§ 4
Mr. Preemby was evidently depressed and more than a little aggrieved, but he had none of the comprehensive despondency of your melancholic type. Concurrently he was quite actively interested in the boarding house, and the fellow boarders he encountered there. It was a novel experience for him to be in a boarding house. During his married life he had always spent his holidays with Mrs. Preemby in seaside apartments, so that she could supervise the provisioning properly, and detect, expose and rectify errors and extortion. They had taken drives inland during these vacations, or camped on the beach while Mr. Preemby and Christina Alberta had made sandcastles or pottered among rocks, and Mrs. Preemby had sat in a folding-chair and pined for the Laundry. If the weather was bad they kept in their apartments, where Mr. Preemby and Christina Alberta could read books while Mrs. Preemby could pine for the Laundry almost as well as she could on the beach. But deep in Mr. Preemby’s heart there had always been a craving for such a collective, promiscuous life as a boarding house affords.
They had made the acquaintance of the second Miss Rewster, Miss Margaret Rewster, on their arrival with the luggage. She was a taller, more anxious and less richly belaced variation of her sister. They both, Mr. Preemby discovered, had a peculiar hovering quality. They seemed always hovering behind bead curtains or down passages, or looking over from staircase landings or peeping round doors; poor dears! they were dreadfully anxious not to interfere with their guests, but they were equally anxious that everything should be all right. At meal-times they operated with the joints and dishes behind a screen, and the chubby maid carried round the plates and vegetables. And whenever Mr. Preemby looked at the screen he found either Miss Margaret Rewster peeping over the top of it at him or Miss Emily Rewster peeping round the end. It made him quite nervous with his forks and spoons. When he dropped his serviette he hoped that would pass unobserved, but Miss Emily noted it at once and sent the chubby maid to pick it up for him.
Mr. Preemby and Christina Alberta came down to dinner as soon as Miss Margaret had sounded the second gong, and so they were the first to be seated and could survey their fellow-guests at an advantage. Christina Alberta was quietly observant, but Mr. Preemby said “h’rrmp” at each fresh arrival. The next to appear were two Birds of Passage, a young man in Hudibrastic golfing knickerbockers, and a lady, presumably his wife, in a bright yellow sporting jumper, who were motoring about Kent; they made strenuous attempts to seize a table in the window which was already reserved for Petunia Regulars and were subdued with difficulty, but perfect dignity, by Miss Emily. They then consulted loudly about wine—the young man called the lady “Old Thing,” and “Old Top,” forms of expression new and interesting to Mr. Preemby, and she called him “Badger”—and the chubby maid produced a card of wines that could be sent out for. The young man read out the names and prices of wines and made his selection almost as though he were a curate officiating in a very large cathedral. His wife, to follow out that comparison, made the responses. “Chablis such as we should get here might be too sweet,” he proclaimed.
“It might be too sweet?”
“What of a Pommard, Old Top?”
“Why not a Pommard, Badger?”
“The Beaune is a shilling cheaper and just as likely to be good—or bad.”
“Just as likely.”
The chubby maid flew out of the room, list in hand, with her thumb on the wine he had chosen.
Meanwhile under cover of this hubbub the two ladies Mr. Preemby had seen at tea in the lounge on the occasion of his first visit, percolated unobtrusively to a table near the window. They were obviously sisters, both rather slender and tall with small, round, bright-coloured faces on stalk-like necks; they had sharp little noses, and one of them wore tortoiseshell spectacles. A gentleman with a white moustache, larger and nobler even than Mr. Preemby’s, accompanied by a small alert-looking wife, was the next to appear. Possibly this was the gentleman who had been in a forest in Burmah. The small alert-looking wife bowed to the slender ladies, who became agitated like reeds in a wind. The gentleman took no notice of them, grunted as he sat down, produced glasses and read the menu.
“Tomato soup again!” he said.
“It’s usually very nice tomato soup,” said his wife.
“But Three Times Running!” he said. “It favours acidity. I don’t like tomato soup.”
The table in the bow window was occupied by three people who drifted in separately. First came a little, thin, dark lady in grey, carrying a bead work-bag, then a little dark, bald man with large side-whiskers whom she addressed as father, and then a plump, healthy-looking wife with a radiant manner who swept in and distributed greetings.
“Did you get your walk, Major Bone?” she said to the gentleman from the Burmese forest.
“Just to Rusthall Common and back,” said Major Bone, speaking thickly through his moustache and soup. “Just to Rusthall Common.”
“And you got a char-à-banc to Crohamhurst, Miss Solbé?” The two sisters answered in unison. “Oh! we had a lovely ride.”
“So picturesque,” said the one with spectacles.
“So open and pleasant,” said the one without spectacles.
“Did you see the sea?”
“Oh, plainly!” said the one with spectacles.
“Ever so far away,” said the one without.
“Just as if the sky had a steel edge,” said the one with spectacles.
“Exactly like a leetle silver line,” said the one without.
“H’rrmp,” said Mr. Preemby.
Small portions of fish followed the tomato soup, and were consumed in comparative silence. There was a little burst of scarcely audible conversation at the window table.
“Now is this the same fish as we had yesterday?” asked the wife.
“It is a very similar fish,” said the gentleman with whiskers.
“The menu simply says, ‘Fish,’” said the stepdaughter.
“H’rrmp,” said Mr. Preemby.
“I think our back tyres were too tight to-day, Old Top,” said the man in plus fours, in a very loud, clear voice. “I felt the road dreadfully.”
“I felt the road dreadfully,” said the lady in the yellow jumper.
“I must let them down a little to-morrow morning.”
“It would be better.”
“To-morrow morning will do. I won’t trouble to-night.”
“Much better to-morrow morning, Badger. You’re tired to-night after all that bumping. You’d make your hands dirty.”
Silence and active business with knives and forks.
“Porruck hasn’t written about that,” said the Major from the forest.
“Very likely he’s busy,” said his wife.
Silence.
“H’rrmp,” said Mr. Preemby.
Christina Alberta searched her mind for some conversational opening that would give her father a reasonable opportunity to make an acceptable reply, but she could think of nothing that was neither too disconcerting nor too dangerous. She met his eye and he had the expression of one who holds out against a strain.
Fish gave place to lamb.
“I thought that road from Sittingbourne was just awful,” said the motoring gentleman.
“It was just awful,” responded his wife.
Christina Alberta saw her father’s face working. He was going to say something. “H’rrmp. To-morrow, if it is fine, I think we will go for a walk in the morning.”
The knives and forks were hushed. Everybody was listening.
“I’d love a walk to-morrow, Daddy,” said Christina Alberta. “I should think there were some jolly walks about this place.”
“Exactly,” said Mr. Preemby. “Very probably. The Guide Book is very reassuring. H’rrmp.”
He had the dignified expression of a man who has carried off a difficult duty.
Resumption of activity with knives and forks.
“Hard to tell this lamb from mutton,” said Major Bone, “if it wasn’t for the mint sauce.”
“Peas are never so nice as they are from your own garden,” said the wife of the whiskered gentleman to her stepdaughter.
“It’s late for peas,” said the stepdaughter.
The two Miss Solbés and the motoring gentleman began talking at the same time. Mrs. Bone expressed the idea that it was hard to get good lamb nowadays. Taking courage from this sudden swirl of conversation Mr. Preemby was emboldened to remark to Christina Alberta that he had always been attracted to Tumbridge Wells. He felt the air was a strong air. It gave him an appetite.
“You must be careful not to get fat,” said Christina Alberta.
The outburst of active human exchanges came to an end. Baked apple and custard were consumed in comparative silence. The chubby maid came to ask Mr. Preemby whether he would like his coffee in the lounge or the smoking-room. “The lounge I think,” said Mr. Preemby. “H’rrmp. The lounge.”
The Misses Solbé, bearing glasses containing sugar and lemon juice, flitted from the room. The people from the window table followed. The function of dinner was completed. They found themselves alone in the lounge. Most of the people seemed to have drifted into the sitting-room. The gentleman from the forests of Burmah went by towards the smoking-room, carrying a large cigar which had an air of also coming from the forests of Burmah. It did not look like a cigar that had been rolled or filled; it looked like a cigar of old gnarled wood that had been hewn from a branching tree. A straw came out of the end of it....
Christina Alberta stood and contemplated a vast void of time, two hours it might be, before she could decently go to bed. “Oh! this is the Life!” she said.
“Extremely comfortable,” said Mr. Preemby, sitting down with much creaking in a basket arm-chair.
Christina Alberta sat on a glass-topped table and lit a cigarette. She saw those two hours stretching before her, and she wanted to scream.
The chubby maid brought coffee and seemed gently surprised at Christina Alberta’s cigarette. Whisperings off stage. Then Miss Emily became dimly visible through the bead curtain at the end of the passage, hovering. She vanished again and Christina Alberta finished her cigarette in peace. Mr. Preemby drank up his coffee. Pause. Christina Alberta swung her legs rhythmically. Then she slid off the table to her feet.
“Daddy,” she said, “let’s go into the sitting-room and see if anything is happening there.”