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

After the eating comes the reckoning.

A child screamed, and there was silence.

Mr. Rumbold felt quite upset, and great was his relief when, after a few more half-hearted rounds of ‘Oranges and Lemons,’ the Voice announced, ‘Here We Come Gathering Nuts and May.’ At least there was nothing sinister in that. Delicious sylvan scene, comprising in one splendid botanical inexactitude all the charms of winter, spring, and autumn. What superiority to circumstances was implied in the conjunction of nuts and May! What defiance of cause and effect! What a testimony to coincidence! For cause and effect is against us, as witness the fate of Old Bailey’s debtor; but coincidence is always on our side, teaching us how to eat our cake and have it! The long arm of coincidence! Mr. Rumbold would have liked to clasp it by the hand.

Meanwhile his own hand conducted the music of the revels and his foot kept time. Their pulses quickened by enjoyment, the children put more heart into their singing; the game went with a swing; the ardour and rhythm of it invaded the little room where Mr. Rumbold sat. Like heavy fumes the waves of sound poured in, so penetrating, they ravished the sense; so sweet, they intoxicated it; so light, they fanned it into a flame. Mr. Rumbold was transported. His hearing, sharpened by the subjugation and quiescence of his other faculties, began to take in new sounds; the names, for instance, of the players who were ‘wanted’ to make up each side, and of the champions who were to pull them over. For the listeners-in, the issues of the struggles remained in doubt. Did Nancy Price succeed in detaching Percy Kingham from his allegiance? Probably. Did Alec Wharton prevail against Maisie Drew? It was certainly an easy win for someone: the contest lasted only a second, and a ripple of laughter greeted it. Did Violet Kingham make good against Horace Gold? This was a dire encounter, punctuated by deep irregular panting. Mr. Rumbold could see, in his mind’s eye, the two champions straining backwards and forwards across the white, motionless handkerchief, their faces red and puckered with exertion. Violet or Horace, one of them had to go: Violet might be bigger than Horace, but then Horace was a boy: they were evenly matched: they had their pride to maintain. The moment when the will was broken and the body went limp in surrender would be like a moment of dissolution. Yes, even this game had its stark, uncomfortable side. Violet or Horace, one of them was smarting now: crying perhaps under the humiliation of being fetched away.

The game began afresh. This time there was an eager ring in the children’s voices: two tried antagonists were going to meet: it would be a battle of giants. The chant throbbed into a war-cry.

They would have Victor Rumbold for Nuts and May, Victor Rumbold, Victor Rumbold: and from the vindictiveness in their voices they might have meant to have had his blood, too.

Like a clarion call, a shout of defiance, came the reply:

This variation, it might be supposed, was intended to promote the contest from the realms of pretence into the world of reality. But Mr. Rumbold probably did not hear that his abduction had been antedated. He had turned quite green, and his head was lolling against the back of the chair.

‘Any wine, sir?’

‘Yes, Clutsam, a bottle of champagne.’

‘Very good, sir.’

Mr. Rumbold drained the first glass at one go.

‘Anyone coming in to dinner besides me, Clutsam?’ he presently inquired. ‘Not now, sir, it’s nine o’clock,’ replied the waiter, his voice edged with reproach.

‘Sorry, Clutsam, I didn’t feel up to the mark before dinner, so I went and lay down.’

The waiter was mollified.

‘Thought you weren’t looking quite yourself, sir. No bad news, I hope.’

‘No, nothing. Just a bit tired after the journey.’

‘And how did you leave Australia, sir?’ inquired the waiter, to accommodate Mr. Rumbold, who seemed anxious to talk.

‘In better weather than you have here,’ Mr. Rumbold replied, finishing his second glass, and measuring with his eye the depleted contents of the bottle.

The rain kept up a steady patter on the glass roof of the coffee-room.

‘Still, a good climate isn’t everything. It isn’t like home, for instance,’ the waiter remarked.

‘No, indeed.’

‘There’s many parts of the world as would be glad of a good day’s rain,’ affirmed the waiter.

‘There certainly are,’ said Mr. Rumbold, who found the conversation sedative.

‘Did you do much fishing when you were abroad, sir?’ the waiter pursued.

‘A little.’

‘Well, you want rain for that,’ declared the waiter, as one who scores a point. ‘The fishing isn’t preserved in Australia, like what it is here?’

‘No.’

‘Then there ain’t no poaching,’ concluded the waiter philosophically. ‘It’s every man for himself.’

‘Yes, that’s the rule in Australia.’

‘Not much of a rule, is it?’ the waiter took him up. ‘Not much like law, I mean.’

‘It depends what you mean by law.’

‘Oh, Mr. Rumbold, sir, you know very well what I mean. I mean the police. Now if you was to have done a man in out in Australia—murdered him, I mean—they’d hang you for it if they caught you, wouldn’t they?’

Mr. Rumbold teased the champagne with the butt-end of his fork and drank again.

‘Probably they would, unless there were special circumstances.

‘In which case you might get off?’

‘I might.’

‘That’s what I mean by law,’ pronounced the waiter. ‘You know what the law is: you go against it, and you’re punished. Of course I don’t mean you, sir; I only say “you” as—as an illustration to make my meaning clear.’

‘Quite, quite.’

‘Whereas if there was only what you call a rule,’ the waiter pursued, deftly removing the remains of Mr. Rumbold’s chicken, ‘it might fall to the lot of any man to round you up. Might be anybody; might be me.’

‘Why should you or they,’ asked Mr. Rumbold, ‘want to round me up? I haven’t done you any harm, or them.’

‘Oh, but we should have to, sir.’

‘Why?’

‘We couldn’t rest in our beds, sir, knowing you was at large. You might do it again. Somebody’d have to see to it.’

‘But supposing there was nobody?’

‘Sir?’

‘Supposing the murdered man hadn’t any relatives or friends: supposing he just disappeared, and no one ever knew that he was dead?’

‘Well, sir,’ said the waiter, winking portentously, ‘in that case he’d have to get on your track himself. He wouldn’t rest in his grave, sir, no, not he, and knowing what he did.’

‘Clutsam,’ said Mr. Rumbold suddenly, ‘bring me another bottle of wine, and don’t trouble to ice it.’

The waiter took the bottle from the table and held it to the light.

‘Yes, it’s dead, sir.’

‘Dead?’

‘Yes, sir; finished; empty; dead.’

‘You’re right,’ Mr. Rumbold agreed. ‘It’s quite dead.’

It was nearly eleven o’clock. Mr. Rumbold again had the lounge to himself. Clutsam would be bringing his coffee presently. Too bad of Fate to have him haunted by these casual reminders; too bad, his first day at home. ‘Too bad, too bad,’ he muttered, while the fire warmed the soles of his slippers. But it was excellent champagne; he would take no harm from it: the brandy Clutsam was bringing him would do the rest. Clutsam was a good sort, nice old-fashioned servant . . . nice old-fashioned house. . . . Warmed by the wine, his thoughts began to pass out of his control.