Джеймс Хилтон - So Well Remembered

Suddenly Livia felt herself melting into a warmth that seemed to run liquid in her limbs; she could not check it, and in excitement let go a book she was carrying; everyone near her turned to stare, and she knew that her face was already brick-red.

“Come now, girls… I will wait for sixty seconds and no longer…” Miss Williams then pulled an old-fashioned gold watch on a long chain from some pocket of her mannish attire and held it conspicuously in the palm of her hand. “TEN seconds already… TWENTY… THIRTY…” And then, in a quite different voice: “Dear me… will somebody go after Olivia?”

Somebody did, and presently Livia was sitting, limp and still, on the couch in Miss Williams’ study, while Miss Williams, stiff and fidgety, drummed her bony fingers on the desk-top.

“But, Olivia… why do you keep on saying you didn’t do it?”

“I didn’t, Miss Williams. You can punish me if you like—I’m not afraid. But I really didn’t do it.”

“But nobody’s even accusing you—nobody ever HAS accused you!”

“They thought it was me—they all saw how I looked—and then when I dropped the book—”

“My dear child, if they did think you behaved suspiciously, whom have you to blame but yourself? What made you run out of the hall like that? Surely, if you knew you weren’t guilty—”

“I knew, Miss Williams, but I couldn’t help it. I wasn’t guilty, and yet —and yet—”

“Yes, Olivia?”

“I FELT guilty.”

Miss Williams’s eyes and voice, till then sympathetic, now chilled over. “I cannot understand how you could FEEL guilty unless you WERE guilty,” she said after a pause.

“But I did, Miss Williams. I feel guilty—often—like that. Punish me if you like, though. I don’t care.”

After another pause Miss Williams replied: “Suppose we say no more about it for the time being.”

And there the matter had to remain, for the plain fact was that Miss Williams did not know whether Livia was guilty or not. She rather liked the girl, who had never been in any serious trouble before; yet there was something odd about her, something unpredictable; yet also something stoic —which was another thing Miss Williams rather liked. She could not avoid thinking of the secret that Livia did not know, and perhaps ought to know, at her age… or DID she know already… partly… in the half- guessing way that was the worst way to get to know anything? That feeling of guilt, for instance (assuming there had been no grounds for it at Cheldean) —could it be that Livia suspected something in her own family to which guilt attached, and (by a curious psychological twist) was becoming herself infected by it? Miss Williams had not received a very good impression of Mrs. Channing from the correspondence they had had; she seemed a weak, dilatory person, incapable of facing her own or her daughter’s problems with any kind of fortitude. Whereas fortitude, and problems, were Miss Williams’s specialties—whether, for instance, a head-mistress should tell one of her girls something she had promised not to tell, if she believed it was in the girl’s best interest? For several weeks Miss Williams debated this problem with herself, while she continued to find things likable in Livia; she even admired the girl for the way she faced up to the deepening mistrust with which the school as a whole regarded her; she admired the girl’s proud yet stricken eyes as she continued to take part in games and lessons; but she had had enough experience as a schoolmistress to know that nothing but absolute proof of someone else’s guilt could ever put things right, and if this did not soon appear, then there would arise a final problem— could Livia remain at Cheldean without harm to herself and to the morale of the school?

One day towards the end of term Miss Williams reached a decision. She called the girl into her room and very simply told her the plain truth about her father. There was no scene, but after a long pause Livia said: “Can I go home now, Miss Williams?”

“HOME? You mean—to your mother?”

“Yes.”

“Why do you want to go home?”

“I—I MUST go. Everything’s different. I said it would be. Nothing can ever be the same again.”

Miss Williams did not ask when Livia had made this cryptic prophecy; she merely remarked: “I hope you’re not angry with your mother—she did what she thought was for the best.”

“I’m not angry with anybody. Not even with Mr. Standon any more.”

“And who’s Mr. Standon?”

“The man my mother goes with.”

“Oh, come now…” And Miss Williams, colouring a little, felt the ice getting thin even under her own experienced feet. (But not, perhaps, so experienced in certain directions.) She added hastily: “Livia… I think we had better not discuss this any further for the present. And I’m not sure whether you ought to go home now or wait till the end of term. I’ll think it over and let you know in a few days.”

Miss Williams planned to write Mrs. Channing a long letter of explanation which would arrive ahead of Livia; but this intention was frustrated by a much simpler act by the girl herself. She ran away from the school that same evening, taking nobody into her confidence, but leaving for Miss Williams a note in which there was, perhaps, just a whiff of histrionics:

“DEAR MISS WILLIAMS—I am going home, and since you think I am a thief, I have stolen money for the fare from Joan Martin’s locker. I took a pound. Please give it back to her out of my bank-money. —OLIVIA.”

The note was not discovered till the next morning, by which time Livia would have reached home. All Miss Williams could do, and with great luck, was to replace the pound before the loss of that was discovered also. She knew Joan was Livia’s best friend and would willingly have lent the money had she been asked… A strange girl, Livia—perhaps not a bad girl; but still, it was just as well not to have her back at Cheldean.

Livia reached Browdley before six o’clock on a windy March morning. Throughout the night-long train journey she had thought out the things she would immediately ask her mother; she wanted to know ALL the secrets, all the details that Miss Williams had not told because she probably had not known them herself. The list of these was mountainous by the time the cab came within sight of Stoneclough, grey and ghostly in the first light of dawn. In the yard beside the stables she was startled to see a new motorcar, with her mother in the driver’s seat and Mr. Standon hastily stowing bags into the back.

“Livia! LIVIA! What on earth are you doing here?”

As her mother spoke Livia noted the exchange of glances between her and Mr. Standon. The latter dropped the bags and came over with a smile of rather weary astonishment. He was a very elegant young man, but he did not look his best at six in the morning; and he had, indeed, received so many astonishments during the past twelve hours that he felt incapable of responding to any more. “Hello, Livia,” he remarked; it was all he could think of to say.

Livia ignored him. “Mother—I’ve left Cheldean—I’ve run away—I’m never going back there—and I want to talk to you —I’ve got things to ask you—”

“But Livia… not now… oh, not now…” And a look of panic came over Emily’s face as she turned again to Mr. Standon. “Lawrence, DO make haste… we can’t stop because of—because of ANYTHING…” Then: “We’ve— that is, dear—your mother’s in a hurry—”

Livia knew from experience that Emily always called herself ‘your mother’ to put distance between herself and the facing of any issue; it was like a shield behind which she could retire from a battlefield before the battle had begun.