The Complete Short Stories of L.P. Hartley, Page 66

  ‘It must be, or it wouldn’t have grown to such a size. But that doesn’t make it any the less suburban. People live to a great age in surburbia, and sometimes grow to a great size. . . . And besides being untidy, it makes the grass round it untidy too, it sheds itself.’

  ‘A plant has to live according to its habit,’ I argued.

  ‘Yes, but I don’t like its habit, or its habits. It offends my sense of fitness. Besides, it’s dangerous.’

  ‘Dangerous?’

  ‘Yes. It looks fragile and wispy, but its leaves are like razors, they cut you to the bone. It’s treacherous and dishonest.’

  ‘Oh, do you think of it as a person?’

  Thomas fidgeted.

  ‘No, of course not, except in so far as something you don’t like takes on a personality for you.’

  ‘What sort of personality has it?’

  ‘A semi-transparent one. It blocks the view from the french window, but if you look hard you can see through it—or you think you can. I’m always wondering if there isn’t someone the other side of it who can see me though I can’t see him or her.’

  ‘Oh, Thomas, how fanciful you are!’

  ‘Well, you try.’

  Obediently I screwed my eyes up. The library had two windows, and from the french window, the one nearest to the fireplace, by which we were sitting, the pampas clump did indeed block the view. It cut the line of the hills across the valley. In the early October twilight it looked quite enormous; its cone-shaped plumes, stirred by a gentle breeze, swept the dusky sky, soaring above its downward-curving foliage as a many-jetted fountain soars above the water fanning outwards from its basin. And like a fountain, it was, as Thomas had said, half-transparent. You thought you could see what was behind it, but you couldn’t be sure. That didn’t worry me; I rather liked the idea of the mystery, the terra incognita behind the pampas. And Thomas should have liked it, too. No one ever called him Tom: at Oxford he was nicknamed Didymus, he was so much in doubt. Did he dislike the pampas because, in some way, it reminded him of himself, and his own weaknesses? I strained my eyes again, trying to see what lay beyond the soaring feathers and the looped, drooping, reed-like leaves. Perhaps . . . Perhaps . . . What did Thomas want me to say?

  ‘There could be somebody,’ I ventured.

  ‘That’s what I mean.’

  ‘But he . . . she . . . they couldn’t see you because . . .’

  ‘Because why?’

  ‘Because when a shrub . . . or something of that sort is near to you, it’s more opaque than when it’s at a distance. But if you don’t like it, why don’t you burn it?’

  Thomas shuffled in his chair, and answered irritably, ‘I don’t like destroying things. Besides, it would only rise from its ashes like the phoenix.’

  ‘But if it annoys you——’

  ‘It doesn’t annoy me all that much. Besides . . .’ he stopped.

  ‘Besides what?’ I prompted.

  ‘You’ll think me silly if I tell you.’

  ‘I find all your objections to the pampas frivolous,’ I said, ‘but tell me.’

  ‘Well, I have a sneaking wish to find out if there is someone on the other side of it.’

  I didn’t laugh because I realized that what he had said meant something to him, something that had been in his mind for a long time. Was it an obsession that he wanted to get rid of, or was he really clinging to it? A ghost that worried him, but one he didn’t want to lay? I had an idea.

  ‘When the others come——’

  He glanced up. It was half-past six by the French clock on the chimney-piece.

  ‘Are you getting bored?’ he asked. ‘Julia and Hilary will be here any time now.’

  ‘I didn’t mean that,’ I said. ‘I’m glad to have this chance of talking to you alone. It’s so long . . . I meant, couldn’t we arrange a sort of test?

  ‘Of what?’

  ‘Well, of whether there if someone behind the pampas clump or not.’

  He seemed to ponder deeply. ‘I don’t know . . . I don’t know. What had you in mind?’

  ‘A sort of procession.’

  ‘A procession? What sort of procession?’

  ‘I hadn’t worked out the details.’

  Thomas shook his head, fretfully.

  ‘I don’t like the idea of a procession. Too many people, and it straggles.’

  ‘Oh, this would be a small, select one.’

  ‘I don’t know what you mean,’ said Thomas. ‘I’m not with you.’ There was a sound outside the house, scrunchings and small earth-tremors, and then a silence that indicated arrival. ‘Here they are!’ said Thomas, getting up and making for the door. ‘Guests never seem to arrive at exactly the right time.’

  ‘Have I your permission?——’ I called out after him, but I don’t think he heard.

  Julia I knew quite well; she was fair and round and buxom and in her middle thirties. She had lost her husband in the war; and curiously enough as a widow she was twice the person she had been as a wife. As a wife she had taken on her husband’s personality; as a widow she had recovered her own without losing his. Protectiveness was her strong point, and it was clear she had now extended it to Hilary. While her husband was alive she said ‘we’ more often than she said ‘I’: she said ‘we’ still, meaning herself and Hilary.

  Hilary I knew much less well. She was tall and dark and slender and could look beautiful, but her beauty was ambiguous like the rest of her. I could not make her out, and the more I saw of her the less I understood her. A sphinx without a secret, perhaps. But a sphinx that has, I thought, its attractions for Thomas, for he tried on her many kinds of conversational approach, which she either evaded or answered in a way that he didn’t quite expect.

  ‘Are you going abroad, Hilary?’

  ‘Well, as a matter of fact I’ve just been.’

  ‘Of course, I knew that. You wrote to me from Venice.’

  ‘Did I? I wrote so many letters.’

  ‘We were always writing letters,’ Julia put in ‘when we weren’t sightseeing. Hilary writes such good letters.’

  ‘Do I? I often think they’re all about myself, or nothing.’

  ‘Yourself or nothing? Perhaps they are the same,’ said Thomas with so much feeling in his voice that it cancelled out the rudeness. ‘It’s yourself we want to know about. But perhaps you have several selves. Julia’s Hilary may be different from mine, and Fergus’s different again.’

  He raised an eyebrow at me. I thought he carried his probings further than politeness warranted. She didn’t seem to resent them but they embarrassed her; she said the word ‘I’ non-committally and without conviction as if she was not quite sure to what it referred. I didn’t want to be drawn but I had to say something—if possible something that would smooth the path for Thomas, who was so obviously taken by her.

  ‘Walt Whitman said you ought to “publish yourself of a personality,” ’ I remarked.

  ‘That I ought to?’

  We laughed.

  ‘No, that everyone ought to.’

  Hilary looked troubled.

  ‘That’s what I find so difficult!’

  ‘It’s one of our problems,’Julia said, smiling, though it was certainly not a problem for her.

  ‘But are you going abroad in the winter?’ Thomas persisted.

  ‘What do you think, Julia?’

  Thomas shook his head in mock despair and before Julia could answer burst out, ‘There you go again! Or rather, you don’t go—and when you stay——’ He spread his hands out, as though to indicate how inconclusive her staying was.

  ‘We will go now,’ said Julia huffily, ‘and leave you to your port.’

  She rose and we rose with her. Hilary was nearly as tall as Thomas; her full, flared skirt swung as she moved. Her charm showed in her movements; they told one something about her that her tongue could not tell.

  ‘Now I like that dress of yours,’ said Thomas, ‘I like those thin Regency stripes, they are so definite—and
the neat rows of forget-me-nots in between. As if we could forget you! It’s almost a crinoline, isn’t it? Who can tell where it ends and you begin?’

  She coloured, and I said to cover her confusion, ‘She’s like the pampas clump.’

  That was how we got back to it again.

  It was too dark to do anything now, we decided; to-morrow between tea and dinner, Thomas said, should be the time for our experiment.

  ‘But why so late?’ I asked. ‘Wouldn’t it be better in the full sunlight?’

  ‘How do you mean, better?’

  ‘Well, a better test. In the twilight you might think you were seeing things.’

  ‘We want to see things, don’t we?’

  ‘I thought you wanted to make sure, Didymus, that there was nothing . . . or something. As soon as the light begins to go——’

  ‘Doesn’t it seem more sporting,’ he interrupted, ‘to give the mystery a chance? I don’t know how I should feel, after all this time, faced by complete certitude.’

  ‘But I thought you wanted it,’ I repeated, ‘both as regards the pampas clump and . . . and . . .’

  ‘And Hilary? Yes, I suppose I do. I want to be sure about her. But shall I be—about either of them—after the experiment? You called me fanciful, a moment ago.’

  ‘Whatever happens,’ I pronounced, ‘or doesn’t happen, it will change the direction of your thoughts. You won’t be able to feel quite the same about . . . either of them again.’

  We began to discuss the ways and means, and then Thomas said, ‘I think it’s time we joined the girls.’

  Sunday dragged unbearably: I have seldom been so conscious of the passage of time. The house was liberally provided with clocks, most of them the French Empire type—ladies reclining, children holding baskets of fruits and flowers, all leading a timeless, leisured life. There was hardly one I didn’t consult, but the clock in my bedroom was my favourite, because it lagged behind the others and gave me a respite. From what? I didn’t really think that anything would come of the experiment, but its increasing nearness provoked a sense of crisis. Ridiculous! It couldn’t fail to be a flop—although how much of a flop only Thomas and I should know—for we were not going to take the girls into our confidence—or, of course, the pampas clump itself. More than once during the morning, before Julia and Hilary had made their appearance, and while Thomas was still in church, I went out and studied it. It was a great big thing, the size of a small haystack; it dwarfed the lawn, which was large enough in all conscience, as if it had been a round of beef on a dessert-plate. Like other oversize objects it excited in me, at any rate, mixed feelings of wonder and resentment. Denser in some places than in others, it looked densest when I took my stand outside the french window in the library. Which, for the success of the experiment, ought it to be, transparent or opaque? If transparent, how easy it would be to cheat a little, force one’s way into its reedy heart with a pair of secateurs, and thin it out! No one would be the wiser. But wouldn’t they? Might not someone see me from a window? Besides, those leaves like razor-blades! I should come back criss-crossed with scratches, or perhaps cut to the bone and pouring blood! ‘Why, Fergus, what on earth have you been doing to get into that state?’ ‘Well, Thomas, I tripped and took a header into the pampas clump, and it savaged me, just as you said it would.’

  Giving the plant a wide berth I circled round it, feeling I was being watched. If only I could divide myself in two: become the subject and the object, as one can in thought, then I could make my alter ego face me across the pampas. How exciting to see, if I did see him, another Fergus, not a reflection but a real one, perhaps more real than I was! The essential me, in visible form! I had almost transferred Thomas’s problem to myself when I looked up and there he was, only a few feet away from me. I had been too much preoccupied to see or hear him coming.

  ‘Spying out the land?’ he asked.

  I started.

  ‘Yes, I suppose I was.’

  He said carelessly:

  ‘You know, I’ve been thinking it over, perhaps in the light of the Christian faith, which you don’t seem to hold——’

  ‘I ought to have gone to church with you, I know.’

  ‘Don’t mention it. What I wanted to say was, perhaps we are not meant to see more clearly than we do—through a pampas clump darkly, and all that, and we’d better drop this scheme of ours. What do you think, Fergus?’

  ‘I should be disappointed. What harm can it do? We should just pass by——’

  ‘Oh, it’s the principle of the thing. The idea is all right—quite poetical. But if you tried to live poetry——’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Well, you might come a cropper. . . . Hullo, here are the girls.’

  Hilary was walking a little behind Julia, but Thomas addressed himself to her. ‘Good morning, good morning, but it isn’t morning, it’s afternoon. What have you been doing with yourselves all this time? What have you been doing, Hilary?’

  ‘Nothing much.’

  ‘Nothing much? Couldn’t you elaborate that a little?’

  ‘We wrote some letters,’ Julia said.

  ‘You’re always writing letters, Hilary! Always on paper, never in the flesh! Did you say you were staying here?’

  ‘I used your writing-paper.’

  Thomas tried a more direct approach.

  ‘Did you say what fun you were having?’

  ‘I said how nice it was, of course.’

  ‘Did you say anything nice about me?’

  Hilary reddened and said with difficulty, ‘What else could I say?’

  Thomas had to be content with that.

  As the dead-line drew near, my heart began to beat uncomfortably. Between six o’clock and dinner is always an awkward time: tea is a thing of the past, drinks are still some way off. Remembering my cue I said:

  ‘What shall we do now?’

  To my astonishment Thomas answered, ‘Isn’t it rather nice sitting here?’

  Was he really going to rat on me?

  ‘Very nice,’ I said, ‘but oughtn’t we to do something—something for Hilary to write home about?’

  ‘We’ve written home,’ said Julia, and Hilary stretched her hands towards the newly lit fire.

  ‘You see,’ said Thomas, ‘she wants to sit among the cinders, warming her pretty little toes, and I should like to sit with her.’

  ‘I have another plan for her,’ I said.

  ‘Drop it, Fergus. Forget it.’

  I trained an Ancient Mariner’s eye on him.

  ‘All day,’ I said, ‘you’ve been asking Hilary questions which, if I’m not mistaken, she hasn’t always wanted to answer.’ I paused to let this sink in. Thomas’s face remained expressionless, Julia nodded in approval, Hilary looked as if she wished I hadn’t spoken. ‘If I carry out my plan,’ I went on, with all the impressiveness I could muster, ‘Hilary may feel more inclined to answer questions, or Thomas less inclined to ask them.’

  ‘What do you propose, then?’ asked Thomas, disingenuously, for he well knew.

  I saw that he was weakening.

  ‘Just to go for a walk.’

  ‘Go by all means,’ said Thomas, ‘but I shan’t go with you. I shall stay behind and write letters, like Hilary. Remember, I went to church.’

  ‘If we go for a walk we must change our shoes,’ said Julia.

  ‘Need you change yours, Hilary?’ Thomas teased her.

  She gave him a half-pleading look and got up to go.

  ‘Let’s meet in the hall,’ I said. ‘Mind, no shirking.’

  The evening was warm with a slight mist rising from the grass.

  ‘Which way?’ asked Julia.

  ‘Round by the silo. I’ll show you. I’ll go first.’ I spoke with authority, as one who leads an expedition.

  Julia automatically fell in behind me, and Hilary as automatically brought up the rear, and we were moving off when Hilary said, suddenly,

  ‘Need we walk in single file?’

&n
bsp; ‘Only for a minute, until we get our bearings,’ and I headed for the far side of the pampas clump, the side away from the house. Reaching it I slowed down, and the little procession, like a cortege, well spaced out, trailed past the clump at a snail’s pace.

  We went on in this formation for a minute or two: and then Hilary called out: ‘Can’t we join up now? It’s lonely being the cow’s tail.’

  ‘Of course,’ I said, and stopped. As we were regrouping ourselves, Julia said to Hilary, ‘Why, darling, we’re looking quite pale—I mean you are. Is anything the matter?’

  ‘I’m all right now,’ said Hilary, breathing rather fast. ‘Just for a moment something seemed to come over me—a sort of goose-flesh—you seemed so far away, I couldn’t reach you! I’m all right now,’ she repeated.

  ‘A touch of agoraphobia, perhaps,’ I said. ‘Let’s go arm in arm.’ I linked their arms in mine, and so we proceeded until our stumbles brought to an end this always risky method of progression.

  ‘There’s the silo,’ I told them, as we disengaged ourselves.

  ‘What a horrible object!’ cried Julia. ‘Why did you choose it for our but du promenade?

  ‘It looks prettier as you get nearer.’

  ‘Oh, nonsense! You must be a surrealist.’

  ‘What do you think, Hilary?’ For even I felt impelled to try to drag an opinion out of her.

  She answered with unexpected vehemence:

  ‘I hate it—it looks so sinister—it’s so black and thick and frightening.’

  ‘Why, it’s only a granary!’

  ‘I know that, but let’s go another way!’

  I suggested the village. ‘But,’ I warned them, ‘we shall lose altitude, we shall have to climb back.’

  ‘Oh, Fergus,’ cried Julia, ‘what a slave-driver you are! Isn’t he, Hilary?’

  She didn’t answer. I pleaded the need of exercise, for me and them; but I didn’t explain, as we tramped through the village, and beyond it, that I felt an unaccountable reluctance to go back to the house. What effect would the experiment have had on Thomas? None, I felt sure, but even a negative result would be disappointing. So nearly an hour had passed, and it was growing dark, when weary and footsore (as Julia complained that she and Hilary were) we trudged up the slope to Hill House.