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The Challoners. E. F. Benson
Читать онлайн.Название The Challoners
Год выпуска 0
isbn 4064066231576
Автор произведения E. F. Benson
Жанр Языкознание
Издательство Bookwire
They had passed out of the narrow path from the church-yard during this, and their way lying across the open fields, Lady Sunningdale, as her habit was, annexed Frank as well as Martin.
“Dear Helen, it is too bad,” she said as she manœuvred. “You will have to go back immediately after lunch. What is a Sunday-school? It sounds so beautiful, like a hymn tune. Yes, I adore church-music; really there is nothing like it. And it was so wonderful of you to play the lucubrations of Mendelssohn, Martin.”
“Yes, I felt that, too,” said Frank, in his low, slow voice. “There was a stained-glass window just opposite me which was exactly like the tone-colour of Mendelssohn. A figure which I take to have been a prophet, probably minor, in jewelled slippers was directing an enamoured gaze towards a pink town—which may or may not have been the New Jerusalem. I always wonder where artists in stained-glass get their botany from. Nameless herbs enveloped the feet of the minor prophet.”
Martin laughed.
“I know that window,” he said. “When I was little it used to come into my nightmares. Now it has become a daymare. I don’t know which is worst.”
Lady Sunningdale sighed.
“Church is very fatiguing,” she said. “I had quite forgotten how tiring it was. I shall not go any more for a year or two. Dear me, these tiresome shoes! And my darlings wanted to come with me. But that isn’t allowed, is it? It is only in Scotland that dogs go to church, I think. I went to Scotland once. I can’t bear the Scotch. They are so plain and so extremely truthful. There is nothing in the least unexpected about them. Dear me, there’s the other shoe. Yes, thank you, Martin. And they use a silly slang instead of talking English. Martin, I had a talk to your father yesterday about you. I really think I made an impression.”
“Telling the truth produces a very marked type of face,” said Frank, “and in later life mutton-chop whiskers. That is why one always engages butlers with mutton-chop whiskers. They are sure to be reliable. Truth-telling is quite incurable, and so has a certain claim to distinction.”
Martin listened to this with something of the air of a parrot “taking notice,” and then turned to Lady Sunningdale.
“Do you really mean that?” he asked, eagerly.
“Yes, of course I do. It seemed news to him that playing the piano could be taken seriously. And he took me seriously. There are my treasures come to meet me. I am so hungry. Don’t jump up, Suez Canal. My darlings!”
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