Miss Hargreaves (12 page)

I walked home about ten with very mixed feelings. Perhaps I ought to try to tell you about them, otherwise you’ll be running away with the idea that this is meant to be a funny book. It is not; it is a very serious book; it is an account of the most amazing thing that ever happened to me, a thing that altered the whole course of my life. So please keep that clear. And remember it’s true; I haven’t made a thing up–except Miss Hargreaves in the first case.

I tried, on that queer walk home, to solve the mystery of Miss Hargreaves in various
natural
ways.

One. She was an escaped lunatic. Impossible. How could a lunatic know so much about me, having only that one letter to go on?

Two. Henry was playing some monstrous practical joke and this woman was his accomplice. Most unlikely. Henry’s annoyance with me at the station hadn’t been feigned; he, quite obviously, was firmly convinced that she was an old friend of mine whom I’d so far successfully concealed.

Three. As Henry himself had suggested, there had actually been a Miss Hargreaves staying at the Manor Court Hotel when my letter arrived. Now she, taking advantage of that, was playing a huge joke on me. Highly unlikely. Old ladies don’t play such jokes.

Four. And this was the most convincing solution. I had actually met her somewhere in the past and, through some inexplicable lapse of memory, had forgotten her existence until, during that ghastly visit to Lusk church, she’d slipped out of my subconscious mind. It was a neat explanation; it fitted everything; it
was
possible for a person’s mind to go quite blank. I decided that I’d go through all my old diaries to see if I could find any reference to a meeting with her or anyone like her.

Five. And this lingered; this really stayed in my mind.
What I had invented had actually come to pass
. Like that sermon years ago. Above all other possible solutions, this lingered.
I would like it to be so
. That was the danger. Always, simmering below every irritation, was a feeling of pride, a rich feeling. ‘Mine,’ I found myself murmuring; ‘mine!’
My
work; my creation. Why not? Who knows anything? Thousands of mysteries all around us stars, sky, chaps, girls, animals, flowers–and just why all of us are and do and die. Mysteries. Say what you like. Suppose this was simply another such mystery?

Proud of her. Yes. I couldn’t help that. The way she had handled her affairs in the Swan had been magnificent. But she was a terrible strain on me; already a terrible strain. I felt worn out as though I’d been doing some really hard manual labour; and I had only had an hour or so of her company. What was I going to feel like after a few days even weeks?

Thoughts like these soared in my mind, and I found I’d reached home without knowing how I’d got there. It was a lovely night; I yawned and went up the steps. I heard father’s violin from his room, and guessed he’d taken the opportunity of mother and Jim being out to have a good go at the Kreutzer. I stood there for a few minutes, listening and looking at the great empty Queen Anne house caught in the moonlight over the road.

I yawned. ‘Just the place for Miss Hargreaves,’ I murmured.

I unlocked the front door and walked slowly upstairs.

I went to father’s study. It’s a wonderful room on the second floor, with a window looking along the back garden and up Candole Street where the Happy Union is. At the top of the hill you can see the Cathedral. Sometimes father lies on the sofa under the sill with the window open, and plays tunes on his violin to the spire. ‘She’s a lady, that spire,’ he says, ‘well bred; a proper lady.’ And you feel he’s right; particularly when you remember the Cathedral is under the patronage of the Blessed Virgin.

There are hundreds of books in the room; in bookshelves and stacked in piles on the floor. A large table in the middle is full of magazines, ink bottles, microscope slides, old cups of coffee, glasses, music, and tobacco tins. A black Bord piano crosses the corner by the window. It’s an ancient little piano, very far-away and pleasing in tone; the sort of piano you might hear playing from under the sea, if you know what I mean. A haunted piano, altogether. There’s a picture above it of the Three Magi coming in procession to the Manger; by a chap called Dierich Bouts it is; very old, Flemish, full of colour, queerly like counterpoint. Bouts and Bord have always gone together for as long as I can remember; father says they’re married. It’s a funny thing, once, when the picture had to be taken away to have a new glass put in, the piano got terribly out of tune and some of the notes stuck. They’re very fond of each other, clearly.

When I came in that evening he was sawing away at the rondo from the Kreutzer. A lamp was balanced perilously on some music on top of the piano. Father didn’t stop. I sank into a chair, feeling very tired and muddle-headed.

Presently father laid down his bow and, finding an old hairpin of mother’s, started to clean out his cigarette holder.

‘Hullo, boy,’ he said, ‘come and play with me.’

‘Too tired, Dad. I’ve been having supper with Miss Hargreaves.’

He nodded as though he’d known her all his life. Nothing ever surprises father; he can’t even surprise himself.

‘She bring her oboe?’ he asked.

‘I don’t know what makes you think she plays the oboe,’ I said.

‘Well, come and try the slow movement of this Delius. It’s a bit soggy, but it’s got heart.’

‘I’m very worried, Dad. I’m honestly wondering whether I oughtn’t to see a doctor or something. I asked her how “Agatha” was–just making up the name on the Spur of the Moment, see?’

‘I warned you years ago about that Spur, my boy.’

‘And all she said was, “sinking”. Like that. It was amazing. What do you think it means?’

‘Delius is all right for a change; like going on to pudding after the joint. But you can’t live on puddings. Take the Elgar
concerto–as a concerto
you can’t beat it. Have an apple?’

‘Do you think “Agatha’s” a monkey? Oh, by the way, she stopped and actually spoke to the Dean. He was furious, glared at me. That horrible bird of hers screamed the
Venite
at him. He didn’t like it, you could see that.’

‘Monkeys like music,’ he remarked, rolling himself a cigarette. ‘If she plays the harp, as you suggest, probably she’s got a monkey.’

‘Do you suppose I’ve suffered some ghastly lapse of memory? I mean, I might have met her years ago, at Bournemouth.’

‘Memory’s a funny thing.’ He twisted his moustache and a reminiscent light came into his grey eyes. ‘I had a beard once. Before you were born, that was. Well, one night I shaved it off–or I suppose I did. Yet, to this day, I could swear I was trimming the veronica hedge in your grandfather’s garden. He liked veronica very much, and I must say, one way and another, it does make good hedging.’

‘I suppose Marjorie’ll be furious with me for cutting the dance. Well, I can’t help it.’

‘Shall be glad to see her. Tell her to come round to the shop. By the way, who are you talking about? Agatha who?’

‘Don’t be silly. Miss Hargreaves.’

‘Hargreaves? Oh. Ah. Yes. The woman you met at the Three Choirs Festival, you mean?’

‘Oh, anything you like,’ I sighed.

‘It’s astonishing what a number of interesting folk one does meet at that Festival,’ he went on, tuning his G string as he spoke. ‘I saw Tennyson there once, skulking behind a pillar and fumbling about in his beard. He dropped a bit of paper and I picked it up. There were only three words on it; I’ve got it somewhere in the shop. Remind me to look for it some time. Valuable, really.’

He started to play a tune he had composed for the G string.

‘Come on,’ he said, ‘put in your accompaniment, then I’ll give you some whisky.’

I went over to the piano and drifted in a few chords under his melody. It was a sort of saraband, very grave, soothing, yet–somehow–that particular evening, curiously disturbing. It was never quite the same each fresh time he played it. He’d never written it out. Towards the middle he invariably improvised something new. So my accompaniment had to be prepared for any modulation he might make, while the skeleton of the music remained always the same.

When we had finished, I sat for a long time looking up at the Three Magi and wondering, as I always did, whether any of them had moved while the music had been going on.

Father sighed, rather uneasily I thought, and looked out at the sign of the Happy Union–an old man and an old woman–swaying in the breeze from the red-bricked wall of the house.

‘Can’t help thinking,’ he murmured, ‘that the most lovely music is never written down. Like speech, like something said and soon forgotten, but still alive. You accompanied well, my boy; you’ve got real creative power, you know. Only, like me, you can’t be bothered to control what you create. Well, perhaps we’re not meant to; perhaps what we create ought to control us.’

‘I don’t like the idea of that,’ I said. And I thought of Miss Hargreaves, perhaps at this moment playing her harp to Dr Pepusch. ‘I don’t like it at all. I–’

‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Shaved it off. When I looked in the glass next morning, it had gone. Well, of course it had gone. You can’t shave off a seven-inch beard and expect to see it on your chin next morning. But I never remember, and to this day I’ll swear I was trimming your grandfather’s veronica hedge.’

In my bedroom that night I sat up late, going through a lot of old diaries. There were a good many entries I couldn’t make head or tail of, such as: ‘Pall Mall ancients. Shove-’apenny sorrow.’ But there wasn’t anything that I could remotely connect with Miss Hargreaves. I gave it all up and went to bed.

4

T
WICE a week, on Tuesdays and Fridays, I go to the Cathedral before breakfast to practise the organ. I always enjoy these early mornings alone up in the loft, particularly in winter when it’s still dark and I and the bedesman who stokes up the stoves are the only people in the building.

Next day was one of my practice mornings. Before seven I was riding my bicycle up the High Street towards the Close. As I passed the Swan I glanced apprehensively up to the windows of a room on the first floor. Had all the events of yesterday, I asked myself, been a dream? I rode on quickly, trying to put the whole queer business at the back of my mind.

Going into the Cathedral by the little south door, I crossed the transept. It was a grey, gloomy morning; I felt rather depressed. Passing over the nave dais, I unlocked the gate to the north transept, left it open, and climbed the narrow, dark spiral stairway to the loft. The moment I saw the console, I felt better; I felt as though I had returned to an old friend, for ever faithful, of infinite variety of mood. ‘Dear old Willis,’ I murmured, gazing at his four silent manuals and smoothing my fingers tenderly over the yellowed keys. Switching on the current, I got out my music.

I had three-quarters of an hour before me, alone with the organ. Shortly before eight I would have to stop, as there was always a celebration of the Holy Communion in one of the chapels. Dr Carless did not allow me the use of any heavy work; I was expected to confine myself to the Great flue-work and, if I wanted a
crescendo
, the Full Swell. I never had found it easy to stick to this. A great organ is intoxicating; set yourself before one and see. Sometimes I had fallen to temptation, getting drunk on Great Reeds, disorderly on Solo Tubas, and ready to deal with all the miserably sober organists in the Royal College of them so long as I had the help of the Pedal Bombards.

I started on a Mendelssohn sonata, a soft movement, tricky stuff with a
pizzicato
pedal. Feeling complacent about my performance, I decided to go on to the third movement, a very flamboyant affair, brisk and battlish, in three-four. ‘Damn Carless!’ I muttered as the movement went on. I dragged out the four Opens on the Great and coupled the Full Swell; I opened the box and gave the Reeds their head. Sound soared above me, battering the immense Norman piers of the transepts. Within four bars of the end I read, printed in the copy, ‘add Great Reeds’. Who could have disobeyed such an order? With a quick movement of my left hand over to the Great stop-board, I snatched out a handful of reeds–easy as plucking grass–Trumpet, Double Trumpet, Posaune and Clarion. Mixtures and mutations shot out almost without a hint. My right foot charged down on the Full Pedal composition. It was like accelerating to eighty on Salisbury Plain. Out shot the Bombards and the Ophicleide; a second later a sound like thunder filled the nave. My eyes strayed towards the Solo Tubas; somehow I resisted them and closed the movement on the Full Great and Swell, lifting my hands quickly from the final chord so that I might hear it rolling and rumbling about the nave and trembling in all the windows.