James Hilton: Collected Novels (90 page)

“But I’m not really a pianist, you know. I’m a dancer.”

“Ah yes, of course. I was forgetting. Well, perhaps you could do that as well.”

“Did you ever see the Russian Ballet?”

“I’m afraid not. In Calderbury, we hardly ever—”

“When I was in Petersburg—before I had to escape—I once saw Nijinsky.”

It was plain that he had never heard of Nijinsky. He said, “Oh yes?”

“Would you like me to dance for you?”

He answered, with a touch of shyness: “Well, that would be very nice. I should certainly like it. But I don’t quite see how—”

“Yet sometime, perhaps?”

“Yes, of course. Meanwhile I’ll look up those advertisements for you. I still feel that it would be worth your while to take up the piano seriously—” And his mind ran easily on, as pleasantly unimpeded by practical knowledge as it usually was outside his own immediate world. And the following morning he went to the Burrowsford conference, which was just what he had expected it to be. Four days of listening to reports and speeches, of being chaffed by colleagues, of eating hotel meals—it was not the kind of life for which he had any social or temperamental aptitude. During his first day he found time to visit the library and spend an hour searching in a desultory way through year books and almanacs. He was one of those people who dislike asking expert advice, and, of course, as a professional dispenser of such advice, he was wholly inconsistent in this. He would have blamed a mother for not calling him in till too late, but he would not ask a library assistant how to look up details about entry into colleges of music. After much random searching he was fortunate enough to hit on the information he wanted; then he sat at one of the library desks and wrote as follows:—

DEAR LENI:
I have looked into the matter we talked about. Of course I will give you full information when I return, but this is just to say that the idea of your taking up music at college seems quite possible, and you can count on me for any help that is needed. Not a word to Jessie, though, or she might try to interfere—we must be careful not to make the same mistake as last time…

When he had written as far as that, it occurred to him, in one of those spasms of caution that sometimes come to people who are not naturally cautious, that Jessica might even intercept the letter and read it; and to such a peril the only safeguard seemed to be transcription into deliberately vague terms. So he rewrote as follows:—

DEAR LENI:
I have looked into the matter we were discussing yesterday, and I think the solution we thought of is the best, in the circumstances. Of course I will help you in it. All the information and details when I return. Not a word to J.—we must be careful not to make the same mistake as last time—you know what I mean? So destroy this as soon as you have read it…

When he had sealed and posted the letter he felt a sort of childish glee in having done something clever—he almost hoped that Jessica
would
intercept his message, since precious little she would learn from it, and that, in a way, would serve her right. He felt rather like a schoolboy who has invented some baffling stratagem against a strict but respected teacher.

Leni did not destroy the letter. It was the first she had ever received from him—the first time she had ever seen the words “Dear Leni” in his handwriting; and she kept it.

Three days later David reached Calderbury during the afternoon and walked from the station. There had been heavy rain and the Close was full of mixture scents, pebbles and bars of sand washed out of the gravel, pavements still steaming in the after-sun. And suddenly, as he walked past the Cathedral, the thought invaded him, as never before, of Leni. She would be there when he reached the house in Shawgate, but after that day and the next she would never be there again. He did not, because he could not somehow, think of the future without her, but all the sad urgency of the moment flowed back into the past, forcing him to remember the times they had met and talked, and how many more there could have been had he but known how soon they were all to end. “I have grown fond of that girl,” he admitted to himself; and then, with a flash of self-blame, “Good heavens, four days at that confounded conference and now there’s only one other day before she goes…”

When he reached the house the interior seemed dark after the bright sunshine. It was Susan’s half day off; Leni met him and said that Jessica was out also. “Would you like some tea?”

“That’s just what I should like more than anything, Leni.”

“Will you have it in the surgery?”

“That would be nice, too.”

“All right. You look pale. Have you been very busy?”

“No, not busy—just bored. What have
you
been up to?”

“Up to?
What does that mean?”

“What have you been
doing?”

“Packing.”

“Oh yes, of course.”

And there, facing him again, was the imminence of her departure. He pondered on it as he sat alone and listened to the clatter of cups in the kitchen. Presently she reentered, carrying a loaded tray.

“Seen the papers these last few days?” he asked.

She nodded.

“Looks bad, but I don’t think it’ll come to anything over here.”

“Come to anything?”

“Anything bad, I mean. But it’s bad enough for those who are in it. Good thing you’re not in your own country, perhaps. By the way, did you get my letter?”

“Yes, it was so good of you to write.”

“Well, I thought you’d be relieved to know. About the music, I mean. It’s a good idea … which reminds me, we can try over something this afternoon if you like—there’s no one in—”

“But Mrs. Newcome said—”

“She’ll never know.”

“The people in the street will hear. Somebody will tell her.”

“Then we’ll close all the windows!” He added, boyishly: “Are you afraid?”

“Only for you, David.”

“For me? Why, God bless my soul, what harm can come to me?”

She answered, in German: “You have to stay here after I have gone.”

“I know. I’m trying to realize it. It’s curious—I can’t quite grasp the fact that you really
are
going and that this is your last day here…I’ll miss you. And really, I don’t see why Jessie should forbid such a harmless thing.”

So after the tea they went in the drawing-room and David stood on the window seat to close the windows. But one of them was stiff, and as he reached upwards to push, he lost balance and had to clutch a picture to save himself from falling. The picture came down on his head, showering him with dust; and of course he began to laugh, because he had a very simple and artless sense of humor. Then she went to the piano and he took out his violin and they began to play Mozart. The music streamed into the room, enclosing a world in which they were free as air, shutting out hatreds and jealousies and despondencies, giving their eyes a look of union with something rare and distant. David did not play very well—indeed, a good deal of the Mozart was much too difficult for him; but there was a simplicity that gave calmness to his effort, absorbing rather than interpreting the music. And he thought, as he played, that it was a strange thing, at forty-six, to know the sweetness and terror of existence as if one had never known them before, to look back mystically on the incredible chance of human contact, to feel some finger of destiny marking the streets of Calderbury where he had walked and talked with a girl.

When the last chord had been struck he began mumbling something about her playing being full of promise, and that she really ought to join some academy or
conservatoire.

“You are so kind,” she said.

“Kind?
Why do you always say that?”

“Because you always say things like that, and you just say them because you are kind, that is all.”

“But I mean them.”

“I know. But you don’t mean them to mean anything.”

“Now you’ve puzzled me!” He smiled.

“Dear, I know why it is. You can’t help it. And I love you—I can’t help
that!”

But he was already bustling about saying, “Now I must put up that picture before anybody comes.”

“You didn’t hear me?”

“I’m sorry…what was it?”

She said, smiling: “I know. There is just one thing more. I will dance for you.”

“Dance for me? Here?
Now?”

“Yes. You know the prelude of Chopin that goes like this—” she hummed a few bars of it. “You play that on your violin—I will dance to it.”

“But—”

“Yes? You are afraid if anybody comes ? You are afraid if anyone sees through the window? Pull over the curtains. Take up the rugs…Please do that until I come back…”

She ran out of the room and was away a few minutes. During this interval David waited indecisively at first, then, with a sudden clinching of intention, did as she had asked.

First the curtains, then the rugs. The room filled with a warm twilight; he did not switch on any lights because the sunshine out of doors came through the fabric of the curtains in a luminous glow. Then he took his violin and tried over, very softly, the prelude she had mentioned.

Presently she came into the room, dressed in a ballet costume that bore, if he had noticed it, the creases of repeated packings and unpackings. Had he noticed, too, he would have seen that it was a little shabby, and had never been anything remarkable even when new. But in the twilight he saw nothing but a strange vision of the mind, something he had never expected to see in this life, an embodiment of light and air, on tiptoe with a dream. He took up his violin and began to play, watching her all the time. She was magic to him. There was something between them pouring always in invisible streams, the awareness of beauty in peril.

So on an August afternoon, behind drawn curtains in a Calderbury drawing-room, a girl danced for the little doctor. The room filled with the emptiness of all the world except themselves, and this emptiness soared in their hearts until, just on the edge of flight, the spell was broken by the ringing of the telephone.

David put down his violin. Leni stopped still. “A call for me probably,” he said, beginning to walk away. Leni more slowly followed. A moment later he was finding his bag and hat in the surgery.

“That boy, you know—the pneumonia case—I have to go at once.”

“And I must change and finish packing. I’ll tidy the room up too.”

“Thanks…Maybe I’ll be back soon.” And he added, gently: “It was very beautiful.”

Ten minutes later he was in the familiar strangeness of rooms and stairs. There could be no doubt about the case this time.

He sat by the bedside, taking a small hand in his own, and the boy, half conscious as he fought for breath, looked up and smiled. Suddenly—almost immediately—death came. Weeks afterwards the boy’s father, in the fourale bar of the “Greyhound,” described the incident. “He killed our Johnny, too. Pewmonia, Johnny had, double pewmonia, and Newcome had bin to see him several times but never done the boy no good. And it was that night—
that
night, mind you. Maybe he was thinkin’ about it all the time he was with our Johnny. Because what d’you think he did when he got to the boy? Why, nothing. Just sat there and let the poor kid die without so much as raising a finger! The dirty swine!”

We do not know what to-night, much less to-night’s newspaper, will bring. Some secret intersection of seconds and inches may mean an end to us, our age, the world. In Calderbury on that evening of August fourth, the train brought in later editions from Marsland, catching the sunset on its windows so that a flash of crimson streaked the watermeadows. In the streets of the town the newspapers were scrambled for, and one of them by the little doctor, who stood reading it as he held his bicycle at the curb. “Looks bad, doctor,” someone said.

“Yes, indeed. Good God, I never thought they’d actually come to it!”

“Soon over, you bet. Wait till the Navy—”

Half listening, he read paragraphs about mobilizations, troops rushed to frontiers, bombardments, opened on fortifications, refugees streaming from ravaged lands, the plight of travelers and aliens. Abruptly then he moved off along Briargate, pedaling faster than usual, till he was hot and breathless. He entered the house through the surgery, leaving the bicycle against the wall in the outside alley. Mechanically he unlocked a cupboard to replace some drugs he had carried with him in his bag. He could feel his heart pounding with excitement as he climbed the stairs to the attic room where he guessed Leni would be waiting. He was that strange creature, a quiet man resolved upon an act. The trouble was that life with Jessica had given him this curious reluctance, outside his own world, to make decisions; she had made so many for him, and her intolerance of most that he dared to contemplate himself had blanketed him with at least a vagueness and at most an obstinacy. Only in his own world was there freedom of mind and hand; and in that world he had been eager to imprison himself for such freedom. He had never bothered much about exterior events. He had found contentment within the circle of a few things he cared for, and outside it he walked as a child.

But now, having suddenly made up his mind, he was in a tremendous hurry. He must act. He must even oppose Jessica, if need be—must use decision, cunning, worldly wisdom, a host of qualities strange to him. “Leni, my dear—you can’t wait till to-morrow—you’ve got to get away now—to-night!”

She was kneeling on the floor of the attic room, packing clothes into a bag.

“But—why?”

“It’s in the paper. England and Germany may be at war by midnight. That means you must get away. You
must
go back—to Germany—at once—before anything can happen—”

“But I can’t—I—”

“I tell you you must get out of England—somewhere—anywhere. Don’t you realize what it’ll be like if you stay? Already they’re arresting and imprisoning people. Hurry now and finish packing—we have to leave at once.”

“We?”

“Of course. I’m going to help you. We’ve missed the last train, but there’s one from Marsland that goes at ten to twelve—we can get there somehow—”

“We?”