The Complete Short Stories of L.P. Hartley

by Leslie Poles Hartley

  After the eating comes the reckoning.

  Here is a candle to light you to bed,

  And here comes a chopper to chop off your head!

  Chop—chop—chop.

  A child screamed, and there was silence.

  Mr. Rumbold felt quite upset, and great was his relief when, after a few more half-hearted rounds of ‘Oranges and Lemons,’ the Voice announced, ‘Here We Come Gathering Nuts and May.’ At least there was nothing sinister in that. Delicious sylvan scene, comprising in one splendid botanical inexactitude all the charms of winter, spring, and autumn. What superiority to circumstances was implied in the conjunction of nuts and May! What defiance of cause and effect! What a testimony to coincidence! For cause and effect is against us, as witness the fate of Old Bailey’s debtor; but coincidence is always on our side, teaching us how to eat our cake and have it! The long arm of coincidence! Mr. Rumbold would have liked to clasp it by the hand.

  Meanwhile his own hand conducted the music of the revels and his foot kept time. Their pulses quickened by enjoyment, the children put more heart into their singing; the game went with a swing; the ardour and rhythm of it invaded the little room where Mr. Rumbold sat. Like heavy fumes the waves of sound poured in, so penetrating, they ravished the sense; so sweet, they intoxicated it; so light, they fanned it into a flame. Mr. Rumbold was transported. His hearing, sharpened by the subjugation and quiescence of his other faculties, began to take in new sounds; the names, for instance, of the players who were ‘wanted’ to make up each side, and of the champions who were to pull them over. For the listeners-in, the issues of the struggles remained in doubt. Did Nancy Price succeed in detaching Percy Kingham from his allegiance? Probably. Did Alec Wharton prevail against Maisie Drew? It was certainly an easy win for someone: the contest lasted only a second, and a ripple of laughter greeted it. Did Violet Kingham make good against Horace Gold? This was a dire encounter, punctuated by deep irregular panting. Mr. Rumbold could see, in his mind’s eye, the two champions straining backwards and forwards across the white, motionless handkerchief, their faces red and puckered with exertion. Violet or Horace, one of them had to go: Violet might be bigger than Horace, but then Horace was a boy: they were evenly matched: they had their pride to maintain. The moment when the will was broken and the body went limp in surrender would be like a moment of dissolution. Yes, even this game had its stark, uncomfortable side. Violet or Horace, one of them was smarting now: crying perhaps under the humiliation of being fetched away.

  The game began afresh. This time there was an eager ring in the children’s voices: two tried antagonists were going to meet: it would be a battle of giants. The chant throbbed into a war-cry.

  Who will you have for your Nuts and May,

  Nuts and May, Nuts and May;

  Who will you have for your Nuts and May

  On a cold and frosty morning?

  They would have Victor Rumbold for Nuts and May, Victor Rumbold, Victor Rumbold: and from the vindictiveness in their voices they might have meant to have had his blood, too.

  And who will you send to fetch him away,

  Fetch him away, fetch him away;

  Who will you send to fetch him away

  On a cold and frosty morning?

  Like a clarion call, a shout of defiance, came the reply:

  We’ll send Jimmy Hagberd to fetch him away,

  Fetch him away, fetch him away;

  We’ll send Jimmy Hagberd to fetch him away

  On a wet and foggy evening.

  This variation, it might be supposed, was intended to promote the contest from the realms of pretence into the world of reality. But Mr. Rumbold probably did not hear that his abduction had been antedated. He had turned quite green, and his head was lolling against the back of the chair.

  ‘Any wine, sir?’

  ‘Yes, Clutsam, a bottle of champagne.’

  ‘Very good, sir.’

  Mr. Rumbold drained the first glass at one go.

  ‘Anyone coming in to dinner besides me, Clutsam?’ he presently inquired. ‘Not now, sir, it’s nine o’clock,’ replied the waiter, his voice edged with reproach.

  ‘Sorry, Clutsam, I didn’t feel up to the mark before dinner, so I went and lay down.’

  The waiter was mollified.

  ‘Thought you weren’t looking quite yourself, sir. No bad news, I hope.’

  ‘No, nothing. Just a bit tired after the journey.’

  ‘And how did you leave Australia, sir?’ inquired the waiter, to accommodate Mr. Rumbold, who seemed anxious to talk.

  ‘In better weather than you have here,’ Mr. Rumbold replied, finishing his second glass, and measuring with his eye the depleted contents of the bottle.

  The rain kept up a steady patter on the glass roof of the coffee-room.

  ‘Still, a good climate isn’t everything. It isn’t like home, for instance,’ the waiter remarked.

  ‘No, indeed.’

  ‘There’s many parts of the world as would be glad of a good day’s rain,’ affirmed the waiter.

  ‘There certainly are,’ said Mr. Rumbold, who found the conversation sedative.

  ‘Did you do much fishing when you were abroad, sir?’ the waiter pursued.

  ‘A little.’

  ‘Well, you want rain for that,’ declared the waiter, as one who scores a point. ‘The fishing isn’t preserved in Australia, like what it is here?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Then there ain’t no poaching,’ concluded the waiter philosophically. ‘It’s every man for himself.’

  ‘Yes, that’s the rule in Australia.’

  ‘Not much of a rule, is it?’ the waiter took him up. ‘Not much like law, I mean.’

  ‘It depends what you mean by law.’

  ‘Oh, Mr. Rumbold, sir, you know very well what I mean. I mean the police. Now if you was to have done a man in out in Australia—murdered him, I mean—they’d hang you for it if they caught you, wouldn’t they?’

  Mr. Rumbold teased the champagne with the butt-end of his fork and drank again.

  ‘Probably they would, unless there were special circumstances.

  ‘In which case you might get off?’

  ‘I might.’

  ‘That’s what I mean by law,’ pronounced the waiter. ‘You know what the law is: you go against it, and you’re punished. Of course I don’t mean you, sir; I only say “you” as—as an illustration to make my meaning clear.’

  ‘Quite, quite.’

  ‘Whereas if there was only what you call a rule,’ the waiter pursued, deftly removing the remains of Mr. Rumbold’s chicken, ‘it might fall to the lot of any man to round you up. Might be anybody; might be me.’

  ‘Why should you or they,’ asked Mr. Rumbold, ‘want to round me up? I haven’t done you any harm, or them.’

  ‘Oh, but we should have to, sir.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘We couldn’t rest in our beds, sir, knowing you was at large. You might do it again. Somebody’d have to see to it.’

  ‘But supposing there was nobody?’

  ‘Sir?’

  ‘Supposing the murdered man hadn’t any relatives or friends: supposing he just disappeared, and no one ever knew that he was dead?’

  ‘Well, sir,’ said the waiter, winking portentously, ‘in that case he’d have to get on your track himself. He wouldn’t rest in his grave, sir, no, not he, and knowing what he did.’

  ‘Clutsam,’ said Mr. Rumbold suddenly, ‘bring me another bottle of wine, and don’t trouble to ice it.’

  The waiter took the bottle from the table and held it to the light.

  ‘Yes, it’s dead, sir.’

  ‘Dead?’

  ‘Yes, sir; finished; empty; dead.’

  ‘You’re right,’ Mr. Rumbold agreed. ‘It’s quite dead.’

  It was nearly eleven o’clock. Mr. Rumbold again had the lounge to himself. Clutsam would be bringing his coffee presently. Too bad of Fate to have him haunted by these casual reminders; too ba
d, his first day at home. ‘Too bad, too bad,’ he muttered, while the fire warmed the soles of his slippers. But it was excellent champagne; he would take no harm from it: the brandy Clutsam was bringing him would do the rest. Clutsam was a good sort, nice old-fashioned servant . . . nice old-fashioned house. . . . Warmed by the wine, his thoughts began to pass out of his control.

  ‘Your coffee, sir,’ said a voice at his elbow.

  ‘Thank you, Clutsam, I’m very much obliged to you,’ said Mr. Rumbold, with the exaggerated civility of slight intoxication. ‘You’re an excellent fellow. I wish there were more like you.’

  ‘I hope so, too, I’m sure,’ said Clutsam, trying in his muddle-headed way to deal with both observations at once.

  ‘Don’t seem many people about,’ Mr. Rumbold remarked. ‘Hotel pretty full?’

  ‘Oh, yes, sir, all the suites are let, and the other rooms, too. We’re turning people away every day. Why, only to-night a gentleman rang up. Said he would come round late, on the off-chance. But, bless me, he’ll find the birds have flown.’

  ‘Birds?’ echoed Mr. Rumbold.

  ‘I mean there ain’t any more rooms, not for love nor money.’

  ‘Well, I’m sorry for him,’ said Mr. Rumbold, with ponderous sincerity. ‘I’m sorry for any man, friend or foe, who has to go tramping about London on a night like this. If I had an extra bed in my room, I’d put it at his disposal.’

  ‘You have, sir,’ the waiter said.

  ‘Why, of course I have. How stupid. Well, well. I’m sorry for the poor chap. I’m sorry for all homeless ones, Clutsam, wandering on the face of the earth.’

  ‘Amen to that,’ said the waiter devoutly.

  ‘And doctors and such, pulled out of their beds at midnight. It’s a hard life. Ever thought about a doctor’s life, Clutsam?’

  ‘Can’t say I have, sir.’

  ‘Well, well, but it’s hard; you can take that from me.’

  ‘What time shall I call you in the morning, sir?’ the waiter asked, seeing no reason why the conversation should ever stop.

  ‘You needn’t call me Clutsam,’ replied Mr. Rumbold, in a sing-song voice, and rushing the words together as though he were excusing the waiter from addressing him by the waiter’s own name. ‘I’ll get up when I’m ready. And that may be pretty late, pretty late.’ He smacked his lips over the words.

  ‘Nothing like a good lie, eh, Clutsam?’

  ‘That’s right, sir, you have your sleep out,’ the waiter encouraged him. ‘You won’t be disturbed.’

  ‘Good-night, Clutsam. You’re an excellent fellow, and I don’t care who hears me say so.’

  ‘Good-night, sir.’

  Mr. Rumbold returned to his chair. It lapped him round, it ministered to his comfort: he felt at one with it. At one with the fire, the clock, the tables, all the furniture. Their usefulness, their goodness, went out to meet his usefulness, his goodness, met, and were friends. Who could bind their sweet influences or restrain them in the exercise of their kind offices? No one: certainly not a shadow from the past. The room was perfectly quiet. Street sounds reached it only as a low continuous hum, infinitely reassuring. Mr. Rumbold fell asleep.

  He dreamed that he was a boy again, living in his old home in the country. He was possessed, in the dream, by a master-passion; he must collect firewood, whenever and wherever he saw it. He found himself one autumn afternoon in the wood-house; that was how the dream began. The door was partly open, admitting a little light, but he could not recall how he got in. The floor of the shed was littered with bits of bark and thin twigs; but, with the exception of the chopping-block which he knew could not be used, there was nowhere a log of sufficient size to make a fire. Though he did not like being in the wood-house alone he stayed long enough to make a thorough search. But he could find nothing. The compulsion he knew so well descended on him, and he left the wood-house and went into the garden. His steps took him to the foot of a high tree, standing by itself in a tangle of long grass at some distance from the house. The tree had been lopped; for half its height it had no branches, only leafy tufts, sticking out at irregular intervals. He knew what he would see when he looked up into the dark foliage. And there, sure enough, it was: a long dead bough, bare in patches where the bark had peeled off, and crooked in the middle like an elbow.

  He began to climb the tree. The ascent proved easier than he expected, his body seemed no weight at all. But he was visited by a terrible oppression, which increased as he mounted. The bough did not want him; it was projecting its hostility down the trunk of the tree. And every second brought him nearer to an object which he had always dreaded; a growth, people called it. It stuck out from the trunk of the tree, a huge circular swelling thickly matted with twigs. Victor would have rather died than hit his head against it.

  By the time he reached the bough twilight had deepened into night. He knew what he had to do: sit astride the bough, since there was none near by from which he could reach it, and press with his hands until it broke. Using his legs to get what purchase he could, he set his back against the tree and pushed with all his might downwards. To do this he was obliged to look beneath him, and he saw, far below him on the ground, a white sheet spread out as though to catch him; and he knew at once that it was a shroud.

  Frantically he pulled and pushed at the stiff, brittle bough; a lust to break it took hold of him; leaning forward his whole length he seized the bough at the elbow joint and strained it away from him. As it cracked he toppled over and the shroud came rushing upwards. . . .

  Mr. Rumbold waked in a cold sweat to find himself clutching the curved arm of the chair on which the waiter had set his brandy. The glass had fallen over and the spirit lay in a little pool on the leather seat. ‘I can’t let it go like that,’ he thought. ‘I must get some more.’ A man he did not know answered the bell. ‘Waiter,’ he said, ‘bring me a brandy and soda in my room in a quarter of an hour’s time. Rumbold, the name is.’ He followed the waiter out of the room. The passage was completely dark except for a small blue gas-jet, beneath which was huddled a cluster of candlesticks. The hotel, he remembered, maintained an old-time habit of deference towards darkness. As he held the wick to the gas-jet, he heard himself mutter, ‘Here is a candle to light you to bed.’ But he recollected the ominous conclusion of the distich, and fuddled though he was he left it unspoken.

  Shortly after Mr. Rumbold’s retirement the door-bell of the hotel rang. Three sharp peals, and no pause between them. ‘Someone in a hurry to get in,’ the night porter grumbled to himself. ‘Expect he’s forgotten his key.’ He made no haste to answer the summons; it would do the forgetful fellow good to wait: teach him a lesson. So dilatory was he that by the time he reached the hall door the bell was tinkling again. Irritated by such importunity, he deliberately went back to set straight a pile of newspapers before letting this impatient devil in. To mark his indifference he even kept behind the door while he opened it, so that his first sight of the visitor only took in his back; but this limited inspection sufficed to show that the man was a stranger and not a visitor at the hotel.

  In the long black cape which fell almost sheer on one side, and on the other stuck out as though he had a basket under his arm, he looked like a crow with a broken wing. A bald-headed crow, thought the porter, for there’s a patch of bare skin between that white linen thing and his hat.

  ‘Good evening, sir,’ he said. ‘What can I do for you?’

  The stranger made no answer, but glided to a side-table and began turning over some letters with his right hand.

  ‘Are you expecting a message?’ asked the porter.

  ‘No,’ the stranger replied. ‘I want a room for the night.’

  ‘Was you the gentleman who telephoned for a room this evening?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘In that case, I was to tell you we’re afraid you can’t have one; the hotel’s booked right up.’

  ‘Are you quite sure?’ asked the stranger. ‘Think again.’

 
‘Them’s my orders, sir. It don’t do me no good to think.’

  At this moment the porter had a curious sensation as though some important part of him, his life maybe, had gone adrift inside him and was spinning round and round. The sensation ceased when he began to speak.

  ‘I’ll call the waiter, sir,’ he said.

  But before he called the waiter appeared, intent on an errand of his own.

  ‘I say, Bill,’ he began, ‘what’s the number of Mr. Rumbold’s room? He wants a drink taken up, and I forgot to ask him.’

  ‘It’s thirty-three,’ said the porter unsteadily. ‘The double room.’

  ‘Why, Bill, what’s up?’ the waiter exclaimed. ‘You look as if you’d seen a ghost.’

  Both men stared round the hall, and then back at each other. The room was empty.

  ‘God!’ said the porter. ‘I must have had the horrors. But he was here a moment ago. Look at this.’

  On the stone flags lay an icicle, an inch or two long, around which a little pool was fast collecting.

  ‘Why, Bill,’ cried the waiter, ‘how did that get here? It’s not freezing.’

  ‘He must have brought it,’ the porter said.

  They looked at each other in consternation, which changed into terror as the sound of a bell made itself heard, coming from the depths of the hotel.

  ‘Clutsam’s there,’ whispered the porter. ‘He’ll have to answer it, whoever it is.’

  Clutsam had taken off his tie and was getting ready for bed. He slept in the basement. What on earth could anyone want in the smoking-room at this hour? He pulled on his coat and went upstairs.

  Standing by the fire he saw the same figure whose appearance and disappearance had so disturbed the porter.