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

‘Hasn’t he been with Scorcher and Speedwell long?’

‘Oh no: poor Rollo, he is always trying his hand at something new. He ought to have been born a rich man instead of me.’ Randolph spread his hands out with a gesture of helplessness. ‘He could have done so much, whereas I—ah, here he comes. We were talking about you, Rollo.’

‘No scandal, I hope; no hitting a man when he’s down?’

‘Indeed no. We were saying we hoped you would soon come into a fortune.’

‘Where do you think it’s coming from?’ demanded Rollo, screwing up his eyes as though the smoke from his cigarette had made them smart.

‘Perhaps Vera could tell us,’ rejoined Randolph mildly, making his way to the table, though his brother’s cigarette was still unfinished. ‘How is she, Rollo? I hoped she would feel sufficiently restored to make a fourth with us this evening.’

‘Still moping,’ said her husband. ‘Don’t waste your pity on her. She’ll be all right to-morrow.’

They sat down to dinner.

The next day, or it might have been the day after, Jimmy was coming home to tea from the woods below the castle. On either side of the path was a hayfield. They were mowing the hay. The mower was a new one, painted bright blue; the horse tossed its head up and down; the placid afternoon air was alive with country sounds, whirring, shouts, and clumping footfalls. The scene was full of an energy and gentleness that refreshed the heart. Jimmy reached the white iron fence that divided the plain from the castle mound, and, with a sigh, set his feet upon the zigzag path. For though the hill was only a couple of hundred feet high at most, the climb called for an effort he was never quite prepared to make. He was tramping with lowered head, conscious of each step, when a voice hailed him.

‘Mr. Rintoul!’

It was a foreign voice, the i’s pronounced like e’s. He looked up and saw a woman, rather short and dark, watching him from the path above.

‘You see I have come down to meet you,’ she said, advancing with short, brisk, but careful and unpractised steps. And she added, as he still continued to stare at her: ‘Don’t you know? I am Mrs. Verdew.’

By this time she was at his side.

‘How could I know?’ he asked, laughing and shaking the hand she was already holding out to him. All her gestures seemed to be quick and unpremeditated.

‘Let us sit here,’ she said, and almost before she had spoken she was sitting, and had made him sit, on the wooden bench beside them. ‘I am tired from walking downhill; you will be tired by walking uphill; therefore we both need a rest.’

She decided it all so quickly that Jimmy, whose nature had a streak of obstinacy, wondered if he was really so tired after all.

‘And who should I have been, who could I have been, but Mrs. Verdew?’ she demanded challengingly.

Jimmy saw that an answer was expected, but couldn’t think of anyone who Mrs. Verdew might have been.

‘I don’t know,’ he said feebly.

‘Of course you don’t, silly,’ said Mrs. Verdew. ‘How long have you been here?’

‘I can’t remember. Two or three days, I think,’ said Jimmy, who disliked being nailed down to a definite fact.

‘Two or three days? Listen to the man, how vague he is!’ commented Mrs. Verdew, with a gesture of impatience apostrophizing the horizon. ‘Well, whether it’s three days or only two, you must have learnt one thing—that no one enters these premises without leave.’

‘Premises?’ murmured Jimmy.

‘Hillside, garden, grounds, premises,’ repeated Mrs. Verdew. ‘How slow you are! But so are all Englishmen.’

‘I don’t think Rollo is slow,’ remarked Jimmy, hoping to carry the war into her country.

‘Sometimes too slow, sometimes too fast, never the right pace,’ pronounced his wife. ‘Rollo misdirects his life.’

‘He married you,’ said Jimmy gently.

Mrs. Verdew gave him a quick look. ‘That was partly because I wanted him to. But only just now, for instance, he has been foolish.’

‘Do you mean he was foolish to come here?’

‘I didn’t mean that. Though I hate the place, and he does no good here.’

‘What good could he do?’ asked Jimmy, who was staring vacantly at the sky. ‘Except, perhaps, help his brother to look after—to look after——’

‘That’s just it,’ said Mrs. Verdew. ‘Randolph doesn’t need any help, and if he did he wouldn’t let Rollo help him. He wouldn’t even have him made a director of the coal-mine!’

‘What coal-mine?’ Jimmy asked.

‘Randolph’s. You don’t mean to say you didn’t know he had a coal-mine? One has to tell you everything!’

‘I like you to tell me things!’ protested Jimmy.

‘As you don’t seem to find out anything for yourself, I suppose I must. Well, then: Randolph has a coal-mine, he is very rich, and he spends his money on nothing but charitable societies for contradicting the laws of nature. And he won’t give Rollo a penny—not a penny though he is his only brother, his one near relation in the world! He won’t even help him to get a job!’

‘I thought he had a job,’ said Jimmy, in perplexity.

‘You thought that! You’d think anything’ exclaimed Mrs. Verdew, her voice rising in exasperation.

‘No, but he told me he came here for a holiday,’ said Jimmy pacifically.

‘Holiday, indeed! A long holiday. I can’t think why Rollo told you that. Nor can I think why I bore you with all our private troubles. A man can talk to a woman about anything; but a woman can only talk to a man about what interests him.’

‘But who is to decide that?’

‘The woman, of course; and I see you’re getting restless.’

‘No, no. I was so interested. Please go on.’

‘Certainly not. I am a Russian, and I often know when a man is bored sooner than he knows himself. Come along,’ pulling him from the bench much as a gardener uproots a weed; ‘and I will tell you something very interesting. Ah, how fast you walk! Don’t you know it’s less fatiguing to walk uphill slowly—and you with all those fishing-nets and pill-boxes. And what on earth is that great bottle for?’

‘I try to catch butterflies in these,’Jimmy explained. ‘And this is my killing bottle.’

‘What a horrible name. What is it for?’

‘I’m afraid I kill the butterflies with it.’

‘Ah, what a barbarian! Give it to me a moment. Yes, there are their corpses, poor darlings. Is that Randolph coming towards us? No, don’t take it away. I can carry it quite easily under my shawl. What was I going to tell you when you interrupted me? I remember—it was about the terrace. When I first came here I used to feel frightfully depressed—it was winter and the sun set so early, sometimes before lunch! In the afternoons I used to go down the mound, where I met you, and wait for the sun to dip below that bare hill on the left. And I would begin to walk quite slowly towards the castle, and all the while the sun was balanced on the hilltop like a ball! And the shadow covered the valley and kept lapping my feet, like the oncoming tide! And I would wait till it reached my ankles, and then run up into the light, and be safe for a moment. It was such fun, but I don’t expect you’d enjoy it, you’re too sophisticated. Ah, here’s Randolph. Randolph, I’ve been showing Mr. Rintoul the way home; he didn’t know it—he doesn’t know anything! Do you know what he does with this amusing net? He uses it to catch tiny little moths, like the ones that get into your furs. He puts it over them and looks at them, and they’re so frightened, they think they can’t get out; then they notice the little holes, and out they creep and fly away! Isn’t it charming?’

‘Charming,’ said Randolph, glancing away from the net and towards the ground.