HENRY went straight back to Cornford, but I didn’t. I’d promised mother I’d spend a day or so with Aunt Flossie who lives in Doncaster, a nice old thing as aunts go.
I had breakfast with Henry on Liverpool station, and saw him off on his London train.
‘Well, old boy,’ he said, stepping into his carriage and hurling his bag on to the rack, ‘that was a grand holiday.’
‘With a grand conclusion,’ I said.
‘Tell you what. Next time we have a holiday together we’ll take Connie with us. Give her a treat, poor old dear.’
He swivelled his pipe from one side of his mouth to the other; he always does this when he’s rather pleased with himself. ‘Should like to take her on the tiles,’ he added.
‘She’s better where she is,’ I said. ‘Safely tucked away in her creator’s mind.’
‘What about my mind?’
‘Your mind?’
‘Yes, she’s in mine too. You’ve parted with her, you know. She’s no longer your exclusive property.’ The guard waved his flag. ‘Anyway,’ he added, ‘she’s probably on her way to Bath by now. So long! See you in a day or so.’
The train steamed out. Henry shouted to me:
‘I should think she’s the only person left who travels with her own bath, wouldn’t you?’
‘You mean,’ I cried, ‘the one given her by Mr Archer sixty years ago?’
Henry laughed and withdrew his head.
I went to find my Doncaster train, wondering just why Mr Archer should have given Miss Hargreaves a bath–I mean, of course, presented her with a bath, not bathed her; though, for all I knew, he might have bathed her. Rather extravagant. But still, if Miss Hargreaves was anything she was certainly eccentric.
No need to tell you anything about my Aunt Flossie, who doesn’t come into the story at all. Two days later I travelled south, arriving at Cornford about seven. It was a superb September evening and Cornford was looking its best, full of red brick and sunset with the bells from the parish church playing ‘Home, Sweet Home’, as they always do on Saturday nights, when the crowd’s thickest and nobody seems to want to have anything to do with home. I suppose it’s a sort of warning to exuberant laddies, flung out by the Church at the most crucial moment of the week–for anyone who lives in a provincial town knows that Saturday evening is that.
Yes, it was lovely that evening; the market stalls full of dahlias, asters and Michaelmas daisies. Everybody was happy except a pinched-nosed-looking female in a stall selling political pamphlets something about Marx, not the–Brothers, but the German fellow who started all that Russian stuff. I felt sorry for the girl; she wanted a good steak and a little less hot air, you could see that. There were hordes of chaps and girls lounging up and down, some of them thronging round a black fellow selling medicine for the feet in Disraeli Square. From the bars of the Swan people were overflowing into the road, spilling their beer. Above all this tapered the Cathedral spire, indulgent and kind, as much as to say, ‘I know all about you, my children; centuries ago you wandered up and down on Saturday nights. You’re just the same; no different.’ I was awfully glad to be back. There’s no place like home, you can say what you like, but there isn’t. In the air was a feeling of autumn; not a sad feeling, but a mellow richness over everything. I like autumn; it doesn’t depress me. I like to think of winter evenings evenings when the great coke stoves will be burning in the Cathedral and only about two people will wander in to hear the anthem.
I called into the shop, thinking I’d like to see father before I went to number 38. We don’t live over the shop, of course. It’s far too full of books.
Father was working out a chess problem in his favourite corner. Nobody else was in the shop. It’s a funny thing, but people don’t buy books on Saturday night.
‘Hallo, Dad,’ I said.
He didn’t look up or answer for some time. I sat down and waited, noticing how, in a month, the sun had shifted from the theology shelves, below the staircase, to topography, nearer the fireplace. Beautiful rich colour it was; it made you want to look at the books.
Presently father said, ‘Hallo, Norman. Have we got a copy of the Kelmscott Shakespeare anywhere about?’
‘I had a jolly good holiday.’
‘Did you? I always liked Ireland.’
‘Didn’t know you’d been there.’
‘Read about it. Who’s that fellow–Moore, is it? Or Scott. I know it pretty well from maps. Hand me that pawn, will you? Do you know where the red queen’s got to? I’m having to use a clothes-peg and it’s awkward.’
‘Aunt Flossie was well,’ I said.
‘Yes? I’ve been playing the violin a good bit since you’ve been away. And what do you think? That fool Claribel’s had kittens.’
‘Go on!’
‘Yes, the Kreutzer Sonata. It’s fine work. I like the rondo.’
‘She had five only last April.’
‘But I’m damned if I can manage that tricky bit in the slow movement. By the way, have we got a copy of the Kelmscott Shakespeare?’
‘Have you looked on the top floor?’
‘No. Not yet. I’ll put that devil Squeen on to it.’
Squeen’s father’s assistant. On Saturday he always goes home early.
‘Had a good holiday?’ asked father.
‘Oh, topping! Ireland’s wonderful.’
‘Henry looked in last night.’ Father scratched his moustache with the white queen. ‘Asked me whether I’d got a volume of poems by–who was it?–Harton, or something; Constance Harton. Called Wayside Bundle. Or was it Puddle? Published in ’95. I haven’t had time to look for it yet.’
‘Oh, Henry’s pulling your leg.’
‘Is he? Funny way to pull it. If I find the book I shall charge him for it.’
‘You’ll never find it. Well, I’ll be getting home. See you later, I suppose?’
‘So long, boy. Join me in skittles later at the Happy Union.’
The Happy Union is a little place up Candole Street, not far from our house. Father goes there quite a lot.
‘So long, Dad,’ I said.
Rather silly of Henry, I thought, as I walked down the High Street homewards. Futile to prolong jokes like the Hargreaves. Very nice in Lusk, but now back in Cornford no, it lacked reality. As far as I was concerned, she was dead.
I reached 38 London Road. It’s an old-fashioned house, tall, with a flat, plain frontage, yellow bricks and large windows with a lot of steps up to the front door. Rather a grand house in a way; you couldn’t blow it over like you can a lot of modern ones. But certainly it is plain. I thought so especially that evening, comparing it with the fine Queen Anne house, bang opposite, standing in several acres of ground, with a dense triangle of rhododendrons in the front garden, and two gates. Lessways was its name; property of the Dean and Chapter. It had been empty for a long time, and there was often talk of pulling it down. Once there’d been some diocesan offices in the lower rooms; but now they’d moved and it was empty.
Mother and my sister Jim were just sitting down to supper as I came in. They were a bit off-hand to me, I thought. There wasn’t that warm welcome one expects after a month’s holiday; not really wholehearted. Of course, they’re both rather casual in a way; very brisk, too; not a bit like father. Mother’s tall and stoutish with hair going grey and what you might call an eagle eye; Jim’s tall and not stout; but she’s got the same eagly eyes. In fact, they’re both rather eaglish people. Pouncers. Nice oh, awfully nice! But a bit too up to the mark for father and me. They’re both fond of games and organizations; clubs, committees and conversations. They belong to everything, and they keep diaries crammed with appointments. Father, of course, doesn’t belong to anything–except mother and the shop; he doesn’t like going out very much, apart from the Happy Union. Quiet, my father is. So we’re rather a divided family. Personally, I like it that way; you don’t get so bored with each other.
I had to tell them all about the holiday, of course, and I went through everything, from beginning to end. I left out Miss Hargreaves; knew they wouldn’t understand that sort of joke.
‘And now,’ said mother, ‘you’ll have to settle down to some work, Norman.’
Mother’s awfully fond of that phrase, ‘settling down’. I don’t like it much; makes me feel like a sort of powder.
‘Marjorie and I have joined the Keep Fit Class,’ said Jim. ‘Pity you don’t do something like that; keep that paunch down.’
‘Don’t be rude, Jim,’ I said. I cut myself some cake.
‘I hope this winter,’ said mother, ‘you’ll really settle down and work for your A.R.C.O. and not spend so much time playing the piano for father’s silly old violin.’
‘That reminds me,’ I said. ‘Where are Claribel’s kittens?’
‘In your old tuck-box,’ said Jim. ‘Rather a mixed brew.’
‘Henry says he can dispose of two for us,’ said mother. ‘By the way,’ she added–I noticed she glanced at Jim–‘who’s this friend of yours he keeps talking about? Somebody you met in Ireland, I suppose. What was the name, Jim?’
‘Hargreaves, wasn’t it?’
‘Yes, that’s right. Who is she, Norman?’
‘Oh, she’s really a friend of his.’ I laughed a little uneasily. ‘This is topping cake. Did Janie make it?’ (Janie’s our maid.)
‘Henry quite clearly said your friend. How did the name come up, Jim?’
‘Oh, we were talking about Mrs Pankhurst and votes for women, and–’
‘Oh, yes, I remember. We were arguing about the date of Mrs Pankhurst’s death and Henry said we’d better ask Norman’s great friend, Miss Hargreaves. He said she had known Mrs Pankhurst.’
‘So I said,’ said Jim, ‘Miss Hargreaves? Never heard of her. And old Henry got quite worked up about her. Norman’s guiding light, he called her.’
‘We got quite curious about her, didn’t we, Jim? You can’t have known her very long, can you, Norman?’
I was growing a bit uncomfortable. Mother’s so interested in all my friends; she’s what you might call modern in that way; likes to say that she keeps an ever-open door. I wished Henry hadn’t carried on the ridiculous joke. I knew it wouldn’t be easy to convince mother that there wasn’t such a person. They don’t understand the Spur of the Moment, mother and Jim.
‘Henry’s been pulling your leg,’ I said. ‘There’s no such person.’ (Do you remember Mrs Gamp’s fury when Betsy Prig said of Mrs Harris, ‘I don’t believe there’s no sich a person!’ Queer it was; I felt like that.)
‘Of course he wasn’t pulling our leg.’ Mother sniffed contemptuously. ‘Why should he? I always know when I’m being fooled. He spoke with great respect of her.’
‘Honestly, mother,’ I said, ‘the whole thing was a joke. We made her up.’
Mother laughed. And when mother laughs it generally means trouble. ‘If you want to conceal your friends from us, by all means do so. We shan’t complain.’
I saw it was no use arguing about it. The best thing to do was to avoid the subject and later on get Henry to come round and bear me out.
‘I can’t help it if you don’t believe me,’ I said.
Mother looked at me oddly. ‘You really don’t know a Miss Hargreaves?’
Again I noticed a quick glance pass between her and Jim.
‘See that wet,’ I declaimed, ‘see that dry!’ I slid my finger from my tongue to my throat. ‘I swear I’ve never met any such woman in my life.’
‘Then–’ And mother has a way of making a long pause after the word ‘then’ which makes you tremble at the thought of what’s coming. But this time she didn’t say anything at all. She merely swooped something from the mantelpiece to the table.
I can only tell you this. It was one of the Graver moments of my life. All sorts of ideas about Time and Relativity and Matter and what-not floated to me as, with blurry eyes, I looked at what mother was holding out to me. It was a telegram. It was addressed to me. I read it.
‘A thousand thanks for welcome invitation sent from beloved Lusk hoping arrive stay with you Monday Hargreaves.’
I read it a dozen times. It had been handed in at Hereford that morning at ten. I read it a dozen more times, held it up to the light, shook it, smelt it, and finally spilt some tea over it. Then I staggered to the window.
I felt bad. I felt rocky. I felt the sky coming down and the earth going up. Then suddenly I felt better. This was a trick of Henry’s. Obviously. Sort of mad thing he would do.
Father was coming up the steps to the door. Mother and Jim were standing behind me. Deadly silence. Awful.
I swung round. ‘Don’t you see,’ I cried, ‘this is a trick? Henry’s behind the whole thing. He never did know where to stop a joke. I’m going round to see him at once.’
Father came in. I heaved a sigh of relief. I can always cope with father. He hasn’t that strict sense of orderliness that mother and Jim have.
‘What’s the matter?’ he asked. I suppose we were all standing about in critical attitudes. ‘Oh, I bought a new teapot,’ he added. ‘That one never would pour.’ He put the new pot on the table.
‘Well, Norman,’ sighed mother with a dreadful sort of sinister gentleness, ‘I shall be very glad if Henry is able to explain. I don’t like to catch my son out in telling lies.’
‘Don’t you worry,’ I said. ‘You’ll see.’
Father was pouring out the tea from the old pot into the new, then pouring it back again into the old to see how the new worked. He seemed satisfied.
‘That’s what I call a teapot,’ he said. ‘Oh do you remember–that book I was trying to find?’
‘The Kelmscott Shakespeare?’
‘Was it? Anyhow, I found it. Here it is. Jim, tea’s half cold.’ He pulled a slim, green, rather worn-looking volume from his pocket and flung it at me.
‘That’s not the Kelmscott Shakespeare, surely?’ I said.
‘No. Not that. The other book.’
‘The other book?’
‘Yes. The poems. Wayside Spindle, or something. Not bad, some of them. Run through the Kreutzer with me tonight?’
The little green book was lying on the floor. I had failed to catch it. I could not pick it up.
‘Mother,’ said father, ‘did you get me a new A string?’
‘Yes, I did, Cornelius.’
‘Father,’ I said, ‘what poems did you say?’
‘Oh, don’t keep bothering! Some book by a woman Henry was interested in. Friend of yours, he said.’
Mother suddenly darted down, snatched up the book, glanced at it, then shoved it before me without a word. I took it hopelessly. I shuddered. Its title was Wayside Bundle. Verses by Constance Hargreaves. They were dedicated to Philip Archer, M.A. ‘A small craft,’ declared the authoress in a foreword, ‘and now for the first time launched upon the sea of criticism.’
‘Holy God!’ I moaned.
‘And now,’ said mother grimly, ‘perhaps you’ll be kind enough to tell us the truth about this Miss Hargreaves. Don’t misunderstand me, Norman; I’m very glad to welcome any friend of yours to the house. All I expect is that we should know a little about them first.’
‘Mother,’ I said, and I spoke with feeling, ‘if that dove flew out of that picture and fluttered about over the table, you’d be surprised, wouldn’t you? You’d be bowled over?’
I pointed to a picture in a gilt frame of Greuze’s girl with the dead dove.
‘Yes, I certainly should be bowled over,’ agreed mother.
‘I’ve always maintained that dove isn’t dead,’ said father.
‘Well,’ I said, ‘you couldn’t be more bowled over than I am by–by this. So have a little mercy.’
‘For a change,’ suggested Jim, ‘try telling the truth. Just try. People do. It doesn’t kill them, as a rule.’
‘You bitch, Jim!’ I cried.
‘That’s enough, Norman!’ snapped mother. ‘I won’t stand words like that–’
‘Well, she is a bitch–’
‘Do you hear what he is saying, Cornelius?’
‘I don’t know what you’re all arguing about,’ said father. ‘Is it the new teapot? That’s what I call a teapot, that is.’
He sat down and helped himself to some tongue. The volume was open in my hands. I read:
‘O, bring me the flute and the alto bassoon,
The mustard, the cress, and the water!
The high and the diddle; the fiddle; for soon
Must I go to make love to your daughter.’
It was from a poem called ‘The Unwilling Suitor’.
‘Father,’ I said, ‘where did you find this book?’
‘They’re rather nice little verses,’ he said. ‘Nice feeling. Remind me of–who is it? Christina Rossetti. She was a poet, if you like. Met her once and she–’
I laid the book on the table. Jim took it up.
‘Your fancy friend must be pretty old,’ she said. ‘This was published in 1893. Listen to this: what on earth does it mean?’
She read another verse:
‘My life was complete before Agatha came:
The rosemary, dapple and fawn;
The carraway petal, the Holloway flame,
The gingham, the gallows, the dawn.’
‘H’m. That’s good,’ said father. He took the book from her and read silently for a few moments. ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘she’s a poet right enough. You have to work to get at the meaning. Sure sign. That’s fine, you know:
‘Oh, why must I go with my green tender grace
To lay all my eggs in one basket?
If I were a mayor I could carry a mace;
My card and address in a casket.’
‘Fine!’ he said.
‘Sounds pure nonsense to me,’ said mother.
‘She’s no chicken,’ said Jim. ‘If that book was published in 1893, she must be at least sixty.’
‘Sixty!’ I laughed scornfully; suddenly plunged deep into the pit. ‘She’s nearer ninety–that is–damn it! Hell!’ I shouted. I was getting more and more tied up. ‘I made her up,’ I cried. ‘I’ve never met her, I tell you!’
I really hardly knew what I was saying.
Father, taking not the slightest notice of my outburst, began to read again from the book.
‘Listen,’ he said. ‘Here’s depth. Real depth:
‘All this goeth on and my mind is a blank,
A capriciously prodigal hostage.
What care I when comforters tell me the Bank
Will pay death-duties, homage and postage?’
Father walked round the room, waving the volume up and down in the air and murmuring the words ‘capriciously prodigal hostage’.
‘Music,’ he said, ‘pure music. Reminds me of Tennyson. Did I ever tell you, by the way, how I met–’
I couldn’t stand much more.
‘Father,’ I shouted, ‘where did you find this bloody book–’
‘How dare you use language like that!’ cried mother.
‘On my desk,’ said father. ‘Just like that. Under my nose. Funny, wasn’t it? Friend of yours, Henry says. You must bring her round. I like authors. This woman can write too. You might set it to music, Norman.’ Again he read:
‘The world is so shallow, the shoes are so tight,
The moon is so faithful to fortune;
The cherry is ruddy, the asp is alight,
The warrior whistleth his war-tune.’
‘ “Asp is alight,”’ murmured father. ‘H’m. True, you know. She gets to the heart of things. Realist, too. Notice how she says the warrior whistleth his war-tune. Observation there.’
I grabbed the book from him and went to the door.
‘I can’t explain all this now,’ I said, ‘except that I know that devil Henry’s behind it.’
I opened the door and rushed into the hall.
‘Glad the boy’s making some nice friends,’ I heard father say as I went out.
Henry was working late at the garage. I found him lying full length under the dismembered chassis of an old lorry.
‘You’ve got me in a nice fix, you devil,’ I said.
‘Hullo! Is that you, Norman? Hand me that spanner, will you?’
I shoved a large spanner into his hand.
‘What the hell do you mean, spinning all this stuff about Miss Hargreaves?’
‘Miss Hargreaves? Eh? Oh, yes! Chuck over that coil of wire, will you? No–not that one, you idiot! The other one.’
‘I do think the telegram, though brilliant, was going a bit too far, Henry.’
‘Here, just hold the other end of this wire, will you? Look out for that oil! What telegram?’
‘What utterly beats me is how you came by this book.’
‘Book?’
‘The poems, idiot! Wayside Bundle.’
Henry laughed. ‘I thought you’d appreciate that. Your father took it all in; actually said he’d write to Foyle’s about it–’
‘I know all that. I want to know where you got the damn book.’
‘Got the book? What do you mean? I didn’t get it.’
‘Come out, blast you! I can’t talk to your legs.’
‘Why not?’ He slithered out and sat on the running-board. ‘Now,’ he said, ‘give me a fag and don’t get so worked up. Tell your Uncle Henry all about it.’
I gave him a cigarette. Then I showed him Wayside Bundle. ‘For God’s sake,’ I said, ‘explain this. I’m scared.’
He looked at it casually. Then he looked again. Then he grabbed it and glared at it. Then he glared at me. He seemed quite angry, for some reason.
‘I always thought,’ he said, ‘that Miss Hargreaves was too good to come straight out of your little head. Golly, Norman, you are an old–’ I nearly wept.
‘Did you, or did you not put this book on father’s desk?’
‘I swear I didn’t. Do you mean to say–’
‘He found it there. Under his nose. You must have.’
‘Sorry, old boy, but I’m not guilty. The only thing I did do was to ask your old man whether he’d got the book. Thought it would be amusing.’
‘Do you call this amusing?’
‘I call it damned queer.’
We were silent for a bit. Then I showed him the telegram.
‘Don’t tell me,’ I said, ‘that you’ve got nothing to do with this. I’ll forgive you anything so long as you tell me you had this telegram sent.’
He read it and looked at me half suspiciously.
‘Just where did you pick up this dame?’ he asked.
‘Did you or did you not have it sent?’ I snapped.
‘Of course I didn’t. A joke’s a joke, but I don’t believe in wasting’–he counted the words–‘one and seven-pence on it. Besides, how could I have been near Hereford?’
We were silent for a very long time. Henry said, ‘I suppose you really did make her up, Norman? She wasn’t some old trout you’d known all along? I know how partial you are to old dames.’
‘Damn it all!’ I cried, ‘you had a good deal to do with it. Of course I made her up. We both did.’
‘I only put in a few bits. You had all the plums.’
‘I know I did most of it. But you helped.’
‘Norman,’ he said solemnly.
‘Yes?’
‘You remember that time you made up the sermon when we were kids, and–’
‘Yes, of course. What’s that got to do with it?’
‘Nothing, I suppose. But–’ He paused. Then he slapped my knee suddenly. ‘I’ve got it!’ he cried. ‘It’s obvious. There just happens to be a Miss Hargreaves staying at the Manor Court Hotel. She gets your letter. She’s very old, memory like a sieve, and she assumes you must be an old friend whom she’s forgotten. Extraordinary coincidence. But things like that do happen.’
‘Yes, and what about the book. Do things like that happen?’
‘Golly, I’d overlooked that. Anyway, old boy, no good worrying too much. Send a wire and say, “Smallpox here; advise postponement of visit”.’
‘She’s not going to be put off by smallpox,’ I said. ‘She’s the type of female who’d rush into smallpox and never catch it.’
‘Look here, I’ve got an idea. Phone the hotel and find out definitely whether there is a Miss Hargreaves staying there. For all you know, somebody might be playing a trick on you.’
‘All right,’ I said.
We went to the office and put through a trunk call. It didn’t take long.
‘Manor Court Hotel,’ came a girl’s voice.
‘Oh, yes,’ I said. ‘Oh, yes–Manor Court Hotel–yes–I–’ I turned to Henry nervously. ‘What the devil shall I say?’
‘Ask if a Miss Hargreaves is staying there, you fool.’
‘Have you’–I coughed and braced myself for the plunge–‘have you a Miss Hargreaves staying there?’
There was a moment’s pause. Then: ‘I’m afraid Miss Hargreaves has just left–this afternoon, that is.’
I turned to Henry and gave him the receiver.
‘Gone,’ I moaned. ‘You do it, Henry. I feel faint.’ Henry took the receiver.
‘Do you mind telling me–eh? What? Oh, yes? Yes. Do you mind telling me if she left any address? Certainly.’ (Pause. I watch three old wasps cruising round a bottle of oil. Happy creatures they seem to me.) ‘Letters to be forwarded to–where? Yes? Oh. Yes. Thank you. Oh, one thing more. When did she arrive at your hotel? Arrive–yes. Why? Important, yes; she is wanted rather urgently. Thanks. Tuesday? About seven in the evening? Thank you. Good-bye.’
‘Well?’ I said. (One of the wasps had got caught in the oil, foolish creature.)
Henry looked at me and shook his head bewilderedly. ‘Something very funny’s going on.’ He looked a bit solemn.
‘Tell me everything.’
‘She arrived last Tuesday evening. Keep calm, Norman; don’t fidget; it won’t help. Tuesday, you’ll remember, was our last evening in Ulster. She’s left Hereford. She asked for her post to be forwarded to–’ He paused.
‘Go on!’ I cried.
‘Thirty-eight London Road, Cornford. Care of Mr Norman Huntley.’
I sat down on the high stool and stupidly looked at a map of the British Isles with a lot of flags in it.
‘Where’s she gone?’ I asked.
‘I’m–well’–Henry lit another cigarette–‘I’m rather afraid she’s gone to Bath.’
I always blame Henry for plunging me deeper and deeper into this miserable business. It was at his advice that I agreed we’d tell my parents that we had actually met a Miss Hargreaves in Ireland. Henry said they’d never swallow the truth, and since she was certain not to turn up, that would probably be an end of it. The worst mistake I could have made, of course. I see now that I ought to have flatly denied all knowledge of her from the first. But there you are. Easy to be wise after, etc.
We went round to number 38 when Henry had washed and changed his clothes. Mother pounced on him at once.
‘Now, Henry,’ she said, ‘perhaps you can tell us something about this friend of Norman’s. He seems to be extraordinarily muddled by it all.’
‘Oh, no muddle about it, Mrs Huntley,’ he said airily. ‘You see, this old trout–she’s a regular trout, isn’t she, Norman?’
‘Schubert knew a thing or two about trouts,’ said father. And he began to hum Die Forelle.
‘Oh, definitely!’ I said. I was so pleased; so certain that Henry, in his brilliant way, was dragging me out of a difficult fix.
‘We ran across her in an hotel at Dungannon. Norman picked up her stick which she’d dropped.’
‘She’s a bit crippled,’ I elaborated.
‘And then she started to talk. Talk? Is there gas in a gasometer? I never heard so much gas from a woman in my life.’
‘She’s very eccentric,’ I added.
‘Eccentric? Isn’t that an under-statement, Norman?’
‘Well–batty, if you like.’
‘Cuckoo–completely cuckoo,’ continued Henry. ‘Poor old dear! We were sorry for her at first. But that soon wore off. She’s a horrible old horror.’
‘So you see,’ I said eagerly, ‘just why I simply can’t have her here. For one thing, she wears the most awful hats.’
‘But why on earth did you ask her here?’ said Jim.
‘Oh, she asked herself,’ explained Henry. ‘Said she’d always wanted to hear the singing at the Cathedral–’
‘Actually asked if I could put her up,’ I added, ‘Of course, I never dreamt she’d really want to come. I think I said something vague, like I’m sure you’d be welcome.’
‘Plenty of beds,’ said father.
‘Then you wrote to her,’ said mother. ‘That was a bit silly, wasn’t it, if you didn’t want her to come?’
‘It was in answer to a letter of hers in which she asked me a lot of questions about the Cathedral music. She haunts cathedrals, you know, like some of the old things we’ve got here. I never invited her to come. Wouldn’t dream of it.’
‘No,’ said Henry. ‘She asked herself. Complete with cockatoo and dog.’
‘And bath,’ I added.
‘And bath,’ agreed Henry.
‘And harp,’ I said rashly, in a peak moment.
‘Harp? ’ said mother and Jim together.
‘I like harps,’ said father. ‘Wrote some music for the harp once, but could never find a harpist to play it.’
‘You mean she plays the harp?’ said Jim.
‘Definitely,’ said Henry. ‘Regular wizard at it.’
‘She plays it last thing every night,’ I threw in. ‘It helps her to write her poetry. “Over the sea to Skye” is her favourite tune.’
‘Parrots are intelligent birds,’ said father. ‘Knew one once that could recite a Shakespeare sonnet. All except the last line.’
‘Oh well,’ said mother, ‘I certainly don’t want a harp and a parrot in the house.’
‘Of course not,’ I said. ‘That’s why I was so upset when you showed me her wire. I never dreamt she’d want to come.’
‘Did you ever hear of that parrot in the Andaman Islands?’ asked father. ‘A harp got washed up from a wreck. The Boston Philharmonic Orchestra had been travelling to Europe and they all went down–all except a harp and one cymbal. They never found the cymbal, but the harp got washed up, and several weeks later–who was that fellow?–some explorer, anyway, found this parrot strumming away an Andaman folk-tune on it. Unusual incident.’
‘I do think you’ve behaved rather funnily about this absurd woman,’ said mother. ‘Why couldn’t you tell us all this before?’
‘I don’t know. She muddled me somehow.’
‘Well, you’d better write to her at once and put her off. We can’t have a parrot and a dog in the house. Horace’d have a fit. (Horace is our cat.) Besides, you really must settle down to work after your holiday.’
‘She won’t turn up,’ said Henry. ‘Don’t worry.’
‘Talking about baths,’ said father, ‘anyone seen my loofah?’
Later that evening I sat in the Happy Union with Henry. Father was playing skittles in the handicap; a good many chaps were gathered round the board.
‘Wish we hadn’t made up that bit about the harp,’ I said.
‘Why not? It went down damn well.’
‘Everything goes down damn well, too well. I tell you, Henry, I feel frightened of making things up.’
‘Don’t be such an ass. Shouldn’t mind betting the girl at the hotel was pulling our legs.’
‘How could she be? How could she know my address and her going on to Bath?’
‘My dear ass, wasn’t your address on the letter–which she might easily have opened? And didn’t you mention the visit to Bath?’
That made me feel a little easier. I ordered more drinks, watched father playing skittles, and tried to put Miss Hargreaves in the back of my mind. But she didn’t want to stay there.
Sunday passed quite normally. The boys had come back from their summer holiday and full choral services were resumed at the Cathedral. It was nice to be back there again. In the evening I went on the river with Marjorie. She’s a friend. Well, she’s more than a friend. I suppose she’ll be my wife one day. I suppose so. I know I don’t sound enthusiastic. The truth is, she let me down terribly over well,–you’ll see. I don’t want so say anything against Marjorie. She’s a fine girl, very spirited. She’s got a job in a shop where they sell superior cakes and preserves. You know the sort of place.
‘Who’s this Miss Hargreaves you’ve been taking up with?’ she asked me suddenly, when we were half-way downstream, coming round into Hedsor wharf.
‘Oh, she took up with me,’ I said. ‘Not I with her.’
‘Well, who is she, anyway?’
I leant over the side and flicked an old cigarette packet from the water into the bank.
‘She’s a niece of the Duke of Grosvenor,’ I said. ‘She writes poetry too.’
‘Oh, really?’ Marjorie seemed interested. She pointed up to Cliveden House, towering through the tops of the trees. ‘The Grosvenors used to live there, didn’t they?’
‘That’s right,’ I said.
‘How old is she?’
‘About a hundred. I like that frock you’re wearing, Marjorie. Suits you like a glove.’
‘I suppose she’s horribly rich?’
I laughed. ‘Oh, yes! A hundred-pound note slips through her hand easier than a postage stamp. Shall we go down to Cookham Lock or turn back?’
‘Back, I think. It’s a bit cold. What’s her poetry like?’
‘It’s funny.’
‘How do you mean–funny? Comic poetry?’
‘Not exactly. I can remember one verse.’ I quoted:
‘O, bring me the cornet, the flute, and the axe,
The serpent, the drum and the cymbals;
The truth has been told; I’ve laid bare all the facts –
I cannot make bricks without thimbles.’
This seemed to puzzle Marjorie. She was silent for a bit. I began to row home. Presently she said:
‘Thimbles? Don’t you mean “straw”?’
‘No. Thimbles.’
‘I don’t see what it means,’ she said.
‘Don’t you? It is rather tricky, I agree. But the best poets always are obscure.’
I hadn’t, of course, the slightest idea what the poem meant, but in a curious way I felt I had to defend it. The poems had got hold of me. I’d read them right through last night in bed, and lain awake for hours, worried about the whole funny business. As certain as I could see the old moon rising yellow over the Cathedral spire, I could see trouble rising. I fell uneasily asleep. Next night too–I fell even more uneasily asleep.
When I woke up on Monday morning it was with that sort of a ‘different’ feeling you have when things are either very bad or very good. I went down to breakfast–the first down for a change. On my plate was a letter; I saw it the moment I passed through the door. I approached it gingerly. The envelope was long and pea-green; not the sort of colour you want to see at breakfast-time. I picked it up between my fingers, holding it as though it were a bomb. It bore the Hereford postmark. I might have guessed.
I couldn’t open it at once, but shoved it in my pocket. Breakfast stuck. I could feel the letter close to me, burning me, if you know what I mean. When I got out into the street and was on my way to the Cathedral for Matins, I ripped it open savagely, looking first at the signature.
It was signed ‘CONSTANCE HARGREAVES’. She was ‘Ever most affectionately’. Sent, of course, from the Manor Court Hotel.
I stopped in the road. Suddenly I was angry. A joke had no right to go on like this. I had a strong instinct to crumple the letter up and throw it away. A warning voice said to me, ‘Norman Huntley, if you read that letter you’ll open out a whole train of troublesome events. Throw it away. Get Miss Hargreaves for ever out of your mind. Behave as though she doesn’t exist.’
Doesn’t exist . . . doesn’t exist . . . doesn’t exist. I muttered the words Couély over and over again. Next minute I was reading the letter.
The writing was very broad and flowery, like a Morris wall-paper, full of twirls, and it didn’t leave much room on the envelope for the stamp. In fact, I’ve rarely seen a stamp so crowded out. I didn’t read the letter right through at first; I read random bits here and there. I don’t know about you, but I’m like that with difficult letters; never can tackle them directly, but must look at them inside-out and upside-down. Then comes the moment when, having gathered its tone from stray but important words (suppose it to be a letter from a solicitor reminding me about the tailor’s bill; the sort of words that inevitably stand out are–‘Unless’, ‘Compelled’, ‘Issue’), I am faced with having to wade right through it. In this case the words that caught my eye were–‘Bath’, ‘bath’ (observe the distinction), ‘old friends’, and–‘luggage in advance to your house’.
‘Oh, God!’ I moaned. Then I read it properly.
‘MY DEAR NORMAN,
‘Your charming letter gave me such great pleasure. How clever of you to know I should be at Hereford. But then, of course we are such old friends–in spite of the discrepancy–of age that you know my habits almost as well, if not better, than I know them myself.’
(‘If not better . .
.’Why did that strike me as being so horribly sinister?)
‘I have little time for a letter now, as I am about to catch my train to Bath, but this is just to tell you that I look forward greatly to seeing you and your dear family on Monday evening. I am curtailing my visit to Bath this year especially to be with you. My train is due to arrive at Cornford at eight-fifteen, post meridian. Will you kindly arrange for a cab as I have — as usual — oh, dear! — rather a lot of luggage. I have taken the liberty of having some of it sent by luggage in advance to your house.
‘I am most touched by what you say of my dear old friend, Mr Archer — now, alas, “long, long ago at rest”. One of my most precious possessions is a bath that he gave me years ago. That sounds strange, does it not? But there is a very simple explanation which one day I must tell you if you do not already know.
‘There has been such exquisite music at the Cathedral this year. Doctor Hull conducted so admirably beautiful Elijah – beautiful Messiah – beautiful Beethoven Choral – what a heritage!
‘I have just composed a triolet which I look forward to reading to you.
‘Well, dear, I hope you are in good health and will be able to find time to show me something of your native town and countryside. I may be an old woman, but I still like to get about.
‘Till Monday, then,
‘Ever most affectionately . . . ’
Futile rage possessed me. I screwed the letter up and threw it at a passing bus, next minute ran out into the road to recover it, feeling it might be useful as evidence in some way or another. What in God’s name could it all mean? One thing I decided then and there: I’d tell father the whole truth. He’d understand more than mother and Jim.
Squeen, father’s assistant, was there when I arrived at the shop after Matins. Squeen is naturally thin; you lose him sometimes in the dark corners of the shop. It wouldn’t surprise me to find him flattened out under the Encyclopaedia Britannica.
‘Mr Squeen’s glad to see Mr Norman back,’ he said. ‘And did Mr Norman enjoy his visit to the passionate Celtic Isle?’
He’s got an irritating habit of avoiding the use of the first and second persons in his speech.
‘Ripping,’ I said.
Going straight to the phone, I called up Henry. Squeen sat on a pair of steps and examined his finger-nails.
‘Mr Squeen surmises,’ he surmised, ‘that there are more books in this shop than there are people in the Isle of Erin.’
‘Shut up, Squeen,’ I said. That’s one thing about him; you can shut him up. Father bullies him unmercifully.
I heard Henry’s voice.
‘Oh, is that you, Henry? Look, I’ve had a letter from the old devil. It mentions the bath.’
‘You mean the visit to Bath?’
‘No. I don’t. Small b-a-t-h. Mr Archer’s bath. Henry, I think I’m going to have a nervous breakdown. She’s arriving at Cornford to-night at eight-fifteen. You’ll simply have to come to the station with me.’
‘Can’t. We’re all going to the Clovertree Dance–don’t you remember? You’ll have to leave the old dear to herself.’
‘I daren’t. We must be there. You’ve got to help me.’
‘I don’t believe there’ll be anybody there, you know.’
‘I can’t risk it.’
‘Well, what do you intend to do if she is there?’
‘I’ve thought it all out. I shall pack her off to the Swan. If she’s troublesome, I shall get her certified.’
‘She might get you certified, old boy. Have you thought of that?’
‘You might be a bit more helpful.’
‘Read me the letter.’ I did so. ‘H’m,’ he said, ‘I can’t say I care for that bit about luggage in advance.’
‘No. Neither do I.’
‘All right,’ said Henry. ‘I’ll come with you. We can go on to the dance afterwards. The girls won’t mind if we’re a bit late.’
‘What do you think it all means, Henry?’
‘Black magic, it sounds like. Why don’t you try making a wax image of her and sticking pins into it? Use drawing-pins. They stay in easier.’
He rang off and father came down, balancing a set of Tolstoy against his chest.
‘Too much of Tolstoy,’ he muttered, ‘nothing but Tolstoy upstairs.’ He shouted suddenly to Squeen. ‘Squeen, make a set-to to-day and rout out that Kelmscott Shakes. And sort out all that Tolstoy.’
‘Father,’ I said, ‘I want to have a serious talk with you. I’m very worried.’
‘Sit down, boy. Have a cigarette. Woman?’
I nodded. My father nodded too and jabbed his cigarette-holder in and out of his moustache. It’s a big moustache, rather fine. The holder’s a long one; amber.
‘Women,’ said my father, ‘have never really been my cup of tea. They do not understand major issues, and their passion for realism is something I have never felt agreeable to. Nevertheless, the race, as a race, would crumble without them. Squeen, you devil–where are my slippers?’
Squeen brought him his velvet slippers and father, slipping his feet into them, stretched himself out in his revolving desk-chair. It’s in a corner of the shop, at the back, away from all the windows, very hard to find, hemmed in by all the dullest books to stop customers wandering there. Often you’d go into the shop and never realize father was there. He likes to play chess in his corner or paste photographs in his albums.
‘This is not what you think,’ I said. ‘I’m not in love or anything like that. I wish it was as simple.’
‘Get if off your chest, boy. I may not listen, but I shall gather the trend of it. You’ll excuse me going on with this chess problem, won’t you? Squeen, shut the door and put the “back-in-ten-minutes” up. Now we can have a little peace.’
‘It’s this Miss Hargreaves,’ I said.
‘A fine woman from the sound of her. Plays the oboe, don’t she? Now the oboe’s a funny instrument one way and another–’ ‘You remember that time you warned me never to make things up? Well–’
‘Old Bach understood the oboe better than any man before or after. You might say old Bach made the oboe.’
‘I made her up, see? On the Spur of the Moment. Henry had a finger in it; but only a little finger.’
‘Here–this won’t do. I’m one pawn short. Squeen, look for a black pawn, will you? Or bring a pen-nib or something. Go on, my boy. Don’t let me rush you. Plenty of time.’
‘She just came into my head, Dad. But she won’t stay there. Everything that I made up about her is coming true. I had a letter from her this morning.’
‘Now look here, my boy; be frank with your father. Have you put yourself into a compromising situation, or not? Everything turns on that; it always does.’
‘You don’t understand. I’ve never even met her.’
‘Yes, I heard you say you’d made her up. What I want to know is –have you made up a compromising situation?’
‘No. Not yet.’
‘Well, be careful.’
‘You do believe me, then?’
‘Just you tell me all about it.’
I did so. I gave him the whole story, from our visit to Lusk church onwards.
‘This Archer cove,’ he said. ‘Did you make him up too?’
‘No. I told you. He’s real. He’s dead.’
‘Why don’t you make her have a railway accident on the way here?’
‘It might involve a lot of other people.’
‘True.’ He lit another cigarette and moved two knights slowly. ‘It’s alchemy,’ he said, ‘that’s what it is. A sort of alchemy. I’ve got a book on it somewhere.’ He glanced through a row of books on his desk. ‘Can’t lay may hands on it now. An old book. It’s quite possible. It was done in the Middle Ages, or was it the Dark ones? Who was that fellow? Gilles de Retz or Cardinal Mazarin or somebody. It’s purely a matter of faith. I suppose you had faith when you started in on this job?’
‘Well, certainly, the more I talked about Miss–’
‘Don’t keep mentioning her name,’ he advised. ‘It’s dangerous. She might easily become immortal. Then where would you be?’
‘All I was going to say was, the more I talked about her, the more real she seemed to become.’
‘Call her X,’ he suggested, ‘and faith, Y. Well, X + Y = Z, and Z’s reality. It’s all in that old book, worked out with graphs and things. Wish I could find it. Squeen, keep your eyes open for alchemy, will you?’
‘Look here, father, I wish you’d be serious.’
‘Serious! Never more serious in my life. Something very like this happened to me once. Better not tell your mother. I was in Basingstoke one winter morning; had an appointment to view some books at a sale. Well, something delayed me, don’t know what it was, but anyhow I arrived an hour and a half late. By the way, very comfy little pub, the Blue Star; brewed their own mild in those days. The auctioneer was absurdly angry about me being late; said he’d held the books back specially, and so on. “Miss your train or something?” he said. “No,” I said, “I don’t suppose you’ll ever believe me, but I got held up by an elephant.” Of course I knew he would believe me. People always do if you tell them not to believe you and if you make it extravagant enough. It’s when you try to make a lie sound like the truth that people get suspicious. Naturally.’
He leant down to a small cupboard near him and brought out a bottle of cherry brandy and two glasses.
‘What’s the time?’ he asked.
‘Eleven-thirty,’ I said.
‘H’m,’ he said. He filled the glasses. ‘Cheerio!’
‘Thanks, Dad,’ I said. ‘Well, have you any advice?’
‘Oh, I believe you,’ he said. ‘I sympathize. I understand in a way that most people wouldn’t. Look at that! Red Queen’s in check and I never noticed. It’s that damned clothes-peg.’
‘She doesn’t play an oboe. You’re wrong about that.’
‘Pity. We might have managed one of the Brandenburgs.’
‘What am I to do if she does turn up?’
‘Yes, an elephant,’ continued father, dreamily tipping up his glass. ‘“Elephant?” said the auctioneer fellow. “Exactly,” I said. “Broke loose from a circus. About a dozen of us were trying to catch the brute. Somebody brought a tennis net but the elephant ate it.” “Well, did they get her?” asked the auctioneer. “Only after a struggle,” I said. “A postman was killed.” Well, do you know, Norman, my boy, I read in my paper that evening that three elephants had stampeded through Basingstoke that very day, upsetting a lot of carts stacked with celery, devouring the entire contents of two bakers’ shops and killing a postman. Three elephants. So you see how careful you have to be. It shook me.’
‘Yes, father. Yes, I can see.’
‘Well, lunch-time, I suppose?’
We closed the shop and went round to the Swan.
The afternoon dragged on. Evensong passed in a sort of dream. I lost my place in a verse anthem (Battishill, I think it was) and plunged the boys into a wrong lead. I was nervous, terribly on edge. Back in the shop I had a cup of tea with father, then tried to work on a little counterpoint. But I couldn’t get on with the stuff at all. I had another look at Wayside Bundle; I searched the shop in case there should be any more copies. I still half wondered whether Henry wasn’t at the bottom of everything. Could he possibly have had the volume specially printed? But it was obviously perfectly genuine; the leaves spotted with age, and it had that dowsy smell about it which only years’ll draw from a book. The title-page, the dedication and the binding might, of course, have been imposed upon a volume of poems by another writer. But was it likely? And could it all have been done in the time?
Many times I pondered over a sonnet which began:
Belovéd bath wherein my tiréd feet
Have oft-time plunged before the peaceful hour
When sleep descends . . .
I didn’t like it. I didn’t like anything. And yet–and yet–(will you ever be able to understand this?)–I was already beginning to be curiously proud. Nobody but Miss Hargreaves could have written those poems, whatever Marjorie chose to say about them.
I went home about six, wondering what eight-fifteen would bring forth; hoping it would bring forth nothing, yet hoping too to see the realization of my invention. Even though it might mean hideous complications, I couldn’t help hoping that.
Mother and Jim were out. I was rather glad about that. Because I should have found it hard to explain the enormous package in the hall. Janie told me it had just been delivered. It was addressed to Miss Hargreaves c/o Norman Huntley, Esquire, at 38 London Road, Cornford, Bucks.
It was a very large package indeed. It was done up in sewn sacking, wedges of newspaper and straw. It was, quite clearly, a harp. You could see the pedals.