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

‘Nonsense, child,’ said the cook. ‘Run along with you.’

No sooner had the maid gone than Rundle appeared.

‘I’ve had a bit of trouble with Master Antony,’ he said. ‘He’s got it into his head that he wants to come down to dinner. “Rundle,” he said to me, confidentially, “do you think it would matter us being seven? I want them to meet my new friend.” “What friend, Mr. Fairfield?” I said. “Oh,” he said, “haven’t you seen her? She’s always about with me now.” Poor chap, he used to be the pick of the bunch, and now I’m afraid he’s going potty.’

‘Do you think he’ll really come down to dinner?’ asked the cook, but before Rundle could answer Lettice rushed into the room.

‘Oh,’ she cried, ‘I knew it would be something horrid! I knew it would be! And now she wants a floor cloth and a pail! She says they mustn’t know anything about it! But I won’t go again—won’t bring it down, I won’t even touch it!’

‘What won’t you touch?’

‘That waste-paper basket.’

‘Why, what’s the matter with it?’

‘It’s . . . it’s all bloody!’

When the word was out she grew calmer, and even seemed anxious to relate her experience.

‘I went upstairs directly she rang’ (’That’s an untruth to start with,’ said the cook) ‘and she opened the door a little way and said, “Oh, Lettice, I’ve been so scared!” And I said, “What’s the matter, miss?” And she said, “There’s a cat in here.” “Well, I didn’t think that was much to be frightened of, so I said, “Shall I come in and catch him, miss?” and she said (deceitful-like, as it turned out), “I should be so grateful.” Then I went in but I couldn’t see the cat anywhere, so I said, “Where is he?” At which she pointed to the waste-paper basket away by the dressing-table, and said, “In that waste-paper basket.” I said, “Why, that makes it easier, miss, if he’ll stay there.” She said, “Oh, he’ll stay there all right.” Of course I took her meaning in a moment, because I know cats do choose queer, out-of-the-way places to die in, so I said, “You mean the poor creature’s dead, miss?” and I was just going across to get him because ordinarily I don’t mind the body of an animal when she said (I will do her that justice), “Stop a minute, Lettice, he isn’t dead; he’s been murdered.” I saw she was all trembling, and that made me tremble, too. And when I looked in the basket—well——’

She paused, partly perhaps to enjoy the dramatic effect of her announcement. ‘Well, if it wasn’t our Thomas! Only you couldn’t have recognized him, poor beast, his head was bashed in that cruel.’

‘Thomas!’ said the cook. ‘Why he was here only an hour ago.’

‘That’s what I said to Miss Winthrop. “Why, he was in the kitchen only an hour ago,” and then I came over funny, and when she asked me to help her clean the mess up I couldn’t, not if my life depended on it. But I don’t feel like that now,’ she ended inconsequently. ‘I’ll go back and do it!’ She collected her traps and departed.

‘Thomas!’ muttered Rundle. ‘Who could have wished the poor beast any harm? Now I remember, Mr. Fairfield did ask me to get him out a clean shirt. . . . I’d better go up and ask him.’

He found Antony in evening dress seated at the writing-table. He had stripped it of writing materials and the light from two candles gleamed on its polished surface. Opposite to him on the other side of the table was an empty chair. He was sitting with his back to the room; his face, when he turned it at Rundle’s entrance, was blotchy and looked terribly tired.

‘I decided to dine here after all, Rundle,’ he said. Rundle saw that the Bovril was still untouched in his cup.

‘Why, your supper’ll get cold, Mr. Fairfield,’ he said.

‘Mind your own business,’ said Antony. ‘I’m waiting.’

The Empire clock on the drawing-room chimney-piece began to strike, breaking into a conversation which neither at dinner nor afterwards had been more than desultory.

‘Eleven,’ said Mr. Ampleforth. ‘The nurse will be here any time now. She ought to be grateful to you, Ronald, for getting him into bed.’

‘I didn’t enjoy treating Antony like that,’ said Ronald.

There was a silence.

‘What was that?’ asked Maggie suddenly.

‘It sounded like the motor.’

‘Might have been,’ said Mr. Ampleforth. ‘You can’t tell from here.’

They strained their ears, but the rushing sound had already died away. ‘Eileen’s gone to bed, Maggie,’ said Mrs. Ampleforth. ‘Why don’t you? We’ll wait up for the nurse, and tell you when she comes.’

Rather reluctantly Maggie agreed to go.

She had been in her bedroom about ten minutes, and was feeling too tired to take her clothes off, when there came a knock at the door. It was Eileen.

‘Maggie,’ she said, ‘the nurse has arrived. I thought you’d like to know.’

‘Oh, how kind of you,’ said Maggie. ‘They were going to tell me, but I expect they forgot. Where is she?’

‘In Antony’s room. I was coming from the bath and his door was open.’

‘Did she look nice?’

‘I only saw her back.’

‘I think I’ll go along and speak to her,’ said Maggie.

‘Yes, do. I don’t think I’ll go with you.’

As she walked along the passage Maggie wondered what she would say to the nurse. She didn’t mean to offer her professional advice. But even nurses are human, and Maggie didn’t want this stranger to imagine that Antony was, well, always like that—the spoilt, tiresome, unreasonable creature of the last few hours. She could find no harsher epithets for him, even after all his deliberate unkindness. The woman would probably have heard that Maggie was his fiancée; Maggie would try to show her that she was proud of the relationship and felt it an honour.

The door was still open so she knocked and walked in. But the figure that uncoiled itself from Antony’s pillow and darted at her a look of malevolent triumph was not a nurse, nor was her face strange to Maggie; Maggie could see, so intense was her vision at that moment, just what strokes Antony had used to transform her own portrait into Lady Elinor’s. She was terrified, but she could not bear to see Antony’s rather long hair nearly touching the floor nor the creature’s thin hand on his labouring throat. She advanced, resolved at whatever cost to break up this dreadful tableau. She approached near enough to realize that what seemed a strangle-hold was probably a caress, when Antony’s eyes rolled up at her and words, frothy and toneless like a chain of bursting bubbles, came popping from the corner of his swollen mouth: ‘Get out, damn you!’ At the same moment she heard the stir of presences behind her and a voice saying, ‘Here is the patient, nurse; I’m afraid he’s half out of bed, and here’s Maggie, too. What have you been doing to him, Maggie?’ Dazed, she turned about. ‘Can’t you see?’ she cried; but she might have asked the question of herself, for when she looked back she could only see the tumbled bed, the vacant pillow, and Antony’s hair trailing the floor.

The nurse was a sensible woman. Fortified by tea, she soon bundled everybody out of the room. A deeper quiet than night ordinarily brings invaded the house. The reign of illness had begun.

A special embargo was laid on Maggie’s visits. The nurse said she had noticed that Miss Winthrop’s presence agitated the patient. But Maggie extracted a promise that she should be called if Antony got worse. She was too tired and worried to sleep, even if she had tried to, so she sat up fully dressed in a chair, every now and then trying to allay her anxiety by furtive visits to Antony’s bedroom door.