They ate in silence for a few minutes and then Mrs. Marco rang the bell. But it was not for Emmy to clear away; old Mrs. Marco had just conceived a very special purpose for her.
“Go upstairs, Emmy, and see if you can hear anything,’’ she said. “Just hang about on the landing and find out what’s going on.”
There was an interval of some five minutes and then Emmy returned.
“I couldn’t hear anything,” she said. “Just the three of them talking.”
Old Mrs. Marco’s look of exultation broadened.
“What did I tell you?” she said. “I knew it would be a long one.”
Then, satisfied that everything was going according to plan—her plan—of things, Mrs. Marco resumed her meal. She ate quickly and noisily as though afraid that at any moment the climax might be upon them, and she not ready for it. In her excitement she could not bear even to sit properly on her chair. She was just balanced on the edge of it, ready to dash upstairs if anything important were to happen. Thus, when the nurse came down for a moment for some more hot water, Mrs. Marco was able to dart out and intercept her. But the result was purely negative. The old lady came back and put her hand on John Marco’s arm again.
“It’ll be some time,” she said. “Dr. Preece is going to wait.”
John Marco looked at her in disgust: she was so obviously enjoying every minute of it.
A mood of bitterness came over him.
“I’m going out,” he said. “I shall come back when it’s all over.”
She smiled.
“That’s right, son,” she said. “You keep out of the way. You leave all this to me.”
She was impatient for him to be gone. With him out of the way and no one but the doctor or the nurse to stop her she had every hope that somehow or other she would manage to insinuate herself into the birth-chamber. It was maddening not to know what mysteries that closed bedroom door was concealing.
iii
When John Marco left the house he walked back slowly towards Tredegar Terrace. It was not the first time that he had been there late at night, not the first time that he had thrown open the big plate glass door and stepped into the shrouded silence of the empty shop. The sense of possession was at its fullest then. It was something to stand alone amid the show cases, looking along the bare perspective of the counters, with the chairs in twos piled on them in readiness for the cleaners in the morning, and know that everything within touch, within sight, and out of sight as well in the stock-room downstairs, belonged to him. It seemed, at those moments, as though the business had a brooding secret existence of its own. The ten hours a day that it was open were only a part of it. At night the handsome mahogany staircase still curved upwards, and there was still the gleam of mirror and brasswork in the darkness.
To-night, however, he went straight to his room, and shut himself in. There was work to do in plenty; there always was. There were the endless catalogues from the wholesalers—the whole of next season’s profits were hidden somewhere beneath their shiny corners, and there was a fortune to be made simply by going through them. But that kind of work was impossible this evening: whenever he cleared his mind for a moment he saw the tired, suffering face of Hesther before him. If only somehow he could have loved her, if only somehow her suffering had meant anything to him, it would all have been so easy. Not that it was her fault any longer. She had tried; had tried hard to be a wife to him. It was only he who had not been ready to accept. That day when she had come down to the shop had been her last, pathetic effort to enter into his life. Even the child would not bring them together now: he knew that. It would simply serve to remind him more bitterly how inextricable was the net in which he was entangled.
It was very close in the room; a heavy, drowsy stillness hung over it. Except for an occasional cab, there was no sound of traffic from the road below. He looked up once or twice at the clock on the mantelpiece. First it showed nine o’clock, and then ten. The pile of catalogues on his desk had grown smaller, there was a sheet of paper beside him now covered with jottings. Finally he pushed the last of the pile away from him. It was ten-thirty now. But it was still too early to return: he would go back when it was over. It was Hesther’s destiny, this; not his; he could not help her by being near.
Sliding lower into his chair he closed his eyes and waited.
The landscape around him was golden; and corn, waist-high and red with poppies, was brushing against them as they walked. In front, there was the sea, a great sweeping arc of it. Small ships dotted it and a flock of sea birds wheeled overhead like butterflies. It was Mary who was beside him, her hair loose flowing to her waist; the wind was teasing it, blowing tresses of it across his face and into his eyes. Because they were happy they started running; hand in hand they raced down the poppy-track towards the shore. Then as soon as they had reached the dunes and it was soft beneath their feet, they threw themselves down together and he held her in his arms and poured hot handfuls of sand over her bare feet. He felt younger, and Mary beside him was younger, too; they were like children as they played together. There was a boat pulled up along the surf-line, and Mary went over to it while he lay back idly watching her. The thought came suddenly into his mind as he lay there that he should go to her, should warn her of the depths that lay beyond. And as he watched her, he saw her climb into the boat which was now bobbing lightly on the tide. He got to his feet and started to run forward. But the sand was fine and powdery; it crumbled away beneath him. And, when he had reached the surf, the boat was already drifting out of reach. He heard Mary call something to him that he could not catch and he plunged into the water and began to swim. The sun by now had retreated; it was hidden somewhere behind a cloud. The whole of nature had gone suddenly cold and there was an undercurrent that was sucking him away from her. But he was a powerful swimmer; with deep steady strokes he overcame the current and pressed on. Yet the boat out-distanced him. It was a score of yards away by now and heading straight for the open sea. He swam harder, his heart pounding against his ribs. But, when next he looked, he could see that Mary was no longer alone. There was a man in the boat and he was rowing; with every pull of the oars the boat was growing smaller and more indistinct. Only Mary was still visible. She was sitting in the stern and in the crook of her arm she held a child. With her free hand she was waving, waving. And there were rocks, sharp, ugly ones in his way. The surge threw him against them; his knees and fingers were bleeding and the salt water stung them. And, when he looked again, Mary and the boat had disappeared. The sea was empty to the horizon.
He woke sweating. His legs were doubled under him in the chair and the room was in darkness. For a moment he sat there, dazed and uncertain. Then he rubbed his limbs back into circulation and struck a match. The clock on the mantelpiece showed two o’clock.
Old Mrs. Marco was still sitting up for him; with Hesther out of the way she was stretching her freedom to its limits. As soon as she heard his key in the lock she came groping her way towards him.
“Where have you been?” she cried.
He stood there, staring at her.
“What’s happened?” he asked. “Is it over?”
“It’s a boy,” she answered. “It’s a boy. He’s just like you.”
“Was it bad?” he asked. “Did ... did it hurt her?”
“She’s all right now,” Mrs. Marco told him. “She’s been asking for you.” She came up close and squeezed his arm. “You want to see your son, don’t you?”
“Not now,” he said, his mind still full of the memory of the dream. “Don’t disturb her. I’ll see him in the morning.”
Chapter XX
Mr. Skewin ‘s decaying business survived the opposition for the brief period of six months; and then it collapsed. The end came sooner than John Marco had expected. One morning the crooked blind simply remained lowered, and the shop was closed. The battle in retail hosiery was over.
There had, of course, been indications for some time that the climax was approa
ching. For the last few weeks Mr. Skewin had made no pretence of selling anything. He merely stood in the shabby doorway of his shop, watching himself being ruined. Occasionally he would mooch along and remain gazing into his rival’s window, a look of fixed helplessness on his face. There was nothing that he could do about it. Ever since he had been in Tredegar Terrace he had managed to pay his way like any other business man by putting threepence on this and twopence half-penny on that. But now the shop next door had taken sixpence off everything.
Its stock, too, was new; there was, for instance, an entire window filled with fashionable ties that sold themselves simply by being shown. Mr. Skewin’s own stock of ties had most of them been with him for years; he had displayed them knotted high up on the narrow part when the mode in knots was small, and knotted in great loops down at the wide end when the mode had swerved towards the Byronic. He had shown them with imitation pearl pins stuck in the middle of the knot and he had shown them without. He had spread them out in rows so that the richness of the material could be seen, and had bunched them together until the patterns merged—and for all the good it had done him he might as well have left them in the boxes they had come in.
At eleven o’clock on the morning of the closure, Mr. Skewin sucked in his lips and came over to see John Marco. It was his wife who had sent him; and he was a reluctant and resentful visitor. He entered the shop very upright and diffident, like a defeated general come to surrender his sword.
And John Marco kept him waiting for nearly half-an-hour before he had him shown into the private office.
“Yes, Mr. Skewin,” he said as he entered, “you want to see me?”
He spoke as though he had no notion at all of the object of Mr. Skewin’s visit.
Mr. Skewin drew himself up for a moment and then subsided. It was no use trying to appear strong and dignified when the mantelpiece in the little parlour above the shop was littered with final demands—horrible things printed across in red. So he just sat down on the chair facing John Marco and threw in his hand.
“You wanted to buy my business,” he said. “Well I’m ready to sell.”
John Marco did not reply immediately. And he avoided looking in Mr. Skewin’s direction. He could not afford to begin feeling sorry for the man: he did not want a second Mr. Hackbridge on his hands.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “But it’s no use to me. You see I’ve got my own outfitting business now.”
“No use to you!” Mr. Skewin repeated the words incredulously. “You mean you don’t want it?”
John Marco nodded.
“I gave you your chance,” he said. “You turned it down.”
“But it was all that I had,” he exclaimed. “It was my living.”
As Mr. Skewin spoke, the vision of those bills grew larger; his head swam. He seemed suddenly to be caught up in a mass of whirling papers from which the words “Last Notice”, “Within seven days . . . ”, “Attention of our solicitors” danced before his eyes like fireflies. He made one last effort.
“What about my good-will?” he asked again.
John Marco still did not raise his eyes above his desk.
“There isn’t any,” he said quietly. “Not now.”
“And the stock. Do you mean to say that isn’t worth anything.”
“Not to me,” John Marco answered. “It’s a different class of business.”
“In that case,” said Mr. Skewin rising from his chair and clasping his two hands together because they were trembling, “we’re just wasting each other’s time. I might as well be going.”
John Marco let him get as far as the door and then called him back.
“One moment, Mr. Skewin,” he said. “What about the lease? I might be able to take that off your hands.”
“There’s seven years to run,” Mr. Skewin said bitterly. “Seven years from Christmas.”
“That wouldn’t worry me,” John Marco replied; “not if the rent was right.”
“It’s a hundred a year,” said Mr. Skewin. “Two pounds a week for the shop and the rooms above.”
John Marco tapped his fingers on the desk.
“It’s too much,” he said. “I only pay ninety-five for the other shop.” He paused. “But if it’s any help to you I’ll take it over. When can I have possession?”
“Possession?”
Mr. Skewin did not seem able to comprehend the word. He just stood there with his lips moving and no sound coming from them.
“I suppose you could move in at once,” he said at last, in a limp crushed voice that faded away on his lips. “We shan’t be stopping.”
“I shan’t need the rooms above, at once,” John Marco said slowly. “The shop will need doing up first.”
“As you please,” said Mr. Skewin wearily. “It won’t be any concern of mine.”
John Marco rose and held out his hand. But Mr. Skewin ignored it. His eyes had become very moist and his lower lip was quivering.
“You’re a hard man,” he blurted out suddenly. “A very hard one.”
John Marco regarded him coldly, running his eye up and down him as he stood there.
“I don’t understand you, Mr. Skewin,” he replied.
“Oh yes, you do,” Mr. Skewin answered. “You understand perfectly. You tried to squeeze me out of business and you succeeded.”
John Marco laughed. A brief, unsmiling laugh.
“I might have been the one to fail,” he said. “I took the risk. You didn’t.”
But Mr. Skewin did not appear to be listening. He went straight on as though John Marco had not spoken.
“A fellow Amosite, too,” he was saying. “One of the Brethren.”
“I don’t mix religion with business,” John Marco answered.
He turned his back on Mr. Skewin as he said it and walked over towards the window. But Mr. Skewin followed him until he was only a step behind.
“That’s your fault,” he said. “You ought to mix religion with everything.” He spoke as an elderly man addressing a young one: he was the evangelist now and not the petitioner. “You’re shutting God out of your life, Mr. Marco, that’s what you’re doing.” He raised his forefinger and tapped John Marco on the shoulder. “Why don’t you draw back before it’s too late?” he said. “Why don’t you go down on your knees and pray? If you persist you’ll find yourself pierced through with many sorrows.”
John Marco turned on him. His face was flushed and angry.
“Do you want to dispose of your lease or don’t you?” he demanded.
But again Mr. Skewin did not seem to hear him. His mind was continuing on another and a different level, the level of Mr. Surger and the Apostle Paul, of Mr. Tuke and the blessed St. James. Sixty years of Amosism had left its mark.
“Perilous times shall come,” he threatened. “Don’t forget what the Bible says about men who love themselves, covetous, boastful. Start weeping and howling for your miseries that shall come upon you. You’ll find that your riches are corrupted and your garments are moth eaten. ...”
John Marco turned and walked past him.
“Go back to your shop,” he ordered. “I won’t listen to you.”
“That’s what Mr. Tuke said about you,” Mr. Skewin replied. “He said that you’d closed your ears to the Voice.”
John Marco was at the door now: he was holding it open for Mr. Skewin. His moment of anger had ebbed away again, leaving him cold and self-controlled.
“He said that, did he?” he remarked quietly. “Then I shall tell Mr. Tuke to hold his tongue.”
Mr. Skewin’s exhibition of feeling had been pathetically foolish of course. To have said anything at all in the circumstances was a simply appalling blunder; a blunder that no man of the world could possibly have committed, and it was one that drove Mrs. Skewin nearly frantic when she heard of it. But Mr. Skewin was not a man of the world: that was the whole point. He was an Amosite. He had nothing in the world to gain and everything to lose by saying anything; and his words in consequence
had a disembodied, impersonal ring about them. Despite the fact that they were uttered in a small, choking voice, it was as though the Bible itself, open at the Epistles, had spoken and been wise.
Throughout the afternoon John Marco kept recalling stray sentences that Mr. Skewin had spoken. “Weep and howl for your miseries that shall come upon you”: he had heard that so many times; it was one of Mr. Tuke’s favourite pieces. John Marco remembered suddenly with sinister vividness those rich men whose flesh was going to be devoured by the fiery rust of the tarnished gold and the cankering silver. And he realised with a sudden sickness close to his heart that he was a rich man himself now. But St. James could not have meant quite that—not industrious shop-keepers, not honest men who worked for their livings. He was thinking of the great sultans of this world whose souls are mortgaged to their treasures. St. James could never have intended his words for one of the Brethren. Then the sound of his own words, “I don’t mix religion with business,” came back to him. They did not sound like the words of one who had been an Amosite, and he halted. John Marco was still sufficiently a son of the Tabernacle not to question that the Devil could sometimes put such a sentence into men’s mouths.
But he thought of other rich men who had apparently defied salvation and got away with it, and his mind felt easier. There were good and bad among the rich just as there were among the poor: there must be. It couldn’t be all rich men who were condemned, or Bayswater would simply collapse of its own iniquity and Paddington be saved. And it was a part of his destiny to be rich. The commercial grave of Mr. Skewin was merely the first milestone on the way. There would be other Mr. Skewins who would have to be sacrificed before he finally got there; other Miss Foxell’s to be outwitted before he reached Jerusalem. And, as he left the shop that night, he did not doubt that he could pass all the rivers of commerce one by one as he came to them.
ii
It was a golden evening. The sun, setting somewhere amid the houses behind Notting Hill, was lighting up the tops of the buildings like a line of bonfires and casting a glow of amber into the street below. The whole air was bright; and Tredegar Terrace, with its long line of windows, was like a hall of mirrors in Heaven.
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