The Brickfield

by L.P. Hartley

Genres: General Fiction; Classics

Synopsis

A lonely boy living on his uncle's farm in the Lincolnshire Fens, Richard Mardick's solitary existence is interrupted by a chance meeting, and idyllic love affair, with Lucy. A disused brickfield is the scene of their clandestine meetings, and it is there that Richard finds her drowned in a muddy pool. Forced by circumstances to look back on these days, Richard finds himself recounting this episode to his secretary. Its shattering significance throughout the rest of his life is put into remarkable perspective by the unusual framework with which Hartley has enclosed his story. Weaving skilfully through past events while staying awake to the present, The Brickfield is a masterly evocation of childhood and its influences on the adult mind.

Release date: December 6, 2012

Publisher: John Murray

Print pages: 266

Sample

Chapter I

‘I’m flattered, of course,’ the young man said, ‘but why ask me, when you have several friends who know you and your work much better than I do?’

The grey-headed author sighed.

‘Most of my friends are my contemporaries,’ he replied. ‘They haven’t had heart attacks, it’s true, as I have, but all the same, they might not outlive me, whereas you, I hope, will outlive me many years. How old are you, Denys?’

‘Twenty-eight.’

‘And I’m sixty-seven, nearly forty years your senior. When did you come to be my secretary? You see how bad my memory is.’

‘It will be three years in March.’

‘So long – how time flies! Well, you’ve been a comfort to me, a great comfort.’

‘And you to me, Mr. Mardick.’

‘Nice of you to say so, Denys. And by the way – I’ve often been meaning to say this – would it be against discipline, or your sense of fitness, would you have any objection, I mean – to calling me by my Christian name?’

‘Oh no, sir,’ said the young man promptly. ‘I should like to. To tell you the truth, I sometimes do, behind your back.’

Mr. Mardick smiled.

‘Well, say it then.’

‘Richard.’

‘You said it rather experimentally, and as if it was a hot potato in your mouth, but you must struggle to get used to it. Try to think I’m not present, and you are saying to some friends of yours, “that old so-and-so, Richard—”’

‘Oh, Richard, I never should.’

‘That’s all right then. We understand each other. And you really are prepared to take on the job of being my literary executor?’

‘More than prepared. I’m honoured.’

‘I can’t think that. There aren’t many manuscrits inédits or typescripts – I never was a copious writer, as you know, and the sin of burying my talent, or hiding its light, has never been one of mine. By hook or crook, I have published nearly everything I wrote, since I wrote The Imperfect Witness. You won’t have many posthumous works to deal with—’

‘I don’t want to think of you in the past tense.’

‘Some day you’ll have to. But there are legions of letters. I hate destroying letters – it’s as if you were trying to wipe somebody out of existence. But to spare you, I may leave instructions that you can burn the lot, unread.’

‘But surely some of them are important?’ Denys asked.

‘To me, perhaps, but not . . . not to posterity.’

‘Posterity?’

‘The word slipped out. Oh dear, how vain you must think me. Of course posterity won’t be interested in me, and yet—’

‘And yet?’ The young man prompted his employer, perhaps with a shade too much confidence.

‘People might want to know something about me. Most of my books are forgotten, as you know. But The Imperfect Witness still sells after nearly forty years.’

‘It sold seven hundred and sixteen copies last year, Richard.’

‘That book’s always been their favourite, I suppose because they can identify themselves with the hero, though why they should want to, when he was such a cad—’

‘It’s easier to identify oneself with a cad than with a really nice man, if such there be, and cads are popular,’ said Denys, stretching out his long legs comfortably.

‘I know people say that, but—’

‘Would you like to identify yourself with the Prince Consort, Richard?’

‘I might have, if I’d lived then. Would you rather have been Jack the Ripper?’

‘Well, he had more fun.’

‘It depends what you mean by fun,’ the novelist said, with mock severity in which, however, there was a hint of disapproval. ‘But as we’re neither of us cads—’

‘Speak for yourself, sir.’

‘“Richard”, you should say. And I speak for you too, my dear fellow. But where were we? What were we talking about?’

‘Cads.’

‘Yes, but before that?’

‘About the sale of your books, with special reference to The Imperfect Witness.’

‘Now I remember. I had asked you to be my literary executor. And there was something else I wanted to ask you.’

‘Yes?’

The young man rose and stood with his back to the fireplace, in which was an electric fire that imitated coal. The heat it gave out did not seem to belong to it and the light and shade that flickered across its craggy front hadn’t the expression and personality that a coal fire has. Denys was so tall that his head overtopped the black-faced sphinxes on the broad Regency mirror that spanned the chimney-piece. He took a gold cigarette-case from one pocket and a gold lighter from another. His movements were deliberate and marked by a conscious elegance; an appreciable time elapsed before he puffed out the first cloud of smoke. Suddenly he remembered and bent down and held the case out to his friend.

‘Won’t you have one?’

Richard shook his head.

‘Doctor’s orders. You’ve still got the case, I see.’

‘Yes, and the lighter too. Did you think I should have pawned them?’

‘I might have to ask for them back.’

‘Even the gods cannot recall their gifts,’ said Denys, slowly restoring the cigarette-case to his pocket. ‘Was that what you were going to ask me?’

‘No, it wasn’t. How is your financial situation, by the way?’

Denys shrugged his shoulders.

‘Oh, fairly healthy, but these golden accessories give rather a false impression. When I flaunt them in a shop, the counter-jumpers think I’ve come to buy it.’

‘No doubt you have.’

‘They certainly make it easier for me to get credit.’

Richard smiled.

‘I’m glad of that. Credit is what matters. Which brings me to—’

‘What you were going to ask me?’

‘Yes, in a way.’

A look that was half impatience, half distaste, crossed Richard’s face; the look of someone who, having publicly pledged himself to a disagreeable task, thereby arousing expectation, must now perform it or lose face. Calling his own bluff, he said, ‘Do you think people will want to know about me?’

‘Know about you?’

‘The facts of my life and so on.’

‘You’ve always said there weren’t any except those listed in Who’s Who. I know them by heart, of course, I’ve had to supply them to so many of your fans. Shall I refresh your memory?’

‘Do, dear boy.’

‘Well then. Mardick, John Richard. Born 29th Jan 18—’

‘You needn’t rub that in.’

‘If you interrupt me, I shall forget,’ Denys complained. ‘I can reel it off like a prayer – a prayer to you, so long as I don’t stop anywhere. “Born at Fosdyke, Cambs, only son of Walter Lusby Mardick. Educated St. Peter’s School, Medehamstead, and All Hallows College, Oxford (scholar). Served First World War (R.A.M.C.) Unmarried”. I suppose you are unmarried?’

‘Yes, of course. As you are.’

‘“Has travelled extensively—”’

‘That’s not really true. I’ve only travelled extensively between England and Italy.’

‘Please don’t interrupt me. Publications: The Imperfect Witness, of course, and then O Sunflower—’

‘I think we can take them as read,’ the author broke in. ‘Their names make me so self-conscious. O Sunflower, indeed! So like a young man to think himself weary of Time! If it was now – No, spare me the others.’

‘Then I shall have to say them over to myself, or I shall forget the last part.’

Denys’ lips moved rapidly for a few moments. ‘The Tired Heart, 1957’, he wound up aloud.

‘That was prophetic,’ Richard said.

‘Or tempting Providence.’

‘Well now,’ Denys said. ‘Recreations: swimming, rowing and climbing.’

There was a pause.

‘I shall have to alter that in the next entry, if there is one, to “Bath-chair comforts and back-seat driving”.’

‘Don’t be so depressing, or you’ll make me sorry I ever told you the facts of your life. Now! Address: Flat 15, 99 Suffolk Gate, S.W.7. That’s where we are now, in case you’ve forgotten. Clubs: Everest, Euthanaseum.’

‘Is that all?’ the novelist asked.

‘I think so. I may have made a slip, because you would keep interrupting, but I think it’s all. Can I sit down now? I feel quite tired.’

‘You just wanted to elongate yourself. I never asked you to stand up,’ said Richard.

‘No, but I sometimes do, out of respect for my employer.’

Denys disposed himself in a chair and with the same elaborate gesture as before, lit another cigarette. He fixed on Richard a long, speculative stare, which seemed to be neither taking in nor giving out. Suddenly it would be extinguished, like the revolving lantern of a lighthouse, but while it was still turned on you could neither ignore it nor comfortably meet it, you had to turn away. Richard liked looking at Denys – at his baby-blue eyes, source of the stare, his slightly upturned nose, his long oval face, his complexion as delicate as a woman’s.

‘It isn’t much to go on,’ Richard said.

‘Not much? You are ungrateful. I thought it was a mouthful. You wouldn’t find anyone else to cover you as copiously as I have.’

‘I don’t like that phrase “cover you”,’ said Richard, ‘it’s too journalistic, and besides—’

‘Besides what?’

‘You haven’t really covered me.’

‘What have I left exposed?’

‘I think we’d better drop that metaphor,’ Richard Mardick said. ‘It’s rather . . . rather misleading. The main point is: is it likely that someone will want to write about me?’

‘More than likely, Richard.’

‘In that case, would you do it?’

The young man opened his blue eyes wide. Normally his face was inexpressive; he might have kept it still so as not to wrinkle it. When he did register an emotion, it had an almost theatrical effect.

‘Of course I should,’ he said. ‘And anyhow, your wishes are my commands. But it would have to be a very short book, wouldn’t it, just a memoir?’

‘I suppose so. But I could tell you more than Who’s Who does, and then there are the letters written to me, and letters of mine, which my friends may have kept—’

‘But why don’t you ask one of them to do it? They know the set-up so much better than I do. I only know you in your rôle of employer and benefactor, and—’

‘Yes, yes,’ said Richard hastily. ‘There are several people who know me, in some ways, better than you do, and have known me longer. But I’d rather you did it.’

‘I should be charmed. All the same I don’t like talking about it, biographizing on your grave. Let’s have a drink and talk of something else.’

‘A drink by all means. Help yourself, my boy. No, not for me – I have to ration myself, as you know. A bore, but there it is. But while we’re on the subject, let’s have it out – I’d rather not go back to it again. Now take your time – I know you don’t like hurrying, and it’s not good for me, either.’

He turned in his chair and watched his secretary’s long fingers hovering selectively above the bottles.

At last Denys came back, the whisky in his glass a deep shade of orange.

‘Isn’t that rather strong?’

‘Well, it was you who got me into those bad ways, you who corrupted me. Until you came along, I never—’

‘All right, all right,’ said Richard.

‘And besides, I have to nerve myself for what you’re going to tell me.’

‘I’m not sure I am going to tell you,’ Richard muttered. ‘It’s like this. If anyone writes about me, I’d rather it was you. You could put a notice in the paper saying you were my literary executor and were going to write a memoir of me, and would anyone who had letters of mine send them to you—’

‘Oh dear, I hate all this,’ said Denys.

‘Yes, but we must be practical. Then when you’ve got the material, you can decide whether or not you want to write it. I rather hope you won’t.’

‘I don’t quite follow.’

‘Well, you’ll have the material, and as long as you have it, no one else can use it. You can always be going to write the memoir—’

‘But how shall I make up my mind?’

‘You’ll have to use your discretion.’

‘I never had very much, you know.’

‘Oh, but you will have, by that time. The doctor didn’t contemplate my immediate decease. He said he just couldn’t tell. Oh yes, he was quite frank with me; you’ll find out, when you get older, that people can be frank with you and you with them.’

‘You haven’t been very frank with me so far,’ the young man said, sipping his whisky.

‘No, that’s to come, at least I think it is.’

‘You don’t really trust me.’

‘Of course I trust you – you’re one of the few human beings whom I do trust. Otherwise I wouldn’t have asked you – well! But I don’t quite trust myself. I mean I don’t know whether my impulse to tell you is a sound one.’

‘You make it all seem very portentous,’ the young man said.

‘It is to me. But would it be, to someone else?’

‘I can’t hazard a guess, unless you tell me.’

‘You see, I’m in an odd position, not exactly under sentence of death, but nearly. I haven’t any future, to speak of, not as other men even of my age have. I couldn’t write now, even if I tried. Imagination is a wasting asset, it dwindles with one’s other powers.’

‘Couldn’t I supply you with some emotions to be recollected in tranquillity?’ Denys asked.

‘It would be fatal if you did. No excitement, the doctor said, pleasurable or otherwise. And above all, don’t get angry. I’m not an angry type, but one never knows, so try not to provoke me, Denys. What I mean is, there’s nothing more, in the way of emotion, that I can safely learn: resignation is my lot. The Experience Account is closed. But I want to know how I stand, to have a point of view about myself. Richard Mardick to get used to the new conditions and be ready – you might say. The readiness is all.’

‘Hamlet.’

‘Now you’re showing off. But in little, I share some of his faults. Life’s dropped out of my hands. I can’t pick it up again and I don’t want to. I don’t want anything new to happen to me, no more problems. A novel is a problem, you know, a severe mental and emotional strain; and if it isn’t, it’s no good – at least in my case. That’s why so many novelists, even mediocre ones like me, die before their time. I couldn’t face another novel. I should like to relax, and wait like an autumn leaf, to fall. No more readjustments; no more trying to tune in to the present age and wondering what the young people of today are thinking. I believe I have your affection—’

The young man drained his glass.

‘Of course you have,’ he said.

‘– And that gives me a kind of security – emotional security – in which I might put forth a few late autumn flowers, strictly for home use, not for sale.’

‘You wouldn’t need a secretary then,’ said Denys.

‘Oh yes, I should. I should have plenty of letters to write, and as I shouldn’t be working, I should need companionship more than ever. But your glass is empty,’ he added, noticing that Denys was making ineffectual attempts to drain it a second time. ‘Fill it up, won’t you, though I don’t really think you ought to. It’s only half-past six, still two hours to dinner-time. You mustn’t get sozzled.’

Denys rose with his air that was at once languorous and resolute, and said, ‘Don’t forget you were going to tell me something.’

But when he had replenished his glass, a silence fell.

‘I’m waiting,’ he said.

Thus reminded, Richard took the plunge, but into shallow water.

‘It isn’t easy to explain,’ he said, ‘it’s for the sake of the synthesis, the harmony, the integration, if you like, though it’s a dreadful word – in my thoughts and feelings. Am I being unbearably egotistic?’

‘Not more than usual.’

‘I don’t want to have to look back at my life as if it was a jigsaw puzzle with one piece of the pattern – the most important piece – always missing. I know what the piece is, but other people don’t, and it isn’t enough to see the jig-saw oneself, one wants other people to see it, after a fashion, anyhow. There are a few people who do jig-saws for their own private satisfaction, but most of us like a witness to our cleverness.’

‘I’ve never seen you do a jig-saw puzzle,’ Denys said.

‘No, I haven’t the patience, and visually I haven’t much sense of shape. But novels are a sort of jig-saw puzzle.’

‘And memoirs, too, it seems.’

‘Well, mine would be. Without the clue it wouldn’t make sense, it would be the picture of a quiet, very quiet life, but it would be misleading.’

‘And you don’t want to mislead people?’

‘I’d rather not,’ said Richard, fretful at his thoughts. ‘If they want to know about me, I’d rather they knew the truth. They mustn’t know it, that’s the difficulty.’

‘They mustn’t know it?’

‘On no account. If I tell you, I won’t bind you to secrecy, it isn’t necessary, but nobody must ever, ever know.’

‘Then why tell me, if I’m not to put it in the book?’

‘For two reasons. One is that I don’t like the idea of dying with a secret. And the other is that though you can’t put it recognizably into the memoir, you can make its presence felt, just as you can describe the results of an accident without describing the accident itself. You can show me as the product of the experience.’

‘That’s how I should show you, because that’s how I know you.’

‘Yes, but you don’t know the context.’

‘When am I going to know?’

The older man stirred uneasily in his chair and his troubled gaze travelled round the cornice until it fell on Denys.

‘It’s now or never, I suppose,’ he said.

‘Why do you hesitate?’

‘Partly because I’m afraid of boring you.’

‘If I’m bored, I’ll put my hand up.’

‘And partly because I don’t want to burden you with my private affairs. For they are a burden. They are like parasites that batten on their host and then try to gnaw their way out.’

‘What unpleasant images you use. Shall I be harbouring a sort of tape-worm?’

‘A very long one. And another thing is, I don’t want to appear to you in a bad light. You’ve always looked up to me till now – not in the physical sense of course—’

‘Or in the moral sense.’

‘Perhaps not,’ said the older man. ‘But in a general way you respect me, don’t you?’

‘Of course I do,’ said Denys.

‘Well, after this you may find you can’t. That would be a blow for me and might upset our friendship. I should hate you to despise me.’

‘Should you mind despising me?’ said Denys.

Richard opened his eyes wide.

‘Well, that would be a new experience.’

‘And you don’t expect to have any new experiences?’

‘No,’ said his employer. ‘I shall be on the retired list in every sense.’

‘Then will you still need a secretary? That’s what I want to know.’

Richard smiled at him fondly.

‘Yes, all the more.’

‘Why all the more?’

‘Because I shan’t have the companionship of my work.’

Did a faint cloud cross the young man’s brow? If so, Richard didn’t notice it. He was absorbed in visions of the future, when, exercise-book and note-book laid aside, he would enjoy a series of intimate occasions like this one, but without the ordeal of confession hanging over him.

‘We could travel,’ he said.

‘But will you be well enough?’

‘I shall be well enough if you are there.’

Again Richard failed to notice the look of unease on the young man’s face.

‘It will be nice to know,’ he went on, ‘that we shan’t have to break off for any reason at all, except, except . . .’

He didn’t finish the sentence, nor did Denys finish it for him. Instead, Denys said, ‘You won’t find it too much of a strain, saying whatever you are going to say?’

‘Well, if it proves to be, we’ve got the remedies ready. You know where they are, don’t you?’

‘On your dressing-table.’

‘Yes, but if anything happens, you’ll have to get a move on, as we used to say, none of that slow motion stuff, as th. . .