The Complete Bostock and Harris

by Leon Garfield

  “Oh, you nasty little calculating bitch!” cried Maggie Hemp, her fury rising to great heights as she marched across North Street and was nearly knocked down by a cart. “Why couldn’t you have come out with it instead of all that lying? Why couldn’t you have said openly, ‘Maggie dear, do you mind very much if we don’t go and watch the comet together? You see, there’s somebody else.’ Why couldn’t you have told the truth, you viper, you? I would have understood. I would have said: ‘Of course, Dolly. I don’t mind a bit.’ But no! Not you, Dolly Harris! You’re just like the rest of them, lying and cheating and being sly . . . like—like weasels and stoats and—and other things!”

  As Miss Hemp’s father was a butcher, it was only natural for her to associate the worst failings in character with animals you couldn’t eat.

  Poor Maggie Hemp! She never came across a deer or a nice tender lamb; she was always finding herself to be the one honest soul in a nasty sly world. And the worst of it was that when she found people out, they always turned on her in the cruelest way.

  “Maggie Hemp!” someone once said to her after she’d told that person that she knew perfectly well what was going on. “You must have a mind like a corkscrew to think in the roundabout, twisted way you do!”

  By the time she got home, her eyes were quite swollen from weeping, and the burning question of who was Dolly Harris’s secret lover was still unanswered.

  It so tormented her that she went straight up to her room and quite forgot her music lesson until her mother came to call her. She was a quarter of an hour late, and her teacher, Mr. Philip Top-Morlion, had become very agitated.

  Ordinarily he was a mild young man who taught the flute and fiddle and helped out at dances. But lately his father, Monsieur Maurice Top-Morlion—a Frenchman who had married an English lady—had been laid up with a stomach disorder on account of shellfish, so all the work was loaded onto Philip.

  In addition to his own instruments, he now had to teach the cello and the pianoforte to young ladies all over the town. If one pupil was thoughtless enough to be a quarter of an hour late, Philip, with his father’s cello strapped to his back, had to run like a hare to his next lesson, as his mother, who taught drawing, singing, and dancing, always wanted the pony and cart.

  Consequently he was rather abrupt with Miss Hemp. When he rose to go and she pointed out that she’d had only fifty minutes instead of the hour her pa paid for, he reminded her that she was the one who’d been late, and it wasn’t fair to expect Miss Harris to suffer on her account.

  “Miss Harris? Miss Dolly Harris?”

  “Yes,” said Philip with every appearance of innocence. “My father’s ill so I’m giving her her lesson today.”

  “How very convenient,” said Miss Hemp, as everything suddenly became as clear as crystal to her. “How very convenient for you, Mr. Top-Morlion!”

  “Not really, Miss Hemp. It’s quite a long way from here, you know.”

  “Quite a long way,” repeated Miss Hemp. “And a very twisting, roundabout way, if I might say so.”

  “I don’t understand you, Miss Hemp. It’s quite a straight road once you’re past North Street.”

  “You might call it a straight road, and she might call it a straight road,” said Miss Hemp, grasping her flute like a truncheon. “But other people might think differently, Mr. Top-Morlion.”

  “I—I really don’t know what you’re talking about, Miss Hemp! Please, I must go now. I can’t keep Miss Harris waiting any longer.”

  “Oh, no! That would never do! Don’t keep Miss Harris waiting!”

  “Please practice that last piece before next week.”

  “Oh, yes. Before Saturday, especially. We wouldn’t want anything to go wrong before Saturday, would we! We must look after poor, silly Miss Hemp until Saturday, mustn’t we! We must keep her busy!” said Miss Hemp, choking back her sobs in a series of moist explosions.

  “Go on, Mr. Top-Morlion! Don’t keep Miss Harris waiting! Go to her! Run—run, you—you tomcat, you!”

  Chapter Six

  PHILIP Top-Morlion, always in a hurry, trotted away from the Hemps’ with his flute in his pocket, his fiddle under his arm, and his father’s cello bumping against his back, where it was fastened by a complicated harness of straps. In addition, he carried an old leather case, so enormously bloated with songs, sonatas, duets, concertos, and the several beginnings of a grand symphony of his own composing that it was in constant danger of exploding and strewing his path with an autumn of tunes.

  He was all music. He lived it, he breathed it, and even had dreams of eating it: whole platefuls of crochets the size of mutton chops. The very frown of perplexity that at present furrowed his brow declared itself in five parallel lines, like a stave.

  “What the devil was she talking about?” he muttered.

  He didn’t know Miss Harris from Eve, and all that was happening on the Saturday night was that he and his family had been engaged to play music for dancing on Devil’s Dyke if the weather proved kind. So far as he was concerned, Miss Harris and Miss Hemp could go wherever Pigott’s comet was going. And the sooner the better.

  He disliked all the young ladies to whom he was forced to give lessons, and he disliked their parents even more. He disliked them for the way they patronized music as if it were a mere pastime, and he disliked them for the way they patronized him.

  True, when he entered a house and divested himself of his instrumental shell—his flute, his fiddle, his father’s cello, and his music case—there stood revealed a somewhat threadbare youth, as thin and melancholy as a penny whistle. But there was a soul within him that soared in regions sublime. It ought to have been respected, instead of being received with, “It’s only that Mr. Top-Morlion, dear. Now don’t tease the poor young man!”

  Crash—crash—crash! went horrid discords inside his breast, and huge fortissimos of anger thundered unheard as his maddeningly meek voice inquired, “And have you practiced your last piece, miss?”

  Of all his pupils he disliked Miss Hemp the most heartily. He had been teaching her to play the flute for about half a year, and it was only by the greatest effort that he’d refrained from filling her spirit with music by way of thrusting that melodious instrument down her throat as far as it would go.

  He detested her so much that he couldn’t help thinking that Miss Harris, whatever she was like, must have had some good points, if only because she’d annoyed Miss Hemp.

  With this in mind, he reached the Harris residence at about a quarter to four.

  “Miss Harris?” he inquired as the maidservant answered his knock.

  “Which one?” said she with a look of stupid cunning. “We ’ave four. There’s Miss Adelaide, what’s one. There’s Miss Caroline, what’s eight. There’s Miss Mary, what’s rising fourteen, and there’s Miss Dorothy, what’ll be sixteen in July. Take your pick.”

  Somewhat taken aback by the quantity of Miss Harrises available, he frowned, and then supposed it was Miss Dorothy. The maid nodded as if he’d made a wise choice. She went off to announce him while he unharnessed himself and stood in the hall, awaiting the appearance of Miss Hemp’s enemy. He couldn’t help looking forward to it with interest.

  The Harrises were in the dining parlor, sitting uncomfortably around the table. Both the Harrises and the table were in a state of glazed decoration; pudding pies, jam tarts, marzipan fancies, and a large purple wine jelly vied in splendor with the gleaming Harris ladies. They were all awaiting the arrival of Dr. Harris, who was bringing two distinguished colleagues back to tea.

  Harris himself had passed the news on, and if anyone doubted him, they might ask Morgan, the Harrises’ nurse, who had been present when Dr. Harris had mentioned it.

  Unluckily Morgan was out for the day, so Harris’s word stood alone and unsupported. Ordinarily it was not an edifice calculated to inspire much confidence, but Mrs. Harris, who creaked awkwardly behind a doctor’s ransom of silver and best china, could not, for the life of her, see any reaso
n for her son’s having told so stupid a lie. Even for him it would have been quite pointless.

  “Are you sure your father said he was coming back at half past three?”

  Harris was sure.

  She stared hard at her son. He must have been telling the truth.

  Harris stared unflinchingly back. He had not been telling the truth. It was not Dr. Harris and two distinguished colleagues who were coming to tea. It was Bostock.

  Bostock was the important visitor for whom the silver had been polished, the best china set forth, the town ransacked for delicacies, the great wine jelly produced, the Harris ladies squeezed into uncomfortable finery, and three extra places laid. True, Harris might have said one distinguished colleague, but in his experience they usually came in pairs.

  The whole splendid occasion was the product of Harris’s remarkable brain. Being deeply committed to the disposal of Mary (who, by the way, he would have exchanged for a pair of spectacles, let alone a valuable brass telescope), Harris had devised the present scheme so that Mary would be unable to retire when Bostock arrived.

  Usually, when Bosty called, she went off like a rocket, with a hiss and a giggle and a loud slamming of doors. In such circumstances, all the knowledge Harris had acquired from the learned article on Courtship would have been in vain. Both parties had to be present in order for anything to work. So Harris had arranged it, and now he awaited the appearance of Bostock with the utmost confidence in the learned article from which the scheme had derived.

  The door opened.

  “Young gentleman for Miss Harris,” said the maid.

  All the Harris faces, in various stages of age and appetite, turned and lit up, like a row of painted lanterns.

  Young gentleman for Miss Harris? Which Miss Harris? But the maid, a bad bargain who cost little and gave less, had gone.

  Harris stood up. He had divined that “young gentleman” referred to a Bostock who had smartened himself up beyond recognition. If he didn’t get to the door first, somebody else would go and tell Bosty to clear off, as important visitors were expected, and so ruin everything.

  “I’ll go,” he said.

  Dorothy Harris also stood up. Her mind, still disturbed by the events of the morning, toyed madly with unknown admirers. Young gentleman for Miss Harris? It was him! It must be! He was out there in the hall! Oh, my God!

  “Since when are you Miss Harris?” she demanded of her brother, her voice shaking.

  “I thought she said Master Harris,” lied Harris, making for the door at high speed.

  “Come back!” commanded his sister, traveling with equal velocity around the other side of the table.

  At all costs she had to stop that little beast from poking his nose in and ruining everything. Thus both parties, actuated by the same fear, moved rapidly toward the same point.

  Dorothy, having started off with a small advantage in distance, arrived first. Then fortune favored Harris. The delay occasioned by Dorothy’s having to open the door enabled him to grasp at the vanishing skirts of his sister’s gown.

  “It might be for me!” he suggested, to which Dorothy responded by jerking forward with all her might and striking out at her brother with her clenched fist.

  Harris, in order to avoid the blow, relinquished his hold. Consequently Dorothy, on a final, violent jerk, flew through the door like an arrow.

  “Ah!” she cried, traveling at a tremendous speed toward a dimly perceived figure ahead.

  It was him! It was him!

  Her aim was true. She struck home into the startled bosom of Philip Top-Morlion.

  Never was there a happier meeting, never a luckier shot. Though she did not know it, Dorothy Harris, with her disheveled hair, her flashing eyes, and her small, oddly attractive face, was looking her very best. Had she strived for hours before her mirror, she could never have achieved quite the same breathless, enchanting abandon, and she made as deep an impression on the young man’s heart as she did on his stomach and chest.

  “Miss Harris?” he inquired, picking himself up and assisting the girl to her feet. “Miss Dorothy Harris?”

  “Yes, yes! I’m Dorothy Harris!” she said eagerly. “We—we were just going to have tea,” she added, as if by way of explanation. The young man couldn’t help wondering if it was the custom of the house for Harrises to come out of the parlor like grapeshot, before tea.

  One did come. Slowly. It was Harris. He frowned.

  “Oh,” he said, and went back again.

  “My brother,” muttered Dorothy reluctantly. What a vulgar little boy he was! What must the young man think!

  She raised her eyes and couldn’t help observing, with a slight pang, that her unknown admirer was rather pale, rather thin, and rather shabby.

  To be brutally honest, she would have preferred something a little more eye-catching and calculated to inspire Maggie Hemp with envy. But beggars—and she was a beggar in lovers—can’t be choosers, so, with a tiny sigh, she noted with approval that he had that full, strong mouth and those dreamy, sideways-looking eyes that come from playing the flute and reading the music at the same time.

  “I called,” said he, gesturing toward the cello, “to give you your lesson, Miss Harris.”

  Instantly fear clutched at her heart. Was it possible he wasn’t her unknown admirer, after all?

  “But—but I always have Monsieur Top-Morlion!”

  “He’s my father. I’m Philip.”

  “But why—”

  “Your father’s gone to see him,” said Philip.

  What did he mean? What could he mean? Only one thing. Her father had gone to call on his father to make sure that Philip’s intentions were honorable!

  What else was she to think after all that had happened to her that day, and with the young man himself standing there and looking at her in a way no young man had ever looked at her before?

  The thought even crossed her mind that the two distinguished colleagues her father had said he was bringing back to tea would turn out to be Monsieur Top-Morlion and his son! It was just like her pa to keep things secret and want to surprise her. Dear Pa! Maggie Hemp would go quite green!

  It never entered her head at all that Monsieur Top-Morlion had made himself sick from overeating and that Dr. Harris had gone to see him as a physician, not a father.

  “I think it’s shellfish,” said Philip.

  “Oh, no! A father has to be careful, Mr. Top-Morlion!” said Dorothy, supposing him to have said “selfish,” as shellfish didn’t make sense.

  “I warned him,” said Philip.

  “You shouldn’t have done that!” cried Dorothy, imagining high words between father and son, such as one reads about in books. “Really you shouldn’t!”

  “Why not?”

  She didn’t answer. She felt she’d taken a wrong turning somewhere. They smiled at each other in a puzzled sort of way. They shook their heads. It didn’t matter. Though they might have been talking at cross-purposes, there was nothing cross in them at all.

  “Will you have your lesson now, Miss Harris?”

  “Who is it, Dorothy?” came Mrs. Harris’s voice from the parlor.

  “It’s for me, Mama.”

  “You haven’t answered my question, Dorothy.”

  “It’s Philip Top-Morlion, Mama.”

  “Who?”

  “Philip. Monsieur Top-Morlion’s son. He’s come to give me my lesson.”

  “Oh, dear! Can’t he come back after tea?”

  Philip grew pale. Crash—crash—crash! went the discords in his breast. He prepared to go, never to return.

  “No, Mama. He couldn’t.”

  Philip decided to stay.

  “Oh, well, I suppose you’d better ask him to sit down to tea with us.”

  “Will you, Mr. Top-Morlion?”

  “Thank you, Miss Harris. I’d like that very much.”

  “I’d like my lesson more.”

  “More than tea?”

  She smiled. Music, not jam tarts a
nd jelly, was the proper food for love.

  They went into the parlor, where another place was laid, and they joined the remaining Harrises to await the arrival of Dr. Harris and two distinguished colleagues, who should have come at half past three.

  Suddenly there was a loud and shuddering knock upon the front door. The maid jumped, put on her shoes, smoothed her apron, and went to see who was there.

  Chapter Seven

  IT WAS Captain Bostock’s best coat with its huge cuffs à la marinière, Captain Bostock’s best waistcoat that had anchors embroidered over the pockets, and Captain Bostock’s gold-braided hat that had been presented to him by his ship’s company on his retirement from the sea.

  Inside them all stood Bostock, stiff as a post.

  He was, as Captain Bostock himself would have expressed it, all shipshape and Bristol-fashion—that is, if the fashion in Bristol was to wear one’s hat an inch below one’s eyes, and one’s sleeves an inch below one’s fingers, so that one looked as if one had lost one’s arms and one’s sight in the service of one’s country.

  He doffed his hat, revealing a head that shone like a cannonball and smelled powerfully of violets.

  “Oh,” said the maid. “It’s you. Sorry, but they’re expectin’ quality. You’d best shove off.”

  Bostock, who, in the brief journey from his own house to Harris’s, had rescued Mary from crocodiles, pirates, and sinking ships with consummate ease, tottered on the step. He didn’t know what to do. Harris had told him to come at half past three, and he’d come. He was a little late, but then the rescuing on the way had taken longer than he’d realized. Harris hadn’t told him that anybody else was coming. He felt frightened, and dwindled a little more inside the splendor of his apparel.

  “But—but—” he croaked.

  There was a frog in his throat. Most likely it was the frog that would a-wooing go.

  “All right,” said the maid, taking pity on him. “I’ll go and tell Master Harris that you’re here.”