Miss Hargreaves (31 page)

‘Most extraordinary yarns are going round. Marjorie thinks he’s quite dotty, you know.’

‘Oh, he’s not
dotty
,’ said Henry. (I
knew
Henry felt uncomfortable.) ‘Of course, it’s been a frightful blow to him the–way the Hargreaves has cut him dead.’

‘There always was something a bit odd about Huntley,’ said Pat, ‘even as a kid. Too damned introspective, you know. As for the old man, well, of course, he’s quite mad.’

I got up. I couldn’t stand that. No. That was too much.

I went into the saloon and walked up to the bar. Henry and Pat were the only people there.

Henry went a flaming red when he saw me; and he does go very red, Henry does, right up to the roots of the hair. I felt sorry for him in a way.

‘Look here,’ I said to Pat, ‘you may say what you like about me and we shan’t quarrel. But if you say anything more about my father, Pat Howard, I’ll wipe your nose on the floor.’

‘Oh, I didn’t mean anything,’ he began quickly. ‘Have a drink, old man. I–’

‘Of course Pat didn’t mean anything,’ said Henry. ‘Have something to drink and be nice to us, old boy.’

‘No,’ I said. ‘I won’t drink with you. As for you, Henry, I hope that bath will stick in your throat and choke you. You can drown yourself in it–’

‘Here, old boy, don’t go on like this.’

‘I will go on like this.’

But instead of going on like that, I turned suddenly and went out of the bar. In the street I hunched up my coat miserably from the driving rain. I felt suicidal. I’m very fond of old Henry, and it did seem to me that he’d let me down terribly. The whole of the Hargreaves business suddenly mounted up like a cloud over me. I felt I couldn’t breathe.

While I stood there the side door of the Happy Union opened and a man came out, fumbling with the catch of his umbrella. ‘Now,’ I heard him saying, ‘I shall really expect to see you at Mass on Sunday, Mrs Paton. I know it’s very difficult for you, but you must try to come. Good night.’

‘Good night, Father.’

It was Father Toule. I remembered that Mrs Paton, who runs the Happy Union, was a Roman Catholic. For a moment I stood lost in thought, watching him walk up the hill towards the presbytery in Bethany Lane. Then I ran after him.

‘Father Toule!’ I called, a few yards behind him. He turned.

‘Yes? Who is that, please?’

‘It’s me. Norman Huntley. Huntley’s bookshop. You remember–’

‘Of course. How are you, Mr Huntley? And how is your father? Very wintry, isn’t it?’

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘I’m all right, thank you. At least, I’m not–not really. I awfully want to have a talk with you, that is, if you’ve got time.’

‘Oh? Certainly. Come and have a cup of cocoa with me at the presbytery. Dear me! What a night!’

So it was a night. We struggled against the wind, up to the top of Candole Street, round the corner by the Northgate, and eventually down into Bethany Lane, by the recreation park. It was impossible to talk in the driving wind and rain. Father Toule insisted on my sharing his umbrella, which I thought kind but silly of him, as I only got the drips from it down my neck.

We went into the presbytery and he lit a small gas-stove in the parlour. I had been in once before to bring some books round. It was, I thought, a terribly dreary room, with much the same atmosphere as a dentist’s waiting-room. It was full of sacred pictures and dried flowers, with a lot of blotting-pads and penny pamphlets on the walnut oval table in the middle. It seemed a little more cheerful that evening with the gas-fire alight. Father Toule kept skimming round me, making me comfortable, offering me cigarettes and going in and out of the room to some mysterious kitchen down a dark staircase to see about the cocoa. There was an awful draught from one of the opened windows, but I didn’t like to tell him. After some time the cocoa was ready and I sat with the steaming cup before me, stirring it vigorously and wondering how on earth I was going to say what I wanted to say. It was getting on for ten. Father Toule didn’t try to make me talk; just said a few things about the weather and books. He’s a very small man, quite young, with the most extraordinarily innocent expression and grave blue eyes. He’s got rather a comic little laugh and he tries so hard to make you comfortable that you can’t help feeling uncomfortable.

‘Well’I choked over the boiling cocoa. How much easier it would all have been if he’d offered me sherry! ‘The fact is–’ There was no sugar in the cocoa. I wondered whether to tell him.

‘Yes?’

‘Father Toule,’ I said, putting the cocoa on the table and determining to plunge into my story, ‘Father Toule, suppose I told you something fantastic, such as that I’d been swallowed by a whale? If I swore it was the truth, you wouldn’t laugh at me, would you?’

He did laugh. But not at me, which was kind.

‘I expect everybody laughed at poor Jonah, don’t you? And he must have found it hard to put up with. No, Mr Huntley, I’ll try not to laugh. What is the matter?’

‘I’d better get it out at once. I’m terribly worried. I’ve created something. I’ve created a woman. She’s alive now in this town. Her name is–Lady Hargreaves.’

There was a long silence. Not a shadow of a smile crossed his face. It was quite expressionless. Then–‘Would it be better for you to tell me all about it, Mr Huntley?’

I told him everything, right up to the swan affair. The only thing I left out was about our night on the river. I couldn’t bear the idea of that getting round, and even presbyteries have ears.

‘Do you believe me?’ I asked.

‘I believe,’ he said, ‘that you believe you are telling a true story. Nobody could come and make up a story like that.’

‘I could,’ I said.

‘Ah!’ he smiled. ‘Yes. You could. But I don’t think you’d walk up Candole Street all the way to Bethany Lane on a wild night just to pull my leg, would you, Mr Huntley?’

I shook my head. ‘You believe me, then?’

‘I said I believed you believed you were telling a true story. But whether you have the true explanation–ah! That’s another matter.’

‘I’m positive!’ I cried. ‘I feel it in my bones. There
can’t
be any other explanation, there can’t be. Everything fits in with what I made up from the first.’

‘Well, if you are certain you have–made this woman, Mr Huntley, why do you come to me?’

‘Because–because–Well, I haven’t got
proof
, have I? And I don’t know what to do about her.’

‘Ah. You haven’t got proof. Then you are not quite certain?’

‘I see. You’re another one who doesn’t believe me,’ I said bitterly. The rain beat against the windows; a calendar was flapping on the wall from a partly opened window.

‘No, no!’ he said quickly. ‘After all, none of us can know what is in the mind of God, can we, and–’

‘That’s it!’ I cried. ‘That’s just it! I felt you’d–there was that saint you were interested in. That’s what made me come to you. The saint who flew.’

‘Oh, you mean St Joseph of Cupertino? Yes. You must not take such stories too seriously. There is very little evidence but do have another cigarette that he actually
flew
.–– He was supposed to be suspended above the ground. But even that is not known for certain.’

‘Can
anything
be proved?’ I said. And I remembered father saying that the only thing he certainly knew was that he knew nothing.

‘Supernatural phenomena cannot be proved by natural evidences, Mr Huntley.’

‘But I
know
I made Miss Hargreaves. I know it, Father. I–’

‘Wait a minute. Wait a minute. I would like to suggest to you that it is no more certain you created Miss Hargreaves than that St Joseph flew about his church. God
may
, of course, in His own inscrutable way, have used you for the demonstration of a marvel that we cannot at present understand. He
may
have done that.’

‘That’s it. That’s what I mean.’

‘And there
may
, of course, be a perfectly natural explanation, overlooked at present.’

‘I don’t
want
natural explanations!’ I cried.

‘Really, Mr Huntley don’t you?’ He smiled.

‘Suppose,’ I went on, ‘that it turns out beyond doubt that nobody in the world had ever seen or heard of Miss Hargreaves before that day I first spoke her name that she suddenly appeared in the world at that moment? Why then, Father Toule, it means that I
must
have created her.’

‘No, Mr Huntley. It means that there must be a supernatural explanation.’

‘But that is the only supernatural explanation.’

‘Oh, no! Since we really know nothing of the supernatural, there might be a million supernatural explanations. There is one quite obvious possibility. I merely put it to you. There
is
precedent for our believing that it is possible to raise a dead body from the grave. But no doubt you have thought of that and dismissed it.’

I was silent. ‘I don’t–like that,’ I said slowly.

‘Ah. You prefer the other? Yes. I can quite understand. I wonder–’ He was silent. ‘I was going to say,’ he suggested, ‘that it might ease your mind a little if you could go to Lusk some time and see if by any chance there is a tombstone in the graveyard which bears this lady’s name or a plate, perhaps, in the church itself. What I am trying to suggest to you is that you might have subconsciously noticed the name on your way into the church and brought it out later, not realizing you had seen it.’

‘But–you don’t mean–that–I raised her from the dead–the cockatoo–
everything
–no, I–’

‘Oh, please do not let it add to your worries. It is only another possible supernatural explanation. In any case, I feel that a visit to Lusk church might help you to get a clearer perspective of the matter. How very, very interesting it all is! I think you ought to tell this sexton that you were playing a joke on him. Forgive my putting that point of view before you, but it was perhaps rather an unkind thing to do. Unintentional, of course, Mr Huntley.’

‘Do you know, that never once occurred to me.’

‘He, you see, firmly believes in her existence, though he has never seen her. Whether you have created her in the flesh, you have certainly created her in the mind of that one man. You have, in fact, planted in that mind what may be a lie.’

‘Unless–I raised her from the dead.’

‘Yes. But I would not dwell too much upon that. It was perhaps silly of me to lay it before you.’

‘It’s so awful, Father Toule. Not a soul will believe me. And I can’t help feeling I want to tell everybody,
make
them believe me, do something that’ll compel them to believe me. That swan, for example–’

For the first time that evening he frowned.

‘I would be very, very careful,’ he said, ‘if you really believe you are endowed with some strange supernatural power, then you must walk very carefully indeed. You must learn to be very humble. Say your prayers about it and accept God’s will. I would not try to probe too deeply into the matter. I am very honoured that you should have come to me, Mr Huntley. I shall accept all that you have told me as if it were under the seal of the Confessional–’

‘I don’t mind who you tell,’ I said.

‘I would prefer to tell nobody, Mr Huntley.’

‘You’re awfully kind,’ I mumbled. For some moments I sat there staring into the gas-fire. Father Toule stifled a yawn. I rose hastily.

We went to the door. ‘Come and see me at any time,’ he said.

‘Yes. Thank you. I’ll be quiet about it. Do as you suggest.’

‘I wonder,’ he murmured, ‘whether she has been baptized?’

‘Why?’ I asked.

‘Never mind. It is a vast problem, Mr Huntley. Too big for our small minds, I fear. I hope, for your own peace, that you discover some perfectly straightforward explanation of the whole mystery.’

But the trouble was,
that I didn’t hope that
. As I walked home through the rain, pondering over our talk, I knew that I preferred a supernatural explanation. I stood outside Lessways for fully five minutes, thinking that, inside there, going now to her bed perhaps, was the woman that I had created; or, the woman I had–raised from the dead.

A letter was waiting for me on the hall-stand. I snatched it up quickly, immediately recognizing the large, flowery handwriting.