The Penguin Book of the British Short Story, Volume 1

by Philip Hensher

  ‘What a lot of mawths there be!’ said Luke.

  Olive went to the window to watch them. Swarms of fat brown furry moths with large heads pattered and fluttered silently about the shut panes, forming themselves into a kind of curtain on the black window. Now and then one of their eyes would catch a reflection from the light and it would burn with a fiery crimson glow.

  ‘Good night, ma’am,’ the gardener said, taking the gun away with him. Outside, he picked up the dead rabbit and put it in his pocket. Olive drew the curtains; she did not like the moths’ eyes, they were demons’ eyes, and they filled her with melancholy. She took the tall brandy bottle from the table and went to replace it in a cabinet. In the cabinet she saw her little silver teapot, a silver teapot on a silver tray with a bowl and a jug. Something impelled her to fill the teapot from the long slim bottle. She poured out a cup and drank it quickly. Another. Then she switched out the light, stumbled to the couch, and fell upon it, laughing stupidly and kicking her heels with playful fury.

  That was the beginning of Olive’s graceless decline, her pitiable lapse into intemperance. Camilla one May evening had trotted across to Olive’s cottage; afterwards she could recall every detail of that tiniest of journeys; rain had fallen and left a sort of crisp humidity in the gloomy air; on the pathway to Olive’s door she nearly stepped on a large hairy caterpillar solemnly confronting a sleek nude slug. That lovely tree by Olive’s door was desolated, she remembered; the blossoms had fallen from the flowering cherry tree so wonderfully bloomed; its virginal bridal had left only a litter and a breath of despair. And then inside Olive’s hall was the absurd old blunderbuss hanging on a strap, its barrel so large that you could slip an egg into it. Camilla fluttered into her friend’s drawing-room. ‘Olive could you lend me your gridiron?’ And there was Olive lounging on the settee simply incredibly drunk! In daylight! It was about six o’clock of a May day. And Olive was so indecently jovial that Camilla, smitten with grief, burst into tears and rushed away home again.

  She came back of course; she never ceased coming back, hour by hour, day after day; never would she leave Olive alone to her wretched debauches. Camilla was drenched with compunction, filled with divine energy; until she had dragged Olive from her trough, had taken her to live with her again under her own cherishing wings, she would have no rest. But Olive was not always tipsy, and though moved by Camilla’s solicitude, she refused to budge, or ‘make an effort’, or do any of the troublesome things so dear to the heart of a friend. Fond as she was of Camilla, she had a disinclination – of course she was fond of her, there was nothing she would not do for Camilla Hobbs – a disinclination to reside with her again. What if they had lived together for twenty years? It is a great nuisance that one’s loves are determined not by judgment but by the feelings. There are two simple tests of any friendly relationship: can you happily share your bed with your friend, and can you, without unease, watch him or her partake of food? If you can do either of these things with amiability, to say nothing of joy, it is well between you; if you can do both it is a sign that your affection is rooted in immortal soil. Now, Olive was forthright about food; she just ate it, that was what it was for. But she knew that even at breakfast Camilla would cut her bread into little cubes or little diamonds; if she had been able to she would surely have cut it into little lozenges or little marbles; in fact, the butter was patted into balls the same as you had in restaurants. Every shred of fat would be laboriously shaved from the rasher and discarded. The cube or the diamond would be rolled in what Camilla called the ‘jewse’ – for her to swallow the grease but not the fat was a horrible mortification to Olive – rolled and rolled and then impaled by the fork. Snip off a wafer of bacon, impale it; a triangle of white egg, impale that; plunge the whole into the yolk. Then, so carefully, with such desperate care, a granule of salt, the merest breath of pepper. Now the knife must pursue with infinite patience one or two minuscular crumbs idling in the plate and at last wipe them gloatingly upon the mass. With her fork lavishly furnished and elegantly poised, Camilla would then bend to peer at sentences in her correspondence and perhaps briskly inquire:

  ‘Why are you so glum this morning, Olive?’

  Of course Olive would not answer.

  ‘Aren’t you feeling well, dear?’ Camilla would exasperatingly persist, still toying with her letters.

  ‘What?’ Olive would say.

  Camilla would pop the loaded fork into her mouth, her lips would close tightly upon it, and when she drew the fork slowly from her encompassing lips it would be empty, quite empty and quite clean. Repulsive!

  ‘Why are you so glum?’

  ‘I’m not!’

  ‘Sure? Aren’t you?’ Camilla would impound another little cube or diamond and glance smilingly at her letters. On that count alone Olive could not possibly resume life with her.

  As for sleeping with Camilla – not that it was suggested that she should, but it was the test – Olive’s distaste for sharing a bed was ineradicable. In the whole of her life Olive had never known a woman with whom it would have been anything but an intensely unpleasant experience, neither decent nor comfortable. Olive was deeply virginal. And yet there had been two or three men who, perhaps, if it had not been for Camilla – such a prude, such a killjoy – she might – well, goodness only knew. But Camilla had been a jealous harpy, always fond, Olive was certain, of the very men who had been fond of Olive. Even Edgar Salter, who had dallied with them one whole spring in Venice. Why, there was one day in a hayfield on the Lido when the grass was mown in May – it was, oh, fifteen years ago. And before that, in Paris, Hector Dubonnel, and Willie Macmaster! Camilla had been such a lynx, such a collar-round-the-neck, that Olive had found the implications, the necessities of romance quite beyond her grasp. Or, perhaps, the men themselves – they were not at all like the bold men you read about, they were only like the oafs you meet and meet and meet. Years later, in fact not ten years ago, there was the little Italian count in Rouen. They were all dead now, yes, perhaps they were dead. Or married. What was the use? What did it all matter?

  Olive would lie abed till midday in torpor and vacancy, and in the afternoon she would mope and mourn in dissolute melancholy. The soul loves to rehearse painful occasions. At evening the shadows cast by the down-going sun would begin to lie aslant the hills and then she would look out of her window, and seeing the bold curves bathed in the last light, she would exclaim upon her folly. ‘I have not been out in the sunlight all day; it would be nice to go and stand on the hill now and feel the warmth just once.’ No, she was too weary to climb the hill, but she would certainly go tomorrow, early, and catch the light coming from the opposite heaven. Now it was too late, or too damp, and she was very dull. The weeks idled by until August came with the rattle of the harvest reapers, and then September with the boom of the sportsman’s gun in the hollow coombs. Camilla one evening was sitting with her, Camilla who had become a most tender friend, who had realized her extremity, her inexplicable grief; Camilla who was a nuisance, a bore, who knew she was not to be trusted alone with her monstrous weakness for liquor, who constantly urged her to cross the garden and live in peace with her. No, no, she would not. ‘I should get up in the night and creep away,’ she thought to herself, ‘and leave her to hell and the judgment,’ but all she would reply to Camilla was: ‘Enjoy your own life, and I’ll do mine. Don’t want to burden yourself with a drunken old fool like me.’

  ‘Olive! Olive! What are you saying?’

  ‘Drunken fool,’ repeated Olive sourly. ‘Don’t badger me any more, let me alone, leave me as I am. I – I’ll – I dunno – perhaps I’ll marry Feedy.’

  ‘Nonsense,’ cried Camilla shrilly. She turned on the light and drew the blinds over the alcove window. ‘Nonsense,’ she cried again over her shoulder. ‘Nonsense.’

  ‘You let me alone, I ask you,’ commanded her friend. ‘Do as I like.’

  ‘But you can’t – you can’t think – why, don’t be stupid!’

&nb
sp; ‘I might. Why shouldn’t I? He’s a proper man; teach me a lot of things.’

  Camilla shuddered. ‘But you can’t. You can’t, he is going to marry somebody else.’

  ‘What’s that?’ sighed Olive. ‘Who? Oh God, you’re not thinking to marry him yourself, are you? You’re not going—’

  ‘Stuff! He’s going to marry Quincy. He told me so himself. I’d noticed them for some time, and then, once, I came upon them suddenly, and really—! Honest love-making is all very well, but, of course, one has a responsibility to one’s servants. I spoke to him most severely, and he told me.’

  ‘Told you what?’

  ‘That they were engaged to be married, so what—’

  ‘Quincy?’

  ‘Yes, so what can one do?’

  ‘Do? God above!’ cried Olive. She touched a bell and Quincy came in answer. ‘Is this true?’

  Quincy looked blankly at Miss Sharples.

  ‘Are you going to marry Mr Feedy?’

  ‘Yes’m.’

  ‘When are you going to marry Mr Feedy?’ Olive had risen on unsteady legs.

  ‘As soon as we can get a house, ma’am.’

  ‘When will that be?’

  The girl smiled. She did not know; there were no houses to be had.

  ‘I won’t have it!’ shouted Olive suddenly, swaying. ‘But no, I won’t, I won’t! You wretched devil! Go away, go off. I won’t have you whoring about with that man, I tell you. Go off, off with you; pack your box!’

  The flushing girl turned savagely and went out, slamming the door.

  ‘Oh, I’m drunk,’ moaned Olive, falling to the couch again. ‘I’m sodden. Camilla, what shall I do?’

  ‘Olive, listen! Olive! Now you must come to live with me; you won’t be able to replace her. What’s the good? Shut up the house and let me take care of you.’

  ‘No, stupid wretch I am. Don’t want to burden yourself with a stupid wretch.’ With her knuckle Olive brushed a tear from her haggard eyes.

  ‘Nonsense, darling!’ cried her friend. ‘I want you immensely. Just as we once were, when we were so fond of each other. Aren’t you fond of me still, Olive? You’ll come, and we’ll be so happy again. Shall we go abroad?’

  Olive fondled her friend’s hand with bemused caresses. ‘You’re too good, Camilla, and I ought to adore you. I do, I do, and I’m a beast.’

  ‘No, no, listen.’

  ‘Yes, I am. I’m a beast. I tell you I have wicked envious feelings about you, and sneer at you, and despise you in a low secret way. And yet you are, oh, Camilla, yes, you are true and honest and kind, and I know it, I know it.’ She broke off and stared tragically at her friend. ‘Camilla, were you ever in love?’

  The question startled Camilla.

  ‘Were you?’ repeated Olive. ‘I’ve never known you to be. Were you ever in love?’

  ‘Oh – sometimes – yes – sometimes.’

  Olive stared for a moment with a look of silent contempt, then almost guffawed.

  ‘Bah! Sometimes! Good Lord, Camilla. Oh no, no, you’ve never been in love. Oh no, no.’

  ‘But yes, of course,’ Camilla persisted, with a faint giggle.

  ‘Who? Who with?’

  ‘Why, yes, of course, twenty times at least,’ admitted the astonishing Camilla.

  ‘But listen, tell me,’ cried Olive, sitting up eagerly as her friend sat down beside her on the couch. ‘Tell me – it’s you and I – tell me. Really in love?’

  ‘Everybody is in love,’ said Camilla slowly, ‘some time or another, and I was very solemnly in love – well – four times. Olive, you mustn’t reproach yourself for – for all this. I’ve been – I’ve been bad, too.’

  ‘Four times! Four times! Perhaps you will understand me, Camilla, now. I’ve been in love all my life. Any man could have had me, but none did, not one.’

  ‘Never mind, dear. I was more foolish than you, that’s all, Olive.’

  ‘Foolish! But how? It never went very far?’

  ‘As far as I could go.’

  Olive eyed her friend, the mournful, repentant, drooping Camilla.

  ‘What do you mean? How far?’

  Camilla shrugged her shoulders. ‘As far as love takes you,’ she said.

  ‘Yes, but –’ pursued Olive, ‘do you mean—?’

  ‘I could go no further,’ Camilla explained quickly.

  ‘But how – what – were you ever really and truly a lover?’

  ‘If you must know – that is what I mean.’

  ‘Four times!’

  Camilla nodded.

  ‘But I mean, Camilla, were you really, really, a mistress?’

  ‘Olive, only for a very little while. Oh, my dear,’ she declined on Olive’s breast, ‘you see, you see, I’ve been worse, much worse than you. And it’s all over. And you’ll come back and be good too?’

  But her friend’s eagerness would suffer no caresses; Olive was sobered and alert. ‘But – this, I can’t understand – while we were together – inseparable we were. Who – did I know them? Who were they?’

  Camilla, unexpectedly, again fairly giggled. ‘Well, then, I wonder if you can remember the young man we knew at Venice—?’

  ‘Edgar Salter, was it?’ Olive snapped at the name.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And the others? Willie Macmaster and Hercules and Count Filippo!’ Olive was now fairly raging. Camilla sat with folded hands. ‘Camilla Hobbs, you’re a fiend,’ screamed Olive, ‘a fiend, a fiend, an impertinent immoral fool. Oh, how I loathe you!’

  ‘Miss Sharples,’ said Camilla, rising primly, ‘I can only say I despise you.’

  ‘A fool!’ shrieked Olive, burying her face in the couch; ‘an extraordinary person with a horrible temper and intolerant as a – yes, you are. Oh, intolerable beast!’

  ‘I can hardly expect you to realize, in your present state,’ returned Camilla, walking to the door, ‘how disgusting you are to me. You are like a dog that barks at every passer.’

  ‘There are people whose minds are as brutal as their words. Will you cease annoying me, Camilla!’

  ‘You imagine’ – Camilla wrenched open the door – ‘you imagine that I’m trying to annoy you. How strange!’

  ‘Oh, you’ve a poisonous tongue and a poisonous manner; I’m dreadfully ashamed of you.’

  ‘Indeed.’ Camilla stopped and faced her friend challengingly.

  ‘Yes.’ Olive sat up, nodding wrathfully. ‘I’m ashamed and deceived and disappointed. You’ve a coarse soul. Oh,’ she groaned, ‘I want kindness, friendship, pity, pity, pity, pity, most of all, pity. I cannot bear it.’ She flung herself again to the couch and sobbed forlornly.

  ‘Very well, Olive, I will leave you. Good night.’

  Olive did not reply and Camilla passed out of the room to the front door and opened that. Then: ‘Oh,’ she said, ‘how beautiful, Olive!’ She came back into Olive’s room and stood with one hand grasping the edge of the door, looking timidly at her friend. ‘There’s a new moon and a big star and a thin fog over the barley field. Come and see.’

  She went out again to the porch and Olive rose and followed her. ‘See,’ cried Camilla, ‘the barley is goosenecked now, it is ripe for cutting.’

  Olive stood staring out long and silently. It was exquisite as an Eden evening, with a sleek young moon curled in the fondling clouds; it floated into her melancholy heart. Sweet light, shadows, the moon, the seat, the long hills, the barley field, they twirled in her heart with disastrous memories of Willie Macmaster, Edgar Salter, Hercules, and Count Filippo. All lost, all gone now, and Quincy Pugh was going to marry the gardener.

  ‘Shall I come with you, Camilla? Yes, I can’t bear it any longer; I’ll come with you now, Camilla, if you’ll have me.’

  Camilla’s response was tender and solicitous.

  ‘I’ll tell Quincy,’ said Olive. ‘She and Luke can have this cottage, just as it is. I shan’t want it ever again! They can get married at once.’ Camilla was ecstatic. ‘And then will
you tell me, Camilla,’ said Olive, taking her friend’s arm, ‘all about – all about – those men!’

  ‘I will, darling; yes, yes, I will,’ cried Camilla. ‘Oh, come along.’

  E. M. Delafield

  Holiday Group

  I

  The Reverend Herbert Cliff-Hay’s legacy had been paid at last. It seemed almost incredible, they had waited for it so long, talked about it so much, and alas! borrowed money upon it twice already. It reached them, indeed, in a terribly diminished form, what with death duties, and mysterious stamps, and fees of which they had had no previous cognisance.

  The Reverend Herbert paid back all the borrowed money, and paid the premium on little Martin’s Educational Annuity Policy a whole month before it was actually due, and took out a brand new Educational Annuity Policy for little Theodore, who had reached the age of nineteen months without his parents’ having been able to afford this so necessary outlay on his behalf.

  Their second child, Constance, being a girl, Herbert had not thought it necessary to do more than open a Post-Office Savings Account for her. Constance, as a matter of fact, would have been his favourite child, if he had considered it right to have a favourite child – which he didn’t – but with boys, one had to think about education. The legacy paid their debts, enabled him to put a tiny nest-egg into the bank, and caused Herbert to make an announcement to his wife.