The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro [89]
‘Sorry. What does?’
‘Dignity, sir.’
‘Ah.’ The doctor nodded, but looked a little bemused. Then he said: ‘Now, this road should be familiar to you. Probably looks rather different in the daylight. Ah, is that it there? My goodness, what a handsome vehicle!’
Dr Carlisle pulled up just behind the Ford, got out and said again: ‘My, what a handsome vehicle.’ The next moment he had produced a funnel and a can of petrol and was most kindly assisting me in filling the tank of the Ford. Any fears I had that some deeper trouble was afflicting the Ford were laid to rest when I tried the ignition and heard the engine come to life with a healthy murmur. At this point, I thanked Dr Carlisle and we took leave of each other, though I was obliged to follow the back of his Rover along the twisting hill road for a further mile or so before our routes separated.
It was around nine o’clock that I crossed the border into Cornwall. This was at least three hours before the rain began and the clouds were still all of a brilliant white. In fact, many of the sights that greeted me this morning were among the most charming I have so far encountered. It was unfortunate, then, that I could not for much of the time give to them the attention they warranted; for one may as well declare it, one was in a condition of some preoccupation with the thought that – barring some unseen complication – one would be meeting Miss Kenton again before the day’s end. So it was, then, that while speeding along between large open fields, no human being or vehicle apparent for miles, or else steering carefully through marvellous little villages, some no more than a cluster of a few stone cottages, I found myself yet again turning over certain recollections from the past. And now, as I sit here in Little Compton, here in the dining room of this pleasant hotel with a little time on my hands, watching the rain splashing on the pavements of the village square outside, I am unable to prevent my mind from continuing to wander along these same tracks.
One memory in particular has preoccupied me all morning – or rather, a fragment of a memory, a moment that has for some reason remained with me vividly through the years. It is a recollection of standing alone in the back corridor before the closed door of Miss Kenton’s parlour; I was not actually facing the door, but standing with my person half turned towards it, transfixed by indecision as to whether or not I should knock; for at that moment, as I recall, I had been struck by the conviction that behind that very door, just a few yards from me, Miss Kenton was in fact crying. As I say, this moment has remained firmly embedded in my mind, as has the memory of the peculiar sensation I felt rising within me as I stood there like that. However, I am not at all certain now as to the actual circumstances which had led me to be standing thus in the back corridor. It occurs to me that elsewhere in attempting to gather such recollections, I may well have asserted that this memory derived from the minutes immediately after Miss Kenton’s receiving news of her aunt’s death; that is to say, the occasion when, having left her to be alone with her grief, I realized out in the corridor that I had not offered her my condolences. But now, having thought further, I believe I may have been a little confused about this matter; that in fact this fragment of memory derives from events that took place on an evening at least a few months after the death of Miss Kenton’s aunt – the evening, in fact, when the young Mr Cardinal turned up at Darlington Hall rather unexpectedly.
Mr Cardinal’s father, Sir David Cardinal, had been for many years his lordship’s closest friend and colleague, but had been tragically killed in a riding accident some three or four years prior to the evening I am now recalling. Meanwhile, the young Mr Cardinal had been building something of a name for himself as a columnist, specializing in witty comments on international affairs. Evidently,