Time and Time Again by James Hilton Read Free Book Online

about this time, he inherited Beeching. For years thereafter he lacked interest in the property, his chief consolation being Lindsay, in whom he could well take pride. For the boy, who was very like him in looks, developed fast and promisingly--excellent at games as well as studies--destined, Havelock might have hoped, to become as remarkable as himself but without the flaw.
    When Lindsay went to school Havelock had to find things to do, even at Beeching, and gradually established himself as the kind of chartered eccentric that English society permits and tolerates-- which really means that none of his neighbours, whether they liked him or not (and most of them didn't), thought it VERY odd that he should be a LITTLE odd. Though he was never now in the headlines, he often appeared in print--writing letters to The Times about his hobbies, which included bird-watching, collecting snuff-boxes, and visits to country churchyards, where he liked to rummage amongst old tombstones and discover neglected graves of minor celebrities of the past; he was something of an expert on lapidary inscriptions. Strong in physique and passionate by nature, he was also a magnet to women, but here again the flaw presently showed itself--a scandal involving the suicide of the daughter of one of his neighbours, a girl in her early twenties. This was when Havelock was in his fifties and a widower.
    One quality he had to which both friends and enemies gave the same name, but with differing inflections--CHARM. His friends had in mind the urbane host and the delightful talker, but his enemies said that this charm was something he could turn on and off at will, and always on when he wanted anything--an old courtroom trick put to non-professional use.

    * * * * *

    Before Charles left for the station to catch the London train en route for Cambridge he had a talk with his father in which the charm, turned on or not, was as antique as the snuff-boxes. Havelock began by discussing the Anderson name and his own pride in it--one of those great families of commoners, he said, that in a sort of way constituted an English aristocracy of their own. In such company a mere knighthood was not so much a painting of the lily as a defacement. 'Who can wish to rub the eager shoulders of provincial mayors and successful shopkeepers? Of course if I'd stayed at the Bar I should have climbed much higher--but today, as things are, I'm probably stuck where I am, and you must reconcile yourself to having Sir Havelock Anderson for a father instead of plain Mister or Esquire.'
    All of which seemed to Charles either obtuse or a snobbery of extra- special vintage. He said: 'Oh, it doesn't make much difference at Cambridge. I don't think many of my friends even know about the title.'
    'You have my full authority to conceal it from them. Anyhow, your own affairs and what you intend to do in life are more important. Have you thought of a profession?'
    Charles hadn't, especially. So they ran through the possibilities, some of which were impossibilities, such as the armed services and medicine, for which Charles had neither desire nor aptitude. Havelock himself ruled out the law; he did not think Charles was suited, which was a politer way of saying he did not think he had the brains. Charles knew, though his father didn't mention it, that Lindsay was then on his mind; Lindsay was to have entered the law, for which a brilliant Cambridge career had already prepared him before he went into the army. It was as if Havelock did not want Charles's career to trespass, even had it been possible, on the hallowed might-have-been territory that Lindsay would always occupy in his mind.
    What about the Church? Charles shook his own head at that, and Havelock smiled in part concurrence. The City? Selling stocks wasn't much of a job, but undeniably there were youths of decent family who nowadays went into brokers' offices and made money there. Charles said innocently that he didn't think he would ever