"Benson, Edward Frederic - The Blotting Book" - читать интересную книгу автора (Benson Edward Frederic)

The Blotting Book, by Edward Frederic Benson

The Naked Word electronic edition of....
The Blotting Book
By Edward Frederic Benson, 1908 (d. 1940)



CHAPTER I
MRS. ASSHETON'S house in Sussex Square, Brighton, was appointed with that finish
of smooth stateliness which robs stateliness of its formality, and conceals the
amount of trouble and personal attention which has, originally in any case, been
spent on the production of the smoothness. Everything moved with the regularity
of the solar system, and, superior to that wild rush of heavy bodies through
infinite ether, there was never the slightest fear of comets streaking their
unconjectured way across the sky, or meteorites falling on unsuspicious
picnicers. In Mrs. Assheton's house, supreme over climatic conditions, nobody
ever felt that rooms were either too hot or too cold, a pleasantly fresh yet
comfortably warm atmosphere pervaded the place, meals were always punctual and
her admirable Scotch cook never served up a dish which, whether plain or ornate,
was not, in its way, perfectly prepared. A couple of deft and noiseless
parlour-maids attended to and anticipated the wants of her guests, from the
moment they entered her hospitable doors till when, on their leaving them, their
coats were held for them in the most convenient possible manner for the easy
insertion of the human arm, and the tails of their dinner-coats cunningly and
unerringly tweaked from behind. In every way in fact the house was an example of
perfect comfort; the softest carpets overlaid the floors, or, where the polished
wood was left bare, the parquetry shone with a moonlike radiance; the newest and
most entertaining books (ready cut) stood on the well-ordered shelves in the
sitting-room to beguile the leisure of the studiously minded; the billiard table
was always speckless of dust, no tip was ever missing from any cue, and the
cigarette boxes and match-stands were always kept replenished. In the
dining-room the silver was resplendent, until the moment when before dessert the
cloth was withdrawn, and showed a rosewood table that might have served for a
mirror to Narcissus.
Mrs. Assheton, until her only surviving son Morris had come to live with her
some three months ago on the completion of his four years at Cambridge, had been
alone, but even when she was alone this ceremony of drawing the cloth and
putting on the dessert and wine had never been omitted, though since she never
took either, it might seem to be a wasted piece of routine on the part of the
two noiseless parlour-maids. But she did not in the least consider it so, for
just as she always dressed for dinner herself with the same care and finish,
whether she was going to dine alone or whether, as tonight, a guest or two was
dining with her, as an offering, so to speak, on the altar of her own
self-respect, so also she required self-respect and the formality that indicated
it on the part of those who ministered at her table, and enjoyed such excellent
wages. This pretty old-fashioned custom had always been the rule in her own
home, and her husband had always had it practised during his life. And since
thenЧ his death had occurred some twenty years agoЧ nothing that she knew of had
happened to make it less proper or desirable. Kind of heart and warm of soul