Love in Our Time (16 page)

The thought of the fifteen pounds began to worry Gerald again; he kept on remembering it like a piece of bad luck. To take his mind off it he went across and turned on the radiogram. There was something strangely comforting about the instrument: it was so opulent looking that it seemed impossible to be hard up and live in the same house with it. He had just found a station and sat down to enjoy it when Alice came in.

“Turn it off at once,” she said. “You'll wake her up.”

He went over obediently and turned the switch. “I didn't know she was asleep,” he said.

“Then you ought to have thought,” she answered briskly. “It's the only thing for her after what she's been through.”

“Well, what about me?” he asked. “Haven't
I
been through it?”

“You're a man,” she said. “That's different.”

He pulled out his case and lit a cigarette.

“And you'd better get used to the idea,” Alice went on, “because she'll have to sleep there to-night as well.”

“But—but why can't she sleep on the couch?” he asked.

He felt ashamed as he said it: it was a wretched business, not having a spare room in which they could put anyone up.

“Because she's just lost her husband, that's why,” Alice told him. “How would you like to sleep on a couch if you'd just lost your husband?”

He did not attempt to reply; it was a piece of feminine logic which no man could answer.

“And I suppose
we
sleep on the couch?”

“There's nowhere else to sleep.”

“O.K.,” he said.

Alice went over to the door; she had a busy, important look.

“When she wakes up I'm going out to phone,” she said. “She's worried about that little girl of hers. I've got the number of someone who'll take a message.”

“All right,” said Gerald. “Don't be long.”

He sat back in his chair and pondered on things. Half an hour ago he had been wondering if Alice would scold him for bringing Mrs. Sneyd back to the house.
And now the two of them were in league against him. They were going to stop him using his own radio, and turn him out of his bed, and waste his money telephoning to the provinces about nothing. He didn't count any more. He was nobody. It was simply up to him to get them out of the mess that they were in.

He spent most of Sunday morning phoning up Mr. Umble. It was Alice who made him keep at it; she felt sure that Mrs. Sneyd would feel better once she had seen her husband. But Mr. Umble was not to know that. He seemed to think that it was simply impatience on Gerald's part.

“As soon as the hospital lets us know, sir,” he said, “we'll make arrangements. We shan't lose any time. We're all motor here.”

The hospital evidently let Mr. Umble know about three, for when Gerald phoned up at tea-time he was told that Mrs. Sneyd could come down.

“He's just laid out very simple,” Mr. Umble explained, “I've arranged one or two flowers that we happened to have by us. I think you'll find everything to your liking.”

“Thank you,” Gerald said. “Thank you very much. We'll be along about six.”

The words hurt him as he said them; there was no sense in them. Mr. Sneyd was past caring whether they went or not. But it was Mrs. Sneyd who had to be considered; she had absolute rights at a time like this.

“I'll take you down,” he said to her when he got back. “We'll go straight down now if you like.”

“It's ever so good of you,” Mrs. Sneyd replied. “I can't think what I'd have done without you. But you oughtn't to trouble. You ought to stay here with Alice.”
She had been crying a lot and her voice was husky and uncertain.

But Alice, to Gerald's surprise, said that she was coming too. She whispered to Gerald that it was going to be an ordeal for Mrs. Sneyd and that there ought to be another woman there as well. Mrs. Sneyd overheard the remark and thanked her impetuously. She was still thanking them when Alice went upstairs to change.

Now that Gerald was alone with Mrs. Sneyd again the feeling of embarrassment which he had experienced at the station returned. He had always disliked her and now found that it was possible to dislike someone and be sorry for her at the same time. He could not forget that she was the woman who had stepped into the middle of a ready-made household and had disrupted it; if only she hadn't looked so fascinatingly helpless in her first widowhood behind the grille of the cash-desk in the Bon Marché, Mr. Sneyd would have gone on living a quiet widower's existence and Gerald would have stayed at home.

“Have—have you any idea how he left you?” he asked.

Mrs. Sneyd gave him one look, a desperate ashamed look.

“Don't talk about it,” she said.

There was a pause and then Gerald opened the conversation again.

“Didn't he carry
any
insurance?” he asked.

Mrs. Sneyd shook her head.

“You mean he wasn't covered?”

She shook her head again.

“That's what made him so afraid of—of anything going wrong,” she said.

“I see,” said Gerald.

There was another awkward pause during which Mrs. Sneyd played with her handkerchief and finally sat with it screwed up in a ball in her hand.

“Will there be any ready money?” Gerald asked.

He supposed that he might as well know the worst.

“Not from him there won't,” she said significantly.

“Do you think the Bon Marché will help?” he suggested. Throughout his childhood, the Bon Marché had seemed all-powerful. Its twelve plate-glass windows on Queen Street had stood for social position and security.

“They've never helped us yet,” she said. “We gave up asking them.”

“There must be something,” Gerald said vacantly.

“I know,” said Mrs. Sneyd, all her old helplessness returning. “I'd try to get a job myself if it weren't for Vi. But I daren't leave her. She's not strong enough. Besides, I'm too old. They wouldn't want me.”

When Alice rejoined them, she had changed into something dark. She looked young and pretty. He saw Mrs. Sneyd looking at her with a kind of devouring envy. “It's very good of you … ” Mrs. Sneyd began.

She did not speak again till they got to the undertakers. She just sat huddled beside Gerald in a kind of stupor. When they spoke to her she merely nodded. But she woke up when they came to Mr. Umble's. She sat for a moment surveying the black and gilt window front with the wax flowers and two marble urns, and then seemed abruptly to come to her senses.

“Is he here?” she asked.

Gerald nodded and helped her out of the car. She began smoothing down her dress as though anxious to make a good impression and the three of them filed in,
almost filling the little office. Only half the shop was office; the other half was workshop. Along one wall were stacked the stock sizes', pieces of unpolished oak and mahogany, cut to a grim, unmistakable pattern. Mr. Umble himself was doing a bit of planing. A pale, unmuscular man like a despondent verger, he came forward pulling on a coat over his stiff shirt front as he walked.

“Mrs. Sneyd?” he asked.

“That's right,” said Gerald.

But Mr. Umble had turned all his attention on the widow.

“Everything's ready,” he said.

He led the way through to the private mortuary. It was a high, sedate chamber with imitation panelling and a glass roof upon which sparrows played. A thick strip of drugget ran from the door to the central dais which was looped in with a decorative brass chain. Under the coffin a rich red cloth was stretched and Mr. Umble's two or three vases of flowers were arranged upon it. There amidst all this elegant splendour lay Mr. Sneyd. His face wore a new expression of waxy contentment.

The only sound was a little moan from Mrs. Sneyd. She had been quiet and restrained before, now on Alice's arm she suddenly gave way to her feelings. Standing where she was she started to cry openly and unashamedly like a child.

“They've parted his hair on the wrong side,” she said.

Then she sat down on a straight-backed chair and wept with her head in her hands.

Mr. Umble showed the nice thoughtfulness of a man who has witnessed many painful and distressing scenes.

“I'll leave you,” he said. “If you want me I shall be in the office outside.”

He went out and a moment later the sound of planing recommenced.

When Mrs. Sneyd had recovered she went over and stood by the coffin. She reached out a hand, timidly, caressingly, and stroked back the wisp of grey hair that trailed across the bare forehead. She was a different woman now, no longer helpless and appealing In the presence of death she had become dignified. There was an infinite, maternal tenderness about everything she did. She might have been trying to put him off to sleep. It was as though Mr. Sneyd were a child of hers that had been taken away from her. Very gently she rested her hands upon his clasped ones and withdrew them only because the chill was too terrible.

Gerald looked away because he was afraid that he, too, might start crying. He was aware of a strange feeling of loneliness within him. For the first time in his life he knew himself to be an entirely isolated human being. He suddenly saw life as a long, unceasing procession, at one end his father dead in that long oak box, with the plain, inexpensive handles, and Alice's unborn baby at the other. And those weren't the two ends either. They were only two tiny points on the way. They marked off a certain span of things. And within that span it was left for him to carry on. Eventually it wouldn't matter, and he would be the one inside the oak box while somebody else stood by and looked on, and muddled out a view of things. But for the moment it was up to him; it was his hour of life.

The room was very silent; a stale, deliberate dusk hung over it. The only sound was an occasional, suppressed
sob from Mrs. Sneyd. But, on the whole, she was behaving with great control: he had never imagined that she could show so much restraint. Then Mr. Umble came in, and through the open door a smell of cooking drifted in from somewhere upstairs. Mr. Umble was wearing his frock coat again. He stood there for a moment in a respectful, negative fashion and then with careful, silent tread—he was wearing felt slippers—he went across and opened the windows a little. He gave a last glance round to satisfy himself that everything was looking its best and approached Gerald.

“Is there anything more that I can do?” he asked.

Gerald shook his head.

Mr. Umble stood by him for a moment.

“Has the lady seen enough?” he asked in a low half-whisper.

“I—I should think so,” said Gerald

He walked over and put his arm round Alice. She had been sitting on one of the hard little chairs over against the wall. It was not until he put his hand on her shoulder and found that she was shivering that he realised what a strain all this must have been for her. He was sorry now that he had let her come: in her present state it must have been about the worst thing in the world for her.

“Are you ready?” he asked.

She nodded and got up.

“It's for her to say,” she whispered. She looked at Mrs. Sneyd as she spoke.

Mrs. Sneyd was kneeling on the dais, leaning half over the coffin. She had taken a pair of nail scissors out of her handbag and was cutting off that one straggling lock as a keep-sake. In the quiet of the place they could
hear the faint squeak of the blades. Mr. Umble stood by respectfully until she had finished.

“Is the lady ready now?” he asked.

“I'll see,” said Gerald.

He went over and touched Mrs. Sneyd on the arm. “Are you coming?” he asked.

Mrs. Sneyd shook off his hand. “I want to be here with
him
,” she said.

“Quite so,” said Mr. Umble when Gerald had rejoined them. “I quite understand.” He went across and opened the door to his own private staircase: the smell of cooking increased and seemed to fill the little mortuary. They heard Mr. Umble padding upstairs in his soft shoes and a moment later he returned to them.

“Is the lady likely to be long?” he said.

“I dunno,” Gerald answered.

“Very good,” said Mr. Umble.

He made no kind of protest; raised no objection. He just stood there beside them wondering when the widow would release him. Upstairs there were the undisguisable sounds of someone dishing-up.

Five minutes had passed and still Mrs. Sneyd had not moved. Mr. Umble gave a little sigh—it was the nearest he came to impatience—and went on pairing. Then he turned to Gerald.

“Are all the arrangements fixed?” he asked.

“She wants him buried at home,” he said. “Up in Tadford.”

“Tadford?” he said. “That's rather far for a motor job. It really ought to be a train.”

“O.K.,” said Gerald.

They waited for another five minutes and then Mr. Umble spoke again.

“I beg your pardon,” he said. “But the lady isn't doing herself any good by stopping here. She's only working herself up.”

It was perfectly true. The tears were running down her cheeks again. She had the lock of hair in her hand and was kissing it.

“She could come down again in the morning,” Mr. Umble suggested. “We open at nine.”

Gerald turned to Alice. “Shall I get her?” he asked.

Alice nodded.

“You'd better,” she said.

Gerald buttoned up his coat with an air of finality and went over to Mrs. Sneyd.

“It's time to go now,” he said gently.

“I'm not going,” Mrs. Sneyd replied.

“But you've got to go,” Gerald explained. “They're shutting.”

“I'm going to stop here.”

“You can come down again in the morning.”

“I'm going to stop here all night.”

Mr. Umble's self-possession left him for a moment.

“Oh, no, lady,” he said. “We couldn't have that. It wouldn't be right.”