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

It must have been someone knocking. My small sister slept in the next room. I remembered her parting words, uttered in a voice that was half appeal, half command: ‘Now, if I dream I’m being murdered I shall knock on the wall, and I shall expect you to come.’ Of course, I reflected with uneasy amusement, my sister always had a lot to say at bedtime. It was a recognized device; it gained time; it gave an effect of stately deliberation to her departure. It was, in fact, the exercise of a natural right. One could not be packed off to bed in the middle of a sentence. One would linger over embraces, one would adopt attitudes and poses too rich and noble for irreverent interruption. One would drift into conversations and display a sudden interest. . . .

Tap—tap—tap—tap.

As I thought. Now what had put this silly idea into my sister’s head? It was absurd that a child should dream of being murdered. It would not occur to her that there were such dreams. But perhaps someone had suggested it—a servant whose mind was brimful of horrors. I myself had mentioned a dream of my own. Well, it was nothing. Still it had something about a murder in it. Otherwise I suppose I shouldn’t have thought it worth telling. Dreams seem so stupid to other people, so flat, so precisely the commonplace thing that wouldn’t invade a first-rate imagination. Surely it is a privilege to be let into the secret of another person’s dreams? And yet one recalls the despair, hurriedly transformed into a look of conventional interest, that greets confessions of this kind. But an elder brother’s dreams are not to be dismissed lightly. Perhaps I had embroidered mine a little.

Tap—tap—tap.

If I went in, what, after all, could I do? Fears are intangible things, but they distort the features. It must be curious to see people looking very much frightened. Would their eyes bulge, their fingers twitch, their mouths be twisted into some unmeaning expression? As a general proposition it would be quite amusing. But to see one’s sister in that deplorable condition! She would probably be in bed, clutching the sheet, peering over the edge like one of Bluebeard’s wives; or perhaps chewing it, the first symptom of feeble-mindedness! Very likely, though, she would be huddled up under the bedclothes, a formless lump that I should be tempted to smack! But there are people who shrink from covering their heads, lest someone should come and hold down the bedclothes and stifle them. It is not very pleasant to think of such a person bending over you. . . . Perhaps the child wouldn’t be in bed; she would have to get out to knock. At first I might not see her at all; she might be crouching behind some piece of furniture, or even hidden in the wardrobe with her head among the hooks. I should have to strike a match. How often they go out; you throw them on the carpet, and the smouldering head burns a little hole. How funny: if she were lying at my feet, I might drop several matches on her and never notice till she screamed.

Tap—tap.

It was much feebler that time. Better after all not to go in. It would create a sort of precedent, and one could not set up as a professional smoother of pillows. Besides, children grow out of this sort of thing much more quickly if left to themselves. Of course, I should not tell my sister I had heard her knocking; she might mistake my reason for not going to the rescue, and think I had somehow left her in the lurch. That would be absurd, for in spite of the cold I would get out this minute, slip on my dressing-gown, and say, ‘There, there, everything’s all right, it’s only a dream!’ Perhaps when my sister grew up I would tell her that I stayed away intentionally, feeling it was better for her to fight her battles alone; we had all gone through it. Everyone keeps a few such explanations up his sleeve; age mellows them, and there is a kind of pleasure in telling a story against oneself. For the present it was to remain my little secret. For my sister knew, or would know now at any rate, that I was a heavy sleeper; and if she referred to the matter at breakfast I would use a little pious dissimulation—children are so easily put off. Probably she would be ashamed to mention it. After all it wasn’t my fault; I couldn’t direct people’s dreams; at her age, too, I slept like a top. Dreaming about murders . . . not very nice in a child. I would have to talk to her alone about it some time.

Minutes passed, and the knocking was not renewed. I turned over. The bed was comfortable enough, but I felt I should sleep sounder if my sister changed her room. This, after all, could easily be arranged.

‘Is Sir Sigismund Keen at home?’

I will just go and see, sir,’ replied the man, opening a door on the left-hand side of the hall. ‘What name shall I say?’

‘Amber—Mr. Amber.’

Mr. Amber strayed into the waiting-room and sat down in the middle of an almost interminable sofa. On either hand it stretched away, a sombre crimson expanse figured with rather large fleurs-de-lys and flanked by two tight bolsters that matched the sofa, and each other. The room had heavy Oriental hangings, indian-red, and gilt French chairs, upholstered in pink. ‘A mixture of incompatibles,’ thought Mr. Amber, ‘is contrary to the traditional usages of pharmacy, but in practice it may sometimes be not inadmissible.’ His mind was sensitive to its environment. Framed in the table-top and table-legs was an anthracite stove, black and uninviting, this July Afternoon, as the gate of hell with the fire put out. Still the man did not come. Mr. Amber murmured against the formality of distinguished physicians. The appointment was a week old, it was Sir Sigismund’s business to be at home; he had crossed the hall before Mr. Amber’s eyes, and yet the servant must ‘go and see’! Like a jealous landlord, fearful lest people should establish a common of pasture on his experience, the doctor kept up this figment of a kind of contingent existence. Mr. Amber was considering this problem when the footman appeared.

‘Sir Sigismund is sorry, sir, but no appointment appears to have been made in your name. Sir Sigismund is to see a Mr. Coral at five o’clock.’

Mr. Amber changed colour.

‘I made the appointment over the telephone, didn’t I?’

‘I don’t know how it was made,’ said the footman, who had moved to the front door and was holding it tightly as though it might escape.

Mr. Amber took a pace forward towards the street; then checked himself and said with a great effort: ‘I think, I am sure, that I must be Mr. Coral.’

The footman stared. ‘But you gave the name of Amber just now, sir.’

Suddenly the situation seemed easier to Mr. Amber. ‘But they’re both so much alike!’ He was too much engrossed in his solution to see the slight change that came over the footman’s manner.

‘Oh yes, sir. Though coral is pink.’

‘That’s true,’ replied Mr. Amber, restored to a quiet dignity. ‘But if you think, they are both connected with the sea, they are both a substitute for jewels worn by people who would prefer to wear pearls—and, and the telephone is so confusing,’ concluded Mr. Amber. ‘I’m sure you find that if you have occasion to use it yourself

Satisfied to all appearances by this explanation, the footman disappeared, and Mr. Amber was presently ushered into Sir Sigismund’s consulting-room.

‘Take a chair, Mr.—er—Amber, is it?’ said the doctor. ‘It’s not often I have the pleasure of meeting gentlemen with alternative names. But my friend the Superintendent of Police tells me they’re not uncommon in the neighbourhood of Scotland Yard.’

Though Sir Sigismund’s manner was reassuring, Mr. Amber declined the proffered chair and seated himself, as near the door as possible, on a towering sculptured edifice, the last in an ornamental series.