by A. J. Cronin
‘Do you hear anything of Lambert?’ Stephen asked, after a pause.
‘Philip?’ Chester looked portentous. ‘He’s come rather a cropper. Elise left him, you know. Went off with an Australian officer in the war. Last thing I heard of Philip he was designing wallpaper for some potty little firm in Chantilly.’ He paused, and shook his head. ‘Of course … you know about Emmy?’
‘No.’
‘Good God, man. Don’t you read the newspapers? One night, about six months after you left, she went up for her act. They said at the inquest that the track was wet, not well enough lit, but she’d been out to supper and in my opinion it was she who was too well lit. In any event she flubbed the take-off, lost her balance in the air, landed on her head, and broke her neck.’
Stephen was silent. Although he knew Chester as a sensational liar, he could not doubt but that this was true. Yet the news, while it shocked him, had a strange remoteness, as though it merely marked the closure of an episode so long forgotten it was already dead. Nor had he time to dwell upon it, for at once Chester had resumed talking about himself, less with outright deceit than with that curious undaunted self-deception that ignored his position as a cheap commercial traveller working on commission, forgot the unpaid debts, the cadged loans, the drinks sponged from friends, glossed over the one-night stands in cheap hotel rooms, the jobs he had already been thrown out of, and almost gave reality to his bogus assumption of the superior old-school tie, his sham of high prosperity. Beyond a few perfunctory inquiries he had no apparent interest in Stephen’s doings. In a fashion there was something almost to admire, a quality near to the heroic, in this breezy charlatanism, never for an instant yielding to depression or the bitter shafts of truth. But suddenly, with a glance at the clock above the bar, Chester broke off.
‘Good Lord,’ he exclaimed. ‘Half-past six. I’ve only seven minutes to catch my train for Folkestone. I must run. Goodbye, old man. Been wonderful seeing you. Thanks for the drink.’ Resetting his bowler to a more rakish angle, he shook hands, nodded to the barmaid, and swinging his black bag of samples, went off with a swagger.
In a thoughtful manner Stephen paid the reckoning and made his way through the falling darkness to the Row. This accidental meeting, with its reminders of that early period in France, brief perhaps, yet filled with self-delusion, had thrown into more vivid relief his present reality. After Chester’s shallow dash it was a relief to contemplate the cheerful ordinariness that he would find in the warm kitchen of No. 49. His indeterminate mood had gone, he mounted the steps with sudden briskness.
Within, Ernie sat at the table – Jenny was busy at the stove.
‘Thank goodness,’ she greeted him with a cheerful face. ‘I been keeping your supper and was just worrying it would spoil. We’ve had ours a good half-hour.’
The warmth of her welcome, the glow in the homely little room, touched him like a blessing. He sat down beside Ernie, who was bowed studiously over the weekly periodical known as Comic Cuts.
Tipping open the oven door with her foot, Jenny took a dish-towel, brought out a deep platter of shepherd’s pie, placed it on the table, one half of which she had kept covered with a cloth.
‘Mind, it’s hot. Move over, Ernie, with your Latin and Greek.’
When he sat down and began to eat – the pie was steaming and savoury, with a thick russet crust of toasted potatoes – she took the chair opposite, observing his appetite with approval.
‘Been working?’
‘Trying to … then I went round the harbour.’
‘It’s done you good. You have picked up down here.’
‘I’m a new man, Jenny. And owe it all to you.’
‘Garn. Try these pickled onions. Florrie has her permit. Old Councillor Stick-in-the-Mud finally obliged.’
‘That’s good news.’
‘She came in at four. Let me off minding the shop for the evening. That’s why I come up and cooked you the pie. Like it?’
He answered by passing his plate for a second portion.
‘I’ll help you with the dishes.’
‘There’s nothing to do. Only yours. Won’t take a minute.’
As she cleared the table he went into his room, washed, came back into the kitchen. She had finished drying the dishes and, with a steaming vapour rising from her hands, now hung the wrung-out cloth on the side of the sink. Her gaze fell upon the chuckling Ernie.
‘You’ll have brain fever, Ern, if you study so hard. How’s Weary Willy this week?’
‘Perfect scream. I’m reading slow to make him last.’
‘I thought you was going to the pictures?’
‘Not me. It ain’t a cowboy this week.’
There was a pause. A sudden idea came to Stephen as he sat with his hands in his pockets on the edge of the dresser.
‘You wouldn’t care to come to the cinema, Jenny?’
She gave him a quick smile, but shook her head.
‘Oh, do come.’
‘I’m not one for the pictures really. Especially a beautiful night like this.’ She glanced through the window. ‘It is lovely out. Clear and mild.’
Following her gaze, he saw the round silver moon rising over the harbour pool, and sensing her inclination, he said:
‘Then let’s take a walk.’
Her smile deepened, she looked really pleased.
‘Would be nice, a stroll, after being cooped in all day. I’ll have my coat on in a jiffy.’
She kept him waiting barely a minute, then, enjoining Ernie, who paid not the slightest heed, to keep the stove in, and let Florrie know they’d be back in half an hour, she led the way downstairs and they set off along the quay towards the promenade. The night was superb, warm and clear, the moon, enthroned by glittering planets, at its dazzling full, the milky way a path of lambent silver. As they passed the Dolphin he glanced at her inquiringly.
‘Like a spot of something?’
But again, she made a gesture of negation.
‘I couldn’t fancy it somehow. Too nice out. Such a moon … and stars.’
Indeed, when they reached the promenade the string of lights seemed a pale necklace in competition with the stellar brilliance. On the benches, lovers sat no more than holding hands, as though bedazzled and bemused by the lack of shadow. The sea moved in a shimmer of sequins, a great sea-serpent rustling its scales. Too quickly they came to the end of the esplanade and, hesitant, yet unwilling to cut short these miraculous moments by turning back immediately, Stephen said:
‘It’s so light, shall we go along the sands?’ She made no objection and as they stepped out on the wide waste of sand exposed by the receding tide, he reflected aloud: ‘You know, Jenny, this is the first time we’ve ever been out alone together.’
‘Funny.’ She laughed uncertainly. ‘Haven’t had the opportunity. Chance is a fine thing.’
‘Yet I feel as if I’d known you all my life.’
The words, expressing the comfort he derived from her companionship, were wrung from him. She made no reply. And in silence they continued over the smooth firm beach upon which white shells, half buried, gleamed like fallen stars. Behind them, the town receded distantly, bathed in liquid light; they were alone on the deserted shore.
At last, reluctantly, he felt they had gone far enough. Yet he could not bear the thought of going back. He turned to her. ‘Let’s rest a little, and look at the moon.’
They found a sheltered hollow in the dunes, protected by rough grass, but open to the singing sky and the sighing sea.
‘You should have your overcoat,’ she said. ‘It might be damp. Take shares of mine.’ And, solicitously, she opened her coat and spread out half of it for him to sit on.
‘It is a shame we have to leave day after tomorrow,’ she murmured presently. ‘Margate is nice this time of year.’
‘I have certainly enjoyed it.’
There was a pause.
‘I suppose you’ve made your plans.’
‘Well … in a way.�
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She did not look at him, her gaze was straight ahead.
‘I shouldn’t wish to seem pushing, sir, and you know it’s not for the money, but I was hoping you’d keep your room on for a while. You did say you was going to paint the river. With you and Captain Tapley in the house there’s such a nice settled feeling.’
‘I should like to stay a bit. But I ought to be on the move again.’
‘It’s terrible the way you’ve lived, alone, no house, travelling about, no one to look after you.’ There was distress in her voice. ‘Do you really have to?’
He did not answer. The warmth of her body, so near to him, and so alive, was more than he could endure. All at once an irresistible wave of feeling burst over him. Unable to resist, he passed an arm under her coat and firmly around her waist. Immediately her flow of conversation ceased, he felt a sudden strained tension in her figure.
‘You shouldn’t do that, sir,’ she protested, in a low voice.
‘For God’s sake don’t call me sir, Jenny.’ He could scarcely speak the words. And suddenly he kissed her, with a fierce hard pressure of his mouth. Her lips were full and dry, slightly roughened, warm as a plum on a sunny wall. Under the unexpectedness of his embrace, she bent away, lost her balance, and fell upon her back. There she lay, on the soft sand, as though defenceless, looking upwards, the moon reflected in her eyes.
His heart was beating like mad, never had he felt such a surge of wild emotion. Anything he had known before, those moments of fondness for Claire, his senseless infatuation for Emmy – all were nothing compared to this sweet intoxication. He had believed himself a strange, unnatural being to whom the happiness of requited love was eternally forsworn. It was false. Leaning on his side, he slipped his hand inside the open neck of her dress, cupped in his palm one soft breast. Warmer than her lips, richly veined, it seemed to flutter beneath his fingers like a pinioned bird. His touch was gentle, yet, with the movement of his wrist, the buttons of her bodice had opened and, with a sigh, almost of anguish, he placed his cheek against the smooth white cleft as though beseeching her for solace. Oh, God, he thought, this was what I wanted, needed, longed for, this is the remedy, the eternal Lethe, to pillow one’s head upon this woman’s soft, dove-like breast, to find oblivion in her arms.
Now he could feel the trembling of her body, sense with answering joy the yielding weakness of her limbs. Supported by his elbow, anguished himself, yet draining to the full this foretaste of delight, he looked downwards, saw that her breath came quickly, that her eyes were tightly shut. Her face seemed small, contracted as by pain, her lashes cast moon-shadows upon cheeks suddenly pinched and careworn. When he touched her lips again she fiercely returned his kiss, then, with a shiver, in one last faint futile protest, tossed her head aside.
‘No … not fair,’ she muttered. ‘Not on a night like this.’
In answer he held her close. And now her arms reached out and twined themselves about his neck. Her lips sought his, opened, invited. The earth spun, the moon went out. An instant, inevitable as death. And then peace, warmth, and silence … a long silence, wherein they lay, not moving, in each other’s arms.
At last, a tear trickled from her cheek to his, made him raise his head, pillowed in her neck, look into her eyes.
‘Jenny, what’s the matter?’
Her voice, conscience-stricken, muffled by his shoulder, reached him faintly.
‘That’s twice now, in my life. And this time I can’t even blame it on the drink.’
‘You don’t regret it? You do care for me?’
‘You know I do.’ She clung to him with renewed fierceness. ‘ I always have. Always … from the first. Even with Alf I used to think on you. Oh, I shouldn’t have then, nor now either … serve me right … me that’s not even married.’
He had to stifle a wild, frantic desire to laugh. He took up her small hand, gritty with sand, and held it tight.
‘Don’t worry, Jenny. If you’ll have me, we’ll get a certificate tomorrow at the registry office. We’re in for it now, for better or worse, you and I together.’
Part Five
Chapter One
On that autumn morning in the year 1928, before the first pencil of light had penetrated the darkness of the back ground-floor bedroom in Cable Street, Stephen awoke. For a while he lay still, conscious of the solid form of his wife beside him, of her regular breathing, then, without disturbing her, he got up and dressed silently, knowing by instinct where his clothes lay on the chair, his flannel undervest, serge trousers, and the thick blue woollen jersey she had knitted for him. Then, in his stocking feet, he went out and along the passage, knocked sharply three times on Joe Tapley’s door, and entered the kitchen.
The gas-ring exploded mildly under the kettle, already filled, upon the stove. On the table, everything was prepared, as usual. In ten minutes, when the Cap’n joined him, they sat down to a breakfast of hot tea, bread and dripping, and sausage. They ate without speech until they had almost finished. Then Tapley said:
‘Wind’s from the west.’
Stephen nodded, and bent-forward to the old man’s ear.
‘We ought to get that cloud effect this morning.’
‘There’ll be a chop on – hope that outboard behaves. I don’t hold with them things at all.’
‘It spares your lumbago.’
‘Bah, I’ll take oars any day.’
Stephen rose, filled a fresh cup of tea and took it to the bedroom, where, covering the cup with the saucer, he placed it on the table by the bed – sometimes the catch on the front door awakened her. Back in the kitchen, he put on his boots, looked warningly at Tapley, who was beginning to trifle with his pipe.
‘We’ll have to hurry.’
‘I’m ready.’
Closing the tricky door with only the lightest slam, they went out together, walking free and unencumbered – all the gear was in the shed at the wharf.
The house remained silent behind them. But at half-past six the alarm clock whirred, Jenny opened her eyes, blinked at the cup of tea beside her, felt it to be stone-cold. Reproachfully, she shook her head, and immediately got up. The room was still bathed in crepuscular greyness – the wooden lean-to which Stephen had built for a studio blocked some part of the early light – and as she dressed, slipping her arms through her camisole, stepping into her pink woollen drawers, briskly, yet deftly and, despite her short, thickened figure, with unconscious grace, she hoped he had got down to Greenwich before dawn.
Quickly, she ‘ got the house going’ – her own phrase – and by eight o’clock she had breakfasted, aired the two ground-floor beds, lit the fire beneath the scullery boiler, and taken up Miss Pratt’s morning tray. At a quarter to nine Miss Pratt, now the permanent occupant of the upstairs back room, went off to her infants’ class at the Stephney Board School. Jenny tidied up, made all the beds, and putting her head out of the back door in exploratory fashion, noted with personal satisfaction the fresh drying breeze. Today, Monday, was her wash-day.
As she sorted out the linen and popped the things into the copper boiler, without knowing it, and quite without skill, she began to sing. It was her nature to be happy. But beyond that, she counted herself a lucky woman to be privileged to love and serve this extraordinary man who had married her. She did not, and never would completely understand him. She did not try, but watched him in all his moods, in his silences, exaltations and depressions – so different from her own balanced common sense – with tender and possessive wonder. His carelessness in respect to meals, clothing, and conventional obligations made her shake her head. To think that a man for whom she had packed a nourishing lunch would forget about it, then, driven by hunger, dash into a baker’s shop, buy a loaf of bread and break off and eat pieces of it as he walked along, passed all understanding.
Yet his desire to paint she looked upon with kindly tolerance. It was a gentlemanly occupation that befitted him, gave him pleasure and relaxation – it was ‘something for him to do’. H
is especial preoccupation with the river she thoroughly approved, since it took him out of the house into the good fresh air. For if she had a worry – and at certain moments she would pause in the middle of her work, while an anxious wrinkle gathered between her brows – it was the condition of his health … she did not like that cough, now so permanent it seemed a part of him, and which indeed he completely ignored.
But today she was too busy to worry. When her washing was pegged out and blowing lustily on the clothes-line in the yard, she made her lunch – toasted cheese on bread, and that indispensable, a strong cup of tea. Then she took off her wrapper and put on her second-best dress, picked up a basket and went down the street. The Glyns were coming to supper; she had fixed on a nice vegetable stew and, after some discussion with the butcher and the rejection of several cuts, she secured a piece that satisfied her. Afterwards she visited the grocer’s and the dairy, enjoying the shop windows as she went, examining from fresh angles a three-piece suite in the East London Emporium she had long had her eye upon for the parlour. Presently she was back in her house, had cut up the meat and chopped the vegetables. The thought of the evening’s entertainment pleased her – she liked Anna, who was just ‘her sort’, and who managed like a proper housewife the little house in Tite Street that Glyn, lapsing into respectability, had bought four years ago after he had regularised their relationship and married her. She knew, too, that it did Stephen good to see Richard, who, apart from Cap’n Tapley, was now his only friend, indeed, the only person for whom he would consent to break his fixed and solitary routine.
Thus far, the day had followed a normal pattern – quiet, agreeable and supremely ordinary. But towards two o’clock, as she made to take in the dry clothes, the front-door bell pealed. For a moment she thought it was the afternoon postman with a letter from Margate – Florrie had lately been a regular correspondent, with news of young Ernie, about to be articled to a solicitor.
However, when she answered the summons, a taxi was disappearing round the corner and before her stood a spare, cleanshaven man in a somewhat worn fawn trench-coat. He raised his hat.