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

George reeled and crashed to the floor, and when he came to himself he was in fact on the floor, having fallen out of bed for the first time since he was a child.

He woke to a sense that something terrible had happened, but couldn’t imagine what, for he himself felt better. But the thing would not let him enjoy his convalescence; it kept demanding to be known and recognized, and at last through a barbituric mist it forced its way.

Deirdre didn’t love him, she had never loved him. She had appeared to him in a dream to tell him so, and the message was far more real and convincing than if she had spoken with her own voice, for it was the pure essence of experience, with no admixture of circumstance to dilute it. It was her spirit speaking straight to his—yes, straight, for she had told him straight.

It explained why she hadn’t come back with him from the party, why she hadn’t looked him up during the day, it explained everything that had puzzled him in her behaviour since first her behaviour began to puzzle him.

He felt he could not survive the blow, and the fact that he felt better physically made him better able to suffer mentally. He scarcely knew how to think, for all his thoughts that counted with him began and ended in Deirdre. Now they had nowhere to begin or end.

What time was it? It must be past seven, for through the square of glass over the door the light was shining, which meant that Mrs. Buswell had come back. He could not hear her, though. She must be taking great pains not to wake him. He called her and she came in, still on tiptoe.

‘I was just going to bring you your tea,’ she said. ‘It’s eight o’clock. Did you have a good night?’

George told her what had happened in the night.

‘You fell out of bed! Poor Mr. Lambert! I might have known, the bedclothes are in such a mess. I meant to make your bed again last night, but thought you were too tired. Now when you’ve drunk this tea, see if you can get up and I’ll make it for you. Or I’ll make it with you in it. I do like to see a man look comfortable.’

‘How kind you are.’

George found that he could stand without his head going round. While he was sitting in his dressing-gown the telephone bell rang. Mrs. Buswell, who was nearest, answered it. ‘It’s Miss O’Farrell,’ she said, and a shadow crossed her face.

‘Ask her to ring up later, Mrs. Buswell’ No sooner were the words out than he wished he could recall them.

‘Mr. Lambert doesn’t find it convenient to speak to you, Miss O’Farrell.’

What a way of putting it!

Expostulatory sounds came through the telephone.

‘In about half an hour, he isn’t well,’ said Mrs. Buswell.

Torn between misery and a slight sense of relief at the reprieve, George watched Mrs. Buswell making the bed. The feeling that he ought to be making it for her, not she for him, was less pronounced than he expected. But soon another thought came.

‘Why, it’s Sunday! You ought not to be here on Sunday!’

‘I came because you weren’t well,’ said Mrs. Buswell, ‘and you were all alone.’

What a wonderful woman! George began to speculate about her. What was she really like? What had her life been like? He had never asked her. He had always taken her and her services for granted; he had never shown, or felt, any curiosity about her. He paid her, and that was all, unaware of the treasure hidden in her.

Back in bed he took his temperature. It was still a hundred, but health does not depend on the thermometer, and he felt definitely better.

The telephone bell rang.

‘Good morning, darling. Who was that rude old thing who answered the telephone just now? She seemed to hate my guts.’

‘The daily woman,’ said George, stiffening.

‘But aren’t I your daily woman? I always used to be. But what I wanted to say was, How are you, darling?’

‘Not very well’

‘You don’t sound well, your voice sounds different. When can I come and see you?’

This was the crucial moment. George heard himself say:

‘I don’t think you’d better come. It may be something catching.’

‘Some dreadful germ? Then perhaps I’d better not come. Oh, dear, and I do want to see you. Perhaps it’s a good thing I didn’t come last night. It was too late anyhow. We had such fun, though. I wish you had been there.’

‘I was in bed.’

‘I know, I know. Poor George! What luck you didn’t give it to me, whatever it was. You can’t have, or it would have come out by now, wouldn’t it? Well, so long, darling. Let me know the first moment you’re out of quarantine.’

George spent a miserable day. Why had he committed this ridiculous act of self-sacrifice and deprived himself of Deirdre’s presence? It wasn’t for her sake, or her health’s sake, that he knew quite well; it was because——

Oh, hell!

A hundred times he made up his mind to ring her, and tell her he knew he wasn’t infectious; a hundred times, prompted by the dream, he unmade it. He wondered if he was going mad.

He tried to distract himself by reading, but since he met Deirdre he had almost given up reading; she was his book, into which he had dipped deeper and deeper until, to change the metaphor, he was nearly drowned. How could a book, a mere commentary on life, give him what Deirdre gave him, which was life itself? Listlessly he turned the pages. What was paper as an interest, compared to flesh? What appeal to the heart had the printed word, compared to the voice that came from Deirdre’s lips?

His loneliness increased, and with it the bitter self-reproach of having brought it on himself. He tried to attend to business; that was quickly done: at the office they begged him not to come back until he was quite well. Business: it had become automatic to him, second nature: he kept it in a compartment to itself, sealed off from his feelings. Sentiment in business: there was such a thing, but it was not the sentiment he needed.

Well, then, he had his friends, quite a number of them, for hadn’t the catastrophe itself happened at a party where he knew almost everyone, though Deirdre didn’t? Why not ring them up, and ask for sympathy?

One after another he went through their names; he even got out his address-book, in case he should have overlooked someone. Once these names had meant a great deal to him: they had meant the warmth of greeting, the exchange of ideas, the interplay of slight but real emotions The reassurance of goodbye-to-meet-again, the sense, when it was over, that something had been added to the value of life. The value of life! But what did the value of life mean, in this tormented and bewildered age, when every value was being called in question? How did life benefit, or its values, if he and Mrs. Plastosell, of whom he was secretly a little afraid, she was so fashionable and so sophisticated, played an intricate game of cats-cradle on a sofa, gossamer webs spun out of airy nothings that involved some flattery on her side and a good deal of self-complacency on his? She condescended to him, and he lapped up her condescension: but he wasn’t himself with her, not his true self: he played a part, half self-effacing, half self-advertising: she didn’t liberate him, as Deirdre did. With Deirdre he could be absolutely himself and more: George plus, plus, plus, plus. With Mrs. Plastosell he was George minus, if he was anything.

He took up the telephone to dial her number: but when he had got half-way he put the receiver back.

‘You ought to have the telly,’ Mrs. Buswell said. ‘Not all the time, like some people do, they’re potty, to my way of thinking. But just for times like this, when you haven’t anything to amuse you. It gives you something, that’s the point.’

‘I could have one,’ George said.