The Complete Short Stories of L.P. Hartley

by Leslie Poles Hartley

  Mr. Hesketh held the door open for her and she passed out of the room, a slender, distinguished figure, seeming somehow to take up even less space than her scanty envelope of flesh demanded. To say that she fitted her rich heavy ugly surroundings did not do her justice; but her presence completed a harmony whose innate grace and rarity the amateur of life immediately recognized. Mr. Hesketh, watching her go, suddenly felt grateful for her. A warm sentimental emotion welled up in his heart—when she dies, he thought, she can never be replaced. He tried to find words to describe that felicitous relationship between her and her possessions in which her charm seemed to reside. He fancied that the objects she passed made obeisance to her and that her graciousness flowed out, enveloping them in its gentle radiance. But the remembered asperity of her nature kept pricking his honeyed thoughts of her; and returning to his port, he gave up trying to enclose her in a formula.

  Alone in the drawing-room, Mrs. Marling sat down at her bureau. She took out an envelope and wrote ‘—Blandfoot, Esq.’ Then she hesitated. So written, the name had an unceremonious, unfriendly air. It reminded her that she did not know Mr. Blandfoot: perhaps he would resent being prefixed by a dash. She entertained the thought, however, only to dismiss it. Who, among the servile population of Settlemarsh would not be flattered to hear from her, by whatever style she addressed them? For a moment she indulged her imagination with a prevision of her party, and the room, as though aware of her thought, glowed softly back at her, loosing for her all its influences of comfort and dignity and order and security. The words flowed easily from her pen as she wrote to the unknown art collector.

  At nine o’clock the next morning the maid knocked at Mr. Blandfoot’s bedroom door—knocked several times, though with an air of misgiving. At last she heard a growl: ‘Come in!’ The room was so dark she could see nothing and she paused on the threshold.

  ‘How often have I told you,’ said a voice, ‘not to come until I ring.’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ said the maid, timidly.

  ‘Well, come in, if you’re coming,’ said the voice, still implacable.

  There was a vast heaving movement on the bed.

  ‘Now the curtains, now the blinds, now the hot water, now the bath,’ the voice chanted rapidly and irritably, ‘and you haven’t told me why you came at all yet.’

  ‘Please, sir,’ said the maid, stumbling towards the window, ‘there’s a letter marked “urgent”, so I thought——’

  ‘Why didn’t you say so before?’ snapped the voice. ‘Well, hand it over.’

  But in her flurry the maid had dropped the letter. She groped for it on the floor, obscurely feeling that she must not pull up the blind until she had given her master the letter. She did not know whereabouts in the room she was; she thought she must be near the bed, but she was afraid to touch it and every moment her movements grew more rigid.

  ‘I had it only just now,’ she murmured, almost crying.

  ‘Clumsy, clumsy,’ admonished the voice, in gender accents. ‘Here, I’ve got it.’

  ‘Oh, that’s all right then, sir,’ said the maid, almost gasping with relief.

  ‘No,’ said the voice, drawing nearer.

  ‘I want you to give it to me.’

  Bewildered, the maid held out her hand in the darkness.

  ‘No, just a little more this way,’ persuaded the voice, still advancing to meet her.

  Again she stumbled forward in the gloom, her hand stretched stiff like a fencer’s. Mr. Blandfoot seemed to have reared himself up in the bed: she could see a vague outline towering above her.

  ‘A shade to the left now,’ said the voice.

  The maid obeyed.

  ‘And now straight into the letter-box.’

  She made a half-hearted prodding movement. Something caught her finger: a sharp pain ran down her arm. She called out, and the whole room was suddenly flooded with light. Afterwards she realized it must have been electric light; but at the time she was aware only of the pain, of the sight of her finger wedged between Mr. Blandfoot’s large irregular teeth, and of his face looking down at her with a smile that had no kindness in it. The blankets were tumbled together in the middle of the bed; the floor, as much of it as she could see, was lumpy with sorry-looking underclothes: the biscuit-coloured walls refracted the unsympathetic light, as did also Mr. Blandfoot’s parchment-coloured face. The spiritless, yellow hues around her were infinitely uncomforting; she felt the world beginning to dissolve.

  ‘There’s the letter,’ remarked Mr. Blandfoot, ‘on the floor behind you.’

  Her finger dropped from his mouth: obsequiously she picked up the letter and handed it to him. Her face was half averted; but she noticed that he pulled the jacket of his pyjamas more firmly across his chest, and this gesture, which seemed to recognize her right to be treated as a human being, restored her a little.

  Mr. Blandfoot lay in the bath, the letter in his hand. Dabs of shaving soap had fallen on it, and steam had made the lines run. It was a pitiful object, fallen on evil days since it left Mrs. Marling’s writing-table. We will read the letter over his shoulder. He has cleaned his razor on the envelope, but one has no difficulty in recognizing Mrs. Marling’s elegant Italian hand.

  Dear Mr. Blandfoot,

  I hope you will forgive me for taking the liberty of writing to you without an introduction. I have long wanted to make your acquaintance but your friends are so jealous of you, they wouldn’t let us meet: so I am defying convention and writing to you myself. I think I would not have dared had not my friend Arthur Hesketh given me courage—perhaps you know him, a most charming person, whatever one may feel about his later books. I want to discuss them with you. He leads me to hope that you will forgive my boldness on the score of my age, and spend next Thursday evening at my house—I have a few friends coming. He even whispered to me something about that picture we are all so longing to see—but this is mere naked presumption, and I feel I have tried your patience already too far. Let me have the pleasure of seeing you on Thursday evening at ten o’clock and I shall feel I am forgiven for my indiscretion. At your age (if I may say so) one can afford to postpone a pleasure. At mine, one can’t; so you see I must indulge my impatience.

  Hoping to see you.

  Yours sincerely,

  Alice Marling.

  With astonishing dexterity Mr. Blandfoot converted the letter into a paper boat, and propelled it with his breath to the far end of the bath. Then he took aim with his sponge and an accurate shot sent the boat to the bottom. It did not reappear. Rising from the bath, Mr. Blandfoot arranged the towel round his waist like an apron. He walked slowly towards a pier glass. Except for a bright narrow margin round the edge, the mirror was misted over with steam; but so tall was Mr. Blandfoot that he could see his eyes reflected in the unclouded area at the top. Our observer, stationed discreetly by the door, could also see them and see the smile which, with ever-growing intensity, they gave back to Mr. Blandfoot’s approaching figure.

  ‘Do you think he’s come yet?’ asked Mrs. Pepperthwaite of Mrs. Stornway, glancing at the clock in the hall of Mrs. Marling’s house. It showed a minute to ten.

  ‘He told me at tea,’ Mrs. Stornway whispered, ‘that he might be a little late as he wanted to wash the picture. I said “Is that quite wise?” and he said “Yes, it makes the colours fresher.” ’

  ‘You are the only person in Settlemarsh who is in his confidence!’ exclaimed Mrs. Pepperthwaite simply.

  ‘Oh no! But I do think that this time he really means to bring the picture. He practically told me so.’

  They were led away. People who came to Mrs. Marling’s house were taken into as many ante-chambers as possible before they were admitted to her presence. The turning of several corners confused them as to their physical and mental whereabouts, so that when they encountered their hostess such self-confidence as they possessed was considerably shaken. Like people who have been blindfolded in a children’s game and whisked rapidly round, they were conscious of cutting a
n awkward figure.

  ‘How good of you to come so soon,’ said Mrs. Marling as she greeted them. ‘I am always grateful when my oldest friends arrive early. This is Mr. Hesketh, Mrs. Stornway. An old friend of Settlemarsh. It was very different when you lived here, wasn’t it, Arthur? You must tell him about the new building developments in your neighbourhood, Eva: he’s fond of architecture: I wish he could have seen your new house before he went away: it would have interested him so much.’

  The room began to fill. To Mrs. Pepperthwaite a party of any kind was like heaven. Her timidity, that distressed her in the company of two or three people, she felt to be an asset in the presence of forty or fifty: she knew instinctively that it pleased them to find someone less at ease than they were: she went the round of her acquaintance, making to each a small offering of her self-esteem, a sacrifice which, in the prevailing communal amiability, was always graciously accepted. Whereas most of her friends preferred to hide their ignorance, she was delighted to inquire who so-and-so was, whose photograph she had so often seen in the Settlemarsh Clarion, but whose name she could not remember. Never had she had so many opportunities of indulging her craving for humility as to-night: all the chief personages of the neighbourhood were gathered together in Mrs. Marling’s drawing-room. Some of the citizens of Settlemarsh, headed by Mrs. Peets, were inclined to cling together defensively, eyeing with hostility and apprehension these visitants from a larger world. Mrs. Pepperthwaite was unconscious of their ignoble herd-feeling; she rejoiced in strange contacts and she was justified in her confidence: everyone was nice to her. She wandered into the bridge-room and stood behind the chairs of the players. When one of them took a trick she smiled as if she had taken it herself. Once she leaned over the shoulder of a forbidding-looking man whose name she scarcely knew and indicating a card said, ‘I should play that.’ ‘Now would you?’ he said, selecting a card from another part of his hand, from a different suit indeed; but he smiled at her so charmingly it was quite as if he had followed her suggestion. In a corner she found a couple playing chess, their heads bent over the board.

  ‘Can you play four games at once like Capablanca?’ she asked at random of the two of them. One of the men looked up, the strain of concentration dying from his face like a cloud from the sky. ‘Do you mean me?’ he said. ‘I’m afraid I’m a very moderate player.’ But Mrs. Pepperthwaite could see he was flattered that she had imagined him capable of such a feat.

  The sound of music recalled her to the drawing-room. It was Anton Melzic at the piano: she recognized him the moment she saw him. He had been plain Antony Mellish when he lived in Settlemarsh before he had gone away and made a name for himself abroad. And now he had come back to play for Mrs. Marling, though it was said she hadn’t always been very kind to him when he practised scales and exercises in the room above his father’s bakehouse. But all that was forgotten: Time had no revenges for Mrs. Marling; if he nourished any he relented at the last moment, and transformed them into bouquets. How attentively everyone was listening! Mrs. Pepperthwaite beat time with her forefinger, ecstatically aware of a harmony within herself more complete than the imperfect copy of it rendered by the strains around her. When the piece was over she would be the first to move across the room and congratulate the pianist. The right words would rise to her lips: that was the joy, the thrilling excitement and release, granted her by the party. What a triumph for Alice Marling! Mrs. Pepperthwaite felt that she and Mrs. Marling had been united for many years in a close bond which had for object the perfect and appropriate entertainment of all the choicer spirits in Settlemarsh. The executive power was Mrs. Marling’s, but surely the inspiration, the vital force, had been all hers! Mrs. Pepperthwaite gave Mrs. Marling, who was sitting at the far end of the room, a warm, confiding glance intended to convey this sense of partnership, and she fancied it was returned. The music was galloping ahead; a kind of recklessness had got into its rhythm, as though everything that went before had been provisional, looking forward to this. A loud brilliant passage was repeated twice as loudly and twice as brilliantly. The excitement which a perfect technique begets in the least musical of listeners was apparent on every face and in every pose. Mrs. Pepperthwaite scanned the guests, eagerly, even critically, as though about to visit with condign punishment the smallest sign of indifference or inattention. She was arranging her hands ready to clap when something jogged her elbow. The door against which she was standing was moving inwards. Someone was trying to come in. What a sacrilege at this moment of all moments. She peered round the door, fury written on her face, meaning to repel the intruder. Her outraged glance, travelling upwards, encountered the large yellowish face of Mr. Blandfoot, impending over her like a parchment lantern, in the dim light of the hall. She had completely forgotten his existence.

  Shaken, she turned back to the room. The applause was tremendous, but her own contribution was half-hearted and pre-occupied. When the clapping died down the door opened and Mr. Blandfoot was announced. Mrs. Pepperthwaite noticed it was already eleven o’clock.

  He stood in the middle of the room without seeming to face any one part of it, his figure so thin it was like a silhouette, his wide shoulders moving independently like the arms of a semaphore. He drew all eyes towards him and radiated a silence which threatened to stretch into the corners of the room. But Mrs. Marling was already on her feet.

  ‘How nice to see you,’ she said, ‘and what a pity you missed the last piece.’

  ‘I didn’t,’ said Mr. Blandfoot. ‘I heard it from the passage, outside the door.’

  ‘You would have been so much more comfortable in here,’ returned Mrs. Marling, as though he had stayed outside on purpose. ‘Now you must come and sit by me.’ She piloted him to a chair by her side.

  The pianist played again as brilliantly as ever and the guests listened entranced, but Mrs. Pepperthwaite knew that the party had changed its character. Before it was fulfilling itself as it went along: now it was leading up to something. Up or down? Mrs. Pepperthwaite had a sense of increasing velocity; her thoughts seemed to outstrip her and to leave her dissatisfied with the present. She felt that her remarks were now aimed at a moving target which they failed to hit. In the next interval she wandered uneasily into the buffet. Mr. Blandfoot was drinking a whisky and soda, even yellower than himself. Scraps of conversation kept coming to her ears. ‘Oh—probably in the cloakroom with his hat.’ ‘But that’s only a figure of speech, my dear, he can’t sleep with it.’ ‘Really, I can’t say, it might be a Vermeer: I know so little about the Dutch School,’ ‘They invented painting in oils.’ ‘But no one said it was an oil-painting.’ ‘But, my dear, the paint would run.’ ‘Not after all these years.’ ‘His waistcoat pocket? But it isn’t a miniature.’ ‘Eva Stornway says it’s not old at all: he had it made for himself.’ ‘Oh, he was kidding her; he looks just that sort of man. Hesketh must know better.’

  Vaguely distressed she walked over to where Hesketh was standing, and heard him say to Mrs. Marling, with a smile:

  ‘A bad fairy, I’m afraid.’

  ‘Do you think he will cast a spell?’

  ‘If he does, Alice, it is you who will be the Sleeping Beauty, not me.’

  ‘Ah, but I invited him: he can’t do me any harm: it’s against the rules.

  ‘When shall you ask him to——?’

  ‘I don’t quite know, Arthur. Yes, please, I will have some champagne. Perhaps after the next piece.’

  The last piece was over. Some called for more, but the majority agreed, with a note of determination in their voices, that the pianist had been only too generous: they must not be greedy and presume upon his kindness. Mr. Melzic bowed to right and left, rising from his stool a little reluctantly: a monarch relinquishing his throne. The guests moved about studying pictures and objets d’art: it was midnight but they made no attempt to move, and they talked so little that everyone could hear the sound of his own voice.

  ‘Where’s Blandfoot?’ asked someone, bolder than the rest. />
  ‘In the buffet, I think.’

  ‘Shall I fetch him?’

  ‘What for?’

  ‘Oh, he’ll know.’

  At that moment Mr. Blandfoot entered. His cheek bones were flushed and his eyes bright. He walked on to the hearth-rug and stumbled over it, making a fold, which he unceremoniously kicked. The fold did not yield to his treatment, so he kicked it again, harder than before. Then he stared moodily at it while the others fell back into a rough semicircle. There was literally a breach in the company. Mrs. Marling moved quietly into it.

  ‘Don’t trouble about the carpet, Mr. Blandfoot,’ she said. ‘It always behaves like that.’

  ‘Bit dangerous, isn’t it?’

  ‘When you’ve been here a few more times,’ said Mrs. Marling quietly, ‘you’ll get used to its ways.’

  ‘I might have fallen over it.’

  ‘How we should have laughed!’ said Mrs. Marling, looking up at him with her bright eyes.

  There was a pause.

  ‘But do do something for us, Mr. Blandfoot,’ she continued persuasively. ‘Dance for us.’

  ‘I can’t dance,’ he muttered.

  ‘Then sing us a song?’

  He was silent.

  ‘Or tell us a story?’

  He glowered down at her helplessly.

  ‘He’s a strong, silent man,’ she said to the company at large. ‘But there’s something you can do for us, Mr. Blandfoot!’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Why, show us your picture!’

  ‘Yes, do show it to us!’ came in a confused murmur from the room. There was a general movement. The tension relaxed. Smiles broke out on puzzled faces: women made delicate gestures of eagerness; men settled themselves comfortably into their chairs. The optimistic party-spirit had reasserted itself, and once again Mrs. Marling’s drawing-room breathed freely. Even Mr. Blandfoot smiled.