To be looked after again! It was the one thing above all others Dolores now yearned for. Half the continuing power of Mr Gibson’s image over her mind and heart derived from its aura of protectiveness: all the tarnished clichés—a strong arm against the world, a sheltering wing, a safe harbour from the storm—were minted anew each time she thought of her King Hal. Life without his love was hard enough; but also he not only paid the gas-bills, he remembered to pay them. Continually, in the running of the little house, Dolores stumbled on some such familiar-unfamiliar problem: the ordering of coal, for instance—when, and who from? Mr Gibson always had it sent. It had pleased him to keep an eye on such trifles as electric-light bulbs; Dolores watched them gradually dim, and was taken by surprise when they failed. (The one in the bowl of glass fruits was dead already.) She was inefficient to begin with, and Mr Gibson had encouraged his little woman’s helplessness; now even when she felt most like a Spanish rose, Dolores’ thoughts frequently turned not to Mr Gibson’s person, but to the masterly way he renewed washers …
“I’d see to everything,” said Mr Phillips, watching her face. “I’d count it a privilege.”
“You didn’t sound as though you’d count it a privilege!” retorted Dolores.
“That’s because I don’t know how to express myself. I don’t know how,” said Mr Phillips humbly, “to talk lovey-dovey. You have to take it as read. But I’d look after you all right.”
How badly Dolores needed someone to look after her! She couldn’t help softening a little. Though she still shook her head, and still withdrew (leaving Mr Phillips for the first time in possession of the sitting-room), she bade him good night less unkindly than might have been expected.
4
At the Office, the Birmingham appointment seemed to be hanging fire. All October passed, the calendars were turned to November, and still neither Mr Phillips nor anyone else was summoned for promotion. Mr Phillips at least was perfectly indifferent.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
1
In Knightsbridge, November was pleasurably marked by the arrival of the first wedding-gifts.
“I wonder who does old Demetrios know in the Burlington Arcade?” mused Mr Joyce.
The object of his contemplation was a splendid bronze-and-ivory statuette, the bronze here and there gilded, representing possibly Joan of Arc. As each tribute arrived Miranda unpacked it for display in the newly-papered sitting-room, and already the exhibition was creditable, since the Grandjeans had sent a whole dinner-service. (Miranda set out all sixty-seven pieces, and Aunt Bee had to dust them every day. “When more come, we can stack up a little,” said Miranda.) The staff at Joyces had clubbed to buy fish-knives, and Miss Harris and Miss Molyneux to offer a mah-jong set; these gifts perhaps sent early to make sure of invitations to the wedding. So far Mr Joyce put his money on the Joan of Arc—or could she be a Valkyrie?—but he couldn’t induce Harry to share his enthusiasm.
“Even knowing the shop, it must have cost a packet,” persuaded Mr Joyce.
But Harry Gibson, after one glance, wouldn’t so much as look again. It became difficult to get him into the sitting-room at all, and after he had dropped a sauce-boat—by a mercy without breaking it, for as Miranda pointed out, the Grandjeans would have noticed at once—after this near-accident a daily inspection wasn’t insisted on. “Won’t he see ’em all every day of his life?” Mr Joyce reminded his daughter—as usual taking Harry’s part. “Why should he want to stare now, like in a shop-window?” “But things are coming in new all the time, Dadda!” protested Miranda. “A lovely set of wine-glasses—” “Better keep him away from them,” advised Mr Joyce. “Three of mine he’s smashed already …”
Madame Grandjean’s sauce-boat was lucky. Thrice within one week, as he peaceably drank port with Mr Joyce in the study, Harry’s fingers had gripped so abruptly on a fragile stem as to snap it clean in two. Undoubtedly his nerves were in bad shape; Mr Joyce was sometimes quite anxious about him, and though he’d meant to keep his own gift to Harry a surprise, divulged it to cheer him up.
“You know what I’m buying you, Harry boy? A bag of golf-clubs! So you will get out more in the open air! And one for me too, of course,” added Mr Joyce.
2
“Nasty weather,” remarked Mr Punshon. “Nasty month, November. Turn out in all sorts, don’t you?”
The observation was justified. For the third morning in succession Martha had come plodding through the rain to stuff herself in between the end of his work-bench and the shutter hung with boot-laces; and she was so damp about the shoulders, where her mackintosh leaked, that her jacket as it dried off made her smell like a wet dog. Combined with the reek of Mr Punshon’s tobacco, and the wholesome aroma of leather, and a whiff of fish-and-chips, this made, in the narrow shop, for a very special atmosphere.
“In fact, you don’t seem to spend much time at home,” added Mr Punshon thoughtfully, “these days.”
Martha looked up from her drawing and as usual took a few moments to recover general awareness. The effort of concentration, besides raising her temperature, always put her in a slight trance; Mr Punshon’s words penetrated slowly; but when they had, they commanded her full, and uneasy, attention.
“Do you mind me here?” asked Martha uneasily.
Mr Punshon hesitated. He was a man who liked his own company, Martha all day and every day was more than he’d bargained for; but her troubled stare, so uncharacteristic in a young Pachyderm, disarmed him.
“Not now you’ve laid off glaring at the customers I don’t,” said Mr Punshon. “I just passed an idle remark.”
Martha took a good look at him, as though he was something to draw, and decided he could be believed. It was important, because the freedom of his shop, and not on Saturday afternoons alone, had become very necessary to her. Mr Punshon was correct; she was spending as little time at home as possible, to keep out of Dolores’ way.
During the last weeks their relation had sadly deteriorated into one of mutual and permanent irritation.
The cause of Martha’s irritation was simple: she wanted to get on with her work. Frustration on this point was indeed all that ever irritated her—no child more placid than Martha, even in the lean post-Gibson pre-Phillips days, drawing kippers and then consuming them. All she needed to retranquillise her now was the use of the kitchen-table. But for some reason the mere sight of her seemed to vex Dolores, no sooner had Martha got her elbows squared and her nose down than Dolores sent her off to take a walk, or run some errand, or to perform unnecessary dusting in the dining-room. More illogically still, when Martha tried to use the dining-room, Miss Diver sharply forbade it on the grounds that she’d make a mess. “Then there’d be something for me to dust,” pointed out Martha; but was merely scolded afresh for arguing.
The cause of Miss Diver’s irritation was more complex. It was also pathetic. The child Martha, who had guessed that Mr Phillips wanted to be rid of her, never guessed how the same thought troubled Dolores, nor what dilemma it presented to the woman. Dolores was well aware that Mr Phillips’ offer of marriage held a proviso. He wouldn’t take on any encumbrances …
“Martha does a lot for me in the house,” said Dolores.
“A char once a week would do more,” said Mr Phillips, “and these days they’re two a penny.”
“When Martha came, she was just a little tot,” recalled Miss Diver. “I’m sometimes quite surprised to find her so big and useful …”
Why did she bother to say such things at all, when she didn’t mean to accept him? She didn’t mean to, but at the back of her mind, never taken out and looked at in the light of day, was the fear that she might be driven to it. Her hundred pounds in the Post Office was somehow dwindled to thirty, the lease of the little house had only a month or so more to run, after that she would have to pay rent; moreover a phrase let fall by Mr Phillips had thoroughly frightened her. “I’m not hurrying you,” said Mr Phillips, “but considering the state of my feelings, it’s do I go o
r do I stay?” Dolores trembled—for where would she find such a Regular again? It had been a fluke getting Mr Phillips in the first place; the prospect of another such search appalled her. This thought too Dolores kept as much as possible in the twilight; but it was undoubtedly influencing her subconscious mind.
As was also the thought of being looked after again.
Already, now that fires were started, Mr Phillips besides emptying the garbage carried in the coal for her. He also made her a present of a sieve to riddle the cinders, an economy Dolores had never before practised, refusing to deduct the price from his weekly bill. “It’s a present,” insisted Mr Phillips, “from me to you.” “How kind!” said Dolores, sincerely …
It was to turn his kindness back to Martha again, so that he should cease to think of her as an encumbrance, that she strove to say something nice about the child. (To blunt the horns of a dilemma not yet consciously accepted.) The attempt was all the more creditable in that Dolores was angry with Martha herself, she felt Martha well deserved to lose Mr Phillips’ liking in the first place; the child was as sulky with him as possible. (Why could Martha never twine herself about a heart?) Yet Dolores remained loyal—as though she’d learnt loyalty from Mr Gibson. Her own single, brief impulse to turn Martha out was long forgotten. In her loneliness, what she remembered was that they were each other’s only kin.
Unfortunately, the strain of all these conflicting emotions made Miss Diver more irritated by Martha than ever. The very sight of Martha irritated her. So Martha was harried out of the house.
Sundays were the worst, because on Sundays Mr Punshon didn’t open. Martha kept as much as possible out of doors but even this had its dangers. For instance, the very Sunday after Mr Punshon passed his remark, on one seat in a bus sat the kind Librarian and his fiancée, and on the seat behind sat Martha—all bound for the National Gallery.
Martha didn’t want to go, and Miss Hallows (the fiancée) didn’t particularly want to take her; both were the victims of altruism. “Darling, there’s the little girl I told you about!” exclaimed Mr Agnew—spying Martha as she loitered after dinner along the Bayswater Road. He and Miss Hallows had been bound for Hyde Park; it wasn’t a specially clement day, however, and the National Gallery (à deux) would have suited Miss Hallows just as well; she simply didn’t want a third. She didn’t either much take to Martha’s looks, which was strange, since she was in general devoted to little girls. But when one is engaged to the kindest man in the world, some things have to be put up with, and to her fiancé’s altruistic change of plan Miss Hallows did not demur.
Martha demurred as long as she could, but she had unfortunately cut the ground from beneath her feet by muttering first (as the Librarian’s hand descended on her shoulder) that she was going for a walk; it was no use pretending afterwards that she was expected at home. “You can be back for tea,” said Mr Agnew resolutely. “By Jove, it’s a chance not to be missed. Shy,” he explained (in a lower voice but no less resolutely) to Miss Hallows. “Shy as a bird!” Like a bird of the fiercer species Martha made herself awkward in his grasp; but his hand was heavy; moreover they happened to be standing by a bus-stop; and the appropriate vehicle just then halting, the Librarian hoisted her on and hauled Miss Hallows after.
Twenty minutes later Martha had the wonderful experience of encountering for the first time several hundred treasures of international art.
They bored her.
There were too many of them, and they were too big, and a lot couldn’t be made head or tail of because they were too black. Martha was bored instantly.
She didn’t behave as badly as she’d done at the cinema, with Dolores and Mr Phillips, though the circumstances were in many ways similar. She didn’t actually hate the kind Librarian, and at least hadn’t to sit still. But she was too bored to behave well. Boredom descended on her like a physical encumbrance, like something heavy and unwieldy she had to carry—as it might be a pile of wet blankets; and she inevitably dragged her feet.
Glumly Martha plodded on behind her benefactors, pausing as they paused, from masterpiece to masterpiece. Miss Hallows was too kind, and too much in love, to show any resentment of this hang-dog at their heels; she wisely took the line of ignoring Martha altogether; but Mr Agnew, more committed, attempted many a kind device to stir appreciation. He showed Martha how to stand back at the proper distance, or to one side if the masterpiece was glazed, also which were the best bits to look at, with admirable persistence; alas, with no result save on his own part an increasing fatigue. He didn’t drag his feet like Martha, but his step became less and less buoyant.
“Darling, let’s sit down,” suggested Miss Hallows urgently. Her beloved could as a rule go through Religious Art like a knife through cheese; she was concerned.
“In a moment. I’ve an idea,” cried Mr Agnew, pulling himself together. He hurried them on to the Venetians. “Doesn’t that say anything to you?” he prompted—before an easy Canaletto.
Martha shook her head. She was by this time not only bored, but exhausted.
“But isn’t it our own River Thames?”
“It doesn’t look like it,” said Martha gloomily.
“Not now, of course; two hundred years ago. But can’t you imagine it?”
“No,” said Martha.
Miss Hallows, watching her fiancé’s face, perceived a flicker of despair. She was very sorry for his disappointment, but she really felt despair long overdue.
“Darling,” said Miss Hallows firmly—and she was obviously going to make an excellent wife—“just give her her bus fare, and let her go home.”
3
Martha always looked back on this episode with a feeling of discomfort like indigestion. There had been only one picture she cared for at all, and that not one she was specially directed to: of a half-undressed woman between two men with all their clothes on. The woman had her arms out, one man was set higher than the other, and it all went into the shape of a pair of kitchen-scales.
This painful experience of Martha’s took place on the Sunday before a Monday on which Miranda re-visited, for the first time in months, Harry Gibson’s office.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
1
Miranda was now too busy with wedding-preparations to come so often even to the Kensington show-room, where she had made such friends; as of course Miss Molyneux and Miss Harris quite understood. (“Who we’d really enjoy seeing more of,” remarked the latter, rather tactlessly, “is Mr Joyce …” The liking was reciprocated. Mr Joyce had formed a high opinion of La Harris, as for some reason he always referred to her, and often wished he had her at Bond Street.) Naturally Miranda didn’t stay away altogether, but when she appeared one Monday about the middle of November—to the delight of the show-room, her parent with her—it was her first visit for a week.
It was her first appearance upstairs, in Harry’s office, for several months, as she took the opportunity to remind him, by peeping with pretty trepidation round the door.
“May I?” coaxed Miranda. “Dadda’s been giving me lunch. I haven’t come to distract you, Harry!”
In fact, Harry didn’t mind her presence at all—or no more than he ever minded it—with Mr Joyce to chaperon them. The roguish look in her eye merely offended without alarming him. For the old man himself his welcome was genuine, and he ceded the chair behind the desk with good grace.
“All I want,” said Mr Joyce, “is a look at the ledgers ’29 to ’31.”
Harry Gibson, in the act of placing a second chair for Miranda, froze. It was well for him that the ledgers had been seen already, by the Joyce accountants, so that his look couldn’t be misinterpreted. He in fact made the point almost immediately.
“So I know they have,” agreed Mr Joyce. “Now I just want a look myself. Where d’you keep ’em, son? In the safe?”
All the old Gibson ledgers were in the safe. Harry Gibson kept them there from habit. They were of no importance. There was nothing in the safe of importance, except a Sp
anish comb.
2
Harry had taken it out only that morning, just to hold in his hands a few moments: now as he fiddled clumsily with the lock (for he had no option, he couldn’t refuse to open up), he tried desperately to remember where he’d put it back. On the bottom shelf, he thought, and behind, not in front of, the cash-box; he was almost certain he remembered a deep, thrusting motion of his hand—the gesture of one burying a treasure. And he was right. As the door swung open only a corner of the handkerchief-swaddling was visible, and might have been a scrap of crumpled paper.
Harry pulled out the ledgers from the shelf above and with a springing step carried them to the desk.
“Will you take them or look at them here?” he asked cheerfully.
“Here,” said Mr Joyce. “I haven’t come to rob you, son.”
“Did I think you had?” protested Harry Gibson—quite hurt.
“Just now, you looked as though you had a pistol at your head,” said Mr Joyce. “And why not? No businessman likes to open up his safe, even to a partner.”
It was spoken with much kindness, particularly in the use of the word partner; even at that moment Harry Gibson felt the force of the old man’s sympathy. As he sat down, glad of the opportunity to steady himself, he managed an appreciative smile. Indeed, he felt all right again almost immediately, all he needed was to turn his mind from the danger so narrowly escaped; the time to thank his stars would come later, when he was alone …
“Guess what I had for lunch!” began Miranda provocatively. “Vol-au-vent of chicken and peach melba! Wasn’t I dreadfully un-British!”
“Miranda, be quiet,” said Mr Joyce.
He began to go steadily through the books. Harry Gibson would have liked to ask what he was looking for. But for the presence of Miranda, he would have.
She was actually behaving very well. Mr Gibson noted with pleasure her Dadda’s restraining influence. She held her tongue, she didn’t attempt to sit on his, Mr Gibson’s, knee, and her oeillades he could avoid. She fidgeted no more than any woman might fidget—poked into a letter file, disarranged the stationery, exclaimed that there was no red ink in the red-ink-well. “For bad debts, Harry no longer needs it,” murmured Mr Joyce, still looking for whatever it was he sought. “Sit still, Miranda, or else go home!”
The Eye of Love Page 14
