I Shall Not Want

by Norman Collins

  “Then what is it?”

  “The secret,” said old Mrs. Marco dropping her voice again, “is that Hesther didn’t want you to know that she’d asked me. She wanted you to think that it was just my own idea.”

  Mrs. Marco gave a sudden little cackle of laughter at the impishness of her disclosure and lay back. John Marco stood there at the end of the bed, waiting for her to continue. But she did not seem disposed to say anything more. Her eyes were closed again and this time she was really sleeping; she slept noisily, fumbling over each mouthful of breath. John Marco went carefully across the room and turning the handle of the door by fractions of an inch opened the door noiselessly and prepared to step out into the dark corridor.

  As he did so there was a sudden movement in the blackness in front of him, a swirl of skirts and the squeak of a high heel on the oilcloth. A moment later there was the sound of Hesther’s door shutting, and the house was in silence again. The night-light under its patent globe beside old Mrs. Marco’s bed sent a faint gleam across the room and illumined an empty corridor.

  Down in the front basement, Emmy was almost hugging herself with gratification. No sooner had John Marco gone into his mother’s room and she had stationed herself on the second step of the stairs just in case anything should happen, than Hesther herself had emerged from her room and stood in the darkness with her ear close up against old Mrs. Marco’s door. While she had been standing there she had repeated her husband’s name several times softly to herself, and Emmy had nearly died from excitement when the door had opened and he had appeared: she could still make her heart hammer simply by thinking about it. And what a disclosure! Rather than exchange a single word with her own husband Hesther had darted inside her room again.

  Taking up the silver tray that she had been polishing, she aimlessly rubbed it round and round, round and round, round and round with the duster, happily dreaming over this, her private and stupendous revelation.

  iv

  When he got back to the shop John Marco gathered up the late post which lay at the bottom of the letterbox and made his lonely way upstairs.

  The gas was already burning in the sitting-room. The light shone down on the big, red leather chair and the footstool that stood in front of it. His slippers were set out beside it on the Turkey carpet, and there was a fire burning in the grate. The whole room looked male and comfortable and substantial.

  When he had taken off his hat and coat he went over and unlocked the cupboard. There was a decanter of whiskey and a syphon. He poured himself a drink, measuring the whiskey carefully against the breadth of his two fingers, and changed into his slippers.

  At first when he had drunk a whiskey in the evening he had been conscious of the sin of it: he had remembered Mr. Tuke every time he raised the glass to his lips. But now he never thought of it. It was significant, however, that even in sin he behaved in severe Amosite fashion, allowing himself only one drink each evening and no more. He drank so that he could go on working; not for pleasure.

  Settled solidly in his chair, John Marco began to go through the evening’s post. But there was one envelope that caught his eye—it was so different from the others. It was a small blue one, written in a rapid, excited hand. It had, moreover, been delivered in person. Pushing the others aside he picked it up and ripped it open.

  “Dearest” it ran. “Thomas has just told me that he has asked you here, but of course he doesn’t know anything. And I don’t want him to know. He’s very good to me and I love him. Please give some excuse so that you needn’t come. It’ll only make things too difficult for both of us. You know how much I’ve always loved you and I still do. But we mustn’t see each other again”

  The signature was scrawled hurriedly at the bottom and John Marco sat there staring at it. Then he folded it up in its envelope again and thrust it into his pocket.

  Mr. Thomas Petter had invited him to his house at eight-thirty on Thursday evening; and at eight-thirty on Thursday evening he would be there.

  Chapter XXIII

  Mr. Petter ‘s shop stood at the corner of Harrow and Emmanuel Streets. It was small and well-stocked and newly-painted. On either side of the narrow front door stood two enormous coloured bottles that reflected the thoroughfare in giddy sweeping curves and, when the sun shone through them, cast huge blobs of light like prodigious fruit drops.

  Mr. Petter, however, had never regarded the bottles merely as ornamental; every time he looked at them he was reminded with a little thrill of pride that the origins of his profession lay buried somewhere in the smoky caves of alchemy—and simply thinking about the antiquity of his calling reconciled him to a lifetime of selling face powders and scented shampoos and other rubbish which he regarded as frivolous. But ornamental, the bottles undoubtedly were. And the whole shop front with its array of sponges and tooth-brushes and elixirs and baby foods, and its neat label “Night Bell” on the side door, might have been a model shop front from a child’s toy town.

  John Marco arrived punctually at eight-thirty and rang the bell. Almost immediately came the sound of a door shutting somewhere in the flat above and the noise of feet descending the stairs. Then the door opened and Mr. Petter stood there.

  He was flushed, but clearly delighted to see his visitor.

  “Ah, there you are,” he exclaimed. “My wife was afraid that you wouldn’t be able to come after all.”

  “Really,” said John Marco as he shook hands with Mr. Petter. “I wonder why that was. I had every intention of coming.”

  “Then I’ll lead the way,” said Mr. Petter gaily.

  John Marco followed him up the thin strip of carpet which ran up the white-painted stairs. He was breathing deeply. He was very close to Mary now; already he was in the same house with her. Soon he would be holding her by the hand, looking into those clear eyes again. He began mounting faster.

  Mr. Petter, for his part, was obviously very proud of the flat into which he was leading him. The white paint on the stairs was only the beginning of it. The doors were white, too. And the window sills and the cupboards of the living room. Nor did the general air of brightness stop there. The walls, instead of being papered, were coloured with an apricot distemper and in place of lace curtains at the windows there were plain casement ones. The whole place, in short, looked gay and modern and abreast of the times. And with so much white about, the air of a bridal suite remained; the silk and wicker bassinet in the hall, looked, indeed almost shockingly premature.

  But the room was empty and Mr. Petter looked round it in dismay.

  “My wife won’t be long,” he said reassuringly, “we’re just having a little trouble with the child.”

  “I can wait,” John Marco answered. “I’m in no hurry.”

  He settled himself as deeply as he could manage into a chair that was too small for him and glanced round the room. Despite its newness and its bright up-to-dateness he felt contemptuous towards it. “I could have given you so much better, Mary,” he was saying over and over to himself. “So very much better.”

  But Mr. Petter was busy making conversation.

  “It’s very moving, sitting up with a sick child,” he said. “It does something to you. So helpless, you know.”

  “So I understand,” John Marco replied.

  “You’ve not got any children of your own, then?”

  Mr. Petter put the question tentatively as though aware that in cross-examining his important visitor he was exceeding the bounds of good breeding.

  And he received his rebuke: John Marco ignored the question.

  “How long have you been married now?” he asked.

  “Two years,” Mr. Petter replied. “We were beginning to wonder whether we’d ever have any children.”

  Mr. Petter’s further matrimonial confessions were interrupted, however. There was a sound in the room above them, and his smooth pink face lit up automatically.

  “I can hear her,” he said. “She’s coming.”

  John Marco smiled at him
.

  “How fortunate,” he said. “That must mean that the child is asleep again.”

  But Mary did not appear. After a minute of anxious silence, during which Mr. Petter sat with ears straining for some sign, he rose apologetically.

  “I’ll just slip upstairs and see what’s happened,” he said. “That is, if you’ll excuse me for a moment.”

  He was gone for more than a moment and it was evident that there was some hitch. Eventually there was the sound of Mr. Petter’s voice raised in remonstrance—and it is difficult to remain discreet in argument in a flat of only four rooms.

  “Of course you’ve got to come down,” John Marco heard him saying. “What ever will he think? He particularly wants to meet you.”

  John Marco re-settled himself in the inadequate armchair and smiled: he felt at that moment as though he held this tiny household balanced on one finger.

  It was nearly five minutes later when there was the sound of two people descending the stairs towards the living room. Then the door was thrust open and Mary stood there. Mr. Petter preceded her in the manner of a man exhibiting his most precious possession.

  “My wife asks you to excuse her lateness,” he said as though even now that he had persuaded her to come he could not guarantee that she would actually say anything. “It was the child. She is teething.”

  John Marco had risen and was facing her. He held out his hand and, as he did so, he noticed that hers was unsteady.

  “I was afraid that I wasn’t going to see you,” he said.

  “I’m sorry,” she replied, “but it’s not always easy when there’s a young child in the house.”

  She did not raise her eyes to his as she spoke and as soon as he released her hand—even Mr. Petter noticed that he held it a little longer than was usual—she took a chair with her back to the light so that the whole of her face was in shadow. It was her husband who kept the conversation alive.

  “I really wonder you didn’t know each other already,” he observed complacently. “My wife was a Miss Kent before I married her. She was in the Tabernacle, too.”

  “But I did know her,” John Marco replied. “We taught in Sunday School together.”

  “That was a long while ago,” Mary said hurriedly.

  Mr. Petter, however, was not to be put off like that. He came over and sat on the arm of Mary’s chair. Occasionally his fingers would stray down towards her and begin stroking her arm.

  “So you did know Mr. Marco all the time,” he said, “and you never told me. I call that a very naughty little wife.”

  He pinched her arm playfully as he said it: it was obvious that he was distractedly in love with her.

  But Mary only pulled her arm away: she seemed to resent him anywhere near her. And Mr. Petter after the rebuff did not seem to know what to do. He sat where he was on the arm of her chair, like an injured and unhappy cherub.

  John Marco sat staring at them both. It was so manifestly impossible to think of this model druggist as a rival that he did not even feel any jealousy; he had only to raise his finger for the little man to fall over. But, after the first glance, it was not at Mr. Petter that he was looking: it was at Mary. The labour of bearing Mr. Petter’s child had rested lightly on her. The only difference between the Mary whom he had begged never to leave him and the Mary who now sat in the chair before him, was that this was a woman; the child who was now sleeping upstairs had somehow completed her. Her eyes when he could see them were the same; and the pure curve of her neck was unaltered. He looked at the pale gold of her hair, brushed up high over the temples and showing almost silvery beneath, and he loved her again.

  “It seems strange,” Mr. Petter remarked, “that we hadn’t met socially before. Of course, I’m new to this Chapel, but I’ve met most of Mary’s friends.”

  “Perhaps it’s because I don’t go out very much,” John Marco suggested. “I spend most of my evenings working.”

  “Then we ought to be flattered, oughtn’t we, Mary?” Mr. Petter asked. “Really we ought.”

  There was no opportunity for Mary to reply, for at that moment there came the sound again of a baby’s crying. Mary got up and went towards the door.

  “You’ll have to excuse me,” she said. “It’s the child.”

  When she had gone John Marco put his back to the fireplace and faced Mr. Petter. He was jocular now and rather hearty with him, like an employer talking out of business to one of his assistants.

  “What about this baby of yours?” he asked. “Aren’t I going to be allowed to see her?”

  Mr. Petter’s face lit up again.

  “Would you like to?” he asked eagerly. “Would you really like to?”

  John Marco ran the tip of his tongue across his lips. He was doing something to hurt himself in asking to see this child; he knew that. But it was Mary’s child and he had to see it. It would be something else he could share with her. It would take him deeper into the pattern of her life again.

  “Well I’ve heard a lot about her, haven’t I?” he replied.

  “Then come on,” said Mr. Petter happily. “We’ll pay a surprise visit. She’d never let us get near it if she knew.”

  They went up the next flight of the staircase—it had become narrower, more intimate and domestic by now—and Mr. Petter threw open the door in front of him. It was then that John Marco saw that it was the Petters’ own bedroom that he was in. The big double bed under its pink silk eiderdown was against the wall and, beside it sheltered in a little alcove of screens, was the cot. Mary was bending over it, talking to the bundle in the cot as though it could understand her.

  “Mr. Marco wanted to see her,” Mr. Petter announced brightly. “So I brought him up.”

  Mary straightened herself hurriedly and took step between them and the cot. For a moment John Marco thought that she was going to prevent him from approaching the child.

  But Mr. Petter had not noticed that anything was amiss. He took Mary by the hand and drew her to one side. Then he turned to John Marco.

  “If you stand there,” he said, “you can see perfectly. You’ll get the light on her little face.”

  John Marco walked towards the cot and looked down. The child that was lying there had flaxen hair that would one day be gold; its skin was transparent and delicate. John Marco remembered the dark hair of his own son and shuddered. That child was Hesther’s; this was Mary’s.

  He raised his eyes a little, and saw that Mary was looking at him. She did not avoid his gaze any longer. In her pride over the diminutive creature before them, she was smiling. She came up beside him and placed her hand on the side of the cot unable to resist this fascinating infant any longer. John Marco looked again at the child, then turning towards Mary he placed his hand over hers.

  From the other side of the cot Mr. Petter observed everything that took place. For a moment he was horrified, he blushed a sudden embarrassed scarlet. Then reason came to him, and he understood. He stepped up and, putting his arm round Mary’s waist, he completed the party.

  “You’re quite right,” he said to John Marco. “She is lovely, isn’t she?”

  It was still quite early when John Marco left them. Mr. Petter came down to the front door to see him off. And as he shook hands he gave a little laugh.

  “How funny,” he said. “We didn’t give you any tea and we haven’t spoken a word about the Association.”

  “Some other time,” John Marco answered. “I hope this won’t be the last time I shall visit you.”

  Chapter XXIV

  It was very flattering to Mr. Petter’s vanity to have John Marco for a friend; for the six months during which he had known him, and his visits had become longer and more frequent. A whole week rarely went past now without his calling on them; and, once he was in the house, it was sometimes as late as eleven-thirty when he left. In particular, Mr. Petter was pleased to observe that Mary had grown to be much more at ease with his new friend. She no longer avoided him and sat by herself in another room whil
e he was in the flat. Mr. Petter, of course, could tell instinctively that she disliked the man; but he was pleased to see how, for his sake, she had overcome her dislike and consented to be one of them. She now joined them quite naturally in the evenings, whenever John Marco was there and, sitting at Mr. Petter’s feet, where he liked to have her, continued with her sewing as though the two of them were alone together.

  Not until quite recently—a week or so ago, in fact—had Mr. Petter purely by accident discovered the unhappy secret of John Marco’s private life.

  One of the Chapel Brethren had mentioned it casually as one of those rewarding tit-bits that come the way of men of the world. As Mr. Petter had listened, his mind had suddenly responded. Everything that had been dark before was now lit up, and he understood a lot of things—why John Marco had not answered when he had asked him if he had any children of his own: how terrible, thought Mr. Petter, to have a son and be separated from it; why Mary had not spoken of her acquaintance with him; why John Marco had so self-effacingly resigned from the Synod rather than stir up any kind of scandal within the Chapel. And as he thought of these things his heart went out towards John Marco. For all his fine business and his great company of assistants, the man was lonely and an outcast. Mr. Petter sighed and wished that it were within his power to give him all he wanted.

  During all this time John Marco had never managed to see Mary alone. Once or twice in the evening when he had been there, someone had rung the night bell and Mr. Petter had been called away from them. But Mary had always used this as an excuse to leave him; and when Mr. Petter had got back from his dispensary he had always found his visitor sitting alone in the little white and apricot sitting-room, waiting for his return.

  But, even though at first, John Marco had been content to abide his time, he realised as the days went past that he could wait no longer. The original solace that he had found in seeing Mary had passed; with Mr. Petter always beside her the pain of these meetings had become unendurable.