I Shall Not Want (28 page)

“But he's an old man. He's not strong enough to fight you.”

“I gave him the alternative,” he said. “He wouldn't accept it.”

Hesther lay back and a flicker of pain passed across her face.

“Why
can't
you be satisfied?” she asked. “Why can't you be content with what you've got?”

She did not speak again for some time and they sat there in silence. Then she drew her lips in sharply.

“You'd better send for the nurse,” she said. “I think it's time.”

He got up to ring the bell and then came back to the bed and stood over her. She was paler now and there were tiny beads of sweat standing out along her forehead. Bending down he rested his arms on the pillow and kissed her. For a moment she lay motionless and then she gripped
his two hands and hugged them to her. But she released them again almost as suddenly.

“Oh, John, John,” she said. “If only you meant it, if only this were real.”

Tears began to gather in her eyes and trickle clumsily down her cheeks. When the nurse saw them she gave a little understanding nod.

“Soon be over now, dear,” she said. “The doctor's just coming up. We're all ready for him.”

She smiled across at John Marco.

“We shall have some news for you next time we see you,” she said.

Downstairs old Mrs. Marco was in a state; she was offended. She was sitting huddled up in one of the big chairs in the drawing-room rocking herself backwards and forwards in vexation.

“He wouldn't let me go up to her,” she complained. “He said that he could manage with the nurse.” She came over and put her hand on John Marco's arm. “But don't you go getting yourself worked up about it,” she said. “You come and eat something. It'll take your mind off it.”

And once they were in the dining-room old Mrs. Marco began to enjoy herself. She was usually in bed before this; and she knew it. In her present freedom, with Hesther out of the way, she was like a child that has stayed up beyond its bed-time. There was a kind of guilty delight about her.

“It'll be a long time as it's her first,” she said gloatingly. “She'll probably be bad with it: they may need me there before they're through.” She paused and some remote trigger was released in her mind. “Your father had to be carried upstairs the night after you were born,” she said. “He'd been out at a dinner of the Lodge. He was very highly thought of inside the Order.”

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.”

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 approaching. 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.”