Short Stories 1927-1956 (13 page)

‘Anyhow the vicarage reeked of it. A low old house, with lots of little windows and far too many doors; and, as I say, the trees too close up on one side, almost brushing the glass. No wonder they said it was what they call haunted. You could feel that with your eyes shut, and like breeds like. The Vicar – two or three, I mean, before my own gentleman – had even gone to the trouble of having the place exercised. Candles and holy water, that kind of thing. Sheer flummummery,
I
call it. But if what I’ve heard there – and long before that gowk of a George came to work in the house – was anything more than mere age and owls and birds in the ivy, it must badly have needed it. And when you get accustomed to noises, you can tell which from which. By usual, I mean. Though more and more I’m getting to ask myself if any thing is anything much more than what you think it is – for the time being.

‘Same with noises of course. What’s this voice of conscience that they talk about but something you needn’t hear if you don’t want to? I am not
complaining
of that. If at the beginning there was anything in that house that was better out than in, it never troubled me; at least, not at first. And the Reverend, even though you could often count his congregation on your ten fingers, except at Harvest Festival, was so wove up in his books that I doubt if he’d have been roused up out of ’em even by the Last Trump. It’s my
belief
that in those last few weeks – when I stepped in to see to the fire – as often as not he was sitting asleep over them.

‘No, I’m not complaining. Live at peace with who you can, I say. But when it comes to as crusty a customer, and a Scotchman at that, as was my friend the gardener, then there’s a limit. Mengus he called himself, though I can’t see
how,
if you spell it with a z. When I first came into the place it was all gold that glitters. I’m not the man for contentiousness, if let alone. But afterwards, when the rift came, I don’t suppose we ever hardly exchanged the time of day but what there came words of it. A long-legged man
he
was, this Mr Menzies; too long I should have thought for strict comfort in grubbing and hoeing and weeding. He had ginger hair, scanty, and the same on his face, whiskers – and a stoop. He lived down at the lodge; and his widowed daughter kept house for him, with one little boy as fair as she was dark. Harmless enough as children go, the kind they call an angel, but noisy, and not for the house.

‘Now why, I ask you, shouldn’t I pick a little of this gentleman’s precious fruit, or a cucumber for a salad, if need be, and him not there? What if I wanted a few grapes for dessert or a nice apricot tart for the Reverend’s luncheon, and our Mr Menzies gone home or busy with the frames? I don’t hold with all these hard and fast restrictions, at least outside the house. Not he, though! We wrangled about it week in, week out. And him with a
temper
which once roused was past all reasoning.

‘Not that I ever took much notice of him until it came to a point past any man’s enduring. I let him rave. But duty is duty, there’s no getting away from that. And when, apart from all this fuss about his fruit, a man takes
advantage
of what is meant in pure friendliness, well, one’s bound to make a move. Job himself.

‘What I mean to say is, I used occasionally – window wide open and all that, the pantry being on the other side of the house and away from the old gentleman’s study – I say I used occasionally, and all in the way of
friendliness
, to offer our friend a drink. Like as with many of Old Adam’s trade, drink was a little weakness of his, though I don’t mean I hold with it
because
of that. But peace and quietness is the first thing, and to keep an easy face to all appearances, even if you do find it a little hard at times to
forgive
and forget.

‘When he was civil, as I say, and as things should be, he could have a drink, and welcome. When not, not. But it came to become a kind of habit; and to be expected; which is always a bad condition of things. Oh, it was a thousand pities! There was the Reverend, growing feeble as you could see, and him believing all the while that everything around him was calm and sweet as the new Jerusalem, while there was nothing but strife and agrimony, as they call it, underneath. There’s many a house looks as snug and cosy as a nut. But crack it and look inside! Mildew. Still, our Mr Mengus had “prospects”, up to then.

‘Well, there came along at last a mighty hot summer – five years ago, you may remember. Five years ago, next August, an extraordinary hot summer. And an early harvest – necessarily. Day after day I could see the stones in the stubble fields shivering in the sun. And gardening is thirsty work; I will say that for it. Which being so, better surely virgin water from the tap or a drop of cider, same as the harvesters have, than ardent spirits, whether it is what you are bred up to or not! It stands to reason.

‘Besides, we had had words again, and though I can stretch a point with a friend and no harm done, I’m not a man to come coneying and currying favour. Let him get his own drinks, was my feeling in the matter. And you can hardly call me to blame if he did.
There
was the pantry window
hanging
wide open in the shade of the trees – and day after day of scorching sun and not a breath to breathe. And there was the ruin of him within
arm’s reach from outside, and a water tap handy, too. Very inviting, I’ll allow.

‘I’m not attesting, mind you, that he was confirmed at it, no more than that I’m a man to be measuring what’s given me to take charge of by tenths of inches. It’s the principle of the thing. You might have thought, too, that a simple honest pride would have kept him back. Nothing of the sort; and no matter, wine or spirits. I’d watch him there, though he couldn’t see me, being behind the door. And practices like that, sir, as you will agree with me, can’t go on. They couldn’t go on, vicarage or no vicarage. Besides, from being secret it began to be open. It had gone too far. Brazen it out: that was the lay. I came down one fine morning to find one of my best decanters smashed to smithereens on the stone floor, Irish glass and all. Cats and sherry, who ever heard of it? And out of revenge he filled the pantry with wasps by bringing in over-ripe plums. Petty waste of time like that. And some of the green-houses thick with blight!

‘And so things went, from bad to worse, and at such a pace as I couldn’t have credited. A widower, too, with a married daughter dependent on him; which is worse even than a wife, who expects to take the bad with the good. No, sir, I had to call a halt to it. A friendly word in his ear, or keeping
everything
out of his reach, you may be thinking, might have sufficed. Believe me, not for him. And how can you foster such a weakness by taking steps out of the usual to prevent it? It wouldn’t be proper to your self-respect. Then I thought of George; not com
prom
ising myself in any way, of course, in so doing. George had a face as long as your arm, pale and solemn, enough to make a cat laugh. Dress him up in a surplice and hassock, he might have been the Reverend’s curate. Strange that, for a youth born in the country. But curate or no curate, he had eyes in his head and must have seen what there was to be seen.

‘I said to him one day, and I remember him standing there in the pantry in his black coat against the white of the cupboard paint, I said to him, “George, a word in time saves nine, but it would come better from you than from me. You take me? Hold your peace till our friend’s sober again and can listen to reason. Then hand it over to him – a word of warning, I mean. Say we are muffling things up as well as we
can
from the old gentleman, but that if he should hear of it there’d be fat in the fire; and no mistake. He would take it easier from you, George, the responsibility being mine.”

‘Lord, how I remember George! He had a way of looking at you as if he couldn’t say
boh
to a goose – swollen hands and bolting blue eyes, as simple as an infant’s. But he wasn’t stupid, oh no. Nobody could say that. And now I reflect, I think he knew our little plan wouldn’t carry very far. But there, whatever he might be thinking, he was so awkward with his tongue that he could never find anything to say until it was too late, so I left it at that.
Besides, I had come to know he was, with all his faults, a young man you could trust for doing what he was told to do. So, as I say, I left it at that.

‘What he actually did say I never knew. But as for its being of any use, it was more like pouring paraffin on a bonfire. The very next afternoon our friend came along to the pantry window and stood there looking in –
swaying
he was, on his feet; and I can see the midges behind him zigzagging in a patch of sunshine as though they were here before my very eyes. He was so bad that he had to lay hold of the sill to keep himself from falling. Not thirst this time, but just fury. And then, seeing that mere flaunting of fine feathers wasn’t going to inveigle
me
into a cockfight, he began to talk. Not all bad language, mind you –
that’s
easy to shut your ears to – but cold reasonable abuse, which isn’t. At first I took no notice, went on about my business at my leisure, and no hurry. What’s the use of arguing with a man, and him one of these Scotchmen to boot, that’s beside himself with rage? What was wanted was
peace
in the house, if only for the old gentleman’s sake, who I thought was definitely under the weather and had been coming on very poorly of late.

‘“Where’s that George of yours?” he said to me at last – with additions. “Where’s that George? Fetch him out, and I’ll teach him to come playing the holy Moses to my own daughter. Fetch him out, I say, and we’ll finish it here and now.” And all pitched high, and half his words no more English than the mewing of a cat.

‘But I kept my temper and answered him quite moderate and as pleasantly as I knew how. “I don’t want to meddle in
any
body’s quarrels,” I said. “So long as George so does his work in this house as will satisfy
my
eye, I am not responsible for his actions in his off-time and out of bounds.”

‘How was I to know, may I ask, if it was
not
our Mr Mengus who had smashed one of my best decanters? What proof was there? What
reason
had I for thinking else?

‘“George is a quiet, unbeseeming young fellow,” I said, “and if he thinks it’s his duty to report any misgoings-on either to me or to the Reverend, it doesn’t concern anybody else.”

‘That seemed to sober my fine gentleman. Mind you, I’m not saying that there was anything unremidibly wrong with him. He was a first-class gardener. I grant you that. But then he had an uncommonly good place to match – first-class wages; and no milk, wood, coals or house-rent to worry about. But breaking out like that, and the Reverend poorly and all; that’s not what he thought of when he put us all down in his will. I’ll be bound of that. Well, there he stood, looking in at the window and me behind the table in my apron as calm as if his wrangling meant no more to me than the wind in the chimmeny. It was the word “report”, I fancy, that took the wind out of his sails. It had brought him up like a station buffer. And he was still
looking at me, and brooding it over, as though he had the taste of poison on his tongue.

‘Then he says very quiet, “So that’s his little game, is it? You are just a pair, then?”

‘“If by pair you’re meaning me,” I said, “well, I’m ready to take my share of the burden when it’s ready to fit my back. But not before. George may have gone a bit beyond himself, but he meant well, and you know it.”

‘“What I am asking is this,” says our friend, “have you ever seen me the worse for liquor? Answer me that!”

‘“If I liked your tone better,” I said, “I wouldn’t say how I don’t see why it would be necessarily the
worse
.”

‘“Ehh? You mean, Yes, then?” he said.

‘“I mean no more than what I say,” I answered him, looking at him over the cruet as straight as I’m looking at you now. “I don’t ask to meddle with your private affairs, and I’ll thank
you
not to come meddling with mine.” He seemed taken aback at that, and I noticed he was looking a bit pinched, and hollow under the eyes. Sleepless nights, perhaps.

‘But how was
I
to know this precious grandson of his was out of sorts with a bad throat and that – seeing that he hadn’t mentioned it till a minute before? I ask you! “The best thing you and George there can do,” I went on, “is to bury the hatchet; and out of hearing of the house, too.”

‘With that I turned away and went off into it myself, leaving him there to think things over at his leisure. I am putting it to you, sir, as a free
witness
, what else could I have done?’

There was little light of day left in our cavernous waiting-room by this time. Only the dulling glow of the fire and the phosphorescence caused by a tiny bead of gas in the ‘mantles’ of the great iron bracket over our heads. My realist seemed to be positively in want of an answer to this last question. But as I sat looking back into his intent small face nothing that could be
described
as of a helpful nature offered itself.

‘If he was anxious about his grandson,’ I ventured at last, ‘it might
explain
his being a little short in temper. Besides … But I should like to hear what came after.’

‘What came after, now?’ the little man repeated, drawing his right hand gingerly out of the depths of his pocket and smoothing down his face with it as if he had suddenly discovered he was tired. ‘Well, a good deal came after, but not quite what you might have expected. And you’d hardly go so far as to say perhaps that anxiety over his grandson would excuse him for what was little short of manslaughter, and him a good six inches to the good at that? Keeping facts as facts, if you’ll excuse me, our friend waylaid George by the stables that very evening, and a wonderful peaceful evening
it was, shepherd’s delight and all that. But to judge from the looks of the young fellow’s face when he came into the house there hadn’t been much of that in the quarter of an hour they had had together.