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

‘There is lunch,’ said Anthony humbly.

‘Oh yes, sir, I’ve arranged for that, and Olive has been quite helpful.’

He disappeared, and Anthony began to write some letters. What a relief to have Copperthwaite back! But when he thought of that magnificent uniform, and its probable cost, he began to feel uneasy. Ought not Copperthwaite, or he, Anthony, to return it to Copperthwaite’s late employers? No doubt the Americans could well afford it; but the cynical saying ‘Soak the rich,’ began to reverberate unpleasantly in his mental ear.

Should he say something to Copperthwaite? Should he suggest that the uniform ought to be returned? When Copperthwaite was in his employ, he had expressly wished not to wear a uniform; he inferred it would be a badge of servitude, and in any case too posh, too ostentatious for Anthony’s humdrum purposes. Anthony himself could imagine his friends saying, if they came to the door to see him off, as they sometimes did, and saw his second-hand, second-rate car waiting at the kerb, with a uniformed chauffeur—uniformed, and how!—‘We are impressed , Anthony, we really are impressed!’

No sound in the flat, but Anthony was restless, he went out and took a turn round the Square (if a square can be circled). His footsteps came slow, clogged by his thoughts. Shall I turn back? he asked himself, seeking for some sort of compromise between himself and the Moral Law. Shall I go up to Ramoth Gilead, or shall I forbear? Shall I tell Copperthwaite to return his ill-gotten gains to the Americans, or shall I leave it?

At the opposite side of the Square stood the Roland-Rex (by now he knew its contours only too well), drawn up outside the owner’s door. Sitting at the wheel, indeed asleep at the wheel, was a chauffeur, immaculate in a uniform similar to Copperthwaite’s. He looked like part of the car’s furniture, indeed like part of the car; he was the same colour, his figure might have been an extension, as a reproduction of its lines; his immobility a parallel of its own. Function for function, what difference was there between them?

Anthony completed the circuit.

No car outside his own flat; but he pressed the button; the garage-door swung open, revealing a set of loose boxes, so to speak, in which some of the tenants kept their cars. He remembered the number of his: 5A.

At first he saw nothing except his car, then, sticking out from under its bonnet, a pair of feet and leggings.

‘Copperthwaite!’ he called, hardly expecting an answer.

But after much wriggling, Copperthwaite came into view, so dirty in his overalls, so changed from his glorious appearance of an hour ago, that the transformation was hardly credible.

He struggled to his feet.

‘Yes, sir?’

‘I just wondered’, said Anthony, ‘how you were getting on?’

‘Very well, sir,’ said Copperthwaite, composing his face to disguise the slight irritation he felt at being disturbed at his work; “Very well, sir. But I’m afraid the car needs a good deal of attention. It’s been neglected, sir.’

Anthony said nothing.

‘Yes, sir, it’s been neglected, and of course a car doesn’t like being neglected.’

Anthony couldn’t resist saying,

‘Like human beings, I suppose.’

‘Yes, like human beings,’ said Copperthwaite, mopping his brow with a sweaty handkerchief, and without taking, or appearing to take, Anthony’s point. ‘But human beings can fend for themselves.’

He gave the car an over-all look, in which compassion, interest, and adoration—yes, adoration—were blended.

The sudden impulse that makes one ask a question that one would never, in ordinary circumstances and after due consideration, ask, made Anthony say,

‘Why did you leave that excellent job with the American gentleman on the other side of the Square? I thought—in fact you told me yourself—it was your ambition to look after a Roland-Rex.’

‘So it was, sir,’ said Copperthwaite promptly, his eyes switching to Anthony’s battered car. ‘And shall I tell you why—why I didn’t go on there. I mean, because the money was good and the boss gave me all I wanted, including the uniform, which I didn’t want. It was because—’

‘Because of what?’

‘The Roland-Rex was a perfect car, no complaints.’

‘Then why?’

Copperthwaite gave Anthony a look that pitied such lack of understanding.

‘Because there was nothing I could do for it. Nothing ever went wrong with it, it didn’t need me, I couldn’t—I couldn’t mix myself with it—it was a stranger, if you know what I mean. I sat there like a stuffed dummy—the car could have looked after itself, and almost driven itself, without me—’

He stopped, and gave another look at Anthony’s shabby old roadster.

‘Your car isn’t a Roland-Rex, sir, but as long as you are in it you will be driving with me as well as in it.’

Anthony found this remark obscure.

‘Well, of course I shall be driving with you, because I can’t drive myself, but what do you mean by, I shall be driving with you, as well as with it?’

‘Because I am the car, sir.’

Anthony tried to fathom this out.

‘Does the car mean all that to you?’ he asked incredulously.

‘It does, sir. It means a great deal to me, as you do, though not in the same way—begging your pardon, sir.’

Anthony heard the church bells ringing.

‘Good gracious, it’s Sunday!’ he exclaimed. ‘I’m all out in my dates—I wasn’t expecting you till Monday.’

‘Yes, but one day doesn’t make much difference, does it?’

‘Of course not.’ Anthony wondered where Copperthwaite had spent Saturday night. ‘But when I was walking round the Square I noticed that your . . . your late employer had another chauffeur.’

Copperthwaite shrugged his shoulders.

‘Oh yes, Mr. Duke doesn’t let the grass grow under his feet, and there are plenty of blokes who will give up their weekends if they see a good job in prospect, and a uniform too.’

The bells sounded louder. Eleven o’clock could not be far away.

‘Well, I must be off’ said Anthony to Copperthwaite’s retreating form, which was edging itself, feet first this time, as if some octopus power, stronger than himself, was sucking him into the tentacles of the car’s dark underneath.

Rapture began to glow on Copperthwaite’s upturned face.

‘If you are going to church, sir,’ he said, wriggling from shoulder to shoulder, ‘say a prayer for me.’

‘Yes, of course,’ said Anthony, ‘but what would it be?’

‘Oh, I don’t know, sir, you know more about prayers than I do, just a little prayer for me, and a big prayer for the car.’

‘But isn’t it past praying for?’

‘No, sir, not as long as I’m here,’ and with that Copperthwaite’s tired, dirty, but jubilant face disappeared under the bonnet.

An answer to prayer, perhaps?

Marcus Foster acquired his house, Paradise Paddock, with the maximum of discouragement from his friends. ‘We looked at ninety-eight,’ one of them said. ‘We spent the best part of a year house-hunting, and every single one of them had something hopelessly against it. Either it faced the wrong way, or it had a cellar full of water which would have to be pumped out, or it had no water at all, no electricity and no gas, or it was so far from anywhere that such important things as food could never be delivered, and staff, supposing one could find them, would never consent to stay, and anyhow there were no suitable quarters for them to stay in, and—well, at last, when we were quite desperate, we found Wrightswell, which was so much too big that we had to pull half of it down.’