The Complete Short Stories of L.P. Hartley

by L. P. Hartley

  The night-watchman was a domesticated man with a wife and two children, both babies. One was beginning to talk. Since he took on his job wages had risen, and everything at home seemed gilt-edged. It made a difference to his wife. When he got home she would say, as she had done on the preceding mornings, ‘Well, you do look a wreck. This night work doesn’t suit you, I’m sure.’ The night-watchman liked being addressed in that way and hearing his job described as night work; it showed an easy competent familiarity with a man’s occupation. He would tell her, with the air of one who had seen much, about the incidents of his vigil, and what he hadn’t seen he would invent, just for the pleasure of hearing her say: ‘Well, I never! You do have some experiences, and no mistake.’ He was very fond of his wife. Why, hadn’t she promised to patch up the old blue-paper blinds, used once for the air-raids, but somewhat out of repair as a consequence of their being employed as a quarry for paper to wrap up parcels? He hadn’t slept well, couldn’t get accustomed to sleeping by day, the room was so light; but these blinds would be just the thing, and it would be nice to see them and feel that the war was over and there was no need for them, really.

  The night-watchman yawned as for the twentieth time perhaps he came up sharp against the boundary of his walk. Loss of sleep, no doubt. He would sit in his shelter and rest a bit. As he turned and saw the narrowing gleams that transformed the separating poles into thin lines of fire, he noticed that nearly at the end, just opposite the brazier in fact and only a foot or two from the door of his hut, the left line was broken. Someone was sitting on the barrier, his back turned on the night-watchman’s little compound. ‘Strange I never heard him come,’ thought the man, brought back with a jerk from his world of thoughts to the real world of darkness and the deserted street—well, no, not exactly deserted, for here was someone who might be inclined to talk for half an hour or so. The stranger paid no attention to the watchman’s slowly advancing tread. A little disconcerting. He stopped. Drunk, I expect, he thought. This would be a real adventure to tell his wife. ‘I told him I wasn’t going to stand any rot from him. “Now, my fine fellow, you go home to bed; that’s the best place for you,” I said.’ He had heard drunk men addressed in that way, and wondered doubtfully whether he would be able to catch the tone; it was more important than the words, he reflected. At last, pulling himself together, he walked up to the brazier and coughed loudly, and feeling ill-at-ease, set about warming his hands with such energy he nearly burned them.

  As the stranger took no notice, but continued to sit wrapped in thought, the night-watchman hazarded a remark to his bent back. ‘A fine night,’ he said rather loudly, though it was ridiculous to raise one’s voice in an empty street. The stranger did not turn round.

  ‘Yes,’ he replied, ‘but cold; it will be colder before morning.’ The night-watchman looked at his brazier, and it struck him that the coke was not lasting so well as on the previous nights. I’ll put some more on, he thought, picking up a shovel; but instead of the little heap he had expected to see, there was nothing but dust and a few bits of grit—his night’s supply had been somehow overlooked. ‘Won’t you turn round and warm your hands?’ he said to the person sitting on the barrier. ‘The fire isn’t very good, but I can’t make it up, for they forgot to give me any extra, unless somebody pinched it when my back was turned.’ The night-watchman was talking for effect; he did not really believe that anyone had taken the coke. The stranger might have made a movement somewhere about the shoulders.

  ‘Thank you,’ he said, ‘but I prefer to warm my back.’

  Funny idea that, thought the watchman.

  ‘Have you noticed,’ proceeded the stranger, ‘how easily men forget? This coke of yours, I mean; it looks as if they didn’t care about you very much, leaving you in the cold like this.’ It had certainly grown colder, but the man replied cheerfully: ‘Oh, it wasn’t that. They forgot it. Hurrying to get home, you know.’ Still, they might have remembered, he thought. It was Bill Jackson’s turn to fetch it—Old Bill, as the fellows call him. He doesn’t like me very much. The chaps are a bit stand-offish. They’ll be all right when I know them better.

  His visitor had not stirred. How I would like to push him off, the night-watchman thought, irritated and somehow troubled. The stranger’s voice broke in upon his reflections.

  ‘Do you like this job?’

  ‘Oh, not so bad,’ said the man carelessly; ‘good money, you know.’

  ‘Good money,’ repeated the stranger scornfully. ‘How much do you get?’

  The night-watchman named the sum.

  ‘Are you married, and have you got any children?’ the stranger persisted.

  The night-watchman said ‘Yes,’ without enthusiasm.

  ‘Well, that won’t go very far when the children are a bit older,’ declared the stranger. ‘Have you any prospect of a rise?’ The man said no, he had just had one.

  ‘Prices going up, too,’ the stranger commented.

  A change came over the night-watchman’s outlook. The feeling of hostility and unrest increased. He couldn’t deny all this. He longed to say, ‘What do you think you’re getting at?’ and rehearsed the phrase under his breath, but couldn’t get himself to utter it aloud; his visitor had created his present state of mind and was lord of it. Another picture floated before him, less rosy than the first: an existence drab-coloured with the dust of conflict, but relieved by the faithful support of his wife and children at home. After all, that’s the life for a man, he thought; but he did not cherish the idea, did not walk up and down hugging it, as he cherished and hugged the other.

  ‘Do you find it easy to sleep in the daytime?’ asked the stranger presently.

  ‘Not very,’ the night-watchman admitted. ‘Ah,’ said the stranger, ‘dreadful thing, insomnia.’

  ‘When you can’t go to sleep, you mean,’ interpreted the night-watchman, not without a secret pride.

  ‘Yes,’ came the answer. ‘Makes a man ill, mad sometimes. People have done themselves in sooner than stand the torture.’

  It was on the tip of the night-watchman’s tongue to mention that panacea, the blue blinds. But he thought it would sound foolish, and wondered whether they would prove such a sovereign remedy after all. ‘What about your children? You won’t see much of them,’ remarked the stranger, ‘while you are on this job. Why, they’ll grow up without knowing you! Up when their papa’s in bed, and in bed when he’s up! Not that you miss them much, I dare say. Still, if children don’t get fond of their father while they’re young, they never will.’

  Why didn’t the night-watchman take him up warmly, assuring him they were splendid kids; the eldest called him daddy, and the younger, his wife declared, already recognized him. She knew by its smile, she said. He couldn’t have forgotten all that; half an hour ago it had been one of his chief thoughts. He was silent.

  ‘I should try and find another job if I were you,’ observed the stranger. ‘Otherwise you won’t be able to make both ends meet. What will your wife say then?’

  The man considered; at least he thought he was facing the question, but his mind was somehow too deeply disturbed, and circled wearily and blindly in its misery. ‘I was never brought up to a trade,’ he said hesitatingly; ‘father’s fault.’ It struck him that he had never confessed that before; had sworn not to give his father away. What am I coming to? he thought. Then he made an effort. ‘My wife’s all right, she’ll stick to me.’ He waited, positively dreading the stranger’s next attack. Though the fire was burning low, almost obscured under the coke ashes that always seem more lifeless than any others, he felt drops of perspiration on his forehead, and his clothes, he knew, were soaked. I shall get a chill, that’ll be the next thing, he thought; but it was involuntary: such an idea hadn’t occurred to him since he was a child, supposedly delicate.

  ‘Yes, your wife,’ said the stranger at last, in tones so cold and clear that they seemed to fill the universe; to admit of no contradiction; to be graven with a fine unerring instrume
nt out of the hard rock of truth itself. ‘You won’t see much of her either. You leave her pretty much to herself, don’t you? Now with these women, you know, that’s a risk.’ The last word rang like a challenge; but the night-watchman had taken the offensive, shot his one little bolt, and the effort had left him more helpless than ever.

  ‘When the eye doth not see,’ continued the stranger, ‘the heart doth not grieve; on the contrary, it makes merry.’ He laughed, as the night-watchman could see from the movement of his shoulders. ‘I’ve known cases very similar to yours. When the cat’s away, you know! It’s a pity you’re under contract to finish this job’ (the night-watchman had not mentioned a contract), ‘but as you are, take my advice and get a friend to keep an eye on your house. Of course, he won’t be able to stay the night—of course not; but tell him to keep his eyes open.’

  The stranger seemed to have said his say, his head drooped a little more; he might even be dropping off to sleep. Apparently he did not feel the cold. But the night-watchman was breathing hard and could scarcely stand. He tottered a little way down his territory, wondering absurdly why the place looked so tidy; but what a travesty of his former progress. And what a confusion in his thoughts, and what a thumping in his temples. Slowly from the writhing, tearing mass in his mind a resolve shaped itself; like a cuckoo it displaced all others. He loosened the red handkerchief that was knotted round his neck, without remembering whose fingers had tied it a few hours before, or that it had been promoted (not without washing) to the status of a garment from the menial function of carrying his lunch. It had been an extravagance, that tin carrier, much debated over, and justified finally by the rise in the night-watchman’s wages. He let the handkerchief drop as he fumbled for the knife in his pocket, but the blade, which was stiff, he got out with little difficulty. Wondering vaguely if he would be able to do it, whether the right movement would come to him, why he hadn’t practised it, he took a step towards the brazier. It was the one friendly object in the street. . . .

  Later in the night the stranger, without putting his hands on the pole to steady himself, turned round for the first time and regarded the body of the night-watchman. He even stepped over into the little compound and, remembering perhaps the dead man’s invitation, stretched out his hands over the still warm ashes in the brazier. Then he climbed back and, crossing the street, entered a blind alley opposite, leaving a track of dark, irregular footprints; and since he did not return it is probable that he lived there.

  THE KILLING BOTTLE

  Unlike the majority of men, Jimmy Rintoul enjoyed the hour or so’s interval between being called and having breakfast; for it was the only part of the day upon which he imposed an order. From nine-fifteen onwards the day imposed its order upon him. The ’bus, the office, the hasty city luncheon; then the office, the ’bus, and the unsatisfactory interval before dinner: such a promising time and yet, do what he would with it, it always seemed to be wasted. If he was going to dine alone at his club, he felt disappointed and neglected; if, as seldom happened, in company, he felt vaguely apprehensive. He expected a good deal from his life, and he never went to bed without the sense of having missed it. Truth to tell, he needed a stimulus, the stimulus of outside interest and appreciation, to get the best out of himself. In a competitive society, with rewards dangled before his eyes, his nature fulfilled itself and throve. How well he had done at school, and even afterwards, while his parents lived to applaud his efforts. Now he was thirty-three; his parents were dead; there was no one close enough to him to care whether he made a success of his life or not. Nor did life hand out to grown-up men incontestable signs of merit and excellence, volumes bound in vellum or silver cups standing proudly on ebony pedestals. No, its awards were far less tangible, and Jimmy, from the shelter of his solicitors’ office, sometimes felt glad that its more sensational prizes were passing out of his reach—that he need no longer feel obliged, as he had once felt, to climb the Matterhorn, play the Moonlight Sonata, master the Spanish language, and read the Critique of Pure Reason before he died. His ambition was sensibly on the ebb.

  But not in the mornings. The early mornings were still untouched by the torpors of middle-age. Dressing was for Jimmy a ritual, and like all rituals it looked forward to a culmination. Act followed act in a recognized sequence, each stage contributing its peculiar thrill, opening his mind to a train of stimulating and agreeable thoughts, releasing it, encouraging it. And the culmination: what was it? Only his morning’s letters and the newspaper! Not very exciting. But the newspaper might contain one of those helpful, sympathetic articles about marriage, articles that warned the reader not to rush into matrimony, but to await the wisdom that came with the early and still more with the late thirties; articles which, with a few tricks of emphasis, of skipping here and reading between the lines there, demonstrated that Jimmy Rintoul’s career, without any effort of his own, was shaping itself on sound, safe lines. The newspaper, then, for reassurance; the letters for surprise! And this morning an interesting letter would be particularly welcome. It would distract his mind from a vexing topic that even the routine of dressing had not quite banished—the question of his holiday, due in a fortnight’s time.

  Must it be Swannick Fen again? Partly for lack of finding others to take their place, he had cherished the interests of his boyhood, of which butterfly-collecting was the chief. He was solitary and competitive, and the hobby ministered to both these traits. But alas! he had not the patience of the true collector; his interest fell short of the lesser breeds, the irritating varieties of Wainscots and Footmen and whatnots. It embraced only the more sensational insects—the large, the beautiful, and the rare. His desire had fastened itself on the Swallow-tail butterfly as representing all these qualities. So he went to Swannick, found the butterfly, bred it, and presently had a whole hutch-full of splendid green caterpillars. Their mere number, the question of what to do with them when they came out, whether to keep them all in their satiating similarity, to give them away, or to sell them; to let them go free so that the species might multiply, to the benefit of all collectors; to kill all but a few, thus enhancing the value of his own—these problems vexed his youthful, ambitious, conscientious mind. Finally he killed them all. But the sight of four setting-boards plastered with forty identical insects destroyed by a surfeit his passion for the Swallow-tail butterfly. He had coaxed it with other baits: the Pine Hawk moth, the Clifden Nonpareil; but it would not respond, would accept no substitute, being, like many passions, monogamous and constant. Every year, in piety, in conservatism, in hope, he still went to Swannick Fen; but with each visit the emotional satisfaction diminished. Soon it would be gone

  However, there on his dressing-table (for some reason) stood the killing bottle—mutely demanding prey. Almost without thinking he released the stopper and snuffed up the almond-breathing fumes. A safe, pleasant smell; he could never understand how anything died of it, or why cyanide of potassium should figure in the chemists’ book of poisons. But it did; he had had to put his name against it. Now, since the stuff was reputed to be so deadly, he must add a frail attic to the edifice of dressing and once more wash his hands. In a fortnight’s time, he thought, I shall be doing this a dozen times a day.

  On the breakfast-table lay a large, shiny blue envelope. He did not recognize the handwriting, nor, when he examined the post-mark, did it convey anything to him. The flap, gummed to the top and very strong, resisted his fingers. He opened it with a knife and read:

  Verdew Castle.

  My dear Rintoul,

  How did you feel after our little dinner on Saturday? None the worse, I hope. However, I’m not writing to inquire about your health, which seems pretty good, but about your happiness, or what I should like to think would be your happiness. Didn’t I hear you mutter (the second time we met, I think it was, at Smallhouse’s) something about going for a holiday in the near future? Well, then, couldn’t you spend it here with us, at Verdew? Us being my brother Randolph, my wife, and your humble s
ervant. I’m afraid there won’t be a party for you; but we could get through the day somehow, and play bridge in the evenings. Randolph and you would make perfect partners, you would be so kind to each other. And didn’t you say you collected bugs? Then by all means bring your butterfly-net and your killing bottle and your other engines of destruction and park them here; there are myriads of greenflies, bluebottle-flies, may-flies, dragon-flies, and kindred pests which would be all the better for your attentions. Now don’t say no. It would be a pleasure to us, and I’m sure it would amuse you to see ye olde castle and us living in our mediæval seclusion. I await the favour of a favourable reply, and will then tell you the best way of reaching the Schloss, as we sometimes call it in our German fashion.

  Yours,

  Rollo Verdew.

  Jimmy stared at this facetious epistle until its purport faded from his mind, leaving only a blurred impression of redundant loops and twirls. Verdew’s handwriting was like himself, bold and dashing and unruly. At least, this was the estimate Jimmy had formed of him, on the strength of three meetings. He had been rather taken by the man’s bluff, hearty manner, but he did not expect Verdew to like him: they were birds of a different feather. He hadn’t felt very well after the dinner, having drunk more than was good for him in the effort to fall in with his host’s mood; but apparently he had succeeded better than he thought. Perhaps swashbucklers like Verdew welcomed mildness in others. If not, why the invitation? He considered it. The district might be entomologically rich. Where exactly was Verdew Castle? He had, of course, a general idea of its locality, correct to three counties; he knew it was somewhere near the coast. Further than that, nothing; and directly he began to sift his knowledge he found it to be even less helpful than he imagined. The notepaper gave a choice of stations: wayside stations they must be, they were both unknown to him. The postal, telegraphic, and telephonic addresses all confidently cited different towns—Kirton Tracy, Shrivecross, and Pawlingham—names which seemed to stir memories but never fully awakened recollection. Still, what did it matter? Verdew had promised to tell him the best route, and it was only a question of getting there, after all. He could find his own way back.