Джеймс Хилтон - Time And Time Again

Charles’s mother had died when he was born, and as soon as the boy was old enough to understand the situation he began to wonder if his father hated him for being alive at such a cost. There was also a story, which he heard later from Lindsay, that his parents had quarrelled a good deal and that for a time his mother had actually left Beeching and gone to live with relatives in London. Then she had returned, and Charles, it would seem, was the result of the reconciliation. If that were so, then perhaps his father had reason to love him as well as hate him. It was hard to figure out, or rather, it was easy to figure out either way, and Charles as a boy could never make up his mind.

This was the same matter that came to an adult and rather frightening issue during that first post-war Christmas at Beeching. When he reached there from Cambridge Charles found the house full of ‘family’—aunts and uncles, with children of various ages—all assembled for what might well seem the occasion of a lifetime, the coming of peace on earth, though certainly not of good will toward all men. Aunt Hetty, who had kept house at Beeching since Charles was a baby, made everyone welcome, and Havelock, seeming to enjoy the noise and bustle of it all, strode in and out of the crowded rooms with something of the air of a field-marshal at ease among his staff. The general election took place about this time, giving Lloyd George’s Coalition government a tremendous majority, and this momentarily cast a shadow, for Havelock had never forgiven Lloyd George his pre-war demagoguery. But a much worse blow fell on Christmas Eve. Charles happened to be crossing the hall when he noticed his father reading a telegram that had just arrived; though he could not see his face, there was a sudden slumping of the massive shoulders that made him hasten up in dismay. His father then turned, gave him a dazed stare, and handed him the telegram. It was from the War Office, regretting that Captain Lindsay Anderson had died of influenza in a German prison camp on December 10th. Only a few days later he would have begun the journey home. Something in the sheer wantonness of this—that a son should survive the battlefield and then succumb to a civilian illness in the defeated country weeks after the war had ended—drove Havelock to a frenzy in which he flung at Charles an entirely unfounded assertion that the Cambridge O.T.C. had been a funk-hole for shirkers and that if Charles hadn’t been smart enough to get himself enrolled in it he too might have died.

This was so unfair that Charles was stung to the retort: ‘Do you wish I had?’ But his father by that time was beyond argument and Charles, fighting hurt as well as grief, left him mouthing and muttering unintelligibly. Charles then took a long walk in the rain and did not return till after dusk, when he slipped into the house by the back stairs and went up to his room to change. Somehow or other he must face the ordeal of the family dinner, but he wondered how he would be able to meet his father after what had been said between them. During his walk over muddy farmlands he had even searched for a cross-grain of truth in the accusation—Was it possible that by joining the O.T.C. he HAD secured a few weeks’ delay in the then inevitable destiny of being sent into battle, and that those few weeks, by the timing of history, had meant life for him instead of death? But even if this were so, it could not justify even remotely his father’s attitude.

While he was putting on dinner clothes the bedroom door opened and Havelock entered. He was still in the rough tweeds of everyday wear, but he looked already years older.

‘We aren’t dressing tonight,’ he said quite calmly. ‘Didn’t Cobb tell you?’

‘No, I’ve only just got back. I took a long walk.’

‘Well… I tried to read a little… everyone has to get over these things their own way. I don’t really remember what it was I said to you— probably something foolish.’

Charles answered: ‘Oh, that’s all right, father—it was nothing.’ He was too deeply moved to say more. Havelock then left and Charles changed his clothes again. It struck him as odd that, because of his brother’s death, he was actually taking OFF a black tie, though of course he put on another one of a different kind.

Charles looked forward to the end of the vacation. Not only was the news about Lindsay a devastating grief, but its coming at a time of family gathering and sentimental association made it trebly hard to endure. And there was a new kind of unease between himself and his father, as if the sounding and exploration of a rift were all the time in progress even though both had agreed to bridge it. After the New Year the house rapidly emptied, leaving Charles alone with his father and aunt during the last week before term began.

Sir Havelock Anderson was a remarkable man by any standards, and it was unfortunate (as somebody once said when this remark was made) that any standards had not been good enough in his chosen profession. In his thirties, a barrister beginning to be talked about, he would have been forecast for a brilliant career, with a likely outcome in Parliament or as one of the law officers of the Crown; in his middle forties he seemed at the point of achievement, having already taken silk and received a knighthood. He had many attributes of the successful advocate—good looks, a fine presence, quick wits, commanding eloquence, and an enormously persuasive manner. He could demolish or inveigle a witness with a technique that amounted to genius. The one thing he lacked was a certain responsibility of judgment at moments of intense pressure; as his career advanced and he gained in opinion of himself, he would sometimes overstep the limits of propriety, attacking the other side in ways that drew rebukes from judges, then turning on the latter with less than traditional respect. Since he seemed increasingly unable to handle a difficult case without this sort of thing, solicitors came to regard him as a doubtful asset; after one sensational court ‘scene’ he narrowly escaped disbarment. Though he apologized and all seemed forgiven, he had done himself harm which he knew had put him back to the bottom of the ladder, and it was perhaps again unfortunate that a private income enabled him to settle into embittered retirement rather than begin the climb afresh or seek a new career in some other field. Everything was unhappy and inglorious when, about this time, he inherited Beeching. For years thereafter he lacked interest in the property, his chief consolation being Lindsay, in whom he could well take pride. For the boy, who was very like him in looks, developed fast and promisingly—excellent at games as well as studies —destined, Havelock might have hoped, to become as remarkable as himself but without the flaw.

When Lindsay went to school Havelock had to find things to do, even at Beeching, and gradually established himself as the kind of chartered eccentric that English society permits and tolerates—which really means that none of his neighbours, whether they liked him or not (and most of them didn’t), thought it VERY odd that he should be a LITTLE odd. Though he was never now in the headlines, he often appeared in print—writing letters to The Times about his hobbies, which included bird-watching, collecting snuff-boxes, and visits to country churchyards, where he liked to rummage amongst old tombstones and discover neglected graves of minor celebrities of the past; he was something of an expert on lapidary inscriptions. Strong in physique and passionate by nature, he was also a magnet to women, but here again the flaw presently showed itself—a scandal involving the suicide of the daughter of one of his neighbours, a girl in her early twenties. This was when Havelock was in his fifties and a widower.