The Retreat

by Forrest Reid

  Miss Jimpson smiled at the hesitation. “Come on,” she insisted gaily, so he told her the truth. “Thirty,” was Tom’s estimate.

  Miss Jimpson laughed. “Well, precious near it,” she confessed, “though it wasn’t what I hoped you’d say. . . . But age is a variable thing, don’t you think? I mean so far as one’s private feelings about it are concerned. There are days when one feels eighteen and days when one feels eighty.”

  “I’ve never felt as old as that,” Tom replied. “It must be very queer.”

  “Queer isn’t the word for it!” declared Miss Jimpson. “But tell me this, Tom: how many brothers and sisters have you?”

  “I haven’t any,” Tom answered in surprise.

  “I thought not; and that partly explains it.”

  “Explains what?” Tom questioned her, for he thought that Miss Jimpson was talking a little wildly.

  “Explains you,” said Miss Jimpson. “It means that all your home life must be different: different from that of boys like Brown, I mean. If nothing else, the family conversation is sure to be different. In your house I expect it’s real conversation.”

  “Isn’t there real conversation in the Brown family?” Tom wondered.

  Miss Jimpson pushed a plate of cakes towards him. “I think it’s most unlikely that they all sit dumb,” she replied. “But by real conversation I meant an exchange of ideas.”

  Tom pondered this in silence. He didn’t know the Brown family except by sight, but he knew that Brown had three sisters and two brothers, and that Brown himself came somewhere in the middle, and that they all looked very much alike. “Daddy and Mother exchange ideas,” he suddenly decided. “They were exchanging them about the Blakes this morning.”

  Miss Jimpson looked mystified. “The Blakes!” she repeated. “What Blakes?”

  “The William Blakes,” said Tom. “About God looking in at the window. Daddy doesn’t believe he did, but Mother does.”

  Miss Jimpson recognized the William Blakes. “That’s just what I mean,” she said. “The Browns would be talking about the Smiths or the Atkinsons.”

  Tom didn’t see why they shouldn’t be talking about the Smiths and Atkinsons, but he asked: “Is this a real conversation we’re having now?”

  Miss Jimpson considered. “Yes, I think so,” she replied. “At any rate, it’s the beginnings of one: it’s not just gossip. Have another ice.”

  “No, thank you,” said Tom.

  “Then you’ll have a cup of tea,” and she poured it out, leaving him to add the milk and sugar himself. “What do you and Mr. Holbrook talk about?” she asked.

  “Usually about music,” said Tom. “I don’t think we exchange ideas.”

  “Such nonsense!” cried Miss Jimpson. “I’m sure you do. Does talking about music interest you?”

  “Yes,” Tom answered. “You see,” he explained, “when I go to his house we play the gramophone, or he plays the piano—and it’s only in between that we talk.”

  Miss Jimpson saw, and she looked out of the window for a minute or two without speaking. “He told me you were fond of music,” she then said.

  Tom was surprised. Somehow it always surprised him to find that he had been talked about in his absence. It gave him a slightly ghostly feeling too—as if he had been there and not there at the same time. Yet he hadn’t this feeling when it was he himself who talked. He had been talking about Mr. Holbrook and Mother and Daddy and Brown, and it hadn’t seemed at all ghostly, which was strange, because really it ought to have been just the same.

  “I’m afraid I’m not very fond of music,” Miss Jimpson was saying, and Tom thought her face had clouded a little. Not clouded exactly, for she didn’t look cross or anything like that; in fact she was smiling. But something was different—or perhaps it was just that she was thinking.

  “I’ve tried to pretend I am,” Miss Jimpson went on, “but it was simply because I hate missing things, and naturally that is no good. When I was in Milan last year I sat through two operas at the Scala and was bored stiff the entire time.”

  “Gracious!” cried Tom, but hastily added: “Perhaps they weren’t good operas.”

  “They were,” said Miss Jimpson grimly. “They were even supposed to be specially good—with Toscanini conducting. Mr. Holbrook was disgusted with me.”

  “I don’t see why he should be,” Tom declared gallantly.

  “Neither do I,” Miss Jimpson agreed. “Particularly since I went, if not entirely, at any rate very largely,. on his account. But men are like that—most men, Tom; not you, as you’ve just shown.”

  “I shouldn’t worry,” Tom told her kindly. Then: “Who was singing?” he naturally inquired, but Miss Jimpson immediately sat up and gazed at him.

  “Don’t!” she exclaimed. “I thought you were different, but I see you really aren’t!”

  Tom was surprised. “Why?” he asked.

  “I treasured up the programmes for Mr. Holbrook,” Miss Jimpson continued, ignoring the interruption, “so that he could read the names of the singers for himself—and, incidentally, to prove that I’d been there at all. You’d have imagined that would be sufficient, wouldn’t you? But merely because I couldn’t remember the names when he asked me, he was more irritated than if I hadn’t gone.”

  Tom’s private opinion was that it had been pretty slack of her, though he only said: “Yes, he wouldn’t like that; he’d think it showed that you weren’t really interested. Surely you can remember now.”

  “I can’t,” Miss Jimpson snapped. “And I don’t want to. Why should I remember the names of people who annoyed me. And that’s all they did—the principals even more than the others, because they made more noise. And it was all so perfectly idiotic! Imagine a priestess of the Druids, dressed in what looked to me like a white ball-dress, standing under an oak tree——”

  “That was Rosa Ponselle,” Tom put in immediately, “and the opera was Norma, and she was singing ‘Casta Diva’.”

  “Heavens!” cried Miss Jimpson.

  “Well, it was,” said Tom, a little impatiently. “I know, because Mr. Holbrook told me about the oak tree, and that nobody else sings that part. He’s got a record of her singing ‘Casta Diva’, and I’ve heard it; it’s lovely.”

  “I’m not doubting you,” Miss Jimpson said meekly. “I was only thinking what an apt pupil he’d got. It’s not much wonder he thinks such a lot of you.”

  Tom wasn’t sure whether she meant this or not, but he thought she did, and blushed.

  “I’m going to slip in one morning and hear you sing,” she told him. “Do you think Mr. Holbrook would mind?”

  Tom wasn’t certain about Mr. Holbrook, but he knew he would mind himself. If Miss Jimpson felt that way about a person like Rosa Ponselle, she must be as bad as Daddy, and he didn’t want to sing to her. Nor could he see why she should want to listen. “I think you’d better not,” he said after a pause.

  But Miss Jimpson didn’t pause for a second. “Why?” she demanded. “Do you mean he would be annoyed?”

  “He might be,” Tom answered guardedly. It’s better not to risk it.” And he looked more guarded still.

  “I’m perfectly prepared to risk it,” Miss Jimpson returned rather sharply. “And at any rate you could find out, couldn’t you?”

  “Yes,” Tom murmured, though it was not a promise. But he felt that the ground was tricky, and that they’d better get off it as soon as possible; so, with a sleek, black, green-eyed phantom in his mind’s eye, he asked her if she were fond of cats.

  Miss Jimpson was dubious. “I like them better than canaries or white mice,” she compromised, “and I haven’t to get up and go out of the room if a cat happens to come into it. But no, on the whole: dogs every time for me.”

  “I used to have three dogs,” Tom said sadly. “At least, they weren’t mine exactly. I mean, they didn’t really belong to us; they had their own homes; but they went about with me everywhere.”

  “And what happened to them?” Mi
ss Jimpson asked.

  “Roger was poisoned. He must have picked poison up somewhere in the fields, and when he got home, though we did everything we could think of, it was too late, and he died before the vet arrived. . . . Barker is dead too. He was getting very old and blind and a motor-lorry ran over him. . . . Pincher I expect is all right: he was a young dog. But he belonged to the Sabines, and when Mr. Sabine got another church, and they went away, they took Pincher with them.”

  “That’s the worst of having pets,” Miss Jimpson said. “You get fond of them, and then something happens. Or even if it doesn’t, their lives are so short, so much shorter than ours. I had a dog once myself, and when he died I was so upset I made up my mind never to get another one.”

  “You could get a pet tortoise,” Tom said doubtfully. “They live for ages and ages.”

  “I dare say, but what good would that be? It wouldn’t care a straw about you: you might as well have a pet cabbage.”

  Tom sighed. “We’ve only got a cat,” he said, “and I don’t think he cares much either. . . . I’ve wanted to have a bulldog ever since I can remember, only Daddy won’t let me.”

  He looked up to find Miss Jimpson regarding him closely. “What other things do you want?” she asked, and the suddenness and unexpected aptness of her question caused him to gaze at her in consternation.

  He did not attempt to answer, but he couldn’t help thinking, and he was profoundly thankful that Miss Jimpson couldn’t read his thoughts. Just imagine if he had been obliged to give her the list of wants he had gone through that very morning! Especially the hairs on his legs! He looked so embarrassed that Miss Jimpson must have guessed something was amiss, for she hastily put another question: “What kind of cat is it—a Persian?”

  “No, just an ordinary cat,” Tom answered with relief; though truthfulness compelled him to add: “At least, he’s not quite ordinary. He’s a black cat and his name is Henry.”

  “Does he do tricks?” asked Miss Jimpson innocently. “But of course cats don’t: They’re too aloof and superior for that.”

  “They do,” Tom couldn’t help replying, in a tone both dark and emphatic. “Only they don’t do dogs’ tricks, and they do them to please themselves, not because they’ve been taught.”

  He saw, however, that Miss Jimpson wasn’t really attending, she was doing something to her hat. “Well, you must tell me about Henry’s tricks another day,” she said. “What I want you to tell me now is whether I’ve got a smut on my nose or not. I feel that I have, though I can’t see it. . . . And then we must go.”

  Tom inspected her carefully. “You haven’t,” he said.

  “In that case——” And Miss Jimpson rose from her chair.

  They both got up. “Thanks awfully,” Tom was beginning, but Miss Jimpson pushed him along by his shoulders and they descended to the shop, where she paused at the cash-box, while Tom went on to the door, where he stood waiting. Then, out in the street, they said good-bye, and Miss Jimpson went one way and he the other.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  TOM WALKED home through the afternoon sunshine. He was a rather pottering walker, given to standing and gazing at anything that happened to catch his attention, whether it were a dog, a street musician, a furniture van being unloaded, or merely somebody clipping a garden hedge. This was not because he was an idler, but because so many things interested him. His mind was as easily stirred as the river sedges, and when it was deeply stirred his bodily activities were sometimes temporarily suspended.

  As a rule this did not matter, but there had been disastrous exceptions. Yesterday afternoon, for instance, when having gone in to bat at the tail end of a practice game supervised by Mr. Poland, suddenly he had been so much struck by the appearance of the bowler that he had made no attempt to defend his wicket. In a dream he had stood there—and the awakening had been rude. One couldn’t have believed that people would be so nasty about what was really nothing—or at any rate very little. Tom had never been called so many names in his life. Even the opposite side had joined in, though they ought to have been pleased, since it was to their advantage; while Driscoll, the bowler in question, had been angriest of all, seeing in the subsequent explanation (dragged out by Mr. Poland) a reflection on his personal appearance, whereas Tom had actually been thinking how nice he looked.

  But of course he couldn’t tell them that: it would only have made matters worse: and now, as he pursued his way homeward, it was Miss Jimpson who occupied his thoughts—chiefly because of the remarks she had made about wanting to hear him sing. Tom couldn’t quite believe in this desire, or at least that it had not behind it a motive which had nothing to do with music. Miss Jimpson didn’t care for music: she had said so: she had said that she had only gone to those operas to please Mr. Holbrook. Wasn’t it very likely, then, that her new plan had been made with the same object? A sudden suspicion dawned upon Tom. Why should Miss Jimpson be so keen on pleasing Mr. Holbrook unless she was fond. of him? A romance it was. And this hypothesis was no sooner born than he saw that it explained everything and must be true. At the same time it struck him as pretty thick! That is to say, the excuse of the singing lesson struck him as pretty thin! And mightn’t it have had something to do even with the tea and ices at Nicholson’s? This illumination of Miss Jimpson’s secret designs gave Tom a shock. Clearly she wanted him to help, and, though he felt a certain sympathy with her, he wasn’t sure that he could go quite as far as that. He would first have to decide whether she was worthy of Mr. Holbrook, and next find out what were Mr. Holbrook’s private feelings in the matter. Indeed the whole thing must be considered carefully—possibly discussed with Mother—before he took any active step.

  Tom turned in at his own gate feeling important and influential—as was only natural, with Miss Jimpson’s happiness hanging on his decision. He saw nobody in the garden nor in the house, though he could hear Phemie whistling in the kitchen, a sure sign that Mother was out. He flung his books down on the study table and went back to the garden.

  There was nothing to do unless Pascoe happened to turn up, which he hardly expected, for they had made no arrangement. Still, Pascoe often rode over: it took him only about ten minutes on his bicycle, whereas for Tom to go to his house meant at least half an hour’s walk. He chose a suitable spot and stretched himself comfortably in the shade. . . .

  Once Brown had come—uninvited, and of course simply out of curiosity. He had stayed most of the afternoon, all the same, though he had never repeated his visit. For that matter, Tom didn’t want him to repeat it. Pascoe was different: Pascoe would come up into the loft where the railway was laid down, but the only games Brown cared for were games you played with a bat and a ball, and he was far too good at them—or Tom too bad—for it to be much fun playing with him. He wished Pascoe would come, because he wanted to talk to him and find out how the electric storm had affected the rest of the school. Besides, they could dam the stream—an engineering feat planned several days ago, but planned by Pascoe, so that Tom daren’t attempt it without him.

  Pascoe was a queer chap, he reflected. For one thing, he hardly ever laughed. It wasn’t that he was gloomy or melancholy or bored, but merely that jokes didn’t amuse him. He disliked, too, even the mildest form of ragging. He went about everything with a kind of intense concentration of purpose, just the way ants do. Nevertheless, it was rotten having nobody. . . .

  Tom lay on his back and looked up into a cloudless blue sky. He could hear the leaves rustling on the apple trees behind him when a breath of wind passed, and presently a pigeon flew out of the weeping-ash near the summer house. A couple of swallows were wheeling over the lawn, flying very low, which was supposed to be a sign of approaching rain, but Tom didn’t believe it was going to rain.

  Where had William gone to? He must either have concealed himself somewhere in the shrubbery or else have gone in to the kitchen to have tea. Tom considered whether it would be worth while going to the kitchen, but he had already had tea with Miss Jimps
on, so instead he got up and strolled round the house to a cobbled yard at the back. Here were what had once been stables, though at present they were used partly as a garage, and partly as a kind of tool-shed, containing a carpenter’s bench, the lawn mower, and all William’s gardening implements. Above was a loft, to which you could climb by a board with foot-holes in it. This loft in former days had been a hayloft, but hay being no longer required, it had been cleaned out, whitewashed, and given over to Tom for a playroom.

  He had used it a lot at one time, and he still used it when Pascoe came. Its attractiveness, however, had waned of late, and it was only because he had nothing else to do that he climbed up there now.

  It was quite light in the loft, for there was not only a skylight, but also a large window facing the yard. The room was long and low, with a sloping roof which left plenty of space in the middle, but at the sides slanted down to within three feet of the floor. The only furniture consisted of a couple of kitchen chairs, and a solid deal table littered with papers, chalks, a box of paints, a pair of scissors, and other odds and ends. From the rafters hung crinkled Chinese lanterns, and on the floor were the railway lines, with their stations, signal boxes, and tunnels. A toy yacht fully rigged, and a Meccano erection which Pascoe had built weeks ago, stood near the wall.

  A broad band of sunlight, filled with myriads of tiny floating specks, streamed in through the dusty glass. On the whitewashed wall hung a burglar’s black cloth mask with eyeholes cut in it, a coloured portrait of Abraham Lincoln and his young son, a scabbard without a sword, and a cracked and tarnished mirror. Also a map of the garden and the immediately surrounding country—chiefly Pascoe’s work—and two charcoal silhouettes, one of Pascoe and one of Tom, traced over their actual shadows.

  All these familiar details Tom took in with a rather bored glance. He pulled the window up, stretched himself on his stomach on the dusty floor, and supporting his chin between his hands, stared out into the sunshine.

  After some ten minutes of this, during which his mind had become very nearly a blank, he heard the sound of the wheelbarrow and leaned farther out. From where he lay he could see William, but William could not see him unless he chanced to glance up. Tom therefore had a view of William as William was when he believed himself to be alone, and at once he became interested. William wiped his forehead with a spotted and very dirty pocket handkerchief and muttered some remarks to the wheelbarrow. Tom strained his ears to catch what he was saying, but failed. A very one-sided conversation this, as William himself appeared to realize, for he sighed loudly, sat down on the barrow, and took out his pipe. Tom had never seen William fill that pipe, and he didn’t fill it now; he merely struck a match and held it between his hands over the bowl: nevertheless he lit the pipe, and puffed a cloud of dark blue smoke into the air. This proved that the pipe was a magic one, always filled with tobacco, and, since William was certainly not a magician, it must have been given to him by an ancient crone in return for some service—carrying her bundle perhaps, or giving her a share of his lunch. It followed therefore that William had two older brothers who had been less obliging, and the question was what they had received from the crone. Nothing very nice, of course, but possibly amusing. Tom leaned as low down as he could, and shouted “William!” at the top of his voice.