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

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?’

‘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.

‘What’s that?’

We were approaching the house from the village, not the garden, side and there was a sort of glare behind it, that outlined the steep roof against the sky and couldn’t have been an effect of the sunset, for it waxed and waned.

‘What’s that?’ repeated Julia. ‘Is the house on fire?’

‘Or a chimney?’ said Hilary, for once offering a suggestion. ‘The sparks might be——’ she stopped.

Sparks there certainly were, but they didn’t come out of a chimney-pot; they were being whirled about the sky like fire-flies.

‘Take your time,’ I said. ‘I’ll hurry on.’

The pungent smell of burning met me in the hall. ‘Thomas!’ I called, ‘Thomas!’ and getting no answer went straight into the library. Here the smell was stronger and the glare fiercer; it lit up the room, lit it up so brightly that I saw at once on the round leather-covered table an envelope with my name scrawled on it. I tore it open.