“I’m not struck only with what I’m talked to about. I don’t know,” she went on, “only what people tell me.”
“Ah no—you’re too much your mother’s daughter for that!” Vanderbank leaned back and smoked, and though all his air seemed to say that when one was so at ease for gossip almost any subject would do, he kept jogging his foot with the same small nervous motion as during the half-hour at Mertle that this record has commemorated. “You’re too much one of us all,” he continued. “We’ve tremendous perceptions,” he laughed. “Of course I SHOULD have come for him. But after all,” he added, as if all sorts of nonsense would equally serve, “he mightn’t, except for you, you know, have asked me.”
Nanda so far accepted this view as to reply: “That’s awfully weak. He’s so modest that he might have been afraid of your boring yourself.”
“That’s just what I mean.”
“Well, if you do,” Nanda returned, “the explanation’s a little conceited.”
“Oh I only made it,” Vanderbank said, “in reference to his modesty.” Beyond the lawn the house was before him, old, square, red-roofed, well assured of its right to the place it took up in the world. This was a considerable space—in the little world at least of Suffolk—and the look of possession had everywhere mixed with it, in the form of old windows and doors, the tone of old red surfaces, the style of old white facings, the age of old high creepers, the long confirmation of time. Suggestive of panelled rooms, of precious mahogany, of portraits of women dead, of coloured china glimmering through glass doors and delicate silver reflected on bared tables, the thing was one of those impressions of a particular period that it takes two centuries to produce. “Fancy,” the young man incoherently exclaimed, “his caring to leave anything so loveable as all this to come up and live with US!”
The girl also for a little lost herself. “Oh you don’t know what it is—the charm comes out so as one stays. Little by little it grows and grows. There are old things everywhere that are too delightful. He lets me explore so—he lets me rummage and rifle. Every day I make discoveries.”
Vanderbank wondered as he smoked. “You mean he lets you take things—?”
“Oh yes—up to my room, to study or to copy. There are old patterns that are too dear for anything. It’s when you live with them, you see, that you know. Everything in the place is such good company.”
“Your mother ought to be here,” Vanderbank presently suggested. “She’s so fond of good company.” Then as Nanda answered nothing he went on: “Was your grandmother ever?”