Mrs. Sneyd looked surprised. “Oh, dear,” she said. “I’m not thinking.”
There was a pause; then she spoke again.
“It’s just the two of us now, you see. Lily can stay with Elsie.”
Mr. Biddle lit his pipe and removed two more of her pieces. It wasn’t like a game of draughts at all; it was slaughter. But it was obvious that only one player was giving his mind to the game. The other was gazing out of the window with a distant, distracted look in her eyes.
“I suppose it was really my fault in a way for marrying someone so much older than myself,” she said almost as though speaking to herself. “You see I was in my twenties at the time and Stan was forty-three. I’d been through it once before, remember.”
Her hands were in her lap and she was apparently oblivious of Mr. Biddle. When she spoke she seemed to be thinking aloud.
“I shall have to get a post as housekeeper or something,” she said. “There are plenty of widowers who advertise.”
Through his own cloud of smoke Mr. Biddle sat back and looked at her. He could see now that she must have been good looking in her time. The black dress she was wearing set off the bundle of her fair hair—it was of the indefinite, ungreyable kind—that she wore coiled in the nape of her neck.
She had added a touch of colour to her cheeks and she no longer even looked miserable. There was a new expression of helpless complacency on her countenance as though the events of the preceding week had passed completely over her and left her untouched. The corners of her mouth, in particular, no longer drooped; they were set in hopeful, optimistic fashion. It was almost as if she were planning something.
Mr. Biddle was looking at her so hard that he almost jumped when she spoke to him.
“I don’t know how you’re placed yourself,” she began, “but I was just wondering … ”
Mr. Biddle jumped up and knocked his newly-filled pipe out on the fire grate.
“I reckon it must be about bedtime,” he said. “We’ve had a tiring couple of days.”
Chapter Fifteen
The house seemed unnaturally quiet with Gerald away, quiet and vaguely unfriendly. Alice began to imagine things, so that she had to get up and go into the kitchen to make sure that there wasn’t someone standing there on the little square of concrete outside. It was nerves of course; the result of being alone all day. And she wasn’t the only one who had got like that. There was a young, married woman with two children up the road in Collet Close—the case had been in the papers—who had put her head into a gas oven for no reason at all, except that she said she was tired of never seeing anyone except the tradesmen. Suburban Neurosis, the Coroner had called it; Alice had understood what that woman must have felt. She knew that it was possible to live within a hundred yards of a bus stop and still feel like the last woman on a lost continent.
She ate a makeshift, unsatisfying sort of meal in the drawing-room—when Gerald was in late she never bothered to cook herself anything—and tried to read. But she soon found herself thinking instead of reading. And thinking wasn’t what she wanted to do; it was to keep her mind off things that she had bought herself a magazine; the rubbishy sixpennyworth lay open in her hand and she wasn’t even looking at it. She got up at last and put the wireless on. It had a distracting effect sometimes. But to-night it didn’t help her. And after a few minutes she turned it off again and sat on the couch simply staring into the fire.
She could see now what a mistake it had been ever to get married at all. Everything had been so bright and cheerful before. There had been no responsibilities. Now everything was a responsibility. She was even a responsibility herself. It was that which really made her miserable. She was spoiling things for Gerald. She had noticed a change in him, too, since they had been married. He didn’t look so young any more. And, even before his father had dropped in on that fatal night, he had always seemed to be worried about something. She knew what it was, of course; it was the fact that he had tried to do too much. On his income they ought to have gone into a flat somewhere and not started to buy a house. And all the furniture—it had been fun at the time to order, but it was all wrong really; they could have done perfectly well with something far less lavish. If they had chosen the Cottage Suite instead of the Knole, it would have been nearly paid for by now.
She had become a burden on Gerald, that was the truth of it. And she wasn’t going to be a burden any longer. Rather than be a drag on him she would go back home again and leave him to lead his old bachelor life. Or kill herself like the woman in Collet Close. But there was no need for that: it was only her nerves that were suggesting it. There were plenty of simpler ways; she could go out and get a job for herself, for instance. Faith Bros. had told her when she left that they would be ready to have her back at any time. But you can’t get a job and have a baby at the same time; she knew that. And it was because she knew it that she didn’t attempt to take up her magazine again but just sat there looking into the fire and letting the rich Knole fringe trickle almost unnoticed through her fingers as she played with it.
She was still sitting there like that nearly an hour later; she had hardly moved in all that time. But by then she had made up her mind. She knew exactly what she was going to do.
When Gerald finally came in, it seemed for a moment simply because he was back again, simply because she wasn’t alone any longer, that everything would be all right. When he put his arms round her she wanted to cry from the relief of it.
“I’m so glad you’re back,” she said. “I get so frightened when you’re not here.”
He kept his arm round her and pulled her down beside him on to the couch.
“You’ll have to take things easy,” he said. “You’ll be making yourself ill.”
There was a pause.
“The man came again about the wireless,” she said aimlessly.
“What about it?”
“He wanted the money.”
“Did you give it to him?”
“No: you’d forgotten to leave it.”
“Well, hadn’t you got it?”
“How could I have?”
Gerald passed his hand across his forehead.
“All right,” he said. “I’ll give it to you to-morrow.”
“Better give it me now,” she answered. “You may forget it. He’s coming back.”
He thrust his hand into his pocket.
“How much is it?” he asked.
“Seven and six,” she told him. “We missed last week.”
He counted out two half-crowns, a florin and a sixpence and passed them over to her.
“There you are,” he said.
She took it, feeling as though in some way she were robbing him. And he was wearing that worried frown again. It had been silly of her to mention money the very moment he came in.
“How did everything go off?” she asked at last.
“Missed most of it,” he answered.
“What a pity,” she said.
“But I had all I wanted.”
“Was it beastly?”
“Pretty beastly.”
“Poor old Gerald. It’s all been horrid for you.”
“Doesn’t matter now,” he said. “It’s over.”
“Was Daddy there?”
“Oh, yes, he was there all right.”
“He wasn’t in the way?”
“Mrs. Sneyd didn’t seem to think so.”
They sat for some time without talking after that. Alice looked at Gerald; he was still frowning.
“What’s the matter?” she asked.
“Nothing.”
“Well, what were you thinking about?”
“I wasn’t thinking about anything in particular.”
“But you must have been.”
“I tell you I wasn’t.”
There was another long pause. Then, quite abruptly, Gerald spoke.
“I’m going to get rid of the car,” he said.
“What?”
“I’m goi
ng to get rid of the car.”
“But you can’t do that!”
“It’s what you suggested,” he reminded her.
“Yes, but you’ll hate it without the car.”
“That’s not the point.”
“But can’t we economise somehow else?”
“How?”
“I don’t know. We’ll manage. I’ve told you I’ll save every penny.”
“You can’t with a baby coming.”
It was the moment she had been waiting for.
“I’m not going to have a baby,” she said.
He put down the cigarette he had been going to light.
“Do you mean it?” he asked.
She got up and faced him.
“Yes,” she said, “I mean it. I’ve made up my mind about it.”
He sat there staring at her.
“You haven’t… done anything?” he asked.
“Not yet,” she told him.
“Then don’t be a fool. You’ll kill yourself.”
“I’m not going to do anything myself. I’m going to ask a doctor.”
“They won’t do it; they’re too frightened.”
“Some doctors do it.”
“Yes, but not our sort.”
“It’s not going to be one of our sort.”
“Who are you going to?”
“There’s a doctor near Mornington Crescent,” she, said. “He makes his living by it.”
Gerald got up too. He had never known her determined like this before.
“How did you find out about him?” he asked.
“I asked Celia,” she said quietly. “She told me she’d already given you the number.”
Gerald felt a sudden wave of coldness run over him.
“She told you that?” he said.
She nodded.
“It’s not safe,” he said.
“But it is. He’s done it dozens of times.”
Gerald shook his head.
“No,” he said firmly. “I’m not going near that nigger.”
“In that case,” said Alice, “I’ll go alone.”
It was long after midnight. They just lay in the darkness talking. Ever since they had gone up to bed they had gone over the same point again and again.
“But don’t you see,” she said. “It’s the only way. You were quite right; we can’t afford a child.”
“It’s not safe,” he persisted stubbornly.
“That’s my affair,” she answered.
“No, it isn’t; it’s mine too.”
“Well, why not find out? There can’t be any harm in simply finding out.”
“There’s nothing to find out.”
“Yes, there is,” she said. “He may be too expensive.”
“He’s probably not even qualified,” Gerald said.
“Celia said he was.”
“But he may hurt you.”
Alice put her arms round his neck.
“Gerald, darling,” she said. “You aren’t making it any easier. You don’t think I’m exactly looking forward to it, do you? It’s just that everything’s been so beastly ever since it started—not you specially; just everything—that I don’t want to have it. And I’m not going to have it. You’ve never wanted it; I can tell that. And I don’t blame you. Why should you have to go without things for something you don’t want? Oh, Gerald, do let’s be sensible and help each other.”
There was a long pause. Then Gerald reached out in the darkness and took her hand.
“You’re a brick,” he said.
“You will help me?”
Another pause.
“You will?” she repeated.
“We’ll see.”
He lay on staring up at the ceiling long after he thought that she was asleep. When she spoke her voice startled him.
“It doesn’t mean we shouldn’t ever be able to have one,” she said. “We could still have one as soon as we’d got some more money.”
Chapter Sixteen
When it came time to leave, Mrs. Sneyd told Mr. Biddle that she owed everything to him. She said that no matter how much she did she would never be able to repay him.
It was an effusive, impulsive kind of speech, poured out in the moment of departure: she just stood there on the doorstep congratulating him. In a way, Mrs. Sneyd embarrassed Mr. Biddle: she made it sound as though the whole funeral, and not just the Mariners’ contribution to it, had been his idea. He moved rather self-consciously from one foot to the other and assured her that what he had done was nothing, absolutely nothing.
Then, as they had arranged, young Violet said goodbye to her mother, too, and set out to walk round to the station with Mr. Biddle. Mrs. Sneyd watched them go. She stood looking till they were almost out of sight. And then as the front door closed and she was left with the silence of the house to herself she knew for the first time what it was to settle down to solitary widowhood. The excitement was over; the captains and the kings had departed. She was alone now—alone with Mr. Sneyd’s slippers, more lifelike than she had ever remembered them, still standing in the corner.
But young Violet was in very high spirits. This was an outing she had been looking forward to. As soon as she had known definitely that Mr. Biddle was leaving she had planned to be the last to see him off. She liked Mr. Biddle and she wanted his memory of Tadford to be not of an overcome woman clinging tenaciously to him for protection but of a golden-haired girl waving good-bye on the platform. When he stopped and bought her a small box of chocolates to cheer her up she felt sure she had succeeded.
She was, however, quite unprepared for Mr. Biddle’s action when they arrived at the station. Just as the train was getting ready to move out he began plunging about in his pocket and produced a small, white envelope.
“Give this to your mother, dear,” he said.
“What is it?” she asked childishly.
“Never you mind,” said Mr. Biddle. He patted her on the shoulder and prepared to get into his carriage.
Violet looked at Mr. Biddle and then down at the envelope and back at Mr. Biddle again. Then she took a chance. Opening her eyes very wide, she jumped up and kissed him.
“Thank you,” she said. “Thank you ever so much.”
Mr. Biddle kissed her back again and took his seat. Now that he was actually going, he found it all very moving; there were tears in his eyes as he saw the innocent child standing there. Then, with a jolt, the train began to move, and all that he could do was to wave to her out of the window. She waved back with the envelope in her hand like a handkerchief.
The train slowly curved upon itself and Mr. Biddle was lost to sight. Young Violet, her platform ticket between her teeth, sat down on one of the long empty seats and opened the envelope. It contained a brief note which said that Mr. Biddle would have had to spend as much if he had gone to a hotel, and with the note was a cheque for five pounds. Young Violet looked at it hypnotised. With what Gerald had given them, there was now more ready money in the house than she could ever remember.
Mr. Biddle gazed out of the window. The train was drawing out past a straggle of small factories and dirty backyards. But he didn’t see any of them. He was too deep in thought. He was still determined to see justice done to Mrs. Sneyd; and, if the Order wouldn’t do their share, he was going to see that the relations did theirs. It wasn’t any concern of his, really; but he had known more than one instance where a friendly word from an outsider had been just enough to remind people of their duty. It was all wrong that Gerald should have a car and a radiogram while his stepmother was left so many debts that she was afraid to answer the door when anyone strange knocked. It might seem a little hard on Gerald at first, he reflected; perhaps to a lesser degree even hard on Alice, too. But they were young, and Mr. Biddle had never known anyone who wasn’t the better for having gone without things at the beginning.
Then his mind strayed to other matters. He forgot Mrs. Sneyd for a space and thought about his own private future. It lay in Dorset, on
the estate of the Dorset Developments Association. He had the survey map in his pocket. After a moment he pulled it out and studied it. There it lay, plot 35a, a little rectangle of land tucked away under the Cliff on the East Side of the bay, like a secluded corner in Eden. He could foresee himself spending a very pleasant bachelor old age there. It would be like Finchley as it had been when he first moved there, all green and beautiful, only with the sun shining all the time.
It would be sleepy and undisturbed in Dorset, which, at sixty-eight, was what he wanted. And above all, moving down there would put a good hundred miles between himself and Miss Wachett. It wasn’t that he actually disliked the woman; Mr. Biddle had very few personal dislikes of that kind. It was simply that the more he saw of her mannerisms, the way she patted the cushions on the couch before sitting down, the way she drew in the corners of her mouth before speaking, the way, with all her meekness, she blew her nose loudly and defiantly like a man, the more he had to keep on reminding himself that she was his dead wife’s sister to remain even polite to her.
But he did not think of Miss Wachett for long. It was hot in the carriage and the motion of the train rocked him to and fro like a baby in a cradle. With the pleasant consciousness of a difficult task, so far well done, he sat back and closed his eyes.
Before he was ten minutes out of Tadford he was fast asleep.
After he came out of the third motor dealer’s in Great Portland Street, Gerald went into an A.B.C. for a cup of coffee. It had been the same in every showroom. When he had walked in, a smooth, good-looking young man rather like himself had come forward thinking he wanted to buy something. Then, when it turned out that he wanted to sell, all the smoothness had vanished. The three young men, one after the other, had walked out condescendingly on to the pavement and looked at the car as if it were something that was home-made. Gerald had been forced to stand by while they kicked contemptuously at the tyres and jumped up and down on the running-board to test the springs. And, in the end, he had driven off again each time telling them he would rather give it away than sell it at their sort of price.
He hadn’t gone round to Rex from whom he had bought the car because he didn’t want him to know he was selling it. That would have been too much an admission of failure, a confession that life in Boleyn Avenue was something beyond his means. But there seemed to be nothing else for it. So in the end he paid his twopence for the small coffee he had just drunk and got back into the car again. It gave him a pang simply to see it. He had washed and leathered it himself last night. Even the chromium plating was unscarred. It had come up like silver under the duster. Altogether, he wondered whether there was a smarter sports car in London. The oversize headlamps and the twin horns which he had fitted showed that the car had belonged to someone who took his motoring pretty seriously.
Love in Our Time Page 17
