A quiet, bald man with thick, formidable-looking glasses—a solicitor’s managing clerk perhaps—suddenly allowed his report to slip from his fingers and came forward nervously to retrieve it. John Marco pounced on him: if he had been deliberately set down in the audience beforehand he could not have been more useful.
“Please, please,” he said addressing the man. “I don’t want your money now. In the morning will be time enough.”
Someone laughed first and, after that, the rest was easy; John Marco enjoyed himself. He spoke of profits from big undertakings as though they were as easy to gather as apples in a ripe orchard, and began to refer with contempt to the five-per-cent that everyone had been so pleased about earlier in the afternoon. “There are some firms,” he said, slowly and with emphasis, “old-established and with a regular patronage who would be proud of the profit which we have announced to-day. But frankly, I am not proud of it. If I had not thought that eventually I could do better, I should not have asked for a penny-piece from any of you. It is because of the five-per-cent this first year that I now ask for your further support so that I may be able to give you ten next year.”
He sat down and the clapping began. It went on so long in fact that those who asked questions afterwards seemed, alien and dissentient. They were stamped at once as outsiders.
It was just as he had disposed of the last of the questioners—he was a compact, peaky man who expressed an un-swervable belief that any business with proper handling could be run on five hundred thousand pounds—and had sat down again, that he felt his eyes being unaccountably drawn in the direction of one corner of the room: it was as though there were some irresistible force attracting him.
At first he could see nothing. There were the familiar ranks of pink faces and, on either side of them, the row of marble columns that supported the roof of the salon. It was then that he saw, half hidden behind one of the columns, the figure of a woman. The figure was dressed all in black; heavy sepulchral stuff that caught the light and swallowed it. The gloves were black. And from the back of her hat hung dense folds of crêpe like a widow’s.
John Marco was still staring at her while one of the shareholders, a large, expansive-looking man who seemed to have been born into the world to be the foreman of juries, was proposing a vote of thanks “. . . how grateful we all are for the energy and foresight of our chairman ...” The words reached John Marco from nowhere, and slid away into limbo again; his gaze was fixed on the long pale face that was now visible against the deathlike ebony of the costume. For a moment, his eyes met Hesther’s and the rest of the room, the shareholders, the marble columns and the directors’ wives grew faint and vanished.
But the meeting was beginning already to break up. There was the clatter of chairs being bumped against each other and the rustle and movement of people searching for their hats and umbrellas. Half the people had their backs to him now; they were filing slowly out towards the door. There was one person, however, who was not leaving. She remained, composed and impassive, upon her chair.
Then, when the way was clear, she rose and with her long black garments flapping around her, began to advance up the aisle towards him.
He had waited until she was halfway up the hall; and then fled. But now in his own room he felt secure again, at ease. Perhaps she would go away again without troubling him, would return to whatever hiding-place it was from which she had emerged. Up to the very instant when he had seen her it had been his day, his victory; and now she had so nearly destroyed it. Until then he had proved himself cleverer than any of them. They had grasped at their five-per-cent just as he had intended and already they were hungering for more; he had done more than half Mr. Bulmer’s job all ready for him. He realised now that he had only to raise his hand for new capital, great shining sack-loads of it, to come pouring in on him, and the whole future suddenly seemed golden. Altogether it had been one of those moments when a man feels as if he were high on a hillside in the landscape of his life with the coming years spread out before him in the sunshine.
The knock of his secretary on the door startled him.
“What is it?” he asked abruptly.
The girl hesitated: she spoke in a hushed, timid voice as though uncertain that she had got the message right.
“Mrs. Marco to see you, sir,” she said.
John Marco raised his head.
“Tell her that I’m engaged on important business,” he said at last. “Tell her that I can’t be disturbed.”
The vision of the figure in black rose before him again and he shut his eyes against it.
“She said it was very important,” the girl told him. “She said she had to see you.”
John Marco sat bolt upright in his chair.
“Tell her that I won’t see her,” he replied. “Tell her that I’ve no intention of seeing her.”
He picked up one of the papers on his desk and began to read.
The girl turned away obediently. But, as she turned, the door behind her began to open. It opened very slowly as though there were someone on the other side who had been listening to everything that was going on within. Then, at last when it was open to its full width, Hesther stood there. In the clothes that she was wearing she appeared tremendous: she seemed to fill the whole doorway with blackness. The veil around her bonnet was down over her face now, and her eyes were visible only as darker spots amid the darkness.
She came forward.
“I shan’t be with you long, John,” she said. “When I’ve got what I came for I shall be going away again.”
“Why are you here?” he asked as soon as they were alone together. “We’ve got nothing to talk about.”
She settled herself in the chair in front of him and began toying like a coquette with the jet crucifix on her bosom.
“Isn’t it natural that I should come to you?” she asked.
John Marco did not move.
“You know we’ve each gone our own way by now,” he answered. “What else is it you’ve come for?”
Her body straightened itself.
“Money,” she said. “That’s why I came.”
The words seemed to spring out of her. The ultimatum which she had just delivered had evidently been crushed down inside her for years. She stopped playing with the crucifix and clasped her hands together so that the knuckles showed hard and white.
“What money?” he asked.
He was eyeing her narrowly now, his head cocked onto one side.
“God’s money,” she answered. “I ought to have given it up to Mr. Tuke for the Lord. Not to you for Mammon.”
“It’s too late to think of that now,” he replied. “The bargain’s closed.”
“Not in God’s eyes, it isn’t. My voices tell me so.”
“And what do your voices tell you to do about it?” he asked.
“Get it back from you,” she replied. “Get back God’s money and give it to the Tabernacle.”
At the mention of God her whole body seemed to have become transformed; it filled. Her eyes were glowing under the veil; they shone. And she had parted her hands as if she were gripping something tangible; the money seemed to be in them already.
“Why don’t you give your own money?” he asked. “Your uncle left you plenty.”
“I have given it,” she answered. “All of it.”
He turned away from her.
“I owe you nothing,” he said.
He had got up and begun to walk about. She kept her eyes fixed on him, following him round the room as he moved.
“What about the money you stole?” she asked.
He turned abruptly.
“You knew about that when you married me.”
“Yes, I sinned too,” she said. “That’s why I’ve come here to-night so that we can both be saved.”
He made no answer and she went on, speaking rapidly, the words blurring into a long, tangled skein of speech.
“No one can live with my load of sin on their shoulders,�
� she said. “It’s the weight of the wickedness that breaks the soul. My voices tell me to get rid of it. I’m going to Mr. Tuke’s to-night, and I’ve come to take you with me. When we leave him our souls will be white again. They’ll be like snow. We shall have confessed.”
John Marco looked at her incredulously.
“Confessed?” he demanded.
“Yes,” she went on. “We must tell him everything. We must lay our sins upon him. Go to him as a repentant thief and cast yourself on the mercy of the Lord.” She paused. “My sin is greater because it was carnal. I shall be called to the judgment seat clad in scarlet.”
John Marco raised his hand and stopped her.
“Mr. Tuke won’t listen to your confession,” he said. “He knows you’re out of your senses.”
“I shall give him proof,” she answered. “I shall show him the letter my uncle left me. I shall expose you.”
“Then you mean to break your word to me?”
She bowed her head.
“It was a bargain sealed in wickedness,” she replied. “My voices tell me to break it.”
John Marco went over to the fireplace and stood looking down into the flames. He stood for some time with his back towards her without speaking.
“You came here to ask for money,” he said at last. “Don’t you think that Mr. Tuke might rather have his money than a confession?”
Hesther drew in a deep breath.
“Yes,” she said slowly. “They’ll allow that—the voices.”
“How much do you want?” he asked bluntly.
“You shall bring your offerings of the cattle, even of the herd, and of the flock,” Hesther replied. “We must give the Lord all we have.”
“Tell me how much you want,” he repeated.
“Mr. Tuke needs a thousand pounds,” she said. “He’s started a fund: it’s to build a new Sunday School. It shall be your money that builds it.”
John Marco opened the drawer of his desk and took out his cheque book.
“I’ll give you a hundred pounds,” he said.
Hesther shook her head.
“Your riches will die with you,” she said. “You can’t deny the Lord. Mr. Tuke needs a thousand pounds, and he must have it.”
John Marco threw down his pen.
“Mr. Tuke must make do with less,” he said.
Hesther did not remove her eyes from his face.
“It’s a thousand pounds that I promised,” she told him.
“Promised?”
“I told him that I’d bring it to-night. Mr. Tuke said it would be an answer to his prayer.”
“And am I to answer Mr. Tuke’s prayers for him?” John Marco asked.
Hesther dropped her eyes and regarded her hands that were folded in her lap.
“You wouldn’t want all those shareholders to know you were a thief, would you?” she asked quietly. “It was a lot of money you were asking for this afternoon.”
John Marco got up and began walking about the room again. His head was bent forward and he was staring at the floor in front of him. He seemed almost to have forgotten Hesther. And Hesther was sitting bolt upright, her arms folded and her eyes fixed in front of her.
When he spoke, she started.
“Have you still got that letter?” he asked.
She nodded.
“I’ve got it here: it doesn’t go out of my keeping,” she answered. “I carry it about with me.”
John Marco paused.
“I’ll buy it from you,” he told her.
“For a thousand pounds?”
He passed his tongue across his lips.
“For a thousand pounds,” he replied.
Hesther opened her bag and drew out a long envelope. Then she seemed to hesitate: she closed the bag again and sat there, the envelope in her hand, her eyes closed as if she were praying. John Marco was leaning forward in his chair regarding her.
Suddenly she opened her eyes again and removed the paper from the envelope.
“The voices tell me you can have it,” she said.
The paper that she was holding before him was crumpled and cobwebby with age: it seemed ready to dissolve into fragments. The words written on it looked blurred and indecipherable as he tried to disentangle them. Amid the yellow creases he could faintly see the spidery outlines of figures and Mr. Trackett’s own signature.
He put out his hand to take hold of the paper. But she pulled it away from him.
“Give me the money first,” she said.
When she had gone he turned in his chair and bending forward held one end of the paper over the fire behind him as if it were a spill. The paper kindled and flared. He held it until his fingers were burning, and then dropped the remains into the open grate.
There was now only a little ash and a trace of smoke to show for the cause of all this havoc of the years.
ii
They were sitting facing each other across the plain deal of Mr. Tuke’s table top, and Hesther was smiling at him. She was fastening up her handbag again.
“It’s what I promised you,” she said. “I’ve kept faith in the Lord.”
Mr. Tuke sat back and folded his hands.
“With prayer everything can be accomplished,” he said. “God works in the most surprising way. He chooses the least likely vessels.”
Chapter XXXV
Even Mr. Skewin and Mr. Hackbridge who had now grown used to seeing money spent on John Marco’s lavish scale of things were secretly a little appalled by the way the new capital was devoured. Five thousand pounds of it was consumed in a single reckless gesture: John Marco built a roof garden.
The Board, when the idea was first proposed to them, had voted unanimously against it; but in doing so they were going against their chairman. To John Marco, a roof garden, had suddenly become the first essential of the business; and those who opposed it, opposed him. A roof garden was something which no other store possessed, and he was, therefore, determined that John Marco Ltd. should have it. So the architect was called in to strengthen the roof and the builder’s men were about the place once more; and high above the roof tops of Bayswater the contraption of trellis walls and concrete arches and fancy sun-dials and flower boxes was erected.
There was also the acquisition of Louise; she was a special discovery of John Marco’s. He had found her in the dress salon of a rival store over in Kensington, and had coveted her. There was an elegance and distinction about her that he felt was needed. But of course she was expensive: she put a good price on herself, and demanded a contract. John Marco gave it to her over lunch one day. And as he watched her sign it—she removed a little silver fountain pen from her silk hand-bag to do so—he found himself admiring her. She was undeniably a pretty woman; and she obviously knew her way about in the world. She was the sort of person who would reward him every time he looked at her.
But reflected over at the end of the year, the roof garden and the new fashion supervisor in the dress salon were no more than adventures—costly ones, admittedly—on the side. There was the installation of the extra lifts; the re-stocking of the principal departments on a scale that was more Oxford Street than Tredegar Terrace; and there were the two electric delivery vans.
Considered objectively these vans were gaunt and ungainly; they were slow; they were hesitating; they were awkward. A horse, on any showing, would have been better. But electric vans were modern: they were a declaration to other and possibly rival shopkeepers that science and John Marco Ltd. were abreast of time.
And there was no denying that John Marco’s methods were successful. The shop continued to be crowded; and every day the ledgers of the company grew fuller and fatter, swollen with the endless columns of figures that the Counting House was ceaselessly totting up.
John Marco himself seemed to have become something settled and established like the business; he looked older nowadays, and the wear had begun to show across the grain. Amid his close black hair there was now enough grey, and white even, for it t
o be apparent; and from the corner of his eyes a little network of lines had begun to spring. No one now seeing him for the first time would possibly think of him any longer as a young man.
He had, too, grown more unapproachable; he was now simply a solitary, uncontradictable figure who ruled everything. Except for Mr. Hackbridge, he barely spoke to anyone, and the words which he did speak to him, were not by any means what in the ordinary way would pass for conversation.
“There’s a price ticket fallen off the figure in the corner window,” he would remark in his hard clipped voice. “We pay a dresser to look after that kind of thing. And I saw two of the assistants chattering among themselves; I’ve said before that they should stand apart and not talk except when they’re actually serving. The new cambric’s very poor quality: tell Mr. Waring to announce it out of stock to any of our regular customers. And while you’re in that department ask why they’re not pushing that nainsook harder: remember that we’ve got twenty-five dozen rolls of it.”
And so it would go on, with Mr. Hackbridge making notes on his shiny cuffs of the points that John Marco was blurting out at him.
Often at the end of a day Mr. Hackbridge would sit at his own hearthside, exhausted, sweating, wondering how many of the points he had completely forgotten. The strain of these last few years had told on him more heavily even than on his employer; and he used to receive John Marco’s summons to go into the room wondering how long it would be before he would collapse, simply collapse, in an ugly, ungainly heap, on the managing director’s carpet, under the unnatural pressure of it all.
The hearthside at which John Marco himself sat in the evenings was no longer the modest one in Windsor Terrace. He now lived in a gaunt, towering mansion in Hyde Park Square with a staff of three to look after him and a coach house behind for his carriage. The carriage was a new possession; the lamps and the harness still had their prime glitter. But there was more than glitter alone to the turnout; there was its colour. A broad primrose line—primrose like the paper bags of the firm, and the uniform of the page boys, and the two electric delivery vans—ran right round the middle of it. When John Marco got into it in the mornings, and the horse was whipped up, there was two hundred pounds of advertisement stepping through the streets.
I Shall Not Want Page 37
