Mr Worple altered his tone.
‘Now, now, no need to be disagreeable. As a matter of fact I’ve done pretty well – been abroad and made a bit of a pile. Thought I’d like to come back to the old place and see my dear relations. You don’t want to go on knocking about for ever, so I thought about settling down – buying a house, getting myself a wife, all that sort of thing. I suppose you wouldn’t have anything to suit me?’
Mr Martin had a moment’s indecision. He didn’t know that he wanted to have anything to do with a business deal that had got Fred mixed up with it. He might have made money – though it would probably be better not to ask how – and he might have a fancy to settle down and get married and it would make his mother very happy if he did, but he didn’t know that he wanted anything to do with it. He said in a noncommittal manner,
‘Oh, well, you could look about a bit. But those small houses are fetching big prices nowadays, and the smaller they are the more they fetch, so to speak.’
Fred Worple laughed.
‘Oh, I’m not set on anything as small as all that. Four or five bedrooms and a couple of sitting-rooms and a nice piece of garden – that’s about the ticket. Used to be plenty of them knocking about in Grove Hill. Mum tells me you’ve moved right up on the top yourself – Hillcrest Road, isn’t it? Nice and breezy up there. How would you like to have me for a neighbour?’
Mr Martin wouldn’t like it at all. He kept his tongue quiet, but his face spoke plainly enough. There was nothing he would like less than to have a shady stepbrother round the corner.
Mr Worple had a hearty laugh at his expression.
‘Not respectable enough for you? You just wait and see! Now what about one of those houses in Belview Road – nice gardens at the back they had. I’m a whale at gardening – you’d be surprised! Someone told me the corner house was going.’
‘Who told you that?’
‘Oh, just someone. I walked by and had a look at it from the road, but there isn’t any board up.’
‘Well, there’s someone after it, but the people don’t want to sell.’
Fred Worple whistled.
‘What are they asking?’
‘They don’t want to sell.’
‘Holding out for a bigger price?’
Mr Martin raised his eyebrows.
‘They have had a very good offer, but they won’t sell.’
‘Like to tell me what the offer was?’
‘No.’
‘Would it be three thousand – four – five – six – you don’t mean to say they’ve said no to seven!’
During the little pause after each of the figures he kept those sharp, rather near-set eyes of his watchfully fixed upon his stepbrother’s face. When he reached the final sum, Mr Martin said firmly,
‘I don’t mean to say anything at all.’
‘No, but look here, Bert, it’s absurd. Why on earth would anyone be landing out seven thousand for a house like that? You’re having me on. And as if anyone would refuse! They’d be crackers if they did! Now look here, if you’re not telling me what this other chap has offered you’re not. All I’ve got to say is, whatever it is I’ll go a hundred pounds better. Now what about it?’
Mr Martin looked at him attentively. He hadn’t been drinking, and he appeared to be in earnest. He spoke lightly – well, that had always been Fred’s way, but the hand on his knee was clenched and the knuckles white. Fred was up to something, and whatever it was, the respectable firm of Martin and Steadman wasn’t going to mix or meddle with it. He said so.
‘Look here, Fred, I don’t know what you’re driving at, and I don’t want to. I can’t have two clients bidding against each other for the same house and one of them a family connexion. It’s not the way we do business.’ He didn’t get any farther than that, because Fred had burst out laughing.
‘All right, all right, keep your hair on! I just thought I’d give the old firm a chance, that’s all. Jones down the street will do the job for me if I really want it done.’ He pushed back his chair and got up. ‘Well, it’s been nice seeing you, Bert. You’ll like having me just round the corner, won’t you? So long!’ He went out whistling.
Mr Worple walked down the High Street. It hadn’t really changed. There was a new cinema, and different names over one or two of the shops, but otherwise just the same old spot. A good respectable class of custom and a good respectable class of customer. Not the sort of place where you would expect anything much to happen…
It was at this point that he ran into Ella Harrison.
She was looking into a shop window, and when she turned round, there they were, face to face and near enough to have kissed without so much as taking a forward step. He thought of doing it, but only for a moment. Then he said ‘Ella!’ and she said ‘Fred!’, and there they were, looking at each other. He thought she hadn’t worn at all badly. A fine woman, and one who knew how to make the most of herself. The touched-up hair and bright make-up, the extravagantly cut suit, were very much to his taste.
‘Fred! Where on earth did you spring from?’
He gave her the smile which she had once admired so much. As a matter of fact she admired it still. He had a way of looking right into your eyes… He said,
‘That’s telling!’
‘What are you doing here?’
‘Visiting my mum like a good boy.’
‘Go on!’
‘Believe it or not, that’s just what I’m doing. Did I never tell you I came from these parts?’
‘No, you didn’t.’
‘Well, maybe not, but it’s true all the same. I’m respectably connected I am, and that’s something you didn’t know either. Martin & Steadman the house-agents half a dozen doors up – well, Bert Martin is my brother.’
‘Your brother!’ Her voice was shrill with disbelief.
‘Well, step – my mum married his dad. And weren’t we a happy family – I don’t think! Why, I used to work in that dead-alive old office.’
Ella Harrison came to herself with a jerk. They couldn’t stand here in the High Street with the chance of somebody who knew her bumping into them. One of the Miss Pimms for instance – help! And at that very moment whom should she see on the other side of the street and waiting to cross over but Mabel, the eldest and if possible the nosiest of the three. She said quickly,
‘There’s quite a good café at the corner of Sefton Street. Come along and we’ll have a cup of coffee. We can’t talk here.’
Since she had seen Miss Pimm, Miss Pimm had of course seen her. Practically all that the Miss Pimms went down into the High Street for was to see what there was to be seen. They kept an extremely sharp look-out for it and very little escaped them. Mabel’s glance skimming across the road had already taken note of the fact that Mrs Harrison was wearing a new and expensive-looking suit, when she saw her turn round and greet a stranger. She was quite sure that he was a stranger, because nobody in Grove Hill wore the kind of clothes that he was wearing. But not a stranger to Mrs Harrison – oh, no! The way he was looking at her – well, she could only tell her sisters afterwards that she didn’t think it was at all nice. Bold was the way that she would describe it – distinctly bold.
It was just as she had made up her mind on this point that Mabel Pimm had her view interrupted by what amounted to a traffic jam. The bus coming down the hill was discharging its passengers, and a furniture-van which had just turned out of Sefton Street took up nearly all the rest of the road. She couldn’t see the opposite pavement at all. She had been most interested. That fast-looking Mrs Harrison – the Miss Pimms still employed the vocabulary of their youth – and a flashy-looking man standing very close together and engaged in what was obviously an intimate conversation! When she told Nettie and Lily about it afterwards, this was the term that she employed. ‘They were standing much too close together – it really looked as if he might be going to kiss her! Not an elderly man at all, and I suppose some people would have called him good-looking, but not the sort of person one would me
et socially! Of course one wouldn’t expect Mrs Harrison to be particular, but there he was, smiling at her in the most intimate manner! And then that wretched van came along, and by the time the road was clear again they had completely disappeared. I thought they might have gone into the Sefton café, so I went in and bought half a dozen scones, but I couldn’t see them. Of course there are those little screened alcoves…’ Ella Harrison and Fred Worple sat in one of the alcoves and sipped their coffee. The Sefton had very good coffee. After the first shock – and frankly it had been a shock – Ella found herself astonishingly pleased to see him again. You don’t always want bits of your past to come bobbing up so to speak out of nowhere, but she had had a bit of a soft spot for Fred. There was a time when she had gone right off the deep end about him, but that was all over and done with. It had been very uncomfortable while it lasted, because they had neither of them had a bean and they both had tempers. There were scenes and recriminations, and a furious parting. It was all a long time ago and the anger had faded out, but the soft spot remained. They were being very comfortable together. He told her she had better forget all about his having called himself Selby, because Worple was his real name – ‘and don’t you forget it, ducks.’ And she told him about getting ill and losing her job in the chorus and running into Jack Harrison down at Brighton, where she was staying with her Aunt Annie.
‘Mean wasn’t the word for her! Kept everything locked up and measured it out! I wouldn’t have stayed a day, only I hadn’t anywhere else to go. And then, there was Jack Harrison coming up to me on the front and asking me if I remembered him. He’d been at a party Anna Kressler threw, so I said of course I remembered him, and he said he’d never forgotten me and perhaps I’d dine with him.’ She laughed. ‘I’d have dined with the devil and been glad to! It didn’t take me long to see I could get him just where I wanted him. He’d come in for money from an old bachelor cousin, and – well, it was a chance I couldn’t afford to let slip, so I took him and here we are.’
‘All settled down and respectable?’
‘Oh, I’m not chancing my luck.’
But even as she said it she knew that the luck had gone sour on her. When you were down and out, your looks all gone to bits through being ill and Aunt Annie getting the last ounce out of you, Jack Harrison might have seemed like a godsend. All very well to say he hadn’t changed. That was just it – he hadn’t. Day after day, week after week, year after year, he went on being the little dull, grey man whom she had married. There had been plenty of money until lately, but he had begun to talk about cutting down expenses – selling the house, finding somewhere cheaper. He spoke of losses, and the way he went on about the income tax was enough to feed anyone up. In the old days you were tired, you were hungry, you tramped your shoes out looking for jobs, but you didn’t get bored.
She looked at Fred and thought about the times they had had together. There had been rows, but there had been other things as well. She thought about dancing all night, and the way men used to stare at her, and about making love and being made love to. And here was Fred looking at her the way he used to do. It didn’t mean a thing, but – why shouldn’t it? In the old days he never had a bean, but there seemed to be plenty of money in his pockets now, burning a hole there the way it does when you’ve never had much and it comes to you all of a sudden.
He laughed softly and said,
‘Oh, I’m a good boy now – safe as houses. And look here, this is where you can help me. You’d like to help an old friend, wouldn’t you, Ella?’
She flashed him a glance.
‘Provided it’s on the level.’
‘Of course it’s on the level! I want to settle down – buy a house and start a nice little business.’
‘What kind of a business?’
‘Haven’t made up my mind yet. Partnership in a going concern, I think. I’ll get the house first.’
‘And the wife?’ She looked at him between her darkened lashes.
He said lightly, ‘They might go together.’
‘And what do you mean by that?’
‘Oh, just my joke. The fact is I’ve got my eye on a place already. Used to see it when I was a kid and thought I’d like to live there some day. Never thought it’d come off, but you never know your luck – someone tipped me a winner and I made a packet. So it’s me for No. 1 Belview Road.’
Fancy his wanting to buy the Grahams’ house and settle down in Grove Hill. She could think of a dozen better ways of spending money than that. She could think of a dozen better ways of helping him to spend it.
She said with a dash of malice,
‘Well, your luck is out. There’s someone after it already.’
‘How do you know?’
‘The Grahams happen to be friends of mine. I don’t know that they want to sell. They’ve been offered seven thousand, and they’re not jumping at it.’
He gave an incredulous whistle.
‘Seven thousand? You’re kidding!’
‘Well, I’m not.’
‘Who’s the sucker?’
‘A man called Blount.’
His face changed so suddenly that she was startled. He said in a voice that was more like the snarling of an animal,
‘The dirty double-crossing swine!’
SIX
MISS MADISON WAS always extremely offended if anyone alluded to her establishment as a boarding-house. The word had drab associations. It suggested something inferior to an hotel. Miss Madison took Paying Guests. The term guest house was not unacceptable. It was her aim to provide cheerful surroundings, nourishing and appetizing food, and the amenities of home at a moderate charge. Since she was a very good cook, her rooms were seldom empty. Old Mr Peters had occupied one of them ever since his wife died ten years ago. He might be a disconsolate widower, but the Miss Pimms often remarked on how much younger and better he had looked since he had gone to live at Miss Madison’s.
Each of the rooms was furnished in a distinctive colour and was known by that name. Mr Peters had the Red Room. Old Mrs Bottomley, who had been there nearly as long as he had, occupied the Blue Room. She was in her middle eighties, and she had one of those fair downy complexions which seem to get fairer and downier as time goes on. She was a very nice old lady. She had blue eyes and fluffy white hair, and she really looked charming in her pale blue room. Mr and Mrs Blount were in the Pink Room, which was a pity, because poor Mrs Blount had no complexion at all, and the flowered carpet, the pink walls and curtains, and the twin beds with their rose-coloured bed-spreads, only made her look paler and plainer than ever. The pink was also very unfortunate as a background for her rather sparse sandy hair. Not that she herself was in the way of noticing such things as colour effects, but it afflicted Miss Madison who was. If another double room had been vacant, she would have pressed the Blounts to take it, though really when she came to think it over she didn’t know which of the other colours would have been any better. Yellow or green wouldn’t have been too bad with the hair, but she felt shaken when she considered what they might do to that pale flat face, those dull pale eyes. Miss Madison decided that it wasn’t worth worrying about. People who worried disseminated gloom. She considered cheerfulness to be a duty.
Mrs Blount sat in the easy chair in her pink bedroom with a gaily coloured magazine on her lap. It was one of those publications which announce themselves frankly as appealing to Woman with a capital W. It contained household hints, the kind of love story in which everything always comes right in the end, advice on dress, on health, on the conduct of your love-life, on how to manage your house, your children, your husband, together with answers to correspondents, and most important of all, how to be beautiful. Mrs Blount always read the love stories first. When the current serial left the heroine convinced that the tall fair man who had come into her life was unalterably attached to another, she could solace herself with the thought that if not next week, or the next, or the next after that, at any rate in the end it would all turn out to be a misun
derstanding and the wedding-bells would ring. Sometimes the man was dark with flashing eyes. Sometimes instead of being handsome he had strong, rugged features. But it all came to the same in the end. He put his arms round the heroine and they kissed each other. Of course the people who wrote the story put it in much more complicated ways, but that was how Mrs Blount thought about it. She was a simple woman and a most unhappy one. It soothed this unhappiness to read about other people who were unhappy, and who got over it and lived happily ever after. It wasn’t that she thought it would happen to her, she just liked to read about it happening to other people. It was for the same reason that she read every word of the advice on beauty culture – ‘If your skin is inclined to be greasy – if you are getting a double chin – if there are any of those fine lines about your eyes – if you are inclined to lose weight, to put on weight – if your face is too long, too wide, too plump, too thin…’ There were ways in which you could put everything right, and she never got tired of reading about them. She didn’t get as far as imagining herself doing any of the things that were recommended. Never for an instant did she picture herself with wavy hair, a transfigured skin, eyebrows carefully shaped and darkened, eye-shadow, rouge, powder, and lipstick. She just liked to read about these things.
When she heard Mr Blount’s step on the stairs she pushed the magazine behind a cushion. He laughed at the stories and made unkind remarks about the letters from correspondents. They were people who had their troubles, and it wasn’t right to laugh at them. When he came into the room with a frown she knew at once that something had upset him. He shut the door behind him and said in an ugly voice,
‘Fred’s here.’
Mrs Blount’s pale mouth fell open, and he swore at her.
‘You needn’t make yourself more of a damned idiot than you are! I said, “Fred’s here!” You can understand as much as that, can’t you?’
She said, ‘Yes, Sid.’
He stared at her angrily.
‘We’ve been too long about it, and that’s a fact! Might have made a difference if you’d played up a bit! You’re supposed to be dead set on the house, aren’t you? But I take you to see it, and what do you do – just sit about like a bundle of old clothes and say, “Very nice!”.’
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