James Hilton: Collected Novels (40 page)

Before taking the train he had mentioned to Julie his plan to have Charles at Browdley. He had only a few moments with the girl because she was going on night duty; they had met by appointment in the market square where she had to change buses. She had told him then, since her arriving bus brought up the subject, that she lived in a suburb of the town and that her father was a schoolmaster there. George rode with her on another bus to the big hospital not far from the railway station, and perhaps because they found a seat on the top deck he was reminded of other bus rides, so many of them, years before, with Livia. And the reminder, of course, emphasized the difference of everything else, for no one in the world, he was sure, could be less like Livia than Julie was…

She was delighted with his idea. “Oh, I’m so glad, Mr. Boswell. It’ll be a real holiday for him.”

“Not much of a holiday resort, Browdley, but I’ll do my best to give him a good time.”

“He’ll be with you, that’s the main thing, because I’ve noticed how good for him you are.”

“You’ll be better, though, one of these days.”

“I hope so.” And then she added: “By the way, I know who you are now. He told me.”

“He did. That’s fine. Now we none of us have any secrets from one another.”

And suddenly again the same impulse he had had with Charles made him add: “Why don’t you marry him soon?”

She seemed startled by a word rather than by the question. “Soon?…You mean—before he—before he gets better?”

“Aye, why not? Don’t you want to?”

“I’d love to, but…in a way it would be taking an advantage. So many men in hospitals fall in love with their nurses—
think
they’ve fallen in love, anyhow. It often makes part of the cure, so the nurses don’t mind. But a sensible nurse doesn’t take it too seriously, even if she falls in love herself. That’s why I don’t consider our engagement as binding—not on Charles, anyway. When he gets better he may prefer someone else.”

“And if he prefers someone else he may not get better. If I were you I’d take
that
seriously.”

“You mean…”

“Aye, but think it over first. You’re pretty right and reasonable about most things, I’d say.”

That was all they had time for, but he was left with a comfortable reassurance that to be right and reasonable was not always to be prim and cold; and this, for him personally, was like a pat on the back from the Almighty.

So he enjoyed his thoughts during the journey back to Browdley.

A couple of weeks later, as he left a Council meeting, the Town Hall porter handed him a wire that read:
HAVE JUST

TAKEN YOUR ADVICE. HONEYMOON AT SCARBOROUGH. THEN MAY WE BOTH ACCEPT YOUR INVITATION TO THE MAYOR’S NEST? JULIE AND CHARLES,

George stood for a few seconds in the Town Hall lobby, holding the wire under the dim lamp; then his face broke suddenly into a wide slow smile that made Tom Roberts grin back with cheerful impudence. “Backed a winner, Mr. Mayor?” he quipped—the joke of that being the Mayor’s well-known antipathy to betting of all kinds.

“Nay, Tom…
two
winners!” George answered, surprisingly, as he strode down the Town Hall steps into Shawgate.

On his way to Browdley station to meet them, he could not help reflecting what an extraordinary thing it really was that he should be welcoming Livia’s son to his home.

He had spent the evening with Wendover, being far too excited to settle to any solitary work; and towards midnight, for a change and because of the bright moon, he chose the slightly longer route through the wasteland on the fringe of the town, where factories met fields and—less metaphorically—lovers met each other. And he thought of that evening, so many years before, yet so well remembered, when he had passed that way in the other direction, having taken old Lord Winslow to his train after the unforgettable interview. And now it was that man’s grandson and a young wife whom he was meeting—as happily as if he himself were young again and happy about most things.

In fact he was momentarily so excited that when the train drew in and they had all exchanged the first greetings, he was glad that a heavy suitcase provided something immediate and practical to attend to—there being neither cabs nor luggage delivery till next morning. Meanwhile Charles was smiling and assuring George that he didn’t in the least object to a walk on such a night, if it wasn’t too far. “Not far at all,” George answered, chiefly for something to say to the stationmaster as they passed the exit. “Except when I’m hurrying for the nine-five to Mulcaster—eh, Ted?”

They crossed the cobbled station yard and turned into the huddle of streets. A few other walkers passed or overtook them, even so late—men on their way to night-working factories, policemen, air wardens. George pointed out the stationer’s shop in Shawgate that had formerly been his Uncle Joe’s, and which still, after two changes of ownership, displayed the same mixture of leather-bound ledgers, morocco editions of the standard poets, Bibles, cookery books, and the works of Miss Florence Barclay. But as a concession to the day and age, and with that ironic innocence of which the English are so capable because they are unaware of it, a single modern edition occupied pride of place in the very center of the window—
Mein Kampf
in an unexpurgated translation. George did not point this out, because he saw in it nothing remarkable; but he did draw attention to the Mayor’s office in the Town Hall with its rather florid stained-glass windows that an earlier generation had considered stylish. He kept up a running gossip, also, about Browdley people whom Charles and Julie would probably meet in due course. “The Vicar—he’ll amuse you. He’s writing a book about Roman numerals—has a theory about them—been busy on it for years—he’s eighty-eight, I think…There’s a younger chap of seventy-odd—Catholic priest—Wendover, by name—my best friend—you’ll like
him…
That’s the new municipal swimming bath—just finished before the war began. Like a fool I said I’d make the first dive when it was opened—used to be quite a swimmer when I was a lad—but I hadn’t done any for years and I made a belly-flop that splashed all the other Councillors and their wives…it was the laugh of the place the day after…Here’s the real business center—the banks. Woolworth’s, Lipton’s. And down that street is where I managed to enter the world—the house isn’t there any more, and that’s another thing I managed.”

Julie said: “You’d make a good guide, Mr. Boswell. Too bad there aren’t any Cook’s tours to places like this.”

“Aye, it
is
too bad. Some of the London folks ought to come here once in a lifetime. They’d learn more than they would on the French Riviera—and about their own country at that…And don’t you go on calling me Mr. Boswell. Nobody here does.”

Presently Charles remarked: “And you’ve never had a raid?”

“So far, not a solitary bomb. They say you shouldn’t even whisper such a thing—but I’m not superstitious. All I sometimes wish is that I could clear everybody out of the town and organize my own raid. There’s still a few thousand folks living in houses that oughtn’t to exist, and it’ll take me ten years to finish ’em off—the houses, I mean—even when peace comes.”

George was silent again, and for a rather odd reason; at the very utterance of the phrase “when peace comes” he had been swept by a sudden illusion that peace
had
come, and that Browdley under the moonlit sky was the most peaceful spot, just then, on earth.

“Now you’ll have to let
me
make
you
some coffee,” he said, as they turned the corner from Shawgate into Market Street. “Because here we are—this is the old
Guardian
office—my printing works—this is where I live. You’ve seen most of the sights already—it’s only a small town.”

“And. an honest one too,” Charles commented, as George opened the front door by merely turning the handle. “You live alone?”

“There’s Annie comes in every day to clean up a bit. She’s an old woman now, but she’ll be glad to see you because—” He was on the point of saying “because she knows who you are but he changed it at the last moment to “because she’s got three nephews in the R.A.F.” Which was true.

While George was ushering them inside, somebody passed along the pavement and called out the usual welcome. “’Owdo, George. Back again?”

“Howdo, John. Aye, I’m back.”

It was the fourth or fifth exchange of similar greetings on their way from the station. Charles laughed and commented that George certainly seemed to be well known. George laughed also and said Aye, he wasn’t exactly a stranger in those parts. The triteness of the remarks masked the tension they both felt as they entered the little house. George led the way along the hall and into his study, where he switched on a light after verifying that the curtains were drawn. Usually, on bringing anyone there for the first time, he watched for some sign of amazement at the shelves of books, but now he actually forgot to do so and was recalled from far different thoughts when Charles exclaimed: “Quite a library.”

George then made his familiar boast that it was the best private collection in Browdley. But he added: “Not that I’d say the competition’s been very keen.” And then he heard himself launching into what now seemed just a ruefully amusing anecdote. “You know what your mother did once when I was away? Took off a lot of the paper covers and burned ’em…Thought she was making the place tidy for me…My, I lost my temper—and that’s a thing I don’t often do…Well, how about some coffee? Come in the kitchen—it’s easier…”

George talked about the war and the postwar world; the news in the newspapers was very encouraging, and he found it hard as ever not to be optimistic, though after a lifetime of experience he could keep his optimism under wry control. He still had ambitions, dreams, plans, and hopes; and if a small portion of them came to anything, well, that was as much as a reasonable man could expect, but it was also as little as a patient man would accept. “It’s no good your people asking for the moon,” a testy political opponent had said at the last Council meeting; to which he had replied: “Nay, Tom—it’s the
sun
they’re asking for—the
moon’s
what I’ve promised ’em when the war’s over. And if you fellers have any sense ye’ll settle for that as a fair compromise.”

So now, by an easy transition, his talk with Charles led back to Browdley again—its industries, homes, and people. “You’ll know what I mean tomorrow when you look over the place. The war seems to have solved our chief local problems—bad trade and unemployment—though it’s only a fake solution, we’ll have our troubles again later. But for the time being we’re better off, in some ways, than we used to be—everybody’s got money, the Council has a budget surplus, and as for jobs—why we’re even short of men to fill ’em.”

“I suppose there’s a good deal of female employment then?”

George began to laugh. “You mean,
do the women work
? Of course they do…And I’m laughing same as when I read in some of those shiny-paper fashion magazines what a marvelous thing’s happening in England because of the war—the women are actually not idling any more! But the women of Browdley never
have
idled. They’ve worked in their homes and in factories and in both together ever since the town began. Even when the men had nothing to do, the women had plenty. So don’t you go praising ’em in your speeches for the novelty of getting their hands soiled!”

“You’re still dreaming, George. I shan’t make any speeches.”

“Aye, I forgot…I was just the same when I was your age—I could talk, but I couldn’t make a speech. And even when I could I hated it at first…But you’re not such a fool as to do anything you hate.”

“Who’s speaking now, George—the lion, the dog, or the dove?”

The remark put them in a mood in which Julie told them to go back to the study and talk while she washed up in the kitchen; she insisted on this with such emphasis that George wondered if she were deliberately contriving a chance for him to talk to Charles alone. He was not sorry to have that chance, anyway. The boy entered the study first and was drawing the curtains aside before George could press the switch. The sudden flood of moonlight crisscrossed the rows of books; it lay on his desk, on the litter of papers and Council reports; full of gleams and shadows, it caught the glass in front of photographs on the mantelpiece.

“Just wondered what sort of view you had, George.”

“Not much, I’m afraid. That’s the wall of the bus garage.”

“But the
garden
…Come over here!”

George crossed the room, and as he approached the window, which was partly open, the scent of summer flowers came to him as he never remembered it before—geraniums, roses, carnations, stocks, mignonette.

“Aye, it’s nice this time of the year. I’m not much of a gardener myself, but Annie likes it and does a bit now and again…Livia’s garden, we still call it—used to be a piece of waste ground till she took it in hand.”

At the word, uttered like a spell between them, Charles stirred uneasily. “Livia,” he muttered. “My father used to call her Livy…The lost books of Livy, he used to say, what wouldn’t I give to look into them!” He breathed deeply into the scented air. “So she planted the garden and burned your book covers? Anything else?”

George did not speak.

Charles went on: “My father used to say she made you into a nerve of her own body and let you do the aching instead of her…unless you were ill or a child, and then she took all the aches to herself and rocked you to sleep.” He sat on the arm of a chair, fidgeting nervously with his cigarette case. “But that wouldn’t suit me. I’m not a child, and I don’t expect always to be ill.”

“You won’t be. You’ll get better.”

“I want to work, too.”

“You will.”

“Mind if I smoke?”

“Watch the light if you’re not going to pull the curtains.”

“Good old warden. The moon’s so bright you could turn on all the street lamps.” He suddenly pointed to a photograph on the mantelpiece. “
That
her?”

“Aye.”

“And the baby?”

“He died.”

“She was young then.”

“Aye. Nearly a quarter of a century ago.”