Martha willingly took down the card and made another more beautiful still. It looked practically irresistible.
“What happens if we get two lodgers?” asked Martha.
“Then we must let the dining-room as well,” said Dolores, looking brighter than she’d done for days.
“Suppose we get three?”
“Then we must let your room,” said Dolores, “and you must come in with me.”
Martha liked this less. The lettering (and the furniture-shifting, as an unusual employment) she’d enjoyed; the prospect of surrendering her privacy she couldn’t. But she was very anxious not to see Dolores relapse, and so raised no objection.
In fact the point remained academic. No lodger came at all.
4
As regarded his own fortunes, on the other hand, Mr Gibson had been over-pessimistic. In Kensington, things were looking up. The shop over the tailoring establishment was discovered to be not such a dead duck after all. In fact, Joyces decided to keep it going.
“For a year, maybe two, making a little experiment,” explained Mr Joyce. “Why not?”
Mr Gibson’s response to this reprieve was less welcoming than resentful. His spirit was so thoroughly attuned to self-immolation, he was so ready to throw up the sponge and bury himself in some subordinate post at Bond Street, he even entered into argument. What was the point, demanded Harry Gibson, of a show-room without a clientèle? Admittedly certain old customers used to return year after year for re-modelling, but even this trade had been killed by the depression. “Why not show ’em something new?” suggested Mr Joyce. “Could they buy even lapin?” countered Harry Gibson. “With my label in it, they might,” said old man Joyce.
Which was of course the point; and as the scheme developed Miss Harris and Miss Molyneux began to back it. They saw the shop in Kensington a branch of Joyces in Bond Street, whereat ladies of more taste than means (but whose cheques didn’t bounce) might befur themselves in guaranteed Bond Street style. “Truly, Mr Gibson, I believe we could make a very nice thing of it,” said Miss Harris. “I’d looked forward, I admit it, to working on skunk, but if musquash means bread-and-butter, I for one shan’t quarrel.” “There’ll be skunk to show, dear,” said Miss Molyneux consolingly. “Mr Joyce promised …”
Already they quoted Mr Joyce as though they’d worked for him all their lives.
Harry Gibson saw the scheme’s advantages himself. What the Kensington business lacked was prestige. Any woman with money to buy a fur naturally preferred a Bond Street label in it: the new sample tabs displayed by Miss Harris took care of just this idiosyncrasy. Joyce of Bond Street and Kensington, ran the silken legend—sinking Gibson and Son without trace. “And as Mr Joyce says,” added Miss Harris encouragingly, “the depression can’t last for ever. Think how nice it will be, Mr Gibson, when we’re all going strong again in the old home!”
She was a good sort. So was Miss Molyneux a good sort. Miss Molyneux had thoroughly looked forward to peacocking about the Joyce salon, but she swallowed her disappointment so as not to spoil things for Mr Gibson. “I can see where style’s needed,” declared Miss Molyneux nobly, “and it’s here. You’ve been ever so thoughtful of us, Mr Gibson, and I’m sure I’m only glad to repay …”
Harry Gibson, ungratefully, wished he could simply shoot himself. In addition to all emotional distress he now suffered from a feeling that he’d somehow been diddled. He couldn’t put a finger on it: old Joyce, taking over Gibson’s lock, stock and barrel, had obviously every right to handle his new acquisition as he pleased: but if there was life in the old firm yet, if it wasn’t the dead loss it had been accounted, in the preliminary negotiations—Harry Gibson felt he’d been diddled.
5
In Paddington Miss Diver paid half-a-crown to put up a card in the local newsagent’s. Martha again lettered it splendidly: among its flyblown and faded companions—“Gentleman interested in photography seeks congenial model,” “Young lady free evenings seeks congenial employment,” besides a dozen other apartment-cards—it really stood out. Martha often stopped to look at it. But apparently no one else did.
It was now that Miss Diver’s lack of social relations showed as such a serious handicap. She was on no grapevine. She had no one to recommend her. And it was too late to do anything about it, for as she had once been too happy to make friends, now she was too wretched. She hadn’t even neighbours. Alcock Road, without being exactly raffish, was a rather secretive little street, as such little streets in London often are. Could its walls have talked they might have told many an interesting tale—one or two perhaps as romantic as Dolores’ own; for whatever reasons its inhabitants (except for the party-giving extrovert long since vanished) kept themselves strictly to themselves. The single house Dolores ever entered was that of Miss Taylor, chiropodist—and there kept her distance, because everyone knew how that sort of person gossiped …
Dolores had in fact always been rather grand, at Miss Taylor’s. Certainly she couldn’t bring herself to appeal there for help in finding a lodger. Which was a pity, because Miss Taylor actually knew of one not a stone’s-throw away—the dissatisfied occupant of a bed-sit in Praed Street—and thus through pride Dolores missed an excellent chance.
She had no luck.
Paradoxically, as lodgers continued absent, her face began to set more and more in the irritated, worried expression associated by Martha with landladies. It was as yet but a foreshadowing; Miss Diver would never be a Ma Battleaxe; but lodgers yet unborn (so to speak) might not impossibly (so that expression foreshadowed) come to know her as Old Madrid …
Of this second threat to her identity, Miss Diver was unaware.
CHAPTER SIX
1
The shop was taken over lock, stock and barrel; so was Harry Gibson.
No prospective ’groom had ever less to do: between them Miranda and his mother and Auntie Bee and Mr Joyce saw to everything. Even the engagement-ring, a handsome affair of diamonds, appeared as though by magic in his pocket—Mr Joyce bought it and old Mrs Gibson put it there; all Harry’s part was to give it back to Miranda. (Almost to his admiration, she received it with surprise. “Oh, Harry!” cried Miranda. “It’s beautiful!” Mr Gibson took a look himself: no doubt old Joyce had got it through the trade, but even so he must have put down a couple of hundred. “Dadda, see my ring!” cried Miranda—slightly overdoing things. Mr Joyce merely made a note to have it insured.) Nor did the question of where they should live, so often a problem to young couples, present any more difficulty; there was plenty of room in the Knightsbridge flat. “Naturally you and Miranda will have your own sitting-room,” explained Mrs Gibson. “You will not have to be all the time in that old Beatrice’s pocket!” Her encouragements were superfluous; the last things Harry Gibson wanted was to be shut up alone with Miranda. If his mother had been coming along too, he’d have rejoiced—but the mater on this point was wiser. “It will be nice for you to have somewhere to visit,” she said slyly. “Even Miranda will not mind you visiting your old mother, boy!”
Mr Gibson surrendered all initiative willingly. Indeed, he felt it would have been beyond his powers to deal with any one of these matters himself, so poignant were the memories they stirred. The only jewel he ever gave Dolores was a garnet—but what pleasure he’d taken in choosing it! The leasing of the little house in Alcock Road—what a delicious, rash adventure! Mr Gibson did his best to set such memories aside; but only succeeded, he hoped, in not betraying them. “So much my Harry relies on Miranda’s taste!” cried old Mrs Gibson—faced by his stubborn refusal to look at wallpapers for the new sitting-room. “Whatever Miranda chooses he will think perfect! She will have everything her own way!”
The single occasion of his expressing an opinion was the night Miranda produced a sample of curtain-stuff. It was rose-pink brocade. “I don’t like the colour,” said Harry Gibson. “But what could be prettier!” protested Joyce. “Blue,” said Harry, at random.
He spent as much time as possible at the shop
. There at least he had the illusion of being still his own master, and it was to a certain extent the truth: Gibsons of Kensington (though as to name sunk without trace, even the door-plate had by now been changed) so benefited by having a Gibson on the premises to act as link between old and new, that old man Joyce left his prospective son-in-law pretty well alone. As the days and weeks passed, Harry began to recover confidence in the security of his office; gradually assembled there one or two objects of special value to him. As the mementos of a ten-year-long romance, they weren’t much. He had no photograph of Dolores—(She had one of him: in uniform. It used to stand on the ermine-cabinet; now it stood beside her bed.)—and no gages d’amour, because for his birthday and at Christmas Dolores always gave him liqueur-chocolates. Since she gave them because he had a passion for them, they were naturally all eaten. Mr Gibson was in fact reduced to a couple of theatre-programmes, a Derby day race-card, marked by Dolores’ hand, and a bottle of anti-rheumatism pills Dolores had merely recommended. He also, one morning, on the pretext that it needed cleaning, brought from home a rather loud checked tweed jacket and hung it on the hook behind the door. It was obviously no nest of erotica that Mr Gibson arranged for himself; but in the office above the show-room, beside his still inviolate safe, he passed the few tolerable hours of his life.
At least once a day he took out Dolores’ comb, and warmed it back to life between his hands. He had to hang on hard to his Britishness, not to press it to his lips. A sad and ridiculous sight was Harry Gibson—large, stout, fifty years old—holding himself back from mumbling a wafer of tortoiseshell, as a child holds back from sucking a forbidden sweet.
2
Dolores, his Spanish rose, had a good deal more to cherish. She had her King Hal’s pyjamas, also his dressing-gown and bedroom slippers. For several weeks she arranged them each Monday and Thursday night appropriately about the divan. But Martha, who helped make beds, directed too enquiring an eye, and presently Miss Diver laid all away together in her wardrobe drawer. (Sprinkled with pot-pourri; it being obviously impossible to sprinkle underwear with liqueur-chocolates. Again the spirit of the absurd like a poltergeist haunted King Hal and his Spanish rose.) Dolores had also her Harry’s photograph—splendid with two stars on each shoulder-strap. It was the sole object she had moved from the sitting-room, where nothing else was changed by a hair’s-breadth, where in her daily dustings she was careful to replace each object exactly as it stood when Mr Gibson’s eye last fell on it. If Mr Gibson had suddenly walked in again, he would have found no more change than in its mistress’s heart.
3
On one other point besides that of the curtains Harry Gibson stood firm. He insisted on a six-months’ engagement. Considering how smooth was being made his path towards matrimony, the ensuing argument, sustained vicariously, on the bride’s side, by Mrs Gibson and Auntie Bee, was only to be expected: Harry Gibson stood firm. Three months he wouldn’t hear of. “But so well you children know each other already!” protested Mrs Gibson. “And the paper-hangers need only a week!” cried Auntie Bee. “It is not as though people might think anything!” added Mrs Gibson—at the time a little flown with wine. Harry Gibson stuck to his guns and wouldn’t hear of a September wedding.
Appropriately enough, the spring of his intransigence was now economic: the reverse of his suspicion that he’d been diddled was that he now felt the gift of Miranda’s hand less inexplicably above his deserts. In fact he felt Joyces were doing pretty nicely out of him. A spouse for the unmarriageable daughter, besides the makings of a very sound little business—Harry Gibson belatedly recognised that there were no flies on old man Joyce; but as well felt himself less of a pauper, less entirely on the receiving end. When Mrs Gibson suggested that Miranda might take offence, Harry Gibson laughed quite coarsely—and stuck to his guns. He would have liked a year, but this he did know to be impossible; six months was the longest grace he could win for himself—accurately he calculated it out, to December the sixteenth—and he succeeded in winning it.
“Suppose Mr Joyce changes his mind?” asked old Mrs Gibson, at last coming down to brass tacks.
“He won’t,” said Harry.
He knew Joyces too committed to their new enterprise to draw back. The little strips of woven silk, at first so hateful, now gave him courage.
“I consider six months a proper time,” said Harry Gibson, “and I am surprised Miranda doesn’t think so also.”
Once again, his masterfulness did the trick. This last exchange with his mother took place at breakfast; that evening before dinner, in the Knightsbridge drawing-room, Miranda fluttered gratefully into his arms.
“It was only your mother and Auntie Bee,” whispered Miranda, “who wanted to hurry things so! I need six months at least, to get used to my big, fierce lover!”
What Mr Gibson gained by this delay he knew only too well: simply delay. For what was there could happen in even six months, to restore King Hal to his Spanish rose? There was nothing; he was simply postponing the nightmare moment when he would indeed be shut up alone with Miranda Joyce. It was still, as his mother would have said, a something …
All that evening Miranda behaved even more vivaciously than usual—a pretty upsurge of spirits natural to a maiden reprieved from the Minotaur. She played and sang, and sang and played, and teased Harry for his indifference to wallpapers, then relented and showed him the new curtain-stuff, blue because it was his favourite colour. “To match his eyes!” cried Miranda—swiftly the little tease again. “I truly believe that the reason! Oh, how vain my Harry is!” Nothing could have been less like sulks; with some complacency, Mr Gibson sought his mother’s eye—and was astonished to surprise her in the act of directing a soothing glance upon Auntie Bee. They were always exchanging glances of some kind, however, far too complex for any male to interpret, so he paid no attention. He asked Miranda to play another piece on the piano, and she played one. He didn’t ask for an encore, and she stopped playing. It was altogether one of the least disagreeable evenings he’d ever spent, at Knightsbridge; and as a further proof of independence, the evening after that he didn’t dine there at all.
Miranda took the opportunity to have a little talk with her father.
4
“Dadda,” said Miranda Joyce.
As a rule she followed Auntie Bee to the drawing-room, and Mr Joyce would have preferred her to do so now; for once unencumbered by guests he’d meant to have a good go at the port. But his look of surprise was ineffectual as Auntie Bee’s beckonings; Miranda stayed.
“Dadda, there’s something I want to talk to you about.”
Mr Joyce pulled out an evening paper. Again, she didn’t take the hint.
“Because I do sometimes feel, Dadda, that before we’re married, I ought to know more about Harry’s past.”
“Has he got a past?” enquired Mr Joyce uncooperatively.
“He admitted it to me, Dadda, the night he proposed.”
“Then that should be enough,” said Mr Joyce. “He hasn’t got a present, has he?”
“No, I’m sure not,” said Miranda positively. “From his mother I know how he spends every minute.”
“Poor devil,” said Mr Joyce. After knowing Harry Gibson off and on for years, on closer acquaintance he’d taken quite a liking to him. (He’d enjoyed, at the family engagement-party, hearing Harry tell unsuitable stories to old Beatrice, and looked forward to hearing him tell her a few more.) Miranda’s probings into Harry’s past, and even more the rapidly-organised supervision-system now revealed, had the effect of putting him on Harry’s side. “You leave well alone,” Mr Joyce adjured his daughter. “I consider six months a very proper time myself. You leave well alone—and let sleeping dogs lie.”
Miranda hesitated a moment, then jumped up and kissed him affectionately.
“Wise old Dadda, who always knows best!”
“And don’t go hiring detectives,” added old man Joyce.
5
It will thus be seen that Mir
anda too had her anxieties. She didn’t exactly think her big fierce lover would get away—she trusted Dadda too well for that; but what she did fear was the additional three months’ strain on Mr Gibson’s moral character. Such a passionate man as he was—a man who’d had a mistress! When he told her that was all washed up, Miranda believed him; but would it stay washed up, for half a year? Wasn’t some interim backsliding at least possible? Without, she assured herself, the least jealousy or curiosity, Miranda couldn’t help feeling she ought to know more of the facts—just in case Harry ever needed her help.
She didn’t hire detectives. It was a course she had indeed envisaged—actually half-way through Chopin’s Nocturne in G Major; at the very moment when Harry surprised a glance between the mater and Aunt Beatrice—but only with her father acting as principal, to bear if need be the brunt of Harry’s wrath; and wise old Dadda had made his position lamentably clear. What other courses lay open? Pumping old Mrs Gibson was no use, the latter, with excellent sense, having contrived to know exactly as little about her son’s private life as Harry hoped she did. “Two nights from home every week? In Leeds,” said Mrs Gibson firmly. “How glad he is too, now no more tiresome railway-travel!” Miranda was left anxious; her happiness in the possession of a big fierce lover was by no means unflawed.
Upon Dolores this postponement—for such she instinctively felt it to be—of the Gibson-Joyce nuptials worked almost as disquietingly. Dolores, daily searching the social columns of her newspaper, and finding at last the announcement she dreaded, read of a mid-December wedding with something like terror. For next month or in six months, what difference?—while to know her beloved for six months more still not irretrievably another’s prolonged the worst of her anguish, which was to hope. There was nothing that could happen, in six months, to restore him to her; yet until those six months were run out, how could she find the graveyard-peace of hopelessness?
The Eye of Love Page 5