The Complete Short Stories of L.P. Hartley

by L. P. Hartley

  INTERFERENCE

  After his tenants had left, Cyril didn’t try to replace them: let their rooms stand empty for a while, he thought.

  They had never been unoccupied before, or not for long, since Cyril bought the house twelve years ago. Then the Gooches had them, the couple who kept house for him; it was only when they left to better themselves that the rooms fell vacant. Cyril couldn’t afford another couple; the ministrations of the daily woman, helped out occasionally by the gardener, Mr. Snow, who had his own flat at the top of the house, must suffice his needs. But the housing shortage pricked Cyril’s conscience; the empty rooms, that echoed to his tread, were to his spirit like a cold hot-water bottle on his flesh; they chilled it. Hence the tenants, who had no service obligations and who paid Cyril instead of being paid by him.

  Five rooms they had, two bedrooms, a bathroom, a sitting-room and a kitchen. Awkwardly placed, they didn’t constitute a flat or a maisonette or any sort of dwelling you could give a name to. The kitchen and the sitting-room were self-contained and had their own entrance, a green door giving on the garden, invisible from Cyril’s part of the house. One went downstairs to them, as if to a basement, but it wasn’t really a basement: their windows looked out on the garden, not on an area wall, for the house, being perched on a steep slope, had an extra storey on the garden side, making four in all.

  What a strange house it was. Built on to at different times, it had no plan or method. Few of the eighteen rooms were on the same floor-level as the others; a step up or a step down led to them. The architects, it must be admitted, hadn’t wasted any space on passages or landings; door followed door with a suddenness that confused strangers. In the days when Cyril had visitors to stay they often lost their way—indeed it was some time before Cyril could find his. Some of the rooms were roughly pentagonal in shape, with the doorway in the short fifth wall: should the door happen to be open, you got an oblique view of the room—you took it by surprise—walls meeting, pieces of furniture sidling up to each other—all most irregular.

  The tenants’ bedrooms and bathrooms were also self-contained, behind a door that shut them off from Cyril’s domain. But between them and the sitting-room was a tract of common ground—a section of the staircase that, winding its way up from below, made a brief halt outside the tenants’ door. Only eight steps impaired their privacy, but sometimes Cyril met the Trimbles on them. ‘Unlucky to cross on the stairs,’ he would say gaily, and it always seemed to amuse them.

  Mr. Snow hadn’t been in favour of letting the rooms off. He could look after the house perfectly well, he said, when Cyril was away. Tenants—well, you never knew who they were, or what they might be up to.

  As far as the Trimbles were concerned, Mr. Snow turned out to be right. Cyril did know something about them, of course. They were Midlanders who had come south from Birmingham and bought a tobacconists’ and newsagents’ business in the large town near which Cyril lived: they had been in lodgings till they answered his advertisement. Others had answered it too, there had been quite a number of applicants for Cyril’s five rooms. But they all had something against them—children, dogs, unreasonable requirements—whereas the Trimbles had nothing against them. They were a sober, serious couple who minded their own business and gave no trouble: Mr. Snow admitted that. He even made friends with them, came down from his eyrie to sit with them, and accompanied them to the village local, where, so report said, they were making headway in the (for a foreigner) never easy task of making friends.

  And how well Cyril had got on with them! When they met on the staircase, which was almost the only occasion when they did meet—what smiles and hand-shakings there were, what solicitous inquiries into each other’s health and comfort! How often Cyril would ask if everything was to their liking, and how invariably they would answer that they couldn’t possibly be better off than they were! Mr. Trimble was tall and thin and sallow; he wasn’t prepossessing but had a nice smile that flickered across his face. She was fair and stout and dumpy, with big blue eyes that smiled continually, and a faint foreign accent: she might have been an Austrian Jewess.

  For several months, then, all went well, and Cyril was so used to its going well, and to his own automatic reactions to the Trimbles’ unfailing amiability when they met on the stairs, that he began to take not only their amiability but their presence for granted. So what was his amazement when one day, happening to mention them to Mr. Snow, he received the chilling answer:

  ‘I haven’t seen much of them lately.’

  ‘Not seen much of them? I thought you saw a good deal of them.’

  ‘At the start I did,’ said Mr. Snow. ‘But it often happens that things don’t go on as they began——’

  Cyril’s heart sank.

  ‘I hadn’t noticed anything——’

  ‘You will, sir, you can take my word for it.’

  ‘Do you know what’s wrong?’ Cyril asked.

  ‘I have an idea, sir, a very shrewd idea, but I shouldn’t dream of telling you.’

  ‘Oh, do tell me,’ Cyril begged.

  ‘No, sir, those things are best left in the minds of those who invented them.’

  Cyril was not left long in doubt, however. When next he met the Trimbles on the stairs they did not return his greeting. Disappearing behind their door of partition they shut it none too gently. But the time after that they stood their ground, and Mr. Trimble said:

  ‘I’d like a word with you, Mr. Hutchinson.’

  Cyril noticed that contrary to custom, he was smiling but his wife was not. Resenting the man’s tone, he said:

  ‘I’m rather busy now. Will another time do?’

  ‘I’m afraid it won’t, Mr. Hutchinson. You see we’re not standing for it.’

  ‘I didn’t ask you to stand,’ said Cyril.

  ‘Mr. Hutchinson, you’re trying to evade the issue. I said we’re not standing for it, we are giving notice. But first we want an explanation.’

  ‘Yes, we want an explanation,’ repeated his wife, with a set face.

  ‘An explanation of what?’ Cyril asked, mortified to feel that he was trembling.

  ‘Don’t try to evade the issue, Mr. Hutchinson,’ put in Mrs. Trimble. We want an explanation of the interference.’

  The interference?’ repeated Cyril. ‘What sort of interference? Do you mean electrical interference? Are you speaking of your television set? I know the reception here is none too good.’

  ‘Mr. Hutchinson, bluffing won’t get you anywhere. We want your explanation before we report the matter to the police.’

  ‘The police? What on earth do you mean?’

  ‘Come, come, Mr. Hutchinson, you know quite well what we mean.’

  The reiteration of his name infuriated Cyril.

  ‘Unless you stop annoying me, Mr. Trimble and Mrs. Trimble, he shouted, ‘I’ll call the police and give you in charge for insulting language and behaviour. Now for the last time, what is this interference you complain of?’

  Mr. Trimble’s smile at last left his face, and he said sullenly:

  ‘The interference with our things.’

  ‘Interference with your things?’ Like many mild men, when he lost his temper Cyril lost it thoroughly. ‘Are you accusing me of some act of indecency? I wouldn’t interfere with your things . . . not with a barge pole.’

  He saw his anger had cowed them.

  ‘All we know is,’ the man said, ‘someone has been in our apartments, moving things about, reading our letters, prying and spying. And who can it be but you? You’ve got the duplicate keys.’

  Cyril drew a long breath.

  ‘That settles it,’ he said. ‘I’ll call the police.’

  They both protested that this was the last thing they wanted; they even denied having mentioned the police at all. But Cyril was adamant. They had appealed to the police and they should have the police. Crest-fallen, the couple shut the door on themselves, and Cyril retired to his study, fuming and shaking. Any declared enmity made him fee
l ill.

  The village copper was an old friend of Cyril’s and predisposed in his favour. All the same, he conducted his inquiry in an impartial manner. Mr. Snow was summoned, and the daily woman. Mr. Snow said that he had been in the Trimbles’ sitting-room a few times, at their express invitation; he suggested he had never wanted to go. Asked if he had ever moved any of their things, he did not at first answer; then he said temperately, ‘No, why should I? I’ve got my own things to look after.’ The daily help was still more nonchalant. Yes, she had heard of the Trimbles and knew they occupied part of Mr. Hutchinson’s house; when pressed she admitted she had passed the time of day with them, but that was all: she was a woman who kept herself to herself. ‘It’s the only way,’ she added darkly. She didn’t look at the Trimbles while she was speaking; she gave the impression that they were not there. Cyril could not emulate his retainers’ lofty unconcern, but repeated his denials of any sort of interference in the Trimbles’ quarters. He laughed nervously after saying this, it seemed so absurd that the ambiguities of language should again betray him into an impropriety; but the policeman did not notice. Asked if they had missed anything as a result of the interferences, the Trimbles admitted that they hadn’t. The policeman shrugged his shoulders. Could he see the room where the alleged interferences occurred? They trooped down into the sitting-room, which was long, low and oval at the garden end. Furniture had been moved, said Mr. Trimble; this chair, for instance, had been there; and these letters—he pointed to them but didn’t hand them round—had been taken from this drawer and put in that one. Ornaments had been moved and a table-lamp knocked over; but no damage had been done and nothing was missing. In that case, the policeman said, he could take no action; he hoped there would be no recurrence of the interferences; but if anything was stolen or damaged they must let him know.

  Nothing was; and after the Trimbles had gone, taking their belongings with them, Mr. Snow gave it as his opinion that the whole thing had been a frame-up on their part, staged to cover the fact that they had found a better job elsewhere, and wanted to break their lease. The other possibility, that Mrs. Trimble had reached an age when women were liable to imagine interferences of various kinds, he discounted; besides, it was the man who brought the matter up. ‘In my opinion, sir, you’re well rid of them,’ he said. ‘I never did hold with having them here—it was different with the Gooches—at least they worked for you. And they never complained of interferences. You may be sure it was a put-up job.’

  Cyril wasn’t so sure. He felt he had been too hasty. The question of the interferences was not brought up again. After a period of cutting each other on the stairs, the Trimbles and he resumed relations—distant relations it is true, but such as permitted him to say good-bye to them with some show of goodwill. And he got the impression that they were sorry to go. But the whole episode left a bad taste in his mouth, of which the always unpleasant experience of having to dislike someone you have previously liked was only part.

  So the five rooms were left tenantless, swept but not garnished. Cyril occasionally inspected them. A sort of compulsion, tingling with expectancy and dread, drew him towards them. Their very emptiness contained a sort of personality; he was aware of it the moment he unlocked the door: he felt he ought to apologize for intruding. The habit grew on him; the day seemed incomplete unless he had paid the rooms a visit. Sometimes he put this off until the evening when the summer twilight softened the impact of the glare from the bright curtainless windows on bare walls and uncarpeted floors; sometimes he left the inspection until bedtime, when he had to use a torch, for the Trimbles had taken with them all the detachable electric bulbs. Sneaking about on tiptoe he felt he was up to no good; passers-by, seeing the light flash from his torch, might think mischief was afoot and report it. The Dong with the Luminous Nose! But no, they wouldn’t, for there were no passers-by: that side of the house was bounded by the river and the trees that bordered it: even the policeman couldn’t see him. As time went on, one daily or nightly visit did not seem enough: he felt he must repeat his tour of inspection and maybe repeat it more than once, perhaps in his pyjamas, in case some aspect of the emptiness had escaped him. At such times he felt a heightened sense of being, as if he was in communication with something, and he would come away sweating and exhausted, as though from some nameless spiritual effort.

  One day Mr. Snow said to him, “Why don’t you let me look round those empty rooms, sir, instead of you? I can do it last thing, when I lock up.’ Cyril was startled: he had no idea that Mr. Snow had caught him at his little games. He thought quickly. Might this be a way out of his obsession—for such he recognized it to be? Would his subconscious mind, that throve on sacrifice, accept Mr. Snow’s sacrifice of time and trouble as a substitute for his? At least let him try. ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘that would be very kind of you, Mr. Snow. And would you come and tell me before you go to bed that everything’s in order?’

  Soon after eleven o’clock a knock came at his study door, and after the interval that elapsed before anyone entering the room could circumvent the screen that shielded his armchair from draughts, or other forms of surprise, the gardener stood before him. ‘I have to report, sir, that all is present and correct,’ he said, reminding Cyril that he had served in the army in the First World War—and with a little salute he was gone, almost before Cyril had had time to thank him.

  Cyril struggled with himself, or rather with the part of him, the inward trouble-maker, that was so intent on upsetting his peace of mind. Was this the solution? How could he be sure that Mr. Snow had seen—all there was to see? Would he feel obliged to check up on the gardener’s nocturnal investigations, which would almost certainly have been less thorough than his own? Would Mr. Snow have known exactly what to look for? The fact that Cyril himself did not know made the question no less urgent. And there was another question-ought he to let Mr. Snow take the risk?

  His mind’s unconscious use of italics brought Cyril to the verge of realizing how absurd was his neurotic dilemma—a realization which had before now exorcized his sick fancies. It was all too silly! Of course there was no risk. Mr. Snow might be a year or two nearer seventy than he, Cyril, was; but he was hale and hearty, a match for any tenant, any imaginary tenant he might encounter in those empty rooms. Besides, he had volunteered for this night-service; Cyril hadn’t asked him to take it on.

  Gradually the urgent sense of something left undone that would haunt his sleepless hours—perhaps make them sleepless—faded, and on that night, and for many subsequent nights, Cyril went to bed without misgivings. ‘All present and correct!’ What was present? It didn’t matter, if what was present was correct.

  Rarely did Cyril feel sleepy after dinner, but sometimes he did, and this was one of those times. It didn’t mean he would sleep well at night, rather the opposite, so he tried to fight it off. Do what he would his head kept nodding and if he let it loll on the chair-back a host of scenes and impressions, unrelated to each other or to his present situation, flooded into it. Once or twice Mr. Snow, returning from his nightly round, had found him asleep, a thing Cyril much disliked—he hated being taken at a disadvantage, with an unprepared expression on his face that might reveal who knew what about his private thoughts. And this danger was real and imminent for eleven o’clock was drawing on; at any moment now he might expect the knock that heralded Mr. Snow’s appearance.

  At last it came, louder, he thought, than usual. Thankful for his wakefulness, he called out, ‘Come in!’ To his surprise, nothing happened. It was most unusual for Mr. Snow to need telling twice. ‘Come in,’ he called again and then he heard the door open, and footsteps behind the screen, and put on the smile of welcome he kept for Mr. Snow.

  But it wasn’t Mr. Snow who stood towering over him—it was a stranger, a huge man with a red, pear-shaped face, and eyes as black as the moustache which mounted guard over his unseen mouth. After a moment’s silence, ‘Good evening,’ said the stranger. ‘Good evening,’ said Cyril, and rose uncertai
nly to his feet. ‘You said come in, so I came in,’ said the man. ‘I hope I don’t intrude?’

  ‘Of course not,’ Cyril answered. ‘But . . . but . . .’ He didn’t know how to go on and added, ‘Please sit down.’ The stranger seated himself in the farthest away of the three chairs and Cyril sank back into his.

  ‘I came to look for something, that’s why I’m here,’ the man said, ‘and I thought perhaps you could help me to find it. I see the birds have flown.’

  ‘If you mean the Trimbles——’ began Cyril.

  ‘I do mean them,’ the stranger said. ‘In their rooms was something of mine that I want back.’

  ‘What is it?’ Cyril asked.

  ‘I’m not at liberty to say,’ the stranger said.

  ‘Then I’m afraid I can’t help you,’ Cyril said. ‘They left some weeks ago and took all they had with them.’

  The stranger nodded.

  ‘But it may still be here,’ he said. ‘Don’t you ever feel there’s something here, waiting to be found?’

  ‘If you would tell me what it was——’

  ‘No, that I can’t do,’ said the man. ‘But I’ll tell you what I can do—I can take these rooms of yours that are standing empty, and then I may come across it. You let the rooms, don’t you?’

  ‘No,’ said Cyril.

  ‘You let them to the Trimbles.’

  ‘Yes, and I wish I hadn’t.’

  ‘You’d find me a quiet tenant, Mr. . . .’

  ‘Hutchinson is the name.’

  ‘You’d find me a quiet tenant, Mr. Hutchinson. You wouldn’t hear me much or see me much. You’d know what I was doing—you wouldn’t have to keep tabs on me——’

  ‘I tell you I don’t want to let the rooms,’ said Cyril.

  But the man steam-rollered on as if he hadn’t spoken.