by James Hilton
'That's right! Now fancy you rememberin' Mrs. Webber. . . . Mrs. Appleby, Mr. Anderson remembers Mrs. Webber!' But Mrs. Appleby did not seem specially interested. 'Poor Mrs. Webber died of a stroke, and then there was the Johnsons, and then the Brackleys--nobody liked THEM--they let the 'ouse down, they did. . . . But now we're all 'appy again, ain't we, Mrs. Appleby?'
'Maybe some of us are,' said Mrs. Appleby as she turned to other customers.
'The fact is,' whispered Mr. Mansfield confidentially, 'she ain't 'ad it too easy litely. That larst raid shook 'er up. Two bombs just rahnd the corner, but only a few winders broke in 'ere. Ain't that luck?'
Charles agreed that it was. 'You're looking very well, Fred--very well indeed.'
'Can't complain. Not so bad for seventy-eight. Your dad still alive an' well, I 'ope?'
'Yes. He's eighty-one.'
'Good for 'im. I remember Sir 'Avelock. . . . I ses to 'im, when 'e left 'ere that time, Sir 'Avelock, I ses, it's bin a honner and a pleasure. Same 'ere, Mr. Mansfield, 'e ses, or words to that effect. I daresay 'e remembers me too.'
'I'm certain he does.'
Mr. Mansfield gripped Charles's arm in a still rising abandonment of delight. 'You know, Charlie, it's 'ard to believe, seein' you again like this. I can't say you don't look older, because you was only a boy in those days, but you certainly ain't changed your drinks, 'ave you? Bitter it was an' bitter it is, an' 'ere you are at the Prince Rupert like you was at 'ome.' But he added, suddenly curious: 'You rahnd 'ere on business?'
'No . . . just chance. I was driving back from Suffolk and found myself so close I thought I'd see what the old place looked like.' As soon as he said it he knew it rang false; it sounded like some sentimental Old Boy revisiting his alma mater. But to Mr. Mansfield the explanation seemed perfectly satisfactory.
'You'll find some changes, Charlie. That is, if you was 'ere in the daytime and could see. Lots of bombs in the 'Igh Road.'
'And at the corner of Ladysmith Road too.'
'You saw that? Ah, that was a narsty one. Land mine, they said.'
'No damage at Number 214, I noticed.'
'So you came by an' 'ad a look? Well, well, to think of you rememberin'. . . . I don't live there no more. When the wife died I moved in with Evelyn an' 'er 'usband--in Roberts Road. Just the next turnin' from 'ere. Convenient.'
'I'm sorry to hear about Mrs. Mansfield.'
'Poor old soul, she missed a lot o' trouble, that's one thing. Bert 'ad to 'ave an operation an' ain't bin the same since. Maud's married and got two boys--lives at Chatham--'er 'usband's in the Navy.'
'And Lily?' said Charles, with sudden breathlessness.
Mr. Mansfield beamed. 'Lily? Why, she done the best of any of 'em. She's married an' in Orsetrilia--got quite a family.' He laid his glass on the counter and began searching his pockets. 'Look . . . She sent me some snaps only a month or two back--taken outside the 'ouse--seaside place near Sydney.' He found a photograph and held it for Charles to inspect. 'See the 'ouse-- pretty, ain't it? Their own, too. . . . Garden all rahnd--not like the 'ouses 'ere. And that's the car they 'ave. . . . 'E's got a good job out there.'
Charles was transfixed by an emotion he could only control by being facetious. 'Very nice--very nice indeed--and Mr. Robinson seems to have put on a little weight.'
Mr. Mansfield looked puzzled. 'ROBINSON?' Then he swung a cordial hand to Charles's back. 'Gorlummy, that ain't Reg Robinson! . . . Is THAT wot you thought? The name's Murdoch--Tom Murdoch. Orsetrilian Scotsman, that's wot 'e calls 'imself. . . . But fancy you thinkin' it was Reg. . . . Dunno wot ever 'appened to Reg. They was sort of engaged for a time, but it didn't larst. Ain't 'eard of 'im now for years.'
'You were saying Lily had a family. . . .'
'You bet she 'as, an' I got a picture of them too if I can find it.' He found it. 'See. . . . Count 'em. . . . An' this is another one of Lily by 'erself. You can't see the 'ouse in this.' He handed them both to Charles.
Charles looked at the one of Lily first. She too had put on weight, not enough to make her stout, but to give her a look of ripeness that of course he could not remember; and yet it was so much like her, so much a fulfilment, that he felt he recognized her as clearly as if he had known her like that in his own life. She was smiling and the little gap between the two teeth at the upper left-hand side was still there. She looked gay and cosy and richly alive, and his heart missed a beat in its rejoicing.
The other photograph showed a row of attractive-looking children ranging in age from thirteen or fourteen to perhaps two.
Mr. Mansfield was gloating over his shoulder. 'See? I said you'd 'ave to count 'em. . . . SIX--an' another on the way since then. I wrote back to 'er when she wrote an' told me that--Lily, I wrote-- just a joke, of course--even if it ain't your fault, you really are makin' a 'abit of it. But she likes kids and she 'as 'em so easy, I suppose she don't mind.' And with a wink Mr. Mansfield added: 'I tell you, Charlie boy, you was lucky that time.'
'WAS I? I WONDER.' Charles hardly whispered the words and was glad they were not heard. He handed back the photographs, forcing himself to catch Mrs. Appleby's eye and order two more bitters. 'She looks fine. When did she meet this Mr. Murdoch?'
'That's wot I never can remember--the year, I mean, but it was the Wembley Exhibition that done it. Tom was in the Orsetrilian Pavilion--that was 'is job, you understand. Lily and me went there one day, we was lookin' at a stuffed kangaroo and a man come up and ses to me--"You interested?" Well, I wasn't, not special, not in kangaroos, but it turned out 'e was interested in Lily--that's why 'e come up to me and started the conversation. All a matter of chawnce, ain't it? Like you droppin' in 'ere tonight. They was married within three months.'
'And happily too, I can see.'
'Well, now, you know Lily--or at least you remember 'er. She always was wot you might call a 'appy girl.' Mr. Mansfield put the photographs carefully back in his pocket. 'I saw in the papers when you was married, Charlie.'
'Yes. I have a little boy of five who's now in America.' The thought of all the children in Ladysmith Road and Roberts Road made him feel apologetic about this. 'We had relatives over there and they wanted to take him.'
'Natchrally,' said Mr. Mansfield, unaware of any need for apology. 'Just like Lily wants me to go to Orsetrilia and live with 'er and Tom, and I would too if I was a kid. Gorlummy, if I was a kid I wouldn't want to stay in England. But at my age it's different. You get yer roots in a plice, Charlie, that's the way it is.'
The drinks arrived and Charles lifted his glass. His voice shook a little, but not noticeably to the old man. He said: 'Well, Fred, let ME say it this time. . . . Here's to us and our dear ones. . . .' That had come back to him too.
* * * * *
They talked on till closing time; then Charles took Mr. Mansfield back to his house in Roberts Road. They shook hands at the gate and Charles meant it when he said he hoped they would meet again. During the very short walk (not worth while to get in and out of the car), he had noticed that Mr. Mansfield was a little unsteady on his feet--hardly from the few drinks, but more likely a sign of age that had not been apparent in the Prince Rupert. Another and perhaps a sadder sign was that Charles had been introduced in the bar to no one except Mrs. Appleby, who had not been too cordial. It rather looked as if the old fellow had outlived his cronies and that younger patrons found him a bore. Charles's sympathy was acute because he himself had a morbid fear of being a bore, a fear that sometimes made him awkward and speechless, or else foolish and facetious, in the presence of people who were perfectly satisfied for him to be himself. But Fred Mansfield WAS himself at all times, and always had been; and if others found him a bore he would bore them more by not realizing it, or else (as he had with Mrs. Appleby) find some charitable reason for having been snubbed. And to Charles this seemed the saddest thing of all.
He drove back to London and was in bed before midnight. There was no raid, but he could not sleep. He wished he were in a house or flat where he could
go to the kitchen and make himself a cup of tea, but his club bedroom had no such facilities and after an hour or two of lying awake he got up and looked in desperation for some job to do. It was too late to dress and go out again and he had little to read except the pencilled notes he had made at the Under- Secretary's house; these, with their deep concern for Cypriotes and Turks, did not easily engage his attention in the mood he was in. Lacking any better idea to pass the time, he turned to the suitcases he had brought with him from the Chelsea flat; he hadn't unpacked, since his stay at the club could only be temporary, but he had stuffed them so hastily with personal things that he thought it might be worth while to sort out the contents. Several were full of papers grabbed from desks and bureau drawers--old letters and miscellaneous documents he hadn't looked at for years, but which, from the fact that he had ever preserved them at all, might be considered of some importance. But, of course, as always happens with such accumulations, many seemed at this later date quite valueless, so he began to tear them up. There was a certain pleasure in doing this, though to be on the safe side he would take the fragments to the office in the morning and burn them in the fireplace . . . notes on the Tacna-Arica boundary dispute, for instance, flimsies about forgotten visits of forgotten foreign officials, a copy of a preposterous letter from a duchess to Ramsay MacDonald complaining that she had been insulted by a customs inspector at Pontarlier (this, Charles remembered, had been handed round the Office for laughs). And there were also more personal oddments--ancient menu cards and concert programmes with names and addresses scribbled on them of people he had met and had wished to remember at least for a time; worthless paper money of countries that had devalued their currencies; cuttings from newspapers and magazines; reports of company meetings; a dossier of correspondence with the P.L.M. about a lost trunk; old lists of dinner guests in Jane's handwriting with places at table arranged according to protocol (what a job that had sometimes been!). And then--suddenly-- a foolscap envelope full of snapshots and letters from Lily. . . . Lily standing by the Serpentine bridge, eating a bun from a paper bag; Lily leaning out of a train window waving her hand; Lily against the background of the turnstile entrance to the Zoo; Lily in a mackintosh and sou'wester, facing the wind and rain on the slopes of Box Hill; Lily feeding the squirrels in Regent's Park; Lily in the doorway of a cottage that had a home-painted inscription 'Teas' with the 's' turned the wrong way. . . . So many places, so many scenes, and in nearly all of them Lily was smiling--not with the fixed grin of a pose, but as if she had always had something to smile about--which perhaps she had. The letters, too, were light-hearted, though usually not much more than fixings or confirmations of appointments. She had hardly been a good letter writer, though nothing she ever wrote was stiff or self- conscious. She simply could not be bothered to write when she was to meet someone soon; which was why, doubtless, the longest of all her letters to Charles was the last--the one when she was not to meet him soon, or indeed again.
When Charles unfolded this letter after an interval of a good many years, the memory it gave him was predominantly of the Rhineland village where he had first read it--a cold twilight with snow in the air and Brunon handing him a batch of mail picked up at the post office. He remembered his own distress with something of the sad contentment that time always brings; so that he even paused to light a cigarette, as if to savour the re-reading.
Dearest Charlie,
I don't know how to write this, but I must, and I hope you won't be hurt. Perhaps you won't be after all this time, it seems years and years to me. Reg and I are engaged. Oh Charlie, please don't be upset. It's for the best, like your dad and my dad both told me, and especially now you've done so well in all the examinations and are going to have such a wonderful future. I was so happy when I heard about that, really I was. You know it was the one thing that had been worrying me all along, that you'd spent too much time with me when you ought to have been studying. But now that's all right. I'll bet you were pleased when you heard the news. My dad told me about it and I wanted to write then to congratulate you, but he said no, he'd given his word. But he said I could write this. Oh Charlie, I can't say much more. I'll always remember you and hope you'll go on having great success, I'm sure you will. I can't say all I would like to in a letter, perhaps it wouldn't reach you if I did, so better not, eh? I know you never liked Reg, but he really is all right when you get to know him. Charlie, I did love that visit to Cambridge. Dear Charlie, this is all I can say.
Yours affectionately
Lily
Charles put the letter back in the envelope, and of all the emotions revived and reviving in his heart the only one he could express in the words of thought was a rueful: Poor old Reg, so you didn't get her after all, did you?
* * * * *
A week or so later Charles gave up the Chelsea flat for good and, since he could not stay at his club indefinitely, found a house in Westminster, near the river and within walking distance of the Foreign Office. It was a larger establishment than he needed for himself alone, and after much speculation as to how such a plan would work, he invited his father and Cobb to share it with him. One of his reasons was that Cobb, though too old for much personal activity, would excellently supervise and supplement any other domestic staff that Charles might be lucky enough to get; he hoped at least for a woman to cook and clean. But the chief reason was Havelock who at last, in his eighties, was beginning to experience that slight diminution of the life-force which often visits men as early as their forties. Also, according to the doctor, he had had an almost imperceptible stroke; it made him cut down his daily walking from five or six miles to two or three. Even more importantly, it clouded his mind to a merely dull inertia at times when formerly he would have been zestfully foolish; it stilled the riot in his veins to a mere fracas. All of this Charles considered, without cynicism, to be a great improvement. Certainly a household arrangement that had many other advantages was thus made possible.
There was an added consideration in the likelihood that Charles himself would be away a good deal in the foreseeable future. He had been told, informally, that a delegation to America was on the cards and that he would be a member of it.
Charles went to America in the autumn of the year. Most of his time was spent in Washington, but he had the chance of a weekend at Parson's Corner, Connecticut, where Gerald was living with the Fuesslis. The leaves were turning and the country round Parson's Corner was very beautiful. Aunt Birdie had already returned to England and before doing so had told the boy about his mother; as everyone had hoped, he had taken it well. Almost too well, indeed, for Charles's equanimity; it made him realize that Jane, like himself, had had little chance to enjoy parenthood during the rootless years imposed by his career, and that losing her for ever had been easier for Gerald than separation from Aunt Birdie when the latter left Parson's Corner--for then, Mrs. Fuessli said, had occurred the real privation. But even that had only been temporary; Gerald had soon recovered. Throughout the weekend with the Fuesslis his son's innocent happiness made Charles both sad and glad. It also made him act, perversely, the role of the Galsworthian English gentleman that the Fuesslis expected him to be even while they laughed at him for it--as if this laughter was the only return he could give for their kindness and generosity. They would never guess it, he knew, but the social freedom of America was something he passionately envied--or rather, it was something he wished he could have been involved in from his own early youth; as it was, there were all the conditioned reflexes of his upbringing hard at work to point out the flaws--one of which was the mood in which the local paper reported his arrival under the headline 'British Blueblood Visits Parson's Corner'. It took him ten minutes to explain to Mrs. Fuessli that he had no blue blood, that his family was rather boastful of not having any, that blue blood was all nonsense anyhow, and that his father's title was the equivalent of Woolworth rather than Tiffany. But it took him the same ten minutes to realize that she would always continue to think of him as an Englis
h aristocrat, that she thought of all aristocrats as idlers and fortune-hunters even though they might appear to be rich themselves or to have jobs, and that her warm affection for Gerald was invincibly joined with a relish in sending Fauntleroy to the local nursery school where he mixed with all the other children of the town and was (everyone fortunately could agree on this) having a rare good time.
So Charles left Parson's Corner in deep gratitude and slight dismay, thinking alternately that Gerald's life in America would not matter much when the war was over and he could return to England, and the next moment hoping that it WOULD matter, very much indeed, and that the boy would get something out of it of lasting value. Of course there was nothing for him, Charles, to do but wait. That joke he had had with the Fuesslis about taking Gerald to dinner on his seventeenth birthday was really a symbol of a father as well as a son growing up.
* * * * *
Charles reached London a few days before Pearl Harbour. It was another turning point of the war, and the second that year. He kept thinking of Parson's Corner and how the news must have reached the Fuesslis--how they would doubtless be trying to explain to Gerald what had happened. He wrote them a long letter immediately, a letter so warmly personal and intimate he hoped it would finally convince them that, blueblood or not, he was a human being. He didn't know (until years later, when he didn't mind) that they had proudly sent it to the local paper in which, printed verbatim and with editorial endorsement, it had convinced the whole neighbourhood that he was a great English statesman and patriot.
