The Stars Look Down (40 page)

The next day came and Joe could think of nothing but his engagement in the evening. When he had finished work he slipped into Grigg’s the barber’s at the foot of Beech Road and had a shave, very close, and a hair-trim. Then he went home to his lodgings and took a bath. He sat on the edge of the bath quite naked, whistling softly and doing his nails. To-night he was determined to be at his best.

When he had bathed he padded into his bed-sitting-room, dressed extra carefully in his very best suit, a light grey with a faint pin stripe, a pattern copied from a suit he had once seen a heavy swell wearing in a musical comedy at the Empire. He had ambitions for a dinner suit, terrible tearing ambitions for a dinner suit, but he knew that the time for the dinner suit was not yet. Still, even in the ordinary grey he looked splendid, chin tenderly smooth, hair brilliantined, eye bright and vital, his thin watch-chain girded high on his waistcoat, a paste-pearl stud in his tie. He smiled at his scintillating reflection in the mirror, tried a bow and a few positions of careless elegance; then his smile became a grin and he thought to himself: “You’re in amongst it at last, my boy, just you watch yourself and there’s nothing can stop you.”

He became grave again and as he walked up the road to Hilltop he rehearsed the right note, deferential yet manly; his expression as he went up the steps, ready to conquer, was masterly.

The same neat maid, Bessie, showed him into the lounge where Laura stood alone with her bare arm resting on the mantelpiece and one slipper extended to the fire. She was dressed very plainly in black and she made a marvellously effective picture with the firelight warming her pale face and glinting on her beautiful polished nails. Joe suddenly had a thrilling admiration for her. She’s great, he thought to himself, by gum she’s
it
; and, gripped by a most familiar tenseness of his middle, yet with a touching humility on his face, he advanced and greeted her.

Then an awkward pause occurred. He rubbed his hands, smoothed his hair, straightened his tie and smiled.

“It’s been cold to-day, terrible cold for the time of year. Seems to be freezing outside to-night.”

She extended her other slipper to the fire, then she said:

“Is it?”

He felt snubbed; she thrilled and overawed him; he had never known anyone like her in his life. He persevered:

“It certainly is good of you to ask me up to-night. It’s a real honour, I assure you. When Mr. Stanley gave me the invitation you could have knocked me down with a feather.”

Laura looked at him with that unsmiling smile, taking in his flashy chain, fake pearl, his deadly emanation of hair-oil. Then, as though wishing him free of such atrocities, she looked away She said to the fire:

“Stanley will be down in a moment.”

Damped, he could not make her out. He would have given everything he had to know absolutely and completely the nature of her real self and how he stood with her.

But he did not know and he was half afraid of her. To begin with she was undoubtedly a lady. Not “ladylike” in Jenny’s silly sense—he could have laughed when he remembered Jenny’s shallow gentility, the crooking of the little finger, the bowing, the “so good of you” and “after you please” nonsense. No, Laura was not like that, Laura had real class. She did not have to try; in Joe’s memorable phrase, she was already
it
.

She had a curious indifference, too, which pleased and fascinated him. He felt that she would never insist; if she did not agree she would simply let the matter drop and keep her own opinion with that queer unsmiling smile. It was as though Laura had a secret, mocking self. He suspected that she was extremely unconventional within herself, that she probably disagreed utterly with the set ideas of life. Yet she was not unconventional outwardly; she was extremely fastidious in her person and her taste in dress was quietly perfect. Nevertheless he could not help the feeling that she was contemptuous of convention; he had a crazy half-formed intuition that she despised everybody—including herself.

His thoughts were interrupted by Stanley’s entry: Stanley came in breezily, shook hands with Joe and clapped him on the back, too obviously trying to put him at his ease.

“Glad to see you in my house, Gowlan. We don’t stand on ceremony here, so make yourself at home.” He planted his feet apart in the middle of the hearthrug, exposing his back to the heat of the fire, and exclaimed: “What about it though, Laura? What about the rum ration for the troops?”

Laura went over to the walnut cabinet where a shaker
stood with glasses and some ice. They each had a dry martini; then Joe and Millington had a second; and Millington, who drank his quickly, had a third.

“I get outside too many of these, Gowlan,” he remarked, smacking his lips. “Don’t get enough exercise, either. I want to get thoroughly fit one of these days, get my old form back, exercises, aha! Harden myself up like I used to be at St. Bede’s.” He flexed his biceps and felt it with a frown.

To cheer himself up Stanley had another drink and they went in to supper.

“It’s very curious,” Stanley lamented, spreading his napkin and addressing himself to his cold chicken, “how soon you can get out of condition. Business is all very well, making money and chaining yourself to an office, but hang it all health is the best wealth. Shakespeare or somebody said that, didn’t they?”

“Emerson, wasn’t it?” suggested Laura, with her eyes on Joe.

Joe did not answer. His library at his lodgings consisted of a tom paper-backed edition of
Saucy Stories from the French
, and Mrs. Calder’s Bible, planted encouragingly in front of the glass case of waxed fruit, out of which Joe, on Sunday afternoons when feeling especially pious, would read what he termed the dirty bits.

“I wish I could have joined the army,” Stanley meditated complainingly. He had the dull man’s habit of worrying a subject to death. “That’s the place to get you really into shape.”

A short silence. Stanley crumbled his roll in a momentary discontent. Interspersed with his breeziness he was much given to these bouts of grumbling, the peevish regret of a man who sees himself approaching baldness and middle age. But Stanley had always been liable to impulsive dissatisfactions with his present lot in life. Six months ago he had longed to make money and re-establish the position of the firm; yet now that he had done it his sense of unfulfilment still persisted.

Stanley continued to monopolise the conversation. Laura spoke very little and Joe, though his assurance was increasing, made only an occasional and careful observation, agreeing with some remark which Stanley had made. Occasionally, while Stanley discoursed upon bridge or golf, once especially when he was detailing at some length the manner in which he had played a particular hole, Joe’s eyes encountered
Laura’s across the table and the deliberate blankness of her gaze gave him a secret chagrin. He wondered what her feelings were for Stanley. She had been married to him for seven years now. She had no children. She was always extremely nice to Stanley, listening to everything he said, or was she listening? Had she no feelings at all under that cold indifference? Was she merely icy? Or what in the name of heaven was it? Stanley, he knew, had been crazy about her at the start, their honeymoon had lasted for six weeks or longer, but now Stanley was not quite so crazy. He was a little less of the dashing Don Juan. Often, in Joe’s phrase, he looked all washed out.

After the sweet, Laura left them, Joe blundering in an access of politeness to the door to open it for her. Then Stanley selected a cigar, lit up, and pushed across the box to Joe magnanimously.

“Help yourself, Gowlan,” he said. “You’ll find these all right.”

Joe took a cigar with a look of humility and gratitude. Secretly he was irked by Millington’s condescending air. Just wait a bit, he thought into himself, and I’ll show him something. But in the meantime he was all deference. He lit his cigar without removing the band.

A longish silence followed while Stanley, with his legs stretched under the table and his stomach at ease, pulled at his cigar and stared at Joe.

“You know, Gowlan,” he announced at length, “I like you.”

Joe smiled modestly and wondered what the hell was coming.

“I’m a liberal man,” Stanley went on expansively—he had drunk half a bottle of Sauterne on top of the cocktails and was inclined to be expansive. “And it doesn’t matter a tinker’s damn to me what a man is so long as he’s decent. He can be a duke’s son or a dustman’s son, I don’t care, it’s all the same to me so long as he’s straight. Do you get me?”

“Why, yes, I get you, Mr. Stanley.”

“Well, look here, Joe,” Millington continued, “I’ll go a bit further since you understand what I’m after. I’ve been watching you pretty closely this last month or two and I’ve been pretty pleased with what I’ve seen.” He broke off, switching the cigar round his mouth, inspecting Joe. Then he said slowly: “Clegg’s
finito
, that’s point number one. Point number
two, I’ve got an idea, Gowlan, that I’m going to try you out as my new works manager.”

Joe nearly swooned.

“Manager!” he whispered feebly.

Millington smiled.

“I’m offering you Clegg’s job now. It’s up to you to see if you can hold it.”

Joe’s emotion was so great the room swam before him. He had scented something in the wind but nothing, oh, nothing like this. He went white as mutton fat and dropped his cigar on to his plate.

“Why, Mr. Stanley,” he gasped. He didn’t have to act this time, he was natural and convincing. “Why, Mr. Stanley…”

“That all right, Joe. Just take it easy. I’m sorry if I caught you unexpected. But there’s a war on, see. That’s when the unexpected happens. You’ll soon pick up the ropes. I’ve an idea you’ll not let me down.”

A wave of exhilaration swept over Joe. Clegg’s job… him!… works manager at Millington’s!

“You see, I trust you, Joe,” Millington explained cordially. “And I’m prepared to back my judgment. That’s why I’m offering you the job.”

At that moment the telephone rang in the lounge and before Joe could speak again Laura entered.

“It’s for you, Stanley,” she declared. “Major Jenkins wants you.”

Stanley excused himself and went out to the telephone.

There was a silence. Joe could feel Laura there, he could feel her standing by the doorway, opposite him, near him, looking at him. A terrific elation throbbed in him, he felt strong, intoxicated, gloriously alive. He lifted his eyes and faced her. But she avoided his gaze and said quite curtly:

“There’s coffee in the lounge before you go!”

He did not answer. He could not speak. As they stood there, in this fashion, the sound of Stanley’s voice at the telephone came into the room.

The time of Jenny’s confinement drew near and Jenny’s behaviour was in every way exemplary. Since that Tuesday afternoon when she had told David, Jenny had been “a changed woman.” She had her little querulous moments of course—who in her condition would not?—and what she called her “fancies,” the sudden desire at awkward moments for strange and exotic forms of nourishment—more simply denoted as “something tasty.” A craving for ginger snaps for instance, since she had “gone off” bread, or a pickled onion, or soft herring roes on toast. Ada, her mother, had always had her fancies and Jenny felt herself fully within her rights in having her fancies too.

She was making a fetching outfit for the little baby girl—she was sure it would be a girl, she did want a little girlie so, to dress up nicely, boys were horrid!—and she sat night after night on the opposite side of the fire from David in the most domestic manner stitching and crocheting and fashioning the garments from the directions given in
Mab’s Home Notes
and the
Chickabiddy’s Journal
. Dreamily she planned the future of the little one. She was to be an actress, a great actress, or better still a great singer, a prima donna in Grand Opera. Her mother’s talent would unfold in her and she would have triumph upon triumph at Covent Garden with great men and bouquets scattered at her feet, while Jenny from a box would gaze tenderly and understandingly upon the success which might have been hers too, if only she had been given her chance. There were temptations here though, great temptations, and at that Jenny’s brow would crease. The scene became changed suddenly and she saw a nun, an Anglican nun, pale and spiritual with a hidden sorrow in her heart and the stage and the world cast behind her, passing through the cloister of a great convent and entering the dim chapel. Service began, the organ sounded, and the nun’s voice pealed out in all its lovely purity. Tears came to Jenny’s eyes and her sad romantic fancy took even more tragic flights. There would be no little girl after all, no prima donna, no nun. She herself was going to die, she felt it in her heart, it was absurd to imagine she would ever have the strength to have a baby, and she had always had the premonition of dying young. She remembered that Lily Blades, a girl in the
Millinery at Slattery’s who was something wonderful at fortunes, had once seen a terrible illness in her tea-cup. She saw herself dying in David’s arms while with riven and anguished countenance he implored her not to leave him. A great bowl of white roses stood by the bedside and the doctor, though a hard man, stood in the background in an agony of distress.

Real tears flowed down Jenny’s cheeks and David, looking up suddenly, exclaimed:

“Good Lord, Jenny! What on earth’s the matter?”

“It’s nothing, David,” she sighed with a pale, angelic smile. “I’m really quite happy. Quite, quite happy.”

After this she decided she must have a cat because it was domestic and human and cheerful about the house. She asked everyone she knew to get her a kitten; everyone, simply everyone must search high and low to get her a kitten, and when Harry, the butcher’s boy, brought her a little tabby she was delighted. Later when Murchison’s van man brought her another kitten and Mrs. Wept on the following day sent round yet another, she was less ecstatic. It was impossible to return the two kittens in the face of her widespread appeal, and they were not very clean about the house. She had in the end to drown them, it hurt her terribly, the little helpless darlings, yet what could a girl do? However, she took a lot of trouble in thinking out a name for the survivor. She called it
Pretty
.