The Penguin Book of the British Short Story Read online

  Uncle Tiddy was brought before the Squire’s steward upon an incestuous charge, for James Trott swore to having seen the act committed beside the field gate before the sun was risen. ‘Many a time,’ he said, ‘he had seen it done.’ But the steward who was the chief magistrate in those parts, being a little put out at the necessity of going to the court, had forgotten to drink his bottle that morning, and so could see and hear a little more clearly than usual. This being so, Master Steward had a word or two to say to James Trott, and Uncle Tiddy was allowed to go home.

  Lily was buried with her child in a grave near to where her first baby was laid; Uncle Tiddy lived alone, and his wants were relieved by the parish, by order of the Squire’s steward …

  But even now, though anyone would have thought that they had got the better of him and that he was put down, never to arise, the Trotts would not let Uncle Tiddy alone. A new-born calf of theirs happened to die in the field – owing to neglect, for the Trotts took no thought of their beasts when they needed help – and so when this calf died they wished to blame someone for their fault. They blamed Uncle Tiddy, for Grandmother Trott had seen him look through the gate and bewitch the cows. ‘He wrote words in the dust,’ she said, ‘and then cast the dirt through the gate at the cows. Who can tell what will happen in the future?’ cried Grandmother Trott, ‘for, as long as Uncle Tiddy do live ’e may one day reach hold of the key. We be all fools to trust to Squire Jar, for Squire bain’t never out – except now and again he walks upon Madder Hill. He never looks after his affairs, he is always enjoying himself in his own garden, and there bain’t no trusting a man who do sit brooding at home. Uncle Tiddy be the one to watch what we be about, and one day, when my son do take a glass wi’ Steward, ’e may let fall the key. Folks do tell how Steward do tipple it finely now, and that ’e don’t know right from wrong when ’e be drunk. And, maybe, if Uncle Tiddy did steal the key, Steward might think it were his own to hold. We mustn’t let Uncle Tiddy have no rest till ’e be dead.’

  Grandmother Trott found Mrs Lugg and Mrs Sly beside the well, where they were come to draw water. Mrs Sly had a swollen foot that she was showing to Mrs Lugg.

  ‘I have something to say to ’ee,’ said Grandmother Trott, after admiring Mrs Sly’s foot, and speaking in a whisper: ‘Uncle Tiddy, now ’e bain’t got nothing to do, have begun to talk against Squire Jar. He do say that ’tain’t ’e alone who have been merry wi’ a young maid. ’E do say Squire ’imself have a-done it. Uncle Tiddy do curse and swear how ’tis true what ’e do say. Why, bless us all, ’e did stand beside Farmer Told’s barn – where the echo do shout and talk – and damn ’imself to hell if his words weren’t true, naming even the village where the maid did live. He said – and swore to it – that Squire did come at his girl in the night-time and over-shadowed her with his black cloak that be like a raven’s wings …’

  The people now began to believe all that Grandmother Trott had to say against Uncle Tiddy, though at first they had not believed her. Uncle Tiddy had been kind to many of them, but even those whom he had once befriended now turned against him, because they knew that he had nothing left to give. The people even forgot how they had once loved Lily, who used to be so merry and playful, and would please even old people by her goodness, for she would talk with old Nicholas Sly, who had a wen as big as a walnut upon his forehead, and was so ugly and foul a man that all the children ran away from him.

  Uncle Tiddy was now unable to go out in the day-time, for he could not bear to be treated rudely. Sometimes the village brats would throw dirt after him and spit upon him, so that he was forced to remain indoors until darkness came.

  But when the sun went down behind Madder Hill, and the kind darkness of night brought solace to unhappy man, then Uncle Tiddy would go abroad and search diligently for the key of the field.

  Perhaps he might have given up all hope of finding it, and used an old cart-rope to end his torment, had it not been that, in loitering by the field gate upon a very still night when all the village was asleep, he thought he heard a voice that he knew well singing some pretty lullaby over the field and in the Squire’s garden. The voice he was sure was Lily’s, and Uncle Tiddy fancied, as he listened, that infant voices joined in her songs. The sound of their strange singing – though Uncle Tiddy only heard it that once – made him the more eager to get into the field, for he believed that, if he lay down to sleep there, the sound of those voices might come to him again.

  And so Uncle Tiddy used to cover himself with a large cloak, and when each evening came, he would set out to search for the key.

  The autumn leaves, when they whirled about him and then lay still and silent, told him that the key existed for which he looked. High up in the heavens, upon clear nights, he saw the key – a key of shining stars. Once, when he stood upon the low cliffs and looked into the sea – the waters being all still – he thought he saw, lying very deep in the sea, the key of the field.

  At first when Uncle Tiddy began his search, he used to look in the village and usually he would go to the gate itself, hoping that one of the Trotts might have dropped the key when they locked the gate.

  After he had searched for a few nights, Uncle Tiddy’s troubles and sorrows seemed lighter for him to bear. He even supposed himself to be happier than he had been in the old days, only excepting, of course, those pleasant hours when he used to lay him down to rest in the shelter of the locked field. For, even when Lily had been alive to love him, his troubles and anxieties had often been hard. He had always feared for Lily, knowing how loving she was, and that, for this very reason, she was more likely to become a prey to the spoiler.

  In other ways, too, beside the fears he had for Lily, he used to be troubled. He could never understand how the Squire – whom he always believed to be a good man – could allow a steward, who had seldom his ears open to anything but lies, to rule his fine estate. Uncle Tiddy always thought it a very strange thing that this Squire, who owned so many acres of land, should not have found a way – other than the crude methods of his sottish steward who, more often than not, would use the whipping-post as a cure – to protect the simple, the loving, and the kind from horrid outrage.

  But now that Uncle Tiddy sought the key so assiduously, his feelings were different. He looked only to the field for comfort.

  ‘Oh,’ he would cry out, starting up hurriedly when the darkness drew near, ‘oh, that I might find the key! Then would I unlock the gate and, full of joy, enter the field. I would lie down there, but not as I used to lie, for I would never wish, as I used to do, to return again to the village, for I have no hope now left, outside the field …’

  After a month or two Uncle Tiddy was not content to look only in the village for the key. He thought that he might find it farther away.

  Ever since John Trott had possessed the key, that cunning man had prospered finely. The Trotts had even done so well that they had bought land. They owned a large down of near a hundred acres of goodish pasture, that lay behind Madder Hill. And so, Uncle Tiddy thought it not unlikely that while John was looking to his affairs upon the hill, the key might fall out of his pocket and be lost, for Grandmother Trott was too lazy a gossip ever to mend a broken coat.

  Besides that chance, there was also the likelihood that one of the sons of John Trott might have the key of the field in his keeping when he walked out upon a Sunday with his young girl, and, indeed, there was hardly a Madder girl that the two young men did not try to lead into evil ways. So Uncle Tiddy thought it not unlikely that, in the excitement of their naughtiness, one or other of them might let fall the key.

  As Uncle Tiddy walked about by night, searching carefully upon the hill, often kneeling upon his knees to be nearer to the ground, a curious fancy would sometimes come to him that Lily, whom he had ever loved as a good man loves a child, moved beside him and helped him to look for the key …

  As time went, on the Trotts – as was proper they should – grew richer and richer, for what the young men spent upon
drink or women – they even went into the steward’s own house in search of their dainties – they easily made up, or else their father did for them, by cheating someone poorer than themselves in a cunning deal.

  Uncle Tiddy was glad that they prospered, for, caring nothing now for any possession in the whole world other than the key of the field, he thought that the Trotts – in order to be rid of his importunity – might yield him that, because having so much land they scarcely seemed to give a thought to the field.

  They even began to despise and to hate it, saying that it was too small and too mean, a place of too narrow a compass to yield a man any profit. And besides, being too near the Squire’s gardens, they could not drink or sing or lecher there as in other grounds.

  One evening about twilight, when the barn owls flutter along the hedgerows, Uncle Tiddy went out, and meeting John Trott, he asked him boldly for the key of the field.

  John Trott only laughed loudly and went home laughing, leaving Uncle Tiddy to continue his search for the key. So great now was Uncle Tiddy’s hurry and excitement to find what he sought, that he hardly allowed himself time to eat or to sleep. In the day-time he would lay upon his bed and plan in his mind which field to go to when the evening came. If ever he did happen to drop off into a little sleep, a dream would come to him, in which he held the key in his hand, and he would walk along always with a gay step to unlock the gate, though more than once in the dream the key turned in the lock damnable hard.

  He had sunk one evening, a little before the time of his going out, into a restless slumber, when all at once he leapt up – the time being near to midnight – out of a strange dream, and putting his cloak over him, he went out into the night.

  Uncle Tiddy did not take the path to the downs as he had so often done of late, but turned along the village street and passed the Inn without looking at the ground. This was curious, for he used always to look there when he went by, expecting that John Trott might easily have dropped the key when he walked a little tipsily out of the Inn gate.

  But Uncle Tiddy did not hesitate now nor yet look at all; he walked boldy, as if he knew what to do.

  Presently he came to the churchyard gate. He opened it and went in.

  The time of year was winter. Mournful clouds hung low, while behind them, hidden as by a thick cloak, was the moon. Uncle Tiddy knew the way. He found Lily’s grave and knelt beside it.

  And now Uncle Tiddy bethought him of one of the rights that belong to those who are born upon Squire Jar’s land. For everyone so born is entitled to call boldly upon the Squire for one gift, in the name of a loving one, but that gift must be the last. Uncle Tiddy would not have ventured upon using this right – for he knew the Squire’s rules – had he not first asked the steward for the key. But the steward, as Grandmother Trott had foretold, had come to believe the evil stories that were told about Uncle Tiddy, and so, when he asked for the key, wishing only to walk in the field for a little, the steward looked grimly at him and, with an ugly oath, told him he would be locked out for ever.

  ‘’Tis the Squire’s own words,’ said the steward, ‘for without are dogs and sorcerers and whoremongers and murderers …’

  Uncle Tiddy was about to call upon the Squire for the key when his faith failed him. ‘Suppose,’ he thought, ‘that the Squire is a hard man, suppose that were I to call there would be none to answer.’

  Uncle Tiddy wept bitterly. He wished a thousand times that he had never been born. Despair held him fast and would have killed him, only that Uncle Tiddy, scarce knowing what he did in his agony, cried out to the Squire for the key, and then lay down as though he were dead.

  For a long while he lay there until he knew that Squire Jar had entered the churchyard and was standing beside him.

  ‘I never refuse to anyone a harmless wish,’ said the Squire. ‘I was walking tonight under the trees in my garden when I heard you call to me for the key of the field.’

  Uncle Tiddy endeavoured to rise to greet the Squire, but despair had so trod him down that he could not move.

  Then the Squire held out his hand to him and raised him up.

  ‘You have asked me for the key,’ said the Squire, kindly; ‘do you wish to remain in the field when you have unlocked the gate?’

  ‘Yes, for ever,’ replied Uncle Tiddy, ‘and I require only the smallest space where a man can lie. I wish to forget.’

  ‘Do you wish to forget Lily?’ asked the Squire in a very low tone.

  ‘Where she is, I will be,’ said Uncle Tiddy, ‘for we have loved much.’

  ‘Then it’s true that you have sinned,’ said the Squire.

  ‘If to love is to sin, then we have sinned,’ replied Uncle Tiddy.

  The Squire was silent.

  ‘Give me the key,’ cried Uncle Tiddy, ‘do not refuse me the key.’

  ‘I give you mine own,’ said the Squire, and he handed to Uncle Tiddy a key of gold. ‘I will go with you,’ said the Squire, ‘for John Trott may oppose your entrance into the field.’

  The Squire and Uncle Tiddy left the churchyard. On the way to the field Mr Jar talked of the crops and how well he remembered the good hay that Uncle Tiddy had made in former days and how he had sold it to the steward for his master’s stables.

  They reached the gate of the field and found no one there to prevent their entering, and Uncle Tiddy – having the master key in his hand – easily unlocked the gate and let himself into the field, where, thinking that the Squire had left him, he lay down to sleep. He lay very still and thought that he slept soundly – so soundly that he might have slept for a thousand years. But whether or no he had really slept, he was not sure. He looked up and saw that the Squire was still beside him and the winter’s night was the same.

  ‘Come,’ said Squire Jar, gently raising Uncle Tiddy from the grass; ‘come, we will walk through the field – but do you not hear anything?’

  ‘I hear someone singing,’ replied Uncle Tiddy. ‘The voice is Lily’s; she is singing to her babies in your garden.’

  Then Uncle Tiddy grew sad. But he still walked with the Squire, until he came to where he remembered the wall had been.

  ‘Look,’ said the Squire, ‘for my garden is beautiful, even in winter. The flowers shine like precious stones; the walks are green, and the air is mild and sweet. You have been my tenant for a season: you will now be my guest for ever.’

  ‘We are in your garden,’ cried Uncle Tiddy, gladly. ‘But where is the Wall?’

  ‘You unlocked the gate of the field with my key,’ replied the Squire.

  GRAHAM GREENE

  The Hint of an Explanation

  A long train journey on a late December evening, in this new version of peace, is a dreary experience. I suppose that my fellow traveller and I could consider ourselves lucky to have a compartment to ourselves, even though the heating apparatus was not working, even though the lights went out entirely in the frequent Pennine tunnels and were too dim anyway for us to read our books without straining the eyes, and though there was no restaurant car to give at least a change of scene. It was when we were trying simultaneously to chew the same kind of dry bun bought at the same station buffet that my companion and I came together. Before that we had sat at opposite ends of the carriage, both muffled to the chin in overcoats, both bent low over type we could barely make out, but as I threw the remains of my cake under the seat our eyes met, and he laid his book down.

  By the time we were half-way to Bedwell Junction we had found an enormous range of subjects for discussion; starting with buns and the weather, we had gone on to politics, the Government, foreign affairs, the atom bomb, and by an inevitable progression, God. We had not, however, become either shrill or acid. My companion, who now sat opposite me, leaning a little forward, so that our knees nearly touched, gave such an impression of serenity that it would have been impossible to quarrel with him, however much our views differed, and differ they did profoundly.

  I had soon realized I was speaking to a Roman Catholic –
to someone who believed – how do they put it? – in an omnipotent and omniscient Deity, while I am what is loosely called an agnostic. I have a certain intuition (which I do not trust, founded as it may well be on childish experiences and needs) that a God exists, and I am surprised occasionally into belief by the extraordinary coincidences that beset our path like the traps set for leopards in the jungle, but intellectually I am revolted at the whole notion of such a God who can so abandon his creatures to the enormities of Free Will. I found myself expressing this view to my companion who listened quietly and with respect. He made no attempt to interrupt – he showed none of the impatience or the intellectual arrogance I have grown to expect from Catholics; when the lights of a wayside station flashed across his face which had escaped hitherto the rays of the one globe working in the compartment, I caught a glimpse suddenly of – what? I stopped speaking, so strong was the impression. I was carried back ten years, to the other side of the great useless conflict, to a small town, Gisors in Normandy. I was again, for a moment, walking on the ancient battlements and looking down across the grey roofs, until my eyes for some reason lit on one stony ‘back’ out of the many, where the face of a middle-aged man was pressed against a window pane (I suppose that face has ceased to exist now, just as perhaps the whole town with its medieval memories has been reduced to rubble). I remembered saying to myself with astonishment, ‘That man is happy – completely happy.’ I looked across the compartment at my fellow traveller, but his face was already again in shadow. I said weakly, ‘When you think what God – if there is a God – allows. It’s not merely the physical agonies, but think of the corruption, even of children …’

  He said, ‘Our view is so limited,’ and I was disappointed at the conventionality of his reply. He must have been aware of my disappointment (it was as though our thoughts were huddled as closely as ourselves for warmth), for he went on, ‘Of course there is no answer here. We catch hints …’ and then the train roared into another tunnel and the lights again went out. It was the longest tunnel yet; we went rocking down it and the cold seemed to become more intense with the darkness, like an icy fog (when one sense – of sight – is robbed, the others grow more acute). When we emerged into the mere grey of night and the globe lit up once more, I could see that my companion was leaning back on his seat.