‘You really think you could?’
‘You’ve only to say the word.’
Again Ernest hesitated.
‘I don’t think there’s a bed aired.’
‘Give me a shake-down in that room with the leaky light.’
Ernest turned aside so that his friend might not see the struggle in his face.
‘Thank you a thousand times, Hubert. But really there’s no need. Truly there isn’t. Though it was most kind of you to suggest it.’ He spoke as though he was trying to soothe an apprehensive child. ‘I couldn’t ask you to.’
‘Well,’ said Hubert, setting his foot on the self-starter, ‘on your own head be it. On your tombstone they’ll write “Here lieth one who turned a friend into the street at midnight”.’
‘Oh, no,’ said Ernest, like a child.
‘Won’t they? Damn this self-starter.’
‘Isn’t it going to work?’ asked Ernest hopefully.
‘Just you wait a moment and I’ll give it hell,’ declared Hubert. He got out and wrung the starting-handle furiously. Still the car refused.
‘It doesn’t seem to want to go,’ said Ernest. ‘You’d much better stay here.’
‘What, now?’ Hubert exclaimed, as if the car must be taught a lesson, at whatever cost to himself. And then, as though it knew it had met its match, the engine began to throb.
‘Good-night, Ernest. Pleasant dreams!’
‘Good-night, Hubert, and thank you so much. And, oh . . . Hubert!’
The motor began to slow down as Hubert heard Ernest’s cry, and his footsteps pattering down the street.
‘I only wanted to ask what your telephone number was.’
‘Don’t I wish I knew! Number double o double o infinity. The thing’s been coming every day for six weeks.’
‘It’s not likely to have been put in to-day while you were away?’
‘No, old boy: more likely when I’m there. Good-night, and don’t let yourself get blown up.’
In a few seconds all sound of the motor died away. The god had departed in his car.
‘Shall I shut the gates?’ thought Ernest. ‘No, someone might want to come in. People don’t usually drive up to a house in the dead of night, but you can’t be sure: there are always accidents, petrol runs out; or it might be an old friend, turned up from abroad. Stranded after leaving the boat-train. “London was so full I couldn’t get in anywhere, so I came on here, Ernest, to throw myself on your mercy.” “You were quite right, Reggie; wait a moment, and I’ll have you fixed up.” How easy it would have been to say that to Hubert. But I was quite right, really, to let him go: I mustn’t give way to myself, I must learn to live alone, like other people. How nice to be some poor person, a street-arab, for instance, just left school, who had come into some money and naturally bought this house. He’s spent a jolly evening with a friend, been to a theatre and comes home quite late, well, almost at midnight.’ And no sooner had the word crossed Ernest’s mind than he heard, almost with a sense of private complicity, almost as though he had uttered them himself, the first notes of the midnight chime. He could not think against them; and looking round a little dazed he saw he had come only a very few steps into the garden. But already the house seemed larger; he could make out the front door, plumb in the middle of the building, sunk in its neo-Gothic ogee arch. He was standing on a closely clipped lawn; but to his right, across the carriageway, he knew there was that odd flat tract in the long grass. It always looked as if something large had trampled upon it, lain upon it, really: it was like the form of an enormous hare, and each blade of grass was broken-backed and sallow, as though the juice had been squeezed out of it.
But the new householder doesn’t mind that, not he. His mind is full of the play. He only thinks, ‘Polkin will have some trouble when he comes to mow that bit.’ And of course he likes the trees; he doesn’t notice that the branches are black and dead at the tips, as though the life of the tree were ebbing, dropping back into its trunk, like a failing fountain. He hasn’t taken a ladder to peer into that moist channel where the branches fork; it oozes a kind of bright sticky froth, and if you could bring yourself to do it, you could shove your arm in up to the elbow, the wood is so rotten. ‘Well, Polkin, if the tree’s as far gone as you say, by all means cut it down: I don’t myself consider it dangerous, but have it your own way. Get in a couple of Curtis’s men, and fell it to-morrow.’ So the new owner of Stithies hadn’t really liked the tree? Oh, it’s not that; he’s a practical man; he yields to circumstances. ‘Well, the old chap will keep us warm in the winter evenings, Polkin.’ ‘Yes, sir, and I do hope you’ll have some company. You must be that lonely all by yourself, if I may say so, sir.’ ‘Company, my good Polkin, I should think so! I’m going to give a couple of dances, to start off with.’
How reassuring, how reanimating, this glimpse into the life of the New Proprietor!
More insistently than ever, as the house drew near, did Ernest crave the loan of this imaginary person’s sturdy thoughts. He had lived always in cramped, uncomfortable rooms; perhaps shared a bedroom with three or four others, perhaps even a bed! What fun for him, after these constricted years, to come home to a big house of his own, where he has three or four sitting-rooms to choose from, each of which he may occupy by himself! What a pleasure it is for him, in the long evenings, to sit perfectly still in the dining-room, with time hanging on his hands, hearing the clock tick. How he laughs when suddenly, from under the table or anyhow from some part of the floor, one doesn’t quite know where, there comes that strange loud thump, as though someone, lying on his back, had grown restive and given the boards a terrific kick! In an old house like this, of course, the floor-boards do contract and expand; they have seen a great deal; they have something to say, and they want to get it off their chests.
Ernest paused. His reverie had brought him to the edge of the lawn, only a few yards from his front door. On either side the house stretched away, reaching out with its flanks into the night. Well, so would the new proprietor pause, to take a last look at the domain he so dearly loved—the symbol of his escape from an existence which had been one long round of irritating chores, always at somebody’s beck and call, always having to think about something outside himself, never alone with his own thoughts! How he had longed for the kind of self-knowledge that only comes with solitude. And now, just before tasting this ecstasy of loneliness at its purest, he pauses. In a moment he will stride to the door which he hasn’t troubled to lock, turn the handle and walk in. The hall is dark, but he finds a chair and mounting it lights the gas. Then he goes his nightly round. With what sense of possession, what luxury of ownership, does he feel the catches of the windows. Just a flick to make sure it’s fast. As he picks his way through the furniture to the glimmering panes he congratulates himself that now he can look out on a view—as far as the sulky moonlight admits a view—of trees, shrubs, shadows; no vociferous callboys, no youthful blades returning singing after a wet night. Nothing but darkness and silence, within and without. What balm to the spirit! What a vivid sensation of security and repose! Down he goes into the cellar where the gas meter ticks. The window-sash is a flimsy thing—wouldn’t keep out a determined man, perhaps; the new proprietor just settles it in its socket, and passes on into the wine-cellar. But no, the sort of man we are considering wouldn’t bother to lock up the wine-cellar: such a small window could only let in cats and hedgehogs. It had let in both, and they were discovered afterwards, starved and dead: but that was before the occupancy of the new proprietor. Then upstairs, and the same ceremonial, so rapid and efficient, a formality, really, hardly taking a quarter of an hour: just the eight bedrooms, and the maids’ rooms, since they were away. These might take longer. Last of all the box-room, with its unsatisfactory by-pass. It would be dealt with firmly and definitely and never revisited, like a sick person, during the watches of the night. And then, pleasantly tired and ready for bed, the new proprietor would turn to his friend Hubert, whom he had brought back from the play, and bid him good-night.