The Complete Short Stories of Evelyn Waugh - Evelyn Waugh [237]
“Good work, I was afraid she would be away doing that V.A.D. work. I only saw her once all last holidays. Ah there she is.”
They had come out into the small station yard. On the other side of it stood the dog-cart and in it stood Moira Gage, one hand holding the reins, the other shading her eyes. She was tall, slim and pale, not really pretty but graceful and attractive; from a distance she looked like a Shepperson drawing but when you got nearer you saw depths in her grey, scrutable eyes, which his charming mannerisms could never convey; she was dressed in a tweed coat and a skirt with a grey silk scarf over her shoulders. Peter ran forward and greeted her.
“Peter,” she said, “before you do anything else, do make Ralf put his hat on. He looks simply dreadful and I’m sure he’d be court-martialled or something, if anyone saw.”
“Three years of military life shatter any illusions about military discipline,” Ralf replied, climbing up into the dog-cart, “the only hardened militarist nowadays is the newly conscripted civilian.”
“Now he’s being clever again,” Moira laughed, “I really thought you lost that when you came down from Oxford. Among other things, it’s very bad manners when you are in stupid company.”
“Thank you,” Peter expostulated, “I wish you’d speak for yourself. I’m in the sixth now and write essays on industrial history and all sorts of things.”
“You seem to regard your history with most unreasonable pride,” said Moira, “from all I hear it sounds only slack.”
“All pride is unreasonable” said Ralf. To Peter it seemed that he had paused a moment hesitating whether “no pride is unreasonable” was the more impressive; he had long gone beyond the stage when a sweeping generalization could pass as an epigram.
“The aphorisms of a disappointed man,” said Moira. “The next remark like that Ralf and I get out and walk.”
Bulfrey Combe was a mile and a half out from Bulfrey and still kept most of the appearance of a country village. Bulfrey was a small town with two or three streets of cheap shops, a bank, and a small glass factory which formed the nucleus of a large area of slums which was gradually spreading its grimy tentacles along the roads into the
ESSAY
“Oh, yes,” said Lurnstein, “I had ideals at one time all right—we all do, you know.”
He was leaning back from the small table, on which the tea was set, eyeing my half finished portrait. I had had a long sitting and his beautiful china tea in his thin blue and white china came as a great relief.
He looked extremely handsome, I thought, in the golden afternoon light, in his picturesque studio overall; Jewish, of course, but with a distinguished air that made one overlook his stumpy hands and other signs of ill-breeding.
“Perhaps you’d like to hear something of my life,” he said, “it has not been without interest.”
He lit another cigarette, pushed the box, a beautiful piece of Moorish inlaid work, to within my easy reach, and then drawing a deep breath of smoke, began:
“I started life about as low as any new peer. My father was a Jew and we lived in the Jewish quarter off the Commercial Road. When he was sober he was very kind to me and my brothers. My mother never had any great significance for me, but I realize now that she must have been a very hard worked and hard treated woman as upon her fell the sole burden of supporting her husband and large family.
“From the time when my first memories start I have always been interested in drawing, and I used to use every scrap of paper and every stump of pencil I could find, but lines never satisfied me—I wanted colours and tones. And these I could not afford. Coloured chalks used to be my chief delight and I used to take them from the desk of the Rabbi who managed the