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Tono-Bungay Book 1 Chapter 1 - Parts 7-9 · The H. G. Wells Library

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Speaker 1: Book, first chapter, first parts seven to nine of Tono Bungay.
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Speaker 1: This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in
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Speaker 1: the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please
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Speaker 1: visit LibriVox dot org. Recording by William tom Coe. Tono
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Speaker 1: Bungay by H. G. Wells, Book, first chapter, first parts
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Speaker 1: seven to nine. Seven and then when I had newly
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Speaker 1: passed my fourteenth birthday, came my tragic disgrace. It was
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Speaker 1: in my Midsummer holidays that the thing happened, and it
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Speaker 1: was through the honorable Beatrice Normandy. She had come into
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Speaker 1: my life, as they say, before I was twelve. She
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Speaker 1: descended unexpectedly into a peaceful interlude that followed the annual
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Speaker 1: going of those three great women. She came into the
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Speaker 1: old nursery upstairs, and every day she had tea with
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Speaker 1: us in the housekeeper's room. She was eight, and she
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Speaker 1: came with a nurse called Nanny, And to begin with,
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Speaker 1: I did not like her at all. Nobody liked this
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Speaker 1: irruption into the downstairs rooms. The two gave trouble a
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Speaker 1: dire offense. Nannie's sense of duty to her charge led
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Speaker 1: to requests and demands that took my mother's breath away,
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Speaker 1: eggs at unusual times, the reboiling of milk, the rejection
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Speaker 1: of an excellent milk pudding, not negotiated respectfully, but dictated
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Speaker 1: as of right. Nanny was a dark, long featured, taciturn
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Speaker 1: woman in a gray dress. She had a furtive inflexibility
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Speaker 1: of manner that finally dismayed and crushed and overcame. She
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Speaker 1: conveyed she was under orders, like a Greek tragedy. She
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Speaker 1: was that strange product of the old time, a devoted,
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Speaker 1: trusted servant. She had, as it were, banked, all her
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Speaker 1: pride and will with the greater, more powerful people who
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Speaker 1: employed her in return for a life long security of servitude.
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Speaker 1: The bargain was nonetheless binding for being implicit. Finally, they
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Speaker 1: were to pension her, and she would die the hated
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Speaker 1: treasure of a boarding house. She had built up in
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Speaker 1: herself an enormous habit of reference to these upstairs people.
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Speaker 1: She had curbed down all discordant murmurings of her soul.
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Speaker 1: Her very instincts were perverted or surrendered. She was sexless,
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Speaker 1: Her personal pride was all transferred. She mothered another woman's
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Speaker 1: child with a hard, joyless devotion that was at least
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Speaker 1: entirely compatible with a stoical separation. She treated us all
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Speaker 1: as things that counted for nothing save to fetch and
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Speaker 1: carry for her charge. But the honorable Beatrice could condescend
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Speaker 1: the queer chances of later years came between me and
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Speaker 1: a distinctly separated memory of that childish face. When I
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Speaker 1: think of Beatrice, I think of her as I came
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Speaker 1: to know her at a later time, when at last
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Speaker 1: I came to know her so well that indeed now
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Speaker 1: I could draw her and show a hundred little delicate
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Speaker 1: things you would miss in looking at her. But even
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Speaker 1: then I remember how I noted the infinite delicacy of
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Speaker 1: her childish skin, and the fine eyebrow finer than the
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Speaker 1: finest feather that every one felt on the breast of
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Speaker 1: a bird. She was one of those elfin rather precocious
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Speaker 1: little girls, quick colored with dark hair, naturally curling, dusky
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Speaker 1: hair that was sometimes astray over her eyes, and eyes
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Speaker 1: that were sometimes impishly dark and sometimes a clear brown yellow,
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Speaker 1: and from the very outset. After a most cursory attention
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Speaker 1: to rabbits, she decided that the only really interesting thing
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Speaker 1: at the tea table was myself. The eldest talked in
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Speaker 1: their formal, dull way, telling Nanny the trite old things
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Speaker 1: about the park and the village that they told everyone.
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Speaker 1: And Beatrice watched me across the table with a pitiless
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Speaker 1: little curiosity that made me uncomfortable, Nanny, she said, pointing,
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Speaker 1: And Nanny left a question of my mother's disregarded to
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Speaker 1: attend to her. Is he a servant boy, sh said Nanny.
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Speaker 1: He's master ponderevo. Is he a servant boy, repeated Beatrice.
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Speaker 1: He's a schoolboy, said my mother. Then may I talk
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Speaker 1: to him, nanny. Nanny surveyed me with brutal inhumanity. You
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Speaker 1: mustn't talk too much, she said to her charge, and
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Speaker 1: cut Cake into fingers for her. No, she added decisively.
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Speaker 1: As Beatrice made to speak, Beatrice became malignant. Her eyes
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Speaker 1: explored me with unjustifiable hostility. He's got dirty hands, she said,
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Speaker 1: stabbing at the forbidden fruit, and there's a fray to
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Speaker 1: his collar. Then she gave herself up to Cake with
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Speaker 1: an appearance of entire forgetfulness of me that filled me
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Speaker 1: with hate and a passionate desire to compel her to
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Speaker 1: admire me. And the next day, before tea, I did,
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Speaker 1: for the first time in my life, freely, without command
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Speaker 1: or any compulsion, wash my hands. So our acquaintance began,
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Speaker 1: and presently was deepened by a whim of hers. She
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Speaker 1: had a cold and was kept indoors, and confronted Nanny
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Speaker 1: suddenly with the alternative of being hopelessly naughty, which in
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Speaker 1: her case involved a generous amount of screaming unsuitable for
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Speaker 1: the ears of an elderly, shaky rich aunt, or having
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Speaker 1: me up to the nursery to play with her all
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Speaker 1: the afternoon. Nanny came downstairs and borrowed me in a
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Speaker 1: care worn manner, and I was headed over to the
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Speaker 1: little creature as if I was some large variety of kitten.
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Speaker 1: I had never had anything to do with the little
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Speaker 1: girl before. I thought she was more beautiful and wonderful
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Speaker 1: and bright than anything else could possibly be in life.
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Speaker 1: And she found me the gentlest of slaves, though at
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Speaker 1: the same time, as I made evident, fairly strong. And
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Speaker 1: Nanny was amazed to find the afternoon slipped cheerfully and
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Speaker 1: rapidly away. She praised my manners to Lady Drew and
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Speaker 1: to my mother, who said she was glad to hear
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Speaker 1: well of me, And after that I played with Beatrice
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Speaker 1: several times. The toys she had remained in my memory
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Speaker 1: still as great, splendid things, gigantic to all my previous
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Speaker 1: experience of toys. And we even went to the Great
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Speaker 1: Dolls House on the Nursery landing to play discreetly with that,
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Speaker 1: the great dolls House that the Prince Regent had given
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Speaker 1: Sir Henry Drew's first born, who died at five. That
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Speaker 1: was a not ineffectual model of bladesover itself, and contained
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Speaker 1: eighty five dolls, and had caught hundreds of pounds. I
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Speaker 1: played under imperious direction with that toy of glory. I
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Speaker 1: went back to school when that holiday was over, dreaming
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Speaker 1: of beautiful things, and got Ewart to talk to me
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Speaker 1: of love. And I made a great story out of
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Speaker 1: the doll's house, a story that, taken over into Ewart's hands,
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Speaker 1: speedily grew to an island dolls city all our own.
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Speaker 1: One of the dolls I privately decided was like Beatrice.
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Speaker 1: One other holiday there was when I saw something of her.
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Speaker 1: Oddly enough, my memory of that second holiday in which
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Speaker 1: she played a part, is vague, And then came a
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Speaker 1: gap of a year, and then my disgrace. Eight. Now
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Speaker 1: I sit down to write my story and tell over
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Speaker 1: again things in their order. I find for the first
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Speaker 1: time how inconsecutive and irrational a thing the memory can be.
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Speaker 1: One recalls acts and cannot recall motives. One recalls quite
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Speaker 1: vividly moments that stand out inexplicably, things adrift, joining on
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Speaker 1: to nothing, leading nowhere. I think I must have seen
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Speaker 1: Beatrice and her half brother quite a number of times
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Speaker 1: in my last holiday at Bladesover, but I really cannot
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Speaker 1: recall more than a little of the quality of the circumstances.
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Speaker 1: That great crisis of my boyhood stands out very vividly
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Speaker 1: as an effect, as a sort of cardinal thing for me.
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Speaker 1: But when I look for details, particularly details that led
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Speaker 1: up to the crisis, I cannot find them in any
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Speaker 1: developing order at all. This half brother, Archie Garvell, was
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Speaker 1: a new factor in the affair. I remember him clearly
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Speaker 1: as a fair haired, supercilious looking, weedily lank boy, much
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Speaker 1: taller than I, but I should imagine very little heavier,
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Speaker 1: and that we hated each other by a sort of
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Speaker 1: instinct from the beginning. And yet I cannot remember my
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Speaker 1: first meeting with him at all. Looking back into these
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Speaker 1: past things, it is like rummaging in a neglective attic
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Speaker 1: that has experienced the attentions of some whimsical robber. I
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Speaker 1: cannot even account for the presence of these children at Bladesover.
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Speaker 1: They were, I know, among the innumerable cousins of Lady Drew,
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Speaker 1: and according to the theories of downstairs, candidates for the ultimate
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Speaker 1: possession of Bladesover, if they were, their candidature was unsuccessful.
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Speaker 1: But that great place, with all its fated splendor, its
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Speaker 1: fine furniture, its large traditions, was entirely at the old
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Speaker 1: Lady's disposition, and I am inclined to think it is
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Speaker 1: true that she used this fact to torment and dominate
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Speaker 1: a number of eligible people. Lord Osprey was among the
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Speaker 1: number of these, and she showed these hospitalities to his
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Speaker 1: motherless child and stepchild, partly, no doubt, because he was poor,
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Speaker 1: but quite as much I nowadays imagine, in the dim
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Speaker 1: hope of finding some affectionate or imaginative outcome of con
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Speaker 1: tact with them. Nanny had dropped out of the world
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Speaker 1: this second time, and Beatrice was in the charge of
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Speaker 1: an extremely amiable and ineffectual poor army class young woman
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Speaker 1: whose name I never knew. They were, I think, two
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Speaker 1: remarkably ill managed and enterprising children. I seem to remember, too,
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Speaker 1: that it was understood that I was not a fit
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Speaker 1: companion for them, and that our meetings had to be
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Speaker 1: as unostentatious as possible. It was Beatrice who insisted upon
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Speaker 1: our meeting. I am certain I knew quite a lot
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Speaker 1: about love at fourteen, and that I was quite as
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Speaker 1: much in love with Beatrice than as any impassioned adult
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Speaker 1: could be, and that Beatrice was, in her way in
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Speaker 1: love with me. It is part of the decent and
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Speaker 1: useful pretenses of our world that children of the age
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Speaker 1: at which we were think nothing, feel nothing, know nothing
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Speaker 1: of love. It is wonderful what people the English are
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Speaker 1: for keeping up pretenses. But indeed I cannot avoid telling
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Speaker 1: that Beatrice and I talked of love and kissed and
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Speaker 1: embraced one another. I recall something of one talk under
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Speaker 1: the overhanging bushes of the shrubbery I on the park
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Speaker 1: side of the stone wall, and the Lady of my
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Speaker 1: worship a little inelegantly astride thereon. Inelegantly do I say
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Speaker 1: you should have seen the sweet imp as I remember her.
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Speaker 1: Just her poise on the wall comes suddenly clear before me,
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Speaker 1: and behind her the light various branches of the bushes
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Speaker 1: of the shrubbery, that my feet might not profane and
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Speaker 1: far away, and hide behind her, dim and stately the
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Speaker 1: cornice of the great facade of bladesover rose against the
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Speaker 1: dapple sky. Our talk must have been serious and business like,
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Speaker 1: for we were discussing my social position. I don't love Archie,
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Speaker 1: she had said, apropos of nothing, and then, in a whisper,
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Speaker 1: leaning forward with the hair about her face, I love you.
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Speaker 1: But she had been a little pressing to have it
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Speaker 1: clear that I was not and could not be a servant.
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Speaker 1: You'll never be a servant, ever, I swore that very readily,
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Speaker 1: and it is a vow I have kept by nature.
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Speaker 1: What will you be? Said she I ran my mind
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Speaker 1: hastily over the professions. Will you be a soldier, she asked,
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Speaker 1: and be bald aught by duffers no fear, said, I
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Speaker 1: leave that to the plowboys. But an officer I don't know,
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Speaker 1: I said, evading a shameful difficulty. I'd rather go into
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Speaker 1: the navy. Wouldn't you like to fight? I'd like to fight,
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Speaker 1: I said, but a common soldier is no honor to
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Speaker 1: have to be told to fight and to be looked
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Speaker 1: down upon while you do it. And how could I
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Speaker 1: be an officer? Couldn't you be? She said, and looked
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Speaker 1: at me doubtfully, and the spaces of the social system
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Speaker 1: opened between us. Then, as became a male of spirit,
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Speaker 1: I took upon myself to brag and lie my way
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Speaker 1: through this trouble. I said, I was a poor man,
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Speaker 1: and poor men went into the navy. That I knew mathematics,
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Speaker 1: which no army officer did, and I claimed Nelson for
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Speaker 1: an exemplar, and spoke very highly of my outlook upon
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Speaker 1: blue water. He loved Lady Hamilton, I said, although she
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Speaker 1: was a lady, and I will love you. We were
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Speaker 1: somewhere near that when the egregious Governess became audible, calling Beatrice, Beatrice,
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Speaker 1: sniffly beast, said my lady, and tried to get on
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Speaker 1: with the conversation, But that Governess made things impossible. Come here,
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Speaker 1: said my lady, suddenly holding out a grubby hand, and
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Speaker 1: I went very close to her, and she put her
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Speaker 1: little head down upon the wall, until her black fog
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Speaker 1: of hair tickled my cheek. You are my humble, faithful lover,
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Speaker 1: she demanded in a whisper, her warm flushed face near
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Speaker 1: touching mine, and her eyes very dark and lustrous. I
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Speaker 1: am your humble, faithful lover, I whispered back, and she
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Speaker 1: put her arm about my head and put out her lips,
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Speaker 1: and we kissed. And boy, though I was, I was
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Speaker 1: all a tremble, so we too kissed for the first
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Speaker 1: time Beetrice fearfully close. My lady had vanished with one
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Speaker 1: wild kick of her black stocking leg. A moment after
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Speaker 1: I heard her sustaining the reproaches of her governess and
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Speaker 1: explaining her failure to answer with an admirable lucidity and disingenuousness,
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Speaker 1: I felt it was unnecessary for me to be seen
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Speaker 1: just then, and I vanished guiltily round the corner into
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Speaker 1: the west Wood. And so too love dream and single
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Speaker 1: handed play, wandering along one of those meandering bracken valleys
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Speaker 1: that varied blades over park. And that day and for
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Speaker 1: many days, that kiss upon my lips was a seal,
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Speaker 1: and by night the seed of dreams. Then I remember
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Speaker 1: an expedition we made, she I and her half brother
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Speaker 1: into those west woods. They two were supposed to be
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Speaker 1: playing in the shrubbery, and how we were Indians there
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Speaker 1: and made a wigwam out of a pile of beech logs,
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Speaker 1: and how we stalked deer crept near, and watched rabbits
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Speaker 1: feeding in a glade, and almost got a squirrel. It
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Speaker 1: was place seasoned with plentiful disputing between me and young Garvell,
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Speaker 1: for each firmly insisted upon the leading rolls, and only
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Speaker 1: my wider reading I had read ten stories to his one,
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Speaker 1: gave me the ascendancy over him. Also I scored over
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Speaker 1: him by knowing how to find the eagle in a
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Speaker 1: bracken stem. And somehow I don't remember what led to
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Speaker 1: it at all. I and Beatrice, two hot and ruffled creatures,
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Speaker 1: crept in among the tall bracken, and hid from him.
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Speaker 1: The great fronds rose above us five feet or more.
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Speaker 1: And as I had learnt how to wriggle through that
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Speaker 1: undergrowth with a minimum of betrayal, by tossing greenery above,
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Speaker 1: I led the way. The ground under bracken is beautifully
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Speaker 1: clear and faintly scented. In warm weather, the stems come
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Speaker 1: up black and then green. If you crawl flat, it
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Speaker 1: is a tropical forest in miniature. I led the way
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Speaker 1: and Beatrice crawled behind. And then as the green of
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Speaker 1: the further glade opened before us stopped, she crawled up
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Speaker 1: to me. Her hot little face came close to mine.
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Speaker 1: Once more, she looked and breathed close to me, and
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Speaker 1: suddenly she flung her arm about my neck and dragged
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Speaker 1: me to earth beside her, and kissed me, and kissed
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Speaker 1: me again. We kissed, we embraced, and kissed again, all
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Speaker 1: without a word hed, We desisted, We stared and hesitated. Then,
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Speaker 1: in a suddenly damped mood and a little perplexed at ourselves,
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Speaker 1: crawled out to be presently run down and caught in
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Speaker 1: the tamest way by Archie. That comes back very clearly
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Speaker 1: to me, and other vague memories. I know Old Hall
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Speaker 1: and his gun out shooting at Jackdaws came into our
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Speaker 1: common experiences, but I don't remember how. And then at last, abruptly,
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Speaker 1: our fight in the warrens stands out. The warren, like
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Speaker 1: most places in England that have that name, was not
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Speaker 1: particularly a warren. It was a long slope of thorns
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Speaker 1: and beeches through which a path ran and made an
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Speaker 1: alternative route to the downhill carriage road between Bladesover and
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Speaker 1: rope Dean. I don't know how we three got there,
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Speaker 1: but I have an uncertain fancy was connected with a
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Speaker 1: visit paid by the Governess to the rope Dean vicarage people.
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Speaker 1: But suddenly Archie and I, in discussing a game, fell
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Speaker 1: into a dispute. For Beatrice, I had made him the
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Speaker 1: fairest offer. I was to be a Spanish nobleman. She
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Speaker 1: was to be my wife, and he was to be
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Speaker 1: a tribe of Indians trying to carry her off. It
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Speaker 1: seems to me a fairly attractive offer to a boy,
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Speaker 1: to be a whole tribe of Indians with a chance
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Speaker 1: of such a booty. But Archie suddenly took offense. No,
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Speaker 1: he said, we can't have that, can't have what. You
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Speaker 1: can't be a gentleman because you aren't, and you can't play.
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Speaker 1: Beatrice is your wife. It's it's impertinent, but I said,
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Speaker 1: and looked at her. Some earlier grudge in the day's
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Speaker 1: affairs must have been in Archie's mind. We let you
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Speaker 1: play with us, said Archie. But we can't have things
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Speaker 1: like that, what rot said Beatrice? He can if he likes,
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Speaker 1: but he carried his point. I let him carry it,
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Speaker 1: and only began to grow angry three or four four
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Speaker 1: minutes later. Then we were still discussing play and disputing
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Speaker 1: about another game. Nothing seemed right for all of us.
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Speaker 1: We don't want you to play with us at all,
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Speaker 1: said Archie. He drops his h's like anything. No, E doesn't,
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Speaker 1: said I. In the heat of the moment. There you go,
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Speaker 1: he cried, e, he says, e e E. He pointed
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Speaker 1: a finger at me. He had struck to the heart
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Speaker 1: of my shame. I made the only possible reply by
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Speaker 1: a rush at him. Hello, he cried at my black
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Speaker 1: of iced attack. He dropped back into an attitude that
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Speaker 1: had some style in it, parried my blow, got back
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Speaker 1: at my cheek, and laughed with surprise and relief at
19:45
Speaker 1: his own success. Whereupon I became a thing of murderous rage.
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Speaker 1: He could box as well or better than I. He
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Speaker 1: did to realize I knew anything of that at all.
19:56
Speaker 1: But I had fought once or twice to have finished
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Speaker 1: with bare fists. I was used to inflicting and enduring
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Speaker 1: savage herting, and I doubt if he had ever fought.
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Speaker 1: I hadn't fought ten seconds before I felt this softness
20:08
Speaker 1: in him, realized all that quality of modern upper class
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Speaker 1: England that never goes to the quick, that hedges about rules,
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Speaker 1: and those petty points of honor that are the ultimate
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Speaker 1: comminution of honor, that claims credit for things demonstrably half done.
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Speaker 1: He seemed to think that first head of his and
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Speaker 1: one or two others were going to matter, that I
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Speaker 1: ought to give in, when presently my lip bled and
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Speaker 1: dripped blood upon my clothes. So before we had been
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Speaker 1: at it a minute, he had ceased to be aggressive,
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Speaker 1: except in momentary spurts, and I was knocking him about
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Speaker 1: almost as I wanted to, and demanding breathlessly and fiercely,
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Speaker 1: after our school manner, whether he had had enough, not
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Speaker 1: knowing that by his high code and his soft training,
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Speaker 1: it was equally impossible for him to either buck up
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Speaker 1: and beat me or give in. I have a very
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Speaker 1: distinct impression of Beatrice dancing about us during the affair
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Speaker 1: in a state of unladylike appreciation. But I was too
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Speaker 1: preoccupied to hear much of what she was saying. But
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Speaker 1: she certainly backed us both, and I am inclined to
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Speaker 1: think now it may be the disillusionment of my ripened years,
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Speaker 1: whichever she thought was winning. Then young Garville, giving way
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Speaker 1: before my slogging, stumbled and fell over a big flint,
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Speaker 1: and I, still following the tradition of my class and school,
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Speaker 1: promptly flung myself on him to finish him. We were
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Speaker 1: busy with each other on the ground when we became
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Speaker 1: aware of a dreadful interruption. Shut up, you fool, said Archie,
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Speaker 1: Oh lady Drew. I heard Beatrice cry, they're fighting. They're
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Speaker 1: fighting something awful. I looked over my shoulder. Archie's wish
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Speaker 1: to get up became irresistible, and my resolve to go
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Speaker 1: on with him vanished altogether. I became aware of the
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Speaker 1: two old ladies, presences of black and purple silk and
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Speaker 1: fur and shining dark things. They had walked up through
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Speaker 1: the warren while the horses took the hill easily, and
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Speaker 1: so had come upon us. Beatrice had gone to them
22:12
Speaker 1: at once with an air of taking refuge, and stood
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Speaker 1: beside and a little behind them. We both rose dejectedly.
22:20
Speaker 1: The two old ladies were evidently quite dreadfully shocked, and
22:24
Speaker 1: peering at us with their poor old eyes. And never
22:27
Speaker 1: had I seen such a tremblement in Lady Drew's lorgnettes.
22:31
Speaker 1: You've never been fighting, said Lady Drew. You have been fighting.
22:37
Speaker 1: It was improper fighting, snapped Archie, with accusing eyes on me.
22:42
Speaker 1: It's missus Ponderevo's George, said Miss Somerville, so adding a
22:47
Speaker 1: conviction for ingratitude to my evident sacrilege. How could he dare?
22:52
Speaker 1: Cried Lady Drew, becoming very awful. He broke the rules,
22:57
Speaker 1: said Archie Sobbing for breath, I slip and he hit me.
23:01
Speaker 1: While I was down. He knelt on me. How could
23:05
Speaker 1: you dare, said Lady Drew. I produced an experienced handkerchief,
23:11
Speaker 1: rolled up into a tight ball, and wiped the blood
23:13
Speaker 1: from my chin. But I offered no explanation of my daring.
23:17
Speaker 1: Among other things that prevented that I was too short
23:20
Speaker 1: of breath. He didn't fight fair, sobbed Archie Beatrice from behind.
23:27
Speaker 1: The old ladies regarded me intently and without hostility. I
23:32
Speaker 1: am inclined to think the modification of my face through
23:35
Speaker 1: the damage to my lip interested her. It became dimly
23:39
Speaker 1: apparent to my confused intelligence that I must not say
23:42
Speaker 1: these two had been playing with me. That would not
23:45
Speaker 1: be after the rules of their game. I resolved, in
23:48
Speaker 1: this difficult situation upon a sulky silence, and to take
23:52
Speaker 1: whatever consequences might follow. Nine the powers of justice and
23:59
Speaker 1: bladesover made an extraordinary mess of my case. I have
24:03
Speaker 1: regretfully to admit that the honorable Beatrice Normandy did, at
24:07
Speaker 1: the age of ten, betray me, abandon me, and lie
24:11
Speaker 1: most abominably about me. She was, as a matter of fact,
24:16
Speaker 1: panic stricken about me. Conscience stricken too. She bolted from
24:20
Speaker 1: the very thought of my being her affianced lover, and
24:24
Speaker 1: so forth from the faintest memory of kissing. She was
24:27
Speaker 1: indeed altogether disgraceful and human in her betrayal. She and
24:32
Speaker 1: her half brother lied in perfect concord, and I was
24:35
Speaker 1: presented as a wanton assailant of my social betters. They
24:38
Speaker 1: were waiting about in the war, and when I came
24:40
Speaker 1: up and spoke to them, et cetera. On the whole
24:45
Speaker 1: I now perceived Lady Drew's decisions were, in the light
24:48
Speaker 1: of the evidence, reasonable and merciful. They were conveyed to
24:52
Speaker 1: me by my mother, who was, I really believe, even
24:56
Speaker 1: more shocked by the grossness of my social insubordination. Then
25:00
Speaker 1: Lady drew. She dilated on her ladyship's kindnesses to me,
25:05
Speaker 1: on the effrontery and wickedness of my procedure, and so
25:09
Speaker 1: came at last to the terms of my penance. You
25:12
Speaker 1: must go up to young mister Garvell and beg his pardon.
25:17
Speaker 1: I won't beg his pardon, I said, speaking for the
25:20
Speaker 1: first time. My mother paused, incredulous. I folded my arms
25:25
Speaker 1: on her tablecloth and delivered my wicked little ultimatum. I
25:30
Speaker 1: won't beg his pardon, know how, I said. See, then
25:35
Speaker 1: you will have to go off to your uncle Frapp
25:37
Speaker 1: at Chatham. I don't care where I have to go
25:41
Speaker 1: or what I have to do. I won't beg his pardon,
25:44
Speaker 1: I said, And I didn't. After that I was won
25:49
Speaker 1: against the world. Perhaps in my mother's heart there lurked
25:52
Speaker 1: some pity for me, but she did not show it.
25:55
Speaker 1: She took the sight of the young gentleman. She tried hard,
25:59
Speaker 1: She tried very hard to make me say I was
26:01
Speaker 1: sorry I had struck him. Sorry. I couldn't explain. So
26:07
Speaker 1: I went into exile in the dog cart to Redwood
26:10
Speaker 1: Station with Jukes, the coachman coldly silent, driving me and
26:15
Speaker 1: all my personal belongings in a small American cloth portmanteau behind.
26:21
Speaker 1: I felt I had much to embitter me. The game
26:24
Speaker 1: had and the beginnings of fairness by any standards I knew.
26:28
Speaker 1: But the thing that embittered me most was that the
26:30
Speaker 1: Honorable Beatrice Normandy should have repudiated and fled from me
26:35
Speaker 1: as though I was some sort of leper, and not
26:37
Speaker 1: even have taken a chance or so to give me
26:40
Speaker 1: a good bye. She might have done that, anyhow, supposing
26:44
Speaker 1: I had told on her, But the son of a
26:46
Speaker 1: servant counts as a servant she had forgotten and now remembered.
26:51
Speaker 1: I solaced myself with some extraordinary dream of coming back
26:55
Speaker 1: to bladesover Stern, powerful after the fashion of Co Briolanis.
27:01
Speaker 1: I do not recall the details, but I have no
27:04
Speaker 1: doubt I displayed great magnanimity. Well anyhow, I never said
27:09
Speaker 1: I was sorry for pounding young Garvell, and I am
27:12
Speaker 1: not sorry to this day. End of book, first chapter,
27:19
Speaker 1: first parts seven to nine. Recording by William tom Cooe