The Eye of Love (12 page)

“Don't you
want
those?” asked Martha incredulously.

“What, this rubbish? I should say not,” replied the sales-lady, looking amused.

Martha didn't hesitate an instant.

“Can I have them?”

“Well!” said the sales-lady. “Whatever for?”

“To draw on.”

The sales-lady wavered; and as she had been taught to do whenever out of her depth, called a shop-walker.

“Mr Connaught! Can this little girl have our old cardboards to draw on?”

Mr Connaught, approaching, appeared equally surprised. But shop-walkers are compact of
savoir faire
. He regarded Martha quizzically, showing off his easy mastery of any situation.

“And what does she want to draw?”

Some instinct led Martha to reply, “Pussies.”

Actually both the term and the subject were equally repugnant to her; if there was one thing that hadn't a hard outline, it was a cat, and if there was one thing Martha despised it was baby-talk. But her instinct was sound; both adults at once smiled benevolently on her, and at each other with understanding. A little girl who wanted to draw pussies—what a rare note of sweetness in the long commercial day! They let her have the cardboards at once. And Martha, stifling her distaste for such puerilities, as soon as she got home slapped off a couple of big fluffy cats with bows round their necks, to carry back next morning as presents.

After that she had as much cardboard as she needed. She collected it in a business-like way once a week.

Where had she seen a lot of pencils?

6

“Dear me, you're quite a stranger!” said the kind Librarian.

Martha stared at his desk. Five or six pencils at least lay in the tray, and some were easily short enough to be given to a little girl.

“I forgot,” said Martha vaguely.

“Have you come to look at our landscapes again?”

Martha followed his prompting glance and recognised with surprise a bamboo swaying in the wind, a tiger crouched upon a rock. She
had
forgotten … and even now wasn't interested. They were right, but they hadn't any hard outlines. The kind Librarian watched her face and sighed. “How soon it passes,” he was thinking, “the gift of natural, instinctive appreciation! I wonder”—for he was a very conscientious man—“if I could have done more?”

Martha turned back to the desk and fixed her gaze on the pentray. She wasn't there to hang about.

“Perhaps you're tired of them,” said the Librarian. “One day, if you like, I could take you to see some really beautiful pictures—hundreds and hundreds of them. They're in a place called the National Gallery. Would you like that?”

“Thank you very much,” said Martha, in rather final tones. “Do you use
all
those pencils?”

The Librarian sighed again. She was after all just a child like any other—and all children always wanted pencils.

“Do you need one for noughts-and-crosses?”

Martha didn't want to draw any more cats for anyone, so she said yes. It was unfortunate, and came of putting all adults in the same box. Pussies would have left Mr Agnew cold; but if she'd told him of her involvement with shapes, he'd have given her all the pencils on his desk. As it was, she got just the stubbiest.

“Thank you very much,” repeated Martha glumly.

It wasn't nearly so successful a foray as she had hoped for; moreover something in the Librarian's manner frightened her off, so that she never went back to try again. (Interferingness: the adult vice.) In the end she turned to cadging odd stumps from Mr Punshon, who always had one or two lying about his bench. She rubbed out with bread.

7

“How soon it passes!” mourned the Librarian, that same evening, to his gentle, artistic fiancée.

“How soon what passes, darling?” asked she.

“The natural, instinctive appreciation of beauty. You remember that little girl I told you about?”

“Who came to look at the landscapes? Of course I do, darling. Has she been again?”

“To beg a pencil to play noughts-and-crosses,” said the Librarian sadly. “She doesn't even see them now. I offered to take her to the National Gallery—”

“Darling, I think you're the kindest man in the world!” cried his fiancée impulsively.

Mr Agnew looked round, and gave her a quick kiss. They were pacing beside the Serpentine, in the blue dusk. Pale amber streamers, reflected lamp-light, floated on the surface of the water as pennons float in air: the upper branches of the trees, to the west melting into the sky, to the east showed still in detail against the up-thrown glow of London. As he finally put Martha from his mind—

“If I showed her
this
,” said the Librarian, “I don't believe she'd have eyes for it …”

Which was perfectly true. Martha's eyes were at that very moment glued to a pair of kippers, tails up (the tails formed a double bow-shape), in a cylindrical jug.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

1

Leaving home in the morning, kissing his daughter and allowing himself to be pecked at by old Beatrice—

“Toodle-oo,” said Mr Joyce.

The door shut behind him—on Mr Joyce wearing his new winter overcoat, a loud fawn and brown check, very hairy, and his new silk scarf, striped in loud and probably regimental colours. Old Beatrice turned nervously to Miranda.

“Such a nice idea I have for our lunch! Why don't I make us my special goulash?”

“In the middle of the day it's too heavy,” said Miranda crossly.

Both knew what they were to eat at night; roast beef. Both knew what Mr Joyce would say, as it came to the table, as he sharpened the carving-knife and caught Harry Gibson's eye.

“Good British grub!” Mr Joyce would say.

2

Mr Joyce had found a friend.

A wholly unexpected result of Harry Gibson's domestication at Knightsbridge was the formation there of what could only be called a masculine front.

Passive as he was, Harry by his mere presence had from the first, and inevitably, changed the numerical proportions between the sexes: what no one could have foreseen was Mr Joyce's rapid organisation of an offensive alliance.

Miranda placed the blame squarely on her father. The overtures hadn't come from Harry, whatever Mr Joyce learnt from him Harry hadn't wilfully taught; it was again, apparently, the result of his mere presence—as though daily contact with anyone so big and bluff and British spurred Mr Joyce to emulation. Spontaneously he picked up Harry's British slang, spontaneously discarded the tastes of a lifetime to prefer good British grub to Beatrice's goulash; but the result, of course, was that he …
encouraged
Harry; until Harry was now encouraging him back.

Miranda had no wish to see her lover brow-beaten. His masculinity was precious to her. But she'd certainly expected the Joyce ethos (so much the more refined) to work upon the Gibson, and not the other way about. She certainly hadn't expected her father to behave like an only child who suddenly makes a friend.

He supported Harry on every point, great or small—and with particular pleasure, it seemed, if the result in any way irritated Miranda or old Beatrice. (Miranda was too obtuse to recognise this pleasure's spring; but the whole of Mr Joyce's domestic life had been dominated by females he provided for.) On the point of a six-months engagement, he'd taken Harry's part; now after roast beef, or liver-and-bacon, or steak-and-kidney pie, the Knightsbridge table offered steamed pudding every night. And as though that wasn't sufficient offence to old Beatrice's
monts blancs
, Mr Joyce deliberately—there could be no other word for it—began to put on weight. “He wants to be a big man like my Harry!” chuckled Mrs Gibson, much amused; and indeed in his new winter overcoat, which he was wearing long before the weather warranted it, Mr Joyce managed to look several sizes larger.

Harry went with him to choose it—and not in Savile Row. (“Half the price as well!” reported Mr Joyce delightedly.) It almost exactly duplicated the one Harry had.

Miranda might have been right in putting the first blame on her parent, but her fiancé's influence was certainly no longer passive. Mr Joyce had encouraged him so much, they now encouraged each other …

How strangely, beautifully (from Mr Joyce's point of view), things had turned out! Harry Gibson was by no means the son-in-law he'd have put his money on given a choice. Most rarely, among the natural moneymakers, old Joyce thought little of money for its own sake. To scrap over three or four pounds was instinctive, but in thousands he thought like a Maecenas; and it had been the secret dream of his life to wed Miranda to some violinist, or painter, or composer, whose early struggles, by himself financed, would in time gloriously flower. (Not too late: while he was still alive: every patron has his limitations, and Mr Joyce wanted to shine in reflected glory.) Like the practical man that he was, he took positive steps to this end—had Miranda's portrait painted, frequented private views, cultivated an acquaintance who ran a concert agency; to acquire only a taste for modern art and a dislike of modern music. All the painters seemed to be married already, and the musicians not to care for Miranda.

No embryo genius coming on the market in the course of so many years, Mr Joyce at last accepted Fate's rebuff and settled for Harry Gibson—even as a business prospect poor, but a necessary husband for Miranda. And how had Fate rewarded him? By finding him a friend.

The lot of Harry Gibson, by this circumstance, was also ameliorated. He wasn't, like Mr Joyce, happy. He was far from happy. But he felt a friendliness towards the old man on his own account, he grew fond of the old boy, and the knowledge that Mr Joyce valued his company—more than valued it, thirsted for it—made his attendance at Knightsbridge less unendurable. Harry Gibson was never for a moment happy, in the Knightsbridge flat; but he had become domesticated there.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

1

The first time Mr Phillips took Dolores and Martha to the pictures was on a Saturday afternoon early in September.

The leap, from Good morning and Good evening, to such an invitation, was hardy indeed; even though his garbage-emptying and subsequent hand-washing had slightly extended their conversational terrain. To do him justice, Mr Phillips appeared aware of this. Encountering Miss Diver in the hall—where he had obviously been waiting for her to emerge from the kitchen—he put it very properly, as a favour.

“It would be doing me a favour,” stated Mr Phillips, “to give me the pleasure of your company.”

Dolores' first impulse was to refuse. It was such a—how to put it?—such a
lodgerly
thing of Mr Phillips to do! But she hadn't been to a cinema for months; the piled-up monotony of her solitary evenings was sometimes almost crushing; and the refusal meant to be so prompt and firm weakened to hesitation.

“I really don't think I can, Mr Phillips … leave Martha in the house alone.”

Mr Phillips hesitated in turn—but only for a moment.

“Bring Martha too.”

“How very kind! But thank you, I think not.”

“It's just the sort of picture you'd like,” persuaded Mr Phillips.

If he baited the hook with intent, it was skilfully done. What sort of picture
did
Mr Phillips think she liked? No woman could have failed to feel a little stir of curiosity, even of vanity, and Dolores was doubly engaged—for was it a landlady's taste Mr Phillips believed himself to have divined, or that of the mysterious Other she felt he sometimes glimpsed? A Western or a war picture or a comedy would have answered the first; far narrower the range acceptable to a Spanish rose.

“Romantic,” added Mr Phillips.

How could Dolores not give way?

They might have passed a very pleasant evening, if they hadn't taken Martha.

2

Martha was comfortably settled at the kitchen-table, drawing the gas-oven. It was the most complicated subject she'd yet tackled, and to make things more difficult she had opened the door half-way—the gas-rings on top looking somehow rounder when one could see the straight parallel lines of the bars inside. She reckoned she had three good hours before it was time to put the oven to its ordinary use.

Thus when Miss Diver returned and asked if she wouldn't like to go to the pictures, Martha naturally said no.

“But Mr Phillips is taking us!” cried Dolores. He was actually, which made Martha's attitude all the more unfortunate, in the kitchen with them, having followed on Miss Diver's heels.

“I'd rather stay here and draw,” said Martha stubbornly.

“Don't be silly, you draw all the time,” rebuked Miss Diver. “Say thank you to Mr Phillips and get your coat.”

With an impatient exclamation she crossed to shut the oven door. Mr Phillips however kept his eyes on Martha. He'd been looking at her ever since he entered, and Martha knew it, though she wouldn't look back.

“Perhaps she wants to show me her picture first?” suggested Mr Phillips blandly.

Martha answered by deliberately laying her forearms across the sheet. The drawing was on such a scale, however—filling a whole cardboard—that quite a lot still showed. Mr Phillips came up close behind and looked over her shoulder.

“What's it meant to be?” he asked. “A bird-cage?”

“I don't know,” muttered Martha, scowling.

“Just scribbling, eh?”

“There, Martha!” cried Miss Diver brightly. “Scribbling's nothing to stay in for! Besides, you'll strain your eyes. Look at them now!”

“I'd strain them worse at the pictures,” said stubborn Martha.

Dolores glanced at Mr Phillips apologetically. He was still standing behind Martha's chair (in such a kind, interested attitude!) and Martha was still crouched over her drawing like a lion-cub over a piece of meat, and somehow the impression was produced that neither meant to give way an inch. It was a most painful contest between sulkiness and benevolence.