Джеймс Хилтон - So Well Remembered

George was troubled. “I must admit I didn’t think folks would take it out of the girl so much. And from what you say, Dick, it wasn’t her fault— she gave no provocation.”

“The bare fact of her being there was provocation enough to Horncastle… But there’s a sequel. After he’d gone I was curious about the girl’s remark about people scribbling in the margins of the book… WHAT book? There’s only one it could have been, and that’s the detailed report of Channing’s trial, so I thought I’d look to see if it was on the shelves. It was, and sure enough, the margins were messed up with pencilled comments—including just about the foulest language I ever heard of—and in different handwritings too. Looked as if a good many Browdley readers had had a go at expressing their opinions… Of course it was our own negligence not to have spotted it earlier—we’re supposed to go through all the books at the annual stocktaking and rub out anything of that sort, but apparently this book had been overlooked. So I put it aside and thought I’d do the job myself as soon as I had time. But then another queer thing happened. Later in the afternoon the girl came to my office and asked where the book was. Seems rather as if she kept an eye on it and had already noticed it was gone —for of course she could check to see it hadn’t been lent out. I told her I’d taken it and that I intended to have the objectionable remarks removed, and then she said—and again I thought of somebody in a play —she said: ‘Oh, please don’t on my account.’ I gave her a bit of a sharp answer—I said, ‘It’s not on your account at all, young lady, it’s simply a Library rule.’ And that ended the matter… But I must say, she’s a queer customer. You’d have thought she’d be glad I was going to do it. Frankly, I can’t make her out.”

George nodded thoughtfully. “Aye, she’s a problem, I can see that. Maybe I made a mistake in getting her the job, but it’s done now and can’t be undone. If I were you, though, I’d try to find her some kind of work where she doesn’t have to meet folks so much… Isn’t there something?”

“She might tackle the indexing. Yes, that’s not a bad idea, George. I daresay she’s smart enough.”

“Attractive-looking too, don’t you think?”

Jordan gave George a shrewd glance. “Can’t say. Maybe I’m no judge, or maybe she’s just not my style. She attracts ATTENTION, if that’s what you mean, but whether it’s by her looks or a sort of personality, or something else, I can’t be sure. I know I wouldn’t want her in my office.”

“She’d give you more heart attacks, is that it?” said George, laughing.

The Librarian joined in the joke, as boisterously as a man may who actually does have a weak heart as well as a nagging wife.

So it was arranged that the girl should tackle the indexing, and George wondered how it had worked out when next he met her, for she certainly seemed happier and greeted him with a smile whose warmth he felt, for the first time, was somehow intimate and personal. They chatted—on the bus-top as usual—without mentioning anything important till she said, apropos of nothing in particular: “Aren’t you soon taking a university degree?”

“Aye, if I can pass the exam, and that’s a pretty big ‘if’. Who told you?”

“I heard someone saying something about it at the Library. You see, you ask for so many books.” She added: “Such DIFFICULT books too… and yet…” And then she hesitated.

“And yet what?”

“Those ‘ayes’ of yours.”

“My EYES?”

“I mean the ‘ayes’ you say instead of ‘yes’.”

He flushed, and for a moment fought down a humourless impulse to be offended. Then he laughed. “Aye,” he answered, with slow deliberation. “I daresay I could drop them if I disliked them enough. But I don’t. And if anybody else does… well, let ‘em.” And then he suddenly gave himself the cue that he had waited for in vain from her. “Maybe you feel about your dad like that. You just don’t care what other people THINK—because it’s what you yourself FEEL that matters. I don’t blame you. I’ve done my share in attacking your family in this town—you probably know about that —and I’m not going to make any apologies or take back a single word. But I can’t see why that should come between you and me, and for my part it doesn’t have to.”

He paused to give her a chance to say something, but she said nothing, so he went on: “Well, thank goodness that’s off my chest. I’ve been looking for the chance to say it because if you and I are going to get to know each other well there has to be some sort of understanding about how we both feel about ancient history. Aye, ancient history, that’s what it is.” He was relieved to have found the phrase until he saw her face, turned to him with a look so uninterpretable that it might have been slight amusement or slight horror, but mixed, in either case, with a preponderance of simple curiosity. She seemed to be waiting to hear what he would say next, and that, of course, put him off so that he stopped talking altogether. Just then the bus reached the corner of the Stoneclough lane, surprising them both, and as she sprang down the steps with a quick smile and a good-night he had an overmastering urge to follow her, if only not to leave the conversation poised for days, perhaps, at such an impossible angle. So he ran after her and overtook her a little way along the lane. “I don’t need to study tonight,” he said breathlessly (she knew that he spent most of his evenings with the difficult Library books). “I can walk part of the way with you—that is, if you don’t mind…”

“Why, of course not. I don’t mind at all. But on one condition.”

“Yes?”

“Let’s not mention my father again… PLEASE.”

“All right.”

“EVER again? You promise?”

“Why, certainly—if that’s what you wish, but I assure you I DO understand how you feel—”

“No, no, you don’t—you CAN’T… but you’ve promised, remember that. From now on. From this minute on.” And over the strained emphasis of her words there came, like a veil slowly drawn, that curious ‘haunted’ smile.

So he walked with her, puzzled and somewhat discomfited at first, as he changed the subject to Browdley and its affairs. He did so because, after his promise, that seemed the easiest way to keep it; and sure enough, he was soon at ease amidst the torrent of his own plans and ambitions, both personal and for the town. She made few comments and when they said goodbye at the gates of Stoneclough he could not forbear the somewhat chastened afterthought: “I hope that didn’t bore you. Or weren’t you listening?”

She answered, smiling again, but this time differently: “Well, not ALL the time. But I don’t have to, do I? Can’t I like you without liking the new gas-works?”

“Aye,” he said, smiling back as he gave her arm a farewell squeeze. “But I can like you and STILL like the new gas-works. Why not?”

But COULD he? That was to some extent, both then and afterwards, the question.

He soon realized that he loved her—probably on the way home after that first walk to Stoneclough. And immediately, of course, she became the object of a crusade, for in those days that was the pattern of all George’s emotions—his passion for education, his eagerness to tear down the slums of Browdley (already he had a scheme), his secret ambition to become the town’s member of Parliament—all were for the ultimate benefit of others as well as to satisfy personal desire. And soon, eclipsing everything else in intensity, came his desire to marry Livia—that is to say, to RESCUE her. To rescue her from Stoneclough, from the thraldom of ancient history; and now, additionally, to rescue her from a situation he had himself got her into, where she was at the mercy of casual insults from strangers as well as of her own morbid preoccupation with a book about her father’s trial. All this, as George had to admit, totalled up to a rather substantial piece of rescue work, but he had the urge to do it, and his Galahad mood rose as always to put desire into action. It did not take more than a few weeks to bring that desire to fever point, especially when the chance of prompt action was denied. For she refused his first proposal of marriage. She seemed genuinely bewildered, as if it were the last thing she had ever expected. She LIKED him, she admitted—oh yes, she liked him a great deal; but as for marrying—well, she thought she was far too young, and anyhow, she didn’t think she would ever want to marry anybody. And she was quite happy where and how she was—at Stoneclough. In fact, to bring the matter to its apparently crucial issue, she couldn’t and wouldn’t leave Stoneclough.