Джеймс Хилтон - Time And Time Again

He reached Number 214 about a quarter-past seven and rang the doorbell. He was not very nervous. The afternoon in Linstead, walking about and thinking things over, had been helpful. He saw the familiar lace curtains in the bay-window and noticed the centre one draped to enshroud a plant that was new there—an exotic fleshy-leaved thing, bigger than the much derided aspidistra. Probably Mr. Mansfield’s latest pride. Somehow this evidence, if it were such, that Mr. Mansfield was still functioning in his beloved world of horticulture gave Charles another nudge of comfort. A nice job, being a park-keeper—and if one wanted to make a play on words rather than realities, what had generations of Andersons been if not park-keepers, since Beeching was called Beeching Park on old maps? The idea beguiled him— Havelock and Mr. Mansfield in a park together. But it was thus with so many words—LOVE, for instance, a perfect catch-all of meaning, since one could use it about anything from God to goulash; and yet so clinchingly compared with LIKE, because one never spoke of ‘falling in liking’ with anybody, and also because one often said one ‘rather liked’ somebody, whereas nobody ever ‘rather loved’. For instance, he rather liked Mr. Mansfield… And so his thoughts rambled on till he heard footsteps approaching along the hall. He knew then he was in luck—not only because someone was at home, but the footsteps were surely those of the one he rather liked. The door opened. Yes, indeed. Mr. Mansfield was in gardening boots and an old jacket, and carried a large earthenware flowerpot which he had apparently been too absentminded to set down anywhere. Naturally he was more taken aback than Charles, though the latter had to scrap all his rehearsed conversational openings when Mr. Mansfield suddenly dropped the flowerpot. It shattered on the floor of the lobby. Charles had prefigured just about every possibility but this. He crossed the threshold without invitation and stooped to gather the fragments into a heap.

‘Butterfingers!’ exclaimed Mr. Mansfield, gasping a word that Charles had never expected to be the first one spoken between them. ‘But you give me a turn, Charlie, that’s wot you did—you really give me a turn. You was the larst person I’d ‘ave thought—’

‘I’m terribly sorry,’ Charles interrupted. ‘Perhaps I should have let you know, but—here, let me tidy this up.’

‘No, it’s all right.’ Mr. Mansfield was fast recovering, and with recovery came a mounting resentment. ‘Look ‘ere now, I dunno wot you’ve come for —Lily ain’t ‘ere now, your dad must ‘ave told you that. I really dunno wot you want, unless it’s to mike trouble, and I tell you, I ain’t goin’ to ‘ave no trouble. See?’

But having delivered that, his protest and his credo, he was clearly at a loss to continue. He let Charles open the door of the parlour and followed him meekly inside. Then with his own big hands, but carefully wiping the garden dirt off them before he touched the knob, he closed the door. He looked sheerly incongruous with his old clothes and gardening boots in this small spotless room packed with furniture and ornaments. But at least, Charles reflected, he seemed already to have exhausted his anger.

Charles said, breathlessly improvising: ‘Mr. Mansfield, I’ve not come here to make trouble at all. I don’t want it any more than you do. My father, as you say, told me more or less what happened, but I felt I had to see you for confirmation before I could take all of it in…’

‘It ain’t a bit of good,’ Mr. Mansfield interposed. ‘She ain’t ‘ere and you ain’t goin’ to see ‘er. I give my word and I mean it.’

‘You mean you give me your word now or you gave it to my father?’

‘I give my word, that’s all. I just give my word.’ And then abruptly: ‘I believe that front door’s left open. Mind if I see?’

And so it was, the front door left wide open, as people never left their front doors open in Ladysmith Road; amidst the excitement of their meeting and the smashed flowerpot neither of them had thought to close it. Mr. Mansfield went out to the lobby and did so, while Charles was aware of a quality he knew and loved in Lily, a gentleness, a humility, an almost foolish sweetness that would make Mr. Mansfield ask an unwelcome visitor if he might close the door of his own house.

When Mr. Mansfield returned to the parlour Charles abandoned all his mentally rehearsed speeches to resume eagerly: ‘Let me tell you this before we go any further. I love Lily and I want to marry her. And if I’d known there’d be all this upset I’d never have…’ But then he stopped. What would he never have done? Did he mean merely that had he known Reg Robinson would be motorcycling anywhere near the Swan, he would have found another town and another hotel? This, even if true, was hardly worth saying; but was it the whole truth anyhow? Could there not be regrets that did not imply apology or confession—regrets for the grinding of memory into the sawdust of shabby outcome? But Charles could not hope to explain this question, still less expect an answer; and therefore he did not know how to finish his sentence. He broke off simply, without floundering, content with the silence that followed. Then, as if it had been the most natural enquiry of a friend, he said: ‘She’s all right, I suppose?’

Mr. Mansfield replied in the same key and seemed relieved to do so. ‘She’s with the wife in the country. I give my word I wouldn’t say where, but it’s a nice place. She’ll stay there awhile. She ain’t come to no ‘arm, in a manner of speakin’. Oh, she’s all right—right as rain—she’s at the ‘ouse of the wife’s sister and ‘er ‘usband. ‘Er ‘olidays was due, anyway. The others are on their ‘olidays too.’

‘Leaving you all by yourself?’

Mr. Mansfield nodded, a crease of humour rounding the edge of his nostrils. ‘To tell the truth I ain’t sorry. Gives me a chance to do a bit extra in the garden.’

‘I was admiring this plant as I came in. New, isn’t it?’

‘Ficus elastica. From Brazil. Fancy you noticin’ it. Grows out of doors as a rule, but I brought it ‘ome to see wot ‘appened. Sometimes they like a change. Bin a good year for most things. I got a fine show of roses out in the back.’ He paused as if meditating an invitation and then thinking better of it. ‘I was just goin’ out to water ‘em when you come.’

‘I’m interrupting you, I’m afraid.’

‘Oh, they can wait. Matter of fact, if you don’t mind, I’ll take off these old boots. Dunno wot the wife would say if she saw me in ‘ere with ‘em on… Be back in a minute.’

Mr. Mansfield then went out and Charles heard him climb the stairs to the floor above—the room above also, for after a few seconds the ceiling shook to heavy footfalls and some glass beads in the lampshade began to tinkle. Charles had nothing to do but look about him, remembering the only time he had been in the room before and Reg’s terrific handshake received over there by the piano. Pictures and photographs crowded the walls, there was an old-fashioned overmantel above the fireplace, and a centre table covered what would otherwise have been the only completely visible square yard of carpet. Pride of place was given to a modern radio-gramophone of exactly the same model as the one at Beeching. Sir Havelock had not been keen enough on music to equip his house with anything de luxe; whereas the Mansfields must have made sacrifices to buy such a relatively expensive machine. So the two families could meet, as it were, on the social level of mass-produced entertainment. And for that matter, Charles reflected, if one were to go round with the eye of an artist there was just as much junk in the Beeching drawing-room.