And Now Good-bye by James Hilton Page B

hurry
back to this benighted spot by the very next train, will you?”
    “I shall put up for the night at one of those bed-and-breakfast
hotels in Southampton Row, and probably catch the 10.30 back on Saturday
morning.”
    “Rubbish, man! Stay in town and make a week-end of it!”
    “Perhaps I might except for the fact that I have a Bazaar committee-
meeting and a young men’s class on Saturday evening and two services to
take on Sunday, as well as Sunday school and the Armistice service. People
don’t realise that a parson has work to do—indeed, I hardly dare
mention to most people that I’m going to London; they look at me with
that ‘lucky dog’ expression, as if I were just treating myself to
a holiday.”
    “Which is precisely what you ought to be doing. Anyhow, you’ll
have one night in town—and take my tip: make a real night of
it—dinner and theatre—don’t stint
yourself—don’t go to bed till the small hours. Remember that: I
shall ask you, mind, when you get back, for a full report, and if you
haven’t taken my prescription there’ll be trouble!”
    They laughed and chatted on for a few minutes longer, until Howat looked
at his watch and said he must be going. He rose and glanced shyly at
Ringwood, for momentarily he had an impulse to tell the doctor about that
pain in his throat. Why not, after all?—it would save a few guineas,
and if it were anything serious…but the mere possibility checked the words
long before they could have reached his lips. Ringwood had been a good friend
for years, and Howat suspected real affection behind the ferocity of manner;
it would all be so much less unnerving with someone whom he did not know.
    He said good-bye, but Ringwood insisted on driving him back to the Manse.
When at last he was alone in his study, glancing at a few things that had
arrived by the evening post, he began to think in some detail about his
Friday plans. He would travel up by a morning train, arriving in London soon
after lunch; he could see the engineering people in the early afternoon, and
then be at Wimpole Street for four. And after that? It would depend, of
course, on how he felt; he might not be in the mood for anything at all. A
pity, perhaps, that he couldn’t get back to Browdley the same
night…He tore open the wrapper of the London Times , which was sent
him by post each day, and on the front page an announcement caught his
eye—a violin and piano recital at the Cavendish Hall on Friday evening;
a good programme, too—Schumann, Beethoven, Brahms. Sometimes, in
earlier years and at very rare intervals, he had made special trips to London
to attend some particular concert or recital; he had not done so lately, for
financial reasons, but now the thought of sitting once again in a
concert-hall and listening to Brahms (Brahms of all composers) gave him a
sudden pricking of anticipation 3 whatever dreadful things were in store for
him on Friday, that would at least help to redress the balance. He wondered
if they would play the Sonata in A major. The opening theme of the first
movement began to pour through his mind in a clear stream; it reminded him of
something, of somebody, of somewhere he had once heard it before, and not so
very long before—curious, yes—he remembered now—he had
heard that ’girl humming it at the beginning of one of those German
lessons, and he had been too surprised at the time to make a remark or ask a
question. Perhaps, he now reflected, she had picked it up from the cinema
musician.
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CHAPTER THREE — WEDNESDAY
    He slept rather well (it might have been, he guessed, that
Ringwood’s pick-me-up had contained something to make him do so) and
woke up feeling considerably refreshed; then, after breakfast, a rare mood
seized him, and for the first time for many months he did not spend his
allotted morning hours in the study. Instead he adjourned to the room on the
opposite side of the lobby—the