Only sometimes was a new woman necessary to the life of a lord. In Ted’s experience a woman was re-established high in his estimation by a few weeks of absence from or deprivation of her. She regained a large part of the charm of novelty and did not need any tedious breaking-in. He was looking forward with positive eagerness to tonight. He did not dwell on the fiasco of last night. That was past and done with. He had experienced yesterday an unnerving attack of fright, the first for a long time, which had upset his temper very badly. It was quite groundless fright, he knew, but fright was incompatible with the life of a lord. It had led him both to await with eagerness the return of his family and to behave like a bear when they arrived a little later than he expected.
Today he had thrust away all memory of yesterday. His very third tankard of beer satisfied the thirst and sense of something lacking within him. He drank a fourth partly because of the importunity of Lang at his side and partly because as an unnecessary luxury it accorded well with his mood, and then he walked home through the gathering dusk and the Sunday evening crowds – larger than usual tonight because a fine evening had succeeded to a day of rain.
Marjorie was in the sitting-room sewing; with nearly every garment owned by the family in need of washing (a task that must be tackled tomorrow) she was mending reserve garments hurriedly so as to maintain the supply until ironing and airing should bring back into use all the pile of stuff which had accumulated today in the scullery. Ted stroked the back of her neck as he crossed the room behind her, and then sank with a satisfied sigh into the other armchair.
‘Well,’ he said, in friendly fashion. ‘I haven’t heard much about this holiday of yours yet. Have a good time?’
‘Lovely,’ said Marjorie, inspecting the darn she was completing in a pair of Derrick’s breeches.
‘You had good enough weather, anyway. God it was hot up here in London! And those dam’ auditors raised merry hell I can tell you.’
‘Did they?’
‘How did young Ely get on with you and Mother? All right?’
‘Yes.’
‘Once or twice I wanted him home again. The auditors were asking questions about his books. I could answer ’em all right, but it meant the hell of a sweat for me. But I thought if I called him back it would mean you’d have to pay train fares yesterday, so I put up with it.’
Ted waited for a word of thanks after that, but no word came. Marjorie was stitching feverishly. Ted tried a direct question.
‘Did his car go alright?’
‘Yes. No. We had a puncture once.’
Ted could see that Marjorie was so preoccupied with her sewing that she could hardly pay him any attention at all.
‘Only one? I don’t think that’s so bad.’
‘Just a minute,’ said Marjorie, putting down her sewing. ‘I left something on the oven. I’ll be back in a minute.’
Ted heard her cross the hall into the kitchen after shutting the sitting-room door. He was quite philosophic about her preoccupation. He could remember the time during their early married life when she would have put down her needlework the moment he came in, and would have listened with sympathy and attention to what he had to say about the auditors. But they had been married so long now. What with the house and the kids she had plenty on her mind. He looked at the clock. He would give her half an hour more for her needlework and her other jobs. Then she would have to put it away and attend to him.
Meanwhile Marjorie had left ajar the door from the kitchen into the garden, beside the dustbin, and was creeping as silently as she could down the path to the end gate. Half way down the whistle that she had heard already five or six times since Ted’s return rang out again, more loudly and imperiously than ever. Frightened, she exerted herself to quicken her pace and yet remain silent. Just inside the gate, in the shadow of the elderberry tree, she found herself in George’s arms.
‘Darling,’ she whispered. ‘You mustn’t whistle so loud. I heard you the first time.’
‘Why didn’t you come, then?’
It was hard for George to keep his voice down to a whisper, he was beside himself with anxiety and impatience.
‘I couldn’t. Ted had just come in. It would have looked funny if I’d come out the minute he walked into the room.’
‘Ted? Is he home?’
‘Yes. He’s just come in, I said.’
‘What did he want?’
‘Nothing. We were just talking about the holiday. Kiss me, darling.’
She wanted George’s kisses. Besides, she knew that if he were to kiss her he would lose some of this painful anxiety he was displaying. She sensed his tension dwindling as she fondled him. But something else had to be said as well, and immediately. A train rattled along the cutting, reminding her of the passage of time.
‘I can’t stop a minute,’ she whispered, mouth to his mouth. ‘Ted’ll think it’s funny if I’m away too long.’
‘Ted this and Ted that,’ said George fiercely in the darkness. ‘What’s all this fuss about Ted?’
‘Nothing, darling, except that he mustn’t guess.’
‘Nothing? You’re sure of that?’
‘Of course, darling.’
‘You slept with him last night!’
‘Yes dear. But I only slept with him. Nothing else, dear. You know I was going to.’
‘Yes.’
That was part of George’s anguish, the thought of that bed, and Marjorie in her nightdress, and Grainger lusting for her.
‘Has he tried to make love to you since you came back?’ he demanded. He wanted to know the very worst.
‘Only a little, dear. Last night, when he came in. But he left off when I asked him to. Honest truth, sweetheart.’
‘Today?’
‘No. Nothing at all. Nothing.’
It was after she had said that, in all honesty, that Marjorie remembered, quailing, the touch on the back of her neck which Ted has bestowed on her on his entry. She knew Ted well enough to know what this portended.
‘You won’t let him?’
‘No I won’t. Of course I won’t. I couldn’t, darling.’
To reassure him she would gladly have told him now about Dot, but with Ted waiting impatiently in the sitting room there was no time for that now.
‘Kiss me!’ he said, fiercely.
She kissed him, her heart going out to him as it always did. It was intoxicating to be loved like this, and frightening, too.
‘Oh, I must go back now, darling,’ she said. She tore herself from his grasp with the same effort of will with which she mastered the passion within her.
‘Promise me!’ he said. ‘Swear it!’
‘Oh, I promise, darling. Really I do. Goodbye, darling.’
She ran, a-tiptoe, up the path again. She crept into the kitchen, and with infinite precaution she closed the kitchen door without a sound. She had to stand still for a space, her hand to her breast, waiting for her breathing to grow more easy and the tumultuous beating of her heart to slow down. There was a mirror in the scullery before which she could tidy her hair. Then she made herself walk with her usual firm step back into the sitting room. She tried to slip unobtrusively into her chair and take up her sewing again, but it was hard to be unobtrusive with Ted sitting there with nothing to do except watch her. When Ted looked at her continuously like that she knew what it meant.
‘You’re busy this evening,’ said Ted.
‘There’s a lot to get done to get straight again,’ she answered.
She tried to speak mildly, indifferently. She wanted no edge of complaint to creep into her voice, because that would make Ted angry, and she was frightened of him when he was angry. At the same time she knew she had been longer in the garden than she should have been. Ted might have come out and found her absent from the kitchen, found nothing on the stove; he might have guessed about George. The groundless fear made her tremble. She stabbed he
r left forefinger through the stuff with her needle, cruelly, under the nail, and she had to bear the pain motionless for fear of drawing attention to her own clumsiness. She was terrified. As she kept her eyes on her work she had a curious feeling that Ted, two yards away, was swelling and increasing his size until he was nearly filling the room, suffocating her. It was the same feeling as during a bilious nightmare. She experienced revulsion and a sensation of sickness. Hatred and fear and loathing were overcoming her. Had she been alone she would have broken down into a storm of sobs, but with Ted watching her she had to remain calm and indifferent, bent over her sewing, fighting with all her power to regain her strength and her wits.
‘Well,’ said Ted, ‘you’d better buck up and finish what you’re doing, because I shall want all your attention in half a minute.’
There was only the one excuse she could make. She had thought out the pros and cons of that excuse earlier in the day. She had not wanted to use it; she would have preferred to have settled the matter more definitely and satisfactorily, in accordance with the high resolves she had made in George’s arms three days ago – the excuse would merely bring a postponement with no sort of permanence, and she was sensible enough to know that there is always danger in excuses and postponement; more danger still – much more – when the excuse is not only false but its falsity is certain to be revealed in course of time.
But her shaken nerves compelled her to use it; she could not bear to contemplate any more heroic course. She told her lie as bravely as she could.
‘It’s a curse, isn’t it?’ she added, lightly.
‘Yes,’ snapped Ted, cross and disappointed. He felt that this served him right for his sentimental moderation of yesterday.
15
Mrs Clair never seemed to sleep nowadays. There can be no doubt that she did sleep, but it was for short periods of which she later had no recollection, alternated with long wakeful intervals through the night during which she lay in bed, watching the faintly lit squares of the windows grow at first darker and then, as dawn approached, steadily brighter and brighter. Those wakeful intervals never seemed too long to her. She did not fret over her insomnia, but rather welcomed it. She felt she was employing her time to good profit, thinking out her plans and hating Ted – she had a lingering suspicion that merely by lying in bed and pouring out her venom in thought she was doing him some harm, not nearly as much as he deserved, but enough to constitute some sort of payment on account until the final settlement.
On Monday morning she was not content to lie in bed until her usual time for getting up; she had plenty to do today. She rose early, and crept downstairs quietly so as not to disturb Mr Ely – by listening at his door intently she could hear his regular breathing. He was asleep at last; she knew that he too, had spent much of the night sleepless, for she had heard his light switch on and off and had heard him turning restlessly in his bed. She knew what was troubling him, she had seen his face when he came home last night. It was satisfactory to her to know that before very long everything would come right and he would be happy as the day was long, with dear little Marjorie, and with Derrick and Anne saved for ever from the clutches of that beast Ted, that devil Ted.
Her early rising enabled her to do two full hours’ work on the pile of accumulated washing that had to be done; she was glad to get it out of the way to leave her free for the activities she saw ahead of her. She scrubbed and she rinsed. She made her way out into the little garden and put up her clothes line. It was mid August now, and that early hour of the morning bore with it the faint hint of approaching Autumn, only just noticable and yet sweepingly comprehensive, calling up to the memory all Autumn in a single breath – morning fog, and changing colours, and falling leaves, and the bonfires of Saturday afternoon gardeners; laying the first fires ready for the first chilly evening, roly-poly pudding instead of tapioca for dinner; and she must look out her winter coat to see that it really would last another winter.
This winter, thought Mrs Clair, busily pegging out the washing on the line, would be a really happy one. Although dear little Dot was gone, Marjorie and the children would be free and happy. Mrs Clair, with the pale morning sky shining into her eyes as she reached up to the clothes line, thought that when that was all settled, when that beast Ted had met with the fate he deserved, she could allow herself to fall away into old age and contemplate her end with equanimity. Meanwhile it was time to leave off washing and go in to call Mr Ely and to see he started for the office in time. It would be the first morning for three weeks; she had better see that everything was ready.
Mr Ely’s face at breakfast was drawn and pale despite the tan his holiday had given him. She knew what the poor boy was suffering. Never mind, it would not be long now. She coaxed him into eating his scrambled egg – she knew already what were his favourite dishes – and saw him out of the door at twenty minutes to nine, in plenty of time for the office. Then she diligently applied herself to the routine tasks of the day, the sweeping and cleaning, washing up the breakfast things, peeling the potatoes ready for dinner. Now it was time to inspect the things on the line. The woollens could stay, but the whites and colours were ready for ironing and the sheets for mangling.
At eleven o’clock she was free for a space; she looked at the clock as she had done a dozen times already and made a fresh calculation. Ely’s lunch time was one-thirty – he went out to lunch when Ted came back – and she had an hour in hand. She put on her hat and gloves and with her handbag and her leather carrying bag, she set off towards the High Street shops. She was determined upon wasting no time at all before making everything ready in anticipation of her plans.
Fortune favoured her immediately – a clear example of the reward in store for those who put themselves in the way of good fortune.
Mrs Taylor was just approaching Mountain’s Café when Mrs Clair met her.
‘Good morning,’ said Mrs Clair.
‘Good morning,’ said Mrs Taylor, ‘You do look brown. Did you have a nice holiday?’
‘Yes, thank you. We all enjoyed it, although of course we missed my son-in-law very much.’
‘Of course,’ said Mrs Taylor.
There was a halt in the conversation, as if the two women were wondering what to say next.
‘Where’s Mrs Posket?’ asked Mrs Clair. So inseparable were Mrs Taylor and Mrs Posket that it was an inevitable question to ask, in the unlikely event of Mrs Taylor being encountered alone.
‘She’s away,’ said Mrs Taylor. ‘She went on her holiday yesterday, the day after you got back.’
‘I expect you miss her,’ said Mrs Clair.
‘I do a bit,’ replied Mrs Taylor a little ruefully.
‘Have you seen anything of Marjorie today?’
‘She was just putting her washing out when I came back,’ answered Mrs Taylor. ‘It did look a lot.’
‘I expect so, after three weeks’ holiday. I’ll try and go in some time today and help. Well, I suppose we’ve both our shopping to do. Goodbye, Mrs Taylor.’
Mrs Clair, walking purposefully along the High Street pavement, was rejoiced with the information she had received. She had been a little worried about Mrs Posket – there was no knowing what harm a nosy and interfering woman of that sort might do. Especially with that lane along the railway at the back of the house, and George Ely going out in the evenings and coming back worried and preoccupied. It was good to hear that Mrs Posket was out of harm’s way for ten days or so. And it was only natural that Marjorie should have a lot of washing to do today. Mrs Clair would have liked to go round and help her with the ironing; perhaps, if all went well, she would have an opportunity later in the day. Otherwise, Marjorie would have to struggle along as best she might – Mrs Clair was not to be deflected from her present designs by a consideration as minor as Marjorie’s comfort during one single day. Soon Marjorie would be free and happy.
The bank in the High Street was crowded, as always on
a Monday morning, with the local shopkeepers paying in their weekend takings. Normally Mrs Clair was thoughtful enough not to dream of bothering the hard-pressed cashiers at such a time, but today it was different. She wanted to have everything ready.
She waited her turn patiently until a cashier was free.
‘Good morning, Mrs Clair.’
‘Good morning. Would you mind telling me how much my balance is?’
She knew, of course, the amount within a pound or two, but she wanted to be quite sure. The cashier dived back into the office part of the bank, and then returned with a folded piece of paper which he passed across the counter. Mrs Clair read it – £52.10. 11. Carefully she wrote out a cheque for fifty pounds payable to cash, cancelled the crossing, and passed the cheque to the cashier.
‘One pound notes please,’ she said quietly.
The cashier’s eyebrows rose a little as he read the cheque. It was with some slight reluctance that he handed over to her an envelope full of money.
‘That’s a lot of money, Mrs Clair,’ he said. ‘I should be careful with it, if I were you.’
‘Oh, I shall be very careful. Very careful,’ said Mrs Clair, quite calmly.
She shut the money away in her handbag and made her way out of the bank. That was the first step taken. Whatever happened now she had fifty pounds in notes that could not be traced. It was only a precautionary measure. She thought it most unlikely that she would ever have to use them, more likely in a week or two’s time, when everything was settled, she would be paying the money back into her account, submitting meekly to the cashier’s amused smile, obviously a woman who did not know how to manage her money affairs. It was worthwhile suffering that in exchange for being on the safe side.
In her walk along the High Street she had now reached Carter’s Ironmongery Stores, and she went inside. Mr Carter himself came forward to serve her.
‘Good morning,’ said Mrs Clair. ‘I want a hatchet. Something to chop up wood and things.’