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Invitation to the Waltz A Novel
Rosamond Lehmann
The village, in the hollow below the house, is picturesque, unhygienic: it has more atmosphere than form, than outline: huddled shapes of soft red brick sag towards gardens massed with sunflowers, Canterbury bells, sweet-williams.
There is a pump on the green; also a tall historic-looking lump of granite whose origin is wrapped in legend. Some refer it to the Druids. Some say King Charles I. sat down upon it.
The village of Little Compton is old, but the square stone house is new. It was built at the same period as Tulverton paper-mills, towards the middle of the nineteenth century, and was primarily designed to shelter the old age and accommodate the numerous offspring of Mr. James Curtis, first founder of the first mill. Tulverton is three miles away. Mr. Charles Curtis, eldest son, rode there and back upon a grey mare, day in, day out, during the prolonged period of his prime; at the last, clad in lavender-grey frock-coat and top-hat, every inch Mayor of Tulverton, he brimmed daily to and from the office within the dignified compass of a brougham. Moving with the times, his son Charles James covered the distance upon a bicycle. Perhaps his only son James Charles will drive there in a motor car. But times are changing. It is the year 1920; and James, last fruit of a late marriage, is but seven years old. Victim of overwork during the war, his father has retired at sixty in poor health; a gap yawns for the first time in the line of direct succession. Distant relatives and relatives by marriage and such as are not relatives at all assume authority. Besides, nowadays who knows what boys will grow up to be, to want or not to want? What happens to the descendants of those Victorian grandees? Where are the young men? The mould is the same, but it is cracked: the flavour is strange; it dissipates itself; is spent. Perhaps the last James will never have a car and go to and from Tulverton mills.
The square house is screened from the street by a high clipped hedge of laurel. Passing the drive gate you see, at an obtuse angle, and through the branches of a flourishing Wellingtonia, glimpses of slate roof, spacious windows, glass porch with coloured panes.
And at once the imagination is engaged. You see rooms crowded with ponderous cupboards, sideboards, tables; photographs in silver frames, profusely strewn; wallpapers decorated with flowers, wreaths, birds, knots and bows of ribbon; dark olive, dark brown paint in the hall and passages; marble mantelpieces vapid, chill, swelling as blanc-mange; the water-colour performances of aunts and great-aunts thick upon the walls; worn leather armchairs pulled up to hot coal fires: you smell potpourri and lavender in china bowls; you taste roast beef and apple-tart on Sundays; hot scones for tea—dining-room tea on the enormous white cloth, beneath the uncompromising glare of the enormous central light. … But there is something more than this that strikes you, makes you linger. What is this current, this penetrating invocation flung out from behind discreet and tended shrubbery? All is sober, is commonplace, conventional, is even a trifle smug. It is a pre-war residence of attractive design, with lounge hall, etc. , and usual offices, beautifully timbered grounds, well-stocked kitchen garden. Yet there is no mistaking the fascination, or its meaning. Something is going on.
