The Complete Short Stories of L.P. Hartley

by Leslie Poles Hartley

  At eight o’clock next day Mrs. Weaver brought him his early morning tea. Bethinking himself, he said, ‘How kind of you to put my medicine-cupboard straight. It was in an awful mess.’ She gave him a surprised, uncomprehending look, so he repeated what he had said, with additional expressions of gratitude. Still getting no reply he asked her to give him his bed-jacket. This she did, at once, helping him into it with affectionate concern.

  Presently he began to hear the whirr of the carpet-sweeper, the swish of dustpan and brush, the creak and thump of moving furniture, noises which sound so sweetly in the ear of the lie-abed. Mrs. Featherstone, of course! He must remember to have a word with her. At last his staff problem was solved: everything was under control.

  There remained the orders—the kitchen orders—for the day. At half-past ten Mrs. Weaver came into his sitting-room with a preoccupied air, but without the writing-pad she usually carried. She came to a stand in front of him, her hands clasped across her body. Philip rose.

  ‘I’m afraid I can’t stay with you any longer,’ she said. ‘You see, I’ve become too fond of you.’

  Philip was utterly taken aback. His first impulse was to resent this intrusion on his feelings which he had guarded from assault for so many years. Dismay succeeded resentment as he saw his domestic edifice crumbling.

  ‘You see, I’ve become too fond of you,’ Mrs. Weaver repeated inexorably.

  Philip had to say something.

  ‘You’ll . . . you’ll get over that,’ he faltered. ‘These things . . . do happen, but. . . they soon wear off. You . . . you will find someone else.’ Not too soon, I hope, he added mentally.

  ‘I was very fond of my husband,’ said Mrs. Weaver, ‘but it was nothing to what I feel for you.’

  Philip longed to say, ‘Oh, don’t be silly!’ but he was a kind-hearted though a far from passionate man, and felt he must meet her on a human plane. But how? He had never received a declaration of love before.

  ‘Don’t you think you could give it a trial?’ he coaxed. ‘I mean, to stay here and see how you felt in a few days’ time? You might see another side of me, you might even’—his voice rose hopefully—‘come to dislike me!’

  Bursting into tears Mrs. Weaver left the room.

  Philip paced up and down it, breathing out noisy sighs. How clumsy he had been! Yet could he have done better? Had she mistaken the expressions of sympathy and appreciation which her previous employer had enjoined on him, for signs of love? Utterly at a loss, half rueful, half angry, he wandered into the passage where he met Mrs. Featherstone, sweeping the stairs. At the sight of him she straightened up; a tallish woman, painfully thin, with a high complexion, bleached blue eyes, and frizzy hair dyed almost red. Longing to talk to someone, he engaged her in conversation, and so much did he appreciate her tart and salty remarks, in which no hint of a tender emotion was discernible, that he chattered far more freely, and more intimately, than he meant to, and was only deterred from taking her into his confidence about Mrs. Weaver by noticing that the kitchen door, a short way down the passage, was half-open, like a listening ear.

  ‘Oh,’ he broke off, ‘you must be wanting your elevenses. See you to-morrow, shan’t I?’

  Mrs. Weaver did not return to the topic of her affection; she neither withdrew her notice nor renewed it, and Philip began to hope that she was thinking better of it. Try as he would, he couldn’t meet her on the old cordial terms; his voice, he knew, was distant and formal, his enunciation too distinct, and his good-night cold. Shutting his bedroom door he vaguely felt he was shutting something out. Perhaps he needed a tranquillizer, a dose of bromide. He went to the corner cupboard.

  At first he didn’t take in what he saw, he only realized there was a change. The stage which had been empty was now occupied—but by what? At the back a small broken bottle reared its jagged edges, its base strewn with splintered glass; and in front of it lay a white object made of cotton-wool, roughly shaped to form a female figure. But it wasn’t white all over, for covering the middle of the body was the blood-red petal of a rose. Beside the prostrate figure, pointing at its vitals, was the unsheathed blade of Philip’s pocket-knife.

  Otherwise there was no change: the serried ranks of bottles looked on, unmoved in any sense.

  Philip backed away, severely shaken. He tried to tell himself that it was all an accident—well, not an accident, his pen-knife couldn’t have got there by accident, nor could the cotton-wool, but somebody rummaging in the medicine-cupboard, not meaning anything special, perhaps trying to get a bottle out (some servants didn’t think that taking their employer’s medicine was stealing), might have produced these odd, surrealist effects. For a moment he thought of calling Mrs. Weaver and confronting her with it; but how did he know she had done it? The daily woman might have.

  Somehow he felt he couldn’t go to sleep with that thing in the room; it had the air of being dynamic, not static; the intention that created it was still at work. He couldn’t lock his bedroom door, it had no key. He would have liked to move into another room; but would the bed be aired? Better the ju-ju concoction in the corner cupboard than a damp bed. But he would need something stronger than bromide now; one of those small red sausages from the phial that seemed to kneel so gloatingly beside the . . . well, the corpse. Overcoming his distaste he gingerly detached the phial from its rank, and opening it swallowed two capsules.

  ‘Good morning, Mrs. Weaver,’ he said, as she placed the tray by his bedside. Feeling muzzy, he was slow to come to himself. ‘Would you mind giving me my bed-jacket?’ When she did not appear to hear, a resentment against her mounted in him, and he said with anger in his voice, ‘Would you be good enough to give me my bed-jacket?’ Said in that imperious way the request sounded silly, and his resentment mounted. ‘Can’t you give me that jacket?’ he almost shouted, and then she handed it to him, holding it away from her as though it was something that needed decontamination. ‘Look here,’ he said. ‘When I give you an order, I expect you to obey it, do you hear?’ She didn’t answer, and her silence seemed to give her an advantage over him. ‘And there’s another thing,’ he said. ‘Are you responsible for the tomfoolery in the medicine-cupboard?’ And when again she didn’t answer he jumped out of bed and, taking her roughly by the arm, pushed her towards the cupboard and opened the doors, ‘Look at that filthy mess,’ he said. ‘Did you do it, or didn’t you?’

  At last she found her tongue. ‘I didn’t do it,’ she said with some dignity. ‘I know nothing about it.’

  ‘All right,’ fumed Philip, ‘I shall ask Mrs. Featherstone to clean it up.’

  ‘Ask her by all means,’ Mrs. Weaver said.

  After breakfast Philip Holroyd felt bitterly ashamed of his outburst. It was unlike him to lose his temper, and for such a trivial reason, too. He blamed the sleeping-draught, which sometimes made him irritable, and more mortifyingly, a kind of sex-resentment which Mrs. Weaver’s declaration of the morning before had kindled in him. Poor woman, she had every right to fall in love with him, preposterous as it seemed; and had not Goethe said, ‘That I should love you is no concern of yours’ ? When she came in to take the orders he would apologize to her, but meanwhile a mess was a mess, and he must ask Mrs. Featherstone to clean out the medicine-cupboard—ask her guardedly, of course, because in view of Mrs. Weaver’s denial, she might have done it herself; after all, his bedroom was her province. But he didn’t think she had. What dire offence from amorous causes springs! Unless he kept watch on his tongue he might lose both his retainers. Perhaps he had better take the blame himself.

  Could he have done it himself? Writers were notoriously absent-minded. The thought was disquieting but it was also too fantastic, and going to look for Mrs. Featherstone he dismissed it from his mind.

  He could not find her, nor could he hear anywhere the indefinable but unmistakable sounds of her presence. The house was silent. Returning to his sitting-room he saw, what astonishingly had before escaped his notice, that the room had not been touched si
nce yesterday. It looked stale, tired and untidy. Explanations chased each other across his mind. Cleaning-women were notoriously fickle. Perhaps Mrs. Featherstone had taken a dislike to him; perhaps she had interpreted his too forthcoming manner yesterday as a sign of deeper feeling, just as Mrs. Weaver had. Perhaps——

  Before he went into the kitchen he found himself knocking at the door. Mrs. Weaver’s manner was neutral; she showed neither pleasure nor displeasure at his entrance. Had she seen Mrs. Featherstone? No. Had she any idea why Mrs. Featherstone hadn’t come? No, she wasn’t interested in Mrs. Featherstone’s affairs. These daily women——

  ‘Then I had better go and see her,’ Philip said. ‘Meanwhile, for lunch I might have—, and for dinner—. The omelette last night was delicious. What a good cook you are, Mrs. Weaver!’

  How pleasant to be away from the house and in the open air! Philip quite enjoyed his ramble down the broad, straggling village street, liberally besprinkled with cowpats, pleasantly aglow with September sunshine. But when he reached Mrs. Featherstone’s white-washed cottage with its porch of trellis-work, her daughter told him she was ill in bed. ‘Mum’s none too good,’ she said. ‘The doctor calls it a haemorrhage. All to do with those ulcers. She’s always been too thin, he says.’

  Walking back, Philip didn’t notice the sunshine, or the country sights and sounds. He went straight up to his bedroom and peeped inside the medicine-cupboard. Not seeing very well he opened the doors wide. It had been swept and garnished. Once more the serried ranks of soldier-bottles guarded an empty stage.

  So several days went by without more manifestations, and Philip began to put the whole thing at the back of his mind. He was punctual in inquiring about Mrs. Featherstone, however. She had been taken to hospital, and every day her condition was said to be ‘unchanged’. Philip’s efforts to replace her were unsuccessful. Two women came to see him; he showed them over the house, making light of its size, and introduced them to Mrs. Weaver, who though not affable was not ungracious; but neither wanted the job, and when they went away gave him the impression that they had come out of curiosity.

  Without more manifestations . . . But Philip had cheated. He had made a rule not to look inside the corner cupboard unless he really required some medicine. This seemed sensible. What was less sensible was that more than once, when he did need some, for minor ailments brought on by the chalky water, he refrained. Why? Because, he told himself, he had got into the habit of taking too much medicine. The real reason, which he didn’t acknowledge, was a reluctance to open the medicine-cupboard door.

  Oh, but this fibrositis, which a single application of liniment would charm away! ‘Mrs. Weaver!’ he called down the passage. ‘Have you any oil of wintergreen?’

  ‘What for, sir?’

  ‘To rub on my stiff neck.’

  ‘I’m afraid I haven’t, sir.’

  ‘Then would you be an angel and fetch me a bottle out of my medicine-cupboard? A smallish bottle, on the left side, I think.’

  Mrs. Weaver, the catspaw!

  In she came, bearing the bottle.

  ‘Shall I give your neck a rub, sir?’

  ‘Oh, no, thank you. I can do it quite easily myself.’

  ‘I often used to rub my husband’s neck, sir.’

  ‘Did he have fibrositis too?’

  ‘Yes, and not only in his neck, sir. He had it all over him. I could give you a rub, sir.’

  ‘I’m sure you could, but I think I can manage.’

  ‘It’s easier for someone else to do it, sir.’

  ‘But it’s such a sticky business.’

  ‘Not if you only use the tips of the fingers. I always use my fingertips. They are much more sensitive.’

  ‘I’ll remember to use mine,’ Philip said.

  ‘Excuse me, sir, but have you any objection to my rubbing you? It always did my husband so much good.’

  Now don’t lose your head, Philip told himself, but impatience got the upper hand.

  ‘If you think I’m your husband——’

  ‘I don’t, sir, my husband was a guardsman and a gentleman, not an Oxford undergraduate and a cad.’

  ‘I’m sure he was,’ said Philip, far too angry to relish being called an undergraduate. ‘I’m sure he was, but did he never tell you——’

  ‘Tell me what, sir?’

  ‘Well, to leave him alone?’

  Aghast at the cruelty of these words, Philip closed his eyes. When he opened them Mrs. Weaver had gone.

  He put off rubbing his stiff neck until he went to bed. To do so suited his habit of procrastination—just another half-hour before I start rubbing! Also it would be more prudent, as well as pleasanter, to get straight into bed after the operation: less likelihood of catching a chill. Also, if he did it on his way to bed one wash and one undressing would take the place of two, for he would have to take some clothes off to get at his neck. And he would not dirty his vest and shirt as well as his pyjamas. But the chief cause of the postponement was a different one. After Mrs. Weaver’s exit he had had the usual revulsion of feeling about her. He had behaved abominably to her and he ought to apologize. The best way of apologizing would be to call her in and ask her to rub his neck after all. ‘I’m so sorry I was irritable, Mrs. Weaver. Please forget about it, if you can, and give my neck a rub. Just wait a minute while I take my shirt off.’ He rehearsed these sentences and others like them, but somehow couldn’t bring himself to act upon them. Since the incident he had only seen Mrs. Weaver’s face beyond the hatch when she put the food through, and it told him nothing. At what time did she retire for the night? At about half-past nine, he thought, and kept involuntarily looking at the clock, his neck protesting sharply as he did so. But the clock wasn’t on the chimney-piece, it was in the corner cupboard, and probably not going, since he had omitted to wind it up. How silly: he had his wrist-watch, of course, and it said ten o’clock. If he called her now she would probably be in bed, and come down in her nightgown or her pyjamas, or whatever slumberwear she favoured, and that would never do.

  He felt an unaccountable unwillingness to go to bed, and lingered on watching the dying fire. A fire made work; he oughtn’t to have it, really, now that he was without a daily woman: to-morrow he would tell Mrs. Weaver not to light it.

  At last he dragged himself upstairs, but when he reached his bedroom he realized he had forgotten the oil of wintergreen. He must turn the lights on and go back and fetch it. Down he went through the quiet house. It was on the sideboard where Mrs. Weaver had left it, and even at a distance exhaled a strong whiff of her presence. Its own smell, when he took the cork out, was much more reassuring.

  Remember the finger-tips . . . He rubbed gently along his neck, and as far round to the back as he could reach; Mrs. Weaver was right: it was easier for someone else to do it, but that someone had to be the right one, which she was not. He lengthened out the process, turning up the bottle, taking little nips, as if he was a wintergreen addict.

  Now there was no excuse for these delaying tactics: he must get into bed. But before getting into bed, he must put back the bottle—put it back into the corner cupboard.

  But why? Why not leave it on his dressing-table till the morning, when somebody else—Mrs. Weaver in fact—would put it back? He wasn’t mad about the corner cupboard and she was, or seemed to be: if he put it back he would deprive her of a pleasure. But he saw through his own cowardice, for cowardice it was; he mustn’t let it grow on him, mustn’t let neurosis grow on him, or soon he wouldn’t be able to do the simplest thing, not cross the street, perhaps, which was far more dangerous, even in the country, than putting a medicine-bottle back into its place.

  When he was only a few feet from the cupboard he heard the sound of something dripping. Was it the tap from his wash-basin? But no, the tap was turned off. Back he came and saw, couldn’t help seeing, a dark pool like an inky sunburst on the bare boards below the cupboard. He stooped to touch it; his upturned finger came back red, not black.

&nbs
p; A quotation, or perhaps a misquotation, from Landor stole into his mind: ‘Dost thou hear the blood drip, Dashka?’

  The curtains were flung back, the stage appeared: rather the same scene as last time, but there were differences. Another bottle faced him, its neck broken and cracked down all its length. Through the crack the red cough-mixture oozed. The cotton-wool corpse, white dabbled with red, was not a woman’s but a man’s; elementary as the modelling was, the figure was faintly obscene. And the blade of the pocket-knife, instead of pointing at the vitals of the victim, was plunged into its neck. There was something else too, the explanation of which didn’t dawn on Philip at the time: a sliver of coarse yellowish paper, cut out of a telegram: severely wounded, it said.

  Rage struggled with terror in Philip’s breast, but for the moment rage prevailed. Magic, indeed! He’d show her! He’d give her magic! But what, and how? His mind had never worked along those lines before. He looked up. On the top shelf lay the fat roll of cotton-wool in its flimsy wrapping of blue paper which he had intended as a barricade against the evil influences of the tortoiseshell. Had Mrs. Weaver, prying in the cupboard, moved it, and had the sight of what lay behind it touched her off? . . . She had plucked it like a goose: feathers of cottonwool were everywhere, mingled with thin shreds of blue paper. Philip followed suit, and soon had fashioned from the yielding medium the grotesque likeness of a female form. But what to do with it? Exactly what harm did he intend her? What kind of death were those implacable soldier-bottles to witness?

  The doll’s house on the landing just outside his door possessed a kitchen, and the kitchen had a stove, a big old-fashioned thing with an oven-door that opened. He took the stove out and suddenly his evil purpose seemed to animate it, giving it the cold fascination of a lethal instrument. But he must clean the cupboard first, for no blood was to flow. He must shift the scene so that no competing image should weaken its effect. He worked with nailbrush, soap and towel—Mrs. Weaver kept her kitchen very clean. How much verisimilitude should he aim at? He wanted his tableau to be death-like, not life-like. Softly he closed the oven-door on the plump neck; the head was well inside; the arms and legs and trunk sprawled outwards. His horror of himself increased almost to faintness; through the salutary odours of the medicine-cupboard he thought he could detect a whiff of gas. And there must be one, there must be. He turned his bedroom gas-fire on, and listened to the exciting continuous susurration of escaping gas. Death could breathe out without ever breathing in. But he could not, and it was to escape himself and his own fate, not to hasten Mrs. Weaver’s that he turned the tap off and lurched out of the room.