The Eye of Love (5 page)

The girls went off in high spirits, and Mr Gibson should have been glad. He tried to be glad, but the evening's engagement projected too heavy a shadow. It was all he could do to keep a stiff upper lip.

He had to fight hard not to telephone Miss Diver; and went without lunch in case Miss Diver should telephone him. But she too wasn't letting down the Regiment.

The few visitors to the show-room were such obviously poor prospects that Miss Molyneux didn't bother to summon him. Or else Miss Molyneux, her spirit already in Bond Street, wasn't bothering with
them
. Whenever Mr Gibson passed the door on his way downstairs (in case Dolores stood hesitant without), he heard nothing but heartless chatter about the beauties of the Joyce décor.

About four o'clock there arrived an immense bouquet of pink carnations.
“For Miranda, in case my busy boy forgets!”
his mother had scrawled on the card. Harry Gibson certainly hadn't forgotten Miss Joyce, but it was true he hadn't thought of flowers. Fortunately he met the messenger on the pavement, and so didn't have to explain them, or avoid explaining them, to Miss Harris and Miss Molyneux. Even the former seemed by this time to have lost her head a little: if she could once style a genuine skunk, Mr Gibson heard her declare, she'd show all Bond Street where it got off …

Essentially he spent the day alone; yet felt it pass all too quickly.

5

Dolores knew her comb in Mr Gibson's keeping. When she had looked for it in the bedroom, and in the sitting-room, and in the hall and on the stairs, she knew he'd taken it. She wished it could have been—and for once the violence of romantic imagery was but plain-speaking—the ashes of her heart.

CHAPTER FOUR

1

Time, however slowly, passes. No one has yet found a way to hold it back. At six o'clock that evening a maid ushered Mr Gibson into the Joyce drawing-room—first floor, very good apartment in Knightsbridge—there to await his betrothed-to-be.

It was an excellent apartment. Considering that it housed only Miranda and her widowered father and her Aunt Beatrice, it was vast. The drawing-room alone, which Harry already knew fairly well, was at least four times the size of Dolores' sitting-room. Even a grand-piano didn't encumber it. From many points of view it was an ideal room for any confident suitor to be waiting in.

Seated in a handsome arm-chair, Mr Gibson waited. Seated in the stocks, he'd have been less ill-at-ease. Even physically he was uncomfortable, the great sheaf of carnations drooped awkwardly between his thighs and he didn't know where to put it down. But at least they were carnations, not roses … “My Spanish rose!” thought Mr Gibson uncontrollably—and to his horror saw the bouquet, apparently of its own volition, describe a parabola through the air. He retrieved it furtively and laid it on the carpet beside him.

It was a good carpet, as the furniture was good furniture.

Joyces was a good firm.

Mr Gibson fortified his mind with the memory of their audited profits over the last five years. He was on to a good thing, better than his situation deserved, and he knew it. He knew he would never have been considered as a son-in-law (and derivatively as an associate), save as a last resort. Mr Gibson dwelt on the point, leaned on it; in his present frame of mind he preferred to think Miss Joyce's advertised liking for him a myth got up among the women. He didn't want her to like him. He wanted her to want to be married, as he himself wanted not to be made a bankrupt; he had an idea that as between man and woman it came to much the same thing.

A quarter of an hour passed long as a century. To an impatient lover it would no doubt have seemed longer: Mr Gibson was impatient only as a man about to be shot might be impatient. (Why hadn't he been shot, in '17?) The bitter parenthesis, by the memories it evoked, nonetheless helped his courage: when at last the door opened, like an officer and a gentleman Mr Gibson clutched his carnations and stood bravely up to meet the firing-squad.

Curiously enough, Miranda Joyce bore a marked physical resemblance to Miss Diver. Both were tall, black-haired, and bony. They were about the same age. Miss Joyce had even certain advantages: her make-up was better, she hadn't Dolores' slight moustache, and she was far better dressed. But whereas Mr Gibson saw Dolores with the eye of love, he saw Miss Joyce as she was, and whereas the aspect of Old Madrid made his heart flutter with delicious emotion, the aspect of Miss Joyce sunk it to his boots.

“My dear Harry,” cried Miranda gaily, “I've kept you waiting! Auntie Bee made me. Was she right or wrong?”

Doing violence to all his feelings, Mr Gibson made a shot at gallantry. It seemed at the moment the only possible line. Moreover the gallant answer, remembering his hideous quarter of an hour, happened also to be the true one.

“Wrong,” said Mr Gibson heavily. “Wrong every time.”

She looked at him speculatively, but made no comment. Then she looked at the carnations.

“With the mater's best love,” said Mr Gibson, thrusting them into her hands.

“I don't think
that's
quite right,” said Miranda, “though I must ask Auntie Bee. Give mine to your mother, of course.”

“I will,” said Mr Gibson.

—Ominous, direful words! Words to seal a promise, a covenant! In this case the covenant already made with his mater and with Fate, and now to be made, specifically, with Miranda … Mr Gibson wondered whether he turned as pale as he felt; but the fearsome object of his vows, now seating herself, appeared to notice nothing amiss. The dreadful moment passed. The one that succeeded it, as Miss Joyce sat obviously expectant, was merely, if intensely, awkward. To postpone the moment that must come after, Mr Gibson very nearly asked her to play something on the piano.

He pulled himself together, kept a stiff upper lip He was aware that a proposal in form was so to speak part of the bond—also that the sooner he got it over the better. He was still on his feet; the great thing was not to sit down. He knew he wasn't expected, in that day and age, to fall on his knees, it wasn't for that the good carpet had been laid; but he felt nonetheless that he oughtn't to propose sitting. Drawing a deep breath—

“My dear Miranda,” began Mr Gibson, “I expect you know why I'm here.”

“
Do
I?” said Miss Joyce.

She wasn't going to let him off with a word.

“Well, a chappie doesn't usually come calling with a bunch of flowers,” pointed out Mr Gibson, “unless he has something pretty serious on his mind.”

“I dare say some chappies do,” said Miss Joyce, playfully. “And aren't they from your mother?”

Mr Gibson was damned if he was going to start an argument. He plunged on—if not straight to the point at least in its general direction.

“Anyone who plays the piano like you do, I mean anyone so accomplished and cultured all round, I dare say finds anyone like me a pretty rough diamond.” (Did a spark of hope flicker in his bosom? If so, it was quenched at once. She didn't take him up.) “In fact,” continued Mr Gibson doggedly, “if it hadn't been for what your Aunt Beatrice told the mater—”

“What
did
she tell her?” asked Miss Joyce rather sharply.

“That you—well, that you didn't dislike me. I must say it came as a bit of a surprise.” Again Mr Gibson paused; again nothing came of it. There was no escape. “It gave me”—he chewed on the bullet—“hope. And in that hope,” continued Mr Gibson rapidly—as though the bullet had been a sort of hashish—“I'm here this afternoon even though you've every right to turn me down to ask you to be my wife.”

It was out. He'd got it out. Just before his knees gave way he lowered himself into the chair opposite Miranda's and waited for her reply.

“Oh, Harry!” said Miss Joyce.

“Well, what about it?” asked Mr Gibson impatiently.

“
I'
m so surprised too! I can't possibly answer straight away! I must have time to think!”

An appalling suspicion dawned.

“How long?” demanded Mr Gibson.

“At least a week! Ask me again in a week's time—”

It was just as he'd suspected. He was to be put through the hoop again. And quite possibly again after that—once a week, in fact, something to be looked forward to once a week (thought Mr Gibson incoherently), like his mother's Friday visit to the cinema … Well, he wouldn't stand it. By comparison with such torture bankruptcy positively smiled at him. “I'm damned if I'll stand it!” said Harry Gibson loudly. “It's more than flesh and blood can bear! Either you give me an answer now, or you never see me again!”

It did the trick: as he leapt to his feet—and his eye was obviously on the door—Miranda too sprang up in pretty terror. She couldn't turn pale, because of her rouge—but with fluttering hand and eyelid indicated pallor; and her breath was genuinely short.

“How masterful you are!” breathed Miranda, enchanted. “Oh, Harry, you just make me say yes!”

As she moved impulsively to accept his embrace, she impulsively pressed a bell; the maid who brought in the champagne must have been very handy.

2

“This is just for
us
,” said Miranda, “before we tell everyone … To you and me!”

Kissing her had been like kissing a sea-horse. Mr Gibson knocked back his drink thankfully. (“I shall turn into a sozzler,” thought Mr Gibson—dispassionate as a physician diagnosing the course of a disease.) For the moment, however, and although he'd had no lunch, he wasn't intoxicated. He still had himself well in hand—which considering Miranda's next choice of topic was fortunate.

Champagne, it seemed, turned Miranda into a woman of the world. With humorous understanding—

“Of course you have a mistress? Obviously,” said Miranda Joyce.

It was fortunate that Mr Gibson had himself in hand. He still couldn't control his blood. A long-disused system of arteries and capillaries rushed blood to his cheeks, up to his forehead, up to the roots of his hair. He blushed like a boy.

“My dear Harry,
I
don't mind!” cried Miss Joyce. “A passionate man like you—why not?”

“Who told you?” shouted Harry Gibson.

Miss Joyce looked pleasurably frightened.

“No one in so many words. But away two nights each week—! Your mother told Aunt Beatrice
that
. Of course you have a mistress. I'm sure I could find out all about her, or Dadda could, if I was inquisitive!”

Mr Gibson perceived a possible course of action at all costs to be prevented.

“Since you know so much already—yes,” said Mr Gibson. (Though how far from the truth the literal truth! How far from the truth of King Hal and his Spanish rose!) “Since you know so much already—yes,” said Harry Gibson. “Do I need to tell you also that it's all washed up?”

A bony sea-horse kiss rewarded him. Unfortunately the sea-horse was still being a woman of the world.

“Of course she's been provided for?”

Mr Gibson's control went. So did all his carefully-cultivated British slang, giving place to an older habit of speech, the speech he'd heard between his parents when he was a young boy.

“And out of what, tell me please, would I provide for her?” shouted Mr Gibson. “You know, or at least your father does, my situation! How could I provide for a dog even?”

“You
are
passionate,” confirmed Miss Joyce. “She must be behaving very well. Would it be kind if I went to see her?”

“If you do,” cried Mr Gibson, “if you try to, I will never, this I swear, look at you or speak to you again. Is that understood, woman?”

“Passionate
and
masterful,” murmured Miss Joyce. “Oh, Harry, I feel I've never known you before!”

3

Of the rest of the evening, of the intimate family supper that followed, Mr Gibson retained little subsequent memory. He still wasn't intoxicated, but he was bushed. He told Miranda's Aunt Beatrice the same (unsuitable) funny story four separate times. The arrival on scene of his mother astonished him more than it should have done. He wanted to know why she'd changed her mind about not coming. That she'd come after all, he argued, made nonsense of sending her best love; he showed unexpected heat on the point. There was in fact a moment after supper when old Joyce, Miranda's father, led him away to a private sanctum—and then looked uneasily at the decanters there. “I am perfectly sober,” stated Harry Gibson pugnaciously. “That's what I thought,” agreed Mr Joyce. “You'll find a chinchilla coat in stock worth two thousand!” shouted Harry Gibson. “Don't I know it, son?” agreed Mr Joyce placatively. “What did you call me?” asked Harry Gibson—and laughed like a drain.

He then returned to the drawing-room and demanded that Miranda should play the piano. As soon as the first piece was finished, he demanded another. He kept her at the piano for one hour and twenty minutes. In a happy lover, such conduct wasn't altogether inexcusable: old Mrs Gibson, and Aunt Beatrice, like a couple of inexperienced commères, with many a beck and smile pulled off the feat of presenting it as infatuation. “So much my Harry admires her playing!” murmured Mrs Gibson. “It was music brought them together!” declared Aunt Beatrice. They had no audience except old man Joyce, perhaps they were rehearsing for the engagement-party, but their efforts weren't wasted. The evening not only passed off without disaster, but could be accounted a positive success.

In the taxi going home old Mrs Gibson wasn't even sleepy. Champagne and brandy, and wearing her best dress, and seeing her Harry at last on the way out of his troubles—all combined to rejuvenate her. In Moscow, she'd have been ready to dance till morning … The slight bother of hauling Harry out, and then getting him upstairs, and after that getting him to bed, tarnished her happiness not a whit. So a boy should come home, on such an evening!