Arthur & George by Julian Barnes Read Free Book Online

island—for Southsea was an island, despite appearances—could be represented as a series of Chinese rings: open spaces at its centre, then the middle ring of the town, and then the outer ring of the sea. He told her about the gravelly soil and the quick drainage that resulted from it; about the efficiency of Sir Frederick Bramwell’s sanitary arrangements; about the town’s salubrious reputation. This last item caused Louisa a sudden distress, which she disguised by an enquiry about Bramwell. She was told a great deal about that distinguished engineer.
    The groundwork thus laid, it was time to inspect the place properly. They visited both piers, where military bands seemed to play all day. They watched colours being trooped on the Governor’s Green, and mimic engagements on the Common; through binoculars they inspected the nation’s battle fleet riding at anchor in the middle distance at Spithead. They walked up the Clarence Esplanade while Arthur explained to her, one by one, all the trophies and memorials of warfare on display. Here a Russian gun, there a Japanese cannon and mortar, everywhere tablets and obelisks to sailors and infantrymen who had died in all quarters of the Empire and in every fashion—yellow fever, shipwreck, the perfidious action of Indian mutineers. She wondered if the doctor had a morbid streak to him; but preferred to decide, for the moment, that his interested curiosity matched his physical tirelessness. He even took her by horse-tram to the Royal Clarence Victualling Yard to watch the manufacturing process of ship’s biscuit: from bag of flour to dough, to its conversion by heat into a souvenir which visitors had between their teeth as they left.
    Miss Louisa Hawkins had not realized that courtship—if this was what it was—could be so strenuous, or so resemble tourism. Next they turned their eyes southward, to the Isle of Wight. From the Esplanade, Arthur pointed to what he termed the azure hills of the Vectian Isle, a turn of phrase which struck her as most poetic. They had a distant glimpse of Osborne House, and he explained how an increase in water traffic told when the Queen was in residence. Then they took a steamer across the Solent and round the island; her eye was directed to the Needles, Alum Bay, Carisbrooke Castle, the Landslip, the Undercliff—until she was obliged to call for a deckchair and a rug.
    One evening, as they gazed out to sea from the South Parade Pier, he described his exploits in Africa and the Arctic; yet the way tears came into her eyes when he mentioned their purpose on the ice field made him refrain from bragging about his game-bag. She had, he discovered, an innate gentleness which he took to be characteristic of all women, once you got to know them. She was always ready to smile; but could not bear any humour which verged on cruelty, or implied the superiority of the humorist. She had an open, generous nature, a lovely head of curls, and a small income of her own.
    In his previous dealings with women, Arthur had played the honourable flirt. Now, as they strolled this concentric resort, as she learned to take his arm, as her name changed in his mouth from Louisa to Touie, as he surreptitiously looked at her hips when she turned away, he knew he wanted more than flirtation. He also thought she would improve him as a man; which was, after all, one of the principles of marriage.
    First, however, the young prospect had to be approved by the Mam, who travelled to Hampshire for the inspection. She found Louisa timid, tractable and of decent if not distinguished family. There was no vulgarity or obvious moral weakness likely to embarrass her beloved boy. Nor did there seem any lurking vanity which might at some future time make the girl bridle at Arthur’s authority. The mother, Mrs. Hawkins, seemed both pleasant and respectful. In giving her approval, the Mam even allowed herself to muse that there might perhaps be something about Louisa—just there, when she