The Complete Short Stories of L.P. Hartley

by L. P. Hartley

  Uncle Tim steadied himself against the lichen-coated trunk and shook it. The rigid trunk gave a little and vibrated with a strong shudder, as though in pain; the apples tossed, noiselessly knocking each other in frantic mirth. But not one fell. Flushed with his effort, Uncle Tim turned and saw Rupert, his face parallel with the sky, staring into the branches with a bemused expression.

  ‘Why, they’re not ripe,’ said Uncle Tim. ‘They won’t be ripe for a month.’

  Rupert’s jaw dropped and his face crinkled like a pond when a breeze crosses it.

  ‘Don’t cry, Rupert,’ said Uncle Tim. ‘In a month’s time you’ll have heaps; you won’t know what to do with them, there’ll be so many.’

  ‘I shan’t want them then,’ said Rupert. ‘I want them now.’ He burst into tears.

  The passing of thirty years had made a difference to the apple tree; even by the light of the candles Uncle Tim noticed that. There were five candles: four on the bridge-table and one on the improvised sideboard that held, rather precariously, the glasses and decanters. The tree seemed to have shrunk. Some of its lower boughs were dead; its plumpness was gone; its attitude was set and strained; its bark less adhesive. Even its leaves were sparse and small. But Rupert had bloomed. Not into a passion-flower, exactly, thought Uncle Tim, pausing just beyond the reach of the candle-light. The September night was dark, and very warm and still; the unwinking flames irradiated dully the great orb of Rupert’s face. It glowed like tarnished copper and seemed of one colour with his lips, as his features shared their generous contours. His head lolled on the back of a basket-chair whose cushioned rim creaked beneath its weight; but his half-closed eyes, independent of those movements, never left his partner. She was playing the hand, but at times her jewelled fingers came abruptly across, twitching her fur with a gesture always provisional, always repeated. Suddenly she stopped.

  ‘Four,’ said Rupert. ‘That’s the rubber.’

  Uncle Tim came out of the shadow.

  ‘Isn’t it very damp?’ he said. ‘And rather late? It’s nearly three.’

  Rupert was adding up the score and nobody spoke. At last Rupert said, ‘I make it twelve hundred. Anybody got anything different?’

  No one challenged the score.

  ‘How do you feel about another?’ Rupert asked, still ignoring Uncle Tim.

  The man on Rupert’s left found his voice.

  ‘It depends what you mean by another. Another whisky, yes.’

  ‘Help yourself,’ said Rupert, ‘and get me one too. It’s Crème de Menthe for you, Birdie?’

  ‘I don’t mind,’ said the lady so addressed.

  During the pause that followed Rupert lit a cigar with great deliberation.

  ‘Well, who’s for going on?’ he asked. Again there was a silence, broken finally by the other woman. She spoke in a tone that sounded extraordinarily cool and sweet.

  ‘I think your uncle would like us to go in.’

  ‘Oh, him,’ said Rupert, rising heavily from his chair. ‘He has such Vic—Victorian ideas. Haven’t you, Uncle Tim?’

  ‘I don’t want to influence you,’ said Uncle Tim. ‘I only thought you mightn’t have noticed how late it was.’

  ‘Yes, it is late, deuced late,’ Rupert drawled, refilling his glass. ‘That’s what I like about it. Whisky, Uncle Tim? Drown your sorrows.’ He held the glass out with an unsteady hand. Meanwhile all the players had risen.

  ‘I want to go to bye-bye,’ said the other man.

  ‘Put me in my little bed,’ carolled Birdie, and they laughed.

  Everyone blew out a candle except Rupert, who could not extinguish his, and finally knocked it on to the ground where it continued to burn until smothered by his foot. The sudden darkness was confusing. Even Uncle Tim felt it; but Rupert lost his balance and fell heavily against the trunk of the apple tree. It seemed as though all the fruit had ripened simultaneously. It thudded softly on the turf, pattered sharply on the card-table, and crashed among the glasses. Uncle Tim struck a match to ascertain the damage. It was negligible. The fruit was lying all round in pre-Raphaelite profusion. Rupert recovered himself.

  ‘Apples!’ he cried. ‘Look at those bloody apples!’ He stooped to pick one up, but his stomach revolted from it and, clutching the tree, he tossed it, wounded by his teeth, away into the darkness.

  The match went out.

  ‘What about these things?’ called Uncle Tim, who could not keep pace with the others. It was beginning to rain. ‘Shall I leave them, Rupert?’ There was no answer.

  A SUMMONS

  It could not have been long after midnight when I found myself awake, and so thoroughly awake, too. I did not feel the misty withdrawal or the drowsy approaches of sleep. I had apparently been reasoning, for some seconds, with admirable lucidity on the practical question: how had I come to wake up? The night was still. The ridiculous acorn-shaped appendage to the blind-cord no longer flapped in its eddying elliptical movement. And what of that odious bluebottle fly? Doubtless it had crept into some corner, a fold in the valance, perhaps. I could not believe it was asleep. It might be scratching itself with one foot, in the way flies have; a curious gesture that seems to imply a kind of equivocal familiarity with oneself—an insulting salute, a greeting one couldn’t possibly acknowledge. Flies have a flair for putrefaction; what had brought this one to my bedside, what strange prescience had inspired its sharp, virulent rushes and brought that note of deadly exultation into its buzz? It had been all I could do to keep the creature off my face. Now it was biding its time, but my ears were apprehensive for the renewal of its message of mortality, its monotonous memento mori. That spray of virginia creeper, too, had apparently given up its desultory, stealthy, importunate attack upon the window. Perhaps it had annoyed the window-cleaner, and he, realizing the trouble it gave, had cut it off and dropped it to lie withering on the grass. I seemed to see its shrivelled, upturned leaves, its pathetic, strained curve of a creature that curls up to die. . . . Surely this was not particularly sensible. A thought came to me suddenly.

  It must have been someone knocking. My small sister slept in the next room. I remembered her parting words, uttered in a voice that was half appeal, half command: ‘Now, if I dream I’m being murdered I shall knock on the wall, and I shall expect you to come.’ Of course, I reflected with uneasy amusement, my sister always had a lot to say at bedtime. It was a recognized device; it gained time; it gave an effect of stately deliberation to her departure. It was, in fact, the exercise of a natural right. One could not be packed off to bed in the middle of a sentence. One would linger over embraces, one would adopt attitudes and poses too rich and noble for irreverent interruption. One would drift into conversations and display a sudden interest. . . .

  Tap—tap—tap—tap.

  As I thought. Now what had put this silly idea into my sister’s head? It was absurd that a child should dream of being murdered. It would not occur to her that there were such dreams. But perhaps someone had suggested it—a servant whose mind was brimful of horrors. I myself had mentioned a dream of my own. Well, it was nothing. Still it had something about a murder in it. Otherwise I suppose I shouldn’t have thought it worth telling. Dreams seem so stupid to other people, so flat, so precisely the commonplace thing that wouldn’t invade a first-rate imagination. Surely it is a privilege to be let into the secret of another person’s dreams? And yet one recalls the despair, hurriedly transformed into a look of conventional interest, that greets confessions of this kind. But an elder brother’s dreams are not to be dismissed lightly. Perhaps I had embroidered mine a little.

  Tap—tap—tap.

  If I went in, what, after all, could I do? Fears are intangible things, but they distort the features. It must be curious to see people looking very much frightened. Would their eyes bulge, their fingers twitch, their mouths be twisted into some unmeaning expression? As a general proposition it would be quite amusing. But to see one’s sister in that deplorable condition! She would probably be in bed, clutch
ing the sheet, peering over the edge like one of Bluebeard’s wives; or perhaps chewing it, the first symptom of feeble-mindedness! Very likely, though, she would be huddled up under the bedclothes, a formless lump that I should be tempted to smack! But there are people who shrink from covering their heads, lest someone should come and hold down the bedclothes and stifle them. It is not very pleasant to think of such a person bending over you. . . . Perhaps the child wouldn’t be in bed; she would have to get out to knock. At first I might not see her at all; she might be crouching behind some piece of furniture, or even hidden in the wardrobe with her head among the hooks. I should have to strike a match. How often they go out; you throw them on the carpet, and the smouldering head burns a little hole. How funny: if she were lying at my feet, I might drop several matches on her and never notice till she screamed.

  Tap—tap.

  It was much feebler that time. Better after all not to go in. It would create a sort of precedent, and one could not set up as a professional smoother of pillows. Besides, children grow out of this sort of thing much more quickly if left to themselves. Of course, I should not tell my sister I had heard her knocking; she might mistake my reason for not going to the rescue, and think I had somehow left her in the lurch. That would be absurd, for in spite of the cold I would get out this minute, slip on my dressing-gown, and say, ‘There, there, everything’s all right, it’s only a dream!’ Perhaps when my sister grew up I would tell her that I stayed away intentionally, feeling it was better for her to fight her battles alone; we had all gone through it. Everyone keeps a few such explanations up his sleeve; age mellows them, and there is a kind of pleasure in telling a story against oneself. For the present it was to remain my little secret. For my sister knew, or would know now at any rate, that I was a heavy sleeper; and if she referred to the matter at breakfast I would use a little pious dissimulation—children are so easily put off. Probably she would be ashamed to mention it. After all it wasn’t my fault; I couldn’t direct people’s dreams; at her age, too, I slept like a top. Dreaming about murders . . . not very nice in a child. I would have to talk to her alone about it some time.

  Minutes passed, and the knocking was not renewed. I turned over. The bed was comfortable enough, but I felt I should sleep sounder if my sister changed her room. This, after all, could easily be arranged.

  A TONIC

  ‘Is Sir Sigismund Keen at home?’

  I will just go and see, sir,’ replied the man, opening a door on the left-hand side of the hall. ‘What name shall I say?’

  ‘Amber—Mr. Amber.’

  Mr. Amber strayed into the waiting-room and sat down in the middle of an almost interminable sofa. On either hand it stretched away, a sombre crimson expanse figured with rather large fleurs-de-lys and flanked by two tight bolsters that matched the sofa, and each other. The room had heavy Oriental hangings, indian-red, and gilt French chairs, upholstered in pink. ‘A mixture of incompatibles,’ thought Mr. Amber, ‘is contrary to the traditional usages of pharmacy, but in practice it may sometimes be not inadmissible.’ His mind was sensitive to its environment. Framed in the table-top and table-legs was an anthracite stove, black and uninviting, this July Afternoon, as the gate of hell with the fire put out. Still the man did not come. Mr. Amber murmured against the formality of distinguished physicians. The appointment was a week old, it was Sir Sigismund’s business to be at home; he had crossed the hall before Mr. Amber’s eyes, and yet the servant must ‘go and see’! Like a jealous landlord, fearful lest people should establish a common of pasture on his experience, the doctor kept up this figment of a kind of contingent existence. Mr. Amber was considering this problem when the footman appeared.

  ‘Sir Sigismund is sorry, sir, but no appointment appears to have been made in your name. Sir Sigismund is to see a Mr. Coral at five o’clock.’

  Mr. Amber changed colour.

  ‘I made the appointment over the telephone, didn’t I?’

  ‘I don’t know how it was made,’ said the footman, who had moved to the front door and was holding it tightly as though it might escape.

  Mr. Amber took a pace forward towards the street; then checked himself and said with a great effort: ‘I think, I am sure, that I must be Mr. Coral.’

  The footman stared. ‘But you gave the name of Amber just now, sir.’

  Suddenly the situation seemed easier to Mr. Amber. ‘But they’re both so much alike!’ He was too much engrossed in his solution to see the slight change that came over the footman’s manner.

  ‘Oh yes, sir. Though coral is pink.’

  ‘That’s true,’ replied Mr. Amber, restored to a quiet dignity. ‘But if you think, they are both connected with the sea, they are both a substitute for jewels worn by people who would prefer to wear pearls—and, and the telephone is so confusing,’ concluded Mr. Amber. ‘I’m sure you find that if you have occasion to use it yourself

  Satisfied to all appearances by this explanation, the footman disappeared, and Mr. Amber was presently ushered into Sir Sigismund’s consulting-room.

  ‘Take a chair, Mr.—er—Amber, is it?’ said the doctor. ‘It’s not often I have the pleasure of meeting gentlemen with alternative names. But my friend the Superintendent of Police tells me they’re not uncommon in the neighbourhood of Scotland Yard.’

  Though Sir Sigismund’s manner was reassuring, Mr. Amber declined the proffered chair and seated himself, as near the door as possible, on a towering sculptured edifice, the last in an ornamental series.

  ‘I hope you don’t think I’m a criminal, Sir Sigismund,’ he began earnestly, ‘or a lunatic. I should be sorry if I had given your servant that impression; he seemed such a nice man. It’s the case with many people, isn’t it, that the telephone confuses them and makes them say what they don’t mean. I’m not unusual in that respect, am I?’

  ‘Unusual, yes,’ put in the doctor. ‘Not, of course, unique!’

  Mr. Amber looked troubled. ‘Well, anyhow, not unique. But it wasn’t about my aphasia—no, not aphasia, absent-mindedness’ (he sought the doctor’s eye for approval of this emendation, and the latter nodded) ‘that I wanted to ask your advice, Sir Sigismund. It was about something else.’

  Mr. Amber hesitated.

  ‘Yes?’ said Sir Sigismund Keen.

  ‘I’m afraid you’ll think me frivolous, seeming and looking as well as I do, to consult you on such a trifling matter. With your experience, I expect you only like attending cases that are almost desperate, cases of life and death?’

  ‘Doctors are not undertakers,’ replied Sir Sigismund. ‘Let me assure you, Mr. Amber, that if only from a pecuniary point of view, I like to be in well before the death. My patients often recover. I’m sure I hope you will.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Mr. Amber, a little scared, ‘it’s not a question of recovery, not in that sense, so much as of establishing the health. I don’t look ill, do I?’

  ‘I can’t see very well,’ said the doctor. ‘Won’t you come a little nearer, Mr. Amber? This is a more comfortable chair, and it must tire you to talk from a distance.’

  Mr. Amber, aware that his naturally confidential voice had to be raised rather ludicrously to make itself heard across the room, complied. He sat down nervously on the edge of the chair.

  ‘Now,’ said Sir Sigismund, ‘tell me about yourself.’

  ‘About myself?’ echoed Mr. Amber, looking hopelessly round the room.

  ‘Yes, yourself’ said Sir Sigismund energetically, ‘and your symptoms.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Mr. Amber, on firm ground at last, ‘I haven’t any symptoms. I’m only a little run down. All I want is a tonic.’

  ‘A tonic!’ The idea seemed as unfamiliar to Sir Sigismund as the notion of his own personality had appeared strange to Mr. Amber.

  ‘There,’ said Mr. Amber in a melancholy tone, ‘I was afraid you’d think me frivolous.’

  Sir Sigismund recovered himself. ‘No, not frivolous, Mr. Amber, anything but that. Your request is a very reasonable and se
nsible one. Only, you see, there are so many different tonics, suitable for different conditions in the patient. There is a type of man, I might say a figure of a man, for whom cod-liver oil would be less beneficial than, say, Parrish’s Food.’

  ‘Byno-Hypophosphites,’ Mr. Amber corrected.

  Sir Sigismund bowed.

  ‘I’ve tried that,’ said Mr. Amber. ‘It didn’t seem to do me any good; neither did Easton’s Syrup, though there is said to be poison in it.’

  There was a pause.

  ‘I thought you would be able to recommend me something better,’ said Mr. Amber at last, rather lamely.

  ‘But you give me so little to go on!’ cried Sir Sigismund, exasperated by his patient’s marches and counter-marches. ‘Better for what? On your own showing you are highly strung; if you want me to prescribe for your nerves, I shouldn’t recommend a tonic but a sedative, bromide, perhaps.’

  ‘Bromide!’ repeated Mr. Amber, awestruck. ‘Isn’t that a drug?’ The doctor suppressed an exclamation.

  ‘Yes, it is.’

  ‘I haven’t tried drugs,’ said Mr. Amber reflectively. ‘If I had a drug by me when an attack came on——’

  ‘Tell me about your attacks,’ said the doctor. ‘You feel faint, perhaps?’

  ‘Oh, no, not faint,’ Mr. Amber protested. ‘I feel giddy and ill, you know, and the room goes round; and then if I can, I lie down; or when I’m outside I sit on a doorstep; and if I have time I drink some brandy——’

  ‘How do you mean,’ said Sir Sigismund, ‘if you have time?’

  ‘Well,’ said Mr. Amber reluctantly, ‘sometimes there isn’t time.’