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

Constantia made a grimace of distaste. ‘Really, Ernest, I don’t think he meant anything of the sort.’

But I saw I had impressed her. ‘He did, he did,’ I said. ‘You have no idea what fancies people get when they live alone and play at life.’

Constantia sighed but she did not meet my eye. ‘What was the other idea?’ she asked.

‘I’ll tell you,’ I said. ‘But first I must ask you a question which I think our relationship entitles me to ask. He was never your lover, was he?’

After a pause Constantia said, ‘What do you want me to say?’

‘No need for you to say anything,’ I said. ‘By shielding him you have answered my question. He was not. He kept you for years—where? In his enchanted garden, among the loves of the plants, despising this trivial act of union, infecting you with his unreality; and now he means us to meet in his Eden (he called it Eden in his letter) exposed to this same beauty of flowers, like Adam and Eve before the Fall, with this difference’—here I tapped the table with my pen and it gave out a sharp, dry sound—‘that we shall have been warned. We shan’t dare to eat of the tree of knowledge; we shall be trapped for life in a labyrinth of false values, captives of a memory too gracious and delicate to be contaminated by such an ugly fact as man and wife. Yes,’ I went on, for I saw that against herself she was being convinced, ‘if you went out into that garden now you might well find a snake and what would it be? An incarnation of our old friend Christopher, luring us back to his eunuch’s paradise!’

With frightened eyes Constantia looked about her; but I noticed that her glance avoided the window, through which I could see the rhododendrons stirring in the gentle summer breeze.

‘Very well,’ she said. ‘I think you are more fanciful than poor Christopher ever was, but if you like I’ll go and write some letters until lunch-time.’

‘And you promise not to go into the garden?’

‘Yes, since you’re so childish.’

‘And you won’t even speak of going?’

‘No, not till four o’clock.’

‘All right,’ I said. I knew that Constantia would be as good as her word.

After luncheon we decided that our morning’s hard work entitled us to a siesta. Constantia had kept her promise, she had not even mentioned the garden; but she stipulated that Hancock should rouse us at a quarter to four, in case either of us overslept.

I did not sleep, however. The watch ticking on my wrist was not more careful of the minutes than I was. After half an hour of this I got up (it was just on three) and decided to take a walk. Where? I knew the walks round Crossways, of course, quite well. Two of them, the best two, were reached by the garden gate that opened on the lane. What of it? The flowers were dangerous to Constantia, but not to me. Anyhow, I needn’t look. But as I started out my steps came slower; I stopped and glanced back at the house. ‘Confound it!’ I thought. ‘Confound Christopher and all his works!’ I found myself walking back to the house and my rage against him redoubled. Then I had an idea. I had brought a pair of dark glasses with me, sun-glasses, so strong they turned day into night. I put them on and started out with firmer tread. Such colours as I saw were wholly falsified by an admixture of dark sepia tints. I was not looking at Christopher’s flowers. But indeed I kept my eyes fixed on the broad path, I did not have to look about me, and here was the gate, the door rather, that led into the lane; and according to Christopher’s custom the key had been left in it, for the convenience of guests bent on exercise. The key out of Eden! I unlocked the door, locked it on the other side, put the key in my pocket, and drew a deep breath.

I had been walking for some time when my first plan occurred to me, and I wondered why I had not thought of it before, for it was such an obvious one. I would not go back; I would leave Constantia to keep her tryst with Christopher’s spirit, for she would keep it: I had shaken her mind, but not her resolution. She would go through the silly ritual by herself and it would mean to her—well, whatever it did mean. It could not fail to be something of an anti-climax. She would wait, toeing the line like a runner, and looking round for me; she would give me a minute or two, and then she would start off. And as she went through that afternoon blaze of flowers, very slowly, drinking it in and thinking of Christopher, as no doubt he had enjoined her to—what would her reactions be? What would any woman’s reactions be? Would she think less kindly of Christopher and more kindly of me? She would remember the many times she had walked there with him, wishing, no doubt, that he was other than he was, but indulgent to his faults, as women are, perhaps half liking him for them, not minding his ineffectualness. And the flowers would plead for him. She would not care if they were poor specimens (I had invented that), it would only make her feel sorry for him, and protective.

No, it would not do to let her go down the Long Walk alone. And nor would I escort her, for that would be the ultimate surrender to all that I was saving her from.

It was time to turn back and I still had formed no plan. I stopped and as I put my hands in my pockets the key of the garden door jingled and seemed to speak to me. At once the peace of decision, unknown to men of Christopher’s type, descended on me. I felt that the problem of the garden was already solved. I had plenty of time to get back by a quarter to four, so I did not hurry, indeed I loitered. Suddenly I wondered why the familiar landscape looked so odd, and I remembered I was still wearing my dark glasses. I took them off and immediately felt interested in the wayside flowers, the dog-roses and honeysuckle of the hedgerows. In spite of what Christopher said I am really quite fond of flowers, and it gave me an intimate sense of power and freedom to examine these, which he had not asked me to examine. What plainer proof could I have that I was free of him and that my will was uncontaminated by his?

But when I reached the lane that bordered his garden wall I stopped botanizing and put on my sun-glasses again, for I still judged it better not to take risks. And I had thought out all my actions during the next twenty minutes so carefully that it came as a great surprise when I found that something had happened outside my calculations.

The garden door was open.

There could only be one explanation and it disturbed me: Constantia must have opened the door, and to do so must have passed through the garden. She must have asked Hancock for one of the several duplicate keys that Christopher had had made (the key of the garden door was always getting lost) and gone for a walk as I had. I did not want to disturb the rest of my plan so I left the door as it was and went towards the house. I did not return by the Long Walk; I went another way, invisible from the house, for I did not want to be seen by anyone just then.

But Constantia had not gone out; she was sitting by the drawing-room window. She jumped up. ‘Oh,’ she said, ‘thank goodness, here you are. I was afraid you were going to be late. But I have a bone to pick with you. You stole a march on me.’

‘How?’ I challenged her.

‘You’ve been to see the flowers already.’

‘What makes you think so?’

‘I saw you in the Long Walk, don’t tell me it wasn’t you!’

‘When?’

‘About ten minutes ago.’

‘What was I doing?’

‘Oh, Ernest, don’t be so mysterious! You were looking at the flowers, of course.’

I joined her at the window.

‘You couldn’t see from here,’ I said.

‘Of course I could! And you were ashamed—you didn’t want to be seen, you dodged in and out of the bushes, and pretended to be a rhododendron. But I knew you by your hat.’