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Tono-Bungay Book 3 Chapter 2 - Parts 1-3 · The H. G. Wells Library

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Speaker 1: Book, third chapter, second parts one to three 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, third chapter, second parts
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Speaker 1: one to three Chapter the second Our progress from Camden
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Speaker 1: Town to Crest Hill One. So far my history of
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Speaker 1: my aunt and uncle has dealt chiefly with his industrial
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Speaker 1: and financial exploits. But side by side with that history
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Speaker 1: of inflation, from the infinitesimal to the immense is another development.
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Speaker 1: The change year by year from the shabby impecuniosity of
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Speaker 1: the Camden Town lodging to the lavish munich epficence of
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Speaker 1: the Crest Hill marble staircase and my aunt's golden bed,
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Speaker 1: the bed that was facsimile from Fountain Blue. And the
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Speaker 1: odd thing is that as I come to this nearer
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Speaker 1: part of my story, I find it much more difficult
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Speaker 1: to tell than the clear, little prospective memories of the
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Speaker 1: earlier days. Impressions crowd upon one another and overlap one another.
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Speaker 1: I was presently to fall in love again, to be
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Speaker 1: seized by a passion to which I still faintly respond,
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Speaker 1: a passion that still clouds my mind. I came and
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Speaker 1: went between ealing and my aunt and uncle, and presently
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Speaker 1: between Effie and club Land, and then between business and
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Speaker 1: a life of research that became far more continuous, infinitely
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Speaker 1: more consecutive and memorable than any of these other sets
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Speaker 1: of experiences. I didn't witness a regular social progress. Therefore,
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Speaker 1: my aunt and uncle went up in the world, so
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Speaker 1: far as I was concerned, as if they were displayed
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Speaker 1: by an early cinematograph with little jumps and flickers. As
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Speaker 1: I recall this sign of our life, the figure of
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Speaker 1: my round eyes, button nosed, pink and white Aunt Susan
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Speaker 1: tends always to the central position. We drove the car
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Speaker 1: and sustained the car. She sat in it with a
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Speaker 1: magnificent variety of headgear poised upon her delicate neck, and
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Speaker 1: always with that faint ghost of a lisp no misspelling
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Speaker 1: can render commented on and illuminated the new aspects I've
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Speaker 1: already sketched, the little home behind the Wimblehurst chemist's shop,
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Speaker 1: the lodging near the Cobbten's statue, and the apartments in
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Speaker 1: Gower Street. Thence my aunt and uncle went into a
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Speaker 1: flat in Red Gauntlet Mansions. There they lived when I married.
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Speaker 1: It was a compact flat with very little for a
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Speaker 1: woman to do in it. In those days. My aunt,
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Speaker 1: I think, used to find the time heavy upon her hands,
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Speaker 1: and so she took to books and reading, and after
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Speaker 1: a time even into going to lectures. In the afternoon.
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Speaker 1: I began to find unexpected books upon her table, sociological books, travels,
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Speaker 1: Shaw's play Hullo. I said, at the sight of some
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Speaker 1: volume of the latter. I'm keeping a mind, George, she explained, Eh,
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Speaker 1: keeping a mind dogs I never cared for. It's been
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Speaker 1: a toss up between setting up a mind and setting
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Speaker 1: up a soul. It's jolly lucky for him and you.
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Speaker 1: It's a mind. I've joined the London Library, and I'm
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Speaker 1: going in for the Royal Institution and every blessed lecture
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Speaker 1: that comes along next winter. You'd better look out. And
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Speaker 1: I remember her coming in late one evening with a
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Speaker 1: note book in her hand. Where you've been, Susan, said
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Speaker 1: my uncle burke Beck physiology. I'm getting on. She sat
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Speaker 1: down and took off her gloves. You're just glass to me.
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Speaker 1: She sighed, and then in a note of great reproach, you,
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Speaker 1: old package. I had no idea the things you've kept
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Speaker 1: from me. Presently, they were setting up the house at Beckingum,
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Speaker 1: and my aunt intermitted her intellectual activities. The house at
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Speaker 1: Beckingum was something of an enterprise for them at that time,
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Speaker 1: a reasonably large place by the standards of the early
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Speaker 1: years of Tono Bungay. It was a big, rather gaunt villa,
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Speaker 1: with a conservatory and a shrubbery, a tennis lawn, a
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Speaker 1: quite considerable vegetable garden, and a small disused coach house.
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Speaker 1: I had some glimpses of the excitements of its inauguration,
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Speaker 1: but not many because of the estrangement between my aunt
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Speaker 1: and Marian. My aunt went into that house with considerable zest,
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Speaker 1: and my uncle distinguished himself by the thoroughness with which
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Speaker 1: he did the repainting and replumbing. He had all the
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Speaker 1: drains up and most of the garden with them, and
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Speaker 1: stood administrative on heaps, administrating whiskey to the workmen. I
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Speaker 1: found him there one day, most napoleonic, on a little
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Speaker 1: elbow of dirt, in an atmosphere that defies print. He
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Speaker 1: also I remember, chose what he considered cheerful contrasts of
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Speaker 1: colors for the painting of the woodwork. This exasperated my
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Speaker 1: aunt extremely. She called him a pestilential old splosher with
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Speaker 1: an unusual note of earnestness. And he also enraged her
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Speaker 1: into novelties of abuse by giving each bedroom the name
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Speaker 1: of some favorite hero Cliff, Napoleon, Caesar, and so forth,
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Speaker 1: and having it painted on the door in gilt letters
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Speaker 1: on a black label. Martin Luther was kept for me only.
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Speaker 1: Her respect for domestic discipline, she said, prevented her retaliating
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Speaker 1: with old pon Do on the housemaid's cupboard. Also he
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Speaker 1: went and ordered one of the completest sets of garden
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Speaker 1: requisites I have ever seen, and had them all painted
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Speaker 1: a hard, clear blue. My Aunt got herself large tins
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Speaker 1: of a kindlier hued enamel, and had everything secretly recoated.
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Speaker 1: And this done, she found great joy in the garden
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Speaker 1: and became an ardent rose grower and herbaceous borderer, leaving
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Speaker 1: her mind indeed to damp evenings and the winter months.
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Speaker 1: When I think of her at Beckenham, I always think
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Speaker 1: first of her as dressed in that blue cotton stuff
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Speaker 1: she affected with her arms and huge gauntleted gardening gloves,
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Speaker 1: a trowel in one hand, and a small but no
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Speaker 1: doubt hardy and promising annual limp, and very young looking
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Speaker 1: and sheepish. In the other Beckenham, in the persons of
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Speaker 1: a vicar, a doctor's wife, and a large proud lady
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Speaker 1: called Hogberry called on my uncle and aunt almost at once,
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Speaker 1: so soon, in fact, as the lawn was down again,
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Speaker 1: And afterwards my aunt made friends with a quiet gentlewoman
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Speaker 1: next door. Apropos of an overhanging cherry tree and the
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Speaker 1: need of repairing the party fence. So she resumed her
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Speaker 1: place in society from which she had fallen with the
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Speaker 1: disaster of Wimblehurst. She made a partially facetious study of
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Speaker 1: the etiquette of her position, had cards engraved and retaliated calls,
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Speaker 1: and then she received a card for one of missus
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Speaker 1: Hogberry's at Holmes, gave an old garden party, herself, participated
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Speaker 1: in a bazaar and sale of work, and was really
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Speaker 1: becoming quite cheerfully entangled in Beckenham society, when she was
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Speaker 1: suddenly taken up by the roots again by my uncle
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Speaker 1: and transplanted to Chiselhurst, Old Trek George, she said, compactly
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Speaker 1: onward and up when I found her superintending the loading
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Speaker 1: of two big furniture vans. Go up and say good
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Speaker 1: bye to Martin Luther, and then I'll see what you
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Speaker 1: can do to help me. Two. I look into the
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Speaker 1: jumbled stores of the middle distance of memory, and Beckenham
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Speaker 1: seems to me a quite transitory phase. But really they
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Speaker 1: were there several through nearly all my married life, in fact,
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Speaker 1: and far longer than the year and odd months we
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Speaker 1: lived together at Wimblehurst. But the Wimblehurst time with them
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Speaker 1: is fuller in my memory by far than the Beckenham period.
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Speaker 1: There comes back to me with a quite considerable amount
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Speaker 1: of detail, the effect of that garden party of my aunt's,
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Speaker 1: and of a little social misbehavior of which I was
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Speaker 1: guilty on that occasion. It's like a scrap from another life.
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Speaker 1: It's all set in what is for me a kind
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Speaker 1: of cutaneous feeling, the feeling of rather ill cut city clothes,
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Speaker 1: frock coat and gray trousers, and of a high collar
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Speaker 1: and tie worn in sunshine among flowers. I have still
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Speaker 1: a quite vivid memory of the little trapezoidal lawn of
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Speaker 1: the gathering, and particularly of the hats and feathers, of
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Speaker 1: the gathering of the potter maid and the blue teacups,
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Speaker 1: and of the magnificent presence of Missus Hogberry, and of
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Speaker 1: her clear, resonant voice. It was a voice that would
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Speaker 1: have gone with the garden party. On a larger scale,
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Speaker 1: it went into adjacent premises. It included the gardener, who
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Speaker 1: was far up the vegetable patch and technically out of play.
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Speaker 1: The only other men were my aunt's doctor, two of
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Speaker 1: the clergy, amiable contrasted men, and Missus Hogberry's imperfectly grown
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Speaker 1: up son, a youth just bursting into collar. The rest
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Speaker 1: were women, except for a young girl or so in
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Speaker 1: a state of speechless good behavior. Marian also was there.
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Speaker 1: Marian and I had arrived a little estranged, and I
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Speaker 1: remember her as a silent presence, I shadow across all
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Speaker 1: that sudden emptiness of intercourse. We had embittered each other
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Speaker 1: with one of those miserable little disputes that seemed so
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Speaker 1: unavoidable between us. She had, with the help of Smithy,
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Speaker 1: dressed rather elaborately for the occasion, and when she saw
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Speaker 1: me prepare to accompany her in I think it was
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Speaker 1: a gray suit. She protested that silk hat and frock
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Speaker 1: coat were imperative of I was recalcitrant. She quoted an
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Speaker 1: illustrated paper showing a garden party with the king present,
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Speaker 1: And finally I capitulated. But after my evil habit reasentfully. Eh.
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Speaker 1: Dear those old quarrels, How pitiful they were, how trivial,
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Speaker 1: and how sorrowful they are to recall, I think they
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Speaker 1: grow more sorrowful as I grow older, and all the
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Speaker 1: small passionate reasons for our mutual anger fade and fade
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Speaker 1: out of memory. The impression that Beckenham Company has left
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Speaker 1: on my mind is one of a modest unreality. They
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Speaker 1: were all maintaining a front of unspecified social pretension and
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Speaker 1: evading the display of the economic facts of the case.
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Speaker 1: Most of the husbands were in business off stage. It
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Speaker 1: would have been outrageous to ask what the business was,
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Speaker 1: and the wives were giving their energies to produce, with
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Speaker 1: the assistance of novels and the illustrated magazines, a more
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Speaker 1: moralized version of the afternoon life of the aristocratic class.
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Speaker 1: They hadn't the intellectual or moral enterprise of the upper
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Speaker 1: class woman. They had no political interests. They had no
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Speaker 1: views about anything, and consequently they were, I remember, extremely
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Speaker 1: difficult to talk to. They all sat about in the
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Speaker 1: summer house and in garden chairs, and were very hatty
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Speaker 1: and roughly and sunshady. Three ladies and the curate played
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Speaker 1: croquet with a general immense gravity, broken by occasional loud
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Speaker 1: cries of feigned distress from the curate, Oh, whacking me
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Speaker 1: about again, og. The dominant social fact that afternoon was
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Speaker 1: missus Hogberry. She took up a certain position, commanding the croquet,
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Speaker 1: and went on, as my aunt said to me, in
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Speaker 1: an incidental aside, like an old roundabout. She talked at
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Speaker 1: the way in which Bakenham's society was getting mixed, and
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Speaker 1: turned on to a touching letter she had recently received
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Speaker 1: from her former nurse at Little Gossdean. Followed a loud
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Speaker 1: account of Little Gossdean and how much she and her
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Speaker 1: eight sisters had been looked up to there. My poor
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Speaker 1: mother was quite a little queen there, she said. And
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Speaker 1: such nice common people people say the country laborers are
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Speaker 1: getting disrespectful nowadays. It isn't so that if they are
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Speaker 1: properly treated here, of course, in Beckenham it's different. I
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Speaker 1: won't call the people we get here a poor. They're
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Speaker 1: certainly not a proper poor. They're masses. I always tell
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Speaker 1: mister buckshoot their masses and ought to be treated as such.
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Speaker 1: Dim memories of Missus Mackridge floated through my mind as
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Speaker 1: I listened to her. I was whorled on this roundabout
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Speaker 1: for a bit, and then had the fortune to fall
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Speaker 1: off into a tete tete with a lady whom my
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Speaker 1: aunt introduced as missus Mumble. But then she introduced everybody
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Speaker 1: to me as Mumble that afternoon, either by way of
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Speaker 1: humor or necessity. That may have been one of my
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Speaker 1: earliest essays in the art of polite conversation. And I
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Speaker 1: remember that I began by criticizing the local railway service,
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Speaker 1: and that at the third sentence or thereabouts, Missus Mumble said,
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Speaker 1: in a distinctly bright and encouraging way, that she feared
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Speaker 1: I was a very frivolous person. I wonder now what
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Speaker 1: it was I said that was frivolous. I don't know
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Speaker 1: what happened to end that conversation, or if it had
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Speaker 1: an end. I remember talking to one of the clergy
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Speaker 1: for a time rather awkwardly and being given a sort
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Speaker 1: of topographical history of Beckenham, which he assured me time
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Speaker 1: after time was quite an old place, quite an old place,
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Speaker 1: as though I had treated it as new, and he
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Speaker 1: meant to be very patient, but very convincing. Then we
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Speaker 1: hung up in a distinct pause, and my aunt rescued me. George,
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Speaker 1: she said, in a confidential undertone, keep the pot a boiling,
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Speaker 1: And then audibly, I say, will you both old trot
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Speaker 1: about with tea a bit? Only too delighted to trot
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Speaker 1: for you, missus, ponderavo, said the clergyman, becoming fearfully expert
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Speaker 1: and in his elements only too delighted. I found we
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Speaker 1: were near a rustic table, and that the housemaid was
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Speaker 1: behind us, in a suitable position to catch us on
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Speaker 1: the rebound with the tea. Things trot, repeated the clergyman
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Speaker 1: to me, much amused, excellent expression, and I just saved
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Speaker 1: him from the tray as he turned about. We handed
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Speaker 1: tea for a while, give him cakes, said my aunt, flushed,
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Speaker 1: but well in hand helps him to talk. George always
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Speaker 1: talk best after a little nourishment, like throwing a bit
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Speaker 1: of turf down in old geyser She surveyed the gathering
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Speaker 1: with a predominant blue eye and helped herself to tea.
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Speaker 1: They keep on going stiff, she said, in an undertone.
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Speaker 1: I've done my best. It's been a huge success. I said, encouragingly.
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Speaker 1: That boy has had his legs crossed in opposition and
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Speaker 1: hasn't spoken for ten minutes. Stiffer and stiffer, brittle. He's
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Speaker 1: beginning a dry cough, always a bad sign. George, walk
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Speaker 1: em about. Shall I rub their noses with snow? Happily
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Speaker 1: she didn't. I got myself involved with a gentlewoman from
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Speaker 1: next door, a pensive, languid looking little woman with a
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Speaker 1: low voice, and fell talking our topic, cats and dogs,
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Speaker 1: and which it was we liked best. I always feel,
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Speaker 1: said the pensive little woman, that there's something about a dog.
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Speaker 1: A cat hasn't got it. Yes, I found myself admitting
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Speaker 1: with great enthusiasm there is something. And yet again, oh,
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Speaker 1: I know there's something about a cat too, But it
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Speaker 1: isn't the same, not quite the same, I admitted. But
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Speaker 1: still it's something. Ah, But such a difference, more sinuous,
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Speaker 1: much more, ever, so much more, it makes all the difference,
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Speaker 1: don't you think? Yes? I said, all She glanced at
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Speaker 1: me gravely and sighed along deeply felt yes a long pause.
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Speaker 1: The thing seemed to me to amount to a stalemate.
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Speaker 1: Fear came into my heart, and much perplexity. The er roses,
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Speaker 1: I said, I felt like a drowning man. Those roses,
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Speaker 1: don't you think? Are very beautiful flowers, aren't they? She
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Speaker 1: agreed gently. There seems to be something in roses, something
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Speaker 1: I don't know how to express it, something, I said, helpfully, Yes,
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Speaker 1: she said, something. Isn't there so few people see it?
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Speaker 1: I said, more's the pity. She sighed and said again,
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Speaker 1: very softly. Yes. There was another long pause. I looked
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Speaker 1: at her, and she was thinking dreamily. The drowning sensation returned,
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Speaker 1: the fear and enfeeblement. I perceived, by a sort of
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Speaker 1: inspiration that her tea cup was empty. Let me take
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Speaker 1: your cup, I said abruptly, and that secured made for
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Speaker 1: the table by the summer house. I had no intention
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Speaker 1: then of deserting my aunt, But close at hand, the
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Speaker 1: big French window of the drawing room yawned, inviting and suggestive.
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Speaker 1: I can feel all that temptation now, and particularly the
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Speaker 1: provocation of my collar. In an instant I was lost.
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Speaker 1: I would just for a moment. I dashed in, put
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Speaker 1: down the cup on the keys of the grand piano,
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Speaker 1: and fled upstairs, softly, swiftly, three steps at a time,
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Speaker 1: to the sanctuary of my uncle's study, his snuggery. I
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Speaker 1: arrived there breathless, convinced there was no return for me.
17:55
Speaker 1: I was very glad and ashamed of myself, and desperate.
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Speaker 1: By means of a penknife, I contrived to break open
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Speaker 1: his cabinet of cigars, drew a chair to the window,
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Speaker 1: took off my coat, collar and tie, and remained smoking
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Speaker 1: guiltily and rebelliously, and peeping through the blind at the
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Speaker 1: assembly on the lawn until it was altogether gone. The clergymen,
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Speaker 1: I thought were wonderful. Three A few such pictures of
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Speaker 1: those early days at Bakenham stand out, And then I
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Speaker 1: find myself among the Chiselhurst memories. The Chiselhurst mansion had
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Speaker 1: grounds rather than a mere garden, and there was a
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Speaker 1: gardener's cottage and a little lodge at the gate. The
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Speaker 1: ascendant movement was always far more in evidence there than
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Speaker 1: at Beckenham. The velocity was increasing. One night picks itself
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Speaker 1: out as typical as in its way marking an epoch.
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Speaker 1: I was there, I think about some advertisement stuff on
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Speaker 1: some sort of business anyhow, and my uncle and aunt
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Speaker 1: had come back in a fly from a dinner at
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Speaker 1: the Runcorns. Even there, he was nibbling at runcorn with
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Speaker 1: the idea of our great amalgamation butting in his mind.
19:08
Speaker 1: I got down there, I suppose about eleven. I found
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Speaker 1: a two of them sitting in the study, my aunt
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Speaker 1: on a chair arm with a whimsical pensiveness on her
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Speaker 1: face regarding my uncle, and he much extended and very
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Speaker 1: rotund in the low arm chair drawn up to the fender.
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Speaker 1: Look here, George, said my uncle after my first greetings.
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Speaker 1: I've just been saying, we aren't O fay ey, not
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Speaker 1: O fay socially old fly. He means George French. Oh
19:43
Speaker 1: didn't think of French. One never knows where to have him.
19:46
Speaker 1: What's gone wrong to night? I've been thinking it isn't
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Speaker 1: any particular thing. I ate too much of that fishy
19:55
Speaker 1: stuff at first, like salt frog spawn, and was a
19:58
Speaker 1: bit confused by olive and well I didn't know which
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Speaker 1: wine was which. Had to say that each time it
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Speaker 1: put your talk all wrong, And she wasn't in evening dress,
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Speaker 1: not like the others. We can't go on in that style, George,
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Speaker 1: not a proper ad I'm not sure you were right,
20:18
Speaker 1: I said, and having a fly. We got to do
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Speaker 1: it all better, said my uncle. We got to do
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Speaker 1: it in style, smart business, smart men. She tries to
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Speaker 1: pass it off as humorous. My aunt pulled a grimace.
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Speaker 1: It isn't humorous. See, we're on the upgrade now, fair
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Speaker 1: and square. We're going to be big. We aren't going
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Speaker 1: to be laughed at as poo venus. See nobody laughed
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Speaker 1: at you, said my aunt. Old bladder. Nobody isn't going
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Speaker 1: to laugh at me, said my uncle, glancing at his
20:51
Speaker 1: contours and suddenly sitting up. My aunt raised her eyebrow,
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Speaker 1: slightly swung her foot, and said nothing. We are aren't
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Speaker 1: a keeping pace with our own progress, George. We got to.
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Speaker 1: We're bumping against new people, and they set up to
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Speaker 1: be gentlefolks, etiquette dinners and all the rest of it.
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Speaker 1: They give themselves airs and expect us to be fish
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Speaker 1: out of water. We aren't going to be. They think
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Speaker 1: we've no style, Well, we give them style for our advertisements,
21:21
Speaker 1: and we're going to give him style all through. You
21:24
Speaker 1: needn't be born to it to dance well on the
21:27
Speaker 1: wires of the Bond Street tradesmen. See. I handed him
21:32
Speaker 1: the cigar box runcorn. Hadn't cigars like these, he said,
21:36
Speaker 1: truncating one lovingly. We beat him at cigars. We'll beat
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Speaker 1: him all around. My aunt and I regarded him full
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Speaker 1: of apprehensions. I got ideas, he said darkly to the cigar,
21:50
Speaker 1: deepening our dread. He pocketed his cigar cutter and spoke again.
21:55
Speaker 1: We got to learn all the rotten little game first.
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Speaker 1: See for instance, we got to get samples of all
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Speaker 1: the blessed wines there are and learn em up. Stern, s'more, Burgundy,
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Speaker 1: all of em. She took Stern to night, and when
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Speaker 1: she tasted at first, you pulled a face, Susan, you did,
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Speaker 1: I saw you. It surprised you. You bunched your nose.
22:18
Speaker 1: We got to get used to wine and not do that.
22:21
Speaker 1: We got to get used to wearing evening dress. You,
22:24
Speaker 1: Susan too, always have had a tendency to stick out
22:28
Speaker 1: of my clothes, said my aunt. However, who cares? She
22:32
Speaker 1: shrugged her shoulders. I had never seen my uncle so
22:35
Speaker 1: immensely serious. Got to get the hang of etiquette, he
22:39
Speaker 1: went on to the fire horses. Even practice everything, dine
22:45
Speaker 1: every night in evening dress, get a broom or something,
22:49
Speaker 1: Learn up Gulf and tennis and things country gentlemen, Oh faye,
22:54
Speaker 1: It isn't only freedom from guccery, ey I said, Oh gauchery.
23:01
Speaker 1: If you like French, George said, my aunt, But I'm
23:05
Speaker 1: not old gooch. I made that face for fun. It
23:09
Speaker 1: isn't only freedom from gauchery. We got to have style.
23:13
Speaker 1: See style, just all right, and one better. That's what
23:17
Speaker 1: I call style. We can do it, and we will.
23:22
Speaker 1: He mumbled his cigar and smoked for a space, leaning
23:25
Speaker 1: forward and looking into the fire. What is it? He asked,
23:29
Speaker 1: after all, what is it? Tips about eating, tips about drinking, clothes,
23:35
Speaker 1: how to hold yourself, and not say, just the few
23:38
Speaker 1: little things they know for certain are wrong, just the
23:42
Speaker 1: shibboleth things. He was silent again, and the cigar crept
23:46
Speaker 1: up from the horizontal towards the zenith as the confidence
23:50
Speaker 1: of his mouth increased. Learn the whole bag of tricks
23:53
Speaker 1: in six months, he said, becoming more cheerful. Ah, Susan,
23:59
Speaker 1: beat it out, George, you in particular, ought to get
24:03
Speaker 1: hold of it, ought to get into a good club,
24:05
Speaker 1: and all that. Always ready to learn, I said, ever
24:10
Speaker 1: since you gave me the chance of Latin, so far
24:13
Speaker 1: we don't seem to have hit upon any Latin speaking
24:15
Speaker 1: stratum in the population. We've come to French, said my aunt. Anyhow,
24:22
Speaker 1: it's a very useful language, said my uncle. Put a
24:25
Speaker 1: point on things 's as for accent, no Englishman has
24:29
Speaker 1: an accent. No Englishman pronounces French properly. Don't you tell
24:34
Speaker 1: me it's a bluff. It's all a bluff. Life's a
24:38
Speaker 1: bluff practically. That's why it's so important, Susan, for us
24:42
Speaker 1: to attend to style le Steele say loom the style
24:48
Speaker 1: it's the man. Would you laughing at Susan, George, you're
24:52
Speaker 1: not smoking? These cigars are good for the mind. What
24:56
Speaker 1: do you think of it? All? We got to adapt ourselves.
25:00
Speaker 1: We have so far not going to be beat by
25:03
Speaker 1: these silly things. End of book, third chapter, second parts
25:09
Speaker 1: one to three. Recording by William tom Co