Джеймс Хилтон - Time And Time Again

During the next few days at Beeching Charles was able to confirm that the change existed, though less grimly and no longer by any possibility the result of a hangover. For the first time he found himself meeting his father on territory where boundaries were recognized. He made no disclosures of his recent trip to Linstead and Havelock put no questions. Charles walked about the Beeching gardens feeling somehow adult and hard-bitten, and in a perverse kind of way relishing it. He wrote, for instance, to Brunon, who had a teaching job at Clermont-Ferrand; he asked what sort of place that was to live in. What he must wait for, of course, was his twenty-first birthday —the first step; but he gave his father no inkling of any special urgency. That would be revealed on the day he was of age for acts as well as words. Not that his planning was sensational—merely to step down finally from the educational ladder, without trying for any higher rung, and live abroad on his private income. It might not be heroic—private incomes rarely were—but he had no wish to be heroic. As for Lily in his scheme of things, he was, he knew, handicapped by her age; perhaps he would have to wait awhile—but surely not till she also was of age —that would be unthinkable. The whole matter was one he must explore, legally to begin with, then he would know where he stood. So far he had behaved like a youth; from now on he must do things with a man’s determination and responsibility.

Havelock was immensely genial during this period. After dinner father and son would usually sit in the library drinking port for an hour or so— a pose of eighteenth-century comeliness that well matched the house. But each was secretly measuring the other and aware of a trigonometry of distance between them. Often the conversation turned to Havelock’s early triumphs in the law—he liked to recollect them and how he had outwitted this or that witness or an opposing counsel. Charles could picture his father wigged and gowned and pointing a playful finger over the courtroom—Prospero casting his spell till suddenly, the mask withdrawn, everything dissolved in Caliban fury. Charles had seen this happen in his dreams, but now, because he was no longer afraid, he did not banish it from his waking thoughts— he even welcomed it, with a slight burlesque of being impressed. He knew his father revelled in the high drama, but his own enjoyment was to snap the tensions by some light remark that Havelock could not relish, though it was never anything to which he could object. ‘I’ll bet you put on a show,’ was the sort of thing Charles would comment, in half-derisive admiration. For Havelock was still putting on a show.

The darkest moment came when he asked why Charles didn’t paint any more —had he given it up after Charnock’s verdict? Charles shrugged in answer, then said obscurely: ‘You’re the one to worry about verdicts, not me.’ The truth was, he couldn’t endure just then even the thought of painting, much less a discussion of it with his father. It belonged somehow to the part of him that was hurt, the part that could not be bitten hard enough to become hard-bitten.

Sometimes comedy came unsought as when, for instance, Charles asked if there had ever been any reply to that letter Havelock had written to The Times about the honorary degree.

Havelock seemed to have to ransack his memory for any recollection of the incident (he always found it easy to forget the foolish things he had done), but at length he replied: ‘Oh yes, just one—but only from some crazy fellow.’ Amiably he went to the bureau where he kept his papers and began a search. ‘Some parson—if I can find it. Addressed to me personally, of course—he must have known it wouldn’t do for The Times… Here it is.’

Scribbled on embossed notepaper from a Yorkshire vicarage, it pointed out that the initial letters of ‘Sagacity, Willpower, Integrity, Nobility, Experience’ (which Havelock had offered as his own better translation of the Latin) could well supply a motto for the entire Coalition administration in its choice of appointees to government positions—a choice naturally dictated by such a leader as Lloyd George. The motto the parson suggested was: ‘Scottish, Welsh, Irish, Never English.’

‘Now who would have thought of that?’ Havelock mused. ‘Of course the fellow must be off his head.’

Charles began to laugh, and soon was laughing almost hysterically. The whole incident seemed to find its perfect end in a joke that was all the better because his father did not see it.

The twenty-first birthday fell on a Friday, so Charles and his father went to London that morning, having planned a weekend that would include dinner at Havelock’s club and an evening at the London Pavilion, where there was a good revue. They would stay a couple of nights at Claridge’s and return on Sunday morning. On the Sunday evening a few local guests would come to dinner at Beeching.

Havelock’s club was among the more exclusive, and it was hard for a young man just of age not to feel that admittance to it, as his father’s honoured guest, symbolized something not to be lightly disregarded in the world’s scheme of things. The fact that Charles was about to disregard it, and not lightly at all, made him feel rather serious as he sat in the deep library chair before dinner and drank an almost sacramental sherry. The superbly proportioned room with its high ceiling and near-great portraits and vistas of wine-red carpet—all were alchemy to the soul; it was a very wonderful life, doubtless, for those who were rich and important and well content to be both. A far cry from Ladysmith Road, and nearly as far from living at Clermont-Ferrand on three hundred a year (for Brunon had already replied that this was possible if one were content with a modest ménage). It only remained now for Charles to make the announcement, and because he would rather spoil an evening’s entertainment than a good dinner he had decided to bring the matter up while they were drinking coffee in the library afterwards. There would only be a short time then before having to leave for the theatre, but Charles did not see why the announcement should take long.

The dinner was indeed good, though Havelock assured him it was just the ordinary club meal. ‘But I’m glad I brought you here, Charles. I hope to put you up for membership one of these days, so it’s appropriate we should choose it for our celebration. Incidentally, I believe this is the first time we’ve ever dined out together.’ It was, not counting train dinners and times when they had both been guests of neighbours around Beeching. ‘You may not realize it, Charles, but a father finds it hard to get to know his son, and therefore easy to postpone the effort. I hope we shall make that effort jointly— from now on.’ He waited for some response, but Charles could not think of any. ‘I’d like this to be the beginning of confidence between us. Don’t think I shall be unsympathetic—even about Lily.’

Charles flushed, resenting Havelock’s use of the first name, as if there were in it some intolerable assertion of intimacy. Yet he could not help probing the matter by answering: ‘Yes, you met her, didn’t you?’

‘I did, and thought her charming—though of course utterly unsuited to you, apart from her age.’

‘You mean her Cockney accent—all that?’

‘Well, it would be no help, though she might manage to unlearn it— others have. Much more important is a lack in her of something you need, Charles—you especially. Even at her age one can tell she hasn’t got it—a drive, a dynamism—a woman who will push you ahead, not just freewheel along in any mood you set for her.’

Charles was surprised by his father’s assessment of Lily; he had expected the class angle to count much more. He said: ‘How about being happy? Doesn’t that come into the scheme of what you think I need?’