Miss Hargreaves (26 page)

I tried to sleep. The moon straggled through on to my pillow. The infinite chord of D flat reverberated in my brain. I tossed about. I dreamt of swans wearing tall hats sailing over the hills in balloons to the perpetual accompaniment of father’s violin. Awful. About three I rose, put on my dressing-gown and went to the window. Below me, on the other side of the road, Lessways rose emptily to the moony sky. The board had gone. I thought of Miss Hargreaves in residence there. It was incredible. Baffled, bewildered, I gazed out at the night. Everything looked very cool and silvery. Far away, beyond the Cathedral, I could see the winding arc of the Thames.

I went back to bed, but sleep wouldn’t come. Again I rose. This time I dressed quickly, putting on an old sweater and a pair of flannel trousers. Creeping downstairs, I got my bicycle out of the shed, wheeled it down the garden and leapt on the saddle. In twenty minutes I had reached Cookham Bridge.

I was glad I had come out. If you’ve got any serious thinking to do, you must do it at night. The longer I stayed on that bridge, listening to the lapping of the water against the boats, the greater was the sense of mystery which filled me. Father was right; we didn’t understand a damn thing. Old professors might tell me that the moon was carbon monoxide, or whatever they like to call it, but that didn’t make the moon any simpler. They might tell me that I, Norman Huntley, was only a mass of electrons formed in certain shapes to produce heart and lungs, brain and limbs. I was still a mystery.

Take Miss Hargreaves, I said to myself. Another mystery–the only difference being that she was an
unfamiliar
mystery. There was simply, so far as I knew, no precedent for the way Miss Hargreaves had appeared in my life. And yet, actually, she wasn’t any more of a mystery than my little finger.

Anything was possible. That’s what I felt that moonlit night as I leaned over the bridge. On the far bank of the river, beyond Hedsor wharf, was an apple orchard; sheltering behind it, graced by beautifully mown lawns, an old house that I had often admired. Why shouldn’t it be mine? Far away at the top of the hill, Lord Astor might be asleep in his bed. Why shouldn’t I be there? (Not as
well
. Instead of.) Move him out, I said, and put yourself there, the master of Cliveden. Or instead of there being the apples of autumn in that orchard, let there be the blossom of spring. Let there be light now; no darkness.

My gosh! I thought how grand God must have felt when He’d said ‘let there be light’
and
it worked. After all that darkness, how He must have revelled in His new creation, making things because He’d made light and now had got nothing to look at in the new light.

Everything, it seemed to me, was just within my grasp. (Yes, I know it was all a horrible blasphemy, but there it is.) For that moment I accepted Miss Hargreaves without question or complaint. I felt proud of her; I realized these things didn’t happen to everybody. Naturally there were going to be complications. One couldn’t learn in a minute how to manage her. If she was still a little out of control–well, don’t
all
created things get out of control before long? Well, I mean, look at us ... God thought we were a very good job. And
look
at us . . . Well, I mean . . .

‘Oh, Miss Hargreaves!’ I breathed her name upon the cool night air. I longed to see her again. Couldn’t bear the thought of her going just when I was beginning fully to understand my responsibilities towards her. Whatever embarrassments she plunged me into–she was my own handiwork. Never again must I be tempted to play about with her. A strict sense of form must inspire all my dealings with her. No good getting drunk on swans and such like. Slowly I must adapt her to the conditions of Cornford society and guard her from all dangers of my impetuous will.

Thus I thought, that autumn night over the Thames. And, even as I thought, my eyes were fixed on the bit of river running past the orchard.

What was that strange melancholy singing? What was that boat doing out in mid-stream? Whose form huddled in the bows? Whose hat?

Whose hat?

‘My God!’ I muttered. I rushed across the field to the bank.

‘Miss Hargreaves!’ I cried from the bank. ‘Miss Hargreaves!’

Whether she heard me or not, I don’t know. At any rate, she paid not the slightest attention. I called again, louder, a little exasperated. What in God’s name did she imagine she was doing?

‘Can’t you hear me?’ I shouted.

She looked up. I could just see that she was writing something in her note-book.

‘Who is that?’ she called irritably.

‘Me. Norman. What on earth are you doing?’

‘Oh.
You!
Do you want anything?’

‘I want to get you home. You’ll die of cold.’

‘I’m busy now,’ she said. ‘Come and join me if you wish. But do please be quiet.’

‘How on earth did you get there?’ I asked.

But she was writing in her note-book and did not answer me.

‘Where are your oars?’ I bawled.

‘I can’t hear you!’ she snapped. ‘If you
must
talk, come closer. I am not accustomed to shouting across a river.’

There was only one way to reach her, short of swimming. I walked along the bank till I came to Cooper’s boat-house, nearer the bridge. Luckily there was nobody about, not even a prowling policeman. Taking one of the rowing-boats, I unmoored it, and rowed up to the little tributary. In a few minutes I was alongside her.

‘You’d better get into this boat,’ I said, ‘and I’ll row you back. What have you done with your oars?’

‘A minute! Wait–wait–’ She wrote rapidly. ‘I was hoping to set it to music,’ she murmured, pausing with her silver pencil tapping on the side of the boat, ‘but I cannot quite get the tune. No matter. I will read you my verses.’

‘They can wait,’ I said. ‘We’ve got to get you home somehow. Don’t you realize Mrs Beedle is worried to death about you?’

‘I do
wish
,’ she said petulantly, ‘you would not keep interrupting. What is this Beedle woman to me? Listen.’

Before I could say any more, in a low vibrant voice she started to recite.

‘River at Night. A Lament. I hope you follow me. A
Lament
.’

‘Yes, yes,’ I muttered. ‘I get you. Go on. Hurry up.’

She cleared her throat. ‘Strike a match, dear,’ she said, ‘and hold it over the manuscript. I cannot see too well. Keep striking matches as quietly as you can.’

I struck a match and held it near her note-book. Very tempted I was to set the thing on fire.

She read:

‘Oh, water and breezelight and magical moon,

     And me all alone on the river!

They tell me that dawn will be here very soon–

     They talk of a chill on the liver.’

She paused. ‘You like it?’ she asked anxiously.

‘What was the first line again?’ I asked.

‘ “Oh, water and breezelight and magical moon”.’

I frowned. ‘Breezelight?’

‘Precisely. Breezelight.’

‘Don’t you mean moonlight?’

‘What does it
matter
?’ she cried. ‘If I write “magical breeze” the rhyme is annihilated. In any case, the breeze is not magical; the moon is. How stupid you are! This is verse two:

Oh, for the wings, for the
neck
of a swan!

     To swim all the night and not shiver.

Oh, say not the hour is eternally gone

     When I floated like floss on the river!’

‘Yes. I–I like that,’ I said uneasily. ‘But really now–I think we’d better–’

‘Verse three,’ she said, ‘goes like this. Why don’t you strike another match? I cannot be expected to read in the dark, can I?’

I struck another match and she read verse three.

‘God made reservations to human desires,

     And though He’s a bountiful giver,

He turned a deaf ear to the mind that aspires

     To sport
all
the night on the river.’

‘Is it blasphemous, do you think?’ she asked anxiously. ‘I trust not. I have always had a very high regard for my Maker.’

‘Who
is
your Maker, that’s what I want to know!’ I said.

‘What did you say, dear? Speak up! Speak up!’

‘No. This isn’t time for talking. You must come home at once.’

‘How extraordinarily prosaic you are! Alone on the river “night with her train of stars”–Henley, dear; the poet; not the place–alone, you and me–and you must talk of going
home
. Fie! Come and sit in my boat. If you must pursue me, at least you need not be unsociable.’

‘Good God!’ I exclaimed. ‘You’re moored to the bank!’

‘Am I? Possibly. I attempted to engage the oars, but they are such clumsy things. I let them go.’

‘Oh, Miss Hargreaves!’ I cried, ‘you’re really too bad! There’ll be an awful row about this if anyone finds us. Do come into this boat at once and let’s get home somehow.’

Her boat was moored, I had now seen for the first time, to a tree stump at the bottom of the orchard.

‘I can’t understand how on earth you got here,’ I said.

‘Got here? Really–it is so many hours ago. How can I be expected to remember everything? In any case, I see no reason why I should account to
you
for all my movements.’

‘All right,’ I said hastily. ‘You needn’t get huffy. Read your poem again.’

I knew that would pacify her. Miss Hargreaves never could resist reading her poems. When she had finished her second reading she tore the pages out of the book, wrote her name at the bottom and gave them to me.

‘Keep it, dear,’ she said. ‘Perhaps it is not my best effort. Not, I fear, on the high level of the verses in
Wayside Bundle
. But no matter. A poet cannot
always
roam on Parnassus.’

‘Jolly true,’ I agreed. ‘Personally, I like this poem. It seems so–well, so much from your heart.’

‘
All
my poems,’ she said, ‘emerge to the world
directly
from my heart. They always have and they always will.’

‘Quite. But this–well, you know, it’s packed with experience. Why, one would almost think from reading it that you had actually been a swan.’

‘That is precisely what it is meant to convey. Pavlova was a close personal friend of mine.’

I was silent for some moments. Then I made another attempt to get her into my boat. ‘Come on,’ I said. ‘Take my hand. Be careful. We must get home.’

But she would not stir. ‘Do you remember the Serpentine, dear?’ she said. ‘How luscious those strawberries were! How I wish we could partake of some such refreshment now. But, alas–’ Then she suddenly pointed to the apple trees. ‘But look! The forbidden fruit! It is Providence, dear. Providence!’

‘When you get home,’ I said uneasily, ‘Mrs Beedle’ll make you a nice cup of tea and boil you an egg.’

‘We could light a fire,’ she mused. ‘There are plenty of sticks. Possibly we could
roast
the fruit. Raw apples lie none too easily within me. Get into my boat, dear. Pull on the rope. You will soon draw us into the bank.’

‘If you talk like this,’ I cried, ‘I shall go away and leave you here.’

‘Do!’ she said coldly. ‘What do I care? I have the stars. I can
look
at the fruit. No doubt I shall die of cold. But no matter–no matter. Connie Hargreaves has ceased to interest you, that is quite clear. Leave me. Go!’