Nothing So Strange by James Hilton Read Free Book Online

waste a little bit of his time, and
I’ve quite an ambition to make him do it—I’d love to make him
break a rule—just one little rule….”
    “Did he break any at the lecture when he saw you?”
    “Not him. He’s so different when he’s lecturing. Not a bit
nervous—and yet still shy.”
    “Did he know you were going to be there?”
    “Of course. I enrolled —didn’t I say that? I asked him if he
thought it would all be above my head and he said no, it was as elementary as
he could make it—he’s not exactly the flatterer, is he?… But never a
smile or a look during the lecture—I was just one of his students. And
when he finished he picked up his papers and dashed away as if he was afraid
of someone chasing him.”
    “Perhaps he was.”
    “Now darling, are you trying to make fun of me?”
    I wondered if I were; it wouldn’t have been surprising, for my mother and
I got a good deal of amusement out of each other. But I had a curious feeling
that we were both more serious than we sounded, and that the badinage was a
familiar dress to cover something rather new in our relationship.
    She said, as if it finally clinched the matter: “Well, he’s coming to
dinner on October tenth. I did chase him to ask him that. He said he
couldn’t make it earlier because he’s working for some examination that
finishes on the ninth.”
    “But will you still be here? I thought the end of September was when you
and Father—”
    “We’re staying a few extra weeks this year. We thought it would be nice
not to leave you too soon.”
    I said I was glad, which was true enough, though of course I knew I’d be
perfectly all right on my own.
* * * * *
    It wasn’t a party on the tenth, but that rare “just
ourselves,” with not
even a chance visitor after dinner except Julian Spee. Julian was a rising
English lawyer; still in his middle forties, he had already taken silk and
found a seat in Parliament; there seemed nothing to stop him from whatever he
aimed at, which was probably high. He was handsome in a saturnine way, a
brilliant talker, unmarried, and an accomplished flirt. He lived in a house
not far from ours, facing the Heath, and had formed a habit of dropping by
whenever he felt like it, whether we had a party or not. He was sure of his
welcome and one knew he was sure. I think he liked my mother more than most
women, and she in turn was flattered by his attentions and always willing to
give advice about his love affairs. A pleasantly romantic relationship can
develop in this way, and it had done, over a period of years. I wasn’t at
ease with Julian myself, because I never felt he was quite real, but on the
few occasions when he hadn’t treated me as a precocious child I had been
aware of his attractiveness. My father, who collected him as he collected all
celebrities, once said that in any other country but England you would have
taken him for a homosexual, to which my mother replied mischievously: “And in
any other country he would have been.” As often it wasn’t very clear what she
meant.
    My father had got back from Germany that day, tired from the trip and
gloomy about affairs over there. He didn’t any longer attend to ordinary
business matters, but if something cropped up of a kind in which his personal
acquaintance with politicians and diplomats might help, the job was usually
passed on to him. I think the Nazis were interfering with some of his
“interests”; the State Department hadn’t been able to do much, and because he
had once met Hitler during the twenties he’d been called in like a rainmaker
after a prolonged drought. But big shots were always apt to disappoint him
after a while—Lenin had, and Lloyd George, and Mussolini, and Ramsay
MacDonald, and now it was Hitler’s turn. Roosevelt hadn’t yet, but one felt
sure he would. My father was too rich to care for money for its own sake
(despite the Marazon disclosures that did him so much