by James Hilton
“I know,” Howat said. “But then, you’re so certain of the good you do—you know it—you can see it with your own eyes—people whom you’ve cured walk about the streets as a living reminder and proof.”
“And a damn sight worse off some of ’em are than if I’d killed ’em! My dear chap, it isn’t a matter of doing good, it’s a matter of carrying on with a job. If I once began to think in terms of ethics, I should probably send old mother Roseway an overdose of strychnine to-night—yes, and a dozen others I could name. Fortunately I’m content to plod along at the job I’m paid for, and it’s a pity you can’t be satisfied in the same way. After all, you preach, you visit, you bury and marry and all that, you run no end of societies and things—I should imagine you give pretty good value for money, on the whole.”
“It isn’t even that. I’ve got to satisfy myself.”
Ringwood approached Howat and laid a firm hand on his shoulder. “You know, Freemantle, I should say you were in for a fairly serious breakdown if you don’t take care. You want a holiday—some kind of change from this infernal round of visiting old women and singing temperance hymns.” His voice, which had been serious for a moment, relapsed into its more usual bantering tone as he added: “Personally I never take holidays of the ordinary kind—haven’t done for twenty years—but when I feel myself getting a bit edgy I ring up Hudson and hand him over my practice for two or three days; then I pop off to London and have a real good beano. Dinner at a chophouse, then the silliest show I can find, then a few drinks wherever I can get them, then—well, I wouldn’t like to tell you all that is on the programme sometimes when I’m in town. But it doesn’t often happen—I find a few days of dissipation lasts me longer now than it used to. Growing old, I suppose that’s what it is.”
Howat smiled. “I’m sure you can’t really see me doing anything of that sort. Though as a matter of fact I do happen to be going to London this Friday—I’ve got to come to terms with a firm about supplying a new heating apparatus for the chapel.”
“Well, there’s your chance. You won’t be all day choosing a heating apparatus. And I don’t expect you’ll hurry back to this benighted spot by the very next train, will you?”
“I shall put up for the night at one of those bed-and-breakfast hotels in Southampton Row, and probably catch the 10.30 back on Saturday morning.”
“Rubbish, man! Stay in town and make a week-end of it!”
“Perhaps I might except for the fact that I have a Bazaar committee- meeting and a young men’s class on Saturday evening and two services to take on Sunday, as well as Sunday school and the Armistice service. People don’t realise that a parson has work to do—indeed, I hardly dare mention to most people that I’m going to London; they look at me with that ‘lucky dog’ expression, as if I were just treating myself to a holiday.”
“Which is precisely what you ought to be doing. Anyhow, you’ll have one night in town—and take my tip: make a real night of it—dinner and theatre—don’t stint yourself—don’t go to bed till the small hours. Remember that: I shall ask you, mind, when you get back, for a full report, and if you haven’t taken my prescription there’ll be trouble!”
They laughed and chatted on for a few minutes longer, until Howat looked at his watch and said he must be going. He rose and glanced shyly at Ringwood, for momentarily he had an impulse to tell the doctor about that pain in his throat. Why not, after all?—it would save a few guineas, and if it were anything serious…but the mere possibility checked the words long before they could have reached his lips. Ringwood had been a good friend for years, and Howat suspected real affection behind the ferocity of manner; it would all be so much less unnerving with someone whom he did not know.
He said good-bye, but Ringwood insisted on driving him back to the Manse. When at last he was alone in his study, glancing at a few things that had arrived by the evening post, he began to think in some detail about his Friday plans. He would travel up by a morning train, arriving in London soon after lunch; he could see the engineering people in the early afternoon, and then be at Wimpole Street for four. And after that? It would depend, of course, on how he felt; he might not be in the mood for anything at all. A pity, perhaps, that he couldn’t get back to Browdley the same night…He tore open the wrapper of the London Times, which was sent him by post each day, and on the front page an announcement caught his eye—a violin and piano recital at the Cavendish Hall on Friday evening; a good programme, too—Schumann, Beethoven, Brahms. Sometimes, in earlier years and at very rare intervals, he had made special trips to London to attend some particular concert or recital; he had not done so lately, for financial reasons, but now the thought of sitting once again in a concert-hall and listening to Brahms (Brahms of all composers) gave him a sudden pricking of anticipation 3 whatever dreadful things were in store for him on Friday, that would at least help to redress the balance. He wondered if they would play the Sonata in A major. The opening theme of the first movement began to pour through his mind in a clear stream; it reminded him of something, of somebody, of somewhere he had once heard it before, and not so very long before—curious, yes—he remembered now—he had heard that ’girl humming it at the beginning of one of those German lessons, and he had been too surprised at the time to make a remark or ask a question. Perhaps, he now reflected, she had picked it up from the cinema musician.
* * *
CHAPTER THREE — WEDNESDAY
He slept rather well (it might have been, he guessed, that Ringwood’s pick-me-up had contained something to make him do so) and woke up feeling considerably refreshed; then, after breakfast, a rare mood seized him, and for the first time for many months he did not spend his allotted morning hours in the study. Instead he adjourned to the room on the opposite side of the lobby—the parlour, a chilly bay-windowed apartment used only on fairly infrequent occasions, and furnished in a style which future period connoisseurs will perhaps extol as Edwardian. There was a litter of spindly chairs, a large-patterned and highly-coloured Axminster, and a good deal of poor-quality inlaid work and china in cabinets. The only object, however, which lured him to this unrewarding scene at nine o’clock on a November morning was the pianoforte—an upright German instrument, not very good in tone, but on the other hand not nearly as bad as its surroundings might have suggested. On and off since he got out of bed Howat had been thinking of that concert on Friday evening; he had already begun to feel a little excited about it, and excitement had put him in one of his periodic moods for what his wife called ‘making up bits of tunes’. She could never see much point in the occupation, for although some of the tunes had occasionally won prizes in competitions, they were never ‘printed,’ as she said, nor did they seem to her at all attractive when Howat played them over to her. She also disliked the sound of improvising and experimentation on the piano, and complained that even in the bedroom she could hear it, and that it always gave her a headache. Howat, therefore, never devoted himself to his ’tunes while she was in the house, which meant that for years he had had very few opportunities of doing so at all. But this morning, Mrs. Freemantle, contrary to usual habit, had taken breakfast downstairs and had gone out immediately afterwards with Aunt Viney; there was a sale at a dress shop in a neighbouring town, and it was most important that she should arrive in time.
Howat, in that cold and unwelcoming room, was almost childishly happy with his music-paper and pencil. They revealed a part of him that few people ever saw; indeed, he kept it particularly to himself, because (for one reason) he did not wish his congregation to think he still had designs on their hymn- book. Years before, when he had first arrived in Browdley, there had been a tremendous row over that; he had nourished great visions of making the chapel a centre of musical culture (why, he had argued, should that sort of thing be left entirely to the Anglicans and Romans?) and had incautiously let it be known that he did not consider certain old and well-known revivalist hymn-tunes to be musically first-rate. The resulting upheaval, which he had ba
rely managed to live down, had convinced him that his more important work would be sadly hampered if he allowed himself to be sidetracked into the position of a musical Savonarola; so thenceforward he had scrupulously left all questions of hymns and anthems to the organist, a local insurance-agent, whose dream was to play the “Poet and Peasant” overture on a three-manual instrument that had a Vox Humana stop.
It was remarkable how completely Howat had learned that early lesson. Rigid self-discipline over a period of years had given him power to tolerate what the strictly musical part of him must have detested; Sunday after Sunday heard him joining, with that deep baritone of his, in music whose words and tunes matched each other in utter commonplaceness; and whenever the critical temptation arose he could manage to stifle it by thinking of the spirit that ranked beyond the mere letter, and of that deep religious feeling which must be held so much more worthy than any technique of art.
This morning, however, no such distracting thoughts occurred to him, and he yielded himself; for two hours and more, to a task which he found totally absorbing. There was a school concert due to take place about Christmas time, and he usually taught the children some kind of song for the occasion; why not, then, something composed by himself, if it seemed good enough when he had finished it? But the idea, after all, did not strike him till he had been some time at work; it was a mere excuse for going on, not a reason for beginning. The truth was, to put it quite plainly: his wife was out and he felt in the mood.
When he left the Manse, a little later than his usual hour (for he had somewhat lost count of time whilst at the piano) he felt pleased, though far from satisfied, with what he had done. It sent him back, in memory, to those very early years when he had day-dreamed himself the author of some colossal symphony, bowing acknowledgments before a frantic first-night audience at the Queen’s Hall. Absurd, of course; he knew more accurately now the true extent of his talent; but it was tempting, and rather fragrant, to recollect those ancient ecstasies. Sing-song homeward walks along the Kentish lanes, with stars overhead and his boyhood friends arm-linked on either side; hours with the piano or violin (he played both instruments passably well); trips to Canterbury, Dover, Maidstone, sometimes even London, to sample the art of some celebrity. One after another, and in completely unchronological order, the great masters had moved into his youthful comprehension—Chopin first, then Beethoven, Bach, Mozart, and Brahms last of all. In those days music had seemed everything to him, but that of course was before the crisis in his early life which, though he did not greatly care for the term, could only be called his ‘conversion’. Looking back now over a span of a quarter of a century he had a disappointingly vague recollection of how that had happened; but he could remember perfectly a certain winter’s night when he had first heard the Kreutzer Sonata and had walked home afterwards along moonlit and frost-bound roads from the railway station…It was a pity, really, that there was no kind of musical club or society in Browdley; he had often thought of starting one, but he was rather afraid it would take up too much of his time. Besides, nowadays people had gramophones and the wireless…He wondered if Higgs, who had said he was keen on music, would support him in the idea of holding short evening concerts on Sundays after the time of church and chapel services? Of course one had to move warily in things like that; there would probably be opposition from some of the older people, or else they would insist that all the music played on such occasions should be ‘sacred’ music…as if all good music were not sacred…
Howat, striding along the High Street with these and other reflections in mind, was far too preoccupied to keep his usual keen look-out for people he knew; indeed, he was not even looking where he was going and narrowly escaped collision with a man who was standing in a rather peculiar posture on the pavement. He was about to mutter a vague apology when he caught sight of a pair of very recognisable black moustaches. “Ah, Mr. Garland,” he exclaimed, and wondered whether Garland really wanted him to stop or not. For Garland was outside his own shop, scrutinising through the glass a roll of cloth which an assistant was fixing in position. At intervals of a few seconds he shouted directions, ignoring the fact that the assistant could not possibly hear him; but as this had been his method of supervising window-dressing for thirty years or so, he probably did not see any reason to alter it. “Ah, good morning, Mr. Freemantle,” he answered, swinging round sharply. He stopped, as if waiting for Howat to make the first move in the conversation, and for a few moments the two men stared at each other with some discomfort, while the assistant behind the plate glass stared at both of them impartially. At last Garland opened with: “You’ve heard the latest news about my daughter, I suppose?”
“Latest news? Have you—have you heard from her then?”
“No, we’ve not heard, but we’ve got to know, and that’s been quite enough. Come inside a moment—I don’t want to shout these things on the pavement.”
Howat followed dubiously, reflecting that there was really no need to shout them at all. The interior of Garland’s shop, as they both walked through it to an inner apartment, afflicted him with a spasm of melancholy; it was very dark, and the assistants were pale and sickly-looking youths, whom Garland glared at fiercely as he passed them. In a sort of inner office filled with bills and ledgers and patterns of cloth Garland motioned Howat to a chair, closed the door carefully, and resumed: “She’s run away with a man—a man who plays the fiddle in a picture-house.”
Howat said: “Yes, I’d heard something to that effect, but I was hoping it could be no more than a rumour.”
“A rumour? God bless my soul, they were seen together at Manchester getting into the train!” His voice thickened with indignation. “Of course neither my wife nor I could countenance that sort of thing. Not at any price would we take her back now that we know what has happened. She’s disgraced our name—the only thing we can do is to try to forget that she’s our daughter.”
Howat found himself staring at a peculiarly sinister-looking tailor’s dummy, armless and legless, that had been flung into a corner of the office amidst a heap of brown paper. He had been propelled so abruptly, as it were, from the world of his own thoughts into this other world of angry fathers and erring daughters and rolls of gents’ suitings that he could hardly, for the moment, get his bearings. Then the last few words of Garland’s remarks echoed in his mind and brought him up with a jerk. He said, rather sadly: “Don’t you think it may be a little too early to reach such a decision, Mr. Garland?”
“Not at all. We’re a respectable family—we’re not going to make any terms with evil-doing. Out she stays, now that she’s gone, and I’d say the same to any of my other children. She need never come back to Browdley thinking she’ll be admitted here again.”
“Well, well, I suppose if you feel like that about it—”
I do feel like that, and my wife would say the same. If thine eye offend thee, pluck it out, so the Good Book says.”
“It also, I believe, mentions forgiveness—”
“It says we should forgive our enemies, not our daughters.”
Which set Howat reflecting absently that it was, most certainly, much easier to forgive one’s enemies than one’s friends and relatives—could it be, then, that the more difficult achievement was not seriously expected of us? Garland, however, had clearly not meant so much, and Howat answered, with sudden distaste for the entire argument: “Anyhow, Mr. Garland, there doesn’t seem much point in discussing all this till we definitely hear where the girl is and what she’s doing. I wish—I do wish sincerely—that I could help you in some way—I assure you I sympathise most deeply—”
“I don’t see what anybody can do. Personally, I don’t expect ever to hear from her again—if she’s decided to live that sort of life, she’ll know that we won’t have anything more to do with her. We don’t even want to hear her name mentioned. Henceforward—”
Garland continued in this strain for several minutes longer, and Howat, at the first considerable pause
, was glad to make his excuses and get away.
The second post usually arrived at the Manse towards noon, and was placed on the study table to await Howat’s return from his morning’s visits. That Wednesday morning, when he reached home, there was quite a collection for him to deal with—bills, circulars, appeals—the usual mixture, and then, between two larger envelopes, a small one, addressed in a writing which he faintly recognised, though he could not quite decide where he had seen it before. He opened the envelope and read, from a single sheet of plain paper without any address heading:
“Dear Mr. Freemantle,—You will be surprised to hear from me, I am sure, but I am presuming on our slight acquaintance to ask a favour. No doubt by this time you and everyone else in Browdley must know that I have left home, and though I do not regret doing so, I do not want my parents to worry about me unnecessarily. I wish you could assure them that I am perfectly all right and quite happy. I hate leaving as I had to do, but I really do feel that I am too old to be treated as a child. Do you think you could possibly explain that to them? I know it is asking a great deal, but I cannot think of anyone else who could do it. I must thank you, too, for the German lessons which I am sure will prove of use to rue, and I enclose two pounds which I think I owe you for them. I have no permanent address just at present, but for the next few clays anything addressed c/o the Charing Cross post office would reach me. With kindest regards and many thanks,
Yours sincerely, Elizabeth Garland.”