Джеймс Хилтон - So Well Remembered

“Mother, you CAN’T go away yet. I’ve got most important things to talk to you about… ALONE.”

“No, no, dear… Lawrence, put those bags in and let’s be off… If you’ve got into any trouble at Cheldean, don’t worry… Mother will write to Miss Williams and have it all put right.”

“It isn’t that, mother… Mother, PLEASE—please will you come into the house and let me talk to you for a while.”

“Darling, I can’t—I just CAN’T—”

But this was too much even for Mr. Standon. “Perhaps you’d better, Emily,” he advised. “You can’t let her go in without—without—” And the look between them was exchanged again.

Emily slowly climbed out of the car, her face pale and distraught. She walked with Livia a few paces towards the side door leading through the kitchen into the house. They did not speak, but from the doorstep Emily gave one despairing look over her shoulder towards Mr. Standon, as if scared of going out of his sight. Then suddenly and hysterically she cried out: “Lawrence, I can’t tell her—I can’t, I CAN’T… YOU’LL have to.” Whereupon she ran back to the car and with almost absurd alacrity jumped in and drove off, leaving him to shout after her in vain and to turn to Livia with the faintest possible shrug.

“Your mother’s upset,” he remarked mildly; and then, detaining her as she stepped towards the house: “I wouldn’t go in yet if I were you. Let’s have a little chat first.”

Livia shook her head. “It’s cold here. And it’s my mother I wanted to talk to, not you.”

“I know… but there’s something I can tell you, perhaps.”

“You don’t have to. I know. And I don’t think it’s any of my business.”

Mr. Standon looked nonplussed for a moment, then shifted uncomfortably. “That isn’t what I… er… well, what I DO mean IS your business. It’s about your father.”

He draped his hand over her shoulder at that word, as if to lessen the shock, but the fact that there was none made him so uncomfortable that he took away his hand before Livia could reply: “I know about that too. Miss Williams told me. He’s not dead as my mother always said. He’s in a prison.”

Mr. Standon gulped hard. “No… Not any more.”

This time there WAS a shock, perceptible but well-controlled; the girl looked up at him enquiringly. “You mean he IS dead now? He’s died?”

“No, Livia. He’s—he’s been released. And—he’s here— now—in the house. He got here a few days ago.”

“But… but… my mother… why…?”

“I can’t explain all that.”

She stared at him, incredulously, and while she did, the sound of a motor-horn echoed from the road down below.

He said hastily: “I’m sorry, Livia, but you see… well, that’s how it is.”

The horn sounded again, peremptorily. Mr. Standon fidgeted as he went on: “Perhaps you’d like to come along…”

“Come along? Where? With you?”

“Not with me, exactly—with your mother. I’m sure that would be all right—”

“But with YOU?”

“Well… only in case… in case you wanted to be with HER.”

“But where’s she going? When is she coming back? Why must she go away at all?”

“Livia, it’s no use asking me these questions. If you want to walk down the road and talk to her about it, come with me now.”

“With YOU?”

And the horn sounded a third time, causing Standon to exclaim, under his breath: “Damnation, she shouldn’t have run off like this…”

Livia added quietly: “I don’t want to go anywhere with you.”

“Well, then… I’m afraid that settles it.” He walked a few steps away, then turned again for a last appeal. “But what are you going to DO?”

“Stay here.”

“But—but your FATHER’S here.”

“That’s all right.”

“You mean you don’t mind?”

“I mind my mother going away, but if she goes away I don’t mind anything else.”

“Livia… I wish there were something I could…”

She was moving towards the door. He continued, for he was not an entirely insensitive young man: “Livia, you WANT to see him? You’re SURE of that?”

“Where is he? Is he in bed?”

“No… he’s been up all night. That’s why, if you’d like to think things over first…”

“What is there to think over? Anything ELSE?”

The question was so direct, yet so free from irony, that he could only reply: “Maybe I’d better come in with you and—and—er—” It sounded idiotic to say ‘introduce you’, but for the life of him he could not think of another way to finish the sentence.

“No, I’ll know where to go.”

“In the drawing-room, I think. That’s where he was.”

Livia then went in without another word, while Mr. Standon, after staring at her retreating figure for a moment, slowly lit a cigarette and began to walk down the drive-way towards the road, quickening his pace when he heard the horn a fourth time. He still felt extremely uncomfortable.

The lights throughout the house were unlit, but a flickering glow, as of firelight, showed beneath the drawing-room door where the carpet had worn; everything else was dark, except the high window at the end of the corridor, which showed the dawn in a grey oblong, Livia turned the door-handle and entered. Her eyes were dazzled at first by the firelight, but she was somehow aware of a person in the room.

“I can’t SEE you,” she said—the first words she ever spoke to him.

She saw then a tall shape striding across the floor to the light- switch; next she saw his shoulders, a little stooping; then, when he turned, all such details as his grey thinning hair, wide forehead, and odd smile merged into a general first impression that he was TIRED.

“Livia, isn’t it?”

“Hello,” she answered; and they shook hands.

When one is young, everything has a stereoscopic clarity, even if it is not properly understood; no hoard of experience both makes and compensates for a blurred background. To Livia as she shook hands with the stranger who was her father, it seemed that her life hinged in a new direction, terrifyingly new, puzzling, even shattering, yet somehow not to be feared. But for the moment she thought her mind would break with such a mixture of emotions as she began to feel: angry love for her mother, cold dislike for Mr. Standon, and a growing shock over the entire situation, as if her physical existence were coming out of numbness. I shall never be the same again, because NOTHING can ever be the same again, and I am not NOTHING —she reflected suddenly, remembering the first lesson in logic that had been almost the last thing she learned at Cheldean. But the frantic syllogism comforted her, all the more because it had not occurred to her till just that moment; and as she stared from the firelight to the tired face of the man standing before her, she repeated it to herself: Whatever happens, whatever they do to me, however much I am torn apart, I AM NOT NOTHING.

She saw that he was still smiling, waiting perhaps for her to speak. She wondered how long she had been silent—minutes or only seconds? But the words could come now; she began abruptly: “Are you hungry? I am.”

He answered: “Not very. But don’t let me stop you—”

“Wouldn’t you even like a cup of tea?”

“Well… er… hadn’t we better wait till Sarah—”

“Oh, I’ll make it. Let’s go into the kitchen.”

“All right.”

She made not only a cup of tea, but a substantial meal of eggs and bacon, which they both ate, talking of nothing in particular meanwhile—just the weather, and the sharp frost that morning, and how they liked their eggs done. It was beginning to be easier now—like the first morning of term when you go into a new class with a new teacher, and you do not exactly expect to get on with her at first—in fact you pine for the old one all the time, though you would not, if the choice were given, stay down in the lower class just to escape the trials of newness.