A Perfect Woman

by L.P. Hartley

Genres: General Fiction; Classics

Synopsis

Chartered accountant Harold Eastwood, conventionally minded, chances to meet Alec Goodrich on the train, travelling first-class with a third-class ticket. Alec is a best-selling novelist. He soon finds Harold's knowledge of income tax allowances useful and when Alec pays a visit to the accountant his wife, Isabel, who yearns for culture and literature, quickly takes up the fantasy to be his mistress. However, not she but Irma, the Austrian barmaid at the tavern, has caught Alec's wayward fancy . . .

Release date: March 28, 2013

Publisher: John Murray

Print pages: 320

Sample

Chapter 1

‘AND don’t forget, my dear Harold, to find out about Irma for me, if you can. If I didn’t live so far away, I would rout her out myself.

Yours ever,

Alec.’

 

Harold sighed. After a moment’s hesitation he took the letter to the file marked G, but before adding it to the others he lifted out the topmost two, and though he knew what he would see, he read them through again. Here was one operative sentence:

‘Thank you for all your hospitality and for all the fun we had. I shan’t quickly forget that girl behind the bar at the Green Dragon, either – Irma was her name, I think.’

And here was the other:

‘What a jolly girl Irma was. I wish I had had time to get to know her better. Could you do something about it?’

The two letters were dated respectively a fortnight and a week earlier than the latest arrival. Alec was a methodical man in some ways. Raising his eyebrows Harold put the letter with its fellows. There was quite a pile of them, but Irma only figured in the last three – the three Alec had written since he came to stay.

Harold’s thoughts went back to their first meeting. They had met in a railway train. Harold had been to Bath on business and was travelling first-class at the firm’s expense – the firm he was visiting, that is, for he worked on his own. There was only one other occupant of the carriage. It was not Harold’s custom to talk to people in trains, he usually worked in them, and he opened his despatch-case intending to do so. But his day’s work was done, satisfactorily done, and he felt disinclined to go on totting up figures. The lights in the roof of the compartment were none too bright or could it be that at thirty-five he was beginning to need glasses? He put aside his despatch-case and looked out of the window, but the November murk pressed so thick and close against it that he could see little but his own reflection – longish, sallow face, short nose, dark hair, dark, clipped moustache, dark straight eyebrows that, with his moustache, made the points of an inverted triangle: a tight face but conventionally good-looking. Harold, as conventional as his face, had been told in childhood that a man should never be caught studying his reflection in a glass, and he was just turning away when, with a shriek and a roar, the train entered the Box Tunnel. Immediately there descended on him that sense of suspended being that tunnels induce. He was sitting braced, taut and expressionless, as if expecting who knows what, when his glance fell on the man opposite, who was also sitting like a statue of himself. Harold was not much interested in people, but he was interested in their clothes. With the heightened perception that tunnels impart, and with more intentness than politeness warranted, he scrutinized his vis-à-vis, and was still scrutinizing him when, with a sudden softening of sounds and loosening of rhythms, as if it was running on to grass, the train emerged from the tunnel into the twilight which, in the brief interval, seemed to have turned to night.

Yet there was nothing so remarkable about the man. He was above the average size, loosely built and inclined to corpulence; he was wearing a good brown tweed suit, a brown and white check shirt, a knitted brown tie and a pair of heavy brown suède brogues. So far so good: all was in a rural symphony. But there was a discordant note, the socks. Dark blue and of cheapish material they were obviously meant for town. In his vacant mood the discrepancy worried Harold. Cautiously he lifted his eyes to the stranger’s face. There, at a first glance, everything seemed to match. The general impression was sandy. The eyes, light brown with a greenish glint, exactly matched the hair which was brushed back from the forehead and wind-swept over the ears; the skin, deepening to red on the cheeks, had on the temples a brown pallor that might easily have been freckled but was not. A poster artist (Harold had had some experience of advertising) could have done the whole face in one tone, thereby halving the outlay. But again there were discrepancies. Over the shaven upper lip the bold nose contradicted the weak jaw, and what was this about the eyes? Slightly protuberant, they were staring with tunnel-fixity and a hint of truculence into space; but the noticeable thing about them was that one was wider-open than the other. There was the suggestion of a cast about them, too.

Fascinated, Harold continued his scrutiny. The man was sitting with his knees crossed. One hand rested on his knee, the other loosely clasped his ankle. The hands were large and well-made, and had the same air of successfully resisting freckles; but here too there was an inconsistency, for whereas the first and third fingers of the upper hand had almond-shaped nails, the nails of the other fingers were blunt and might almost have been bitten. On the little finger was a large, round signet ring guarding a thin circlet of gold – his mother’s wedding-ring, perhaps, thought Harold, who was devoted to his own mother.

Furtively, from an obscure desire to enter into the other man’s mind, Harold copied his way of sitting, and at once realized that it was a physical device to reduce mental tension – whether simply tunnel tension, he could not tell.

One thing remained: to assess the stranger’s income. This was, with Harold, an almost routine inquiry and he was seldom far out in his guess. Just as one wrestler is said to be able to gauge the strength of an opponent by merely touching his shoulder, so Harold could, by trifles light as air, take the measure of a man’s material wealth. But again he was baffled. Fifteen hundred a year? Four thousand, five? To his mortification he could not narrow the bracket. When, afterwards, he learned the figure, it seemed to be inevitable – but was it? Meanwhile he looked about for further indications of the man’s financial status. He was taking up a book that he had laid down during the tunnel crisis. After the Storm was the title on the jacket, and the author’s name, Alexander Goodrich.

At this moment the door slid back and the ticket-collector came in. Harold held out his white ticket; the stranger fumbled and at last brought out a green one. Harold was astonished. The last thing he had expected of the stranger was that he would be travelling first-class with a third-class ticket. At once he had recourse to his despatch-case, for the little parley between a ticket-collector and his possibly fraudulent fare was a thing that always embarrassed him.

Mentally he stopped his ears. He just heard the words ‘a very full train’ – which were scarcely true of this train – the rest was a blur of voices, first rising and falling in argument, then meeting in the level tones of agreement and understanding. Harold saw the collector’s hand raised in salute and the door slide back behind him.

‘Decent fellows, some of these ticket-collectors,’ said the man, turning his eyes to Harold, unabashed. ‘But, God, the expense of travelling nowadays!’

Harold did not know whether to take this as evidence of a guilty intention, so made a non-committal sound, and his fellow-passenger went on:

‘It’s these taxes, you know, these bloody taxes.’

‘Yes,’ said Harold, feeling on firmer ground. Then, prompted by curiosity, he had an idea. ‘Perhaps you don’t claim all the reliefs you might?’

‘I claim precious few,’ the stranger said. ‘How can I? Being an author isn’t like being in business.’

‘All the same there are things you could claim,’ Harold said. ‘I’ve never dealt with the returns of literary people, but I’m an accountant and I know the general form. Do you claim for the room you work in, for instance?’

‘Good Lord, no. Could I?’

‘Yes, and for lighting and heating it and paying someone to clean it.’

‘You surprise me.’

‘And for your stationery and typing and for a proportion of your telephone calls—’

‘You don’t say so!’

‘And a proportion of your rail fares to London if you’re going on business.’

‘Why, then, I needn’t have—’ the stranger broke off.

‘—Well, no,’ said Harold, not sure what he was supposed to be agreeing with. ‘And a proportion of a good many other expenses,’ he concluded.

‘I’m tired of all this proportion,’ said the stranger, moodily. ‘I should like all.’

‘I’m afraid that wouldn’t be possible,’ said Harold, without a smile. He hesitated. ‘I could send you a list of items of expenditure for which you could claim.’

‘I don’t suppose you’d do the whole thing for me?’ asked the stranger, turning on Harold a curiously persuasive look, which was none the less persuasive for not quite hitting the middle of Harold’s face. ‘I should be eternally grateful to you if you would.’

‘You mean on a business basis?’ said Harold cautiously.

‘A business basis?’

‘Well, I usually charge a fee for my . . . professional services, you know,’ said Harold. ‘It varies according to the amount of the claim, and the work involved. In your case—’

‘Ah yes, in my case,’ said the stranger gloomily, and as if his was a case indeed. He propped his chin up with his hand: the good nails and the bad nails touched each other. Suddenly his brow cleared.

‘Well,’ he said, ‘where shall I send the dope? And to whom have I the pleasure of speaking?’

Harold gave him the address first. The stranger entered it in his diary. He wrote slowly, with a flourish. ‘And the name?’

‘The name is Harold Eastwood.’

‘What a pleasant name. I shall enjoy writing it,’ the stranger said. Harold could see the letters curling across the page. ‘I’m Alexander Goodrich,’ he announced, looking up from his sandy eyebrows, as though to see if the name would register. For a moment it did not; then Harold asked:

‘Are you the author of that book?’

Mr. Goodrich laughed.

‘Well, yes, I am.’ He leaned forward, put his hand on his knee, and said with great intimacy, as to an old friend, ‘It’s always been my ambition to find somebody in the train reading a book of mine. I never have, but sometimes I read one myself in the hope that someone will connect me with it. May I give it to you?’ he asked suddenly.

‘Delighted,’ said Harold, offering to take the book. But the author immediately withdrew it.

‘Do you mind if I keep it till we reach Paddington?’ he said. ‘I’m coming to a bit I rather like. The storm is over’ – he sketched a rapid zigzag for the lightning – ‘and things are beginning . . . beginning to settle down.’

‘I’m afraid I’m not much of a reader,’ Harold confessed. ‘My wife’s the reader in our family. Does it end happily?’ he asked, making what seemed his first contribution to a literary conversation.

The author screwed his eyes up.

‘Well, not exactly,’ he said. ‘No. definitely not. You might call it a tragi-comedy.’

 

Isabel Eastwood was excited when she heard that her husband had met Alexander Goodrich. ‘Why, he’s quite a well-known author!’ she exclaimed. ‘And I’m a fan of his. I wish you hadn’t told him that you hadn’t heard of him.’

‘I didn’t,’ said Harold. ‘I only—’

‘Well, I’m afraid you must have given him that impression. Now if it had been me—!’

‘Have you read this book, After the Storm?’ asked Harold.

‘No, but I’m dying to. It’s said to be autobiographical. Not that that makes any difference,’ she added, with a sudden change into seriousness. ‘It’s the quality that matters. Looking for an author’s life in his books is vulgar anyhow, and can be most misleading.’ She broke off – talking to Harold often made her feel pretentious – and went on in a lighter tone: ‘Alexander Goodrich is what I call a chancy writer. He can be thoroughly bad. Some of the critics are terribly down on him.’

‘Bad in what way?’ asked Harold.

‘Oh, I don’t mean morally, though old-fashioned people might say he was. I mean artistically bad, clap-trap, inflated stuff. I expect it depends on whether he’s in love or not.’

‘Why, what difference does that make?’ Harold asked.

‘With some writers it makes all the difference,’ Isabel said. She was carried away, partly by her interest in the subject, partly by the thought that almost for the first time she was having a serious conversation with her husband about books. ‘Being in love – well, it does something to the imagination.’

Harold felt that these words implied a criticism of himself. ‘Is Goodrich a married man, do you know?’ he asked.

‘I don’t know,’ Isabel said. ‘I rather think not. Artists and writers often don’t get married. There’s a sort of mystery about him – he lives a long way off, somewhere in Wales. Did he look as if he was in love?’

‘I couldn’t say,’ said Harold disappointingly, and obviously disapproving of being asked such a question. ‘He seemed bothered about something – perhaps because he was travelling first with a third-class ticket.’

‘I shouldn’t think that would worry him,’ said Isabel. ‘It must have been something else.’

‘Well, his income tax.’

‘Yes, it might have been that,’ Isabel agreed, and for a moment the animation faded from her face, leaving it heavy. She was a small woman with a high complexion, a well-shaped aquiline nose and dark eyes that could sparkle. Her hair, which was thick and dark, almost black, she parted in the middle and drew round her face in two dark crescents; she might have been a better-looking Charlotte Brontë. She read the Sunday papers and the weekly reviews and tried to keep abreast of culture. She had been in doubt about marrying Harold, but the quality in him that had first attracted her had worn well and strengthened its hold. She liked his seriousness, and some, though not all, of the forms it took. He was determined to be a good husband and father – it was the rôle in which he saw himself – and when disagreements arose between them she knew she would have this principle of his on her side. Even if it was only a principle, she was inextricably part of that principle; she was its inspiration and its guiding light. On the other hand, some of the manifestations of his seriousness irritated her, for he was also determined to arrange their lives according to a perfect bourgeois pattern. He was a sidesman at church and might soon be a churchwarden; he was a member of every society in the town which had a suggestion of the square or the circular about it, and which was at once reasonably inclusive and reasonably exclusive; he was not unduly snobbish but he coveted the good opinion of his neighbours, and spoke of some who were in a slightly superior social position with so much awe that Isabel was inclined to smile. That was the safety-valve; she could smile at him and at the same time value his instinct – for it really was an instinct – to reach ever new heights and depths of domesticity, conjugality, paternity, and – to use a harsh word – respectability. Even that she was prepared to face. She had gone a good way to meet him in his ideals; he had not gone very far to meet her in hers. She did not altogether enjoy the cocktail parties and dinner parties they gave from time to time to his business friends. She did not dread them; the men were cleverer than she expected them to be, the women were nicer, and she had quite her fair share of a woman’s natural interest in people. On such occasions Harold would take on a protective colouring from his guests, disguising, under a jocular manner, the fact that he took himself seriously as a breadwinner and a business man. Sometimes his older or more prosperous associates would notice this and gently rag him – a thing that Isabel resented for him, for if she sometimes laughed at him herself she did not like it if others did. Everything at these parties had to be just as they would be at other people’s. Harold had almost a passion for the middle way.

Isabel knew the nemesis of the dream-fed, of Mme Bovary and Hedder Gabler; she knew what was likely to happen when a woman of slightly superior social standing, decidedly superior brains and greatly superior imaginative capacity married a dullish man and lived in the provinces, and she was on her guard against it. She believed she knew herself fairly well. She did not suspect herself of Bovarysme. She did not mean to shoot herself or take poison or break out in any way. But latent in her were feelings she had not quite subdued when she accepted Harold and his gospel of conformity; and sometimes when she walked along the tree-lined banks of the canal, now filled with the Ophelia tracery of floating leaves, or watched the soldiers setting off, rifle in hand, to their training ground beyond the brick-built barracks, she had to stifle a longing to be more to someone than she (or perhaps anybody) could ever be.

Once, not long ago, she had been walking on the promenade behind which the town nestled in its ancient security of church and trees and barracks and small, non-seaside houses: Marshport always seemed to her a town by the sea, not a seaside town. It was a blowy day and far out the waves were breaking; but in-shore for a hundred yards or more it was as flat as a lawn. Suddenly, from the midst of the flatness at her feet a long billow began to form. Fascinated she watched it mounting up, a hump of green water, marbled with foam, moving slowly towards her. Gradually it curved inwards, till it was as tall and hollow as a wave in a Japanese print. Then a crest began to form and the whole mass toppled forwards.

 

A sound like distant thunder, between a rattle and a rumble, assailed her ears. It was the noise of motor-traffic, crossing at its own risk (the notice said) the wooden-slatted bridge over the canal. Isabel was so used to it that as a rule she hardly noticed it: but to-night it seemed a warning.

‘Jeremy and Janice in bed?’ asked Harold.

‘Good gracious, yes, it’s nearly nine o’clock.’

‘Of course it is, I’d clean forgotten. It was talking to you about that fellow Goodrich. Did they remember to say their prayers?’

‘I don’t believe they did. Shall I run up and see if they’re still awake?’

‘It might not be a bad idea.’

Chapter 10

ALEC had gained his point. As the two men stepped into the street he said, trembling with excitement:

‘What a delightful fellow that Inspector is.’

Harold grunted. He did not like to hear any man called delightful, least of all an Inspector of Taxes. A Tax Inspector should be civil, shrewd, hard-headed, and upon occasion, understanding; but not delightful.

‘Seems fond of poetry,’ he said non-committally.

‘Yes, doesn’t he? He sees me as a bard. Well, perhaps I am. That was what did the trick, that and your support.’

‘I’m afraid I didn’t support you very much,’ said Harold.

‘That was just it. You were so objective. If you had pressed him, you would have put his back up. He wanted it to appear that the concession came from him . . . Oh, how wonderful I feel! How are you feeling, Harold?’

‘I feel pretty good,’ said Harold repressively.

‘Not more than that? Oh, I could dance.’ Alec cut a caper on the pavement. ‘Don’t I look twice my size?’

Oddly enough he did, and Harold, rather unwillingly, admitted this.

‘Oh, I could sing.’ Alec carolled a little. ‘Should we have a drink now, or should we wait till we get home?’

‘What time is it?’ asked Harold, practically.

With a lavish gesture, as if he was administering a knockout, Alec bared his wrist.

‘Good Lord, it’s after one. . . . Still, it doesn’t matter.’

‘But won’t they mind if we’re late?’ Harold asked.

Alec poked him gently in the ribs.

‘My dear fellow, there’s nobody to mind. Nobody at all.’

At last they were back on the road. The rising vapours inside him, no less than the golden mist outside, began to woo Harold from his ill-humour. But what a bad show it had been. Not business at all: that was just it. The Inspector had swallowed Alec’s story whole; it appeared that he thought of Alec as a bard, and to a bard he could refuse nothing: a bard must have the benefit of every doubt. Harold didn’t really mind that; he didn’t mind his client getting away with something he had no right to get away with; he himself was always straining points in a client’s favour. But it had been so unprofessional! Alec had appeared like a deus ex machina in an affair which did indeed concern him, but which he had delegated to Harold. By so doing he had won a triple victory – over the Inland Revenue, over the Inspector, and over Harold himself, who had declared that a retrospective claim for the market-garden wouldn’t wash. At one stroke he had cut the knot, by-passing all the preliminaries – the manœuvring for position, the attacking at one point and giving way at another, the slowly-arrived-at compromise which was the essence of the matter, as it was the essence of marriage and, perhaps, of life itself. Procedure had been violated, and how could one get on without procedure? Procedure gives colour to transactions which without it would seem dubious and off-colour – as this one did.

Harold didn’t dream of asking Alec if his story about the daffodils was true. It didn’t occur to him, any more than it would occur to a solicitor to ask his client if he was telling the truth. In any case, it was beside the point; the Inspector had to decide on the evidence before him, and he had decided. There were a dozen questions he might have asked Alec but he hadn’t asked them. There were a dozen ways in which he could verify the truth of Alec’s story from outside sources, but apparently he didn’t mean to use them. He had been hypnotized, impressed by Alec the bard and enchanted by Alec the man.

Alec certainly knew how to get his own way. This was the third instance of it that Harold had been present at. In the train with the ticket-collector; at the house of what’s-his-name the novelist, when the curator wanted to refuse him admission; and now.

If he laid siege to Irma, could Harold doubt what the result would be?

He had as good as said he didn’t mean to. He had said that he only wanted information about Irma for the sake of copy. Did he always take, and give, so much trouble in order to get copy? And what exactly was ‘copy’? Might not ‘copy’ include much more than finding out something about someone?

Harold had been left at the end of the interview feeling very small. Not looking small; Alec had saved his face, had appealed to him several times during the discussion, had managed to give the Inspector the impression that Harold backed him up. Indeed, the Inspector would almost certainly think that Alec’s irruption was premeditated, and that they were in collusion. But what matter, since apparently he didn’t care if they were?

It really was most unprofessional, and intolerable, that Alec should have gone behind his back and forced his hand. Another sort of professional man, a doctor or a lawyer, for example, might well have decided to throw up the case and leave Alec to look after his own affairs since he seemed to eminently capable of looking after them. Supposing he, Harold, did so? He would only be forfeiting the £30 a year that he was charging Alec; his relations with the six other clients would not be affected. But wouldn’t they? Supposing Alec, who seemed to have so much influence over his friends, persuaded them to withdraw their favours? Harold had his family to think of; could he afford to sacrifice £150 a year to gratify his pique? And not only £150; there might be another £150 in prospect from the other potential clients, who were lining up, tumbling over themselves, only waiting for a word from Alec. Would that word be given, if Harold started to cut up rough?

And Irma? What gain would she get out of Harold’s loss?

Suddenly he said, ‘How did you collect the money for the daffodils?’

Alec turned to him and smiled.

‘While the gardeners were there one of them collected it. As soon as they went off, I took on. It was quite fun, you know. I don’t belong here, but I have the same sort of relationship with the people as if I did. Some of the little devils tried to get away with extra bunches tucked away somewhere in their meagre little persons. When I saw an ominous bulge, or a stalk sticking out, I used to poke at it and say ‘What’s this?’ And the children were so innocent about it. I don’t know what the world’s coming to . . . Aren’t you getting hungry?’

Harold admitted that he was.

‘Let’s put on the pace a bit.’

Alec was driving much too fast already. And smelling slightly of drink. Another rock loomed up and they only missed it by a fraction. If they survived the accident that seemed inevitable, Alec would certainly get his licence endorsed. Or would he?

It was long past two when they sat down to luncheon.

 

Hendre Hall,

St. Milo’s.

Dearest Isabel [wrote Harold],

I said I’d try to tell you something about this place, but I can’t tell you much, because the whole place is wrapped in fog. You wouldn’t know that you were near the sea, except for some old foghorn that keeps moaning and wailing. It’s always the way at week-ends, isn’t it? We never seem to get a good one. When I woke up this morning visibility was about 200 yards. When we drove out it was 150 to 100, and now it’s about 50, I should think. I can’t see the garden wall, which I could see quite clearly this morning.

The house isn’t what we mean by a hall, it’s really an old farmhouse, with a wing added on to make an L. (Alec says there aren’t any really big houses in this part of Wales.) There was an older wing, but it was knocked down by a bomb in the war, and Alec got it rebuilt when licences were almost unprocurable – trust him for that! So he’s got a library, a great big room with two fireplaces, and rooms for the staff over it. My room is in the old part of the house. The door opens by itself if you don’t latch it. There are six doors opening out of the corridor, and they all move by themselves – so Alec told me – and I tried them, to make sure. He won’t say if the house is haunted or not. When I asked him he said, ‘Not at this moment.’ I don’t know what he meant, but I think he often doesn’t know himself.

He’s in wonderfully good spirits – a good deal because of something that happened this morning; I can’t tell you what it was, it was to do with business, but Alec did very well out of it. I was rather annoyed at the time, but I’m not now, it’s no concern of mine what he chooses to say or do. He’s a good host though, I will say that, and I can’t imagine what he meant when he said he wasn’t on a good wicket here. He has everything he wants and servants who wait on him hand and foot – no washing up or anything of that sort – and if he isn’t happy then he ought to be. But he is. It’s quite childish the way he goes on.

I wish I could tell you what we talked about – but it was mostly business and wouldn’t interest you. He did mention the Austrian girl at the Green Dragon, but he seems to have cooled off her altogether – he says he only wanted to know about her in order to put her into a book! We needn’t have got so het up about it! But he did say he would like to come and stay with us again.

Now he’s having a siesta, and says he won’t be up till teatime. He wanted me to have one, but I said I was afraid I was too English for Continental habits, so here I am writing to you. I wish you were here, and I can’t think why he didn’t ask you. It’s such nonsense about his household not being up to scratch. He’s got too much money, that’s his trouble. But it’s silly not to enjoy yourself when you’re on holiday, and I mean to. Besides, he’s done a good deal for us, I keep remembering that, and Monday will soon be here.

To-morrow we’re going to do a motor-trip and see some places on the coast, if the fog clears. Alec says it seldom lasts more than two days. You don’t think much of Marshport, I know, but at any rate you can see where you are, which is more than you can here.

Now I’m going out to get a breath of air, or fog, or whatever the local mixture is, and then I’ll come in and finish this.

 

At the end of the passage a staircase led down to the library. This way Harold went, remembering that the library had a door that opened into the garden. He let himself out with the caution, the irrational sense of being watched, that as a visitor one sometimes has, finding one’s way about a strange house, alone; and the fog with its finger on the lips of the house seemed to have a special message of secrecy and silence.

Should he leave the door into the garden open or shut? If he shut it, it might lock itself, or somebody might lock it; if open, some alien creature, a cow or hen or other denizen of the countryside, might get in. Like many town dwellers, Harold regarded domestic animals with fear and suspicion. Finally he compromised by leaving the door on the latch, just not closed.

Conscientiously – for he always tried to do what he had promised to do, even when there was no witness but himself – Harold sniffed up the sweet, warm, moist air, laden with golden motes. Above, the thinning mist still disclosed glimpses of blue sky; around, it was thicker than before. He could just discern the hedge which, like a shadow, enclosed this part of the garden on three sides – framing, with the house, an oblong of grass, of which a patch the size of a tennis c