He therefore planned his next visit with especial care. He chose for it, four-thirty on a Saturday afternoon. And it was all just as he had expected: the little shop was crowded at the time. He sauntered idly in and stood there waiting for Mr. Petter to emerge from behind the glass partition which cut off his dispensary.
When Mr. Petter appeared, he was surprised and delighted to see his visitor.
“Hello, Marco,” he said, holding out over the counter a small pink hand that smelt of ether. “This is an unexpected pleasure.”
This dropping of the “Mr.” gave Mr. Petter a fresh surge of pleasure every time he became aware of it: it showed how far he had come on since first the friendship had started.
“You can give me something for a headache,” John Marco told him. “I’ve been working too hard lately.”
Mr. Petter suppressed his usual reply about needing to find the cause before the effect could be remedied, and took down a bottle of anti-kamnia tablets from one of the loaded shelves.
“I think you’ll find that this’ll put you on your feet again,” he said. “I’ll give you a glass of water to drink it with.”
“I’d rather drink a cup of tea,” John Marco replied, and paused. “Why don’t you leave the shop and come upstairs yourself for a moment?” he asked.
“Leave the shop at this time. Oh no, I couldn’t do that.”
Mr. Petter seemed quite shocked at the suggestion; he evidently felt that it belittled his importance as a shopkeeper. But his face brightened again almost immediately:
“Why don’t you have a cup of tea with Mary?” he asked. “She always brings me down a cup about this time.”
John Marco regarded Mr. Petter carefully.
“I don’t like intruding in this way,” he explained. “Especially as you can’t join us.”
“It wouldn’t be intruding,” Mr. Petter said reproachfully. “You know that. Besides, Mary’d like it.”
“You think so?”
“I’m sure of it,” Mr. Petter replied. “Why don’t you go up?”
He opened the door of the private stairway that led down into the shop as he said it, and stood back for John Marco to pass. “I’d come up with you,” he said, “if it wasn’t for the shop. Saturday afternoons are my busy time.”
John Marco heard Mr. Petter shut the door behind him and his heart stood still. Somewhere in the flat above him was Mary, and he would be alone with her. He was breathing deeply and his face was flushed when he reached the small landing and called out to her by name.
She came at once. But not in answer to his summons. In her hand she was carrying a cup of tea with two sweet biscuits in the saucer: it was Mr. Petter’s afternoon feast being taken to him.
“Your husband has invited me to stay to tea,” he said. “That is if you’ll have me.”
She paused, looking at him incredulously.
“I’ve got to take this down first,” was all she said.
John Marco went into the living-room and sat down on the settee: it was the same settee which he had seen Mary and Mr. Petter buy together on that afternoon when he tried to dismiss Mr. Hackbridge. And at that moment as he sat there and thought of what Mr. Petter had to lose, he felt sorry for the little man so blissfully dispensing in the shop below.
Then Mary came in and began setting out the table. John Marco was the first to speak.
“I’ve brought you this for the child,” he said.
He held out an ivory ring with a silver handle: it was an expensive toy—far more expensive than Mr. Petter would ever have been able to afford.
Mary seemed to hesitate for a moment.
“You’re very good to her,” she said.
“She’s yours,” he answered.
She shook her head.
“That’s no good reason,” she said.
“It’s reason enough for me,” he told her.
She left him and came back a moment later carrying one of those silver tea pots that have obviously been wedding presents. It amused him to see that she should have brought out for him the best that was in the house: there seemed to be both pride and defiance in it, as though she meant to show him that she had not married so badly after all.
Then, as he watched, he saw her cock her little finger high in the air and began to pour. With her fair head bent forward she might still have been Mr. Kent’s unmarried daughter in the family living-room in Abernethy Terrace. It was as though the last three years had run suddenly backwards on their spool, carrying him with them.
It is difficult at any time to recall even the quite immediate past without some feeling of sadness, of misgiving; the years, looked back on from the finish, always seem loaded with regrets. And as John Marco crossed his legs in front of Mr. Petter’s fire the thoughts that had been in his mind when he had come there were subdued and replaced by other, gentler ones. In those few minutes the whole strategy of his subtle plan vanished and left him without a purpose. For some time he sat altogether without speaking.
“If we’d been married,” he observed almost as though speaking to himself, “it might have been like this.”
“I was thinking that too,” Mary answered quietly.
At her reply, the reserve, the careful, strenuous reserve, which he had been careful to show ever since these visits had started, left him for a moment. He reached out and grasped her hand. She let him hold it for a moment, even tightening her grip in answer to his urgent, increasing one, and then withdrew it.
“But it’s too late now,” she said. “We mustn’t think about it.”
They sat on again in silence. Then John Marco rose slowly and stood with his back to the fireplace. It was easier to be sure of himself when he was away from her to know that nothing he said would betray him.
“I wanted to see you alone to-day,” he said. “I’ve been planning how I could see you.”
“I knew you had,” she answered. “I knew as soon as you came in.”
He paused as though uncertain whether to continue.
“I still love you,” he went on at last. “It doesn’t grow any less. I’ve never stopped loving you.”
At the words she raised her hands to her face instinctively as though to protect herself.
“You mustn’t say that,” she told him. “It’s wicked.”
John Marco shook his head.
“No,” he said. “It’s not wicked. Not now. I came here to-day because I wanted to make love to you. But I’ve hurt you enough already. I’m not going to risk hurting you again.”
The back of her hand was still raised to her face; he saw her fingers clench themselves involuntarily.
“You don’t understand,” she said. “I love Thomas now.”
He shook his head.
“That’s not true,” he answered, still in the same quiet voice, “it’s me you really love. But you can go on loving your husband just the same. I shan’t come between you.”
He stopped himself before he said anything further. Even now he had confessed more than he had intended. Already his share of her life, the thin, pitiful share that he had won for himself by cultivating the company of Mr. Petter, had been thrown away. He looked across at her to see if she was angry, if she was going to punish him. But he found instead that she was crying.
Down her cheeks large tears were running. They reminded him of the raindrops that he had seen on her face that first afternoon when he had walked home with her. She covered her eyes with her handkerchief and turned her head away from him.
“Why couldn’t you leave me alone?” was all she said. “Why did you have to say all these things?”
He took a step towards her. He wanted to comfort her. And all the time inside his brain a voice was saying, “She hasn’t denied that she loves me. She can’t deny it. She knows that it’s the truth.”
But as his arm touched her shoulder she got up and faced him.
“You must go away,” she said.
He stepped back and stood regarding her.
&nb
sp; “Very well,” he answered. “I’ll go now. I told you I didn’t want to hurt you.”
“And you mustn’t ever come here again,” she said. “We mustn’t see each other.”
“But I can’t live without seeing you,” he told her. “I’ve got to come here. Now that I’ve told you it’ll be easier. You’ll understand.”
She shook her head.
“No,” she said, “it’s wrong.”
He went slowly over to the door. So this was what it had all come to. Simply because she had crooked her little finger when pouring out a cup of tea, his whole spirit had left him. And in consequence he had ruined everything. She would tell her husband, and it would all be over. In future he would stand on guard over her day and night as if she were in a harem.
But because his shoulders were now drooping, because he no longer held his head as high as when he had entered, she went after him and put her hand over his.
“I can’t bear to see you unhappy,” she said.
“Then let me come here,” he answered. “Still let me see you.”
He was very close to her now. He could smell again the scent she was using.
“Later on,” she said faintly. “I can’t see you at once after this.”
“Then I may come again?” he asked. “I needn’t stop seeing you?”
She did not move, and he put his arms round her, pulling her to him closer still. She made no resistance. He kissed her while they stood there, her head thrown back and her eyes closed.
There was the sound of the private door from the shop opening, and she pushed him away from her.
“You must go now,” she said.
But it was not only Mr. Petter who was coming. There was the sound of two lots of feet and another voice—a rich, resonant voice.
A moment later Mr. Petter confronted them.
“We’ve got another unexpected visitor who wants some tea,” he said. “I didn’t tell him who was here. It’s Mr. Tuke.”
ii
“But I tell you I saw them,” Mr. Tuke was saying loudly. “In his own drawing-room, too, while he was downstairs working. They were conniving.”
“But how do you know they were conniving?” Mrs. Tuke enquired.
“They had a guilty air,” Mr. Tuke snapped back at her. “I distinctly saw John Marco flinch as I entered.”
“It might not have been anything,” Mrs. Tuke assured him in a mild, pacifying kind of voice. “Perhaps he just didn’t expect you.”
She bent down to find his slippers for him as she said it, and even carried them right over beside the fire. At moments like this when her husband’s anger was rising up inside him like a saucepan full of boiling milk she always felt a trifle afraid of him; he boomed so, when he was really angry. And just before his supper, too! He was a man who simply lived on his nerves—even quite tiny things interfered with his digestion—and if he went on like this she would be up all night bringing him glasses of hot water and lumps of sugar soaked in oil of Cajaput.
And she saw to her dismay that her last remark had done nothing whatever to mollify: it had merely irritated.
“Expect me,” he shouted. “Of course he didn’t expect me. I didn’t know myself until the spirit moved me. It simply happened to be tea-time and I dropped in. My footsteps were directed.”
“I still think there may be a perfectly innocent explanation,” Mrs. Tuke persisted.
“Then why was Mary Petter crying?” Mr. Tuke demanded. “Closeted alone with her lover and in tears”
“You didn’t tell me that before,” Mrs. Tuke replied.
“I wanted to shield her,” Mr. Tuke answered. “You dragged it out of me.”
“And you don’t think Mr. Petter suspected anything.”
“Thomas Petter is one of God’s pure ones,” Mr. Tuke replied. “His eyes must be opened.”
“But not by you, please,” Mrs. Tuke begged him. “Remember what happened last time.”
“When?” Mr. Tuke insisted, still in the same threatening voice.
His wife hesitated before answering him: to remind him now of one of his failures seemed an act of the most dangerous folly. But there was no other way round.
“I meant about John Marco’s own marriage,” she said apologetically. “That was all so dreadful.”
“Thomas Petter is a very different cut of man,” Mr. Tuke replied. “If he was told he had married one of the frail sisterhood he would remain by her to give her strength. He wouldn’t break his vows.”
“You can’t be too careful,” Mrs. Tuke observed.
“I am always careful,” Mr. Tuke said abruptly.
“Well it’s no use doing anything for the moment,” Mrs. Tuke answered in a lighter tone of voice. “Supper’s been ready for the last ten minutes. It’ll spoil if you don’t have it.”
“I don’t want any supper,” Mr. Tuke replied. “I want to go upstairs and pray.”
Mrs. Tuke hardly heard the latter half of the sentence: the first half was calamitous enough for her. If Mr. Tuke had really turned against his food she feared that anything might happen.
It was nearly half-an-hour before Mr. Tuke re-appeared. When he came down he was wearing his long, black ecclesiastical overcoat and carried his tall hat in his hand. He was no longer angry, and a kind of terrible calmness seemed to have settled down on him.
“I’m going out,” he said shortly.
“Not ... not to Mr. Petter’s,” Mrs. Tuke implored him.
“No,” Mr. Tuke replied. “Not to Mr. Petter’s.”
“Then where are you going?” Mrs. Tuke asked hopelessly.
“I’m going about my business,” he answered over his shoulder. “God’s business.”
And before Mrs. Tuke could question him further he had shut the door on her.
Mr. Kent was very pleased to see Mr. Tuke until he heard what he had come about. He had put his coat on again—he spent most of his leisure time comfortably in his shirt sleeves—and was just settling down to an evening’s edifying gossip when Mr. Tuke burst his little bombshell. Then Mr. Kent took his coat off again and went over to the door.
“We’d better get Mother in on this,” he said. “She’ll have to know.”
“A mother’s feelings . . . “ Mr. Tuke began.
But Mr. Kent stopped him.
“She’d never forgive me,” he said. “She’ll want to handle this herself.”
And Mr. Kent was right. Mrs. Kent insisted on hearing everything.
“Him in the house,” she said. “Well, why not?”
“Then you knew of it?” asked Mr. Tuke.
“I knew he went there, if that’s what you mean,” she said. “He never comes here”
“But wasn’t Mr. Petter warned?” Mr. Tuke asked. “Didn’t you tell him?”
Mrs. Kent did not reply immediately. Of course she hadn’t warned Mr. Petter. It was scarcely a mother’s place to inform her daughter’s intended that his fiancée had already been thrown over by another man. And once the marriage was over there had seemed no point in it.
“Well, not exactly,” she admitted.
At that Mr. Tuke threw up his hands.
“So the viper was left to flourish,” he observed. “The gate was left open for him.”
“Not by us, it wasn’t,” Mrs. Kent said warmly. “She never saw him again while she was still here.”
“Then she has deceived you since,” Mr. Tuke said sternly.
Mr. Kent dropped his hand across his faded, straggling moustache.
“It certainly looks like it,” he admitted.
But Mrs. Kent would have none of this: she gave Mr. Kent a little frown to show that in her opinion he had said too much already.
“After she got married it was Thomas Petter’s business to look after her,” she replied.
“But how could he look after her if he didn’t know?” Mr. Tuke insisted.
“Know what?” Mrs. Kent enquired.
“That she had loved another.”
“I see y
our point,” Mr. Kent said despondently. “I suppose we ought to have told him.”
“Well, I say let sleeping dogs lie,” Mrs. Kent retorted.
“And have this thing continue? Allow John Marco to go to the house as though nothing had happened?”
Mrs. Kent tweaked the lace fichu on her bosom, pulling the crumpled, cottony mass into more outstanding and aggressive folds.
“It’s for my son-in-law to say who he has to his house, not me,” she replied. “He’d stop it soon enough if he saw John Marco getting beyond himself. You may be sure of that.”
Mr. Tuke eyed her gravely.
“But suppose that your daughter encouraged it,” he said.’ “Suppose that she led Mr. Marco on?”
“I won’t suppose anything of the kind,” Mrs. Kent replied promptly. “It isn’t like her.”
She was sitting bolt upright by now, screwing the heels of her shoe down into the carpet. Mr. Kent began to feel apprehensive and uncomfortable: his wife sat like that only when she was really annoyed about something. He did hope she wasn’t going to be rude to Mr. Tuke.
And what was worse was that Mr. Tuke was clearly annoyed, too; he was glowering. He opened his mouth once or twice very wide and then closed it again abruptly as though thinking better of it each time. Finally, he rose and stood over Mrs. Kent’s chair.
“I have evidence,” he said. “Terrible evidence. I have proof that they’re still lovers.”
Mrs. Kent ground her heel still deeper into the carpet and went on pulling at the creases of her fichu.
“Explain yourself,” she said.
“I will,” he replied.
He paused for a moment and sucked in a great rush of air like a swimmer getting ready to dive. Then his lungs full, he plunged.
“I have seen John Marco,” he said, “after he was married”—here his voice rose threateningly—“embracing Mary in the street. They were holding each other.”
“It couldn’t have been Mary,” Mrs. Kent interrupted him. “You must have imagined it.”
“And did I imagine that she gave him her photograph dressed in her bridal clothes? His own wife found it shut away in his drawer.”
“That’s only what she said,” Mrs. Kent maintained.
I Shall Not Want Page 27