Lewis Percy (32 page)

‘Can I help you?’ asked Lewis.

‘I’m looking for a Dr Percy? Dr Lewis Percy?’

‘I am Lewis Percy.’ He felt his usual embarrassment in pronouncing his name.

The stranger extended his overbred hand.

‘Howard Millinship.’

‘Not the Howard Millinship who wrote that article on Mérimée? How very nice to meet you. I thought it was an impressive piece of work. That examination of the Spanish taste in nineteenth-century France, and the distinction between the true Spanish taste and Spanish kitsch. I thought it very well worked out, and very well written, if I may say so. But what can I do for you? Did you want to work in the
library? Let me find you a place. This one is mine, I’m afraid.’

‘I read your book,’ said the American. ‘That’s why I’m here. Is there anywhere we can talk? Your office, for example?’

‘I don’t have one,’ said Lewis apologetically. ‘But we can go into Dr Goldsborough’s office. I’m on duty here, actually; I mustn’t be away too long. However, things seem to be quiet. If you’d like to come with me?’

He led the way to Goldsborough’s office, gestured to the one armchair, and sat himself at Goldsborough’s desk. Very quietly he moved Goldsborough’s tin of blackcurrant pastilles behind a pile of papers, and then palmed it and put it into a drawer. If this man did turn out to be a potential benefactor it would not do to display these modest domestic appurtenances.

‘What are you working on now?’ he asked.

‘Still Mérimée. But I wanted to discuss your book. I’ve been teaching from it this term. My students have been really appreciative of your ideas, Dr Percy. I was wondering if I could persuade you to come over and lecture to them?’

He taught, Lewis vaguely remembered, at a rather exclusive girls’ college in Massachusetts. He was obviously younger than he looked, although he had the assurance of a mature, even a middle-aged, man. The decorum had purpose behind it. The ‘Dr Percy’, he imagined, was merely a tribute to his own rapidly greying hair. Even the thought of how shabby he must look to this polished creature could not dim his amusement, his surprise. He had not given any attention to his book since the day he had swept his free copies out of sight and into the back of a cupboard. It had aroused very little comment in England but had had a surprisingly kind reception in the States. This he had put down purely and simply to American generosity in these matters. He had thought of working on a second volume – had in fact made fairly full notes to that effect – but more pressing matters had intervened. Nothing had come of it, although it was not for want of time. He had all the time in the world.
But he was pleased to have his book remembered. Indeed, he was extraordinarily pleased. He felt as if he were looking at an old photograph of a smiling face. How kind Americans were, how charming! As to the strange proposition put to him, there was no hesitation: he instinctively and immediately rejected it.

‘Mr Millinship …’

‘Howard.’

‘Howard. This is very nice of you. I count your invitation as the most enormous compliment. But I can’t possibly accept. I’ve never given a lecture in my life, and I’m certainly too old to start now.’ The minute he said this he realized how ridiculous it must sound. But it was true, he did feel too old to learn anything.

Howard Millinship looked pained, as if he had made a tactical error, framed his question badly, been deficient in courtesy. One vellum-coloured hand consulted his beard, his moustache. His mouth was childlike, Lewis saw, rosy and soft. How he must hate it for interfering with the seriousness of his demeanour! Yet he was impressive, for all his very real hesitations. He was impressive because he knew his place in the world, and had always known it, just as he had always known what to wear, what to eat, and whom to marry. Despite his youth he had a married, settled look, and even wore a wedding ring, an un-English custom. And he had the manners of another age; he was a young man from the pages of Henry James or Edith Wharton. In comparison Lewis felt immeasurably but not unpleasantly old, able to examine the stranger with curiosity, with indulgence, suddenly wanting to know all about him. He was so exactly like a character from a novel that Lewis could not bear to see him go.

But the American had no intention of going. Clearing his throat, as if to erase whatever he had erroneously done before, he started again.

‘Perhaps not this year. I understand you have your commitments here. But if you could see your way to coming in
a year’s time? Or two years’? We would be most happy to welcome you.’

Lewis smiled at his earnestness, the earnestness of the young, with their infinite trust in the strength of their own intentions.

‘You see, Howard, I really don’t know that I can commit myself that far ahead. And I think you’d better not count on me, you know. I’m not really a teacher. Well, you must take my word for that,’ he said kindly, as Howard Millinship showed signs of springing to the defence. ‘You need a certain amount of conviction to be a teacher, or so it seems to me. I’m not sure that I have enough convictions. I’m really only good at things that require rumination, like reading and writing. I’m not what you’re looking for, really.’

‘We could offer you a house, of course,’ Howard Millinship went on, exactly as if Lewis had not spoken. ‘You could give one lecture or fifty. Or maybe just classes – our students, after all, might not be up to your standard. Literature, it seems, is on the wane. We’re in a very beautiful part of the country,’ he added. ‘If you came in September you’d see the trees changing colour. I think you’d enjoy it.’

‘I’ll think about it,’ said Lewis, amused and touched by such assiduity. He had little intention of doing what the American suggested. He had never wanted to teach, felt too humble to have opinions to order. And it was not his ideal, never had been. Transparency! What he wanted, what he needed, was some kind of interval in his life, away from the staleness of habits and obligations that bound him fast. Since everything was changing around him he began to crave change for himself. Yet it seemed impossible, for the simple reason that he had no idea of what he could change into. This was the central problem. With it, or preceding it, or at any rate intimately connected with it, was the fear of what would have to go if he did change. If his present self were to be sacrificed, was there not a tremendous risk that there might be nothing left? In what circumstances could this process – perhaps necessary, even overdue – take place? It
must be tentative, experimental, cautious, and invisible. The forging of a new self could not be rushed. What he needed to do was to live somewhere, somehow, with none of the old props around him, no library to clock into, no house to return to, but also no simulacrum of a family, no distant wife, distant daughter, distant mother-in-law. He felt a surge of impatience as he thought of them, crammed into that house, uttering their constant lack-lustre demands, always on the verge of rancour. Stifling! If it were not for his daughter … But the little girl, who was growing to resemble her mother, would not be ready for him for many a long year. Suddenly he did not see why he should spend the intervening time alone, or waste it on people who did not, would never, love him. If he could make a home for them in America, might not his daughter want to live with him there? And would it not be an ideal solution, to welcome her to another country, a country which he imagined as a sort of paradise? Suddenly he felt a pang of pity for Tissy and for Mrs Harper, for their fatal lack of joy. It would be terrible if this inheritance were to be passed on to Jessica. His mission was to save her from everything that was prudent, watchful, careful, secretive, as she would indeed become if she stayed for ever in that house. If it had to be America, then so be it. However he did not think that he could face this on his own, in his present state. The self that he inhabited was so diminished, so nearly beaten, that it must be cast off before he could be the person that America demanded. He shook his head in amazement at the rapidity of the day’s events.

‘Howard, all I can give you is the vaguest of promises – I can’t yet set a time. Does that sound ungracious? If it does, I’m sorry, truly sorry.’

He expected, after this, to be turned down flat, but Howard Millinship smiled and held out his hand. An agreement in principle was all that he seemed to require, but Lewis saw, too late, that this must at some time be implemented. The success of his mission brought about an almost visible relaxation in Howard Millinship’s person.
Oddly enough, this made him look older rather than younger. He now looked like a fairly well-worn thirty-year-old, with a not unattractive hardness about him. One day he will be formidable, thought Lewis. He is half-way there already.

‘Where are you staying?’ he asked.

‘At the Stanhope Court Hotel. As a matter of fact my wife is waiting for me to call her. She said she wouldn’t go out until I did. I expect she wants to do some shopping. She likes to go to the Scotch House.’

‘Use this telephone,’ said Lewis. ‘And why don’t you both have dinner with me? I’m free this evening, if you haven’t anything planned.’

‘I’m sure we’d be delighted,’ said Howard Millinship. ‘Jeannine would like to meet you. My wife is French,’ he said. ‘She read your book too. She loved it. I always tell her she’s cleverer than I am.’

He made the call, was evidently pleased with what he heard, and issued the invitation for dinner. Then he turned to Lewis with a rather younger look on his face, domestic rather than professional.

‘Where would you like to go?’ asked Lewis. ‘Do you know Meridiana? It was very popular a few years ago. I used to take my wife there before we were married.’

‘Meridiana’s fine. We were there last year. What time shall we meet you?’

‘Eight o’clock? Not too late for you?’

‘We’ll see you then. Thanks a lot. Goodbye, Dr Percy.’

‘You must call me Lewis,’ said Lewis, to whom the American now appeared familiar, almost like a young relative. He felt like Howard Millinship’s uncle. That was no bad thing, he reflected. A teacher is a sort of uncle to his students. And if he were to be a teacher, as it now seemed likely … He shook his head. He still did not see how it could be done.

He took the bus home. When he reached his street it was as though he had been away from it for a very long
time. Curiously, he noted its charm, its strangeness, as if he were returning to it from abroad. In much the same way, and for much the same reason, it appeared smaller, humbler, even a little pathetic. Such innocence! White roses overhung the pavement from a bush that was almost a tree. Everywhere the gardens were luxuriant, proudly displaying flowers not normally praised for their beauty, purple rhododendrons, violet irises. Pansies in plastic boxes adorned every sill. Through the wide windows, each one backed with a sofa, he could see past French doors into further gardens. He remembered moving the sofa so that Tissy could sit there, where it caught the afternoon sun. He could almost smell the chocolate on her breath, could almost see her slight figure in its wide skirts as she glided out of the silent room. And if all this were to go? At first it seemed quite literally unthinkable. But he succumbed to what he felt was the pathos of the street, all unaware in the evening sunlight, as if it were the pathos of leave-taking. The street would remain, but he would go. Where he would go was as yet unclear to him, and he found himself unable to bring anything into focus. It was simply that matters would be painful for a while, for between leave-taking and arrival there is a vast area of doubt.

Tissy could have the house, he decided. She could bring up his daughter there. Mrs Harper could sell Britannia Road and move in with them. They would have enough to live on: he had heard that property in this area was now worth quite a lot. He had never touched the money his mother had left him, and now he regretted not having paid it more attention, investing it, or doing something clever with it. But in the division of the spoils that money could be his, at least for a while. He had no idea what he would do with it. He only knew, with infinite misgivings, that it was time to go. As he turned in at his own gate he pulled a flowering yellow rose – his own – towards him and inhaled deeply. Its honeyed sweetness spoke of pleasure, ardour, happiness. Not yet, he thought. But one day, perhaps.

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