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

‘He does and he doesn’t,’ Nesta answered.

‘It’s obvious why he doesn’t. It isn’t so obvious why he does,’ I observed.

‘It’s rather complicated,’ Nesta said. ‘I doubt if your terre-à-terre mind would understand it. The whole thing is mixed up in his mind with guilt——’

‘There you are!’ I exclaimed.

‘Yes, but not real guilt. And he thinks that if someone caught him prowling about at night they might——’

‘I should jolly well think they would!’

‘And besides, he doesn’t want to keep it a secret, festering. He would rather people laughed at him.’

‘Laugh!’ I repeated. ‘I can’t see that it’s a laughing matter.’

‘No, it isn’t really. It all goes back to old Œdipus, I expect. Most men suffer from that, more or less. I expect you do, Hugo.’

‘Me?’ I protested. ‘My father died before I was born. How could I have killed him?’

‘You don’t understand,’ said Nesta, pityingly. ‘But what I wanted to say was, if you should hear an unusual noise at night——’

‘Yes?’

‘Or happen to see somebody walking about——’

‘Yes?’

‘You’ll know it’s nothing to be alarmed at. It’s just Victor, taking what he calls his safety precautions.’

‘I’ll count three before I fire,’ I said.

Nesta and I had been taking a walk before the other week-end guests arrived.

The house came into sight, long and low with mullioned windows, crouching beyond the lawn. This was my first visit to Nesta’s comparatively new home. She was always changing houses. Leaving the subject of Victor we talked of the other guests, of their matrimonial intentions, prospects or entanglements. Our conversation had the pre-war air which Nesta could always command.

‘Is Walter here?’ I asked. Walter was her husband.

‘No, he’s away shooting. He doesn’t come here very much, as you know. He never cared for Monkshood, I don’t know why. Oh, by the way, Hugo,’ she went on, ‘I’ve an apology to make to you. I never put any books in your room. I know you’re a great reader, but——’

‘I’m not,’ I said. ‘I go to bed to sleep.’

She smiled. ‘Then that’s all right. Would you like to see the room?’

I said I would.

‘It’s called the Blue Bachelor’s room, and it’s on the ground floor.’

We joked a bit about the name.

‘Bachelors are always in a slight funk,’ I said, ‘because of the designing females stalking them. But why didn’t you give the room to Victor? It might have saved him several journeys up and down stairs.’

‘It’s rather isolated,’ she said. ‘I know you don’t mind that, but he does.’

‘Was that the real reason?’ I asked, but she refused to answer.

I didn’t meet Victor Chisholm until we assembled for drinks before dinner. He was a nondescript looking man, neither dark nor fair, tall nor short, fat nor thin, young nor old. I didn’t have much conversation with him, but he seemed to slide off any subject one brought up—he didn’t drop it like a hot coal, but after a little blowing on it, for politeness’ sake, he quietly extinguished it. At least that was the impression I got. He smiled quite a lot, as though to prove he was not unsociable, and then retired into himself. He seemed to be saving himself up for something—a struggle with his neurosis, perhaps. After dinner we played bridge, and Victor followed us into the library, half meaning to play, I think; but when he found there was a four without him he went back into the drawing-room to join the three non-bridge playing members of the party. We sat up late trying to finish the last rubber, and I didn’t see him again before we went to bed. The library had a large open fireplace in which a few logs were smouldering over a heap of wood-ash. The room had a shut-in feeling, largely because the door was lined with book-bindings to make it look like shelves, so that when it was closed you couldn’t tell where it was. Towards midnight I asked Nesta if I should put another log on and she said carelessly, ‘No. I shouldn’t bother—we’re bound to get finished sometime, if you’ll promise not to overbid, Hugo,’ which reminded me of Victor and his complex. So when at last we did retire I said meaningly, ‘Would you like me to take a look at the drawing-room fire, Nesta?’

‘Well, you might, but it’ll be out by this time,’ she said.

‘And the dining-room?’ I pursued, glancing at the others, to see if there was any reaction, which there was not. She frowned slightly and said, ‘The dining-room’s electric. We only run to two real fires,’ and then we separated.

In spite of my boasting, for some reason I couldn’t get to sleep. I tossed to and fro, every now and then turning the light on to see what time it was. My bedroom walls were painted dark blue, but by artificial light they looked almost black. They were so shiny and translucent that when I sat up in bed I could see my reflection in them, or at any rate my shadow. I grew tired of this and then it occurred to me that if I had a book I might read myself to sleep—it was one of the recognized remedies for insomnia. But I hadn’t: there were two book-ends—soap-stone elephants, I remember, facing each other across an empty space. I gave myself till half-past two, then I got up, put on my dressing-gown and opened my bedroom door. All was in darkness. The library lay at the other end of the long house and to reach it I had to cross the hall. I had no torch and didn’t know where the switches were, so my progress was slow. I tried to make as little noise as possible, then I remembered that if Nesta heard me she would think I was Victor Chisholm going his nightly rounds. After this I grew bolder and almost at once found the central switch panel at the foot of the staircase. This lit up the passage to the library. The library door was open and in I went, automatically fumbling for the switch. But no sooner had my hand touched the wall than it fell to my side, for I had a feeling that I was not alone in the room. I don’t know what it was based on, but something was already implicit in my vision before it became physically clear to me: a figure at the far end of the room, in the deep alcove of the fireplace, bending, almost crouching over the fire. The figure had its back to me and was so near to the fire as to be almost in it. Whether it made a movement or not I couldn’t tell, but a spurt of flame started up against which the figure showed darker than before. I knew it must be Victor Chisholm and I stifled an impulse to say ‘Hullo!’—from a confused feeling that like a sleep-walker he ought not to be disturbed; it would startle and humiliate him. But I wanted a book, and my groping fingers found one. I withdrew it from the shelf, but not quite noiselessly, for with the tail of my eye I saw the figure move.

Back in my room I wondered if I ought to have left the hall lights on for Victor’s return journey, but at once concluded that as he hadn’t turned them on himself, he knew his way well enough not to need them. A sense of achievement possessed me: I had caught my fellow-guest out, and I had got my book. It turned out to be the fourth volume of John Evelyn’s Diary; but I hadn’t read more than a few sentences before I fell asleep.

When I met Victor Chisholm at breakfast I meant to ask him how he had slept. It was an innocent, conventional inquiry, but somehow I couldn’t bring myself to put it. Instead, we congratulated each other on the bright, frosty, late October morning, almost as if we had been responsible for it. Presently the two other men joined us, but none of the ladies of the party, and lacking their conversational stimulus we relapsed into silence over our newspapers.

But I didn’t want to keep my adventure to myself, and later in the morning, when I judged that Nesta would not be preoccupied with household management, I waylaid her.