Miss Hargreaves

by Frank Baker

  ‘Oh, God!’ I moaned. Then I read it properly.

  ‘MY DEAR NORMAN,

  ‘Your charming letter gave me such great pleasure. How clever of you to know I should be at Hereford. But then, of course we are such old friends–in spite of the discrepancy–of age that you know my habits almost as well, if not better, than I know them myself.’

  (‘If not better . . .’Why did that strike me as being so horribly sinister?)

  ‘I have little time for a letter now, as I am about to catch my train to Bath, but this is just to tell you that I look forward greatly to seeing you and your dear family on Monday evening. I am curtailing my visit to Bath this year especially to be with you. My train is due to arrive at Cornford at eight-fifteen, post meridian. Will you kindly arrange for a cab as I have — as usual — oh, dear! — rather a lot of luggage. I have taken the liberty of having some of it sent by luggage in advance to your house.

  ‘I am most touched by what you say of my dear old friend, Mr Archer — now, alas, “long, long ago at rest”. One of my most precious possessions is a bath that he gave me years ago. That sounds strange, does it not? But there is a very simple explanation which one day I must tell you if you do not already know.

  ‘There has been such exquisite music at the Cathedral this year. Doctor Hull conducted so admirably beautiful Elijah – beautiful Messiah – beautiful Beethoven Choral – what a heritage!

  ‘I have just composed a triolet which I look forward to reading to you.

  ‘Well, dear, I hope you are in good health and will be able to find time to show me something of your native town and countryside. I may be an old woman, but I still like to get about.

  ‘Till Monday, then,

  ‘Ever most affectionately . . . ’

  Futile rage possessed me. I screwed the letter up and threw it at a passing bus, next minute ran out into the road to recover it, feeling it might be useful as evidence in some way or another. What in God’s name could it all mean? One thing I decided then and there: I’d tell father the whole truth. He’d understand more than mother and Jim.

  Squeen, father’s assistant, was there when I arrived at the shop after Matins. Squeen is naturally thin; you lose him sometimes in the dark corners of the shop. It wouldn’t surprise me to find him flattened out under the Encyclopaedia Britannica.

  ‘Mr Squeen’s glad to see Mr Norman back,’ he said. ‘And did Mr Norman enjoy his visit to the passionate Celtic Isle?’

  He’s got an irritating habit of avoiding the use of the first and second persons in his speech.

  ‘Ripping,’ I said.

  Going straight to the phone, I called up Henry. Squeen sat on a pair of steps and examined his finger-nails.

  ‘Mr Squeen surmises,’ he surmised, ‘that there are more books in this shop than there are people in the Isle of Erin.’

  ‘Shut up, Squeen,’ I said. That’s one thing about him; you can shut him up. Father bullies him unmercifully.

  I heard Henry’s voice.

  ‘Oh, is that you, Henry? Look, I’ve had a letter from the old devil. It mentions the bath.’

  ‘You mean the visit to Bath?’

  ‘No. I don’t. Small b-a-t-h. Mr Archer’s bath. Henry, I think I’m going to have a nervous breakdown. She’s arriving at Cornford to-night at eight-fifteen. You’ll simply have to come to the station with me.’

  ‘Can’t. We’re all going to the Clovertree Dance–don’t you remember? You’ll have to leave the old dear to herself.’

  ‘I daren’t. We must be there. You’ve got to help me.’

  ‘I don’t believe there’ll be anybody there, you know.’

  ‘I can’t risk it.’

  ‘Well, what do you intend to do if she is there?’

  ‘I’ve thought it all out. I shall pack her off to the Swan. If she’s troublesome, I shall get her certified.’

  ‘She might get you certified, old boy. Have you thought of that?’

  ‘You might be a bit more helpful.’

  ‘Read me the letter.’ I did so. ‘H’m,’ he said, ‘I can’t say I care for that bit about luggage in advance.’

  ‘No. Neither do I.’

  ‘All right,’ said Henry. ‘I’ll come with you. We can go on to the dance afterwards. The girls won’t mind if we’re a bit late.’

  ‘What do you think it all means, Henry?’

  ‘Black magic, it sounds like. Why don’t you try making a wax image of her and sticking pins into it? Use drawing-pins. They stay in easier.’

  He rang off and father came down, balancing a set of Tolstoy against his chest.

  ‘Too much of Tolstoy,’ he muttered, ‘nothing but Tolstoy upstairs.’ He shouted suddenly to Squeen. ‘Squeen, make a set-to to-day and rout out that Kelmscott Shakes. And sort out all that Tolstoy.’

  ‘Father,’ I said, ‘I want to have a serious talk with you. I’m very worried.’

  ‘Sit down, boy. Have a cigarette. Woman?’

  I nodded. My father nodded too and jabbed his cigarette-holder in and out of his moustache. It’s a big moustache, rather fine. The holder’s a long one; amber.

  ‘Women,’ said my father, ‘have never really been my cup of tea. They do not understand major issues, and their passion for realism is something I have never felt agreeable to. Nevertheless, the race, as a race, would crumble without them. Squeen, you devil–where are my slippers?’

  Squeen brought him his velvet slippers and father, slipping his feet into them, stretched himself out in his revolving desk-chair. It’s in a corner of the shop, at the back, away from all the windows, very hard to find, hemmed in by all the dullest books to stop customers wandering there. Often you’d go into the shop and never realize father was there. He likes to play chess in his corner or paste photographs in his albums.

  ‘This is not what you think,’ I said. ‘I’m not in love or anything like that. I wish it was as simple.’

  ‘Get if off your chest, boy. I may not listen, but I shall gather the trend of it. You’ll excuse me going on with this chess problem, won’t you? Squeen, shut the door and put the “back-in-ten-minutes” up. Now we can have a little peace.’

  ‘It’s this Miss Hargreaves,’ I said.

  ‘A fine woman from the sound of her. Plays the oboe, don’t she? Now the oboe’s a funny instrument one way and another–’ ‘You remember that time you warned me never to make things up? Well–’

  ‘Old Bach understood the oboe better than any man before or after. You might say old Bach made the oboe.’

  ‘I made her up, see? On the Spur of the Moment. Henry had a finger in it; but only a little finger.’

  ‘Here–this won’t do. I’m one pawn short. Squeen, look for a black pawn, will you? Or bring a pen-nib or something. Go on, my boy. Don’t let me rush you. Plenty of time.’

  ‘She just came into my head, Dad. But she won’t stay there. Everything that I made up about her is coming true. I had a letter from her this morning.’

  ‘Now look here, my boy; be frank with your father. Have you put yourself into a compromising situation, or not? Everything turns on that; it always does.’

  ‘You don’t understand. I’ve never even met her.’

  ‘Yes, I heard you say you’d made her up. What I want to know is –have you made up a compromising situation?’

  ‘No. Not yet.’

  ‘Well, be careful.’

  ‘You do believe me, then?’

  ‘Just you tell me all about it.’

  I did so. I gave him the whole story, from our visit to Lusk church onwards.

  ‘This Archer cove,’ he said. ‘Did you make him up too?’

  ‘No. I told you. He’s real. He’s dead.’

  ‘Why don’t you make her have a railway accident on the way here?’

  ‘It might involve a lot of other people.’

  ‘True.’ He lit another cigarette and moved two knights slowly. ‘It’s alchemy,’ he said, ‘that’s what it is. A sort of alchemy. I’ve got a book on it
somewhere.’ He glanced through a row of books on his desk. ‘Can’t lay may hands on it now. An old book. It’s quite possible. It was done in the Middle Ages, or was it the Dark ones? Who was that fellow? Gilles de Retz or Cardinal Mazarin or somebody. It’s purely a matter of faith. I suppose you had faith when you started in on this job?’

  ‘Well, certainly, the more I talked about Miss–’

  ‘Don’t keep mentioning her name,’ he advised. ‘It’s dangerous. She might easily become immortal. Then where would you be?’

  ‘All I was going to say was, the more I talked about her, the more real she seemed to become.’

  ‘Call her X,’ he suggested, ‘and faith, Y. Well, X + Y = Z, and Z’s reality. It’s all in that old book, worked out with graphs and things. Wish I could find it. Squeen, keep your eyes open for alchemy, will you?’

  ‘Look here, father, I wish you’d be serious.’

  ‘Serious! Never more serious in my life. Something very like this happened to me once. Better not tell your mother. I was in Basingstoke one winter morning; had an appointment to view some books at a sale. Well, something delayed me, don’t know what it was, but anyhow I arrived an hour and a half late. By the way, very comfy little pub, the Blue Star; brewed their own mild in those days. The auctioneer was absurdly angry about me being late; said he’d held the books back specially, and so on. “Miss your train or something?” he said. “No,” I said, “I don’t suppose you’ll ever believe me, but I got held up by an elephant.” Of course I knew he would believe me. People always do if you tell them not to believe you and if you make it extravagant enough. It’s when you try to make a lie sound like the truth that people get suspicious. Naturally.’

  He leant down to a small cupboard near him and brought out a bottle of cherry brandy and two glasses.

  ‘What’s the time?’ he asked.

  ‘Eleven-thirty,’ I said.

  ‘H’m,’ he said. He filled the glasses. ‘Cheerio!’

  ‘Thanks, Dad,’ I said. ‘Well, have you any advice?’

  ‘Oh, I believe you,’ he said. ‘I sympathize. I understand in a way that most people wouldn’t. Look at that! Red Queen’s in check and I never noticed. It’s that damned clothes-peg.’

  ‘She doesn’t play an oboe. You’re wrong about that.’

  ‘Pity. We might have managed one of the Brandenburgs.’

  ‘What am I to do if she does turn up?’

  ‘Yes, an elephant,’ continued father, dreamily tipping up his glass. ‘“Elephant?” said the auctioneer fellow. “Exactly,” I said. “Broke loose from a circus. About a dozen of us were trying to catch the brute. Somebody brought a tennis net but the elephant ate it.” “Well, did they get her?” asked the auctioneer. “Only after a struggle,” I said. “A postman was killed.” Well, do you know, Norman, my boy, I read in my paper that evening that three elephants had stampeded through Basingstoke that very day, upsetting a lot of carts stacked with celery, devouring the entire contents of two bakers’ shops and killing a postman. Three elephants. So you see how careful you have to be. It shook me.’

  ‘Yes, father. Yes, I can see.’

  ‘Well, lunch-time, I suppose?’

  We closed the shop and went round to the Swan.

  The afternoon dragged on. Evensong passed in a sort of dream. I lost my place in a verse anthem (Battishill, I think it was) and plunged the boys into a wrong lead. I was nervous, terribly on edge. Back in the shop I had a cup of tea with father, then tried to work on a little counterpoint. But I couldn’t get on with the stuff at all. I had another look at Wayside Bundle; I searched the shop in case there should be any more copies. I still half wondered whether Henry wasn’t at the bottom of everything. Could he possibly have had the volume specially printed? But it was obviously perfectly genuine; the leaves spotted with age, and it had that dowsy smell about it which only years’ll draw from a book. The title-page, the dedication and the binding might, of course, have been imposed upon a volume of poems by another writer. But was it likely? And could it all have been done in the time?

  Many times I pondered over a sonnet which began:

  Belovéd bath wherein my tiréd feet

  Have oft-time plunged before the peaceful hour

  When sleep descends . . .

  I didn’t like it. I didn’t like anything. And yet–and yet–(will you ever be able to understand this?)–I was already beginning to be curiously proud. Nobody but Miss Hargreaves could have written those poems, whatever Marjorie chose to say about them.

  I went home about six, wondering what eight-fifteen would bring forth; hoping it would bring forth nothing, yet hoping too to see the realization of my invention. Even though it might mean hideous complications, I couldn’t help hoping that.

  Mother and Jim were out. I was rather glad about that. Because I should have found it hard to explain the enormous package in the hall. Janie told me it had just been delivered. It was addressed to Miss Hargreaves c/o Norman Huntley, Esquire, at 38 London Road, Cornford, Bucks.

  It was a very large package indeed. It was done up in sewn sacking, wedges of newspaper and straw. It was, quite clearly, a harp. You could see the pedals.

  3

  HENRY and I were waiting on the platform.

  ‘Stupid waste of time!’ he kept saying. ‘Stupid waste of time!’ But I knew, by the way he was scratching the back of his head with the stem of his pipe, that he was every bit as nervy as I was. It was the harp that had upset him. ‘People don’t go sending harps two hundred miles just for fun,’ he had said. I agreed. We stood and looked at it rather solemnly for nearly five minutes, poking it gingerly now and again, and half expecting that it would suddenly start to play some ghostly tune from under its sacking. Finally, we decided to taxi it to the Swan and leave it; I had already reserved a room in case Miss Hargreaves should actually turn up on the eight-fifteen.

  The train was horribly punctual. I shall never forget that train, the train that brought me my punishment. I remember we were standing by the refreshment room and I sprang nervously forward the moment I saw the engine. Henry drew me back. ‘Stay here,’ he advised. ‘You don’t want to give yourself away, do you? After all, if this horrible woman is on the train, how’s she going to know you are Norman Huntley? She’s never met you. If you rush about looking into carriages, she’ll simply eat you up.’

  It was good advice. Very slowly, oblivious to our suspense, the long line of carriages wriggled between the platforms, shivered a bit, clanked, and sleepily stopped. It looked as though it had crossed the frontiers of fourteen continents; very tired, very bored. A number of doors yawned open; about ten heads protruded from about ten windows. An old parson; a possible commercial traveller; the usual sailor; a fat woman with her baby. Obviously no Miss Hargreaves amongst that lot. By now passengers were walking towards the barrier; they were all unhargreavy-looking creatures, very simple and ordinary. Far away at the back a lot of luggage was dumped out from the guard’s van. Apart from this rear activity, there was little movement.

  I looked at Henry quickly.

  ‘Not here,’ I muttered. I felt half disappointed, half relieved.

  ‘I told you it was all a waste of time,’ said Henry. ‘We’d better go. The girls’ll be furious waiting for–’

  I stopped him and clutched his arm.

  ‘Hear it?’ I muttered.

  ‘Hear what?’

  Henry’s got no ear for music, that’s the trouble. Suddenly I had heard something that I didn’t care for at all. Far away, down at the back of the train, a raw, harsh voice, croaking, very slowly, very ill-temperedly–as though it hated the tune–Macheath’s air from the Beggar’s Opera, ‘Were I laid on Greenland’s coast.’

  ‘My God!’ said Henry. He had heard. We listened, our eyes turned to the back of the train. A dog had yapped; a dog was continually yapping. An irritable dog. Still the ghostly, grudging tune went on, like a dirge. We saw a porter bringing something from the guard’s van; it was a cage covered by a
black cloth. A large cage.

  ‘Dr What’s-his-name!’ said Henry weakly.

  ‘Exactly,’ I said. ‘Dr Pepusch.’ I felt fatalistic; nothing had much power to surprise me.

  Henry stared at me. ‘Are we going batty? Is this a dream?’

  ‘Listen,’ I said. ‘Listen to that!’

  A shrill, imperious voice had cried, ‘Porter! Porter! Porter!’ Simultaneously the cockatoo, with a sepulchral growl on a low D, stopped singing. By now everybody else had got out. A porter sprang to a first-class carriage and opened the door. With his assistance, slowly, fussily, there emerged an old lady. She was carrying two sticks, an umbrella and a large leather handbag. Following her was a fat waddling Bedlington terrier, attached to a fanciful purple cord.

  Old Henry went quite white. ‘Here, let’s go and have a quick one,’ he growled. ‘This is killing me.’

  We dashed into the refreshment room and hurled down double brandies. We couldn’t speak. Through the window we watched, our empty glasses trembling in our hands.

  ‘Henry,’ I moaned, ‘she is exactly as I imagined.’

  Limping slowly along the platform and chatting amiably to the porter, came–well, Miss Hargreaves. Quite obviously it couldn’t possibly be anyone else.