The Remains of the Day - By Kazuo Ishiguro Page 0,70

night during one of his regular visits to Darlington Hall.

In fact, all I had said was something to the effect that the housekeeper had been ‘a little moody of late’ and so had been rather surprised when Mr Graham nodded, leaned towards me and said knowingly:

‘I’d been wondering how much longer it would be.’

When I asked him what he meant, Mr Graham went on: ‘Your Miss Kenton. I believe she’s now what? Thirty-three? Thirty-four? Missed out on the best of her mothering years, but it’s not too late yet.’

‘Miss Kenton’, I assured him, ‘is a devoted professional. I happen to know for a fact that she has no wish for a family.’

But Mr Graham had smiled and shook his head, saying: ‘Never believe a housekeeper who tells you she doesn’t want a family. Indeed, Mr Stevens, I should think you and I could sit here now and count up at least a dozen between us that once said as much, then got married and left the profession.’

I recall I dismissed Mr Graham’s theory with some confidence that evening, but thereafter, I must admit, I found it hard to keep out of my mind the possibility that the purpose of these mysterious outings of Miss Kenton was to meet a suitor. This was indeed a disturbing notion, for it was not hard to see that Miss Kenton’s departure would constitute a professional loss of some magnitude, a loss Darlington Hall would have some difficulty recovering from. Furthermore, I was obliged to recognize certain other little signs which tended to support Mr Graham’s theory. For instance, the collection of mail being one of my duties, I could not help noticing that Miss Kenton had started to get letters on a fairly regular basis – once a week or so – from the same correspondent, and that these letters bore a local postmark. I should perhaps point out here that it would have been well nigh impossible for me not to have noticed such things, given that throughout all her preceding years at the house, she had received very few letters indeed.

Then there were other more nebulous signs to support Mr Graham’s view. For instance, although she continued to discharge her professional duties with all her usual diligence, her general mood tended to undergo swings of a sort I had hitherto never witnessed. In fact the times when she became extremely cheerful for days on end – and for no observable reason – were almost as disturbing to me as her sudden, often prolonged sullen spells. As I say, she remained utterly professional throughout it all, but then again, it was my duty to think about the welfare of the house in the long term, and if indeed these signs tended to support Mr Graham’s notion that Miss Kenton was contemplating departing for romantic purposes, I clearly had a responsibility to probe the matter further. I did then venture to ask her one evening during one of our sessions over cocoa:

‘And will you be going off again on Thursday, Miss Kenton? On your day off, I mean.’

I had half expected her to be angry at this inquiry, but on the contrary, it was almost as though she had been long awaiting an opportunity to raise the very topic. For she said in something of a relieved way:

‘Oh, Mr Stevens, it’s just someone I knew once when I was at Granchester Lodge. As a matter of fact, he was the butler there at the time, but now he’s left service altogether and is employed by a business near by. He somehow learnt of my being here and started writing to me, suggesting we renew our acquaintance. And that, Mr Stevens, is really the long and short of it.’

‘I see, Miss Kenton. No doubt, it is refreshing to leave the house at times.’

‘I find it so, Mr Stevens.’

There was a short silence. Then Miss Kenton appeared to make some decision and went on:

‘This acquaintance of mine. I remember when he was butler at Granchester Lodge, he was full of the most marvellous ambitions. In fact, I imagine his ultimate dream would have been to become butler of a house like this one. Oh, but when I think now of some of his methods! Really, Mr Stevens, I can just imagine your face if you were to be confronted by them now. It really is no wonder his ambitions remained unfulfilled.’

I gave a small laugh. ‘In my experience,’ I said, ‘too many people believe themselves capable