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

‘Some more hot water, please,’ I said, forbiddingly.

When she brought it she said: ‘Why, you are thirsty!’

I didn’t like her familiarity but it broke the ice.

‘Do you know,’ I said, ‘you remind me of someone I used to know.’

‘Somebody nice?’ she asked.

‘Er . . . very nice.’

‘And were you thinking I might do instead?’

It was what I was thinking, but not in the sense that she meant. Instantly I decided that she would not do, but that I ought to give her another chance. Besides, there was something else I wanted her to tell me.

Ignoring her question I said: ‘She might have been your twin, she was so like you. . . . Her name was Mary Elmhirst.’

‘I have a twin sister as it happens,’ she said, ‘and she’s very like me, except she dresses differently, more of a mouse, you know, and doesn’t wear much make-up. Otherwise people couldn’t tell us apart, we’re always being mistaken for each other—it’s quite inconvenient at times. I’m Doris—Doris Blackmore—no relation to your friend, I’m afraid. I hope you’re not disappointed.’

I answered at random: ‘No, of course not. But it gave me a slight shock, I mean the likeness did.’

‘Someone you were fond of?’

‘The wife of a friend of mine.’

‘Oh, I’m sorry.’

Whatever she meant by that, I liked her better for saying it.

‘Well,’ I said, ‘I must be off.’

‘But you haven’t drunk your hot water. I don’t believe you really wanted it. You just wanted to——’

‘You don’t make an extra charge for hot water, do you?’ I interrupted.

She laughed.

‘I make an extra charge for talking. I don’t talk to many of our customers.’

‘No?’

‘No. They want to start something funny with me, the men do. I thought that you——’

‘No,’ I assured her. ‘It was just the likeness.’

She looked disappointed.

‘Oh well, then, if you don’t——’

‘But I’ve enjoyed it,’ I said firmly, ‘all the same.’

‘A bit lonely, are you?’

‘I suppose we all are, at times. Look, there’s somebody wants you.’

She turned her head. ‘I see that you don’t,’ she said, walking away with exaggerated slowness.

I thought, ‘You impudent hussy,’ but I didn’t feel as annoyed as I’d expected to. When she had attended to the other customer she came back.

‘I suppose you want your bill.’

‘Yes, please.’

She made it out and handed it to me.

‘Do you generally talk that way to girls?’

‘Oh no,’ I said, fumbling in my pocket, ‘I’m like you, I hardly talk to anyone.’

‘Pay at the desk, please,’ she said, looking sullen.

I laid a shilling on the table.

‘All right, but that’s for you.’

‘I don’t know that I want to take it,’ she said. You haven’t much respect for a girl’s feelings, have you?’

Angry tears stood in her dark-blue eyes. I was amazed and jumped up from the table. The bill paid, I walked past her to say good-bye, but she took no notice of me.

‘I saw what you meant,’ I said to Thomas Henry for the third time. (I had edited the story, leaving out the last part.) ‘It’s an unbelievable likeness. But she wouldn’t do at all. She’s utterly unsuitable.’ I had said this three times too.

‘All the same, I think we ought to tell him.’

‘But why? Nothing would come of it, at any rate, nothing but harm.’

‘I think we owe it to him.’

‘An item for his experience account? No, really, Thomas Henry. Besides, how could we bring the subject up? I’ve never heard him mention Mary since she died, and I’ve never dared to mention her to him. The wound went much too deep. You never know what’s going on in people’s minds. The idea of another woman looking like her might upset him terribly, and destroy whatever compromise he’s been able to make with himself and life about her. We know he’s made one, because he still functions like an ordinary person. This might upset the balance and then God knows what would happen.’

‘He still draws the Face.’

‘Yes, but we don’t know why. It’s probably just to keep Mary’s image in his mind. It would be tasteless and tactless beyond belief to suggest to him that he might be interested in another woman, and above all that woman.’

‘You yourself didn’t seem to dislike her all that much.’

‘I? My dear fellow, I was amused by the whole episode, but only because there was a time limit to it. If I’d had to spend another five minutes in her company I should have died.’

‘You never liked the company of women very much.’

‘Well, not women of that type.’

‘That’s for him to decide. The point is, we must give him the chance. With Mary he was blissfully happy. He fulfilled himself in her. He lives for one person; the rest of us are shadows. Now he’s emotionally mutilated—paralysed. If you could see the emptiness of his life——’

‘I can’t, and nor can you.’

‘—you’d realize that anything is better than the void, le néant . You’ve never been attached to anyone——’

‘How do you know?’

‘Isn’t it obvious? You’re quite self-sufficient. Whereas he——’

‘Well, I’m not going to tell him.’

‘Then I shall. But first let me get it right. She works in Restbourne, at the Krazie Café, and her name is——’

‘I’ve forgotten.’

‘But you knew it a moment ago.’

‘Well, I’ve forgotten now. And I beg you, Thomas Henry, not to tell him anything about her. I beseech you——’

‘All right, I won’t bring you into it——’

‘For God’s sake don’t.’

‘And I’ll take all the blame and all the credit, too, if it comes off.’

‘If what comes off?’

‘Well, if the Face fits.’

When I next saw Thomas Henry, some days later, it was in the company of other people, and we hardly spoke. I knew I was avoiding him, and I thought he was avoiding me: but why? Edward I did see to pass the time of day with: and to my surprise I found myself asking him to lunch with me.

‘What about next Saturday?’

‘Let me get my little book,’ he said. ‘I’m afraid I’m engaged on Saturday.’

‘Well, the following Saturday?’ He turned the leaves.

‘I’m engaged then, too. Silly, isn’t it?’

‘I know you can’t get away easily in the middle of the week,’ I said, ‘but what about Wednesday?’

‘I’m not quite sure about Wednesday,’ he hedged. ‘I’ll let you know.’

‘Don’t let me be a nuisance,’ I said, ‘but it would be nice to see you. You lunch out sometimes, Edward, don’t you?’

‘Oh yes,’ he said with his polite air that kept one at a distance, ‘but just at this moment I seem to have more engagements than usual. I’ll tell you about Wednesday.’

A day or two later he telephoned that he couldn’t manage it. I was unaccountably disappointed, for much as I liked Edward I had never set great store on seeing him.

The next time I met Thomas Henry was at a cocktail party, and this time I didn’t let him escape me. ‘What about Edward?’ I asked. ‘Did you tell him about our friends at Restbourne?’ I used the plural as a precaution: friends sounded less compromising than friend. But he looked round apprehensively and said, ‘Not here, I think. Stone walls——’

‘No one else can hear you,’ I said, shouting above the din. ‘I can hardly hear you myself.’ When he still wouldn’t be drawn I pinned him down to dinner the next day.

A strange tale he told me. He was unhappy about it, as he should have been, and very much on the defensive.

‘I couldn’t have guessed what would happen,’ he said. ‘I acted for the best.’