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

Though they found the whisky and soda in the drawing-room, Rollo still seemed a little crestfallen and depressed; but Jimmy’s spirits, which sometimes suffered from the excessive buoyancy of his neighbour’s, began to rise. The chair was comfortable; the room, though glimpses of stone showed alongside the tapestries, was more habitable and less ecclesiastical than the hall. In front of him was an uncurtained window through which he could see, swaying their heads as though bent on some ghostly conference, a cluster of white roses. I’m going to enjoy myself here, he thought.

Whatever the charms of the Onyx Room, whatever virtue resided in the proximity of Mr. Randolph Verdew, one thing was certain: the Pink Room had a splendid view. Leaning out of his window the next morning Jimmy feasted his eyes on it. Directly below him was the moat, clear and apparently deep. Below that again was the steep conical hill on which the castle stood, its side intersected by corkscrew paths and level terraces. Below and beyond, undulating ground led the eye onwards and upwards to where, almost on the horizon, glittered and shone the silver of the estuary. Of the castle were visible only the round wall of Jimmy’s tower, and a wing of the Tudor period, the gables of which rose to the level of his bedroom window. It was half-past eight and he dressed quickly, meaning to make a little tour of the castle precincts before his hosts appeared.

His intention, however, was only partially fulfilled, for on arriving in the hall he found the great door still shut, and fastened with a variety of locks and bolts, of antique design and as hard to open, it seemed, from within as from without. He had better fortune with a smaller door, and found himself on a level oblong stretch of grass, an island of green, bounded by the moat on the east and on the other side by the castle walls. There was a fountain in the middle. The sun shone down through the open end of the quadrangle, making the whole place a cave of light, flushing the warm stone of the Elizabethan wing to orange, and gilding the cold, pale, mediaeval stonework of the rest. Jimmy walked to the moat and tried to find, to right or left, a path leading to other parts of the building. But there was none. He turned round and saw Rollo standing in the doorway.

‘Good-morning,’ called his host. ‘Already thinking out a plan of escape?’

Jimmy coloured slightly. The thought had been present in his mind, though not in the sense that Rollo seemed to mean it.

‘You wouldn’t find it very easy from here,’ remarked Rollo, whose cheerful humour the night seemed to have restored. ‘Because even if you swam the moat you couldn’t get up the bank: it’s too steep and too high.’ Jimmy examined the farther strand and realized that this was true.

‘It would be prettier,’ Rollo continued, ‘and less canal-like, if the water came up to the top; but Randolph prefers it as it used to be. He likes to imagine we’re living in a state of siege.’

‘He doesn’t seem to keep any weapons for our defence,’ commented Jimmy. ‘No arquebuses or bows and arrows; no vats of molten lead.’

‘Oh, he wouldn’t hurt anyone for the world,’ said Rollo. ‘That’s one of his little fads. But it amuses him to look across to the river like one of the first Verdews and feel that no one can get in without his leave.’

‘Or out either, I suppose,’ suggested Jimmy.

‘Well,’ remarked Rollo, ‘some day I’ll show you a way of getting out. But now come along and look at the view from the other side; we have to go through the house to see it.’

They walked across the hall, where the servants were laying the breakfast-table, to a door at the end of a long narrow passage. But it was locked. ‘Hodgson!’ shouted Rollo.

A footman came up.

‘Will you open this door, please?’ said Rollo. Jimmy expected him to be angry, but there was only a muffled irritation in his voice. At his leisure the footman produced the key and let them through.

‘That’s what comes of living in someone else’s house,’ fumed Rollo, once they were out of earshot. ‘These lazy devils want waking up. Randolph’s a damned sight too easy-going.’

‘Shall I see him at breakfast?’ Jimmy inquired.

‘I doubt it.’ Rollo picked up a stone, looked round, for some reason, at the castle, and threw the pebble at a thrush, narrowly missing it. ‘He doesn’t usually appear till lunchtime. He’s interested in all sorts of philanthropical societies. He’s always helping them to prevent something. He hasn’t prevented you, though, you naughty fellow,’ he went on, stooping down and picking up from a stone several fragments of snails’ shells. ‘This seems to be the thrushes’ Tower Hill.’

‘He’s fond of animals, then?’ asked Jimmy.

‘Fond, my boy?’ repeated Rollo. ‘Fond is not the word. But we aren’t vegetarians. Some day I’ll explain all that. Come and have some bacon and eggs.’

That evening, in his bath, a large wooden structure like a giant’s coffin, Jimmy reviewed the day, a delightful day. In the morning he had been taken round the castle; it was not so large as it seemed from outside—it had to be smaller, the walls were so thick. And there were, of course, a great many rooms he wasn’t shown, attics, cellars, and dungeons. One dungeon he had seen: but he felt sure that in a fortress of such pretensions there must be more than one. He couldn’t quite get the “lie” of the place at present; he had his own way of finding his room, but he knew it wasn’t the shortest way. The hall, which was like a Clapham Junction to the castle’s topographical system, still confused him. He knew the way out, because there was only one way, across a modernized drawbridge, and that made it simpler. He had crossed it to get at the woods below the castle, where he had spent the afternoon, hunting for caterpillars. ‘They’ had really left him alone—even severely alone! Neither of Rollo’s wife nor of his brother was there yet any sigh. But I shall see them at dinner, he thought, wrapping himself in an immense bath-towel.

The moment he saw Randolph Verdew, standing pensive in the drawing-room, he knew he would like him. He was an etherealized version of Rollo, taller and slighter. His hair was sprinkled with grey and he stooped a little. His cloudy blue eyes met Jimmy’s with extraordinary frankness as he held out his hand and apologized for his previous non-appearance.

‘It is delightful to have you here,’ he added. ‘You are a naturalist, I believe?’

His manner was formal but charming, infinitely reassuring.

‘I am an entomologist,’ said Jimmy, smiling.

‘Ah, I love to watch the butterflies fluttering about the flowers—and the moths, too, those big heavy fellows that come in of an evening and knock themselves about against the lights. I have often had to put as many as ten out of the windows, and back they come—the deluded creatures. “What a pity that their larvae are harmful and in some cases have to be destroyed! But I expect you prefer to observe the rarer insects?’

‘If I can find them,’ said Jimmy.

I’m sure I hope you will,’ said Randolph, with much feeling. ‘You must get Rollo to help you.’

‘Oh,’ said Jimmy, ‘Rollo——’

‘I hope you don’t think Rollo indifferent to nature?’ asked his brother, with distress in his voice and an engaging simplicity of manner. ‘He has had rather a difficult life, as I expect you know. His affairs have kept him a great deal in towns, and he has had little leisure—very little leisure.’

‘He must find it restful here,’ remarked Jimmy, again with the sense of being more tactful than truthful.

‘I’m sure I hope he does. Rollo is a dear fellow; I wish he came here oftener. Unfortunately his wife does not care for the country, and Rollo himself is very much tied by his new employment—the motor business.’