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

though she was, she saw no reason for letting these excellent qualities cover
any slackness or breach of observance in the social form of life to which she
had been accustomed. There was no cause, because one was kind and wise, to eat
with badly cleaned silver, unless the parlour-maid whose office it was to clean
it was unwell. In such a case, if the extra work entailed by her illness would
throw too much on the shoulders of the other servants, Mrs. Assheton would
willingly clean the silver herself, rather than that it should appear dull and
tarnished. Her formalism, such as it was, was perfectly simple and sincere. She
would, without any very poignant regret or sense of martyrdom, had her very
comfortable income been cut down to a tenth of what it was, have gone to live in
a four-roomed cottage with one servant. But she would have left that four-roomed
cottage at once for even humbler surroundings had she found that her straitened
circumstances did not permit her to keep it as speckless and soignщe as was her
present house in Sussex Square.
This achievement of having lived for nearly sixty years so decorously may
perhaps be a somewhat finer performance than it sounds, but Mrs. Assheton
brought as her contribution to life in general a far finer offering than that,
for though she did not propose to change her ways and manner of life herself,
she was notoriously sympathetic with the changed life of the younger generation,
and in consequence had the confidence of young folk generally. At this moment
she was enjoying the fruits of her liberal attitude in the volubility of her son
Morris, who sat at the end of the table opposite to her. His volubility was at
present concerned with his motor-car, in which he had arrived that afternoon.
"Darling mother," he was saying, "I really was frightened as to whether you
would mind. I could n't help remembering how you received Mr. Taynton's proposal
that you should go for a drive in his car. Don't you remember, Mr. Taynton?
Mother's nose did go in the air. It 's no use denying it. So I thought, perhaps,
that she would n't like my having one. But I wanted it so dreadfully, and so I
bought it without telling her, and drove down in it to-day, which is my
birthday, so that she could n't be too severe."
Mr. Taynton, while Morris was speaking, had picked up the nutcrackers the boy
had been using, and was gravely exploding the shells of the nuts he had helped
himself to. So Morris cracked the next one with a loud bang between his white
even teeth.
"Dear Morris," said his mother, "how foolish of you. Give Mr. Morris another
nutcracker," she added to the parlour-maid.
"What 's foolish?" asked he, cracking another.
"Oh Morris, your teeth," she said. "Do wait a moment. Yes, that 's right. And
how can you say that my nose went in the air? I 'm sure Mr. Taynton will agree
with me that that is really libellous. And as for your being afraid to tell me
you had bought a motor-car yourself, why, that is sillier than cracking nuts
with your teeth."
Mr. Taynton laughed a comfortable middle-aged laugh.
"Don't put the responsibility on me, Mrs. Assheton," he said. "As long as
Morris's bank does n't tell us that his account is overdrawn, he can do what he
pleases. But if we are told that, then down comes the cartloads of bricks."
"Oh, you are a brick all right, Mr. Taynton," said the boy. "I could stand a
cartload of you."
Mr. Taynton, like his laugh, was comfortable and middle-aged. Solicitors are
supposed to be sharp-faced and fox-like, but his face was well-furnished and