Джеймс Хилтон - Time And Time Again

During one of those lulls he said: ‘I think all this must be a bit like Nizhni-Novgorod.’

‘What?’

‘Somewhere you’ve never been and neither have I. It has a fair too— every year—or rather it did, before the Revolution. Perhaps still does. It’s a place in Russia. I must have read about it somewhere.’

‘And it’s like this?’

‘Might be. I don’t really know why I think so. But a fair’s a fair— everywhere.’

‘Yes, you’re tired,’ she agreed, as if that was what he had told her. ‘You can’t drive any more. Let’s stay here.’

‘All right. If Nizhni-Novgorod has a decent pub.’

The Swan was full, but recommended a cottage round the corner, the hotel being available for meals and garaging the car. A Mrs. Renshaw. ‘Tell her the Swan sent you.’ They told her the Swan had sent them, and the room she offered was under the thatched eaves, small and low-roofed and crammed with mahogany. The cottage was probably three hundred years old, but nobody had bothered much about that and all the walls had florid paper covering the uneven plaster. On the modern mantelpiece there were shells from some seashore and photographs of (presumably) Mrs. Renshaw’s relatives. They were a glum collection and Charles was beguiled by their stares of disapproval. Lily was sympathetic, wondering from their faces if they had ever been happy.

‘Of course they were,’ Charles said. ‘It’s just the way people used to pose for photographs. Now the man tells you to smile—in those days he must have said “Look serious”. That was the fashion. Did Gladstone ever grin? Was Queen Victoria ever amused?… Well, yes, she was—a friend of my father’s told him he was once at the Sutherland estate at Dunrobin when the Queen was being shown over, and in one of the rooms they looked into— by mistake, I suppose—they found a very fat policeman in bed with his clothes on… The Queen nearly collapsed with laughter.’

‘A friend of your father’s knew the Queen?’

‘Oh, he didn’t really know her—he was just there when it happened. Fat people in bed can be funny… thin people too.’

‘There’s a lot of fun in just being a person—anywhere.’

‘So that’s your view of life?’

‘Don’t you like it?’

‘My little one… my darling… you know… you can’t possibly know… how much it makes me love you.’

‘Love is fun too.’

‘Nizhni-Novgorod is fun.’

‘I’m glad we came here. Is that what you’ll always call it?’

‘I don’t think the people who live there call it that any more. I mean, in the real Nizhni-Novgorod. They’ve got some new name. I don’t know what. I only know the old name because I read about the fair in a book. They used to have a fair there. A big fair there…’

‘Darling, you’re so tired. I’m glad we came. Fancy, we both keep saying the same things again and again.’

‘Yes, fancy… I had an aunt who said “fancy” to everything. “Fancy” or “Just fancy” or “Fancy that”. Fancy this. Just fancy us being here…’

Later he said: ‘I’ve done rather badly in the examination. I know I have, but I don’t mind about it now—that’s why I can tell you. I couldn’t even finish one of the papers—I fainted or something in the middle —the heat it was—I can’t think why they chose a hall that had such poor ventilation… Anyhow, I probably won’t scrape through with more than a Third—which isn’t good enough for what I was supposed to be aiming for—the Diplomatic… So there you are—cards all on the table.’

‘I oughtn’t to have taken up so much of your time.’

‘Oh no. Never think that. I couldn’t have worked much harder than I did, anyhow.’

‘You could have rested instead of making all those trips to London.’

‘No, I shouldn’t have rested—I should have tried to put in extra work and then broken down completely. Maybe you saved my life… Lily, I’m not like Peters. I can’t take things in my stride. I’m not first-rate in his way, or the way my brother Lindsay was. That’s why it’s just as well to have a real failure now, at the beginning—then I’m definitely out of the race that I know I can’t win. I’m not disappointed. My father may be, but not me. Or else he’ll be disgusted… or perhaps in a queer sort of way glad that I’ve come such a cropper.’

‘GLAD, Charlie? I don’t understand that.’

‘Never mind…’

‘But how… how could he…?’

‘Darling, all I mean is that this thing isn’t a tragedy. I was never terribly keen on the Diplomatic—from what I’ve gathered it can be pretty dull and stuffy, and they send you to a lot of places you can’t possibly enjoy… It was just one way of getting started.’

‘Away from home?’

‘Oh yes, of course. I wouldn’t want to stay at Beeching.’

‘You don’t really like it there, do you? You’ve never told me much about it.’

‘That’s not the reason. I didn’t tell you much at first because I thought you’d imagine me too far out of your world, and I didn’t want to be… and then I went on not telling you because I just hadn’t before. There’s nothing special about Beeching. Might impress you till you tried it, then you’d discover it had bad drains and no damp course and wasn’t really very comfortable to live in.’

‘But your home—that’s more than the house—that’s really what you want to get away from.’

‘How do you know?… Well, in a way, you might be right. There are reasons I couldn’t go into—’

‘Charlie, can I ask one more question?’

‘All right.’

‘What was your mother like?’

‘We have a big portrait of her and if she was like that she was wonderful. Of course I don’t remember her.’

‘So you couldn’t love her. And you don’t love your father.’

‘Why do you say that?… Well, I’ll admit I don’t love people as you do. You love everybody. Which really means anybody… Oh no, that’s an unfair thing to say. I’m sorry, Lily. All I mean is that it must make it hard for you to FALL in love when you…’

‘I did with you—the first time we met.’

‘No, the second. The first time you didn’t even look at me. That was when I did—while you weren’t looking. I think we ought to get married quickly—before you look at somebody else… Lily, I mean that.’

‘Do you?’

‘Yes… Oh God, yes. More than I’ve ever meant anything.’

‘Are you SURE it’s what you want, Charlie?’

‘Don’t you want it?’

‘Yes—if you do… and if dad consents. I can’t without that, because of my age. You can’t either, till you’re twenty-one.’

‘I’ll be that in a few weeks. We might live abroad. It’s cheap in France these days, on account of the exchange. And another thing—I could do some painting there… Yes, even after a Third. You never guessed I was serious about it, did you? You thought it was just a hobby?’

‘I thought it was a serious hobby—like dad’s gardening.’

‘Well, why not? Oh, Lily, we shall get along fine. The things I really want in life are simple if only I stick to them—and stick to wanting them… that’s the trouble, I’m not one of those vital characters. I’m not power-driven, like Bill Peters… But a serious hobby I DO have—thank you for that description, I love you for it. So it’s all settled— we’ll live in France and I’ll paint. How about it?’

She said thoughtfully: ‘Mr. Graybar does a lot of business with French exporters—I know their names and addresses—I’ve typed hundreds of letters to them—’

He was thinking how delightfully irrelevant this was till she added: ‘I’m sure I could find a job with one of them.’ Shock and amazement were then added, so that he gasped out: ‘Good God, you didn’t suppose that was in my mind, did you?’