Bland Beginning Read Free Page A

together. “And Miss Rawlings is a little older, I believe.”
    “She’s twenty-four. But what does that matter?” Then, as his father was silent again, Anthony said, “You like her, sir, don’t you?”
    “I have always found her a pleasant girl. She is perhaps a little feather-witted, but I do not regard that as a serious fault in a woman.”
    “Really, sir, I don’t think you quite understand her.” Anthony was always uncomfortable when he contradicted his father. “She’s really awfully clever.”
    “I have seen some of the paintings which she hangs around the house. They are execrable. I can understand the production of such work – there is an inferior artist in the humblest heart – but it shows a grave failure of taste to display it with apparent pride. That is a mark against her. Another mark, I should have thought, from your point of view, is her lack of interest in games. I doubt if she will enjoy watching you play for Southshire every summer.”
    “She won’t have to,” Anthony said. “I’m giving up cricket.”
    “My dear boy, you can’t be serious.” Mr Shelton looked at his son with more sign of emotion upon his nut-brown face than he had yet shown.
    “I am.” Anthony shuffled his feet with shy determination. “Vicky’s shown me that it’s all a lot of rot. All those grown men hitting a ball about – why, it’s ridiculous.” He laughed unconvincingly. “Poetry and painting and music and all that – they’re the important things. And whatever you say about her paintings, I think Vicky’s an artist. It’s – it’s in the blood. Her grandfather was a poet.”
    “I know. Old Martin Rawlings.” Mr Shelton said unexpectedly:
     
    “I dreamed a gull whose lucent lovely wing
    Knew not the savage colours of desire,
    But waking found your body like a fire
    And never knew nor recked a reckoning.”
     
    “What’s that?”
    Mr Shelton shook his head with a half-humorous pity. “ You should know the works of old Martin if you want to find the way to his granddaughter’s heart. Or perhaps you shouldn’t – you seem to have done very well without the knowledge. Perhaps she favours these moderns who cut up their lines into all sorts of odd lengths. What do you know about them?”
    “Nothing, sir.”
    “You are fortunate.”
    “But I can learn,” Anthony said eagerly.
    “I’m sure you can.” Twice, like a neat cat, Mr Shelton walked up and down the library in which they were talking. Then he slapped his son on the back. “Very well, my boy. There is one thing I want to ask you, while I say good luck and God bless you.” An immense, beaming smile moved over Anthony’s handsome face, a smile that vanished with his father’s next words. “I want you to promise not to get married for a year. I know you won’t like that, but I think you owe it to me.” He spoke rather rapidly, as he saw that his son was about to interrupt. “Since your mother died, a deep responsibility has been placed upon me. I say nothing against this marriage, except that it is not the kind of alliance that I had expected or hoped for you. I am saying nothing against Miss Rawlings –”
    “Vicky.”
    “Vicky,” said Mr Shelton with obvious effort. “I am saying nothing against Vicky. I only ask you to wait for a year so that you are both sure of your own minds.”
    Anthony’s handsome face reddened, and his fair curls shook with his effort to concentrate. “But it’s – it’s –” He drew on a not very extensive vocabulary. “It’s Victorian.”
    His father stood smiling at him, a small brown man with a thin brown face creased in a smile. “What can you expect of a Victorian figure like me – almost an antique? After all, it’s not what I wanted. I don’t think I’m being unreasonable. Is it a deal?”
    His son smiled sheepishly. “If Vicky says so.”
    “And you’re really going to give up cricket?”
    “Oh yes. Poetry and painting – they’re the really important