Leslie Hartley - The Complete Short Stories of L.P. Hartley

‘Can you play four games at once like Capablanca?’ she asked at random of the two of them. One of the men looked up, the strain of concentration dying from his face like a cloud from the sky. ‘Do you mean me?’ he said. ‘I’m afraid I’m a very moderate player.’ But Mrs. Pepperthwaite could see he was flattered that she had imagined him capable of such a feat.

The sound of music recalled her to the drawing-room. It was Anton Melzic at the piano: she recognized him the moment she saw him. He had been plain Antony Mellish when he lived in Settlemarsh before he had gone away and made a name for himself abroad. And now he had come back to play for Mrs. Marling, though it was said she hadn’t always been very kind to him when he practised scales and exercises in the room above his father’s bakehouse. But all that was forgotten: Time had no revenges for Mrs. Marling; if he nourished any he relented at the last moment, and transformed them into bouquets. How attentively everyone was listening! Mrs. Pepperthwaite beat time with her forefinger, ecstatically aware of a harmony within herself more complete than the imperfect copy of it rendered by the strains around her. When the piece was over she would be the first to move across the room and congratulate the pianist. The right words would rise to her lips: that was the joy, the thrilling excitement and release, granted her by the party. What a triumph for Alice Marling! Mrs. Pepperthwaite felt that she and Mrs. Marling had been united for many years in a close bond which had for object the perfect and appropriate entertainment of all the choicer spirits in Settlemarsh. The executive power was Mrs. Marling’s, but surely the inspiration, the vital force, had been all hers! Mrs. Pepperthwaite gave Mrs. Marling, who was sitting at the far end of the room, a warm, confiding glance intended to convey this sense of partnership, and she fancied it was returned. The music was galloping ahead; a kind of recklessness had got into its rhythm, as though everything that went before had been provisional, looking forward to this. A loud brilliant passage was repeated twice as loudly and twice as brilliantly. The excitement which a perfect technique begets in the least musical of listeners was apparent on every face and in every pose. Mrs. Pepperthwaite scanned the guests, eagerly, even critically, as though about to visit with condign punishment the smallest sign of indifference or inattention. She was arranging her hands ready to clap when something jogged her elbow. The door against which she was standing was moving inwards. Someone was trying to come in. What a sacrilege at this moment of all moments. She peered round the door, fury written on her face, meaning to repel the intruder. Her outraged glance, travelling upwards, encountered the large yellowish face of Mr. Blandfoot, impending over her like a parchment lantern, in the dim light of the hall. She had completely forgotten his existence.

Shaken, she turned back to the room. The applause was tremendous, but her own contribution was half-hearted and pre-occupied. When the clapping died down the door opened and Mr. Blandfoot was announced. Mrs. Pepperthwaite noticed it was already eleven o’clock.

He stood in the middle of the room without seeming to face any one part of it, his figure so thin it was like a silhouette, his wide shoulders moving independently like the arms of a semaphore. He drew all eyes towards him and radiated a silence which threatened to stretch into the corners of the room. But Mrs. Marling was already on her feet.

‘How nice to see you,’ she said, ‘and what a pity you missed the last piece.’

‘I didn’t,’ said Mr. Blandfoot. ‘I heard it from the passage, outside the door.’

‘You would have been so much more comfortable in here,’ returned Mrs. Marling, as though he had stayed outside on purpose. ‘Now you must come and sit by me.’ She piloted him to a chair by her side.

The pianist played again as brilliantly as ever and the guests listened entranced, but Mrs. Pepperthwaite knew that the party had changed its character. Before it was fulfilling itself as it went along: now it was leading up to something. Up or down? Mrs. Pepperthwaite had a sense of increasing velocity; her thoughts seemed to outstrip her and to leave her dissatisfied with the present. She felt that her remarks were now aimed at a moving target which they failed to hit. In the next interval she wandered uneasily into the buffet. Mr. Blandfoot was drinking a whisky and soda, even yellower than himself. Scraps of conversation kept coming to her ears. ‘Oh—probably in the cloakroom with his hat.’ ‘But that’s only a figure of speech, my dear, he can’t sleep with it.’ ‘Really, I can’t say, it might be a Vermeer: I know so little about the Dutch School,’ ‘They invented painting in oils.’ ‘But no one said it was an oil-painting.’ ‘But, my dear, the paint would run.’ ‘Not after all these years.’ ‘His waistcoat pocket? But it isn’t a miniature.’ ‘Eva Stornway says it’s not old at all: he had it made for himself.’ ‘Oh, he was kidding her; he looks just that sort of man. Hesketh must know better.’

Vaguely distressed she walked over to where Hesketh was standing, and heard him say to Mrs. Marling, with a smile:

‘A bad fairy, I’m afraid.’

‘Do you think he will cast a spell?’

‘If he does, Alice, it is you who will be the Sleeping Beauty, not me.’

‘Ah, but I invited him: he can’t do me any harm: it’s against the rules.

‘When shall you ask him to——?’

‘I don’t quite know, Arthur. Yes, please, I will have some champagne. Perhaps after the next piece.’

The last piece was over. Some called for more, but the majority agreed, with a note of determination in their voices, that the pianist had been only too generous: they must not be greedy and presume upon his kindness. Mr. Melzic bowed to right and left, rising from his stool a little reluctantly: a monarch relinquishing his throne. The guests moved about studying pictures and objets d’art : it was midnight but they made no attempt to move, and they talked so little that everyone could hear the sound of his own voice.

‘Where’s Blandfoot?’ asked someone, bolder than the rest.

‘In the buffet, I think.’

‘Shall I fetch him?’

‘What for?’

‘Oh, he’ll know.’

At that moment Mr. Blandfoot entered. His cheek bones were flushed and his eyes bright. He walked on to the hearth-rug and stumbled over it, making a fold, which he unceremoniously kicked. The fold did not yield to his treatment, so he kicked it again, harder than before. Then he stared moodily at it while the others fell back into a rough semicircle. There was literally a breach in the company. Mrs. Marling moved quietly into it.

‘Don’t trouble about the carpet, Mr. Blandfoot,’ she said. ‘It always behaves like that.’

‘Bit dangerous, isn’t it?’

‘When you’ve been here a few more times,’ said Mrs. Marling quietly, ‘you’ll get used to its ways.’

‘I might have fallen over it.’

‘How we should have laughed!’ said Mrs. Marling, looking up at him with her bright eyes.

There was a pause.

‘But do do something for us, Mr. Blandfoot,’ she continued persuasively. ‘Dance for us.’

‘I can’t dance,’ he muttered.

‘Then sing us a song?’

He was silent.

‘Or tell us a story?’

He glowered down at her helplessly.

‘He’s a strong, silent man,’ she said to the company at large. ‘But there’s something you can do for us, Mr. Blandfoot!’

‘What?’

‘Why, show us your picture!’

‘Yes, do show it to us!’ came in a confused murmur from the room. There was a general movement. The tension relaxed. Smiles broke out on puzzled faces: women made delicate gestures of eagerness; men settled themselves comfortably into their chairs. The optimistic party-spirit had reasserted itself, and once again Mrs. Marling’s drawing-room breathed freely. Even Mr. Blandfoot smiled.