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

Fred was, on the whole, a man of direct speech and inclined to come to the point straightaway; but he was used to the oblique approach of business men, and ready to adopt it.

‘Well, yes,’ he said, ‘I rather think I do.’ In his mind’s eye he saw the typescript of his work on the Jacobean Dramatists, which the hands of many publishers’ readers had dog-eared. At the risk of sounding facetious he added, with a smile:

‘It’s to do with something that happened a good while ago.’

‘Yes, it is,’ the man said. He did not smile, but his wife smiled brilliantly, showing her teeth.

‘When we have talked it over,’ said the man, ‘perhaps you wouldn’t mind coming round to our place, where you may find one or two more who are interested. Joe Cossage, for instance.’ He looked at Fred Cross rather closely.

The name Joe Cossage conveyed nothing to Fred, but the field of Jacobean studies was a wide one, and he couldn’t be expected to have heard of all the gleaners in it.

‘I should be delighted,’ he said, trying to conceal his eagerness. ‘But shouldn’t we have dinner first?’

‘Dinner?’ said the man, and if Fred hadn’t been so engrossed in thinking about his book, he would have noticed the question mark and the time-lag before his guest said: ‘Dinner would be a very good idea.’

‘Of course, I haven’t got the book with me,’ Fred remarked.

‘We didn’t suppose you would have, did we, Wendy?’ the man said to his wife who flashed her smile at his unsmiling face. ‘But we should like to have a look at it, I can tell you, and so would Joe.’

‘I mean, I haven’t got it here,’ said Fred, blushing for himself and his over-eagerness to sell his wares. ‘As it happens——’ he tried to make his voice sound casual—‘as it happens I’ve got it upstairs.’

‘Whew!’ said the man, and something that might have been his soul, if he had one, seemed to appear in his face, so intense was his expression. ‘Can we wait till after dinner, Wendy?’

‘If Mr. Cross wants us to, I’m sure we can,’ his wife said.

‘Oh, yes, let’s wait till afterwards,’ said Fred, lightly. He regretted his unbusiness-like precipitancy, now that he saw that the others were anxious to see the book as he was to show it to them.

‘As long as you don’t change your mind about it,’ said the man. ‘We weren’t sure you’d want us to see it, were we, Wendy?’

‘Joe thought he’d come across with it,’ his wife said, smiling.

‘Well, a lot hangs on it, you see,’ the man said, ‘a lot hangs on it. That’s why we weren’t sure——’

‘And a lot hangs on it for me, too,’ Fred Cross interrupted.

The man glanced at him quickly. ‘Yes, I suppose it does,’ he said. ‘That’s why we thought persuasion might be necessary.’

Fred felt immensely flattered. Persuasion, indeed! If they only knew how he was longing to part with his treasure! But he mustn’t let them know. He had already shown his hand too plainly.

‘I won’t be too unreasonable,’ he said. ‘I’ll meet you as far as I can.’

The man seemed to notice his change of tone, for he said:

‘We don’t want just to look at it, you know. We want to have it.’

‘Of course, of course,’ Fred Cross said soothingly. ‘After dinner we can talk about terms.’

‘We’d better do that at our place,’ the man said.

‘Just as you like,’ said Fred Cross, rather grandly. ‘Now what about another round of drinks?’

They agreed. As Fred was going to the bar to give his order the porter came up to him and said: ‘A lady and gentleman have just come and asked for you, sir.’

‘Another lady and gentleman?’

‘Yes, sir, there they are. They came a second ago, sir. I was just going to tell you.’

Fred followed the porter’s eye. The couple were standing in the next lounge, with their backs to him, looking about them with the relaxed curiosity of people whose minds are comfortably on their dinners.

Oh, that damned diary! Here was another muddle. What was he to do? Five was an awkward number. How did he know the two couples would mix? And how could he introduce them to each other when he didn’t know either of their names? Perhaps the porter could enlighten him.

‘They didn’t give a name, sir,’ the porter said. ‘They simply asked for you.’

Just as he feared! What an embarrassment to have to ask the two couples to introduce themselves to each other, and also to him! And who were the second couple, anyway? From a back view he didn’t seem to know them, either. But better not look. He would have to act quickly. It would be a disaster, he now saw, if the second couple stayed, just as he was on the point of concluding a deal with these new publishers. For politeness’ sake they would all have to talk about other things, and the opportunity might slip through his fingers, never to return. He must get rid of them.

To give himself a breathing space, he said to the porter:

‘Perhaps another time you would ask visitors to give their names?’—but even while he saw the man’s face stiffening under the rebuke he remembered that he might need his co-operation, that in fact he needed it now, and added quickly:

‘Charlie, would you do this for me? Tell the lady and gentleman that I’m terribly sorry, but I’ve been taken ill, in fact I am in bed, and I can’t give them dinner to-night. I shall be in the bar—just tell me if it’s O.K.’

He crossed the bar (ill-omened phrase) and in a minute or two the porter informed him that the couple had gone. ‘They said they were very sorry to hear you were ill, sir,’ the man concluded, not altogether without malice.

‘Oh, well,’ Fred Cross sighed with relief, but he felt uncomfortable. He didn’t like telling lies or getting other people to tell them for him; and he was superstitious enough to wonder whether saying he was ill might not make him ill, or bring him bad luck in some way.

When he rejoined his guests he seemed to have been away for hours, though in fact it was only a few minutes. The arrival of the drinks coincided with his apologies and smoothed over the interruption; but the conversational thread had snapped and it was only when dinner had been some time under way that they picked it up again. His guests seemed to fight shy of it, and Fred wondered if this was a policy they had agreed on between themselves, while he was out of hearing, with a view to lowering the advance they were prepared to pay on the book, or the royalty, or both.

‘There are so many Smith’s Hotels in London,’ the woman was saying, with her bright automatic smile, ‘almost as many as there are Smith’s bookshops. We weren’t quite sure which yours was.’

‘Joe told us it would be this one,’ said her husband, glancing at Fred.

Again Fred wondered who this Joe might be, who seemed so conversant with his whereabouts. But it wasn’t by any means the first time that a stranger to him had furnished a third party with his address. More people know Tom Fool than Tom Fool knows. But he had every reason to be grateful to Joe, whoever he was.

‘Yes, there are a lot of Smith’s Hotels,’ he agreed. ‘But,’ he added humorously, ‘I think this is the chief one. And for that matter’—the thought struck him suddenly—‘there are quite a lot of Frederick Crosses. It’s a common name. I know another myself.’

‘Yes, Joe thought there might be another,’ said the man, ‘but as it turned out he was wrong.’

‘I’m glad he was,’ said Fred. ‘I can’t think of another Fred Cross who has to do with books. And this hotel is quite a haunt of literary men.’

‘Of men with books to sell?’ said his guest, lowering one eyelid into what, if it had been more mirthful, might have been a wink.