TWICE a week, on Tuesdays and Fridays, I go to the Cathedral before breakfast to practise the organ. I always enjoy these early mornings alone up in the loft, particularly in winter when it’s still dark and I and the bedesman who stokes up the stoves are the only people in the building.
Next day was one of my practice mornings. Before seven I was riding my bicycle up the High Street towards the Close. As I passed the Swan I glanced apprehensively up to the windows of a room on the first floor. Had all the events of yesterday, I asked myself, been a dream? I rode on quickly, trying to put the whole queer business at the back of my mind.
Going into the Cathedral by the little south door, I crossed the transept. It was a grey, gloomy morning; I felt rather depressed. Passing over the nave dais, I unlocked the gate to the north transept, left it open, and climbed the narrow, dark spiral stairway to the loft. The moment I saw the console, I felt better; I felt as though I had returned to an old friend, for ever faithful, of infinite variety of mood. ‘Dear old Willis,’ I murmured, gazing at his four silent manuals and smoothing my fingers tenderly over the yellowed keys. Switching on the current, I got out my music.
I had three-quarters of an hour before me, alone with the organ. Shortly before eight I would have to stop, as there was always a celebration of the Holy Communion in one of the chapels. Dr Carless did not allow me the use of any heavy work; I was expected to confine myself to the Great flue-work and, if I wanted a crescendo, the Full Swell. I never had found it easy to stick to this. A great organ is intoxicating; set yourself before one and see. Sometimes I had fallen to temptation, getting drunk on Great Reeds, disorderly on Solo Tubas, and ready to deal with all the miserably sober organists in the Royal College of them so long as I had the help of the Pedal Bombards.
I started on a Mendelssohn sonata, a soft movement, tricky stuff with a pizzicato pedal. Feeling complacent about my performance, I decided to go on to the third movement, a very flamboyant affair, brisk and battlish, in three-four. ‘Damn Carless!’ I muttered as the movement went on. I dragged out the four Opens on the Great and coupled the Full Swell; I opened the box and gave the Reeds their head. Sound soared above me, battering the immense Norman piers of the transepts. Within four bars of the end I read, printed in the copy, ‘add Great Reeds’. Who could have disobeyed such an order? With a quick movement of my left hand over to the Great stop-board, I snatched out a handful of reeds–easy as plucking grass–Trumpet, Double Trumpet, Posaune and Clarion. Mixtures and mutations shot out almost without a hint. My right foot charged down on the Full Pedal composition. It was like accelerating to eighty on Salisbury Plain. Out shot the Bombards and the Ophicleide; a second later a sound like thunder filled the nave. My eyes strayed towards the Solo Tubas; somehow I resisted them and closed the movement on the Full Great and Swell, lifting my hands quickly from the final chord so that I might hear it rolling and rumbling about the nave and trembling in all the windows.
What a sound! Elated, I listened to it dying away like a tornado, chasing itself in and out of every arch and window in the building, up to the clerestories, until it was carried away to the very tip of the spire, out to the meadows, and so for ever lost to the ear.
Yes–but what was that I also heard? Faintly, far below, somebody clapping–somebody crying out: ‘Bravo! Oh, bravo!’
Then footsteps on the spiral stairway, nearer and nearer, till they reached the top and the door opened.
‘Oh, splendid, Norman! Splendid! What sound compares to that of a mighty organ? Perhaps you remember my sonnet; it appeared, I think, in Wayside Bundle:
‘Roll out, ye thunderous diapasons, roll,
And sound the battle-cry, ye roaring reeds–
and so on. But come, dear; play some more.’
Her face wreathed in a happy smile, she stood before me in the low little doorway.
‘Oh, really Miss Hargreaves–’ I protested. ‘You–you–’
‘Well, dear? Well?’
I was speechless. She slid on to the seat beside me.
‘You ought not to come up here,’ I said. ‘It’s not allowed.’
‘Tush! Fie! Play a hymn!’
‘A hymn?’
‘Yes. Let us have “Hark, hark my soul”. And do the bells in the third verse. It is so hard nowadays to get anybody to make the bells in the third verse; they tell me it is old-fashioned to expect it. But no matter. I stick to the old things and I always will. Come, now!’
‘Well, I’d much rather play you a Bach fugue. I can do the great G minor, if you like. You know. High diddle-diddle-dee; high diddle-diddle-dee–’
‘No! No!’ Her manner grew peremptory. ‘I do not care for Bach at this time of day. No! No! “Hark, hark my soul.” Come, here it is. Number 223.’
She placed the hymn before me. Fumbling about in her bag, she found her spectacles and adjusted them. Disagreeably, I started to play.
‘Oh, slower, slower!’ Her hand fell on my left elbow, checking the breakneck speed that I, in my displeasure, had commenced. ‘Still slower,’ she commanded.
‘You’re digging into my arm,’ I complained petulantly. ‘I can’t play if you dig into my arm like that.’
‘Slower,’ she said. ‘How can my soul hark at that pace?’
I dropped into an absurdly funereal speed, thinking it would annoy her.
‘Ah!’ she said. ‘That’s better.’
At the end of the verse I stopped and turned over the pages of a Bach volume.
‘Go on!’ she said in surprise.
‘What? Every verse?’
‘Of course. A little louder now. Then go soft when you come to “Angels of Jesus”.’ She started to sing in a reedy, quavery voice. ‘“Angels of Jesus”, softer, “Angels of Light”; now louder–more buzz, more buzz! “Singing to we-el-come the pilgrims of the night”.’
So we reached verse three with its celebrated ‘Far, far away like bells at evening pealing’.
‘Now make the bells,’ she said.
I looked at the stops and considered how best to make them. Campanology has never been much in my line. ‘Hurry up!’ she said impatiently. I pondered. Nobody had ever asked me to make the bells before; it was a supreme test of my musicianship. Finally I decided to play the tune softly on the Choir, accompanying it with a quick downward E major scale on the Solo, using a very stringy Gamba, Harmonic Flute and a two-foot Piccolo, to get a tangy bell effect. It was fairly successful, though I got awfully tied up towards the end. Anyhow, it pleased Miss Hargreaves, who clapped vigorously when I had finished.
‘Charming! Charming! Now the next verse. Louder now. Let me hear the Diapasons.’
After what seemed an eternity we came to the end. I closed the book firmly.
‘Oh, more!’ she cried. ‘Unless you can remember Handel’s Ombra mai fu?’
‘You mean the Largo in G?’
‘Precisely!’
‘Oh, well, I suppose I can remember it.’
Disgruntled, I started to play. I don’t think anybody else in the world would get me to do Handel’s Largo at seven-thirty in the morning. As I played, Miss Hargreaves left the seat and wandered along the loft until she was over the chancel screen. Here she stood, looking down the nave. I watched her, and thinking of her my fingers strayed–all too idly–till I had lost the thread of the music.
‘No–no,’ she cried out impatiently. She hummed it as it should go.
‘All right,’ I growled angrily. When you’re trying to remember a thing, nothing is more exasperating than people who hum you it as it should go. ‘I can do it.’ But the more I tried, the less I could do it. For some reason the wretched thing had gone completely out of my head.
Miss Hargreaves tottered quickly back to the seat.
‘Move–move,’ she commanded, pushing me aside imperiously. ‘I can remember it. You do the stops; and the pedals. Oh, dear, how far away the seat is! Hold me! I shall slip off. Hold me!’
Very soon my petulance gave way to admiration. I don’t know about you, but if a person’s a good musician I can forgive them anything. And Miss Hargreaves was a good musician. I forgot all about last night. You may say that anyone could play Handel’s Largo. You’re quite wrong. Anyone can sentimentalize over it. But Miss Hargreaves made you feel you were hearing it for the first time; to her, obviously, the hackneyed Handelian cadences had never grown stale.
‘I want more organ,’ she murmured, gazing dreamily at the stops, her stiff little fingers working up and down as though in each one of them lay imprisoned a chord that had, with infinite care and love, to be given its freedom. ‘Give me more buzz more buzz!’ she commanded. I coupled the Full Buzz of the Swell. ‘Fine!’ she said. ‘Open the box, dear; open the box.’ I fumbled about with my foot for the Swell pedal and pressed it down. About six inches away from the pedal-board her black shoes swayed helplessly.
‘Hold me!’ she cried suddenly. ‘I’m slipping.’
She was approaching the climax. ‘La-la-la la-la-l’la, la-la-LAH-l’ Lah–’ she sang jubilantly. ‘More buzz! The Tubas, dear! And why don’t you put the pedal part in?’
The sound swelled out. I wouldn’t give her the Tubas; I didn’t see why she should have them, as I hadn’t just now. I allowed her the Full Great; the performance was worthy of that. Fascinated, I watched her, sitting almost on the edge of the leather seat, her short arms stretched right out to the Great keyboard, her little face beaming seraphically, and the chains round her neck jangling to and fro as she nodded her head to the beat of the music.
The last chord died away. ‘There!’ she said. ‘I am quite exhausted. Now you play, dear. Another hymn. Let us have “For all the Saints”.’
‘We can’t go all through that, Miss Hargreaves. We simply can’t.’
‘The last two verses, then. “But lo! there breaks a yet more glorious day.” Oh, the old tune, I beg of you! None of these dreadful modern tunes! Grosvenor always sang Barnby. Barnby for me! Come on. Plenty of organ.’
I started on one of the Great Diapasons.
‘Oh, more–more–’ she cried almost angrily. She stretched rudely across me and grabbed a handful of stops; amongst them were the Great Reeds. ‘Still more,’ she demanded. ‘The King of glory how can He pass without Tubas? More–more!’
The sound rocked about the roof. Infected by her extraordinary enthusiasm, I suddenly realized how magnificent this old Victorian tune was. When we came to the last verse, Miss Hargreaves was singing at the top of a voice which you wouldn’t believe had a top. Throwing all restraint aside now, I unleashed the Solo Tubas and harnessed them to the Great and Pedal.
‘Bombards –Bombards,’ she shouted above the glorious din.
I released them. Loading the organ with its full charge, I shot out the last line of the hymn; drunk with sound I raised my head and sang.
‘Everything–everything,’ she was crying. Her hand snitched out a lonely Choir Lieblich that had been forgotten.
‘That won’t be heard,’ I bawled.
‘No matter. We might as well have it.’
The last cadence approached. There was a padding of rubber soles up the stairs. The door was hurled open. The Precentor stood there, his fat, red face sweating with anger.
‘For heaven’s sake stop this din, Huntley. Do you realize that Canon Auty is waiting to celebrate Holy Communion?’
‘I’m–I’m awfully sorry, Mr Blow. I didn’t know the time.’
‘Why can’t you look at your watch?’
‘Yes–I see–it is a little after eight–’
‘The Canon’s been waiting up in the Innocents’ Chapel for nearly ten minutes.’
‘My dear Minor Canon,’ purred Miss Hargreaves briskly, ‘you are Minor, are you not? is there any reason why the Holy Communion should not be celebrated with organ accompaniment?’
‘Oh, do be quiet,’ I muttered.
‘Who is this–lady?’ snapped Blow.
Miss Hargreaves pursed up her lips, took a small ivory-bound diary from her bag and made a rapid note in it. I could see danger in her eyes. ‘I am not accustomed to being spoken to in this manner,’ she said sharply. She went towards the door. ‘Kindly move, sir! Kindly move! Make way. I wish to descend.’
‘There’s no need to talk to me like that, Madam,’ began Blow. ‘People below are trying to say their prayers and–’
Miss Hargreaves interrupted coldly.
‘I think your name is Blow, is it not?’
‘I don’t see what that has got to do with it,’ said Blow, feebly. But Miss Hargreaves had gone. Switching off the current, I hastily followed her down.
‘Wheel your bicycle, dear. Then we can walk back together.’
‘It’s too bad of you, Miss Hargreaves. I warned you I’m not allowed to take anybody up the loft. There’ll be an awful row.’
‘Oh, tut! Life is made up of such little troubles. I abominate fuss. I shall see the Dean and make it perfectly clear that I am to blame.’
‘No. I’d rather you didn’t do that.’
‘I most certainly shall, if only to report that wretched little clergyman. I am not accustomed to such insolence from a Minor Canon. Oh, dear, it is coming on to rain. Open my umbrella, will you?’
As we came out into Canticle Alley thin rain started to fall. Balancing my bicycle with one arm, I opened out the umbrella and handed it ungraciously to Miss Hargreaves.
‘Oh, you hold it, dear! You hold it. I declare I am quite looking forward to breakfast, are not you? I ordered grilled sausages for two.’
‘I can’t have breakfast with you. I’m sorry.’
‘You are very cross about something. Is it the weather?’
I was silent. I now loathed her.
‘I hope,’ she continued blithely, ‘this is only the first of many such happy mornings. I must bring you some of my own compositions, a few meagre little hymn tunes, and you shall play them. Why do you not give a recital, dear?’
‘Here’s the Swan,’ I said. I gave her the umbrella and leapt on my bicycle.
‘The sausages–’ she cried, ‘for two –’
‘Give my share to Sarah,’ I shouted. I rode on down the High Street savagely.
Breakfast was a very trying meal. Mother and Jim were in their most maddening moods. They never made any direct reference to my failure to turn up at the Clovertree Dance; in fact, they hardly spoke to me at all, simply went on talking to each other all the time about Miss Hargreaves. Henry had, quite obviously, most shamefully let me down.
‘I’m sorry,’ I began, ‘I didn’t turn up last night. ‘I–’
Mother smiled sweetly. ‘Oh, it doesn’t matter, dear. We knew you were busy. Marjorie quite understood.’
My mother is a devil sometimes. I can’t help saying it.
‘I had an awful time,’ I said. ‘I think you–’
But mother was talking to Jim again. ‘Of course,’ she was saying, ‘I know we are not out of the top drawer. And these chintzes are hardly as good as you’d find in the best houses.’
‘You might hire a footman,’ suggested Jim, ‘and put a silver plate in the hall for cards.’
‘I’m afraid it wouldn’t ring true, my dear. People like us, very low, ill-bred people like us, we–’
‘Oh, stop it, mother!’ I said, miserably rearranging the bones in a kipper I had no interest in. I wasn’t at all sure it wouldn’t have been better to eat sausages with Miss Hargreaves. It was a rotten kipper, anyway.
‘Oh, I’m sorry, dear,’ said mother sweetly. ‘I was merely wondering how we could make the house fit to receive Lady Hargreaves.’
‘She’s not Lady Hargreaves.’
‘Countess Hargreaves, perhaps?’ suggested Jim.
I lost my temper. ‘Why do you both get at me like this? I’ve worked like the devil to keep her away from you; she’d drive you mad in a minute. You ought to be grateful.’
Father ambled in in his old green dressing-gown. He was eating a banana and reading The Times.
‘Why aren’t you using my new teapot?’ he asked crossly. He rang the bell for Janie.
‘I do wish,’ said mother, ‘you’d come down properly dressed in the mornings, Cornelius. It isn’t nice for Janie to have to see you in your dressing-gown. The girl was strictly brought up in Suffolk and they’re not used to such things.’
‘Perfectly good dressing-gown,’ mumbled father, dropping his banana peel in the coal-scuttle.
‘I dare say. I gave it to you myself. But that isn’t the point.’
Janie came in with father’s breakfast. ‘Make some more tea in the pot I bought yesterday,’ ordered father. ‘Oh, and Janie there was a dead wasp in my shaving water this morning.–Look out for things like that. I might have swallowed it.’
When Janie had gone out mother made a direct attack on me. Father was now muttering over the crossword.
‘Anyhow,’ said mother triumphantly, ‘we’ve at last got the truth out of Henry.’
‘What?’
‘Oh, yes! He admitted that you’d both made up that tale about meeting her in the hotel and picking up her stick. He confessed you were both lying.’
I laughed bitterly. ‘The whole thing’s a lie from beginning to end. My God, if you only knew!’
‘Are you after her money?’ asked Jim. ‘Because if you are, just say so. Nobody cares so long as you tell the truth.’
‘Look here,’ I said, ‘you shall pay for this. I’ll bring the old devil round here this evening. Then you’ll see what I suffer.’
‘There are people in Suffolk,’ said father in sudden anger, ‘who’ve never even heard of a railway train. They’ve got to grow up; they’ve got to gain experience. It’s a perfectly good dressing-gown though I never did care for the colour. Give me a word in six letters meaning “this tree grows on paper”.’
Mother, ignoring father as usual, came up to me, sat down by me and looked at me, quite kindly, yet searchingly, as though she were a sort of benevolent X-ray.
‘Norman,’ she said gently.
‘Yes, mother?’
‘It’s quite obvious you’re concealing something from us. We don’t want to be unkind, my dear. If you’ve done anything unwise–you’d much better tell us all about it.’
I turned aside. It was so damned embarrassing.
‘Thank you, mother. But I don’t think you’d understand. I don’t myself. I’ve told father the truth. Ask him if you like.’
‘Well, Cornelius? What’s all this about?’
‘Eh? What do you want? Yes, I did put the orange peel there. What about it?’
‘I wasn’t talking about that. Norman says he’s told you the truth about this mysterious friend of his.’
‘Oh. Ah. Yes. H’m. Oh. Well–’ he scratched his head thoughtfully. ‘Yes. H’m. Something like that happened to me once. I was in Basingstoke and–’
I groaned and went out of the room.
Half an hour later I was going down the Avenue on my way to the Cathedral for Matins. There was a wind blowing now; it was pouring with rain. The lime trees were shedding their leaves and everything seemed very grey and dreary.
I came down to the west porch and there, to my surprise, waiting under the porch, was old Henry, sucking away at his pipe, his hands shoved into his mackintosh pockets. He looked unusually thoughtful.
‘What the hell are you doing here?’ I asked. I felt about fed up with Henry.
‘Thought I’d catch you,’ he said. ‘Let’s go inside for a minute. I want to say I’m sorry, Norman, old boy. Felt I had to see you alone, at once.’
‘Can’t wait long. The last bell’s going.’
We sat down on the bedesmen’s bench under the statue of Charles the First.
‘Well, I reckon you ought to be sorry,’ I said.
‘It just came over me, suddenly, in a flash. In bed last night. That damn bath. It stuck in my throat.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘I really did think, Norman, that you had been playing a game on me. I don’t now. I felt furious with you on the station last night. It seemed to me that you must have known this old geyser. I was so angry with you that I didn’t have time to realize what that bath meant. I saw it on the luggage-truck, you see. And it wasn’t until I’d gone to bed and was thinking everything over, that it suddenly came home to me. See what I mean?’
‘I certainly don’t.’
‘Well, you fool–I made up the bath. Not you.’
‘Don’t be an ass, Henry. Of course I made it up–’
‘No, you idiot. I did. Last thing I shouted to you on Liverpool station. It stuck in my throat. To tell you the truth, Norman, Uncle Henry doesn’t like it.’
‘I’m glad somebody else doesn’t like it. I simply loathe it. If you knew what I’d suffered this morning,’ I told him.
‘Of course,’ mused Henry, ‘you might have put the bath into my head. But I don’t think you did.’
‘Don’t you feel rather–pleased?’
‘Pleased?’
‘Yes. I mean–about the bath. It coming true like that.’
‘I don’t know about being pleased.’
‘The trouble with you,’ I said, ‘is that you’re no artist.’
The last bell had stopped. Archie Tallents, one of the lay-clerks, came in from the west door, shaking his wet umbrella.
‘Hullo, Norman!’ he cried. ‘When’re you going to put up the banns, dear?’
If you know anything at all about cathedrals, you’ll realize that if there’s a story going round they’ll have the cream of it in the lay-clerks’ vestry. They talk about women gossiping. I don’t mind telling you quite openly that a sewing-bee is a model of discretion compared to a lay-clerks’ vestry. Take my advice: if you want to keep a secret, don’t tell a lay-clerk –be he alto, tenor, or bass.
Not that I don’t like the lay-clerks; I do. Particularly Archie Tallents, one of the altos, a very remarkable chap altogether with a gaiety that’s almost goblin. Life’s one long minuet to Archie. He has an enormous head, tonsured like a monk; great, furry eyebrows and a droll way of singing which has been the downfall of more than one chorister and has even been known to make an honorary canon giggle. If you were to wander about in the clerestory you’d find Archie immortalized in stone five hundred years ago as a gargoyle. (This isn’t meant to be rude. Gargoyles may be ugly but they always have character.) When I say that Archie was also Jack Point and Lord Chancellor rolled into one, I give you him as nearly as I can. Everybody liked him. He ran a photographer’s business up by the Milk Cross.
‘Have you brought the harp, dear?’ he said, as I came into the vestry. I saw at once they’d all been talking about me and Miss Hargreaves.
‘What the devil are you talking about?’ I growled.
Archie turned to Dyack, a jaundiced old bass who had been in the choir for centuries and still roared furiously through metallic moustaches. He was the world’s worst singer, but he could sit on bottom D as easily as go to bed. A wicked old sinner, very rich in his language.
‘Huntley’s studying the harp,’ said Archie, ‘from the niece of the Duke of Grosvenor. Aren’t you, dear?’
‘Where’s the Precentor put my bloody pitch-pipe?’ muttered Dyack. The pitch-pipe is a long thing he blows when the service is unaccompanied–gives the note, you see. He always loses it and always swears at it.
Slesser, a smooth tenor–hair as smooth as voice–voice as smooth as silk–mewed from the cassock cupboard.
‘Oh, naughty, naughty! Old ladies! Tchu!’
I drew Archie outside into the transept, and we sat on the monk’s seat, an immense oak bench which is always reserved for the use of the lay-clerks.
‘You’ve seen her, then, Archie? She’s not in Cath, is she?’
‘Who? The celebrated niece?’
‘Yes. Miss Hargreaves. I suppose that’s who you mean.’
‘I haven’t seen her. Charlie Stiles told me all about her. I happened to run into the Swan on my way here. She’s quite the rage of the town, dear. A crowd gathered on the landing last night, said Charlie, all listening to the Grosvenor harp. She played “The Bluebells of Scotland” three times. The cockatoo crooned a hymn. Very nice. I like a little bedtime music myself.’
‘I wasn’t there,’ I said, ‘I left before that.’
‘Where did you pick her up, my child?’
‘Oh, Archie!’ I groaned. ‘If you only knew!’
‘Rescue her from drowning?’
‘No.’
‘Runaway horse?’
‘No.’
‘Matrimonial Post?’
‘Don’t be a fool.’
‘All right, dear. Cheer up. The flowers that bloom in the spring have nothing to do with this case.’
‘Absolutely not.’
Meakins, the Dean’s verger, came up and tapped on the door with his wand. It was half a minute to ten. Under the tattered Crimean flags the boys were filing from their practice-room. The south door slammed and Dr Carless hurried in. Catching sight of me, he beckoned me over.
‘I’ve had a complaint from Canon Auty,’ he said. ‘It really is too bad, Huntley. It reflects on me, you know.’
‘I’m awfully sorry, Doctor.’
‘The Precentor tells me you had some eccentric old woman up there. You know it’s strictly against rules to take strangers up the loft.’
‘I honestly couldn’t help it. She came up of her own accord and–’
‘No excuse. You should lock the transept gate. In future you’re to confine yourself to the use of the Choir stops. I won’t have you showing off the organ to strangers like this–’
‘I wasn’t showing off the organ–’
‘You roar away on the full Great and imagine yourself to be an organist. Playing hymns–so the Precentor tells me! Haven’t you got beyond the hymn-stage by now?’
Baker, that wretchedly supercilious solo-boy, was standing just inside the practice-room, adjusting his ruff in the mirror and listening to every word the Doctor said. I don’t think I’ve ever felt so mortified.
The Doctor looked at his watch. ‘Meakins early as usual,’ he muttered, hurrying away moodily towards the transept gate.
Everybody was lined up and I went to my place. I saw Baker whispering to young Hann. Devils, those boys are; absolute devils.
The canons, like bees crawling out from a queenless hive–the Dean was absent–emerged from the Chapter Room. Old Canon Auty came last of all, fixing everybody–including old Bishop Creighton in his alabaster tomb–with a Mosaic stare and trundling his fist about in his enormous white beard.
‘The Lord is in His Holy Temple,’ intoned the Precentor.
‘Let all the earth keep silence before Him,’ answered we.
‘The Lord be with you.’
‘And with thy spirit.’
‘Let us pray. Wurra-wurra-wurra-wurra-wurra-wurra, world without end.’
‘A-men.’
Slesser’s velvet tone rang the major third down the aisle. We wandered in–boys with hands clasped in front of them; men with hands clasped behind them; clergy with hands unclasped. The Doctor trailed a sinuous tune from the Choir Gamba. Meakins ostentatiously closed the gates. There was a shuffling of knees upon kneelers. Matins began.
We had a busy morning at the shop. Father had bought up a large country-house library, very cheap, and we spent all day sorting the stuff out. The place was in the devil of a mess; no room to step anywhere.
‘Put up the back-in-twenty,’ ordered father. ‘We can’t have people coming in with wet boots and walking all over these books–not that most of them wouldn’t best serve as doormats.’
Squeen demurred. He hates putting up that notice. I must say it’s not particularly good for business.
‘Do as I tell you, you withered jackanapes, you troll!’ bawled father. ‘And get some new strings for your violin, too. I’m arranging a concert. Back-in-twenty. Go on, you fool.’
Squeen sighed, hung up the notice and locked the door. Outside, the rain was pouring down, the wind howling. Winter seemed to have come in a night. For the first time in the season we had a fire in the shop. Cosy it was. I liked it. I was sitting on the floor under a table going through a pile of Caroline homilies in yellow binding. Squeen was very active, slithering up and down steps quicker than a piece of soap, and trying to find room for some of the new stuff.
‘Alchemy,’ said father, lifting up a massive octavo, leather-bound volume, very old. ‘No,’ he said, ‘astrology. That’s head bumps, isn’t it? Catch, Squeen. Oh, you fool!’
He hurled the book at Squeen who tottered on the steps and came crashing down.
‘My idea,’ said father, ‘is a quartet. Clarionet, two violins and piano. You’ll have to practise, Squeen. I’ll give you some time off.’
‘Oh, Mr Squeen is no violinist.’
‘I know that. But we can write an easy part for you. Don’t know any music for the combination. We might arrange that tune of mine. I’ve always wanted somebody who could play the clarionet.’
‘Who do you reckon is going to play it?’ I asked.
‘Now, here’s Paley’s Natural Laws; twelve volumes and leaves uncut. Might give it to Jim and Henry if they ever get married. They could use them as door-stops, I suppose. Clarionet? Miss Holway, of course.’
‘If you mean Hargreaves, she doesn’t play the clarionet.’
‘This woman you met in Wales, Squeen, polish up this Surtees with some Ronuk and put it in the window with a notice, “Rare Copy”. It’s no value, but some fool of an American’ll probably buy it.’
‘Mr Squeen would like to remark that a lady is trying to get into the shop.’
‘Pull the blind down then.’
I heard the yapping of a dog. Father went himself and pulled the blind down, blowing cigarette smoke over the glass. I stayed under the table. There could be no doubt as to the identity of that dog; I knew perfectly well whose stick it was that tapped so impatiently on the pavement.
‘Must have that sign printed larger,’ said father. ‘Fools can’t read it. Squeen, make a note. Why can’t the damn woman see we’re not back?’
Still the stick went on tapping; still the wretched little Bedlington continued to yap. She would get in; I knew she would get in somehow. Kneeling there under the table, a sudden insane feeling of rage came over me. Very strong it was; overpowering. I think I might have killed her had she come in at that moment. The whole thing was becoming too much for me. I can stand a good bit, but this was going too far. I’ve got a temper, as I dare say you’ve noticed, and when it’s roused, well, it’s roused, it’s alive and awake, active and destructive. It wasn’t that I actually disliked the old tea-cosy; no, not that. I liked her in a way. And that was just why I wanted to get rid of her; she was too powerful an influence over me. I could see my whole life being upset by her. Already she’d caused a rift between me and Marjorie, got me talked about in the Swan and brought trouble upon me in the Cathedral. ‘Damn her!’ I muttered. ‘Damn the old witch! Dog, cockatoo, harp, bath and all!’
But she was still standing outside.
‘Yes,’ father was saying, idly tearing a page out of Colley Cibber to make a spill for his cigarette. ‘Time we had a bit of music. Wouldn’t be a bad plan to give lunch-time concerts in the shop.’
‘Go away. Go away,’ I muttered. My face was turned to the floor. I saw a large, greasy, overfed spider crawling over one of the books. Black hate was in my heart. Flattening my hand upon the spider (a thing I couldn’t ordinarily do), I savagely saw in it the face and form of Constance Hargreaves. ‘Serpent!’ I hissed. ‘Depart from Cornford, serpent! Depart and trouble me no more.’
Squeen oiled his way round to a pile of books intended for display in the window.
‘The lady’s gone,’ he remarked. ‘Hobbling up the street. Mr Squeen thinks it a pity to have turned her away. Business, he thinks, should be as usual.’
‘Stop talking,’ said father, ‘and take these Miltons up to the dump room. Nothing but Milton, always Milton in these country houses.’
I went cautiously to the window. Disappearing up Wells Street, almost lost under her umbrella, becoming fainter and fainter in the driving rain, went Miss Hargreaves. She looked so horribly lonely. I wanted to open the door, run out into the street and call her back into the shop. But she turned the corner just past Rawley’s, the tobacconist, and I lost sight of her.
‘Put some more coal on the fire,’ said father. He thrust a red-calf Browning over to Squeen. ‘Fuel,’ he said.
‘Browning, Mr Huntley,’ said Squeen, fingering the book delicately.
‘Fuel!’ snapped father. He loathes Browning.
‘That was Miss Hargreaves,’ I said. ‘You’ve missed her now.’
‘Plenty of time,’ he said vaguely. ‘Yes,’ he added reminiscently, ‘only three words. There was old Tennyson, muttering bits from In Memoriam, skulking by a pillar in the retro-choir. He was tearing the band from his black felt hat, I remember. They were singing Parry’s “Blest Pair of Sirens”. It sounded more like a battalion of sirens to me. Never could bear Parry.’
‘What were those words?’
‘Damned if I can remember.’
Marjorie, as I told you, works in a cake shop. Not ordinary cakes. Special cakes, with walnuts, orange and coffee flavours, and a don’t-you-dare-cut-me-with-anything-but-a-silver-knife sort of air. Jams, too; all arranged neatly on shelves with labels in their maker’s handwriting. Autographed preserves.
I went round after lunch. I knew Marjorie would be pretty mad about last night. A spot of appeasement was indicated.
‘Marjorie,’ I said humbly, ‘I’m damn sorry about the dance.’
‘Oh, yes?’ She was high-hat, you could see that; on a level with the cakes and fondants. I felt like slab-cake at seven-pence the pound.
‘I honestly couldn’t help it. You don’t know what I went through. A wet bathing costume in a mangle goes through nothing to what I suffered last night.’
‘They tell me you had a nice little dinner together. I suppose you bathed her and fed the dog and tucked her up in bed and gave her her bed-socks?’
‘I shall kill myself if you go on like this, Marjorie.’
‘Do. Here’s a knife. It’s quite sharp.’
‘You don’t seriously believe I’m in love with a woman that age who plays the harp, do you?’
‘She plays the organ too, I hear. Did you spend the night with her in the loft?’
‘You’re a toad, Marjorie! That’s what you are. A foul toad!’
‘Don’t call me names. I won’t stand it.’
‘I can’t make out why you’re like this. Miss Hargreaves is nothing to me.’
‘She means enough to you to make you cut a dance I was specially looking forward to. Not that I missed you one little bit! Pat Howard thought my new dress was very nice.’
‘I couldn’t help it. Have you ever had a flea?’
‘You needn’t be rude.’
‘Well, if you ever had a flea you’d know something of what I feel like. A sort of itching in the mind. I think I’m going balmy.’
‘So does everybody else. I expect we shall get used to it.’
‘I made her up. Can’t you try to believe me? Henry was in it too.’
She sniffed and walking to the window started to fuss some honey pots. ‘Perhaps it’d interest you to hear what Henry said last night?’
‘Yes. It would.’
‘He said you’d known this woman all along and wanted to hide her from us for some reason of your own.’
‘Suppose it was true?’ I cried. ‘Would that be sufficient reason for behaving like a toad?’
She was silent.
‘You’re in love with Pat Howard,’ I shouted, banging a toffee-hammer down on the counter. ‘That’s what it is. And you’re seizing this as an excuse.’
‘Pat Howard’s got nothing to do with it. I’ll tell you what we all think about you.’
‘Do.’
‘You’ve picked this poor old thing up somewhere without telling us, and you’re hanging on to her in the hope she’ll leave you her money. She’s obviously well enough off by the way she flings tips about.’
I was amazed.
‘Did Henry say that?’
‘Yes. He did.’
‘Well, of all the–I!’ For a moment I was absolutely speechless. ‘Why,’ I cried suddenly, ‘for that matter it is my money, anyway.’
‘Your money?’ Marjorie looked quite scared.
‘Yes!’ I was thoroughly worked up by now. ‘I endowed her with a fortune. She could have been a pauper if I’d said the word.’
‘Norman, you’re mad!’ exclaimed Marjorie.
‘It’s you who are all mad!’ I cried. ‘Not me. And if I did make the money, you needn’t think you’ll get a penny of it. Not even to buy you another new frock for Pat Howard to admire.’
I slammed the door and charged out of the shop. I rushed round to Beddow’s garage. Will-hounding! Me–sniffing round a last testament! It was vile. It was conspicuously unpleasant. Anyway, Agatha would probably inherit every penny. It was just the sort of thing that would happen.
I was really angry with Henry.
‘You,’ I bellowed, ‘you who ought to be the first to realize your responsibility in this matter. You who lured me on. You–who started the bath and the harp, who–’
‘Damn it, Norman! I had nothing to do with the harp.’
‘You–who insisted on going into that pestilential church, who dragged me into–’
‘Don’t dance about like that, old boy. You’ll burst something, you really will.’
‘I don’t care if I burst everything.’
‘All right, Norman. All right. Only do stop stamping in that oil. You’ll ruin your trousers.’
‘What are trousers compared to truth? My honour’s at stake. They’re saying now that I’m after the trout’s money. And you started it–’
The puddle of oil splashed up into my face. I calmed down. ‘Sorry, Henry,’ I said, ‘but I’m going to pieces.’
‘Smoke a cigarette. And don’t be so unkind to your Uncle Henry. I’ve told you I’m sorry for last night.’
‘God! I’ve been a fool!’ I moaned. ‘I ought to have said straight out–“Madam, I don’t know you”.’
‘Well, it would have been better, of course.’
‘I’m going round to the Swan now, and I’m going to tell Miss Constance Hargreaves precisely where she gets off. And she can get off. She can fall off. You’re coming with me.’
‘I think it’d be better if you went alone, old fellow.’
‘No. You’re coming. You half made this creature. You’re going to help me unmake her. If you don’t, I shall black your blithering eye.’
‘Norman, you really are quite excited, aren’t you?’
‘Get your jacket on, you ape.’
We went to the Swan. I was spurred, booted, ready for action, ready for any foe, ready to face Dr Pepusch even if he should sing the whole of the Beggar’s Opera at me. Oh, I tell you–I was angry! I was the angry one!
‘Miss Hargreaves,’ I said to the girl in the office. ‘I wish to see her at once. Send for her.’
‘Miss Hargreaves has left,’ said the girl acidly.
It bowled me over. It caught me fair and square in the middle of the eyebrows and sent me rolling. It weakened me.
‘When did she go?’ I asked faintly. I suddenly remembered that spider under the table; remembered seeing her disappear up the rainy street.
‘Only a few minutes ago. She had an urgent message calling her away.’
‘What about her luggage?’ asked Henry.
‘She only took a small bag. She said she’d instruct us about the rest. I suppose she’s an old friend of yours, Mr Huntley?’
‘She damn well is not!’
‘Hush, Norman!’ murmured Henry. ‘These little paddies get you nowhere.’
‘I don’t mind telling you,’ said the girl, ‘that Mr Stiles wasn’t sorry when she went.’
‘Bit eccentric, isn’t she?’ said Henry sympathetically.
‘Eccentric! I think she’s mad. Do you know what she was doing all the morning? Running round from room to room collecting vases.’
‘What on earth for?’
‘For the dustman. What do you think of that? I won’t deny she paid well enough for them. Mr Stiles is out now, as a matter of fact, buying some more; fortunately they’ve still got some of the same sort in stock. There’d hardly have been an ornament left in the place if she’d stayed any longer.’
‘Henry,’ I said, ‘can you beat it?’
‘What about the dog–and the parrot?’ he asked.
‘Oh, she took them. We saw to that.’
‘Has she left any address?’
‘No. But I should think Colney Hatch would find her, wouldn’t you?’
With incredible rudeness the girl slammed down the glass door before the counter and went on with the novel she had been reading. Girls aren’t courteous nowadays; you can’t get away from the fact.
It was only two o’clock. ‘Come and drink,’ said Henry. I tottered weakly into the bar after him. ‘What?’
‘Scotch,’ I said. I passed my hand across my brow. Sweating. Leaking. Shaking. All that anger and nobody to vent it on. Bad as having a broom and no dust.
‘Well, anyhow, she has gone,’ remarked Henry.
I groaned. ‘Yes, and you don’t realize the awful part of it. I made her go.’
‘You–made her go?’
‘Yes. Simply sat under the table and willed the old serpent away. Oh, it’s awful–awful–’
‘Why is it awful?’
‘Because I want her back.’
‘What the hell for?’
‘I don’t know. I’m getting fond of her. And I want to have it out with her once and for all.’
‘I don’t think that’d be easy, somehow.’
‘Why?’
‘I don’t know. She struck me as being–’ He paused. ‘Do you know,’ he added presently, ‘frankly, I was the smallest bit scared of her.’
‘Scared of her? You! Scared of an old thing of eighty-three?’
‘The way she looked me up and down through those what-d’you-call-’ems. Made me curl up inside and go to sleep.’
I nodded. ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘I know. And yet I like her; I can’t help it. I’ve got a wonderful sort of feeling of pride about her. I feel I’ve got to look after her. When she wandered up Wells Street this morning she looked so terribly lonely.’
‘For God’s sake, don’t get sentimental about her.’
‘I hate her and I love her and–I’m half afraid of her.’
‘I think we ought to try to get her right out of our heads,’ said Henry over his third whisky. ‘You’ll probably go mad if you talk about her too much. I’ve got a feeling it only aggravates things.’
‘Yes, you’re right, Henry. I see what we must do. We mustn’t talk about her again, not to anybody. You must help me. Don’t let her name once cross your lips; not to a soul.’
‘It’s not going to be easy.’
‘We’ve got to do it,’ I said. ‘And if she does turn up again–I’ll–I’ll–I’ll damn well ignore her.’
I knew it would be about as easy to ignore a boil on my nose.
‘I’ve got an idea,’ suggested Henry. ‘Suppose we run the car up to Oakham on Saturday and see if they know anything about her there? I’d give anything to see if there was such a place as Sable Lodge.’
I thought about this for a long time. It did, of course, seem the obvious thing to do. But I could see dangers bristling ahead.
‘No,’ I said finally. ‘It’s tempting; but it’s dangerous. Something would happen up there we didn’t expect. We should only find ourselves making up fresh stories about her. We’ve simply got to behave as though there isn’t such a person.’ I slapped my knee. ‘What we’ve got to try to do is to convince ourselves there isn’t such a person.’
We were silent for a few minutes. I drained my glass. ‘Miss Hargreaves?’ I murmured. ‘Never heard of her.’
‘Who were you talking about?’ asked Henry.
I rose. ‘That’s right. Keep it up.’
I went back to the shop.
‘Telegram for Mr Norman,’ said Squeen.
I ripped it open. ‘Agatha sinking Hargreaves.’ That was all it said. Handed in at Reading station.
I was beyond being surprised by now. I showed it to father without a word.