The Complete Short Stories of L.P. Hartley

by Leslie Poles Hartley

  If only she would come! The outside door opened and shut. Someone had come. ‘Deirdre!’ he called, as if by calling her name he could ensure that it was she; she must be Deirdre, if he said so. But it was Mrs. Buswell who came in, and with the slightly resentful air of someone who has been called by the wrong name, a name, too, dearer than her own. Would he like some soup, she asked, and then a nice poached egg? George said he would; but wasn’t it giving her a lot of trouble? Mrs. Buswell seemed a little put out, then smiled and said it was a pleasure to look after him. Slow as usual at taking in the idea that anyone could want to, George murmured excessive thanks. ‘It doesn’t do to be always giving,’ she said cryptically. ‘People impose on you. You should take as well as give.’

  ‘Oh, but I take a lot!’ said George. ‘Not in the way I mean,’ said Mrs. Buswell. ‘And it doesn’t do them any good, either.’

  Wondering if it was what the doctor would have ordered, George ate his supper. He lingered over it, partly from loss of appetite, partly to eke out the interval before Deirdre came. Those long waits, with nothing but his thoughts to feed on! His thoughts were sicker than his stomach, or whatever part of him it was that had turned against him. Guiltily he remembered Mrs. Buswell. She would not go away, he was convinced, until he had eaten the last morsel. The last morsel took a great deal of getting down, but by swallowing it he felt he had done something for her, a little redressed the balance of mutual benefit. The look of satisfaction on her face rewarded him.

  Swish, swish. Now she was washing up, and all for him. What a good creature she was! But he hoped she wouldn’t still be there when Deirdre came.

  She wasn’t. She came in to bid him goodnight.

  ‘I should take one of those red pills if I was you,’ she said. He was surprised that she knew what they were for, and that she took so much interest in his belongings.

  ‘Would you give me the bottle?’ he asked, for he did not keep the tablets by his bed, for fear he should forget how many he had taken. She brought them, and he shook out two, and handed her the bottle, which she replaced.

  ‘I hope you’ll have a good night,’ she said, ‘I shall be back again at seven o’clock.’

  Seven o’clock! He hadn’t realized she came so early; she lived in a distant suburb, and must get up at six. What a sacrifice, and all for him! He made an effort to accept the sacrifice as something due to him; but it didn’t go down much more easily than his supper had.

  He would take the pills, but when? He didn’t want to be asleep when Deirdre came. Nine o’clock, ten o’clock, still she hadn’t come, but then she kept late hours, and she slept late, too. He often had to wake her. It was one of the things he most looked forward to, her moment of returning consciousness. She was so young, it took her a long time to come to herself—and him.

  How long should he give her? Till midnight, he decided; but when midnight came and he had taken the pills he didn’t get off for a long time, for his unconscious mind, of which she had possession, kept nagging at him like a watch-dog.

  Asleep at last, he dreamed, and dreamed of Deirdre, whom he had never dreamed about before; he had often wished he could. Having her he didn’t need to dream of her; perhaps that explained it. He was back at the party where he had been taken ill. It was very like the original party, except that the lights were brighter and between the rugs the parquet floor was shinier. He was still asking her to go back with him, and the young man still waited impatiently and possessively at her elbow. ‘Can’t you see I’m busy?’ she said. ‘I’m trying to make a date with Rupert and you keep barging in.’ Suddenly the floor tilted up, almost level with his eye, and he clutched at her to steady himself. ‘Oh, do take care,’ she said, ‘you’ll spoil my dress,’ and he saw it was an oyster-coloured silk dress that he had given her, but not the one she had gone to the party in. ‘Give him your arm, Rupert, I think he must be drunk.’ The young man put out a helping hand but George shook it off. ‘He’s nothing to do with you,’ he said to Deirdre, ‘it’s me you should be thinking of.’ ‘Can’t you leave me alone one single minute?’ Deirdre asked. ‘I was just beginning to enjoy myself The room dipped and swayed, but somehow George managed to keep his feet. ‘But you ought to come with me,’ he said. ‘You would come with me if you loved me.’ At that both she and the young man laughed. ‘Love you?’ she said. ‘I’ve never loved you, and now I almost hate you.’ ‘Never loved me?’ said George, aghast. ‘You mean to say you’ve never loved me, all this time?’ ‘No, of course not.’ ‘But I always thought you did.’ ‘What made you think so?’ George became confused. ‘Because . . . because . . . because I loved you, I suppose.’ ‘Yes, that’s just it. You were so intent on loving me that you never asked yourself if I loved you. You never thought of my side of it, I never came into it except as somebody you were in love with. If you’d asked me whether I loved you, I should have told you no. It’s the first question most men ask, but you didn’t ask it because you didn’t mind. You were in love with love, not me. If I’d existed for you as a person it might have been different, but I didn’t. If you’d asked me to do something for you, except just one thing, it might have been different. But as it is——’

  George reeled and crashed to the floor, and when he came to himself he was in fact on the floor, having fallen out of bed for the first time since he was a child.

  He woke to a sense that something terrible had happened, but couldn’t imagine what, for he himself felt better. But the thing would not let him enjoy his convalescence; it kept demanding to be known and recognized, and at last through a barbituric mist it forced its way.

  Deirdre didn’t love him, she had never loved him. She had appeared to him in a dream to tell him so, and the message was far more real and convincing than if she had spoken with her own voice, for it was the pure essence of experience, with no admixture of circumstance to dilute it. It was her spirit speaking straight to his—yes, straight, for she had told him straight.

  It explained why she hadn’t come back with him from the party, why she hadn’t looked him up during the day, it explained everything that had puzzled him in her behaviour since first her behaviour began to puzzle him.

  He felt he could not survive the blow, and the fact that he felt better physically made him better able to suffer mentally. He scarcely knew how to think, for all his thoughts that counted with him began and ended in Deirdre. Now they had nowhere to begin or end.

  What time was it? It must be past seven, for through the square of glass over the door the light was shining, which meant that Mrs. Buswell had come back. He could not hear her, though. She must be taking great pains not to wake him. He called her and she came in, still on tiptoe.

  ‘I was just going to bring you your tea,’ she said. ‘It’s eight o’clock. Did you have a good night?’

  George told her what had happened in the night.

  ‘You fell out of bed! Poor Mr. Lambert! I might have known, the bedclothes are in such a mess. I meant to make your bed again last night, but thought you were too tired. Now when you’ve drunk this tea, see if you can get up and I’ll make it for you. Or I’ll make it with you in it. I do like to see a man look comfortable.’

  ‘How kind you are.’

  George found that he could stand without his head going round. While he was sitting in his dressing-gown the telephone bell rang. Mrs. Buswell, who was nearest, answered it. ‘It’s Miss O’Farrell,’ she said, and a shadow crossed her face.

  ‘Ask her to ring up later, Mrs. Buswell’ No sooner were the words out than he wished he could recall them.

  ‘Mr. Lambert doesn’t find it convenient to speak to you, Miss O’Farrell.’

  What a way of putting it!

  Expostulatory sounds came through the telephone.

  ‘In about half an hour, he isn’t well,’ said Mrs. Buswell.

  Torn between misery and a slight sense of relief at the reprieve, George watched Mrs. Buswell making the bed. The feeling that he ought to be making it for her, not she fo
r him, was less pronounced than he expected. But soon another thought came.

  ‘Why, it’s Sunday! You ought not to be here on Sunday!’

  ‘I came because you weren’t well,’ said Mrs. Buswell, ‘and you were all alone.’

  What a wonderful woman! George began to speculate about her. What was she really like? What had her life been like? He had never asked her. He had always taken her and her services for granted; he had never shown, or felt, any curiosity about her. He paid her, and that was all, unaware of the treasure hidden in her.

  Back in bed he took his temperature. It was still a hundred, but health does not depend on the thermometer, and he felt definitely better.

  The telephone bell rang.

  ‘Good morning, darling. Who was that rude old thing who answered the telephone just now? She seemed to hate my guts.’

  ‘The daily woman,’ said George, stiffening.

  ‘But aren’t I your daily woman? I always used to be. But what I wanted to say was, How are you, darling?’

  ‘Not very well’

  ‘You don’t sound well, your voice sounds different. When can I come and see you?’

  This was the crucial moment. George heard himself say:

  ‘I don’t think you’d better come. It may be something catching.’

  ‘Some dreadful germ? Then perhaps I’d better not come. Oh, dear, and I do want to see you. Perhaps it’s a good thing I didn’t come last night. It was too late anyhow. We had such fun, though. I wish you had been there.’

  ‘I was in bed.’

  ‘I know, I know. Poor George! What luck you didn’t give it to me, whatever it was. You can’t have, or it would have come out by now, wouldn’t it? Well, so long, darling. Let me know the first moment you’re out of quarantine.’

  George spent a miserable day. Why had he committed this ridiculous act of self-sacrifice and deprived himself of Deirdre’s presence? It wasn’t for her sake, or her health’s sake, that he knew quite well; it was because——

  Oh, hell!

  A hundred times he made up his mind to ring her, and tell her he knew he wasn’t infectious; a hundred times, prompted by the dream, he unmade it. He wondered if he was going mad.

  He tried to distract himself by reading, but since he met Deirdre he had almost given up reading; she was his book, into which he had dipped deeper and deeper until, to change the metaphor, he was nearly drowned. How could a book, a mere commentary on life, give him what Deirdre gave him, which was life itself? Listlessly he turned the pages. What was paper as an interest, compared to flesh? What appeal to the heart had the printed word, compared to the voice that came from Deirdre’s lips?

  His loneliness increased, and with it the bitter self-reproach of having brought it on himself. He tried to attend to business; that was quickly done: at the office they begged him not to come back until he was quite well. Business: it had become automatic to him, second nature: he kept it in a compartment to itself, sealed off from his feelings. Sentiment in business: there was such a thing, but it was not the sentiment he needed.

  Well, then, he had his friends, quite a number of them, for hadn’t the catastrophe itself happened at a party where he knew almost everyone, though Deirdre didn’t? Why not ring them up, and ask for sympathy?

  One after another he went through their names; he even got out his address-book, in case he should have overlooked someone. Once these names had meant a great deal to him: they had meant the warmth of greeting, the exchange of ideas, the interplay of slight but real emotions The reassurance of goodbye-to-meet-again, the sense, when it was over, that something had been added to the value of life. The value of life! But what did the value of life mean, in this tormented and bewildered age, when every value was being called in question? How did life benefit, or its values, if he and Mrs. Plastosell, of whom he was secretly a little afraid, she was so fashionable and so sophisticated, played an intricate game of cats-cradle on a sofa, gossamer webs spun out of airy nothings that involved some flattery on her side and a good deal of self-complacency on his? She condescended to him, and he lapped up her condescension: but he wasn’t himself with her, not his true self: he played a part, half self-effacing, half self-advertising: she didn’t liberate him, as Deirdre did. With Deirdre he could be absolutely himself and more: George plus, plus, plus, plus. With Mrs. Plastosell he was George minus, if he was anything.

  He took up the telephone to dial her number: but when he had got half-way he put the receiver back.

  ‘You ought to have the telly,’ Mrs. Buswell said. ‘Not all the time, like some people do, they’re potty, to my way of thinking. But just for times like this, when you haven’t anything to amuse you. It gives you something, that’s the point.’

  ‘I could have one,’ George said.

  ‘Well, it would take your mind off. And there are some quite good programmes. When my second husband died, and when my eldest daughter died, and when my son-in-law—that’s the husband of my youngest daughter, or was, died—I don’t know what I should have done without the telly. You see I depended on them, in a way. Not for money, of course. The telly made up for some of it.’

  ‘I see,’ said George, whom this catalogue of catastrophes had made a little ashamed of his own sorrow.

  ‘Yes, it gives you something, if you see what I mean, it’s like a present. Not that I’m against giving, far from it. I’ll give with anyone, so far as I can afford it. But there comes a time when giving doesn’t satisfy—you have to have something in return, if you take my meaning.’

  ‘I think I do.’

  ‘It isn’t fair, and it’s just as bad to be unfair to yourself as it is to be unfair to other people. You don’t get anything out of being unfair to yourself.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘And they misunderstand and take advantage. They impose on you. It’s happened to me, before now, poor as I am. Not with my relations, though, I will say that.’

  ‘I’m imposing on you now,’ said George. ‘I’m taking advantage of your good nature.’

  ‘No, you’re not. I’m glad to work for you.’

  ‘But what do I give you in return?’

  That’s stumped her, George thought.

  ‘Oh, I dunno. I suppose I like seeing you around and then we have a chat together sometimes. And then you pay my wages.’

  ‘That isn’t much,’ said George.

  ‘And then I’m sorry for you.’

  ‘Because I’m ill?’

  ‘That, and other things.’

  What did she mean? She knew about his relationship with Deirdre, of course; she couldn’t help knowing. But she couldn’t know about his dream and how it had upset him.

  ‘For everything you’ve done for me,’ he said, ‘I’m more than grateful. Tell me something I can do for you and I’ll gladly do it.’

  ‘You just lie still and get better,’ she said. ‘Then you’ll have done something for me. And take a tip from me, sir, though it’s not for me to give it. You’d be happier without that Miss O’Farrell hanging round.’

  During the next few days the telephone bell rang many times and each time George answered it in a different spirit. Desire, despair, grief, anger—anger lasted a long time: how dared she not love him when he loved her, and had done so much for her—given her the life she never could have had without him? Now he was like a nut whose kernel has been eaten by a worm; he could almost hear himself rattle. The emptiness, the dryness! No current could recharge him; the battery was worn out. He could never go through all this with another person, the expense of spirit had been too great. The expense of spirit in a waste of shame: had it been that? Were the moralists right to warn you against the sins of the flesh? Most of his friends believed, and he too had believed, that the senses fed the mind and nourished the affections; without their co-operation the spirit withered, but if so, why was he in this plight—mentally, emotionally and spiritually bankrupt? With no friends, no interests, no hopes, just an abyss, a void, where Deirdre had once been? />
  Then came revenge. Ah, he would show her! Hate was a stimulant as well as love; he would get the same satisfaction from hating her that he had once got from loving her, the same delight from thwarting her wishes that he had once got from granting them.

  ‘Darling, I didn’t recognize your voice.’

  ‘You say that every time you ring me up.’

  ‘But every time it’s true.’

  It probably was true, for every time they spoke on the telephone he had a different feeling for her: now it was hatred, and hatred speaks with a different voice from love.

  ‘But darling, you can’t still be infectious! It’s four days now.’

  ‘But you’re so frightened of infection.’

  ‘Yes, but I could put my head in through the door.’

  ‘I shouldn’t like to think I’d given you something.’

  ‘But you’ve given me so many things! I shouldn’t mind one little tiny germ.’

  ‘Let’s put it off another day. It would be safer.’

  ‘Darling, it must be as you wish.’

  In spite of the joys of hatred, he suffered agonies each time he said he would not see her. And hatred disagreed with his digestion. All his life he had been delicate, suffered from headaches, bronchial asthma and attacks of fibrositis; during the three years he had been in love with her all these had disappeared; he had a clean bill of health. But now no longer. The symptoms of food poisoning, or whatever it was, had gone, but he still didn’t feel himself. All his processes, mental and physical, were disorganized. He flourished on agreement. The spirit of opposition, denying his deepest impulses their outlet, was making a sick man of him. He forgot little things, was constantly mislaying his belongings—sometimes he couldn’t see them when they were staring him in the face, a sort of amnesia of the eye—and his daily routine, the order in which he did things, got hopelessly confused. He cleaned his teeth with shaving-soap and tried to shave with tooth-paste. What would happen at the office, where he was due back on Monday?