It was strange the way she had made the prophecy that they would need each other some time, and it was a little frightening, too, because she felt there was truth in it…And Elaine had indicated that, in a way, the boot was on the other foot, hadn’t she? And that she wasn’t so much needed as needing? Well, perhaps she was right in that assumption, because she did have the desire, above all things, to be one of a family. She needed to be one of a family; she needed to belong to some place, to someone. But at the same time, Elaine needn’t have put it like that. But then Elaine had never been able to give freely: she had always taken, grabbed with both hands, and when she did give, it was reluctantly…Was she like that with Joe? she wondered.
She had risen from the seat and was about to go from the room when she realised she hadn’t touched the coffee. It would upset Jane if she didn’t make a show of eating and drinking, so she finished the sandwich, ate a biscuit and washed them down with the cup of coffee, then went upstairs. Before she reached the landing she heard the child crying, and as she went towards the bedroom door Nellie emerged with the baby in her arms, and she said to her, ‘Put him in the cot; I’ll be there in a moment or so.’
Inside the bedroom, they looked at each other in silence, and Betty made no move to break it until Elaine burst out, ‘Well! Say something. Tell me what you’re missing, what you’ve given up for my sake.’
When Betty still made no reply but went to a chest of drawers and took from the top of it a small pile of freshly laundered nightdresses and bedjackets and arranged them in the middle drawer, Elaine cried at her, ‘How you can even tolerate her I don’t know. She’s a horrible creature, a frump. Her clothes stink with age; she’s a poisonous old witch; and she’s half mad.’
‘She’s not half mad.’ Betty swung round. ‘If you were half as wise as she is, you’d do. Nor do her clothes smell with age. They may be old-fashioned but they’re beautiful clothes; she’s a nice person, a thoughtful person.’
‘Thoughtful? Don’t be silly; she’s as selfish as they come.’
‘Then there’s a pair of you. At least with her I’d know where I stood: I would receive a salary; I wouldn’t have to wait for a few pounds to be doled out to me when the mood took her.’
She wasn’t aware that the door had opened. Even when Elaine’s gaze was switched from her to the side, so deep was her anger, so loud her voice, coupled with the child’s crying coming from the nursery, it smothered the soft opening of the door, and when she swung round and saw Joe standing there, she wished for the earth to open up and swallow her. She put her hand over her mouth and, dashing past him, went from the room.
Slowly, Joe closed the door behind her. But he didn’t make his way towards Elaine; he just stood looking at her over the distance, and she cried at him, high and peevishly, ‘Now don’t you start! I’ve had enough for one morning. That dreadful woman’s been here trying to take her away. She upset me and…and when I told Betty she was a poisonous old witch, she got on her hind legs in her defence.’
Now Joe began to walk slowly across the room and when he stood in front of her, he said quietly, ‘I don’t know anything about that, but I just heard the last bit. Do you mean to say you haven’t been giving Betty anything all these months unless she asked for it?’
‘No, no; you’ve got it wrong.’
‘Then you explain it.’
‘Whenever she needs anything I give it to her.’
‘But she’s got to ask for it?’
‘Well’—she tossed her head impatiently—‘I can’t always remember.’
‘I’ve doubled your allowance since Betty came. Perhaps you remember my saying that I didn’t like to offer her a wage but I’d leave it to you. How could you! How could you be so mean!’
‘Don’t you dare speak to me like that. Don’t you dare suggest I’m mean; it never crossed my mind. I…I say to her, there’s money in the drawer if you need it.’
‘And how much do you keep in the drawer? Two pounds? Five pounds? A hundred pounds a month now goes into your private account. Well, from now on it’ll go back to fifty and I’ll see that Betty doesn’t have to beg for what is hers from now on.’
‘Joe! Joe!’
He paused by the door and turned towards her. The tears were raining down her face; she was lying back in the chair now, her two hands cupping her cheeks, and she whimpered, ‘Don’t…Don’t be like that, please. I can’t bear it. I tell you, it was just thoughtlessness on my part. Only a few weeks ago I bought her a dress and coat and…’
He was back at her side. ‘All right, all right. Stop it! Stop it!’
‘Don’t say I am mean.’
‘All right. All right.’
‘And…and don’t let her go. Don’t let her leave, will you?’
‘I certainly won’t let her leave if I can help it. But it’s up to you; you’re the one that can either keep her or make her go.’
‘I’ll be thoughtful. I will, I will, Joe. I feel so weak, so tired. I’m …I’m not selfish. Say I’m not selfish.’
‘You’re not selfish. There now; dry your eyes.’
‘You don’t think I’m an awful person?’
‘No; I could never think you’re an awful person. You know what kind of a person I think you are.’
‘I love you, Joe.’ Her arms came round his neck and brought him to his knees by her side, and when his head lay pressed between her scented breasts she stroked his hair and murmured, ‘I’d die if you stopped loving me,’ and he murmured back, ‘Then you’ll live forever, for ever and ever.’
Six
From her sitting-room window Elaine could see over the far hedge the top of the car as it approached the gates; then because of the trees on the drive it was blocked from her view, but she knew that if it continued towards the house without stopping she would see it again by the time she had counted fifteen seconds. Today, however, as yesterday and the day before, it did not reappear at the end of her counting.
Yesterday he had been fifteen minutes late for lunch and his apology had been: ‘Sorry; I’ve been held up.’ It had been as much as she could do not to ask him if he was held up for the same reason as on the previous day.
This was too much. What was it about those two that attracted him…? But there weren’t two; for the past three days there had been only one, that girl, for her husband had been in hospital since Monday with an ear infection.
Well, she wasn’t going to stand for it. It was one thing for him to go down there openly, but now he was doing it on the sly…Held up, indeed!
As she hurried from the room and ran across the landing, Betty’s voice came to her from the foot of the attic stairs, calling, ‘Is anything wrong?’ And she answered briefly, ‘No,’ then continued running down the stairs, out of the front door and down the drive.
She had rounded the bend and was in sight of the cottage when she saw them. Joe had hold of the girl’s arm and they were walking down the pathway, quite close together.
She stopped on the grass verge and stood in the shadow of a tree. She watched as her husband took hold of the girl’s hands, bringing them together on a level with his chest, then bending towards her. She could not see what he was doing, for he had his back to her; but even if they had been facing her and within a few yards’ distance she would have been unable to see clearly, for the rage that was filling her was misting her eyes. For this to happen under her nose in their own garden! She had given him everything, nearly died in giving him a child; and now that child was but three months old and what was he doing?
She did not see their parting. The next thing she was conscious of was the car coming towards her, then stopping beside her.
‘Hello, Elly! Were you coming to meet me?’ There was a surprised note in Joe’s voice, and when she did not move he said, ‘Come on, get in. What’s the matter?’
When she still made no movement, he sprang from the car and hurried over the verge towards her.
‘What is it? What’s the matter, dear?’ W
hen his hand came out to touch her she struck it a blow with the side of her hand and the force behind it gave the lie to its delicate appearance.
He did not move away from her, but pressed his head well back into his shoulders and narrowed his eyes as he asked quietly, ‘What’s this all about?’
‘How dare you! How dare you stand there and say to me, What’s this all about? Three days this week, and I’ve…I’ve just seen you with my own eyes.’
Joe gaped at her before looking in the direction of the cottage. Then, returning his gaze to her, his mouth opened wide and he let out a bellow of a laugh; at the same time his arms went about her and he hugged her to him as he almost sang, ‘You’re jealous. You’re jealous. Wonderful! Wonderful! You’re jealous!’
When she struggled fiercely in his embrace he let her go; but he was still smiling when she said harshly, ‘Don’t treat me as an idiot. I could understand you having an affair with someone of your own class but…but with that man’s wife.’
The smile had gone from his face. He half turned his head away from her while his eyes still held hers, and he put up his hand in a warning gesture as he said, ‘Careful. Careful, Elly, because you could be sorry for what you might say.’
‘Are you telling me I’m blind? Is it usual for the master to be so attentive to his chauffeur’s wife as to take her hands and fondle her?’
He let out a long sigh as he said now quietly, ‘Yes, under the circumstances it was usual. I had just come from visiting David in hospital, where he told me the good news that Hazel was going to have a baby. What you saw me doing was trying to reassure her, to allay her fears as to what the child might go through. Would he be treated the same as his father because of his mixed blood? She was sad and troubled also because her people are not pleased at the prospect of her having the child.’
They stared at each other in silence now. Her breathing was easier and she gave a characteristic lift of her eyebrows as she exclaimed, ‘Well, that’s understandable; who would want another chocolate-coloured…’ The gasp she gave on the last word became almost a cry as she shrank back from Joe’s uplifted hand. He stayed it in mid-air, and she took two slow steps back from him; then her hands groping at the trunk of a tree, she moved some way around it before giving out a cry and running away up the drive.
She slowed her run to a walk as she mounted the steps to the house, making a great effort to regain her composure in case she should encounter the servants; but she met no-one until she burst into her sitting room and saw Betty.
‘What on earth’s the matter?’ Betty took her by the shoulders and, peering into her face, said, ‘What is it, what’s happened? You’re trembling like a leaf.’
‘He…he was going to strike me, Betty.’
‘Who?’
‘J…Joe.’
‘Don’t be silly; he’s not in.’
‘He…he will be in a minute.’
‘What did you do?’
‘I…I went down to meet him. He…he was with that girl at the cottage. I saw him holding her hands, bending over her. When I accused him, he said he was comforting her because she was going to have a baby. And…and when I made the remark that…’ She swallowed and swung her head from side to side.
‘Yes? Go on. What remark did you make?’
‘I…I said it would be another chocolate-coloured…’
‘Oh, Elaine!’ Betty interrupted.
‘Well, it was nothing to say.’
‘I think it was; you know that he thinks a lot of David.’
‘And why? Why does he think a lot of David? That’s what I want to know.’ The tears were running down Elaine’s cheeks now.
‘They were brought up together. Joe has a lot of compassion in him for…for the underdog.’
‘Underdog! He’s no underdog; Joe treats him as an equal.’
‘And will continue to do so.’ Hearing Joe’s voice, Betty turned sharply towards the door; but Elaine did not even glance towards it as she rushed into her bedroom and banged the door behind her.
Betty paused for a moment, facing Joe in the doorway, and said softly, ‘Go easy on her.’
‘I think I go too easy.’ His voice was thick, his words muttered.
‘She said you were going to strike her. You weren’t, were you?’
‘Yes, I was.’
She looked away from him, her face puckered, and as she now moved past him she murmured, ‘I don’t understand you.’
She was walking towards the head of the stairs when the dinner gong sounded; at the same time there came a loud ringing of Mike’s handbell from above. She looked first one way and then the other; and having decided to answer the latter, she was crossing the landing in the direction of the attic stairs when the nursery door opened and Nellie appeared, saying, ‘Oh, that bell, miss; it’s woke him up.’
Betty nodded towards her. ‘I’ll see to it,’ she said. ‘Give him his bottle.’
‘It isn’t time.’
‘Nevertheless, give it to him. I’ll be down shortly; keep him quiet.’ She was now running up the attic stairs; at the top she thrust open the sitting-room door and exclaimed straightaway, ‘Oh, stop that row, Mike! You’ve woken the child. You’ll have to get an electric bell installed; that one makes such a racket.’
‘Well, you’ve taken your time in coming. What was all that about down there?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Her, running down the drive, then dashing back as if the devil was after her; and our Joe getting out of the car as if he were the devil himself, his face as black as thunder. Come on, come on, what’s up?’
‘He’ll likely tell you himself.’
‘He won’t, or only half the story. Now look, put me in the picture or I’m going down there to find out for meself.’
Betty drew in a long deep breath, then said, ‘Apparently Hazel had told Joe that she was going to have a baby and when Joe told Elaine, she…she came out with a silly remark.’
‘Hazel is going to have a baby?’ Mike’s voice was low now.
‘Yes. Is there anything surprising in that?’
Before Mike answered he turned himself round in the chair, pulled himself upwards, then with the aid of his stick walked to the window, there saying, ‘No, there’s nothing surprising in that, nothing to cause a hullabaloo between those two either.’ He turned his head to the side and so wasn’t looking directly at her as he asked, ‘What was the silly remark?’
She paused a long moment before she said, ‘It was something to do with Hazel producing a coloured child.’
‘The bloody silly bitch! The empty-headed ninny!’ He banged the stick on the floor now, then leaned forward and supported himself on the window sill with his hand. ‘Why, in the name of God! did he have to go and marry a narrow-minded, vain, silly little bitch like her?’
‘Mike! Please! Please! Mike.’
‘All right, you can say Mike as much as you like, I know she’s your sister, but let me tell you something: I’d rather see him married to a whore, because at least she’d have a bit of humanity in her.’
Betty’s voice was stiff and low as she came back at him, saying, ‘She’s still young; and what you seem to forget is that she’s still living in a foreign atmosphere, as it were. She can’t please you all.’
‘She doesn’t need to please us all; she’s only got one to please.’
‘Well, she tries hard to please him.’
‘Does she?’ He now thrust himself round to confront her: ‘Let me tell you something, Betty: the only one your sister pleases is herself; everything she does is aimed at number one. He can’t see it yet because he’s blinded by his feelings, his needs, and at the same time he’s fascinated by her because she’s of a different class. And I know what I’m talking about. Men of our type can be fascinated by women of her type. His mother was as much like her as two peas in a pod; and whereas I came to me senses very quickly, his is going to be a slow awakening, because he doesn’t want to open his eyes to the light. Perh
aps it’s just as well, because it can bowl a fellow over and leave him scarred for life if he comes to too quickly. Do you know what I advocate, lass? And I’m not jokin’, mind you, no, I’m not jokin’. Trial marriages, that’s what I advocate. And ’tisn’t the day or yesterday I said that; I was twenty-two when I first voiced it, and a middle-aged bloke almost jumped on me, told me to take me coat off. It wasn’t till after I found out his only daughter was living with a bloke. “Good luck to her,” I said. But just think on it, Betty. It would do away with a lot of heartbreak, don’t you think? because who knows what they are taking on when they shackle themselves for life, eh? Who knows, I ask you, who knows?’
She said quietly, ‘In this case, they should have done; neither is a child.’
‘She is.’ His voice was high now. ‘She sees herself as a bloody little flapper, and she’ll go on seeing herself like that until she’s an old woman. I know the type. I tell you I know the type.’
Betty’s eyes narrowed and her voice held a note of scorn as she said, ‘Then, thinking about her as you do, why are you so two-faced in her company? You’re always so pleasant to her.’
‘It’s like you to hit the nail on the head, isn’t it? Aye, all right, I am two-faced, but I look at it this way: he’s got enough to put up with; I’m not going to add to it. He thinks I like her. Let him go on thinking that, but I’ve got to speak me mind to somebody, an’ who better than you, ’cos you don’t like her either.’
‘Mike!…she’s my sister and…’
‘Aw, come off it, lass. Don’t take that tack with me; don’t tell me you take that bloody, unintelligent way of looking at things. This business that we’ve all got to try to be little Christs and love each other makes me sick; in the widest sense it makes me sick; but when it’s pumped into you that because you’re born of the same mother an’ brought up in the same house you’ve got to love every damn member of the family, God! On the face of it, imbeciles would think with more reason. You show me a family where all the members love each other all the time, and I’ll show you a family of hypocrites…Go on, get yourself away.’ He turned from her now and flapped his hand backwards towards her. ‘Go on downstairs and play the self-effacing attendant to your bitch of a sister, and while you’re at it remember that you shouldn’t condemn others for being as big a hypocrite as yourself.’
Justice is a Woman Page 12
