Point Counter Point - Aldous Huxley [47]
She shrugged her shoulders. ‘After all, mother can look after her own bear garden.’
‘Bear garden’s the word,’ said Walter, feeling suddenly hopeful ‘Let’s sneak away to some place where it’s quiet.’
‘My poor Walter! Her eyes were derisive. ‘I never knew anybody with such a mania for quietness as you. But I don’t want to be quiet.’
His hope evaporated, leaving a feeble little bitterness, an ineffective anger. ‘Why not stay here then?’ he asked with an attempt at sarcasm. ‘Isn’t it noisy enough?’
‘Ah, but noisy with the wrong sort of noise,’ she explained. ‘There’s nothing I hate more than the noise of cultured, respectable, eminent people, like these creatures.’ She waved her hand comprehensively. The words evoked, for Walter, the memory of hideous evenings passed with Lucy in the company of the disreputable and uncultured—tipsy at that. Lady Edward’s guests were bad enough. But the others were surely worse. How could she tolerate them?
Lucy seemed to divine his thoughts. Smiling, she laid a hand reassuringly on his arm. ‘Cheer up!’ she said. ‘I’m not taking you into low company this time. There’s Spandrell…’
‘Spandrell,’ he repeated and made a grimace.
‘And if Spandrell isn’t classy enough for you, we shall probably find Mark Rampion and his wife, if we don’t arrive too late.’
At the name of the painter and writer, Walter nodded approvingly.
‘No, I don’t mind listening to Rampion’s noise,’ he said. And then, making an effort to overcome the timidity which always silenced him when the moment came to give words to his feelings, ‘but I’d much rather,’ he added, jocularly, so as to temper the boldness of his words, ‘I’d much rather listen to your noise, in private.’
Lucy smiled, but said nothing. He flinched away in a kind of terror from her eyes. They looked at him calmly, coldly, as though they had seen everything before and were not much interested—only faintly amused, very faintly and coolly amused.
‘All right,’ he said, ‘let’s go.’ His tone was resigned and wretched.
‘We must do a creep,’ she said. ‘Furtive’s the word. No good being caught and headed back.’
But they did not escape entirely unobserved. They were approaching the door, when there was a rustle and a sound of hurrying steps behind them. A voice called Lucy’s name. They turned round and saw Mrs. Knoyle, the General’s wife. She laid a hand on Lucy’s arm.
‘I’ve just heard that you’re going to see Maurice this evening,’ she said, but did not explain that the General had told her so only because he wanted to relieve his feelings by saying something disagreeable to somebody who couldn’t resent the rudeness. ‘Give him a message from me, will you?’ She leaned forward appealingly. ‘Will you?’ There was something pathetically young and helpless about her manner, something very young and soft even about her middleaged looks. To Lucy, who might have been her daughter, she appealed as though to someone older and stronger than herself. ‘Please.’
‘But of course,’ said Lucy.
Mrs. Knoyle smiled gratefully. ‘Tell him I ‘1 come to see him to-morrow afternoon,’ she said.
‘Tomorrow afternoon.’
‘Between four and halfpast. And don’t mention it to anyone else,’ she added after a moment of embarrassed hesitation.
‘Of course I won’t.’
‘I’m so grateful to you,’ said Mrs. Knoyle, and with a sudden shy impulsiveness she leaned forward and kissed her. ‘Good night, my dear.’ She slipped away into the crowd.
‘One would think,’ said Lucy, as they crossed the vestibule, ‘that it was an appointment with her lover she was making, not her son.’
Two footmen let them out, obsequiously automatic. Closing the door, one winked to the other significantly. For an instant, the machines revealed themselves disquietingly as human beings.
Walter gave the address of Sbisa’s restaurant to the taxi driver and stepped into the enclosed darkness of the cab. Lucy had already settled into her corner.
Meanwhile, in the dining-room, Molly d’Exergillod was still talking. She prided herself on her conversation.