Vanderbank

“ Vanderbank was but too ready to satisfy him. “I dare say we seem to you a vulgar lot of people. That’s not the way, I can see, you speak of ladies at Beccles.”
“Oh if you laugh at me—!” And his visitor turned off.
“Don’t threaten me,” said Vanderbank, “or I WILL send away the cab. Of course I know what you mean. It will be tremendously interesting to hear how the sort of thing we’ve fallen into—oh we HAVE fallen in!—strikes your fresh, your uncorrupted ear. Do have another cigarette. Sunk as I must appear to you it sometimes strikes even mine. ”

“ Vanderbank, at this, left his corner of the sofa and, with his hands in his pockets, and a manner so amused that it might have passed for excited, took several paces about the room while his interlocutor, watching him, waited for his response. The old man, as this response for a minute hung fire, took his turn at sitting down, and then Vanderbank stopped before him with a face in which something had been still more brightly kindled. "You ask me more things than I can tell you. You ask me more than I think you suspect. ”

“ Who knows? I dare say," Vanderbank went on. "He isn't a miser, but he strikes me as careful."
Mrs. Brook meanwhile had thought it out. "Then he has something to be careful of; it would take something really handsome to inspire in a man like him that sort of interest. With his small expenses all these years, his savings must be immense. And how could he have proposed to mamma unless he had originally had money?"
If Vanderbank hesitated he also laughed. ”

“ Vanderbank frankly wondered. "In consequence of anything particular that has happened?"
Mr. Longdon had a pause. "For an old idiot who notices as much as I, something particular is always happening. If you're a man of imagination—"
"Oh," Vanderbank broke in, "I know how much more, in that case, you're one! It only makes me regret." ”

“ Vanderbank, still with a certain levity, added.
“And what IS the work?”
The young man had a pause. “Ask HIM. He’ll 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, it’s what I came up for—to try you all. But do they live on that?” he continued.
Vanderbank once more debated. “One doesn’t quite know what they live on. ”

“ The old man had got up to take his cup from Vanderbank, whose hand, however, dealt with him on the question of sitting down again. Mr. Longdon, resisting, kept erect with a low gasp that his host only was near enough to catch. This suddenly appeared to confirm an impression gathered by Vanderbank in their contact, a strange sense that his visitor was so agitated as to be trembling in every limb. ”

“ Vanderbank, still neither speaking nor moving, remained as if he might interrupt something of high importance, and his friend, passing along the opposite edge of the table, continued to produce in the stillness, without the cue, the small click of the ivory. “How long—if you don’t mind my asking—have you known it?”
Even for this at first Vanderbank had no answer—none but to rise from his place, come down to the floor and, standing there, look at Mr. Longdon across the table. He was serious now, but without being solemn. “How can one tell? One can never be sure. A man may fancy, may wonder ”

“ An observer at all initiated would, at the juncture, fairly have hung on his lips, and there was in fact on Vanderbank's part quite the look of the man—though it lasted but just while we seize it—in suspense about himself. ”

“ Vanderbank's hesitation might have shown he was struck with this. "Well, I don't think it's information that either of us required. But of course she can't help it," he added. "Everything, literally everything, in London, in the world she lives in, is in the air she breathes—so that the longer she's in it, the more she'll know."
"The more she'll know, certainly," Mitchy acknowledged. "But she isn't in it, you see, down here."
"No. Only she appears to have come down with such accumulations. And she won't be here forever," Vanderbank hastened to subjoin. ”

“ Vanderbank seemed to stifle again too vivid a sense of her particular emphasis. "Yes, yes—we must let him."
"Though it won't prevent Nanda, I imagine," his hostess pursued, "from finding the fun of a whole month at Beccles—or whatever she puts in—not exactly fast and furious."
Vanderbank had the look of measuring what the girl might "put in." "The place will be quiet, of course, but when a person's so fond of a person—"
"As she is of him, you mean?"
He hesitated. "Yes. Then it's all right."
"She is fond of him, thank God!" said Mrs. Brook. ”

“ Vanderbank hesitated. "You mean I managed him so well?"
"I don't know how you managed him, but liking me has been for him a painful, gradual process. I think he does now," Nanda declared. "He accepts me at last as different—he's trying with me on that basis. He has ended by understanding that when he talks to me of Granny I can't even imagine her."
Vanderbank puffed away, "I can."
"That's what Mitchy says too. But you've both probably got her wrong."
"I don't know," said Vanderbank—"I've gone into it a good deal. But it's too late. We can't be Greeks if we would." ”

“ Vanderbank’s instant admiration flushed across the room. “How awfully jolly of you—how beautiful!”
“Oh there’s a way to show practically your appreciation of it.”
But Vanderbank, for enthusiasm, scarcely heard him. “I can’t tell you how admirable I think you.” Then eagerly, “Does Nanda know it?” he demanded.
Mr. Longdon, after a wait, spoke with comparative dryness. “My idea has been that for the present you alone shall.”
Vanderbank took it in. “No other man?” ”

“ Vanderbank said musingly and kindly.
"Yes; one knows on the whole what she won't do." After which, for a period, Mitchy roamed and reflected. "But in spite of the assurance given you by Mr. Longdon—or perhaps indeed just because of your having taken it—I think I ought to mention to you my belief that Nanda does know of his offer to you. I mean having guessed it."
"Oh!" said Vanderbank.
"There's in fact more still," his companion pursued, "that I feel I should like to mention to you."
"Oh!" Vanderbank at first only repeated. But after a moment he said: "My dear fellow, I'm much obliged." ”

“ Brook, at this, showed real resentment. “‘Go’? Then what would become of us?” She recalled his wandering fancy. “She’s the delight of our life.”
“Oh!” Vanderbank sceptically murmured.
“She’s the ornament of our circle,” his companion insisted. “She will, she won’t—she won’t, she will! It’s the excitement, every day, of plucking the daisy over.” Vanderbank’s attention, as she spoke, had attached itself across the room to Mr. Longdon; it gave her thus an image of the way his imagination had just seemed to her to stray, and she saw a reason in it moreover for her coming up in another place. ”

“ Vanderbank said on this, “if you understood to the full how I keep on admiring you. Only what stupefies me a little,” he continued, “is the extraordinary critical freedom—or we may call it if we like the high intellectual detachment—with which we discuss a question touching you, dear Mrs. Brook, so nearly and engaging so your private and most sacred sentiments. What are we playing with, after all, but the idea of Nanda’s happiness?” ”

“ Vanderbank turned this over. “Is that your system now—to ask no questions?”
“Why SHOULD I ask any—when I want her life to be as much as possible like my own? It’s simply that the hour has struck, as you know. From the moment she IS down the only thing for us is to live as friends. I think it’s so vulgar,” Mrs. Brook sighed, “not to have the same good manners with one’s children as one has with other people. She asks ME nothing.”
“Nothing?” Vanderbank echoed. ”

“ Vanderbank gave on this a strange sound of hilarity. “Ah that would finish it off!”
It produced for a few seconds something like a chill, a chill that had for consequence a momentary pause which in its turn added weight to the words next uttered. “It’s not I who shall tell her,” Mrs. Brook said gently and gravely. “There!—you may be sure. If you want a promise, it’s a promise. So that if Mr. Longdon’s silent,” she went on, “and you are, Mitchy, and I am, how in the world shall she have a suspicion?” ”

“ This was at any rate not the case as Vanderbank at last remarked: “Your brass, my dear young lady, is pure gold!”
“Then it’s of me, I think, that Harold ought to borrow.”
“You mean therefore that mine isn’t?” Vanderbank went on.
“Well, you really haven’t any natural ‘cheek’—not like SOME of them. You’re in yourself as uneasy, if anything’s said and every one giggles or makes some face, as Mr. Longdon, and if Lord Petherton hadn’t once told me that a man hates almost as much to be called modest as a woman does, I’d say that very often in London now you must pass some bad moments.” ”

“ Longdon in a moment had caught up. “Mr. Vanderbank—your idea is—would require on the part of his wife something of that sort?”
“Pray who wouldn’t—in the world we all move in—require it quite as much? Mr. Vanderbank, I’m assured, has no means of his own at all, and if he doesn’t believe in impecunious marriages it’s not I who shall be shocked at him. For myself I simply despise them. He has nothing but a poor official salary. If it’s enough for one it would be little for two, and would be still less for half a dozen. ”

“ If there's a congestion of dishes, sweep everything, without scruple, away. I've never put before you anything like this."
He spoke with a weight that, in the great space, where it resounded a little, made an impression—an impression marked by the momentary pause that fell between them. He partly broke the silence, first, by beginning to walk again, and then Vanderbank broke it as through the apprehension of their becoming perhaps too solemn. "Well, you immensely interest me, and you really couldn't have chosen a better time. ”

“ Vanderbank’s laugh came back. “Very good—very good. I return to my first idea. Try with him whatever comes into your head. You’re a woman of genius after all, and genius mostly justifies itself. To make you right,” he went on pleasantly and inexorably, “might perhaps be to make you wrong. Since you HAVE so great a charm trust it not at all or all in all. That, I dare say, is all you can do. Therefore—yes—be yourself.” ”

“ But it’s just that,” said Vanderbank, “that makes one feel so base. I’ve been ferociously busy.”
“He knows that—he likes it,” Nanda returned. “He delights in your work. And I’ve done what I can for him.”
“Ah,” said her companion, “you’ve evidently brought him round. I mean to this lady.”
“To Tishy? Oh of course I can’t leave her—with nobody.”
“No”—Vanderbank became jocose again—“that’s a London necessity. You can’t leave anybody with nobody—exposed to everybody.”
Mild as it was, however, Nanda missed the pleasantry. “Mr. Grendon’s not here.” ”

“ There was space to circulate in front of the haut-pas, where he had still paced and still swung his glasses; but with these words he had paused, leaning against the billiard-table, to meet the interested urbanity of the answer they produced. “Are you very sure that having got rid of it you WILL sleep? Is it a pure confidence,” Vanderbank said, “that you do me the honour to make me? Is it something terrific that requires a reply, so that I shall have to take account on my side of the rest I may deprive you of?”
“Don’t take account of anything—I’m myself a man who always takes too much. ”

“ Seriously,” Vanderbank pursued, “I AM awfully sorry and I wonder if, the first time you’ve a chance, you’d kindly tell him you’ve heard me say so and that I mean yet to run him to earth. The same really with the dear Mitchys. I didn’t somehow, the other night, in such a lot of people, get at them. But I sat opposite to Aggie all through dinner, and that puts me in mind. I should like volumes from you about Aggie, please. It’s too revolting of me not to go to see her. But every one knows I’m busy. We’re up to our necks!” ”

“ It's when you live with them, you see, that you know. Everything in the place is such good company."
"Your mother ought to be here," Vanderbank presently suggested. "She's so fond of good company." Then as Nanda answered nothing he went on: "Was your grandmother ever?"
"Never," the girl promptly said. "Never," she repeated in a tone quite different. After which she added: "I'm the only one."
"Oh, and I. 'Me and you,' as they say," her companion amended.
"Yes, and Mr. Mitchy, who's to come down—please don't forget—this afternoon."
Vanderbank had another of his contemplative pauses. ”

“ Vanderbank, longing for a river, was in white flannels, and he took her question with a happy laugh, a handsome face of good humour that completed the effect of his long, cool fairness. “Do you mind my just sitting still, do you mind letting me smoke and staying with me a while? Perhaps after a little we’ll walk about—shan’t we? But face to face with this dear old house, in this jolly old nook, one’s too contented to move, lest raising a finger even should break the spell. What WILL be perfect will be your just sitting down—DO sit down—and scolding me a little. ”

“ Longdon again took him up. “What do you people call a long time?”
Vanderbank considered. “Ah there you are! And now we’re ‘we people’! That’s right—give it to us. I’m sure that in one way or another it’s all earned. Well, I’ve known her ten years. But awfully well.”
“What do you call awfully well?”
“We people?” Vanderbank’s enquirer, with his continued restless observation, moving nearer, the young man had laid on his shoulder the lightest of friendly hands. “Don’t you perhaps ask too much? ”