The Eye of Love (17 page)

“They won't take up much room,” added Martha, unloading, “and if you give me a newspaper I'll wrap them up out of your way.”

Mr Punshon examined the pile on his bench with more interest than she welcomed. He appeared quite struck.

“Good quality,” said Mr Punshon, running his waxy thumb over the topmost block. “That's worth a bit, that paper is. Chalks in boxes, too. You never bought this little lot out of my two bobs.”

Martha couldn't think what explanation to offer, so she offered none, and her silence gave rise to a slight misunderstanding.

“And you don't want to keep 'em at home,” mused Mr Punshon. He looked at Martha thoughtfully. “You've not been in for a bit of shop-lifting, have you?”

Martha didn't tell him the truth, of course, but she managed to convince him, by the extreme earnestness of her denials, that he wasn't being put in the position of a receiver of stolen goods. (Mr Punshon was ready to do much for Martha, but there he drew the line.) “All right, stow 'em under the Readies,” agreed Mr Punshon at last—and to make amends for his suspicion offered her a dekko at his album of cartoons.

Martha accepted from reciprocal courtesy. Her friend's collection, like the Chinese landscapes at the Free Library, had lost their attraction for her. They had hard outlines, but they were too bitty … Even as she turned the pages, Martha's free hand reached desirously to a stick of charcoal, a stick of sanguin. She had just learnt not to snap them, and as the thick black or red line marched firmly over the paper, experienced such ecstasy that sometimes she forgot to breathe and nearly burst.

She also forgot to wash.

“Dirty hands again!” noted Mr Phillips regretfully. “
What
a dirty little girl!”

“I'm not,” said Martha.

“I seem to have heard that before,” said Mr Phillips, with his patient smile. “Your thumb's quite black.”

“It's my skin,” lied Martha wildly.

“I wonder your Auntie doesn't give you a smack,” said Mr Phillips. “Telling stories as well!”

It was said in Miss Diver's presence, in the kitchen, where Mr Phillips now often came himself to fetch his supper-tray—so anxious he was to spare trouble. Dolores looked from her niece to her lodger unhappily.

“Martha, don't be rude.”

“I'm not,” repeated Martha.

“At least don't be rude to your kind Auntie,” admonished Mr Phillips. “After all she's done for you.”

3

Whether Miranda would still have insisted on a honeymoon in the South of France, if Mr Joyce hadn't insisted on a common establishment, must also remain doubtful. She did insist. There were two good arguments against her—the expense beyond the bridegroom's means, and that it was unpatriotic to go abroad in the Depression; both she overrode. “Of course it's Dadda who'll be paying!” cried Miranda—gaily indeed, but without bothering to wrap the matter up. “I'm not going to let Dadda be stingy! And as for staying at home, everyone knows honeymoons don't count!”

Mr Joyce suggested Bournemouth. His reasons were partly selfish, but he saw also that the South of France roused no enthusiasm in Harry, and as usual prepared to back his friend. “On the Riviera, at this time of year, doesn't it often snow like hell? If you would rather Bournemouth, only say,” urged Mr Joyce. “To Bournemouth I might come myself, for the week-end, to see how you get on. Why not? We could have a nice time,” said Mr Joyce wistfully. He was prepared to back Harry to the limit, and it was he who held the purse-strings. “Or if you would like Scotland, why not Scotland?” prompted Mr Joyce. “There are hotels there cost the earth, and you could teach me to play golf …”

Harry remained mute. It wasn't that the Riviera was any less repugnant to him than Gleneagles—or Gleneagles more repugnant than Bournemouth, or Bournemouth than the Riviera again. The fact was that he couldn't bring himself to contemplate, he was mentally unable to contemplate, any moment of time beyond the actual wedding-ceremony. A mental shutter slammed down at the holy portal. He could visualise himself (sometimes in nightmare detail, as when his sock-suspenders came undone), up to that very last moment, but no further. He saw himself going
in
, that is, but not coming out. Sometimes he wondered whether this meant he was going to drop dead on the pavement. The notion was so far from distressing him that he examined the life-line in his palm for confirmation—hoping to see it cut short at fifty. But no, it ploughed on deep and straight as a furrow to what looked like seventy-five at least …

Evidently someone was going to come out on his feet: Miranda's husband. As soon as Harry Gibson recognised this, the shutter slammed down.

He was thus not only indifferent to what lay beyond, he couldn't even contemplate it; and by no possible means could be brought to side with either Miranda or Mr Joyce. His neutrality was all Miranda needed. She sent for an enormous number of brochures, one from every expensive hotel between Monte Carlo and the Pyrenees, and told all her friends Harry was carrying her south to the sun.

4

“Anything the matter with your hand, boy?” asked Mr Joyce.

Harry had been looking at his palm again. It was becoming a habit. He shook his head.

“A splinter, I took it out …”

“My mother could read the hand,” remarked Mr Joyce unexpectedly. “We used to tell her, when we were teasing her, she should go to tell fortunes like an old gypsy-woman, have her palm crossed with silver. How angry she got!” chuckled Mr Joyce—inviting Harry to join in; he often tried to amuse Harry with such humorous little anecdotes. “‘A journey across the ocean!'” mimicked Mr Joyce, pretending to be an old gypsy-woman. “‘Beware a tall handsome stranger!'”

—Instantly, appallingly, a terrible thing happened. The study dissolved, Mr Joyce vanished, Harry Gibson was back with Dolores on Epsom Downs. More agonisingly still, the vision doubled: the sitting-room in, Alcock Road superimposed itself upon, mingled with, the gypsy booth; at one and the same moment Mr Gibson saw Dolores laughing in the sun and felt her sobbing against his shoulder. “
When you were there!
” he heard her cry.
“My Big Harry, my King Hal!”
He shut his eyes; but the vision under his lids was clearer than before. He could see every detail of the little tent, the worn red-and-white canvas and straining guy-ropes, also every detail of the sitting-room from the ermines in the cabinet to the gilt-and-bronze lady. Only the two Doloreses merged into one, she who laughed and she who wept; and again with the greatest precision he saw the separate streaks of hair divided by her comb, the slight down on her upper lip, the knotted fringe of her Spanish shawl. “My Spanish Rose!” cried Mr Gibson's heart. “I am still your King Hal!” With all his will he tried to project the message to Paddington; with all his being, even more ridiculously, harked for some message in return. All that reached his ears, naturally, was the voice of Mr Joyce.

To his astonishment, it was no more than kind.

“Harry boy, you work too hard,” said Mr Joyce. “Just now a minute, you turned quite white. Perhaps the Riviera will do you good after all, in the south, in the sun. Unless it snows there,” added Mr Joyce, still wistful.

CHAPTER TWENTY

1

Mr Phillips was no impatient lover. A month, two or three months more might have elapsed before he declared himself, but for an exterior circumstance. It began to be bruited about the office that a position slightly more responsible than his own, at a slightly increased salary, would soon fall vacant in the Midlands; and he was aware that he stood a good chance of being offered it. He would still be better off, however, commanding a house and two lodgers in Alcock Road. Actually Mr Phillips rather regretted this, he didn't much like London any more than he much liked Miss Diver; but financial considerations, as always with so prudent a man, prevailed. His answer was ready, and it was a refusal. On second thoughts, it struck him as the part of wisdom to be equally ready, if needful, with an acceptance. He didn't think it would be needful, the last thing he expected was a refusal from Miss Diver; the habit of prudence still led him to register (so to speak) his holding in Alcock Road before dropping out of the running for Brum.

The tender interview took place in Miss Diver's sitting-room.

By this time Mr Phillips was quite at home there. (He had already, for example, a fair notion what everything would fetch, when it was cleared out and made to look respectable.) He didn't take any special pains with his appearance, he always washed before supper and had cleaned his nails with a bus-ticket on the way home. He relied on his natural advantages.

Dolores, on the other hand, as always now that Mr Phillips regularly took tea with her, was in evening beauty—hair assiduously arranged, make-up immaculate; for she felt she owed it to King Hal's rose to appear thus distinguished in a lodger's eye. In point of fact, Mr Phillips preferred her looking as he'd once seen her beside the dust-bin. Dolores had been wrong in thinking her appearance then unremarked: Mr Phillips had remarked it in detail, from the smears on her apron to the smudges on her cheek, and far from being put off was heartened. Most women, in Mr Phillips' experience, looked like that first thing, and he was far more at ease with the dishevelled than with the lah-di-dah. Dolores' impulse to hide herself was still correct: it was the memory of her dishevelment by the dust-bin that made her approachable to him now.

“Another cup, Mr Phillips?” offered Dolores.

“Thank you, as it comes,” replied Mr Phillips; and added, “I don't know whether it's struck you, as it has me, that we get along very nicely.”

2

It has been said that every woman, for however fleeting a moment, considers every man she encounters in the light of a possible husband. This wasn't true of Dolores and Mr Phillips. Even during the last period of something approaching intimacy, her emotions were too fully preoccupied with the past. But now in a single flash of intuition she made up for lost time, and knew at once that Mr Phillips was about to propose. She was startled, but positive. Naturally she didn't show it.

“In fact, in many ways,” proceeded Mr Phillips methodically, “we suit. Neither of us, for instance, is as young as we once were. I may say I am forty-seven.”

He paused a moment.

“I don't suppose
you'll
ever see—well, thirty—again?”

Dolores shook her head. She was unaware that Mr Phillips had offered a compliment. Indeed, she was altogether
unaware
: her emotions included surprise, a slight uneasiness, a slight expectancy; but no gratification. The notion that Mr Phillips was conferring any sort of favour, had it entered her head, would have struck Miss Diver as simply fantastic. She hadn't yet uttered a word; but her silence didn't appear to embarrass him; he expected at this stage, it appeared, only attention.

“My position in the Insurance world may not be showy,” continued Mr Phillips, “but it's safe; and I qualify regularly for a bonus. As to my general character and habits, you know all about them. You can take my word for it I've no encumbrances, but ask any questions you like. I,” said Mr Phillips pointedly, “shall not.”

At last Dolores stirred. The deliberate flow of his speech (as from an agenda) had almost mesmerised her, but those last words pricked.

“I don't think either of us need ask any questions, Mr Phillips!” she said sharply.

“As I say, I don't,” agreed Mr Phillips, “though some men would.”

“Because I don't care to continue this conversation, Mr Phillips!”

He regarded her with slight impatience—only slight.

“That's daft,” he pointed out. “I can see you're a bit overcome. It's only natural. But I may as well finish now I'm started. For instance,” continued Mr Phillips, before Dolores could speak again, “naturally you wouldn't want to leave this house of yours. Well, neither should I. With another lodger or two we could be very snug. Which brings me to another point. Martha. I don't say she isn't your niece—”

“Stop,” ordered Dolores.

She had been sitting motionless so long, she was too stiff to spring to her feet; but she rose not without dignity, and to Mr Phillips' surprise in anger. What had he said to offend her? To make her stalk to the door like a tragedy-queen? Mr Phillips hastily checked over his proposals—and saw at least an omission.

“Here, wait a bit!” cried Mr Phillips. “I'm ready to marry you!”

3

Miss Diver paused. However ill-put, however undesired, a proposal in form is something no woman can entirely ignore. Even a refusal must be put into words—however cold.

“Then you had better forget the idea, Mr Phillips,” said Dolores coldly.

“Perhaps I started off on the wrong foot,” admitted Mr Phillips, “cutting out the frills. I took you for a reasonable woman.”

“I
am
a reasonable woman, Mr Phillips.”

“Then think it over,” urged Mr Phillips, “and you'll see you'd be far better off with a man like me to look after you.”

At last, at the eleventh hour, he had said something that touched her.

To be looked after again! It was the one thing above all others Dolores now yearned for. Half the continuing power of Mr Gibson's image over her mind and heart derived from its aura of protectiveness: all the tarnished clichés—a strong arm against the world, a sheltering wing, a safe harbour from the storm—were minted anew each time she thought of her King Hal. Life without his love was hard enough; but also he not only paid the gas-bills, he remembered to pay them. Continually, in the running of the little house, Dolores stumbled on some such familiar-unfamiliar problem: the ordering of coal, for instance—when, and who from? Mr Gibson always had it sent. It had pleased him to keep an eye on such trifles as electric-light bulbs; Dolores watched them gradually dim, and was taken by surprise when they failed. (The one in the bowl of glass fruits was dead already.) She was inefficient to begin with, and Mr Gibson had encouraged his little woman's helplessness; now even when she felt most like a Spanish rose, Dolores' thoughts frequently turned not to Mr Gibson's person, but to the masterly way he renewed washers …