Random Harvest

by James Hilton

"So a perfect stranger could walk into your house and get a free lunch?"

  "They're doing that all the time—though most of 'em have invitations. . . . Look here, if you're not busy just now, why not come over to the House for tea?"

  I said I would, and took the bus again to Chelsea. But at Kenmore the maid told me that Rainier hadn't been in since morning and never by any chance took tea at home; and just then, while we were arguing on the doorstep (I insisting I had been invited less than twenty minutes ago), Mrs. Rainier came up behind me and began to laugh. "He meant the House of Commons," she said, passing into the hall. "You'd better let my car take you there."

  Extraordinary how stupid one can be when one would prefer to impress by being knowledgeable. I knew quite well that the House of Commons, along with the Stock Exchange and Christ Church, Oxford, was called "the House," yet somehow, when Rainier had used the phrase over the telephone, I could only think of Kenmore. Most of the way to Westminster in the almost aggressively unostentatious Daimler (so impersonal you could believe it part of an undertaker's fleet), I cursed my mistake as a poor recommendation for any kind of job. I had feared Rainier might be waiting for me, and was relieved when, after sending in my name, I had to kill time for half an hour before a policeman led me through devious passages to the Terrace, where Rainier greeted me warmly. But his appearance was slightly disconcerting; there was a twitch about his mouth and eyes as he spoke, and a general impression of intense nervous energy in desperate need of relaxation. During tea he talked about his South American trip, assuming far too modestly that I had read nothing about it in the papers. Presently the division bell rang and only as we hurried across the Smoking Room did he broach the matter I had really come about. "I inquired from a good many people after I got your letter, Harrison, but there doesn't seem to be a thing doing in Fleet Street just now."

  "That was my own experience too."

  "So I wondered if you'd care for a secretary's job until something else turns up?"

  I hadn't really thought about such a thing, and maybe hesitation revealed my disappointment.

  He said, patting my arm: "Well, think it over, anyway. I've had a girl up to now, but she's due to get married in a few weeks—time enough to show you the ropes . . . that is, of course, if you feel you'd like the job at all. . . ."

  * * * * *

  So I became Rainier's secretary, and Miss Hobbs showed me the ropes. It had been flattery to call her a girl. She was thin, red- faced, middle-aged, and so worshipful of Rainier that no husband could hope to get more than a remnant of any emotion she was capable of; indeed, I felt that the chance of marriage was tempting her more because she feared it might be her last than because she was certain she wanted it. She hinted this much during our first meeting. "I almost feel I'm deserting HIM," she said, and the stress on "him" was revealing. Presently, showing me how she filed his correspondence, she added: "I'm so relieved he isn't going to have another LADY secretary. I'd be afraid of some awful kind of person coming here and—perhaps—INFLUENCING him."

  I said I didn't imagine Rainier was the type to be influenced by that kind of woman.

  "Oh, but you never know what kind of a woman will influence a man."

  We went on inspecting the filing system. "The main thing is to see he doesn't forget his appointments. He doesn't do much of his correspondence here—he has another secretary at his City office. So it won't matter a great deal if you don't know shorthand and typewriting."

  I said I did know shorthand and typewriting.

  "Well, so much the better, of course. You'll find him wonderful to work with—at least I always have, though of course we're more like old friends than employer and secretary. I call him Charles, you know, when we're alone together. And he always calls me Elsie, whether we're alone or not. We've been together now for nearly fifteen years, so it's really quite natural, don't you think?"

  During the next few hours she gave me her own version of the entire Rainier ménage. "Of course the marriage never has been all it should be—I daresay you can imagine that. Mrs. Rainier isn't the right kind of wife for a man like Charles. He's so tired of all those parties she gives, especially the house-parties at Stourton— that's their big place in the country, you know . . . they have no children—that's another thing, because he'd love children, and I don't know why they don't have them, maybe there's a reason. When you've worked with him for a time you'll feel how restless he is—I do blame her for THAT—she doesn't give him a proper home— Kenmore's just a hotel with different guests every day. I do believe there's only one room he feels really comfortable in, and that's this one—with his poor little secretary slaving away while he smokes—and he shouldn't smoke either, so he's been told. . . . D'you know, he often locks himself in when he wants to work, because the rest of the house is so full of Goyas and Epsteins and what not that people wander in and out of all the rooms as if it were a museum. Of course there really are priceless things in it— why not?—he gives her the money to spend, and I suppose she has taste—that is if you LIKE a house that's like a museum. I sometimes wonder if Charles does."

  After a pause during which I made no comment she turned to the writing-desk. "Charles gets hundreds of letters from complete strangers—about one thing and another, you know. If they're abusive we take no notice—in fact, whatever they are, HE doesn't bother much about them, but I'll let you into a secret—something he doesn't suspect and never will unless you tell him, and I'm sure you won't—I always write a little note of thanks to anyone who sends a NICE letter . . . of course I write as if he'd dictated it. . . . I really think a good secretary SHOULD do little things like that on her own, don't you?"

  I said nothing.

  "Really, if he were to ask me to stay, I believe I would, marriage or no marriage—I mean, it would be so hard to refuse him anything— but then, he's too fine and generous to ask—as soon as he knew about it he urged me not to delay my happiness on his account—just as if his own marriage had brought HIM happiness. . . . Not that Charles would be an easy man to MAKE happy, even if he HAD got the right woman. But he isn't happy NOW—that I DO know—there's always a look in his eyes as if he were searching for something and couldn't find it."

  For two or three days Miss Hobbs continued to show me the ropes; Rainier was away in Lancashire. During this time Mrs. Rainier gave several lunch parties to which I was not invited, though I was in the house at the time and was even privileged to give assistance to a foreign plenipotentiary who spoke little English and had strayed into the study in search of a humbler apartment. I could better understand after that why Rainier sometimes locked the door.

  Then he returned, having wired me to meet his train at Euston. As soon as we had found a taxi and were driving out of the station he asked me how I'd been getting on, and added, without waiting for an answer: "I don't suppose you'll find it hard to be as good as your predecessor."

  I said I should certainly hope to be.

  "Then you've already found out a few of the things I've been putting up with?"

  "Yes, but not why you HAVE put up with them, for so many years."

  "Pure sentiment, plus the fact that I've always had a submerged sympathy with crazy people, and Elsie's crazy enough. She used to work at Stourton in my father's time, then she worked for my brother, and when he naturally wanted to get rid of her there was no one fool enough to take her but me. I made her my social secretary—because in those days I had no social life and it didn't matter. But after I married there were social things for her to do and she did them with a peculiar and fascinating idiocy. D'you know, I've found out she writes long letters to people I've never heard of and signs my name to them? . . . And by the way, did she tell you I'm not happy with my wife?"

  "Well—er—"

  "Don't believe it. My wife and I are the best of friends. I suppose she also hinted it was a marriage of convenience?"

  I felt this was incriminating Miss Hobbs too much and was beginning a non-committal answer when he interru
pted: "Well, THAT happens to be true. I married her because it seemed to me she'd be just the person to turn a tired business man into a thumping success. She WAS and she DID. . . . Can you think of a better reason?"

  "There's generally considered to be ONE better reason."

  He switched the subject suddenly, pointing out of the window to a news placard that proclaimed, in letters a foot high: "Collapse of England." At that moment I felt that one thing Miss Hobbs had said about him WAS true—that look in his eyes as if he were searching for something and couldn't find it. He began to talk rapidly and nervously, apropos of the placard: "Odd to think of some foreigner translating without knowing it's only about cricket . . . it was something you said about that on a train that first made me want to know you better—but really, in a sense, it doesn't refer to cricket at all, but to how God-damned sure we are of ourselves—you can't imagine the same phrase in the streets of Paris or Berlin—it would begin panic or riots or something. . . . Just think of it— 'Débâcle de la France' or 'Untergang Deutschlands.' . . . Impossible . . . but here it means nothing because we don't believe it could ever happen—and that's not wishful thinking—it's neither wishing nor thinking, but a kind of inbreathed illusion. . . . Reminds me of that last plenary session of the London Conference when it was quite clear there was to be no effective disarmament by anybody and we were all hard at work covering up the failure of civilization's last hope with a mess of smeary platitudes . . . Lord, how tired I was, listening to strings of words that meant nothing in any language and even less when you had to wait for an interpreter to turn 'em into two others . . . and all the time the dusty sunlight fell in slabs over the pink bald heads—godheads from the power entrusted to them and gargoyles from the way I hated 'em . . . and during all that morning, full of the trapped sunlight and the distant drone of traffic past the Cenotaph, there was only one clean eager thing that happened—young Drexel whispering to me during a tepid outburst of applause: 'See the old boy in the third row—fifth from the end—Armenia or Irak or some place . . . but did you ever see anybody more like Harry Tate?' . . . And by Jove, he WAS like Harry Tate, and Drexel and I lived on it for the rest of the session—lived on it and on our own pathetic fancy that foreigners were strange and at best amusing creatures, rather like music-hall comedians or one's French master at school—tolerable if they happen to be musicians or dancers or ice-cream sellers—but definitely to be snubbed if they venture on the really serious business of governing the world. . . . Look—there's another!" It was a later placard, proclaiming in letters equally large, "England Now Without Hope." Rainier laughed. "Maybe some fussy archaeologist of the twenty-fifth century—a relative of Macaulay's sketching New Zealander—will dig this up from a rubbish-heap and say it establishes definite proof that we'd all been well warned in advance . . . . Has my wife got a party tonight?"

  "Yes."

  "What sort of a crowd?"

  "Mostly sporting and dramatic, I think."

  "Then I'll dine and sleep at the Club. Borotra's the only dramatic sportsman I care about, and he probably won't come."

  He put his head out of the cab window, giving the change of address, and also telling the man to drive more slowly. I could see he was nervously excited, and I was beginning to know by now that when he was in such a mood he talked a good deal in an attempt to race his thoughts—an attempt which usually failed, leaving a litter of unfinished sentences, mixed metaphors, and unpolished epigrams, with here and there some phrase worthy of one of his speeches, but flung off so carelessly that if the hearer did not catch it at the time Rainier himself could never recall it afterwards. I have tried to give an impression of this kind of talk, but even the most faithful reportage would miss a curious excitement of voice and gesture, the orchestration of some inner emotion turbulent under the surface. Nor, one felt, would such emotion wear out in fatigue, but rather increase to some extinguishing climax as an electric globe burns brighter before the final snapping of the filament. It was of this I felt suddenly afraid, and he noticed the anxious look I gave him.

  "Sorry to be a chatterer like this, Harrison, but it's after a bout of public speech-making—I always feel I have to use up the words left over, or perhaps the words I couldn't use. . . . I suppose you'd call me a rather good speaker?"

  I said I certainly should.

  "And you'd guess that it comes easily to me?"

  "It always sounds like it."

  He laughed. "That's what practice can do. I LOATHE speaking in public—I'm always secretly afraid I'm going to break down or stammer or something. Stammering especially . . . of course I never do. . . . By the way, you remember that mountain in Derbyshire I thought I recognized?"

  "Yes."

  "The same sort of thing happened in Lancashire, only it wasn't quite so romantic. Just a house in a row. I was helping Nixon in the Browdley by-election—we held meetings at street corners, then Nixon dragged me round doing the shake-hands and baby-kissing stuff— that's the way his father got into the Gladstone Parliaments, so Nixon still does it. I admit I'm pretty cynical about elections— the very look of the voting results, with two rows of figures adding neatly up to a third one, gives me the same itch as a company balance-sheet, exact to the last penny . . . whose penny? Was there ever a penny? . . . My own majority in Lythamshire, for instance—precisely twelve—but who WERE the twelve? Twelve good men and true, maybe, or twelve drunken illiterates . . . ? Don't you sometimes feel how FALSE it all is, and how falsely reassuring— this nineteenth-century gloss of statistical accuracy, as if the flood tide of history could run in rivulets tidy enough for garden irrigation, safe enough for a million taps in suburban bathrooms . . . but when the storm does come, who'll give a damn if the rows of little figures still add up—who'll care if the sums are all wrong provided one man knows a right answer?"

  "You were talking about a house."

  "Oh yes. . . . Just an ordinary four-room working-man's house— tens of thousands like it. A cold day, and as we stood waiting at the door I could see a great yellow glow of firelight behind the lace curtains of the parlour window. Nothing extraordinary in that, either, and yet . . . it's hard to describe the feelings I had, as if that house were waiting for me—a welcome—out of the wintry dusk and into the warm firelight . . . a welcome home."

  His eyes were full of eagerness, and I said, trying to hasten his story before we reached the end of the journey: "Did the feeling disappear when a stranger answered the door?"

  "I'm coming to that. . . . There were three of us, Nixon, myself, and Ransome, the local party secretary, nice little man. We knocked and knocked and nobody came. Then I, saw Ransome fumbling in his pocket. 'Can't think where she is,' he said, 'but I expect she'll be back in a jiffy.' I realized then that it was HIS house, and that we were being invited in. He found a key, unlocked the door, and we entered. No lobby or hall—straight into the warmth and firelight. There was a kettle steaming on the hob, cups and saucers set out, plates of bread and butter. Everything spotlessly neat, furniture that shone, a clock ticking loudly somewhere. It was all so beautiful, this warm small room. The man kept talking about his wife—how proud she'd been at the thought of having two such men as Nixon and myself to tea in her home—such an honour— she'd never forget it—and how embarrassed she'd be when she came back and found us already there. 'I'll bet she's gone round the corner for a Dundee cake,' he laughed. But as time passed he began to be a bit embarrassed himself, and presently suggested having tea ourselves without waiting for his wife. So we did—I sat in a rocking-chair by the fireside, and the flames were still leaping up so brightly we didn't need any other light, even though it was quite dark outside by the time we left."

  "So you never saw his wife at all?"

  "No, she didn't come back in time. . . . But that room—the feeling I had in it—of comfort, of being WANTED there . . . It's just another thing of the same kind. That part of my life—well, you remember what I told you at Cambridge."

  "Why do you worry about it
so much?"

  "I wouldn't if it would leave me alone. But it keeps on teasing me— with clues. So what can I do?"

  "I still say—more rest and less work."

  He patted my arm. "It's good to know I can talk to you whenever I'm in this mood. Watson to my Sherlock, eh? Or perhaps that's not much of a compliment?"

  "Not to yourself, anyhow. Watson was at least an HONEST idiot."

  He smiled. "That must be the Higher Criticism. Of course you were born too late to feel as I did—Sherlock's in Baker Street, all's right with the world."

  "Since we now realize that most things are wrong with the world—"

  "I know—that was part of the illusion. I remember Sheldon taking me on a trip to London when I was six or seven years old . . . The first place I asked to see was Baker Street, and being a sympathetic fellow he didn't tell me that the stories were just stories. We walked gravely along the pavement one afternoon early in the century—a small boy and his father's butler—looking up at the tall houses with respectful hero worship. Distant thrones might totter, anarchists might throw bombs, a few lesser breeds might behave provokingly in odd corners of the world, but when all was said and done, there was nothing to fear while the stately Holmes of England, doped and dressing-gowned for action, readied his wits for the final count with Moriarty! And who the deuce WAS this Moriarty? Why, just a big-shot crook whom the honest idiot romanticized in order to build up his hero's reputation! Nothing but a middle-aged stoop-shouldered Raffles! And that, mind you, was the worst our fathers' world could imagine when it talked about Underground Forces and Powers of Evil! . . . Ah, well, happy days. You'd better keep the cab to go home in. Good night!"

  * * * * *

  I hadn't taken Rainier's problem very seriously till then. For one thing, loss of memory is normal. We all forget things, and are equally likely to be reminded of them long after we think they have been forgotten for good. Often, too, the reminder is faint enough to be no more than a clue which we fail to follow up because the matter does not seem important. The unusual part of Rainier's experience was that he DID think it important, so that from something merely puzzling it was already on the way to becoming an obsession.