A LONE porter walked down the platform, past the still hissing length of the train, shouting: ‘Cartersfield! Cartersfield!’ When he reached the luggage van he peered in and said: ‘Anything for us, mate?’
‘Not much, Bob.’
From the second of the five carriages a young man appeared, reaching back into the train to lift out a large expandable suitcase of scratched brown leather. It was spattered with torn brightly coloured labels, and attached to the handle were pieces of dirty knotted string, dangling the ends of old luggage tags.
He was tall, about six foot, though his thinness made him look taller. Even under the camel-hair coat his waist seemed as slim as a girl’s. And his face was thin, too, the cheekbones prominent, the dark-brown eyes set deep, and his nose like a geometrical figure, sharp, bridgeless, straight from the brow. The wind made passes at his short coarse black hair, but he ignored it, searching the pockets of his coat, then his cavalry-twill trousers, finally his tweed jacket.
Finding the ticket, he picked up his case and looked about him, suddenly ceasing to be just another descending passenger like the two or three who were now shuffling through the gate into the station yard, watchful, not committing himself yet to anything so definite as arrival or departure, not admitting the probability of destination. Surveying the platform, his glance brushed quickly over the travel posters for the Isle of Man and Bath and Pwllheli, the time-tables, the peeling notice-boards with GWR still legible on the mouldings, the crates of pigeons and one-day-old chicks, the dirty chocolate-coloured seats, the lone porter now pushing his trolley towards the gate. He seemed to see these things and dismiss them in the instant of seeing.
The guard blew his whistle and waved a green flag. The young man took a step away from the train as it began to move, but paid it no further attention. After a few moments of groaning and clanking the train had gone, blank faces looking sightlessly from dirty windows, and the platform was suddenly empty, somnolent, silent, except for the young man and the porter, the wind picking loosely at rubbish in odd corners.
‘Are you looking for someone?’ said the porter. He stopped several yards from the young man and examined him. He found him underfed but upper-class. ‘Sir?’
‘I was expecting Mr Henderson to meet me.’
‘Would you be Mr Mander, then, sir?’
‘Yes.’
‘Ah. Well, your uncle says to tell you he’s busy this afternoon, sir. He’s marrying Harry Mengel, so he can’t be here to meet you. He said to look out for you.’
‘Well, here I am,’ said the young man.
‘Mr Gilbert’s waiting to take you up to the vicarage, sir. He’s out in the yard.’
‘Thank you.’
They reached the gate, where a woman in a British Railways uniform took Mander’s ticket. Her eyes had looked at the same faces day after day for so many years that she no longer distinguished between them. Into them now came a flicker of life, of focus.
‘This is Mr Mander, Mary,’ said the porter. ‘I was telling him how his uncle can’t be here to meet him.’
‘That’s right,’ said the woman, ‘he’s got a wedding, you see.’ She scrutinized his face. ‘You’ll be the vicar’s nephew, then, Mr Mander?’ He looked cold, she thought. And thin. There was a nippy little wind about today.
‘Is that all your luggage, Mr Mander?’ said the porter.
‘Yes, just the suitcase.’
‘Well, that’s Mr Gilbert over there now.’ He pointed to a dark-blue Austin Sixteen of some age parked in the yard. ‘Give my best to your uncle, won’t you, sir?’
‘Oh, certainly. Thank you very much. I’m most grateful,’ said the young man. He smiled at them both. His teeth seemed unnaturally white, and the smile failed to bring any warmth to the pallor of his cheeks. It was, too, slightly crooked.
‘Funny accent he’s got,’ said Mary, watching him go over to the car. ‘He looks a nice young man, though.’ Her eyes went blank again as she began to count the tickets.
‘He looks as though he could do with a good tuck-in,’ said the porter. ‘Did you put the tea on, Mary?’
Mander went over to the Austin Sixteen and spoke to the driver. ‘I’m Mr Mander. I believe you’re waiting for me.’
‘That’s right,’ said the man in the driver’s seat. He folded his newspaper quickly. He was small and dumpy, with a brown moustache and little tufts of brown hair on his fingers. ‘Is that all your baggage, sir?’
‘Yes,’ said Mander. Then he added, half apologetically, half to himself: ‘I travel light.’
‘Ah,’ said Gilbert heavily, not quite catching it. He seemed disappointed. Glancing at his passenger in the driving mirror he judged him to look a good deal older than they’d said. Twenty-five or -six, he’d have said. Looked as though he could do with a good meal, too.
‘Been to Cartersfield before, haven’t you, Mr Mander?’
‘A couple of times. Just passing through.’
‘Oh yes. Weather’s been bad this spring.’ Mander made a non-committal noise.
‘Oh yes. Shocking spring. Middle of May and hardly a warm day yet.’
‘I beg your pardon?’
‘Let’s hope it’ll get better.’
‘Be here long, will you, sir?’
‘I really don’t know. It depends.’
‘Ah.’ Gilbert drove in silence, glancing occasionally in the mirror, till they turned through the gate of the vicarage, round the small circle of gravel, heavily weed-grown, to the front door. The house was large, but modestly so, a pleasant late Georgian modification of the classical model, with a stone porch supported by slim columns, tall windows gazing sternly at a tangled wilderness which might, once, have been a formal garden.
‘Thank you,’ said the young man, getting out of the car before Gilbert could open the door for him. ‘How much do I owe you?’
‘Half a crown, please, sir.’
Mander looked surprised. His dark-brown eyes and straight sharp nose turned full on the taxi-driver. ‘How much?’
‘Two shillings, sir.’
He gave him two shillings exactly, Gilbert looking ostentatiously at the lack of tip for a moment before he realized the passenger was no longer beside him to be daunted. He had put his case down by the front door and was standing back from the porch to look at the house. Again he seemed watchful, as though unconvinced that this was where he was supposed to be, as though he might still withdraw his visit, not accepting hospitality but granting a favour.
Gilbert got back into the car and drove down the drive with an air of thwarted dignity. The young man ignored the disappearing car, his eyes on the ruined garden, the uncut grass, the border sprouting dandelions. Then he went to the door and rang the bell, hearing it shrill inside the house.
*
The ‘Wedding March’ wheezed out under Mrs Harris’ fat fingers and frantic pedalling feet, and Raymond Henderson watched the amused contempt twist the corner of Harry Mengel’s mouth for an instant before he straightened it into a smile and set off down the aisle with Joan, until a few moments before, Cartwright, while the older Mrs Mengel sobbed openly, and in time, in the front pew. After a few moments he followed them to the door of the church, shook hands with everyone, smiling where he should smile, and listening gravely where he thought gravity was in order, said: ‘Come now, Mrs Mengel, this should be a day for rejoicing‚’ smiled and shook hands again, then slipped back into the church, went into the vestry, removed his clerical clothes, closed the register and sighed. Usually he quite enjoyed a wedding, but this one had been rather tiresome. For one thing he did not care at all for Harry Mengel, and he knew Mengel felt much the same about him. The grimace at the ‘Wedding March’, though, had been a quite unnecessary piece of impertinence. He was an altogether too uppish young man, with a sharp tongue and ideas too big for his boots. He was for ever pestering people to sign petitions on matters he couldn’t possibly know anything about—the treatment of prisoners in Nyasaland had been the subject of the latest, if you please—instead of getting on with his business, selling soap and cheese and butter and tea like his father. And he had had the infernal cheek to ask him, Raymond Henderson, the vicar, what the Church’s policy was on the H-bomb, as though he hadn’t got quite enough to do without bothering his head with things that even the Archbishop found extremely complex. He could be very argumentative and at times abusive, too. It was most unlikely that he ever gave a thought to the possibility of there being a God. Sometimes Henderson felt distinctly uneasy about marrying people who made no pretence of showing up at church, let alone of being Christians, and he envied the uncompromising parsons who occasionally got their names into the papers for refusing to marry non-communicants. But still, it was better, after all, that they should be married in a church, not in one of those tawdry register offices with other couples queueing up behind them. And Joan was a nice girl, and pretty, too, in an over-made-up way, even if she was hardly a regular attender, either. Why girls insisted on covering up their own natural beauties with garish paints and powders, when they had the God-given complexions of the English countryside, he would simply never understand. And then Mrs Mengel had slobbered away in the front pew all through the service——
Henderson checked himself. I really must not think of people like that. She didn’t slobber at all; she cried, simply cried. Mothers always do; they’re expected to, so they do. All the same, it was a little hard to see what she was crying about, since they were going to move in on her as soon as they got back from the honeymoon. There was nothing about ‘losing a son’ in the whole business. And perhaps that was what she had been crying about, because Joan probably couldn’t tell a kettle from a saucepan, sitting in that office at Trinder’s Garage all those years, adding up the bills all wrong.
I must not let myself run on like this. I’m getting a mean streak as I grow old.
He put on his mackintosh and went out into the church, locking the door of the vestry behind him. He hid the key under a bowl of flowers in the hagioscope. The flowers looked tired and dreary.
I was never like this when Isobel was alive. I never let them get me down. I never thought of them as ‘them’.
He knelt to pray briefly, then rose, buttoning his mackintosh and moving towards the door. As he reached the middle of the church he saw Jim Nelson lurking by the offerings box. Nelson was the sidesman, or so he called himself, though in fact he was nothing more than odd-job man around the church: grave-digger, sweeper-out and leader of the choir. His voice was a high tenor whine, and he had absolutely no ear at all, but he made a good deal of noise, which was more than could be said for the few members of the choir, like Ruth Stevens, who could at least sing in tune. He was missing a front tooth, and Henderson would hear him breathing through it with an irritating whistle while he tried to concentrate on the sermon, as much a part of the services in Cartersfield as the sibilant accompaniment on a record of some old song.
Now Nelson came forward into the main body of the church and said: ‘Will that be all, then, Vicar?’
‘Yes, thank you, Jim. I’ll give you the extra money on Sunday with the rest, if that’s all right.’
‘Ah.’ Jim stood there, pulling the lobe of his ear with dirty fingers. The nails were cracked, and quite definitely black. Henderson knew what was coming next, but he waited through it. ‘Now today’s a Thursday, sir, as you know, I dare say, and I don’t get my pay till tomorrow, that’s Friday, and I was wondering, sir, if you might see your way to letting me have my wedding money now, seeing as it’s Thursday, and I don’t have a penny left somehow this week, you know how it is, and it’s only right to drink the health of the bride and groom, sir, isn’t it, so if you could oblige, I’d be very grateful, sir.’
‘Now, Jim,’ said Henderson, ‘you know very well … Oh, what’s the use. Wait a moment. I’ll see what I have.’
He found two half-crowns and gave them to Nelson, saying: ‘Here you are, then. But I do urge you not to——’
‘It takes more than that to get a man drunk these days, sir,’ said Jim, taking the money quickly, as though he feared Henderson might change his mind. ‘What with beer so weak, and so dear, you can’t hardly feel warm for this much.’
It was almost being an accessary before the fact, thought Henderson. But this afternoon he couldn’t bring himself to care. It was a small enough sin, in all conscience.
Nelson put the money in a shabby purse that looked as though it had been rescued from a dustbin, put the purse in an inside pocket, said: ‘Thank you, sir,’ held the door open for the vicar, then shut it carefully behind them, adjusted his cap at a jaunty angle, emphasizing a large grease-spot, whistled for a moment through his teeth, or lack of teeth, touched the peak of the cap with the same dirty, black-nailed fingers that had pulled at his ear, said: ‘Good day to you, then, sir,’ and vanished down the path that led behind the church to his cottage.
I shouldn’t have done that. He’ll only drink it.
Henderson took the path to the gate of the churchyard, observing with distaste that the confetti was already a dirty red, white and blue in the grass, trampled by muddy feet and blown by the sharp wind. He paused, more out of habit than to look at it, by his wife’s grave, and suddenly remembered what had really been annoying him about the wedding. It had prevented him from meeting his nephew. He would probably be waiting for him at the vicarage now. It wasn’t Mengel’s fault at all: it was Mildred’s, ringing up like that and announcing David was coming by that train when he didn’t even have his engagements diary with him, and no chance to remember, with Mildred talking away.
He set off up the path, briskly.
Mildred was an odd woman, rootless, but very elegant, and now she was really rather well off. Quite different from Isobel. You would never have thought they were sisters. Of course, Isobel had always led a quiet life with him at Cartersfield, while Mildred and Frank had been rushing round the world for years. But, still, you would expect some family resemblance, and it wasn’t simply that they didn’t look alike, they didn’t even have remotely the same outlook on things. Perhaps it was the difference of income between himself and Frank, perhaps that kind of basic difference really could shape an outlook after a number of years. And perhaps it was Isobel who had changed rather than Mildred, because they’d been quite decently off as young girls. And now, of course, Frank was an oil man and Raymond Henderson was the vicar of Cartersfield, and even with his small invested capital his income would scarcely pay Frank’s super-tax, and certainly wouldn’t even do that after he’d paid Mrs Crawley and Jim Nelson and the other people who made life possible by doing the chores for him. And perhaps all that travelling would give you a different attitude to life. The Manders were for ever moving about the world, Venezuela one year, Arabia the next, and Texas for a time, and then Libya, wasn’t it? And certainly Borneo for a while. They hadn’t liked Borneo much.
Of course that was no way to bring up a child, carting him about with them like that. But that was Mildred, she insisted on it. And then when they did come back to England to settle down at last, of course he didn’t adapt to public-school life. The idea of sending a boy to a public school—and one with none too high a reputation, at that—when he’d hardly ever spent a night away from home was ridiculous. Sixteen was too old for a boy to be expected to sink himself smoothly into such a rigid and special kind of society. He was a very advanced sixteen in some ways, too. His education was simply appalling, of course, but he knew a good deal of—well, of life: which the other boys certainly would not have known. It was a great mistake. But that was Frank’s fault, not Mildred’s. They should have sent him to one of those places in Switzerland. Of course his reports were unfavourable. One couldn’t have expected anything else. People don’t just adapt like that.
He was past the post office, and about to turn from the High Street into Brunswick Street, when he met Dr Nye.
‘’Afternoon, Vicar,’ said Nye. ‘Have you been praying for rain again? It looks like it.’
‘Oh, for heaven’s sake,’ said Henderson, exasperated by the permanent foolishness of the joke.
‘Come now, feeling under the weather? You mustn’t start cursing your parishioners, Raymond; won’t do at all. Come and have a cup of tea. Marjory’s just put the kettle on. She’d be glad to see you.’ Nye was all smiles and delight at having caught Henderson off his guard.
‘It’s very kind of you, but my nephew David is coming—in fact he should have arrived by now. I really must go and make him welcome. Otherwise I’d love to. It’s most kind of you to invite me.’
‘Your nephew? Oh yes, you told me. Didn’t you say he’d been ill?’
‘Yes. He’s supposed to be here to convalesce.’
‘Good, good‚’ said Nye. ‘Didn’t you say something about some strange disease, though?’ He sounded friendly rather than professional, but Henderson rather resented the questioning.
‘Something he picked up in the tropics, I expect.’
‘Well, there’s not much here to disturb his convalescence‚’ said Nye. ‘He ought to be able to relax all right, and recuperate. If you’ll stop praying for rain, Raymond.’
‘The doctor said something about getting him out of London for a while. Country air, you know.’
‘London doctors‚’ said Nye, with disgust and admiration. ‘The money they get for telling you the obvious. I suppose their patients think people who live in the country never die.’
‘Well, perhaps they do‚’ said Henderson. ‘Will you excuse me? I ought to go and make sure Mrs Crawley hasn’t refused to let David in. She’s terrified of pedlars, you know, she thinks they’re all out to murder her. Do give my best wishes to Marjory, and tell her how sorry I am. Some other time, perhaps.’
They said good-bye, Nye heading towards the post office.
David Mander had been eighteen when Raymond last saw him, a rangy, rather awkward youth, with a smile that looked insolent even when he was genuinely amused. Somewhat against his will Raymond had had to admire his refusal to accept the enthusiasm for national service which Frank had tried to generate. ‘I shall loathe it‚’ he had said, ‘and it’s silly to pretend anything else, Frank’ (he had that curious custom of calling his parents by their first names), ‘and if you don’t stop talking about it I shall register as a conscientious objector.’ No one could persuade him that the Army might, in a certain sense, be quite fun. Raymond had agreed with Frank that a spot of discipline could do the boy no harm at all. Apart from the unpleasantnesses he’d got himself into at school, there was a distinct air of unco-operativeness about him, of independence not so much of spirit or thought as for its own sake and as an irritant. He took part in everything with a graceless lack of enjoyment. He certainly wasn’t an easy boy to get on with.
Henderson wondered what the boy would find to do in Cartersfield, which had none of the attractions of London, none of the endless ways of filling time that a fairly rich young man requires. If only he’d passed his WOSB and made some friends in the Army, had experienced some of the cameraderie of the mess. But he’d failed the board, and then he’d gone down with this curious illness, and after twelve months in and out of hospitals the Army had discharged him. A long sickness like that could change a young man a good deal, might make him even more independent and unco-operative. Henderson hoped not. David was twenty now, though, he should have a pretty good idea of the sort of thing he wanted to do. And he could borrow the car if he found Cartersfield too dull.
‘Has he arrived?’ he said to Mrs Crawley, who seemed to have been lurking in the hall, waiting for him.
‘Yes, Mr Henderson, he’s in your study.’ She seemed rather agitated. They hadn’t had a guest since Isobel died.
‘Good.’
She took his coat and said: ‘They’ll be on their way to France now, I expect.’
‘Who will be? Oh, Mengel and his wife. Yes, yes, they will be. Perhaps they’ll have some fine weather there. It’s really quite nippy today.’
‘I do hope you don’t mind, sir,’ said Mrs Crawley, ‘but I took the liberty of lighting a fire in there for him. You did say it was a bit nippy yourself.’
Henderson looked rather startled. It was an invariable rule that there were no fires after the first of May. ‘Well, I think we may as well make an exception, Mrs Crawley.’
‘Well, I thought so, too,’ she said, relief showing on her grey face in a puckered little smile. She was a short stumpy woman of forty-five or fifty, with a greyness about her that seemed to drip from her wispy hair to her stout sensible shoes.
Henderson glanced at the afternoon post, a few long envelopes in a brass dish on top of the oak chest.
‘They seem to send one nothing but advertisements these days,’ he said. ‘It oughtn’t to be allowed. You’d better take these, Mrs Crawley. Some kind of soap coupons. We might as well save a few pennies where we can.’
She took them and went towards the kitchen, saying: ‘I’ll bring you your tea in just a minute, Mr Henderson.’
To his surprise he found himself trying to think of things to do before he went into the study. He was definitely nervous. How ridiculous, he thought, and went in.
David Mander was lying on the sofa with his feet dangling over the edge, reading a book. He looked up as his uncle came in and said: ‘Hello, Raymond,’ then swung himself into a sitting position, paused, looking coolly but not quite straight at Henderson’s face, then stood up.
‘How very nice to see you, David,’ said the uncle, putting out his hand. He noticed the pallor first, then the thinness. ‘Goodness, you do look as though you’ve been ill. But a spell in the country should fatten you up a bit.’
‘I’m all right,’ said David, smiling. The smile was a little crooked. They stared at each other for a moment, then Raymond went over to the fire and warmed his hands, thinking, I do wish he wouldn’t call me Raymond like that.
‘And how are your mother and father?’
‘They’re very well.’
‘Good. I’m sorry it’s such a miserable day. More like March than May. Well,’ he went on, as the other gave no response, ‘I don’t know what we’re going to find for you to do here, David, but I’m sure there must be something. It’s a very quiet place, Cartersfield.’
‘You mustn’t worry about that,’ said David, his voice sounding courteous, though he looked extraordinarily arrogant, Henderson thought, with his thin features, his straight nose, his rich brown eyes. He was extremely self-assured. ‘I’m pretty well able to look after myself, you know.’
‘Oh, I’m sure you are. But tell me how you feel. Are you quite recovered from that illness now?’
‘Quite,’ said David.
They stood in silence for a while, Henderson conscious of the boy’s eyes judging and appraising, making him uneasy.
‘Did Mrs Crawley show you your room all right?’
‘Yes, thank you. It couldn’t be nicer.’ David sat down again. His eyes went to the book he had been reading, as though he had now finished surveying his uncle and had discovered all he wished to know about him.
‘You’ve got a funny accent, David,’ said Henderson, noticing it for the first time, deciding with relief that it was this that had been bothering him.
‘So I’ve been told. People say I sound South African.’
‘But you were never in South Africa, were you?’
‘No.’
‘Well, travelling about like that, I expect your accent has got a bit of everything in it, hasn’t it?’
‘Probably. I never listen to myself, I’m afraid, so I don’t know.’ David picked up the book, tore a piece of paper from a cigarette packet and marked the place, then put the book on a table. He lit a cigarette with a gold lighter and lay back on the sofa, saying: ‘It’s really most kind of you to put up with me.’
‘It’s a great pleasure, David, really a great pleasure. Since Isobel—your aunt—died, it’s been very lonely here at times. It’s a delight to have someone else in the house.’
Mrs Crawley came in with the tea things to break another silence.
‘Oh, Mrs Crawley,’ said Henderson, ‘would you get David an ashtray. There must be some somewhere.’
‘Very good, Mr Henderson.’ She put down the tray and went out. When Raymond turned to ask David whether he took milk or sugar he met the crooked arrogant smile and the eyes full on him. He cleared his throat.
‘Sugar or milk?’
‘Neither, thank you.’
Mrs Crawley came in with an ashtray: a small china dish with a picture of an early automobile in bright colours.
‘This is all I can find,’ she said.
‘That’s fine,’ said Henderson. ‘Well, we’re going to have to fatten him up a bit, Mrs Crawley, aren’t we?’
‘We’ll see what we can do,’ she said, smiling broadly. ‘I expect he likes plenty to eat.’
‘I really don’t eat very much,’ said David. ‘Please don’t put yourself out at all.’
‘It won’t be any trouble, Mr David,’ she said. ‘It’s a pleasure to cook for someone as skinny as you are.’ She went out again.
‘I’m afraid you’ll find us very quiet,’ said Raymond. ‘There is a dance once a week, but it’s very local; not at all the sort of thing you’re used to, I expect.’ He handed him the tea-cup. ‘Just what they call a “hop”. I don’t know who goes, but I don’t expect the Simpsons or the Gilchrists would patronize it.’
‘Who are they?’
‘Well, Simpson’s a stockbroker—he goes up to London every day. They have a girl, Molly, about your age. But she’s not here at the moment. At Art School, I think. Girls don’t seem to stay at home these days the way they did when I was young.’
‘Wasn’t Gilchrist the taxi-man?’
‘Oh no.’ Henderson’s shocked tone made David smile. ‘Not at all. That’s Gilbert, not Gilchrist. The Gilchrists live at Mendleton Hall. I’m not sure exactly what he does—one of those people who go under the anonymity of “company director”, you know. They’re charming people. He reads the lesson. They have a boy at Oxford—Teddy. And Jane must be nineteen now. She was a débutante last year, had a “season”, don’t they call it? Perhaps you met her at some dance.’
‘I was in bed most of last year,’ said David.
‘Yes, so you were. Well, Jane is at home now. She’s a great girl for tennis—she won some kind of championship last August, even with all her parties and things. The county championship for girls, I think. She is an excellent player. Do you play at all?’
‘In most of the places we’ve lived there’s been nothing else to do except play tennis,’ said David.
‘Oh, good.’ Raymond’s eyes lit up, and he sipped his tea with something approaching but not quite gusto. ‘Well, we must certainly get you two together.’
‘Where is this Mendleton Hall?’
‘It’s about three miles away. It’s a big manor house, you know, with a very long history. They say it may have been here before Cartersfield was, though that’s doubtful. But it was mentioned in Doomsday Book. Of course the Gilchrists only moved there after the war. I believe,’ he said, lowering his voice, ‘that Gilchrist made a good deal of money in something like air-raid shelters, but that may not be true. Actually they’re a very old family, very old. And though they don’t live in the town, they do a lot for us. She’s chairman of the Women’s Institute, for instance. And he reads the lesson.’
‘Very helpful,’ said David, tonelessly.
‘There’s a chapel out there at Mendleton where I’m supposed to go and say Evensong once a month. It’s silly, really. The Mendleton people always come in to Cartersfield for Matins, so there’s never a soul there. I usually just sit and read to myself.’
David laughed. Henderson caught the mockery, and said: ‘I mean I read the service to myself, of course.’ He blushed. ‘It was Thompson-Crowley’s father who built it. There’s a story that he had gout, and refused to let the horses be used on Sundays, and the distance was too far for him to walk, so he made the vicar go out there.’
‘Oh, England,’ said David. He laughed genuinely this time, Henderson thought, not mockingly at all, more with incredulity than amusement. ‘What an extraordinary country.’
‘Well, they were a bit odd in those days, perhaps. The last Thompson-Crowley died in—— Oh, a few years before the war, the last war. And then a lawyer bought the place, but he was killed just before VE-day. He was a nice fellow. Freeman, he was called, Harold Freeman. And then his widow sold the house to the Gilchrists.’
‘You know the neighbourhood as well as an estate agent,’ said David. ‘Is there anywhere to swim?’
Summoned abruptly from Mendleton and its history, Raymond looked confused. ‘There’s no town swimming-pool. They did talk of building one some years ago, but then there was a scare about polio, and they decided against it. But there are some old gravel-pits—places where they’ve dug out the gravel, you know, and then the water’s filled them up. People go and swim there. I haven’t swum myself, to be frank, since I was a boy.’
‘I just wondered,’ said David. ‘You never know your luck. This might turn out to be England’s one summer in fifty when it doesn’t rain every day.’
‘Don’t you like England, David?’ said Raymond, irked by something in his nephew’s tone.
‘It’s all right.’ He looked unblinkingly at Henderson. ‘There are other places.’
‘But it’s your country, David.’
‘I’ve lived here for a total of five years in my entire life,’ said David. ‘That’s a quarter, exactly. I don’t feel very strongly about it one way or the other. Except that no other country’s succeeded in getting me into its army.’
‘But don’t you think of England as your home?’
‘Home?’ The young man, his pallid cheeks stretched thin between jaw and temple, stared at his uncle with amazement, almost with discomposure. ‘I don’t look on anywhere as home.’
‘But I’m glad about those gravel-pits. They sound as though they might be fun.’
*
At ten-thirty Henderson said: ‘I think I’ll be going to bed, now.’
‘Good night, then, Raymond.’
‘Won’t you be going to bed soon?’
‘Not for a while. I don’t usually go to bed till quite late. Otherwise I don’t sleep.’
‘I should have thought that as a convalescent you should try to get as much sleep as possible.’
‘I get it all right,’ said David. ‘I’ll turn out the lights, Raymond.’ He hardly glanced from his book.
Thoroughly put out, Henderson fidgeted by the door. He didn’t like the idea of someone being up and about while he was in bed; it was wrong somehow. But ten-thirty had been his bed-time for so many years he couldn’t break the habit now.
‘Are you sure you want to stay up?’ he said, almost pleaded.
David looked up from his book with an expression of mild but mocking surprise. ‘Quite sure, thank you. I never go to bed till after midnight.’
‘Good gracious,’ said Henderson. He was shocked. ‘Well, good night.’
He locked all the doors, left a single bulb burning in the hall and another on the landing, and went to bed.
For a time he lay awake, thinking about his nephew. What an odd boy he was, what extraordinary things he said. Not thinking of anywhere as home. Mildred had really brought him up very badly, obviously allowed him to do just as he pleased. And it made that fuss about national service look rather different. He hadn’t realized that the boy felt no sense of patriotism. He was very thin, too, and very pale. Mrs Crawley should see to that, though. Perhaps the young were all like that nowadays, never thinking of anything but their own pleasure. But he was too old to argue with. Or he didn’t seem to understand the basic principles from which one argues in a place like Cartersfield. The simple virtues of the country—would he enjoy them? Well, he could always go back to London whenever he wanted.
He dozed, but kept waking to look at his watch. It was after two when he heard David come upstairs, go to his room, then the bathroom, then back to his room again.