Miss Hargreaves (22 page)

There was a moment’s silence. Everybody was wondering, of course, who Agatha was; nobody liked to ask.

‘So,’ continued Miss Hargreaves, ‘I feel the time has come for me to strike a new note in the harmony of the trivial round. You girls are not going to have
all
the fun! Oh, no! The hat–of course–is a mere symbol–worthy enough, I trust, to be flung over the windmill, if there are any windmills left in the modern world.’

‘You can always tell a person by their hat,’ said Marjorie rather spitefully.

Miss Hargreaves looked her up and down in one second, from tip to toe. It was like the look she had given Henry on the night of her arrival, as though she were weighing the value of an object offered for sale at an auction. A devastating look. Marjorie coloured.

‘Precisely!’ remarked Miss Hargreaves. ‘I abominate the commonplace!’

She walked rather stiffly to the hall. I followed her uneasily. ‘Good-bye, my dear Mrs Huntley,’ she said, ‘and you, dear Miss Huntley. So you are called Jim? How quaint! A family version of Jemima, I presume. Yes? No? Goodbye.
Good
-bye!’

She ignored Marjorie. As I opened the door for her she said to me, loudly enough for the others to hear, ‘Is there something wrong with that poor girl’s finger-nails, dear? I noticed they were a most extraordinary colour.’

It was a rapturously beautiful night. By the gate she stopped and pointed with her stick up to the sky.

‘The Seven Stars and Orion!’ she declaimed. ‘I feel I could seek Him who made them. But not in one of these dreadful aeroplanes. No! Balloons for me!’

‘What–did–you say?’

‘Balloons, dear! Balloons!’

‘What made you think of balloons, especially?’

‘How can I tell, dear? A floating thought. No more.’

Uneasily I suggested calling a taxi, thanking God there wasn’t such a thing as a balloon-rank. ‘It’s too far for you to walk,’ I said.

‘No, dear! I prefer to walk on such a night. Give me your arm.’

Slowly we crossed the road. Here, again, she stopped, right under the board which announced that Lessways, ‘this highly desirable property’, was for sale. Little did I realize how dangerous a place it was to stop at.

Pensively she looked up to the starry sky.

‘We are breath from the mouth of God,’ she stated. ‘For a time we remain anchored in the harbour of this little planet, but somewhere, beyond the starry oceans, lies our true home. Do you not sometimes feel you could sail there, dear?’

‘You can go if you like,’ I said brusquely.

‘Shall we,’ she continued, ‘like the beautiful picture of Lord Leighton–a distant connection of mine, by the way–together twine heavenwards? Ah, me! What would I not give to shatter this sorry scheme of things and–’

Instead of shattering the sorry scheme, she shattered, with her stick, in a histrionic gesture, the agent’s board above her.

‘What is that?’ she snapped. ‘What hit my stick?’

‘You hit the board.’

‘What board?’ She turned, looked up at it and read, in the light of the street lamp, ‘This highly desirable property for sale’.

‘Oh, I must take a note of the agent’s name!’ she cried. Out came the little ivory diary. ‘Dictate to me, dear!’

I did so, never guessing what would be the consequences. I was glad to find anything to distract her mind from heavenly excursions. ‘H. Carver & Co., Larkin Street, Cornford,’ I read.

‘And now’–she snapped her diary sharply into her bag, and grabbed my arm tightly–‘let us proceed. Do not hurry, dear; do not hurry.’

Ashamed to be seen with her–frankly I admit it–I avoided the High Street and led her by many side streets towards Canticle Alley. Over and over again she would stop, treating me to a long semi-metaphysical discourse. Once she stopped in Dome Place where some urchins were playing marbles.

‘Ah!’ She pointed over to them. ‘The working classes at play. How very charming!’

‘Hi, Alf !’ I heard a shout. ‘Got your catapult?’

‘Come
on
,’ I muttered, almost dragging her along, ‘otherwise these brats will get difficult.’

‘Let them, dear. Let them! Why not?’

A marble whizzed past her hat, missing it by one inch. Four ragged pairs of legs went scuttling round a corner; four heads popped out by the shelter of a faggots-and-peas shop.

‘Dear me!’ she murmured, mildly surprised. ‘Did somebody throw something?’

‘Yes, a marble. Come
on
. I shan’t be responsible for your safety if you insist on standing here.’

After the longest and most tiring walk in my life we reached her lodgings, one of the stucco houses in Canticle Alley where every other window displays a notice ‘room to let’. She made me go in with her. She had taken two rooms, a sitting-room and a bedroom. It was very dowdy and close and smelt rather of stale food.

‘A dreadful place!’ she said. ‘But there are times, Norman, when I like to taste the dregs of life. I was perhaps too strictly brought up. I remember, even as a small child, I was constantly finding my way into Grosvenor’s stables. All my life I have been too restricted, Norman. Now that Agatha is dead, I mean to sow what has long been unsown. It is a little withered, perhaps; but it is still an oat.’

‘I shouldn’t if I were you,’ I said. I jumped back. Sarah had flopped down from a chair and was scratching ambiguously at my legs. ‘Down, doggie, down!’ I kicked the brute furtively; I always have loathed dogs who sniff and scratch at your legs.

‘Where’s Dr Pepusch?’ I asked.

‘Oh, in my bedroom. He always stays by my bed. You must come in and say good night to him.’

‘No, thanks. I must be going now.’

‘I would ask you to play to me, dear. But the piano–I see it is a Wade and Meggitt–is really only fit for firewood.’

She took off her hat and rang the bell for her landlady, Mrs Beedle. Then she sat down by the fire and warmed her hands while Sarah cowered defensively at her feet, showing her teeth at me. ‘I wonder,’ murmured Miss Hargreaves pensively, ‘why my mind turns upon balloons?’

‘I shouldn’t think of things like that,’ I said uneasily, edging back to the door.

‘Those dreadful finger-nails!’ she murmured. And louder, ‘Who
was
that young woman, dear? No friend of yours, I hope?’

This was too much for me. I left the house without saying good-bye to her. The rest of the evening I spent alone in the Happy Union, drinking tastelessly. I was filled with foreboding.

6

I
HAD splinted a broken leg in Blackwell’s bookshop; I had sported about in the Serpentine with an elderly lady. The stories with variations (some of them indelicate)–were soon buzzing round Cornford. I did not attempt–to deny them. What was the good? Mother, after her first suspicions, fully believed both tales and was embarrassingly sympathetic towards me. She also liked Miss Hargreaves far more than I had supposed she would.

‘Whatever you may say about her,’ she was arguing with Jim, ‘she
does
wear that hat well. I call that an accomplishment.’

‘But, mother, it’s a
fantastic
hat!’

‘Of course it is. But Miss Hargreaves is a fantastic person. You know, I can’t help liking her. Of course, I can easily understand how difficult it must be for you, Norman dear. I think one would get quite fond of her, and yet never want to set eyes on her again.’

‘That’s exactly how I feel,’ I said.

‘Well,’ said Jim, ‘I think she was an impossibly rude old woman. Look at the way she talked about poor Marjorie!’

‘As for that,’ said mother, ‘I absolutely agree with her. I can’t bear these painted finger-nails and I’ve always told Marjorie so.’

I went to the Cathedral with a low heart the following morning. I fully expected her to be there. But for some reason she didn’t turn up; neither did I see her all that day. I kept well clear of Canticle Alley, of course. Every minute I expected I should bump into her somewhere; but I didn’t. Had she chartered a balloon and floated away to her home beyond the stars? Who knew?

It was early-closing day and happened also to be a plain day at the Cathedral. Marjorie and I had arranged to spend the afternoon on the river perhaps the last trip we should get that season. I rather doubted whether she’d come with me after what had happened last night. (Marjorie hates being criticized.) So I went round to Beddow’s in the morning to see if I could borrow Henry’s two-seater, instead of having to take the bus to Cookham as we generally do. I knew Marjorie wouldn’t find it easy to resist a drive in the car; she’s mad about driving.

‘Well,’ I said, ‘Connie’s back!’

‘Good God! No?’

Apparently Henry had heard nothing about yesterday. I told him everything. To my annoyance he was very critical about the new stories Miss Hargreaves and I had made up. (I don’t mind telling you I was awfully pleased with those stories. Who wouldn’t be?)

‘You’ve only got yourself to blame,’ said Henry, ‘if you
will
go on making up these mad yarns.’

‘But, Henry what the devil was I to
do
?’

‘You should have sat quiet and said nothing at all.’

‘With mother pumping me all the time and Connie glowering at me from her chair. Yes, I should like to have seen you sit quiet.’

‘The truth is,’ said Henry, ‘you just can’t resist taking people in.’

I was furious with him for that; furious because it was true.

‘It’s all very well for you,’ I said, ‘but you’re not plagued by her as I am. I don’t see why you should be.’

This was a deliberate threat. Henry knew it. I saw him go quite white at the thought of it.

‘Well, old boy, I’m sorry, I really am. But to tell you the honest truth, I’m downright sick of the whole queer business. Don’t get mad with me, now! Whatever happens, I’m going to hold my tongue from now on.’

‘If you’d held your tongue from the beginning, we might not be in this fix.’

‘
I’m
not in a fix,’ he said truthfully. Which made me damned angry. It seemed so unfair. Why shouldn’t he be in a fix too?

‘I shall turn her on to you,’ I said. I left the garage so fed up with him that I forgot to ask him to lend me the car. However, I phoned him later and he was quite nice about it; said I could have it as long as I liked.

Friday, September the thirtieth. Another dreadfully memorable day. Turning back to my diary I find this cryptic entry: ‘Swans in tall hats.’ Means nothing whatever to you, does it? Wish it meant nothing to me. Or rather, I wish I knew what it
did
mean.

It was another beautiful day and ordinarily I should have been looking forward to our trip on the river. But I couldn’t. I felt something unpleasant was going to happen.

Parking the car at the Ferry-Boat Inn I chose a punt from Cooper’s boat-house and we set off down the river.

‘We’re very quiet, aren’t we?’ I said.

‘Yes, we are, aren’t we?’ she agreed, looking up from her novel. I extricated my pole from some weeds and for about ten minutes we sailed smoothly down towards the lock. I didn’t know what to say. So I waited to see if
she’d
say anything. It was a lovely day, the sun mellowed in the faintly misty sky, the great banks of trees round Cliveden House turning to a rich gold. A lovely day, but rather a sad one. A long way away somebody was ringing the six little tubular bells of little Hedsor church; I don’t know why they were ringing, but to me it sounded like a farewell to summer. Bells are like that; they cry a
vale
, never an
ave
. We passed hardly any other boats. Floating on the water were hundreds and hundreds of dead willow leaves; they, and the six little bells, made me think of all the hundreds of days and millions of minutes of my life that I couldn’t account for. I got so melancholy that I knew there was only one thing to do.