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Authors: William Golding
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humbler clergy—but no. I do the lady an injustice for she is well enough. I do not doubt that the less continentof our people will find her an object of more than curiosity!
Let us have done with her for a moment. I will turn to her father and the gentleman opposite him, who became visible to me by leaping to his feet. Even in the resumed babble his voice was clearly to be heard.
“Mr Brocklebank, I would have you know that I am the inveterate foe of every superstition!”
This of course was Mr Prettiman. I have made a sad job of his introduction, have I not? You must blame Miss Zenobia. He is a short, thick, angry gentleman. You know of him. I know—it matters not how—that he takes a printing press with him to the Antipodes; and though it is a machine capable of little more than turning out handbills, yet the Lutheran Bible was produced from something not much bigger.
But Mr Brocklebank was booming back. He had not thought. It was a trifle. He would be the last person to offend the susceptibilities. Custom. Habit.
Mr Prettiman, still standing, vibrated with passion.
“I saw it distinctly, sir! You threw salt over your shoulder!”
“So I did, sir, I confess it. I will try not to spill the salt again.”
This remark with its clear indication that Mr Brocklebank had no idea at all of what Mr Prettiman meant confounded the social philosopher. His mouth still open he sank slowly into his seat, thus almost passing from my sight. Miss Zenobia turned to me with a pretty seriousness round her wide eyes. She looked, as it were, under her eyebrows and up through lashes—but no. I will not believe that unassisted Nature—
“How angry Mr Prettiman is, Mr Talbot! I declare that when roused he is quite, quite terrifying!”
Anything less terrifying than the absurd philosopherwould be difficult to imagine. However, I saw that we were about to embark on a familiar set of steps in an ancient dance. She was to become more and more the unprotected female in the presence of gigantic male creatures such as Mr Prettiman and your godson. We, for our part, were to advance with a threatening good humour so that in terror she would have to throw herself on our mercy, appeal to our generosity, appeal to our chivalry perhaps: and all the time the animal spirits, the, as Dr Johnson called them, “amorous propensities” of both sexes would be excited to that state, that ambiance , in which such creatures as she is or has been, have their being.
This was a distancing thought and brought me to see something else. The size, the scale, was wrong. It was too large. The lady has been at least an habituée of the theatre if not a performer there! This was not a normal encounter—for now she was describing her terror in the late blow —but one, as it were, thrown outwards to where Summers at her side, Oldmeadow and a Mr Bowles across the table and indeed anyone in earshot could hear her. We were to perform. But before act one could be said to be well under weigh—and I must confess that I dallied with the thought that she might to some extent relieve the tedium of the voyage—when louder exclamations from Mr Prettiman and louder rumbles and even thunders from Mr Brocklebank turned her to seriousness again. She was accustomed to touch wood. I admitted to feeling more cheerful if a black cat should cross the road before me. Her lucky number was twenty-five. I said at once that her twenty-fifth birthday would prove to be most fortunate for her—a piece of nonsense which went unnoticed, for Mr Bowles (who is connected with the law in some very junior capacity and a thorough bore) explained that the custom of touching wood came from a papistical habitof adoring the crucifix and kissing it. I responded with my nurse’s fear of crossed knives as indication of a quarrel and horror at a loaf turned upside-down as presage of a disaster at sea—whereat she shrieked and turned to Summers for protection. He assured her she need fear nothing from
Let us have done with her for a moment. I will turn to her father and the gentleman opposite him, who became visible to me by leaping to his feet. Even in the resumed babble his voice was clearly to be heard.
“Mr Brocklebank, I would have you know that I am the inveterate foe of every superstition!”
This of course was Mr Prettiman. I have made a sad job of his introduction, have I not? You must blame Miss Zenobia. He is a short, thick, angry gentleman. You know of him. I know—it matters not how—that he takes a printing press with him to the Antipodes; and though it is a machine capable of little more than turning out handbills, yet the Lutheran Bible was produced from something not much bigger.
But Mr Brocklebank was booming back. He had not thought. It was a trifle. He would be the last person to offend the susceptibilities. Custom. Habit.
Mr Prettiman, still standing, vibrated with passion.
“I saw it distinctly, sir! You threw salt over your shoulder!”
“So I did, sir, I confess it. I will try not to spill the salt again.”
This remark with its clear indication that Mr Brocklebank had no idea at all of what Mr Prettiman meant confounded the social philosopher. His mouth still open he sank slowly into his seat, thus almost passing from my sight. Miss Zenobia turned to me with a pretty seriousness round her wide eyes. She looked, as it were, under her eyebrows and up through lashes—but no. I will not believe that unassisted Nature—
“How angry Mr Prettiman is, Mr Talbot! I declare that when roused he is quite, quite terrifying!”
Anything less terrifying than the absurd philosopherwould be difficult to imagine. However, I saw that we were about to embark on a familiar set of steps in an ancient dance. She was to become more and more the unprotected female in the presence of gigantic male creatures such as Mr Prettiman and your godson. We, for our part, were to advance with a threatening good humour so that in terror she would have to throw herself on our mercy, appeal to our generosity, appeal to our chivalry perhaps: and all the time the animal spirits, the, as Dr Johnson called them, “amorous propensities” of both sexes would be excited to that state, that ambiance , in which such creatures as she is or has been, have their being.
This was a distancing thought and brought me to see something else. The size, the scale, was wrong. It was too large. The lady has been at least an habituée of the theatre if not a performer there! This was not a normal encounter—for now she was describing her terror in the late blow —but one, as it were, thrown outwards to where Summers at her side, Oldmeadow and a Mr Bowles across the table and indeed anyone in earshot could hear her. We were to perform. But before act one could be said to be well under weigh—and I must confess that I dallied with the thought that she might to some extent relieve the tedium of the voyage—when louder exclamations from Mr Prettiman and louder rumbles and even thunders from Mr Brocklebank turned her to seriousness again. She was accustomed to touch wood. I admitted to feeling more cheerful if a black cat should cross the road before me. Her lucky number was twenty-five. I said at once that her twenty-fifth birthday would prove to be most fortunate for her—a piece of nonsense which went unnoticed, for Mr Bowles (who is connected with the law in some very junior capacity and a thorough bore) explained that the custom of touching wood came from a papistical habitof adoring the crucifix and kissing it. I responded with my nurse’s fear of crossed knives as indication of a quarrel and horror at a loaf turned upside-down as presage of a disaster at sea—whereat she shrieked and turned to Summers for protection. He assured her she need fear nothing from
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