Crome Yellow, Aldous Huxley [read along books txt] 📗

opened the hidden door, and began to ascend the stairs. He passed the first window, corkscrewed round, and came to another. He paused for a moment to look out; his heart beat uncomfortably, as though he were affronting some unknown danger. What he was doing, he told himself, was extremely ungentlemanly, horribly underbred. He tiptoed onward and upward. One turn more, then half a turn, and a door confronted him. He halted before it, listened; he could hear no sound. Putting his eye to the keyhole, he saw nothing but a stretch of white sunlit wall. Emboldened, he turned the handle and stepped across the threshold. There he halted, petrified by what he saw, mutely gaping.

“In the middle of a pleasantly sunny little room⁠—‘it is now Priscilla’s boudoir,’ Mr. Wimbush remarked parenthetically⁠—stood a small circular table of mahogany. Crystal, porcelain, and silver⁠—all the shining apparatus of an elegant meal⁠—were mirrored in its polished depths. The carcase of a cold chicken, a bowl of fruit, a great ham, deeply gashed to its heart of tenderest white and pink, the brown cannon ball of a cold plum-pudding, a slender Hock bottle, and a decanter of claret jostled one another for a place on this festive board. And round the table sat the three sisters, the three lovely Lapiths⁠—eating!

“At George’s sudden entrance they had all looked towards the door, and now they sat, petrified by the same astonishment which kept George fixed and staring. Georgiana, who sat immediately facing the door, gazed at him with dark, enormous eyes. Between the thumb and forefinger of her right hand she was holding a drumstick of the dismembered chicken; her little finger, elegantly crooked, stood apart from the rest of her hand. Her mouth was open, but the drumstick had never reached its destination; it remained, suspended, frozen, in midair. The other two sisters had turned round to look at the intruder. Caroline still grasped her knife and fork; Emmeline’s fingers were round the stem of her claret glass. For what seemed a very long time, George and the three sisters stared at one another in silence. They were a group of statues. Then suddenly there was movement. Georgiana dropped her chicken bone, Caroline’s knife and fork clattered on her plate. The movement propagated itself, grew more decisive; Emmeline sprang to her feet, uttering a cry. The wave of panic reached George; he turned and, mumbling something unintelligible as he went, rushed out of the room and down the winding stairs. He came to a standstill in the hall, and there, all by himself in the quiet house, he began to laugh.

“At luncheon it was noticed that the sisters ate a little more than usual. Georgiana toyed with some French beans and a spoonful of calves’-foot jelly. ‘I feel a little stronger today,’ she said to Lord Timpany, when he congratulated her on this increase of appetite; ‘a little more material,’ she added, with a nervous laugh. Looking up, she caught George’s eye; a blush suffused her cheeks and she looked hastily away.

“In the garden that afternoon they found themselves for a moment alone.

“You won’t tell anyone, George? Promise you won’t tell anyone,’ she implored. ‘It would make us look so ridiculous. And besides, eating is unspiritual, isn’t it? Say you won’t tell anyone.’

“ ‘I will,’ said George brutally. ‘I’ll tell everyone, unless⁠ ⁠…’

“ ‘It’s blackmail.’

“ ‘I don’t care,’ said George. ‘I’ll give you twenty-four hours to decide.’

“Lady Lapith was disappointed, of course; she had hoped for better things⁠—for Timpany and a coronet. But George, after all, wasn’t so bad. They were married at the New Year.

“My poor grandfather!” Mr. Wimbush added, as he closed his book and put away his pince-nez. “Whenever I read in the papers about oppressed nationalities, I think of him.” He relighted his cigar. “It was a maternal government, highly centralised, and there were no representative institutions.”

Henry Wimbush ceased speaking. In the silence that ensued Ivor’s whispered commentary on the spirit sketches once more became audible. Priscilla, who had been dozing, suddenly woke up.

“What?” she said in the startled tones of one newly returned to consciousness; “what?”

Jenny caught the words. She looked up, smiled, nodded reassuringly. “It’s about a ham,” she said.

“What’s about a ham?”

“What Henry has been reading.” She closed the red notebook lying on her knees and slipped a rubber band round it. “I’m going to bed,” she announced, and got up.

“So am I,” said Anne, yawning. But she lacked the energy to rise from her armchair.

The night was hot and oppressive. Round the open windows the curtains hung unmoving. Ivor, fanning himself with the portrait of an Astral Being, looked out into the darkness and drew a breath.

“The air’s like wool,” he declared.

“It will get cooler after midnight,” said Henry Wimbush, and cautiously added, “perhaps.”

“I shan’t sleep, I know.”

Priscilla turned her head in his direction; the monumental coiffure nodded exorbitantly at her slightest movement. “You must make an effort,” she said. “When I can’t sleep, I concentrate my will: I say, ‘I will sleep, I am asleep!’ And pop! off I go. That’s the power of thought.”

“But does it work on stuffy nights?” Ivor inquired. “I simply cannot sleep on a stuffy night.”

“Nor can I,” said Mary, “except out of doors.”

“Out of doors! What a wonderful idea!” In the end they decided to sleep on the towers⁠—Mary on the western tower, Ivor on the eastern. There was a flat expanse of leads on each of the towers, and you could get a mattress through the trap doors that opened on to them. Under the stars, under the gibbous moon, assuredly they would sleep. The mattresses were hauled up, sheets and blankets were spread, and an hour later the two insomniasts, each on his separate tower, were crying their good nights across the dividing gulf.

On Mary the sleep-compelling charm of the open air did not work with its expected magic. Even through the mattress one could not fail to be aware that the leads were extremely hard. Then there were noises: the owls screeched tirelessly,