The Eye of Love Page 10

  They might have passed a very pleasant evening, if they hadn’t taken Martha.

  2

  Martha was comfortably settled at the kitchen-table, drawing the gas-oven. It was the most complicated subject she’d yet tackled, and to make things more difficult she had opened the door half-way—the gas-rings on top looking somehow rounder when one could see the straight parallel lines of the bars inside. She reckoned she had three good hours before it was time to put the oven to its ordinary use.

  Thus when Miss Diver returned and asked if she wouldn’t like to go to the pictures, Martha naturally said no.

  “But Mr Phillips is taking us!” cried Dolores. He was actually, which made Martha’s attitude all the more unfortunate, in the kitchen with them, having followed on Miss Diver’s heels.

  “I’d rather stay here and draw,” said Martha stubbornly.

  “Don’t be silly, you draw all the time,” rebuked Miss Diver. “Say thank you to Mr Phillips and get your coat.”

  With an impatient exclamation she crossed to shut the oven door. Mr Phillips however kept his eyes on Martha. He’d been looking at her ever since he entered, and Martha knew it, though she wouldn’t look back.

  “Perhaps she wants to show me her picture first?” suggested Mr Phillips blandly.

  Martha answered by deliberately laying her forearms across the sheet. The drawing was on such a scale, however—filling a whole cardboard—that quite a lot still showed. Mr Phillips came up close behind and looked over her shoulder.

  “What’s it meant to be?” he asked. “A bird-cage?”

  “I don’t know,” muttered Martha, scowling.

  “Just scribbling, eh?”

  “There, Martha!” cried Miss Diver brightly. “Scribbling’s nothing to stay in for! Besides, you’ll strain your eyes. Look at them now!”

  “I’d strain them worse at the pictures,” said stubborn Martha.

  Dolores glanced at Mr Phillips apologetically. He was still standing behind Martha’s chair (in such a kind, interested attitude!) and Martha was still crouched over her drawing like a lion-cub over a piece of meat, and somehow the impression was produced that neither meant to give way an inch. It was a most painful contest between sulkiness and benevolence.

  “I feel sick,” added Martha.

  By this time Dolores at least was weakening. Indeed, it quite astonished her that Mr Phillips was still prepared to take Martha out at all: no child could have looked less grateful. No child, to put it plainlier, could have looked more stubborn, surly and thoroughly bad-tempered. A concentrated spell of work always sent Martha’s temperature up and made her cheeks red, but she had now the appearance of being scarlet with rage.

  “If she really doesn’t want to come—” began Dolores doubtfully.

  “She’s coming,” said Mr Phillips.

  Benevolence won. It is almost impossible for a child to disobey a direct order, at least after the reckless age of “Shan’t” and “Won’t”. Upon Miss Diver’s now directly ordering her to go and get her coat, Martha at last sulkily gathered up her work, and stumped out into the hall.

  3

  It was thus no very festive party that set forth from Alcock Road. Their disunion was apparent from the start—Martha walking not alongside her elders and betters, but a little behind. She also dragged her feet in the way all children know to be irritating.

  “Martha, pick up your feet.”

  “My shoe-lace is undone.”

  “Then stop and tie it up.”

  They all stopped, while Martha knelt on the curb. (Well past the Greek-temple-prison-gate gutter-grating: not for worlds would she have risked drawing attention to its loveliness.) The business took her rather long, because she broke the lace and had to knot it. Then they all went on again, Martha now lifting each foot in turn about six inches from the ground, as though plodding through snow. This naturally slowed her down still more, so that she acted like a drogue on Miss Diver’s and Mr Phillips’ progress, but in time they reached the Locarno, where Mr Phillips took seats in the one-and-threes.

  As he had promised, the film was a romantic one—and how sudden, how beautiful, how complete, the transition to Old Vienna! How familiar, that enchanting city! Not one of the population was missing—neither the hero in the Hussars, nor the heroine selling posies, nor the fiddlers playing the Blue Danube Waltz to the boatmen on the Blue Danube. It was indeed just the film Miss Diver would have enjoyed, if she hadn’t had Martha beside her.

  “Martha, stop sighing.”

  “I’m hot.”

  “Then take your coat off.”

  Mr Phillips, on Dolores’ other side, behaved impeccably. It must be revealed that Dolores’ hesitance before her lodger’s invitation was due not only to its essential lodgerishness, but also to certain more general apprehensions. Sheltered as she’d been for the past ten years, Miss Diver was thirty when she met Mr Gibson. She knew what went on, in cinemas. She’d had her hand held (however briefly, disappointingly, she preferred not to think of it) in the darkness of a cinema. Couples in front of her, in the darkness of a cinema, she’d beheld going much, much farther. Dolores certainly apprehended no such outrageousness on the part of Mr Phillips—but what did a lodger expect, taking his landlady to the pictures? Even a mild pressure of the hand Miss Diver would have felt bound to refuse. Perhaps she exaggerated her own charms; she still welcomed Martha as chaperone. It was now with genuine relief that she found every apprehension groundless.

  Mr Phillips sat so narrowly in his seat, only occasionally their elbows brushed, and when they did, he said “Pardon.” He kept his knees and feet strictly to himself, and his hands in his lap. If it hadn’t been for Martha snapping her hat-elastic during the love-scenes, Miss Diver could have lost herself completely in the beautiful story unfolding.

  “Martha, take your hat off.”

  “I don’t know where to put it.”

  “Put it under the seat.”

  Beautifully, romantically the story unfolded. Extraordinarily: for it bore a striking resemblance to the story of King Hal and his Spanish rose. To the Hussar also duty called, in the person—it really was extraordinary!—of an heiress chosen for him by his Emperor, and the flower-girl sacrificed herself. They parted by moonlight on a rose-strewn terrace, the fiddlers now playing La Paloma … Miss Diver had still to look aside from the screen.

  “Martha! What are you eating?”

  “I found a toffee on the floor.”

  “Martha! Take it out at once!”

  It was almost a relief when the film ended. Dolores would have left immediately, only Mr Phillips said they might as well get their money’s-worth and see the news. Of course he hadn’t been next to Martha—but his forebearance was still striking: when at last they got home, and Dolores could scold Martha properly, it was exhibited in the highest form.

  “I’m sure Mr Phillips will never take you out again!” finished Dolores angrily.

  Mr Phillips looked at Martha, and for once Martha looked back at Mr Phillips—without unfocusing her eyes. It wasn’t a look one would have thought to induce any further display of benevolence; yet it did.

  “We’ll see,” said Mr Phillips kindly. “Eh, Martha?”

  4

  As Dolores in the course of her scolding complained, Martha had never behaved so badly before. It was true. Her bad behaviour was in fact a rare burst of juvenility; and after keeping her nose to the grindstone for so long, she felt all the better for it. She drew better and more easily next day. But Dolores was angry with her.

  “How you could be so rude!” reiterated Dolores. “When Mr Phillips was so kind!”

  Martha was so bored with being scolded, she for once made an effort at explanation.

  “It wasn’t kind, when I didn’t want to go. It was just to make me.”

  “Nonsense, of course it was kind!” snapped Dolores. “Taking a cross little girl to the pictures—! Can’t you think of anything nice to do for him, to show you’re sorry?”

>   Martha gave up. She felt (as adults often do with children) as though she was talking to a brick wall …

  “No,” said Martha comprehensively.

  It thus fell to Miss Diver to do something nice for Mr Phillips. Quite apart from the danger of offending him, she really felt he deserved it; and an evening or two later invited him into the sitting-room for a cup of tea.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  1

  “D’you know what I’ve been thinking, Dadda?” said Miranda Joyce. “I’ve been thinking that after we’re married, perhaps it mayn’t be such a good plan after all, Harry and me living at the flat.”

  My Joyce in his surprise trod with one foot off the curb and was brushed by a passing car. They were walking down Bond Street, Miranda having called for her parent at the shop; and that she chose so unlikely a moment to open her mind was because she’d just heard him say toodle-oo to the door-man.

  —“Really, Dadda!” said Miranda coldly. “Is that quite suitable?”

  “If it suits me,” returned old man Joyce brashly, “why not? I learnt it from your Harry.”

  Miranda frowned.

  “I still don’t think it sounds right to a commissionaire, Dadda. I know he’s been with us for years—”

  “Also he was in Harry’s old Regiment,” said Mr Joyce. “All sorts of things I learn from that boy!”

  It was the last straw on the load of grievance Miranda had been accumulating for weeks. What didn’t he learn from Harry! What didn’t he teach Harry—the one as bad as the other? For weeks now Miranda had begun to feel that her marriage would be a thing of far greater beauty if it didn’t embrace Harry and her Dadda under the same roof …

  “After all,” pursued Miranda (in Bond Street, her parent just brushed by a passing car), “most married people do start in their own homes, don’t they, Dadda?”

  “I never heard such craziness in my life,” returned Mr Joyce promptly—and turning to shake a fist at the receding traffic. His uninhibited manners out of doors often distressed his daughter. “Did your mamma and I start in our own home?”

  “That was a long time ago, Dadda. We should only need a flat—”

  “What is wrong with our flat?” demanded Mr Joyce, stepping out again. It was a muggy September evening, but he always returned home on foot when he could spare the time, because he enjoyed the life of the street; at least part of his annoyance with Miranda was because she was spoiling his walk. “What is wrong with our good-address flat in Knightsbridge, four hundred a year besides rates?” demanded Mr Joyce. “Tell me what is wrong with that?”

  “Nothing at all, Dadda,” agreed Miranda hastily. “It’s only—”

  “Also am I made of money?” enquired Mr Joyce, proceeding to irony. “Do I look in my pockets each morning and find a bag of gold? What about the new curtains, twelve-and-six a yard, also blue for Harry’s favourite colour?”

  “Of course we’d take them with us …”

  “What about the new wallpaper, then, five-and-nine a piece? Will you take that with you? Scrape it off the wall?”

  “It makes a room very nice for Auntie Bee …”

  Mr Joyce suddenly stopped before a lighted window. It was another of his street-arab habits—staring into shops. Except at certain jewellers, he had the money to buy almost anything that caught his fancy; he remained content with staring. It irritated Miranda that he now stopped to examine a straight-grain briar pipe with every appearance of attention. There was an irritating insouciance even in the way he stood: his hat on the back of his head, his loud check overcoat flapping open—this indeed because it was really too close to wear it—and his new regimental scarf sticking up round the collar …

  “Dadda!” said Miranda sharply. “This is an important conversation! Will you please think about Harry and me?”

  “Harry I am thinking about this moment,” returned Mr Joyce benevolently. “I am going to buy that boy a pipe. I notice you don’t tell me how Harry is so crazy to leave the old man.”

  Miranda hesitated. Actually she hadn’t yet broached the subject to Harry at all, she meant to present him with a fait accompli, a new arrangement cut and dried.

  “Harry will think as I do …”

  “Ah ha!”

  “Naturally I consult you first, Dadda. For goodness’ sake, first you argue about the curtains—”

  “A nice argument I like,” admitted Mr Joyce cheerfully.

  “—then you call it all just craziness! What is crazy is to pretend you can’t afford it—a little flat for Harry and me! You have plenty of money!”

  “So I can buy two pipes,” agreed Mr Joyce. “For the heart, at my age, Harry says, a pipe is better than so many cigars.”

  Miranda was forced to recognise that her parent was thoroughly out of hand. She was too angry to speak; she would have walked on alone, but at that moment he finally tore himself away (with many a loving backward glance at the most expensive straight-grain briars in London) and set gaily off again. Miranda still kept silence, merely emanating, with some ability, waves of alternate anger and reproach.

  Mr Joyce seemed to enjoy the rest of the walk very much. His spirits were high. Pausing to buy a newspaper, he cracked jokes with the vendor in what he believed to be Cockney. By Hyde Park Corner they encountered a one-man-band: Mr Joyce contributed sixpence, also—because it wasn’t in his nature to give sixpence and be done with it—halted to form a critical one-man-audience. (Miranda halted further on.) The band in question was actually rather an ingenious one, including cymbals (strapped to the knees), a mouth-organ and a couple of spoons. Mr Joyce thought it would be improved by a few bells. “Round the chest, as on a child’s harness,” he explained helpfully. “So you would be four-piece instead of three. Also Swiss effects,” added Mr Joyce, giving his imagination rein. “Any visitor from Switzerland, the money would jump out of his pocket! Take my advice, remember what I say! Toodle-oo!”

  When at last they reached the flat, Harry Gibson was there on the doorstep. He too wore a loud check overcoat, flapping open, and a regimental scarf. He too had an evening paper under his arm. It wasn’t the same as Mr Joyce’s; they had arranged always to buy different ones, so that they could swap, but though Mr Joyce was confident of this, he carolled his ritual greeting.

  “Star, News or Stan-dard?” carolled Mr Joyce—imitating a paper-boy.

  “Star!” replied Harry Gibson smartly.

  “I’ve got the News. Let’s hope it’s good!” punned in Joyce, reverting to his own personality with a happy grin.

  Harry Gibson grinned back. It was rather, he thought sadly, like the gag he used to have with Martha about Martha and Mary; but he played up to the old boy, not disappointing him … They all entered together, and in the lobby Harry rang for the lift, and up in the flat hung his coat on its accustomed peg, and hung Mr Joyce’s coat up too, and kissed first Miranda and then his mother, who was already in the drawing-room, and let himself be pecked at by Auntie Bee. He never knew a moment’s happiness, in the Knightsbridge flat; but he was undoubtedly domesticated there.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  1

  A parallel domestication had taken place in Alcock Road, where on most evenings of the week Mr Phillips was now to be found accepting a cup of tea in Miss Diver’s sitting-room.

  This, too, was unexpected; yet it came about very naturally, and owing to Mr Phillips’ new habit, of taking a last-thing-at-night stroll. A breath of air, last thing at night, he found cleared his lungs; and though he now possessed a key of his own, his unfailing consideration led him always to notify himself returned. Dolores had always tea brewed; the habit of not entertaining her lodger once broken (to make up for Martha’s rudeness at the cinema), a new habit inevitably formed; by the time Aunt Bee in Knightsbridge was regularly ordering sirloin, Dolores, in Alcock Road, as regularly set out an extra cup.

  Indeed, she had begun to find Mr Phillips’ company not unwelcome; his deferential presence a relief from so much solitude. His occasiona
l remarks (for Dolores still leafed through her Tatlers, and Mr Phillips through his evening paper) were flat and undemanding—a mere human noise. After so much silence, Dolores rather welcomed it. It was a pain at first to see him stare about—obliterating, so to speak, the last traces of a beloved eye—but even this his admiration soothed. “My word, that must be valuable!” marvelled Mr Phillips, beside the bronze lady. “I believe it is,” said Dolores carelessly. “And those china ornaments?” suggested Mr Phillips. “French,” said Dolores.

  If questions unspoken hovered in the air, she didn’t answer them. Mr Phillips could see that there’d been money spent, but he got no further. He still couldn’t fathom a house with such a room in it, and a lodger in it as well. He couldn’t make out what was what.

  It was Martha who eventually, and unwittingly, gave him the clue; though not for some time.

  2

  Martha’s own internal state, at this period of Mr Phillips’ domestication, resembled an armed fortress—sentries posted, guns manned, boiling lead ready on the battlements; yet at the citadel calm. Behind her defences she was working well, and so long as she wasn’t attacked intended no sortie; but if anyone, for instance, took her to the cinema again, she was prepared—dropping the dignity of metaphor—to be sick. In pursuance of her sensible policy, she gave fair warning. “I nearly was,” Martha informed Miss Diver gloomily, “last time. I told you before we went.”

  There are certain possibilities before which every adult recoils. Miss Diver said something to Mr Phillips. “She doesn’t look like a child with a weak stomach,” objected Mr Phillips suspiciously. It was very true; Martha didn’t; still, there are certain possibilities et cetera. The point was in a sense shelved, since Mr Phillips didn’t take Dolores to the pictures again either, the first visit turned out to be also the last; but Martha here undeniably won.

  Her drawings, also, she withdrew as it were to the citadel—that is, whenever Mr Phillips was in the house she hid them in her attic. He had no second opportunity to look over her shoulder. This denied her the use of the kitchen-table at the week-end, but fortunately Mr Punshon kept his shop open all Saturday, and there on Saturday afternoons Martha regularly installed herself.