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

I sat at the piano and played. There were some songs on the music-rest—Wolf, full of strange chords and accidentals so that I couldn’t be sure I was right. But they interested me; and I felt so happy that I failed to notice how the time was drawing on—eight o’clock, and dinner should have been at a quarter to. Growing a little restless, I rose and walked up and down the room. One corner of it was in shadow, so I turned on all the lights. I had found it irritating to watch the regular expansion and shrinkage of my shadow. Now I could see everything; but I still felt constrained, sealed up in that admirable room. It was always a shortcoming of mine not to be able to wait patiently. So I wandered into the dining-room and almost thought—such is the power of overstrung anticipation—that I saw Mrs. Santander sitting at the head of the oval table. But it was only an effect of the candlelight. The two places were laid, hers and mine; the glasses with twisty stems were there, such a number of glasses for the two of us! Suddenly I remembered I was smoking and, taking an almond, I left the room to its four candles. I peeped inside the library; it was in darkness, and I realized, as I fumbled for the switch without being able to find it, that I was growing nervous. How ridiculous! Of course, Mrs. Santander wouldn’t be in the library and in the dark. Abandoning the search for the switch, I returned to the drawing-room.

I vaguely expected to find it altered, and yet I had ceased to expect to see Mrs. Santander appear at any moment. That always happens when one waits for a person who doesn’t come. But there was an alteration—in me. I couldn’t find any satisfaction in struggling with Wolf; the music had lost its hold. So I drew a chair up to the china-cabinet; it had always charmed me with its figures of Chinamen, those white figures, conventional and stiff, but so smooth and luminous and significant. I found myself wondering, as often before, whether the ferocious pleasure in their expressions was really the Oriental artist’s conception of unqualified good humour, or whether they were not, after all, rather cruel people. And this disquieting topic aroused others that I had tried successfully to repress: the exact connotation of my staying in the house as Mrs. Santander’s guest, an unsporting little mouse playing when the cat was so undeniably, so effectually away. To ease myself of these obstinate questionings, I leant forward to open the door of the cabinet, intending to distract myself by taking one of the figures into my hands. Suddenly I heard a sound and looked up. A man was standing in the middle of the room.

‘I’m afraid the cabinet’s locked,’ he said.

In spite of my bewilderment, something in his appearance struck me as odd: he was wearing a hat. It was a grey felt hat, and he had an overcoat that was grey too.

‘I hope you don’t take me for a burglar,’ I said, trying to laugh.

‘Oh no,’ he replied, ‘not that.’ I thought his eyes were smiling, but his mouth was shadowed by a dark moustache. He was a handsome man. Something in his face struck me as familiar; but it was not an unusual type and I might easily have been mistaken.

In the hurry of getting up I knocked over a set of fire-irons—the cabinet flanked the fireplace—and there was a tremendous clatter. It alarmed and then revived me. But I had a curious feeling of defencelessness as I stooped down to pick the fire-irons up, and it was difficult to fix them into their absurd sockets. The man in grey watched my operations without moving. I began to resent his presence. Presently he moved and stood with his back to the fire, stretching out his fingers to the warmth.

‘We haven’t been introduced,’ I said.

‘No,’ he replied, ‘we haven’t.’

Then, while I was growing troubled and exasperated by his behaviour, he offered an explanation. ‘I’m the engineer Mrs. Santander calls in now and then to superintend her electric plant. That’s how I know my way about. She’s so inventive, and she doesn’t like to take risks.’ He volunteered this. ‘And I came in here in case any of the fittings needed adjustment. I see they don’t.’

‘No,’ I said, secretly reassured by the stranger’s account of himself; ‘but I wish—of course, I speak without Mrs. Santander’s authority—I wish you’d have a look at the switches in the library. They’re damned inconvenient.’ I was so pleased with myself for having compassed the expletive that I scarcely noticed how the engineer’s fingers, still avid of warmth, suddenly became rigid.

‘Oh, you’ve been in the library, have you?’ he said.

I replied that I had got no further than the door. ‘But if you can wait,’ I added politely to this superior mechanic who liked to style himself an engineer, ‘Mrs. Santander will be here in a moment.’

‘You’re expecting her?’ asked the mechanic.

‘I’m staying in the house,’ I replied stiffly. The man was silent for several moments. I noticed the refinement in his face, the good cut of his clothes. I pondered upon the physical disability that made it impossible for him to join the army.

‘She makes you comfortable here?’ he asked; and a physical disturbance, sneezing or coughing, I supposed, seized him, for he took out his handkerchief and turned from me with all the instinct of good breeding. But I felt that the question was one his station scarcely entitled him to make, and ignored it. He recovered himself.

‘I’m afraid I can’t wait,’ he said. ‘I must be going home. The wind is dropping. By the way,’ he added, ‘we have a connection in London. I think I may say it’s a good firm. If ever you want an electric plant installed!—I left a card somewhere.’ He searched for it vainly. ‘Never mind,’ he said, with his hand on the door, ‘Mrs. Santander will give you all particulars.’ Indulgently I waved my hand, and he was gone.

A moment later it seemed to me that he wouldn’t be able to cross to the mainland without notifying the ferryman. I rang the bell. The butler appeared. ‘Mrs. Santander is very late, sir,’ he said.

‘Yes,’ I replied, momentarily dismissing the question. ‘But there’s a man, a mechanic or something—you probably know.’ The butler looked blank. ‘Anyhow,’ I said, ‘a man has been here attending to the lighting; he wants to go home; would you telephone the boatman to come and fetch him away?’

When the butler had gone to execute my order, my former discomfort and unease returned. The adventure with the engineer had diverted my thoughts from Mrs. Santander. Why didn’t she come? Perhaps she had fallen asleep, dressing. It happened to women when they were having their hair brushed. Gertrude was imperious and difficult; her maid might be afraid to wake her. Then I remembered her saying in her letter, ‘I shall be an awful fright because I’ve had to give my maid the sack.’ It was funny how the colloquialisms jarred when you saw them in black and white; it was different when she was speaking. Ah, just to hear her voice! Of course, the loss of her maid would hinder her, and account for some delay. Lucky maid, I mused confusedly, to have her hair in your hands! Her image was all before me as I walked aimlessly about the room. Half tranced with the delight of that evocation, I stopped in front of a great bowl, ornamented with dragons, that stood on the piano. Half an hour ago I had studied its interior that depicted terracotta fish with magenta fins swimming among conventional weeds. My glance idly sought the pattern again. It was partially covered by a little slip of paper. Ah! the engineer’s card! His London connection! Amusedly I turned it over to read the fellow’s name.

I started violently, the more that at the same moment there came a knock at the door. It was only the butler; but I was so bewildered I scarcely recognized him. Too well-trained, perhaps, to appear to notice my distress, he delivered himself almost in a speech. ‘We can’t find any trace of the person you spoke of, sir. The ferryman’s come across and he says there’s no one at the landing-stage.’