James Hilton: Collected Novels (17 page)

The fact that she would never say, in words, that she loved him mattered less after she had said, both doubtfully and hopefully, in reply to his fifth or sixth proposal: “I
might
marry you, George, some day. If I ever marry anyone at all…”

He never passed beyond the gates of Stoneclough; she never invited him, and he never suggested it. She told him little about herself, and the promise he had given not to mention her father set limits to his personal questions about other matters, though not to his curiosity. He wondered, for instance, why old Richard Felsby, her father’s former partner, had not helped her financially, for Richard had dissolved partnership and sold out his interest in the firm before the crash, so that he was still rich and could well have afforded some gesture of generosity. But when once George spoke Richard Felsby’s name he knew he had in some way trespassed on forbidden territory. “I don’t see him,” was all she said, “and I don’t want to. I
never
want to see him.”

She said little, either, about her life at Stoneclough, except to reiterate, whenever he brought up the matter, that she would rather live there than anywhere else, despite the inconvenience of the three-mile walk. He gathered that there was some old woman, a kind of housekeeper, living there also, and that the two of them shared cooking and other domestic jobs; but she gave him few details and he did not care to probe. Most of his time with her was spent along the Stoneclough road, walking evening after evening during that long fine summer; but as the days shortened and the bad weather came, they sometimes met in the library at midday, when she had an hour off and they could talk in one of the book-lined alcoves of the Reference Department. They spoke then in whispers, because of the “Silence” notice on the wall; and there was piquancy in that, because as Chairman of the Municipal Library Subcommittee he had a sort of responsibility for seeing that library rules were enforced.

One lunch hour she greeted him in such a distraught way that he knew immediately something was wrong. Soon she told him, and even in face of her distress his heart leapt with every word of the revelation. By the time she had finished he knew that fate had played into his hands, so he proposed again, with all his quiet triumph hidden behind a veil of sympathy. For George could not avoid a technique of persuasion that made his last thrust in battle—the winning one—always the kindest. And by sheer coincidence, in that odd way in which at important moments of life the eye is apt to be caught by incongruous things, he noticed while he was talking that just above her hair, and glinting in the same shaft of sunshine, lay an imposing edition of Creasy’s
Fifteen Decisive Battles of the World.
He couldn’t help smiling and thinking it a good omen.

The news that had so distressed her was that the bank had foreclosed the mortgage on Stoneclough, so that she would have had to leave the house in any event. George tried to feel that this did not detract from his triumph, but merely contributed to it. He assured her that she would find it more fun living in a small house than in a great barracks of a place like Stoneclough. “I’d like to know what the bank thinks it can do with it… ”

She made no comment, but asked after a pause: “Do you like dogs?”

“Aye, I like ’em all right. Used to have one when I lived with my Uncle Joe—a big black retriever.”

“My dog’s small—and white. His name’s Becky.”

He suddenly realized what she was driving at. “You mean you want to bring your dog to live with us? Why, of course…And I like any dog, for that matter.”

They were married a few weeks later at Browdley Registry Office, with only a few friends of George’s in attendance. She was nineteen, and the fact that he was getting on for twice that age was only one of the reasons why the affair caused a local sensation.

Councillor Whaley, a seventy-year-old confirmed bachelor and one of those political opponents whom George had converted into a staunch personal friend, took him aside after the ceremony to say: “Well, George, she’s smart enough, and ye’ve got her, so God bless ye both…I doubt if it’ll help ye, though, when ye come up for re-election.”

“And d’you think that worries me?” George retorted, with jovial indignation. “Would you have me marry for votes?”

Tom Whaley chuckled. “I’ll ask ye ten years hence if ye’d vote for marriage—that’s the real question.” George then laughed back as he clapped the old man on the shoulder and reflected privately that Tom Whaley mightn’t be alive ten years hence, and how lucky he himself was, by contrast, to have so much time ahead, and to have it all with Livia. For he was still young enough to think of what he wanted to do as a lifework, the more so as the world looked as if it would give him a chance to do it.

George, ever ready to be optimistic, was particularly so on that day of his marriage.

So were millions of others all over the earth—for it was the month of November, 1918.

The honeymoon, at Bournemouth, was a happy one, and by the time it was over George knew a great many things—a few of them disconcerting—about Livia, but one thing about himself that seemed to matter and was simple enough, after all—he loved her. He loved her more, even, than he had thought he would, or could, love any woman. When he woke in the mornings and saw her still sleeping at his side he had a feeling of tenderness that partly disappeared as soon as she wakened, but somehow left a fragrance that lasted through the day, making him tolerant where he might have been unyielding, amused where he might have been antagonized. For she was, he soon discovered, a person with a very definite will of her own. He thought she was in some ways more like an animal than any human being he had ever met; but she was like a
real
animal, he qualified, not just a human animal. There was intense physicality about her, but it was unaware of itself and never gross; on the other hand, she had a quality of fastidiousness that human beings rarely have, but animals often. He could only modestly wonder how he had ever been so confident of winning her, because now that he had done so she seemed to him so much more desirable that it was almost as if he had to keep on winning, or else, in some incomprehensible way, to risk losing. And when he returned to Browdley that was still the case. He had hoped, after marriage, to concentrate more than ever on his Council work and on study for the university examination—to make up for such splendidly lost time with a vengeance; yet to his slight dismay there came no relief at all from a nagging preoccupation that he could not grapple with, much less analyze. He found it actually harder to concentrate on the
Cambridge Modern History
, harder to generate that mixture of indignation and practical energy that had just barely begun to move the mountains of opposition to everything he wanted to do as town Councillor. It was as if the fires with which she consumed him were now seeking to consume other fires.

For instance, her sudden change of attitude in regard to Browdley, and her naïve question, within a few weeks of their return: “George, I’ve been thinking—couldn’t you do your sort of work somewhere else?”

“Somewhere else? You mean move into a better part of the town?”

“No, I mean move altogether. Out of Browdley.”

He was too astonished to say much at first. “Well, I don’t know…” And then he smiled. “That’s just what I suggested to you once, and you said you’d rather stay here.”

“I said I’d rather stay at Stoneclough. But I haven’t got Stoneclough now.”

“Well, I’ve still got the
Guardian
and my Council position. Wouldn’t be so easy for me to give all that up.”

“You think it would be hard to find a newspaper or a council job in some other town?”

“Aye, that’s true too. But what I said is just what I meant. It wouldn’t be easy for me to give up Browdley.”

She was not the sort of woman to say, “Not even to please
me
?”—and although he did not think it was in her mind, he knew it was rather uncomfortably in his own.

“It’s probably silly of me, George, even to ask you.”

“No, I wouldn’t call it silly—it’s just not practical. Of course I can understand how you feel about the place, but surely it’s easier to put up with now than it used to be when you worked at the library?”

“Oh, it isn’t a question of that. I can put up with anything. I did, didn’t I? It’s just that—somehow—I don’t think Browdley will bring us any luck.”

“Oh, come now—superstitions—”

“I know—I can’t argue it out. It’s just a feeling I have.”

He laughed with relief, for the unreasonable in those days did not seem to him much of an adversary. “All right, maybe you won’t have to have it long, because I’ve a bit of news to tell you…”

He told her then what he had known for several days—that the Parliamentary Member for Browdley was expected to retire on account of age within a few months. When this happened there would be a by-election and George would be a possible candidate; if he won, he would be obliged to live in London during Parliamentary sessions, so Livia would enjoy frequent escapes from Browdley that way.

She was much happier at the thought of this, and soon also for another reason—she was going to have a baby.

The Member for Browdley duly applied for the Chiltern Hundreds; the writ for the by-election was issued; George was selected as his party’s candidate, and the campaign opened in the summer of the following year. George’s opponent was a rich local manufacturer who had made a fortune during the war and declined to entertain the notion that this was in any way less than his deserts. His party’s majority at the coupon election just after the Armistice had been large, but already there were signs of a change in the national mood, especially in the industrial areas, and it was generally agreed that George had a chance if he would put up a fight for it. And there certainly seemed no one likelier or better able to do so.

When George looked back on his life from later years, it was this period—those few weeks and months—that shone conspicuously, because upon Livia, always unpredictable, pregnancy seemed to confer such deep contentment. George then realized the power she had over him, for immediately he felt freed for effort just when effort was most needed. Never did he work harder than during that election campaign; every morning, after a few necessary jobs in the newspaper office, he would leave for a whole day of canvassing, meetings at street corners and factory gates, culminating in some “monster rally” in the evening that would send him home tired but still exhilarated, long after midnight. Usually Livia would then have a meal awaiting him, which he would gulp down avidly while he told her of the manifold triumphs of the day. In her own way she seemed to share his enthusiasm, if only on account of what could happen after his victory, for it was already planned that they would rent a house in some inner London suburb—Chelsea, perhaps—where she could live with her baby while George made a name for himself in Parliament. Who could set limits to such a future? Well, the electorate of Browdley could; and that, of course, sent him out in the morning to work harder than ever, with Livia still in bed and himself strangely refreshed after no more than a few hours of snatched sleep. He had never been so happy, had never felt so physically enriched, or so alert mentally. Things that had seemed a little wrong between him and Livia just after their marriage had worked themselves right—or something had happened, anyway; perhaps it was just that they had needed time to get properly used to each other.

One thing, naturally, had to be postponed for a while—his studies for the university degree. But of course he could pursue them just as easily—nay, more so—in London later on. And it would be an added pride to put B.A. after his name when he could already put M.P.

Gradually during those busy weeks Browdley’s long rows of drab four-roomed houses took on splashes of color from election cards in most of the windows—George’s colors were yellow, his opponent’s blue. The latter’s slogan was “Put Wetherall In and Keep Higher Taxes Out.” George, however, struck a less mercenary note. “A Vote for Boswell Is a Vote for Your Children’s Future,” proclaimed his cards, banners, and posters.

(George would remember that one day.)

But he really meant it. He told the voters of Browdley exactly what he intended to do if they should choose him to represent them; he mixed the dream and the business in a way that was something rather new to the town, and could be both praised and attacked as such. He had plans, not merely promises, for slum clearance, education, medical insurance, and relief of unemployment; and (to redress the balance, as it were) he had visions, not merely opinions, about international trade, India, the League of Nations, currency, and world peace. He was eager, cheerful, spontaneous, sincere, and a little naïve. He battled his opponent trenchantly, yet with rough-spun humor that took away most of the sting; it was another of George’s special techniques, and he had already become rather expert at it. “I don’t like to hear Mr. Wetherall attacked because he made a lot of money during the war,” he would say. “Let’s be fair to the man—he couldn’t help it.
(Laughter.)
It wasn’t his brains that did it.
(Laughter.)
He didn’t even have to try to do it. (
More laughter.
) The money just came rolling in, because we hadn’t got the laws or the taxes to stop it. So don’t blame poor Mr. Wetherall. Blame the laws and the tax system of this country that enabled one man to become half a millionaire while others had to fight in the trenches for a shilling a day. And let’s get things changed so that it can’t happen again. (Cheers.) But of course you mustn’t expect Mr. Wetherall to vote for any such change. After all, why should he?
(Laughter.)
…” And so on. Political prophets tipped George as the winner, but whether or not, Browdley had certainly never enjoyed a more bracing political contest.

Election day dawned unseasonably windy and wet, which was his first item of bad luck, for the other side had more cars to take voters to and from the polling stations. He left his house for the central committee rooms at an early hour and was kept busy all day with routine matters; meanwhile, as the rain increased, his spirit sank a little. His agent, Jim Saunders, was already giving him revised last-minute opinions that it would be “a damned near thing.”