he intended to say aloud to Joyce at the first opportunity), was saying: ‘I may be stupid and all that’ – and this confession was uttered by his inward voice of strength, not weakness – ‘I may be stupid and all that, but at least – well, at least I do know what’s within the pale and what’s without.’ He would say all that to Joyce, and much more; and Joyce (he had glanced at her in the middle of one of Beppo’s outrageous stories and caught an eye that was humble, anxious, pleading apologetic), Joyce would agree with every word he said.
For the poor child was like a kind of changeling – a County changeling left by some inexplicable mistake in the arms of a mad, impossible mother who forced her, against her real nature, to associate with these . . . these . . . (He couldn’t find the mentionable word for Beppo.) And he, Colin Egerton, he was the St George who would rescue her. The fact that – like some pure young girl fallen among white-slavers – she needed rescuing was one of the reasons why he felt so strongly attracted to her. He loved her, among other reasons, because he so violently loathed that ghastly degenerate (that was the word), Beppo Bowles; and his approval of all that Joyce was and did was proportionate to his disapproval (a disapproval strengthened by a certain terror) of Joyce’s mother. And yet, now, in spite of the disapproval, in spite of his fear of that sharp tongue of hers, those piercingly ironic glances, he could not help laughing with the rest. Those long-drawn bö-öds under their glass domes were irresistible.
For Mrs Amberley the laughter was like champagne – warming, stimulating. ‘And I shall have an inscription carved on the base,’ she went on, raising her voice against the din: ‘“This kidney was stolen by Helen Amberley, at the risk of her life and . . .”’
‘Oh, do shut up, Mummy!’ Helen was blushing with a mixture of pleasure and annoyance. ‘Please!’ It was certainly nice to be the heroine of a story that everybody was listening to – but then the heroine was also a bit of an ass. She felt angry with her mother for exploiting the assishness.
‘. . . and in spite of a lifelong and conscientious objection to butchery,’ Mrs Amberley went on. Then ‘Poor darling,’ she added in another tone. ‘Smells always were her weak point. Butchers, fishmongers, – and shall I ever forget the one and only time I took her to church!’
(‘One and only time,’ thought Colin. ‘No wonder she goes and does things like this!’)
‘Oh, I do admit,’ cried Mrs Amberley, ‘that a village congregation on a wet Sunday morning – well, frankly, it stinks. Deafeningly! But still . . .’
‘It’s the odour of sanctity,’ put in Anthony Beavis: and turning to Helen, ‘I’ve suffered from it myself. And did your mother make you spit when there were bad smells about? Mine did. It made things very difficult in church.’
‘She didn’t spit,’ Mrs Amberley answered for her daughter. ‘She was sick. All over Lady Worplesdon’s astrakhan coat. I was never able to show my face in respectable society again. Thank God!’ she added.
Beppo sizzled a protest against her implied imputations. Switched off kidneys, the conversation rolled away along another line.
Helen sat unnoticed, in silence. Her face had suddenly lost all its light; ‘I’ll never touch meat again,’ she had said. And here she was, with a morsel of that gruesome red lump of cow impaled on her fork. ‘I’m awful,’ she thought. Pas sérieuse, old Mme Delécluze had pronounced. And though as a professional girl-finisher the old beast could hardly be expected to say anything else, yet it was true; at bottom it was quite true. ‘I’m not serious. I’m not . . .’ But suddenly she was aware that the voice which had been sounding, inarticulately and as though from an immense distance, in her right ear was addressing itself to her.
‘Proust,’ she heard it saying, and realized that it had pronounced the same syllable at least twice before. She looked round, guiltily, and saw, red with embarrassment, the face of Hugh Ledwidge turned, waveringly and uncertainly, towards her. He smiled foolishly; his spectacles flashed; he turned away. She felt doubly confused and ashamed.
‘I’m afraid I didn’t quite catch . . .’ she contrived to mumble.
‘Oh, it doesn’t matter,’ he mumbled back. ‘It’s really of no importance.’ Of no importance; but it had taken him the best part of five minutes to think of that gambit about Proust. ‘I must say something to her,’ he had decided, when he saw Beavis safely involved in intimate talk with Mary Amberley and Beppo. ‘Must say something.’ But what? What did one say to young girls of eighteen? He would have liked to say something personal, something even a bit gallant. About her frock, for example. ‘How nice!’ No, that was a bit vague and unspecific. ‘How it suits your complexion, your eyes!’ (What colour were they, by the way?) Or he might ask her about parties. Did she go to many? With (very archly) boy friends? But that, he knew, was too difficult for him. Besides, he didn’t much like to think of her with boy friends – preferred her virginal: du bist wie eine Blume . . .
Or else, seriously but with a smile, ‘Tell me,’ he might say, ‘tell me, Helen, what are young people really like nowadays? What do they think and feel about things?’ And Helen would plant her elbows on the table and turn sideways and tell him, exactly, all he wanted to know about that mysterious world, the world where people danced and went to parties and were always having personal relations with one another; would tell him everything, everything – or else, more likely, nothing, and he would just be made to feel an impertinent fool. No, no; this wouldn’t do, wouldn’t do at all. This was just fancy, this was just wish-fulfilment.
It was then that the question about Proust had occurred to him. What did she think of Proust? It was a comfortingly impersonal question – one that he could ask without feeling awkward and unnatural. But its impersonality could easily be made to lead to a long discussion – always in the abstract, always, so to speak, in a test-tube – of the most intimately emotional, even (no, no; but still, one never knew; it was revolting; and yet . . .) even physiological matters. Talking of Proust, it would be possible to say everything – everything, but always in terms of a strictly literary criticism. Perfect! He had turned towards Helen.
‘I suppose you’re as keen on Proust as everybody else.’ No answer. From the end of the table came wafts of Mrs Amberley’s conversation with Anthony and Beppo: they were discussing the habits of their friends. Colin Egerton was in the middle of a tiger hunt in the Central Provinces. He coughed, then, ‘You’re a Proustian, I take it? Like the rest of us,’ he repeated. But the lowered and melancholy profile gave no sign of life. Feeling most uncomfortably a fool, Hugh Ledwidge tried once more.
‘I wish you’d tell me,’ he said in a louder voice, that sounded, he thought, peculiarly unnatural, ‘what you think about Proust.’
Helen continued to stare at some invisible object on the table, just in front of her place. Pas sérieuse. She was thinking of all the unserious things she had ever done in her life, all the silly, the mean, the awful things. A kind of panic embarrassment overwhelmed Hugh Ledwidge. He felt as he might feel as if his trousers were to start coming down in Piccadilly – lost. Anybody else, of course, would just touch her arm and say, ‘A penny for your thoughts, Helen!’ How simple this would be, how sensible! The whole incident would at once be turned into a joke – a joke, moreover, at her expense. He would establish once and for all a position of teasing superiority. ‘Day-dreaming in the middle of a dinner! About what? About whom?’ Very knowing and arch.
And she would blush, would giggle – at his behest, in response to his command. Like a skilled matador, he would wave his little red flag, and she would go plunging here, go charging there, making an absurd and ravishing exhibition of herself, until at last, raising his sword . . . But simple and sensible and strategically advantageous as all this would be, Hugh Ledwidge found it quite impossible to make the first move. There was her bare arm, thin like a little girl’s; but somehow he could not bring himself to put out his hand and touch it. And the jocular offer of that penny – it couldn’t be made; his vocal cords would not do it. Thirty seconds passed – seconds of increasing embarrassment and uncertainty. Then suddenly, as though waking from sleep, she had
