Christina Alberta's father

by H. G. Wells

“I think,” said Miss Lambone, “that I shall go in and light the candles. It is too wonderful a night for the electric lights, far too wonderful. We will just light the candles and the fire. And perhaps you will play us something beautiful. These are such marvellous fire-places here that they blaze up at once. I don’t know if you have noticed them—a new sort. The fire is all on the hearth—no draught below, but the shape of the back draws it up.

“I love a wood fire,” said Miss Lambone, and sighed and rose slowly and voluminously.

§ 7

Two days later Bobby came into one of the little studies on the garden side of Paul Lambone’s house. Paul had found out that Bobby wanted a few days of uninterrupted thought in which to begin his novel, and had asked him to stay on after the other guests had returned to London. It was a perfect room for a writer of Bobby’s temperament; it had a low writing-table close to the sill of the casemented window, and on the sill was a silver bowl of forget-me-nots and white tulips. A little glass-paned door released one into the garden without one’s having to go back through the house. The writing-table had everything a fastidious writer could desire, a pleasant paper-rack and wafers, and real quill pens, and plenty of elbow room. The chair he sat in was an arm-chair, immensely comfortable but not too luxurious; no hint of repose in it but only a completely loyal support for a working occupant. A garden path ran up hill from the window, a garden path skirted by wonderful clusters of pansies. On either side of the pansies were rose bushes, and though not a rosebud was showing, yet the fresh green leaves, tinged with ruddy brown, were very exquisite in the light.

He stood looking up the path for a time and then sat down and drew the writing-pad towards him. He took one of those delightful quills, tested the delicious flexibility of its points, dipped it in the ink and wrote in his very neat and beautiful handwriting:

UPS AND DOWNS
A Pedestrian Novel
BY ROBERT ROOTHING
CHAPTER THE FIRST
WHICH INTRODUCES OUR HERO

He wrote this very readily because it was very familiar to him. From first to last he had written it on fair fresh sheets of paper perhaps half a dozen times.

Then he stopped short and sat quite still with his head on one side. Then very neatly he corrected “which introduces” into “in which we introduce.”

It was nearly two years now since he had first begun his novel in this fashion, and he was still quite uncertain about the details of his hero’s introduction. His original intention about the story still floated pleasantly in the sky of his mind; a promise of a happy succession of fine, various and delightful adventures, told easily and good-humouredly; the fortunes of a kindly, unpretending, not too brave but brave enough young man, on his way through the world, to live happily afterwards with a delicious young woman. “Picaresque” was the magic word. None of these adventures had as yet assumed a concrete form in his mind. He felt they would come to him definitely enough one day. If one sat and mused one half saw them, and that was assurance enough for him. And so having rewritten his title page neatly and prettily, he fell into a day-dream and was presently thinking round and about his Christina Alberta as a good hero should.

Bobby was always being puzzled by Christina Alberta, always coming upon something that seemed to clear up everything, and then being puzzled again. But now it seemed to him that he really did know the last fact of importance that was to be known about her. Overnight Paul Lambone had described how he had taken her to Devizes to get advice, and how they had blundered upon the reality of her parentage. He told his story well as a story-writer should; he gave it dramatic point. Evidently he told the tale of set intention, because it was time Bobby knew. Lambone was aware of Christina Alberta’s engagement. He did not know and nobody but Bobby knew that she never intended to be married. But this, it seemed to Bobby, made the understanding of her situation possible; explained that watchful tenderness of Devizes’ face suddenly betrayed by the light of his inadvertent “my dear”; explained her position as though she belonged to him and Paul Lambone instead of being a rather unaccountable visitor; excused her vehement jealousy of Margaret Means, because evidently she had become violently possessive of her father, and had counted perhaps upon recognition and being very much with him. No doubt Margaret Means stood in the way of that. It was natural for Christina Alberta to want to be with Devizes and work with him, and natural for her to suspect and anticipate and resent an intervening personality. Apart from the magic of kinship it was natural that two such subtle and abundant personalities should attract each other greatly. That Devizes should have decided quite abruptly to marry Margaret Means did not present any difficulties to Bobby; he was not thinking very closely about Devizes. Margaret Means was pretty enough for anyone to want to marry her. There are times, as Bobby knew, when that sweet prettiness can stab one like an arrow. It had evidently stabbed and won Devizes. And almost the only thing that gave Bobby a second thought, but no more than a second thought, was Christina Alberta’s fluctuation of purpose, why she should have consented to marry him and then have changed her mind so quickly and definitely and yet have retained him as a lover.