Random Harvest (Audiobook Companion)

by James Hilton

see you were such a gentleman." Afterwards he realized the meaning behind the remark. The other members of the company were NOT gentlemen, nor ladies either, in the restricted sense of the word. They could act the part, successfully—even

yet behind all that they well knew the difference between the real and the too real, and how the same difference was apt to be recognized by others. Hence the usefulness of Smith. He had a way with him, despite—or perhaps BECAUSE of—his shyness, diffidence, embarrassments, hesitations.

similar reasons that Nicholas Nickleby became a success with the company of Vincent Crummles—except, of course, that Nicholas graduated as an actor. Smith did not aspire to that, but he speedily became almost everything else—advance press agent, scene-painter, bookkeeper, copy-writer, toucher-up of scenes that were either too long or too short or not wholly successful, general handy man, odd-jobber, negotiator, public representative, and private adviser. He was always busy, yet never hurried; always pleasant, yet never effusive; always reserved, yet never disdainful. In short, a perfect gentleman.

lodgings—all combined to break down the pathological part of his shyness; yet shyness still remained, and with it there developed an almost ascetic enjoyment of certain things—of rainy hours on railway platforms with nothing to do but watch the manoeuvres of shunting in a goods yard, of reading the numbers on houses in a strange town late at night, knowing that one of them hid a passing and unimportant destiny. His work also brought him into contact with average citizens of these many provincial towns—the

Alone at last in the dressing-room he closed the door, locked it, and for several minutes fought down an ancient resurrected hell of fear, mental darkness, and humiliation. Several knocks came at the door, but he did not answer them. Later, when the wave had passed over and he knew he was not drowned but merely swimming exhausted in an angry sea, he summoned enough energy to change his clothes. By that time the play had reached the final scene in which all the company would later be on the stage—he waited for the cue, "You cannot fire on helpless womankind," followed by the cheers and rough-and-tumble of the rescue party. Back-stage would be deserted now; he unlocked his way

symptoms, till it was not so much the ignominy of what had happened that weighed him down as the awareness of how thinly the skin had grown across the scar, of how near his mind still was to the chaos from which it had barely emerged. He hurried on—eager to pack his bag and be off, away from Fulverton and the troubled self he hoped to leave by the same act of movement; for surely place and self had some deep association, so that he could not now think of Melbury without... and then the renascent fear in his soul took shape; they were STILL trying to get him back to Melbury—they had been trying all the time, while he, falsely confident during those few weeks of respite, had gone about with an increasing boldness until that very night of self-betrayal. And such stupid, unnecessary self-betrayal before a thousand onlookers, among whom was one, perhaps, who did not laugh, but rose from his seat and quietly left the theatre, taking his stand on the pavement where he could watch every exit... Suddenly Smith began to run. They should not get him—never again. He stopped abruptly in the next patch of darkness, and surely enough the footsteps that had been following at a scamper then also

Suddenly he realized that there was more than one enemy;

Have a good time, you've done all you can for me, the rest I must do myself; so thank you again and good luck.

But he knew that it could not have been so had he stayed with the company, so that actually his leaving was well timed, an escape from bondage that would soon have become intolerable.

An old man was clipping a yew hedge along the vicarage wall. A sheep-dog stirred in the shade and opened a cautious eye as he passed. He felt: This is home; if they will let me stay here, I shall be at peace.

feet. He watched her for a moment, quietly fitting the picture into his mind before recognition came, and with it a curious mounting anger because he suddenly knew why it was he had grown so desperately in love with her; it was because she had made him so, because she followed him about everywhere, because, from the moment of their first meeting, she had never let him go—despite all acting and casual behaviour and false appearances. And she had followed him even to Beachings Over.

So they were married at St. Clement's, Vale Street, London, N.W., and as they left the church after the ceremony newsboys were racing down the street offering extra editions—"Peace Treaty Signed at Versailles." It was June 28, 1919. The bridegroom bought one of the papers on his way with his bride to their home further along Vale Street—a tall Victorian house that possessed the initial advantage of being owned by a deaf old woman who lived in the basement and

The unknown man felt sincere remorse over the fate of the innocent Atwill, but even that could not dim the joys of a partnership that was half fun, half fear, so that every falling asleep was like an unspoken prayer for safety and every waking up a miracle of survival. Sometimes they would hear the policeman clumping down the stairs and back again in his heavy boots, and she would run to the window to look out and come back saying—"It's all right, Smithy—it's there—go to sleep." That was a joke between them, because they had once agreed that nothing in the world could be more reassuring than a London policeman, half dressed, going downstairs at midnight to put out an empty milk-bottle on a front doorstep—a symbol that no harm would come, that God was

somewhere over the policeman's roof and theirs.

"Are you and your wife so united that you could use the same toothbrush?" Yet he never

"Depends what you want me to do. If you want me to lie about you to others, at least you must tell me the truth about yourself."

"But it was YOU I married," he said, "not your names." "So it doesn't matter?" "Not a bit. And it's perfectly legal and binding. Is that all you have on your conscience?" "Not quite all." Encouraged by a further look from Paula, Smith went on to relate the incongruous

visionary, the mystic. It was not easy to analyse or estimate

gardens. And afterwards, as Paula took his arm on the pavement outside, they would be caught in the human current sweeping along Old Broad Street in a single eastward stream, then crossing Liverpool Street like a flood tide into the vast station delta. He loved to see those people, so purposeful and yet so gentle, so free and yet so disciplined, hurrying towards the little moving boxes that would carry them home to secret suburbs—secret because they were so unknown to one another, so that a bus shuttling all day between Putney and Homerton gave one a mystical curiosity about all the people in Homerton who had never seen Putney, and all the people in Putney for whom Homerton was as strange as —perhaps stranger than—Paris or New York. There was something fantastic, too, in that morning and evening migration, huger in man-miles than any movement of the hordes of Tamerlane, something that might well be incomprehensible to the urban masses of the future, schooled to garden cities and decentralization. But there could never be such romance as in the pull of steam through the Bishopsgate tunnels, or faces that stared in friendly indifference as trains raced parallel out of Waterloo. He wrote of such things, and he wrote as he saw—a little naïvely, as if things had never been seen before—like the line drawings of a child, with something of the same piercing simplicity. It probably helped him, as Blampied said, to have forgotten so much about himself, because into that absence came...

"Life's more important than a living. So many people who make a living are making death, not life. Don't ever join them. They're the grave-diggers of our civilization—the safe men, the compromisers, the

money-makers, the muddlers-through. Politics is full of them, so is business, so is the Church. They're popular, successful—some of them work hard, others are slack, but all of them can tell a good story. Never were such charming grave-diggers in the world's history—and part of their charm is that they don't know what they are, just as they don't know what WE are, either. They set us down as cranks, oddities, social outsiders, harmless freaks who can't be lured by riches or placated by compliments. But a time may come when we, the dangerous men, shall either be killed or made kings—because a time may also come when it won't be enough to love England as a tired business man loves a nap after lunch.

He took her into his arms quietly, sexlessly, as they sat before the fire. Those were the happy hours.

"I know that, darling, but I still wish I were going with you, and if you were just to say the word, like the crazy man you are, I'd rush to the booking-office and buy a ticket—which would be stupid. I don't really mean it, Smithy—I'm only joking, of course. But I'm part of you—I'll only be half alive while you're away— we belong to the same world, as Blampied says about his friends—" "I know that too. There's something RIGHT about us—about our being together here. And Blampied wants us to stay."

unimportant. My life began with you, and my future goes on with you—there's nothing else, Paula."

"Darling, I do—and I also love you!" "I love you too. ALWAYS."

He reached Liverpool in the early morning. It was raining, and in hurrying across a slippery street he stumbled and fell. PART FIVE

"Because I actually FEEL as if it all happened only the other day, instead of twenty years ago. That house of Blampied's, for instance—it

right. Faith is something deeper, more passionate, less derisive, more tranquil than anything I've ever felt in board-rooms and offices—that's why peace won't come to me now... God, I'm tired." "Why don't you go home and rest?"

attic. There were things to do in those days if one had vision to do them, but now there's neither time nor vision, but only this whiff of putrefying too-lateness. It was almost too late even then, except that by a sort of miracle there came a gap in long-gathering clouds—an incredibly last chance—a golden shaft along which England might have climbed back to glory." "Less lyrically, you mean you'd like to set the clock back?"

"True—and what a desolate irony! But only HALF true, because strength is only half in tanks and steel. The other half is faith, wisdom —" A House servant approached

"You don't REALLY think that's all it amounts to? You must know there's only one thing that matters—only one thing left for me to do." "And that is?" "I must find her."

"Anything I ought to do now is nothing compared with what I ought to have done before." "But that's in the past—IRREVOCABLE." "No, not if she and I can find each other again." "It seems to me we're talking about different persons." "Oh, I see." We walked on for another spell of silence. Then I said: "But you don't even know that the... the other woman's ALIVE?"

enough not to notice that at some point in the final argument you waver and turn away. So here's my decision—No, darling, while it's still not quite too late; and here are my plans—I'm leaving London immediately, I'll have gone before you read this—I

—sometimes, especially when we've been closest, I've had a curious feeling that I REMIND YOU OF SOMEONE ELSE—someone you may have met or may yet meet—because with that strange memory of yours, the tenses get mixed up—or don't they? But Charles, because I AM so nearly the one, and because I love you more than anyone I shall

the war," was one of the things she said. "You're already thinking of AFTER the war?" "Of course. The NEXT Armistice Day, whenever it comes." "It'll be a different England, that's very certain. Not so rich, and not so snobbish—but maybe we can do without some of the riches and all the snobbery."

And then we came upon the gray cottages fronting the stream, the square-towered church, the ledge in the stream where the water sparkled. We parked our car by the church and walked along the street. A postman late on his morning rounds stared with friendly curiosity at us and the car, then said "Good morning." A fluff of wind blew tall hollyhocks towards us. Somebody was clipping a hedge; an old dog loitered into a fresh patch of shade. Little things—but I shall remember them long after much else has been forgotten.

saw her eyes and the way her lips trembled; something suddenly occurred to me. "By the way, how did you know there were five counties?"

gap was closed, that the random years were at an end, that the past and the future would join. She knew this too, for she ran into his arms calling out: "Oh, Smithy—Smithy—it may not be too late!"