Джеймс Хилтон - So Well Remembered

“Yes—and the white cat won’t run away,” she answered.

She could see that he was recalling something. “But a holiday, though… that would be all right. Why don’t you take one?”

“A holiday?”

“Yes, why not?”

“Away… from YOU?”

“Well, only for a time…”

Suspicion filled her mind. “One of Sarah’s ideas?”

“Now, now, don’t get cross with Sarah. She’s not the only one who thinks you need a holiday.”

“Who else, then?”

“Oh… several people…”

“Who? WHO?”

He wouldn’t tell her, but it was easy to worm the truth out of Sarah, and the full truth proved even darker than her suspicion. For it seemed that old Richard Felsby (he of all people) had visited Stoneclough recently and talked to Martin not merely about her taking a holiday, but about her leaving Stoneclough altogether. Some friends of Richard’s who lived on the coast of North Wales had been approached and had agreed to have her stay with them indefinitely; Richard had offered to pay all expenses, and Martin had actually approved the idea. This was the biggest blow of all; yet after a wild scene with Sarah she could only reproach him sombrely. How could he have even considered such a thing? And that awful old man, Richard Felsby— how dared HE interfere with her and her affairs? “Oh, Martin, I thought he never visited you any more. I thought you’d quarrelled. I hoped you were enemies for ever.”

“Livia, he just called on business the other day—while you were out. Something about a new mortgage on the house.”

“But he talked about ME—you both did—planning to have me sent away—and Sarah already getting my clothes ready—all of you—behind my back—against me—plotting—and then pretending it was just a holiday—”

“Livia, please—it wasn’t like that at all—”

“Do you know what I’ll do? I’ll hate them both as long as I live— I’ll NEVER forgive them—either of them—”

“They were only thinking of what might be your own best interests—”

“To send me away from you? Is that what YOU think too? You don’t want me here?”

“Livia, please… You know how much I like you—”

“I like you too. I love you. I’ve told you that before. And I wouldn’t go, even for a holiday. I’ll never leave you. They’d have to drag me out of the house and if they took me anywhere else I’d run away and I’d fight them all the time. I’d kill anybody who tried to send me away from you.”

“Now, Livia, Livia… why should you talk like that?”

“Because I’m so happy here. What on earth would I do alone in a strange place?”

“You wouldn’t be alone—”

“I’d be alone if I left you alone. I won’t go anywhere unless you go with me. Then I’ll go—wherever it is. Even if you went out of your mind I’d go out of mine too. That’s a bargain… So don’t you try to get rid of me.” She put her hands up to his face and clawed him gently with her finger-nails, suddenly and rather hysterically laughing. “The little white cat will scratch you to death if you even think of it.”

Dr. Whiteside happened to meet Livia in Browdley one afternoon. She did not mention her father, until asked, and then she said he was ‘all right’. The doctor was an old man now, long retired from practice, and for that reason even readier to think out the problems of the families he had once attended. He well remembered advising Emily to tell Livia the truth and send her to school lest the life at Stoneclough, without playmates of her own age, should make her grow up neurotic and self-centred; he had not seen the girl often since then, but now, even to his dimmed perceptions, she looked as if everything had happened just as he had feared. There was the peculiar rapt expression, the angular tension of her whole body as she stopped to speak to him in the street. And he made up his mind there and then to visit Stoneclough unasked; he did not care how John received him, it was the girl he was thinking about. She ought to be sent away, and he would tell John this and be damned to the fellow.

So a few days later, amidst pouring rain that had already flooded the low-lying districts of Browdley, Dr. Whiteside had his old coachman-chauffeur drive him up to Stoneclough. Admitted by Watson, he was glad to find Livia out, and made his own way across the hall to the drawing-room. He walked in without ceremony, being both in the mood and at an age when such things were possible. John Channing sat alone by the fireside, with a white wire-haired terrier on his lap. It was one of the almost lucid intervals, less frequent now and more fragmentary; the younger man shook hands, invited the doctor to sit down, remarked on the weather, and in all ways but one seemed perfectly normal. The exception lay in the fact that though he clearly did not recognize Dr. Whiteside, he showed no surprise that a stranger should walk in unannounced.

It would have puzzled a man less subject to freaks of behaviour than Dr. Whiteside himself. “Good God, man, don’t you REMEMBER me?” was all he exclaimed. “Whiteside… DOCTOR Whiteside. I’ve been meaning to look you up for a long while… How are you getting on?”

“Oh, not so badly, thanks. Yes, of course I remember you now. It’s— it’s just that I don’t SEE very well.”

“Still the same trouble?”

“No. It never was what you diagnosed.”

“You don’t say?” Dr. Whiteside was somewhat discomfited. “Well, of course, I’m not a specialist. I hope you consulted one.”

“I did.”

“And what did he say?”

“That’s my business, if you don’t mind.”

“Why… certainly. I beg your pardon.” But by this time Dr. Whiteside’s interest, both private and professional, was thoroughly aroused. He was not really a stupid doctor, only a rather perfunctory one when people came to him with vague complaints, such as “a little trouble with my eyes”. On the occasion of that visit several years before, he had discovered a few symptoms of strain and had recommended a local oculist who would make a more detailed examination. As he never heard that Channing visited the oculist, he had concluded that whatever was wrong had got right of its own accord, as so many ailments do; but now, staring closely, he detected other symptoms— much more serious ones. Of course he couldn’t be sure, but if what he instantly thought of were possible, then it was rather appalling…

He continued, automatically turning on the jaunty air that he always adopted at such moments, yet at the same time reflecting that the real object of his visit was now more necessary than ever: “Matter of fact, I didn’t come to talk about you at all.”

“Good—because it’s the one subject I try not to be interested in. What DID you come to talk about?”

Dr. Whiteside answered bluntly: “Livia.”

“Livia? Fine—go ahead. Too bad she’s out shopping now, or you could talk to her yourself… What about her, though?” Then with sudden darkening urgency: “She’s not ill, is she? There’s nothing happened to her?”

Dr. Whiteside saw a loophole into the argument which he knew had to come. “If she WERE ill, John, or if anything WERE to happen to her… and I’m telling you this frankly, mind… it would be nobody’s fault but yours.”

“But she’s NOT ill… tell me… tell me…”

“No, she’s not exactly ill. She’s just in a rather nervous state…”

“I know—she ought to go away. Matter of fact it was all arranged—”

“Yes, Richard told me, but he didn’t tell me she hadn’t gone.”

“He doesn’t know that yet… But she’s not ILL?… You’re not keeping something from me?”