The Expensive Halo: A Fable Without Moral

by Josephine Tey

  “Any woman knows more about another woman than a man can ever know, silly. But I don’t suppose there is much about Molly you don’t know...Your future is all nice and simple and clear, isn’t it, Gareth? You’ll get out before long. You’ll get married and leave Seventeen with everyone’s consent and blessing. Perhaps father will even give you a fiver.”

  “That’s the programme—though I’m not counting on the fiver. But I’m not in any hurry. We’re not going to marry until we’ve something decent to live on. We’re not going to pig it.”

  Sara looked for a moment quizzically at his serious, freckled, childish countenance. And she smiled.

  When Sara smiled one caught one’s breath. The scornful brooding loveliness melted suddenly into a shining wistfulness that squeezed one’s heart to see. One’s mind exclaimed at the unexpectedness and poignancy of it. It was a child’s smile, shy, and innocent, and utterly lovely. Even Gareth realised that Sara’s smile was a precious thing. Sara smiled so seldom.

  “You’re a canny little person for an artist, aren’t you!”

  “I don’t have to be a fool because I play the fiddle,” Gareth said, hoping she would keep smiling. But the smile had died away as if existence was too difficult for anything so fragile, so vulnerable. “When we have enough to buy a house somewhere just out of London we’ll get married, and you’ll come for every week-end. But I expect you’ll be married first.”

  “Married!” she said, and her tone disconcerted him. “Who’ll I to marry?”

  “There are queues, aren’t there?”

  “Maybe, but look at the queues! Who am I to marry out of that lot? Sidney Webb? And have him being facetious from morning till night. Joshing visitors when they don’t want to be joshed, and being the bright lad all over the place? Or Bert Tiller? And put up with his washing in the kitchen like Mark, and making a noise when he drank? Do you see me married to someone like that?”

  “Not to those two, obviously!” Gareth said. “But some day you’ll fall for someone and you won’t care a hoot about his washing at the sink and you’ll think the noise he makes with his tea is a symphony.”

  “Oh, no, I shan’t. You’re quite wrong about me. I couldn’t fall in love with anyone like that. And if by chance I did I shouldn’t marry him. I know too well what it would be like afterwards. I’ve seen too much gingerbread with the gilt off to make a fool of myself that way. You’re busy trying to believe that I’m snobbish, but you know quite well that you’re the same, Gareth. You don’t like this way of living any more than I do. You want something better, too. It surely isn’t snobbish to want to have more—more—” she searched for a word—“Oh, less of the feed-and-get-out way of living than we’ve been brought up to. You may not hate it as I do, but the only reason you don’t is because you’ve had your music always—and Molly. I haven’t had anything. The only way out for me is marriage. And I won’t marry a Webb or a Tiller.”

  Gareth was silent for a moment, a little surprised at his sister’s frankness. Sara so seldom discussed her affairs with anyone. He forgot his own troubles temporarily in considering this phenomenon. Sara was so unhappy that she was driven to talk about it! And she had been right about his attitude to life at home. He had never thought about it much, but he did want more graciousness, more beauty, more space in existence than he had experienced so far. He hadn’t worried his head about it much, because at the back of his mind he knew that one day he would achieve all that he wanted of beauty, and until then, as Sara said, there was his music. But for Sara, with no certainty of power to hug deep in her soul, with no future hanging like a constant star in front of her—it must be pretty rough for Sara. Yes, he did understand.

  “What about Seven A Brook Street?” he said lightly. “Isn’t that a happy hunting ground for you? If it’s a wealthy marriage you want I should have thought it would have been quite easy to bring it off that way!”

  To his amazement she grew slowly crimson. “I suppose you’re joking,” she said after a pause. “I don’t want that kind of marriage any more than I want the other kind.” She tried to make it seem that her flush was due to indignation at Gareth’s suggestion, but Gareth felt that he had stubbed his toe against something in the dark.

  “I’m not going to be picked out of a dress shop for my looks any more than I’m going to cook sausages for Sidney Webb to be funny about,” she said equably, her cheeks regaining their normal pallor. “And if you stay up here any longer you’ll get pneumonia and the house will be worse than ever to live in. My feet are frozen already.” She rose from where she had been propped on the bed rail and made a small tattoo with her toes on the floor. “What are you doing for the rest of the evening?”

  “Going to take Molly to the movies. You come too.”

  “No, thanks. You can hold hands in peace. Thanks all the same. Tell Molly that I’ll come in and cut her frock on Sunday afternoon if that will be all right for her.”

  “What! And help her down the road to hell! Do you know what you are saying? Is Jehovah to be mocked with a pair of scissors and frivolous thought on his Sabbath!”

  “Oh, shut up,” said Sara amiably. “I’ve had enough of father for one day. And you don’t have any frivolous thoughts when you’re cutting out a this year’s model, take it from me!” She smiled faintly at him and went out to her room next door.

  Gareth sat for a minute longer, thinking about her, and then, remembering that he would be late for the appointment with Molly, he glanced hastily at his collar in the mirror, decided that it would do, and went tumbling downstairs in his usual pell-mell fashion. He was feeling much better. Molly, anyhow, had been gloriously glad about his job, and as long as he kept his mind off his father things didn’t look so bad. At least he had five pounds a week.

  Chapter III

  Sara heard him go, and her face softened as she stood listlessly unfastening her frock in front of her dressing-table in the chilly attic. Gareth was grown-up now, but he would always be a small boy at heart. She always thought of him, and sometimes spoke of him, as her “little” brother. It wasn’t only his appearance that made one think of him as young; there was something in his lack of pose, in his unselfconsciousness, that was child-like. And delightful. He was a darling, Gareth. If one appealed to him to do a thing he did it as a matter of course. He would do anything for anyone, from matching silk to bearding a tax-collector.

  She let her frock slide to the floor, picked it up, shook it out wearily and hung it on a hanger behind a curtain. Why had she talked like that to Gareth to-night? He must in some way be more grown up than she had ever suspected; there had been a real sympathy between them for those few minutes. She had had no consciousness, then, of her three years’ superiority. And why, oh why, had she blushed! If there had been any adequate reason she might have forgiven herself. But there was no reason; no reason whatever.

  She took down a dressing-gown from the black iron hook at the back of the door and put it on. It was made of fine bright silk of a motley pattern which she had obtained cheaply from the workroom since it had been rejected with contumely by the customer who had originally ordered it, and who had pretended to faint with horror when she saw it in the process of being made up. (The contretemps had been settled with satisfaction to all parties since the customer had the joy of choosing all over again, Madame Laurier had charged her half as much again as she had intended to, and Sara had come by a thing of beauty.) On Sara the riot of peacock greens and blues and iris yellows looked barbarically appropriate. Every time her eye lighted on the splendour and the subtlety of them she had a moment of pleasure, and each time her eye lighted on herself in the splendour her pleasure was renewed. She was Egypt, she was Diana, she was Circe. Sara’s dressing-gown was one of the things that helped to make life bearable for Sara.

  She lay down on the bed (a black iron cot with a hollow in the middle), pulled the worn quilt up over the peacock glories, and switched on the electric lamp which Mark had rigged for her last birthday. There was
a library book on the table but she did not read it. She lay staring into the pool of light which the lamp made on the dingy ceiling.

  If Chitterne hadn’t happened to come in that morning she wouldn’t have blushed at Gareth’s idle remark to-night. It all boiled down to that. And things were coming to a pretty pass when she felt self-conscious over a man like Chitterne. The affair must be sorted out in her mind. That blush had shocked her.

  That morning made Chitterne’s third visit to Madame Laurier’s. Twice he had come with his cousin, Daphne Conyers-Munford, and waited, serene and amused, while she tried on hats; every hat in the shop, in fact, except the bird’s-nest affair which was on order for the Dowager Lady Appleby; Daphne Conyers-Munford had never been known to spare anyone trouble if she wanted something. It had been sheer chance that on the first occasion Madge Sinclair, who was “hats”, was on holiday, and Millie Burke, who was “gowns,” at lunch, and Sara had been in charge of the whole establishment in front for an hour. Chitterne and his cousin had stayed nearly the whole of that hour, and Sara had been radiant because she had sold two hats; at least she had supposed that that was why she was radiant. On the second occasion Sara had been in her proper place in the designing room behind the scenes. But Miss Munford had wanted Chitterne to see the period dress that she was going to wear at “Sandy’s rag,” and Sara had brought it. It hadn’t pleased Miss Conyers-Munford, seen limp and shapeless in Sara’s hands, so Sara had put it on for them and exhibited it in all its beauty.

  That had been a month ago. And then this morning Chitterne had arrived alone and wanted “a piece of silk” to give as a present to his sister. And Sara had been summoned from her work to deal with this strange request. Chitterne had seemed to have very vague ideas as to what he wanted; all that he was certain of was that it should be beautiful and “out of the way.”

  “She likes things like that,” he said. They had discussed textures and colours for nearly half an hour, and although he seemed totally ignorant of the subject, he had proved an appreciative listener, and Sara had approved of his taste. Nothing in the Laurier stock was “out of the way” enough, but Sara had known where to obtain what he wanted, and had promised to find something for him within three days. As he was going away he said: “It’s awfully sporting of you to go to all this trouble.” Sara was about to say that there was no sport in business, but thought that it might sound snubbing. She had put on her polite expression and said that she was delighted.

  “Then, I say,” he said, “are you doing anything to-night?”

  He said it quite nicely, almost diffidently, and for a moment Sara hesitated. This sort of thing, in spite of film plots and library novels, happened so seldom. To go out for the evening with anyone as famous and as popular as Chitterne would be making history in Brook Street; and it would be a marvellous experience. But she remembered with bitter clarity what their relations would be: a pretty shop-girl treated to a night’s entertainment by an amused if slightly infatuated male; and she revolted.

  “Yes, I am,” she said politely; and visualised, with painful distinctness, what she was doing: going home by Underground to high tea in a basement room with a boring family. Queer, now that she came to think of it, that she should set such high store by herself; queer and a bit mad.

  “I’m sorry. I thought perhaps you might come out and have dinner with me somewhere, and perhaps go to a show and dance.”

  “That’s very nice of you, but I’m engaged to-night.”

  Was he sorry for her? Or did he merely covet her? There could be only the two reasons, and she hardly knew which she resented the more.

  “Well, would you come some other night this week?”

  “No, thank you very much.”

  “You don’t want to come, is that it?”

  “Well—you put it rather bluntly.”

  “Why don’t you want to?”

  “Because I don’t know you.”

  “Oh, is that all?”

  “It’s a very good reason, I think.”

  “You’re old-fashioned, aren’t you?”

  More lives have been wrecked and more morals disintegrated on the word “old-fashioned” than on all the gilded temptations of the devil. Tell a woman that she is faithless and she will be flattered, tell her that she is a snob and she will be sorry for you, but tell her that she is old-fashioned and watch her rushing headlong to the devil to prove that she is no such thing! Chitterne brought out the old gibe with evident faith in its efficacy. But he did not know Sara.

  “I suppose I must be,” she said sweetly, and held the door open for him.

  He had gone then; more amused than abashed, it seemed. And Sara had gone back to her work, a little disgusted to find herself regretful. Was it ridiculous to be too proud to accept casual invitations?—in these days, when all society was casual and without taboo. He had been very nice and brotherly and unpresuming, and she had never been out to dinner at a smart restaurant. But she was greatly fortified by the memory of his remark about being old-fashioned. A man who said that should be slapped.

  And after all that, she had blushed about him to-night! She, the worldly-wise, self-contained, hard-headed, twenty-four-year-old dress-designer of Laurier’s! It shocked her anew.

  Was she flattered that he had been interested in her? Of course! Any woman is faintly flattered by the interest of even an octogenarian, and Chitterne was young, good looking, presumably a connoisseur in women’s looks since he daily met the most beautiful women in the world. He was famous as a gentleman rider, as the driver of a racing motor car, as the owner of a racing stable and stud, as an amateur boxer, as the perpetrator of various more or less astounding plays which had delighted the West End, and his name was a household word in every home in Britain where the penny Press is read. His father had been known to complain that he, the Earl of Wilmington, appeared in print as “father of the famous Chit”. (“Chit” was Chitterne’s nickname, and the penny Press is nothing if not familiar.) Sober householders shook their heads over him, much as they did over the National Debt, and opined that he had too much money and too little sense. Policemen loved him and took his bribes with the greatest goodwill. The men at the works, where he had spent three months learning motor engineering after he left Harrow, thought him a first-rate chap, his mechanic frankly worshipped him, and the great British Public were vaguely conscious that he was a decorative and Corinthian addition to the country’s rather drab present.

  But Sara, lying with her brooding eyes on the dirty ceiling, decided that she had done well. She was spending the evening in her dreary attic when she might he what the girls in Brook Street called seeing life. But she was not going to be taken for granted by any young Corinthian. And that remark about being old-fashioned had certainly been taking her for granted. Kicking against the pricks, was she? Torturing herself for an idea? Well, what did it matter? The only thing that counted to her was her own opinion of herself. If that became smirched or spoiled there would be nothing left.

  And she would never blush about Chitterne again. She would see to that!

  Chapter IV

  Gareth hung about the railings of number Fifteen hoping that Molly would come out to meet him and save him from having to go in. He didn’t want to see Molly’s mother to-night, somehow. Mrs. Rayner knew, as well as any of them, that this job of his was a come-down; that it was capitulation not achievement. But she wouldn’t pretend as well as the others. She would smile at him, and perhaps pat him, but her small, inquisitive eyes would be probing, quizzing, full of delighted curiosity. They would be like a fork digging into him and turning over his emotions in search of the interesting bits. He liked Mrs. Rayner all right (of course he liked her, she was Molly’s mother, wasn’t she?) but there were times when the rejoicing malice in the jewel-like eyes, stuck so incongruously in the fat amiability of her face, made him uncomfortable. He didn’t want to have to face her to-night, and pretend.

  Molly came running down the steps, still hatless. “You’re
coming in to see mother, aren’t you, Gareth? Oh, you must, just for a minute. She hasn’t seen you to congratulate you. She’ll think it so funny if you don’t.”

  “To-morrow’ll do, won’t it? I’m sick of the subject. Let’s buzz off and be by ourselves.”

  “Yes, I’ve just to put my hat on. But you come in and see mother while I put it on. Then you’ll have it all over at once, and we can enjoy ourselves. Mother’s awfully pleased about it, and she’d be awfully dashed if you didn’t come in.” The Rayner household was a boarding-house, which Mrs. Rayner ran with the aid of her only daughter and a general servant known as “the housemaid”. Since she never took boarders who came in for luncheon, she managed to achieve an existence of considerable leisure, and to devote her afternoons to the bridge parties which constituted the main interest of her life. She didn’t like bridge very much because she could never understand the game, and played very badly, but she secretly considered that the playing of bridge gave “tone” to one’s social standing. She never got tired of saying: “You must come in for bridge one afternoon”. It had such a nice, casual, opulent sound, somehow. Once a month she gave a real bridge party: and for a week beforehand all her energies were concentrated in the narrow channel of considering the details: what she would give them to eat, what she would wear; what prizes she would give, what flowers she would have. And on the day itself she devoted herself from eight o’clock onwards to arranging; her bridge tea, while Molly ran the boarding-house; cooking, washing up, smoothing down the outraged (there is always someone outraged in a boarding-house), encouraging the depressed, urging on the dilatory, ordering from tradespeople, answering the front door-bell when the maid was in the attics, until, at half past six, she put a triumphant but exhausted mother to bed with a headache, and descended into the basement to see to the dinner.