There remained the human race. At the thought of the human race Henry’s face, could he have seen it, lengthened. As a novelist he had written a lot about the human race, of course; he had even been complimented on his knowledge of it. And he did, he felt, know a lot about it, quite enough, too much. Sitting in his study he had paraded it before him. The human race had its apologists but Henry Tarrant was not among them. He was not going to say smooth things about it. It was a wonder that his public went on reading him, but from a sort of masochism, which was one of their less endearing traits, they did. They took their medicine and came back for more. Surely it should be easy to pour out another little dose?
Henry Tarrant was a bachelor and fiction-writing had confirmed him in the single state. The more he wrote about human beings the less he wanted to have anything to do with them. He had got them where he wanted them, and that was outside. Outside, they obeyed the rules—his rules. Critics had remarked on his aloofness, but it was perfectly in order for an artist to be aloof. A portrait-painter does not embrace his subject, at least he is under no obligation to; he stands away from it at whatever distance he finds convenient—in Henry’s case, the range of a good pair of field glasses. But when he peered into the distance, once so thickly populated with unprepossessing figures, he could see nothing.
An idea came into his mind. ‘I must provoke an incident,’ he thought; ‘I must provoke an incident.’ He did not know where the words came from—perhaps they were an echo from some old newspaper. Dictators provoked incidents. But his whole life—nearly forty years of it now—had been designed to keep incidents at bay. He had kept illness at bay, the war at bay, marriage at bay: he had kept life itself at bay. Only art had he welcomed; and now art had gone back on him.
So how could he provoke an incident—ridiculous phrase? He looked round the snug little room. The only incidents that ever occurred in it were breakages. Sometimes he broke a thing himself and then his housekeeper would say: ‘Well, sir, I’m glad it was you did it,’ and this annoyed him, but it did not constitute an incident in the literary sense. One cannot provoke an incident with oneself.
In a panic he snatched up his hat, mackintosh and stick and hurried out. A sense of dislocated routine oppressed him, as if he was wearing someone else’s clothes. The hour, six-thirty, was sacred to literary effort. The warm wet autumnal twilight wrapped him round. Which way? It didn’t matter which way; he chose the road between occasional bungalows that led towards the golf house. Suddenly he saw a dog was following him. He didn’t like dogs. ‘Go away!’ he said. But the animal wouldn’t go away: it trotted beside him with a proprietary air as if it had adopted him.
Presently it halted. ‘Good,’ thought Henry, and walked on, thankful to be relieved of this encumbrance. Then he saw, some way ahead, a lady also with a dog: she must be giving it an airing. He heard a scamper; the yellow dog tore past him and bore down on the lady’s dog. There was a moment’s parley between the two; then a scuffle; then the indescribable ear-piercing uproar of a dog fight.
‘Call off your dog, please, call off your dog!’ the lady shouted.
‘It isn’t my dog!’ Henry Tarrant replied.
‘Well, please do something,’ cried the lady, ‘or my dog will get murdered.’ She had no stick or whip, only a lead with which she was vainly thrashing the aggressor’s back.
No pepper-pot, no bucket of water. Henry paused a moment, then plunged into the mêlée of gleaming eyes and snapping teeth.
The yellow dog had got the spaniel down and was literally wiping the floor with it; the blows of Henry’s stick went off its back like water. Leaning down he seized it by the collar and lifted it into the air. It released the spaniel, wriggled round, and bit him to the bone. ‘Ow!’ he exclaimed and dropped the dog, which darted off into the gloom like the yellow streak it was.
Tall, dark and soft-featured, the lady bent over her pet. ‘Poor Sherry! Poor Sherry!’ she panted. The spaniel struggled to its feet and took some trial steps. She hadn’t noticed Henry’s hand. Better not tell her: let the incident be closed. But then she saw the blood flowing.
‘Oh, your poor hand!’
‘It’s nothing,’ said Henry, rather ungraciously.
‘But it is! You must put something on it at once. Have you anyone to do it for you?’
‘Well, no,’ said Henry, which was not quite true.
‘Then may I?’
‘It’s very kind of you,’ said Henry in a distant voice.
‘It’s the least I can do,’ the lady said. ‘Do you live near here?’
Unwillingly Henry pointed to his house.
‘Oh, then you’re Henry Tarrant—how exciting!’
But Henry didn’t ask the lady her name.
Later she said to him across the reassuring fumes of Dettol:
‘But I thought you never saw anyone!’
‘I don’t,’ said Henry, self-consciously.
‘But,’ she exclaimed inconsequently, ‘it’s such a pretty house!’
Henry Tarrant grunted. The basin was running with blood; the bathroom floor was splashed with blood; the towel was blood-stained. Blood everywhere: his blood. He felt absurdly proud of it. But the lady, following his eyes, suddenly realized the damage she had done, and was appalled. First she had wounded a writer and then wrecked his house. ‘Oh,’ she exclaimed, ‘how you must wish you had never met us!’
‘Not at all,’ said Henry. ‘It’s been a most rewarding experience.’
He meant it, but she scented sarcasm and shook her head. And there was worse to follow when they went downstairs. The incident had been too much for Henry’s nerves, as a large, dark, sullen pool on Henry’s best rug testified.
‘At least let me——’ she stammered.
‘We’ll do it together,’ Henry said.
If only he could tell her how much better he liked the house this way, fouled and blood-stained! But he couldn’t; he couldn’t pierce the shell of her shame and remorse. He felt that they were turning her against him.
‘Please stay and have a drink,’ he begged. ‘I have some sherry here—another kind of sherry,’ he added, nervously facetious.
But she was firm. She could hardly bring herself to speak to him.
‘Then I’ll see you to the door.’
In silence they went down the flagged path to the gate. He held out his left hand.
‘Good-bye,’ he said, ‘and thank you.’
Again she suspected sarcasm. ‘Good-bye,’ she said, and added with an effort, ‘I think I should keep that arm in a sling.’
‘How kind of you to think of it!’
She winced and did not answer. Henry opened the gate and there, waiting for them, its hackles rising, its teeth bared, its eyes ablaze as though it was a veritable hell-hound, stood the yellow dog. A deep growl came from its throat.
The lady screamed.
Henry hastily shut the gate. ‘Now you simply must come back!’ he said.
She heard the triumph in his voice and wonderingly followed him into the house.
W.S.
The first postcard came from Forfar. ‘I thought you might like a picture of Forfar,’ it said. ‘You have always been so interested in Scotland, and that is one reason why I am interested in you. I have enjoyed all your books, but do you really get to grips with people? I doubt it. Try to think of this as a handshake from your devoted admirer, W.S.’
Like other novelists, Walter Streeter was used to getting communications from strangers. Usually they were friendly but sometimes they were critical. In either case he always answered them, for he was conscientious. But answering them took up the time and energy he needed for his writing, so that he was rather relieved that W.S. had given no address. The photograph of Forfar was uninteresting and he tore it up. His anonymous correspondent’s criticism, however, lingered in his mind. Did he really fail to come to grips with his characters? Perhaps he did. He was aware that in most cases they were either projections of his own personality or, in differe
nt forms, the antithesis of it. The Me and the Not Me. Perhaps W.S. had spotted this. Not for the first time Walter made a vow to be more objective.
About ten days later arrived another postcard, this time from Berwick-on-Tweed. ‘What do you think of Berwick-on-Tweed?’ it said. ‘Like you, it’s on the Border. I hope this doesn’t sound rude. I don’t mean that you are a border-line case! You know how much I admire your stories. Some people call them other-worldly. I think you should plump for one world or the other. Another firm handshake from W.S.’
Walter Streeter pondered over this and began to wonder about the sender. Was his correspondent a man or a woman? It looked like a man’s handwriting—commercial, unself-conscious—and the criticism was like a man’s. On the other hand, it was like a woman to probe—to want to make him feel at the same time flattered and unsure of himself. He felt the faint stirrings of curiosity but soon dismissed them; he was not a man to experiment with acquaintances. Still it was odd to think of this unknown person speculating about him, sizing him up. Other-worldly, indeed! He re-read the last two chapters he had written. Perhaps they didn’t have their feet firm on the ground. Perhaps he was too ready to escape, as other novelists were nowadays, into an ambiguous world, a world where the conscious mind did not have things too much its own way. But did that matter? He threw the picture of Berwick-on-Tweed into his November fire and tried to write; but the words came haltingly, as though contending with an extra-strong barrier of self-criticism. And as the days passed he became uncomfortably aware of self-division, as though someone had taken hold of his personality and was pulling it apart. His work was no longer homogeneous, there were two strains in it, unreconciled and opposing, and it went much slower as he tried to resolve the discord. Never mind, he thought: perhaps I was getting into a groove. These difficulties may be growing pains, I may have tapped a new source of supply. If only I could correlate the two and make their conflict fruitful, as many artists have!
The third postcard showed a picture of York Minster. ‘I know you are interested in cathedrals,’ it said. ‘I’m sure this isn’t a sign of megalomania in your case, but smaller churches are sometimes more rewarding. I’m seeing a good many churches on my way south. Are you busy writing or are you looking round for ideas? Another hearty handshake from your friend W.S.’
It was true that Walter Streeter was interested in cathedrals. Lincoln Cathedral had been the subject of one of his youthful fantasies and he had written about it in a travel book. And it was also true that he admired mere size and was inclined to under-value parish churches. But how could W.S. have known that? And was it really a sign of megalomania? And who was W.S. anyhow?
For the first time it struck him that the initials were his own. No, not for the first time. He had noticed it before, but they were such commonplace initials; they were Gilbert’s, they were Maugham’s, they were Shakespeare’s—a common possession. Anyone might have them. Yet now it seemed to him an odd coincidence; and the idea came into his mind—suppose I have been writing postcards to myself? People did such things, especially people with split personalities. Not that he was one, of course. And yet there were these unexplained developments—the cleavage in his writing, which had now extended from his thought to his style, making one paragraph languorous with semi-colons and subordinate clauses, and another sharp and incisive with main verbs and full-stops.
He looked at the handwriting again. It had seemed the perfection of ordinariness—anybody’s hand—so ordinary as perhaps to be disguised. Now he fancied he saw in it resemblances to his own. He was just going to pitch the postcard in the fire when suddenly he decided not to. I’ll show it to somebody, he thought.
His friend said, ‘My dear fellow, it’s all quite plain. The woman’s a lunatic. I’m sure it’s a woman. She has probably fallen in love with you and wants to make you interested in her. I should pay no attention whatsoever. People whose names are mentioned in the papers are always getting letters from lunatics. If they worry you, destroy them without reading them. That sort of person is often a little psychic, and if she senses that she’s getting a rise out of you she’ll go on.’
For a moment Walter Streeter felt reassured. A woman, a little mouse-like creature, who had somehow taken a fancy to him! What was there to feel uneasy about in that? It was really rather sweet and touching, and he began to think of her and wonder what she looked like. What did it matter if she was a little mad? Then his subconscious mind, searching for something to torment him with, and assuming the authority of logic, said: Supposing those postcards are a lunatic’s, and you are writing them to yourself, doesn’t it follow that you must be a lunatic too?
He tried to put the thought away from him; he tried to destroy the postcard as he had the others. But something in him wanted to preserve it. It had become a piece of him, he felt. Yielding to an irresistible compulsion, which he dreaded, he found himself putting it behind the clock on the chimney-piece. He couldn’t see it but he knew that it was there.
He now had to admit to himself that the postcard business had become a leading factor in his life. It had created a new area of thoughts and feelings and they were most unhelpful. His being was strung up in expectation of the next postcard.
Yet when it came it took him, as the others had, completely by surprise. He could not bring himself to look at the picture. ‘I hope you are well and would like a postcard from Coventry,’ he read. ‘Have you ever been sent to Coventry? I have—in fact you sent me there. It isn’t a pleasant experience, I can tell you. I am getting nearer. Perhaps we shall come to grips after all. I advised you to come to grips with your characters, didn’t I? Have I given you any new ideas? If I have you ought to thank me, for they are what novelists want, I understand. I have been re-reading your novels, living in them, I might say. Another hard handshake. As always, W.S.’
A wave of panic surged up in Walter Streeter. How was it that he had never noticed, all this time, the most significant fact about the postcards—that each one came from a place geographically closer to him than the last? ‘I am coming nearer.’ Had his mind, unconsciously self-protective, worn blinkers? If it had, he wished he could put them back. He took an atlas and idly traced out W.S.’s itinerary. An interval of eighty miles or so seemed to separate the stopping-places. Walter lived in a large West Country town about ninety miles from Coventry.
Should he show the postcards to an alienist? But what could an alienist tell him? He would not know, what Walter wanted to know, whether he had anything to fear from W.S.
Better go to the police. The police were used to dealing with poison-pens. If they laughed at him, so much the better.
They did not laugh, however. They said they thought the postcards were a hoax and that W.S. would never show up in the flesh. Then they asked if there was anyone who had a grudge against him. ‘No one that I know of,’ Walter said. They, too, took the view that the writer was probably a woman. They told him not to worry but to let them know if further postcards came.
A little comforted, Walter went home. The talk with the police had done him good. He thought it over. It was quite true what he had told them—that he had no enemies. He was not a man of strong personal feelings such feelings as he had went into his books. In his books he had drawn some pretty nasty characters. Not of recent years, however. Of recent years he had felt a reluctance to draw a very bad man or woman: he thought it morally irresponsible and artistically unconvincing, too. There was good in everyone: Iagos were a myth. Latterly—but he had to admit that it was several weeks since he laid pen to paper, so much had this ridiculous business of the postcards weighed upon his mind—if he had to draw a really wicked person he represented him as a Communist or a Nazi—someone who had deliberately put off his human characteristics. But in the past, when he was younger and more inclined to see things as black or white, he had let himself go once or twice. He did not remember his old books very well but there was a character in one, ‘The Outcast’, into whom he had really got his knife. He had w
ritten about him with extreme vindictiveness, just as if he was a real person whom he was trying to show up. He had experienced a curious pleasure in attributing every kind of wickedness to this man. He never gave him the benefit of the doubt. He had never felt a twinge of pity for him, even when he paid the penalty for his misdeeds on the gallows. He had so worked himself up that the idea of this dark creature, creeping about brimful of malevolence, had almost frightened him.
Odd that he couldn’t remember the man’s name.
He took the book down from the shelf and turned the pages—even now they affected him uncomfortably. Yes, here it was, William . . . William . . . he would have to look back to find the surname. William Stainsforth.
His own initials.
Walter did not think the coincidence meant anything but it coloured his mind and weakened its resistance to his obsession. So uneasy was he that when the next postcard came it came as a relief.
‘I am quite close now,’ he read, and involuntarily he turned the postcard over. The glorious central tower of Gloucester Cathedral met his eye. He stared at it as if it could tell him something, then with an effort went on reading. ‘My movements, as you may have guessed, are not quite under my control, but all being well I look forward to seeing you some time this week-end. Then we can really come to grips. I wonder if you’ll recognize me! It won’t be the first time you have given me hospitality. My hand feels a bit cold to-night, but my handshake will be just as hearty. As always, W.S.’
‘P.S. Does Gloucester remind you of anything? Gloucester gaol?’
Walter took the postcard straight to the police station, and asked if he could have police protection over the week-end. The officer in charge smiled at him and said he was quite sure it was a hoax; but he would tell someone to keep an eye on the premises.
‘You still have no idea who it could be?’ he asked.
The Complete Short Stories of L.P. Hartley Page 48