This morning, however, Mr. Prescott was in one of his subtle moods. He had said nothing so far, he had merely regarded her rather curiously across the desk, listened to what she had to say, and then swung around so that he could look out the window and watch some pigeons on a nearby roof. She realized that she might have approached him more tactfully, instead of having come straight to the point, but during the past three years of war she had been gradually losing interest in the Woman’s Section of the Post, and during the past six years, she had become thoroughly tired of being tactful with Mr. Prescott, who demanded the utmost tact from his staff, and then invariably walked all over them anyway.
He said at last, “You’d be away three days in the middle of next week, then, wouldn’t you?” and then remarked vaguely, “By the way, one or two of the boys seem to think you’re a member of the Guild ...”
“Yes,” said Erica. She had joined the Guild on the 20th of June, and unless Mr. Prescott was slipping badly, he had found out within something more like three hours than three months. Evidently he was leading up to something.
“We’re not much in favour of it, of course.”
There was another pause, and finally Erica suggested that the three days be counted as part of her holidays.
“Yes, we might do that,” he said, and then added, “I’ll just ask Miss Munroe to come in and give Miss Arnold a hand while you’re gone.”
So it was Miss Munroe again. “I beg your pardon?” said Erica innocently. “I’m afraid I don’t quite remember who ...”
“My niece,” said Mr. Prescott coldly.
“Oh, yes, you said something about her in July, didn’t you? It seems hardly worthwhile to bring your niece in for just three days, though ...”
“No, it doesn’t, does it?”
Erica said nothing. They had been over all this before, but she knew that Mr. Prescott could not manoeuvre his niece into Sylvia’s job without her consent, and Mr. Prescott knew that she knew it. Although the managing editor of the Post went in for hiring relatives, the owner of the Post did not, and furthermore, the owner of the Post was a friend of Charles Drake’s. Although Erica had never yet made use of that friendship, still it might come in handy as a last resort. Mr. Prescott knew that too.
On the other hand, Erica thought, if she did go directly to the owner of the paper in order to out-manoeuvre Mr. Prescott, the managing editor would think up some reason for firing her in fairly short order, and the Guild could do nothing about it, because most of the men on the Post, which was supposed to be pro-Labour in its editorial policy, were too frightened to join. But what difference does it make? Erica asked herself wearily. She was not only tired of being tactful with Mr. Prescott, she was tired of Mr. Prescott.
“There’s a certain amount of give-and-take in any job,” said Mr. Prescott, in the same tone in which he reminded his staff from time to time that they should regard themselves simply as one big happy family. “Have you any particular reason for wanting to go away next week?”
“Yes. My fiancé is going overseas.”
“I see.”
After waiting for him to say something else, Erica got up. She said coolly, “As I have no intention of resigning from the Guild or of permitting Miss Arnold to be fired in order to make room for Miss Munroe, I think the simplest thing for me to do is to resign from my own job. Then Miss Arnold can take over from me, your niece can take over from Miss Arnold — and I’ll have my three days’ holiday.”
It was the first time that she had ever seen the managing editor really startled. He looked up at her, obviously taken aback, and then finally recovering himself, he said, “A rather expensive holiday, isn’t it?”
“I don’t think so.”
Mr. Prescott was strong on clichés. Presumably in order to be able to make the speech about watching her future career with considerable interest, he asked, “Have you any other job in mind?”
“Not at the moment,” said Erica, and then discovered when she was halfway to the door that all the time she had been wondering how she was going to manage after Marc left, she had had another job in mind without fully realizing it. Now that she was finished with the Post, there was nothing to stop her from joining up. In the Army, they don’t give you time to think, or at least not during the basic training period anyhow, and by the time that was over, she would have had a chance to get used to things.
Back in her office again, she sat down at her desk by the window and opening the top drawer in which she had left a package of cigarettes, she announced to Sylvia and Weathersby, “I’ve resigned.”
“Congratulations,” said Weathersby.
Sylvia stopped typing in the middle of a word and asked, “Are you serious, Eric?”
“Yes, I’m leaving on Monday.”
“But why?”
“I didn’t feel like making a deal with Mr. Prescott.” Opening another drawer in which she was certain that she had not left her package of cigarettes, she added, “It was sort of suggested that one good turn deserves another, and that if I wanted three days off in the middle of the week, I ought to be more reasonable on the subject of Mr. Prescott’s niece.”
“Her again,” said Weathersby, groaning. “Have you ever seen her, Eric?”
“No, what’s she like?”
“Dumb,” said Weathersby. “They don’t come any dumber.”
“Does that mean that she’s coming in here?” asked Sylvia incredulously.
“It means that she gets your job and you get mine.”
“And what about you?”
“Oh, me,” said Erica, abandoning the search through her desk drawers and starting to look among the litter on her desk. “I’m going to join the Canadian Women’s Army Corps. Bubbles, have you taken my cigarettes again?”
“They were going stale,” said Weathersby defensively.
“I’ve only been gone a quarter of an hour. They couldn’t go stale that fast. Here, hand them over.”
He recovered the package from underneath his typewriter and tossed it across to her. It missed her desk and as she stooped over to pick it up from the floor, she muttered resentfully, “And out of my desk drawer too. You never used to snitch them unless they were lying on top. It’s about time I resigned, I can’t afford to keep us both in cigarettes. Have we got any matches, Sylvia?”
“No, but your lighter’s working. I got it filled yesterday.”
“Thanks, darling.”
“Eric,” said Sylvia after a pause.
“Yes?”
“What do they do about leaves if you’re married to someone in the Army?”
“Who?”
“The cwac.”
“I think they arrange it so that you have your leaves together. Don’t they, Bubbles?”
Weathersby grunted.
“I suppose he means yes,” said Erica, “and Bubbles knows everything, even if he has no manners, and is under the peculiar delusion that it is his duty to smoke other peoples’ cigarettes in order to keep them from going stale.”
“Do you mind if I join up with you?”
“Mind!” repeated Erica in amazement. “Darling, would you?”
She had had one week of marriage which had ended three days before when Mike had gone off to camp; they had been the longest and emptiest three days that Sylvia had ever lived through, and she said, “Yes,” adding more definitely, “Yes, I would.”
There was a kind of explosion from Weathersby who demanded, as soon as he could talk again, “And who gets out the Woman’s Section of the Post, may I ask?”
“You do,” said Erica and Sylvia together.
“You and Mr. Prescott’s niece,” said Sylvia.
“Are you really serious, Sylvia?” asked Erica.
“Why not?” She looked across at Erica and said, “I’d have joined up long ago, I guess, if it hadn’t been for leaving Mike. Besides, I didn’t much like the idea of doing it alone, but now he’s left me and I won’t be doing it alone — so why not?” she asked aga
in, shrugging. “We’re sort of used to each other and we get along awfully well ...”
“My gosh, yes,” said Erica.
“Then let’s stick together.”
“Leaving me holding the bag with Mr. Prescott’s niece,” said Weathersby, brooding. “But I’ll catch up with you,” he said, pointing a finger at them. “Six months and I’ll be old enough for the Air Force. Did I ever tell you that my brother got the D.F.C. and bar?”
“You’ve told us about the D.F.C. several times,” said Sylvia, “but I don’t think you’ve ever mentioned the bar. Has he ever mentioned the bar, Eric?”
“I don’t think so,” said Erica, after due reflection.
“You may now tell us about the bar, Bubbles,” said Sylvia.
“Oh, shut up,” said Weathersby. “Women,” he said resentfully. “Women. I’ve had enough women around here to last me the rest of my life.”
“Speaking of women,” remarked Sylvia, returning to work. “How’s your mother’s jelly?”
“She still sets it with wax!” said Weathersby hotly.
Erica and Sylvia started to laugh. They went on laughing for a while and finally Erica said, “Well, it’s almost over, Sylvia, but we’ve had an awful lot of fun.”
“Yes,” said Sylvia. Glancing first at Erica, who was rolling a fresh sheet of copy paper into her typewriter, with a light from the window behind her falling on her long fair hair and around her tired, sensitive face, and then at Weathersby in his corner, growling as he embarked on still another account of a wedding, she said again, “Yes, we’ve had a lot of fun.”
Back at work herself, she asked absently after a pause, “What was the bride wearing this time, Bubbles?”
“Mousseline de soie,” said Weathersby. “If I’m ever dope enough to get married, my wife is going to be ‘radiant in her grandmother’s bathing suit,’ God damn it. Anything for a little variety.”
XI
From the Friday evening when Erica had told her parents that she was going to spend the first half of Marc’s embarkation leave with him in the Laurentians until a week from the following Monday, less than two hours before her train was due to leave, Charles Drake did not mention the subject again. During those ten days he scarcely spoke to her at all; even the indirect references to Marc which had acted to some extent as escape valves had abruptly come to an end, and he said nothing in Erica’s hearing which could possibly be related to Marc by even the most roundabout route.
Shortly after three o’clock on Monday afternoon, Erica went up to her bedroom to pack, and a few minutes later she returned from her bathroom with a handful of toilet articles to find her father standing against the closed door leading to the hall.
Erica had not heard him come in and on first sight of him she started, dropping one of her cosmetic jars on the soft carpet, although she had known all along, and in spite of his silence, that some kind of ultimatum was inevitable. He was simply not going to allow her to walk out, on her way to spend three days with Marc, without making any effort to stop her.
She picked up the jar and asked calmly, “What are you doing home at this hour, Charles?”
“I wasn’t getting any work done. I couldn’t keep my mind on it.” He watched her for a moment in silence, while Erica went on with her packing, and then said jerkily, “I came — to ask you — not to go.”
“Why?”
“You know why.”
He moved out of the shadow by the door into the light, a big, dark-haired man with hands clenched at his sides, and said, “That other weekend you were away was bad enough but I didn’t know definitely ...”
“There’s nothing more to know now than there was then.”
He went on as though he had not heard her, “I didn’t know for certain that he was going to be there, or whether you — whether you were definitely ...”
His voice trailed off; he left the sentence unfinished and fumbled in his pocket with one hand, taking out his cigar case and a bunch of keys, then putting them back again. He looked almost ill; the flesh around his fine dark eyes was puffed and discoloured and in the strong light from the windows his skin had a yellowish tinge. He said, trying to keep his voice level, “You can’t expect your mother and me to sit here for three days, from now till Thursday night, while you — while you ...”
He swallowed, and then said with sudden violence, “We can’t stand it. I tell you, Erica, we can’t stand it! We’re too old; if you go through with this thing, you’ll leave a mark on us that will last the rest of our lives.”
“You sound as though I was going to commit murder.”
She took two pairs of shoes from the cupboard, then sat down on her bed with the shoes in her lap, remarking aimlessly, “It’s a bit late, isn’t it? Marc left Petawawa two hours ago and it’s less than two hours till my train goes. Why didn’t you get all this over with last night or even this morning? You went off downtown after breakfast without saying a word.”
“I wasn’t going to say anything. Your mother didn’t ...” He stopped again.
“What made you change your mind?”
With his eyes fixed on her face, he tried to say something, but nothing came. At last he answered only, “I told you, I can’t go through with it.”
“I don’t know what you want, Charles, except that you seem to want everything.”
“All I want you to do is to stay at home and behave like any decent girl who values her own self-respect!”
“You don’t know what this is all about.” She put one pair of shoes into the suitcase lying on the bed beside her, and looking down at the other pair in her lap, she said hopelessly, “Apparently you play the game on the principle of ‘Heads I win, tails you lose.’ You haven’t the remotest idea what this is all about because you’ve never given me a chance to tell you. Ever since the beginning, whenever I tried to tell you, you told me. You knew. You knew without being told, just as you knew exactly what Marc was like without ever having met him.”
He said, staring at her, “I’ll admit it hadn’t even occurred to me that you might try to justify yourself by putting the blame on me ...”
“I’m not trying to justify myself! I don’t give a damn about justifying myself.”
She began wrapping the second pair of shoes in tissue paper with her hands shaking. She had no idea where this was going to end, but she knew that if she lost her temper, it could only end in disaster. She had kept her feelings dammed up for too long.
“Do you know what I’ve been doing for the past two months, Charles?” she asked without looking at him. “I’ve been trying to out-balance thirty-three years. It’s been quite a job with only two months to do it in, and now when all I’ve got left is three days, you ...”
He said, cutting her short, “You’ve got the rest of your life!”
“... I’ve got to prove ...” She stopped, glanced at him, and said, “No, I haven’t got the rest of my life. It isn’t even a question of whether he comes back or not, but whether I’ll ever see him again if he does.”
Evidently he did have at least a vague idea of what it was all about, for he said, “Isn’t it possible that instead of all these subtle reasons you keep looking for, it may simply be that he’s not really in love with you?”
“Otherwise it would be a case of all for love and the world well lost, is that it? I thought that was one of the notions you get over when you grow up.” She turned suddenly and said, facing him, “And supposing he isn’t in love with me, or not enough in love with me — then why?”
“Why what?”
“Why isn’t he?”
He fumbled for his cigar case again, still standing in the middle of the room a few feet from the foot of her bed, and answered finally through a cloud of smoke, “You wouldn’t be the first girl to find out that respect is what matters most in the long run.”
“Doesn’t that depend somewhat on the individual?”
“No, it’s just human nature.”
“There’s a generaliza
tion to take care of everything, isn’t there?” asked Erica, starting toward the chest of drawers behind him.
He said angrily, “Generalizations only exist because they represent the accumulated experience of the human race right down through history!”
“And so whenever we find someone who doesn’t fit, we go to work on him and by the time we’re finished, we’ve damn well made him fit! Like Procrustes and his bed — all you have to do is stretch him or chop him down to the right size.”
He scrutinized her in silence for a moment as she stood with her back to the chest of drawers, and at last he said, “You haven’t any idea how much you’ve changed in the past three months ...”
“It doesn’t do to lose all your illusions at once, does it?”
“Eric, for heaven’s sake!”
She could feel the anger mounting higher and higher inside her, but it had not yet broken loose and she said almost conversationally, “You know, Charles, I had illusions about practically everything. About you and Mother and this precious country of ours, and the kind of world we’re supposed to be fighting for — I was so full of illusions that really, I must have been quite a spectacle.”
“I liked you better that way, Eric,” he said under his breath.
“I liked you better too.”
It was as though she had struck him. She took note of his reaction, without reacting herself in any way. He might just as well have been someone else, not her father.
He said, his voice trembling, “Listen, Eric. I don’t know what’s already happened between you and Reiser, and neither your mother nor I want to know ...”
“Is Mother included in this?”
“No. She doesn’t even know I’m home.” He paused, and forcing himself to speak more matter of factly, he said, “We’ll forget about it — that’s fair enough, isn’t it?”
Earth and High Heaven Page 25