Crome Yellow | Page 4

tiresome. "All
in good time, sir." Denis's man of action collapsed, punctured.
He left his luggage to be called for later, and pushed off on his bicycle. He always took
his bicycle when he went into the country. It was part of the theory of exercise. One day
one would get up at six o'clock and pedal away to Kenilworth, or
Stratford-on-Avon--anywhere. And within a radius of twenty miles there were always
Norman churches and Tudor mansions to be seen in the course of an afternoon's
excursion. Somehow they never did get seen, but all the same it was nice to feel that the
bicycle was there, and that one fine morning one really might get up at six.
Once at the top of the long hill which led up from Camlet station, he felt his spirits
mounting. The world, he found, was good. The far-away blue hills, the harvests
whitening on the slopes of the ridge along which his road led him, the treeless sky-lines
that changed as he moved--yes, they were all good. He was overcome by the beauty of
those deeply embayed combes, scooped in the flanks of the ridge beneath him. Curves,
curves: he repeated the word slowly, trying as he did so to find some term in which to
give expression to his appreciation. Curves-- no, that was inadequate. He made a gesture
with his hand, as though to scoop the achieved expression out of the air, and almost fell
off his bicycle. What was the word to describe the curves of those little valleys? They
were as fine as the lines of a human body, they were informed with the subtlety of art...
Galbe. That was a good word; but it was French. Le galbe evase de ses hanches: had one
ever read a French novel in which that phrase didn't occur? Some day he would compile a
dictionary for the use of novelists. Galbe, gonfle, goulu: parfum, peau, pervers, potele,
pudeur: vertu, volupte.
But he really must find that word. Curves curves...Those little valleys had the lines of a
cup moulded round a woman's breast; they seemed the dinted imprints of some huge
divine body that had rested on these hills. Cumbrous locutions, these; but through them
he seemed to be getting nearer to what he wanted. Dinted, dimpled, wimpled--his mind
wandered down echoing corridors of assonance and alliteration ever further and further
from the point. He was enamoured with the beauty of words.
Becoming once more aware of the outer world, he found himself on the crest of a descent.
The road plunged down, steep and straight, into a considerable valley. There, on the

opposite slope, a little higher up the valley, stood Crome, his destination. He put on his
brakes; this view of Crome was pleasant to linger over. The facade with its three
projecting towers rose precipitously from among the dark trees of the garden. The house
basked in full sunlight; the old brick rosily glowed. How ripe and rich it was, how
superbly mellow! And at the same time, how austere! The hill was becoming steeper and
steeper; he was gaining speed in spite of his brakes. He loosed his grip of the levers, and
in a moment was rushing headlong down. Five minutes later he was passing through the
gate of the great courtyard. The front door stood hospitably open. He left his bicycle
leaning against the wall and walked in. He would take them by surprise.

CHAPTER II.
He took nobody by surprise; there was nobody to take. All was quiet; Denis wandered
from room to empty room, looking with pleasure at the familiar pictures and furniture, at
all the little untidy signs of life that lay scattered here and there. He was rather glad that
they were all out; it was amusing to wander through the house as though one were
exploring a dead, deserted Pompeii. What sort of life would the excavator reconstruct
from these remains; how would he people these empty chambers? There was the long
gallery, with its rows of respectable and (though, of course, one couldn't publicly admit it)
rather boring Italian primitives, its Chinese sculptures, its unobtrusive, dateless furniture.
There was the panelled drawing- room, where the huge chintz-covered arm-chairs stood,
oases of comfort among the austere flesh-mortifying antiques. There was the
morning-room, with its pale lemon walls, its painted Venetian chairs and rococo tables,
its mirrors, its modern pictures. There was the library, cool, spacious, and dark,
book-lined from floor to ceiling, rich in portentous folios. There was the dining-room,
solidly, portwinily English, with its great mahogany table, its eighteenth-century chairs
and sideboard, its eighteenth-century pictures--family portraits, meticulous animal
paintings. What could one reconstruct from such data? There was much of Henry
Wimbush in the long gallery and the library,