I Shall Not Want (11 page)

Not that the wax ladies were altogether a loss; they were due for interment anyhow. They had aged. Their glassy eyes lacked their original lustre and somehow their very features seemed unnatural and out-of-date. Their hair, too, was thinner than it had been. With every change of hairdressing fashion, Mr. Hackbridge, who supervised the window-dressing, had been forced to let down those false chignons and comb them carefully into the mode of the day. In the result the two ladies now had bare, elderly-looking patches on their crowns that contrasted strangely with the vivid gold of their hair itself, and one of them had gone completely bald at the temples and could be exhibited only when heavily veiled like a Dowager.

But the windows were, after all, only an indication of the disturbance that was going on within. There were three temporary assistants; two extra tables heaped with oddments; and four fewer chairs—Mr. Morgan did not encourage sitting down at sale-time. The principal cash-desk, a gilded, imposing cage that held the unlovely prisoner, Miss Rawkins, was moved right up into the centre of the shop, and additional cash-desks were erected in the various departments. During the seven days of the sale the customary decorum of the house went all to pieces; assistants called out to each other instead of going across and speaking softly; wrong change was given and not detected; thirty-eight inches went as a yard; cups of tea, hastily snatched, were drunk almost within sight of the customers; and the will to sell supplanted the will to please.

It was the opening day of the sale that John Marco now faced. He was early as befitted a man with four female assistants, one a stranger, under his control, and the church clock at the corner was striking eight-fifteen as he went in through the front entrance. Mr. Morgan was there already. He lived over the shop in a suite of rooms as large and lofty as those of an Embassy, and could afford to be early. He was now pottering about, re-arranging the price tickets; taking away more chairs; pushing the dud lines to the back where they would be discovered later by some desperate bargain hunter delighted by the chance of being able to buy
anything;
seeing that all the assistants had a pencil ready in their books; enjoying himself. He gave Mr. Marco a friendly good-morning: he had grown to rely on the punctuality of this young man who never varied.

By five minutes past nine the day's business had begun; they had sold a pair of outsize gloves. Between then and ten-thirty, there were forty people in the shop, and at ten-thirty the real morning rush began. Paddington suddenly descended upon them. Women with shopping-baskets, women with children, women from the wrong side of the Harrow Road—they poured in. In the depths of winter
they bought sprays of false flowers for summer hats and light weight cotton combinations. Anything that was for sale was snatched up and examined and hungered for. Even the corset department in the cream and gold room up the stairs was crowded; it was as though the whole of Bayswater had been going about unsupported for weeks waiting for this moment of relief to arrive. And this was only a foretaste of the afternoon. At half-past-three the shop was so crowded that Mr. Hackbridge, the shop-manager was swept entirely to one side: he could only stand on the bottom step of the staircase helplessly looking on while a sea of women swirled at his feet, eddying now into the Blouses and Shirt-waists, now in the Millinery, and now into the Underwear. And every few moments one or other of the assistants was crying out “Cash, please, Mr. Hackbridge,” which meant that he had to wade in up to his neck (he was a tall man) and make a magical symbol of his initials to denote that the sum presented to him was right down even to the farthings. At sale time, Morgan and Roberts' had to send over specially to the bank for a whole bagful of farthings.

There was a lull round about tea-time; and during this lull Hesther Croome came in.

John Marco saw her as she entered; she was different at a glance from the other shoppers—intent on something more serious and more important. She paused for a moment, studying the scene before her; then, having located what she wanted, she came straight towards him.

John Marco felt a wave of coldness again. But he remained the perfect shop-assistant. He placed his two hands on the counter and leant forward, ready to serve her with whatever it was she wanted.

“Can I speak to you, Mr. Marco?” she said.

Her eyes met his and remained there, boldly; John Marco returned her gaze just as steadily.

“What is it you want?” he asked.

“I have something private to discuss with you,” she replied.

John Marco's heart missed its beat; the words frightened him. But his manner did not reveal it. He stood there, fixed and impersonal, like any other shop-assistant. Even Mr. Morgan, who was regarding them from the other end of the shop, did not notice anything untoward in the situation.

“Will you tell me what it is?” he said.

Miss Croome glanced round her.

“I can't speak here,” she said.

“There's no where else,” John Marco answered abruptly.

“Then you must come to my house. You can come this evening.”

John Marco's eyes contracted; he thrust out his lower lip, as he always did when he was angry, and shook his head.

“I'm sorry, Miss Croome, but that isn't possible.”

“You mean not this evening?”

He bent forward over the counter till his face was close to hers.

“I mean,” he said, “that my evenings are engaged.”

Miss Croome might have been expecting the words; she did not waver.

“It would be better for you if you came,” she said quietly.

It was Mr. Morgan who interrupted them. He had been watching them all the time and he now came importantly in their direction. As the lady had made no attempt to buy anything, and as his star assistant was frowning, he could only assume that she had come in to complain about something; and Mr. Morgan did not encourage complaints at sale time.

He gave a stiff little bow.

“Can I assist you, madam?” he asked.

Miss Croome turned towards him.

“I
am
being attended to thank you,” she said. “It was only that I couldn't get what I wanted.” She paused and looked at John Marco as she said it. Then, as calmly as before, she went over to the glove counter and picked up a
pair of light grey ones that looked out of place beside the funereal black of her dress.

“I think a pair of these would do,” she said, still looking at him. “I don't intend to go on wearing black for ever.”

“You see,” she went on after Mr. Morgan had moved away again, “it isn't possible to talk here—not privately. You had better come as I asked you.”

John Marco's face flushed.

“I'm not coming,” he said.

He turned his back towards her and walked over to the other counter. The temporary assistant, a pale, timid-looking girl, was standing there: she could not help noticing that there was some kind of trouble between her department manager and this lady in black.

“Miss Carter,” John Marco said harshly, “don't just stand there like that, go and serve that lady at once.”

He did not even look back to where Miss Croome was standing: he went instead straight through into the small back wash-house where the male members of the staff spruced themselves up. At this hour, of course, it was empty. John Marco did not light the gas: he stood there staring in front of him into the darkness. Then realising that his absence might be noticed, he filled the enamel wash-basin and plunged his face into it. The shock of the icy water revived him. Five minutes after he had left the counter, he was back there. His hands still trembled, but nevertheless he was the polite, the perfect counter-jumper again. “Good-afternoon, and what can I show you, madam?” he said fifty times, always with a little nod of the head and a smile, between Miss Croome's departure and closing time.

There was, indeed, something in the mechanical regularity of the thing that soothed him; each new customer meant another moment's respite from the thoughts that he did not enjoy. He was no longer the wretched John Marco tortured by a conscience and a fear; he was merely someone who measured off yards of stuff and rolled it up in flimsy paper; and wrote out flourishing cryptic bills; and helped
fat ladies to try on tight gloves; and smiled and was obsequious and pleasant. John Marco, had indeed, almost forgotten about Miss Croome by the time seven o'clock came along and Mr. Morgan, taking out his gold half-hunter, gave the signal for them to close the shop and clear up after the shambles of the day.

“The front door, Mr. Marco, please,” he said.

John Marco put down the roll of ribbon which he was re-winding and went down the strip of drugget that ran between the counters. In the ordinary way it gave him a sense of position and authority to close the front-door; on the first occasion when Mr. Morgan had asked him instead of Mr. Hackbridge to close it, the staff had realised that times were changing and that it would be Mr. Marco to whom they would have to look up one day.

He pulled down the blue roller blind and clipped it into place behind the panel of plate glass before attempting to close the door. The reason for this was simply courtesy; Mr. Morgan had long ago decided that it was permissible to close an opaque door in the face of a late customer whereas it would be unthinkable to close a transparent one. But to-night, just as John Marco was swinging the heavy door shut, a woman stepped in from the pavement and came forward as though determined to get in.

From the crack of the door, John Marco gave her his usual correct little smile.

“I'm sorry, madam,” he said, “but we're just shutting.”

It was then, however, that he saw who the woman was; he recognised the shabby overcoat that had once been black and was now almost green with age. He recalled where it was that he had last seen that garland of moulted feathers that was a feather boa, and those wisps of grey hair that straggled over it at the back. It was Mr. Trackett's—now Miss Croome's—general servant who had come to summon Mr. Tuke on the night of the Immersionist Revival Meeting. Even the umbrella, gripped like a weapon, was the same. In her hand she was carrying a black-edged envelope.

“The young lady told me to give you this,” she said. She's waiting for an answer.

For a moment John Marco thought of slamming the door in her face and leaving her there with the envelope still in her hand. But he dismissed the thought as it came to him: he had almost betrayed himself in his manner to Miss Croome. He realised that now, more than ever, he must proceed clearly, and without emotion. He put out his hand and took the note.

The handwriting on the envelope was sharp and angular; the capital J of his Christian name was like a dagger. He tore the letter open and began to read. It repeated, almost word for word, the mysterious message that Miss Croome had delivered in person.

“Dear Mr. Marco,”
it ran, the words set out on the paper as neatly and blackly as if a printer had disposed them there,
“I have something important to discuss with you—something that affects us both. I ask you again to come to my house this evening. The maid will be there all the time so that we shall not be alone. I can only feel that we shall both regret it if you do not come. Yours earnestly, Hesther Croome.”

John Marco stood staring at the words. They said quietly and by innuendo, everything that he dreaded. Yet, as he looked at them, he told himself that he had nothing really to fear; Hesther Croome knew nothing that could harm him—it was only the half-demented old man who had hoarded all that money who could have betrayed him—and he was safely laid away under six feet of clay in Kensal Green. No: this was something new and unforeseen, this sinister delusion, this infatuation perhaps, of Miss Croome's. In the face of it, he would have to behave firmly and with decision.

It was only when he realised that the creature was edging round beside him trying to read what it was that her mistress had written, that he spoke. He re-folded the paper and thrust the note back into its envelope.

“There is no answer,” he said quietly.

“But ...” the woman began.

“I told you,” John Marco repeated, his lower lip jutting out threateningly again, “that there is no answer.”

He did not wait to hear whether she would make any further protest or not, but shut the door abruptly in her face. Through the millinery window he could still see her. She stood there, undetermined for a moment, almost as though she were afraid to go back without the reply that she had been sent for; then, shrugging her shoulders, she drew the straggling boa closer round her neck, and went off up the street.

John Marco glanced over his shoulder to establish that he was not observed in particular by anyone and then walked boldly up to the big iron stove that served to heat the ground floor of Morgan and Roberts'. Opening the top, he threw the note, just as it had come in its envelope, onto the glowing coals as though it were something trivial and unimportant, like a crumpled bill dropped by some careless shopper.

The next three hours were probably the busiest, certainly the most tiring, of the day; everything had to be straightened out in readiness for the turmoil of to-morrow. The windows, from which hats and handbags had been snatched by special request had to be re-filled and re-designed. Basket-loads of stuff had to be carried through from the stockroom and set out on the counters. The carbon-counterfoils of the orders had to be checked against the cash in the till. The “lines” that remained unsold had to be gone over so that Mr. Morgan could decide whether or not to reduce the prices still further.

John Marco worked with a rapid, fixed intensity that frightened his assistants and gratified Mr. Morgan. In his shirt sleeves now—they could afford to be informal once the front door was shut—he was taking down rows of boxes from behind him and going through them one by one measuring up the remnants; discarding empty reels; correcting other people's errors—there was, for instance, a whole three yards of pure silk in among the mixtures; re-grading the colours; pairing up the gloves; smoothing
out creases in odd blouse lengths; folding the stockings neatly toe to toe; and endlessly, tirelessly, sticking in the little price labels; “Special Line,” “Special Offer,” “Special Opportunity,” “Unique Reduction.”