James Hilton: Collected Novels (16 page)

“I haven’t.”

“Oh, I didn’t mean
that
…I meant other people—they’ll change their minds about you if you stick it out.”

(And yet as he said this he was aware of another phenomenon that became familiar to him later—the ease with which, to her or in her presence, he said things he did not really mean, or that his own judgment did not support. For instance, it simply was not true that Browdley people had short memories—on the contrary, though the Channing crash had taken place a generation before, it was still remembered with bitterness, and the fact that the girl had had unpleasant experiences at the library proved it.)

She said: “Please don’t think I’m complaining about the job. It was you who asked me what it was like, otherwise I shouldn’t have said anything.”

“Well, I’m glad it doesn’t bother you much. If it does, let me know.”

(But that also was absurd. What could he do, even if she did let him know? Any other job in Browdley would have the same drawbacks, and outside Browdley he had no influence to find her a job at all.)

She said, smiling: “Thanks. It’s very kind of you…I’m afraid this is my stop…Good night.”

It was at the corner where the lane to Stoneclough left the main road. He suddenly realized that and detained her for a few seconds with an astonished: “But—but—are you going home
now
? How do you get there from here?”

“I walk.”

“But it’s three miles.”

“I don’t mind. I love walking…Good night.”

After she had gone and the bus had restarted he began to think it over. Six miles a day on foot oughtn’t to have shocked him (he was a good walker himself and had often, when he was her age, walked to and from jobs to save bus fares), but it was strange to realize that till then he had never wondered how or where the girl did live, travel to her work, and so on. So she was still at Stoneclough?…Too bad there were no other houses in that direction, or he might have asked the Transport Committee, of which he was a member, to start a new bus route.

He met her several times again on that same trip and each time he found himself more interested. Up to a point they seemed to get along excellently; she was quick-minded and charmingly friendly, and when she spoke it was with a sort of grave ardor that made even chatter sound significant; yet beyond that a shadow seemed to fall between them. After thinking it over with some deliberation he decided what the shadow was; it must be the fact (doubtless known to her) that he had publicly attacked her father and family. He was prepared for some inevitable mention of this sooner or later, and planned to be completely frank and outspoken. “Now please,” he would say, “let’s not waste time over that. I said what I meant and I still mean it. But I don’t expect
you
to see things my way—after all, he was your father, whatever else he was.”

But she never gave him the cue. One day, however, he met Dick Jordan in the street again and heard the story of a rather odd incident that had taken place at the library.

“
I
was in my office, George, when I heard a bit of a row going on at the counter, so I went out to see what it was, and there was old Horncastle calling the girl names and shouting about her father having ruined him. You know Bob Horncastle?”

Yes, George knew him. He was a gnarled industrial veteran who had lost both job and money in the Channing crash and had lived ever since on the verge of penury, his embitterment becoming a shade nearer lunacy each year. Browdley knew all about him. His was a hard case, but no harder than some others.

“The girl was standing there, George, pale and not saying a word and with that haunted look I told you about, while the old chap poured out a stream of abuse. When he saw me approaching he stopped, and then the girl said very quietly—‘I’m sorry, Mr. Horncastle.’ She had to get his name from the library card she was holding, and the way she did that—the way she looked down, I mean, and then looked up again and spoke his name…well, it was just like a play, especially when she went on—‘But why don’t you scribble it in the margins of the book, as all the other people do?’ Then she just walked off and left him to me to calm down. Of course there wasn’t much I could say—he’s too old, for one thing, and the way he was carrying on I was afraid he was going to have a heart attack. Finally I got him to go, and then I went back to my office and nearly had a heart attack myself. That kind of thing upsets me.”

George was troubled. “I must admit I didn’t think folks would take it out of the girl so much. And from what you say, Dick, it wasn’t her fault—she gave no provocation.”

“The bare fact of her being there was provocation enough to Horncastle…But there’s a sequel. After he’d gone I was curious about the girl’s remark about people scribbling in the margins of the book…
What
book? There’s only one it could have been, and that’s the detailed report of Channing’s trial, so I thought I’d look to see if it was on the shelves. It was, and sure enough, the margins were messed up with penciled comments—including just about the foulest language I ever heard of—and in different handwritings too. Looked as if a good many Browdley readers had had a go at expressing their opinions…Of course it was our own negligence not to have spotted it earlier—we’re supposed to go through all the books at the annual stocktaking and rub out anything of that sort, but apparently this book had been overlooked. So I put it aside and thought I’d do the job myself as soon as I had the time. But then another queer thing happened. Later in the afternoon the girl came to my office and asked where the book was. Seems rather as if she kept an eye on it and had already noticed it was gone—for of course she could check to see it hadn’t been lent out. I told her I’d taken it and that I intended to have the objectionable remarks removed, and then she said—and again I thought of somebody in a play—she said: ‘Oh please don’t on my account.’ I gave her a bit of a sharp answer—I said—‘It’s not on your account at all, young lady, it’s simply a library rule.’ And that ended the matter…But I must say, she’s a queer customer. You’d have thought she’d be glad I was going to do it. Frankly, I can’t make her out.”

George nodded thoughtfully. “Aye, she’s a problem, I can see that. Maybe I made a mistake in getting her the job, but it’s done now and can’t be undone. If I were you, though, I’d try to find her some kind of work where she doesn’t have to meet folks so much…Isn’t there something?”

“She might tackle the indexing. Yes, that’s not a bad idea, George. I daresay she’s smart enough.”

“Attractive-looking too, don’t you think?”

Jordan gave George a shrewd glance. “Can’t say. Maybe I’m no judge, or maybe she’s just not my style. She attracts
attention
, if that’s what you mean, but whether it’s by her looks or a sort of personality, or something else, I can’t be sure. I know I wouldn’t want her in my office.”

“She’d give you more heart attacks, is that it?” said George, laughing.

The librarian joined in the joke, as boisterously as a man may who actually does have a weak heart as well as a nagging wife.

So it was arranged that the girl should tackle the indexing, and George wondered how it had worked out when next he met her, for she certainly seemed happier and greeted him with a smile whose warmth he felt, for the first time, was somehow intimate and personal. They chatted—on the bus top as usual—without mentioning anything important till she said, apropos of nothing in particular: “Aren’t you soon taking a university degree?”

“Aye, if I can pass the exam, and that’s a pretty big ‘if.’ Who told you?”

“I heard someone saying something about it at the library. You see, you ask for so many books.” She added: “Such
difficult
books too…and yet…” And then she hesitated.

“And yet what?”

“Those ‘ayes’ of yours.”

“My
eyes?
”

“I mean the ‘ayes’ you say instead of ‘yes.’ ”

He flushed, and for a moment fought down a humorless impulse to be offended. Then he laughed. “Aye,” he answered, with slow deliberation. “I daresay I could drop them if I disliked them enough. But I don’t. And if anybody else does…well, let ’em.” And then he suddenly gave himself the cue that he had waited for in vain from her. “Maybe you feel about your dad like that. You just don’t care what other people
think—
because it’s what you yourself
feel
that matters. I don’t blame you. I’ve done my share in attacking your family in this town—you probably know about that—and I’m not going to make any apologies or take back a single word. But I can’t see why that should come between you and me, and for my part it doesn’t have to.”

He paused to give her a chance to say something, but she said nothing, so he went on: “Well, thank goodness that’s off my chest. I’ve been looking for the chance to say it, because if you and I are going to get to know each other well there has to be some sort of understanding about how we both feel about ancient history. Aye, ancient history, that’s what it is.” He was relieved to have found the phrase until he saw her face, turned to him with a look so uninterpretable that it might have been slight amusement or slight horror, but mixed, in either case, with a preponderance of simple curiosity. She seemed to be waiting to hear what he would say next, and that, of course, put him off so that he stopped talking altogether. Just then the bus reached the corner of the Stoneclough lane, surprising them both, and as she sprang down the steps with a quick smile and a good-night he had an overmastering urge to follow her, if only not to leave the conversation poised for days, perhaps, at such an impossible angle. So he ran after her and overtook her a little way along the lane. “I don’t need to study tonight,” he said breathlessly (she knew that he spent most of his evenings with the difficult library books). “I can walk part of the way with you—that is, if you don’t mind…”

“Why, of course not. I don’t mind at all. But on one condition.”

“Yes?”

“Let’s not mention my father again…
please.
”

“All right.”

“
Ever
again? You promise?”

“Why, certainly—if that’s what you wish, but I assure you I
do
understand how you feel—”

“No, no, you don’t—you
can’t
…but you’ve promised, remember that. From now on. From this minute on.” And over the strained emphasis of her words there came, like a veil slowly drawn, that curious “haunted” smile.

So he walked with her, puzzled and somewhat discomfited at first, as he changed the subject to Browdley and its affairs. He did so because, after his promise, that seemed the easiest way to keep it; and sure enough, he was soon at ease amidst the torrent of his own plans and ambitions, both personal and for the town. She made few comments and when they said good-bye at the gates of Stoneclough he could not forbear the somewhat chastened afterthought: “I hope that didn’t bore you. Or weren’t you listening?”

She answered, smiling again, but this time differently: “Well, not
all
the time. But I don’t have to, do I? Can’t I like you without liking the new gas works?”

“Aye,” he said, smiling back as he gave her arm a farewell squeeze. “But I can like you and
still
like the new gas works. Why not?”

But
could
he? That was to some extent, both then and afterwards, the question.

He soon realized that he loved her—probably on the way home after that first walk to Stoneclough. And immediately, of course, she became the object of a crusade, for in those days that was the pattern of all George’s emotions, his passion for education, his eagerness to tear down the slums of Browdley (already he had a scheme), his secret ambition to become the town’s Member of Parliament—all were for the ultimate benefit of others as well as to satisfy personal desire. And soon, eclipsing everything else in intensity, came his desire to marry Livia—that is to say, to
rescue
her. To rescue her from Stoneclough, from the thraldom of ancient history; and now, additionally, to rescue her from a situation he had himself got her into, where she was at the mercy of casual insults from strangers as well as of her own morbid preoccupation with a book about her father’s trial. All this, as George had to admit, totaled up to a rather substantial piece of rescue work, but he had the urge to do it, and his Galahad mood rose as always to put desire into action. It did not take more than a few weeks to bring that desire to fever point, especially when the chance of prompt action was denied. For she refused his first proposal of marriage. She seemed genuinely bewildered, as if it were the last thing she had ever expected. She
liked
him, she admitted—oh yes, she liked him a great deal; but as for marrying—well, she thought she was far too young, and anyhow, she didn’t think she would ever want to marry anybody. And she was quite happy where and how she was—at Stoneclough. In fact, to bring the matter to its apparently crucial issue, she couldn’t and wouldn’t leave Stoneclough.

George took his “no” for an answer exactly as he had begun to do on the Council whenever he brought up his housing scheme—that is to say, he seemed to accept it good-humoredly and as final while all the time he was planning how he could best bring the matter up again. Besides which, in this case, he was in love. He had supposed he had been in love before, on several occasions, but the difference in what he felt for Livia convinced him that
this
was love; because why else should he begin to neglect his Council work—not much, not even in a way that could be noticed by anyone else, but enough to give him qualms of conscience only to be stifled by reflecting that as soon as he had won her he would make up for lost time. He gave himself the same consolation over similar neglect of his examination studies. After all, even in battles, the first must come first. He had confidence that he would win her eventually, not only because he had confidence about most things in those days, but because—as he saw it—there was no considerable rival in the field—only Stoneclough, and he felt himself more than a match for bricks and mortar, however darkly consecrated. How could she long hesitate between the past and the future, especially as there were moments when he felt so sure of her—physical moments when she seemed to withdraw into a world of her own sensations that offered neither criticism nor restraint, in contrast to her usual behavior, which was to make of most contacts a struggle for mastery? He was a clumsy lover, and ruefully aware of it; as he said once, when she emerged from her private world to laugh at him: “Aye, I’m a bit better on committees…”