James Hilton: Collected Novels by James Hilton

out of numbness. I shall never be the same again, because nothing can ever be the same again, and I am not nothing— she reflected suddenly, remembering the first lesson in logic that had been almost the last thing she learned at Cheldean. But the frantic syllogism comforted her, all the more because it had not occurred to her till just that moment; and as she stared from the firelight to the tired face of the man standing before her, she repeated it to herself: Whatever happens, whatever they do to me, however much I am torn apart, I am not nothing.
    She saw that he was still smiling, waiting perhaps for her to speak. She wondered how long she had been silent—minutes or only seconds? But the words could come now; she began abruptly: “Are you hungry? I am.”
    He answered: “Not very. But don’t let me stop you—”
    “Wouldn’t you even like a cup of tea?”
    “Well…er…hadn’t we better wait till Sarah—”
    “Oh, I’ll make it. Let’s go into the kitchen.”
    “All right.”
    She made not only a cup of tea, but a substantial meal of eggs and bacon, which they both ate, talking of nothing in particular meanwhile—just the weather, and the sharp frost that morning, and how they liked their eggs done. It was beginning to be easier now—like the first morning of term when you go into a new class with a new teacher and you do not exactly expect to get on with her at first—in fact you pine for the old one all the time, though you would not, if the choice were given, stay down in the lower class just to escape the trials of newness.
    When he lit a pipe she commented: “They said you never used to smoke.”
    He did not ask who “they” were, or why the matter should ever have been mentioned. He answered lightly: “Oh yes, I have most bad habits.”
    “You mean you drink too?”
    “Well… I have been known to touch a drop.”
    She laughed, because the phrase “touch a drop” had amused her when she was a child; it was so funny to touch a drop, if you ever went to the trouble of doing it, and she had often in those days puzzled over why old Mr. Felsby should boast so much about never having done it in his life.
    “I don’t suppose there’s anything here,” she went on. “I think Watson takes whisky, though—on the sly. Perhaps he keeps a bottle somewhere—I can ask him—”
    He smiled again. “Don’t worry—I never did drink at breakfast. For that matter, I never drank much at any time. Not to excess, that is.”
    “Then it’s not a bad habit.”
    “All right—so long as you don’t think too well of me.”
    They talked on, as unimportantly as that. She did not ask him any direct questions, nor he her, but by the time the first rays of sunshine poured in through the kitchen window they knew a few things about each other—such as, for instance, that they had both arrived at Stoneclough before their time; she from school, having run away, he from prison, having been released a few months earlier than he had counted on, owing to a technicality in the reckoning. She gathered also that his arrival had led to other events in which her mother and Mr. Standon were involved. He did not tell her much about that, but said it was an odd coincidence that she should have come that morning, an odd and perhaps an awkward one, but not so awkward as if she had come a few hours sooner.
    “I don’t know why she didn’t tell me everything before,” he added, as if thinking aloud. “It would have been all right I wouldn’t have blamed her…I don’t blame her now, for that matter. She just couldn’t face facts—never could…
    Oh well, give me another cup of tea.”
    While Livia did so he puffed at his pipe and went on: “Things never turn out quite how you expect, do they?”
    She knew that he was addressing her as an adult, either deliberately or absent-mindedly, and in order not to break the spell she said nothing in reply. But he relapsed into silence, and presently, still under the spell