Miss Hargreaves

by Frank Baker

  ‘Can anything be proved?’ I said. And I remembered father saying that the only thing he certainly knew was that he knew nothing.

  ‘Supernatural phenomena cannot be proved by natural evidences, Mr Huntley.’

  ‘But I know I made Miss Hargreaves. I know it, Father. I–’

  ‘Wait a minute. Wait a minute. I would like to suggest to you that it is no more certain you created Miss Hargreaves than that St Joseph flew about his church. God may, of course, in His own inscrutable way, have used you for the demonstration of a marvel that we cannot at present understand. He may have done that.’

  ‘That’s it. That’s what I mean.’

  ‘And there may, of course, be a perfectly natural explanation, overlooked at present.’

  ‘I don’t want natural explanations!’ I cried.

  ‘Really, Mr Huntley don’t you?’ He smiled.

  ‘Suppose,’ I went on, ‘that it turns out beyond doubt that nobody in the world had ever seen or heard of Miss Hargreaves before that day I first spoke her name that she suddenly appeared in the world at that moment? Why then, Father Toule, it means that I must have created her.’

  ‘No, Mr Huntley. It means that there must be a supernatural explanation.’

  ‘But that is the only supernatural explanation.’

  ‘Oh, no! Since we really know nothing of the supernatural, there might be a million supernatural explanations. There is one quite obvious possibility. I merely put it to you. There is precedent for our believing that it is possible to raise a dead body from the grave. But no doubt you have thought of that and dismissed it.’

  I was silent. ‘I don’t–like that,’ I said slowly.

  ‘Ah. You prefer the other? Yes. I can quite understand. I wonder–’ He was silent. ‘I was going to say,’ he suggested, ‘that it might ease your mind a little if you could go to Lusk some time and see if by any chance there is a tombstone in the graveyard which bears this lady’s name or a plate, perhaps, in the church itself. What I am trying to suggest to you is that you might have subconsciously noticed the name on your way into the church and brought it out later, not realizing you had seen it.’

  ‘But–you don’t mean–that–I raised her from the dead–the cockatoo–everything–no, I–’

  ‘Oh, please do not let it add to your worries. It is only another possible supernatural explanation. In any case, I feel that a visit to Lusk church might help you to get a clearer perspective of the matter. How very, very interesting it all is! I think you ought to tell this sexton that you were playing a joke on him. Forgive my putting that point of view before you, but it was perhaps rather an unkind thing to do. Unintentional, of course, Mr Huntley.’

  ‘Do you know, that never once occurred to me.’

  ‘He, you see, firmly believes in her existence, though he has never seen her. Whether you have created her in the flesh, you have certainly created her in the mind of that one man. You have, in fact, planted in that mind what may be a lie.’

  ‘Unless–I raised her from the dead.’

  ‘Yes. But I would not dwell too much upon that. It was perhaps silly of me to lay it before you.’

  ‘It’s so awful, Father Toule. Not a soul will believe me. And I can’t help feeling I want to tell everybody, make them believe me, do something that’ll compel them to believe me. That swan, for example–’

  For the first time that evening he frowned.

  ‘I would be very, very careful,’ he said, ‘if you really believe you are endowed with some strange supernatural power, then you must walk very carefully indeed. You must learn to be very humble. Say your prayers about it and accept God’s will. I would not try to probe too deeply into the matter. I am very honoured that you should have come to me, Mr Huntley. I shall accept all that you have told me as if it were under the seal of the Confessional–’

  ‘I don’t mind who you tell,’ I said.

  ‘I would prefer to tell nobody, Mr Huntley.’

  ‘You’re awfully kind,’ I mumbled. For some moments I sat there staring into the gas-fire. Father Toule stifled a yawn. I rose hastily.

  We went to the door. ‘Come and see me at any time,’ he said.

  ‘Yes. Thank you. I’ll be quiet about it. Do as you suggest.’

  ‘I wonder,’ he murmured, ‘whether she has been baptized?’

  ‘Why?’ I asked.

  ‘Never mind. It is a vast problem, Mr Huntley. Too big for our small minds, I fear. I hope, for your own peace, that you discover some perfectly straightforward explanation of the whole mystery.’

  But the trouble was, that I didn’t hope that. As I walked home through the rain, pondering over our talk, I knew that I preferred a supernatural explanation. I stood outside Lessways for fully five minutes, thinking that, inside there, going now to her bed perhaps, was the woman that I had created; or, the woman I had–raised from the dead.

  A letter was waiting for me on the hall-stand. I snatched it up quickly, immediately recognizing the large, flowery handwriting.

  ‘Is that you, Norman?’ called mother from the drawing-room. ‘We’ve got those new records of the Mikado; come and hear them.’

  ‘Not now, mother,’ I said.

  I ran upstairs, past father’s room, up to the next floor to my room at the top of the house. It was cold. I switched on the electric heater, drew the blinds, put on my dressing-gown, one that an uncle of Henry’s had brought back from Persia, rather a gay affair, a reassuring sort of garment. Lighting a cigarette, I took off my shoes. I realized to my annoyance that my hands were shaking. ‘Nervous fool!’ I muttered. Then I tore open Connie’s letter. A minute later I sank back into my chair, Anon with the mask off, beaten, reduced to jelly.

  This is what the letter said:

  ‘Lessways.

  ‘October the 24th.

  ‘An anonymous letter containing a scandalous libel against Lady Hargreaves has just been put into her hands by Mr Carver, who had intended taking it directly to the police. Lady Hargreaves would like Mr Norman Huntley to know that she is well aware of the identity of the cowardly villain who, from his infamous shelter of anonymity, hurls such calumnies against her. Were it not for the fact that she remembers an occasion in Blackwell’s bookshop in Oxford, she would do nothing to prevent Mr Carver from calling in the assistance of the law. As it is, because of an old courtesy, she has decided not to divulge the truth.

  ‘Lady Hargreaves is prepared to overlook, even to forget, this most shameful attack upon her integrity. She will defend herself, if necessary, in her own way and in her own time. Let it not be thought, however, that Mr Norman Huntley will escape a second time, should he be led to perpetrate further outrages upon her.’

  An overwhelming penitence seized hold of me; the most bitter regrets for what I had so shamefully done. Bleakly I looked into the future. All that Father Toule had said came back to me. I went to bed, but I was haunted by her and could not sleep. The window was open a little and, from the other side of the road, through another open window, I could very faintly hear the playing of a harp. What was the tune? I listened, lost it for a moment as a late bus passed, then caught more of it. It was ‘Over the sea to Skye’. A lovely tune. Were they ghostly fingers that plucked the strings? Were they ghostly strings? Was Father Toule right? Were I to return to Lusk should I find a tomb with the words ‘Constance Hargreaves’ engraved on it in beautiful eighteenth-century lettering? And would she ever rest in peace? Was she, perhaps, haunted now by me as I was by her? Who was the haunter, who the haunted?

  If I could undo, if I could only undo what I had done in Lusk church, I moaned to myself, I’d give ten years of my life. Suppose I went back to Lusk, told the sexton it was all a great lie, stood there again by that awful lectern, disclaimed all knowledge of ‘dear Mr Archer’, and, with all the power that my will is capable of, willed her back to her proper place wherever that might be?–

  Father’s room is directly below mine. While I lay on my bed I heard his violin. I pricked up my
ears. Was it true? Yes. He, also, was playing ‘Over the sea to Skye’. As I had, he must have heard Connie’s harp and, consciously or unconsciously, drifted into the same tune himself. The harp stopped now. When he came to the end of the tune, father stopped. The harp started to play again. This time it was ‘The Wearing of the Green’. Half-way through, father took up the tune; for a few moments harp and violin sounded together, the harp almost lost, just audible.

  I got up and went to the window. It was entrancing; otherworldly; I wanted it to go on for ever. Go on, Connie, I said; go on, don’t stop. But she wouldn’t go on. I saw someone coming down the path of Lessways, to the gate, to the road, crossing the road, waiting by a lamp-post, right under father’s window. It was Connie. And, something told me, it was the old Connie, the Connie who had sat in the organ-loft with me and played Handel’s Largo. She was wearing a black coat; no hat. Father was playing ‘Greensleeves’, very slowly and sadly; Connie stood below, her head turned down to the pavement, one hand holding her stick, the other waving gently to the beat of the music. ‘Oh, bravo, bravo!’ I heard her say to herself when father had stopped playing.

  I opened the window a little wider and leant out. Surely, I thought, music must for ever reconcile us?

  ‘Miss Hargreaves–’ I called softly. ‘Miss Hargreaves–’

  She did not hear me. I called again, a little louder. This time she looked up sharply. I had no chance to say any more. As quick as lightning, she crossed the road and disappeared up the drive of Lessways. I heard the slamming of the front door, and though the width of the road and the two gardens was between us, I felt as though it had been slammed straight in my face.

  It was the next evening, or a day or so after–I can’t remember now and my diary got muddled during those queer days–anyhow, it was very soon after that I sat in the Happy Union with father and had one of the most strange and interesting talks with him in my life. He was the smallest bit drunk, to tell you the truth. He’d lost his match in the skittles championship, and losing a match always makes him drink more than he should. Not that my father is a drunkard; don’t go running away with that idea. Only once or twice have I known him like he was that night; another occasion was when Horace scratched the varnish of his violin.

  I came into the bar about half-past nine and found him, for once, sitting alone in my favourite corner, under the framed photograph of all the kings of Europe, taken about 1912 when there were enough kings to make a passable group. Somebody, years ago, had stuck a halfpenny stamp over the Kaiser and it was still there.

  There was a grand fire going and not many chaps in the bar.

  ‘You look glum, Dad,’ I said.

  ‘Fill up,’ was all he said. I ordered a pint of old and mild. Father looked rather glazedly at the row of empty glasses on the table. ‘Janus lost the three-thirty,’ he said. ‘Backed him both ways, my boy. Had to with a name like that. What did Janus have two ears or two elbows, something; anyway, he doubled himself. Put some rum in that. Talk to me. Tell me everything.’

  I took his half-empty beer glass over to the bar and engaged it with a noggin of rum. ‘Talk to me,’ he said again, when I returned.

  ‘Are you in a serious mood, Dad?’

  ‘Never more serious in my life, boy.’

  ‘Well, tell me this. Do you believe you can–raise the dead?’

  ‘Never tried. Dare say’–he drank–‘you might.’

  I drew my chair closer to him. I didn’t want the whole bar to hear. I told him about my talk with Father Toule. For a long time father was silent; he didn’t even drink.

  ‘A ghost couldn’t play a harp as well as she does,’ he said.

  ‘Did you know she came over the road and listened to you last night, Dad?’

  ‘She’s a fine woman. I like her. I shouldn’t like to think she was a ghost.’

  ‘I don’t like to, either. Not a bit. But I’m getting scared, Dad.’ Should I tell him about the anonymous letter and her answer to it? No. Not yet. ‘She may be a fine woman,’ I said, ‘but she’s getting sinister, these days. The way she slammed that door! I can tell you, she’s properly got her knife into me. And it isn’t an ordinary sort of knife, either.’

  ‘I’m a bit muddled, boy. This is the woman you made up?’

  ‘Well, do you really believe I made her up? Do you?’

  He leant low over the table, looked at me with his impossibly ambiguous eyes, and caught hold of my sleeve with his fingers. ‘Look, Norman, my boy, I believe you. I believe in anything. I don’t believe a damn thing’s impossible.’

  For once I knew he was speaking seriously. Whenever father uses the word ‘I’ a good deal, it means he means what he’s saying.

  ‘Go on,’ I said. ‘Talk, Dad.’

  ‘When I was a boy I wanted a lizard, pined for a lizard. In South America it was and everybody had lizards, all the boys had lizards, except me. I sat under a yan-tan tree and said, “I’ve got a beautiful new lizard, the best lizard ever hatched from a lizard egg.” There was a pain in my hand; couldn’t make out what it was. Went on saying that about the lizard over and over again. Presently the pain in my hand got worse and I looked at it; a lizard as long as my violin was biting my little finger. Well, there you are. Did I ever tell you about those elephants? I–’

  ‘Yes. You told me that. But damn it, father! That was just a lizard crawling over the ground in the ordinary way. I mean–’

  ‘Live lizard.’ He banged his fist on the table. ‘Lizard plague that year and every lizard in the country had been killed by lizard poison except the tame ones the boys had. Tell you this lizard was trained to come to me; tell you I made that reptile. In the Zoo now. I presented him. Got too much for me.’

  ‘Yes, but–’ I wiped the sweat off my brow; I felt uneasy. ‘That’s got nothing to do with Miss Hargreaves.’

  ‘Matter of degree,’ he said. He looked at me solemnly and stroked his moustache with the rim of his glass. ‘I could put the whole thing in a nutshell for you. Three words–’

  ‘Don’t tell me about Tennyson. I shall scream.’

  ‘Well, damn it!’ Again he thumped the table. ‘It was Lord Tennyson! I remember those words now. Skulking behind a pillar he was and he dropped this bit of paper. Three words on it. I read them.’

  ‘Well, what the devil were they?’

  ‘Creative thought creates.’

  ‘That all?’ It didn’t seem much to me at the moment.

  Father glared at me. ‘Enough, isn’t it? There’s the key to the whole mystery and you say “is that all”? That’s not the way to treat your father, my lad; not the way at all.’

  ‘I’m sorry, Dad.’

  ‘So you ought to be. I’m trying to help you. I’ve seen what’s going on. I know. She’s no ghost. Creative thought creates. More people in the world than you know started life in that way. Do you realize that millions of people every year are writing letters to Sherlock Holmes? They’re still digging about in the Gray’s Inn Road–’

  ‘Baker Street–’

  ‘Well, wherever the devil lived–still digging about trying to find him. He’s got the biggest mail of anyone, barring Santa Claus and a bambino they put out in some church in Italy on Palm Sunday, or is it Ascension? Your Miss Holway’s another. I’m proud of you, my boy. Proud of you!’ He drank and shook his head several times at me.

  ‘Well,’ I said, ‘I’m glad somebody’s proud of me, anyway. I don’t like it, Dad; I don’t like it, whichever way you look at it I’d give anything never to have started it. I’m miserable. Everybody’s fed up with me. Even Henry keeps out of my way nowadays. They all think I’m dotty, and they’re sick to death of me talking about her. I’ve never been so miserable. She’s ruining my life.’

  ‘Of course,’ said father slowly, ‘you were a fool.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘My boy, I warned you years ago. I knew you’d got this gift. I’ve got it too. I don’t use it. You can’t go tampering with spiritual things and not expect
trouble. Look at that Bitch of Endor.’

  ‘Miss Hargreaves isn’t like that at all.’

  ‘H’m.’ He shook his head slowly from side to side and kicked the coals in the fire with his foot. ‘She’s going to be.’

  ‘Going to be–’ I stared at him and he looked at me very seriously. I got up. I felt hot and heady. ‘My God!’ I said. ‘I must finish this somehow.’

  ‘Be careful,’ he said. ‘Be damn careful. They turn and bite you, boy. I got so worried I nearly took to opium. It was just about then I married your mother. Keep off drugs, boy, whatever you do.’

  ‘It makes you feel like trying anything, doesn’t it?’

  ‘They say Raleigh smoked opium in the Tower. Ever been to the Tower, by the way?’

  ‘I do wish you’d keep to the point, Dad.’

  But father wasn’t interested in the point any more.

  ‘Extraordinary thing, chopping off all those heads. Took your mother there once, but it was closed for repairs.’

  Dreamily his hand curled round the tankard. I could see a story coming.

  ‘Shall I go to Lusk,’ I said, ‘and do my damnedest?’

  ‘Of course,’ murmured father, ‘I was never an admirer of Raleigh. Take that cloak affair. Too ostentatious. Then there was Blenheim. Who lost Blenheim? The whole campaign was sheer folly! He had no powder. Take this beer mug: that’s Austerlitz. This vase is Wellington; this ashtray, Nelson. Hey, miss, bring me a pint of eight! Well, you see ? Can’t be done. Tolstoy demonstrates that in–what’s that hellishly long book about peace and war?’

  I left him; I knew I should get nothing more out of him that night.

  ‘Creative thought Creates’, I muttered over and over again to myself. I went to sleep with those words on my mind. At three o’clock I woke in a sweat from a nightmare. I won’t tell you the nightmare because other people’s dreams are always boring and, if it terrified me, I can’t expect it to terrify anyone else. The point is, when I woke out of that ’mare, I found myself muttering three words over and over again. And those words were ‘Destructive thought Destroys’.