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

But the new householder doesn’t mind that, not he. His mind is full of the play. He only thinks, ‘Polkin will have some trouble when he comes to mow that bit.’ And of course he likes the trees; he doesn’t notice that the branches are black and dead at the tips, as though the life of the tree were ebbing, dropping back into its trunk, like a failing fountain. He hasn’t taken a ladder to peer into that moist channel where the branches fork; it oozes a kind of bright sticky froth, and if you could bring yourself to do it, you could shove your arm in up to the elbow, the wood is so rotten. ‘Well, Polkin, if the tree’s as far gone as you say, by all means cut it down: I don’t myself consider it dangerous, but have it your own way. Get in a couple of Curtis’s men, and fell it to-morrow.’ So the new owner of Stithies hadn’t really liked the tree? Oh, it’s not that; he’s a practical man; he yields to circumstances. ‘Well, the old chap will keep us warm in the winter evenings, Polkin.’ ‘Yes, sir, and I do hope you’ll have some company. You must be that lonely all by yourself, if I may say so, sir.’ ‘Company, my good Polkin, I should think so! I’m going to give a couple of dances, to start off with.’

How reassuring, how reanimating, this glimpse into the life of the New Proprietor!

More insistently than ever, as the house drew near, did Ernest crave the loan of this imaginary person’s sturdy thoughts. He had lived always in cramped, uncomfortable rooms; perhaps shared a bedroom with three or four others, perhaps even a bed! What fun for him, after these constricted years, to come home to a big house of his own, where he has three or four sitting-rooms to choose from, each of which he may occupy by himself! What a pleasure it is for him, in the long evenings, to sit perfectly still in the dining-room, with time hanging on his hands, hearing the clock tick. How he laughs when suddenly, from under the table or anyhow from some part of the floor, one doesn’t quite know where, there comes that strange loud thump, as though someone, lying on his back, had grown restive and given the boards a terrific kick! In an old house like this, of course, the floor-boards do contract and expand; they have seen a great deal; they have something to say, and they want to get it off their chests.

Ernest paused. His reverie had brought him to the edge of the lawn, only a few yards from his front door. On either side the house stretched away, reaching out with its flanks into the night. Well, so would the new proprietor pause, to take a last look at the domain he so dearly loved—the symbol of his escape from an existence which had been one long round of irritating chores, always at somebody’s beck and call, always having to think about something outside himself, never alone with his own thoughts! How he had longed for the kind of self-knowledge that only comes with solitude. And now, just before tasting this ecstasy of loneliness at its purest, he pauses. In a moment he will stride to the door which he hasn’t troubled to lock, turn the handle and walk in. The hall is dark, but he finds a chair and mounting it lights the gas. Then he goes his nightly round. With what sense of possession, what luxury of ownership, does he feel the catches of the windows. Just a flick to make sure it’s fast. As he picks his way through the furniture to the glimmering panes he congratulates himself that now he can look out on a view—as far as the sulky moonlight admits a view—of trees, shrubs, shadows; no vociferous callboys, no youthful blades returning singing after a wet night. Nothing but darkness and silence, within and without. What balm to the spirit! What a vivid sensation of security and repose! Down he goes into the cellar where the gas meter ticks. The window-sash is a flimsy thing—wouldn’t keep out a determined man, perhaps; the new proprietor just settles it in its socket, and passes on into the wine-cellar. But no, the sort of man we are considering wouldn’t bother to lock up the wine-cellar: such a small window could only let in cats and hedgehogs. It had let in both, and they were discovered afterwards, starved and dead: but that was before the occupancy of the new proprietor. Then upstairs, and the same ceremonial, so rapid and efficient, a formality, really, hardly taking a quarter of an hour: just the eight bedrooms, and the maids’ rooms, since they were away. These might take longer. Last of all the box-room, with its unsatisfactory by-pass. It would be dealt with firmly and definitely and never revisited, like a sick person, during the watches of the night. And then, pleasantly tired and ready for bed, the new proprietor would turn to his friend Hubert, whom he had brought back from the play, and bid him good-night.

So absorbed was Ernest in the evocation of this pleasant bed-time scene that, with the gesture of someone retiring to rest, he half held out his hand. But no one took it; and he realized, with a sinking of the heart, that the new proprietor had let him down, was a craven like himself. He walked unsteadily to the door and turned the handle. Nothing happened. He turned it the other way. Still the door resisted him. Suddenly he remembered how once, returning home late at night from taking some letters to the post, the door of the stable, where he kept his bicycle, had been similarly recalcitrant. But when he pushed harder the door yielded a little, as though someone stronger than he was holding it against him and meant to let him in slowly before doing him an injury. He had exerted all his strength. Suddenly the door gave. It was only a tennis-ball that had got wedged between the door and the cobblestone: but he never forgot the episode. For a moment he sat down on the stone step before renewing his attack. He must have managed it clumsily. The door needed drawing towards him or else pushing away from him. He recalled his failure to negotiate the catch of Hubert’s car. But his second attempt was as vain as the first. The door wouldn’t open, couldn’t: it must have been locked on the inside.

Ernest knew, as well as he knew anything, that he had left it unfastened. The lock was of an old-fashioned pattern; it had no tricks of its own. You could be quite certain it was locked, the key turned so stiffly: it had never given Ernest a moment’s uneasiness nor demanded nocturnal forfeits from his nervous apprehension. It was locked all right; but who had locked it?

Supposing there was a man who disliked his house, thought Ernest, hated it, dreaded it, with what emotions of relief would he discover, when he returned from a dull play at the witching hour, that the house was locked against him? Supposing this man, from a child, had been so ill at ease in his own home that the most familiar objects, a linen-press or a waste-paper basket, had been full of menace for him: wouldn’t he rejoice to be relieved, by Fate, of the horrible necessity of spending the night alone in such a house? And wouldn’t he rather welcome than otherwise the burglar or whoever it might be who had so providentially taken possession—the New Proprietor? The man was an abject funk; could scarcely bear to sit in a room alone; spent the greater part of the night prowling about the house torn between two fears—the fear of staying in bed and brooding over neglected windows and gas jets, and the fear of getting up and meeting those windows and gas jets in the dark. Lucky chap to lose, through no fault of his own, all his fears and all his responsibilities. What a weight off his mind! The streets were open to him, the nice noisy streets, even at night-time half full of policemen and strayed revellers, in whose company he could gaily pass what few hours remained till dawn.

But somehow the Old Expropriated had less success, as an imaginative lure, than the New Proprietor. ‘I must get in,’ thought Ernest. ‘It’s perfectly simple. There are one, two, three windows I can get in by if I try: four counting the window of the box-room. But first I’ll ring the bell.’ He rang and a wild peal followed which might have come from the hall instead of the kitchen, it seemed so near. He waited, while at ever-increasing intervals of time the clangour renewed itself, like an expiring hiccough. ‘I’ll give him another minute,’ thought Ernest, taking out his watch. The minute passed but no one came.