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

‘Tell me,’ he said, ‘how does Mr. Verdew satisfy his conscience when he eats animals and chickens, and when he has slugs and snails killed in the garden?’

‘Ah, there you’ve hit it,’ said the old man, not at all nonplussed. ‘But they say Mr. Rollo Verdew has helped him to make a mighty great list of what may be killed and what mayn’t, according as it’s useful-like to human beings. And anybody kills anything, they persuade him it’s harmful and down it goes on the black list. And if he don’t see the thing done with his own eyes, or the chap isn’t hauled up before the Bench, he doesn’t take on about it. And in a week or less it’s all gone from his mind. Jack and Tom were both killed within a few days of what they’d done becoming known; so was the collie dog what was found here a fortnight back.’

‘Here?’ asked Jimmy.

‘Close by where you’re standing. Poor beast, it won’t chase those b——y cats no more. It was a mess. But, as I said, if what you’ve done’s a week old, you’re safe, in a manner of speaking.’

‘But why, if he’s really dangerous,’ said Jimmy, impressed in spite of himself by the old man’s tacit assumption of Randolph’s guilt, ‘doesn’t Mr. Rollo Verdew get him shut up?’ This simple question evoked the longest and most pregnant of his interlocutor’s pauses. Surely, thought Jimmy, it will produce a monstrous birth, something to make suspicion itself turn pale.

‘Now don’t you tell nothing of what I’m saying to you,’ said the old man at length. ‘But it’s my belief that Mr. Rollo don’t want his brother shut up; no, nor thought to be mad. And why? Because if people know he’s mad, and he goes and does another murder, they’ll just pop him in the lunatic asylum and all his money will go to government and charity. But if he does a murder like you or me might, and the circumstances are circumstantial, he’ll be hanged for it, and all the money and the castle and the coal-mine will go into the pockets of Mr. Rollo.’

‘I see,’ said Jimmy. ‘It sounds very simple.’

‘I’m not swearing there’s anything of the sort in Mr. Rollo’s mind,’ said the old man. ‘But that’s the way I should look at it if I was him. Now I must be getting along. Good-night, sir.’

‘Good-night.’

Of course it wasn’t really night, only tea-time, five o’clock; but he and his acquaintance would meet no more that day, so perhaps the man was right to say good-night. Jimmy’s thoughts, as he worked his way up the castle mound, were unclear and rather painful. He didn’t believe a tithe of what the old man said. It was not even a distortion of the truth; it was ignorant and vulgar slander, and had no relation to the truth except by a kind of contiguity. But it infected his mood and gave a disagreeable direction to his thoughts. He was lonely; Randolph had not appeared at lunch, and he missed Rollo, and even more he missed (though this surprised him) Rollo’s wife. He hadn’t seen much of them, but suddenly he felt the need of their company. But goodness knows where they are, thought Jimmy; I can’t even telephone to them. In the midst of these uneasy reflections he reached his bedroom door. Walking in, he could not for a moment understand why the place looked so strange. Then he realized; it was empty. All his things had been cleared out of it.

‘Evidently,’ thought Jimmy, ‘they’ve mistaken the day I was going away, and packed me!’ An extraordinary sensation of relief surged up into his heart. Since his luggage was nowhere to be seen, it must have been stacked in the hall, ready for his departure by the evening train. Picturing himself at the booking-office of Verdew Grove station buying a ticket for London, Jimmy started for the hall.

William cut short his search.

‘Were you looking for your things, sir?’ he asked, with a slight smile. ‘Because they’re in the Onyx Room. We’ve moved you, sir.’

‘Oh,’ said Jimmy, following in the footman’s wake. ‘Why?’

‘It was Mr. Verdew’s orders, sir. I told him the light was faulty in your bedroom, so he said to move you into the Onyx Room.

‘The room next his?’

‘That’s right, sir.’

‘Couldn’t the fuse be mended?’

‘I don’t think it was the fuse, sir.’

‘Oh, I thought you said it was.’

So this was the Onyx Room—the room, Jimmy suddenly remembered, that Rollo had meant him to have in the beginning. Certainly its colours were dark and lustrous and laid on in layers, but Jimmy didn’t care for them. Even the ceiling was parti-coloured. Someone must have been given a free hand here; perhaps Vera had done the decoration. The most beautiful thing in the room was the Chinese screen masking the door that communicated, he supposed, with Randolph’s bedroom. What a clatter it would make if it fell, thought Jimmy, studying the heavy, dark, dully-shining panels of the screen. The door opening would knock it over. He heard the footman’s voice.

‘Is it for one night or more, sir? I’ve packed up some of your things.’

‘I’m not sure yet,’ said Jimmy. ‘William, will this screen move?’

The footman took hold of the screen with both hands and telescoped it against his chest. There was revealed an ordinary-looking door covered with green baize. Jimmy could see the point of a key-head, so the door was probably not very thick.

‘This used to be the dressing-room,’ William volunteered, as though making a contribution to Jimmy’s unspoken thoughts.

‘Thank you,’ said Jimmy, ‘and would you mind putting the screen back?... And, William!’

The footman stopped.

‘There’s still time to send a telegram?’

‘Oh yes, sir. There’s a form here.’

All through his solitary tea Jimmy debated with himself as to whether he should send the telegram—a telegram of recall, of course, it would be. The message presented no difficulty. ‘Wire if Croxford case opens Tuesday.’ He knew that it did, but his attendance was not at all necessary. He was undoubtedly suffering from a slight attack of nerves; and nowadays one didn’t defy nerves, one yielded to them gracefully. ‘I know that if I stay I shall have a bad night,’ he thought; ‘I might as well spend it in the train.’ But of course he hadn’t meant to go at all; he had even promised Rollo to stay. He had wanted to stay. To leave abruptly to-night would be doubly rude: rude to Randolph, rude to Rollo. Only Vera would be pleased. Vera, whose clumsy attempt to lure him to London he had so easily seen through. Vera, whose ‘I shall be furious if you don’t come’ rankled whenever he thought of it. Every moment added its quota to the incubus of indecision that paralysed his mind. Manners, duty, wishes, fears, all were contradictory, all pulled in different directions. A gust of apprehension sent him hot-foot to the writing-table. The telegram was ready written when, equally strong, an access of self-respect came and made him tear it up. At last he had an idea. At six o’clock he would send the telegram; the office might still be open. There might still be time to get a reply. If, in spite of his twofold obstacle he had an answer, he would take it as the voice of fate, and leave that night. . . .

At half-past seven William came in to draw the curtains; he also brought a message. Mr. Verdew begged Mr. Rintoul to excuse him, but he felt a little unwell, and was dining in his own room. He hoped to see Mr. Rintoul to-morrow to say good-bye. ‘You are going, then, sir?’ added the footman.

Jimmy blindfolded his will, and took an answer at random from among the tablets of his mind.

‘Yes. And—William!’ he called out.

‘Sir?’

‘I suppose it’s too late now for me to get an answer to my telegram?’

‘I’m afraid so, sir.’