“Queer people,” was James’s judgment. He wondered whether it was the Sylvesters whom Sally had wished to avoid, and he wondered why. He said over the lady’s shoulder,
“Goodbye, Daph—I’m just off. Thanks for asking me.”
And Daphne said, “Oh, darling, must you?” And he thought she was going to say, “Where’s Sally?” and he wondered if Sally would mind, because if it was the Sylvesters she wanted to avoid—But Daphne only blew him a kiss.
As he turned away, he heard Mrs. Sylvester say in a deep, husky voice,
“Jocko is coming home. Did you know? I adore Jocko.”
VIII
Sally stayed where she was, and heard James go down the stair. She would give him time to get away before she made her escape. She found him a very disturbing person, and she couldn’t do with being any more disturbed than she was. What she wanted at the moment was Somebody’s Soothing Syrup, oil on the troubled waters, Daphne’s light inconsequent chatter, or the ramblings of one of life’s bigger bores. Not any more James Elliot, and not—oh, certainly not—any Ambrose Sylvester.
She ran up to the next floor and into Daphne’s bedroom. The modern girl is provided against the ravages of emotion. Sally did her mouth again, did her eyebrows, tried Daphne’s powder, thought that it must cost about a pound a box, and approved the result.
These proceedings took some time. She decided that James must have gone, and that this was the moment for her to slip away.
At the head of the stair she listened, and heard the ebb and flow of the laughter and the talk from below. It would be perfectly safe. She must walk quietly down without appearing to hurry and the minute she got downstairs just grab her cloak and be off.
She got as far as the half-landing and stopped, because there was someone there. Ambrose Sylvester rose from the chair in which James had sat and came to meet her.
A deathly panic invaded Sally. She was to rage at herself afterwards and wonder how much or how little her face had shown, but at the moment she couldn’t think at all, only fight to push the panic out and bolt and bar her house against it. She heard Ambrose say in his beautiful voice,
“Daphne said you were upstairs, so I came here to wait for you.”
“Why?” said Sally with her hand on the newel-post at the turn. She managed the one word very creditably, and this heartened her.
He put a hand on her arm.
“I wanted to talk to you.”
Sally pushed her last bolt home.
“All right, here I am,” she said.
He drew her towards the chairs, and they sat down. Sally was herself again, but she was glad enough to sit, because her knees were shaking. She managed a small laugh.
“What is it all about? You know, you said that as if you hadn’t seen me for a year.”
He looked at her with an air of romantic sadness.
“It is a long time since we have really talked, and tonight I felt that if we could have one of our old talks again—if we could put the clock back for an hour—”
“No one can ever put the clock back,” said Sally.
“We could if we tried—together. We might for an hour forget the years, the estrangement—”
“And Hildegarde?”
Her heart was beating a little faster. Ambrose and his ridiculous heroics—But because they had once rung passionately true they could still set her heart knocking against her side, even after all that had happened since then.
He gave a kind of groan at Hildegarde’s name.
“Do you think she has ever taken your place? Do you think I don’t know what she has done to me? Do you think I am happy?”
“No—I don’t think you are very happy, Ambrose.”
He caught at her hand.
“I live on her money. She never lets me forget it. She never stops watching me. When I am starved for a word with you, I must have it here in a public place. Oh, Sally, why did I do it? Why didn’t I wait? You were such an enchanting little girl! I might have known!”
Sally pulled her hand away and jumped up.
“Good gracious, Ambrose! I was seventeen, and I had a schoolgirl schwärm for you, but if you think I want to put back the clock to that and go all damp and miserable over you again, you’d better wake up—to say nothing of Hildegarde probably trying to poison us both.”
She was watching him through her lashes, and he put his head in his hands and groaned again.
“You can laugh at me! You don’t know how damned unhappy I am.”
Sally hesitated. Was it all make-believe—the sound of his own fine voice, the desire for the limelight and the centre of the stage? Or was there a struggling, unhappy Ambrose behind the actor? She sat down again and said in a new, gentle voice,
“What is it?”
“Hell,” said Ambrose Sylvester. “Sally, if you ever know what it’s been, don’t—don’t think too hardly of me. You see”—he lifted his head and looked at her with bright, wild eyes—“you take the first step and you have to go on. The ground slides under you and you can’t stop. Yesterday in that damned fog I thought—Hildegarde was driving—and I thought if we could have a smash now and get out of it all, it would be the best thing.”
Sally looked at him steadily. The fog—why did he mention the fog? And what was it all about, this unbelievable scene? A quick, wary thought watched for a meaning behind its unreality. She said,
“I don’t know what this is all about.”
“Do you know what has stopped me making an end of it, not once but many times? It was the thought of you, Sally. You see, when I think of you I am different. I think of what you may be doing. You won’t laugh, will you, Sally? I think, ‘Now she is reading—now she is writing to Jocko—now she is walking,’ and it is a sort of companionship. Now you see how lonely I am when I have to be satisfied with that kind of companionship. And yesterday in that horrible fog I was thinking, ‘Sally won’t be out in this. She will be at home by the fire with a book.’”
Sally’s thought spoke sharply and insistently—“That’s what he wants. He wants to know what you were doing yesterday afternoon. What are you going to say? Be careful!” Her heart stood still. Had anyone seen her go, or come back, or take Gladys’s bicycle? “Be careful, be careful, be careful!”
She said in a cool little voice, “You know, Ambrose, this is all rather embarrassing.”
“Is that all you think about?”
“Well, someone’s got to think about it, and I’d rather it wasn’t Hildegarde.” She got up. “Honestly, Ambrose, this sort of thing’s no good. It won’t make you any happier, and it doesn’t get us anywhere.”
“Sally!”
“It’s not going to get us anywhere,” said Sally, and ran down the stair.
IX
James usually walked to his job in the morning. It was one of the things Jackson despised him for. To Jackson the human leg was an obsolete form of conveyance. To use it betokened extreme penury or a barbaric devotion to exercise. James liked a spot of exercise, and was despised accordingly. Today, however, there was no Jackson to give him a lofty good-morning. Mr. Parkinson, the manager, had not arrived and would not arrive for another half hour. James and Miss Callender had the place to themselves.
Miss Callender was a pretty girl and a most efficient clerk. She had a tendency to roll her eyes at any young man, but it did not mean very much. James had begun by being rather alarmed, but they were now firm friends. Long practice with the fourteen cousins had made him an admirable listener. He had listened right through three of Miss Callender’s love affairs, and was now in the middle of the quarrel in progress between her and Mr. Leonard Rowbotham, of Rowbotham & Sons, haberdashers, a gentlemanly young man who used very expensive habits, on the question of whether his widowed mother should be invited to make her home with them. Miss Callender said no, and Mr. Rowbotham said yes, old Mrs. Rowbotham cried, and James recommended tact coupled with firmness. There the matter had stood when the latest accounts were to hand.
When, therefore, Miss Callender approached him with the air of a girl who is simply bursting with suppressed information, James felt quite sure that there had been important developments, and that he was going to be told all about them. To his surprise, however, Miss Callender’s opening remark had nothing to do with the great Rowbotham affair. She patted the little curls at the back of her neck and said with a sidelong glance,
“Mr. Jackson’s not here this morning, Mr. Elliot.”
“I’m early,” said James.
“So am I early. So is Mr. Jackson most days, but I’m ever so glad he’s not here this morning.”
James was obviously intended to ask why she was glad. He obliged.
Miss Callender rolled her eyes.
“Well, of course it’s always nice to get a word with you, Mr. Elliot—just ourselves, I mean. But there was something I wanted to have a chance of telling you—if I had a chance, if you know what I mean.”
She was in the little enclosed office, and James half in and half out leaning against the jamb. He nodded. He knew exactly what she meant.
“On the other hand,” said Miss Callender, polishing her nail with her pocket handkerchief, “I don’t know if I really ought to, because once mischief’s been made you can’t undo it, can you? My mother brought me up ever so strict about that, only what I say is, if there are things going on that are what I call downright underhand and mean, well, then it’s better to know about them, and we’ve always been friends—haven’t we?”
James was puzzled. It looked like something to do with the business. He didn’t want to hear any more. He made a movement, and Miss Callender pushed her handkerchief up her sleeve.
“Well, I’m going to tell you, Mr. Elliot, and you can judge for yourself. You know that Rolls you sold to Colonel Pomeroy—well, you’d hardly gone yesterday when someone rang up about it.”
“Colonel Pomeroy?”
“Oh, no. You’d hardly gone, you know, and I wouldn’t have been here, only there was those accounts I wanted to finish, and Mr. Jackson he was waiting about because there had been some talk about a cinema. I hadn’t said yes and I hadn’t said no, if you understand, Mr. Elliot, because I was going to let it depend on what I was feeling like when it came to the point—about Lenny, you know—and I hadn’t rightly made up my mind. So when this telephone bell rang I couldn’t think who it was, because really it was after hours.”
“And who was it?”
“Well, they began right away about the Rolls, only they didn’t say it was that at first. They wanted to know about the trade plate—had we sent out a car under a number ought-ought-something-or-other? Well, I was busy, and there was Mr. Jackson doing nothing, so I called him in. ‘Here, you take this,’ I said. ‘It’s more in your line than mine,’ and I went on with what I was doing.”
“Yes?” said James. He was interested, he was very much interested.
“Well, Mr. Elliot, you can see for yourself he wouldn’t be very far away, Mr. Jackson wouldn’t. He took the receiver, and I wasn’t paying any attention at first—I just got a word here and there, from the other end, you know. But what made me take notice was hearing Mr. Jackson say, ‘Have you any complaint?’ so then I listened. It was a man speaking the other end, and he said, ‘Oh, no, quite the reverse. Your demonstrator obliged a young lady, and she would like to thank him.”
James whistled.
“I say, are you sure you heard that? I mean, can you hear?”
Miss Callender nodded with energy.
“Of course I can—it’s as easy as easy. And that’s what he said.” She rolled her eyes. “What’s she like? Is she pretty? You might tell me about her, Mr. Elliot.”
“I don’t know what you mean,” said James, and hoped he hadn’t blushed.
Miss Callender was an accommodating girl.
“You needn’t if you don’t want to,” she said. “Well, Mr. Jackson went away as far as he could for the flex, and he said, ‘Did you wish to speak to the demonstrator?’ Well, the man said he did, and Mr. Jackson said, ‘Speaking.’ And how he had the nerve, I don’t know, but of course he didn’t know that I could hear what was being said at the other end.”
James tried to remember exactly what had been said.
“Look here, how do you know all this was about the Rolls I sold to Colonel Pomeroy? Jackson does most of the demonstrating.”
“You wait,” said Miss Callender. “I haven’t told you all the bits, but I’d heard enough to know it was the Rolls all right. There was something about the fog being so thick, and you know you told me it was hard to get along in the country though it wasn’t so bad in town. Oh, it was the Rolls all right—and Mr. Jackson making out he’d driven it! I didn’t say anything, but I was boiling. The minute he saw there was something to get out of it, it was him who was driving the car all right! Well, then he said, ‘Who’s speaking?’ and they said Hazeby, Meredith & Hazeby, solicitors, and they were speaking for the young lady who was their client, and she very much wanted to thank the driver personally, and what would the name be? And Mr. Jackson said, ‘Jackson.’”
James began to say something and swallowed it.
“Well, I won’t say you’re wrong,” said Miss Callender. “If it hadn’t been for my mother rubbing it into us all never to take notice, or to flare up, or to answer back in business hours, well, I don’t know what I’d have said. Mother had been in business herself, and she always said, ‘You can’t afford to make enemies with your tongue—you’ve got to keep friendly all round no matter what your feelings are.’ And you can’t say it’s not good advice—can you?”
James said he thought it was very good advice.
“Well, it’s all that kept me from telling Mr. Jackson what I thought about him,” said Miss Callender frankly. “Mind you, Mr. Elliot, I’ve never been friends with him like I have with you, but we’ve been quite friendly. I’ve been to the cinema with him once and again—that time Ernie was treating me so badly—and I won’t say he wasn’t quite all right though a bit too pleased with himself for my taste, but I couldn’t have believed he’d have done a right-down mean kind of action like taking the credit for somebody else’s job.”
James laughed.
“Well, he could hardly expect to pass for me—could he?”
Miss Callender rolled her eyes.
“That’s where the fog came in. This Mr. Hazeby asked particularly would he know the young lady if she was to meet him somewhere, and Mr. Jackson coughed and cleared his throat, and he said he couldn’t be sure, what with the fog and all. Well, then this Mr. Hazeby said that it was the same with the young lady, and what about each of them wearing a buttonhole and meeting just outside Broadcasting House. And Mr. Jackson said that would do very nicely, but he would hold his handkerchief in his hand instead of the buttonhole because he couldn’t be sure of getting one so late. And I heard him look round at me to see if I was taking notice, but I’d my fingers to my ears and adding up under my breath, and he must have thought I hadn’t heard. Well, I lost a bit there, but they must have fixed it up, for I heard him say—Mr. Jackson, I mean—‘All right, a quarter to seven,’ and he rang off. Well, then I said, ‘What on earth was all that about? I don’t know how you think I can do accounts with people talking all over my office.’ And he came and stood where you are now, looking as pleased as Punch, and said he’d got a nibble about a car and he was off to meet the man and have a drink with him. That was in case I’d heard anything, and I don’t know how I kept from telling him that he needn’t think he was taking me in, because he wasn’t. So then he said he was sorry about the cinema and it would have to be some other night, and I said that was all right and I couldn’t have come anyhow because I was going to the Palais-de-Danse with Len. And I did. It’s all fixed up, Mr. Elliot—about Mrs. Rowbotham, I mean. She’s going to move in over the way with Mrs. Bertram who’s a great friend of hers and’s had losses and only too glad to let her two front rooms, so we’re going to get the banns put up. And you’ll c
ome to my wedding, won’t you? I knew you’d be ever so pleased.”
X
The manager arrived at a quarter to ten. Mr. Jackson did not arrive at all. James had to take over two of his jobs, and was kept busy. In the afternoon he had to drive a Wolseley 25 down to Chislehurst. Still no Jackson. Miss Callender rolled her eyes and said it looked as if he had got off with the young lady.
“If she’s an heiress and he marries her—and it ought really to have been you—I suppose you’ll never forgive me, Mr. Elliot.”
James said that nothing would induce him to carry an heiress.
Miss Callender adjusted a curl.
“Why on earth not?” she enquired.
“Girls think quite enough of themselves without having the purse-strings.”
“Well, I think it would be ever so nice. I mean, suppose Lenny was to come in for a fortune, do you think I’d say, ‘Oh, no—I can’t’ and ‘you’d better ask someone else’? Not much!”
“Girls are different,” said James.
“They’ve more sense,” said Miss Callender, and tossed her head. Then, as he turned to go, she dropped her voice. “It seems funny Mr. Jackson not turning up, all the same.”
James found the words coming back to him as he threaded his way through the traffic. He was a very good driver. He was, as a matter of fact, a better driver than Jackson—better nerve, better judgment, quicker in the uptake. He wondered what had happened to Jackson … Nonsense! Nothing had happened to him. There wasn’t anything to happen. Daisy Callender had made a mountain out of a molehill. He didn’t believe she could have heard half the things she said she had heard over the telephone. She might have got a word here and there, but she had imagined the rest. He knew what girls were. He didn’t believe the conversation had anything to do with the Rolls which he had sold to Colonel Pomeroy. The whole story sounded most awfully far-fetched. Daisy Callender had probably mixed up two conversations, one with some Mr. Hazeby who had rung up about a car, and another quite different conversation in which Jackson was making a date with a girl. Daisy said she had lost a bit in the middle. She had probably left Jackson talking to Hazeby and come back to Jackson talking to his girl.
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