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Certain Personal Matters - Dunstone’s Dear Lady · The H. G. Wells Library

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  Speaker 1: Chapter nineteen of Certain Personal Matters. This is a LibriVox recording.
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  Speaker 1: All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more
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  Speaker 1: information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox dot org. Recording
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  Speaker 1: by Graham Scott Cheltenham, England. Certain Personal Matters by H. G. Wells.
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  Speaker 1: Dunstan's Dear Lady. The story of Dunstan is so slight,
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  Speaker 1: so trivial in its cardinal incidents, such a business of
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  Speaker 1: cheap feathers and bits of ribbon on the surface, that
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  Speaker 1: I should hesitate to tell it were it not for
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  Speaker 1: its inwardness, what one might call the symbolism of the thing. Frankly,
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  Speaker 1: I do not clearly see what that symbolism is, but
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  Speaker 1: I feel it hovering in some indefinable way whenever I
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  Speaker 1: recall his case. It is one of those things that
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  Speaker 1: make a man extend his arm and twiddle his fingers
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  Speaker 1: and say, blinking like that. You know. So, do not
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  Speaker 1: imagine for one moment that this is a shallow story
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  Speaker 1: simply because it is painted, so to speak, not in
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  Speaker 1: heart's blood, but in table claret. Dunstan was a strong,
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  Speaker 1: quiet kind of man, a man of conspicuous mediocrity and
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  Speaker 1: rising rapidly. Therefore, in his profession he was immensely industrious
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  Speaker 1: and a little given to melancholia. In private life, he
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  Speaker 1: smoked rather too many cigars and took his social occasions seriously.
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  Speaker 1: He dressed faultlessly, with a scrupulous elimination of style. Unlike
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  Speaker 1: mister grant Allan's ideal man, he was not constitutionally a lover. Indeed,
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  Speaker 1: he seemed not to like the ordinary girl at all,
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  Speaker 1: found her either too clever or too shallow, lacking her something.
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  Speaker 1: I don't think he knew quite what it was. Neither
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  Speaker 1: do I. It is a case for extended hand and
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  Speaker 1: twiddling fingers. Moreover, I don't think the ordinary girl took
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  Speaker 1: to Dunstan very much. He suffered, I fancy, from a
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  Speaker 1: kind of mental grayness. He was all subtle tones. The
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  Speaker 1: laughter of girls jarred upon him. Foolish smartness or amiable
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  Speaker 1: foolishness got on his nerves. He detested with equal sincerity,
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  Speaker 1: bright dressing, artistic dabbling, piety, and the glow of health.
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  Speaker 1: And when, as his confidential friend confidential, that is, so
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  Speaker 1: far as his limits allowed, I heard that he intended
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  Speaker 1: to marry, I was really very much surprised. I expected
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  Speaker 1: something quintessential. I was surprised to find she was a
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  Speaker 1: visiting governess. Harringay the artist thought there was nothing in
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  Speaker 1: her but sackbutt. The art critic was inclined to admire
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  Speaker 1: her bones. For my own part, I took rather a
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  Speaker 1: liking to her. She was small and thin, and to
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  Speaker 1: be frank, I think it was because she hardly got
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  Speaker 1: enough to eat of the delicate food she needed. She
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  Speaker 1: was shabby, too, dressed in rusty mourning. She had recently
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  Speaker 1: lost her mother. But she had a sweet, low voice,
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  Speaker 1: a shrinking manner rather a graceful carriage, I thought. And
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  Speaker 1: though she spoke rarely, all she said was sweet and sane.
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  Speaker 1: She struck me as a refined woman in a blatant age.
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  Speaker 1: The general effect of her upon me was favorable. Upon
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  Speaker 1: Dunstan it was tremendous. He lost a considerable proportion of
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  Speaker 1: his melancholia, and raved at times like a common man.
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  Speaker 1: He called her, in particular his dear lady, and his
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  Speaker 1: sweet lady. Things that I find eloquent of what he
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  Speaker 1: found in her. What that was, I fancy I understand,
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  Speaker 1: and yet I cannot say it quite. One has to
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  Speaker 1: resort to the extended arm and fingers vibrantile. Before he
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  Speaker 1: married her, which he did while she was still in
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  Speaker 1: half mourning, there was anxiety about her health, and I
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  Speaker 1: understood she needed air and exercise and strengthening food. But
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  Speaker 1: she recovered rapidly. After her marriage, her eyes grew brighter.
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  Speaker 1: We saw less of Sackbutt's delicious skeleton, and then, in
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  Speaker 1: the strangest way, she began to change. It is none
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  Speaker 1: of my imagining. I have heard the change remarked upon
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  Speaker 1: by half a dozen independent observers. Yet you would think
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  Speaker 1: a girl of three and twenty, as she certainly was,
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  Speaker 1: had attained her development as a woman. I have heard
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  Speaker 1: her compared to a winter bud cased in its somber
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  Speaker 1: scales until the sun shone and the warm, moist winds
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  Speaker 1: began to blow. I noticed first that the delicate outline
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  Speaker 1: of her cheek was filling, and then came the time
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  Speaker 1: when she reverted to color in her dress. Her first
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  Speaker 1: essays were charitably received. Her years of struggle, her year
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  Speaker 1: of mourning, had, no doubt, dwarfed her powers in this direction. Presently,
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  Speaker 1: her natural good taste would reassert itself, But the next
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  Speaker 1: effort and the next were harder. To explain. It was
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  Speaker 1: not the note of nervousness or inexperience we saw. There
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  Speaker 1: was an undeniable decision, and not a token of shame.
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  Speaker 1: The little black winter bud grew warm colored above and
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  Speaker 1: burst suddenly into extravagant outlines and chromatic confusion. Harringay, who
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  Speaker 1: is a cat, first put what we were all feeling
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  Speaker 1: into words. I've just seen Dunstan and his donor. He
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  Speaker 1: said clearly she was one of those rare women who
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  Speaker 1: cannot dress, and that was not all. A certain buoyancy
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  Speaker 1: hitherto unsuspected crept into her manner as the corpuscles multiplied
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  Speaker 1: in her veins an archness. She talked more and threw
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  Speaker 1: up a spray of playfulness, and with a growing energy,
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  Speaker 1: she began to revise the exquisite esthetic balance of Dunstan's house.
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  Speaker 1: She even enameled a chair. For a year or so,
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  Speaker 1: I was in the East. When I returned Missus Dunstan
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  Speaker 1: amazed me in some odd way she had grown. She
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  Speaker 1: had positively grown. She was taller, broader, brighter, infinitely brighter.
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  Speaker 1: She wore a diamond brooch in the afternoon. The delicious
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  Speaker 1: skeleton had vanished in plumpness. She moved with emphasis. Her eye,
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  Speaker 1: which glittered, met mine bravely, and she talked as one
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  Speaker 1: who would be heard in the old days. You saw
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  Speaker 1: nothing but a rare, timid glance from under the pretty lids.
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  Speaker 1: She talked now of this and that of people of
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  Speaker 1: good family, and the difficulty of getting a suitable governess
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  Speaker 1: for her little boy. She said she objected to meeting
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  Speaker 1: people one would not care to invite to one's house.
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  Speaker 1: She swamped me with tea and ruled the conversation, so
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  Speaker 1: that Dunstan and I, who were once old friends, talked
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  Speaker 1: civil twaddle for the space of one hour. Theaters concerts
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  Speaker 1: and assemble chiefly, and then parted again. The furniture had
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  Speaker 1: all been altered. There were two cozy nooks in the room.
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  Speaker 1: After the recipe in the Born Lady, it was plain
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  Speaker 1: to me, it is plain to every one. I find
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  Speaker 1: that missus Dunstan is in the sun of prosperity, rapidly
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  Speaker 1: developing an extremely florid vulgarity. And afterwards I discovered that
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  Speaker 1: she had forgotten her music and evidently enjoyed her meals.
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  Speaker 1: Yet I, for one, can witness that five years ago
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  Speaker 1: there was that about her, I can only extend my
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  Speaker 1: arm with quivering digits. But it was something very sweet
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  Speaker 1: and dainty, something that made her white and thoughtful, and
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  Speaker 1: marked her off from the rest of womankind. I sometimes
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  Speaker 1: fancy it may have been anemia in part, but it
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  Speaker 1: was certainly poverty and mourning in the main. You may
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  Speaker 1: think that this is a story of disillusionment. When I
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  Speaker 1: first heard the story, I thought so too, But so
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  Speaker 1: far as Dunstan goes, that is not the case. It
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  Speaker 1: is rare that I see him now. But the other
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  Speaker 1: day we smoked two cigars apiece together, and in a
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  Speaker 1: moment of confidence, he spoke of her. He said how
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  Speaker 1: anxious he felt for her health, called her his dainty
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  Speaker 1: little lady, and spoke of the coarseness of other women.
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  Speaker 1: I am afraid this is not a very eventful story.
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  Speaker 1: And yet there is that that very convenient gesture and armed,
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  Speaker 1: protruded and flickering fingers conveys my meaning. Bess, perhaps you
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  Speaker 1: will understand. End of Chapter nineteen