John Marco leant forward when she had finished. “Don’t worry,” he said, “I’ll help you.”
“You’re very good,” she answered. “I knew I could rely on you.”
“Ask for anything you want,” he said.
His voice was kind, but as he said it in his heart he was impatient. He wanted the whole transaction to be over, wanted to be able to forget again. The sight of her aroused anger within him as well as pity. This grim, respectable poverty was the price of folly. If she had come to him, when he had offered himself, he could have saved everything. It would have been her house that they were sitting in; her bedroom that looked down on the trees and gardens of the Square.
“I don’t want you to give me money,” Mary answered. “I want some work to do.”
“Work?” he asked. “But you haven’t been trained for anything.”
“I could serve in the shop,” she said. “I’d be careful.”
To serve in the shop: to have her by him all day as a reproach! That, least of all, was what he wanted. Besides, people in shops liked the assistants to be young; all the girls in John Marco’s were young. A widow with half her mind on her child all the time wasn’t the kind of person they employed there.
“No,” he said. “I’ll pay you what the others get. But I don’t want you to have to work for it.”
Mary paused.
“It’s generous of you and it’s kind,” she said. “But I couldn’t accept it. Thomas wouldn’t have liked me to.”
The mention of Mr. Petter—it was as though even in death he still stood between them—disturbed him. “So she did love him,” he said inside his mind. “She did really love him.”
He shook his head.
“There’s nothing in the shop,” he said. “There won’t be anything now until Christmas.”
“I see,” she replied.
And from the way she said it he knew how often in the past months she had received that kind of answer.
She got up and slowly began buttoning up the neck of her coat.
“If you hear of anything,” she said, “will you please tell me?”
John Marco stood there looking at her. It was her hand in particular that he was watching. She was holding her bag—it was a small, cheap one—but her little finger was cocked enchantingly in the air as it had been on that afternoon so long ago now when they had both been young, and both in love, and she had poured tea from her mother’s silver tea-pot.
“Don’t go,” he said under his breath. “I’ll find something for you.”
“You will?”
For a second her face lit up again as he had known it: her smile had not grown tired like the rest of her.
“Come round to the shop in the morning,” he said. “I’ll tell Mr. Lyman to find a job for you.”
“Thank you, John ...” she began, but she was interrupted.
The door opened and Louise stood there. She had a new gown on and she looked cool and handsome and well-cared for.
“John,” she said, “we’ve all been waiting.”
But when she saw that he was not alone she withdrew again.
“I’m sorry, my dear,” she added. “I didn’t know you had a visitor.”
Mary had gone away again; she had slipped out quietly, scarcely stopping to say good-bye to him. And the guests had gone too by now: it was late. John Marco was standing in the big drawing-room alone with Louise.
“Who was she?” she asked suddenly.
John Marco started.
“Only someone who wanted a job in the shop,” he answered.
“And did you give it to her?”
“As a matter of fact, I did.”
She came over and sat on the arm of his chair.
“That’s all right,” she said lightly. “You needn’t worry: I’m not jealous. I had a look at her.”
Chapter XXXVI
The Two Little boys in primrose-coloured uniform had at last outgrown their fancy dress and been replaced by two other little boys; and they in turn had been transferred to the packing-room along with their predecessors, and there were now two others who stood there. But in a sense they were still the same little boys: they were simply ageless twins, two diminutive dwarfs dressed like toy soldiers, who stood at attention and opened the big swing doors and bowed when they were spoken to, and defied Time.
And the shop assistants were magically the same, too; they were all of them still young, with gleaming hair and small waists and pretty faces, even though the original ones had long since left to get married, or had gone back to keep house for their fathers, or had fallen out with Mr. Hackbridge. They seemed a separate species, these girls, everlasting and impersonal; a new race of women who never grew any older than twenty-five.
It was John Marco who had altered. In the mornings, the long climb from the front door up the broad, circular staircase to his room, left him panting and exhausted; he now travelled up in the hydraulic lift instead. They were still novelties these lifts; frivolous shoppers used to go up and down in them simply for the prodigious attraction of the thing.
Tired or not, however, John Marco had never for a single day neglected that ritual tour of inspection of his. But he spent less time on it now. He had entirely given up the old, hated business of going behind the counters and seeing whether the boxes themselves were being kept tidy. It was enough, he considered, that the assistants should be reminded that he, the pivot and governing intelligence of everything, was still about among them. And so, every day, the heavy figure of John Marco still went marching through the rooms every forenoon, a symbol to all the truly ambitious young men in the business of the kind of greatness that retail drapery holds in store for its few and chosen.
His hours at the business were still as long as ever. And while the assistants were passing out light-heartedly down the staff-staircase at the back, the light in that row of windows at the corner of the building was there to remind them that, for one man at least the day’s work was not yet over, and the real running of the business was still going on.
There had been a time when the work that John Marco did alone with Mr. Lyman after the others had gone had seemed the most pleasant hours of the day: those columns of figures from the Counting House which every month grew larger and fatter and more complicated, had once appeared to him the reward for the whole day’s labours. All his cleverest moves, his best buying, his most astute manoeuvres of salesmanship had been made when the rest of the shop was in darkness. But lately a kind of stale-ness had settled down on him. And when the door opened to admit Mr. Lyman with his charts and ledgers, and he looked across at the corner of his desk and saw the top-heavy trayful of papers all to be read and decided upon and replied to, his heart failed him.
It seemed that in creating this teeming business with its brilliant windows and its brigade of polite assistants and its loaded warehouse, he had somehow built a cage from which escape was impossible. And he was the one man in the whole firm who was trapped in it; that was the nice irony of it all. Anyone else could put his hat on his head and take up his gloves and umbrella and walk out of the front door, singing. But he couldn’t do that. He was stuck there forever, getting steadily older and richer and more tired.
On those evenings when he worked late, really late that is, Louise no longer sat at home waiting for him as she had done in the early months of their household. They had been together for more than five years now and the silence and absence of company on these evenings had got on her nerves; she had explained that she was one of those people who must have others around her all the time for her to feel really happy. But now that they had plenty of friends, it was all so easy, so simple. There was a Colonel Carbeth and his wife—he had married an actress from the States—and they kept open, noisy house over on Campden Hill; and the Coughlins who had made all their money in tin and now lived in bright, metallic splendour in Lancaster Gate; and the Burnhams who were Jews and were very busy already getting their money out of theatres and putting it i
nto cinemas; and the Hansells and the Clyde-Dawkins and the Henriques. There were also the various smooth-faced young men with glossy manners—John Marco could never remember their names and even wondered, as they were so much alike, whether they actually had any—who came to the house when they were entertaining and sometimes asked his permission to take Louise out to the theatre—and then on to supper somewhere afterwards. He always let them do it (though he had his suspicions that, with one or two of them at least, it was Louise who generally paid); and in a way he felt rather obliged towards them for their attentions. It was the sort of life that Louise liked and he was not a man who could spend his evenings, even if they were free, sitting night after night in a stall at the theatre.
This evening, in particular, he felt relieved that Louise had someone to occupy her; he had told her earlier in the week how late he would be, and she had simply shrugged her shoulders and said that in that case she supposed that she might as well accept someone-or-other’s invitation to take her out to supper. He had asked her who it was, he remembered, and then could not have listened when she told him. But there he was, this anonymous young man, risen up from nowhere to entertain her just when he was wanted.
John Marco had got into the habit of calling the board-meetings in the evening so that the directors could get on with their work by day. At first, when he had started them, Mr. Hackbridge and Mr. Lyman and even Mr. Skewin had raised vague, apologetic objections, saying that their wives and families wanted them at home. But John Marco had brushed that kind of talk aside. And Mr. Hackbridge, and Mr. Skewin, and Mr, Lyman had now put aside all thoughts of whist and music halls and pleasant hours at the fireside, and had agreed to give up the last remaining portion of their leisure.
It was while he was waiting for the other directors to come filing in that John Marco walked across to the big cabinet in the corner and drew out the heavy decanter that he kept there. Strange how reassuring it was simply to feel the hard surface of the glass under his hand and see the shining amber surface of the whiskey ripple and break as he moved it. He knew now as he held the decanter in his hand what he had doubted earlier, that he would be able to sit there for two or three hours longer as the evening unfolded itself, listening to the timid suggestions of Mr. Skewin, and the warnings and cautions of Mr. Lyman and Mr. Hackbridge’s forced helpfulness. And he knew, too, that he would as usual be cleverer than the others, turning their pitiful little ideas inside out for them, showing them how business was slipping through their very fingers simply because they weren’t smart enough to close on it, putting up his own brilliant proposals.
Mr. Hackbridge was the first to arrive and John Marco observed with irritation that the man looked tired. His whitish, straggling hair was brushed the wrong way and his tie had not been straightened since the afternoon. What was the use, John Marco asked himself, of being inspiring to a man who looked in need of forty-eight hours uninterrupted sleep? He liked people round him to look fresh and energetic, no matter how tired he himself was feeling. But Mr. Hackbridge’s fatigue—and, poor man, he had been on those flat shambling feet of his ever since nine o’clock in the morning—was not the least of the evening’s irritations. It was Mr. Lyman who was the sore. He entered with one of his stultifying account books under his arm and said in his thin, decayed voice, as soon as they were all seated, that he was afraid the money situation was no better.
John Marco dismissed the point and replied curtly that in October, when they had bought all their Christmas stock and had not yet sold any of it, no one but a fool could expect it to be good.
Mr. Lyman accepted the rebuke, but remained obstinately attached to his original point.
“Quite so, sir,” he said. “But what I really meant was that it isn’t so satisfactory if you compare it with last year.”
“That’s because we’ve bought more for Christmas,” John Marco retorted. “We’ve bought twenty thousand pounds’ worth more.”
“I know we have,” Mr. Lyman replied; and unbelievably he repeated it. “I know we have,” he said again, slowly and distinctly.
John Marco turned sharply towards him.
“What do you mean by that?” he asked.
“I was only wondering about the advisability of it,” Mr. Lyman said. It was obvious that he was speaking under strain: he had to screw his courage to utter each word he spoke. “Supposing that we don’t get rid of it all, where shall we be then?” he asked.
“Just so,” said Mr. Hackbridge. “It is rather a lot, you know, sir. I really think ...”
He was not allowed to get any further, however. John Marco had brought his fist down on the table.
“You don’t have to think,” he said. “I do that for you. You don’t count for anything the whole lot of you. I made the business single-handed. Single-handed I tell you.” He was speaking very rapidly by now and the vein in his forehead was throbbing. “If you think that I’m going to draw back,” he said, “simply because some of you are frightened, you’re mistaken. Do you think that I don’t know what the figures are like? Do you think that I haven’t sat up all night working on them? But we’re going on the way we started. I’m in charge of the buying and if you can’t sell what I buy for you, I’ll find people who can. If I buy another thousand pounds’ worth or another twenty thousand pounds’ worth by Christmas it’s none of your business. And if you don’t like the sort of stuff I buy for you you can get out.”
He stopped suddenly—the room for a moment swam in front of his eyes—and there was silence. Mr. Hackbridge coughed nervously but had nothing to say. Mr. Lyman and Mr. Skewin avoided each other’s glances.
John Marco turned suddenly to Mr. Lyman.
“Are those the yearly figures you’ve got there?” he asked.
“Yes, sir,” said Mr. Lyman meekly. “You’ll find it all set out there. This year’s figures are in red.”
John Marco held out his hand for the ledger and Mr. Lyman passed it over to him respectfully. With the book open in front of him John Marco appeared oblivious to everything: his head was bent low over the pages and he was jotting down odd figures on the pad beside him. Mr. Hackbridge coughed again and John Marco started. He looked up and then returned to beautiful columns of Mr. Lyman’s handwriting.
“You can all go if you want to,” he said. “You can leave me here. I understand these figures.”
But when the last of them had gone John Marco shut up the book and sat staring emptily into the room in front of him. He had said more than he meant to say, a good deal more. But he had nothing to worry about. There wasn’t anything that they could ever do to harm him; they were all three of them too dependent on him for that. And, besides, weren’t they all of them still down on their knees to him in sheer gratitude for what he had made them?
It was still early, scarcely more than nine o’clock in fact. But he was tired already—that outburst in the face of Mr. Lyman’s stupidity had tired him more than he had realised—and he sat in his chair without moving. Then he went over to the cupboard and poured himself out another drink. He was surprised as he did so to notice how low the level in the decanter had become; he must have drunk more than he remembered.
The thing needed filling nearly every day now.
He put on his great coat and went out through the empty shop into the street. Outside it was cold, very cold. There was a frozen fierceness in the air. He stood on the pavement waiting for a cab, and shivered. Then the cab came into sight, the horse blowing out great festoons of cloudy breath, and he was carried through those silent, winding streets that were simply ravines between the houses, and to-night might have been crevasses in glaciers. The horse’s hoofs sounded loud and hollow as if they were falling on ice, and the air that blew in round the corners of the shaky windows was sharp and treacherous. He thought of his leather arm-chair and the fire that would be waiting for him, and drew his great-coat in more closely around him.
When he reached the house and let himself in, the warm protection of the place greet
ed him like a spell. He stood for a moment in the glow of the chandelier, grateful for the comfort of it all. And as he stood there, he noticed that across one of the chairs in the hall Louise’s wrap was lying, carelessly thrown down as though by someone in a hurry.
He went over and smoothed it with his hand—it was velvet, and felt soft and gentle underneath his fingers—folding it carefully across the back of the chair.
“She’ll be cold without it,” he thought as he passed on up the stairs.
The house was quiet as it always was when Louise was not there; the whole life of it seemed somehow to be missing.
John Marco went into the drawing-room and crossed over to the fireplace. His chair was there, red and soft and yielding, and he sank into it. But as he did so, he heard very distinctly in the silence of the house a sound that he had not expected. It was the noise of someone, a woman probably, rapping urgently with her knuckles on a door. It was not on his door, but on a door somewhere on a floor above. And a moment later the sound of rapping was repeated.
He sat up and listened; and then, rising from his chair, he went and stood in the doorway. He could see the whole sweep of the landing from there. One of the maids was standing there knocking on Louise’s bedroom door; her hand in its white cuff was raised ready to rap again. When she heard the sound of John Marco’s footsteps on the stairs behind her, she started.
“Is your mistress in?” John Marco demanded.
The girl shook her head.
“No, sir,” she said.
“Then why were you knocking?”
The girl did not answer.
For a man of his size John Marco could still move rapidly. He mounted the stairs at a run and pushed the girl aside. Then he turned the handle of the door, ready to walk in. But the door itself was locked.
I Shall Not Want Page 39
