The Complete Short Stories of L.P. Hartley

by Leslie Poles Hartley

  It was half-past seven in the morning. When she had the dogs to see to, she was oblivious of time; it might have been half-past five. The kennel-maid was away ill; the household, such as it was, was not yet astir; the gardener wasn’t due until nine o’clock. Nerina was completely alone.

  Meanwhile, the five youths drew still closer, and their attitude, as displayed in their faces and the looks which every now and then they interchanged—sideways and backwards—if not exactly threatening, were anything but friendly.

  As a dog-breeder, and a dog-shower, Nerina had seen a good deal of the world and was acquainted with its seamier side, and when the dual patrol had gone on for half an hour—the little gang marching and whistling alongside, until they were almost rubbing shoulders with her—she felt it was time to do something. They all looked rather alike, black-avised with dark, dangling, dirty locks to match, but she turned to the one who seemed to be the leader, and said, ‘Come in here, there’s something I want to say to you.’

  She led the way from the kennels to her sitting-room, her library, only a few yards distant, a limb of the main body of the house.

  They followed her in and stood around her, with the same look, between half-closed eyes, suggesting something they would like to do, if they could decide on it.

  Nerina didn’t ask them to sit down; she stood in their midst, and looked up at them.

  ‘Now,’ she said, as briskly as she could, ‘There’s something I want to ask you. Why are you here? What is all this about?’

  A shuffling of feet; an exchange of interrogative looks; and their spokesman said,

  ‘It’s the spirit of adventure, I suppose.’

  ‘You call it the spirit of adventure,’ said Nerina. ‘I should call it something else.’

  And for several minutes she told them, looking up from one face to another, for they were all big boys, what she would call it.

  When she had finished her tirade she nodded a dismissal, and the little gang, rather sheepishly, filed out, no more to be seen.

  *

  Not long afterwards the vet turned up. ‘I’m sorry, Miss Willoughby,’ he said, ‘but those damned birds took longer than I thought. And it was just as I expected—one of the cobs had done the other in—he was lying down on the grass with his neck and his head stretched out and his eyes glazing. I gave him an injection as quick as I could, but I’m afraid it was too late—I didn’t hear any swan-song—and I gave the other a boot, which I hope he will remember. The lady in the case was standing by, looking more coy than you can believe, so I gave her a boot too, just to teach her. I suppose they can’t help the way they behave, but it is annoying, to be called out as early as that—just for swans, because they are, or some of them are, said to be, the Queen’s birds. And they are nearly the only birds, besides cocks and fighting-cocks, and birds of prey, which set out to kill each other. Sparrows have their squabbles but they are soon over, and I wouldn’t get out of bed to separate them. Now what can I do for you, Miss Willoughby?’

  Nerina explained, and together they inspected the suffering occupants of the kennels. No need to tell—it was abundantly evident on the floor of their well-kept abodes—what was the matter with them. But was it a symptom or a cause?

  ‘I’m sure you’ve done right,’ the vet said. ‘It’s one of those unexplained epidemics that dogs, even more than human beings, are liable to. But you might also give them these,’ and he brought out from his bag a bottle of pills. He frowned. ‘One never knows, in this kind of thing, if it’s better to let Nature take its course. Don’t hesitate to call me if they aren’t improving. I hope that by tomorrow all the swans in England will be dead.’

  He waved and drove away.

  *

  Having administered his pills to the afflicted animals, some of whom were willing to swallow them and some not, Nerina went back to her library sitting-room, and sat down to answer some letters that had been too long unanswered.

  It was now eleven o’clock; the traditional hour of respite and relaxation. She might well have felt tired but she didn’t, for work was more of a stimulus to her than leisure, or pleasure.

  Presently, while her fingers were still busy on the writing-paper, a daily help came in with a tray, on which was some of the household silver, that was cleaned once a week.

  ‘May I have your clock, Miss Nerina?’

  ‘Yes, of course,’ said Nerina, nodding towards the chimney-piece where it stood, and the clock went away with the salt-cellars, pepper-pots, spoons and the rest of the silver-ware which Nerina, who was not much interested in such matters, thought it necessary to keep bright and shining.

  The clock—the little, silver travelling-clock, had been a present, and she was fond of it. It was engraved, on the margin, ‘For Nerina, from a friend.’ It didn’t say who the friend was, which made Nerina all the more aware of who it was.

  She went on writing, always with an ear for sounds from the kennels, and didn’t notice the passing of time, until she was suddenly startled by the pealing of the front-door bell, which, clanging in the kitchen, also resounded through the house.

  Was there anyone to answer it, apart from the cook, who never answered the door if she could help it? Yes, there was Hilda, the silver-polisher, who didn’t leave till after lunch.

  Nerina settled down to her correspondence, but was disturbed by another, louder peal.

  ‘Oh dear, must I go?’ she asked herself, for she was more tired than she knew.

  A third peal, and then silence, silence for what seemed quite a long time.

  Nerina was licking the last envelope, and preparing to go out to see how the dogs were getting on, when Hilda came in.

  ‘Excuse me, Miss Nerina,’ she said, ‘but something has happened.’

  ‘Oh, what?’ asked Nerina. She was not specially observant, and was obsessed by the thought of what might be happening in the kennels, but she saw that Hilda had a white face.

  ‘It’s the clock, Miss Nerina, your little clock.’

  ‘What about it?’

  ‘It’s disappeared.’

  Nerina got up from her desk. How many times, during the day, had her thoughts been violently switched from one subject to another.

  ‘Disappeared?’

  ‘Yes, Miss Nerina, I had it on the tray, ready to clean, and the doorbell rang, twice, no three times, when I was having my elevenses, and a boy was at the front door with a parcel. I told him where to put the parcel—groceries or something—in the pantry, and went back to the kitchen, to finish my cup of tea, and when I went back to the pantry, it was gone.’

  ‘The clock, you mean?’

  ‘Yes, Miss Nerina. None of us would have taken it, as you well know.’ Nerina did know. For a few minutes the loss of the clock, that symbol of an ancient friendship, which had faithfully told her the time of day in many places, and for many years, brought tears to her eyes.

  ‘Never mind, Hilda,’ she said, ‘We shall get over it. Worse things happen at sea,’ and she went out to look at the dogs, who were ill—which the clock, whatever might have been its fate, was not.

  *

  The next morning the dogs were clearly on the mend. Nerina and the kennel-maid, who was now recovered, between them cleaned out the grosser relics of the dogs’ indisposition. Nerina was not usually time-conscious, but when she went back, after washing, to her sitting-room—a spy-hole on the dogs—the clock wasn’t there, and the claims of human, as distinct from canine friendship, began to assert themselves.

  When she had looked round for the tenth time, to see what hour it was, Hilda appeared.

  ‘There’s a young gentleman to see you, Miss Nerina.’

  ‘A young gentleman? Who is he?’

  ‘I couldn’t catch his name, Miss Nerina. He speaks that rough.’

  ‘Where is he?’

  ‘In the hall, the outer hall. I didn’t want him to come any nearer, because I think he’s the same young man as came in yesterday, when you lost your clock.’

 
; Nerina got up and went through another room into the hall.

  There was a young man, who looked so like the other members of the group of youths who had (so to speak) dogged her footsteps yesterday, that she couldn’t tell whether he was one of them or not.

  ‘What do you want?’ she asked him, rather curtly.

  ‘It’s like this, madam,’ he said, and produced from his pocket her little silver clock. ‘I found this on the drive leading to your house, and as it has your name on it, and your birthday,’ he added, giving it another look, ‘I thought you might value it, so I brought it back.’

  She took the clock from his outstretched palm, which remained outstretched, as though for a reward; and slightly shook her head.

  ‘I’m glad you brought it back,’ she said. ‘It makes things better for everyone, doesn’t it?’

  He didn’t answer, and at once took his leave.

  FALL IN AT THE DOUBLE

  Philip Osgood had bought his house in the West Country soon after the Second World War, in the year 1946 to be exact. It had the great merit, for him, of being on the river—a usually slow-flowing stream, but deep, and liable to sudden sensational rises in height, eight feet in as many hours, which flooded the garden but could not reach the house. The house was fairly large, mainly Regency, with earlier and later additions; it had encountered the floods of many years without being washed away; so when he saw the water invading the garden, submerging the garden wall and even overflowing the lawn (on which swans sometimes floated), he didn’t feel unduly worried, for the house stood on a hillock which was outside flood-range.

  Philip had always liked the house, chiefly because of its situation, its long view over the meadows, and because it had, in one corner of the garden, a boat-house, and rowing was his favourite pastime. He sometimes asked his visitors, who were not many (for who can entertain guests nowadays?) to go out with him in the boat, a cockly affair, known technically as a ‘sculling gig’, with a sliding seat. It could take one passenger, but this passenger had to sit absolutely still—not a foot this way or that, hardly a headshake—or the boat would tip over.

  Moreover, besides its natural instability, it took in water at an alarming rate, so that the passenger—he or she—found himself ankle-deep in water, though doing his best to look as if he were enjoying it. The landscape through which the river ambled, or flowed, or hastened, was perfectly beautiful, and this was Philip’s excuse (besides mere selfishness) for beguiling his friends into the boat.

  The day came when this treacherous vessel (happily with no other occupant in it) overturned, and Philip found himself in the water. Being a practised, though not a good swimmer, he was not unduly disturbed. Although it was March and the water was cold—and he was wearing his leather jacket and the rest of his polar outfit—he thought: ‘I will get hold of the boat and tow it back to the boat-house.’

  Alas, he had reckoned without the current, swollen by recent rains, and he found that far from his towing the boat back to the boat-house, it was towing him down-river to the weir, where who knew what might not happen?

  He at once relinquished the boat to its fate and after a struggle—for he was too old for this sort of thing—he reached the boat-house, the only possible landing-place, for everywhere else the banks were too high and steep, and he went dripping up to his bedroom.

  It so happened that this very day he had engaged a new factotum, who was to cook and drive for him. His job with Philip was his first job of this kind—he had had others—and it was his first night in Philip’s house. His room faced Philip’s, an arrangement Philip was glad of, for being an elderly hypochondriac, he liked to have someone within call.

  Nothing came of the river-episode—no pneumonia, no bronchitis—not at least for the moment—but who could tell? And suddenly he wondered if the house, which had seemed so welcoming and friendly over twenty years, had something against him?

  *

  The next morning, when the new factotum called him at eight o’clock with a pot of tea, he asked, just as a routine inquiry.

  ‘How did you sleep last night, Alfred?’

  ‘Oh,’ said Alfred who, like so many gentlemen’s gentlemen, when they still exist, had been in the Services, ‘I didn’t sleep a wink, sir.’ He sounded quite cheerful.

  Philip, who himself suffered from insomnia, was distressed.

  ‘I hope your bed was comfortable?’

  ‘Oh yes, sir, couldn’t have been more comfortable.’

  ‘I’m glad of that. But perhaps you are one of the people—I am one myself—who don’t sleep well in a strange bed?’

  ‘Oh no, sir, I sleep like a log. I could sleep anywhere, on a clothes-line with a marlin-spike for a pillow.’

  Philip didn’t know what a marlin-spike was, but as an aid to rest it didn’t sound very helpful.

  ‘I’m so sorry,’ he said, baffled. ‘Then what was it that kept you awake?’

  ‘It was the noises, sir.’

  Philip sat up in bed and automatically began to listen for noises but there were none. One side of the house faced the main road where there was plenty of noise by day, and some by night; the other side, on which his bedroom lay, overlooked the long broad meadow, skirted, at no great distance, by the main railway line from London. Philip, in his sleepless hours, was used to the passing of nocturnal trains: indeed they soothed him rather than otherwise. There was the one-fifty, the two-twenty, and the three-forty-five; he didn’t resent them, he rather welcomed them, as establishing his identity with the outside world.

  Alfred was standing by his bed, tea-pot in hand.

  ‘Shall I pour out for you, sir?’

  ‘Yes, please, Alfred. But what did you mean by noises?’

  Alfred began to pour the tea into his cup.

  ‘Oh, just noises, sir, just noises.’

  Alfred (Alf to his friends) handed Philip his bed-jacket.

  ‘But what sort of noises?’

  ‘Oh, I couldn’t quite describe, sir. First there was a pattering of feet on the staircase, really quite loud, and then I heard a voice say, like a sergeant-major’s—very autocratic, if you know what I mean—“Fall in at the double, fall in at the double, fall in at the double.”

  ‘And what happened then?’

  ‘Nothing much happened. The footsteps stopped, and a sort of smell—a weedy sort of smell—came into the room. I didn’t pay much attention to it, and then I went to sleep.’

  *

  Thinking this over, Philip was puzzled. Could Alfred, or Alf, have possibly known that the house had been occupied by the Army during the war—the Second World War? There were people who could have told him—the gardener and his wife who lived upstairs could have told him, supposing they knew; but would they have had time to tell him, in the few short hours since his arrival?

  But there it was—the tramping of footsteps down the uncarpeted staircase (for it would have been uncarpeted during the Army’s occupation), the thrice-repeated command, ‘Fall in at the double’—what did it mean?

  And then this weedy smell ?

  *

  Philip couldn’t sleep the next night, and expected to be told that Alfred couldn’t sleep either; but when Alfred called him with a bright morning face, and Philip asked him if he had had a good night or a better night, he answered promptly, and as if surprised: ‘Oh yes, sir, I slept like a log.’

  Philip was glad to hear this, but something—a suggestion, a muttering from his subconscious mind—still irked him. He knew that certain people—people in the village and outside—had certain reservations about his house. What they were he didn’t know, and naturally, they didn’t tell him; only a faint accent of doubt—as if referring to some rather shady acquaintance—coloured their voices when they spoke of it. But when he asked a friend of his who owned a much larger and grander house, if he thought his riverside abode might be haunted, his friend replied, ‘Oh Philip, but is it old enough?’

  Philip was slightly offended. It was a vulgar error to think a g
host needed a long pedigree. His house was quite old enough to be haunted; and this recent visitation, if it was one, had nothing to do with the house’s age as a resort for ghosts.

  He was not unduly superstitious but there was a nerve in him that vibrated to supernatural fears, and though he tried to calm them during the following days, by the reflection that he had lived in the house for over twenty years without any trouble other than the normal troubles—burst pipes, gas escapes, failures of electricity and so on, that are the lot of many old and decaying houses—he didn’t feel so comfortable, so at home with his home, with his thoughts as he used to be.

  Supposing?

  But was there anything, abstract or concrete, spiritual or material, to suppose?

  Alfred professed to be psychic, and familiar with poltergeists and other familiars (Philip laughed to himself, rather half-heartedly, at this mental joke), otherwise he wouldn’t have taken the manifestations on the staircase so lightly; but that didn’t explain why they had such an obvious bearing on the recent history of the house.

  Forget about it, forget about it, and Philip had almost forgotten about it when, a few nights later, he was awakened by a thunderous knock on his bedroom door, three times repeated. It was the loudest sound he had ever heard; the footsteps of the Commendatore coming up the staircase in Don Giovanni, were nothing like as loud.

  ‘Come in!’ he shouted, unaware of the time, and almost unaware, having taken a sleeping pill, where he himself was. ‘Come in!’ he shouted again, thinking that perhaps it was Alfred with his early morning tea.

  But no one came; and it couldn’t have been Alfred, for when he looked at his watch, it was five o’clock in the morning.

  Turning over in bed, he tried to go to sleep; but his subconscious mind had taken alarm and wouldn’t let him; and he lay awake listening for another summons until three hours later, when a much gentler, hardly audible knock, that didn’t even expect an answer, announced Alfred with Philip’s early morning tea.