The Eye of Love (24 page)

The whole flat was now very still. There were none of the clearing-up sounds that usually succeeded a party; for once all was being left till morning. (“‘Came the dawn,'” thought Mr Joyce, for some reason.) Where had been brilliance and gaiety, darkness and silence brooded; the lights were out, the guests were gone.

Or all save one—and she not actually on the premises. Miss Molyneux was down in the lobby. Poor Miss Molyneux!—still waiting for Miss Harris, who almost an hour earlier had promised to be back in two ticks.

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

1

If Miss Molyneux hadn't
seen
Miss Harris nip out, she'd have thought her still up in the flat, perhaps kept behind for a word on business—but Miss Molyneux had seen her. At the lift they'd been separated, but Miss Harris came down with the next load—and then nipped straight out into the street saying that about two ticks. They were going to a cinema as arranged, because Miss Molyneux hadn't clicked.

For the first ten minutes or so waiting had been quite enjoyable: there were all the rest of the guests to watch as they went out, and she got a good view of the ladies' wraps. (A better class of skin all round Miss Molyneux had rarely seen.) Then the stream dwindled and died (Mrs Grandjean, in sables, a splendid finale) and she began to feel conspicuous to the porter's eye. “I'm waiting for my friend,” said Miss Molyneux crossly—and wishing there were some way to express the feminine gender; “girl-friend” she considered common. At this stage irritation at least prevented her from worrying about Miss Harris, but of course she soon began to worry as well, because though it wasn't
like
Miss Harris to get run over, no more was it like her to leave a person in the lurch …

After picturing her friend under a bus, under a car, and in hospital, when Miss Harris at last appeared Miss Molyneux naturally went for her.

2

“I know, dear, and I'm ever so sorry, but I couldn't help it,” panted Miss Harris. (They were hurrying to the Regal, just round the corner, to save time.) “Mr Joyce asked me get a taxi, and could I find one? And when I
did
find one—”

“You can't tell me it took an hour!” snapped Miss Molyneux.

“No, but I've been to Paddington and back in it,” explained Miss Harris. “I took it back, dear, so as not to keep you waiting. It was for that poor old Black Fox by the door—remember? It was her Mr Joyce asked me to get a cab for, on account of her feeling faint.”

“You ought to be in the Boy Scouts,” grumbled Miss Molyneux.

“And when I
did
at last catch one and put her in, she really acted so—so peculiarly, I felt I had to go along.”

“St. John's Ambulance,” glossed Miss Molyneux unkindly. “How d'you mean, peculiar? Was she tiddly?”

“Oh,
no
, dear. At least I don't think so, I really don't. I mean, she didn't
talk
. In fact, beyond saying where to, she didn't utter the whole way. It was more—” Miss Harris paused, partly to draw breath, partly because the special quality of her taxi-companion's peculiarness, though it had left a strong impression on her, was difficult to describe. “Well, you remember that tatty bit of fox she had?” essayed Miss Harris.

“Do I not!” agreed Miss Molyneux. “Moth-eaten from the Ark.”

“She sort of draped it round her as if it was ermine. As though she thought she was a Queen or something. It was more, if you know what I mean, dear, as though she didn't know what
was
from what wasn't.”

“Loony,” said Miss Molyneux. “If it had been me I'd have been worried stiff.”

“Well, I was a bit, dear, I admit it. She wasn't, though,” added Miss Harris thoughtfully. “Whatever else she was, she wasn't worried. Here we are.”

They entered the Regal at just about the same time that Mr Joyce crossed the hall and unlocked the study door.

3

“Now we will have our talk,” said Mr Joyce.

Harry Gibson looked up, blinking. The time had passed more swiftly for him than for anyone, for he had been asleep. He had made no attempt to tidy himself, his face was still smudged, his hair wild, his collar dishevelled; but he was more composed. He turned on Mr Joyce a look at once humble, and stubborn.

“Unless,” continued Mr Joyce, “there is no need to talk at all. Miranda was to blame for inviting her—”

“How did she know where she lived?” demanded Harry Gibson jealously.

“Maybe detectives, what does it matter?” Mr Joyce sensibly brushed the point aside. “Miranda was to blame, perhaps you had more champagne than we thought; if you tell me, ‘All was a dream. Forget it,' then it can be forgotten.”

“I'm sorry,” said Harry Gibson.

Mr Joyce smiled wryly.

“You might have said that before—even in a dream.”

“I mean I'm sorry, it's no use,” said Harry Gibson heavily.

Miranda's father sat down. He should have known, he told himself, that it couldn't be so easy; but he had hoped. Now the night was still before him. He resigned himself.

“You don't know—” began Harry Gibson.

“All right; tell me,” sighed Mr Joyce.

So it was, in those unlikely surroundings, to those unlikely ears, that Harry Gibson at last poured out the story of his love.

He wanted to pour it out. He wanted to tell it, not only in self-justification, but also because it was so beautiful. It was so beautiful, the wonder of it still struck him afresh. “I called her my Spanish rose,” said Harry Gibson. “You wouldn't think a chap like me could think of it, would you?” He went back—and it was well Mr Joyce had resigned himself, for in the cinema round the corner Miss Molyneux and Miss Harris saw a third of the big picture, before Harry Gibson stopped talking—he went back to the Chelsea Arts Ball, with its
coup de foudre;
to the moment when they lost each other afterwards, which now seemed like a warning, and to their astounding, fated reunion. He dwelt like the lover that he was on the ten magical years in their secret garden, describing in detail the poem Dolores had made of the sitting-room, the pink curtains sewn by her own hands. (“I could see 'em as soon as I turned the corner,” yearned Harry Gibson. “Sometimes I almost ran down the road.”) Martha he barely mentioned, she appeared only as Miss Diver's orphan niece, only to display the exquisite tenderness of Miss Diver's nature; indeed it had always been the spell of the little house that it existed for its King alone. “It was a Kingdom of Love Divine,” recorded Harry Gibson solemnly, “exactly as the song-chappie says. You wouldn't think this either, but when she called me, sometimes, her King Hal, it didn't seem cracked. It just made me feel like a King …”

Miranda's father listened with—envy.

It wasn't the emotion he'd expected to feel. He'd let Harry have his head from a sense that it would be better to get the facts; but what he'd heard were facts only insofar as they adumbrated a date or two, cleared up a point or two relative to the choice of a curtain-colour, or the provenance of a Spanish comb; otherwise, moonshine. It was the moonshine he envied.

For who had ever called Mr Joyce their King? Certainly not Miranda's extremely well-dowered Mamma.

“You were right,” sighed Mr Joyce at last. “I didn't know …”

“I've often wanted to tell you,” Harry Gibson said truthfully. “But how could you understand, unless you'd seen her?”

Mr Joyce unconsciously shook his head. The physical appearance of that Spanish rose was still definite to his mental eye. “All moonshine!” thought Mr Joyce …

Yet what was moonshine but a belittling name for love? Employed only by the envious? “My poor Harry and his Kiss of Death, they love each other,” thought Mr Joyce uneasily. He gazed earnestly at his friend and tried to make him look like a King. It was no use, Harry had begun to sweat again. The eye of friendship couldn't do it, only the eye of love … So love it was.

Mr Joyce pulled himself together.

“For myself, I sympathise with you,” he said. “Believe me, you have my sympathy.” (It didn't occur to him to ask why Harry hadn't married his Rose in the first place. Like Harry himself, he took the original omission for granted. The only point unusual was that he appeared determined to marry her now.) “But I have my daughter to think of,” went on Mr Joyce. “How can I let you jilt Miranda practically on the honeymoon? How can you, Harry, even think of such a wicked thing?”

Harry Gibson groaned.

“Because I can't help it. Do I want to behave like a cad?”

“It is the most caddish thing a man can do. Harry,” said Mr Joyce sternly, “it's un-British.”

Mr Gibson bowed his head on his chest—as upon the barrack-square, while all his buttons are cut off, bows his head the Outcast of the Regiment. Then he lifted it again.

“What sort of a husband should I make, to Miranda, thinking all the time of another woman?”

“A very good husband,” said Mr Joyce stubbornly. “Did I never think of another woman, married to Miranda's mother?”

“Not all the time.”

“For many years, every day,” affirmed Mr Joyce rashly. “A girl I knew when I was a young boy. So pretty, no money—”

“Tell me,” said Harry Gibson.

4

She had evidently been far more obviously attractive than Dolores—Mr Joyce's first love. But though Harry (their rôles now reversed) listened with genuine sympathy, he couldn't help feeling also a certain disdain. To fall for a brown shoulder and a white blouse—how naïf, how calfish! Yet that, it seemed, was what Mr Joyce remembered best …

“You don't see them now, those blouses,” mourned Mr Joyce. “Anyway not in Bond Street … gathered full and very low round the neck, so one shoulder always slipping out, like a little brown pigeon. Maybe you wouldn't think that of
me
,” added Mr Joyce, with a faint smile, “but it was what came into my mind. To squeeze, it was just like a plump little bird.”

Harry Gibson nodded—thinking with passion of Miss Diver's collar-bones. How slender, how fragile, his own Spanish rose! How
unbucolic
!

“Hilda,” pronounced Mr Joyce softly. “Her name was Hilda. Every summer my grandmother took a châlet in the Black Forest, and there we spent our holidays, and there Hilda lived. An educated girl too: some French, some English, nice manners, everything. Everything except a penny. For dowry perhaps a herd of pigs. Was my father in the pig-business? Harry boy,” said Mr Joyce resolutely, “I tell you this to show my sympathy, but all I assure you has been for the best. To-day that girl is a fat old woman, seven sons and seven daughters maybe, and here am I like Mrs Grandjean said, without a care in the world but what you yourself load down on me.”

Regretfully—as regretfully as Mr Joyce returned from the Black Forest—Harry Gibson returned from Alcock Road. The idyllic interlude was over.

“I'm sorry,” he said heavily. The very words, the very accent, of an hour earlier! Mr Joyce groaned.

“Damn it, what is the use to say you're sorry? Show you are sorry! Think, consider!” implored Mr Joyce. “Have some port! Sit quiet for ten minutes and consider!”

“I have considered,” said Harry stubbornly.

“When? When I came in, you were asleep. You haven't considered anything! Give me some port too!” shouted Mr Joyce. “Have you no affection? Have you thought what life Miranda will lead
me
? And what can I do to you back? Even just to satisfy Miranda, what can I do to you?”

“You can ruin me,” said Mr Gibson.

5

Now they were down to business.

It was a situation in which Mr Joyce held every advantage. He had Harry where he wanted him. For all his talk of partnership, the business in Kensington was as much his own property as the business in Bond Street. Harry Gibson dismissed from his employ, he could as easily keep him out of another berth in the fur-trade as he could if necessary find him one. Otherwise, in the depression, Harry hadn't a hope. Mr Joyce held every advantage—save one.

He was fond of Harry. Harry was his friend. When he looked at Harry solemnly pouring out the port, when he remembered the consolatory hours they'd spent together, in that very study—sharing that very decanter—the drawing-room full of women—also the good British grub Harry had introduced him to, so annoying to old Beatrice, and his encouragement over the new hairy overcoat—when Mr Joyce remembered all this, his heart failed.

“You can ruin me,” repeated Harry Gibson. “Chin-chin.”

“I don't want to ruin you,” said Mr Joyce irritably.

Harry Gibson smiled—a smile of pure affection. But he said nothing, while Mr Joyce regarded him with increasing exasperation.

“How will you live, if I ruin you?”

“God knows,” said Harry Gibson.

“How will your mother live?” demanded Mr Joyce.

Harry shrugged his big shoulders. To Mr Joyce it was appallingly like the gesture of a man shrugging off a load.

“From seventeen years old,” said Harry thoughtfully, “that question has been asked me … whenever I wanted to do anything different; when I wanted to go to the War. But I went to the War.” He smiled again. “I dare say she will come and live here,” he offered helpfully. “The mater is a great chum of Auntie Bee.”

“Are you mad?” demanded Mr Joyce—justifiably.

“They could have the new sitting-room, then it wouldn't be wasted,” joked—actually joked!—Harry.

“You
are
mad,” said Mr Joyce, in no mood for humour. “Miranda would do murder. Sooner than that, I would give a little pension—” He broke off, too late; the fatal suggestion had been made, Harry was looking brighter every minute. To wipe the brightness from his face Mr Joyce hit hard.

“And the woman, and the orphan-child you speak of, how are they to live?” he asked grimly. “God knows, you say for yourself—out goes noble Harry to starve! Are they to starve too? Or is
she
to keep you all, poor woman, taking lodgers? At least in the shop you earned your bread!” cried Mr Joyce bitterly. “Not like a kept man!”