The Adventure - Part One

Claude Appleyard lit his pipe and sank a little more deeply into his favorite leather armchair. He puffed a bored smoke ring – and then another – and looked over at Clarice. She was busy marking up a Christie’s sale catalogue. Her industry annoyed him.

            Clarice felt the weight of his stare and looked up from her work.

            “What’s the matter, Claude?”

            He puffed out another plume of smoke in answer.

            Rain pattered against the sills of the sitting room window. A fire crackled in the hearth, but it failed to cheer.

“D--- it, I’m bored,” Claude said at last.

            “I can see that.” said Clarice. “The rain may soon let up. Shall we go for a drive?”

            “Hrmmph. Too damp.”

            The tall clock in the hallway ticked off the seconds, the minutes and then gonged the half hour. The only other sounds in the cottage were the snapping of catalogue pages and Claude’s drawn out sighs.

            “There’s got to be more to life than motoring,” he said at last.

            “I’m afraid there is,” said Clarice.

            He did not have to look at Clarice to know that she had put on her frown of smug knowingness. Clarice saw all of life as an adventure. Soon she would suggest that they go out on some cultural expedition, the tedium of which would push Claude to the limits.

            As if on cue, she said “It says here that a genuine, complete copy of the Gutenberg Bible is going to be put on exhibit in Laurel Grove. It’s on its way to America. A college in New England has bought it for its library. But the curators have agreed to allow it to be displayed at all the ports of call from Austria to Connecticut.”

            Claude tapped out his pipe, and pulled himself out of his chair. He knew what was coming next.

            “Where are you going?”

            “To fetch my coat.”

            “Why?”

            “ ‘Why? Why?’ she asks!” Claude rolled his eyes heavenward.

            “Well?”

            “Well what?”

            “Aren’t you going to say it?”

            “Say what? Claude, you are in one of your most peculiar moods.” Clarice tsked, shook her head, and removed her reading spectacles. “I was merely going to suggest – ”  

            “HA!”

            “Ha? Claude, must you behave so rudely!”

            “That’s because you were ‘merely going to suggest’ – ”

            “That we must go to see the bible!” They said it in chorus. But somehow, Claude felt that he had been beaten.

            A lecture was sure to follow.