James Hilton: Collected Novels (76 page)

“I couldn’t preach, anyhow. No more public appearances for me after the last one.”

“But preaching doesn’t need a pulpit. All it needs is what you have—a faith.”

“Is yours the same faith?”

“You have your vision of England, I have mine of the world—but your England will fit into my world.” He added, after a pause: “Does that sound arrogant? Maybe. We mustn’t be afraid of a secret arrogance. After all, we are spies of God, mapping out territory lost to the enemy when faith was lost.” His eyes twinkled as he touched his collar. “It isn’t
this,
you know, that makes me say so. Religion’s only one of the things that can die without faith. Take another, for the sake of something you may feel I’m more impartial about—take the League of Nations. It’s sickening now of that deadliest of modern diseases—popular approval without private faith; it will the because it demanded a crusade and we gave it a press campaign, because it’s worth our passion and we deluge it with votes of confidence and acts of indifference. It might have sprung alive out of the soul of a saint; it could only be stillborn out of a clause in a treaty. It should have been preached until we were all aflame with it; instead of which it’s been flattered and fawned upon till most of us are already bored with it. Sometimes I’ve even thought we should have given it ritual—a gesture to be made whenever the name’s mentioned, like the sign of the Cross for the faithful, or—for the faithless—blowing out the match after the second man’s cigarette.” As if reminded by that he pulled out his pipe and began to fill it as he continued: “This is a good moment to say how much I hope you’ll stay with me here—both of you. That is, if you’re happy.”

“We’re very happy. But I have to think of how to make a living.”

“Life’s more important than a living. So many people who make a living are making death, not life. Don’t ever join them. They’re the gravediggers of our civilization—the safe men, the compromisers, the money-makers, the muddlers-through. Politics is full of them, so is business, so is the Church. They’re popular, successful—some of them work hard, others are slack; but all of them can tell a good story. Never were such charming gravediggers in the world’s history—and part of their charm is that they don’t know what they are, just as they don’t know what
we
are, either. They set us down as cranks, oddities, social outsiders, harmless cranks who can’t be lured by riches or placated by compliments. But a time may come when we, the dangerous men, shall either be killed or made kings—because a time may also come when it won’t be enough to love England as a tired businessman loves a nap after lunch. We may be called upon to love her as the Irish love Ireland—darkly, bitterly, and with a hatred for some who have loved her less and themselves more.”

After another of their talks he told Smith of a friend of his in Liverpool, editor of a provincial paper with a small but influential circulation. Apparently Blampied, unknown to Smith, had sent some of his literary work for this man to see; and now had come a request to see not only more of the work, but the writer of it. “So I hope you’ll pay him a visit, because whatever project he has in mind, or even if he hasn’t one at all, I know you’ll like him personally.”

“Another dangerous man?” Smith queried.

Blampied nodded with an answering smile.

Smith was eager to go as soon as possible; after further communication an appointment was made for just after Christmas. Paula and he spent the intervening week in a glow of anticipation, culminating in a Christmas dinner in their own attic room, with Blampied as a guest. They decorated the place like children and found him like a third child in his own enjoyment of the meal and the occasion. Later in the evening he gave them, to their complete astonishment, an almost professional display of conjuring tricks; after which Paula offered some of her stage impersonations, including one of a very prim Victorian wife trying to convey to her equally prim Victorian husband the fact that she rather thought she was going to have a child. Towards midnight, when Blampied had drunk a last toast with them and gone down to his rooms below, they sat on the hearthrug in the firelight happily reviewing the events of the evening, and presently Smith remarked that her impersonation of the Victorian wife was new to him—he didn’t remember her ever doing it on the stage, but he thought it would have gone very well if she had.

“But it wasn’t written then,” she answered. “I write all my own sketches—I always did—and I wrote this one last night when you were downstairs talking to Blampied. I suppose it was on my mind—the subject, I mean—because I’m in the same position, except that I’m not going to be prim about it.”

He took her into his arms quietly, sexlessly, as they sat before the fire. Those were the happy hours.

The next day, as if their happiness were not enough, Blampied brought them news of another kind. It was now many weeks since they had last seen any mention of the Fulverton case, and though they felt easier about it they still opened newspapers with a qualm. But that morning Blampied had been searching old papers for something he wished to trace and by sheer accident had come across something else. “It seems that your Thomas Atwill left hospital more than a month ago, and though of course that doesn’t mean the case is closed, I daresay the news will be a load off your mind.”

It so definitely was that the idea occurred to them to celebrate by doing things they had been nervous of for so long—a regular evening out. They asked Blampied to join them, but he excused himself on the score of work; before they left the house, however, he shook hands with Smith and wished him a pleasant trip, for it had been arranged that he should leave that night for Liverpool. Even though it would only be for a few days, the impending separation added spice to the evening. They went first to the Holborn Empire to see little Tich, then for supper to an Italian restaurant in Soho. When they emerged, still with a couple of hours until train time, he saw a hansom cab swinging along Coventry Street, temptingly out of place on a cold December night, but for that very reason he waved to it, telling the man to take them anywhere, just for the ride. Under the windy sky the blaze of Christmas still sparkled in the shops as they drove away, jingling north and west along Regent Street, through Hanover Square and past Selfridge’s to Baker Street, with ghosts of Londoners stepping out of then tall houses (“And if I mistake not, my dear Watson, here is our client just arriving”), bidding them Godspeed into the future; and because they both had faith in that future they were drenched in a sort of wild ecstasy, and had the cabby drive them round and round Regent’s Park while they talked and laughed and whistled to the parrots every time they passed the Zoo.

Those were the happy moments.

Later, on the platform at Euston, walking up and down beside the train, she said she wished she were going with him, though she knew they couldn’t afford it, the little money he was beginning to make by writing wasn’t nearly enough for such unnecessary jaunts. “I know that, darling, but I still wish I were going with you, and if you were just to say the word, like the crazy man you are, I’d rush to the booking office and buy a ticket—which would be stupid, I don’t really mean it—Smithy, I’m only joking, of course. But I’m part of you—I’ll only be half alive while you’re away—we belong to the same world, as Blampied says about his friends—”

“I know that too. There’s something
right
about us—about our being together here. And Blampied wants us to stay.”

“I’d like to stay too. I love that old ugly house.”

“So do I. And d’you know, I don’t
want
to remember anything now—anything I’ve ever forgotten. It would be so—so unimportant. My life began with you, and my future goes on with you—there’s nothing else, Paula.”

“Oh, what a lovely thing to tell me! And by the way,
he
said he hoped you wouldn’t remember.”

“Blampied?”

“Yes. He’s devoted to you.”

“I should be proud to think so, because I’m equally devoted to him.” He kissed her laughingly. “Must we spend these last few seconds talking of someone else?”

“But he isn’t altogether someone else. He’s part of us—part of our happiness—don’t you feel that?”

“Darling, I do—and I also love you!”

“I love you too.
Always.”

“The whistle’s going—I’d better get inside. Good-bye, Paula.”

“Good-bye, old boy.”

“That’s the first time you’ve said ‘old boy’ for weeks!”

“I know, I’m dropping it. Now I’m not a touring-company actress I don’t have to talk like one. I can impersonate anybody, you know—even the wife of a writer on a secret errand to an editor in Liverpool. …” The train began to move. “Oh,
darling—
come back soon!”

“I will! Good-bye!”

He reached Liverpool in the early morning. It was raining, and in hurrying across a slippery street he stumbled and fell.

R
AINIER BEGAN TO TELL
me most of this during the drive back from Melbury that night; a few minor details, obtained afterwards from other sources, I have since fitted in. We drove to his Club, because Mrs. Rainier was at Stourton; after perfunctory greetings to a few members in the lobby he ordered drinks to be sent up to the suite he usually lived in when Kenmore was not in use.

He had talked rapidly during the car journey, but now, in quieter surroundings, he seemed to accept more calmly the fact that there was much to tell that he could at last quite easily recall. Once, when I thought he was growing tired and might remember more if he rested for a while, he brushed the suggestion aside. “You see I want to tell you all I can in case I ever forget it again, and if I do, you must remind me—you
must
—understand?” I promised, and he continued: “Not that I think I shall—it’s too clear in my mind ever to be lost again. I could find Blampied’s old house in Vale Street now if I tried—Number 73, I think it was—or maybe 75—that much I
have
forgotten, but I suppose I can’t expect memory to come back without the normal wear-and-tear of years. Or can I? Has it been in a sort of cold storage, with every detail kept fresh?”

We laughed, glad of an excuse to do so, and I said it raised an interesting point which I wasn’t expert enough to decide. He then resumed: “Because I actually
feel
as if it all happened only the other day, instead of twenty years ago. That house of Blampied’s, for instance—it had four dreadful bay windows, one on each side of the front door and two others immediately above in the room that wasn’t occupied—the attics hadn’t got any bay windows. There was a pretty grim sort of basement, too, where the housekeeper lived—she didn’t have to, she chose it because she was crazy enough to like it. She was a queer woman altogether—God knows where Blampied picked her up or how long she’d been with him, but he cried when she died, and looked after her cat—which was also a queer animal, an enormous tabby—spent most of its life sleeping, probably because of its weight—it had won a prize as the biggest cat north of the Thames.” He added, smiling: “I daresay you think I’m inventing this—that there aren’t prizes for big cats. But some newspaper ran a competition as a stunt—two first prizes, for North and South London—and Blampied’s housekeeper’s cat won one of them.”

No, I thought—you’re not inventing; you’re just enjoying yourself rather indiscriminately, as a child frolics in the sand when he first reaches the seashore; I could see how, in the first flush of recollection, the mere placement of the past, the assembling of details one after the other, was giving him an intense pleasure, and one by no means discountenanced by his use of words like “grim” and “dreadful.”

He went on like that for some time, going back over his story, picking out details here and there for random intricate examination; and carefully avoiding the issue that was foremost in my thoughts. Then, once again, I saw that we had talked till dawn and well past it, for there was already a pale edge to the window. I switched off his bedroom light and pulled the curtains; far below us the early morning trams were curving along the Embankment. We watched the scene for a moment; then he touched my arm affectionately. “Time for an adjournment, I think. I know what’s in your mind, it’s in mine, too, but it’s too big to grasp—I’m collecting the small things first. You’ve been good to listen to me. What have we on Monday?”

My thoughts were so far away I could not give an immediate answer, though of course I knew. He laughed at my hesitation, saying he hoped I should not lose my memory just because he had regained his. By then I had remembered and could tell him: “Anglo-American Cement—ten-thirty at the Cannon Street Hotel.” To which he replied, almost gayly: “The perfect closure to all our conversation. …”

“Don’t you want me for anything tomorrow?”

“No, I’ll sleep most of the day … at least I hope so. … Good night.”

If this is a difficult story to tell, it may be pleaded in partial defense that the human mind is a difficult territory to explore, and that the world it inhabits does not always fit snugly into any other world. I must admit that I found the fitting a hard one as, some thirty-six hours later, I watched the sunlight stream through stained-glass windows to dazzle the faces of Anglo-American Cement shareholders. From the report afterwards sent out with the dividend I find that Rainier spoke as follows:—

“You will be glad to know that our sales have continued to increase throughout the year, after a somewhat slow beginning, and that prospects of continued improvement are encouraging. The government’s national defense preparations during the September crisis of last year led to additional consumption of cement throughout the country, and this, at prices we were able to obtain, resulted in generally satisfactory business. During the year we opened a new plant at Nottingham which we expect to enhance production very considerably during the coming year. Your directors are constantly watchful for any opportunities of further economies, either by technical developments or by the absorption of competing companies, and with these aims in view, it is proposed, in addition to the usual dividend of 10 per cent, to issue new shares at forty-two shillings and sixpence in the proportion of one to five held by existing shareholders.” (Loud applause.)