The Complete Short Stories of L.P. Hartley

by Leslie Poles Hartley

  She was sitting bent forward with her face in her hands, blood was trickling from her broken knuckles, and for a moment I believed that she was dead. But she raised her face and looked at me unrecognizingly. ‘Ernest?’ she said, as if it was a question. ‘Ernest?’

  ‘I’m sorry, Constantia,’ I said. ‘Something delayed me. Shall we go into the garden now?’

  She rose without a word and followed me downstairs, and we went out through the french windows in Christopher’s room.

  ‘Here we divide,’ I said. ‘You go to the temple and I’ll go to the fountain, and we’ll meet in the middle, Constantia.’ She obeyed me like a child.

  I looked at the flowers as Christopher wished me to. I did not look at anything else, though when I raised my eyes I could see Constantia, very small and far away, coming towards me. The afternoon sunshine lay thick on all these thousands of blooms. Not a single one seemed to be in shadow: all were displayed for us to look at, as Christopher had wished them to be. Constantia and I were representing the public, the great public, in fact the world, to whom Christopher had felt this strange obligation to make known the beauty he had helped to create. And now I was not only willing but eager to fall in with his plan. Methodically I zig-zagged from one side of the grass path to the other, from the rhododendrons to the azaleas, from the Boucher-like luxuriance of the one to the Chinese delicacy and tenuousness of the other. I went on the flowerbeds; I lifted the brown labels, trying to decipher rain-smudged names; I stooped to the earth, yes, from time to time I knelt, to read the inscriptions on the leaden markers. Nothing that he would have wished me to see escaped me; the smallest effect was as clear to me as the largest; I found no faults—no dissonance, even, between the prevailing pink of the rhododendrons and the prevailing orange of the azaleas, which had hitherto always offended my eye when these flowers were juxtaposed. Yes, I thought, he has brought it off, he has established a harmony; the flowers all sing together an anthem to his glory.

  I was approaching the middle of the Long Walk and my journey’s end when I heard Constantia scream. Instantly the garden was in ruins, its spell broken.

  I did not see her at first. Like me, she had been going to and fro among the flower-beds, and it was there, under the shadow of a towering rhododendron that I found her, bending over Christopher. Something or someone—perhaps Christopher, perhaps Constantia in the shock of her discovery, had shaken the bush, for the body was covered with rose-pink petals, and his forehead, his damaged forehead, was adrift with them. Even the revolver in his hand had petals on it, softening its steely gleam. But for that, and for something in his attitude that suggested he was defying Nature, not obeying her, one might have supposed that he had fallen asleep under his own flowers.

  In his pocket we afterwards found a letter. It was addressed to both of us and dated Sunday 4.30. ‘I had meant to join you at the garden-party,’ it said, ‘but now I feel it’s best I shouldn’t. Only half an hour, but long enough to be convinced that I have messed things up. And yet I can’t quite understand it, for I felt so differently at four o’clock. Was it too much to ask, that you should keep your promise to me, or too little? All my life I have been asking myself this question, in one form or another, and perhaps this is the only answer. Bless you, my children, be happy.—Christopher.’

  ‘But don’t you see,’ I said to Constantia, ‘it all proves what I said? He couldn’t come to terms with life, he didn’t know how to live, and so he had to die?’

  ‘You may be right,’ she answered listlessly. ‘But I shall never forgive myself for failing him—or you.’

  I argued with her—I even got angry with her—but she would not see reason, and after the inquest we never met again.

  HILDA’S LETTER

  It may take time to get over an obsession, even after the roots have been pulled out. Eustace was satisfied that ‘going away’ did not mean that he was going to die; but at moments the fiery chariot still cast its glare across his mind, and he was thankful to shield himself behind the prosaic fact that going away meant nothing worse than going to school. In other circumstances the thought of going to school would have alarmed him; but as an alternative to death it was almost welcome.

  Unconsciously he tried to inoculate himself against the future by aping the demeanour of the schoolboys he saw about the streets or playing on the beach at Anchorstone. He whistled, put his hands in his pockets, swayed as he walked, and assumed the serious but detached air of someone who owes fealty to a masculine corporation beyond the ken of his womenfolk: a secret society demanding tribal peculiarities of speech and manner. As to the thoughts and habits of mind which should inspire these outward gestures, he found them in school stories; and if they were sometimes rather lurid they were much less distressing than the fiery chariot.

  His family was puzzled by his almost eager acceptance of the trials in store. His aunt explained it as yet another instance of Eustace’s indifference to home-ties, and an inevitable consequence of the money he had inherited from Miss Fothergill. She had to remind herself to be fair to him whenever she thought of this undeserved success. But to his father the very fact that it was undeserved made Eustace something of a hero. His son was a dark horse who had romped home, and the sight of Eustace often gave him a pleasurable tingling, an impulse to laugh and make merry, such as may greet the evening paper when it brings news of a win. A lad of such mettle would naturally want to go to school.

  To Minney her one time charge was now more than ever ‘Master’ Eustace; in other ways her feeling for him remained unchanged by anything that happened to him. He was just her little boy who was obeying the natural order of things by growing up. Barbara was too young to realize that the hair she sometimes pulled belonged to an embryo schoolboy. In any case, she was an egotist, and had she been older she would have regarded her brother’s translation to another sphere from the angle of how it affected her. She would have set about finding other strings to pull now that she was denied his hair.

  Thus, the grown-ups, though they did not want to lose him, viewed Eustace’s metamorphosis without too much misgiving; and moreover they felt that he must be shown the forbearance and accorded the special privileges of one who has an ordeal before him. Even Aunt Sarah, who did not like the whistling or the hands in the pockets or the slang, only rebuked them half-heartedly.

  But Hilda, beautiful, unapproachable Hilda, could not reconcile herself to the turn events had taken. Was she not and would she not always be nearly four years older than her brother Eustace? Was she not his spiritual adviser, pledged to make him a credit to her and to himself and to his family?

  He was her care, her task in life. Indeed, he was much more than that; her strongest feelings centred in him and at the thought of losing him she felt as if her heart was being torn out of her body.

  So while Eustace grew more perky, Hilda pined. She had never carried herself well, but now she slouched along, hurrying past people she knew as if she had important business to attend to, and her beauty, had she been aware of it, might have been a pursuer she was trying to shake off.

  Eustace must not go to school, he must not. She knew he would not want to, when the time came; but then it would be too late. She had rescued him from Anchorstone Hall, the lair of the highwayman, Dick Staveley, his hero and her bête noire; and she would rescue him again. But she must act, and act at once.

  It was easy to find arguments. School would be bad for him. It would bring out the qualities he shared with other little boys, qualities which could be kept in check if he remained at home.

  ‘What are little boys made of?’ she demanded, and looked round in triumph when Eustace ruefully but dutifully answered:

  ‘Snips and snails and puppy-dogs’ tails

  And that’s what they are made of.’

  He would grow rude and unruly and start being cruel to animals. Schoolboys always were. And he would fall ill; he would have a return of his bronchitis. Anchorstone was a health-resort. Eustace (who loved statistics
and had a passion for records) had told her that Anchorstone had the ninth lowest death-rate in England. (This thought had brought him some fleeting comfort in the darkest hours of his obsession.) If he went away from Anchorstone he might die. They did not want him to die, did they?

  Her father and her aunt listened respectfully to Hilda. Since her mother’s death they had treated her as if she was half grown up, and they often told each other that she had an old head on young shoulders.

  Hilda saw that she had impressed them and went on to say how much better Eustace was looking, which was quite true, and how much better behaved he was, except when he was pretending to be a schoolboy (Eustace reddened at this). And, above all, what a lot he knew; far more than most boys of his age, she said. Why, besides knowing that Anchorstone had the ninth lowest death-rate in England, he knew that Cairo had the highest death-rate in the world, and would speedily have been wiped out had it not also had the highest birthrate. (This double pre-eminence made the record-breaking city one of Eustace’s favourite subjects of contemplation.) And all this he owed to Aunt Sarah’s teaching.

  Aunt Sarah couldn’t help being pleased; she was well-educated herself and knew that Eustace was quick at his lessons.

  ‘I shouldn’t be surprised if he gets into quite a high class,’ his father said; ‘you’ll see, he’ll be bringing home a prize or two, won’t you, Eustace?’

  ‘Oh, but boys don’t always learn much at school,’ objected Hilda.

  ‘How do you know they don’t?’ said Mr. Cherrington teasingly. ‘She never speaks to any other boys, does she, Eustace?’

  But before Eustace had time to answer, Hilda surprised them all by saying: ‘Well, I do, so there! I spoke to Gerald Steptoe!’

  Everyone was thunderstruck to hear this, particularly Eustace, because Hilda had always had a special dislike for Gerald Steptoe, who was a sturdy, round-faced, knockabout boy with rather off-hand manners.

  ‘I met him near the post office,’ Hilda said, ‘and he took off his cap, so I had to speak to him, hadn’t I?’

  Eustace said nothing. Half the boys in Anchorstone, which was only a small place, knew Hilda by sight and took their caps off when they passed her in the street, she was so pretty; and grown-up people used to stare at her, too, with a smile dawning on their faces. Eustace had often seen Gerald Steptoe take off his cap to Hilda, but she never spoke to him if she could help it, and would not let Eustace either.

  Aunt Sarah knew this.

  ‘You were quite right, Hilda. I don’t care much for Gerald Steptoe, but we don’t want to be rude to anyone, do we?’

  Hilda looked doubtful.

  ‘Well, you know he goes to a school near the one—St. Ninian’s—that you want to send Eustace to.’

  ‘Want to! That’s good,’ said Mr. Cherrington. ‘He is going, poor chap, on the seventeenth of January—that’s a month from to-day—aren’t you, Eustace? Now don’t you try to unsettle him, Hilda.’

  Eustace looked nervously at Hilda and saw the tears standing in her eyes.

  ‘Don’t say that to her, Alfred,’ said Miss Cherrington. ‘You can see she minds much more than he does.’

  Hilda didn’t try to hide her tears, as some girls would have; she just brushed them away and gave a loud sniff.

  ‘It isn’t Eustace’s feelings I’m thinking about. If he wants to leave us all, let him. I’m thinking of his—his education.’ She paused, and noticed that at the word education their faces grew grave. ‘Do you know what Gerald told me?’

  ‘Well, what did he tell you?’ asked Mr. Cherrington airily, but Hilda saw he wasn’t quite at his ease.

  ‘He told me they didn’t teach the boys anything at St. Ninian’s,’ said Hilda. ‘They just play games all the time. They’re very good at games, he said, better than his school—I can’t remember what it’s called.’

  ‘St. Cyprian’s,’ put in Eustace. Any reference to a school made him feel self-important.

  ‘I knew it was another saint. But the boys at St. Ninian’s aren’t saints at all, Gerald said. They’re all the sons of rich swanky people who go there to do nothing. Gerald said that what they don’t know would fill books.’

  There was a pause. No one spoke, and Mr. Cherrington and his sister exchanged uneasy glances.

  ‘I expect he exaggerated, Hilda,’ said Aunt Sarah. ‘Boys do exaggerate sometimes. It’s a way of showing off. I hope Eustace won’t learn to. As you know, Hilda, we went into the whole thing very thoroughly. We looked through twenty-nine prospectuses before we decided, and your father thought Mr. Waghorn a very gentlemanly, understanding sort of man.’

  ‘The boys call him “Old Foghorn”,’ said Hilda, and was rewarded by seeing Miss Cherrington stiffen in distaste. ‘And they imitate him blowing his nose, and take bets about how many times he’ll clear his throat during prayers. I don’t like having to tell you this,’ she added virtuously, ‘but I thought I ought to.’

  ‘What are bets, Daddy?’ asked Eustace, hoping to lead the conversation into safer channels.

  ‘Bets, my boy?’ said Mr. Cherrington. “Well, if you think something will happen, and another fellow doesn’t, and you bet him sixpence that it will, then if it does he pays you sixpence, and if it doesn’t you pay him sixpence.’

  Eustace was thinking that this was a very fair arrangement when Miss Cherrington said, ‘Please don’t say “you”, Alfred, or Eustace might imagine that you were in the habit of making bets yourself.’

  ‘Well—’ began Mr. Cherrington.

  ‘Betting is a very bad habit,’ said Miss Cherrington firmly, ‘and I’m sorry to hear that the boys of St. Ninian’s practise it—if they do: again, Gerald may have been exaggerating, and it is quite usual, I imagine, for the boys of one school to run down another. But there is no reason that Eustace should learn to. To be exposed to temptation is one thing, to give way is another, and resistance to temptation is a valuable form of self-discipline.’

  ‘Oh, but they don’t resist!’ cried Hilda. ‘And Eustace wouldn’t either. You know how he likes to do the same as everyone else. And if any boy, especially any new boy, tries to be good and different from the rest they tease him and call him some horrid name (Gerald wouldn’t tell me what it was), and sometimes punch him, too.’

  Eustace, who had always been told he must try to be good in all circumstances, turned rather pale and looked down at the floor.

  ‘Now, now, Hilda,’ said her father, impatiently. ‘You’ve said quite enough. You sound as if you didn’t want Eustace to go to school.’

  But Hilda was unabashed. She knew she had made an impression on the grown-ups.

  ‘Oh, it’s only that I want him to go to the right school, isn’t it, Aunt Sarah?’ she said. ‘We shouldn’t like him to go to a school where he learned bad habits and—and nothing else, should we? He would be much better off as he is now, with you teaching him and me helping. Gerald said they really knew nothing; he said he knew more than the oldest boys at St. Ninian’s, and he’s only twelve.’

  ‘But he does boast, doesn’t he?’ put in Eustace timidly. ‘You used to say so yourself, Hilda.’ Hilda had never had a good word for Gerald Steptoe before to-day.

  ‘Oh, yes, you all boast,’ said Hilda sweepingly. ‘But I don’t think he was boasting. I asked him how much he knew, and he said, The Kings and Queens of England, so I told him to repeat them and he broke down down at Richard II. Eustace can say them perfectly, and he’s only ten, so you see for the next four years he wouldn’t be learning anything, he’d just be forgetting everything, wouldn’t he, Aunt Sarah? Don’t let him go, I’m sure it would be a mistake.’

  Minney, Barbara’s nurse, came bustling in. She was rather short and had soft hair and gentle eyes. ‘Excuse me, Miss Cherrington,’ she said, ‘but it’s Master Eustace’s bedtime.’

  Eustace said good night. Hilda walked with him to the door and when they were just outside she said in a whisper:

  ‘I think I shall be able to persuade them.’

&n
bsp; ‘But I think I want to go, Hilda!’ muttered Eustace.

  ‘It isn’t what you want, it’s what’s good for you,’ exclaimed Hilda, looking at him with affectionate fierceness. As she turned the handle of the drawing-room door she overheard her father saying to Miss Cherrington: ‘I shouldn’t pay too much attention to all that, Sarah. If the boy didn’t want to go it would be different. As the money’s his, he ought to be allowed to please himself. But he’ll be all right, you’ll see.’

  The days passed and Hilda wept in secret. Sometimes she wept openly, for she knew how it hurt Eustace to see her cry. When he asked her why she was crying she wouldn’t tell him at first, but just shook her head. Later on she said, ‘You know quite well: why do you ask me?’ and, of course, Eustace did know. It made him unhappy to know he was making her unhappy and besides, as the time to leave home drew nearer, he became much less sure that he liked the prospect. Hilda saw that he was weakening and she played upon his fears and gave him Eric or Little by Little as a Christmas present, to warn him of what he might expect when he went to school. Eustace read it and was extremely worried; he didn’t see how he could possibly succeed where a boy as clever, and handsome, and good as Eric had been before he went to school, had failed. But it did not make him want to turn back, for he now felt that if school was going to be an unpleasant business, all the more must he go through with it—especially as it was going to be unpleasant for him, and not for anyone else; which would have been an excuse for backing out. ‘You see it won’t really matter,’ he explained to Hilda, ‘they can’t kill me—Daddy said so—and he said they don’t even roast boys at preparatory schools, only at public schools, and I shan’t be going to a public school for a long time, if ever. I expect they will just do a few things to me like pulling my hair and twisting my arm and perhaps kicking me a little, but I shan’t really mind that. It was much worse all that time after Miss Fothergill died, because then I didn’t know what was going to happen and now I do know, so I shall be prepared.’ Hilda was nonplussed by this argument, all the more so because it was she who had told Eustace that it was always good for you to do something you didn’t like. ‘You say so now,’ she said, ‘but you won’t say so on the seventeenth of January.’ And when Eustace said nothing but only looked rather sad and worried she burst into tears. ‘You’re so selfish,’ she sobbed. ‘You only think about being good—as if that mattered—you don’t think about me at all. I shan’t eat or drink anything while you are away, and I shall probably die.’