I Shall Not Want (19 page)

“Shut the door, Emmy,” she screamed over Mr. Tuke's shoulder as she rose to meet him. “You're leaving me in a draught.”

Then she held out her hand in its ribbed, black mitten.

“I wanted to see you,” she said. “I wanted to hear all about it.”

“About what?” Mr. Tuke asked.

“Oh, don't try to pull the wool over my eyes,” she answered with a hard, vindictive little laugh. “I heard,
what happened. And I want to know exactly what he meant.”

Mr. Tuke pulled a chair to the fire and sat down. As he did so he saw how very false his imagination out there on the doorstep had played him. The fire was toasting his legs already and on a table by the window a bowl of hyacinths was blooming. He was somewhat taken aback, however, by the directness of Mrs. Marco's onslaught. The only thing to do was to play for time.

“Whose meaning is it that you want to understand?” he asked suavely.

“Mr. Kent's,” Mrs. Marco told him.

“So someone has told you all about that little affair,” Mr. Tuke replied.

“It isn't a little affair,” Mrs. Marco contradicted him. “He's my son and I want to know what Mr. Kent meant by it.”

Mr. Tuke put the tips of his fingers together.

“Really,” he said, “I haven't the least idea what he meant. He didn't tell me.”

“Then why don't you ask him?”

“I did.”

The words slipped out unintentionally. He was about to cover them up with something else, but Mrs. Marco had already pounced on them.

“And what did he say?” she asked. “Now I shall hear something.”

“He declined to say anything,” Mr. Tuke answered. “He merely said that he opposed your son's election.”

“Pah!” Mrs. Marco blew out her lips with anger. “Everyone's trying to keep things back from me these days.”

“Then why not ask your son yourself?” Mr. Tuke suggested cunningly.

“He wouldn't talk about it either,” Mrs. Marco admitted.

There was a pause, and Mrs. Marco drew one of her shawls closer about herself. Then in the manner of old
people Mrs. Marco's whole nature changed suddenly. She became pitiful and appealing.

“You've got to help me,” she said. “I can't stand not knowing.”

“I shall do all I can to clear the matter up,” Mr. Tuke answered her. “I've prayed about it.”

But Mrs. Marco ignored his prayers.

“He hasn't been the same since it happened,” she went on. “He hasn't spoken to anyone. He's just spent his evenings walking up and down in his room. Emmy's seen him. And sometimes he goes out in the evenings. He's out now.”

“I can understand that it upset him,” Mr. Tuke said consolingly.

“He isn't upset,” Mrs. Marco answered, her old contempt returning for a moment. “It would take someone better than Mr. Kent to upset him. It's his conscience that's troubling him. That's what it is: he's got something on his conscience.”

Mr. Tuke's reply was interrupted by Hesther. She opened the door and stood there in the doorway as though listening.

“What were you talking about?” she asked.

“Oh nothing, nothing,” Mr. Tuke said hurriedly as he rose to say good-evening. “We were speaking of Mrs. Marco's health.”

“No, we weren't,” said Mrs. Marco promptly. “We were talking about what Mr. Kent said about your husband.”

“Need you worry her with it?” Hesther asked in that flat, quiet voice of hers.

“Mrs. Marco began it,” Mr. Tuke replied. Then he realised that the answer was somehow below his dignity; it was schoolboyish. “I'm afraid,” he continued, “that tongues have been wagging. Idle gossip has been abroad again.”

“Well we don't want it here,” Hesther said. “We shut our ears to it.”

“That's right,” Mrs. Marco agreed in her high cracked voice. “We shut our ears to it.”

Mr. Tuke shifted in his chair. He felt uncomfortable in the presence of these two women. They were somehow hostile to him; they misunderstood. He was an intruder from the outside world that was saying things about John Marco; and they resented him. The whole household—or at least the women in it—was on the defensive.

“And
I
do more than shut my ears to it,” he replied. “I have threatened that if I find out the offenders I shall expose them.”

Hesther made no reply. She went over to the window and parted the slats in the long Venetian blind. Then she stood there looking out into the street.

Mr. Tuke coughed.

“Is your husband likely to be long?” he asked.

Hesther shrugged her shoulders; there was an air of complete helplessness about the gesture. It seemed to convey that she didn't know where he had gone, why he had even gone at all. And in front of Mr. Tuke, his absence was a humiliation.

“It's most uncharitable weather to be out in,” Mr. Tuke observed. “Most uncharitable.”

As he spoke a fresh cascade of water hit the window; it was as though someone outside were sluicing it with a bucket. Hesther shivered.

“I can't believe that he'll remain out very long,” he went on. “Not on a night like this.”

“He'll be back in his own time,” Hesther replied.

She left the window and came over to the fire. Then she stood there looking down on Mrs. Marco.

“It's time you were in bed,” she said. “You'll be tired in the morning.”

“But I wanted to see if John was all right ...” she began.

“I shall be waiting up for him,” Hesther answered. “There's no reason to have the whole house disturbed.”

Mrs. Marco got reluctantly to her feet and began gathering her things together. She proceeded with the unhurried thoroughness of the aged.

“I don't like it,” she said. “He was never like this when he was at home.”

“This
is
his home,” Hesther answered sharply.

“I know,” said Mrs. Marco. “It's not your fault. It's just that he's not at rest here.” She turned to Mr. Tuke. “Please say something to him,” she said. “You can: you're a minister. Tell him it isn't right for any husband . . .”

But Hesther cut her short.

“You're over-tired,” she said. “You've been doing too much.”

“I only wanted to ask Mr. Tuke to make it all right,” Mrs. Marco explained. “I only wanted him to . . .”

“You can tell him some other time,” Hesther replied. “You'll only be having another of your fainting attacks if you go on now.”

The suggestion of one of these attacks seemed to frighten Mrs. Marco: she put her hand on her bosom over her heart.

“Perhaps you're right,” she said feebly. “It's always hammering. Perhaps I ought to lie down.”

She gathered her skirts together. Then she picked up her reticule and her spectacle cases, her extra shawls and her bottle of tablets. There was something practised and precise about the way she loaded herself with her belongings; it was evidently a part of some invariable bed-time ritual in which she would let no one help her. Then, when she was ready, she beckoned for Hesther to come over. And leaning heavily on her arm she prepared for the ordeal of the stairs.

Left alone in the room, Mr. Tuke felt drowsy. The air was close and oppressive, and after a few minutes when Hesther had not returned, he sat back and shut his eyes. He did not actually drop off: of that he was certain. He
was not the sort of man to indulge in cat-naps. But when he sat up again and opened his eyes, he saw John Marco standing there. It was as though, invisible when he had entered, John Marco had suddenly and silently materialised in front of Mr. Tuke's chair.

And he presented a strange figure. His clothes were drenched and his trousers, too, were clinging to his legs; they seemed to have been splashed by every passing vehicle. Even his face was spattered by the rain.

Mr. Tuke started forward.

“Ah!” he began. “So the wanderer has returned.”

“You wanted to see me?”

“That's what I came for,” Mr. Tuke told him.

“On Chapel business?”

“On private business.”

“It's very late for private business,” John Marco answered.

“But this is important,” Mr. Tuke replied. “Very important.”

John Marco did not move; in the warmth of the room his clothes were steaming, but he did not seem to notice their wetness.

“Go on,” he said.

“It's about that little aifair at the vestry meeting the other night,” he began.

“Is that all you wanted to see me about?” he asked.

“Isn't it enough?” Mr. Tuke asked in astonishment. “Isn't your good name at stake?”

“It's over and done with,” John Marco answered slowly. “It's better forgotten.”

“But you're an Elder remember,” Mr. Tuke told him. “People are bound to talk.”

“Then they must talk.”

Mr. Tuke came over and put
his
hand on Mr. Marco's arm.

“Why not tell me everything?” he asked. “Why not let the sunlight in?”

“There's nothing to tell,” John Marco answered.

The tone of his voice startled Mr. Tuke; it sounded so hard and bitter. He dropped his hand.

“It's very sad,” he said, “when people harden their hearts.” He paused and gave what might have been a little sigh as though to show that the formal object of the visit was over. “I saw Mr. Kent to-day,” he added by way of conversation. “His daughter's back, you know.”

For the first time John Marco's air of reserve slipped from him.

“Was she there?” he asked. “Have you seen her?” Mr. Tuke nodded.

“Yes, she was there,” he answered. “And she's grown into a very fine young woman. I remember her as scarcely more than a child.”

John Marco was walking up and down the room by now; crossing and re-crossing between the door and the window. Mr. Tuke was watching him out of the corner of his eye; he thought that he had never seen anyone so restless.

“Did you find out why she's come back?” John Marco asked suddenly.

“I did,” Mr. Tuke replied. “Her parents told me. She's come back to get married.”

John Marco stopped. He stood motionless, facing Mr. Tuke.

“Are . . . are you sure of this?” he asked.

“Perfectly sure,” Mr. Tuke assured him, a trifle coldly. “I've been introduced to her intended. A most estimable young man.”

“But what's he like?” John Marco came up close to Mr. Tuke as he spoke. He was peering into his face.

Mr. Tuke raised his eyebrows in surprise.

“Really,” he said. “I couldn't tell you. I only saw him for a moment. I believe him to be a chemist's assistant.”

“Does she seem happy?” John Marco asked. “Could you tell that?”

“People in love always seem happy,” Mr. Tuke replied.

John Marco made no answer. He began walking up and down the room again.

“When are they marrying?” he asked at length.

“Sometime after Easter,” Mr. Tuke answered. “I'm putting up the banns straightaway.”

But John Marco did not seem to have heard him. He had paused by the window with his back to Mr. Tuke and was staring out into the street through the slats of the blind that Hesther had left parted when she had grown tired of watching for him. His handkerchief was in his hand and he was screwing and rescrewing it between his fingers as if he were trying to tear the fabric into fragments.

Mr. Tuke regarded him. Then he did one of the few brave things of his life. He went over to John Marco and stood by him.

“It's not too late for me to help you,” he replied. “You have a load of sin on your mind. Tell me why Mary Kent's return has affected you this way?”

But John Marco merely held out his hand.

“It's very late,” he said. “Good-night.”

When Mr. Tuke had gone (and he left so hurriedly after his dismissal that he had to stand in the darkness of the porch fumbling with the buttons of his coat, for it was still raining), John Marco went upstairs.

The house was very quiet by now, he had that strange isolated feeling of being the one waking person in a sleeping household. He went straight to his room. But it was not Hesther's room. Ever since that first night which he had spent in the chair where Emmy had found him, he had slept alone. It was a small room that had once been Mr. Trackett's dressing-room which he now occupied. There was space in it only for a narrow bed, a chest of drawers and a pile of round cardboard hat-boxes that had once been Mr. Trackett's. They had been there when John Marco moved into the room and he had left them where
they stood. It was in a way significant of the fact that he had never felt this house to be his own.

Opening one of the drawers in the chest, he removed a small box from it. His personal possessions were in that box. He unlocked it and from an envelope at the bottom took out the remaining half of the ring that he had broken for Mary. Then he pushed up the window. Beneath him lay the dark shrubbery: the tangle of bushes was thick there. The half ring could lie for years among the roots, undiscovered. It was worth nothing now; after what Mr. Tuke had told him it had become simply a silly piece of broken jewellery. So, parting the curtains, he stood there ready to throw. But at the last moment his resolve failed him. The ghost of its old meaning still seemed to cling to it, and even now he did not doubt that the two halves would somehow join again.

And as he stood there he heard a movement behind him. He turned guiltily as though he had been surprised in something disgraceful, and he saw Hesther standing in the doorway.

She was wearing the pink wrap that he had seen for the first time on their wedding-night. But it was faded now; it clung to her in folds. But it was the fact that she was there at all that surprised him—she had never been to his room like this; they were careful to respect each other's privacy. And already Hesther was closing the door behind her. Once it was shut, she stood with her back against it.