He said it with a kind of deliberate, comic heartiness but in a sense he meant it. It was Mr. Biddle’s grief that he hadn’t been the father of a large family himself. Mrs. Biddle had known it, too; the knowledge had made her long illness all the harder to bear.
“Thanks very much,” said Gerald rather awkwardly. “I reckon one’s enough to go on with.”
It was a pity, Alice thought, that in front of her father Gerald always seemed to make just the wrong kind of remark; there was more than the hint of a snub in that one. She covered up the breach, however, by suggesting that she should go and get them something to eat.
As soon as she was gone, Mr. Biddle turned to Gerald. He had been doing some pretty rapid thinking.
“I wanted to say a word about the Tadford lot,” he began.
“How do you mean?” Gerald asked.
For some reason or other he always felt on the defensive when talking to Mr. Biddle.
“It was about making Mrs. Sneyd some kind of allowance,” Mr. Biddle explained.
“Don’t you worry about that,” said Gerald. “I’ve got all that in hand. I’ve done it.”
“Good Lord!” said Mr. Biddle.
There was a pause.
“Is anything the matter?” Gerald asked.
“Only that I’ve just done the same myself.”
“That’s—that’s very decent of you,” said Gerald.
“Not at all,” Mr. Biddle replied. “It was a duty.”
“Some people wouldn’t have thought so,” Gerald admitted.
“All the same,” Mr. Biddle continued, “there doesn’t seem to be much point in both of us doing it.”
“No, I suppose not,” Gerald agreed.
“Point is,” said Mr. Biddle, “which of us ought to stop.”
Gerald lit a cigarette.
“Perhaps we could share it,” he said. He tried to keep his voice level and indifferent.
“What sort of sum were you thinking of?” Mr. Biddle asked, while Mrs. Sneyd’s fate hung in the balance.
Gerald looked down at the toe-caps of his shoes.
“About fifteen bob a week,” he said quietly.
Mr. Biddle didn’t register any surprise.
“Then suppose you let me do all of it my way,” he suggested. “Suppose you let me make a little present of it to the baby.”
Gerald paused.
“Thanks—thanks very much,” he said. “If you put it that way, I don’t see how I can refuse.”
Mr. Biddle, who sealed everything by a handshake, came forward and clasped Gerald’s.
Gerald and Alice sat together talking after Mr. Biddle had left.
“He wanted to,” said Gerald. “So I let him. I never asked for it.”
“I’m glad he offered,” Alice answered. “It shows how pleased he is.”
“Funny, isn’t it,” Gerald remarked, “both of us fixing on the same sum?”
“I should have thought he might have done a bit more while he was about it,” Alice said. “Fifteen bob a week seems so awfully little.”
“It’s forty pounds a year,” Gerald pointed out. “It’s quite a lot when you think that he’s going to retire soon.”
But Alice was not impressed.
“Daddy retire,” she said. “He won’t do that. He’s not the retiring sort.”
Gerald did not reply immediately. He was doing sums on the back of an envelope. Then he looked up.
“If your old man goes on stumping up like that,” he said, “we might be able to pick up a small car again. I heard of one the other day. Dirt cheap, too.”
Epilogue
It was February, and Boleyn Avenue under a late fall of snow had assumed a look of more than historic antiquity. For nearly a week the black and white timberings under the resplendent load of white stuff had resembled something out of a Denham film. But now the snow was all melting and the names of the individual houses, Bryn Mawr, Chatsworth, Waikiki, Two Gables, showed through again on the little wooden gates. The road itself was still an inch or two deep in slush; from its appearance it looked more the sort of thing that might have stretched from Omsk to Nijni-Novgorod than from Friern Barnet to Tally-Ho corner.
Life in the rest of the Tudor village was going on very much as usual, but in Two Gables Gerald was sitting in the drawing-room alone. It was Saturday afternoon and he had just eaten the deathly cold meal of ham and potato salad that the woman had prepared for him. The woman—Mrs. Bunsen, he believed her name was—had been Alice’s discovery. She had found her the morning before she herself had gone into the nursing home; and in the result, an unseen figure, who was entrusted with the key, came in every day to do for Gerald. So far as he was concerned, it was like being waited upon by invisible djinns.
The meal had not been the sort of thing to linger over but he had hurried through it for a purpose. It was now the moment he had been waiting for all day; he was going round to see Alice. She was in the Rosecroft Private Nursing Home and the visiting hour was from three o’clock.
He left punctually at two forty-five and on the way round he bought some cut flowers, a bunch of grapes and a magazine. He had spent the whole morning wondering what it was she would fancy; in his isolation he felt like a friend of someone serving a life sentence, and he wanted to do the utmost that was within the regulations to make the prisoner comfortable.
From the outside, the Rosecroft Nursing Home, except for the small brass plate on the gate, looked like every other house in the road. It was an eminently respectable little villa with a crazy-paved approach, a circular flower bed with a stone bird-bath in the centre, and an electric lamp disguised as a lantern above the front door. But within, there was a perpetual reign of terror—prim, clinical terror.
Gerald was aware of it from the first. From the matron to the maid, they all regarded him with the fixed, disapproving scrutiny which is the lot of a husband in a maternity home. Even the nurse who met him on the stairs, eyed his parcel suspiciously; from her manner she might have suspected him of attempting to introduce narcotics or explosives. Also she treated him as though in wanting to see Alice at all he was asking for something a little above his station.
“Wait here, please,” she said. “I’ll just see if she’s resting.”
But Alice was not resting. She was wanting to see Gerald. And she said so. The nurse smiled her fixed, mechanical smile and began tidying the room. Then, in her own time, she went down to Gerald.
“She’ll see you now,” she said.
It gave Gerald a little shiver of pleasure when he did see her. She looked so small and comfortable, propped up against all those pillows; so comfortable and also so safe. In a private house anything might happen, but here there was a nurse on the look out for danger all the time. Nothing could go wrong here: the matron would see to that. It was her job to sell immunity at five guineas a week. And standing there, looking at Alice, he decided that every sacrifice he had made to pay those five guineas had been worth while.
As soon as the nurse left them Alice put out her arms for him to come to her.
“Take me home,” she said.
He looked at her in amazement.
“Take me home,” she repeated.
“But you’ve only just arrived,” he said.
“I know,” she replied, “and I’m so miserable.”
“Don’t you worry,” he told her. “You’ll soon get used to it.”
“I don’t want to get used to it. I want to go home.”
“Well, have one of these first,” he said.
He gave her the bag of grapes and watched her face while she opened it. They were the best grapes, like small blue balloons.
“You are nice to me,” she said.
It was only then that he noticed that the table beside her bed was loaded with grapes. There were two large bunches of them; Mr. Biddle and Miss Wachett—it had been her first declaration of independence for years—had both called.
But the grapes were not a distraction for long.
“You don’t understand,” she went on. “I want to be home again so that I can be near you. I don’t know what’s happening while I’m here.”
“Never you mind,” he said. “Nothing-happening.” There was a pause. “What did the doctor say?” he asked.
“He said it might be any time now.”
“I’ll bet you’ll be glad,” he said. There was another pause. “Who gave you that?” he asked.
There was a pink celluloid rattle beside the bed.
“Oh, that,” said Alice. “That’s from Willie. Wasn’t it sweet of him to think of it?”
Gerald grunted.
“Celia phoned up,” Alice remarked.
“Did she?” Gerald asked. “What did she want?”
“Just wanted to know how I was.”
“That was nice of her,” Gerald said. Then he stopped himself. After everything that had happened, it seemed rather funny that she should be inquiring. But Alice did not seem to have noticed anything odd about it.
She was just lying back in bed looking out of the window. He glanced down at his watch for a moment. It was an involuntary, unconscious gesture. But Alice noticed it.
“You want to go,” she said. “I can see that.”
“No, I don’t,” he answered.
“Then why did you look at your watch?”
“I wanted to see what the time was.”
“That’s the same thing.”
“No, it isn’t.”
She picked up the magazine and began turning over the pages.
“Don’t do that now,” he said. “I brought you that to read after I’d gone.”
“I’m only reading,” she said, “because I’m so miserable I don’t want to cry.”
He got up and sat on the bed beside her. The bed was not made for sitting on: it was high and narrow and, on its large castors, it tried to slide away from under him. But he managed to put one arm round Alice and held her up against him.
“I know I’m being silly,” she said. “You mustn’t take any notice of me. Everyone gets like this sometimes.”
“That’s all right,” he said. “Just you just take things easy.”
He bent down and kissed her. He was kissing her again when the nurse came back. And in the presence of so much starched sterility, there seemed something almost improper in the act.
The nurse went over to the washstand and began rattling the bottles about.
“Time’s nearly up,” she said. “We mustn’t tire our patient.”
Gerald got down rather sheepishly off the bed. He wished that the woman would go so that he could say good-bye to Alice really properly. But she evidently had no intention of going. She just stood there with an air of professional indulgence. There was something in the attitude which annoyed him: nurse or no nurse, he was determined to say good-bye to Alice in the way he wanted to. Sitting down on the bed again, he put his arms right round her and kissed her. The nurse remained unmoved by the scene.
“Next time we see you I hope we shall have some news for you,” she said.
She added a little smile as she said it. The effect of the smile was natural and disarming, and Gerald blamed himself for having resented her. But so far as the nurse was concerned the little speech was really quite automatic. It was something she had said about once every three weeks to an awkward-looking husband who had just passionately kissed his wife good-bye, ever since she had come to Rosecroft.
The rest of the afternoon passed slowly. He went back home and made himself a cup of tea; sitting in front of the electric fire he read the small blue booklet he had been carrying about in his pocket. He read it carefully, like a lesson; and paragraph by paragraph, he repeated the words over and over to himself aloud. They sounded strange in the present emptiness of Two Gables.
Then, when he had the whole contents of the booklet nicely by heart, he went upstairs and changed into a dark suit. The bedroom seemed somehow even lonelier than the rest of the house. It had a cold, depressing effect on him. And, as he dressed, he realised that he was no longer what you might call a really young man. It had been his birthday last month and he was thirty-four. It wasn’t a great age, but a lot had happened since he was thirty. He had broken with Celia and he had got married. He had sat at his father’s death-bed and now he was waiting for Alice’s baby to come. At thirty he had still been a young man conscious of his own superiority when he was with men of forty. Now he realised with a little sinking of the spirits that there was already more of forty than of thirty in him; he looked at things as they did. He had got quite used to spending his week-ends in the garden instead of in the car—the garage, which he had let, now brought him in five shillings a week—and he had spent most of the autumn in building a rockery; it stretched from one fence to the other in a series of carefully graded concrete lumps. It was on the Mappin Terrace scale of things. Even Mr. Biddle had taken his hat off to it. He had been glad to see his son-in-law settling down at last.
And there was a certain difference in Gerald’s appearance, too. There didn’t now seem much point in yellow pullovers and thin silk socks if you no longer mixed with the kind of people who wore them. Besides, he couldn’t afford thin silk socks any longer. He still looked well dressed—with a figure like his, he couldn’t help looking that—but his present suit of dark tweed wasn’t at all like the double-breasted checks he used to wear. His shoes, too now, cost eighteen and nine in the Strand and not thirty-five shillings in Oxford Street; admittedly there weren’t so many holes round the brogue in the eighteen and ninepenny pair, but at least they did not hurt in the authentic, hand-made, two-and-a-half-guinea fashion.
He left the house shortly before seven and went round to Mr. Biddle’s. On the way, he stopped at a call-box and phoned up the nursing home. There was nothing to worry about, he told himself, but he wished now that he hadn’t got to go out for the evening: he would rather have been on hand in case he were wanted.
“How’s Mrs. Sneyd?” he asked.
There was a pause as though the person at the phone had turned round and was speaking to someone else in the room. Then the voice returned.
“The doctor’s just come,” it said. “He’s with Mrs. Sneyd now.”
His heart gave a thump at the news.
“What time shall I ring up?” he asked.
“I should leave it as late as possible,” the voice said.
“He’s only just arrived.”
“O.K.,” said Gerald.
When he came out of the call-box he was sweating.
Mr. Biddle was all ready for him when he got there. He had changed into a black coat with a butterfly collar and seemed more excited than Gerald.
“How’s Allus?” he asked. “Any news?”
“Doctor’s just gone there,” Gerald said. “Might be any time now.”
“Don’t you worry yourself,” Mr. Biddle answered. “She’ll be all right. You’ve got to keep your mind on your work this evening.”
They went through into the drawing-room and Mr. Biddle lit his pipe.
“D’you know your words?” he said.
“I think so,” Gerald answered.
“Why do you wish to follow the sacred calling of a Mariner?” Mr. Biddle tested him.
“Because by so doing I am reminded both by night and by day, in storm and in calm, of His Infinite mercy and His loving protection towards all men,” Gerald replied faultlessly.
“What are your duties?” Mr. Biddle continued.
“At all times to remain at my post, fearing neither seen peril nor unseen, aiding those who are in distress and turning towards port only after life’s voyage is done.”
“What are your privileges?”
“To be one of an everlasting and unsleeping company that will come to my aid when I am in danger, that will guide me when I am lost, and will succour my loved ones if I am drowned.”
“That seems all right,” said Mr. Biddle affably. “Let’s have a drink before we go.”
Th
ere were sandwiches and Guinness in the next room and they made a man’s meal standing up.
“You’ll find you’re peckish before it’s over,” Mr. Biddle advised him. “There’s two more besides you.”
He went upstairs to fetch his regalia and Gerald was left standing in the sombre dining-room. When Mr. Biddle came down he was carrying the little attaché-case containing his Commodore’s cap, his chain of office, his white gloves, and the long storm-apron that Commodores wear.
“Better be going,” he said. “They’ll be waiting.”
Gerald knew the Lord Macclesfield almost as well as Mr. Biddle did by now: for the last three months he had been taking instruction there every Tuesday evening. They were serious affairs those instruction classes, with some actual mathematics of navigation, British history and theology thrown in. There was even a written paper at the end of it. Headquarters saw to it pretty carefully that anyone who joined the Order knew exactly what he was up to.
“Got your guinea?” Mr. Biddle asked suddenly.
Gerald told him that he had all—all Mariners paid a guinea on joining the Order: it went into the Ship’s Chest and was called Sailing Money.
The Lord Macclesfield was filling up nicely by the time they got there. Most of the Mariners were having a drink in the saloon downstairs before going up to the private room of the Order, and when they saw Mr. Biddle and Gerald they became exceedingly cordial. They insisted that the two of them should join in, and kept asking Gerald if he knew his words. He grinned back in return and tried to remain cheerful. But somehow he couldn’t keep his mind on nautical matters to-night; his thoughts kept wandering off in the direction of Rosecroft and Alice. When Mr. Biddle touched him on the arm and told him that it was time to go in, he almost jumped.
The other two Midshipmen were not really of Gerald’s type at all. One was the branch manager of a chain of wine shops. He was a small, oval-faced young man who kept rubbing his hands together and leaning slightly forward as he spoke. His manner was a mixture of may-we-send-it and I’m-sure-you’ll-find-it-to-your-liking. Even when he donned the peaked cap that Midshipmen wear for their induction he still somehow did not look the part; an air of Muscatel and cheap Hock continued to hang about him. The other Midshipman was made of more robust material. He was a schoolmaster who ran the local Scout troop and belonged to the Territorials. In joining the Order he was rounding off a life of sterling energy and good fellowship. When Gerald joined them the schoolmaster was trying to make the wine salesman feel at his ease; and the little fellow looked thoroughly depressed and downcast in consequence.
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