Джеймс Хилтон - Time And Time Again

‘She’s not there—to receive it.’

‘Not where?’

‘Anywhere you would have sent it.’ Havelock’s eyes were shining. ‘Now sit down. I’ve something to tell you… And no coffee. Close your outer door —sport your oak—do they still use that phrase?… We don’t want to be interrupted.’

Charles was now possessed by a single fear. ‘Father, what’s happened? For God’s sake don’t make a drama of it. Is she all right? Is she well? Has anything…?’

‘She’s perfectly well—I didn’t mean to alarm you. Now will you close that door?’

After Charles had done so he heard a simple story of coincidence. Reg Robinson, it seemed, had been motorcycling on the previous Sunday evening and had found himself thirsty just outside the Swan in the little market town. From the saloon bar he could see into the dining-room where Lily and Charles were at one of the tables. Quelling an impulse to intrude, he had decided more shrewdly to watch and wait; presently he had seen them walk down the lane to a cottage. The possible significance of this grew on him slowly, but was soon (Havelock suggested) reinforced by personal jealousy and a strong surge of class-conscious virtue. He had made a few enquiries, taken down names and details, and then jumped on his motorcycle with the news. It was the following evening, however, before he passed it on. ‘An interesting delay,’ Havelock commented. ‘Did he want time to think things over? Or was he enjoying a sense of power? He could have called before Mansfield went to work in the morning—but no, he waited till evening. Perhaps he was teased with the thought of talking to the girl beforehand—which he did. He telephoned her at her office during the day—just an innocent chat between friends, no disclosures on either side, yet both with a secret that must have been infinitely preoccupying. He asked her, perhaps, if she had had a pleasant weekend, and one may imagine her answer—casual enough, yet bringing a flush to her cheeks that no one observed…’

Havelock was soaring into an empyrean of his own, so far unclouded by blame or moral censure. The voice, lyric in quality, flowed on effortlessly from sentence to sentence, developing a theme, building to some sort of climax. ‘The temptations of youth, Charles, are not beyond comprehension to any man of mature age who remembers his own. I don’t know what kind of youth you think I had myself, but I assure you it was far from flawless, far from the patterns of pulpit and schoolroom…’

But by this time Charles was impatient; there was so much still that he did not know. He interrupted: ‘Suppose we don’t go into all that now, father. Just tell me a few more facts… do you mind?’

‘Of course not. Talk it over as much as you like. The whole matter’s cleared up—there’s no urgency. I’m telling you that in advance, because I don’t want to scare you again. I’m sorry that at the outset you misunderstood me—it was my own fault for a somewhat clumsy opening —’

‘Please, father—just the facts. Tell me—’

‘You’ve had them all—all that are important. Your little escapade —as I said—was discovered and reported, and I’m bound to say it was sheer bad luck—this fellow cruising about on his motorcycle —’

‘But what do you mean by saying it’s all cleared up?’

Then a curious transformation came over Havelock’s face. It changed almost in texture as well as expression—from smooth and bland to rough and tough. It occurred to Charles, still under the influence of his first impression, that this was the sort of thing that must have happened when his father had cross-examined witnesses—first the sweet mellifluous questions, the artless probings, the seeming sympathy, the words, words, words to soften and disarm; then, all at once, the rapier-thrust.

‘Just this,’ Havelock snapped. ‘You were in a damned mess and I’ve got you out of it. This girl and her parents could have ruined your life. They had you in their power. I’m not exaggerating. It would have been easier to handle them if they’d been blackmailers, or if the girl had been some cheap little tart. But they’re decent people. Keep away from decent people when you’re in the mood for mischief of this kind. That’s sound advice from a lawyer. I’ve known cases like this before and seen men jailed for them. Luring a minor from home for an immoral purpose—Criminal Law Amendment Act of 1885 —ABDUCTION—how do you like the sound of it? But that’s what I could convict you of, you fool, if I were prosecuting and you were in the dock!’

Charles didn’t like the sound of it at all. He was sheerly appalled and there wasn’t a word he could reply. He felt he had heard a story about someone else whose behaviour couldn’t be likened to any that had ever been his own.

Then Havelock’s face relaxed somewhat. Beguilement began again, the sentences became less staccato, even the words seemed drawn from a different vocabulary. ‘As I said, the Mansfields are decent people. That, at the outset, was an obstacle. But in the end—and owing, largely, if you must know the truth, to a certain skill I have always had in presenting a point of view—they agreed to behave magnanimously. They will not prosecute. You have nothing to worry about. And—incidentally— the girl isn’t pregnant.’

All Charles could then say was a muttered ‘Oh God’—which he was glad his father did not hear because it represented a personal emotion which he did not want to explain or even to analyse. He then went to the window and stared out; men were still loitering in the court on their way from chapel. What a wonderful last morning of one’s college career! he thought bitterly. He swung round and broke the silence that his father had made intolerable by his merely watching presence. ‘Where is she? Where is she now?’

‘They’ve sent her to stay with some relatives in the country.’

‘I MUST see her.’

‘I don’t think you can.’

‘But… dammit… as you yourself said, she’s not a cheap little tart. I’d have married her… I WANT to marry her. Don’t you realize that?’

‘I’m sure you feel the Mansfields ought to jump at such a thing, but believe me, they don’t. It speaks well for them, Charles. Many a respectable family would have regarded that as quite legitimate blackmail.’

‘I’m not concerned with what they regard. It’s what I want—and what Lily wants.’

‘What a girl of seventeen wants isn’t—’

‘SEVENTEEN?’

‘Oh? Didn’t she tell you that?’

Charles replied absently, as if the matter were already unimportant: ‘She said eighteen.’

‘In court I should point out that we have only your word for that. But of course I believe you, and I’ve no doubt the girl herself would confirm the deception.’

‘Good God, it isn’t much of a deception. It’s nothing. A year.’

Havelock laughed in a way which, Charles reflected, would give a fine impression beyond the double doors that the two of them were having a very jolly time together. ‘You know why I find that funny, Charles? Because you said a year is nothing. A year is just about what I could have got you off with!’

So it WAS funny, maybe. But hardly jolly. Charles felt ill, and of all things in the world the one he least desired was to travel in a car with his father across several counties and finally arrive at Beeching. Yet that, quite clearly, was all he could do. So he went to his bedroom and began packing the last few things in a suitcase.

They didn’t talk much during the journey, but Havelock remained in excellent humour. Not only must there be pleasure in having saved a son from ruin, but fatherly intervention had awakened old techniques, had unsheathed rusty swords from mildewed scabbards. They stopped for lunch at Banbury, and Havelock then mentioned Charles’s approaching twenty-first birthday. He could not have chosen a worse time for evoking any warm response, and this may have been why he chose it, for he brought up the matter of the big party for tenants that landowners traditionally gave when their sons came of age. Havelock had done this for Lindsay, but now it was clear he didn’t want to do it for Charles. Charles didn’t mind a bit (he would have found such festivities irksome at the best of times), but he could only marvel at his father’s astuteness in breaking the news just then. He said: ‘Really, father, it suits me not to have the thing. So far as I’m concerned everybody can forget the birthday.’