The Complete Short Stories of L.P. Hartley

by Leslie Poles Hartley

  Soon his thoughts, exploring the future, encountered an obstacle and stopped short. He was looking ahead as though he had made up his mind to go. Well, hadn’t he? The invitation solved his immediate difficulty: the uncertainty as to where he should take his holiday. The charm of Swannick had failed to hold him. And yet, perversely enough, his old hunting-ground chose this very moment to trouble him with its lures: its willows, its alders, the silent clumps of grey rushes with the black water in between. The conservatism of his nature, an almost superstitious loyalty to the preferences of his early life, protested against the abandonment of Swannick—Swannick, where he had always done exactly as he liked, where bridge never intruded, and the politenesses of society were unknown. For Jimmy’s mind had run forward again, and envisaged existence at Verdew Castle as divided between holding open the door for Mrs. Rollo Verdew and exchanging compliments and forbearances and commiseration with Rollo’s elder (or perhaps younger, he hadn’t said) brother Randolph across the bridge-table, with a lot of spare time that wasn’t really spare and a lot of being left to himself that really meant being left to everybody.

  Jimmy looked at the clock: it was time to go. If it amused his imagination to fashion a mythical Verdew Castle, he neither authorized nor forbade it. He still thought himself free to choose. But when he reached his office his first act was to write his friend a letter of acceptance.

  Four days later a second blue envelope appeared on his breakfast-table. It was evidently a two-days’ post to Verdew Castle, for Rollo explained that he had that moment received Jimmy’s welcome communication. There followed a few references, necessarily brief, to matters of interest to them both. The letter closed with the promised itinerary:

  So we shall hope to see you in ten days’ time, complete with lethal chamber and big-game apparatus. I forget whether you have a car; but if you have, I strongly advise you to leave it at home. The road bridge across the estuary has been dicky for a long time. They may close it any day now, since it was felt to wobble the last time the Lord-Lieutenant crossed by it. You would be in a mess if you found it shut and had to go trailing thirty miles to Amplesford (a hellish road, since it’s no one’s interest to keep it up). If the bridge carried the Lord-Lieutenant it would probably bear you, but I shouldn’t like to have your blood on my head! Come, then, by train to Verdew Grove. I recommend the four o’clock; it doesn’t get here till after dark, but you can dine on it, and it’s almost express part of the way. The morning train is too bloody for anything: you would die of boredom before you arrived, and I should hate that to happen to any of my guests. I’m sorry to present you with such ghastly alternatives, but the Castle was built here to be out of everyone’s reach, and by Heaven, it is! Come prepared for a long stay. You must. I’m sure the old office can get on very well without you. You’re lucky to be able to go away as a matter of course, like a gentleman. Let us have a line and we’ll send to meet you, not my little tin kettle but Randolph’s majestic Daimler. Good-bye.

  Yours,

  Rollo.

  It was indeed a troublesome, tedious journey, involving changes of train and even of station. More than once the train, having entered a terminus head first, steamed out tail first, with the result that Rintoul lost his sense of direction and had a slight sensation of vertigo whenever, in thought, he tried to recapture it. It was half-past nine and the sun was setting when they crossed the estuary. As always in such places the tide was low, and the sun’s level beams illuminated the too rotund and luscious curves of a series of mud-flats. The railway-line approached the estuary from its marshy side, by a steep embankment. Near by, and considerably below, ran the road bridge—an antiquated affair of many arches, but apparently still in use, though there seemed to be no traffic on it. The line curved inwards, and by straining his neck Rintoul could see the train bent like a bow, and the engine approaching a hole, from which a few wisps of smoke still issued, in the ledge of rock that crowned the farther shore. The hole rushed upon him; Rintoul pulled in his head and was at once in darkness. The world never seemed to get light again. After the long tunnel they were among hills that shut out the light that would have come in, and stifled the little that was left behind. It was by the help of the station lantern that he read the name, Verdew Grove, and when they were putting his luggage on the motor he could scarcely distinguish between the porter and the chauffeur. One of them said:

  ‘Did you say it was a rabbit?’

  And the other: ‘Well, there was a bit of fur stuck to the wheel.’

  ‘You’d better not let the boss see it,’ said the first speaker.

  ‘Not likely.’ And so saying, the chauffeur, who seemed to be referring to an accident, climbed into the car. As Rollo had said, it was a very comfortable one. Jimmy gave up counting the turns and trying to catch glimpses of the sky over the high hedges, and abandoned himself to drowsiness. He must have dozed, for he did not know whether it was five minutes or fifty before the opening door let in a gust of cool air and warned him that he had arrived.

  For a moment he had the hall to himself. It did not seem very large, but to gauge its true extent was difficult, because of the arches and the shadows. Shaded lamps on the tables gave a diffused but very subdued glow; while a few unshaded lights, stuck about in the groining of the vault, consuming their energy in small patches of great brilliancy, dazzled rather than assisted the eye. The fact that the spaces between the vaulting-ribs were white-washed seemed to increase the glare. It was curious and not altogether happy, the contrast between the brilliance above and the murk below. No trophies of the chase adorned the walls; no stags’ heads or antlers, no rifles, javelins, tomahawks, assegais, or krisses. Clearly the Verdews were not a family of sportsmen. In what did Randolph Verdew’s interests lie? Rintoul wondered, and he was walking across to the open grate, in whose large recess a log-fire flickered, when the sound of a footfall startled him. It came close, then died away completely, then still in the same rhythm began again. It was Rollo.

  Rollo with his black moustaches, his swaggering gait, his large expansive air, his noisy benevolence. He grasped Jimmy’s hand.

  But before he could say more than ‘Damned glad,’ a footman appeared. He came so close to Jimmy and Rollo that the flow of the latter’s eloquence was checked.

  ‘Mr. Rintoul is in the Pink Room,’ announced the footman.

  Rollo put his little finger in his mouth and gently bit it.

  ‘Oh, but I thought I said——’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ interrupted the footman. ‘But Mr. Verdew thought he might disturb Mr. Rintoul in the Onyx Room, because sometimes when he lies awake at night he has to move about, as you know, sir. And he thought the Pink Room had a better view. So he gave orders for him to be put there, sir.’

  The footman finished on a tranquil note and turned to go. But Rollo flushed faintly and seemed put out.

  ‘I thought it would have been company for you having my brother next door,’ he said. ‘But he’s arranged otherwise, so it can’t be helped. Shall I take you to the room now, or will you have a drink first? That is, if I can find it,’ he muttered. ‘They have a monstrous habit of sometimes taking the drinks away when Randolph has gone to bed. And by the way, he asked me to make his excuses to you. He was feeling rather tired. My wife’s gone, too. She always turns in early here; she says there’s nothing to do at Verdew. But, my God, there’s a lot that wants doing, as I often tell her. This way.’

  Though they found the whisky and soda in the drawing-room, Rollo still seemed a little crestfallen and depressed; but Jimmy’s spirits, which sometimes suffered from the excessive buoyancy of his neighbour’s, began to rise. The chair was comfortable; the room, though glimpses of stone showed alongside the tapestries, was more habitable and less ecclesiastical than the hall. In front of him was an uncurtained window through which he could see, swaying their heads as though bent on some ghostly conference, a cluster of white roses. I’m going to enjoy myself here, he thought.

  Whatever the charms o
f the Onyx Room, whatever virtue resided in the proximity of Mr. Randolph Verdew, one thing was certain: the Pink Room had a splendid view. Leaning out of his window the next morning Jimmy feasted his eyes on it. Directly below him was the moat, clear and apparently deep. Below that again was the steep conical hill on which the castle stood, its side intersected by corkscrew paths and level terraces. Below and beyond, undulating ground led the eye onwards and upwards to where, almost on the horizon, glittered and shone the silver of the estuary. Of the castle were visible only the round wall of Jimmy’s tower, and a wing of the Tudor period, the gables of which rose to the level of his bedroom window. It was half-past eight and he dressed quickly, meaning to make a little tour of the castle precincts before his hosts appeared.

  His intention, however, was only partially fulfilled, for on arriving in the hall he found the great door still shut, and fastened with a variety of locks and bolts, of antique design and as hard to open, it seemed, from within as from without. He had better fortune with a smaller door, and found himself on a level oblong stretch of grass, an island of green, bounded by the moat on the east and on the other side by the castle walls. There was a fountain in the middle. The sun shone down through the open end of the quadrangle, making the whole place a cave of light, flushing the warm stone of the Elizabethan wing to orange, and gilding the cold, pale, mediaeval stonework of the rest. Jimmy walked to the moat and tried to find, to right or left, a path leading to other parts of the building. But there was none. He turned round and saw Rollo standing in the doorway.

  ‘Good-morning,’ called his host. ‘Already thinking out a plan of escape?’

  Jimmy coloured slightly. The thought had been present in his mind, though not in the sense that Rollo seemed to mean it.

  ‘You wouldn’t find it very easy from here,’ remarked Rollo, whose cheerful humour the night seemed to have restored. ‘Because even if you swam the moat you couldn’t get up the bank: it’s too steep and too high.’ Jimmy examined the farther strand and realized that this was true.

  ‘It would be prettier,’ Rollo continued, ‘and less canal-like, if the water came up to the top; but Randolph prefers it as it used to be. He likes to imagine we’re living in a state of siege.’

  ‘He doesn’t seem to keep any weapons for our defence,’ commented Jimmy. ‘No arquebuses or bows and arrows; no vats of molten lead.’

  ‘Oh, he wouldn’t hurt anyone for the world,’ said Rollo. ‘That’s one of his little fads. But it amuses him to look across to the river like one of the first Verdews and feel that no one can get in without his leave.’

  ‘Or out either, I suppose,’ suggested Jimmy.

  ‘Well,’ remarked Rollo, ‘some day I’ll show you a way of getting out. But now come along and look at the view from the other side; we have to go through the house to see it.’

  They walked across the hall, where the servants were laying the breakfast-table, to a door at the end of a long narrow passage. But it was locked. ‘Hodgson!’ shouted Rollo.

  A footman came up.

  ‘Will you open this door, please?’ said Rollo. Jimmy expected him to be angry, but there was only a muffled irritation in his voice. At his leisure the footman produced the key and let them through.

  ‘That’s what comes of living in someone else’s house,’ fumed Rollo, once they were out of earshot. ‘These lazy devils want waking up. Randolph’s a damned sight too easy-going.’

  ‘Shall I see him at breakfast?’ Jimmy inquired.

  ‘I doubt it.’ Rollo picked up a stone, looked round, for some reason, at the castle, and threw the pebble at a thrush, narrowly missing it. ‘He doesn’t usually appear till lunchtime. He’s interested in all sorts of philanthropical societies. He’s always helping them to prevent something. He hasn’t prevented you, though, you naughty fellow,’ he went on, stooping down and picking up from a stone several fragments of snails’ shells. ‘This seems to be the thrushes’ Tower Hill.’

  ‘He’s fond of animals, then?’ asked Jimmy.

  ‘Fond, my boy?’ repeated Rollo. ‘Fond is not the word. But we aren’t vegetarians. Some day I’ll explain all that. Come and have some bacon and eggs.’

  That evening, in his bath, a large wooden structure like a giant’s coffin, Jimmy reviewed the day, a delightful day. In the morning he had been taken round the castle; it was not so large as it seemed from outside—it had to be smaller, the walls were so thick. And there were, of course, a great many rooms he wasn’t shown, attics, cellars, and dungeons. One dungeon he had seen: but he felt sure that in a fortress of such pretensions there must be more than one. He couldn’t quite get the “lie” of the place at present; he had his own way of finding his room, but he knew it wasn’t the shortest way. The hall, which was like a Clapham Junction to the castle’s topographical system, still confused him. He knew the way out, because there was only one way, across a modernized drawbridge, and that made it simpler. He had crossed it to get at the woods below the castle, where he had spent the afternoon, hunting for caterpillars. ‘They’ had really left him alone—even severely alone! Neither of Rollo’s wife nor of his brother was there yet any sigh. But I shall see them at dinner, he thought, wrapping himself in an immense bath-towel.

  The moment he saw Randolph Verdew, standing pensive in the drawing-room, he knew he would like him. He was an etherealized version of Rollo, taller and slighter. His hair was sprinkled with grey and he stooped a little. His cloudy blue eyes met Jimmy’s with extraordinary frankness as he held out his hand and apologized for his previous non-appearance.

  ‘It is delightful to have you here,’ he added. ‘You are a naturalist, I believe?’

  His manner was formal but charming, infinitely reassuring.

  ‘I am an entomologist,’ said Jimmy, smiling.

  ‘Ah, I love to watch the butterflies fluttering about the flowers—and the moths, too, those big heavy fellows that come in of an evening and knock themselves about against the lights. I have often had to put as many as ten out of the windows, and back they come—the deluded creatures. “What a pity that their larvae are harmful and in some cases have to be destroyed! But I expect you prefer to observe the rarer insects?’

  ‘If I can find them,’ said Jimmy.

  I’m sure I hope you will,’ said Randolph, with much feeling. ‘You must get Rollo to help you.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Jimmy, ‘Rollo——’

  ‘I hope you don’t think Rollo indifferent to nature?’ asked his brother, with distress in his voice and an engaging simplicity of manner. ‘He has had rather a difficult life, as I expect you know. His affairs have kept him a great deal in towns, and he has had little leisure—very little leisure.’

  ‘He must find it restful here,’ remarked Jimmy, again with the sense of being more tactful than truthful.

  ‘I’m sure I hope he does. Rollo is a dear fellow; I wish he came here oftener. Unfortunately his wife does not care for the country, and Rollo himself is very much tied by his new employment—the motor business.’

  ‘Hasn’t he been with Scorcher and Speedwell long?’

  ‘Oh no: poor Rollo, he is always trying his hand at something new. He ought to have been born a rich man instead of me.’ Randolph spread his hands out with a gesture of helplessness. ‘He could have done so much, whereas I—ah, here he comes. We were talking about you, Rollo.’

  ‘No scandal, I hope; no hitting a man when he’s down?’

  ‘Indeed no. We were saying we hoped you would soon come into a fortune.’

  ‘Where do you think it’s coming from?’ demanded Rollo, screwing up his eyes as though the smoke from his cigarette had made them smart.

  ‘Perhaps Vera could tell us,’ rejoined Randolph mildly, making his way to the table, though his brother’s cigarette was still unfinished. ‘How is she, Rollo? I hoped she would feel sufficiently restored to make a fourth with us this evening.’

  ‘Still moping,’ said her husband. ‘Don’t waste your pity on her. She’ll be all righ
t to-morrow.’

  They sat down to dinner.

  The next day, or it might have been the day after, Jimmy was coming home to tea from the woods below the castle. On either side of the path was a hayfield. They were mowing the hay. The mower was a new one, painted bright blue; the horse tossed its head up and down; the placid afternoon air was alive with country sounds, whirring, shouts, and clumping footfalls. The scene was full of an energy and gentleness that refreshed the heart. Jimmy reached the white iron fence that divided the plain from the castle mound, and, with a sigh, set his feet upon the zigzag path. For though the hill was only a couple of hundred feet high at most, the climb called for an effort he was never quite prepared to make. He was tramping with lowered head, conscious of each step, when a voice hailed him.

  ‘Mr. Rintoul!’

  It was a foreign voice, the i’s pronounced like e’s. He looked up and saw a woman, rather short and dark, watching him from the path above.

  ‘You see I have come down to meet you,’ she said, advancing with short, brisk, but careful and unpractised steps. And she added, as he still continued to stare at her: ‘Don’t you know? I am Mrs. Verdew.’

  By this time she was at his side.

  ‘How could I know?’ he asked, laughing and shaking the hand she was already holding out to him. All her gestures seemed to be quick and unpremeditated.

  ‘Let us sit here,’ she said, and almost before she had spoken she was sitting, and had made him sit, on the wooden bench beside them. ‘I am tired from walking downhill; you will be tired by walking uphill; therefore we both need a rest.’