Mr. Tuke and John Marco exchanged glances; Mr. Tuke had had his fill of that kind of conversation.
“I wanted to speak to you about last night,” he said.
John Marco made no reply: he waited with tight lips for whatever it was that Mr. Tuke had to say.
The words, when they came, were reassuring, however; to his relief Mr. Tuke was purring over him.
“You did well,” he was saying. “Very well. You came to man’s estate.”
“There was nothing that I could do,” John Marco replied quietly. He was careful to let his voice disclose no hint of emotion.
“You did a great deal,” Mr. Tuke corrected him. “You took the burden off a woman’s shoulders.”
“She didn’t know that he was going to die,” John Marco answered. “No one knew.”
“Perhaps Mr. Trackett knew,” Mr. Tuke suggested. “The last hours are sometimes very clear.” He came over and put his hand on John Marco’s shoulder. “Miss Trackett is very grateful,” he said. “She thanks you.”
At the touch of Mr. Tuke’s hand John Marco instinctively stepped back. Mr. Tuke seemed surprised; he took a pace forward and placed it there again.
“She wants to reward you,” he said.
“There’s no call to do that,” John Marco replied. He paused and added under his breath, as though ashamed of the words, “I only did my duty.”
“It is not a reward as the world knows it,” Mr. Tuke explained, looking hard at John Marco. “It is not money or riches. It is a privilege, a hard and painful privilege that she is offering.”
“What is it?” John Marco asked.
“She wants you to be a bearer,” Mr. Tuke replied. “She honours you by asking you to be among those who carry our brother to the grave.”
John Marco stepped back again, this time right out of reach of Mr. Tuke’s patronising hand.
“She wants me to do that,” he said.
His heart failed him at the words; he felt the past reaching out into the present and drawing him back again just as he was certain that he had escaped from it all. He wanted to have nothing more to do with the memory of Mr. Trackett or with that girl with the steady, bewildering eyes. They were something that belonged to a single dark page, almost a paragraph in brackets, of his life’s clean history; it was not a page that he wanted ever to go back to and re-read.
But Mr. Tuke was a man of authority: he assumed acquiescence.
“And I know that you won’t disappoint her,” he said. “It’s not for her alone that you will be doing it,” he said. “It will be for me. I ask you.”
“What’s that he’s asking you?” Mrs. Marco enquired suddenly. “Why aren’t I told anything about it?”
She got up and came towards them, her head thrust forward in an endeavour to catch some hint of what was going on around her. With her deafness she was as much cut off as if she had been alone. To her, it seemed that she was living in a world of sinister and malevolent conspiracy; even when she went shopping, the tradesmen with whom she had dealt for years whispered things that she could not hear.
“It’s Mr. Trackett’s funeral,” Mr. Tuke explained. “Your son has been asked to be a bearer.”
Mrs. Marco drew back her head like a tortoise.
“It’s all deaths and funerals to-night,” she complained. “I don’t like it.”
“You will do it, then?” Mr. Tuke asked, smiling on John Marco like the sun.
John Marco bowed his head.
“I will,” he answered.
“Excellent.” Mr. Tuke uttered the contented sigh of a man who has got his own way against difficulties. “Remember,” he went on, “you’re one of the lucky ones. You have a home—a mother who loves you. This unfortunate young lady has no one.”
John Marco did not reply, and after a moment, Mr. Tuke resumed.
“Think of her sometimes,” he said. “Think of her when you are seated at your own fireside. Our brother had few friends. She will be very lonely.”
“I . . . I’ll think of her,” John Marco promised.
“Excellent,” said Mr. Tuke again. “Excellent.”
He began buttoning up his coat and started to move towards the door, when he suddenly stopped himself.
“I was forgetting,” he said. “I have something that I want you to sign.”
John Marco was aware of his heart again, as Mr. Tuke spoke the words. He was suddenly afraid that it might be a confession that Mr. Tuke would put before him.
But it was only a piece of paper bearing the words in Mr. Tuke’s finely pointed hand: “This is to certify that the sum of money entrusted to my keeping by Mr. Ephraim Trackett on behalf of the Paddington Amos Immersionist Tabernacle and given by me to the Reverend Eliud Tuke amounted to £875.”
John Marco read the form and handed it back to Mr. Tuke.
“I can’t sign it,” he said.
Mr. Tuke seemed surprised.
“Why not?” he asked.
“I didn’t count the money.”
“That’s most regrettable,” said Mr. Tuke. “It’s very awkward. It leaves me so unprotected if any questions should be asked. I’m only a steward remember. You don’t think . . .?”
“If I signed that paper,” John Marco interrupted him, his lips drawn tightly back as he spoke, “I should be putting my name to a falsehood.”
“Quite so,” said Mr. Tuke sadly. “In that case it only remains for me to give you a receipt,” he said. He sat down at the circular table in the centre of the room, pushed the ornamental pot of maidenhair fern to one side and began to write.
When he had completed the chit, he handed it to John Marco with a little bow.
“That’s all we can do for the present,” he said. “Perhaps the young lady will know how much was in the box. One can’t be too careful with God’s money. ...”
Chapter IV
The Amosite Literary, Scientific and Debating Society met at seven-thirty on Tuesday evenings during the winter session. There were fourteen lectures in all, every one of them in its way uplifting, inspiring and instructive. To-night’s was the fifth. The subject “Holy Places in the Holy Land,” was a tried favourite; the Reverend Mr. Shuttleworth, the lecturer, had delivered it more than two hundred times, and knew at any point throughout the fifty-five minutes of it just where to wait for the murmurs of appreciation. It was a lantern lecture—and lantern lectures always filled the Tabernacle. For people who had been in offices or at home all day, there was something strangely exciting and out-of-the-ordinary about sitting in Stygian darkness, reeking with the fumes of scorching enamel and hot metal-work, while a pale ray, like Hope, emanated from the oven-like box of the magic lantern and established a snap-shot of Rachel’s Tomb upon the screen.
John Marco had not intended to go; this was another of those gatherings in which, until his conscience had worn a little cleaner, until the smirch was less noticeable, he felt he had no place. But when Tuesday evening came, he realised suddenly that by stopping away he would be doing the very thing he wanted to avoid—he would be making himself conspicuous. It was essential that in this as well as in everything else he should show no alteration; he must continue to go as freely as ever into the house which he had robbed if only to show that he still felt himself at home there.
And he had another reason for going. He would see Mary Kent; and he felt that he could no longer live without sight of her. The whole Kent family usually attended these lectures. It was the one night in the week when Mr. Kent left his business, took his watchmaker’s glass out of his eye, put down his tweezers and screw-driver and enjoyed himself. John Marco had often seen the three of them sitting there—Mr. Kent, small and fidgety and as wiry as a watch-spring himself, Mrs. Kent, large and faded and rather stupid-looking—and between them, Mary, the miraculous offspring of this uninspiring marriage. Ever since the day when he had first noticed her, he had been waiting for the time when he would be there by right, sitting beside her in the Tabernacle.
But as he
went up the steep front steps of the Tabernacle, the memory of his sin suddenly descended; it extinguished him. He asked himself what point there was in dragging himself through the endless avenues of the future when, because of this one folly, he would be carrying his shackles about with him forever. He even, for a moment, thought of throwing himself on the mercy of the astonished Mr. Tuke and confessing everything. But as soon as he was inside, the mood passed; his fears fell from him. He wedged himself in the corner of his seat—the seats he had discovered from long experience, could be made as comfortable as a drawing-room chair provided the sitter’s arms were kept folded so that the shoulder blades did not actually come into contact with the hard back of the seat—and marvelled at his previous panic.
Under the glare of the lights, among all these people, listening to the strains of the presentation organ, he was now inclined to laugh at himself. No one here suspected anything, no one guessed that he was changed in any way from the unblemished and respectable John Marco who had always attended. And how was he changed? As he got to his feet to allow a mother and her two plain daughters to crush into the pew beside him, he told himself that there was nothing about him that was different from his fellows. How could it have been a sin that he had committed, if he didn’t feel like a sinner? And as he sat there he realised that this sin was something that the years would reduce to its right proportion, something that would weaken and eventually die inside his conscience when, in the fulness of time, he had made his pile and paid back a hundredfold, this little he had borrowed, this paltry sum that no living being knew about and so could ever miss.
At seven-twenty-five with the body of the Tabernacle already over three-quarters full, the Kent family had still not arrived; there was no Mary. John Marco became impatient. Then the impatience cleared away and was succeeded by a strange sense of punishment. Perhaps he wasn’t going to be allowed to see her after all, perhaps to be denied the sight of her was the first step in the retribution that he now no longer doubted was somewhere already being prepared for him. And then at seven-thirty, just as the black figure of Mr. Shuttleworth appeared in front the white screen and his assistant began fiddling with the acetylene flare inside the lantern, Mary Kent came in. She was alone. John Marco’s spirits rose at the first glimpse of her. But there was no time even to catch her eye. She went quickly up the aisle—he caught a swift impression of the pale, lovely face, and the gleaming coil of her hair as she passed—and sat down in the Kents’ family pew. Then the lights were lowered and Mr. Shuttleworth’s experienced voice began.
“My first,” he said, “shows the most famous city in the world—Jerusalem. Note the Temple area, now occupied by the Dome of the Rock”—here he seized hold of a long pointer, like a billiard cue, and began stroking the screen with it—“and at the back, on the left, the Mount of Olives itself....” He paused and banged twice on the platform with the butt of his pointer: the assistant dexterously inserted another slide, and the show proceeded. “We are now looking,” said Mr. Shuttleworth, “at the Sea of Galilee, with the summit of Mount Hermon in the distance. I want you to observe on the left the feathery branches of the date-palm. In case any of you should not be clear which is your left and which is your right I should explain that this is the date palm and that this is your lecturer in native dress.”
Mr. Shuttleworth dropped his voice impishly for a moment and then passed on to the next slide. “Here,” he said, “we have the Salt, or Dead, Sea and away in the distance we see the peaks of the Mountains of Moab. ...”
To-night, however, John Marco was a bad listener. His thoughts wandered. He felt a contempt for the stale, familiar stuff of Mr. Shuttleworth’s address; if Mary Kent had not been there, he would have found an excuse to slide from his pew and leave while the lights were still down. But as it was, he sat on, waiting for it all to be over. He saw the site of Nineveh, and the Ishtar Gate of Babylon, the Golden Calf and a portion of a Roman Road in Syria. But it was of none of these that he was thinking. He was wondering how he should approach Mary Kent and ask if he might walk home with her.
It proved to be quite easy, astonishingly easy in fact. As she passed through the porch, there was John Marco waiting for her. He held his hat in one hand and a mission appeal that he had just been given in the other.
“If you’re alone,” he said with a little bow, “might I have the pleasure of walking home with you?”
The question amused him as he asked it, and this amusement gave him confidence. After what he had done already for her sake, it seemed so slight and innocent, this new thing that he was asking.
And Mary Kent seemed pleased by his attention.
“Thank you,” she said. And after a pause as they walked along together, she added by way of making conversation: “My father isn’t well to-night. My mother is looking after him.”
“Nothing serious, I trust,” John Marco replied with proper formality.
“It’s a carbuncle,” Mary Kent answered.
“They can be very painful,” John Marco replied seriously. And for the moment as he spoke he almost felt concerned about it.
They walked on side by side through the shadowy, gas-lit streets. John Marco was most punctilious and attentive. He took up a position gallantly on the outside, changing over rather ostentatiously when they turned the corner, and allowed himself to take Mary Kent lightly by the arm when they crossed the road. Even so he was careful to drop her arm again as soon as she had safely reached the pavement. It could not possibly have been said of him, he reflected, that he was being cheap or familiar; so far as Mary Kent was concerned, he wished his conduct to be entirely and gracefully beyond reproach.
The little family business was closed when they got there; closed and shuttered. The only evidence of its nature was a round hole in the shutter through which a solitary clock face, inscribed with the words “Alexander Kent, Clock-Maker and Jeweller,” was visible. Mary Kent stood aside and did not attempt to hold out her hand. Instead she spoke the words that he had always hoped he would hear.
“Won’t you come inside for a moment, Mr. Marco?” she asked. “It’s really quite early.”
“Thank you,” said John Marco simply. “I’d like to.”
Mary Kent had her own key; it had been given to her so that she should not disturb her mother in the process of attending to the suffering Mr. Kent. She opened the door that gave onto a steep flight of stairs, and John Marco followed her up. A feeling of excitement came over him as he did so. It was his moment of victory. He was in her home at last. But there was something deeper than the mere sensation of victory, something deeper and far sweeter: she had asked him herself.
Mrs. Kent, however, did not seem at all pleased to see him; she made it clear that in her opinion Mary Kent had acted gauchely and impetuously in admitting him at all.
“You shouldn’t have brought Mr. Marco up like this, dear,” she said quite frankly. “It isn’t fair. If we’d known he was coming we’d have been prepared.”
She began making little swooping excursions round the room as she was speaking, snatching up a work basket, a pile of mending, a plate with a knife across it.
“Please don’t trouble on my account,” John Marco began. “I shan’t be stopping. It was only that I showed Miss Kent home.”
But Mrs. Kent was now equally emphatic that he should stay. It was evident that she felt that somehow her daughter had contrived to bring the hospitality of the Kents into disrepute, and she wanted to restore their reputation in Mr. Marco’s eyes.
“You can’t go until you’ve had a cup of tea,” she said. “You can’t really.”
As she said it she went over to the corner cabinet where the best china was kept and began removing the milk-jug with the fancy crinkled edge, the square pedestal tea-cups, the urn-like sugar bowl. John Marco remained politely standing. He was rather amused by her agitation. It was the first acknowledgement that he had ever received that he was someone of importance. It gratified him, too, to find so obviously tha
t he was the first man whom Mary Kent had ever invited into her house. He looked across at her where she was sitting—she had just taken her hat off and the brightness of her hair was showing—and they smiled at each other.
Mrs. Kent asked if he would move while she got the biscuit barrel. . . .
It remained a tense and rather difficult interlude. Mr. Kent lay in the next room, too ill to join them, too well-bred to cry out. But John Marco had forgotten about him: his eyes were fixed on Mary. She was pouring out tea for her mother and, as he looked at her, he realised that never before had he seen anyone cock her finger so enchantingly as she poured.
As the minutes passed, Mrs. Kent’s agitation increased. She glanced from the clock—there were four clocks in that room alone—to John Marco, and back at the clock again. Finally, she put two more lumps of sugar into her tea and sat stirring them, trying to appear as though she were a woman without a duty or a worry in the world.
But Mary Kent was not to be deceived.
“If you want to go and do anything for father,” she said, “I’ll look after Mr. Marco.”
“No, please,” said John Marco. “Please don’t let me stop you. I was just going.”
He half-rose as she said it. But Mary motioned him down again.
“You don’t have to go,” she said, “just because Mother’s got something she wants to do.”
The firmness of her tone surprised both of them. Mrs. Kent looked from one to the other, debated with herself the propriety of leaving them alone together, and finally decided that her daughter had meant what she said. She got up in a tangle of apologies about how the doctor had said that she ought to attend to Mr. Kent at nine o’clock for certain, and went out into the kitchen, leaving the door open after her. John Marco regarded Mary Kent with fresh admiration. To-night was the turning point in her career—he could see that. He was savouring the glorious sensation of the lover who for the first time finds himself being preferred to the family.
There was a long awkward pause during which John Marco did not take his eyes off Mary Kent. He just sat there gazing. She could feel his eyes on her, passing all over her. It was a new sensation for her to be looked at by a man in this way; and she found, to her surprise, that she liked it. But she had to say something, something to break the silence.
I Shall Not Want Page 5
