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By Root 2363 0

I was far from satisfied with the final result. My first version was considerably more bellicose, but as James, to whom I showed it, pointed out, if I accused Ben of being a bully and a tyrant this would at once suggest that Hartley had said so. I could not justify my proceedings on that ground without casting an aspersion upon the ‘perfect loyalty’ which I had perjured myself by swearing that Hartley had exhibited. This omission of course left my self-defence almost non-existent, and I was well aware, without having it mentioned to me by James, that in another age both Ben and I would have been forced by convention and our own honourable consciences to fight each other to the death. In another age, and, in the case of a man like Ben, perhaps in this one too. My slender ‘apologies’ were also difficult to word, since I had to crawl sufficiently to propitiate, should Ben be disposed to forgive, but not so much as to seem negligible should he prefer to fight. I could only hope that Ben’s own sense of guilt would weaken his aggressive instincts. The pompous reference to ‘my cousin and my friends’ was James’s idea, though the false assertion that they had been present ‘throughout’ Hartley’s sojourn was mine. James thought that the vague presence of a more disinterested, more formidable, group of persons might make Ben feel that his proceedings had an audience, and might thus temper the violence of his reactions. I did not believe this. His behaviour might be a matter of ‘deep concern’ to all sorts of worthy persons other than myself, but once the front door was closed upon the married pair Ben would do as he pleased. James did not repeat his request to be allowed to talk to Hartley. It was in any case too late. Gilbert dropped my missive through the letter box at Nibletts at about ten o’clock that evening.

I spent a little time with Hartley. It was very odd. I told her that she was going home tomorrow. She nodded, blinking her eyes intelligently. I asked her if she wanted to come down and have supper with the others. She declined, to my relief. I did not ask her again if she was content to go. We sat on the floor and played cards, a form of ‘snap’ which we had invented for ourselves when we were children. Everyone in the house went to bed early.

History

FIVE

THE NEXT DAY was one of the worst days of my life, perhaps the worst. I awoke as for execution. No one except Titus had any interest in breakfast. The hot stuffy weather continued, with a few distant grumblings of thunder now.

Hartley looked terrible. She had made up her face with especial care and this made her look pathetically older. Her yellow dress was dirty, crumpled and torn. I could not send her back to her husband in my dressing gown. I searched among my clothes and found a sort of blue unisex beach coat which I made her put on. I also found a light scarf to put over her head. It was like dressing a child. We did not dare to say much to each other. By now I wanted the whole thing to be over. I could scarcely endure the idea that she might even now say ‘I don’t think I want to go after all’; and the impulse to cry out ‘Stop!’ was a pain which I urgently wanted to be without. Perhaps she felt much the same. And I thought at one moment: why, it’s just like it was then. I’ve done everything I can for her, everything. And she’s just leaving me. I put into a plastic bag her make-up and the mottled pink stone with the white bars which I had given her (and which she had apparently not looked at since). She said nothing, but she watched me put the stone into the bag. Gilbert shouted up that the car was ready.

While Hartley was in the bathroom I went on downstairs carrying the bag and waited in the hall. They had decided that what Peregrine called ‘the delegation’ should be carried in Peregrine’s white Alfa Romeo. James and Perry and Titus were already outside. Gilbert came out of the kitchen. He said to me, ‘Charles, a funny thing, last night, I didn’t tell you.’

‘What?’

‘When I delivered that letter at his place I thought I heard a woman talking inside.’