The Question Mark by Muriel Jaeger

Author:Muriel Jaeger [Jaeger, Muriel]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: sci-fi, dystopia, utopia, dystopian, future, Time Travel, feminist, Literary, Moulton, London
ISBN: 9780712352987
Amazon: 0712352988
Publisher: British Library Publishing
Published: 2019-07-17T23:00:00+00:00

III

Blaring noise and light held Guy still for a moment in the doorway of the room in which Terry Wayland was holding his celebration, and to which their guide had hurried them. He had a confused vision of numbers of people eating, drinking, talking, gesticulating, strolling about restlessly. As a background to the confused gabble came the rumble of the crowd outside, heard through an open window, and rising now and then in a series of systematic shouts.

The room in itself was bewildering. Old-fashioned wooden walls, with the heavy fixed seats of an ancient inn parlour, contrasted queerly with a superimposed profusion of lounge-chairs, rugs, cushions, divans, luxurious and brightly coloured as in an Eastern palace, so that the whole gave the almost indecent effect of an old woman in gay clothes. In the centre of the room, on a great divan, a sturdily built youth in a gorgeous dressing-gown rested against a pile of cushions, while a young man at the foot of the couch massaged one of his tremendous calves. Guy looked curiously at him. He had a broad, heavy face, of sallow complexion, surrounded by close dark curls; and Guy perceived immediately how, with the curious sameness in difference of family likenesses, Agatha Wayland’s features underlay his. The scene suggested vaguely a kind of court—bringing back a shadowy recollection of something seen long ago, perhaps in one of the cinematograph films of old Roman life, which had been popular in the early twentieth century—of some burly young gladiator-emperor lying in the midst of his satellites. People in the far corners of the room were talking and laughing among themselves, but there was a constant polarisation towards the divan, and, when the young man who lay on it spoke, everyone stopped to listen.

Ena had darted forward instantly to her brother’s side, and dropped on her knees, with a dramatic cry:

“Oh, Terry! Terry!”

“Oh yes, I daresay.” The young athlete turned to look at her, his lips curling unpleasantly. “You’ve been thinking of nothing but me all the time, haven’t you?… You couldn’t even be here to welcome me back. Where have you been, I want to know? And who is that with you?… Shut those maniacs up, if you can, George Brady.”

A man went over to the window and leaned out.

“Don’t be angry, Terry,” Ena pleaded, her head coaxingly on one side. “We only went for a short little walk up the mountain-side—just to get a better view of the race. And then I hurt my foot and we couldn’t get back… And it’s only Guy Martin.”

“Oh, is it?” Terry just brushed Guy with his eyes. “Well, you’ll please remember another time that I like my family to be there when I come back from a race… By God, Sam Dowler,” he turned viciously on the masseur, “if you can’t do better than that, I’ll never let you touch me again.”

The masseur cringed, muttered abject apologies, and went on with his work with fingers that trembled visibly.

The clamour outside became shot suddenly with shriller, more irregular cries.

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