The Penguin Book of the British Short Story Read online

  Was everybody his enemy that day? Was there a plot against him? After that long walk, to be allowed only this! Mr Arnold pushed back his chair, made an effort to collect his forces for dire protest. But somehow – was it because of guilt or the heat? – they would not assemble. He could only gaze fixedly at Henry in silent reproach, anger, and finally, entreaty. ‘Very sorry, sir,’ mumbled Henry from far away. ‘Can I call up the garage for a taxi, sir?’

  ‘A taxi? Certainly not.’ He swallowed the single, tipped lavishly, rose like an offended emperor, sat down, and rose again, thunderous yet dignified.

  ‘Your stick, Mr Arnold.’ Henry handed it.

  He needed it now. Outside, his eyes could focus neither on the shifting ground nor the burning pansy-coloured sky. The soft amateur hills ran into each other like blobs of water-colours imperfectly handled. But he would walk, he would walk. Anything rather than be in the house before it was quite essential. Not with them there … The town hall clock, its notes gently without chiding, struck the quarter after one. Yet those chimes were like knells bringing grief. Grief, grief. A sensation of burning grief, physical and staggering, pierced him. He sat gasping on the low roadside wall. The day was no longer brilliant, crackling with sun. The desolation of what awaited his presence swept down on him in gusts of black depression. God above, he could never face it. Not without—. He rose with remarkable celerity.

  Fool, fool! Why had he forgotten the Adam and Eve? He walked rapidly, a man refreshed, stick striking the road almost evenly … But outside the Adam and Eve, a sixteenth-century house sagging in a dark medieval alley hidden in the town, he paused to arrange himself into the aspect of a man with a grip on himself, and he rolled into the pub with a lordly assurance.

  The poky, cool bar parlour was deserted except for a cat enormously asleep on the counter. Mr Arnold called: ‘Hey! Customer here!’ He banged the counter with his stick. No one appeared. Not a sound shifted into the stagnant air. He gave the cat a sharp dig with his stick; it did not stir or open an eye. He shouted, thumped the counter. A dead petal of plaster fell from the ceiling. But no one came. The silence closed impervious over his shouts of anguish. No one passed in the shadowed alley outside. His stick rang frenziedly on the counter. He had the feeling he was in a dream in which a ghostly, senseless frustration dogs one’s every move. The cat slept. The hands of a dusty old clock remained neatly and for ever together at twelve o’clock. The bottles on the shelves looked as if they were never opened. He jabbed at the cat again; it did not move out of its primeval sleep.

  Mr Arnold whimpered. He lurched over to the door in the crooked bellied-out wall and lifted the old-fashioned latch. But the door wouldn’t open. Had it been locked behind him? Was he being imprisoned? ‘Who’s there?’ he screamed, banging his stick furiously against the rickety panel. The after-silence did not budge. He tore madly at the latch. Suddenly the door flew open; it had jammed in the ancient frame. Raging, Mr Arnold stamped down the passage, threw back another door.

  A dazzle of pink interior light struck into his eyes. He stepped into a hot living-room with a huge window and an opened door leading to a garden blazing with snapdragons, roses and hollyhocks. A blue-gowned woman, immensely fat, was pegging out washing over the gush of flowers. Mr Arnold all but sobbed with relief. ‘Customer!’ he yelled.

  ‘Be there in a minute,’ she called affably. ‘It’s a beautiful drying day.’

  ‘Got a train to catch,’ he bellowed. ‘I want a double Scotch.’

  ‘All right, all right.’ Smooth and brown-faced as an egg, and with a dewlap of Turkish chins, she indolently left her basket, saying: ‘No need to be crotchety. Where there’s one train there’s another; they’ve got the extra summer service now to London. I’m going up myself on Thursday; my daughter’s going to be examined … Why, it’s Mr Arnold!’ She paused, in pastoral caution. ‘Are they taking her by train, then? I didn’t know.’ As if this settled her doubt, she hurried into the bar.

  Mr Arnold said nothing. He drank the double in two gulps and asked for another, saying quickly: ‘Then I’ve got to hurry.’ The woman talked of her daughter with soft, unstressed tact. He paused uncertainly after the second double.

  ‘No, Mr Arnold,’ she decided for him, ‘I can’t give you any more.’

  ‘Mrs Busby,’ he said grandly, grasping his stick as for a march, ‘I know when to stop.’

  ‘Gents always do.’ She nodded approval. ‘God bless you.’

  Now he felt translated into the desired sphere, where he could survey his kingdom without lamentations. Power radiated in him. As in the old days of his office fame, he could have settled a ledger page of complicated figures in a twinkling. And that menacing dead weight in the pit of his stomach had vanished. He felt himself walking erect and proud though the luncheon-quiet town. He required no one’s compassion. This heady brilliance lasted him all the way home. And he would not be late; a fixed stare at his watch testified to that. He congratulated himself on the efficient way he had handled his time. They would not be able to rebuke him for being late, on this day of all days.

  Yet sight of his well-kept villa at the edge of the town struck a note in his soul like a buried knell. The garden, green-lawned and arched with trellises of roses, was trim beyond reproach – the packet he spent on it every year! And the house was cleanly white as a wedding cake. But quite suddenly now he felt that its walls and contents, its deeds and insurance policies, no longer interested or concerned him. At the gate he paused in panic. Was this the first faint rising of the horror he thought was obliterated from his being? … But almost at once this fear became blurred. His stick decisively tapping the crazy paving, he rolled up under the arches of roses with an air of having unfortunate business to transact.

  The white-porched door was wide open. He entered bustlingly. Out of the drawing-room came Miriam, his elder sister-in-law; the woman in charge now, and his enemy. She looked at him and shrank. ‘We waited lunch as long as we could,’ she said, in her hard, gritty way. Her husband hovered behind her, thick horn glasses observant. ‘I wanted George to go into the town and look for you—’ she said hopelessly.

  ‘Food!’ Mr Arnold said, in high rebuke. ‘You didn’t expect me to eat lunch today?’

  They all advanced out of the drawing-room into the hall, looking at him sideways. Ellen, the younger sister-in-law, and her husband, the dentist’s assistant; their grown-up daughter; and Miriam’s adolescent son. Alert but careful, visitors and yet that day not visitors, they were all dressed up and important, as if they were going to be photographed. Mr Arnold stretched his hat to a peg on the stand but miscalculated its position – ‘Cursed thing,’ he remarked solemnly to the fallen hat. He sat heavily in the hard oak hall chair and wiped his brow. ‘In good time,’ he observed. ‘Five minutes yet … What … what you all standing there for?’ He jerked up his head despotically. He saw tears streaming down Ellen’s face before she turned, and hurrying into the drawing-room, moaned: ‘I shall be ashamed to go. He’s ruined the day. Something must be done. Henry—’ she motioned to her husband. But Miriam, stark and glaring, stood like judgment.

  ‘They’re coming,’ called her son, who had gone to the open door and was keeping a watch on the lane.

  ‘Two o’clock!’ said Mr Arnold in a solemn but strangely forlorn voice. ‘Two o’clock!’ Still collapsed in the chair, he groaned; his glassy eyes rolled, then stonily looked forth like tortoise eyes.

  Henry and Ellen came back and whispered to Miriam’s husband; they advanced briskly to Mr Arnold. ‘Look, old boy,’ George attempted male understanding. ‘We think you’d better not go with us. We will see to everything. Take it easy and have a rest.’ Enticingly he laid his hand under Mr Arnold’s armpit, while Henry gripped the other arm. ‘They’re here; come upstairs,’ he coaxed. The two sisters watched in pale, angry withdrawal.

  Mr Arnold, shaking away the possessive hands, rose from the chair tremendously. ‘What!’ he panted. ‘Better not go!’ Masterfully he drew
himself up. ‘Me! Me!’

  ‘You are drunk,’ pronounced Miriam in icy rage. ‘You are blind drunk. It’s shameful.’ Ellen wilted with a bitter sob against the wall.

  Mr Arnold’s eyes bulged. Their devilish shine enveloped Miriam with a terrible contempt, restrained for many years. ‘This,’ said Mr Arnold, ‘this is no time for insults. The pack of you can clear out now if you like. I will go alone,’ he said defiantly.

  ‘Now look here—’ George began, conciliatory but aghast.

  At that moment four men loomed at the open doorway. Four tall men, sleek and black-garbed, leanly efficient of aspect. With everyone in the hall black-clothed, too, the fair summer day seemed turned to shadow. The drawing-room clock struck two dainty pings. At the sound the four men entered, admirably prompt. There was something purifying in their sinewy impersonality. ‘Upstairs,’ Mr Arnold, steady as a stout column, told them, ‘in the dark room.’ The black quartet filed up the staircase. Out of the kitchen came Mrs Wills, her apron removed, and stood apart with her kind cook’s fist under an eye.

  ‘Have you decided to risk it?’ Henry muttered to the women, while Mr Arnold reached down with glacial but careful dignity for his black hat. There was whispering, a furtive watching of him.

  Down the staircase came the four men with the coffin tilted on their shoulders. The severn mourners stood back. Mr Arnold’s face was stonily set again. He followed the quartet out with a stern and stiff gait. George and Henry, watchful, went close behind him. After them, in ceremonious orderliness, the others. But the two sisters, under their fashionably crisp black hats bought especially for the journey, crept forward with heads bowed very low, asking pardon of the world for this disgrace.

  Mr Arnold negotiated half the length of the crazy paving with masterful ease. Then he began to sway. A hand grasped the trellis of an arch, and a shower of pink and white petals fell on his head and shoulders; his hat dropped out of his hand. The two men took his elbows, and now he submitted to their aid. Ellen sobbed anew; and Miriam moaned: ‘We can only hope people will think it’s grief.’ Then she hissed frantically: ‘Brush those petals off him, George; he looks as if he’s getting married.’

  The hearse contained its burden, the three limousines behind were elegant. ‘Four wreaths,’ said the supported Mr Arnold, hanging out his head like a bull. While the impersonal mutes went back to the house, the mourners disposed themselves in the cars. Though the two sisters had planned to occupy the first car with Mr Arnold, their husbands went in with him instead. ‘There, take it easy, old boy,’ said George, over-friendly now. Mr Arnold was well off and a triumphant example of industrious rectitude in the City.

  ‘Eh? … eh?’ said Mr Arnold vacantly. And, sunk between the two men into luxurious cushions, he straightway went into a doze. The car began its two-mile journey with a silent, soft glide.

  ‘We mustn’t let him go right off,’ Henry worried. ‘Hey! Mr Arnold, hey!’

  Mr Arnold opened his eyes ferociously. ‘The best wife a man ever had,’ he groaned. ‘Susan, Susan!’ he called wildly. The driver turned his head for a moment. ‘Ha, shameful, am I! … That woman hasn’t got the intelligence of a … of a … budgerigar! And no more Christian feeling than a trout. Who’d have thought she and Susan were sisters! … And that other one,’ he grunted, ‘what’s her name … Ellen, always grizzling and telling Susan she was hard up and her husband kept her short – pah! … A depressing lot,’ summed up Mr Arnold, staring rigidly into space. Then again he called in loud anguish: ‘Susan, Susan, what will I do now?’

  Beads of perspiration stood on Henry’s forehead. But George remained cool; despite the abuse of his wife, he even sounded affectionate – ‘Never mind, old chap,’ he comforted the bereaved, ‘it’ll be over soon. But keep awake, don’t let down the whole family.’

  ‘What family?’ asked Mr Arnold. ‘Got none.’ And, sunk down and torpid, he seemed a secret being gathered eternally into loneliness. The two other men glanced at each other. ‘Susan,’ whispered Mr Arnold, chin on chest, ‘Susan … God above!’ he wailed again, ‘what will I do now?’ They were going through the full shopping street; people stopped to look, with arrested eyes. ‘The only one of the bunch to keep her sweetness,’ muttered Mr Arnold. ‘Coming here in their showy hats!’ he chuckled. ‘But they couldn’t make a man feel proud like Susan did. That time I took her to the Mansion House banquet—’ But wild grief engulfed him anew. ‘Susan, Susan,’ he called, ‘what’ll I do now?’

  ‘Here, pull yourself together,’ Henry protested sharply at last, and, perhaps feeling Mr Arnold had gone far enough in insults, ‘We’re coming to the cemetery.’

  Mr Arnold heaved into physical alertness for the ordeal. In a minute or two the car slid to a delicate standstill. Inside the cemetery gates was a group of half-a-dozen women, representatives of the institute for which Susan had organised many an event. Out of the lodge came the surpliced vicar, prayer-book in hand. Henry got out first and, red-faced, offered a hand to Mr Arnold, who ignored it and alighted without mishap. But for an awful moment the widower’s legs seemed boneless. Then he drew himself up nobly, stood rock-like in ruminative strength, while the coffin was drawn out and borne ahead.

  The two sisters stood in helplessness, hiding their faces, but peering like rabbits. The procession began to form. The vicar turned the pages of his book in mild abstraction. George and Henry sidled up beside Mr Arnold. ‘I’ll walk alone,’ hissed Mr Arnold, and he reminded them fiercely that Miriam and Ellen were entitled to follow immediately behind him. He insisted on that being arranged. The institute women, who seemed unaware of anything unusual, took their places in the rear. The cortège moved.

  The cemetery was cut out of a steepish slope, and the newly acquired section was at the top. It was quite a climb for elderly mourners; a discussion had waged in the local paper about the lack of foresight in not making a carriage road through the place. Mr Arnold, close behind the coffin and without his well-known stick, negotiated the climb with an occasional lapsing of his knees, a straightening of his back, or a rigid turning and jerking of his head, like a man doing physical exercises. But he achieved it victoriously. Behind him Ellen wept and Miriam stared in blank fear.

  It was not until all were assembled before the graveside and the service had begun that Mr Arnold began to display signs of collapse. He vaguely swayed; his head lolled. George and Henry took a step nearer him. The abstract vicar droned unseeing; the institute women remained tactful behind the chief mourners. The attendants took up the roped coffin; it disappeared; a handful of earth was thrown in after it. Presently the vicar’s voice stopped. George and Henry took Mr Arnold’s elbows to assist him for the last look.

  ‘Leave me alone,’ Mr Arnold muttered, drawing his elbows angrily away. What had these to do with him! He advanced with renewed dignity to the brink of the grave. Looked in as if into an abyss of black tremendous loneliness. Stood there staring down in concentrated intentness, prolonged, fascinated. The vicar waited in faint surprise at the mourner’s lengthy scrutiny.

  George and Henry darted forward. Too late. While a single hysterical woman’s cry shot up, Mr Arnold shot down, falling clumsily, arms flapping out, his disappearing face looking briefly astonished, the mouth wide open and showing all his artificial teeth. There was a moment’s hesitation of unbelieving dismay. Then the bustling began. Mr Arnold lay down there on his stomach across the coffin. An upper denture gleamed out in the clay beside him.

  ‘I knew it,’ said Miriam, later, ‘I felt it in my bones when you two allowed him to walk alone to the graveside. Thank heaven we don’t live here.’ They were in the villa in conference. Mr Arnold had been taken to the county hospital with a fractured leg.

  He stayed there two months. The first patient to be received out of a grave, he was the talk and pet of the hospital; as the night sister remarked: ‘He must have been a devoted husband to throw himself into his wife’s grave like that! I’ve never known a man grieve so much. How he calls out in
the night for his Susan!’ … Cantankerous at first, he became astonishingly meek. The doctor allowed him a certain amount of whisky. The night sister, perhaps because she was shortly due for retirement, secretly allowed him a little more. She took quite a fancy to him, and some months later, thinking he had detected in her a flavour of Susan’s character, Mr Arnold married her.

  FRANCIS KING

  The Mouse

  Vernon Thurible loved his wife, Stella, as much as their daughter, Mavis, loved the white mouse which they gave her for her seventh birthday. Mavis had herself asked for the mouse, insisting that it was one mouse only, and not a pair, that she wanted: ‘It won’t be lonely,’ she said, ‘because, you see, it will always have me for its friend. I don’t want it to have other friends,’ she added. Vernon and Stella thought this explanation charming, and they repeated it widely in their Blackheath circle. They both adored their child.

  On the day when they bought the mouse in the pet department of a large London store, they had one of their many quarrels; and, as usual, money was the cause. For a man who affected to despise money, Vernon spent an inordinate amount of time thinking how he could make it, or make his wife borrow it. It was when they came to pay for the mouse (it was handed to them in a small wicker cage which was wrapped in brown paper) that Vernon had to face the disagreeable discovery that Stella had nothing but a single ten-shilling note in her bag; so that, as they walked to the underground, he spent the time either chiding her for having spent so much that week or urging her to ask her mother for more. Vernon despised Stella’s relatives, who were in business, while his were in trade. ‘You were always talking about your rich uncles and aunts before we got married. But now, when it’s a question either of keeping your pride or of letting your child starve, you prefer to keep your pride.’