I Shall Not Want (44 page)

The department was empty at that moment—hats are not the kind of things that are bought in a rush as soon as the stores are open—and, as he watched, he saw Eve Harlow, this assistant from another department, go up to one of the models marked “Exclusive”—it was a piece of black velvet nonsense for which they were asking two guineas—and take it down from the bright nickel stand where it was hanging. She held it for a moment in her hand, and then, going over to the mirror on the table opposite, she arranged her hair first this way and then that and finally set the hat on top of it, standing there admiring herself like a lady in front of her own dressing-table.

Mr. Hackbridge was only half a pace behind John Marco, but when he saw what was happening he thrust out his chin and stepped forward.

“Disgryceful!” he said. “Disgryceful!”

But John Marco raised his hand and stopped him. He wanted that picture in the mirror in front of him to remain. The small body leaning forwards, the arms that were still lifted to the head, the slim neck over the black silk dress, the pre-occupation and eagerness of it all, fascinated him. The abandoned wickedness of trying on
one of the firm's hats was nothing less than sheer revolution; but somehow the way in which she was doing it was at once feminine and desirable. It reminded him again how womanless his own life seemed sentenced to be.

Then, still with that ridiculous, expensive hat perched on her head, the girl glanced round for an instant, and saw John Marco standing there. She did not move, and the three of them stood looking at each other. It was John Marco who spoke first. He said something to Mr. Hackbridge and then turned and continued his tour of the other departments.

Mr. Hackbridge advanced majestically towards the girl.

“Take it off,” he said. “Take it off at once.” He paused deliberately for effect and added quietly but menacingly: “Mr. Marco wants to see you in his office at closing time.”

He thought of saying something biting as well about what comes of taking on assistants who can't produce references. But he suppressed the remark. Miss Harlow would understand perfectly well what that kind of summons implied; and it had been rather clever of Mr. Marco to give her the whole day to think about it.

In any case it was the last two-guinea hat that she was ever likely to handle.

At seven-fifteen Eve Harlow went slowly up the main staircase and stood outside John Marco's door. It seemed strange to be doing so when everyone else was going down the staff staircase at the back. And they would all be climbing up that endless flight of cement steps again to-morrow morning; they were all respectable, reliable young ladies who could be trusted.

She raised a hand that trembled a little and knocked on the door.

John Marco was standing with his back to the fireplace when she entered. He was holding the catalogue of one of the wholesale firms in his hand.

“Sit down,” he said, and went on reading.

Then, when he had finished, he put the catalogue behind him and looked at her. He looked at her so long, in fact, that she stirred a trifle self-consciously. She found herself wishing that he would tell her that she was dismissed and be done with it. But still he went on looking. It was almost as if all the time he were thinking of something else.

“How old did you say you were?” he asked at last.

“Nineteen, sir,” she told him.

Nineteen! That was the age which Mary had been when he had first defied convention and walked home with her. He had been a different man then. He wasn't even a man at all any longer, he was a company now, something at the top of note-paper and on the side of vans; and a name in fancy capitals doesn't have any feelings, any emotions. All that a name like that can think about is growing larger and becoming better-known, more talked-about. And all the time that was happening and his name was growing, there would be these girls of nineteen appearing around him. They would be slight like this one, a little timid and uncertain perhaps; and with a gay taste in hats. And he would have to stand back and watch them as they made mistakes and fell in and out of love and finally went off in the arms of other men.

He turned towards her again and let his eyes run up and down her. She seemed so young, so very young, sitting there; the curve of her cheek, her hands folded in her lap, the small close ears that the upward sweep of her hair disclosed—these were the very spirit and essence of her age.

“What made you want that hat?” he asked suddenly.

“I only wanted to see what it looked like,” she replied.

“And were you satisfied?” he persisted. “Was it worth it?”

“It was a beautiful hat,” she said simply.

He paused. The wall between them seemed higher than ever now. It was as though at nineteen she were
ageless and would go on being young for ever, while every year that passed would leave his prime receding from him, till finally he hadn't the strength any longer even to climb the wall and find what lay hidden on the other side.

He left the fireplace and sat down in the big revolving chair.

“Would you like to have that hat?” he asked.

“Why, yes,” she said in surprise.

“Then you'd better take it,” he said. He was no longer looking at her: he was fiddling with the gold pencil in his hand. “Have it, and wear it Sundays. Wear it when you go out in the Park.”

To his surprise she did not answer; and when he looked up at her he saw that she was crying. Not noisily and vulgarly; but like a lady, with her handkerchief close up to her eyes concealing it.

“Thank you,” she said at last.

He was brusque again by now.

“Perhaps if you've got a nice hat of your own you won't want to go trying on the firm's property,” he said.

“I promise it won't happen again,” she answered.

She got up and began to go across the room to the door. But when she reached it, he called her back.

“Just one moment, Miss Harlow,” he said.

She turned nervously. Was this then what he had been keeping in store for her? Was he going to dismiss her now that he had made her a present of the detestable hat?

But what he said was quite different.

“What do you get paid?” he asked.

“Fifteen shillings a week, sir,” she answered.

He paused.

“Would you like to come out to-night?” he asked. “Somewhere fashionable where people are wearing that kind of hat?”

ii

The Criterion when they got there was noisy and vivacious. There was hubbub in the air, and sparkle; and
everyone in the place had that gratified, excited feeling that comes of sitting down to dine in the very centre of the world.

John Marco himself sat at a table in the corner and stared over the cover of the wine-list at his companion.

She looked younger than ever sitting there; she looked, in fact, the youngest thing in the whole room. By comparison most of the other women seemed just a little faded and full-blown. The woman at the next table was a large-bosomed creature all tangled up in white lace: she was being archly fascinating with a little man who was scarcely more than half her size. And beyond her was a lady with a lot of jewellery and dyed hair, philosophically awaiting the inevitable moment of seduction. John Marco let his eyes wander over them and returned to Miss Harlow.

“Tell me something about yourself,” he said at last. “Did you always want to go into a shop?”

He sat back in his chair, twirling the stem of his wineglass between his fingers. He liked watching her: she was so obviously happy and flattered by it all; and because she was happy she was pretty, too—prettier than he had ever imagined. Her hands, resting on the table, were clasped, the fingers laced together; he saw how slender they were, how small. “This is someone,” he found himself saying, “who could occupy me: someone who could drive out my other thoughts.”

But when she had answered, he realised that he had not been listening: he had been looking at her instead. He had heard snatches of what she had been saying, but no more. There was something about a father who had died while she was still quite little and a sister who had thrown away an expensive training—as what, he could not have heard—to get married to a man who had turned out to be a rotter. And now, he gathered, there was only Eve Harlow left out of the lot of them, and the fifteen shillings a week that John Marco Ltd. gave her was the whole of the claim which she had been able to stake out on life.

“But how damn silly it is,” he was thinking: “fancy a child with those looks having to spend her time selling petticoats to fat women who want them too tight just to be in fashion.” She would realise one day that she could do better for herself than that. And by then, perhaps, he would have lost her: she would have gone the way of the rest of them.

Over coffee, he pushed back the table a little way from them and drew his chair closer up to hers. The small lamp in the centre now seemed to separate them from the rest of London: it left the rest of the room dim and undiscovered. They were as isolated as if they had been on a desert island.

“Aren't you ever lonely?” he asked. “Just living in the hostel with no home of your own?”

“Sometimes,” she admitted.

“And haven't you got any plans for the future?”

“Plenty,” she said. “Only they don't always come out right.”

“Tell me about them,” he said.

But the scene around him with the lights and the waiters and the full-blown ladies and the music, and this girl before him, who seemed so young, in the centre of it all, had faded at last and vanished: it had seemed even at the time too good to continue. They had parted politely at the steps of the hostel, and he had given himself back to the shop again with its sales reports and its special display programmes and its tours of inspection. And then ten days later they were back at the Criterion again, at this same table with the same waiter bending over them and the orchestra playing the same pieces. During the interval they had scarcely spoken; but already they were strangers no more. His hand rested longer than it need have done on her shoulder as he helped her out of her coat, and they caught one another's eye and smiled back at each other.

And then that meal, too, slid into limbo and was lost;
and once more his life revolved around Mr. Hackbridge and Mr. Lyman and Mr. Skewin. But these dinners together were more frequent now; they were what he lived for. Whenever he was not working, it seemed that he was looking over the top of a wine-glass at his companion.

It was one evening scarcely a month after their first visit to the Criterion as the band was playing just loud enough to drown other conversation than he leant forward and addressed his companion.

“You knew I was married, didn't you?” he said.

She nodded.

“How did you know?” he asked.

“They all know at the shop,” she answered.

He paused.

“And do you mind?”

This time it was Miss Harlow who paused.

“No,” she said quietly.

But the brightness and liveliness had gone from her face as she spoke.

“I thought you'd say that,” he said.

He put his hand over her clasped ones. But her hands, he noticed, felt cold; and after a moment she withdrew them. She sat back without looking at him and began scratching aimless, idle designs on the table cloth with her finger.

Then, because she was silent, he bent forward still closer.

“Are you afraid of what people will say?” he asked.

She shook her head.

“It's not that,” she answered.

“Then what is it?”

“I don't know,” she replied. “It's only . . . only I wanted things to go on just as they were.”

“But they couldn't,” he told her. “Don't you ever think of what I feel like every time you leave me?”

“I know,” she said. “You needn't tell me.”

His eyes were fixed on her now. He saw nothing but the white forehead with the dark shining hair rising above it and the shadowy lines which her eyelashes made against
her cheek: her own eyes were still lowered. She had avoided his gaze ever since he had spoken.

“Let's get out of here,” he said suddenly. “Let's go somewhere we can talk properly.”

iii

It was beneath the silver bow of Eros that they got into a hansom together, and began to drive through the faint blue haze that had descended. The lights of Piccadilly shone out in front of them like the illuminations at a fair, and the pavements were as thronged with people as if a procession were expected. It was one of those moments of early night-time when all cities are beautiful and London itself becomes something ready to dissolve before the sight. A guardsman in red uniform at a street corner was like a figure stuck there by a ballet-master.

John Marco put his arms round her shoulders and drew her to him.

“Do you know,” he said, almost under his breath, “I think this is the first time in my life that I've ever really got what I wanted?”

They did not say much, however; and he was content to sit there with all London at his feet. It was not until they had reached the park and were moving along under the shadow of the trees that she spoke to him. She gave a forced little laugh.

“It's funny the way things happen,” she said. “Do you know I nearly got married myself three months ago?”

He put his arm closer round her.

“Are you glad you didn't?” he asked.

“I am now,” she said.

“Who was it?” he demanded.

“It was someone at the shop,” she replied. “I don't expect you'd even know him.”

“Did you want to marry him?”

She paused.

“Yes,” she said. “I did. A lot.”

“Then why didn't you?” he asked.

The thought of how nearly he had lost her, excited him; it seemed that he had been only one move ahead of fate.

“Why didn't you?” he repeated.