The Gazebo (8 page)

MRS GRAHAM WAS not feeling at all pleased. Half a dozen people had remarked upon the change in Althea’s appearance. Three of them had said how pretty she was looking, and two of them had added, ‘Just like her old self.’ Myra Hutchinson swooped down and murmured in the husky voice which she had always so much disliked, ‘Dear Mrs Graham, isn’t it lovely to have Nicky back again! Althea looks like a million pounds!’ It was really all extremely annoying. If she had known how it was going to be, she could have had a mild attack of palpitations and have stayed at home, and Thea would naturally have had to stay with her. But then she wouldn’t have been able to wear her new dress. Ella Harrison had admired it very much, and even Mrs Justice had said, ‘You are very smart, my dear.’ It seemed very hard indeed that she could not go out to a party at an old friend’s house without being annoyed by the presence of Nicholas Carey. And it was Ella Harrison who had brought him. She should have known better – she did know better. She felt very much annoyed with Ella. She leaned back in her chair and told Nettie Pimm in a failing voice that she didn’t feel very well and she thought she had better go home – ‘If you wouldn’t mind just finding Thea and telling her.’

Talking it over afterwards with Mabel and Lily, Nettie was of the opinion that Mrs Graham really didn’t like to hear her daughter praised.

‘I only said that Althea was looking sweet, and that Nicholas Carey seemed to think so, and she leaned back against the cushion with her eyes shut and said she didn’t feel well. I don’t believe she wants Althea to get married.’

Mabel and Lily agreed with her.

Althea took her mother home, got her out of the blue dress and into a comfortable house-coat, and administered sal volatile. To these accustomed tasks she brought a new equanimity. There was no impatience to be controlled, no resentment to be repressed. In the inner chambers of her mind there was happiness and freedom. What had been miraculously given back to her she would not throw away again. A line from an old song stayed with her – ‘My true love has my heart, and I have his.’ The light and warmth it gave her made it quite easy to be kind.

Mrs Graham lay on the sofa and made plans. They must go away, but not on a cruise which might give them Nicholas Carey as a fellow traveller. There was the private hotel where they had stayed two years ago. She hadn’t liked it very much, but there were other places… She lay comfortably back on the cushions and went on thinking.

They had their supper on a tray in the drawing-room, and when Althea had finished clearing away and washing up she found her mother looking at her in an affectionate and smiling manner.

‘It was a little too much for me, but it was a nice party, Thea.’

Althea said, ‘Yes.’

‘It does one good to get out of the rut and see fresh people.’

‘Yes, it does.’

‘I am so glad you agree with me, darling, because I was thinking a little change would be good for both of us. You know that place we went to two years ago. I didn’t care for the hotel, but there was one right on the front which I thought looked rather nice – The Avonmouth, I think it was called. We had tea there once or twice, if you remember, and the cakes were really good. We might try that.’

Althea looked at her with a faintly startled air. She was a long way off and she didn’t want to come back. She said,

‘Go away – now? But why?’

‘Darling, you weren’t really listening. Going out this evening made me feel that it would be good for us to get away for a change.’

This time it got home. Something spoke – ‘She wants to get you away from Nicky.’ Aloud she said,

‘Mother, we couldn’t afford it.’

Mrs Graham kept her smile.

‘Now, darling, don’t be hasty. We have got to be practical about this, and I have thought it all out. You know the Mediterranean cruise we were thinking about – well, I am afraid it might be too much for me, and I hear the society is really very mixed, so perhaps something quieter. And as to not being able to afford it’ – she gave a little silvery laugh – ‘why it wouldn’t cost a quarter of what the cruise would have done. So you see, we should actually be saving money.’

Her speedwell-blue eyes looked up innocently. Althea could never remember when she had not known that look for what it was – a danger signal. Even as a child she had been able to recognize it as a warning that she was going to be asked to do something she didn’t like. She stiffened herself to resist it now.

‘We couldn’t afford the cruise, and we can’t afford to go away to an hotel like the Avonmouth. It’s quite out of the question. We are overdrawn at the bank.’

Mrs Graham sighed.

‘It sounds so sordid when you put it that way, I meant it to be a little pleasure for us both. And I am afraid it’s my fault. I oughtn’t to have got that blue dress, but it was so becoming and just right for the evening if we had gone on the cruise.’

Althea said slowly,

‘I would rather not go away just now.’

‘But I think you need the change, darling. I’m not thinking about myself of course, though Dr Barrington has been urging me to get away to the sea. I am just trying to think what is best for you. You know, people will talk, and you did make yourself rather conspicuous this evening. Nettie Pimm said you were out of the room for quite half an hour with Nicholas Carey. I didn’t see you go, or I would have tried to stop you. Nettie didn’t say it at all unkindly, but I could see that she thought it a pity you should give people the opportunity to say you were running after him.’

If Mrs Graham expected this to sting Althea’s pride she was disappointed. She certainly flushed a little, but she smiled in a dreamy way which was very alarming, and she said in quite a soft kind of voice,

‘Oh, I’m not running after Nicky.’

‘People will say you are.’

‘They will be wrong.’

Thea, I don’t understand you at all. You must realize that there’s nothing quite so dead as an old flirtation. He flirted with you, and he went away for five years. Did he write even once – or so much as let us know whether he was alive or dead? He didn’t, and you know it. But he has the impertinence to come back and make you conspicuous by flirting with you all over again! Can’t you imagine what people must be saying? The least you can do is to show him that he can’t just pick you up one minute and drop you the next! I should have thought you would have had more pride!’

Althea wasn’t feeling proud, she was feeling safe. Her mother’s words were like flies that buzz on the outside of a window-pane – the window is shut against them and they can’t get in. They made a stupid noise a long way off. She was still smiling when she got to her feet. It was time to fill her mother’s hot water-bottle and to get her to bed. At the door she turned and said,

‘Please don’t worry – there’s no need. I don’t want to flirt with Nicholas, and he doesn’t want to flirt with me.’

I CAN’T THINK why you want it,’ said Ella Harrison.

Fred Worple flashed his teeth in what he considered to be a fascinating smile.

‘You don’t have to think about it at all, ducks.’

They were lunching together in town. Since a crowd of people were doing the same thing and a jazz band was playing, it was as good a place for private conversation as anyone could wish. To both of them noise, glitter and plenty to drink were the essentials of enjoyment. Mr Worple’s hint that she could mind her own business was not taken amiss. She said,

‘You know, I could help you if I had any idea of what you were driving at.’

‘I just want to buy that house – that’s all.’

‘Sure?’

‘Certain.’

‘It’s too big for you.’

‘Not when I get married and have half a dozen kids.’

There was a sharp anger in her. She spoke just a little too quickly.

‘Who is the girl?’

‘Nobody – anybody – what about Miss Althea Graham?’

She said, ‘Nonsense!’

He laughed. He had better not laugh at her like that.

‘Well, I don’t know – she’s not bad-looking. And I’ll tell you something – the house is in her name.’

‘What!’

He nodded.

‘Bert Martin let it for them last year, and it was the girl who signed the agreement. He didn’t mean to give anything away, but we were talking, and when I said, “Give me a chance and I’ll get round the old lady,” he came out with, “Well, the house belongs to Miss Graham – you’d be wasting your time.” So I thought to myself, “Fred, my boy, what about it? If you can get round an old woman you can get round a young one. Marry the girl and you get the house, free, gratis and for nothing. Money in your pocket, and nothing to pay for except a wedding ring.” What do you think of that for a bright idea?’

What Ella Harrison thought about it wouldn’t bear saying. He was kidding of course, poking at her to see if he couldn’t make her wild just like he used to do in the old days. She’d been fool enough to rise for it then, and she’d be a fool if she rose for it now. What did he want, stirring her up again like this? If she wasn’t so bored with Jack, if everything wasn’t so damned flat, she would tell him where he got off! Dangling another girl at her, even if he was only kidding! She said with an appearance of frankness,

‘She wouldn’t look at you.’

‘That’s all you know. There she is, a good-looking girl moped to death with an invalid mother, and I come along, take her out a bit, splash the money around and give her a good time – it stands to reason she’d jump at it.’

Ella shook her head. She wasn’t going to let him get that rise.

‘You’re not her sort. Besides there’s someone she was more or less engaged to, only her mother got it broken off and he went abroad, but he’s come back and from what I can make out it’s likely to be on again. Though what he sees in her…’

He laughed.

‘Oh, well, it was just a thought. I might think about cutting him out, or I mightn’t. What’s the odds so long as I get the house?’

She said, ‘I don’t know what you want it for.’

It was next day that Althea found Mr Worple at her elbow in the High Street. He said ‘Good-morning,’ and before she had any idea what he was going to do he took her shopping-bag out of her hand.

‘It’s much too heavy for you. I’ll carry it.’

She stiffened.

‘Thank you, but I’d rather…’

He didn’t give her time to finish her sentence. A smile was flashed at her.

‘Now, now, you just leave it to me. You do the shopping, and I’ll do the carrying. You don’t want a heavy bag like this pulling you all down on one side. Mustn’t spoil a figure like yours – wouldn’t do at all.’

‘Mr Worple, will you please give me back my bag.’

No one could have called Fred Worple a sensitive plant, but it was borne in upon him that he had given offence. With no more than a murmured protest he gave her the bag, but he continued to walk beside her undeterred by the fact that she neither looked at him nor spoke.

‘You know, Miss Graham, I do hope you are thinking about my offer for your house.’

After some unsuccessful small talk this obtained a reply. Althea said,

‘No, I am not thinking about it. We do not wish to sell.’

She was becoming very angry, not only with Mr Worple himself, but with Mr Jones the house-agent who had no excuse for inflicting him upon her. The house was not on his books – it was not on anybody’s books – but whereas her mother had given Mr Martin a pretext for introducing the Blounts, nobody had given, or would give, Mr Jones any pretext at all. Her colour rose brightly and Mr Worple’s next remark incurred the snub direct.

‘I am really not prepared to discuss the matter, either now or at any other time. Good-morning!’ She turned as if to enter the post office and almost ran into Nicholas Carey, who was coming out.

Mr Worple, observing the encounter, was not so much discouraged as annoyed. She would give him the brush-off, would she? Well, they would see about that. He had a comfortable theory that girls liked to play hard-to-get, and that rudeness was really an encouraging sign. They put it on to make you keener, and if they appeared to be friendly with somebody else it was just a stunt to play you up. He saw Nicholas Carey take over the shopping-bag which he himself had not been allowed to carry and watched them to the corner of Sefton Street, where they turned and went into the café.

Nicholas said,

‘This is new since my time. Let’s get one of the green rabbit-hutches right at the back – the end one if there isn’t someone there already.’

The alcoves really were rather like hutches – something about the way the green draperies were arranged. The end one was vacant and they took possession of it. When Nicholas had ordered coffee he said,

‘What was all the nice bright colour for, Allie? Was it for me – or had the character who looked as if he might be a spiv been annoying you?’

Even in the pale greenish light of the alcove the return of the nice bright colour was discernible.

‘Nicky, he’s dreadful! And he’s the other person who wants to buy The Lodge – the one who says he will always go a hundred pounds better than Mr Blount. He doesn’t look as if he’s got a lot of money, does he?’

‘Millionaires have been known to go about in rags.’

‘But they’re not rags – that’s just it. They’re quite new and quite dreadful.’

‘He might have won a pile on the pools, or he might have put a possibly tattered shirt on a horse. Or he might be the enterprising type of footpad who rustles bullion on its way from post offices and banks – I gather there’s quite an opening in that direction for a bright young man. Those are the only three ways I can think of in which you can put away any money nowadays – the Chancellor sees to that. I think there should be an Association for making burglars pay income tax. At present the harder you work, the less you earn and the more you pay. It’s a fascinating topic, but as a matter of fact there’s something else I want to talk about.’

A waitress brought their coffee and set it down on a shiny green table. When she had gone away again Nicholas Carey said,

‘What I want to talk about is our getting married. What about it, Allie?’

She had known that it was coming. She hadn’t known just how it would make her feel. She didn’t know quite how she did feel, but you couldn’t take the most important step of your life unless you did know how you felt about it. She looked at him in a soft, distressed kind of way and said,

‘Oh, Nicky, I don’t know – don’t rush me…’

Those narrow dark eyebrows of his went up.

‘Do you get the idea that we are rushing our affairs? After seven years? One can believe most things if one tries hard enough, but I can’t manage that one.’

She went on looking at him without any change of expression.

‘I feel as if we were on a hill – and it’s steep. We’ve started to run down it and it keeps on getting steeper – we’re running faster and faster and we can’t see where we’re going – we can’t see the bottom of the hill.’

He said,

‘Wake up, Allie! Don’t you see the way you’re feeling is just what everyone does feel when they’ve been bullied within an inch of their lives or in prison for years, and then quite suddenly there’s an open door in front of them and they are free to walk out? They have only got to take that one step and shut the door behind them, and they are afraid to do it. It’s the common reaction – they think it’s a trap – they think they’ll be caught and brought back again. And they’ve been conditioned to being at someone else’s orders – they can’t face having to take their own decisions and act on their own initiative. Wake up and realize that there’s nothing on earth to stop you from walking out and marrying me!’

‘Suppose I did, and suppose she died…’

‘Suppose she didn’t do anything of the sort.’

‘She might…’

He said,

‘Look here, Allie, you can’t tell me anything about your mother that I don’t know. She was much younger than your father, and she was pretty and he spoiled her. Incidentally, he knew perfectly well what she was like. He tied up the money so that she couldn’t touch it and he left the house to you. Outside his job he let her have her own way. And when he died you took over, only you haven’t got a job to escape into. There isn’t one turn or twist in the game of getting her own way that she hasn’t got at her fingertips, and as long as she has anything to gain by it she’ll use them all.’ He said the last words over again with a heavy emphasis on them – ‘As long as she has anything to gain. But once we are married, Allie, the game will be out of her hands and she’ll know it. If she goes on and throws fits she will only be hurting herself, and as I’ve said before, she is a great deal too fond of herself to do that.’

Althea listened. She hadn’t looked away. He could see right down into her eyes. The green hangings made them look very green indeed, and the colour had gone out of her face and left her pale. They ought to have run away together seven years ago. They ought never to have let Winifred Graham drive them apart. It wasn’t going to happen again. He laughed and said,

‘I’ve got a present for you, my sweet. Wait a minute – it’s in my wallet.’

He produced the leather case, opened it, took out a paper, and spread it in front of her on the shiny green table.

‘Marriage licence.’ He dipped into his waistcoat pocket. A screw of tissue paper came up and was unwrapped. A plain gold ring dropped down upon the licence. ‘Wedding ring,’ he said. ‘Just try it on and see if it fits.’