Джеймс Хилтон - So Well Remembered

When he lit a pipe she commented: “They said you never used to smoke.”

He did not ask who ‘they’ were, or why the matter should ever have been mentioned. He answered lightly: “Oh yes, I have most bad habits.”

“You mean you drink too?”

“Well… I HAVE been known to touch a drop.”

She laughed, because the phrase ‘touch a drop’ had amused her when she was a child; it was so funny to touch a drop, if you ever went to the trouble of doing it, and she had often in those days puzzled over why old Mr. Felsby should boast so much about never having done it in his life.

“I don’t suppose there’s anything here,” she went on. “I think Watson takes whisky, though—on the sly. Perhaps he keeps a bottle somewhere —I can ask him.”

He smiled again. “Don’t worry—I never did drink at breakfast. For that matter, I never drank much at any time. Not to excess, that is.”

“Then it’s not a bad habit.”

“All right—so long as you don’t think too well of me.”

They talked on, as unimportantly as that. She did not ask him any direct questions, nor he her, but by the time the first rays of sunshine poured in through the kitchen window they knew a few things about each other— such as, for instance, that they had both arrived at Stoneclough before their time—she from school, having run away, he from prison, having been released a few months earlier than he had counted on, owing to a technicality in the reckoning. She gathered also that his arrival had led to other events in which her mother and Mr. Standon were involved. He did not tell her much about that, but he said it was an odd coincidence that she should have come that morning, an odd and perhaps an awkward one, but not so awkward as if she had come a few hours sooner.

“I don’t know why she didn’t tell me everything before,” he added, as if thinking aloud. “It would have been all right. I wouldn’t have blamed her… I don’t blame her now, for that matter. She just couldn’t face facts— never could… Oh, well, give me another cup of tea.”

While Livia did so he puffed at his pipe and went on:

“Things never turn out quite how you expect, do they?”

She knew that he was addressing her as an adult, either deliberately or absent-mindedly, and in order not to break the spell she said nothing in reply. But he relapsed into silence, and presently, still under the spell herself, she said brightly: “Don’t I make good tea?”

He seemed to wake himself up. “You certainly do.” Then he yawned. “VERY good.”

“I expect you’re tired.”

“Yes. Dead tired. I was up all night.”

“So was I—in the train.”

“Perhaps we’d both better get some sleep.”

She nodded. “Sarah knows you’re here, of course?”

“Oh yes. AND Miss Fortescue AND Watson. We’ll meet at dinner, then.”

He walked out of the kitchen and a few seconds later she heard him climbing the stairs. It was odd to reflect that he knew his way about the house.

She slept soundly most of the day and was wakened during the afternoon by the sound of commotion in the yard. When she ran to the window, with almost every possibility in mind, she saw it was only Miss Fortescue driving off in a cab. Somehow it did not seem to matter what Miss Fortescue did, but it gave her something to begin the conversation with when she went down to the dinner-table that evening.

“She left,” he said, “because the whole situation was revolting to her sensibilities.”

Again he was talking to her as to an adult; and she knew what he meant, if not all the individual words. Throughout the rest of the meal he veered between more trivial gossip and silence, but when Sarah had left the room for good he said: “I don’t know what your plans are, Livia…”

“PLANS? I haven’t any.”

“I mean—what are you going to do?”

“I’m not going to go back to Cheldean.”

“Well…” And he began to light his pipe. “Some other school, perhaps?”

“You mean you don’t WANT me here?”

“Livia… it isn’t that. It hasn’t much to do with what I want. Let’s not discuss it yet, though. All kinds of things can happen.”

Which was the kind of world that Livia dreamed of—one in which all kinds of things could happen.

She said cheerfully: “The school holidays begin next week, so I’d have been here soon anyway.”

He smiled. “Naturally… and—er—while you ARE here, there’s another thing… you mustn’t feel you have to entertain me. I don’t want to interrupt any of your habits… What do you usually do after dinner?”

“Sometimes I take a walk in the garden, but I think it’s already begun to rain. Sometimes I read, or play records.”

“Then please do just what you like—as usual.”

Without another word she went to the gramophone and put on Mozart; after it finished she closed the instrument and called from the doorway: “Good night.” When he gave no answer she went back to his chair and saw that he was asleep, so she took the warm pipe out of his hand in case it set fire to something; then she laid another cob of coal on the reddened embers in the grate.

It was all very easy the next morning, so far as Livia was concerned. But as the day proceeded it became clear that other people were bent on making difficulties. First there arrived Richard Felsby, and a somewhat stormy scene took place from which Livia was excluded, though she tried to listen at the door and gathered that the old man was just as shocked as Miss Fortescue. She was also vaguely aware that matters of importance were being arranged over her head, and decided there and then to insert her own personal clause into whatever plans were being concocted. And that was simply that she would not, in any circumstances, go back to Cheldean. As soon as the chance came she reiterated this. “And if you send me,” she added, “I’ll run away again.” Neither she nor her father knew that Miss Williams would not have had her back in any event; it would have saved them an argument. “Very well,” he said at length, “I’ll see about somewhere else.” But it was already too late for the girl to begin the new term at any other school.

And the sensation of John Channing’s return, combined with the scandal of Emily Channing’s departure, raged like a hurricane through Browdley and neighbourhood for several weeks, then slowly sank to the dimensions of a zephyr.

They became good friends. It was not that Livia liked him instantly, still less was she aware of any submerged filial emotions, nor was there any conscious effort to like him; but a moment came, quite a casual one, when she realized that she had already been liking him a good deal for some time.

She did not call him ‘father’. It was hard to begin, and since she did not begin soon enough, it became impossible to begin. Eventually, since she had to call him something, she asked if he would mind ‘Martin’.

“MARTIN? Why Martin?”

“I like the name. I used to have a friend at school called Martin… Joan Martin.”

“Used to have? It’s not so long ago.” He was rather relieved to find she had had a friend, after what Dr. Whiteside had said when they met a few days before. “Don’t you keep in touch with her?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“Because she thinks I stole her watch.”

The answer was devastating, and out of it came the story of the Cheldean incident. After she had given him the somewhat curious details he said quizzically: “And did you?”

“Good heavens, no—what do you think I am?”

“Well, what do you think I am?”

She pondered gravely for a moment, whereupon he laughed, not because there was anything to laugh at, but because he had at last found a way of introducing a matter which he wanted to clear up once and for all. “You see, Livia, I don’t wish you to get any false ideas. Don’t think up excuses for me. Don’t dramatize me innocent, for instance, as you dramatized yourself guilty… On the other hand—don’t believe everything you read about me in the papers… Know what I mean?”